The wasteland stretched endlessly under the pale glow of the fading night. With every step, dust and debris scattered beneath their armored feet. Their modified bodies moved faster than an average human, enhanced by the exoskeletons encasing them, but even so, their escape was anything but easy.
Caleb ran ahead, his movements calculated and sharp. A-01 followed, matching his pace. Her body functioned flawlessly, but her mind—
It was glitching.
Flashes of memory she had no recollection of flickered through her consciousness. Images that didn't belong. Fragments of places she had never been. A different battlefield. Caleb—older, unfamiliar yet unmistakably the same. And in one, she saw herself—
No. That can't be right.
She blinked, forcing herself to focus. The barren landscape before her was real. The pursuit behind them was real.
"They're scanning the area," Caleb's voice came through her internal comms, bringing her back. His tone was steady, but there was a sharp edge to it. "Drones, three of them. We have to move now."
A-01 looked up. High above, dark mechanical silhouettes hovered against the deep blue sky, their scanners casting red beams over the cracked terrain. The facility had already deployed reconnaissance. Soon, ground forces would follow.
Without a word, she pushed forward. Caleb led them towards a derelict structure, a remnant of the old civilization that once thrived on Philos before it decayed into this wasteland. They darted inside, taking cover behind the jagged remains of what might have once been a transport station. The cold metal walls had long been corroded, leaving sharp, broken edges.
Caleb peered out carefully. "They're sweeping in a grid pattern. We have sixty seconds before they reach this sector."
A-01 crouched down, her back against the wall. The seconds felt longer than they should. Her breathing was steady, her body relaxed, yet something inside her was unshaken. The memory glitches. They weren't stopping. If anything, they were getting worse.
She clenched her jaw, hesitating before speaking. "I—"
A sharp mechanical beep cut through the silence.
Caleb moved instantly, grabbing her wrist and pulling her behind the rusted remains of a collapsed beam. Above them, a red scanner light passed over their previous position. A-01 tensed, watching as the drone hovered just meters away, its mechanical eye pulsing.
For a moment, she wondered—what if this was another test? A simulation?
A sharp pulse hit her neural interface. A warning.
"Hey." Caleb's voice was softer this time, but urgent. "You're hesitating."
She turned to him. His expression was unreadable, but there was concern in his purple eyes with a hint of golden in them.
Before she could respond, a sharp whir filled the air. A-01's gaze snapped upward. The drone had shifted—its scanner locking onto their position.
They've been spotted.
No more hesitation.
Caleb moved first, his gravitational field fluctuating around him before he extended his hand. A sudden shift in the pull of gravity sent the drone crashing into the ground.
A-01 pushed off the ground, launching herself upward. In one swift motion, she grabbed onto a rusted beam and swung herself onto the drone, using her enhanced strength to grip its outer frame. Her movements were precise, guided by instinct rather than thought.
With a calculated strike, she drove one of her projectiles into its core. A pulse of energy coursed through her exoskeleton as the metal left her grip. The drone sputtered before it spiraled downward, crashing into the dirt below.
The moment she landed, Caleb was already at her side. "More incoming. We need to go."
She didn't argue.
They sprinted. Their footsteps pounded against the earth, kicking up dust as they moved. The landscape blurred around them, and yet—
The flashes wouldn't stop.
A distant planet. A starless void. The sensation of being pulled through something intangible, as if gravity itself was shifting around her.
She clenched her teeth, pushing herself forward, but her movements faltered for a fraction of a second. A misstep. A disturbance in her rhythm. Her vision blurred, and suddenly—
She wasn't here.
She was somewhere else.
Darkness. A field of shattered light. Caleb's voice—calling her name—but distorted, like an echo from another time.
"A-01—"
She gasped, her vision snapping back to the present just as Caleb caught her by the arm, steadying her. They had stopped moving, concealed behind a rock formation. His grip was firm, grounding her in reality.
"Something's wrong." His voice was low but urgent. "Your response time is off."
She exhaled sharply. "I'm fine."
He didn't look convinced. "Is it the sedation withdrawal? The neural dissonance from the disconnect?"
She opened her mouth to respond, but hesitated. How was she supposed to explain something that shouldn't exist?
Caleb's gaze searched hers. For a brief moment, they stood in silence, the only sound being the distant hum of approaching machines.
Then, he made a decision. "We can't stay here."
She nodded.
They ran again, but this time, a thought lingered in her mind.
This escape—was it truly the first time?
The night was fading, the first hints of dawn creeping over the wasteland. Yet, even as the sky brightened, the unknown shadows within her mind only seemed to grow deeper.