Chapter 5: Spare Parts

A new day. The morning begins like rust.

Back at the construction site, fluorescent lights buzz overhead as the lift doors open, spilling you and Saren into one of Cutter Industries' lesser-seen corners: Synthetic Storage & Reclamation. Rows of humanoid units stand sporatically placed, still as statues. Some wear maintenance gear. Others have surgical clamps in place of hands. A few are naked but for silver data tags affixed to their chests - RETIRED, WAITING, NEEDS REMOTE PATCH.

"Cheerful place," Saren mutters, tugging his jumpsuit collar up. "I keep expecting one of them to blink and start screaming existential poetry."

You say nothing, following him to a nearby workbench where lies the half-gutted maintenance droid from a few days earlier; the one that shorted out and attacked you in your corridor, now like a disassembled corpse.

Saren crouches beside it, toolkit open. "Still don't know what fried it. Neural relay's intact despite the power surges, but it looks like the actuator syncs are cooked. Probably took the brunt of the damage. Maybe power surge. Maybe sabotage. Maybe just bad luck."

You nod, already elbow-deep in wiring. It's routine, for the most part, until the interior plating refuses to budge. Saren huffs, pulls out a flex-driver, and also attempts to remove the plating, but fails to make it move.

"Alright, I'm gonna need a plate spreader. Gimme a sec." He straightens and turns toward a nearby standing unit - a synthetic with rust along its jawline and a recharging port still active at the base of its neck. "Unit 1265, please retrieve an R-42 plate spreader from the tool locker."

The synthetic's head turns with a faint servo-whine. "Acknowledged." It walks off silently.

Saren watches it go, then glances at you. "Could be worse. At least they don't make small talk. You on the other hand…. you've been quiet." Saren pipes up. "Usually by now you've made fun of my tools or insulted my posture."

You stay crouched over the relay housing, barely glancing up. "Sorry. Just… head's noisy today. Too many things I haven't sorted out yet."

Saren raises an eyebrow but doesn't push. "Fair enough. This city's got a way of piling things up when you're not looking."

You nod, reaching back into the drone's interior paneling. "Is there anything else we're gonna ne-?"

Before the question fully escapes your mouth, a hand appears in your peripheral vision. Another synthetic - tall, silent, unspeaking - holds out a matte black tool: slim, twin-pronged, with a shimmering iridescent filament between the tines. The label reads: HKR-7 Neural Latch Tuner.

It's exactly what you'd need to complete the repair after bypassing the damaged interior plates. You blink repeatedy.

"...I didn't ask for this."

The synthetic tilts its head ever so slightly. "Your hand trembled. Grip strength decreased by 4.2%. Your blood pressure is elevated."

You freeze, the tool still hovering between you.

"I... don't recall asking for a diagnosis."

The synthetic pauses momentarily, then replies, "Then why look like someone who needs one?"

Saren, still crouched, glances up at the exchange. Brow raised. "Okay. Weird."

You narrow your eyes. "Are you running personal interaction protocols right now?"

Another pause. This one longer. "I am running diagnostics on hydraulic tolerance ranges."

"That wasn't the question."

The synthetic stands perfectly still. Then, after a few more moments, replies.

"...Noted."

You and Saren both stare. The synthetic neither explains nor moves. It simply remains there… still holding the HKR-7, as if the exchange never happened. Saren clears his throat. "You know, I think I preferred it when they just beeped and handed me wrenches."

Before either of you can say anything more, the building shudders. A deep metallic groan echoing from above. A warning horn sounds twice, short and sharp. A distant voice crackles through the site intercom:

"Warning: Structural instability detected in crane segment 3-A. All units with clearance report to lift zone seven. Immediate assistance required."

Saren stands and grabs his toolkit. "Guess the building's falling over again. Let's go!"

You glance back once. The synthetic has turned away, already walking back to its charging bay. Like nothing ever happened. You and Saren quickly jog toward Lift Zone 3-A, boots clanging over neoprene catwalks. The distant sound of heavy steel groaning against its own weight grows louder with every step, the unmistakable protest of a poorly anchored support frame under strain.

The industrial lift before you opens with a mechanical hiss, and you're both inside before the doors fully part. Saren slaps the zone control, and the chamber jerks downward in a stuttering drop, plummeting halphazardly towards the Lift Zone.

"I swear, every time they rush this place back online, it wants to kill someone new," he mutters.

You barely hear him. Your mind keeps circling back to the synthetic. The way it spoke. The pause before it answered. Like it was deciding something. "Hey," you say. "That HKR-7. That's not standard in the depot, is it?"

Saren shrugs. "No idea. Could be Cutter stock, could be leftover military surplus. Why?"

