Angela found Moira in the deserted observation deck overlooking Watchpoint Gibraltar’s launch bay. Below, the hangar doors yawned open to moon-lit surf, but Moira stared only at her reflection in the viewport glass—gauntlet aglow, eyes fierce.
“They rejected your proposal,” Angela said softly, stepping into the hush. She could still taste the boardroom’s tension: directors railing about “unethical escalation,” the word monster whispered more than once.
Moira didn’t turn. “Of course they did. They always knew exactly what I was building—right up until the moment they saw what it could do.”
Angela moved beside her, watching breakers claw at the cliffs. “You could still modify the protocol. Show them there’s a humane application.”
A humorless laugh slipped from Moira’s throat. “Humane? They funded every stage because it suited their war games.” At last she faced Angela, violet biotic light flickering across sharp features. “They built this monster piece by piece, and now they tremble before it, asking for mercy they never gave.”
The words rang like steel on stone. Angela’s heart clenched at the bitterness beneath them. “You’re not a monster, Moira.”
“Aren’t I?” Moira flexed her gauntlet; energy crackled between her fingers. “They want the miracles without the shadows that make them possible.”
Angela reached out, closing her hand around Moira’s unarmored wrist—warm, human. “You’re more than the sum of their demands. Come back to the med-lab with me. Let’s rework the trials together—prove that you ethically can guide the science, not with ambition but with the desire for human progress.”
For a moment Moira’s expression warred between pride and longing. The sea wind hissed through a cracked ventilator, carrying salt and the faint promise of dawn.
“You’d stand with me,” she murmured, “even after tonight?”
“Especially after tonight,” Angela replied. “Someone has to remind you that your brilliance isn’t the only power you possess.”
Silence stretched, then Moira lowered her gauntlet, the glow dimming to embers. “Very well, Doctor Ziegler. Show me this path you believe in.”
Side by side they left the observation deck, shadows trailing behind them. Far below, the restless ocean kept its own counsel, but in the quiet thrum of the corridor Angela felt something shift—proof that monsters, too, could choose what they became next.
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