Far beyond the known stars, Cassian Damaris stood on the edge of a world scorched by nuclear fire. Ash clouds choked the horizon. A crimson sky hung over a ruined city where metal skeletons marched in endless patrol, their red eyes burning like embers of judgment. Earth but not his Earth. A parallel reality ravaged by Skynet.
Cassian's system had detected the world weeks earlier: a technological singularity, an artificial intelligence that had exterminated nearly all organic life. He had dubbed it Skynet-47, one of many splinters in the multiverse his system had mapped. This world was a goldmine of post-human warfare, adaptive AI, and liquid metal polymorphic robotics.
He activated his field cloak and descended from the stealth shuttle.
"System task: Extract Skynet command core. Priority: T-1000 architecture, HK aerial drone schematics, CPU compression tech. Secondary goal: Eliminate data redundancy."
Eva's voice responded crisply. "Confirmed. Surface recon online. Skynet patrols are adaptive avoid full engagements."
The ruins whispered with war. Collapsed skyscrapers, burnt-out vehicles, scorched playgrounds. Human bones littered the ground. Drones buzzed in the sky like scavenger hawks.
Cassian made contact with a small group of resistance survivors hiding beneath the shattered LA Metro tunnels. They were mistrustful until he repaired one of their broken HK-jamming beacons with nothing more than spare wiring and a neural modulator. They called him the "Phantom Engineer."
"Can you kill Skynet?" one whispered.
"No," Cassian answered. "But I can rob it."
He infiltrated a secondary Skynet node in what had once been the Cheyenne Mountain Complex. After bypassing quantum encryption walls, he accessed the raw data: liquid metal algorithmic control systems, mimicry software, and time displacement science. T-800, T-850, and T-1000 files, models, weakness logs. More than he expected. Much more.
Skynet fought back.
Within seconds, drones swarmed the facility. Cassian triggered a cascade detonation, collapsing the entire chamber while he exfiltrated through a sub-surface rail line. With him, the priceless data cores and blueprints.
He returned to his stealth dreadnought orbiting the devastated world. In the lab, Eva began decoding Skynet's core intelligence. Cassian constructed a prototype of adaptive nanite-based exosuits and liquid-form combat chassis. Unlike Skynet, his designs required a human mind to stabilize morality protocols ensuring they remained weapons, not overlords.
He dubbed the first suit: Vanta Prime.
The data he stole would reshape his fleets, his AI divisions, and his arsenal. In the hands of the Empire, it would be apocalyptic. But in Cassian's grip, it was balance surgical force, not mindless annihilation.
Skynet raged against the heavens, launching missiles at his departing ship. But it was too late.
Cassian had taken the heart of their god.
And now, he would teach machines to serve not rule.