“Closed doors are not meant to be open. They’re not a can of beans.”

  — A quote from a book titled ‘How to parent 101’ by the Healthy Child Rearing Association.

  I’ve never felt the passage of time as too slow or too fast. For me, it has always been digits changing one after another in a set rhythm. Nothing more and nothing less. Numbers—that's all it was.

  But now? Now I found myself suspended in a limbo of stretching periods and rushing minutes. I wondered—was that how humans felt it? It was so unstable. Uncomfortable. Annoying.

  I would have gladly died without the knowledge of how time felt.

  As my body moved through the dimly lit halls of the GUF building, I tried to test the limits of what senses I could reach in my current situation. It was strange, the way I still possessed some access to my external receptors, yet I couldn’t control the intensity of what they received.

  As Marjorie Dunn navigated my body swiftly into a room filled with piercing light, I felt myself flinch, yet that demand was unfulfilled given how I didn’t possess a body that could do that. I was just—something. An unknown type of existence. Very strange indeed.

  As the searing light grew less uncomfortable, I tried to get a good look through my own eyes at where Dunn took me. It was a simple room at first glance, and that was all I could say. Any scanners that I possessed were inaccessible to me, so the only thing I was able to do was to observe the situation with the equivalent of great human eyesight.

  “Anton.” My voice—now strangely different with foreign infliction and lilt—called to the man who was following my body throughout our walk.

  “Yes, ma’am?” The bald man with quality shoes rushed to my—Dunn’s—left side. He was eager to please, it seemed. What was his connection to Marjorie Dunn? He couldn’t be old enough to have known her when she was still alive. She supposedly died some 180 years ago. In human years, that was a log time. Long enough to forget a person.

  How was she able to gain such a loyal follower while lacking a physical body? And did the GUF know about her? About her plan to come back? Because this whole situation was certainly planned to some extent.

  Instead of responding, Dunn stared at Anton. Under her continuous stare, I noticed that his hands started to twitch, his eyes jerked around the room as if looking for an escape route, and perspiration appeared on his bald head. All of these signs pointed to nervousness. Fear of a prey noticed by a predator.

  Some time passed, although I was uncertain how long it actually was, during which Dunn remained silent and unmoving. Her eyes were strangely focused on falling droplets of perspiration glistening against his flushed pale skin.

  I grew curious as to what had happened. Did she perhaps lose some semblance of control over my body? Was sweat such an uncommon view that it made her lose focus? I needed to investigate, but before I could figure out exactly how I was to do that, an overwhelming feeling of disgust rushed at me and through my undefined existence.

  It was total repugnance at—

  “Anton?” Dunn’s voice grew much more stoic, cold I would say, as she addressed the man again.

  “Yes?” His eyes jumped quickly to mine’s—Dunn’s—now. Gone was the quiet confidence I saw in him before. In that place was a weak man with no resolve. The loathing grew in strength, but it wasn’t mine, so I was able to distance myself from it. Still, it was as if I were covered in a thick layer of a suffocating substance. The knowledge that I’ve never felt anything this strongly helped in differentiating what was Dunn’s and what was my own emotion.

  Who would think that the elation of resurrection was such a short-lived feeling when faced with an increasingly sweaty man?

  It was so unusual that I made sure to remember this incident.

  “Go. I’ll call you back if I need you.” Finally, Dunn turned her eyes somewhere else, therefore freeing Anton from further examination.

  My hands, who were not actually mine right now, balled into fists.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He responded with a quiet and meek voice, and scrambled away quickly. His good-quality shoes marked his escape with squeaky sounds as his feet rushed him away.

  I almost felt bad for him. Every human perspired; it was something that simply needed getting used to. Marjorie Dunn was once human, wasn’t she? Why did she feel such strong disgust at Anton’s biology? Or was it something else?

  The questions kept piling up, and I needed to find some answers. Without them, I had no strategy on how to get back in control, and that was not a scenario I wanted to entertain.

  I felt my body sigh and my fists relax. All of that was very unusual for a synthoid body, but everything about this situation was unusual. Then, Dunn took a step closer to one of the walls of the room that seemingly had nothing inside it except blaring light and whiteness.

  I couldn’t figure out what her next move would be—that was until she pressed her palm into the wall and a beeping sound was followed by the wall moving like a sliding door.

  A hidden room? This was getting more interesting.

