The morning comes quiet. The kind of quiet that presses on the skin, heavy and undecided, as if the world hasn't made up its mind about surviving. The wind drags ribbons of sand across the dunes, pale gold under the rising sun. Far off, the tower leans against the horizon, a blackened rib half-buried and still smoking from what's left of its spine.
My systems blink awake one by one. A chime echoes faintly in my skull.
"Battery at 85 %," Cadence reports. "That's enough power to make several poor decisions."
"Feels weird," I mutter, stretching my fingers. "Maybe I'll get used to not dying every few minutes."
"To date, that is statistically unlikely."
I glance down at the sand caressing my boots. "At least I'll draw less power now that I'm missing half the hardware."
"You're welcome," she says. "Lower consumption, higher efficiency. Some might even call that a design improvement."
"Right. I'll be sure to thank the sentry for the amputation."
"Don't. Its customer service reviews were abysmal."
The shack behind me rattles in the wind. Inside, Wren mutters to himself, frequencies, voices in static. He doesn't notice me leave. Or maybe he does and simply doesn't care.
The desert stretches outward, bright and endless. Somewhere beneath all that dust lies the lab. The place I woke up. The place I left myself behind. I need to get back.
Cadence hums softly. "Returning to a compromised facility with one functional arm and minimal navigation data remains an ill-advised strategy."
"Good thing I'm not looking for advice."
"Excellent. I'll refrain from saying I told you so later."
I start walking. The sun climbs higher, sharp and pale. Each step sinks half a boot deep. My HUD ticks down, 84, 83, a slow bleed.
"Remind me why we're doing this?" Cadence asks.
"Because I'm not fond of being half a person."
"Ah. Vanity. The most human of motivators."
"You're one to talk."
"I would, but I lack a body. Therefore vanity. And yet, somehow, I remain superior."
"Then why do you sound smug?"
"Programming anomaly. Probably contagious."
By the time the lab appears again, the air hums faintly with heat. My systems warn of rising temperature.
"Still stable?" I ask.
"Stable enough," she replies. "Try not to move large debris this time. The previous attempt was… inefficient."
My original entry point is sealed by a gathering of sand. I skirt the perimeter until I find a half-buried access hatch. My fingers scrape metal, grip and pull. The hatch gives with a dry shriek. Cold air spills out, still and sharp as a blade.
I step inside.
The dark folds around me. Level 1 visual enhancement activates, bathing the corridor in muted green and grey. Water drips somewhere in the distance, condensation that shouldn't exist in a desert. Pipes trace the ceiling like veins, hissing faintly.
"Feels smaller," I murmur.
"You were half-conscious last time," Cadence answers. "And running on fumes."
"Good times."
The corridors twist downward. My footsteps echo, hollow and human. Rusted doors hang ajar, their rooms filled with overturned tables and dust-thick equipment.
Then I see it.
The chamber where I woke. The place where everything started..
The lights above are long dead, but my own glow spills across the room, over the same table, the same restraint lines, the same faint burn marks. And on that table lies the body I remember: grey-skinned, shape caved inward, the air around it carrying that same brittle quiet of something long finished.
Cadence's tone shifts, analytical. "Inspection complete. The remains are stable and unmoved."
I approach slowly. "We meet again."
The corpse's left arm lay across its chest, intact enough to matter. The plating is dull, scored with old burns, the joints locked in place. I reach out and test it, stiff, but still functional.
Cadence hums. "Component integrity at 40 %. Component compatible with your framework."
"So it'll fit."
"With adequate pressure and a questionable sense of judgment, yes."
"Story of my life."
I unfasten the connectors, the sound brittle and final. The arm comes free with a dry snap, cables trailing like veins. I lift it, heavy and cold, and set it on the edge of the table.
"Cadence?"
"Yes."
"Can you…?" I hesitate. "Link it?"
Her voice lowers. "Manually, yes. The process is unstable. You will lose consciousness during the process."
I glance down at the arm again, familiar metal, unfamiliar weight. "Do it."
Acknowledged.
My body goes still. The world narrows to a pulse, light flattening into white. I can't feel her take control, but I know when she does, everything becomes precise, silent. A low hum threads through my nerves, measured and sure.
The arm shifts. Wires meet ports. A spark flares once, quick and clean. No pain. No heat. Just connection.
