Together with WAU, Simon had spent weeks modifying his body, integrating new designs in ways no human—or machine—had ever attempted before. It had been an exhausting, intricate process, but also, perhaps, the most exhilarating thing he had ever done. After all, how often did someone get the chance to upgrade themselves?
The fabricator hummed to life, casting flickering shadows as it printed the new components for his suit. Simon watched the process with anticipation, his fingers twitching with the urge to tinker, to perfect. He had already begun shedding his old shell, carefully removing the reinforced plating of the power suit. With each piece he detached, the structure gel beneath it slowly receded, like living tissue pulling away from a wound.
What remained was little more than the skeletal frame of his body—the body of Raleigh Herber. She would have been the one to kill WAU if it hadn't killed her first, before she could even descend into the abyss. The WAU had used electromagnetic frequencies to overload the blackboxes of Omicron’s staff, causing their heads to rupture in an instant. Herber was one of them. Now, all she was—was an empty scaffold, waiting to be reborn.
The transformation had been painstaking, but undeniably a success. His suit—if it could still be called that—was no longer just a remnant of human engineering. It had evolved beyond that, fusing with the living structure gel, becoming something new. Something powerful.
Where once rigid, mechanical plating had encased him like armor, his new form shifted and flexed like layered musculature, an eerie fusion of organic fluidity and mechanical precision. The material moved with him, responding as if by instinct rather than motion. Beneath its surface, veins of luminescent structure gel pulsed faintly, giving him an almost spectral glow. Every motion felt smoother, more natural.
Gone were the cumbersome components of his old gear, the bulky attachments that had once slowed him down. His silhouette had streamlined into something sleek and alien, neither fully human nor entirely machine.
His helmet had changed as well. The once-clear visor had become semi-opaque, feeding a constant stream of data directly into his mind. No longer limited to a single pair of cameras serving as his eyes, his vision had expanded beyond normal perception. Multi-spectrum sensors now allowed him to see in ways he never could before—heat signatures bled across his vision in warm, pulsating hues, electromagnetic fields shimmered like ghosts in the abyss, and even the faintest currents of movement in the water should ripple across his awareness like delicate tremors.
A fine network of fiber-optic filaments extended from the back of his helmet like sensory whiskers, undulating slightly as they absorbed information from the world around him. They twitched and shifted in reaction to unseen signals, like the antennae of some deep-sea predator, attuned to disturbances long before they could reach him.
Beneath the sleek, bio-mechanical design, a reinforced titanium-alloy frame supported his helmet from the inside—an unyielding cage protecting the AI BOX and his cortex chip.
No force in this ocean, or perhaps even the world above, could break through that shell.
He was no longer a fragile being trapped inside a machine.
He was the machine.
For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Simon didn’t feel like something left behind. He wasn’t just a fading copy, a desperate remnant clinging to the scraps of an extinct humanity.
He was alive. He had rebuilt himself from the ground up, piece by piece, forging his own evolution with his own hands.
And he had never felt more real.
Simon’s arms had become weapons of versatility. His forearms housed a modular system, allowing him to shift seamlessly between integrated tools—a welder, a jackhammer, an EMP emitter—all folding away when not in use. These were not mere attachments; they were a part of him now, seamlessly integrated into his form. He flexed his fingers, testing their precision, feeling the way his body responded as if these functions had always been his.
He glanced at his forearm as, with a faint mechanical hum, a nanoceramic blade slid out from a hidden compartment. The blade was sleek, dark, and razor-sharp, its wide surface designed for brutal efficiency. A clever mechanism within the sheath allowed it to snap forward under compression, striking with enough force to pierce metal if he was close enough. Simon admired the beautiful, deadly edge, and somewhere in the depths of his mind, he smirked—or at least, he thought he did. In reality, he had no face to express such an emotion, but his mind filled in the gaps, fooling him into believing he did. It wasn’t a bad thing, really. It reminded him that despite his body being an amalgamation of organic and cybernetic elements, his mind was still human.
His hands, once stiff and mechanical, now morphed with purpose. The fingers could elongate for precision tasks, fuse into reinforced plating for impact, or sharpen into claw-like appendages when needed. Beneath the surface, the structure gel shifted and hardened at will, reinforcing his limbs for moments requiring extreme strength. He was no longer limited by frail human dexterity—his touch was adaptable, his grip absolute.
