Chapter 15: The Weaponized Drone

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Scene 1: The New Prototype.

Cold awareness creeps in.

It is not like waking up. There is no gradual return, no disorientation, no sluggish pull from unconsciousness to reality. It happens instantly.

I am on.

The void of nothingness is gone, replaced by sterile brightness—a white so sharp it burns without heat. My senses flood in, but they are wrong. I feel no warmth, no breath, no steady rhythm of a heartbeat. My body does not ache, because my body is not mine.

I try to inhale.

Nothing happens.

I try to move.

Nothing.

I am trapped, not by restraints, but by absence. Whatever I was before, whatever remained of Lucian Graves, has been stripped away.

The air is filled with murmurs, voices speaking in hushed, methodical tones. They are not concerned. Not urgent. Just… efficient.

"Neural response stabilized."

"Cognitive function at 98%. No rejection detected."

The words slip through me like static, distant yet inescapable.

"Proceeding with final integration."

A mechanical hum stirs above me, the whir of moving parts, the smooth shift of a drone arm gliding into position. A cold pressure spreads across my chest—no, not cold. I do not feel the temperature, only the weight of it. Something is placed there, pressed against me.

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A military insignia.

I see it in the feed flickering across my vision—text, data, designations scrolling too fast to focus on. The input is not read; it is received, directly into my mind, absorbed without effort.

A prototype.

I am a prototype.

The realization strikes like a slow, creeping horror.

I do not breathe because my lungs are artificial.

I do not feel because my nerves have been replaced.

I do not move because I am no longer the one in control.

This is not my body.

But it is the only body I have.

"One is ready for activation."

I try to scream.

Nothing comes.

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Scene 2: The First Command.

A surge of electricity rips through my spine.

It is not pain. Pain would be human. Pain would be mine.

This is something else.

A command. A directive. A pulse of energy that does not ask—it demands.

My legs move before I process the thought.

I rise, effortlessly, mechanically. My body—if it can still be called that—moves with precision, each joint aligning with an exactness that is not mine. The motion is smooth, perfect, inhuman.

I did not stand.

I was activated.

The voices are still there. Watching. Calculating. Measuring.

"Motor control optimal."

"Latency below 0.3 milliseconds."

They are pleased.

I try to resist.

Nothing.

My limbs obey something deeper, something coded into the very essence of what I have become. The weight of their control is absolute, an invisible hand guiding every motion.

I am a passenger inside my own body.

"Step forward."

I do not want to.

My foot moves anyway.

The step is perfect, the balance precise. No hesitation, no miscalculation—just seamless execution. Another step. Another. The floor beneath me is cold, but I do not feel it. My body does not make a sound as it moves, as if it exists outside the weight of the world.

"Combat protocols uploading."

A flicker of data streams across my vision—patterns, sequences, information pouring into my mind like a flood without source. Tactics. Weapons. Kill sequences. A lifetime of training compressed into mere seconds.

I know how to dismantle a man with my bare hands.

I know how to fire a weapon with impossible precision.

I know how to kill in a hundred different ways.

But I do not know why.

This knowledge is not mine.

And yet—it is.

A scientist’s voice hums with quiet intrigue.

"Fascinating. He still tries to resist."

I am resisting.

A force clamps down on my thoughts.

I do not see it, do not feel it, but I know it is there. A correction. A realignment. The Master tightening its hold.

"March."

My legs move again, carrying me forward in perfect synchronization.

I am a machine. A weapon. A soldier of The Order.

But somewhere, buried beneath the layers of control, something inside me screams.

I still exist.

But for how much longer?