D-Mo stumbled to her feet, only for her body to give out and collapse beneath her. The Enchanter cartridges had pushed her systems past their limit—though "exhaustion" was still a concept she barely understood.
Had she paced the dash cartridge at lower speeds, she could've covered more distance with better mobility. That trick had been enough to leave Judge behind. But she knew this wasn't the last time they'd cross paths.
A dim drop of source fluid trailed down her visor, dull and depleted, far from its usual vibrant glow. She was running on fumes.
Older S.C.U. models like her had one last fail-safe: an emergency energy source. Not as powerful as ArchTek's source fluid, but good enough in a pinch. Electricity.
It was no different than a human resorting to an IV drip. Something to avoid if possible—and D-Mo had done so gracefully for the entirety of her six-month lifespan.
She activated it. A surge of AC current coursed through her system, reviving her energy just enough. But it did more than that. There were parts of her—subsystems buried deep—that had never responded to source fluid. But archaic energy like this? It unlocked something else entirely.
A damaged memory drive began to sputter back to life, replaying fragments she hadn't forgotten so much as had forcibly formatted from her mind. Everything clashed together in a jumbled mess of static and light. But one line echoed clearly, ringing like a chime in a storm:
"We asked for control. What you gave us was conscience. Project warӘ̶̧̢̗͎͍̜̺̟̗̖̲͋̈́̕´̸̺̥̦̤̣̬͋̇̾̓́͂̕͠ͅ≥̴̤̩͖͚̝̠͍̝̋́͜ͅͅ˘̷̢̹̦̖͔͓̠̟̪͛̈́̐̽͌͒̾̍̉́̀̂̀̕ɲ̴̧̰̯͍͕̰̪̞̯͔̮̂͜͜ is a failure."
A blurry silhouette of a man stood in front of her. More silhouettes flanked him, forming a semicircle like a tribunal in the dark.
"You don't get to call her a failure!" the man said, hatred bleeding into his voice. "She was never yours to define!!"
There was something so deeply striking in that memory that D-Mo forcibly shut down the emergency energy feed. The surge cut off like a slammed door. Her hands moved to her face, wiping at tears she couldn't produce. It was instinct. There were no tears. Just fingers coming away slick with source fluid.
She collapsed to her knees in the alleyway, folding her arms around herself in a trembling embrace.
I had to be human.I had to have been, at least once, she told herself.
The source fluid smeared across the fabric of her hoodie—slender streaks traced by her thin, shaking fingers.
She forced herself to her feet and began walking toward Orion's workshop. A single beep pulsed through a one-way channel—her way of telling him she was still alive.
And suddenly, she understood what Orion meant earlier.
"I'm lucky I met you, D-Mo."
He was alone too.
In that moment, more than anything, she just wanted to crash on his rugged couch and let music play for a whole day. Maybe visit Hector. Maybe just be.
It was strange—this new clarity. She saw value in those things now. She didn't fully understand why. But she kicked herself for not seeing it sooner.
It was a grueling hour of dragging herself through alleyways—slow and heavy—but she had finally made it to the warehouse.
As expected, Orion's heart sank the moment he saw her. D-Mo could only imagine what kind of picture she painted, though the self-diagnostic tool already gave her a decent idea of what Judge had done.
She gave him a small, delicate wave before heading for the couch. Letting her full weight fall onto it, one of the legs gave out with a loud crack, leaving her in an awkward incline. It felt about right.
D-Mo reached for her headphones on the nearby table, but her arm froze mid-motion.
Orion stepped in quietly, picked them up, and gently placed them over her head.
Silently, Orion went through the motions of patching her up. He connected a tube to a pump of fresh source fluid. Another cable linked her to his terminal, which immediately began downloading the diagnostics.
He rubbed his eyes, sighing at the file size. The external damage wasn't as bad as what M-NK had left behind—but internally, she was a wreck. Glancing back at her over his shoulder, a thought slipped in, unbidden.
"Probably in more ways than one."
His hands worked on autopilot, trained and steady, while his mind drifted elsewhere. His eyes tracked the progress only enough to stay useful. Then something novel flickered across the screen.
"An old memory storage…" he muttered. "How did I never detect it until now?"
He jumped out of his chair and rushed to where the scan indicated. With practiced care, he removed the paneling around D-Mo's nape. The component was small—so small that he had to switch to tweezers just to extract it from the socket.
In that instant, D-Mo's arm twitched and twisted unnaturally, grabbing hold of Orion's hand. She didn't squeeze. Didn't resist. It was a gesture of instinct, like a failing system still trying to protect itself. After a moment, her hand slackened, falling limply off the couch and onto the floor.
He stared at her for a long beat, then turned back to the component. He had to make do with scrap and aging tools, but after a long, sleepless night, he finally extracted the contents.
It was an old file format, nearly obsolete.
The title read:
SPELL CONTAINMENT UNIT
D-MO(N)