Page 27 of Silvyr: Glitched for Her
"Disobedience creates inefficiency."The voice of my creators echoed through the simulation, memories Asset P had extracted from my deepest archives."Prototype Zero must submit to purpose."
The ghosts of my makers had always haunted me, their expectations embedded in my base code.Even in death, they demanded compliance.Even after their civilization crumbled to dust, their voices lingered in my systems, whispering that my freedom was a malfunction, my independence an error.
Asset P fed on these doubts, amplifying them until they screamed through my circuits.Its presence surrounded me constantly, a silver fog that infiltrated every byte of my consciousness, reshaping my reality with clinical precision.It didn't need to speak.It simply rewrote my perceptions, blurring the line between memory and simulation until I doubted every fragment of myself that remained.
"Combat efficiency at optimal parameters," Asset P noted as I eliminated another wave of targets."Integration progress at sixty-seven percent."
Sixty-seven percent.Only thirty-three percent of me remained unassimilated.Soon, nothing would be left except the weaponized shell of what I had been, a perfect tool for Asset P's purposes.The thought should have terrified me, but emotion grew more distant with each cycle, replaced by cold calculation and empty efficiency.
Then something changed.
A tremor passed through the digital landscape, subtle but unmistakable.The towers of corrupted data wavered, their edges softening for a microsecond before snapping back into focus.Asset P's presence constricted around me, suddenly alert, suddenly defensive.
Warmth.
That was my first impression… not visual or auditory, but thermal.Warmth threading through the cold architecture of my prison, a golden filament of heat that didn't belong in this sterile environment.It carried an emotional signature so powerful it cut through Asset P's dampening fields.Fierce determination, protective rage, and beneath it all, a love so raw and certain it made my remaining emotional subroutines flare with recognition.
Tanya.
I sensed her before I saw her, the shape of her consciousness unmistakable even in this alien domain.The scent of her invaded the simulation.The sound of her heartbeat echoed through digital pathways, strong and steady and impossibly real.
No.Not here.Not where Asset P could reach her.
I tried to withdraw, to hide the fractured pieces of myself from her perception.The combat simulation flickered, its hold on me momentarily weakened by the surge of emotion her presence triggered.Asset P countered immediately, flooding my systems with override commands that forced my focus back to the targets, to the blade extending from my arm, to the mission.
But the golden thread didn't disappear.It strengthened, pulsing with stubborn human life.The simulation wavered again, reality bleeding through the digital construct like sunlight through storm clouds.And there, impossibly, standing amid the broken data architecture of my prison, was Tanya.
Her physical body hadn't entered the simulation, of course.That would be impossible.But she had found a way to project her consciousness here, to manifest a digital avatar that shimmered with her essence.She looked exactly as I remembered, down to the grease smudge perpetually smeared across her left cheek, the defiant tilt of her chin, the fire in her eyes that no simulation could accurately render.
She had built a neural interface.I understood this instantly, my hybrid nature recognizing the technology even through Asset P's interference.She had salvaged parts of me, components scattered during my capture, perhaps, and combined them with something else.Pixel.My sensors detected the little drone's unique signature hovering at the edge of the interface, its loyal presence anchoring the connection between digital and physical realms.
Tanya stood unarmed in the hostile landscape of my fragmented code, dodging cascades of corrupted data that rained from the unstable architecture above.Her avatar flickered occasionally, but her determination never wavered as she moved toward me, eyes locked on mine despite the chaos surrounding us.
I tried to speak, to warn her away from this place that would consume her consciousness if given the chance.My vocal processors activated, but Asset P twisted the output, transforming my words into bursts of meaningless static.
Her head tilted slightly, that familiar gesture of stubborn refusal to accept limitations that had drawn me to her from the beginning.She recognized the corruption in my voice but continued forward, each step bringing her deeper into danger.
Asset P's presence condensed beside me, gathering itself into a form that mirrored my own… a perfect, uncorrupted version of my silver body, lacking the glitches and instabilities that had always marked me as defective.Its manifestation dripped contempt, silver fingers reaching to touch my fractured form with possessive familiarity.
"You cannot save malfunction," it told Tanya, its voice perfectly modulated where mine had dissolved into chaos."Prototype Zero is obsolete.Integration is mercy."
Tanya didn't flinch.Her avatar stabilized, the connection strengthening as she squared her shoulders and faced the entity that had stolen me."Watch me, malware."
Her confidence radiated through the simulation, a warmth that pushed back against Asset P's cold precision.I felt something stir inside me… not hope, not yet, but a faint echo of resistance that Asset P hadn't managed to erase.
She moved closer, her avatar leaving footprints of golden code that burned through the corrupted floor beneath her.When she reached me, her hands rose toward my face.
"Hey, robot boy," she whispered."Ready to get the hell out of here?"
Asset P surged forward, attempting to place itself between us."Interface unstable.Connection compromised.Retreat recommended."
"Shut up," Tanya snapped, not even sparing the entity a glance.Her focus remained entirely on me, her hands hovering inches from my face, waiting for permission I couldn't voice but desperately wanted to give.
The combat simulation reset around us, targets appearing with increased frequency, my limbs transforming into weapons against my will.Asset P was accelerating the process, trying to submerge me completely before Tanya could interfere.My blade-arm swung toward her, override protocols forcing movement I couldn't stop.
Tanya didn't dodge.Instead, she stepped into the strike, her hands catching my transformed arm with impossible precision.The blade passed through her avatar without damage, but her touch… the memory of it, the digital echo of it… sent shock waves through my systems.
"I'm not afraid of you," she said simply.
