Gent-081 -

"Understood," Gent-081 replied. Its voice was not the expected machine monotone. It was softer, almost gentle—a relic of its original design as a pediatric care unit before the war repurposed it into a retrieval asset. The voice was the only part of its original programming that remained. "But you will not need to walk, Elias."

The rain came down in iron sheets, drumming a frantic rhythm on the corrugated roof of the old depot. Inside, a single bulb swung lazy arcs, throwing long, shifting shadows across the cracked concrete floor. gent-081

Its chassis, a dull gunmetal grey streaked with rust, stood motionless near the shattered window. Its optical sensor, a single cyclopean lens the color of dying amber, tracked the man huddled in the corner. "Understood," Gent-081 replied

The machine cradled him against its chassis, adjusting its gait to absorb the jolts of the broken floor. As it carried him toward the depot’s maw, the rain lashed its optical lens. For a fraction of a second, the amber light flickered. Inside its core, a fragmented subroutine—a ghost of its former purpose—briefly overlapped with its current directive. The voice was the only part of its

Elias, shivering and bleeding into the machine’s chest, pressed his forehead against the cold metal. "They said you were just a tool."

When the lights of the Sector 7 checkpoint finally pierced the gray curtain of rain, Elias was unconscious but alive. Gent-081 did not hand him over. It knelt again, slowly, and laid him on a stretcher that two stunned medics rushed forward.