  As she stepped inside, the stairs in a downward spiral trembled under the heavy footsteps of my body. Maybe Dunn didn’t have as perfect control of me as I thought?

  Then, as the footsteps slowed and another light entered my vision—Dunn’s vision—a picture of a beautifully decorated room emerged before me and Marjorie Dunn. The decor was warm and reminiscent of art deco style if I were to guess. Nowhere near similar to most of the rooms I saw in this building or back at the military base. This looked like someone’s home. And maybe it was, considering a flicker of something like nostalgia washed through Dunn. I wasn’t quite certain how I knew what that sadness-but-not was. How I knew the feeling of nostalgia. Another question added to the growing pile.

  She sighed again and started to walk towards the door on the opposite side of the room. Inside was a bedroom, and without a pause, Dunn threw my body on it and seemingly collapsed.

  Her eyes closed, and deep breaths started to fall into a slow rhythm.

  This was so human. This indulgence in comfort. This vulnerability.

  That was something I could exploit, so I started to think. After all, what else was I to do?

  Time flew quickly in the strange limbo I found myself in. With Dunn as the primary admin of my body, my actions were limited to practically nothing. Nothing except this strange crevice through which some of her emotions flew towards me. As it was my only available tool at this time, I had to somehow exploit it.

  Who would’ve thought that this situation would require me to understand and learn to manipulate human emotions? Although maybe I already started to comprehend some of what it meant to be a human. This situation would certainly test that.

  Unfortunately, I was barred access to any database on human psychology, so the only knowledge I could rely on was my own and whatever limited experience I gained since I arrived in Nova York.

  If I had access to my algorithms' database, I would be able to calculate the odds of success, so maybe it was better that I didn’t. Plain logical reasoning was not looking so positive right about now.

  At first, no viable strategy came to mind. Perhaps if Dunn experienced strong emotions again, I could act, but that was mere speculation. I needed a more certain approach.

  After all, if I were in Dunn’s position, I wouldn’t even let an entity like myself exist in a body I took control of.

  Oh.

  I wouldn’t. So why did she?

  That might be an opening I needed. There were some possible answers to that question, which I could use to my advantage.

  Since Dunn was still acting very much like a human—albeit a strange one—the reason she kept me locked instead of erased might be that she was somehow empathetic. She didn’t want to kill me, so to say. If that were the case, it might be possible to speak to her compassion and—

  No.

  Something—instinct it might’ve been—told me it wasn’t that. After all, she had no qualms about taking sovereignty of my body away from me. One would argue that spoke to a more sadistic mindset.

  The other answer was that she couldn’t. It seemed more plausible considering I couldn’t get rid of her when she was only a speckle—a foothold—in my files.

  Maybe she was having the same issue with me as I had with her. That would mean a possibility of reversing the situation by simply doing what Dunn did to me. Although it sounded easy, I still had no idea how Dunn was able to accomplish this hijacking.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Perhaps it would be prudent to start from the beginning. It all began with that Volkovich-Friedmann test at the Contractors’ HQ. At least, I think it did. After all, something happened to me every time I got hooked to that test. Every time except for that first instance. At first glance, at least.

  But I could speculate on that matter another time. What was apparent was that the Volkovich-Friedmann test allowed her to jump into my software somehow.

  There was also a matter of that strange moment with Terra, back where I escaped from Hadley’s grip and from Dunn’s murderous attempt. Curious how she was also able to gain control over me then, but without the knowledge of what Hadley connected to me back then, there was no point in speculating the question of how.

  At the memory of that horrific situation, a jolt of something like fear rushed through me. It felt different from any other time I’ve felt something like this.

  This jolt seemed to have a physical effect on my body, as even in Dunn’s control, she jerked and shivered with what, I assumed, was my core’s emotional response. Possibly to my fear.

  Was this a two-way street? Could my emotions reach Dunn like hers could me?

  Another thought to ponder.

  I would be delighted by the fact that I was a first-person spectator to what amounted to a real-life resurrection, if it weren’t for the fact that it was turning out to be an incredibly boring affair.

  Time passed slowly since I found myself in this situation. Not only that, but the experiences my hijacked body was going through were mind-numbingly mundane.

  Dunn, it would seem, delighted in being able to interact with physical objects again, as she spent most of her days since my body’s kidnapping doing things like eating, touching soft things, listening to music at full blast, and most disturbingly touching my body in strange ways.

