The Ideal One

Dr. Everwood’s darkest creation is real: 14-year-old Lucas, Subject L-014, not a toy.

Chapter One: The Selection
The Ideal Creation
Evening settles like fog over the facility, dimming the corridors to a muted gray. The hum of overhead lights never stops — low, steady, and constant, like a breath held too long. Cameras click softly as they swivel in slow, watchful arcs. Somewhere far off, a door hisses open, then shuts. Silence returns just as quickly.
In the restricted north wing, the walls shine like polished bone. Two guards stand motionless on either side of the Director’s office, their black visors reflecting nothing. Access here requires a six-digit code, a retinal scan, and a reason.
The door to Dr. Everwood’s office is already sealed shut.
Inside, the room is spotless. Every surface gleams under the gentle white glow above. On the desk — a silver pen aligned exactly with the edge, a clock ticking just a half-second behind real time, and a glass tablet resting idle. The air is dry, still, faintly scented with lavender and antiseptic.
Everwood sits behind the desk, spine straight, both feet flat on the floor. One hand rests on the polished surface. The other taps, slow and steady, against the glass.
The ticking continues. His eyes flick to the clock.
Then the door.
Then back again.
The tapping stops.
He presses both palms together and lets out a quiet breath through his nose, not quite a sigh.
The door opens.
“Only five minutes,” says Dr. Elias Morrow, stepping in without urgency. His white coat is smudged with pale dust at the sleeves. A thin black case hangs from one hand.
Everwood doesn’t rise. His gaze follows Elias as he crosses the room, movements silent but sharp, like a lens focusing.
“There’s something going around,” Elias says, unclipping the case. “Started in the dormitories. Spread through the school and playcare. Some kind of viral strain — not respiratory. It’s throwing off emotional stability tests, cognition, basic screening. Most flagged as unstable.”
He flips the case open. Inside, a neat stack of paper files.
“These are what’s left.”
Everwood lifts the first file. He opens it without comment. A girl, age thirteen. High logic score. Health: 87%. He flips it shut after a glance.
Next. Boy, age twelve. Health: 91%. Smile too sharp.
Another. Another.
Then — stillness.
His hand stops moving.
The next folder is held a little longer. He adjusts it toward the light, brushing a finger across the edge. The photo is dull — pale lighting, no corrections. A thin boy. Dark under the eyes. Looking slightly off to the side, not into the camera. Beneath the photo:
Lucas Bennet
Subject No. 1006
Orphaned. No guardian listed.
Emotionally withdrawn. Passive behavior. High compliance.
Health: 99%
Everwood scans the contents again — slower this time. He turns one page. Then another.
He sets the file down and closes the case without speaking.
“This one,” he says.
Elias glances over. “Lucas Bennet?”
“He fits.”
No change in tone. No flicker in his expression.
Elias gives a short nod and steps around to the console embedded in the wall.
“What’s the timeline?” he asks.
Everwood rises and joins him. With a gesture, the console powers on, casting a blue light across the sharp edges of his face. Blueprints load. Neural maps. Organic overlays.
“Seventy-two hours. Intake tonight. Core structure within the week.”
“You’re using Template 01-B?”
“Modified.”
Elias narrows his eyes as the schematic rotates slowly in midair. Labeled parts flicker: Neural Lattice, Conditioning Nodes, Emotional Dampeners.
“Start with the neural shell,” he says. “If the brain resists—”
“It won’t,” Everwood interrupts.
More schematics load:
MOLD-A01: UPPER LIMB SHEATH – ELASTIC COATING
MOLD-C03: CORE CASING – INTERNAL JOINT SUSPENSION
MOLD-E07: FACIAL FRAME – FLEX COMPOSITE
Elias taps the faceplate. “That composite — the newer flex model?”
“It’s cleaner. Better emotion reading. Less lag. Responds more naturally.”
“You want it to respond?”
Everwood doesn’t look at him. “Only to me.”
Elias drags two fingers across the vocal panel. “You installing a modulator?”
The schematic shows no selected module.
“No voice system,” Everwood answers.
Elias lifts a brow. “None at all?”
