Chapter 2 - Through Oscar's Eyes

I. Waiting in the Bowels

Room 324 breathed like a diseased lung, its organic walls sweating that phosphorescent sheen that betrayed AVABase's fever. Oscar pressed his back against the wall, feeling through it the arrhythmic pulsations of neighboring cells—each spasm a pain, each silence an absence. Level 24 wasn't a habitat but a warehouse, where modified flesh was stored between uses, where hybrids learned they were less than men and more than tools.

His chip pulsed green against his wrist—only four hours since implantation, the nano-filaments still raw in his flesh, each pulse a fresh burn. Katherine had operated on him herself, her trembling hands betraying an emotion she tried to conceal. "You're stronger than they imagine," she had murmured. But here, in this cell that reeked of disinfectant and stale fear, Oscar felt anything but strong.

In the reconditioning corridor—that black artery stretching eastward—doors lined up like clenched teeth. Behind each one, a verb conjugated in the present tense of suffering: recondition, recalibrate, harmonize. Oscar perceived the mental echoes escaping from poorly sealed joints—fragments of consciousness being methodically filleted, synapses cauterized to extinguish rebellion. A hybrid passed in the corridor, dragging his left leg in a mechanical tic—the aftermath of poorly calibrated voltage. His dead eyes fixed on an invisible point, where his life force had once resided.

The book weighed between his hands—Excalibur, with its sword emerging from the lake, gilding almost worn away by years. Oscar opened it at random, pretending to read while words danced before his eyes. His mind was elsewhere, stretched toward that energy signature he sensed approaching through the corridors—double frequency intertwined, like two consciousnesses overlapping in the same body.

Arthur.

II. The Corridor as Birth Canal

The corridor stretched before Arthur like a tunnel of living metal, its organic walls pulsing to AVABase's heartbeat. The neon lights still flickered, distant echoes of the celebration that continued to resonate through the upper levels. Katherine had just disappeared, swallowed by the corridor's darkness, leaving behind that familiar smell of laboratory and well-kept secrets.

Arthur placed his palm on the scanner like laying an offering on a hostile altar—the machine tasted his warmth, analyzed his infinitesimal tremors, those micro-seisms even he didn't perceive. The word "Sensitive" blinked, diagnosis and threat intertwined, before fading like a bloodstain being cleaned. The chip lied green against his wrist—false traffic light authorizing his survival minute by minute, artificial photosynthesis transforming his docility into permission to exist.

In his head, Ava Prime's voice still resonated, ghostly trail of their last conversation.

"Your control is just an illusion, Arthur. Never forget you belong to me."

"How could I forget, Ava?" he had replied, that edge of irony piercing his voice despite himself.

"Will you stay with me?"

"Communications will be limited here. Don't do anything reckless. My gaze never leaves you… An echo of me persists in you."

Then, an unexpected sensation that caught him off guard—Ava's presence had faded. As if she were letting go of his leash. Temporarily. Arthur had felt this release with a mixture of relief and concern—in this world, freedom was often the prelude to a subtler trap.

III. Alexandrei – The Tamer's Eye

Fifteen levels up, in his quarters

Alexandrei knocked back his third vodka, the alcohol tracing its familiar burn down his throat. On his screens, two files blinked: H-24-A and M-12-B. Arthur and Oscar. The pairing drew a hoarse laugh from him.

"A time bomb and a kitten. Katherine, what are you cooking up?"

He scrolled through the data, his augmented fingers tapping complex rhythms on his metal desk. Arthur: three years of resistance, failed fusion with Ava, destructive potential classified red. Oscar: level 12 mentalist, no combat experience, minimal modifications. On paper, it was assisted suicide.

But Alexandrei had learned to read between the lines of Biotek's files. Katherine never did anything randomly. If she'd put these two together, she saw something the algorithms missed.

He opened Oscar's transfer video file. The kid traversed the levels, clutching his book like a talisman. At each tier, his chip flirted with amber—barely contained anxiety of a lamb descending to slaughter. Alexandrei smiled, revealing his surgical steel teeth.

"Let's see what you're hiding, little mentalist."

IV. The Meeting – First Resonance

The door slid open with a pneumatic hiss.

A subtle buzz immediately caressed Arthur's consciousness—not an intrusion but a tide, the slow and inexorable rise of a presence that forced nothing, that simply waited for the dams to give way on their own. Neither Ava nor his usual circuits. This presence was warm, alive, strangely soothing in this world of cold metal and synthetic flesh. Arthur leaned against the airlock, eyes closed, feeling his mental defenses waver of their own accord. The constant pressure he'd maintained for months evaporated, letting a strange calm infiltrate his overheated circuits.