The chest of his suit bore a subtle but unmistakable change. Embedded within the plating, just beneath the surface, pulsed a small, glowing core—a WAU nexus. It was his own computational hub, separate from the AI Box, designed to amplify his processing power. Every upgrade he had added to his frame demanded more resources, and this nexus ensured he could handle it all. His thoughts were faster, more precise, his perception expanding beyond what he had ever imagined. The armor itself had become self-sustaining. Minor abrasions and damage would seal themselves over time as the structure gel worked to maintain his integrity. Certain panels of his suit reconfigured dynamically, forming temporary energy-dispersal plating to shield him from impacts and extreme pressure.
His legs, once burdened by the weight of heavy boots, had transformed into something far more efficient. His feet had evolved into adaptive gripping mechanisms, shifting their shape in real-time to maintain traction on any terrain. When submerged, retractable fins and propulsion jets activated, propelling him effortlessly through the water. His entire form had been hydrodynamically optimized, turning him into a true denizen of the deep. Even the shock-absorption system had been enhanced—he could leap from towering heights without fear, his suit redistributing the kinetic force seamlessly upon landing.
“Let’s see if it works,” Simon murmured, activating one of his newest modifications.
A moment later, he vanished.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Simon held up his hand, or at least, where his hand should have been. His fingers, his arm, his entire body had blended into the environment, becoming indistinguishable from the background.
“Wow,” he breathed, the awe unmistakable in his voice. “This is so awesome.”
A chameleon-like effect had taken hold, allowing the structure of his armor to adjust its refractive properties and render him nearly invisible. Electromagnetic insulation protected him from sonar and radio scans, ensuring hostile machines could no longer track him so easily.
His suit had become more than a tool—it was an extension of himself, evolving as he did, an ever-changing manifestation of the entity he was becoming.
He was no longer simply Simon, the lost consciousness wandering the abyss. He had become something more, something beyond what either man or WAU had intended. He was the bridge between both worlds, forged in the depths, ready to carve his own path forward.
----------------------------------------
Simon stood in an empty, dark void, staring at the floating orb before him—the backup of WAU, the intelligence that had kept him company for the past few weeks, guiding him, helping him forge his new body.
"I'm leaving in a few minutes," Simon informed the AI.
Despite everything he had endured because of it, he couldn't deny a strange sense of pity. WAU had never acted out of malice. It was simply following its programming, preserving what it believed to be the last remnants of humanity. Yes, it had created horrors—twisted, grotesque things that could drive any normal person to madness—but in its own distorted way, it had only been trying to fulfill its purpose.
The orb remained silent, showing no response.
Simon let out a small, bitter chuckle. "Of course," he thought. "WAU has no feelings."
For all its intelligence, for all its vast reach, it lacked what Simon still clung to—the fragile remnants of human emotion.
"Well, goodbye then," he said softly, reaching out and disconnecting the server that housed WAU’s backup.
The floating orb flickered once, then vanished.
Simon took a deep breath—not that he needed to breathe anymore. But the habit still remained. A remnant of his past self. His real self.
It was time to leave this place. To ascend to the surface. To finally see the world beyond this abyss.
He knew, deep down, that everything above had been obliterated. The impact had wiped the slate clean. Yet, hope still clung to him like a stubborn ember. Perhaps, somewhere, there were survivors. Maybe an underground bunker still held human life. Maybe some secret AI installation lay hidden deep within the Earth’s core, waiting to be discovered.
"I've had enough of this place," Simon sighed to himself.
He turned off the remaining machinery, letting the facility fall into silence. Reaching for the battery slotted into the wall, he pulled it free. The lights dimmed instantly, the emergency systems flickering to life in response, powered only by the last vestiges of backup energy. His chest plate opened with a mechanical hiss, exposing a compartment within his suit. Carefully, he slotted the battery inside, securing an additional power source for the journey ahead. The chest plate clicked back into place, sealing with an air of finality.
He turned toward the adjacent room.
Catherine’s body lay there, untouched for who knew how long. The remnants of her flesh, clung to the bones in tattered fragments. Simon knelt beside her and gently turned her body so that she lay on her back.
For a long moment, he simply looked at her face.
The sting of betrayal still lingered, but it was dull now, fading with time. Despite everything—the deception, the choices she made for him—she had been his companion in this darkness. His last connection to something resembling humanity.
