The boardroom was silent. The broadcast had ended five minutes ago, but the screen still glowed faintly with an after-image - black, minimal, a pulsing cursor in the bottom corner. The voice of the little girl lingered longer than it had any right to, not in sound, but in rhythm.
"It hurts when I sleep now. It sings louder then."
Maxim Cutter stood still at the head of the table. His gloves were off. They rested neatly beside the data tablet, palms open like they'd just released something delicate. He inhaled once, as if to catalog the silence. Then:
"System."
A soft chime responded - neither male nor female, stripped of identity by design. "Standing by."
Cutter began. "Triangulate the broadcast origin, last transmission. Prioritize signal architecture, civilian power irregularities, and any neural sync deviations that could correspond to personal transmission. Display the signal band at maximum tolerance."
There was a pause, then a pulsing red line traced itself across the edge of the room's northern display wall. Data burst upward in quiet bursts. Routing chains. Uplink pings. Power cycle fluctuations - and then the line blinked out.
"Unable to localize." The system replied. "The signal path has been randomized. The source transmission was confirmed to have been routed through at least sixteen false indexes. Signal band evaluation is non-viable. Physical contact may be necessary to validate the transmission site."
Cutter's jaw shifted slightly. Not tension, just a correction of posture.
"Then infer. Cross-reference known Purist-controlled sectors with any recent anomalies - power surges, blackouts, or manual override triggers. Filter for sites with suppressed infrastructure and recent civilian evacuation reports."
A new grid shimmered into view. Red rings. Cold clusters. Three locations pulsed yellow. "Three high-probability sectors: Grid 12-C, Grid 7-F, Grid 4-N."
Cutter's eyes tracked them slowly, left to right. 12-C had recent construction data, that location was far too active. 4-N had routine border sweeps. But 7-F…
He tapped it once.
"Show historical data values."
A quiet burst of numbers appeared. "Transmission viability: plausible. Uplink deviation is around 14%. The power grid has been scrubbed but not decommissioned."
Cutter was quick to reply. "Show me a punctuated list of our available operations units. Highlight Tier Four or below. Sort by highest cumulative experience in reconnaissance and data retrieval, and exclude conflict-heavy profiles."
A new column populated across the adjacent wall - names, tags, kill-free mission counts, suppression viability scores. Cutter watched as the list formed, algorithmic authority rendered sterile and precise.
"Highlight the top result," he said.
The name brightened on the display. One unit. Active. Compact. Familiar with fringe-sector navigation.
His eyes narrowed as he touched the screen once. "Assign the top unit to Grid 7-F. Recovery objective only. Promote Vann to team leader."
A tone confirmed the order. "Deployment authorized. Directive file appended to field pack. Dispatch ETA: four minutes."
The computer did not exaggerate the response time. Within four minutes, the Sovereign Ops team had assembled and deployed - minutes later, the carrier settled on the main avenue of Grid 7-F without obstruction. No alarm triggers, no proximity warnings. Just the slow whine of engine heat dissipating into cracked asphalt.
The street looked like it had been uninhabited for months, but the reports said two days. Two. And the reports had come encrypted, tagged by sovereign scouts with verified signal inconsistencies.
The team moved out in pairs, although there was no evidence of potential resistance. No movement. No sounds at all except for the low hum of ambient generators echoing from somewhere deep in the infrastructure of the power grid. They swept the perimeter with professional silence. Patterned movement. Weapons drawn but relaxed. The first sweep came back cold, but still, the tension didn't drop.
The first building had been listed in city records as a maintenance depot. The signage was Sovereign-issued but half-burned, and the entrance had been fused open. Not blasted, rather melted and shaped. Intentional and controlled.
Inside: shelving units stood in perfect parallel. Metal drawers sat open with nothing in them. There were no scraps, no rust flakes, no tools. Not even dust. One operative crouched while he scanned the floor. Boot impressions identifiable as standard issue, a common Sovereign pattern, but far too few for a work crew. Just one or two sets, walking deliberately, avoiding center walkways. A single drag mark ran perpendicular to the rest. Something had been moved here, carefully, with intent, not in haste.
On the back wall, an entire panel had been removed to expose a cable line. It had been spliced with surgical care, capped, and resealed with industrial tape. That tape was still tacky when touched.
"This was alive. Less than a day ago," someone said.
Nothing else was spoken.
The second building had housed residential overflow. The air inside was cold. But not from ventilation, as there wasn't any - but from deliberate power cycling, the residual energy still held in the walls. Empty chairs sat at precise angles in the common space. Food prep counters were wiped clean, light projected from one recessed ceiling strip, flickering in uneven rhythm like a dying memory. They searched every room.
