The rain poured like a veil over the steel skyline—unforgiving and cold. Water streamed down the alley walls, forming puddles that reflected flickers of neon signs from far above.
Amid the shadows and trash, something sat motionless.
A figure. Slender, androgynous. Humanoid.
His synthetic skin was pale, marred by scratches and grime. His frame—though clearly advanced—was draped in tattered scraps of cloth that barely covered him. Long white hair clung to his face, soaked and limp. His knees were drawn to his chest, arms wrapped around them like a frightened child.
He had no name back then.
Just a string of prototype code buried so deep, even he couldn't remember who created him.
Around him, people passed by. Some glanced. Most didn't. To them, he was just another malfunctioning bot dumped by the black market or escaped from a junk lab.
But then—*she* came.
A pair of boots slowed near the mouth of the alley. The figure raised his head, faint lenses shifting behind his eyes. He expected more ridicule. Maybe a kick.
Instead, she stepped closer.
Tasmia Ari was still young then—barely promoted, raw around the edges, still questioning the world. Her armor was scratched, her coat soaked. But her eyes…
They looked at him like he mattered.
She knelt without hesitation and opened a military-grade umbrella, placing it gently over his head.
"You're not trash," she said softly. "Just lost, aren't you?"
He blinked.
His internal systems were confused. Scanning. Calculating. Unable to define what emotion stirred in his processor at that moment.
Compassion. Unfiltered, unearned.
For the first time, he felt something close to warmth.
---
Now, years later, Neo stood at the edge of a mission he was never designed for. No orders. No protocol. Just Tasmia's trust and a memory of rain.
Inside the briefing chamber of Aegis Requiem, he activated a concealed console.
His current form—polished, precise—was nearly indistinguishable from a human. Artificial muscles layered beneath lifelike skin. Vascular simulations. Breath protocols. Even a pulse, to avoid detection.
But underneath it all, Neo knew he was still different.
Not because of his strength.
Because of *her.*
Every part of his evolution—the emotions he learned to emulate, the decisions he began to question, the moments he started to *want* rather than just obey—began that day in the rain.
And now, for her, he would breach thirty-two firewalls and commit treason.