On the far bunk, his new roommate watched him silently in the greenish twilight. The book closed with the violence of a door slammed on a secret—Excalibur disappearing under the blanket like the sword returning to the lake. The creased pages exhaled that smell of old paper, a precious anachronism in this world of digital data. Oscar kept his fingers on the spine, drawing from the myth a warmth the synthetic walls couldn't offer.

Arthur observed Oscar in stolen fragments—an eye, a hand, the curve of a shoulder—like reconstructing a shattered image. In this economy of glances, each look was a risk, each second of attention an admission. He noticed the bookmark barely protruded from the first third.

He wasn't really reading.

What Arthur couldn't know was that Oscar was thinking at that precise moment: It's him. It's really him. The legend in flesh and blood.

"You should lie down. You look… drained."

The voice vibrated through the room's recycled air, a gentle frequency carrying natural authority. Not the order of a hierarchical superior, but the benevolent suggestion of someone who understands fatigue. Arthur obeyed without even looking at him, a shiver tracing his spine. This voice that commanded without ordering, that soothed without condescending.

The space was spartan but contained more than appeared: two beds, two metal lockers, a wall screen broadcasting muted images from the orbital arena. And that alcove—less a washroom than a sanitary confessional. The mirror above the sink was speckled with rust or dried blood, a murky surface that distorted faces like stagnant water. But it was the device fixed to the wall that would later capture their attention: a plate of organic metal bearing the imprint of a right hand, veined with dormant luminescent filaments.

Arthur collapsed on his bunk, breathing that familiar smell of disinfectant mixed with organic emanations from the living walls. Tremors rose through his body, coursing through his circuits like a poorly regulated electrical discharge. Classic reaction after a day of extreme stress. He'd contained them for twenty-four hours. I'm improving, he thought with pride tinged with bitterness.

V. The Panic – Domino Effect

"It'll pass," Arthur articulated through his teeth, more for himself than his new companion.

But his trembling triggered a chain reaction neither had anticipated. Oscar's chip awakened like an open wound—four hours since the graft, neural connections still raw, hypersensitive to the slightest stimulus. The nano-filaments hadn't had time to heal, to fully integrate with his nervous system. Moreover, Oscar was a hyper-empath whose sensitivity had only grown since his arrival. The level was so brutal. It exuded so much suffering. Pain sweated everywhere. How could he remain insensitive to all these things he'd never been exposed to before? So when Arthur shuddered, his own tension radiating through the confined space, Oscar's chip responded sympathetically: stable green, then amber flicker, first alert.

The augmented stared at his wrist, incredulous. The pulsation accelerated—amber-amber-orange—a spiral of panic feeding on itself. He'd never been monitored, never felt this electronic leash tighten around his synapses. His breathing fragmented. Persistent orange.

"Breathe." Arthur's voice cracked, authoritative. "Look at me. Not the chip. Me."

Oscar raised his eyes, finding Arthur's—intense, competent, seasoned in this dance with electronic death. The hybrid had approached, movements measured to avoid triggering additional alerts. He sat on the edge of Oscar's bed, calculating the distance precisely—close enough to reassure, not enough to threaten.

"Count with me. One. Two. Three." His voice carried the certainty of survivors. "The chip reacts to your fear of the chip. A paradox they created on purpose. One. Two. Three."

Slowly, the light receded—orange to amber, amber to green. Oscar trembled, cold sweat beading on his neck.

"I'm going back to my place," said Arthur, rising with that same calculated precision.

Without protest, without questioning, he returned to his bunk. Arthur couldn't help but notice the scent that had reached him when approaching Oscar. The boy emanated a subtle fragrance—earthy, alive. As if he still carried the smell of the world before, from that time when earth still existed beneath protective domes. He stared at the boy, troubled.

Where does this warmth come from?

The silence that followed had the texture of crushed glass—transparent and cutting. In this suspended space, their breaths tried not to synchronize, futile resistance against the gravitational pull of two solitudes recognizing each other.

VI. Progressive Revelations

"Katherine sent you here without preparing you." It wasn't a question. Arthur scrutinized Oscar with new intensity, seeking logic in the illogical.

Oscar felt his mental defenses waver. "She said you needed me."

"Me?" Arthur let out a dry laugh. "I've survived three years here. You're the one who's going to need me. Your chip is new, your reflexes nonexistent. You don't know the codes, the hierarchies, the traps."

He stood, approached the sanitary alcove. "Look."

