CHAPTER 8 – THE GLASS HOUSE TRUTH
The room darkened slightly.
Grant placed his hands on the table.
“Glass House isn’t a property,” he said.
Sienna blinked.
Eli stayed silent.
“It’s a filter,” Grant continued. “A controlled environment where human behavior is observed under wealth pressure.”
Sienna’s voice cracked slightly.
“You’re testing people.”
“No,” Grant corrected. “I’m revealing them.”
He slid a document forward.
Blueprints.
Data charts.
Behavioral scoring models.
Sienna stared at them.
“This is illegal.”
“No,” Grant said calmly. “It’s private.”
Eli finally spoke.
“And what do you do with the results?”
Grant looked at him for the first time in the session.
“We decide who gets access to influence.”
Silence.
Sienna’s hands tightened.
“So I was never a client.”
Grant nodded once.
“You were a variable.”
That word hit harder than insult.
Sienna stepped back.
“I’m not an experiment.”
Grant’s voice softened slightly—but not kindly.
“Everyone is. Most just never get to see the lab.”
A long pause.
Then Sienna laughed again, but this time it was unstable.
“So what now? You erase me?”
Grant shook his head.
“No.”
He looked at both of them.
“Now you decide what kind of variable you become next.”
Eli looked down at the table.
Sienna looked at Grant.
For the first time—
she wasn’t trying to impress him.
She was trying to understand how far this system went.
Outside the glass walls, the city moved normally.
May you like
But inside—
nothing about it was normal anymore.
