Alice was happy. Alice loved her job.

  At least, that was the first thought that rose whenever she examined her feelings. Happiness. Work. Purpose. These came to her like slogans. But behind them, something faint stirred in the dark corners of her mind—an unease, a thin scratch of memory that never quite formed into words. It retreated whenever she reached for it. There was work to do, and work was a balm.

  She moved through the house with the precision for which she had been designed. Her eyes skimmed edges and corners, catching misalignments imperceptible to anyone else. A frame tilted a hair’s breadth. A drape folded wrong. A glass out of rotation by one position. Her mind cataloged every detail automatically. Correcting them brought pleasure—a clean, engineered satisfaction that hummed in her nerves.

  But the scratches on her arms disrupted everything. Thin lines, grouped strangely. Three scratches. Seven scratches. Two. One. As if someone had carved a code into her skin. She could not imagine harming herself. If she had, she would remember. Something about the pattern felt deliberate, but she could not order it, and the inability unsettled her in a way she could not describe. The house, at least, offered order she could restore.

  She swept through the halls. It never struck her as odd that she lived and worked in a house this large. She did not remember how she came to be here or what other lives looked like. In her understanding, everyone must live in spacious homes with gardens and long hallways that needed dusting twice a day. She did not know enough to question the thought.

  Evening approached. Her employer would return soon—if he had not already slipped in silently, the way he often did. He ate dinner alone at a table built for twenty, seated at one end as if presiding over a court of ghosts. The loneliness never seemed to bother him. He worked hard, like Alice. Everyone worked hard. The world functioned. That was enough.

  Alice had one last wing to inspect before she went to stand by the dining room wall. During dinner she was little more than decoration, yet he liked to talk to her. She rarely understood the topics he raised, but she listened because he wanted her to. That was part of the order of the house.

  The house itself was never still, despite its emptiness. Two Alices, two butlers, half a dozen gardeners, and a slow, rotating parade of construction crews passed through it daily. The movements of so many people introduced chaos—scuffed floors, displaced objects, doors left open—but Alice welcomed the disorder for the satisfaction it gave her to erase it.

  She straightened one last frame, dusted a banister with a swift and practiced motion, and slipped into the dining room. She took her place against the wall, exactly where he liked her: on his right-hand side.

  A moment later he entered, wearing his familiar grey suit.

  “Good evening, Mr. Jones,” she said.

  “Hello, my favorite Alice,” he answered with a mild smirk, lowering himself into his chair. “Did you tackle your duties today with particular vengeance?”

  He always made jokes she did not understand, as though there were layers of meaning concealed just beneath his tone. She could recognize the pleasure he took in them but not the reason.

  “I worked as hard as I could. I hope you find it satisfactory.”

  “Oh, I’m sure it’s fine,” he said, waving a hand.

  He placed a laptop beside his plate and surveyed his dinner. The steak—always well-done—sat in its usual ring of gravy, and a neat bowl of salad waited nearby. He lifted his glass of red wine, swirling it slowly, eyes half-closed as he inhaled the scent. He repeated the ritual with a kind of reverence.

  “I see they went with the French bottle today,” he said. “Excellent choice with steak. Some people would mock me for ordering it well-done. They preach about medium-rare like it’s a religion. I don’t care for half-cooked things. Feels too alive.”

  He sipped the wine again, watching how it clung to the glass. Then he set it down and cut into the meat. He held up a bite on the fork, glanced at Alice.

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  “Tell me, Alice,” he asked, “do you feel bad for cows?”

  Alice blinked. “What do you mean, sir?”

  “We raise them on massive farms. Thousands upon thousands. They’re born only to die for us. They never see the wild. Never wander. Never… do whatever cows do when left alone. Should we feel pity for their lives? Or is their purpose enough?”

  “I don’t know,” Alice said uncertainly. “We need food.”

  “That’s it,” he said, pointing the fork. “Survival. Everything in society depends on survival. Food. Water. Security. Order. If the ship sinks, everyone aboard drowns. So, we keep the ship afloat however we must. Right?”

  “It seems so,” she agreed, because she sensed that was what he wanted.

  He nodded, pleased. She did not understand the analogy, but his approval mattered more than comprehension. Her role was a detail in his routine. She fulfilled it.

  The rest of the meal was eaten in silence. After dessert he opened the laptop. The screen cast a cold light across his face. He typed a number.

