Dahmer's hand remained raised, his fingers hovering in the air as the silence of the kitchen pressed down on everyone present. The visor reflecting nothing but the harsh, sterile overhead lights of the kitchen. Beneath that impenetrable shield, his true identity remained entirely locked away. He could not afford a single slip; to Marcus, and especially to Malcolm, he was the untouchable, clinical Architect of GEM—not Luca Vane, the fragile, soft-spoken AI Ethics intern who quietly occupied a low-tier desk within the high-stakes corridors of the Deviloy Tech Company. If that mask slipped, the entire fragile foundation of his grand design would splinter into dust.
"I told you to drop it, Kaelan," Dahmer repeated, his voice vibrating through the mechanical filter of the mask, giving it a cold, metallic, and thoroughly warning edge. "The details of my medical stabilization are proprietary and entirely irrelevant to the King's current recovery metrics."
