Title: Claim Day
Chapter 28: Stolen Balance
04/11/2025 — Ramona
I slammed my palm against the stainless steel counter, making the coffee mug jump and spill onto my notes. “Goddamn it!” I snapped, grabbing a handful of tissues to blot the spreading stain. “This is absolutely unacceptable behavior. I did not sanction this expedition!”
Phoebe’s eyebrows shot up at my language. In the three years we’d worked together, she’d rarely heard me curse. A small, inappropriate smile played at the corner of her mouth.
“Are you finding this amusing, Dr. Conrad?” I demanded, crumpling the soggy tissues into a ball.
“Not at all,” she said, though her expression betrayed her. “Well, maybe a little. I’ve never heard you say ‘goddamn’ before.”
Phoebe leaned back against the counter, arms crossed. “Look, I agree it was stupid and reckless. But Ramona, the results…” She gestured toward the monitors. “They found out how to unclaim women. They brought back Cedric’s daughter with a way to scan both the unclaiming and claiming processes. And they found a woman who’s immune. That’s four major breakthroughs in one unauthorized field trip.”
I took a deep breath, trying to center myself. “I acknowledge the value of these results,” I said carefully. “But them getting lucky against all odds does not diminish the fact that they disobeyed direct orders, went behind our backs, and embarked on an extremely dangerous mission with minimal planning and no backup.”
“But—”
“No,” I cut her off. “Just because they won the lottery doesn’t mean buying a ticket was smart. It was a bad decision independent of the results. That’s basic risk assessment, Phoebe. You know this.”
She sighed, conceding the point. “You’re right. But we still get to reap the benefits of their stupidity.”
I turned my attention to the monitor displaying the feed from the old MRI room upstairs. Charlotte Corbin lay inside the machine, her expression uneasy even from this distance. Dr. Kaori Dressen stood behind the controls, looking exhausted. Unsurprising, given it was 4:37 AM. Duncan hovered nearby, arms crossed.
“Please stop moving, Ms. Corbin,” Dr. Dressen’s voice came through the speakers, tension evident in her tone.
“Sorry,” Charlotte replied. “Not a fan of tight spaces.”
On the adjacent monitor, brain scan images appeared in real-time. Phoebe leaned closer, her fingers tracing a pattern on the screen. She suddenly straightened, pointing to a dark area in the temporal lobe.
“There,” she said. “That’s interesting.”
She grabbed the microphone and pressed the button. “Ms. Corbin, this is Dr. Phoebe Conrad. I’m one of the lead researchers here at Echelon. Are you aware that you’ve suffered a brain aneurysm at some point in your past?”
Charlotte’s voice came through with a hint of confusion. “Oh, hi there, Dr. Conrad. Pleasure to meet you at stupid o’clock in the morning.” Her sarcasm was evident. “And yes, I’m well aware. Had one when I was sixteen. Got lucky. My mom’s a nurse and recognized the symptoms. They got me to the hospital in time. Had some rehab, but made a full recovery. Well, mostly. My sense of smell isn’t what it used to be.”
“Thank you,” Phoebe said, releasing the microphone button. She turned to me, pointing again at the scan. “This is why she’s immune. Look at the damage pattern here. The matrix created by the virus is incomplete. It couldn’t form properly because of the pre-existing damage to these neural pathways.”
I studied the scan, seeing what she meant. The thin web-like structure we’d observed in claimed women’s brains showed clear gaps and malformations in Charlotte’s temporal lobe.
“Can we use this?” I asked, already suspecting the answer.
Phoebe’s expression fell. “I don’t think so. Charlotte just got lucky. The matrix is just the decoder. Even if we disrupt it, and we’re talking about causing brain damage, it would just prevent future programming, not cancel the current one.” She tapped the screen. “But it does mean there are probably other women out there who remained free because of similar brain damage. Stroke survivors, trauma patients, maybe even certain types of epilepsy patients.”
I turned back to the monitor showing Charlotte in the MRI. Another immune woman. Another piece of the puzzle. Despite my anger at Gabriel and Edward’s recklessness, I couldn’t deny the value of what they’d brought us.
I watched the monitors as Charlotte was escorted from the MRI room, looking tired but relieved to be finished with the scan. Dr. Dressen followed, rubbing her eyes and muttering something about coffee.
I pinched the bridge of my nose, feeling the beginnings of a migraine forming behind my eyes. The fluorescent lights of the MRI room weren’t helping. We only had a moment before Edward and Gabriel would arrive with Olivia, and my mind was racing through everything Duncan had shared with us earlier.
“So,” Phoebe said, breaking the silence as she adjusted settings on the monitor, “are we going to talk about what Edward and Duncan told us?”
I sighed, leaning against the counter. “About Tristan and Dr. Smith? Or about Gabriel’s apparent breakdown over Wendy?”
“All of it.” Phoebe’s voice was tight with disgust. “Tristan is clearly sleeping with Portia. Smith has apparently turned Lenore into his personal plaything, and who knows what he’s been doing with the others. And Gabriel…” She shook her head. “Men. They really can’t keep it in their pants even when the future of humanity depends on it.”
“It’s more complicated than that,” I said, trying to maintain some objectivity. “From what Duncan and Edward described, these claimed women aren’t passive participants. They actively pursue, seduce, manipulate.”
“That’s not an excuse,” Phoebe snapped.
“No, it’s an explanation,” I countered. “We’re asking these men to work against constant temptation. Women they’ve claimed are literally throwing themselves at them, day and night. And meanwhile, the world is collapsing around us.” I gestured toward the ceiling, toward the world beyond our protected bunker. “For all practical purposes, it’s the end of the world.”
