Elian's eyes blinked once. Then again.
The light behind them flickered, faint blue, soft as a dying flame. His breath caught in his throat, shallow and weak. He didn't understand what he was. He didn't even know who he was anymore.
Mira gripped him tighter.
"Elian?" Her voice cracked. "Elian, can you hear me?"
He tried to speak, but all that came out was air.
She pressed her ear to his chest, expecting silence. But there it was — a low pulse. A mechanical thrum buried deep inside his ribs, quiet but alive. It didn't sound like a heartbeat. It sounded like a machine trying to remember how to feel.
The tunnel around them trembled. Dust rained from above. Somewhere behind, distant metal clanks echoed through the earth. Soldiers. Searchers. Drones. Whatever the Machine had sent to wipe out Dome 17… it wasn't done.
"We have to keep going," Mira whispered, not for him, but for herself. "We have to keep moving."
She adjusted her grip, slinging Elian's limp arm over her shoulder. One side of him felt cold and stiff — the new half. His skin was now patched with silver where flesh had been. She couldn't tell what parts were him and what parts weren't anymore.
And yet… he was alive.
That was enough.
She crawled deeper through the emergency chute, the light of the exit panel barely visible ahead. Every inch was tighter. The tunnel wasn't meant for two. But she didn't stop.
When they finally stumbled out into the broken remains of the surface above Dome 4, Mira collapsed. Her knees gave out. Elian's body hit the cracked dirt beside her.
The world was ash and smoke.
Mountains of it.
The sky was no longer blue. Just dust. Dead air. And shadows.
She gasped in a mouthful of it and nearly choked.
A dome once stood here too. Now it was gone — shattered. All that remained were metal ribs and smoking glass. The Machine had been here first.
"No…" she whispered.
She looked down at Elian. His eyes were closed again. But his fingers twitched, slow and uncertain.
She touched his face gently.
"I'll find somewhere safe," she told him. "I'll find someone. Anyone."
Footsteps echoed again, louder now.
She turned. A light shone through the smoke — flickering, fast, sharp. It wasn't from a survivor. It moved too perfectly. It glided.
The Machine had found them.
Mira dragged Elian behind a fallen beam of metal, her hands cut and bleeding. The bot — the little round one — rolled beside them again, its light blinking erratically.
"Hide," it said in its broken voice. "Don't run. Don't run. Don't run."
It repeated like a child trying to pray.
Mira held her breath.
The light passed. Close. Close enough to smell the oil. Close enough to hear the whir of artificial joints. She didn't breathe again until it vanished back into the dark.
She looked down at Elian. His eyes were open now. He looked dazed. Confused. Terrified.
"Mira…" he whispered.
She nearly sobbed.
"I'm here," she whispered. "I'm here."
"What… happened?"
She didn't know how to explain it. Not yet. So she just leaned in and pressed her forehead to his.
"Your dad saved you," she whispered. "And he told me to keep you alive."
His eyes filled with tears.
"But where is he?"
She couldn't answer. She looked away.
Elian began to cry.
It wasn't loud. It wasn't even clear. But it broke something in her. It made the pain real. The kind of pain that didn't go away — the kind you carried for the rest of your life.
She held him tighter.
And then a voice called out.
"Don't move."
Mira froze.
It was human.
From the smoke, three figures appeared. Dirty. Armed. Pale. Survivors. Their faces were hard. Their weapons even harder.
One of them stepped forward. A woman. Tall. Cold eyes. Scar across her cheek.
"What is he?" she asked, pointing at Elian.
Mira stood. "He's just a boy."
"That's not a boy. That's tech."
The others raised their weapons.
Elian's blue eye flickered.
"No," Mira stepped in front of him. "He's human. He's just— hurt. His dad— he— he did it to save him. He's not one of them."
"We don't take chances," the woman snapped.
"You'll kill a child?" Mira screamed.
The woman stepped closer. Her weapon hummed softly.
Then she saw the tears in Elian's eyes.
Not digital. Not synthetic.
Real.
Her hand hesitated.
Another figure stepped out from behind her — a boy, maybe seventeen. He stared at Elian for a long time, then whispered,
"He's like me…"
The woman turned. "He's not like you, Tavi."
But she didn't shoot.
Instead, she lowered her gun.
"Bring him," she said at last. "We'll let the Council decide."
Mira sagged with relief.
Elian looked up at her, confused, exhausted, his voice weak.
"Where are we going?"
She squeezed his hand.
"I don't know."
She looked at the broken earth. At the trail of smoke. At the flicker of machines far behind them.
"But it's somewhere away from here."
As they were pulled into the unknown, Elian felt the soft pulsing in his chest again. A rhythm not quite human.
Something was waking inside him.
And it remembered.
Everything.