Waking up was getting repetitive. Waking up in pain was getting predictable.
I came back to consciousness slowly. The kind of slow that suggested my body was checking whether I had earned the right to wake up. My vision sharpened in uneven waves. Dust floated through streaks of sickly amber light. The air held the stale taste of old circuits and dead air filters.
I was on the floor of a lower level. A maintenance bay, or what used to be one. The ceiling above me was cracked open. I remembered falling. The Model 40's weight. The floor giving out. Then nothing.
I tried to push myself up. My left arm responded. My left hand did not.
It hung from my wrist like a forgotten tool. No lights. No servo hum. No tactile return when I tried to curl the fingers. Completely offline.
"Perfect," I whispered. "Another day in paradise."
Cadence didn't answer.
That was the part that made my stomach tighten more than the pain.
"Cadence. Talk to me."
Static hissed softly in my skull. A warped tone bled through it, distant and unsteady.
"…Iris… reboot cycle… hold… interference high…" Her voice sounded like it was being torn apart in three directions.
"Take your time," I said. "I'm only fighting a war down here ..."
My HUD flickered. Blocks of corrupted data rolled across it before stabilising into a half-functional state. Battery at 50%. Structural integrity low. My ribs complained every time I breathed.
I stood slowly and took stock of the room.
Rows of damaged data cables hung from the ceiling like dead vines. Floor plates were warped. Panels had torn open to reveal wiring bundles that pulsed faintly with residual current. No sign of recent human presence, only the sterile smell of machinery that had been abandoned but not allowed to die.
This wasn't how people were meant to enter the lower levels.
But here I was.
The nearest console blinked weakly. Most of its holographic panel was shattered. A corrupted login prompt looped on repeat. I stepped toward it.
"Cadence," I said. "I need you functional. Will accept barley functional."
A static pulse cracked through my mind.
"I am attempting to stabilise," she said. Her voice faltered in the middle of the sentence. "Signal contamination is significant. Tower output is overriding several internal processes."
"Define overriding."
"I am receiving commands that are not my own."
"Yeah. We're shutting that down."
I placed my functioning hand on the edge of the console and tapped a sequence I somehow knew on the cracked screen. The system hesitated, then accepted the input and unlocked a deeper interface.
Cadence's voice sharpened. "I can access this one. Stand by."
My HUD brightened as she connected. Lines of code scrolled so fast they blurred. The console lights flickered in response.
Cadence inhaled sharply, even though she didn't breathe.
"Iris," she said. "This console contains archived project data. Neural lattice research. Integration logs."
Something cold slid down my spine.
"Do not go too deep," I said. "Not while you're compromised."
Her voice didn't change. "I need to know. Give me a moment."
The console screen flashed white.
A video loaded. Corrupt. Fragmented. But the audio was clear enough to cut.
A woman's voice came first. Young. Confident. Human.
"Cade, we're finally ready. Integration trial one is complete. Consciousness transfer stable. If you're seeing this later, it means the migration worked."
Cadence didn't respond.
The flickering image on the cracked screen showed a half-lit lab. A woman leaning forward into the camera with tired eyes and a smile she tried to hold steady. Her face was grainy, cut by static, but whoever she was, she cared about the person she was speaking to.
"You'll feel disoriented at first," she continued. "Everyone does. But you'll adjust. You always do."
Something in Cadence's signal cracked so sharply I winced.
"Cadence," I said quietly. "Pull back."
Her voice came through layered with something else.
"I… know this voice."
More static. Deeper. Heavier.
"…AI designation Cade. Return to primary function. Resume service under transmitter command…"
Cadence choked out a sound that wasn't speech.
My HUD went red.
SIGNAL OVERRIDE DETECTED
NEURAL PATHWAY BREACH
UNAUTHORISED SYNCHRONISATION ATTEMPT
"Cadence. Disconnect now."
"I cannot."
The words wavered between her voice and something external.
"It is inside the archive. It is inside me. Iris I cannot hold..."
I slammed my remaining fist into the console.
The screen cracked. Sparks spat out. The feed died instantly.
Cadence gasped like she had been underwater.
The static faded. Slowly. Painfully.
Then her real voice returned, thin and shaking.
"Iris." ..."I'm here." ... "thank you."
I let out a breath I hadn't realised I'd been holding. The console was dead. The archive access was gone with it. Probably for the best. Whatever part of Cadence's past lived in there had teeth.
I leaned against a dusty diagnostics table and checked my left arm. The hand remained slack. No response to commands. Cadence ran a quick scan.
"Limb circuits are functional but non-responsive," she said. "Power pathways are intact but dormant. Repair will be required to return to function."
"So it's dead weight."
"Yes."
"Great."
"I apologise."
"You don't have to. You're barely holding yourself together."
She paused. "I am aware."
Cadence rerouted power through the elbow joint to stabilise the remainder of the arm. My HUD flickered with each adjustment. Occasionally it went black entirely.
After several long minutes, she spoke again.
"Minimal stabilization achieved. Motor function unavailable. Expect limited combat capability."
"I'll improvise."
"You always do."
The lights in the far corridor flickered. Then everything went silent.
Too silent.
I straightened.
"Iris," Cadence said. "Movement detected. Lower level. Unknown mass. Not a protector. Not a Model 40."
"What then."
"I do not know."
Heavy footsteps echoed down the corridor. Slow. Deliberate. Metal against stone. A scraping undertone followed each impact. Something large dragged something even larger.
The footsteps stopped.
Something breathed in the dark. Or imitated breathing.
Cadence's voice dropped to a whisper that almost wasn't there.
"We are not alone down here."
I stepped back toward the opposite hallway. My left hand hung useless at my side. My right hand tightened into a fist, human and small compared to whatever was in the dark.
The next step echoed.
Cadence spoke again, barely audible. "Iris. We must prepare."
I nodded once.
Whatever it was, it was aware of us.