BLOODCAPE

The lights in Aya’s quarters were set to low-interference red — standard Mercury recovery palette — but tonight she dimmed them further, until red gave way to iron-dark. The room took on the shape of breath: still, heavy, unseen. Not silence, exactly, but pressure. Weight. The kind that settled into the joints and behind the eyes.

She didn’t sit.

The image floating above her desk didn’t invite comfort.

It was a frozen capture — low-resolution, scarred by static degradation, barely salvageable. But it held more than any pristine frame ever had. Her. Or something shaped like her. A child’s silhouette, back slightly hunched, left foot tilted inward. Posture was posture. No AI in the city could fake that level of match.

She whispered, "Enhance frame detail, layer composite 3C."

The AI responded. Its tone was clinical, unfeeling.

Match Confidence: 94.2%Subject: AYA MERCURYEstimated Age: 7 years, 4 monthsMargin of Error: ± 0.5cm bone growth regression

She didn’t blink. Couldn’t.

The slouch in the shoulders wasn’t just familiar — it was intimate. Like looking at a bruise she hadn’t realized was still healing. She’d carried that stance through every deployment. Every training sim. That slight tilt. The nervous hitch that Mercury’s instructors tried to beat out of her spine.

But it was never trained in.

It was always there.