The Ringbahn hummed through its circuit, wheels clicking against tracks in a hypnotic, hollow rhythm.
I’d been riding for hours. Looping the city and letting the network carry me through districts that blurred past the windows like scenes from a movie I wasn’t watching.
My AirPods sat snug in my ears, but I didn’t play anything. The train provided its own soundtrack. The conversations in multiple languages, the rustle of newspapers, the soft hiss of pneumatic doors.
Frame by frame.
The analyst in me wouldn’t stop. It wasn’t enough to be hurt; I had to process the data.
I replayed Sarah’s silhouette against the warm light. The way her body had curved into Martin’s touch. The ease of their movements was like a dance they’d performed countless times.
How long?
The question circled endlessly.
I wasn’t asking about dates. I was asking about the data points I had missed.
How many conversations with Martin about my failing marriage had been exercises in elaborate sympathy? How many times had he poured me a drink, clapped me on the shoulder, and told me “it would work out,” while already planning to replace me?
The train slowed into Hackescher Markt.
A couple boarded, young and laughing, hands intertwined. The woman leaned into her partner’s shoulder, completely unselfconscious.
I studied their faces, trying to remember what that certainty felt like from the inside. The trust that the person beside you would still be there tomorrow.
Normal.
When had I last felt normal? Before the redundancy? Before the transformation? Or further back, in those early years with Sarah, when we’d been naive enough to believe love was sufficient armor?
Alan, you’re floating, Lana observed quietly.
She was right. Everything felt detached, viewed through thick glass. The static in my chest had spread outward, numbing my fingertips. Not grief. Not anger. Just a hollow pause where the emotion should be.
I looked down at my hands resting on my knees.
The knuckles were delicate, feminine. These weren’t hands that had typed endless reports. These were Lana’s hands.
And they were dangerous.
The fight with Yusuf replayed in fragments.
Grab wrist. Shoulder drive. Kick behind the knee.
It hadn’t been a struggle.
Krav Maga.
The realization drifted past like debris in water. Lana possessed combat training embedded in muscle memory I’d never earned. I remembered how smoothly those hands had moved last night, picking the lock across the street from Martin’s building. No fumbling. No hesitation.
What else don’t I know about this body?
The train pulled into Warschauer Straße. Passengers shuffled off, movements automatic and purposeful. Everyone heading somewhere that made sense.
I stayed in my seat, watching the city blur past, trapped in a body built for violence and a mind trapped in the past.
~oO🐺Oo~
Sonnenallee flashed past the S-Bahn windows. Hermannstraße next.
My phone buzzed against my thigh. The familiar +49 30 91 number. I didn’t need to check the message. Three words, always the same.
—I’ll be there.
I ignored it. It was another mystery that I didn’t have the capacity to untangle right now. My mind was already overloaded with questions that had no comfortable answers: Project SYREN, Karl’s smooth CIA charm, Sarah’s contentment in Martin’s arms.
The train curved past Treptower Park, industrial buildings giving way to the familiar chaos of my adopted district.
Seline’s lab pulled at me with magnetic force. Those sterile corridors underneath the unassuming bakery, where every surface gleamed white. She understood the technology embedded in this body better than anyone.
But part of me dreaded what she might tell me.
The train’s brakes squealed as we pulled into Neukölln station. Passengers shuffled off, heading home to lives that made sense.
What else don’t I know about this body?
The question circled endlessly. Combat training I’d never learned. Reflexes that responded faster than thought. A younger woman’s instincts operating inside my consciousness like a carefully programmed subroutine.
My phone buzzed again. Same number. Same message.
This time, I turned it off completely.
The city blurred past as I walked deeper into Neukölln, toward answers I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear.
~oO🐺Oo~
The elevator descended with automated precision, carrying me deeper into the labyrinth beneath the factory. When the doors whispered open, Seline stood waiting in the pristine corridor, her posture composed as always.
“Lana,” she greeted, though her eyes tracked my movement with calculating intensity. “You look troubled.”
I stepped forward, questions burning on my tongue: Karl Muir, the combat skills I’d never learned… but before I could speak, she raised a finger to her lips.
“Leise,” she murmured. “We have visitors.”
My stomach dropped. The paranoia that had been building for days crystallized into cold uncertainty.
