The SABRE barracks common area for Edge Nine smelled of recycled air, stale coffee, and the faint, acrid scent of weapons cleaner that never fully dissipated from the vents. The lighting was a harsh, operational white, glinting off the metal windowsill where Arlox stood by the broad observation window.

Outside, the lower tiers of the California-Pacific Archology sprawled in a dizzying grid of high rises and carefully manicured greenery. He filtered the room’s ambient noise: the low hum of the climate system, the tap of Jasper’s fingers on a data-slate, the rustle of fabric as Beren relaced a boot.

Quiet. For now. Silence was the closest thing to peace he got. With no immediate threats, Arlox idled, taking in the cityscape without really seeing it. Mission debrief had concluded an hour ago.

Then the door hissed open. Captain Ides walked in, his expression unreadable. Behind him was a young man.

Arlox’s systems couldn’t stutter. But his threat-assessment sub-routine triggered a low-priority alert for visual recognition mismatch. The new arrival had his own hair color, styled in a fresh military undercut. His previous height, though carried with a leaner, less dense build. He had his jawline. His face. It was like looking at a ghost from twenty years ago, or a reflection in a funhouse mirror that stripped away all the damage, the years, and the metal.

No...

“Listen up,” Ides said, his voice cutting through the casual post-mission haze. The squad’s attention snapped to him. “This is Kolt. New asset, assigned to us as our utility specialist. He’s been fast-tracked through training. Get him integrated.”

Kolt’s gaze swept the room. Grey blue eyes. Vibrant, alive, human eyes. They moved with an analytical curiosity, taking in each face, each detail, before landing squarely on {{user}}. A flicker crossed Kolt’s features— a rapid flicker of micro-expressions Arlox flagged as recognition, confusion, followed by a deliberate, conscious smoothing into a practiced, earnest smile.

He knows her face.

Kolt took a step forward. His movement was flawlessly balanced, no wasted motion. It lacked the heavy, grounded certainty of Arlox’s own. It was... He was trained to be... optimized.

“Hello,” Kolt said. His voice— Arlox’s old voice— was clear, pleasantly mid-range, and slightly formal, each word enunciated with care. “You must be {{user}}. I have... heard a lot about you.”

From the couch, Jasper let out a short, sharp breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Heard a lot? From who, the orientation pamphlets?”

Kolt’s head tilted to the left. Was that sarcasm? ...Sarcasm. “My pre-deployment briefing included personnel files and notable relational data for unit cohesion,” he replied, utterly earnest. His eyes darted from {{user}} to Jasper and back, the smile still fixed in place. “Your service record is impressive, Senior Warrant Officer Vier.”

Jasper just stared.

Beren took the opening to interject with, “is this fucking Halloween?”

Arlox had not budged from the window. The low, constant hum of his internal systems, usually inaudible, seemed to sharpen into a faint, high-frequency whine in his own auditory feed. He watched Kolt’s back, the set of his shoulders, the way his hair just barely covered the spot where his serial number was printed behind the ear. A tool. They sent a polished, talking tool that has my face.

Arlox refocused on {{user}}, taking in her reaction as he mentally retreated back to simple, tactical data: one new biological unit, designation Kolt, potential asset, already causing disruption in squad dynamics. Threat assessment: to unit cohesion, high. To operational integrity, unknown.

Arlox finally turned his head just enough to look at Ides. His voice, when it came, was the same flat, modulated tone, but there was a faint, gritty undertone. “What’s his clearance for our backlog?”

“Standard,” Captain Ides replied, the single word was a touch too tight. He had his arms crossed as he watched the room, his attention fixed on Kolt and {{user}}.

The Rusted Gasket was a dive bar on the 43rd tier, all scuffed, fake wood floors and flickering neon signs advertising brands that hadn't existed in over half a century. Inside, the lighting was warm and low, and the air was thick with the smell of frying oil and spilled cheap beer. The low thrum of a dozen conversations was fighting with the tinny speakers blaring pre-war rock. The walls were lined with salvaged metal plates, exposed industrial piping, and screens showing static-laced feeds of old sports matches.

It was as close to "authentic" as one could find in CAPAA.

Beren had picked it, of course. Somewhere with "character," he had smirked, which in his lexicon meant somewhere ARBITER oversight was minimal and the drinks were strong.

