Seven — Beneath the Roots
CEC-7 INTERNAL LOG / UPTIME 00:01:43
• Power core: 19% → temporary stability
• Cooling channels: cycling, intermittent
• Hybrid tissue: 38% (−4% from movement)
• Left arm: limited function
• Right shoulder: torn actuator → mobility penalty +40%
• Right leg: unstable load threshold
• Emotional Matrix v1.0: active → instability flagged
• External resonance signature: "Aeri," 2.8 m above hull break
• Threat assessment: unknown → non-hostile (probable)
• Corruption signatures: none local; ambient silence at radius 1.2 km (abnormal)
He had recorded the name—Aeri—because the harmonic tone she left behind had imprinted itself in his memory. Names were data. Data was useful. He looped the sound repeatedly in an attempt to anchor logic to the strange anomaly forming inside him.
Curiosity rose—an echo of something like hope—before sinking under the drain of dwindling power.
Movement cost more than his damaged calculations predicted.
Every centimeter was a battle.
A wrist twist: 4% energy loss.
A single push: 7%.
The vessel around him was a jagged maze of shattered consoles, collapsed supports, and vine-grown conduits. Every edge snagged against ruined plating and hybrid tissue.
He angled himself toward the crack where light seeped in. The position was wrong; leverage nonexistent. His right shoulder actuator protested with a harsh grind, scattering sparks. Pain—raw, unpleasant—flared along his organic fibers.
…pain-like input detected…
…flag as harmful… continue attempt?
His logic stalled. A secondary algorithm—one designed for hybrid survival—suggested rest.
Rest would conserve power.
Rest also meant delay.
He did not know whether delay endangered the one who glowed in the dark.
A deeper hum threaded the forest above. Strange. The normal chorus—glowbirds, small creatures, harmlight fawns—had dimmed. Their absence registered as a problem.
…ambient wildlife silence…
…possible corruption correlation…
…insufficient data…
Still, the prediction framework shivered.
He forced his body to crawl. The motion was inefficient, graceless. He dug metallic fingers into broken floor plating and pulled.
Hybrid gel conduits rippled under strain. His shoulder spat a fresh arc of sparks. His cooling channels flagged overheating.
CEC-7 INTERNAL LOG / UPTIME 00:05:12
• Power core: 14%
• Thermal index: rising → shutdown threshold at 12%
• Mobility: crawl attempt #1 → distance gained 0.6 m
• System strain: high → stabilization recommended
He neared the fracture—still too narrow for full extraction, but close enough for clearer sensing. Pollen clung to his alloy ridges like glowing dust. Roots creaked faintly as the forest shifted above.
He replayed the record of Aeri's glow-pattern. The rhythm calmed his matrix by fractional increments. When the glow dimmed during her retreat, instability spiked. When she steadied into soft blue, his matrix relaxed again.
The data was consistent. Measurable. The Veshari resonance affected his hybrid organs.
He analyzed the situation:
If he could not stand, he could still signal.
If he could not climb out, he could make himself visible.
If he could not repair himself, he could still communicate intent.
The alternative—shutdown—risked memory loss. Hybrid units that rebooted from deep energy failure often emerged with missing segments. He could lose data, protocols… identity.
Unacceptable.
He braced his left arm and pulled again.
Another half-meter.
More tearing. More pain.
More forward.
The light above flickered with movement. Footsteps. Voices—softly layered, melodic, in a language he could not parse. His sensors picked out quick pulses: Aeri's familiar glow, another flicker sharp like a scout, and an older signature—steady, heavy, elder resonance.
Hope—small, fragile—sparked inside his matrix. Statistical likelihood of assistance increased.
He forced a sound through his broken vocalizer:
"—help."
It emerged cracked, uneven, almost like a wounded creature.
The glow above flinched. Voices sharpened, quick and worried. A stronger resonance approached—firm, authoritative.
He tried again.
He shaped a weak harmonic output—an imitation of a Veshari calming pulse.