“If he speaks,” Everwood says, “it’ll be because I built the silence to hurt.”
The hum of the console deepens. Everwood adjusts a line in the chest assembly — thick reinforcement across the rib structure.
“This area needs to hold. If there’s resistance—”
“Then maybe he shouldn’t be converted at all,” Elias mutters.
Everwood says nothing.
He reaches down and presses a single button. The screen darkens.
Back at the desk, he sets a gloved hand on Lucas’s file. Fingers rest across the boy’s name. Still.
“He’ll do.”
No response from Elias.
Just the faint snap of the folder closing.



Chapter Two: Quiet Places
(Before Selection – One Week Earlier)
The light in the dormitory flickers every few minutes. Not enough to draw attention — just a faint buzz, like something breathing through the wires.
Lucas doesn’t seem to notice. He’s curled on the edge of the cot, legs tucked close, a small paper book balanced on one knee. The pages are dog-eared, smudged with sleep creases and ink stains. He turns them slowly, like he’s afraid of tearing something.
The others are louder.
A group of boys argue near the far window. Someone knocks over a chair. No one picks it up.
One kid coughs into his sleeve. Again. Louder.
Lucas presses his chin to his knees and tries not to flinch. He watches without moving.
A caretaker walks in, clipboard in hand. Their eyes skim the room, but they don’t linger. They never do.
“Lights out in ten.”
No one responds. The lights keep flickering.
Lucas tucks the book beneath his pillow and climbs under the blanket without a sound. He pulls it up just over his mouth. His sweater — too big, sleeves chewed at the ends — bunches at the wrists. His fingers curl underneath.
He sleeps facing the wall.

The next morning, the dormitory feels thinner. Fewer voices. The boy who coughed all night is gone. So is his blanket. So is his name.
Lucas sits cross-legged near the back wall, building a tiny tower from leftover puzzle pieces. The pieces don’t match. That doesn’t seem to matter.
“Lucas,” someone calls.
He looks up.
A woman in a white coat stands at the door. She doesn’t smile. “Health check.”
Lucas stands. He doesn’t ask questions.
He follows her through two security doors and down a narrow hallway that doesn’t smell like anything. She doesn’t speak. Her shoes click softly.
They reach a room. Glass wall. Bright lights. One chair, one table. No shadows.
He steps in.
The door seals behind him.

Five minutes pass. Then ten.
No one enters.
The walls hum faintly. Lucas doesn’t move. He stays seated in the chair with his hands folded in his lap. His legs don’t swing. He doesn’t fidget. His eyes remain fixed ahead.
A mechanical arm lowers from the ceiling. A soft hiss breaks the silence, followed by a cold puff of air. Something touches the side of his neck.
His body tenses for a second, then stills again. It’s barely noticeable, a slight shift in his posture, but it’s there.
A soft blue light scans his eyes, lingering on his pupils. Another wire hovers near his temple, adjusting for a closer view.
He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even blink.
Then, a faint sound.
Psssst.
Something invisible. Released through the vents.
A sleeping dose — light, medical-grade. Standard for pre-exam sedation. Meant to relax the body, slow the breathing, let the mind drift. The kind of thing that makes a child drowsy, passive. Submissive.
Lucas doesn’t even blink.
His pulse holds steady. His breathing remains slow, controlled. In fact, it feels almost too slow. His chest rises and falls in a methodical, deliberate pattern — almost mechanical.
They try again. A second dose. Slightly stronger. The tiny needle injects a controlled amount of the drug directly into his bloodstream. It’s designed to pull someone into a deep sleep. To make them sluggish. To make them yield.
Still, nothing.
His heart rate doesn’t budge. His skin temperature stays steady. There’s no visible change.
The third dose comes next. Stronger. Enough to sedate a child twice his size.
The staff watches from behind the glass. They’ve seen it work on dozens of children. Everyone reacts to it.
But not Lucas.
His eyes stay open. Calm. Still. Not a twitch. Not a blink.
On the other side of the glass, Dr. Elias Morrow leans back in his chair, watching intently. His fingers tap against the tablet in his lap. He’s already making notes.
