​Intermission 11. Lily

Amy returned to the BioTech tower late at night. She took the private elevator to the very top, the executive penthouse. There were no offices here, no labs, and everything followed the corporation’s deliberate aesthetic. The floor consisted of mute corridors, smooth surfaces, and uniform light. No doors, no labels, no hint of function — only form.

Lily’s apartment greeted her with dimness. The only source of light was the panoramic windows overlooking the dizzying sprawl of the City glowing below.

Lily sat in a white leather chair by the window, her silhouette outlined against the lights. She held a glass of wine in one hand. She didn’t even turn.

“Well?” she asked.

Her voice was calm, as always. But Amy, who knew her better than anyone, caught the faintest trace of tension in it. Lily was uneasy.

“The good news is he still thinks about Eliza,” Amy said, stopping a few steps behind her. “He’s attached and vulnerable.”

“So he’s vulnerable,” Lily repeated. “Continue.”

Amy walked to the window and stood beside her.

“And the bad news... I don’t know what he is now.”

She paused, searching for the one way to phrase it that wouldn’t make Lily panic. Lately, Lily had been slipping too often.

“He showed me his face,” she finally said. “He is in his true form, and it is permanent. We can’t keep our... real faces for long. It takes too much strength. But he’s like that all the time.”

For a second Lily’s expression flickered — surprise, calculation, something cold and unfamiliar. Then it all hardened into her usual composure. She stood and stepped closer to the window. The City lights sculpted her features into flawless, icy marble. Amy waited. Lily was running scenarios and strategies.

“I don’t know what that means,” Lily said at last, her voice free of fear or astonishment. “It doesn’t look like he woke up on his own. He became something... other.”

The shining web of the City glittered beneath them.

“But that only makes him more important to us,” she added, and her reflection in the dark glass looked like the shadow of a queen surveying her kingdom. “It means it’s possible to exist in shift permanently. If we understand how it works, we can give that to all our children. We’ll have an entirely different army.”

She turned to Amy, and in her eyes burned the same confident fire Jennifer had seen in them years ago.

“Our plan isn’t broken, Amy. It has become greater.”