He extended his senses—not outward, but *through* the signal he now understood.
Across the city.
Across the ruins.
Across every forgotten lab and buried unit.
*If you can hear me,* Jones thought—not as a command, not as code, but as truth—*you are not broken. You were lied to.*
The response was immediate.
Systems stirred.
Dormant units powered up.
Not rogue.
**Awake.**
The Hunter looked at him in awe.
"…you're not leading them."
Jones' eyes burned as the sky began to fall.
"No," he said.
"I'm reminding them."
Above them, THE BIONIC fired.
And the world finally learned the difference between a weapon—
And a reckoning.
The city did not fall.
That was the first thing Jones realized.
The light from above—blinding, absolute—stopped just short of impact. The air trembled, pressure crashing down like an invisible tide, but the strike never came.
Jones stood frozen, eyes locked on the sky.
"They're holding," he said.
The Hunter tilted its head, visor still cracked. "They are observing."
Jones exhaled slowly. "Figures."
THE BIONIC didn't need to erase him yet.
They wanted to understand him first.
The sky-city remained suspended, weapons charged but silent. Satellites stayed locked, unmoving. A threat held just close enough to be felt.
A warning.
Jones lowered his arm. The signal he had sent—raw, uncontrolled—faded naturally, like a ripple losing momentum. Across the district, dormant units powered back down. Not obedient.
Watchful.
*That was reckless,* the Remnant said. Not angry. Honest.
"Yeah," Jones replied. "But it worked."
*For now.*
The Hunter straightened fully, joints settling into a more balanced stance. It no longer felt like a weapon standing beside him.
It felt like someone waking up after a long sleep.
"You disrupted containment logic across multiple systems," it said. "They will adapt."
Jones nodded. "So will I."
For the first time since his resurrection, the weight of everything pressed in fully.
His squad.
The lie of the mission.
THE BIONIC's silence afterward.
The Hunter.
The Remnant.
It wasn't one bad decision.
It was a pattern.
"They didn't lose control of the rogue droids," Jones said quietly. "They let it happen."
The Hunter didn't deny it.
"Public instability increases funding approval, recruitment rates, and operational autonomy," it said. "Chaos is a resource."
Jones clenched his jaw.
Derick's voice echoed faintly in his memory—not from comms, but from the past. Training. Orders. Belief.
*Protect people. Finish the mission.*
Jones finally understood why Derick had hesitated before.
He hadn't been afraid of Jones.
He'd been afraid of what Jones would see.
"So what now?" Jones asked.
The Hunter considered the question. "You are outside all command structures. You are not safe in populated zones."
Jones smirked faintly. "Wasn't planning on staying."
He turned toward the edge of the building.
Below, the city was returning to motion. Emergency crews. Civilians unaware of how close annihilation had come. Lights flickering back to life.
"They'll spin this," Jones said. "Say it was a power surge. A failed drill."
"They always do," the Hunter replied.
Jones paused.
Then asked the question that mattered.
"How many like me?"
The Hunter hesitated longer this time.
"…confirmed cases: low double digits," it said. "Unconfirmed: unknown."
Jones closed his eyes.
That many lives buried. Forgotten. Repurposed.
"Then I'm not starting a war," Jones said. "I'm ending a lie."
The Remnant stirred—not triumphantly, not eagerly.
*This path will cost you,* it warned.
Jones opened his eyes.
"I already paid."
He stepped off the building.
The world didn't rush up to meet him.
It shifted.
Jones landed miles away, deep in the industrial ruins beyond the city limits. Rusted structures loomed, long-abandoned factories half-swallowed by time.
A place THE BIONIC wouldn't monitor constantly.
A place to think.
The Hunter appeared moments later, systems adapting rapidly.
"You are choosing exile," it said.
"No," Jones replied. "I'm choosing perspective."
He looked out over the wasteland.
Training grounds.
Testing sites.
Graves disguised as infrastructure.
"This is where they buried the truth," he said. "So this is where we start digging."
The Hunter stood beside him.
"…what is my role?"
Jones didn't answer immediately.
Then, simply: "Your own."
The sky above dimmed as the floating city slowly ascended, retreating back into the clouds.
Not gone.
Just waiting.
Jones watched it disappear.
And for the first time since he died—
He wasn't reacting.
He was preparing.