The central conference hall was different from the usual Playtime Co. meetings.

For one, there were too many people.

The moment Harley Sawyer stepped inside, he noticed the presence of multiple doctors—some he recognized, others he didn’t. They sat in a half-circle around the main table, their faces carefully neutral.

At the head of the room stood Leith Pierre, his expression unreadable. Beside him, Eddie Ritterman, usually so casual, looked colder than usual.

Sawyer narrowed his eyes.

Something was wrong.

Then, before he could react, hands grabbed his arms.

Two doctors seized him, gripping him tight. Before he could jerk away, a sharp sting lanced through his neck.

An injection.

His body seized.

For a brief moment, his vision blurred, his limbs went slack. Whatever was in that syringe, it was fast-acting—paralytic, maybe. But not enough to render him unconscious. No, they still wanted him aware.

The hands forced him down into a chair as the room steadied around him. His mind still worked, still analyzed, but his body—unresponsive.

Leith smiled.

"Harley, Harley, Harley," he sighed, clasping his hands behind his back. "You are... brilliant. One of the brightest minds in this company."

Sawyer’s breathing was slow, measured. His muscles refused to move, but he was still listening.

"Spare me the flattery, Leith," he rasped, his voice slightly slurred. "I assume there’s a point to this?"

Leith’s smile didn’t falter.

“There is.”

He paced in front of the table, his tone almost casual.

"You've contributed immensely to our projects. Your Bigger Bodies Initiative has pushed Playtime Co. further than we could’ve imagined. And yet..."

His voice trailed off, his expression darkening slightly.

"You are ambitious."

A flicker of amusement passed through Sawyer’s fogged mind.

"I consider that a compliment," he murmured.

"That’s the problem," a new voice chimed in.

Sawyer shifted his gaze—slowly, sluggishly—toward Stella Greyber.

She was seated at the far end of the table, arms crossed, her expression sharp.

"Your arrogance is getting on my nerves," she said flatly. "You act like you're above everyone else, like you’re the only one who matters in these projects."

Sawyer’s lips curled.

"You say that like it’s not true."

Stella’s jaw tightened.

Another doctor leaned forward, his tone quieter but no less dangerous.

"Let’s cut to the chase. Harley, you’re unpredictable. And unpredictability, in a company like this, is dangerous."

A murmur of agreement passed through the room.

Sawyer forced his body to respond, to shake off the lingering paralysis.

"You’re worried I’ll oppose you?" he rasped.

Leith’s smile returned—but there was no humor in it.

"I’m worried about what you might become."

A beat of silence.

Then someone—Sawyer wasn’t sure who—spoke up from the far end of the room.

"We should kill him."

The statement hung in the air like a blade.

The hands gripping Sawyer’s arms tightened.

For the first time since stepping into this room, his smirk faded.

Eddie M.N. Ritterman, who had remained quiet until now, finally sighed.

"As much as I loathe him, I have to admit—his brain is too useful."

Another voice. "Then what do we do?"

Leith exhaled slowly, tapping his fingers against the table.

“We keep a closer eye on him,” he said, but his tone was almost too careful—like there was more he wasn’t saying.

A murmur spread through the room.

Stella’s expression darkened. “You’re saying we use him?”

Leith glanced at her. “We already do.”

“But his arrogance—his independence—he won’t listen forever,” one of the doctors warned.

“That’s why,” Leith said, his voice dropping lower, “we must make sure he stays useful.”

Sawyer’s vision wavered.

The drug was working deeper now, his body losing more feeling.

He tried to shake it off, tried to keep listening.

“We’ve discussed this before,” someone else muttered.

Eddie’s voice. “His mind is a resource.”

Leith nodded. “And if his body can’t be controlled…”

Sawyer’s eyelids grew heavy.

The voices in the room blurred.

His own mind, so sharp, so calculating, was now being pulled into an abyss.

The last thing he heard was a phrase—distant, muffled, but chillingly clear.

"Then we put his brain to good use."

Darkness swallowed him.

---

Harley opened his eyes.

Pain. Blinding. Crippling. A searing ache burrowed deep into his skull.

His vision was wrong.

When he blinked, the world glitched. Static bursts crackled across his sight, like a malfunctioning screen. Shapes flickered, breaking apart, reforming in jagged distortions.

His head swam with fragmented memories.

Dissection. Cold steel. The sensation of something being taken from him.

A scalpel gleaming under harsh fluorescent light. A voice—Leith Pierre’s voice.

“You’re brilliant, Harley. But you’re also a liability.”

Cut. Remove. Reassemble.

The memories struck like an electric shock. He gasped, hands gripping his head—except he had no hands.

Not anymore.

Panic surged, but it was cut short by a low, mechanical hum.

He tried to move. Nothing.

He tried to breathe. Nothing.

Then he realized.

He wasn’t in his body anymore.

Because his body was gone.

What remained of him—his lungs, his liver, his brain—were stored inside cold, metallic machines. His very essence was scattered across the prison. Vital System Centers kept him alive, controlling him like a puppet.

They did this to me.

His vision flickered again, snapping to something else.

A television screen.

For a split second, he saw himself.

An eye, surrounded by static, staring back at him.

Harley—or whatever he had become—felt something dark coil inside him.

Then the screen flickered, and he moved.

Not his old body—no. But something else.

A mechanical vessel.

The cold hum of artificial limbs. Cables. Pistons. Screeching metal.

The screen on its face burst to life, revealing the same eye. White at first. Then red. Chaotic. Furious.

A rage unlike anything he had ever known consumed him.

Backstabbing traitors!

He was Experiment 1354 now.

The Doctor.

When he gets his hands on them he was going to make them pay.

--- Leith Pierre watched the flickering monitors, completely unbothered by the distortion in Harley’s voice. If anything, there was a glint of satisfaction in his eyes.

Harley’s laughter crackled through the speakers—warped, bitter.

“You have no idea what you’ve done, Pierre.”

The machines in the room hissed as the eye on the screens darkened, then flickered red. A faint rumbling spread through the lab as Harley’s presence surged through the Vital System Centers.

Pierre merely smiled.

“Oh, but I do.”

He turned slightly, hands still neatly clasped behind his back. “You always said you were the smartest man in the room, Harley. The irreplaceable mind of Playtime Co.” He gestured vaguely at the humming machinery around them. “And now… you finally are.”

Harley’s vision glitched—the red eye pulsed.

Pierre continued, voice smooth. “You should be proud. Your intelligence, your knowledge—it’s no longer limited by something as fragile as a human body.” He tilted his head slightly, observing the screen where Harley’s static-filled eye remained fixed on him.

“You will assist us with the Bigger Bodies Initiative. At all costs.”

The red flickering intensified as the vessels around the room trembled, mechanical limbs twitching to life. For a brief moment, the room felt heavier, as if reality itself was rejecting what had been done.

Then, Pierre leaned in slightly, his expression cold but triumphant.

“There’s no need to fight it, Doctor.”

The machines whined in protest, but Harley could feel the truth sinking in.

He was trapped.

Not dead. Not alive.

Just a mind—his mind—reduced to a tool. A system. A function.

Pierre’s proud gaze lingered for a moment longer before he turned on his heel and walked away, leaving Harley to seethe in silence.