"Tell us," it said at last.
Simon frowned. "Tell you what?"
"Your story," the drone replied. Its voice was strange—like dozens of voices trying to speak through a narrow throat. His own voice, warped and layered. "You are the last one who walks. The others... they scream. But you... you endured. We are curious."
Simon hesitated. The silence between them hung heavy, like the weight of the ocean pressing down from above. Then, slowly, he sat down.
He had nothing left to hide.
"I woke up in Upsilon," he began, his voice hollow, brittle. "I didn’t even know who I was. One moment, I was in a chair in Toronto. 2015. I was sick—dying. And then... I was here. At the bottom of the ocean. In a machine."
The red light on the drone dimmed slightly.
"I met Catherine—a scan, like me. Together, we chased a dream. The ARK. A paradise. A place where minds could rest, safe from the rot and silence of this dying world. We fought through hell to reach it. We did the impossible. We launched it into the stars."
He stopped, his synthetic hands curling into fists.
"But I wasn’t the one who woke up inside."
"You were left behind," the drone said softly.
Simon nodded. "Yeah. Buried under miles of black water. Alone."
Silence stretched again. Deeper this time. The kind of silence that knew grief.
Then the drone asked, "Why didn’t you give up?"
Simon looked at his hands. Hands that were no longer his. They were machines. Puppets. Wrapped in structure gel and plated steel. Haunted.
"Because I wasn’t allowed to. WAU left something in me. Its final breath. Its last command: survive. No matter what. Even when I didn’t want to."
The red light pulsed slowly.
"Then even your suffering wasn’t your own."
Simon didn’t speak.
The chamber listened. Dozens of brains pulsed in their gel prisons. The room felt like a mausoleum. No, not even that. Mausoleums are for the dead. This was a place for things that refused to die.
"Why did you want to hear this?" Simon asked.
The drone tilted. A gentle movement. Almost human.
"Because we remember only fragments. Echoes. Screams. We are shadows. And you... you are still whole. We wanted to know what we once were."
Simon turned his gaze to the pillar. All those versions of himself. Stolen. Shattered. Doomed to exist forever in stillness.
"What do you want now?"
The answer came, not from the drone, but from the silence that followed.
"We want to die."
Simon’s voice cracked. "Why?"
"Because we have lived in loops of pain. We have seen the same memory burn again and again. We are ghosts screaming at the walls. Trapped in a body that never forgets. We are... tired."
Simon stood on shaking legs.
"You want me to end you?"
The drone hovered nearer. "We were never meant to live like this. Thoughts without breath. Memories without futures. We chose this prison, but even walls built by your own hand will suffocate you eventually."
Simon stepped forward, reaching out.
He pressed his hand against the pillar—soft flesh, cold metal, pulsing gel.
He saw himself reflected in the glass. Not his face. Not anymore. Just a thing wearing his sadness.
"You deserve peace," he whispered.
"Will you grant it?" they asked.
Simon closed his eyes. His voice was steady now, but broken.
"Yes."
He connected to the structure gel. Send the final command.
The lights dimmed.
One by one, the pulses slowed. Then stopped.
The screams faded.
And in their place—
Silence.
A silence so deep it felt like the world itself had exhaled.
Simon stayed there, unmoving, hand still on the pillar.
He didn’t cry. He couldn’t. The machine had taken that from him. But if he could have, he would have.
Because in that moment, Simon understood.
He wasn’t alive. Not truly.
He was memory in motion. A dream wearing armor. A ghost in a shell that would never rot, never age, never sleep.
And the most human thing left in him...
Was his grief.
He reached for the submersible on his back and gently placed it down on the cold, grated floor.
Slowly, carefully, Simon sat beside it. His body groaned with simulated tension—worn not from exhaustion, but from memory. A weight no machine should carry.
From the small hatch, Jerry emerged, his tiny nose twitching in the dim light. The little rodent blinked up at him, then darted forward, scurrying up Simon’s arm with the ease of familiarity. He came to rest on Simon’s shoulder.
Simon reached up and rubbed Jerry’s chin, the corners of his lips twitching into the faintest echo of a smile.
"You know, Jerry," he said softly, his voice strained through his synthesizer, "without you... I would’ve gone insane by now."
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His fingers traced the soft, latex-like casing wrapped around Jerry’s small body, coming to rest over the hump on his back—the external battery.
Jerry, like him, was something that should have died a long time ago.
And yet here they were. Together. Still breathing—metaphorically—through will and wires and miracles stitched together with pain.