Seline led me through a maze of sealed laboratories, shadows shifting behind frosted glass. The facility felt larger than I’d imagined, stretching into depths that suggested years of construction, layers of secrecy built one floor at a time.
We stopped at a door marked Observation Suite 4. Seline’s keycard clicked, and we entered a room dominated by banks of monitors and computer equipment. Lab technicians clustered around workstations, their voices low and urgent. And standing near the central console, hands clasped behind his back as he studied the screens…
Karl Muir.
The CIA operative turned as we entered, his practiced smile not quite reaching his eyes. “Lana. Perfect timing— you’ll want to see this.”
But I barely registered his words. My attention was fixed on what lay beyond the thick observation glass.
Two operating tables… or rather, reclined chairs positioned on opposite sides of a sterile chamber. Strapped into them were two men, naked, their muscled bodies secured with restraints I recognized from my own recent experience. Electrodes snaked across their skin like metallic ivy. Oxygen masks covered the lower halves of their faces, nose to chin, leaving only their eyes visible.
Their eyes were open.
Alert. Aware. Alive.
Technical equipment surrounded each chair. The usual monitors displaying vital signs, IV drips feeding clear fluid into their veins, and sensors that pulsed with soft light. Possibly the same technology that had been used on me, but scaled up, intensified.
“What is this?” The words came out as barely a whisper.
Karl stepped forward, a proud smile spreading across his face. “REBIRTH,” he announced, each syllable heavy with self-importance. “Uncle Sam’s implementation of SYREN. A natural evolution, bigger, cleaner, controlled.”
My stomach churned as I watched the two men breathing steadily behind their masks, their eyes tracking movement in the chamber with unsettling awareness.
“So they’re getting transformed like me?” The words came out sharper than I intended.
Seline’s expression remained carefully neutral. “No, Lana. Muir has assembled a team of American soldiers who have volunteered for this program. These two are here as part of the routine testing for the program.”
I stared at the restraints, the electrodes, the naked vulnerability of the two soldiers.
Routine testing?
“Strapped down naked for routine testing?”
Karl’s chest swelled with obvious pride. “The finest Marines we’ve got in Europe,” he declared. “Men trained to adapt, improvise. To push past limits the rest of the world only talks about.”
~oO🐺Oo~
Through the observation glass, a lab technician entered the chamber. Her movements were efficient and clinical as she approached the first table. She checked monitors, tested connections, and tugged the restraints with practiced precision. The Marine’s eyes tracked her, alert and aware behind his oxygen mask.
She moved to the second table, repeating the same methodical checks. More screens flickered to life in our observation suite, multiple camera angles displaying each soldier from different perspectives. Identical charts materialized, twin readouts populating with data faster than my analytical mind could process.
The first screen suddenly displayed new information.
Subject ID: 0347-AE
Physiological Metrics:
– Heart Rate: 138 bpm (↑ elevated)
– Blood Pressure: 162/98 mmHg
– Skin Conductance: 0.91 µS (↑ high sympathetic response)
– Cortisol Level: 22.7 µg/dL
– Serum Testosterone: 890 ng/dL (↑ stimulated)
– Ejaculatory Volume Index: 1.24 ml/min (↑ peak production)
– Pelvic Myoneural Activation: 87% (sustained)
Neuroelectric Activity:
– Limbic Excitation: 0.78 (↑ high)
– Prefrontal Inhibition: 0.12 (↓ suppressed)
– Motor Cortex Synchrony: unstable
– Amygdalar Loop Feedback: active
Status: Subject approaching neuro-somatic threshold.
A few moments later, the second screen updated with similar data for the other soldier. The same categories, only the numbers were even higher.
Ejaculatory Volume Index? Christ—
My stomach lurched. The clinical language couldn’t disguise what I was witnessing. These weren’t routine medical tests. The readouts, the restraints, the naked vulnerability…
They were building something, not studying it.
Seline turned to Karl, her voice carrying that same measured authority I’d learned to fear.
“Shall we begin, ja?“
Karl’s pride swelled with obvious satisfaction. His practiced smile widened as he surveyed the monitors displaying the Marines’ elevated arousal levels.
“Fire away, Doctor.”
Seline’s fingers moved across her tablet with surgical precision. Both soldiers tensed simultaneously, their bodies responding to whatever signal she’d just transmitted.
Lana let out a small gasp.
