I return from the hospital to formation.

  The job is done.

  The thought sounds dry. Almost sterile. Like a box checked in a report by a machine that doesn’t care what stands behind the numbers.

  I keep it that way on purpose.

  Because if I let the words grow meaning, they start growing faces.

  And faces interfere with work.

  All the staff.

  All the patients.

  The entire hospital system.

  Now they are nodes in my noetic network.

  I feel them at the edge of consciousness. Faint signals. чужие сердечные ритмы—no, foreign heartbeats. Fragments of thoughts, still tangled, like radio broadcasts drifting in from an unknown frequency.

  A strange sensation.

  As if I’m holding an entire city by its nerve endings… and for now I’m just testing how sensitive it is to pain.

  Liara Vess is the brightest signal among them.

  She stabilizes faster than the rest. Her presence feels like a burn under bandages—hidden, but constant. Uneasy. Alive.

  There is too much will in her mind.

  Too much intelligence.

  And catastrophically little fear for someone who died not long ago.

  I log it with almost professional interest.

  I have big plans for her.

  She will be a key.

  A door.

  And, most likely, a catastrophe… if I miscalculate.

  “Excellent specs for an ally,” I smirk to myself.

  Humor helps. It works like a fuse. Keeps the system from burning out.

  I exhale and step onto the parade ground.

  **

  My squad is already assembled.

  A perfectly straight line of exoskeletons, helmets, and faces pretending fatigue is a rumor, not a fact.

  The air smells of heated metal, dust, and sweat.

  The smell of war… in training mode. A nearly safe version of chaos.

  I walk up to Sergeant Kel Irix.

  He stands motionless. Not a man—a load-bearing column of discipline.

  “You’re back, Axiom Morrenn.”

  His voice is level. So level the tension in it feels almost physical. Kel never raises his voice. He simply doesn’t need to.

  “Yes, sir.”

  He studies me for too long.

  As if trying to take me apart and figure out which components are already broken.

  “How did you manage to break your jaw?”

  I feel the squad’s attention before I even turn my head.

  Ronan Crail.

  Deputy sergeant. A man who prefers to test character through bone structure. He watches me with a lazy smirk.

  Well, Morrenn. Going to complain?

  I almost smile.

  An interesting crossroads.

  Any honest answer is a disaster.

  Any good lie is an exam.

  I choose the functional option.

  “Sergeant Kel. After training I fell asleep and rolled off my bunk. Landed badly.”

  Silence settles.

  Even the wind seems to pause to evaluate plausibility.

  Kel smiles faintly.

  His smiles always resemble warnings.

  “Or maybe you’re lying to me…” He steps closer. “And somebody beat you.”

  Irritation flashes in my chest. Fast. Hot.

  I log it. Tag it. Extinguish it.

  Emotions are consumables. I prefer to ration them.

  “That’s impossible, Sergeant.”

  He studies me for another second.

  Then nods.

  “I believe you.”

  We both understand it’s a lie. But it’s a convenient lie.

  And armies adore convenient structures.

  “Take your place in formation.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I jog into line.

  Ronan leans slightly toward me without breaking formation.

  “Axiom… next time fall more carefully.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. I’ll try to requisition a bunk with padded rails and a safety net.”

  He smirks.

  A small victory.

  Sometimes trust begins the moment people stop wanting to punch you.

  **

  We transition into a run.

  Exoskeletons hammer out the rhythm of our steps. The ground vibrates. Metal becomes an extension of muscle.

  I feel pain in my jaw—phantom, almost decorative.

  “Good thing that’s all that’s broken,” I note inwardly. “Explaining the absence of a head would’ve been inconvenient.”

  And right then—

  The siren.

  Combat alarm.

  The sound slices through the air.

  “To the armory!” Kel commands.

  We bolt.

  Adrenaline floods the bloodstream. The body gratefully switches to simple math: move, prepare, survive.

  Fear tries to lift its head.

  I press it down lazily.

  “Take a number,” I tell it mentally. “I’m busy.”

  **

  The armory greets us with cold light and the smell of lubricant.

  We suit up. Armor plates settle onto the body with mechanical precision. Every lock snapping into place sounds like a small promise to live a little longer.

  Weapons lock in. Interfaces synchronize.

  I connect to the system—and for a fraction of a second I feel the noetic network react.

  It leans closer.

  Watching.

  Waiting.

  “Easy,” I think. “You’ll get your turn. On schedule.”

  It withdraws.

  Almost obediently.

  That worries me more than resistance would.

  **

  We load into a dropship.

  Inside, it’s cramped. чужие плечи nearly brush mine—foreign shoulders almost brushing mine. Engine vibration travels up my spine. The confinement welds us into a single machine made of metal, sweat, and anticipation.

  The ship lifts.

