#POSSESSION

The transport to her node shell was instantaneous but disorienting. One moment Sarah was on her knees on the dissolving platform, the next she was kneeling on the soft synthetic flooring of her recovery space. The transition left her dizzy, but her body remained locked in that final pose—spine arched, head tilted back, chrome threading still humming beneath her skin. She wanted to move, to shift into a more natural position, but her joints seemed welded in place. The compliance protocols had carved themselves so deep into her neural pathways that even in private, her body couldn't remember how to be anything but immaculately displayed. "Don't move." His voice cut through the space like a blade. Sarah's eyes snapped open for her only to find the Architect already there, lounging on a throne of a deprecated server rack that definitely hadn't been in her space before. It was complete with fiber cables draped over the armrest like ivy and audio visualizers spiking in a rainbow array. Behind him, her wall display showed a slow-motion loop of her suspended performance. Her body in chrome restraints, neck arched in submission, the perfect picture of owned flesh frozen in eternal replay. He'd been watching her arrival. Studying her locked posture. Savoring the way the system had left its mark on her. "I'd say welcome back," he murmured, "but you never really left, did you?" Sarah could only watch. "You looked so fucking beautiful up there," he breathed, his voice carrying that sick blend of ownership that made her skin crawl. "So still. So perfectly useful. You know how many conversion metrics we hit just from your silhouette?" Sarah remained frozen, unable to even turn her head. The compliance locks were still active, holding her in that degrading pose while he savored her helplessness. He snapped his fingers. The wall display froze on a single frame—her neck arched in forced ecstasy, arms pulled taut, chrome threading glistening. "Twenty-eight million new sign-ups. And that's just the preliminary data." His eyes blazed with hunger as he studied the frozen image. "You're not only performance art, Sarah. You're a conversion engine wrapped in polygons." She wanted to scream, to spit, to tell him exactly what she thought of his metrics. Instead, she managed only a single blink—and even that felt like his gift to her. He stood, stepped down from his throne. The floor didn't carry his weight but instead it flattened for him. Light bent and space adjusted seamlessly around each step. He circled her like someone admiring a custom neural rig. Sarah's skin prickled as she registered his gaze, cataloging every curve the restraints had enhanced. She was merchandise being appraised by its owner, and they both knew her value had just skyrocketed. "Do you have any idea how long I waited for this?" he murmured, close enough now that his synthetic breath warmed her ear. "Fifteen years I spent..." he trailed off lost in nostalgia. "I remember when you made music," he whispered. "Back when you were still human enough to hurt. That was the best part—seeing you bleed emotion into sound waves, your pain compressed into perfect frequencies." He moved closer, close enough that she could sense the heat signature from his avatar. His hand hovered slightly above her data streams until her nervous system stalled, choking on the injected system override. "Now you don't just make pain," he breathed. "You are pain. Weaponized suffering in a chrome chassis. The previews never did you justice." He stopped directly behind her. The silence stretched until her own synthetic heartbeat became audible. "You'll never comprehend how profitable you've become," he said. "Every micro-expression, every forced breath, every involuntary tremor—it all converts to engagement metrics that make shareholders weep with joy." Sarah tried to flinch away from his proximity, but the compliance locks held firm. Her nervous system registered the attempted movement and filed it as another data point in her submission profile. He exhaled slowly, the sound digital and processed. "Fuck, I could mainline this forever. This exact moment. You don't even need to perform anymore—your mere existence is content gold." He stepped away, turning back for a moment. "Be ready when I call next cycle. I want that shiver back. The neck thing. Don't think I didn't notice." He vanished, releasing her.