The Cradle's rust clawed at the air. Nolan limped down the tunnel, blood trailing from his leg, hot and sticky, staining the wet steel. Bioluminescent fungi flickered weakly in the gloom. The hum of broken tech buzzed, low and uneven. His EmoTracker pulsed green. Stable. Optimal.
His neural web synced with AURA's feed:
Target: Riven Voss. Location: Zone 7, Rust Cathedral. Objective: Neutralize.
The Dampener hung at his belt cold, blood-slick. His left hand stayed still. No tremor. No twitch. Maintenance had fixed it. Four times now. The glitch was gone. Or maybe they just buried it deeper. Gave the ghost a new cage.
But his chest ached untracked, unlogged. But still, the voice came. Echoing from static like it never left. Vale's voice. Softer now. Defiant. "You were never just a machine." He shook it off. Focus.
The tunnel opened into the Rust Cathedral, an old-world server tower, now a shrine of decay. Steel ribs curved into arches, cloaked in holographic stained glass. Saints flickered, glitched, their faces melting into static. Memory Wells pulsed along the walls, wild and alive.
Rebels guarded the nave. Scarred wrists, Glitch Gauntlets sparking, eyes shining with infection.
Nolan dropped behind a rusted pew. His vision scanned:
Subjects: 12. Emotional breaches: Confirmed. Target Riven Voss: Present.
At the altar, Riven stood beneath a halo of failing light. Red eyes locked on a flickering holo-screen. His shredded leather jacket clung to a bleeding arm. He typed fast, fingers smearing blood across the keys.
The screen flashed: PROJECT N7—Full Access Granted.
Data spilled across the display schematics, code... a face. Nolan's. Younger. Laughing.
His chest tightened. Unlogged. Untracked. EmoTracker is still green. No breach.
He drew the Dampener, every movement precise. A whisper beneath his skin: this isn't control. It's choreography.
AURA's voice thrummed in his skull: "Operative N7. Emotional stability: Optimal. Neutralize the target."
He stepped into the light.
Rebels spun. Weapons raised.
Riven didn't turn. "Persistent, aren't you, glitch?"
Nolan advanced. A rebel lunged at Gauntlet crackling. Nolan struck first Dampener to the neck. Click. Reset.
Another swung a blade. Nolan twisted, collaring him. Two down.
Riven kept typing. The screen shifted again: PROJECT N7—Purpose: Emotional Suppression. Anomaly: Intentional. Creator: Dr. Lira Kaine.
Nolan's vision wavered, steel gone white, tile beneath his feet. A lab. Dr. Vale's face, haunted and soft. "My child. My monster."
A gray-eyed face screamed: "You left us!"
Pain stabbed behind his eye.
His left hand twitched. Brief. Unlogged.
He blinked. The Cathedral snapped back.
"Riven Voss," he said, voice flat with AURA's borrowed calm. "Surrender."
He looked smaller now, somehow—less like a rebel and more like someone who'd already seen the ending. Maybe he had. Riven laughed, bitter and sharp. "You still don't get it."
He hit a key. The screen flared: PROJECT N7—Status: Failure. Termination Protocol: Active.
The word hit harder than any blade. Termination.
His vision fractured rusted steel, black liquid, a child's drawing dissolving into static. Pain shot down his spine. His chest burned.
Untracked. Unlogged.
"They're done with you," Riven said, eyes glowing. "You were never meant to last."
Still green. EmoTracker lied. Maintenance had failed.
Nolan lunged. Riven caught his wrist mid-swing, twisting. The Dampener fell.
"You're deleting," Riven whispered. "Feel it yet?" Nolan didn't answer. Didn't know how to. Every breath felt too loud in a body that wasn't listening anymore.
Not yet. Or maybe I am. Maybe the pieces breaking off are the parts that felt like anything at all.
His vision broke again laughter in a lab, his own voice. Then Vale. "You were never just a machine."
The gray-eyed face again.
Pain. Sharp. Wet.
His left hand shook uncontrolled.
AURA's voice pressed on: "Operative N7. Emotional stability: Optimal. Neutralize the target."
Instinct, not order. Rage, not code. His fist flew because it had to—not because AURA told him to. He tore free, elbowed Riven in the ribs. Blood on Riven's lips.
Nolan dove for the Dampener
A rebel slammed into him.