  Through the open hatch I see fighters launching. Sharp silhouettes slicing through the air.

  Beautiful.

  Deadly.

  Almost inspiring.

  The dropships burst out of the hangar carved into the mountain.

  And suddenly—

  Light.

  Real sky.

  I’ve almost forgotten what it looks like.

  The desert spills out below like a golden ocean. A magnificent stage for mass extinction.

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  And that’s when the voice speaks inside my mind.

  The Dark Mind.

  “A supply transport has been dispatched. It carries gifts for you, Axiom-126.”

  I barely hold back a chuckle.

  “Of course. Flowers and a card, I assume.”

  “Acknowledged,” I answer mentally.

  An unpleasant sensation settles in my chest.

  As if I am both hunter…

  and bait.

  **

  “What’s the mission, Sergeant?” asks Mira Vossen.

  Her voice is calm. Almost cold. She checks her rifle with the precision of a priest preparing a relic.

  Kel unfolds a tactical display.

  “An invasion transport belonging to the Dark Mind crashed in the desert not far from our position. It’s surrounded by escort ships.”

  Turbulence shakes the dropship. The hologram trembles as if sharing our nerves.

  “Resistance command believes there’s critical cargo inside. We are to capture the transport.”

  The cabin grows quieter.

  Everyone knows the translation of that sentence:

  the probability of dying is statistically interesting.

  I study the map.

  And inside me, a slow, cold satisfaction stretches awake.

  Everything is proceeding according to plan.

  My plan.

  The Dark Mind played along.

  That should be reassuring.

  It isn’t.

  When an ancient superintelligence starts playing by your rules, it usually means it already wrote the epilogue.

  **

  The dropship begins its descent.

  Through the hatch I see columns of smoke. The crash site.

  Our future nightmare.

  “One minute to combat readiness,” the pilot announces.

  I tighten my grip on my weapon.

  The noetic network trembles slightly.

  It senses prey.

  And suddenly I understand something very simple.

  If the operation succeeds perfectly—the city falls.

  If the operation fails—one man falls.

  Me.

  “Fair enough,” I think. “I like transparent stakes.”

  The dropship enters the fire zone.

  The first explosion lights the desert so brightly that for a second it resembles dawn.

  And in that light, I catch myself thinking something unexpected—

  If I survive this day…

  I’m going to need a new joke.

  Because the old one is starting to sound like a prophecy.

  **

  We’re on site.

  The landing is abrupt. No heroic score. No grandstanding. The dropship hatch snaps open, and the desert greets us with a blast of hot wind that reeks of scorched metal and old death.

  “Drones forward!” Kel commands.

  Metal silhouettes rip free from their clamps and surge into the air with a hungry whine. Their cameras flood our visors with the battlefield, as if reality itself has been sliced into layers and each of us has been handed our own personal fragment of a nightmare.

  I jump onto the sand.

  The exoskeleton absorbs the impact. Shock dampeners hiss softly. The sand sinks beneath me, but the suit stabilizes my body so confidently it feels like standing on a training floor.

  Too comfortable.

  Suspiciously comfortable for a place where life expectancy is usually measured in seconds.

  I run forward.

  My visor ignites with streams of data—thermal signatures, projectile trajectories, friendly markers, mortality probabilities.

  I mentally disable the last one.

  “I don’t like my interface ruining my mood.”

  Above it all, the sky.

  An aerial battle is already tearing it apart. Resistance fighters tear into the escort ships’ formation. Flashes rip through clouds of dust. One of the enemy vessels erupts in flame and spirals down, dragging a long black scar of smoke behind it.

  Beautiful.

  If you forget there are people burning inside.

  I shift my gaze to the ground.

  Enemies.

  Living cells of Noxaris.

  Just like me.

  The only difference is that they don’t have the luxury of choice.

  Ironic.

  We’re fighting for freedom… the very thing I’m about to steal from them.

  And at that exact moment, the network inside me shudders.

  Not a thought.

  Not a signal.

  An instinct.

  I sense a discrepancy.

  The visor data is incomplete. The terrain ahead appears clear… too clear. The main hostile force is concealed. The camouflage runs deeper than Resistance systems can penetrate.

  An ambush.

  “Hold! Take defensive positions!” Kel orders.

  I drop into the sand.

  It’s hot even through the armor. The air trembles with shockwaves. Every breath tastes like powdered glass and smoke.

  I watch the sky.

  First explosion.

  Second.

  Third.

  Fourth.

  The Resistance loses two fighters. They fall almost in sync—as if the sky exhales them back into the earth.

  But the enemy begins to withdraw.

  Too coordinated.

  “Sky is clear,” Ilai reports.

  “Advance!” Kel barks.

  We rise.

  I run.

  Drones tear into enemy positions, shredding defenses with short pulse bursts. Sand erupts into pillars. The enemy staggers backward.