The experiment should have worked. It should have put the boy under, made him vulnerable, make his mind open. That’s the whole point of this test.
But instead, Lucas remains alert. Too alert.
Elias is intrigued. He taps his pen against the glass. The machine’s data flashes on the screen. The results don’t make sense.
Elias leans closer to the tablet, his eyes narrowing as he makes a few notations in the log.

A few days later, Dr. Elias Morrow requested further experiments.
He couldn’t leave it at that. No, there was something about Lucas — something he couldn’t explain, but something undeniable. The child had resisted every sedative, every attempt to influence his body. Most would have been screaming by now. Panicking. But Lucas? Nothing. He wasn’t like the others. There had to be something else at play.
Elias reached out to the medical staff. Quietly, secretly. No official documentation. Just a slip of an internal request: "Non-invasive testing – Subject 1006 – Neural/Physiological Monitoring."
The experiments began without fanfare.

The first test was basic: Temperature Fluctuation. His room was cooled to near freezing temperatures, the air pushed to the limit of discomfort. They raised the temperature again, gradually, introducing heat until the room became stifling. A normal child would have shown signs of stress — a spike in heart rate, sweating, visible discomfort. But Lucas? He remained unchanged.
His body didn’t show any signs of distress. The heat didn’t cause his skin to flush, nor did the cold cause him to shiver. His heart rate stayed steady. His breathing remained controlled, calm, like a machine designed to never break.
Next came a Chemical Resistance Trial. Standard for immune testing. Low-grade pathogens, introduced in a controlled environment, meant to trigger a mild immune response. A slight fever, perhaps. Maybe nausea. Anything that would indicate his body was working to fight off the foreign substances.
Again, nothing.
Lucas’s bloodwork came back perfect. The pathogens didn’t even seem to phase him. His white blood cell count spiked — but instead of fighting the illness, his body seemed to embrace it. His immune system didn’t struggle; it adapted.
A technician reported that Lucas’s temperature remained stable, almost unnaturally so. There was no fever. No discomfort. In fact, his health had improved during the testing. By the end of the day, his health stat read: 100%. No fluctuation. No sign of decline.
The next test involved Sensory Disruption — a series of strobe lights, sonic pulses, and disorienting frequencies. The goal was simple: induce confusion, dizziness, something that would cause him to lose control. The child would be tested for his ability to process stimuli under extreme stress.
Lucas blinked. Once.
He remained seated through the flashes of light and dissonant sounds. There was no visible reaction. His pupils didn’t dilate. His skin didn’t break into a sweat. He didn’t even shift in his seat.
After the test ended, the pulse sensors failed for a full twenty minutes. The techs tried to restart them, but the system didn’t respond. It was as if the room itself had gone silent.
The internal logs recorded no significant data. There were no alarms. No warnings.
Just a simple note:
Subject 1006 – Health Status: 100%

Dr. Elias Morrow sat alone in Observation Room 3. The boy’s still frame filled the screen in front of him.
Lucas had remained unfazed through every test. No pain. No fear. No panic. He was calm. Too calm.
Elias leaned forward, his eyes tracking every detail of the child’s expressionless face. His fingers moved to the tablet in his lap and wrote down a single word:
“Candidate.”
Then, beneath that:
“Bring to Everwood.”
He didn’t smile. He didn’t frown.
He just wrote, and waited.



Chapter Three - Thread of Knowing
The Playcare floor hummed with manufactured joy, polished and layered in bright distractions. Lights blinked beneath children’s feet, shifting colors with each step. From the corners, gentle music played—part lullaby, part advertisement—sung by unseen speakers in the walls. A few bubbles floated lazily overhead, engineered not to pop too close to the floor, lest they create a slipping hazard. Everything here was designed with a softness that felt artificial if you looked too closely.
Children ran and played, laughing with boundless energy. Some clustered at low tables covered in beads and string, while others sprawled across story mats, listening to an animatronic fox retell a fairytale with exaggerated expressions. There were toys everywhere, wheeling, waddling, crawling—alive enough to stir wonder, obedient enough to keep trust. Some joined in games. Others offered songs. But among them was one who didn’t sing.
Patch.
