Rmce01

It was not a name. Names were for people with pasts, with mothers who sang lullabies, with scars that told stories. rmce01 was a designation. A string. A barcode burned into the firmware of a ghost.

The lab went dark at 02:14 the next Tuesday. When the backup generators kicked in, every screen displayed the same thing: rmce01

And beneath it, a set of coordinates. Not a target. A birthplace. It was not a name