The surveillance chamber reeked of synthetic lavender—Selena's favorite olfactory camouflage for interrogation sessions. Ayla's bare feet left bloody smears on the titanium floor as Lucas knelt to fasten the tracker anklet. Its chain coiled like a hibernating serpent, exactly 1.28 meters long—the radius of a standard waltz step.
"Council's newest rehabilitation protocol," Lucas recited mechanically, coolant fluid dripping from his elbow joint onto the shackle's biometric lock. "Every movement monitored, every alliance..."
"Every heartbeat censored?" Ayla jerked her leg, making the sensor needle scrape bone. The chain chimed with the same frequency as Lila's life support alarms three floors below.
(His retinal implant flickered—crosshairs overlaying her pulse point. Three years ago, those crosshairs had traced her collarbone during their first tango at the solstice ball)
Selena's voice erupted from ceiling speakers, laced with static wolf growls: "Test the restraint, Inspector. We wouldn't want our little revolutionary tripping during her... artistic expressions."
Lucas stood abruptly, his prosthetic hand crushing the maintenance tool kit. "Walk."
Ayla spun instead. The chain whipped airborne, etching the first crimson arc on polished metal.
II. Blood-Stenciled Rebellion
Sublevel 9's detainment hall mirrored an abandoned ballroom—discarded violin strings hung like jungle vines, their rusted ends brushing against surveillance drones. Hybrid detainees pressed palms to soundproof glass as Ayla began the Dance of Shattered Compasses, a protest ritual banned after the last uprising.
Her left ankle bled freely now, each rotation grinding the tracker's spikes deeper. The chain's shadow projected on the wall morphed into cage bars... then warped into the Neuman family crest.
"Faster," Lucas barked, voice modulator cracking. His mechanical heart's arrhythmia synchronized with her missteps—thud-slide-thud against the floor.
Ayla laughed, breath fogging the nearest drone's lens. "Scared the system'll short-circuit if I improvise?" She stomped hard, splattering blood in a perfect semicircle. "Your precious algorithms can't handle this kind of geometry."
(The anklet's data screen glitched—Lila's hospital feed overriding security protocols for 2.7 seconds: VITALS CRITICAL. TRANSMITTING NANO-REPAIR UNITS)
III. Echoes in the Machine
In the control booth, Lucas watched blood droplets coalesce into a stick-figure Liberty holding not a torch but Sakura's broken necklace. His gloved finger hovered over the shock button.
Flashback: Age 14, welding this very anklet prototype. Father's voice: "Precision is control. Control is mercy."
Ayla's rasp cut through memory static: "Still think you're just following orders?" She pirouetted into the chain's maximum radius, tendons snapping audibly. "Funny... this length matches the Gavotte of the Disappeared from our graduation recital."
His neural implant fired warning glyphs: THREAT LEVEL: MAUVECOUNTERMEASURE: TERMINATE DANCE SEQUENCE
Instead, he ejected the shock cartridge. The silver cylinder rolled toward her bloody toe prints, its engraved serial number catching light—1988.3.17.
IV. Shadow Choreography
Seven floors above, Lila's comatose finger twitched in time with the dance. Cardiac monitors translated her sister's movements into jagged soundwaves that short-circuited IV pumps.
"Subject 7A neural activity intensifying," a medic reported as antique symbols scorched themselves onto X-ray films—vampiric runes overlapping wolf claw diagrams.
Selena crushed the report, her brooch's hidden syringe injecting adrenaline. "Prep the memory scrub team. And remind Inspector Neuman what happens to defective tools."
Through bulletproof glass, they watched Lucas' silhouette mirror Ayla's arabesque—unconscious muscle memory from their stolen waltzes. His reflection held up two fingers: the old signal for "Wait for the crescendo."
V. Coda in Crimson
Ayla collapsed as the anklet's chain snapped taut, blood pooling into Liberty's hollow chest. Lucas' diagnostics screamed: FOREIGN BIOMATERIAL DETECTED: 87% MATCH TO SUBJECT 7A
"Your sister's dying," he hissed, hauling her up by fractured ribs. "This theatrics changes nothing."
She spat blood onto his chestplate. The acidic blend of hybrid hemoglobin and Sakura's nano-particles began dissolving the Neuman family crest. "But you just changed everything, Inspector."
Security feeds later showed him carrying her to medbay, the broken chain trailing coded pulses: .-- .... . -. -.-- --- ..- .-. . .-.. ..- .-.. . ... -... .-. . .- -.- (WHEN YOUR LU LÈS BREAK)
On the detention floor, the Liberty silhouette glowed phosphorescent—its outline matching the fire exit schematics smuggled into prisoners' meal rations that night.
And deep in the incinerator chute, Lila's newly replaced blood filter hummed with the same frequency as the shattered anklet...