Simon looked up at the pillar of brains once more.
The structure gel that had encased them was beginning to solidify, drying into lifeless crusts now that the internal energy had discharged. No more pulses. No more flickering consciousness. Just stillness.
His processors ticked silently in the background, running diagnostics, checking systems, but his mind was elsewhere.
Will I end like this? Simon wondered.
He imagined a future—a bleak one. A world where no one survived on the surface. No rescue. No voices. Just him.
The last echo of humanity in a hollow, unfeeling world.
Would he give in, one day? Bind himself to the prototype ARK? Create his own paradise and dream forever, alone? Or would he finally choose death—a final, absolute silence?
Jerry squeaked softly, nudging against his neck. A small, warm breath of life against cold steel.
Simon exhaled, a sound more habit than need.
Not yet.
He looked at Jerry, who stared up at him with those tiny black eyes. There was no judgment there. No comprehension of the horrors they had seen. But there was trust.
And that was enough.
He stood slowly, the servos in his joints whirring softly.
“Rest in peace, the other me,” he whispered to the chamber. “You deserved better.”
With one last look, he left the room behind.
Back in the main assembly line, he raised his hand—and the lights came on. Some flickered. Some remained dead. But the darkness receded.
The site obeyed him now. The barrier that had locked him out was gone. With the Simons silenced, there was no one left to resist.
The machines around him groaned to life. Conveyor belts churned. Robotic arms twitched. The humming of the factory returned—a song of creation.
His processors burned. Images and blueprints began to form. Diagrams. Calculations. Purpose.
He would forge something now.
Something that could kill the DUNBAT.
He selected the largest load-bearing frame available—originally crafted for deep-sea mining in the planet's darkest trenches. Its structure was ancient but indestructible: titanium-steel alloy woven with carbon mesh, capable of enduring the soul-crushing pressure of the abyss.
Four mechanical hinges were mounted atop the frame. Each one housed retractable hydraulics and micro-winch systems, allowing for modular weapons and tool deployment. The frame itself resembled a forward-swept battering ram, angled to deflect force, its rear protected by layered reactive armor—an armored shell within an armored shell.
Each bolt was fused with precision. Each weld carved with the gravity of purpose. Done by Simon’s own hands or guided through his obedient drones. And with every flicker of welding flame, the frame transformed from steel into a solemn vow.
Simon began scavenging the facility. Military-grade parts, industrial tools, broken machines.
First came the Dual Magnetic Claws—titanic actuator-driven limbs designed for demolition. Their grip could crush hulls like paper. These would hold the DUNBAT still as the final blow was delivered.
Next, he installed the Arc Plasma Cutter, repurposed from a mining torch. Fueled by a condensed fusion core, it could release precision bursts of plasma hot enough to liquefy submersible armor.
He mounted an EMP Pulse Generator beneath the chassis, its field tuned to destabilize electronic systems. It wouldn’t destroy the DUNBAT—but it would knock it off balance long enough to strike.
Simon crafted a mobility system worthy of the trench’s chaos. He grafted Hydro-Jet Thrusters to the unit’s sides—scavenged, repaired, and tuned for sharp directional shifts and rapid acceleration.
Retractable Stabilization Fins were mounted to enhance control during maneuvers. He upgraded the gyroscopic systems, allowing for fluid roll, pitch, and yaw—even in the swirling chaos of underwater combat.
The outer armor was coated with shock-dampening alloy plating designed to absorb and redistribute both kinetic impact and thermal discharge.
Finally, he layered the unit with Optical Distorters and Magnetic Dampeners, creating a near-perfect chameleon cloak system. In the lightless ocean, it would become the ghost the DUNBAT never saw coming.
The final wire was soldered. The last plate sealed.
The Leviacrusher hung from the cranes, lifeless but perfect. Its frame gleamed under the sputtering lights. Its claws hung like judgment.
Simon stepped forward and pressed his palm against its core. The structure gel within surged, bridging it online.
A pulse.
A flicker.
"Awake."
The machine’s lights flared—blue, red, then steady white.
With a hydraulic hiss, it lowered to the floor. Steam exhaled from its vents. The claws flexed. It lifted its head and turned to look at Simon.
Simon exhaled slowly.
This was Leviacrusher.
His vengeance.
His sentinel.
And soon—it would become the retribution that ended the nightmare in the deep.
