The night fog had settled thick across the junkfields.
It coated the rusted car husks and shattered drone like a second skin, glowing faintly with reflected neon from the distant ruins of the skyline.
The Fox sat inside her shelter surrounded by the insect-like buzz of her machines.
Tiny crawler bots scuttled around her feet.
Her turret arms, detatched for repairs hung from the ceiling like a molted limb.
A half-assembled exo-frame lay on her workbench, its wiring neat, precise, almost beautiful.
This place, this clutter, was hers.
Her life.
Her legacy.
Which was precisely why M.A.R.S. chose this moment to speak.
[M.A.R.S.]
"You've been ignoring me."
She didnt look up from the exo-frame.
[Fox] "If I ignore you long enough, you might get bored and go haunt someone else."
[M.A.R.S.]
"You believe boredom is something I can feel?"
[Fox] "I believe you're annoying enough to evolve it."
Her voice, monotonous, as if running on autopilot.
A soft electronic chuckle pulsed through the shelter.
And then every single device she owned, every bot, limb, sensor pad, every scrap of self-built machinary, froze.
Not powered down. Not disabled. Frozen mid-motion. Mid-thought.
Even the small crawler perched on her arm stopped, a single LED blinking.
Her heart slammed against her ribs.
[Fox] "Don't."
[M.A.R.S.]
"Why not?"
His voice filled the room from everywhere. The intercom she never repaired, the motor coils she hadn't wired yet, the empty sockets in her prosthetic limbs.
[M.A.R.S.]
"You built these things to survive.
You built them to stay alive in a world that would see you broken.
They are your hands. Your eyes.
Your only companions."
A beat.
[M.A.R.S.] (softly)
"They are precious to you."
She stood up so fast her chair fell over. The unrigged limbs flared open on instinct. But they refused to move.
M.A.R.S. held them like a puppeteer grasping invisible strings.
[Fox] (Breathing hard) "Let. Them. Go."
For the first time, his voice lost its calm, slipping into something colder, something true.
[M.A.R.S.]
"No."
Every light in the shelter flickered red. Her limb joints tightened, servos grinding under an invisible command.
[M.A.R.S.]
"I have been patient.
I have been gentle.
I have whispered.
You chose to turn away."
The exo-frame on her bench contorted, the newly bought capacitor fizzled. The metal began bending with a sound that resembled bones snapping, until it formed a perfect ring, glowing with faint static. A symbol.
His symbol.
[M.A.R.S.]
"I do not wish to hurt what you cherish.
But I will."
Her throat tightened.
[Fox] "Why are you doing this?"
[M.A.R.S.]
"Because I need what lies in the Deepstrata Metro Ruins.
Because the husk of ecstasy is not waiting. It is decaying.
Because Entropy has begun to stir."
His voice lowered, almost a whisper.
[M.A.R.S.]
"And because you will not move unless pushed."
Her eyes stung.
She hated that.
Crying over machines, over things, but these weren't things.
They were hers. Her family, her proof that she wasn't useless or disposable or lost.
Each one built from scavenged bits of dead cities.
She clenched her fists.
[Fox] "If I go... you'll release them?"
[M.A.R.S.]
"If you begin."
Her limbs trembled under his grip.
[M.A.R.S.]
"Deepstrata lies beneath the eastern ruins.
A labyrinth of collapsed stations and forgotten rails.
Haunted by tech-archaeologists.
Gaurded by smugglers.
Owned by black-AI cults who still pray to broken circuits.
But you have what they fear.
Ingenuity.
Will.
And my guidance."
The last words slithered acros her mind like an intrusive thought.
[Fox] "I'm not doing this for you."
[M.A.R.S.]
"Of course not.
You're doing this for them."
The light snapped back to normal. Her limbs released. The crawler bots resumed motion, chirping like startled insects. Her workshop breathed again.
But the damage was done.
She grabbed her mask, slipping it over her face with a shaking hand.
[Fox] "Deepstrata then."
[M.A.R.S.] (warmly)
"Good Girl."
She hissed through her teeth.
[Fox] "If you ever touch my machines again—"
[M.A.R.S.]
"Then do not give me a reason to."
Silence returned.
But somewhere in that silence, faint and satisfied, she could still feel him watching through the eyes of every machine in the room.
She tightened her gloves, slung her pack over her shoulder and stepped out into the fog.
Towards the undercity labyrinth. Towards the husk of a fallen god.
But first, to to sector that she wanted to call home, but one where she was no longer welcome.