Arthur indicated the regenerator. "You place your hand, it rebuilds what's been broken. Bones, muscles, nerves. Even hybrids' secondary circuits."

Oscar approached, fascinated despite himself. "Why doesn't anyone talk about it?"

"Because." Arthur rolled up his sleeve, revealing star-shaped scars—memories of multiple regenerations. "Reconstruction is worse than destruction. Each cell that regrows carries the memory of its death. You relive the wound backwards, from healing to wound."

He placed his hand on the imprint, demonstrating. The filaments illuminated, scanning his palm. His chip instantly turned red—then white. Total disconnection.

"Fifteen seconds of freedom," Arthur murmured, a bitter smile on his lips. "The only moment Ava can't touch us. They had to make this compromise—impossible to monitor someone when every nerve is screaming."

The chip turned green again. Arthur withdrew his hand, flexing his fingers as if to verify they still belonged to him.

"I have to write a report. About you. I was supposed to check if everything was… under control."

Discomfort twisted Oscar's features, as if admitting something unpleasant but inevitable. Arthur scrutinized that face in the twilight, searching for familiar signs of manipulation, calculated duplicity. He found neither a technician seasoned in protocols nor a hybrid hardened by modifications. Just someone who was… there. Present. Authentic in a world of artifice.

"Are you human?"

The question seemed to surprise Oscar, as if it contained more complexity than Arthur intended. His trouble was visible, fleeting but real, and Arthur wondered what secret wound he'd just touched.

"Partly. Forty percent augmented. My name is Oscar."

Arthur emitted a laugh-sigh, a mixture of disbelief and bitter irony.

"Only? What are you doing here? Can humans have this type of implant?"

Level 24 is for the elite. The broken. The dangerous.

Oscar tightened his fingers on the mattress, his book sliding slightly. Arthur glimpsed the sword on the cover again, that mythological image jarring in their technological universe. Oscar thought: He's sizing me up. Finding me inadequate. If he knew…

But in Arthur's eyes there was no judgment. Rather a mixture of surprise and curiosity. Oscar also perceived in him great perspicacity—as if he saw in him something others missed.

This thought troubled him more than he wanted to admit.

"Transferred to Alexandrei's unit. Like you. Apparently I have… untapped potential."

Arthur's gaze continued analyzing: regular breathing, controlled gestures, alert but relaxed posture. Forty percent doesn't survive here. And yet, a particular density emanated from Oscar. Something ancient, solid, that reminded Arthur of the old cathedral stones he'd seen in historical archives. A stability that defied their era's logic.

"You're hiding things."

"Maybe. We all have our legends."

Arthur frowned at this strange response. Our legends? In Oscar's mouth, the word took on a particular resonance, as if he were speaking of something personal, intimate. Something that exceeded simple tactical secrets or classified information.

"You'll end up revealing them to me. My name is Arthur, but you can call me H."

Arthur. Oscar had to suppress a smile that threatened to betray his thoughts. If you knew what this name carries… If you knew why Katherine chose it for you.

VII. Level 24's Hierarchy

"Tomorrow," said Arthur, recovering his clinical tone, "you'll discover the common room. I should warn you."

He sat facing Oscar, creating a bubble of intimacy within the constant surveillance.

"Here, compassion is a terminal disease. Each team is its own tribunal, each member a potential prosecutor. We constantly seek the weak link—the one who'll sink the team, the one we can designate when punishments rain down."

Oscar felt his stomach knot. "Punishments?"

"Electroshocks for minor errors. Neural reconditioning for medium faults. For major failures…" Arthur indicated the regenerator. "They break you until you need it. Then they watch you rebuild yourself in agony."

"Did Kat warn you? That I'd be here?"

"Yes."

Kat? The diminutive troubled Arthur. This familiarity suggested a privileged relationship with Katherine, something beyond the simple scientist-experiment subject relationship. His eyes instinctively slid to his wrist—irregular pulsations, but still green. The green that wasn't Camelot but his prison, this false electronic hope that kept him alive.

Oscar caught the change, that subtle tension coursing through Arthur's body when he looked at his chip. There were so many things he wanted to say, so many secrets he carried about himself, about his mother, about the true stakes of their meeting. But the words remained blocked, prisoners of protocols and dangers surrounding them.

"You're lucky. She hadn't told me anything. I wasn't ready to leave my unit. But it's an honor to be with—"

"Oscar."

Arthur's gaze suddenly fixed on the upper corner of the room. A red light, almost invisible, blinked in the shadow. Surveillance camera, electronic eye watching their slightest gestures. In this base where privacy didn't exist, they were observed, analyzed, their interactions dissected by artificial intelligences searching for signs of rebellion or weakness.

