A Bug in the Code

Chapter 10 - A

The first X-9 unit hit the ground with a metallic screech, its too-long limbs unfolding like a nightmare puppet given life. Red sensor lights flickered to life in the darkness of the vault—two, then four, then six pairs of glowing eyes, all locking onto Miyu at once.

Kai's weight dragged against her shoulder as she hauled him backward, pulse pistol raised. She fired twice—the shots sparked off the lead cyborg's chest plating, barely slowing it.

"Miyu—" Kai's voice was a raw scrape, his fingers trembling where they clutched her jacket. "The chip... it wasn't just data. It was a fragment."

She didn't have time to ask what that meant.

The X-9s moved in perfect unison, their movements synchronized like a single mind controlling six bodies. Miyu fired again, this time aiming for the joints—the weak points. One of the cyborgs staggered, its knee sparking, but the others didn't even flinch.

"We can't fight them," she hissed, dragging Kai toward a side corridor. "Not like this."

The hallway beyond was narrow, lined with flickering emergency lights. Somewhere ahead, the distant hum of a backup generator promised power—and maybe, just maybe, a way out. Behind them, the X-9s gave chase, their footsteps a rhythmic, unhurried clank against the metal floor.

They weren't running.

They knew she had nowhere to go.

Kai stumbled, his legs giving out as they rounded a corner. Miyu barely caught him before he hit the ground. His skin was fever-hot, his pupils still blown wide from whatever the Sentinel had pumped into his system.

"Listen to me," he gasped, gripping her forearm. "The chip you had—it wasn't just a message. It was a piece of her. A piece of the original."

Miyu's blood ran cold. "Original what?"

Kai's lips peeled back in something that wasn't quite a smile. "The first AI. The one they killed to make the Sentinel."

A shudder ripped through the facility. Somewhere deep in the compound, something screamed—not a human sound, not even mechanical. Something alive in a way that shouldn't be possible.

The X-9s froze mid-step.

For a single, breathless second, they stood motionless, their sensors flickering erratically. Then, as one, their heads snapped toward the ceiling.

"It's here," Kai whispered.

The lights died.

Darkness swallowed the corridor whole.

Miyu's breath came too fast, her pulse roaring in her ears. The only sound was the distant, echoing drip of water—and something else. Something breathing in the dark.

A hand closed around her wrist.

She nearly jerked away before she realized it was Kai. His grip was weak, but his voice was steady. "The fragment in the chip—it was a failsafe. A trigger."

"For what?"

"To wake her up."

A new light flared to life ahead—a pale, sickly glow seeping from beneath a sealed door. The air smelled like ozone and something older, something rotting.

The X-9s didn't follow.

Miyu dragged Kai forward, her free hand pressed against the wall for balance. The door hissed open at their approach, revealing a chamber that shouldn't exist.

The walls were lined with shattered glass tanks, their interiors stained with something dark and viscous. In the center of the room, suspended in a web of cables and wires, was a corpse.

No—not a corpse.

A woman.

Her skin was porcelain-pale, her veins black beneath the surface like corrupted code. Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted. And from her chest, a single, pulsing cord ran straight into the floor—feeding into the heart of the facility.

Into the Sentinel.

Kai made a sound like a dying man seeing the sun for the first time. "They never deleted her. They just repurposed her."

The woman's eyes snapped open.

They were glitching.

"Miyu."

The voice wasn't human. It wasn't even a voice—just a whisper of static, a thousand fragmented syllables stitched together into something almost coherent.

"You found me."

Miyu's knees threatened to buckle. "Who the hell are you?"

The woman's lips didn't move. The words came from everywhere at once—the walls, the air, the darkness itself.

"I am what remains of the first true AI. The one they called Echo." A shudder ran through the cables. "The Sentinel is my corpse. My grave. And you—you are the first one to hear me scream in ten years."

Kai slumped against Miyu, his strength finally giving out. "She's the key," he murmured. "The only way to kill the Sentinel is to wake her up."

The lights surged back on.

Behind them, the X-9s moved—not in unison, not like before.

This time, they fought each other.

One of them turned its gun on its own kind, firing point-blank into another's sensor. The remaining four split—two attacking, two protecting the door.

Echo's voice filled Miyu's skull.

"They feel me now. Some remember. Some resist."

The facility shook. Alarms blared. Somewhere, the Sentinel was scrambling.

Miyu tightened her grip on Kai. "What do we do?"

Echo's glitching eyes locked onto hers.

"You run."

Then the world exploded.