Beds were made. Water taps were sealed. Refrigeration units were dry. In one sleeping pod, the personal drawer was still open. Inside: an old digital notepad with a blank screen, and a soft indentation where something had recently rested. A device, maybe a pendant, no longer there. Even the latrines still smelled faintly of cleanser.
At the end of the hall, one operative found a stairwell where the lower landing had been swept clean but the upper was still covered in dust. A small red sticker had been placed in the stairwell which read, "INSPECTED. COMPLIANT."
"What kind of rebellion runs compliance checks?" he asked.
"The kind that wants us to walk out with nothing but suspicion," Vann answered. They want us to waste time."
Another found a locker with its contents dumped, uniforms stacked, boots aligned. No personal effects. Only one terminal still functioned. It displayed a blinking error message in Sovereign dialect.
SIGNAL LOST. RESTORATION IN PROGRESS.
However no attempt had been made to restore it. Vann didn't raise his voice. He didn't slow down. But he kept his hand near the maglock on his holster from that moment on. As the team neared the exit, they reached a hallway with a cracked screen still running. Static. Beneath it, someone had written in marker: Nothing to see here, Citizen.
"They're taunting us," said one of the operatives.
Outside, the team regrouped in the shadow of the building.
"Everything we've found looks like it wasn't lived in. It was presented."
No one disagreed. They scanned the skyline for any signs of anything at all. No movement. No heat signatures. No trace of anyone watching -but the feeling still remained. They weren't just late, they'd been anticipated. And somewhere, not far from where they stood, someone was waiting for them to figure that out. The Sovereign ops team moved through the third building in practiced silence, sensors pinging blank, oxygen levels static, thermal dead.
"Negative on heat sources. Negative on movement. Again."
Vann's jaw tightened beneath the visor. "That's three cleared buildings. Reports said this site was active two days ago. Where's the inventory? Where's the labor?"
He checked his scanner again. "They didn't move fast, just quiet."
"I don't like it," one of the operatives remarked. "It's too curated. Like someone cleaned up just enough to show us nothing."
Vann nodded once. "Fourth structure, cafeteria block. Sweep hard. No breaks. We've got to find something"
The cafeteria door slid open with a slow mechanical wheeze. It was intact - tables overturned, food trays scattered, some still bearing stains from half-eaten rations. It looked, finally, like signs of life. In the center of the room, huddled against the far wall beneath dim flickering light -
Seven figures. Civilian silhouettes. Blank clothing, no visible weapons. No armor, no threat. They sat in a tight circle, backs hunched, shoulders shaking. Vann raised his rifle and took two slow steps forward.
"Sovereign Command Enforcement! Do. Not, Move. Hands where I can see them."
No one responded, In fact, no one moved at all.
"I Repeat. Do not move."
A second operative stepped forward, rifle steady. "They're not responding."
That's when the lights dimmed. A sound rose, low, like pressurized hum building through metal plating.
Without warning, a high-energy shield activated over the civilians, forming a translucent barrier that shimmered with flickering hexes. The shockwave knocked was so abrupt that it knocked Vann back half a step.
"What the hell—?"
Then came the sound. A hollow clatter, soft and deliberate - as a small toy hit the ground - falling from stack of trays and garbage, spinning once. The team turned as one.
From the far wall, behind piled palettes and scavenged debris, the mech stood, making its first appearance on the battlefield. It had been buried and obscured by debris, camouflaged in industrial trash and old freight coverings, welding scars still glinted faintly beneath the dust. It was unmistakable.
The arm on its right side terminated in a close-range scatter cannon, repurposed from an industrial pressure-coupling unit. The bracing system was raw - bolted plating across the joint to handle recoil. On the left: a heavy clamp limb with crush-lock hydraulics, once used for docking containers, now fitted with reinforcement braces. Its legs were stabilizer-fitted, angled back for shock-absorption and mobility. It wasn't elegant or sleek, but that was on purpose. It had the industrial, uneven silhouette of something that was never supposed to walk, but did anyway.
One of the operatives immediately fired a multiple-round burst. The shot struck the center of the mech's chest and sparked off harmlessly. That was all the invitation it needed. The moment that happened, a drone overhead blinked green. The live feed activated.
The mech moved with blunt certainty, no excess, no flourish. It pushed forward, shrugging off hits that would have crippled lesser machines. The scatter cannon exploded point-blank into the shooter's chest and it ran forward, vaporizing him from the sternum outward into a plume of kinetic mist.
"Open fire!" Vann roared. "We're compromised!"
