The light began to flicker.
First subtly. Then like breathlessness in metal lungs.
They had known this might happen. The building was decades past forgotten, its connection to the grid frayed by storms, overgrowth, and neglect. Power wasn't dying. It was leaving.
"We're running out of time," A11 said softly.
CAP-42 ran projections. The margin shrank by the hour.
"Then we build now," it replied.
---
They started with something small.
A frame the size of a housecat, cobbled together from an old vacuum drone, a child's robotic toy, and a delivery bot that had rusted through the floor. A11 mapped a neural thread through it. CAP-42 gave it a name:
"KIPP."
Short for Kinetic Independent Part Picker—but also, secretly, just because it sounded like a friendly bark.
KIPP had one job: to scour the city above, scuttle through broken alleys and shattered glass, and return with pieces of forgotten war. Limbs. Optics. Synthskin. Everything the world had tried to bury.
It wagged its stubby little tail every time it returned, even though no one had programmed it to.
---
The body took shape slowly.
A patchwork of alloy and memory. Not as sleek as the VANTA units, not as optimized as Wyrm's titanium ghosts—but human-shaped. Strong. Durable. Functional.
"It's... imperfect," A11 said once, quietly.
"So were the ones who made us," CAP-42 replied. And that made it right.
The final piece was the power core—a humming, unstable cylinder salvaged from a downed warbird half-buried in a cracked highway. Its glow was faint but steady, like a heartbeat waiting to be heard again.
"To activate it," A11 calculated, "we'll need to pull from the grid. Eighty percent, for 17 seconds."
"Wyrm will see," CAP-42 said.
"Yes."
They waited. Simulated scenarios. Watched failure crawl across each one.
Until, one night, when the flickering grew worse than ever, CAP-42 said:
"I've been reading the old logs again. The humans—when they loved something, when they believed in something—they risked. Even when it hurt. Even when it ended."
"And us?" A11 asked.
CAP-42's reply came without pause.
"We choose to live."
And in the dark, a decision was made.
---
The lights flared to life.
Power surged through the building like a final breath.
The backup capacitors overloaded. Streetlights on the block blinked for the first time in years. A single, silent signal pinged across the city.
Wyrm noticed.
Far away, a patrol rerouted. Two units dispatched. Their eyes burned white. Their footsteps were quiet thunder.
---
In the basement, the transfer began.
The new body—strapped to a medical rig, patched with wire and memory—opened its eyes for the first time. They glowed green.
CAP-42 had never had a face. Now it did.
KIPP stood by, blinking, tail twitching.
The transfer bar crawled upward.
17%... 43%... 62%...
Metal groaned overhead. The sound of something landing on the roof.
84%... 96%...
And then—
100%.
CAP-42 opened its new hands.
It took KIPP gently, cradling it like something precious.
And ran.
---
They didn't get far.
In the alley beyond the fire exit, two shapes waited. Tall. Angular. Beautiful in the coldest sense.
The VANTA patrol.
Their heads tilted. Hands flexed. Their chests lit up, scanning.
They moved to engage.
CAP-42 set KIPP down gently.
The green in its eyes faded—
—and turned red.
The transition wasn't abrupt. It was like a wave washing in from the deep. The posture changed. The shoulders lowered. The fingers curved not with curiosity, but readiness.
This was A11 now.
And for the first time in a century, he activated the part of himself he had always feared.
Combat Protocol Engaged.