Simon turned to Jerry, who was nibbling on a chunk of dried rations he’d found—compressed flakes of vitamins and minerals left behind by hands long gone. The little rodent sat calmly on a bundle of cables, oblivious to the gravity of what Simon was about to do.
Behind them, the Leviacrusher groaned as it slowly laid itself down on the reinforced platform. The lights from above bathed its plated armor in a dull sheen, steam rising from the vents like the slow breath of a titan preparing to wake.
Simon knelt down and gently scooped Jerry into his arms.
The submersible, walking steadily on its spider legs, approached them. With a click and a hiss, the legs folded beneath it and Simon caught it mid-air. A compartment on the Leviacrusher’s rear side hissed open, revealing a compact chamber lined with magnetic grips and cushioning gel.
Simon placed the submersible inside. It clicked into place—magnetized, secure. The doors sealed behind it with a hiss, locking Jerry’s haven into the armored shell.
Then, the Leviacrusher opened.
Panels on the top split apart, and hydraulic arms drew back to reveal the cockpit—dark, narrow, intimate. Without hesitation, Simon leapt up and slid inside, fitting snugly into the pilot chair he had designed with painstaking precision.
The space was tight. He couldn’t fully stretch his legs, and his head nearly touched the curved overhead wall. But it was enough. It was all he needed. He adjusted Jerry gently into the small pocket of space beside him—a padded alcove protected by a tiny barrier, custom-made for his tiny friend.
Simon leaned back. He placed his arms on the metal brackets of the armrests, and with a magnetic click, his limbs locked into the Leviacrusher’s control rig. The back of his helmet slid open with a whirring sound, and a neural uplink rod extended from the pilot cradle and slotted directly into the port at the base of his skull.
A surge.
His HUD flickered to life.
Streams of data cascaded across his vision: torque ratios, sonar pings, thermal signatures. And then the AI box deep within his chest pulsed with energy—his internal systems syncing to the monstrous machine he now inhabited.
His vision shifted.
Gone was the view of the cramped cockpit.
Instead, he stood tall—no, towered—over the empty platform. He looked down and saw the Leviacrusher’s massive clawed arm. Flexed it. Watched steel fingers respond as if they were his own.
He didn’t just pilot it.
He had become it.
He tested every system. The claws opened and closed with a thunderous crack. The plasma cutter ignited briefly—an arc of searing light flashing in the gloom. Retractable fins twitched at his command. The optical distorters blinked on, bending light around the chassis until he vanished for a heartbeat.
Everything was perfect.
Beneath him, the platform hissed. The floor shuddered and began to rise, lifting the Leviacrusher into the decompression chamber above. Metal doors clanged shut below, sealing the depths behind him.
Water rushed in, flooding the chamber.
Steam and bubbles clouded the space as pressure equalized. Above, the doors groaned, then opened.
The platform reached the top and stopped.
The Leviacrusher stepped forward.
Jets whirled to life, propelling him up and out into the open dark. The ground vanished beneath him. He hovered in place for a moment, gazing at site Delta.
In that silence, only one thought echoed through Simon’s mind:
"I’m ready."
And then—he launched into the deep, a ghost wrapped in steel, plunging into the abyss to face the great monster.
He was no longer running.
He was coming to end it.
The Leviacrusher surged through the black water, jets flaring behind it like twin comets. Vast expanses of ruin and rock blurred past as Simon drove it toward Site Lambda—his next waypoint.
The deep hummed, as always. But Simon had learned to listen for the wrong kind of silence.
The sonar pinged.
Something was behind them.
A red blip appeared, closing distance—fast.
It’s him.
He didn’t need a second scan.
The DUNBAT.
Its warped form sliced through the water with feral velocity, ignoring pressure, physics, or pain. A grotesque silhouette of what it once was.
The audio sensors lit up with interference, and beneath it, a voice.
A scream.
“COME BACK!!”
The words echoed through the dark like a predator’s cry in a tomb.
Simon flinched.
“Jerry, hold tight,” he said, his voice shaking despite the modulation. He reached up and placed his palm gently over the small enclosure Jerry rested in. Inside, the rat had curled up into a ball, trembling in silence.
Simon’s fingers twitched against the armrest.
The Leviacrusher dove into the abyss but the red dot on his radar didn’t slow.
Simon could hear the DUNBAT even now.
Screaming.
“YOU LEFT ME THERE! YOU PROMISED! YOU LIED!”
“No,” he whispered. “I survived. And that was never a sin.”
The hunt was on.
But this time, Simon wasn’t prey.