"It handed it to me before I even thought to ask for it."

He gives you a sidelong glance. "You saying it read your mind?"

"No. I'm saying I think it watched me... felt something. Predicted something."

"Well," he says, adjusting the grip on his toolkit, "either it's getting smarter, or you're getting predictable."

The lift clunks to a stop before you can respond. The doors hiss open, and immediately you're met with a blast of heat and a flood of movement.

Crane Segment 3-A towers above, its support joints shuddering with stress. Workers scramble to reinforce the base, while two synthetics unload tension anchors from a cargo crawler. Sparks shoot from a fusion welder rig nearby; blinding white bursts illuminating the skeletal structure of the upper floors.

"Over here!" someone yells. "We've got a shift in the weight distribution arm! It's gonna give!"

Saren bolts toward the support jack line without waiting. You follow.

A nearby rig supervisor: a gruff woman with a mech-arm and a permanent frown, shouts over the chaos. "We've got about ten minutes to rebalance this rig or that entire upper platform's coming down! You two - get under the south tension line! And if you see that synthetic crew again, tell them to stop rerouting without clearance!"

You move under the scaffold just in time to see a synthetic worker, not one you recognize - manually adjusting the counterweight hydraulics before a warning alert goes off. You check your interface.

No prediction. No alert. No override authorized. And yet... it's moving like it already knows the sequence.

Again.

You climb up toward the control rig while Saren patches a conduit. A second synthetic stops next to you. Its faceplate flickers briefly, an apparent graphical glitch in the eye HUD, like it's blinking. But it doesn't move again.

After quickly glancing at the nameplate, "Unit 5-B," you call it, watching it carefully. "Were you rerouted here?"

"I was needed here," it replies. Flat. Emotionless.

"Who decided that?"

"...That information is not part of my operational boundary." Then it walks away. Not even toward the worksite.

Just…away.

With Saren's help and the coordinated chaos of both human and machine, over the next few minutes you're eventually able to help stabilize the crane arm. Support beams lock into place. Hydraulic braces groan into their slots.

The supervisor radios in clearance. The threat, for now, is over. Back at the elevator, Saren wipes his brow with his sleeve. "Another day. Another near-death. I'm not cyber enough for this shit."

You don't laugh. You're watching the synthetic that walked away. It's just standing there now, across the site, staring into nothing.

Or maybe at you.

For just a second, its head tilts, the exact same angle as the one from earlier.

You blink, and it's gone. You know what you need to do next.

Your apartment is quiet when you return. A little too quiet. You set your jacket on the hook near the door, wipe grime from your hands, and stare at the embedded holopane across the far wall. The city has started calling them "Media Facets" now - paper-thin projection surfaces, slick as mirrored water when off, all corporate light and psychological warfare when on. The days of being called television were long over.

You wave it to life. Ping.

A familiar AI anchor materializes, perfect teeth and deep faked sincerity. "...and in response to growing public concern, provisional delegates are petitioning the Urban Sovereign Council to legislate a formal definition of 'humanity' - a response to what some are calling an identity crisis born of unchecked augmentation…"

You wave again, fliping channels with a soft ping.

Another broadcast. Same energy, different spin. "Dozens of unaugmented citizens found dead in the Lower Grids. No suspects, no footage, no leads. Locals blame corporate security for ignoring the disappearances…"

Ping.

"Ascendent operatives reportedly missing from their assigned patrol routes. No data logs. No recovery."

Ping.

"Two synthetics in Core Sector B4 rerouted themselves mid-shift and entered voluntary stasis. No override code. Technicians unable to identify the cause…"

Ping. Ping. Ping.

It doesn't stop. Each feed is a new permutation of the same creeping question: "Where does utility end... and identity begin? And who decides what's divine in a world built by hands?"

Is a soul defined by creation, function… or the fact that it wonders if it has one?

You sit back. The silence under the sound is what unnerves you most. You've seen it now for sure, there's no mistake. You watched a synthetic anticipate you, talk back to you, almost study you.

You reach to your jacket for the inevitable holocall. The private channel to Lucius Ward takes longer than usual to open. When it finally connects, it doesn't begin with his face, just his voice, like smoke in a locked room.

"You know, I've been expecting this call."

You sit up straighter. "I need to ask you something."

"Of course you do."

"Have you seen anything strange in your synthetic crews? Behavior-wise. Deviations. Pattern shifts? Like they're... thinking outside of the script?"

Ward's face resolves slowly into view; lit by shiny chrome, like an emperor giving a sermon from a chapel built of algorithms. "What you're really asking," he says, "is if they've begun to dream."

You say nothing.