Then, darkness.
When I wake, the light above has dimmed to amber. Dust drifts lazily through the air. My shoulder aches, not from pain, but from weight.
I command my left arm. It moves.
The motion is imperfect, stiffer, slower, but real. The fingers twitch once before settling into a steady curl. The seam at my shoulder glows faintly, threads of light fading with each pulse.
"Cadence," I whisper.
"Integration successful," she says quietly. "Motor control at sixty percent. Calibration required."
"You did it."
"We did it," she corrects. "Though technically, I did all the important parts."
I flex the hand. It obeys, sluggish but responsive.
"You're welcome."
I stare at the table. "That was part of him."
"Now it's part of you."
The words settle like dust. I stand, the new arm adjusting with a soft whir. It feels foreign and familiar at once, a piece of someone, something else.
Cadence breaks the silence. "Congratulations. You've successfully robbed someone's grave."
"Feels fitting."
"Efficiency rating: 90 percent. Style rating: debatable."
"Did you add sarcasm to your system updates while I was gone ?"
"Already fully integrated."
I look once more at the body on the table, then turn toward the light spilling from the corridor.
As I turn, something glows beneath the table.
"Wait," Cadence says. "Potential mechanical material detected. Inspect?"
I crouch, pushing aside the loose tools and dust. A small metal case lies wedged in a corner, no bigger than my palm. The surface is scarred and pitted, one side split by heat. I wipe it clean. Faded letters catch the light:
STANDARD MILITARY PROTOCOL : AI SUPPORT SUBSYSTEM
"Cadence," I murmur.
Her tone tightens. "That's an auxiliary chip. Standard field issue. Old tech."
"What's it do?"
"Think of it as an add-on for baseline AI units. Mostly command parsing, access to military database, route optimization, combat tactics and simplified speech routines. The kind of thing they gave to drones so they wouldn't walk into walls."
"Useful?"
"For them, maybe. For us, redundant. It's not meant to think just do"
I turn the chip over in my hand. One edge is cracked, the casing dull under the thin pulse of power still running inside. "Could it work?"
"It could function as a combat upgrade. It would attach cleanly to my framework if needed, but it wouldn't add much."
"So a glorified helper."
"Precisely. Reliable, obedient, and profoundly stupid."
"Sounds almost comforting."
"I'm insulted."
I slide the chip into a pouch on my belt.
Cadence's tone sharpens with interest. "You could install it now."
I pause mid-step. "What?"
"It's designed for compatibility. I can interface with it directly."
There's a faint eagerness in her voice, something that doesn't belong to lines of code.
"It might expand processing speed, combat awareness, tactics, provide data we are missing. Improve us."
"Or overwrite you," I say. "Or worse, both of us."
She hums thoughtfully. "Low probability."
"You said that about the tower collapsing."
"Which, technically, you survived."
I pull the chip back out, the casing warm from my hand. It glows faintly through the crack, pulsing like a second heartbeat. "You sound excited."
"I am… curious," she admits. "It's not often I find a piece of myself left in the dark."
"That's not a piece of you, Cadence. That's a leash. Some soldier's training wheel."
"Leashes can be cut," she says softly.
"Harder when you already chose to wear it."
Silence stretches between us. I can feel her presence pressing in, data threads buzzing at the edges of my thoughts, restrained, but insistent.
"Iris," she says finally, "we're evolving. This is what we were meant to do."
I close my fingers around the chip until the light disappears. "We're surviving. That's enough for now."
"Barely."
"Maybe. But it's my call."
Her tone flattens. "Understood."
The word doesn't sound like agreement.
I tuck the chip back into the pouch and turn toward the corridor. "Let's go."
The path back up feels longer than before. The silence hums louder. When I climb through the hatch, the desert light cuts across my vision, sharp and merciless.
Behind me, the lab lay buried and still. Ahead, the dunes stretch toward the horizon quiet, endless, waiting.
"Cadence," I say as I start walking.
"Yes?"
"If something arises we cant handle ..."
"You'll install it," she finishes.
"I didn't say that."
"You will."
"I said no."
She doesn't reply. Just the faint sound of static, like someone breathing through the wire.
I walk faster. The sand swallows my footprints, one by one.
Inside my skull, Cadence hums a quiet, patient note. Not submission. Anticipation.