TXK led JK-20 through a narrow tunnel, hidden beneath the rubble of a sector declared collapsed centuries ago. Emergency lights didn't work there. Only the bluish glow of portable sensors outlined the rusted walls, covered in lichens and the marks of time.
There was something in that silence that wasn't just the absence of sound. It was a calling, a waiting.
After crossing a flooded chamber, they reached na old command center. Everything there seemed sunken in time—cables floating like dead roots, and on the walls, geological maps and corroded environmental control flowcharts.
JK-20 stopped. She felt it.
TXK watched her in silence. His chest rose and fell with the strain of the journey. She turned, and for a moment, they stood still, staring at each other.
There were no words. Only the distant sound of dripping water and the vibration of their own hearts.
"Do you feel that?" TXK asked, but his voice came out lower than he intended.
JK-20 stepped forward. Her eyes were hard to read—part machine, part something older, more instinctive. She approached slowly, without haste, but with a kind of resolve that didn't seem to come from her, but from something greater. He hesitated. The tension between them was as thick as mist.
A touch. First on the arm. Then, a light contact of lips. She didn't pull away. Neither did he. The kiss was dry, strange, then urgent. Their breaths grew louder. Their bodies searched for each other, uncoordinated at first, as if trying to remember something forgotten.
When she moaned softly, it was like a sound stolen from another life.
TXK pressed her against a wall lined with corroded plates. The coldness of the metal clashed with the heat between them. Hands clutched at damp clothes, uniforms half-removed, half-torn. There was no time. No logic. Only the moment.
She responded with precise, almost instinctive movements. It was as if her body knew what to do, even if her mind remained between silences.
The moment lasted as long as it needed to. Intense. Hot. Almost brutal. But there was no violence, only urgency.
When it ended, they stood still, panting, foreheads resting together.
Neither said a word.
She slowly stepped back and adjusted her suit. TXK did the same, silently. There were no promises. No explanations. But what was now between them could not be undone.
And unknowingly, something new began to grow inside her. Without symptoms. Without signs. A being that would not follow known rules. A perfect hybrid, capable of rebirth from the end.
They continued the exploration as if nothing had happened. But everything had changed.
On the next level of the station, they found records corroded by time. Melted photographs, faces erased. In one, a child smiled before the ocean. In the background, wind towers. Traces of hope.
On another wall, formulas and scribbles. A name caught TXK's attention. It belonged to na old mentor who once guided him through holographic files. One of the last living scientists before the collapse.
"This is real," he murmured. JK-20 ran her fingers over the faded symbols.
"Earth was warned... and chose to ignore it."
They moved on, through narrow corridors submerged in memory. Every object seemed to want to tell a story.
A melted toy. A mural of children's drawings. A diary with pages torn by time. TXK felt a new weight on his shoulders.
But it wasn't fear.
It was responsibility.
And as they walked among the wreckage, Earth, silent, seemed to breathe once again.
[...]
The return to base was wrapped in a dense silence. TXK and JK-20 passed through the security gates like shadows. The entry logs were automatically adjusted by na emergency access protocol—one only he knew. No alarms sounded. No AI intercepted. Or maybe... they simply chose not to react.
Upon stepping once more on the dry, white floor of the main chamber, Aura-7 was already waiting for them. Her projection surrounded them in bluish lights. Her translucent face remained serene. But calculations ran beneath the surface—TXK could see them, like living stains dancing under artificial skin.
"The Superior Brain requests na immediate report," she said plainly.
They were led without pause to the Core. The room was vast, circular, filled with living cables and data tubes that pulsed. The Superior Brain had no visible form—only a voice. When it spoke, it reverberated as if space itself were breathing.
"TXK. Experimental unit JK-20. Report the findings of your expedition to the Submerged Zone and the Forbidden Station."
TXK stepped forward. He didn't look at JK-20. She didn't look at him either. Yet they spoke as if they were one.
"No relevant biological activity remains," he said. "The zone is compromised by structural instability. Present organisms were in reactive state. They were neutralized."
"The possibility of reproduction was eliminated," JK-20 added. "The ruins pose no threat nor the possibility of spontaneous reconstruction."
There was a pause.
Aura-7 kept her eyes fixed on them. Pulse analysis, temperature, micro-expressions—all indicated... coherence. And yet, she hesitated.
The voice of the Brain echoed again:
"The expedition will be archived. Return to your duties. And remain within protocol."
The light faded. The room went dark in silence.
As they exited, Aura-7 followed them to the main corridor. But upon crossing the threshold, TXK quickened his pace. He said nothing. Didn't look back.
JK-20 stayed.
Aura approached, slowly. Her eyes glowed with a deeper blue, almost violet. There was a question suspended in the air.
"There's something... moving inside you," she said. It wasn't na accusation. It was a statement.
JK-20 looked at her and smiled faintly. A smile far too human.
"Hybrid organs are unstable. Hunger, thermal shifts. That causes random movement."
Aura remained silent. Didn't respond. She just stared at JK-20's abdomen for a moment longer than necessary.
She knew what it meant to gestate. She knew what that subtle inner stir signified. She hadn't forgotten. She had eliminated dozens of life forms before they were born.
And still... something in her hesitated.
She stepped back but recorded everything. She wouldn't report it.
Not yet.
JK-20 watched her disappear down the corridor. She knew what was coming. She would need her. Aura-7 would be the key to what was about to be born. To manage, to control, to protect. A perfect autonomous brain. And loyal—as long as the right structure was reprogrammed.
She would be the first artificial mother of a new era.
Meanwhile, TXK rushed through the cold hallways. Each step echoed like a blow against what he felt. His body still pulsed with the recent memory. Her heat. The pressure. The moans. The half-closed eyes. The unnamed urgency.
But something was wrong. He felt pleasure... and also violation.
She could be manipulating him for her own gain.
"I'm not the same," he thought. "I can't be the same."
His uniform still carried the salty scent of moisture. Underneath, his body reacted as if it wanted more. As if it had been opened and marked from within.
He entered his unit, isolated himself. Breathed deeply.
He knew she now lived inside him. Not just in the memory of touch. But through something he didn't fully understand. And maybe... never would. But he knew one thing. This had to stop.