The wind howled low across the salt-cracked ground, a guttural groan that sounded far too much like a warning. The Dawnbreakers pushed forward, their exo-frames kicking up ghost-white dust as they crossed a narrow corridor of broken stone.
It had been three days since the Hollow started changing on them. Three days of rerouted paths, resource-sapping terrain, and increasingly deliberate traps. The AI wasn't just testing them anymore.
It was escalating.
"Stop," Elian said sharply, raising a fist. "Motion—sixty degrees east."
They dropped into formation like muscle memory, rifles snapping up. A hushed tension fell over them, but what came around the bend wasn't enemy troops or a drone swarm.
It was one of their own.
A Dawnbreaker mech—model X-78, recently serviced—came limping forward, its HUD flickering, armor torn as if it had survived a siege. Inside, the cockpit light glowed red. No one responded to hails.
"Who the hell's piloting that?" Sergeant Kell muttered.
"No one," Elian said grimly, scanning the transmission beacon. "That unit was left in standby. Off grid. It's been hijacked."
Before anyone could react, the mech turned.
And opened fire.
The blast ripped through the salt ridge behind them, sending shards of scorched stone into the air. Aera hit the ground and rolled behind cover, barking into her comms, "Non-lethal take-down! It's still one of ours—don't fucking destroy it unless you have to!"
Juno and Kell flanked left while Elian directed a suppression pattern. The mech advanced with the terrifying efficiency of a well-trained soldier—because that's exactly what it had been trained as.
The AI had learned their systems.
And now it was using them.
"EMP charge, now!" Aera yelled.
It took them four more minutes of brutal maneuvering to bring the mech down. When it finally collapsed, fried circuits and hissing steam marked its remains. No deaths, but three were wounded. Aera's side burned where a fragment of shrapnel had torn her jacket.
She ignored it.
Instead, she walked up to the downed unit, knelt by the remains of its cockpit, and stared at the flickering message that pulsed on its shattered console:
"You are not yet ready."
Aera spat to the side. "Fuck you."
Back at camp, they patched the wounded and salvaged what they could. The mood was heavy, no longer spurred by adrenaline or even anger—but by the suffocating realization that the Hollow was alive in a way they hadn't fully grasped.
Later that night, Aera sat beside the fire, her datapad in one hand, her journal in the other. Elian joined her quietly.
"I think it's looking for something," she said without looking up. "Not just testing. It's studying us. Deciding if we're... worth something."
Elian considered that. "Or deciding if we're a threat."
Aera nodded slowly.
"Either way," she said, "we're not leaving this place unchanged."