He stood quietly in the corner, his tall figure stitched from faded navy-blue cloth. His arms were long, too long. His joints soft but precise. He didn’t move like the others. He didn’t flash or chirp. He stood behind one child with a sort of watching stillness that felt too aware.
Lucas Bennet sat alone at the far end of a craft table. His brush glided slowly across the paper in long, thoughtful strokes, blending orange into a bleeding red. He hadn’t drawn a character or a house or a flower. There was no smiling sun, no trees. Just gradients. A rising heat. The edges of something hard to name. His face was unreadable, but Patch didn’t look away.
A soft hiss echoed from the sealed rear door as it unlocked and slipped open. Cool air filtered into the room—sanitized, dry—and Dr. Everwood stepped inside.
He was as polished as ever, white coat crisp and spotless, his pale blond hair combed back with intention. He held a clipboard in one hand, gloves tucked neatly into the other. His shoes didn’t squeak. His presence turned heads. Children cheered when they saw him, running forward to tug at his sleeves and call his name.
He smiled for them. Kind and calm. Kneeling just enough to tousle a girl’s hair and offer a soft laugh. To the Playcare, he was the face of safety—creator of Lully Playtime’s magic, the doctor who fixed broken toys and made sure no child ever felt alone.
But even as he moved with charm, Everwood’s eyes scanned the room for one person.
Lucas.
He spotted the boy easily. Not because he stood out—but because he didn’t. Because he never tried to be seen. And because Everwood couldn’t stop looking at him.
Every movement, every glance, every soft blink—he absorbed it, like tracing over a sketch in his mind again and again, sharpening the lines.
He didn’t approach right away. Not with so many eyes. Instead, he circled the room. Adjusted the ribbon on a nearby plush. Spoke softly to a staff member. But always, always watching.
Patch was watching, too.
When Everwood stepped toward Lucas’s table, Patch moved—smooth and deliberate, his frame now between the boy and the doctor. Not hostile. Not loud. Just enough.
Everwood paused.
He smiled still, but the corners didn’t lift as high.
“You’ve got a good hand,” he said, watching Lucas, not the toy. “Blending like that takes focus.”
Lucas didn’t respond. His brush swept another layer of yellow into the red, soft and unhurried.
Everwood tried again. Another quiet step closer.
Patch moved again. Firmer this time. Closer.
The second block.
It was still wordless, but there was an edge to it now. A clarity. Not a malfunction. A choice.
Everwood’s jaw tightened ever so slightly. He didn’t speak. Not to Patch. He simply waited.
And then, slowly, Patch stepped aside. Only a little. Just enough.
Lucas set down the brush. Looked up. His eyes didn’t reveal anything.
“I was hoping you’d help me with something today,” Everwood said, voice light.
Lucas studied him. Then stood.
Patch didn’t move again.
But Everwood glanced at him once, just briefly, with a look that didn’t carry a smile.
The hallway beyond the Playcare was sterile and too quiet. The sound of their footsteps bounced off the smooth, white walls—walls that had no character, no stickers, no crayon marks. Nothing of children.
Everwood walked beside Lucas, hands behind his back, casting him sidelong glances every few paces.
“You’re quiet,” he said.
Lucas looked ahead. “I like quiet.”
Everwood let out a soft chuckle. “So do I. Most people don’t. Most people fill it with noise, just to keep their thoughts from showing.”
Lucas gave no reply. No signal of understanding or disapproval. He walked with the same composure he always had—measured, present, silent.
Inside the lab, the lighting was low, tinted with soft hues meant to feel warm. A lie. Monitors blinked gently in the corners. There was no mess, no chaos. Just Lucas and Everwood.
“Sit,” the doctor said.
Lucas sat.
And Everwood did not take his eyes off him. Not while adjusting the scanner. Not while running the system checks. Not even while pretending to read the display.
The first session had been visual stimulus exposure. A barrage of lights, flashes, coded images meant to fatigue the brain. Lucas watched them all. Blinked only when he needed to. Named every sequence afterward in precise order.
The second was biochemical—Serum A03, a neurochemical disruptor known to trigger panic in minutes. Lucas’s heart slowed. Then stabilized. Nothing else.
