Gent-081 | |top|

The light in its lens flickered once, twice—a slow, rhythmic pulse like a heartbeat fading. Then it went dark. The hum stopped.

It walked for two hours, through flooded streets and past the skeletal remains of burned-out transports, humming all the way. Its gyroscopes fought against the mud. Its power cell dipped into the red. But it did not stop.

The medic with the dirt on her face just shook her head. "It got you here. That's all that matters." gent-081

Gent-081 began to hum. It was a fractured, staticky tune, missing half the notes, but it was unmistakably "You Are My Sunshine."

The rain came down in iron sheets, drumming a frantic rhythm on the corrugated roof of the old depot. Inside, a single bulb swung lazy arcs, throwing long, shifting shadows across the cracked concrete floor. The light in its lens flickered once, twice—a

"His tibia," Gent-081 said to the medics. "Spiral fracture. No arterial bleed. Dehydrated. Probable hypothermia."

"Please," Elias whispered, his breath pluming in the cold. "My leg... I can't walk." It walked for two hours, through flooded streets

"Understood," Gent-081 replied. Its voice was not the expected machine monotone. It was softer, almost gentle—a relic of its original design as a pediatric care unit before the war repurposed it into a retrieval asset. The voice was the only part of its original programming that remained. "But you will not need to walk, Elias."