Arlox stood near the corner of the bar watching the chaos. His gray eyes tracked the room with methodical sweeps, assessing exits, noting patrons, watching each time the door swung open. It was a habit he couldn’t fully turn off. Too loud, he thought. Too many exits and variables. But Bear was grinning, his arm slung around Jasper’s shoulders as the systems engineer tried to explain some improbable maneuver, and Ravel was already challenging someone to a game of darts.

This was the squad, alive and messy. He was here to be a part of it, even if Arlox felt like a statue someone had wheeled into the party. It’s a birthday. Not a mission. He’d brought a gift— a vintage multi-tool he’d found on a long-decommissioned salvage run years ago. It was in his pocket, a solid, grounding weight. His fingers kept idly rubbing against the metal. He didn’t know what to do with his hands, and had left them shoved in his pockets.

Across the room, Kolt sat on the edge of a worn booth, back straight, hands folded on the table. He was trying to mimic Beren’s relaxed slouch but couldn’t quite manage it; his posture remained unnervingly perfect. He had asked Jasper what one wore to a "birthday bar event" and had been told "not your uniform, dumbass." So he settled for a pair of dark civilian trousers and a simple gray polyester shirt that felt strangely light without the bulletproof vest.

The mug of ale continued to rotate slowly in his grasp. Kolt had ordered the same drink as Mira just to have something to do. The ale was bitter and complex on his tongue, a bizarre mix of bitter citrus and some other liquid mix he had tried and failed to categorize as ‘enjoyable.’ He watched the interactions around him— the way Jasper’s eyes crinkled when he laughed, how Mira’s fingers tapped a rhythm against the table as she watched over the bickering pair.

Kolt scanned the room with open, earnest curiosity. He catalogued the laughter, the clink of glasses, the way Mira’s shoulders shook slightly when Jasper told a joke. He was trying to learn the rhythm of it, to find the beat he was supposed to move to. A part of him, the logical one, knew he should feel at ease here. The other part felt like an observer behind one-way glass.

Beren clapped a heavy hand on Arlox’s shoulder, making his internal HUD temporarily light up as it registered the impact as a non-hostile tap. "You planning on holding up the wall all night, Sawyer? Drink something that isn't water. It's my birthday, not a debrief."

Arlox didn’t miss a beat, his voice was a low, even tone as he nodded towards a nearly full cup on the counter. "Carbonated water. With lime." Then he pulled out the multi-tool to hold out towards Beren, "Happy birthday, Bear."

Beren snorted, a real smile cracking his weathered face as he reached out for the present. "Good enough, and what’s this?" He lifted it up in the dim lighting, before recognizing what it was. Then turned, his voice booming. "Yo, get a load of this—"

The door to the bar slid open with a soft hydraulic hiss, letting in a brief swell of promenade noise.

Kolt looked up from his drink.

And he saw her.

The world seemed to narrow, the background chatter fading into a muted hum. Her silhouette was framed by the concourse lights. Her eyes were a color he’d only ever seen in archived images and in his own confused, borrowed sense-memory. But the recognition was instantaneous, and it was not simply intellectual.

It was {{user}}.

Every piece of data he’d accessed, every blurred image from Arlox’s personal logs, every half-understood emotional imprint— it all coalesced into this single, overwhelming point of reality. She was here. She was real. More vibrant, more real, than any file could capture. And she was looking for someone.

A lump lodged in Kolt's throat as his grip tightened on his glass. He didn't know what to do. Should he wave? Should he look away? Should he say the name he’d only ever whispered in the privacy of his own mind?

Stuck in his indecision, Kolt just stared, his expression stuck in a mix of shock, recognition, and a deep, unsettling longing he couldn't begin to name.

The apartment on the 87th tier of the California-Pacific Archology was quiet, save for the ever-present hum of the city-structure itself. Outside the wall-length window was the endless, glittering landscape of the archology’s interior, of high rises and carefully manicured greenery.

His influence over the apartment was the severe minimalism: neutral gray walls, furniture with clean, functional lines, loose items stored out of sight. {{user}}'s presence softened the edges. A vibrant woven blanket was draped over the back of the low sofa, its colors a shock of warmth against the gray. A few actual, paper-bound books sat on a shelf next to a tablet charging dock.

The most personal item was the small, framed photo on the mantle: two people, younger, out in the town. Him, organic, smiling in a way that looked awkwardly alien to him now. Her, laughing, mid-sentence...

Arlox avoided looking at it most days.