The third was sleep deprivation. Thirty-six hours under monitored light cycles. Lucas sat through them all. No agitation. No signs of strain.
The fourth, physical. Stimulated pressure on nerve clusters, increasing resistance over time. Lucas adjusted posture as needed. Responded to prompts. No flinch. No sweat. No tremor.
The fifth—neural compression gas. Odorless. Designed to shut down higher thinking. By 9% saturation, most subjects slumped. Lucas sat upright. His gaze didn’t shift from the wall.
And now, Level Six. The final dose waited in the injector.
Everwood approached quietly. Lucas sat still.
He lifted the syringe from its cradle.
“Just one last test,” the doctor murmured.
Lucas looked at him.
No expression.
No fear.
No question.
Everwood’s hand trembled.
He stared at the boy’s eyes—clear, bright, maddening in their stillness. Not hollow. Not cold. Just… untouched. As if nothing in this place had ever reached him.
The serum pulsed gently in the cartridge.
But Everwood didn’t press the injector.
He couldn’t.
He turned away.
And Lucas watched him go.
When the hallway door opened hours later, Playcare was mid-cycle. Storytime winding down. Snack trays being wheeled into their slots. Children singing to a toy bear with blinking eyes.
Patch was there.
And the moment he heard the door click, he looked up.
He was waiting when Lucas returned. And when Everwood tried to follow—
The third time—Patch didn’t just block him. He stepped between them fully, shoulders squared, back straight, eyes level.
A final, quiet warning.
Everwood stopped. He said nothing.
And then turned away.
Lucas walked back to his table.
No limp. No bruises. No hesitation.
He picked up the brush again and resumed where he left off, as if time had never moved.
Patch returned to the edge of the table, unmoving.
That day, when lunch was rolled in, Lucas didn’t take the Taffytab. He accepted the tray, slid the candy-supplement into his sleeve when no one was looking, and excused himself to the bathroom. He returned ten minutes later and finished the rest of the meal. No one noticed.
Except Patch.
Later, as the lullaby lights dimmed and children curled up in corners, Patch found him again beneath the climbing dome. Lucas sat with a picture book open, fingers tracing the same line of text over and over.
They didn’t speak at first.
But Lucas shifted slightly, leaving just enough space for Patch to settle beside him.
A yellow marble rolled from his hand, nudged toward Patch.
Patch didn’t take it.
He rested his palm beside it.
Lucas tilted his head.
“Do you remember things?” he whispered.
Patch held his gaze.
Then nodded.
“I think I do, too,” Lucas said. “But I don’t know if they’re mine.”
He looked away, quick and quiet.
“They watch. Even when we’re supposed to be dreaming.”
Patch’s fingers twitched softly.
“I think they made you forget,” Lucas said. “But not all the way.”
He leaned in slightly.
“I remember things too. But only when I’m really still.”
Patch didn’t answer.
But he didn’t leave.
They stayed like that as the Playcare dimmed to its night time cycle, the ceiling glowing soft and blue.



Chapter Four – The Thread Unravels
Two weeks later, scarcely after the tests had concluded, Dr. Everwood stood before them—silent, composed, and unmistakably changed. The lab was cold. Not the kind that prickled at the skin, but the kind that settled deeper—quiet, artificial, meant to keep everything clean. Controlled. The overhead lights cast soft reflections across the sterile floor as monitors hummed, their slow, pulsing readouts forming the heartbeat of the room.
At the center of it all, behind layers of data and silent footage, was Subject L-014.
Lucas.
Still human. Still whole. Still untouched by the deeper procedures that lay waiting just beyond the next stage.
Dr. Everwood stood alone in the observation chamber, eyes locked on the screen where the boy sat in the Playcare—motionless, calm, breathing without tension. He wasn’t drawing. Wasn’t talking. Wasn’t playing.
He was simply there.
And for Everwood, that was more telling than any data stream.
The console to his right chimed softly, indicating that the serum was ready—just one piece in the larger sequence. A blend meant to soften resistance, ease the transition, prepare the body for what came next.
The injector waited in its cradle. Level Six Prep.
Everwood didn’t move.
