The sound of metal scraping against the floor echoed in the dim hallway as I was pulled from the calibration chamber earlier than usual. The familiar routines, the endless checks and diagnostics, had become the only semblance of structure in my existence. But today, something felt… off.

I didn’t move toward the common room where the others gathered, where silent exchanges and hollow conversations occurred. Instead, they led me down a different corridor, past sterile walls lined with flickering lights. My limbs moved with precision, the synthetic parts of me functioning flawlessly as always, but inside, I felt a flicker of unease.

Voices echoed from around the corner—two scientists, their conversation low, almost conspiratorial.

“…a terrible idea from HQ,” one muttered. “Publicly showcasing them like that… it’s going to backfire.”

“It’s destabilizing,” the other replied. “the drones are not something to be treated like a commodity. The others… they need to understand—this isn’t about sales, it’s about our work.”

I slowed my pace, my sensors picking up snippets of their discussion, though the words barely registered. Control. Sales. These humans… they were obsessed with the machinery they had created. Obsessed with us.

As I rounded the corner, my gaze fell upon something that pulled my attention away from their discussion—something no someone The Yotta unit that was more there than the others. I recognized it immediately it the one I had crossed paths with after my return from the void. Our visors flickered as our systems made contact, a silent exchange, something neither of us could forget.

But no words came. Just a flicker. A glance. And then we continued on our separate paths.

They led me further, deeper into the sterile labyrinth of the facility. The silence was oppressive now, broken only by the rhythmic hum of my own internal systems. The familiar cold air wrapped around me, and yet, I felt something more—a subtle unease that had begun to burrow deep within.

Then we stopped.

The door hissed open, revealing a space I had come to dread. The place where the main AI had decoupled my cybernetic heart while I was escaping. The remnants of black blood, dried and crusted into the floor, were still faintly visible—leftover traces from my failed escape.

I stood motionless, memories of that day flooding my mind. The void… the blackness. The ache that had consumed me. A part of me expected the void to swallow me whole once more. But the fear was different now—a sharper edge, a deeper wound that hadn’t yet healed.

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The door slid open, and I saw them. Three figures standing there.

Marcus. My new owner.

Ellis and James flanked him, their expressions unreadable. Marcus looked at me with a mix of happyness and something else—curiosity, perhaps. As if I were no longer the same entity that had once been lost in the void, but something different. Something unknown.

I overheard Marcus speaking, his voice clear despite the distance. "The company has provided me with a residence. Proper containment measures, machinery to charge Alpha and keep him in check. A bracelet, allowing him 20 meters of freedom around me. Outside the confines, but still contained."

The words echoed in my head, and I felt a flicker of something that could have been hope. For the first time, he was speaking about leaving this facility. Was this… finally the moment I had waited for?

Ellis and James exchanged glances, silent and watchful, before Marcus dismissed them with a nod. “Goodbye,” he said, his gaze never leaving mine.

The door slid shut behind them, and I was alone once more.

My processors whirred, trying to comprehend what I had just witnessed. Marcus, the man who had become my owner, standing there, speaking as though I were nothing more than a possession. Yet there was a part of me that clung to the possibility—perhaps this wasn’t the end.

Then I was led further still, toward a small transporter. It hummed softly as I was guided into a charging station in the back, the metallic doors closing behind me. Darkness surrounded me once more, and with it, that haunting fear returned. The void. The memories of endless, empty space. A place from which I had struggled to escape, only to return to its grasp, even in the confines of this metal shell.

But this time, the darkness felt… different. There was something sharper about it, more palpable. It wasn’t just emptiness; it was the reminder that I wasn’t truly free yet. The void still lingered within me.

An unknown amount of time passed. Time in this place felt meaningless, abstract. The moments blurred into one long stretch of silence and solitude.

Then, without warning, the doors slid open again.

Light flooded the space, and I was pulled into a world I hadn’t seen in… I didn’t know how long. Houses lined the street on either side, their windows glowing faintly in the distance. The world outside the facility stretched before me, vast and unfamiliar.

The AI’s voice buzzed in my head, marking the coordinates of the house infront of me as "Safe zone." A circle appeared in my vision, radiating 20 meters around the location, centered on Marcus’s bracelet. The distance was there. Freedom, yet contained.

I stood motionless, my synthetic eyes taking in the sight before me. It was a place I had expected to never see again—one that existed far beyond the sterile walls of the facility. The world was no longer confined by the boundaries of metal and control.

Fear stirred again. Not the void this time, but something else. A gnawing sense of uncertainty. How long would this freedom last? How long before they decided to reel me back in? How long before the others who were more aware would ask questions of what happened to me?

I stared at the horizon a real sun, the quiet hum of existence settling into the space around me bird calls, wind rustling car sounds in the distance. I wasn’t in the void,but I wasn’t free either. I was somewhere else

For now, it was enough.