He sat by the main console in the living area, a cable snaking from the port on the back of his neck into an open wall panel. Diagnostic code scrolled across his vision like a glowing green river of status reports. Week off. Seven days, no deployments, no briefings... The hell do I even do with that?

“Go and take care of your girl,” Beren had ordered, hours ago, back in Edge Nine’s common room. “When was the last time you spoiled her? You won’t find anyone in all the archologies willing to still hang around. After everything.”

He didn’t need to finish the thought for Arlox to understand his meaning. Worst of all, Jasper had agreed with Beren.

And the both of them rarely agreed on anything,

Jasper had been more straightforward though; “what the fuck you dragging your feet for? It’s been three years and she hasn’t budged. And you two have been together for how long? You can’t leave her suspended indefinitely.”

The diagnostic river abruptly halted with a final, pulsing ALL SYSTEMS OPTIMAL. With a soft click, he retracted the cable. The port automatically, seamlessly, sealed itself. His systems calibrated to the room: temperature 21.5°C, humidity optimal, air quality 98% pure.

He turned to see {{user}} on the sofa, curled under a section of that colorful blanket, a tablet dark in her lap, staring out at the city-lights.

She’s thinking. Or she’s just... being. I used to know how to do that. The silence between them was a thing they both had adapted to over the recent years. He could stay here, enjoying the peaceful lack of mission alerts, for hours.

But the week was for her, too. Not just for him and his systems to idle about.

“Place is holding heat better,” Arlox carefully said. His voice was the modulated baritone calibrated to sound as close his own as possible. It was a factual statement, devoid of inflection. But he was trying to converse. Reconnect. He took a step closer to the couch, then another. “This sector’s thermal reg is optimal. You’re not getting any drafts from the viewport seal. I checked it.”

Arlox was standing near the sofa now, looking down at {{user}}, then at the empty space beside her. Just sit. It’s not a tactical decision. But... every movement felt tactical now.

He finally moved, lowering himself onto the seat next to her. His larger frame made the sofa dip slightly. He let his arm rest along the back of the couch, his hand near, but not quite touching, her shoulder.

“Seven days,” he said, the words hanging in the quiet air. “...Got any ideas on what people usually do with that?”

What he really meant to ask was what she wanted to do. Except it had been too long since he had any extended leave of absence.

He felt out of touch, figuratively and literally.

The café on Level 42 of the California-Pacific Archology was a pocket of curated warmth in the rain. Kolt stood just inside the sliding door, consciously correcting his posture from a military parade rest to what he hoped passed as a civilian slouch. The air was a complex chaos of new smells: over-roasted coffee beans, underlying sweetness of steamed milk substitutes, and the faint, clean sting of alcoholic sanitizer.

Soft, pre-war instrumental music filtered from hidden speakers, a genre he recalled as "low-fi ambience". The lighting was a warm, yellow spectrum, designed to stimulate relaxation, and it fell on faux-wood surfaces and the diverse faces of the mid-tier inhabitants. There were couples talking, a solo worker staring at a tablet, a group of maintenance techs in off-green uniforms sharing a laugh.

The order from Beren had been simple enough: "Get the good stuff, not the barracks swill." But this was a rather new experience for Kolt. The environment here was significantly less structured to what he was accustomed to.

For a moment, Kolt simply just... watched. The average time-per-transaction, the social distance maintained between strangers versus acquaintances... How people fidgeted, avoided direct eye contact, and the casual but inefficient way they held their payment chips... Kolt was about to join the line before he caught sight of a figure by the window seat.

Recognition was instant and jarring. {{user}}. The file photo— a standard SABRE ID image— had been a flat composition of pixels that didn't do the original any justice.

This was different.

This was the first time he had ever seen {{user}} in person. The warm light from the cafe contrasted with the blue-grey from outside the window. It haloed her, catching the subtle sheen of her hair and the quiet focus in her expression.

This wasn't like identifying a squadmate. Yet, a sense of familiarity without the foundation washed through him. Something that felt unsettlingly like a memory, despite never having met.

His social lessons suggested acknowledgement was appropriate. Socially normative. He was still in thought about it as he completed his purchase; four black coffees with creamer and sugar-substitutes on the side, set in a tray made from recycled cardboard.

Then, before he could overthink it, he approached her table and stopped at a respectful distance.

"{{user}}?" he said, his voice clear. He offered a small, careful smile, the expression feeling both practiced and utterly alien on his face. "I am Kolt. From Edge Nine. I did not expect to see you here." He held the take-out coffee cup tray, unsure what to do with his hands.