As if choreographed by invisible strings, both men’s cocks stood erect, their arousal instantaneous and mechanical. A physiological surge so complete it felt inhuman. The clinical nature of it sent ice through my veins.
The technician moved swiftly to the first soldier. From underneath, she retrieved a squeeze bottle, applying clear liquid along the shaft of his cock with practiced efficiency. A mechanical arm descended from nearby equipment, positioning a transparent induction sleeve directly above him before lowering it into place with a soft pneumatic hiss.
She repeated the process on the second soldier, her movements identical, methodical. Once finished, she exited, leaving the Marines alone with their restraints and whatever hell was about to begin.
A computerized voice filled both rooms, sterile and emotionless.
“Subjects: Follow instructions displayed on screens positioned directly in front of you. Do not initiate the ejaculatory response until an explicit prompt is received. Maintain continuous ocular engagement with stimulus feed. Test sequence commencing.”
Screens descended from the ceiling, positioning themselves at precise angles. The display content remained hidden from our observation suite, but the soldiers’ eyes tracked the movement with helpless attention.
My stomach dropped as understanding crashed over me. This wasn’t research.
This was harvesting.
~oO🐺Oo~
The induction sleeves weren’t empty.
Inside each transparent chamber, gel-filled coils twisted and pulsed with relentless precision. They wrapped around each soldier’s cock like living things, their surfaces slick and undulating.
The program began slowly. The coils moved with deliberate rhythm, massaging and stroking with calculated pressure. Sensors attached to the Marines’ bodies fed data back to the system, which adjusted the stimulation accordingly: faster when arousal dipped, slower when they approached climax.
It was methodical. Scientific. Torture disguised as research.
The soldiers’ breathing grew labored behind their masks. Their bodies strained against the restraints as the coils brought them to the edge, then slowed to a maddening crawl, denying release.
Deep in my stomach, something stirred. Not revulsion. But something else entirely.
Want.
Lana’s reaction hit like a physical blow. Heat pooled between my legs as she watched the scene unfold with fascination rather than horror. The soldiers’ helpless arousal, their inability to control their own responses. It sent electricity through her body.
No Lana… I whispered internally, but she was already leaning forward, captivated by their vulnerability.
The coils resumed their relentless rhythm.
The program’s algorithm learned their bodies with each cycle. When the first Marine’s heart rate spiked, the coils slowed to a whisper. When the second man’s breathing shallowed, the pressure eased just enough to keep him suspended in desperate need.
Fifteen minutes. Twenty. The soldiers writhed against their bonds, sweat beading on exposed skin despite the room’s chill.
Lana’s pulse hammered against my throat. Her body responded to their torment with a heat that made my legs unsteady. I gripped the observation window’s edge, knuckles white.
Control yourself.
But she was slipping away from me, drawn by the methodical cruelty playing out below. The way the machines denied them release, the helpless sounds muffled by their masks. Each frustrated groan sent another wave of arousal through her.
The data streams updated constantly.
Neural pathways firing. Stress hormones are spiking. The soldiers’ bodies mapped in real-time, their every reaction catalogued and optimized.
“Muir. Fascinating, isn’t it, ja?” Seline’s voice cut through my haze. “The intersection of pleasure and control.”
I didn’t hear his answer. Lana’s breathing had synchronized with the Marines’. Shallow and desperate. My hands trembled as I watched the coils resume their torturous rhythm.
The algorithm was learning. Adapting and perfecting its ability to keep them balanced on the knife’s edge of madness.
The program escalated. The coils quickened their pace, sensors detecting each micro-reaction and amplifying it. The soldiers’ bodies arched against the restraints, desperate gasps echoing through the speakers.
Lana pressed closer to the glass, her breath fogging the surface. Heat radiated from her skin as she watched the machines torment them with increasing frequency. Each denied climax sent shockwaves through her own body.
Stop watching, I commanded, but my voice felt distant, muffled.
The cycles grew shorter, more brutal. Thirty seconds of intense stimulation, then nothing. Twenty seconds. Ten. The soldiers writhed, their bodies betraying them completely.
“Final sequence initiated,” the AI voice announced with clinical detachment.
The coils resumed their relentless rhythm. This time, they didn’t stop.
“Ejaculation permitted in five.”
Lana’s knees buckled. I caught myself against the window, fingernails scraping glass.
