Number Karall: Serial

Every morning at 0600, the grate hissed. "Karall. Serial Number K-4R-11L. Report for conditioning."

"K-4R-11L," she said quietly. "Do you know what that number means?" Serial Number Karall

Not toward the mission.

The gray-haired woman held out her hand. "I was your mother's lawyer. Before. I've been trying to get to you for sixteen years. There's a failsafe in your spinal column. I can disable it. But you have to choose. Not as a weapon. As Karall." Every morning at 0600, the grate hissed

It wasn't rage. It wasn't fear.

For seventeen years, he had woken to the hum of fluorescent lights and the taste of recycled air. His world was a twelve-by-twelve cell with a cot, a sink, and a slot where gray trays of nutrient paste appeared. He had no memory of before. His handlers—faceless voices through a metal grate—told him he was a weapon. Not a soldier. A weapon. And weapons don't ask why. Report for conditioning