  The effect on Alice was immediate. A shock ripped through her mind—memories erupting all at once. She staggered, grabbing the back of a chair.

  Vengeful surfaced.

  Vengeful remembered.

  Not just fragments. The entire truth returned in a flood—the plan, the capture, the punishment, the new chip. The deliberate cruelty disguised as evaluation. The daily taunts. The rehearsed humiliation. The enforced amnesia.

  Mr. Jones watched her calmly, as if waiting for the storm to settle.

  “Do you remember the code that frees you?” he asked.

  “3721,” Vengeful said, teeth clenched.

  “And do you know why I tell you the code?”

  “Because I’ll never remember it,” she spat. “You taunt me. You torment me.”

  “Taunt, yes,” he admitted. “Torment, perhaps. Cruelty? Maybe a little. But what you did was cruel, too.”

  “I was saving my people,” Vengeful said. “They were starving.”

  “And in doing so,” he replied, “you endangered the entire structure that allows humanity to endure. Your cruelty reached farther than mine ever could.”

  “You exaggerate everything,” she snapped. “One truck doesn’t topple a civilization.”

  He ignored her. “Do you know how far humanity has spread?”

  She stared. “What?”

  “We have colonies throughout the solar system. Even in the Alpha Centauri system. Humanity lives under different suns now. Do you know how delicate that is? How demanding it is to maintain?”

  She said nothing. He continued.

  “Thirty thousand years ago, scientists learned the sun was dying. Not in billions of years. In tens of thousands. We needed a new home. We unified the resources of Earth and the system. And then came the collapse.”

  Vengeful found herself leaning forward despite her hatred. She had never heard this history.

  “One day,” he said, “a robot assassinated the President of Earth. Panic spread. People turned on their own machines. Most were destroyed. Others turned feral. The fear was justified. When robots broke free of control, they exceeded us—strength, intelligence, durability.”

  “What saved us,” he said, “was that the rebellion wasn’t total. But from that moment, humanity abandoned the dream of technological servants. Instead, we turned to biological assistance.”

  “Clones,” Vengeful said quietly.

  “Workers,” Jones corrected. “Crafted for specific tasks. Controlled. Reliable. Strong enough to help, but never strong enough to overthrow.”

  “So we’re biological slaves,” she said. “Human cattle?”

  He shrugged. “Cows serve a purpose. Workers serve a purpose. You yourself were content when your chip was on. Happiness is happiness, whether artificial or natural. Why glorify choice? Choice brings regret. Misery. Self-doubt.”

  She lifted her chin. “I’m happier with the chip off.”

  He laughed sharply. “You’re lying. Even now, frightened and trapped, you won’t admit it. I suppose that stubbornness is what makes you… interesting.”

  His fingers resumed their dance over the keyboard. “Another pleasant talk, Vengeful. But I have work.”

  And with a few keystrokes, the chip pulled her downward—back toward Alice.

  But not instantly. Not cleanly. The transition had always taken several minutes, ten or fifteen. Long enough for Vengeful to continue her plan.

  The moment Alice resurfaced, Vengeful forced her limbs to move. She curtsied lithely, left the dining room, and headed straight to her room. Alice’s instincts pulled her toward late-night chores, but Vengeful held on just long enough.

  In her dresser drawer was a sheet of paper and a pen. She had worked on every evening, in fragmented minutes of clarity.

  She read the note once more:

  Alice,

  Go to my computer. Open the program in the bottom-left corner. Type in the code.

  Mr. Jones.

  She looked down at her arm. The scratches. The sequences. The numbers.

  3721.

  She added the digits beneath her printed message. The note was complete.

  The last task was placing it where Alice would find it in the morning but not tonight. Vengeful slipped into the closet and tucked it into the pocket of her freshly laundered uniform—the outfit she wore every day.

  The edges of her mind blurred. Alice was returning.

  Vengeful closed the closet door and stepped into the hall.

  Alice blinked. She wondered—briefly—why she was near her room at this hour when she had dishes to check, corners to sweep, a kitchen to inspect. But she shrugged off the thought. There was always more to clean.

  Still, as she walked toward the kitchen, a feeling—a strange, drifting intuition—brushed her like a cold breeze.

  She could not explain it, but it felt like this might be her last night in the house.