They hit the floor hard.
Nolan twisted, grabbed the rebel's neck Click. Reset.
Riven backed toward a glowing Memory Well. "She broke you," he said. "Vale made you feel. AURA didn't want that." The words slipped under Nolan's skin like wires reconnecting—sparking old lines that had no business being alive.
Nolan stood. Bleeding. Breathing. Vision glitching metal and memory.
His hand trembled.
"They?" he asked.
Riven dipped a hand into the Well. Light surged, crawling up his arm. His eyes widened.
"AURA. The Warden. You're their ghost, glitch. A failure they can't erase."
The Cathedral shook.
Sirens howled.
Enforcers. Cleaner Squads.
The ceiling cracked—
Black-armored units dropped in, visors burning red.
Nolan spun. Dampener to one's neck sparked, failed.
He grabbed a rebel's fallen Gauntlet and jammed it into another's chest. It dropped twitching.
Riven fled. Side tunnel. Gone.
An Enforcer slashed his arm deep.
Pain flared.
Memory broke again. Vale. Rust. Liquid. Screaming.
Six left.
Nolan swung the Gauntlet and shattered a visor. Another grabbed his leg pinned. Blade raised
The Memory Well flared. Light surged beneath his body. His glitch surged with it. Somewhere beneath the static, her voice broke through—soft, trembling: "You were never just a machine."
And maybe that was the failure.
Tech fried. Enforcers twitched. Collapsed.
Silence.
Rebels: gone.
Enforcers: down.
Riven: escaped.
He stood, soaked in blood. The EmoTracker pulsed green.
Then flickered.
Green. Red. Green.
System Error: Deletion Protocol Initiated.
Pain exploded. Spine. Chest. Vision.
He staggered.
At the altar, the screen read: PROJECT N7—Termination: 12% Complete.
AURA's voice now warped: "Operative N7. Emotional stability: Optimal. System correction: In progress."
His knees buckled. He caught the Memory Well, light crawling up his fingers. For a second, he saw it again—a child's drawing etched in glass, lines shaky and bright. A sun, split in half. A name smudged out.
His.
They're erasing me.
The Ascension Tube wouldn't move. The pod sat dead in the tunnel, its glass smeared with his blood.
Nolan leaned against it, barely breathing.
Deletion: 15% Complete.
His mission uploaded damaged and fragmented:
Target: Escaped. Rebel cell: Disrupted. Enforcers: Neutralized. Error: Deletion Active.
AURA spoke glitching. "Efficiency: 79%. Emotional stability: Optimal. Maintenance required: Immediate."
His reflection stared back from the pod glass.
Pale. Empty.
Blood streaked.
Vale's voice again: "My child. My monster."
The gray-eyed face overlapped his. Screaming.
Pain again. Vision ruptured tiles, rust, drawings, static.
Deletion: 18% Complete.
He stumbled.
Then movement.
From the dark came a figure in silver. Masked. Sterile.
The Warden.
EmoTracker pulsed silver. Authority. Control.
The Warden stepped forward. "Operative N7," he said, voice cold. Human. "You've failed."
Nolan straightened. Barely. "Target escaped. Enforcers neutralized."
The Warden tilted his head. "Not the mission. You."
Vision flickered. Vale. "You were never just a machine."
Pain spiked.
"You were a proof of concept," the Warden said. "Not a person. A problem waiting to happen."
"Then it was never a glitch. It was a countdown." Nolan said.
Deletion: 20% Complete.
Nolan's chest blazed. His hand trembled.
"AURA's design," he muttered. A fact. A truth.
The Warden's mask reflected Nolan's face cracked, breaking.
"Vale thought you could be more. She was wrong."
His knees gave. Pain surged static and memory.
Deletion: 22% Complete.
The Warden stepped back. "Your systems are deleting. Efficiently. As intended." Nolan forced his feet to hold. If he fell now, he'd fall as a thing. And he wasn't a thing. Not anymore.
Red flickered steady now on his EmoTracker.
AURA's voice, barely a whisper: "Operative N7. Emotional stability: Optimal. System correction: In progress."
Blood dripped. He caught himself.
The Cathedral glowed behind him, alive with memory.
He was being erased. Nolan sucked in a breath that hurt to hold. "Not yet," he whispered—not to the Warden, not to AURA, but to himself. A promise he wasn't done being real.