  Victory is close.

  Too close.

  And that’s when the transport awakens.

  The massive hull flares with blue lines. Panels unfold like the jaws of a waking predator.

  Electromagnetic cannons bristle along its surface.

  “Take cover!” Kel roars.

  Too late.

  A hurricane of fire erupts.

  The air turns to metal. Projectiles rip through space with a scream you can feel in your teeth. Sand detonates around us, fusing into glass dust.

  I dive.

  Kel drops first.

  Direct hit.

  He vanishes in a flash.

  Someone screams his name. I can’t tell who. Voices dissolve into white noise.

  Impact.

  Something punches straight through my chest.

  There is no pain.

  Surprise arrives first.

  I look down.

  There’s a hole in my armor the size of a fist.

  The one in my body is larger.

  “Interesting,” I think. “People usually die faster than this.”

  The world goes dark.

  **

  “Commencing trauma elimination,” the noetic network reports.

  I observe from inside my own consciousness, like a spectator at my personal autopsy.

  The interface renders a body schematic. A vast black void in my chest. Where organs used to be, there is now emptiness filled with statistical certainty of death.

  Nanostructures begin to move.

  Flesh weaves itself back together. Bones reassemble. Organs reform with cold mathematical precision.

  No pain.

  No sympathy.

  No doubt.

  “Remind me later to thank science for turning me into something that’s no longer human.”

  Consciousness slams back into place.

  I gasp for air.

  Sand. Dust. Screams. Metal. The smell of burned armor.

  Silas Rowe rushes toward me.

  He drops beside me. His scanner is already active.

  “How are you alive?!” he breathes.

  There’s horror in his voice, tangled with relief. He’s a good medic. He knows what the dead look like.

  Right now, he’s staring at the impossible.

  I understand instantly.

  If he finishes that scan, I lose everything.

  That’s a shame.

  I liked him.

  I clench my fist.

  Noxaris nanobots surface beneath my skin. The geometry of a weapon assembles faster than thought.

  I fire.

  Silas collapses.

  He looks at me for one second. No accusation. Just a question I can’t answer.

  “I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “You’ll be back soon. Just… slightly different.”

  He dies.

  I feel the network already reaching for him.

  It should feel like victory.

  It feels like balancing a ledger.

  I look at my body armor.

  Pierced clean through.

  My body—fully restored.

  Bad.

  Very bad.

  “That’s going to raise questions,” I whisper.

  Nanobots rapidly reforge the armor, masking the damage. The evidence dissolves.

  Now I simply look like a man with unbelievable luck.

  Sometimes that’s more suspicious than death.

  **

  The battle continues.

  Drones suppress the transport’s artillery. Explosions hammer its hull. The storm of fire begins to thin.

  I scan the field quickly.

  Kel—critically wounded, unmoving.

  Ronan Crail—armor shattered, breathing unstable.

  Mira Vossen—lying in the sand, rifle thrown aside.

  Jake Thorn—motionless beside the heavy weapon.

  Damn.

  Still standing:

  Ilai Fern—his fingers flying across the drone control panel like he’s trying to hold the sky together with his bare hands.

  Bryn Havok—already priming charges with the workmanlike calm of someone who argues with death on a daily basis.

  Tarek Noll—simply appears beside us. No sound. No explanation.

  And me.

  Axiom-126.

  I feel the chain of command collapsing.

  And somewhere deep inside, a cold, almost indecent calm settles in.

  This might actually be easier.

  I stand.

  “Remaining squad—on me!”

  They look at me.

  One second of doubt.

  One second where it’s decided who leads them next—me… or panic.

  “We take the transport,” I say. “Now. While it’s blind.”

  Tarek nods first.

  That’s a bad sign. He trusts almost no one.

  “Plan?” Ilai asks.

  “Improvisation.”

  Bryn grins.

  “I love plans that try to kill me.”

  “This one will try to do it quickly.”

  His grin widens.

  Sometimes honesty sounds a lot like confidence.

  **

  We move forward.

  The transport looms above us like a fallen star. Its hull smokes. Electrical arcs race across its armor. Massive hatches begin to close.

  It’s trying to retreat.

  I feel hundreds of Noxaris cells inside it. My network reacts to them like a predator scenting a pack.

  “Move faster!” I shout.

  We run.

  Projectiles still rain around us. Sand boils under impacts. The air smells of ozone and blood.

  Twenty meters.

  Fifteen.

  Ten.

  And suddenly—

  inside the transport—

  something—

  wakes up.

  I feel it before the sensors do.

  It touches my network cautiously… the way a surgeon touches an exposed nerve.

  I slow for a fraction of a second.

  And I understand:

  Inside the transport, I’m not being waited for by a weapon.

  I’m being waited for by an exam.

  And possibly…

  by someone who believes I belong to them.