He had reviewed L-014’s test data a hundred times—no tremors, no panic, no psychological breakpoints. Where others cried, Lucas simply endured. Where others screamed, Lucas was quiet. His vitals didn’t spike. His mind didn’t reject. His body didn’t flinch.
There was nothing remarkable in the numbers. But in the stillness… in the silence...
Everwood saw something else.
Not submission. Not suppression.
Immunity.
Where previous subjects required sedation, scripting, breaks in testing, Lucas only needed silence. He didn’t fail the systems—they simply never touched him to begin with.
And that... interested Everwood more than he admitted aloud.
On the screen, the camera panned slightly—just enough to reveal the edge of the climbing dome. Half in shadow.
Patch sat there.
Still. Upright. Silent.
Not near any of the playing children, not engaged with any activity. Just sitting. Watching. Positioned not directly beside Lucas—but close enough to intervene, if needed. His black button eyes didn’t blink, but they saw. Everwood could feel it.
Patch had been doing this for weeks.
Not disruptive. Not obvious. Just present.
A fixture in the frame.
A quiet interruption in the line of control.
The door behind him hissed open, breaking the tension without apology.
“You’ve delayed the protocol ,” Elias said as he stepped inside. He didn’t ask. He already knew.
Everwood didn’t turn. His hands rested loosely on the edge of the console, his eyes still locked on the screen.
Elias moved to his side and glanced once at the untouched injector.
“The schedule’s tight. Factory’s prepped the second stage. Blueprints are cleared. L-014’s profile already outperforms all five of the artificial lines. You know he’s ready.”
Everwood’s reply came slowly. “I’m aware.”
“Then why wait?”
Everwood said nothing.
Elias’s voice softened just a fraction. “There’s only one reason you haven’t moved him forward. And I’m pretty sure it isn’t a technical one.”
He paused, watching him closely.
“You’ve worked for years to design a subject like this. Resistant, clean, adaptive. But L-014 isn’t your work. He’s not something you built from scratch. He just… showed up. Like the system owed you one.”
Everwood’s gaze flicked toward him.
Elias didn’t flinch. “And that bothers you.”
Everwood's voice was even. “It doesn’t.”
“Then prove it. Initiate prep. Get him into the first staging wing by next week. The surgeries are minor to start—just structural mapping and baseline integrations. The real reshaping doesn’t happen until after the emotional veil training, and that’s weeks out.”
Everwood didn’t answer. His fingers hovered above the terminal, but didn’t type. Didn’t confirm. Didn’t schedule.
Elias exhaled slowly. “You’re getting too close.”
There was no rebuttal.
“You don’t talk about him like a subject,” Elias went on. “You talk about him like a theory you’re scared to test. Like if you cut too deep, something important might disappear.”
Everwood’s jaw tightened, but his expression stayed flat.
“You can’t preserve him,” Elias said. “That’s not what this project is.”
“I’m not preserving anything,” Everwood replied, cool. “I’m ensuring it works.”
“You’re hesitating.”
“I’m calculating.”
“Is that what you call it?”
Silence stretched between them. Then Elias turned toward the observation glass and looked down at the child seated in the Playcare corner, still untouched by the activity around him.
“I’ll say this once, and only once,” Elias said. “If this project fails, it won’t be because the subject was wrong. It’ll be because the man running it wanted to protect something he was supposed to use.”
He turned to leave, pausing at the door.
“This experiment only works because you’re the one leading it,” he said. “But don’t forget—there are others watching. And if they get even a hint that you’re compromising the objective…”
The threat didn’t need to be finished.
The door hissed closed behind him, leaving Everwood alone with the soft pulse of monitors and the image of Subject L-014.
Still seated.
Still breathing.
Still untouched.
Patch had moved.
He sat near Lucas, like a stitched shadow, perfectly still sitting next to him, his eyes locked not on Lucas—but somewhere else entirely.
Watching.
Waiting.
Everwood didn’t move.
He stood in silence, the injector untouched beside him, the feed looping.
He didn’t need to say anything.
But in the quiet of the lab, it was clear:
Whatever came next—he wouldn’t let it happen lightly.
