Serial Number Karall -

The woman smiled, tears cutting tracks through the grime on her face. "Leo. Your name was Leo Karall."

The facility had no name, only a grid. And within that grid, Karall was not a man but a designation: . Serial Number Karall

The lights flickered. The floor began to hum with a low-frequency charge—the prelude to an electrostatic override. Karall had seen it used on others. It would lock his joints, fry his motor cortex, leave him a drooling husk. The woman smiled, tears cutting tracks through the

For seventeen years, he had woken to the hum of fluorescent lights and the taste of recycled air. His world was a twelve-by-twelve cell with a cot, a sink, and a slot where gray trays of nutrient paste appeared. He had no memory of before. His handlers—faceless voices through a metal grate—told him he was a weapon. Not a soldier. A weapon. And weapons don't ask why. And within that grid, Karall was not a

"K-4R-11L," she said quietly. "Do you know what that number means?"