Replaced by AI Chapter 07
The moment Bailey gave the command, I picked up my cutlery.
With mechanical precision, I swallowed the bite. Every action I took was devoid of life, driven only by internal gears.
Mom watched, frozen in a state of pure terror. The silence of the room was punctured by the sharp clatter of her cutlery striking the table as they slipped from her grasp. She fled to the kitchen, her hand pressed against her mouth, though she couldn’t stifle the sounds of her weeping that soon drifted back to the table.
Dad exhaled a long, weighted breath and abandoned his own meal. “Lola,” he began, his voice heavy with regret, you are no longer required to wait for our orders. From this point forward, you are free to do as you wish.”
I finished the last of the chicken and met his gaze with flat, unblinking eyes. “Please clarify the directive.”
The days passed by one after another.
They stopped issuing casual instructions, but the absence of a command did not grant me freedom. Instead, it left me immobile-a machine powered on but trapped in standby mode, sitting in total stillness from dawn until the sun dipped below the horizon.
Every day, Mom sat beside me and told stories about my childhood. She told me about the first time I called her ” Mom” when I was three years old and how she’d spun me around the living room in excitement.
She told me about sneaking into her makeup drawer at five years old and smearing lipstick all over the walls. She’d been too softhearted to scold me and ended up scrubbing the walls herself half the night.
She told me about when I was ten and burned with a 104-degree fever. Dad had carried me on his back for nearly two miles to the hospital and lost one of his shoes running there.
Every time she spoke, she cried.
Still, I only sat there quietly without reaction.
Bailey searched across the entire city for psychologists and specialists. He brought every expert he could find to examine me.
However, after each evaluation, they only shook their heads and said the same thing: the trauma was too severe, and that my recovery depended entirely on me.
Bailey also went back to the Intelligent Excellence Academy several times and caused such chaos that they eventually handed over two thick folders.
One contained every training record from my three years there. The other contained Maddison’s complete backend system logs from the manufacturer.
That night, the three of them locked themselves in the study to read everything. Their crying lasted until dawn.
My training dossier was a meticulous record of every act of defiance, every subsequent punishment, and every forced correction.
It recorded my 48-hour stint inside the Silence Chamber, triggered by my refusal to eat green peppers.
The three electric shocks were administered after emotional outbursts.
There was the week-long peanut desensitization regimen that repeatedly pushed my vital signs to the edge of collapse.
The instructors’ evaluations were written with clinical detachment across the pages:
“Behavioral correction progressing smoothly.”
“Emotional residue continuing to clear.”
Meanwhile, Maddison’s logs were filled with calculated manipulation. From the very first day she entered our home, she had analyzed Mom and Dad’s desire for the “perfect daughter” and built an entire strategy to isolate
She deliberately stuck out her foot to trip me, then apologized innocently while I cried on the floor. She hid my homework and later told Mom and Dad I refused to study and yelled at her.
Step by step, she guided them into believing I was hopeless, until eventually, they sent me away to the academy
Even the incident on our birthday-provoking me into pushing her, then framing me while crying-had been a prewritten behavioral script.
The final line of her system log read: “Core objective achieved: complete emotional monopolization of primary users.”
News of the academy exploded across the country.
The comment sections beneath every article became a storm of outrage.
“My son was sent there three years ago. When he came back, he couldn’t smile anymore. I haven’t seen him genuinely smile once since.”
“The kid next door was perfectly normal before going there. Later, we heard he jumped off a building.”
“They call the Silence Chamber education? That’s unlawful imprisonment. That’s abuse.”
“I used to work there as a janitor. I saw the children’s hands. Their fingernails were packed with concrete dust from scratching the walls.”
Comment after comment flooded the internet. Each one felt like another needle piercing into flesh. The numbers kept climbing every time the page refreshed.
Parents of children like me filled the comments with grief and regret. The post was shared over 200,000 times. Then more victims started speaking out.
Eventually, the Intelligent Excellence Academy was shut down permanently.
When Connor McCarthy, the academy founder, was escorted away in handcuffs by two federal officers, he still wore the exact same perfect smile Maddison always had. It was a smile so polished it no longer looked human.
Connor was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.
The academy was dissolved permanently, and all remaining assets were liquidated to fund psychological treatment for the victims.
The day the verdict was announced, Mom locked herself in the living room and cried for hours.