“Four.”
Her body clenched in sympathetic anticipation.
“Three.”
The soldiers strained against their bonds, desperate for release.
“Two.”
Lana moaned softly. I bit down hard on my lip.
“One.”
Both Marines convulsed simultaneously. The induction sleeves filled rapidly, far more than seemed possible, thick streams coating the transparent walls in obscene abundance.
Lana shuddered, the sound caught halfway between breath and voice. Then, as the room below fell silent, she straightened: shoulders drawn back, heartbeat still erratic but slowing. The heat that had flushed her face drained as quickly as it came, leaving only the faint tremor of aftershock.
I felt it all. The soft echo of her pulse, the ragged edge of arousal curdling into shame. My own thoughts stumbled, failing to find order in the sterile light of the observation suite. The screens kept scrolling data long after the movement stopped.
Every sound in the lab seemed amplified. It was all too measured, too calm.
What did we just watch?
~oO🐺Oo~
The bar was dimly lit, wood-paneled, and thick with smoke. It felt deliberately chosen for conversations that needed shadows. Not quite a dive, but honest about what it was. The amber light made everything look vintage, conspiratorial.
Lana slipped onto the stool beside Karl, who’d already flagged the bartender with practiced efficiency.
“Scotch,” she said, matching his order. “Neat. Eighteen or older.”
Karl’s eyebrows lifted slightly. A chuckle escaped him, low and genuine.
“I thought spies drank martinis,” Lana said, curiosity cutting through.
“Movies, but I’m actually a two-olive man when I indulge in one,” Karl responded, swirling his glass. “Real ops run on caffeine, whiskey, and plausible deniability.”
“Agency rules?”
“No… Mine.”
But I wasn’t ready for small talk. The sterile chill of that observation room still clung to my skin, the memory of those soldiers too fresh.
“What was that?” The words came out sharper than intended. “What were you doing to those men?”
Karl’s expression didn’t change, but something shifted behind his eyes. The practiced deflection of someone who’d spent decades answering questions without really answering them.
“You saw the data.” His tone carried the nonchalance of discussing the weather. “Biometric conditioning. Nothing new.”
Conditioning.
Not training. Not testing. The precision of his word choice sent a chill through me. Karl never said anything by accident.
“Conditioning for what?”
The question slipped out sharper than I’d intended, carrying Lana’s impatience more than my own measured analysis.
Karl’s smile was faint, practiced. “Depends who’s paying the grant this week.”
Grant.
Not budget. Not funding. Grant… the kind of word that lived in academic papers and research proposals, scrubbed clean of operational reality. I caught the euphemism immediately, the careful distance it created between intention and accountability.
The conversation settled into a rhythm I couldn’t quite map. Karl revealed just enough to seem candid, never enough to clarify anything meaningful. Each answer spawned three new questions, like a hydra wearing a charming smile and expensive suit.
“The Marines volunteered,” he added, swirling his scotch. “Full disclosure. Full consent.”
Volunteered— the same way a test subject signs a waiver, he doesn’t quite understand?
But Lana’s frustration was bleeding through, her youth and moral instincts bristling against his calm deflection. She wanted answers. Demanded them. The kind of directness that would get us both killed in this world.
I found myself watching Karl’s hands instead. Thirty years of field work had carved habits into his system that no amount of charm could disguise.
His wedding ring caught the dim light. Thick gold band, worn smooth. Real marriage or operational cover?
With Karl, probably both.
Lana changed tack, her voice cutting through the haze of my analysis. “So what’s it really like? Working for central intelligence.”
Karl chuckled, the sound low and genuine. “First rule, kid, never call it work. We’re not accountants.”
No… Accountants have oversight.
His grin widened. The banter seemed to please him, like he was teaching as much as deflecting. Every word measured, every pause calculated.
He leaned in, lowering his tone to match the bar’s conspiratorial atmosphere.
“Field work’s not about fancy gadgets or tuxedos. It’s mostly boredom and watching. Most of the jobs are making people talk while believing they’re the ones asking questions.” He swirled his scotch, catching the light. “All you really need is a pocket knife, a stick of gum, and a smile. Try to keep a packet of cigarettes and a lighter too. It’s a great ice breaker.”
Lana’s eyes widened, fascinated and disappointed in equal measure. She’d expected something more dramatic, more worthy of her newfound reflexes and combat skills.
