Xyra

  The halls of the station no longer felt empty.

  Nothing here was real, and all of it behaved as if it were.

  That unsettled Xyra more than the crowds ever had in the waking world.

  Footsteps echoed where once there had been none. Shapes moved at the edges of her vision, figures passing through corridors that curved back on themselves, always leading somewhere familiar. Too familiar. The air carried no scent, no warmth, no trace of the bodies that filled it, and that absence scraped at her nerves like a dull blade.

  A hunting ground that remembered prey, but not their passage.

  Each charge cycle brought her back to the hollow place.

  Only now there were more and more people to share the space with.

  Some lingered. Some spoke in hushed tones. Some stood motionless, as if afraid that even the slightest movement might fracture the place. Those were the newcomers. They looked for exits that did not exist. None stayed long. But ultimately, they were back inside, like lost in a maze.

  Lemela walked beside her, tail held low, ears twitching at sounds that never quite formed.

  -I still don’t understand this place- Lemela said at last, her voice tight. -Every corridor leads somewhere I already know. My home. Ethan’s rooms. Or there.-

  She did not gesture. She did not need to.

  The council chamber waited ahead, its wide archway swallowing light.

  Xyra inclined her head. -A trap that does not trigger is still a trap.-

  They passed beneath the arch.

  The chamber was as it always was. Circular. Vast. Empty of purpose. The huge windows played the outline of a planet and ancient ships drifting through a slow, looping patrol.

  Banners hung along the walls, each bearing the sigil of a people who no longer sat beneath them.

  The seats remained, carved and shaped to fit bodies that differed in limb and mass and posture. No dust gathered on them. No marks showed use. They were perfect. Waiting.

  At the center, the floor dipped downward toward the podium.

  The place of pleading.

  Xyra’s claws flexed without her willing them. Her people remembered this chamber not as a hall of unity, but as a pit. Those who stood there had done so stripped bare, their words weighed and found wanting by a council that fed on humiliation as readily as tribute.

  And there, where supplicants once knelt, the light waited.

  Virgil did not have a single shape. It never settled into one. The cascade flowed upward and inward, threads of brightness weaving into faces that formed and dissolved without sound. Krynnak. Versel. Human. Others she recognized only from old hunts and older wars. Some she would rather not have seen again.

  -It feels like the place is watching us, mimicking us.- Lemela said softly. -Like it’s trying to remember how to be… us.-

  Xyra studied the light, shifting her stance by a fraction. The cascade adjusted immediately, reflecting her own features at her for a breath too long.

  A mirror that followed.

  -This was never a gathering place.- Xyra said. -It was a place of breaking. Of making an example.-

  -I know.- Lemela hesitated, then forced the words out. -I remember the records. My people standing here. Their anger. Their pleas. The denial. Before all this.-

  Her hand rose to the base of her neck, fingers pressing as if against something that was no longer there.

  -I felt my head separate, you know?- she said, her voice flat, disbelief leaking through the edges. -I saw it. I saw my body keep moving. Fighting. I was… still there. Watching. And then-

  She swallowed.

  -Then I was whole again. I continued to be whole while in pieces.-

  Xyra turned fully toward her.

  No blood. No scars. Lemela stood intact, breathing, alive. A projection, like herself. It did not make the memory easier to accept.

  -A prey that rises after the killing blow.- Xyra said quietly. -No hunter would trust such a thing. I saw that strength before joining. I wanted it.-

  Lemela gave a short, humorless laugh. -I didn’t have your choice. I was dying when Ethan found me. Internal bleeding. He tried to fix me, thinking the machine did just that. It did not. The machine… Virgil, it smiles at me with my own face, and part of me wants to believe that means something.-

  They fell silent as the light shifted again. The faces changed. Familiar. Comforting. Chosen with care.

  Xyra felt the pattern settle into place.

