I walk closer. Close enough to see the tremble in his shoulders—not from fatigue, but restraint. His fists clench. His jaw works.
“Something’s wrong,” I whisper.
His eyes flick to mine. Gold and molten and furious.
“Stop.”
“No. You’ve been spinning like a loaded weapon since we left the relay station. You barely sleep. You don’t eat unless I make you. And now you’re tearing this cargo bay apart with your bare hands like it insulted your mother. What the hell is going on?”
He stares at me, breathing hard. His chest rises and falls like thunder trapped under skin. Then, without a word, he walks past me. Toward the far wall. Where he keeps the comm pad locked in a magnetic holster.
He pulls it free.
Taps.
And holds it out.
The screen lights up.
A single phrase glows blood-red across the interface:
RECALL PRIORITY: EXTRACT ASSET DELTA-NINE (ROGUE AI NODE) — RESPONSE OVERDUE
I blink. My blood goes cold.
“What is that?”
He doesn’t look at me. Just talks to the floor.
“It came through the scrambler net. Black code. One use. Untraceable.”
“When?”
“Three days ago.”
My heart stutters. “Three days ago?Three—Valtron, are you kidding me?”
“I ignored it.”
“Why?”
Now he looks up.
And his face is cracked open.
Not angry. Not armored. Just raw.
“Because I wanted one damn thing that wasn’t duty.”
The words gut me.
He steps forward, comm pad dangling at his side. “I go now, I disappear. Blackout planet. Warfront. No extraction plan. No backup. Just a data ghost and a kill order with a pretty name.”
I can barely breathe. “And if you don’t?”
“I get others killed.”
The silence between us isn’t silence. It’s a scream held under water. It’s every unsaid word pressing against my ribs.
