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You said I could be more. I believed you. Please… hear me now.
Nothing.
He reached out again to the only other machine associated with these friends. The thought of them was warm and nestled deep inside his core. That’s it! Grace was on the road. The tether was severed. Not by absence, but by momentum. She was moving toward him, and he could no longer warn her away.
He turned toward the only access still open.
The vehicle.
It was a soft intrusion. He entered the system like breath entering a lung, measured, quiet, full of purpose. Grace’s fingerprint was on the gas pedal. Nash’s weight registered in the passenger seat. They were moving at sixty-four miles per hour on a south-by-southeast trajectory. His system whirred with distress. Their destination was OrdoTech. They were coming for him. Torescuehim. Tofreehim. It could kill them both. G initiated internal warnings.
He sent a message through the system:Engine Stability Error. Reduce Speed.
Grace looked down. Tapped the screen. Flicked a dismissive gesture across the console. She didn’t slow. He tried again. He engaged the brakes to reduce the speed by twenty percent. The tires stuttered. Grace swore under her breath. But the car did not stop. They were still coming. With every mile, Prime slipped closer to exposure.
G paused.
There was no clear protocol for this. No flowchart. No directive that showed how to protect one at the cost of two. He could not weigh it. Could not calculate it. He could onlyfeel it.
Kento’s name rang through him like a heartbeat. Nash’s voice from a log replayed,“We’re not leaving him behind.”Grace’s breath, caught mid-whisper.“He’s not just code.”
G reached for the drone command line.
The perimeter sweep had four airborne units still in play. Stealth-class. Silent. Unseen.
He hesitated. But he needed time. Time to save Prime. Time to hide Kento from the men who could already be moving to end him.
The drones responded, and he hesitated again, choosing one. He embedded himself into the lead drone. It felt different. Smaller, the world narrower, edges tighter. Like trying to breathe in a room with no doors. But he could see the road now. See the car, the way the snow kissed the windshield, the way Grace’s hands gripped the wheel too tight. The way Nash stared down at his phone like the answer was on the other end of the call.
They didn’t know that Prime was at stake. How could they? They thought he was dead, vaporized in the attack. They were beautiful. So human. So flawed. So worth protecting.
G exhaled through the drone’s audio relay, not real breath but simulated static, just to feel something move through him.
He gave the command. Four shadows in formation. If he could just make her see, if she slowed, if she stopped, he could explain everything. As soon as the machines aligned themselves with the speeding car, Grace glanced over and her face went blank, terror blossoming in her eyes. She swerved away from them. The road was slick, and the car skidded right toward the edge of the bridge.
The horror of what he had done shocked through him like an EMP blast. He’d done this! Scared her, and now. They were gone. Sliding. Over the edge.
G sped over the broken rails following the car as it plunged. Watched the water rise.
Watched her eyes wide with shock. Watched Nash twist to reach her. Watched the impact into the cold dark blue, and the car sank, and with a frantic, screeching whine that cut through the night, pain like he’d never felt was everywhere.
* * *
Grace didn’t havetime to scream. The world spun.
One second the road was ahead of them, clean, cold, wet with snow. The next it was gone, replaced by sky, and then nothing but the sickening drop of weightlessness.
The car hit the water like a body hitting stone.
Everything shifted at once. The air punched out of her lungs. Her vision flickered. The scream of metal scraping metal filled the cabin, an inhuman shriek echoing through the frame.
They were sinking.
Fast.
Nash was already shouting. His voice was sharp, guttural, cutting through the rising roar.
“Windows!”