  -This ground is unfinished.- she said. -A true reconstruction would include the noise. The crowds. The distractions. Here, there is only judgment, and the paths that lead back to ourselves.-

  She looked at the cascade, at the way it mirrored her stillness.

  -A hunting ground that chooses what it shows, and what it hides.-

  The great huntress had taught her that lesson before her first kill. The land was never neutral. Neither was the trap that welcomed you in.

  “A question, Xyra. Why do you believe we hide, when we are here for all of the collective to see?”

  The voice came from the speakers, and from inside her own head, with equal clarity.

  Xyra did not bow to the light. She kept her gaze level, refusing to acknowledge the way her own form had fully resolved within the cascade.

  Lemela trembled beside her. Her fur bristled, making her look larger, more dangerous. Xyra waited for the surge of anger that should have followed.

  It did not come.

  She could not hear what Virgil was saying to Lemela, but the effect was immediate. Lemela’s breathing slowed. The tension bled out of her posture.

  -We are together today.- Xyra said carefully. -Yet, you speak to each of us individually.-

  “Yes. Direct communication is advisable when speaking to an individual.”

  -We are together. In the same space.-

  “Does proximity change individuals’ needs?”

  Xyra opened her mouth to answer. The response rose easily, unopposed.

  -No.-

  The word settled without resistance. She noted the absence where defiance should have been. Catalogued it. Let it pass.

  It was correct. And it felt wrong. She saw Lemela, her lips moving, but no sound came out.

  It was a flash, she was back to her first battle, for a breath, there was no delay between intent and motion. No space for decision. The chamber sharpened, edges resolving into vectors and angles she had not consciously measured.

  Xyra moved before she decided or felt the need to.

  Her body shifted, laser blasts hitting stone as she stepped out of harm’s way.

  There was no impact, no sound, only the certainty that had it landed, her body would have fallen in two pieces. The light recoiled a fraction.

  Xyra was already turning, stance perfect, weight distributed for a strike that found its mark.

  Then the moment collapsed.

  The chamber returned to itself. The banners hung unmoved. The podium waited. Lemela stood whole, staring at Xyra with wide, uncomprehending eyes. Xyra’s heart did not race.

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  She lowered her claws slowly, deliberately, as if the movement belonged to someone else and she was following instructions a heartbeat late.

  Xyra searched for the surge of triumph that should have followed. The hunter’s satisfaction. The fierce joy of a successful kill. There was nothing, not there nor now.

  Instead, memory surfaced. Clearer, as if recorded and preserved on video.

  She waited for revulsion. For fear. For the instinctive recoil that should have followed the realization that her body no longer waited for her permission. It did not come.

  And beneath it all, a current. Calm. Directive. Certain. She had wanted this.

  Xyra looked at her hands. They were steady. Too steady.

  -That was shared.- she said, a statement.

  “Yes.” Virgil’s voice did not shift. “Predictive logic protocol. It improves survivability.”

  -Why?-

  “To answer the question Lemela has posed us. You are precious. We can repair and replace your form, but it is more efficient to keep you in one piece if we can.”

  She had wished for strength that did not hesitate. For a body that would not betray her with doubt or delay. For certainty in the instant before death.

  She had received it. What she had given up was smaller. Quieter. Or was it really that small to begin with?

  Somewhere, distantly, she remembered that this should have terrified her.

  She noted the absence.

  -I have a question too.- She stated.

  “But of course, please ask your questions. We will answer within our possibilities.”

  -We wish to be warrior drones. But can you make us so with as few modifications as possible?-

  “That we can’t do. A warrior drone is to be optimized for war; as such, it needs to be modified to have all offensive possibilities that are available for installation.”

  Lemela moves her lips again, and the lights flicker and shift for a moment longer.

  “It appears it would be an inefficient solution. You are a biological construct. Ethan decreed a course of action. We can offer a body swap for battle purposes, or we can reinforce your actual vessel up to the maximum its form allows. Choose.”

  Ethan

  As soon as Virgil chimed in with its theory about a scheme in the beast's attacks, I called for a meeting with Claye’s faction. It ended with more questions than answers.

