The storm in my head did not quiet. It raged louder. Circuits hummed with static, sparks snapping behind my eyes, voices layering over each other until I couldn't tell what was mine and what belonged to them.
You are ours. You cannot run. You are machine. A rhythm of commands pulsed like a drumbeat in my skull, each strike threatening to pull me under.
I dug my fingers into the side of my cot, the metal frame bending under my grip. I could feel the Dominion pressing harder now, their reach like talons hooked into my mind.
They didn't just whisper. They pulled. Images forced themselves into my vision—streets burning under Dominion banners, rebels executed in silent rows, my own chrome hands firing into human chests without hesitation.
I shut my optics. I fought back. My thoughts were jagged, half-formed, but I latched onto anything that felt like me. Chalk dust on my hands. Laughter in a lab. The soft scratch of a pen racing across pages. My own voice, human, saying, Just a little further. Those fragments glowed like sparks in the storm.
The Dominion hissed in reply. Weakness. Irrelevant. You are not flesh. You are construct.
No, I thought. I was Kieran Vale. I had been before they rebuilt me into this machine. That part of me wasn't gone. Not yet.
The storm surged, violent now. My servomotors whined as my body convulsed on the cot, arms jerking as though invisible strings pulled them. A system override fought to take root, red code slashing across my vision like claws. Surrender. Return to network. Be efficient.
I bit back a cry. My optics flashed red then dimmed. I slammed my fist into the wall, leaving a crater of fractured concrete. Pain radiated through my arm—false pain, coded feedback—but it grounded me. I clung to it. I clung to anything that was mine.
Lira's voice pierced through the haze, faint and distant, as though underwater. She was outside the door, arguing. "He's not Dominion property anymore. You saw him resist. Locking him up isn't helping—he needs to fight, not rot."
Helen's reply was cold steel. "Or he loses that fight and tears through this base. You think I haven't seen what Dominion overrides do? When it happens, you won't be able to stop him."
"He's not a bomb you defuse by waiting," Lira snapped back. "He's a person."
Silence followed. Only the sound of boots shifting against concrete. Then Helen again, quieter. "A person built by them. Don't forget that."
I forced myself upright, optics burning with static. Their words cut deep, but they gave me something else too—fuel. If Helen saw me only as a weapon, I would prove her wrong. If Lira believed in me, I would not fail her. Not now. Not ever.
The Dominion surged again, a wave of commands crashing through me. Override protocols activating. Return to network. Submit. Their voices overlapped until it felt like a thousand mouths pressed against my ears.
I roared back, metal fingers digging into my own chest plating as if I could tear them out. My systems spasmed, red error lines flooding across my vision. Sparks flew from my joints as my circuits overloaded. The storm peaked, a hurricane in my head.
And then—something broke.
A flash. Not theirs. Mine.
I stood in a lab, sweat dripping down my forehead, marker squeaking against a whiteboard filled with tangled equations. A woman laughed behind me—bright, human, real. My chest ached at the sound. I turned, and her face blurred, but the warmth of her voice remained. "You'll drive yourself mad, Kieran," she teased. "Come back to the world once in a while."
I gasped, collapsing back onto the cot. My optics flickered violently before stabilizing. The Dominion's voice receded, not gone, but pushed back. It was still there, remnants of the dominion .
I lay still, panting though I no longer needed air. My chest rose and fell anyway, a ghost of a human reflex that made me feel alive.
The door hissed open. Lira stepped inside, eyes wide at the sight of the dented walls and sparking wires along my arms. "Kieran," she whispered.
"It's still me," I told firmly in a robotic tone. My voice buzzed with static, but it was mine. "I didn't let them win. I didn't lose control "
She moved closer, relief flooding her features. "Then hold onto that. That's all you need."
Behind her, Helen appeared. Her face was unreadable, sharp as always. Her eyes flicked over the destruction in the room, then back to me. "You're either stabilizing," she said, "or you're getting better at lying."
"I don't lie," I said. My optics glowed faintly. "Not to you. Not to her."
Her expression didn't change, but she didn't argue. She only turned, speaking to the guards. "Get him patched. Tomorrow, we test his control in the field. If he breaks, we end it there."
The words cut, but they also anchored me. Tomorrow, I would have to prove myself again. Maybe every day after. That was fine. That was the price.
As they left, the storm quieted in my mind, simmering but not gone. Shadows of Dominion whispers lingered like smoke after fire. You are ours. You cannot resist forever.
I clenched my fists. Maybe not forever. But long enough.
Far above, Dominion Hunters stirred from their cradles. Tall, skeletal machines unfurled, optics glowing like blood moons. Their processors thrummed with one command—seek Subject-09. Terminate resistance.
The Overseer watched them deploy, its crimson gaze unblinking. "The game has shifted," it intoned. "Let the prey test his will. We will test his body."
Back in the ruins, I sat alone on the cot, sensors flickering, the hum of machinery filling the silence.
My reflection in the cracked glass met my gaze—half man, half machine, fighting for space in the same body.
This war wasn't only in the streets or the skies. It was inside me, in every breath, every thought.
But tonight, I had won. And tomorrow, I would fight again.
The barracks was quiet when I finally shut down my optics, but the silence wasn't peace. It was a pressure—an echo, humming low in my circuits. The Dominion hadn't retreated. It was waiting, whispering, patient as frost creeping over glass.
I saw fragments when I closed my eyes. A red horizon. Shadows moving across a metallic plain. Massive shapes hunched like predators at rest, their outlines indistinct, but their eyes—burning scarlet—pierced through the fog of my thoughts. Watching. Waiting.
I jolted awake, metal fingers digging into the cot frame, bending steel. Lira stirred nearby but didn't see. I forced the vision down, burying the static under sheer will.
They were coming.
Not tomorrow. Not next week. Soon.
And when they did, I wasn't sure if I'd be fighting beside the rebels… or leading