I caught her reaction before she could voice it. Reading between lines had always been my specialty, but she felt them. The disappointment rolled through her like a physical thing, mixing with curiosity that bordered on hunger.
Karl noticed too. Nothing escaped those practiced eyes.
“Reality’s messier than the movies,” he said.
Messy was one word for it.
~oO🐺Oo~
Karl gestured for another round of drinks.
“You want to survive in this world, you learn to disappear. Blend in. Make people remember the wrong details.”
Lana tilted her head, fascination bleeding through her curiosity. “Like what?”
His smile was practiced, paternal. “Smile like you’ve got a secret, not a story. Offer a cigarette even if you don’t smoke. People trust ritual.”
I found myself cataloging his mannerisms as he spoke. The way his left hand unconsciously shielded his drink. How he positioned himself with clear sightlines to both entrances. Even in casual conversation, he remained perpetually staged.
“You need to observe,” Karl continued, settling back against the bar. “Every building, every room, every situation. You need to take a snapshot. I’m sitting here talking to you, but I’m also checking the room… memorizing it and observing people. What they’re wearing. And then I ask the question…what’s wrong with this picture? You have to see it, assess it, and then dismiss most of it without looking, without thinking.”
Lana’s eyebrows shot up. “Without thinking?”
“It’s just like reading. You kids still read… don’t you?”
The question hit me strangely. Kids. As if Lana’s nineteen-year-old face erased four decades of analysis, of professional skepticism.
But I was already doing what he described. Within minutes, the layout of the room had mapped itself, every detail quietly slotting into place. The mahogany bench worn smooth by decades of rubbing elbows, the brass fixtures dulled to old gold, the bartender working the length of the counter with a subtle limp. My attention settled on two men in the corner speaking hushed tones of Russian, tailored suits that didn’t match the cheap watches on their wrists. And then the woman by the window… her posture too still, wedding ring missing.
Karl’s lesson felt less like instruction than confirmation. My mind had been taking these snapshots for weeks now, filing details without conscious effort. But where had that training come from? The old Alan had been observant, analytical. This felt different. More precise. More instinctive.
Lana noticed it too. Her attention drifted toward the Russians, cataloging exit routes and blind spots with mechanical efficiency. Skills neither of us remembered learning.
The light caught the condensation on my beer glass, creating tiny prisms that fractured and reformed as I lifted it. Even that simple motion felt measured, deliberate. Like everything about this new body had been calibrated for observation.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Karl’s question echoed in my mind as I watched him demonstrate his own advice, his eyes constantly moving while his voice remained conversational. Thirty years of field work had carved surveillance into his nervous system.
But what had carved it into mine?
Karl finished his scotch in one smooth motion and set the glass down, the gesture neat, deliberate. A few crisp euro notes followed, looking too new, too orderly for the bar’s stained wood and cigarette burns.
“You’ve got potential… both of you.” He stood, adjusting his coat with practiced efficiency. “Just remember… curiosity’s useful, right up until it isn’t.”
The words carried weight beyond their simplicity. Warning wrapped in encouragement, threat disguised as advice. Thirty years of fieldwork distilled into a single sentence.
He moved toward the door with that same measured stride, dissolving into the crowd of late-night drinkers and shadows. Within seconds, he’d become invisible. Another middle-aged American tourist nursing jet lag in a Berlin bar.
The door swung shut behind him with a soft click, the sound swallowed almost instantly by the bar’s hum. A gust of cold air lingered in his wake, smelling faintly of rain and cigarette smoke.
Lana watched him disappear, her fascination warring with something sharper. Admiration tangled with suspicion, sharp as a wire pulled tight. Like watching a master craftsman demonstrate how easily he could cut you.
He gave us nothing.
I replayed every word, parsing it for meaning. Thirty minutes of conversation that felt simultaneously casual and choreographed. Each anecdote about cigarettes and pocketknives had been precisely calibrated. This was not information; it was instruction.
The amber light seemed dimmer now, the bar’s warmth suddenly artificial. Even the smoke-hazed air felt staged, like set dressing for a performance I hadn’t realized I was giving.
He wasn’t recruiting.
The realization settled cold against my spine.
He wasn’t asking if we wanted the job. He was checking the calibration. He was measuring us.