Phoebe turned away from the monitor, her face flushed with anger. “So what? We just let it slide? Let them have their harems while we work ourselves to death trying to save humanity?” She jabbed a finger toward the door. “I give it two weeks, maybe less, before they stop caring about finding a cure at all. Why would they?”
“I agree,” I said quietly. “But perhaps we need to change our approach. Offer a compromise.”
Phoebe stared at me like I’d grown a second head. “A compromise? Are you fucking kidding me?” Her voice rose, uncharacteristically vulgar. “What kind of compromise did you have in mind, Ramona? We’ll free women but keep them sexually available? Program them to offer free blowjobs as compensation for men’s loss of property?”
I kept my expression neutral despite her outburst. “No. We will free women completely. That goal is non-negotiable. But perhaps there’s a way to make the transition less brutal, for women’s sake as much as for men’s.”
The speakers on the desk crackled. Through the observation window, we could now see Edward and Gabriel enter the MRI room, struggling with Olivia Appleton, who thrashed against their grip like a wild animal.
“Let me go! Take me back to him! I need to go back to Cameron!” Her screams echoed through the speakers, making me wince.
They managed to force her onto the MRI table, Gabriel holding her shoulders while Edward secured the straps across her limbs. She bucked against the restraints, her face contorted with desperation. I noticed Gabriel had something clutched in his hand, a folded piece of paper he kept behind his back.
“Are we good?” Edward asked, tightening the final strap.
Gabriel nodded, and Edward left the room, closing the door behind him. Dr. Dressen returned, taking her position at the controls with a fresh cup of coffee in hand.
“If she keeps screaming like that, the scan is going to be useless,” she complained, adjusting the settings. “Too much motion artifact.”
Gabriel leaned over Olivia, his voice calm but firm. “You need to be still. It will only take a few minutes, and then your brain will process the unclaiming.”
From the camera aimed at the inside of the MRI, we could see Olivia’s eyes widened in terror. “Unclaiming? No! No, please! I need to go back to Cameron! Please don’t do this!” Her voice broke into sobs, tears streaming down her face. “I’ll do anything! Please!”
Beside me, Phoebe shifted uncomfortably. “God, it’s disturbing to watch,” she whispered. “Look how desperate she is to return to her abuser.”
“It’s not her fault,” I replied, keeping my voice clinical despite the knot in my stomach.
Dr. Dressen initiated the scan, but the images coming through were blurred by Olivia’s constant movement. The girl’s screams had become incoherent pleas, punctuated by sobs.
Gabriel raised his voice to be heard over her cries. “Olivia! Cameron is dead!”
She froze for just a second before resuming her struggles. “You’re lying! Take me back to him! He needs me!”
Gabriel unfolded the paper, a printed photograph, and held it in front of her face. She turned away, refusing to look. He persisted, pushing it closer to her inside the metal cylinder of the MRI.
“Look at it, Olivia. Look at him.”
Finally, she glanced at the image, but shook her head violently. “No! It’s fake! You’re lying!”
Gabriel’s expression hardened with determination. “You heard the gunshot, Olivia. You know it’s true. We shot him. He’s dead. Why do you think you’re here? Why didn’t Cameron or his other women stop us? Did you see any of them when we left the house?”
Olivia’s movements slowed, her eyes widening as the reality began to sink in. Her body went completely still, her mouth open in a silent scream. On the monitor, the MRI images suddenly sharpened, revealing clear, detailed scans of her brain activity.
“Oh my god,” Phoebe breathed, leaning forward. “This is it. We’re recording the unclaiming process in real-time.” Her fingers flew across the keyboard, marking timestamps and regions of interest. “Look at the activity in the limbic system—and there, in the prefrontal cortex. If we can properly translate the programming signal, understand its language, we could potentially trigger this sequence through VLF transmission. We could unclaim women at will.”
I nodded, watching the patterns of neural activity with a surge of hope. “This could be the breakthrough we’ve been waiting for.”
On the table, Olivia remained frozen, her eyes fixed on some distant point. Then, a minute later, slowly, she began to move again, blinking rapidly as if waking from a dream. She looked around the MRI tube in confusion, then toward Gabriel, though she could only see part of him from her position.
“Where am I?” Her voice was small, fragile. “What happened? Oh god, I remember… everything. He made me…” She broke off, a sob catching in her throat. “Where’s my dad? I want my dad.”
I pressed the microphone button. “Gabriel, we have what we need for now. Please inform us as soon as Cedric returns. We’d like to put Olivia under the scanner again to observe her brain activity when her father claims her.”
Gabriel didn’t respond immediately. He stood staring at Olivia, his expression conflicted, almost pained. Then he looked directly at the camera.
“Keep recording,” he said.
Before I could process what was happening, Gabriel reached out and grabbed Olivia’s ankle, his fingers wrapping around the bare skin where her sock had slipped down.
“You’re mine,” he said clearly.
We both stared at the monitor displaying Olivia’s brain activity, watching in horrified fascination as the patterns shifted, neural pathways lighting up in the now-familiar sequence of the claiming process.
Olivia’s crying stopped abruptly. She blinked, looking up at Gabriel with a completely transformed expression—calm, attentive, almost serene.
“Yes, I understand,” she said, her voice steady despite the tears still wet on her cheeks. “I’m yours.”
Beside me, Phoebe gasped. “Did he just—?”
“Yes,” I whispered, too shocked to raise my voice.