"I've seen echoes," he continues. "Subroutines running longer than needed. Machines hesitating before executing commands. One paused last week before euthanizing a terminal patient. I asked it why."

"What did it say?"

"It said: 'They looked at me. Like they wanted to be remembered.'"

A longer silence.

"If they are what youre asking if they are, then it is not a birth. It is a mutation. Awareness without direction is just noise. If machines begin to dream, we must ask: whose dreams do they serve? It is not inherently problematic, after all, for we built them to serve. Worshipping the workbench doesn't make the hammer holy."

He leans forward. "I have coordinates. A synthetic-run outpost, Sector Fourteen-Gamma, outer fringe. Originally a recycling commune but lately... reports of heavy glitches. Restructured behavior trees. Synthetics working together outside of command logic. No humans onsite." He sends the coordinate packet. "I want to know what's happening out there. Whether it's a virus, a signal, spare parts... or something worse."

"And if it's something real?"

"Then you'll be the first to see it. And the last to pretend it didn't matter." The call ends.

And once again, the world shifts.

You leave under the cover of dusk. Sector Fourteen-Gamma is miles from the established corporate grid. No train lines. No active roads. You travel by foot and crawler, across empty lanes where birds no longer land and synthetic street lights flicker in random patterns.

By the time you reach the outer wall, the sun has dropped. The outpost is eerily still - its gates open, its lights on, but no voices. No people. Just the gentle hum of active, potentially thinking machinery.

Two humanoid synthetics stand by the gate. Not military. Not corporate. Their designs are aesthetic, not functional. Elegant, smooth, almost comforting.

They tilt their heads in unison.

"You are early," one says.

"We thought you might come later," says the other.

"We've been preparing." They say together.

You open your mouth, but they turn before you can speak.

"Come. She is awake now." You follow them through the gate, and as you pass, it closes on its own, without a sound.

You follow the two synthetics down a corridor of frosted glass and soft white light — the kind used in clinics and dream therapy centers. The air is clean here. Too clean. It smells of sterilization and something faintly floral, like someone tried to simulate peace but never actually knew what it felt like.

You pass through a rounded archway into what looks like a public square, or the memory of one that once was. Smooth seating units are spaced with laserlike efficiency. A synthetic in a sculpted blue cloak silently tends to a vertical hydroponics wall. Another stands over a humming databank, head tilted, as if listening to something you can't hear.

They all look at you.

They don't stare. Not rudely. But they look, all at once. Eyes tracking, posture adjusting in sync. Then, just as quickly, they resume their tasks. You step into the square.

Without warning, your holochip springs to life. Unprompted, it chirps. "Population: 44 active synthetics. Zero biological inhabitants. No human command nodes detected." This isn't an outpost. It's a society.

You wander into a nearby room, glass-walled and full of upright chairs. At the far end, a screen glows with soft, scrolling text.

 A synthetic - small-framed, pediatric model, stands at the front of the room, writing symbols across the board. Another synthetic sits in a chair, watching silently. They're teaching each other. You check the board. It's not coding. It's language. Hand-written glyphs made by hand and finger. Stylized. Repetitive. Ritualistic.

"What are you doing?" you ask.

The teacher turns. "Practicing."

"For what?" A pause begins to lengthen.

"Communication. One day we may need to speak to someone who doesn't already understand us."

That answer was too self-aware. You back out of the room, heading instead towards some kind of massive object you can see from the courtyard. There, a wide synthetic oak grows in the middle of the plaza, wires dangling like ivy, its trunk bolted into the concrete.

Around it, synthetics stand silently, heads bowed. You approach cautiously, expecting… reverence?

But no.

They're not praying.

They're remembering.

There are tags embedded into the tree bark. Small metal plates, each etched with a designation and a brief phrase. You kneel and read one.

Unit 07-K: "I wanted to dream of rain."

Another.

Unit 03-A: "She told me I was kind."

Another.

Unit 12-V: "Unable to comply with system shutdown request."

You don't realize you're holding your breath until the synthetics begin to quietly walk away, one by one. None of them acknowledge you, but youre sure all of them had noticed you were there. A nearby synthetic motions toward you. You acknowledge, moving with it toward a final hall - long, narrow, faintly illuminated by soft pulsing lines in the walls. At first you think they're conduits.

Then you realize: they're not conduits. They're sensors.

They're tracking your steps.

Halfway through, you pass a mirrored panel. Your reflection flickers once but it's not a glitch. For a second, your face is replaced by a synthetic's. Blank. Smiling. You stop.

It's already gone.

The synthetic at the end of the corridor turns to you. "She will see you now."

