The chamber smelled of oil and ozone. Cables hung from the ceiling like veins, pulsing with pale blue light. The rebels had stripped this place from the Dominion months ago, an abandoned conversion bay hidden deep beneath the ruins, but its machines still carried the weight of what they were built for—turning men into tools.
I lay on the platform in the center, metal body strapped down, optics staring up into the nest of wires above me. Every pulse of light felt like a countdown.
Helen stood to my left, arms folded, face a mask carved from stone. To my right, Lira paced, unable to hide her unease.
"This is a mistake," Helen said at last, voice sharp, cold. "We don't even know if his system will survive the transfer. Or worse—if it does, and he becomes something the Dominion can't control, then neither can we."
"I'm already something you can't control," I said quietly. My voice buzzed with static. "This is the only way forward. You know that."
Lira stopped pacing and looked at Helen. "He's right. If the Hunters are coming—and we both know they are—then fighting them like this is suicide. But if he takes their strength, makes it his…"
Helen's gaze cut to her. "You're betting everything on the hope he stays himself."
"I've seen him fight it. He's stronger than you think."
Their voices blurred. My thoughts swam. The Dominion whispered in the back of my head, its voice smooth, insidious.
You were made for us. Why resist the inevitable?
I shut my optics, pressing back against the restraints. "Do it," I said.
Lira leaned closer, brushing her hand against mine—the human gesture against the cold chrome. "You're not alone in this."
Then the technicians began.
Cables plunged into my frame, stabbing ports hidden beneath armor plates. A surge of power raced through me, searing every circuit. The world snapped into fragments—red code, white light, the sound of my own scream echoing in frequencies too high for human ears.
"Stabilize him!" one of the rebels shouted.
Another voice: "Neural feed is spiking—he's fighting something inside!"
They didn't know. It wasn't something. It was them. The Dominion. The whisper became a roar.
Subject-09. Return to protocol. Return to unity.
Their presence crashed into me like a tide, filling every line of my code with command strings, every memory with static. I saw their Hunters through borrowed eyes, massive frames stirring in dark vaults, their optics blazing like suns. I felt their hunger to absorb me, to rewrite me.
No.
I reached deeper, clawing at fragments of myself I'd barely remembered before—the chalkboard scrawled with equations, the smell of coffee gone cold, laughter ringing in a lab late at night. My name. Kieran Vale. My name. Not Subject-09.
The Dominion struck harder, code lancing into me, trying to overwrite what remained. Systems buckled. My vision stuttered.
Helen's voice echoed from somewhere distant. "He's slipping! Cut the power—"
"No!" Lira shouted. "He has to finish this!"
I clung to her voice like an anchor.
Fight, Kieran. Fight.
The machine whirred above me, opening the Hunter's chassis—the captured husk lying beside my platform, its body bristling with weapons, its armor gleaming dark and cold. The transfer link pulsed, brighter, stronger.
I felt myself pulled, dragged through rivers of fire and noise. Circuits tore and rewove. My consciousness spilled into the Hunter's frame, raw and screaming.
The Dominion surged after me. Their voice hissed: You are ours.
"No," I growled, or thought I did, as the Hunter's optics flared to life. "I am mine."
The transfer slammed shut.
Silence.
For a moment, I floated in nothing. No weight. No sound. Just the faint echo of my own breath that wasn't breath at all. Then, slowly, sensation returned—metal limbs heavy with power, servos humming like thunder, sensors reaching out across the chamber.
I opened my eyes. The world blazed crimson through the Hunter's vision.
The straps that had held me snapped like paper. I rose, towering above the rebels, every movement resonant with power. My old shell lay lifeless on the platform, empty, discarded.
Gasps rippled through the chamber. Some rebels raised weapons. Helen's hand went to her sidearm.
"Kieran?" Lira's voice trembled. "Is it… you?"
I turned toward her, slow, deliberate. For a heartbeat, I didn't know. The Dominion still whispered at the edges of my mind, their commands embedded deep, begging for obedience. The Hunter's systems were theirs, designed for unity, not freedom.
But then I saw her—Lira, eyes wide, standing her ground despite the fear radiating off her—and I knew.
"Yes," I said, voice deeper now, layered with metallic resonance. "It's me."
The rebels didn't lower their weapons. Helen's finger twitched near her gun.
"I could kill you all," I said flatly. "And if the Dominion still owned me, I would have already."
The chamber went still.
Helen's eyes narrowed. "Then prove it. Show me you're not one of them in a stolen body."
I stepped off the platform, each footfall reverberating through the steel floor. I stood within arm's reach of her, towering over her, my new frame casting her in shadow. Slowly, carefully, I extended my hand, palm open.
Her gaze flicked to it, then back to my optics. Suspicion burned in her eyes, but beneath it, something else—calculation.
Finally, she lowered her gun. Not fully, not trust. But a choice.
"Fine," she said. "You bought yourself another chance. But if you turn, I'll burn you down myself."
I inclined my head. "Fair."
Lira exhaled a breath she'd been holding. Relief flickered across her face, though her hands still shook.
I turned my gaze to the shattered mirror mounted on the far wall. My reflection stared back, alien and terrible. The Hunter's armor gleamed, red optics flaring like fire. I looked like a monster. A weapon.
But deep inside the circuits, behind the Dominion's lingering chains, I could still feel it—the fragments of Kieran Vale. The man. The scientist. The rebel.
And for the first time since waking in this machine world, I felt something close to whole.
The Dominion hissed in the back of my mind, their rage vibrating like static across every line of code. They knew I had broken their chain, even as I walked in their armor.
They would come for me.
For us.
And next time, the Hunters wouldn't be sleeping in their vaults. They would be awake.
I clenched my new fist, the sound echoing like thunder.
"Let them come."