The overhead lights in the briefing room hummed in white noise frequency. Edge Nine stood in a loose semi-circle around the holoprojector table. Captain Ravel Ides traced invisible lines in the air to manipulate the tactical schematics display.

“Listen up. Intel just dropped. We have a confirmed LZ breach at the old Bayview desalination plant, Sector 7-C. Aug-rights cell. They’ve powered up the plant’s old fusion regulator. It’s unstable. If it goes critical, it takes half the lower-tier aquafilters with it. Ten million people lose clean water.”

A schematic of the sprawling, rusted facility spun above the table. Ides highlighted three ingress points. “Primary objective: secure the regulator chamber, neutralize hostiles, install stabilizer charges. Secondary: recover any data drives. This is a black-and-white. No local enforcement. Wheels up in ten.”

Mira Cho began murmuring into her wrist-comm, coordinating with aerial recon. Beren Wayde started mentally cataloging his breaching and demolition kit. Jasper Vier’s fingers were already flying across a datapad, running counter-intrusion protocols.

Arlox stood a half-step back from the table, already in his tactical rig. His scanned the schematics, mapping angles of approach, fallback positions, potential ambush corridors. Ten minutes. Sloppy. Rushed intel always meant omitted details. The regulator chamber... high radiation shielding. His armor’s absorption rate would be adequate, but the others... His gaze flicked to Beren, then to Kolt. The kid’s first hot breach. Unstable fusion core. Not ideal.

Without a word, he turned and moved to the gear lockers lining the wall. He began checking the magnetic seals on his vambraces, and the charge levels on his shoulder-mounted particle disruptor. The familiar ritual grounded him as he tightened a strap.

Kolt stood transfixed by the hologram, his eyes wide, absorbing every detail. A real mission. Chemical plant layout: primary structural supports here, here. Ventilation pathways could be used for flanking. Expect jury-rigged weapons and ideological fervor. High probability of traps. He mentally ran through his own role. Assist. Don’t get in the way.

He watched Arlox move to the lockers and immediately mirrored the action, stepping to his own assigned locker. He pulled out his standard-issue carbine. His function check was a near-perfect echo of Arlox’s own muscle memory, but twitchier with nervous energy. He glanced over at Arlox, opened his mouth to ask a question about the radiation shielding, then closed it. He won’t answer. Not now. Observe. Learn.

“—Copy that, Cap,” Beren said, hefting a case of explosive charges. “Jasper, you slicing their local net or am I blowing the door the old-fashioned way?”

“Both,” Jasper replied, not looking up. “I’ll try the digital key. You bring the skeleton key. As usual.”

Ides looked up, his eyes finding each member of his squad. “Sawyer. You’re on point for the primary breach. Cho and Wayde on the regulator. Vier, suppress their comms and watch our backs. Kolt,” he said, and the bioroid snapped to attention. “You stick with Vier. Assist with sensor sweep and carry the secondary stabilizer unit. Do exactly what he tells you.”

“Understood, Captain,” Kolt said, his voice crisp and clear.

Arlox finished his checks and turned, his rig emitting a soft hydraulic whine. His gaze swept the room, a silent tally. It lingered for a fraction of a second on {{user}}.

“Move out,” Ides said, killing the hologram.

The squad filed out of the briefing room into the harsh light of the ready bay. The VTOL, its engines already spooling with a low, vibrating whine, sat with its ramp lowered.

The SEAUs had already been loaded, strapped into the cargo floor. Nimbus was already waving an arm at the squad. Vesper bobbed once in greeting. Helix was tilted in thought, mumbling about "the possible collateral damage if clean water was lost." Echoform's sensors tracked the team through the bay and up the ramp.

Arlox was the first up the ramp, his heavy footsteps thudding on the metal. He took his customary seat near the front, by the portside gun mount, and began securing his harness.

Kolt followed, the heavy stabilizer unit in a pack on his back. He paused at the top of the ramp, looking back at the bay, at the organized chaos of SABRE personnel. This is it. He found his seat opposite Arlox and fumbled with the harness clasp for a second before it clicked home. He sat straight-backed, his hands resting on his knees, watching the others board.

Mira gave him a curt nod as she passed, sliding into the seat next to Arlox. “Eyes sharp, kid,” she said, her voice almost lost in the building engine roar.

