"Who made these?" Maddie questioned as she took Ravenna's clawed hand in her own, gently bending each artificial fingertip back and forth to test for mobility. "They're an engineering masterpiece." The two women sat facing each other on plastic chairs in what, as far as Maddie could tell, was a basement. She'd woken up here two weeks ago, tied to this very chair, and she hadn't left the room since. She had no idea and no way of telling whose house- or even what country- she was in. 

"I know. He was very special." Ravenna was the only one of her captors that Maddie had any contact with. As far as she knew, the scorned princess was working alone. She'd been instantly recognizable, with her resemblance to the famous Queen Juliana and history of global terrorism. At first, Maddie thought she was going to kill her, or perhaps torture her for information about her husband or Thornton Tech. Her actual demands, however, had been much more... unusual. 

"You didn't have to kidnap me just to look at your wiring, you know," Maddie said calmly as she rotated the virtual model of Ravenna's veining network on the screen in front of her. "This is literally my job. You could've paid me." 

What Ravenna said next caught her off guard. "But would you have accepted? Would you have helped a freak like me?" Her words were so convincing that Maddie could tell she truly believed them. 

"I, um..." Maddie turned away from the screen, memories flashing before her eyes. She knew all too well what happened when you weren't careful blurring the line between man and machine. "You're not a freak. It's not your fault what happened to you," she said with genuine compassion. "Trust me. I have experience." 

"I know you do," Ravenna smiled. "His name was Adam, wasn't it?" 

Maddie flinched at the mention of this name, pulling her hands away from the screen as she turned to face Ravenna. "How do you know that?"

"I did my research," Ravenna replied calmly. "There's millions of engineers in the world. I didn't choose you at random. I know you have specific prior experience working with my kind... working with cyborgs."

"He was important to you, wasn't he?" she added at the sight of the haunted look on Maddie's face. She knew that look. It was the look she saw every morning in the mirror- on the days she could bring herself to look in the mirror, that is. 

"He is important to me," Maddie corrected. "He's alive, somewhere. He's probably looking for me right now. And when he figures out what you're doing- because you're up to something, no doubt- it'll be the end of you." 

"Oh, that's funny," Ravenna laughed, putting her hands up behind her head as she leaned back in her chair, crossing her legs. "Because my sister promised the same thing. A lot of people seem to want to be the end of me these days- seems to be a pattern. Let me just give you some advice. Stop waiting for him. He won't come back for you. That knock on the door in the middle of the night, that stranger watching you from afar in the park- none of them are him. He's. Gone. And you'll never have him back," she sniffed, looking angrily down at her metal palms before she let out a soft whisper. "He's gone." 

Perhaps Felix was right. Perhaps she shouldn't have gone down to see Maddie alone. Of the Nelson family, he seemed most perceptive of her emotional state. Most aware of the pain and vulnerability that lurked behind her unforgiving exterior. 

"Don't define people by their loss, Ravenna," he'd said as the pair looked down at a laptop, browsing through articles about the famous American cyborg Adam and his doomed relationship with the engineer who created him. "That includes you." 

Maddie was more than the lack of Adam, Ravenna thought as she looked over at the tech wizard who had once again turned her focus to the screen in front of her, rearranging simulated circuits of wires before shaking her head and undoing her work. 

Ravenna was more than the lack of Roy. 

"Here, I've got these in some semblance of an order," Maddie announced, reaching out to take Ravenna's hand. "I'll just do a couple of quick fixes, and then we'll be done."

Ravenna nodded silently, still lost in thought, when Felix came down the stairs to the basement. Dressed in a blue polo and baggy jeans and armed with a coffee mug, he looked like the last person who would be able to create and control fire with deadly precision. "Uncle Alan's ready for you," he said simply, looking at Ravenna. 

"I'll be right up," she replied, looking down at her hand as Maddie finished her work. Ravenna had never liked Nelson... she'd never trusted politicians in general, and was only collaborating with him out of necessity. But Felix... Felix was alright. Felix she could handle. 

Maddie looked from Felix to Ravenna, worry dawning in her eyes. Whatever you're up to... whatever crime I'm about to be partially responsible for, please let it not be as bad as it could be.