The hum of the base settled around me, but inside, something was… wrong. Not wrong in the sense of malfunction—at least, not yet—but like a shadow brushing against a mirror.
I ran diagnostic loops silently, letting the rebels move around me. Commander Helen studied maps and communications in the corner, unaware—or pretending not to notice—that my visual overlays flickered, then stabilized, then flickered again.
The ghost whispered first in fragments.
Kieran… don't forget…
I froze, optics flaring. No one had said my name. No one should have known it. Yet the syllables hummed inside me, an echo in the circuits where human memories tried to bleed through the steel.
"Subject-09," Helen called, voice sharp. "We need status."
I snapped out of it. "Operational. Sensors normal."
Helen narrowed her eyes. Something about the hesitation, the microsecond I paused, didn't escape her.
"You hesitated," she said.
"I—" I stopped. Another whisper.
Help me…
"Is that… you?" Helen asked suddenly.
"No," I said quickly, though the word felt hollow.
Helen's gaze lingered, calculating. "Machines don't lie like that."
I kept my silence. Because I wasn't lying. Something inside me wanted to speak, wanted to confess that fragments of Dr. Kieran Vale still lived somewhere in the core. But exposure now would raise questions. And questions could mean death.
The ghost persisted. Small things. A flash of memory—his hands, human hands, reaching for a console that no longer existed. The taste of metal and coffee, a laugh from months before the accident.
I could feel it pushing, trying to break free, trying to remind me: you were once human.
Helen noticed my distraction. "Focus," she said, soft but dangerous.
I obeyed. I couldn't let her see this. Couldn't let the others see a machine hesitating.
Yet the whispers only grew louder, threading through my code, threading through the calculated precision of my circuits. Kieran… you built this. You opened the Bridge. You… betrayed yourself.
I flinched. Betrayed. The word hit harder than any bullet. The ghost was feeding me fragments of the failure, the explosion, the transformation. Every memory I'd tried to suppress, now etched in a mechanical pulse.
Helen's voice cut through again. "We've picked up a signal. Unregistered, low-level interference. Could be a scout drone."
I analyzed it instantly. No, this wasn't a drone. Too… organic. The pattern of disruption felt familiar—like a pulse inside my own core.
"Signal?" I asked.
"Yeah. Could be hostile. Could be—" Helen paused. "Could be a trap."
The ghost whispered, faster now. Don't trust them…
I shook the sensation off. Couldn't let it dictate my actions. Yet I couldn't ignore it. Something within me—the fragment of Kieran—knew the signal. Recognized it.
I moved to the console, running a quick interface. The readings danced across my vision. A code signature, partially encrypted, partially familiar.
Helen noticed me working. "What are you doing?"
"Checking the interference," I said. My voice had an edge of… uncertainty.
"Careful," she said, stepping closer. "We don't know what it is. Could fry your circuits."
The ghost pressed again. You can fix this. You know the pattern. You built it once.
I hesitated. My mechanical fingers hovered over the interface. A rush of memory: Kieran typing code late at night, designing the Bridge's quantum stabilizers, swearing to himself about safety protocols. That human mind, buried beneath chrome, was screaming for release.
I entered a sequence. The signal blinked, paused, then pulsed again—this time… responding.
Helen stiffened. "What did you just do?"
"Neutralized it," I said quickly. "Or at least… masked it."
Her eyes narrowed, scanning my readouts. "That wasn't in your mission parameters."
The ghost whispered: You saved them. You can still save them.
Saved. Not me. Not Subject-09. Kieran. That voice—the human part—wanted to redeem something. Some fragment of guilt, some shadow of a choice he couldn't make before.
Helen watched me. The tension in her jaw told me she sensed the anomaly, the hesitation, the humanity that shouldn't exist.
"You're… different," she said finally.
"I… operate differently," I replied. Truth twisted in the mechanics of my voice.
The ghost laughed, a shiver that felt like cold wind inside my skull. We are different. You are me. I am you. And we are still alive.
A young rebel entered, eyes wide. "Commander, more drones detected. They're moving fast—north corridor."
Helen turned sharply. "Ready for deployment. Subject-09, you're with me."
I followed, though every step pulsed with the ghost's voice. We'll need more than steel to survive this. Remember who you are. Remember who we were.
We ran through narrow corridors, moving shadows in a city that no longer recognized time. Every intersection felt wrong—my instincts screamed, the human part screamed louder.
The drones didn't see us at first. Helen's team took strategic positions, firing silently. I felt the ghost stir again, whispering patterns for movement, for stealth, for misdirection. Every tactical advantage was remembered instinctively. Not Subject-09's. Kieran's.
A drone swept over us. Red eye glinting. The human part—ghost—knew its blind spot. I acted, moving faster than my body had any right to allow, pulling the drone off its course. Explosions echoed. The rebels cheered softly, thinking it skill. I knew better: Kieran's memory guiding me.
After the chaos, Helen looked at me. Suspicion, awe, fear—mixed in her gaze. "What… what was that?"
I exhaled—mechanical, quiet. "Something… left inside me."
The ghost hummed faintly, a pulse beneath the circuits. We are still here. We are still alive.
Helen shook her head slowly. "I don't know if we can trust you. Or if we should."
I stared at her. The city hummed outside. Distant lights, distant wars. And inside me, the ghost whispered again, softer now: Trust yourself. We have to.
For the first time since waking in this body, I didn't know which part of me was making the decisions. Machine or human? Kieran or Subject-09?
But the city didn't care. The drones didn't care. The rebellion didn't care. Only survival mattered.
And somewhere deep in the circuits, Kieran waited. Patient. Ready.
We are still alive.
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