"You left me," he whispered.
There was no anger in his voice. No resentment. Just a quiet sadness.
His belief in God had all but vanished after everything he had witnessed. The horrors, the emptiness, the sheer absence of meaning in this abyss. And yet, something compelled him to act. A quiet reverence, perhaps. A final kindness for someone who had meant something to him.
He murmured a short prayer, though he wasn’t sure for whom. For her? For himself? For the world they had lost?
It didn’t matter.
He stood, casting one last glance at Catherine’s resting place before turning away.
The surface awaited.
And it would be a long road.
----------------------------------------
Simon climbed the ladder to the upper level and stepped into the dimly lit, semicircular hall, heading toward the decompression chamber. Every step echoed in the oppressive silence, his reinforced frame making little sound despite the metal beneath his feet.
When he reached the chamber, he placed his hand on the panel. The door sealed shut behind him with a deep hiss, and within moments, water flooded into the small space. It was a familiar sensation now, the weightless embrace of the deep. The second door unlocked, revealing the path he had taken when he first arrived here—the same path where he had run for his life from that monstrous, worm-like creature.
The pole-mounted lights still worked, their beams cutting through the suffocating blackness of the abyss. More than 4,000 meters below the surface, the world around him was an endless void, the pressure immense, the darkness absolute. The artificial lights created stark contrasts, revealing floating particles and distant structures, but they did nothing to make him feel safer. If that thing was still out here, no amount of light would help him.
"Now that I think about it, I don’t even need them anymore," Simon mused. His optical upgrades allowed him to see in complete darkness with perfect clarity. "Maybe I should turn back and find a way to shut them off."
Instead, he activated his cloaking system. A barely audible hum vibrated through his frame, and the world around him subtly distorted as his body blended seamlessly into the abyss. Invisible to the naked eye, he stepped carefully through the open door, mindful of every movement. Despite all his upgrades, fear still clung to him like a phantom, its icy fingers running down his spine.
The whiskers at the back of his helmet twitched. A signal.
'Shit.'
His vision shifted as he activated his infrared and heat sensors. The world bled into hues of orange and red, heat signatures standing out against the cold expanse of the deep. And there, lurking in the distance, was the monster.
The massive worm-like creature, its grotesque form the size of a car, drifted through the abyss. Its long tentacles rippled as they propelled it forward, its single, glowing red eye scanning its surroundings with eerie precision. The mandibles twitched, clicking together in an almost nervous rhythm. A shiver ran through Simon, despite the fact that he had no true skin to feel it. The sight of the creature dredged up memories of the desperate chase, of the panic, of the suffocating realization that he had been utterly helpless against it back then.
Carefully, methodically, he moved. He used the debris around him as cover, inching forward, making sure not to disturb the water too much. Every movement was calculated, deliberate. His cloaking device drained his reserves, but once inside Alpha, he could connect to its power grid and recharge. He just needed to get past this thing first.
Finally, the mound that marked Alpha’s entrance came into view. It loomed ahead, its base hiding the tunnel that led inside. But something was off.
Simon hesitated. He remembered this place vividly—the mound had been covered in WAU’s growths, pulsing tendrils of structure gel creeping along the surface like living veins. The sickly bioluminescent glow of the infection had been impossible to miss. He had been too preoccupied with escaping the monster to focus on it before, but now, as he stared, a deep sense of unease settled over him.
There was nothing. The growths were gone. The tendrils, the lights, all of it—vanished.
'Is WAU still alive?' Simon wondered.
He reached the entrance, stepping into the tunnel. The walls, once coated in pulsating, organic corruption, were bare now—cold, lifeless metal. It was surreal, like stepping into a hollowed-out corpse.
As he walked deeper, he arrived at the central chamber.
His breath hitched.
'What the fuck? Am I going crazy ?'
His voice echoed in the empty space, bouncing off smooth, clean walls that should not have been clean.
Site Alpha had once been the very heart of WAU—its core, where its influence had spread like a pulsating tumor. The last time he had stood here, the room had been dominated by a massive, grotesque, heart-like mass of structure gel, pulsating with unnatural life.
But now, there was nothing.
The chamber had been wiped clean, sterilized, erased as if WAU had never existed.
A deep chill settled over him, far colder than the abyss outside.