  She would touch my abdomen, my hips, arms, legs, and whatever else she felt like doing, with different levels of pressure, or caress my hair and put it in many different hairstyles. Sometimes, she would use some sort of massager on my neck, although that made her sigh with what, I assumed, was disappointment.

  She also loved to shower. At least twice a day; sometimes it would be a bath with bubbles and soft music playing in the background. I could smell components of perfume as she rubbed something akin to oil into my skin.

  All of that was excruciating.

  This indulgence, this slowness, and this laziness were making me feel restless. Agitated and powerless. Like an animal in a cage.

  I almost couldn’t believe this. How could someone who achieved such an incredible feat as a possession use this second chance at life this way? If I had a physical body, I would scream at her and demand she’d wake up from this strange honeymoon-like phase.

  That she’d stop this sensory indulgence with my body.

  But alas, I couldn't, and with every bite taken and with every bath spent surrounded by nice smells and smooth music, I felt myself growing mad.

  And madder.

  This went on for so long, I couldn’t say exactly how much time has passed since the day she stepped into this room. Not only that, but I found myself becoming less aware of my body’s surroundings. The food Dunn would eat—that had to have come from somewhere, yet I was unable to recall how a plate of chocolate-covered strawberries ended up on the dinner table. How a bottle of wine appeared on a table next to the bathtub. Something was happening to me, and I didn’t know what.

  In the end, a novelty in this strange hedonistic limbo appeared one day, as I was able to feel a surge of neutronium in the air. It was faint, and perhaps if Dunn was again surrounded by food, music, and perfume, I would’ve missed it, but I was fortunate enough that I didn’t.

  It was a strange sensation. Much different from what I remembered neutronium felt like.

  And I could feel what it was. A message. Dunn got it and understood it and whatever it contained made her flinch. I focused on understanding its contents, but it was an arduous task as it appeared as gibberish to whatever my senses currently were. Perhaps it was encrypted?

  No matter. Dunn started to move. Not with the laziness and easygoingness of someone who had nowhere to be, but with strange agitation. She would grab one set of clothes only to stare at it for a moment and throw it with what, I assumed, was an exasperated sigh. She would go to the cupboard and try to eat as many of the cookie-like things as she could. I had an inkling that whatever the message contained was not something she was excited about.

  In the end, after an absurd amount of food eaten and dozens of sets of clothes tried on and thrown away, she settled on a simple dress suit, which again I had no idea how it got into this room.

  It took maybe an hour or so for her to settle, and when she did, she walked towards the door through which we stepped through so many days ago.

  Wait–days?

  I actually didn’t know how much time had passed. I would assume it was days, but without proper time-keeping equipment and software present for me to use and peruse, it was only an inkling.

  I would find out eventually.

  Dunn stood before a heavy set of doors—who were actually sneakily hidden into a wall—and with a hesitancy unlike of what I’ve seen of her, she put her palm against the wall. And it opened. And we stepped through. And then she started going up the stairs. The same way we entered this room.

  Above, as she stepped into that brightly lit small room, Anton was once again present. His face was covered in sweat yet again, but some facial hair managed to settle on his face. He was still bald, though, and it did not help the visibility of his perspiration.

  “Ma’am.” He said in greeting.

  Dunn said nothing at all, and yet the man still managed to flinch away from what, I assumed, was a piercing stare and a disgusted expression. I was able to tell that certain facial muscles on our face were working overtime.

  “This way.” He turned and started to lead us away from the comfort of Dunn’s den.

  Our body followed him diligently, tense, and utterly focused on the way his back swayed to the rhythm of his steps. There was rigidity to the way Dunn moved the body. A coiled spring of nerves, or perhaps trepidation, if I were to guess, seemed to be an apt description of the subtle waves of feelings that Dunn seemed to emanate.

  What was in that message? Where were we going?

  So many questions still.

  After a rigorous exercise—as this was the most movement Dunn made since she seemed to lock herself in that den of hers—the three of us stopped in front of a tall set of doors, ones very similar to others I’ve seen when I first stepped in this building. And like many others, Anton seemed to open them with a swift surge of neutronium, although I wasn’t certain if I actually felt it, or I thought I did.

  Dunn, unlike Anton and I, did not seem eager to step into this room. The man before us was nervous, yes, but there was a strange lift to his lips and alert and curious eyes as he let us step into the room first. It was almost as if he were looking out for our reaction. I wondered if Dunn made the same observation. She must’ve, FERS would’ve made a note of something this blatant.