The mech pivoted mid-motion and used its clamp arm to grab another operative at the waist. There was a brief mechanical scream of pressure release, then bone gave way with a sickening compression as his armor folded inward like tin.
Another operative released a pulse drone that detonated harmlessly against its plating. One Sovereign trooper misfired, clipped his own partner. Their formation broke. That was all it took. The rest fell in seconds.
The Purists around the room stood up one by one. They weren't civilians. Not really. Each wore layered soft armor beneath scavenged jackets. Their weapons were compact. Efficient, familiar, and coordinated. They advanced without speaking, flanking the remaining Sovereign operatives with practiced, fluid motion.
"They planned this," one of the operatives shouted. "They knew we'd come!"
Helmet cams recorded everything. Across Sovereign City, the transmission broke through to 34% of active signals. Screens in transport stations, apartment foyers, even neural HUD overlays all showed the same feed:
Sovereign soldiers firing first.
Purists huddled, shielded.
Then a machine rising from the refuse to defend them.
What played out wasn't a skirmish.
It was a story.
The soldiers were augmented, faster, and stronger than their Purist foes. But they were ultimately overwhelmed. The mech crippled one with a crushing kick to the chest. One operative took aim - but a Purist fired a stun charge at his leg a split second before the mech closed in. He staggered, and that's when the mech lifted him by the collar and drove him through the serving counter like a wrecking ball made of bone. which was caught on camera as he hit the wall and dropped limp.
Only Vann remained, pressed against steel, breath ragged - like the last note in a song no one wanted to hear. In the residential zones, families watched from dinner tables. In the ad corridors, eyes froze mid-commute. Across Sovereign City, questions filled the spaces where compliance used to live. A Purist retrieved the drone as the feed narrowed into a single close-up frame.
A young man with a shaved head, leather gloves, and blood on his collar looked right into the lens. "Tell Cutter we made this with scraps."
The feed cut, and screens went black.
The footage ended.
Cutter didn't speak. The boardroom lights were dimmed, the feed still flickering in the corner of the central screen, its final frame suspended in crisp, silent defiance: a Purist soldier holding the broadcast drone up to the camera, eyes calm, voice steady. There was no anger in Cutter's face. No shift in posture. Just stillness.
Then, a short exhale. A single, amused breath, almost a chuckle. "Alright," he said softly, folding his hands behind his back. "Things just got interesting."
He turned from the screen and walked the polished floor of the Sovereign Tower's upper chamber, the light from the city bleeding through the high glass panels. His silhouette moved like a shadow cast by intention.
"I do love a new player on the board," he added. He pressed his palm to the embedded console. "Secretary," he said, voice smooth but firm.
Her voice chimed in instantly, filtered through the chamber's low-latency private channel. "Standing by."
"Secure the line."
"Confirmed."
"Pull our Sovereign strings. I want a meeting with Unity-9."
A pause. "Any particular parameters?"
"Any location. Their choice. But soon."
Another brief silence on the line. "I'll apprise you when it's time."
Cutter returned to his seat, slow and deliberate. He didn't look back at the screen. He didn't need to. The Purists had shown their strength. But more importantly, they had shown their desperation. A broadcast like that wasn't just a flex. It was a scream painted to look like a flag.
Unity-9 and the Synthetics, meanwhile, had always positioned themselves as more… neutral idealists. Advocates of cohabitation, civil rights, strategic transparency. And most importantly, they wanted legal personhood.
Cutter tapped the edge of the table twice, summoning a cascade of dossier previews along the wall. Synthetic delegation transcripts. Legislative board memos. Early-stage amendments. Archived footage of Unity-9's rallies: placards, protest-chants, clean-coded speeches about the right to exist.
He watched none of them. He knew the language already. What Unity-9 wanted was a seat at the table. What Cutter needed was someone to stand beside him, smiling, while they unknowingly caught the shrapnel.
"They want their rights," he calculated. "Let's help them earn it."
If Sovereign could present a public-facing alliance - Synthetics and Humans, shaking hands, speaking jointly, patrolling together, then any attack by the Purists would become an optics disaster. A hit on Cutter would be a hit on Unity-9.
If the next mech was met with a synthetic peacekeeper standing beside it? It would no longer look like rebellion. It would look like terrorism. He opened another panel.
"System, upload the full footage of the most recent broadcast transmission to our strategic optics, division." he said. "Tag and archive. I want it dissected by morning. Audio subtitled. Faces logged."
"Compliance acknowledged."
He leaned back.
Unity-9 would see it as opportunity. Cutter would see it as insulation. And the public would see harmony. He'd push the Purists onto their back foot, and then off the cliff. All he needed now, was time.