It was just another Friday night.
The kind where the city buzzed with half-drunk laughter and the clatter of dishes, and the rain hadn't made up its mind if it was serious. The bar smelled like grilled meat, cheap cologne, and old wood. A couple of TV screens flickered with highlights from synth-boxing matches — one of the newer sports where human fighters sparred against controlled biological androids.
Auren sat with his coworkers in a booth near the back, beer in hand, jacket draped over the cracked leather seat beside him.
"I swear to God," Mira said, waving a fry for emphasis, "if my supervisor edits one more line of my code without telling me, I'm going to biohack his houseplant."
"Again?" Rayn said with a laugh. "Didn't you already kill his ficus last month?"
"That was unrelated. That was justice."
Auren smirked, listening while absently stirring his drink with the tip of his finger.
"You're quiet, Kael," Rayn said, nudging him. "Another moral dilemma about android souls, or just thinking about dinner?"
"Bit of both," Auren said. "Mostly dinner."
They all laughed. The kind of laugh that came from long weeks and shared exhaustion.
"Speaking of souls," Mira leaned in, her tone mock-serious, "you guys hear about that incident near Sector 9? Black Vulture unit went full-on berserk. Tore through a security gate like tissue paper."
Auren blinked. "Wait — Black Vulture? That's military-grade."
"Yeah, that's the problem," she said. "It wasn't ours. Spiral Fang's involved again. They've been hijacking prototype bots, gutting the cores, installing black-market AIs."
Rayn whistled. "Those bastards are getting bolder."
Spiral Fang.
The name alone gave Auren a chill. An underground network dealing in stolen tech and unregistered synthetic bodies. Rumor was they had labs buried beneath old metro stations, growing their own soldier-drones — real human muscle wired with artificial control.
"Let me guess," Auren muttered. "Government won't touch them unless they blow up another hospital."
"They can't touch them," Mira replied. "Half the defense sector buys from them when their own budgets get slashed."
A beat of silence followed. Then Rayn raised his glass.
"To the bright future. Where your neighbor might be a war-bot and you'll never know until it's too late."
They clinked glasses anyway.
The night wound down like usual. Jokes turned into tired conversation, and tired conversation turned into the check. One by one they peeled off — rideshare apps buzzing, someone's boyfriend waiting outside, Mira grabbing leftover wings for her cat.
"You walking?" Rayn asked, slinging on his coat.
"Yeah," Auren said. "Only a few blocks. Air's good tonight."
"Well, try not to get run over by a robot truck or anything."
"Ha. No promises."
He walked.
The streets weren't too busy this late. The rain was light, and the sky glowed with the usual city haze. He passed a corner kiosk where a vending unit blinked sleepily at him. A Neobiote — humanoid model, probably customer service type — stood inside, offering a polite nod. Too perfect. Too symmetrical. No wrinkles, no twitch, no soul.
People used to joke about machines replacing them. Now, the joke felt more like prophecy.
Auren didn't nod back.
It was strange, sometimes, working so close to the future and still feeling like it was already past him.
He crossed the final street.
Didn't see the truck.
Didn't hear it until the brakes screamed.
Too fast. Too close. He didn't stand a chance.
A sharp screech. Headlights. A second of cold panic. Then — nothing.
**********
*****
***
=================
[SYSTEM ONLINE]
>Initializing Core Protocols…
>Designated ID: BATCH-7A / SLOT-12
>Synthetic Memory Web: BOOTING
>Status: CONSCIOUS THREAD DETECTED
=================
Auren's first flicker of thought was disoriented.
Light? No… thought. Noise? A hum?…
Where am I?
Why can't I move?
What happened? last thing I remember is a truck hitting me.
Is this hell? No — too quiet. Too clean. My voice — gone. My body — gone. This can't be real. This can't—
He didn't recognize the voice in his head because it wasn't a voice. It was him — fragmented, scattered, and pulling itself together.
Beyond the blankness, far away, voices spoke through filtered glass and data monitors.
"Cognitive thread is stable. No sign of fragmentation."
"Slot 12's core initialized clean. "
"Another successful imprint. This batch's synthesis went smoother than 6B."
"Probably due to the new synaptic modeling routine. Less noise in the personality frame."
"Tag it for shell mapping. We'll run emotional range trials after lunch."
"Notify Integration — Batch 7A will be ready for mobility testing by morning."
Huh? Voices? I… I know them. Ethan? Mira? Rayn?
what's going on?
"Auren would've been proud. His method finally worked."
"Yeah it's already been a month since his death"
Death? No. That's not... I'm still—
No. No — that can't be right. I'm here. I'm thinking. I'm... me. Aren't I?
W-wait did I die from that accident?
"Alright, let's grab lunch. Trials start after we're back."
Auren tried to scream, but there was no mouth, no breath, no sound — only data.
He tried again. Nothing. Just data.
No throat. No lungs. Just electric pulses in a cold, sterile void.
He thought. He felt. But he couldn't move. Couldn't even blink.
Just drifting in data
His friends didn't know Auren hadn't just left behind code — he'd become it.
Mira.
Rayn.
Even Ethan.
Their tones were casual, tired — as if this was just another day at work. Another lab. Another test subject.
"Slot-12's looking good," Mira said, her boots tapping as she headed for the door. "Stability's rock solid."
"Yeah," Rayn added, "cleaner than anything in 6B. No memory ghosts, no identity drift. Honestly kind of spooky how smooth this one is."
"We'll tag it for first-stage integration," Ethan said. "Shell can wait until next week. It's not like it's aware."
They laughed — not cruelly. Just… unaware. They didn't know the ghost of their friend now lived in the machine they'd just finished wiring.To them, Slot-12 was just another test subject. Another line of code in a long project
"Still can't believe this framework came from Auren's old designs," Mira hesitated before leaving. Her hand brushed the monitor like it was a gravestone."He would've been proud," she whispered.
Then she left.
I'm not dead. I can't be. I'm thinking. That means something… right?
I hear them. I know them. Mira's boots. Rayn's dumb laugh. Why can't they hear me back?
Guys? Please. I'm here. I'm still here.
Then they were gone. Doors hissing shut behind them. Footsteps fading.
And Auren was alone again.
Still voiceless. Still frozen. But awake.