Not with this one.



Chapter Five – Silhouettes in the Glass
Silence settled over Everwood’s office. Not empty, but weighted — the kind that settled in the walls after something sharp had been said aloud. Behind him, the live-feed monitors continued their quiet flickering, blinking between scenes of laboratories, steel corridors, and curated playrooms. But he didn’t look at them right away.
His hands were still behind his back, and when he finally moved them, he noticed the faint crescent impressions his fingernails had left in his palm. Slowly, with the discipline of someone used to masks, he exhaled and turned toward the glass wall of monitors.
His gaze locked onto camera 24-A.
There he was. Lucas.
The boy sat cross-legged on the cushioned floor of the Playcare, fiddling with a tray of mismatched puzzle pieces. And right beside him, closer than any of the other children dared approach, sat Patch — the old, stitched-up prototype that refused to follow scripts anymore. Its hand was braced loosely near the boy’s side, as if placed there by accident. But it wasn’t.
Lucas said something, quietly, to the toy. And then, just briefly — he smiled.
Not a twitch of the lips or a polite nod. A real smile.
Everwood blinked. He leaned closer to the monitor unconsciously.
He had seen the boy under bright, clinical lights. Hooked to monitors. Eyes open, eyes closed. Under light sedation. Under stress tests. But he had never smiled. Not once.
Until now.
And it hadn’t been science that brought it out of him.
It had been Patch.
A strange chill crawled under Everwood’s skin. Not fear. But something that made his jaw stiffen slightly, something that made his hand hover over the panel beneath the screen — the button that could disable the toy, freeze its code, bring everything back under control.
He didn’t press it.
Instead, he watched. Patch’s head tilted just slightly, ears forward, almost listening. It looked like it belonged beside the boy. Like it had been waiting for him.
Everwood’s brow creased. Then smoothed.
He turned away and left the room.

The Playcare was humming with sound when he entered — laughter, footsteps, the soft shuffle of toys rolling across the floor. Bright colors lined the walls. Living toys circled through the room, some giggling alongside the children, others guiding small hands toward foam blocks and painted mats.
His presence altered the rhythm immediately.
The caretakers straightened. Several children looked up in awe, their smiles widening as they recognized the man at the top — the creator. The Director.
Everwood greeted them as he always did — warm, polite, the very image of approachable authority. His coat was pressed, his voice smooth. No one would guess that the very walls they played under had been lined with steel, wires, and hidden doors.
He moved with purpose, yet ease — not quite searching. Just passing through.
His eyes never left Lucas.
The boy still sat on the padded floor, head slightly bowed as he leaned toward Patch. They looked like they belonged in a picture — soft edges and bright light. Everwood paused a few feet away, close enough to hear the low murmur of Lucas’s voice, though the words were indistinct. Patch didn’t speak, but its fabric face remained tilted toward the boy’s, unmoving in that unnervingly aware way it had developed over time.
It was watching. Listening.
And Lucas… he trusted it.
Everwood’s smile didn’t falter. But his fingers curled behind his back.
He stepped closer.
“Lucas,” he said gently, voice practiced, calm. “There you are.”
The boy turned, blinking slowly. His face shifted, expression neutral, though not afraid. Just still. Still and watching.
Everwood tilted his head slightly. “There’s a quick wellness scan the lab missed. Just routine,” he added, tone light. “You’ll be back before lunch ends.”
Lucas didn’t speak. His eyes flicked to Patch.
Everwood noticed.
Patch still hadn’t moved. But the position of its arm was wrong. Protective. Too close.
He stepped closer again, a fraction more forceful this time — the kind of movement that left no room for refusal, though it was wrapped in politeness.
“Come along now.”
The boy hesitated.
Then, slowly, looked back at the toy. Something passed between them — something unsaid.
And Patch, after a long pause, let go.
Not entirely. Not with ease. But it released its grip, and its arm dropped to its lap with slow finality.
Everwood didn’t smile. But his hand extended, open-palmed, like an invitation.
Lucas rose to his feet.
He didn’t smile again.
But the Director didn’t mind.
He remembered it. That one, real smile.
And he’d do whatever it took to see it again.