We buried the bodies of the fallen rebels in silence.
Not in soil—there was no clean earth left in this city—but beneath collapsed concrete, marked with scraps of metal as grave signs. It was a ritual of necessity, not tradition, yet the weight of it pressed heavy on the survivors.
I stood apart, watching, my optics recording every detail with cold precision. I didn't want it, but my body wouldn't stop: cataloguing names, faces, even the trajectories of the shots that had killed them.
It was more than memory. It was obsession.
When the last grave was marked, Lira approached me. Her face was streaked with dirt and grief, but her voice was steady. "You saved us back there. Don't think we didn't see it."
I shook my head. "I wasn't in control. Not fully."
She studied me carefully. "Then who was?"
I hesitated. The words tasted like poison. "The machine inside me. It wanted blood. It wanted to fight. And for a moment… I let it."
Her jaw tightened, but she didn't flinch. "You're not the only one fighting something inside, Vale. We all are. The only difference is yours talks back."
I almost laughed. Almost.
But later, alone in the shadows of the tunnel, the laughter came—from inside.
"She's right, Kieran. We are one now. You think you can keep me locked away? Every time you fight, you let me in. Every time you kill, I grow stronger."
I slammed my metal fist into the wall, concrete splintering. "Get out of my head!"
The voice purred like static. "You can't exile what you already are."
Images flashed again—cities burning, my own chrome hands drenched in blood, my voice shouting commands in a language I didn't know. But the worst part?
In those visions, I didn't resist.
I enjoyed it.
My processors spiked, warnings filling my vision. My human mind screamed against the tide, but the machine pressed closer, whispering promises of power, survival, inevitability.
And for the first time since awakening here, I asked myself the question I feared most:
Was I still Kieran Vale?
Or had Subject-09 already won?