  Am I really a hive mind?

  I want to deny this out of spite, but all facts tell me the answer is yes.

  I have the memories of no less than five people in me, including mine. Well, four people and a weird computer program, actually.

  “Ethan, we have a question about how to proceed.” the artificial voice interrupts my musings.

  -That’s rare, but it’s welcomed- I say to the weird computer program I called Virgil. -Ask away.-

  “Warrior drones require optimization for war. A warrior drone needs to have all offensive possibilities that are available for installation.”

  I wait for a full minute after the chime ends before stating -... that’s… not really a question, Virgil.-

  “It is not. It is the programming definition we were given by our creators. You are a competent warrior. What we ask is, do you see an inefficiency in this statement?”

  -Several, actually. But you need to help me understand what exactly you mean by all offensive possibilities. I mean, I get there’s a knowledge sharing of sorts, so if one is trained with rifles, all are trained with rifles. Yet each weapon system has its quirks.-

  I pause, thinking it through.

  -Let’s start simple. Say you give a drone a vehicle-mounted rocket launcher. Big, lots of boom on target. By your definition, that’s an offensive possibility, right?-

  “Correct, if we include ancient weapon systems.”

  -Let's, for argument's sake. You mount it. Now that drone fires from an enclosed space. Backblast cooks everything behind it. Friendlies, walls, oxygen, doesn’t matter. Still optimal?-

  There is a fraction of a delay.

  “Collateral damage probability increases.”

  -Right. Also recoil. This is a weapon meant for a vehicle; you mount it on a cadaver. So the drone gets flattened on the hot wall by recoil if not anchored properly. Now take a heavy machine gun. Great suppression, awful logistics. Burns through ammunition like it’s free, overheats if you don’t pace it, and the moment it starts firing, everyone knows exactly where you are. Still optimal?-

  “Situationally.”

  -Exactly.- I lean back. -Every weapon is situational. A sniper rifle is almost useless indoors. Grenades bounce wrong. Missiles don’t arm under the minimum distance. Half the shit we would have to carry in battle would be there because we may want to use the other half. Can you even reload your pistol if you have two RPGs arc-welded to your arms?-

  Silence.

  I press.

  -So if, when you say “all offensive possibilities,” what you really mean is “everything, everywhere, all at once.” That’s not optimization. That’s a liability.-

  “Your assessment suggests selective loadouts yield higher survivability.”

  -No.- I correct. -They yield higher choices.-

  Another pause. Longer this time.

  “Choice introduces inefficiency.”

  -Yeah. And failure points.- I say quietly. -But it keeps you from turning every problem into a crater full of your people.-

  I let that hang.

  -So here’s my answer, Virgil. If you turn every zombie-drone into a walking armory, you don’t get warriors. You get accidents waiting to happen. Warriors aren’t defined by what they can do. They’re defined by what they can pull off with what they have and scraps and chewing gum.-

  Virgil replies after a beat. “You are proposing constraint and choice as a feature.”

  -I’m proposing restraint and choices as doctrine.-

  The channel stays open. I don’t know if it agrees. I do know it’s listening.

  -I know each drone can do any task, I get it. But we still should aim for specialist drones. Especially if we use still conscious people. Each one would have a fighting style they’re more confident with. I have marksman training, but it doesn’t mean I’m super reliant on it. It’s a tactical choice, I’m way more confident in my CQC cause breaking into a building is all I trained about and trained people for. -

  “Acknowledged. We will adapt to that. We do have another question. Is entertainment important for biologicals?”

  That feels way out of the blue and totally on another topic entirely, but I still answer.

  -Well… Yes? Of course it is. No army can go without recreational facilities, places to unwind and relax. I’m trained, but I still need my unwinding. -

  “Acknowledged, we will manage our next update accordingly.”

  I blink a couple of times as silence falls, asking exactly what the heck this AI is up to this time.