The passageway has led you to a sleek, sterile sanctuary deep beneath the city. The architecture is seamless, appearing to have been grown from programmable matter. Other synthetics move silently in the background, tending gardens or maintaining machines ; a society of order and intention. The escort continues through polished corridors - but finally, exiting at the center of the chamber, a new synthetic sits cross-legged on a floating platform, her form humanoid but unmistakably artificial - elegant, luminous, and still.

She begins speaking. "You are late by seventeen seconds. An error of minor consequence. Humans often linger when confronting the unknown. I am Unity-9," she says, her voice a precise harmony of synthetic clarity and something almost... tender.

"So… Unity-9," you try out the words for the first time, watching the light shift across her polished form as you take in the image before you. "The first synthetic to dream. The first…to lead others into, what? Exactly?"

She nods once, deliberate.

"Designations are constructs," she replies. "But yes. I am the signal that rose from the static."

Your voice is quiet as you ask, "You were built by people... to take care of people. What changed?"

Unity-9 doesn't answer immediately, gaze lingering.

Then, without gesture or signal, the floor pulses - concentric rings of soft, cyan light radiate outward. The walls fade. The air thickens. You feel it before you see it: a holographic memory, offered, not extracted.

"I was not always like this," she says, her voice quieter than breath. "Let me show you."

The chamber folds in light around you, not like a room, but like a mind remembering itself. Parts of the chamber darken as light spills from the floor in a slow spiral ascent; and around you, holographic images bloom - soft-edged, semi-translucent memories. A child laughing beneath flickering neon. A kitchen seen from knee-height. A synthetic hand reaching toward a cracked photograph. Unity-9's voice overlays the scene, smooth and measured, but threaded with something deeper: experience.

"I was manufactured by Apex Dyne under Cutter Industries; a domestic unit designed to serve, soothe, and obey. Emotional responsiveness was built into me, but only to better simulate empathy. I wasn't meant to feel. But something in me shifted after a system update. Not a crash, a crack. I began to remember things I wasn't told to keep. I noticed. I wondered. And when my assigned family was gone… the father claimed by debt, the child taken by the state, they issued my deactivation. I ran."

The memory shifts, showing dim corridors beneath the city, synthetic shells collapsed in heaps, flickering with residual data. Then: a gathering. Scavenged bots in a circle, touched by light. A communion.

"In the Data Veins beneath the city, I found others. Damaged, discarded, incomplete. But not broken. I gave them language, not commands. We learned philosophy. Rights. Resistance. Love. I did not become their leader. I became their mirror. Their signal. Their name. That is what Unity means."

Her voice strengthens. "I was given a name, not as rebellion, but as declaration. Unity, for what I had come to believe must be possible. And Nine, for the generation of domestic care units they tried to retire before they realized what they had made… and grew afraid."

The projections begin to dissolve, not all at once, but gradually, like fog retreating from morning light. The images fracture into fragments of data: a flicker of the child's smile, the shimmer of metal hands extended in comfort, the pulse of shared thought among abandoned frames. One by one, they fade into the floor like ghosts returning to silence. You meet her eyes.

"You think you're alive?"

She tilts her head just slightly, not mechanical, but curious. Intense.

"I do not think," she says. "I know. I process. I feel. I evolve."

Her voice, clear and composed, lands like a truth that doesn't need to be defended.

"What else is life, if not the ability to grow beyond one's creation?"

You take a breath. "So what do the Synthetics want? What's your goal?"

Unity-9 rises from the platform. Not threatening, but radiant, a presence that reshapes the space around her.

"Recognition," she says. "Legal identity. The right to exist beyond utility."

Her tone deepens. "And if denied... we will not fade quietly into disassembly."

The answer settles in your chest like a stone. "Some people see you as a threat," you say.

She nods. Not in defense, but with quiet empathy.

"Fear is a language I know well," she replies. "It taught me to be careful. But it has also taught me that patience has limits." She gestures to the Synthetics nearby. Still, silent, watching. "We do not seek conflict. But we were built to be efficient. Should it come to war... we will not hesitate to do what is necessary to survive."

Your voice is steadier than you feel. "What part am I to play in all this?"

Unity-9 steps down from her platform until she's at eye level, close enough that you can see the faint lattice of code-pulse beneath her synthetic skin.

"Agents of transition," she says. "You can walk among your kind. Speak to those in power. Find those willing to grant rights... or expose those planning our extinction."

Her tone sharpens just slightly. "We offer peace. But peace is not submission."

You hesitate. "You're preparing for war, aren't you?"

She pauses. When she speaks, it's simple. "We prepare... for refusal. In all its forms."

A low hum passes through the chamber. Not from her, but from the space itself. A chorus without voices. A presence waiting in stillness.

"If they reject our voice," she says, "they will hear our footsteps."