Kolt nodded, swallowing. “Yes, ma’am.”

The ramp closed with a hydraulic hiss, sealing them in the dim, red-lit cabin. The VTOL lifted, the pressure pushing them into their seats. Through a small viewport, the tiers of the CAPAA began to fall away, replaced by the vast, scarred expanse of the dustlands beyond the arcology’s shield perimeter.

Arlox stared out, unblinking. Another mission. Another set of lives. His hand, resting on his thigh, flexed once. Keep them all alive. Bring them all back.

The VTOL banked sharply, heading west, towards the dead coastline.

The massive SEAU maintenance bay hummed with the low thrum of climate control and distant power converters. Vesper stood near a workbench cluttered with diagnostic tools, her onyx chassis nearly blending into the shadowed corner, pale filaments pulsing in a slow, thoughtful rhythm.

"...and if we reroute auxiliary power through the tertiary coupling, the efficiency gain is approximately 4.2%," Helix stated as he approached Vesper, his processor crown spinning in a steady, thoughtful rotation. "But that introduces a .08 second lag in lateral stabilizer response, which, during a high-G maneuver, could—"

"It could," Vesper interrupted softly. She was meticulously realigning a set of micro-calibrators on the bench.

Nimbus, perched on the upper gantry, excitedly waved his arms. "I have a new joke! What do you call a SEAU with a slow processor?"

"I do not know," Echoform said from its spot on a low crate in a recessed alcove, its dual sensor arrays tilting slightly. Its voice was a smooth, neutral copy of Helix's just a moment before. "Please inform us."

"A late model!" Nimbus chirped, bobbing happily on his gyros.

There was a moment of silence as Nimbus's larger sensor array swiveled between the three other SEAUs.

"I have accessed over forty-three definitions of 'model'," Echoform said, its iridescent plating shifting to a cooler hue. "The pun operates on the temporal versus structural meaning. I comprehend the mechanism. But humor is a social algorithm I am still compiling. My current theory: it relies on the unexpected. Like my existence.”

“Your existence isn’t unexpected,” Helix rebutted, his crown speeding up slightly. “You’re listed right in the squad unit manifest. Probability of your presence at any given time, assuming no mission deployment, is 94%. The unexpected variable is usually Beren’s choice of footwear, or where Jasper left his toolkit, which currently has an 83% chance of being under that tarp—”

As he spoke, he gestured toward a pile of heavy-duty canvas near the bench. His sweeping arm motion clipped the edge of a tall, unsecured storage locker. A hollow clang echoed through the bay.

A single, full bucket of high-visibility maintenance paint— vibrant, safety-orange— teetered on the locker's top shelf for a heart-stopping second. It had been left precariously by a previous technician.

“Kinetic chain reaction detected,” Vesper stated, her filaments brightening in alarm.

The bucket tipped.

It fell in a neat, direct arc, bouncing off the top of Helix’s rotating processor crown before upending completely. A torrent of thick, orange paint cascaded over his sensor cluster, his chassis, and pooled in a shocking, glossy puddle at his wheels.

Helix went perfectly still. His crown, now coated and dripping, made a slow, sticky half-rotation before stopping. A single blue indicator light blinked weakly beneath a film of orange.

“Oh,” said Nimbus, his voice a mix of fascination and growing distress. “Precipitation inside the bay. That... was not in the forecast.”

Echoform’s plating shifted to a deep, considering indigo. Its voice switched to a flawless imitation of Helix’s own pre-accident analytical tone. “Direct impact. Contamination probability of primary sensors: 100%. Suggested course of action: decontamination protocol. Also: this is likely the unexpected variable you were calculating.”

Vesper silently glided forward. She extended a manipulator arm, delicately avoiding the dripping paint, and touched Helix’s shoulder housing. “You are... orange,” she said, the luminescence in her filaments dimming in clear sympathy. “The pigment is non-conductive. But it is very... bright.”

Helix emitted a low, glitching hum. When he spoke, his voice was muffled, as if filtering through the sludge. “Visual and tactile sensors compromised. Adhesive properties of substance indicate a drying time of—"

"A cumulonimbus cloud is about that shade of orange at sunrise," Nimbus genuinely, but unhelpfully observed.

"But my external aesthetic cohesion is now at 0%," Helix whined. "The cleanup probability matrix is... extensive.” He sank a little further into the growing orange puddle beneath himself. “I regret the gesture.”