VIII. The Night – Parallel Resonances

The room bathed in the green twilight of night lights, a miniature cosmos where two destinies had just crossed. Outside, the complex breathed its nocturnal rhythm, that mechanical breathing that never ceased, that both lulled and oppressed the thousands of individuals locked in its metallic bowels.

Arthur finally lay down, staring at the ceiling where luminescent veins ran. In his head, Ava Second's echo still murmured, hybrid voice born from the failed fusion that had transformed him into an anomaly: We're no longer alone, Arthur. This boy… there's something different about him. Something even I don't understand.

Oscar, for his part, secretly clutched his book against his chest. The Arthurian legends he knew by heart suddenly took on a new dimension, a troubling reality. This boy lying a few meters away, this product of Biotek's laboratories, carried more within him than he knew. And Oscar was there to help him discover it, a mission Katherine had entrusted to him in utmost secrecy.

He stared at the regenerator in the twilight, that phantom hand engraved in metal promising resurrection at the price of agony. He understood now: level 24 wasn't a prison but a cycle. Destruction, reconstruction, destruction. The hybrids learned here that even healing was a form of punishment, that their flesh was just a perpetually revised draft.

His own chip pulsed gently, stable green now that Arthur had taught him the breathing of control. But he felt the latent threat—this ease with which his anxiety could become lethal. I'm a liability to him, he thought. Katherine knew it. So why?

The answer floated somewhere between the two beds, in that space where their breaths were beginning to harmonize despite themselves. Perhaps Arthur didn't need a warrior but a vulnerability. Something fragile enough to awaken his humanity, precious enough to justify his resistance.

IX. Alexandrei – Nocturnal Preparations

In his quarters

Alexandrei turned off his screens, letting darkness envelop him. In the dark, his thoughts organized better, freed from visual distractions.

Arthur and Oscar. Fire and water. Violence and empathy.

He had already broken hundreds of recruits, transformed humans into weapons, souls into statistics. But these two… Katherine was playing a different game. She didn't want to break them but fuse them, create something new.

"Project Synergy," he murmured in the darkness. He'd hacked enough files to understand the broad strokes. Ava sought perfect incarnation, Katherine sought to save humanity from its own creation. And these two kids were at the center of everything.

He turned on a screen, displayed tomorrow's schedule. First joint trial at 06:00. He'd choose something simple in appearance, lethal in reality. See how they'd react under pressure. See if this synergy Katherine hoped for was real or fantasy.

X. Dawn Approaches

Hours passed thus, each feigning sleep while observing the other. Two consciousnesses taming each other, learning the rhythms of their forced cohabitation. In the darkness, their breaths gradually synchronized, creating a subtle harmony that AVABase's sensors recorded without understanding.

Then, in the heart of the artificial night, a hum rose from the walls. In the corridors, three brief pulses resonated—a signal every level 24 resident knew by heart.

Their gazes met in the twilight, instant complicity born of shared danger.

"Morning inspection," Oscar murmured, instinctively slipping his book under the pillow.

Arthur nodded. "Alexandrei likes to check his toys are properly stored. Don't move. Don't breathe too hard. Keep your chip green."

The steps approached—military boots on metal resonating like a surveillance metronome. The door opened without warning, letting in a massive silhouette. Alexandrei stood in the doorway, his ocular implants scanning the room in infrared.

"My new protégés," his hoarse voice filled the space. "I hope you slept well. Tomorrow your real education begins."

His gaze lingered on Oscar, then on Arthur. A smile stretched his lips, revealing the metallic gleam of his teeth.

"Katherine thinks you're special. Me, I only see flesh to mold. We'll see who's right."

The door closed. In the returned silence, Oscar and Arthur exchanged a glance. They both knew this first night marked the beginning of something important, something that exceeded their simple cohabitation.

In AVABase's depths, on an anonymous screen lost among thousands of others, a line of text displayed in the servers' green glow:

Project Synergy – Phase 2
H-24-A + O-24-A: Initial contact established
Respiratory synchronization: 67%
Psychic resonance: Detected
Next evaluation: T-6 hours

And in the shadow of room 324, two legends began writing themselves, carried by two boys who didn't yet know they held the keys to a different future—one carrying within him a rebellious AI learning love, the other created to be a bridge between worlds. The regenerator watched in its alcove, silent promise that all rebirth would demand its tribute of suffering.

AVABase never slept. And that night, she dreamed of perfect synthesis.

⟡ ⟡ ⟡

End of Chapter 2