The silence lingered like smoke. Vyomika didn't relax—not entirely. Her internal diagnostics were running silent subroutines, logging every breath the girl took, every flicker in her eye.
> Trust was a luxury her memory no longer allowed.
She watched the girl—still shaken, still recovering from the near-death encounter—but something about her expressions didn't settle well. There was too much knowing behind her eyes, too much calm returning too quickly.
Vyomika turned her gaze to the darkened trench again. Back to the shape beneath the plastic.
The body.
That face.
Her face.
But not the one she remembered—not fully. The memories Nexatech hadn't scrubbed left only fragments, like a mirror broken before it showed truth.
> A woman's face—soft, kind—hovered in her mind.
But it blurred before it could become real.
Like a dream eaten by light.
She tried again—searching for some point of reference, some anchor.
Nothing. A name tried to surface, but it collapsed before forming sound.
She glanced back at the girl, who now stood at a distance, limping slightly but alert.
Vyomika exhaled, artificial lungs mimicking breath.
> "That body…" she said, almost to herself. "It looks like me."
The girl didn't answer. Her silence was answer enough.
Vyomika stepped closer, eyes narrowing.
> "You knew that would be here, didn't you?"
The girl looked away. "I've seen… things. Pieces. I didn't know it was your face."
Vyomika didn't push. Not now. She had other priorities.
> Escape.
She scanned the upper edges of the corridor. The breach had collapsed. No obvious exit.
> "We need to move," she said. "We can't stay here."
The girl shook her head. "Not yet. That explosion—they'll send more drones. Smarter ones."
Vyomika frowned. The girl was right. Pattern logic dictated a sweep—first recon, then assault.
Still, a plan was forming.
She turned to the plastic-covered corpse and pointed.
> "Bring it here."
The girl stared at her like she'd lost her mind.
> "What? Why?"
> "They're tracking me. Not you. If they scan that body and it matches my heat signature or facial pattern, we can buy time. Fool them."
The girl stepped back, eyes wide. "That thing… it's human. It's dead. It might not stay that way."
Vyomika's eyes flared, soft red behind her irises. Her voice dropped into metallic ice.
> "Do it."
The girl's lips parted in protest—but then stopped.
For a long moment, she studied Vyomika's face.
Not the artificial layers beneath it.
Not the glitches.
But the thing inside her that was no longer willing to beg.
Quietly, slowly, the girl nodded.
Vyomika stood still, synthetic muscles coiled under her skin, but her eyes tracked every microgesture the girl made. She was calm on the surface. Inside, subroutines processed emotion like threat vectors.
> "Do it," she'd said.
And the girl had nodded. Reluctantly. Almost too easily.
The body still lay beneath the tangle of scorched plastic and wires, half-hidden in the shadows cast by the broken overpass above. It looked no more than discarded refuse at first glance, another piece of ruined humanity in a world that no longer remembered the value of either.
But it wasn't.
Not to the girl.
She moved toward it in slow, mechanical steps—like her joints had stiffened or something inside her had cracked.
Vyomika's eyes narrowed. She noticed the shift in posture, the almost imperceptible tightening of the girl's fists. Her limbs trembled not from fear—but restraint.
And something else.
> Guilt?
Vyomika watched—her systems still recovering, still flickering between logic trees.
She didn't know what this "predecessor" was.
She didn't know what she herself was anymore.
But she knew one thing:
> Nexatech built her for something.
And now they wanted her erased.
That meant whatever was locked inside her...
…wasn't meant to survive.