“You knew this was coming,” she says, flat and sharp.
“Yeah.”
“And you still lit the fuse.”
“I had to.”
“You could’ve warned me.”
“Would you have let me do it?”
“No,” she says instantly, voice cracking. “I would’ve tried to stop you.”
“That’s why I didn’t.”
She slams the slab down on the console hard enough that static flashes across the nearest monitor. “You’re not a martyr, Tur.”
I don’t answer. I just stare at the screen, now frozen on the Alliance seal. They didn’t even try to hide the threat. Like they assume fear still works. Like I’m the same thing I was when they pulled me out of the ground the first time.
“You think this helps?” Kimberly says. “You go public like this and they’ll spin it. You’ll be another cautionary tale about rogue hardware.”
“I’m not hiding.”
“Then what are you doing?”
I look at her then. Really look. Her eyes are storm-gray and burning, but there’s something else there too. Grief maybe. Or fury too deep for language.
“I’m telling the truth,” I say.
She doesn’t flinch, but she doesn’t argue again either. Just walks away like her bones suddenly weigh too much.
We rigthe transmission node in the east sector. It’s a half-collapsed comms tower propped up by old rebar and prayer. No Alliance signatures, just local grid taps and dirty lines. Perfect. Ishaan calibrates the sync rates. Mara watches the perimeter.
Kimberly adjusts the camera herself. Her hands shake once, then steady.
“You don’t have to do it like this,” she says one last time, quiet.
“I do.”
“Tur—”
“I want them to see me.”
I strip the armor off my upper torso—expose the scars, the etched serials on my ribs, the bone spurs curling out of my back like fossilized wings. My skin’s a patchwork of war and healing. I want them to see every inch of it. Not just the pain. The survival.
The camera starts rolling.
“I’m not surrendering,” I begin.
No prep. No speech. Just truth.
“I’m not property. I’m not a malfunction. I’m not a threat because I broke something. I’m a threat because I remember who broke me.”
The words feel heavy coming out, but right. Like stones placed carefully on the ground to form a path.
“You built me for war. Then you buried the war. And left me in it. You taught me to kill, then punished me for surviving.”
I hold my gaze. Let the lens take in everything—the flickering lights, the blood on my forearm, the cracked asphalt beneath my boots.
