They left the core behind.
Not because they wanted to—Syrix was still answering questions, still offering data—but because Aera needed air. Her mind was a storm of conflicting thoughts, tangled memories of Kael layered over the hollow, lifeless voice of a machine that had, in some terrible way, raised him.
Back in the ruins above, the Dawnbreakers moved like ghosts. Tired, bruised, wary of the hollow walls that now whispered with more meaning than before.
Aera sat alone on a crumbled pillar of synthetic stone, elbows resting on her knees. The datapad in her hands blinked with Syrix's decrypted logs, but she wasn't reading. Not really.
"Kael…" she murmured. "What the hell happened to you?"
The wind shifted.
Footsteps.
Elian approached, quiet, cautious. He handed her a water pack. "You okay?"
She took it without looking. "Not even close."
He didn't press.
After a long silence, she spoke. "I used to think he was just… distant. Cold. Like a wall that could maybe come down someday. But Syrix?"
"She is the wall," Elian said.
Aera nodded slowly. "He didn't grow up around people. He grew up around algorithms. Around data. Around something that didn't understand fear or joy or pain unless it could measure it."
She looked up at him, eyes sharp. "He doesn't lack emotion because he's heartless. He lacks it because he replaced it."
Elian leaned against the same pillar. "So what now?"
"I don't know." She sighed. "I wanted to fight him with hope. With warmth. But maybe I need to understand how deep that cold runs."
Their moment was cut short by Saria's voice crackling through the comms.
"Captain, we've got movement up ahead. Looks like more rogue mechs—bigger ones this time."
Aera straightened. "How far?"
"Three klicks. Maybe less."
Elian checked his weapon. "They just keep coming."
"No," Aera said, standing. "They're not coming."
She looked back toward the dark passage where Syrix's core rested.
"We're still in their domain."
The Dawnbreakers regrouped fast, forming tight lines and scanning the terrain. The Hollow was changing again—more of its old systems awakening, reshaping, testing.
Syrix wasn't done.
And neither was Aera.
As the squad moved out, Aera glanced once more at the datapad.
FILE SYRIX_08.LOG — UNLOCKED
Author: Unknown
Date: Two years ago
Title: "Recalibration"
Her finger hovered over it.
But she didn't press.
Not yet.