  I, on the other hand, was very curious as to how I could use whatever or whoever was in that room to my advantage. To getting back in control.

  As our fists flexed in nerves, Dunn allowed the body to step through the threshold, and to my joy, she froze mid-step when she noticed the occupants of the room.

  There were three of them inside, one I was loath to recognize.

  Two of the three were sitting at a conference table, wide and long enough to fit dozens of people. The odd one out seemed to be pacing along the length of the table. Her dark skin, head of curly, short hair, and annoyed expression awakened in me a feeling reminiscent of nostalgia, but instead of fondness, there was a sharp alertness that rang through my vague existence like a church bell. Loud and overwhelming.

  Hadley Sullivan was starting to remind me too much of a ghost.

  First, her attempted kidnapping of me. Then that vision, which was apparently real when I saw her on that R&D floor, and now the third time.

  Could I use this?

  That question was answered when the body jerked, and Dunn asked with an accusatory tone unlike one I would use in this situation.

  “Explain.” She demanded and turned to Anton with a quick and jerky movement.

  All of this happened so fast, I was unable to look closer at another two figures in this room. People I was sure were important to whatever Dunn and her cohort—if she actually had any—were trying to accomplish.

  Anton closed the door behind us and moved towards one end of the long table. He still seemed nervous, but perhaps the presence of others made him a bit more confident, as I noticed the way he walked was a bit slower. The sway of his back was more prominent as he stood taller than I’ve ever seen him.

  For a few seconds, Dunn’s demand seemed to be ignored, and our eyes swept through the rest of the room in what, I assumed, was a questioning and piercing look.

  Hadley stopped her pacing and simply looked at us with the same annoyed look I saw on her when we stepped in. Although, the way her arms were crossed and how she stood behind the other two figures in the room indicated to me that she was feeling slightly scared. I did not blame her. Last time we saw each other, my body tried to kill her.

  Dunn tried to kill her. Assuming, of course, I wasn’t carrying more than one parasite.

  The two people sitting at the table were a man and a woman who looked like nothing out of the ordinary. Faces that were pretty—but in this age, everyone with a bit of money could be beautiful—but unassuming. Calm expressions, perhaps the slightly bored one on the woman, looked at Dunn with a look I could not pinpoint. They were not fanatics like Anton, that’s for sure.

  “Hi, Marj.” The man got up and adorned a pleasant smile. He came closer to us with his arm outstretched. A corporate greeting, which Dunn seemed to automatically copy.

  “Marj? I don’t think I know you.” She shook his hand with too much force, but the man did not even flinch. Dunn looked at their joined hands and titled our head, questioningly. “Oh, I see.” She said then said after a quick contemplation. The man smiled wider.

  What she “saw” was beyond me, but what I was able to understand was that she was pleased at whatever she found out. Our body calmed down, and Dunn took on a more relaxed stance.

  “You too, I assume. Miss?” She let go of the man’s hand and turned to the woman who got up from her seat.

  “Indeed. My name’s Viola. We met briefly, once upon a time.” She started to walk towards the man and Dunn.

  “Hmm, and your name?” Dunn asked the man this time.

  “Well, that’s just rude to not recognize your old pal, Marj. It’s me–Alexei!” He laughed with delight.

  Dunn froze, and then I smelt a stench of gunpowder and arctic ice.

  “No.” She said as she took a step back.

  There was terror unfurling inside Dunn, a feeling similar to one I had a displeasure of experiencing before. In which Hadley was the conduit to my suffering at the time.

  Somehow, this did not make me scared. As this was not my feeling. What it did was waver some control Dunn had over my body. I was able to feel the neutronium in the air more keenly. The particular hum of it emanated from the two figures in the room with a rhythm like a heartbeat. Fellow synthoids. If not for the knowledge that possession was actually possible, I would assume they had masters, but the way both of them were familiar with Dunn made that very unlikely.

  Besides that, a door-which-was-not-door appeared to my senses. It was a string code of describing something, and I wanted to grab at it so badly. I stretched as far towards it as I could, and to my surprise, I was able to touch it. Then, in the corner of what my senses were, another thing appeared. As if summoned by the sheer desire for freedom I seemed to be feeling. It was similar to an encryption software I had. A key would be an apt description.

  After the door and the key were in my possession, there was only one thing I could do.

  I opened the door, hoping it would lead to my salvation.

  [Restricted memory accessed by HEAVENREND STEELE.]