My reboot cycle didn't start with a surge of power, but with a slow, agonizing trickle.
First came the tactile sensors. I felt the jarring, rhythmic bounce of a vehicle suspension working overtime. The surface beneath my bare metal back was grooved steel, vibrating with the roar of a heavy CHOOH2 combustion engine.
Next came the audials. They flared to life with a crackle of static, picking up the howling desert wind and the raised voices of two young men in the cab ahead of me.
"I'm telling you, it's not Militech," a young voice argued, straining over the engine noise. "Militech stamps their eagle on everything down to the damn bolts. This thing? Not a single maker's mark. No serial numbers, no corporate branding, nothing."
"So what, it's some Arasaka black-project?" a second, slightly deeper voice replied. "Gonk was lying naked in the Yucca garage under a caved-in roof. Looked like a meteor hit him. You really think 'Saka leaves a full-borg conversion out in the Badlands to collect dust?"
"I don't know, choom. That's why we're hauling it to Dakota. If anyone can crack the chrome on this thing, it's her."
I kept my optical shutters locked down. My internal battery was hovering at a critical two percent. The Light within me was still a dry, echoing void, my Ghost tucked so deep inside my core I couldn't even feel his passive warmth. I needed to conserve power, so I let the two young Aldecaldos play delivery boys.
An hour later, the truck groaned to a halt.
I was hauled out of the truck bed with a chorus of grunts and curses. Exo chassis aren't made of light, hollow chrome; we were built by Clovis Bray for war. I was solid, hyper-dense alloy and synthetic muscle.
"Christ, he's heavy," one of the kids groaned. "Grab the legs. On three."
They unceremoniously dumped me onto a cold steel worktable. The scent of ozone, burning flux, and sweet incense hit my olfactory sensors.
"What did you two drag into my shop?" a woman's voice asked. It was raspy, aged, and carried the undeniable authority of someone who didn't tolerate fools. Dakota Smith. The Aldecaldos' premier fixer and tech-shaman.
"Found him out in Yucca, Dakota," the first kid said, out of breath. "Crashed straight through the roof of the old garage. We thought it was a drone at first, but look at it. It's shaped like a man."
I heard the slow, heavy footsteps of Dakota approaching the table. A bright diagnostic light snapped on, bleeding red through my closed optical shutters.
"Spirits preserve us..." Dakota muttered, her tone shifting from annoyed to deeply fascinated. I felt the cold tap of a metal tool against my chest plate. "This isn't just a full-borg conversion. This... this doesn't make any sense."
"What do you mean?" the second kid asked.
"Look at the plating," Dakota instructed. "It's scarred to hell and back. Burn marks, plasma scoring, deep lacerations. But the metal underneath isn't oxidizing. It's not steel, it's not titanium, and it sure as hell isn't any polymer Arasaka or Kang Tao uses. And this white dust all over the chassis?"
A pause. I felt a swab drag across my shoulder, collecting the dried Vex radiolaria I was still covered in.
"Smells like ozone and rotten circuitry," one of the boys noted.
"It's not dust," Dakota said softly. "It's some kind of dry silicon-based fluid. Like... liquid glass."
I heard a heavy sigh, followed by the clatter of a scanner being picked up. The machine whined as it passed over my body, followed immediately by three sharp error beeps.
"Scanner's glitching out," Dakota grumbled, tapping the device. "It can't read the internal architecture. But from what my Kiroshis are telling me, there are no biological components left. No brain in a biopod. No spinal column. It's entirely synthetic."
"So it's an AI?" the first kid asked, his voice suddenly tight with panic. "Like... from beyond the Blackwall? Dakota, if NetWatch tracks this to camp—"
"Calm your nerves, boy," Dakota snapped. "If it was a rogue AI drone, it wouldn't have human-analog muscle fibers. Look here, in the joints. These aren't standard servos. They mimic human musculature perfectly. Whoever built this didn't just want a robot. They wanted a human soul in a metal body."
She walked around to my head. I felt her gloved hands gently inspect the side of my faceplate, her fingers searching the metal.
"Where are the ports?" she whispered, her voice tinged with sheer disbelief. "No personal link. No shard slots. No neural port at the base of the skull. It's a closed system. A completely closed system. How does it interface? How does it update?"
"Maybe it's ancient?" one of the kids suggested. "Like, pre-Krash tech?"
"Pre-Krash tech was clunky. This is elegant. This is..." Dakota trailed off, tapping her tool against the table. "I don't know what this is made for. It's built like a tank, but designed like a work of art. And it's completely dead."
Not quite.
I had gathered enough ambient energy from my reboot sequence to manage basic functions. It was time to introduce myself before Dakota decided to crack my chest cavity open with a plasma cutter to see how my engine worked.
I routed power to my optical sensors and vocal synthesizer.
With a mechanical click, my optical shutters slid open.
The dark garage was instantly illuminated by the piercing, luminescent glow of my Exo eyes. The two young Nomads jumped back with a string of panicked curses, the distinct, heavy clack of an overture revolver being cocked echoing in the small room.
Dakota didn't flinch. She just took a half-step back, her cybernetic eyes widening as she stared down into my glowing optics.
I let my servos whine as I slowly, deliberately sat up on the metal worktable. I looked at the two kids, their guns trembling slightly as they aimed at my chest, and then turned my gaze to the veteran fixer.
"My maker," I said, my synthesized voice deep, resonant, and dripping with the exhaustion of a thousand lifetimes, "is dead. And I am not from beyond your Blackwall."
I slowly swung my heavy metal legs off the side of the table, the joints clicking into place.
"I'd appreciate it," I continued, looking down at my scarred, naked chassis, "if someone could point me toward a pair of pants. And a very, very strong drink."