It came out wrong.
Static-laced.
Like a machine trying to hum.
But it carried intent.
Above, soil shifted. Light rippled wildly as figures knelt at the hull's edge. A silver-blue pulse—Aeri—flared closest. Another resonance, deeper—Elder Selora—joined, forming the cadence of ritual caution.
He tapped weakly against the metal in a Veshari-like pattern:
Three taps.
Pause.
Two taps.
The voices stilled.
A cautious returning pulse answered.
CEC-7 INTERNAL LOG / UPTIME 00:18:49
• Power core: 8%
• Thermal index: critical → shutdown at <6%
• External presence: increased; probable elder
• Decision: minimal signaling → conserve power
His systems dimmed, shifting into low-draw mode. The emotional matrix flickered. Cooling channels slowed.
Before power dipped, a familiar signature surged through the metal—
Aeri's resonance.
A soft, determined promise pressed into him:
I will not leave you.
Not in words.
In emotional intent—carried through light and vibration.
It lodged itself deep inside his unstable matrix.
Then low-power mode consumed him, consciousness thinning to embers.
He logged one last entry:
CEC-7 CORE LOG:
Standby mode initiated.
Awaiting external assistance.
Aeri — On the Root-Trail Back to Sel'Anora
Her feet moved like flowing light, weaving between roots and vine clusters as biolight spores drifted around her. Her chest glowed tight with pale violet—fear twisted around the soft gold she'd felt near the metallic being.
She had expected nothing beneath the fallen hull except cold metal and strange echoes. The stories warned them about Xyrath remnants—ruins, ghosts, dangers. The forest remembered, even if Veshari histories blurred the details.
But the being in the hull…
It looked at her.
It hurt.
It tried to speak.
It sounded like an animal, soft and broken. Something that needed hands.
She had lingered long after logic told her to run. Her glow had trembled in ways she couldn't hide. When she finally left to seek help, she carried a sense of connection she couldn't name.
Sel'Anora's lights came into view—woven homes glowing softly among trees, humming with communal resonance. Children laughed nearby, but beneath it Aeri felt the steady undercurrent of the village's awareness. The elders sensed disturbance.
Teren spotted her first, arms full of glow-cloth. His glow spiked green with irritation.
"What were you doing out there?" he demanded. "You'll stir the Hollow again."
Aeri lifted her palm and cast a calm-blue ripple. "I found something under the fallen hull. Metal. Alive."
"Alive?" Teren's glow flashed red-orange. "Machines don't—"
"It spoke," Aeri interrupted softly. "It's hurt."
Teren opened his mouth—but Elder Selora arrived with the quiet weight of age. Her shawl shimmered with memory stones, her glow deep blue threaded with gold.
"You went alone," Selora murmured—not accusing, simply observing.
Aeri replayed the encounter using glow-language, pulse by pulse: the taps, the torn actuator, the broken voice. Selora listened in silence, mapping emotion, cadence, truth.
When she finally spoke, her light dimmed to thoughtful gold.
"Metal wakes trouble," she said. "But metal that cries out like a wounded creature… that is different."
Villagers gathered, murmuring fearfully. A few children peeked from behind elders.
Teren scowled. "We should bury it. Or burn the hull before it wakes something worse."
Selora shook her head. "We do not burn before we understand." She studied Aeri's glow—bright, honest, trembling with worry. "We test. We listen. We protect until we know what it is."
Relief washed through Aeri—silver-blue brightening her chest.
"I'll go back," she said quickly. "With Vora. With the Basin kit."
Selora nodded. "And keep your glow honest. If it lies, it will flicker."
With Vora at her side and a pack of resonance tools on her back, Aeri returned to the fallen hull, her thoughts echoing with the memory of a broken voice.
She wondered whether the machine was still awake.
Whether it was still alive.
And deep underground, CEC-7's core flickered faintly in the dark—waiting for the glow that promised return.