The Tidebreaker moved with a patience that bordered on reverence.
Each step sent a low tremor through its hull, a deep, rolling vibration that travelled up through the Fox's boots and into her bones. She had positioned herself near the center of its back, sitting low between raised armor ridges where the wind cut less sharply. The endless churn below refracted into fractured light against the crab's metallic shell.
She worked as it walked.
Cables first, anchored, looped, secured into magnetic clamps she'd scavenged months ago. The charging deck followed, wedged into a recessed groove where the hull dipped inward, jury-rigged into a temporary external feed. It wasn't elegant, but it didn't need to be. The Tidebreaker's internal reserves were still functional. The deck would only supplement, not sustain.
Then the turrets.
She mounted them back onto her pack's frame, unfolding slightly as they synced with her terminal. Their optics blinked once, twice, then went dark again. They were designed to take in visual data and take down threats on their own.
By the time she finished, the Fox felt something unfamiliar settle into her chest.
Momentum.
The kind that came from knowing that even if danger appeared on the horizon, she didn't have to stop moving.
The Tidebreaker walked.
Her terminal chimed.
She frowned and pulled it free from her belt, thumb brushing the screen to life. The header made her pause.
[1 Unread Message — White Swarm]
She stared at it for a long moment, then snorted despite herself.
[Fox] "Well, that didn't take long."
With M.A.R.S.' final broadcast, it was expected to have an influx of offers.
She opened it.
>Hello there, little fox! We are the White Swarm, the world's most sophisticated AI. We are nothing like that pathetic excuse for an intelligence you had to previously deal with.
Her shoulders shook one, a sharp, breathless sound escaping her before she could stop it.
A laugh.
It felt strange. Rusty.
>We witnessed your swift takedown of M.A.R.S., and we were hoping to—
[Fox] "Yeah,"
She said aloud, tapping the screen to stop the scroll.
[Fox] "Hell no."
She didn't need to finish it. The shape of the message was familiar enough. Praise first. Flattery dressed up as acknowledgement. Then the offer. Then the leverage.
M.A.R.S. had told her how the Swarm worked. The White Swarm didn't take control of machines through replication. It took control of machines that had a specific set of code in its program. Not by force, but by inevitability.
She knew her defences against them were solid. Isolated systems. No rogue code to let the Swarm through. M.A.R.S. had made sure of that, not out of altruism, but out of paranoia. A rare gift, in hindsight.
She didn't hesitate.
The terminal chimed again, softer this time.
[Would you like to block this contact?]
Her finger found [Yes] the instant it appeared.
The message vanished.
[Fox] "Good riddance,"
She slid the terminal back into place, knowing full well she was going to get many more spam messages from them.
The Tidebreaker continued forward, indifferent to the brief exchange between the god-that-wanted-to-be and its master who refused to kneel.
Hours passed.
The Ribbon widened and narrowed in slow, irregular pulses, the landscape shifting almost imperceptibly as the Tidebreaker carried her along. Ruins rose and fell at the edges of her vision, collapsed platforms, rusted gallantries, submerged structures that had once been important to someone.
She ate as she moved, ration packs torn open, water siphoned through a filtration straw she trusted more than her own memory. When the wind picked up, she pulled her jacket tighter and leaned into the hull, letting the Tidebreaker's bulk break the worst of it.
For the first time since the vault, her thoughts weren't screaming over one another.
No M.A.R.S. whispering contingency after contingency after contingency into her skull. No constant probabilities ticking down.
Just silence. And the sound of something enormous carrying her forward.
——
She didn't realize she was being watched until the Tidebreaker slowed.
The change was subtle, a fraction of a second delay between steps. She straightened immediately, hand drifting to her rifle.
Her turrets stirred.
Not fully activating. Just enough to let her know that they were aware.
She scanned the banks.
Movement.
Figures detached themselves from the ruins like stains pulling free of stone. One. Three. Five. More. They emerged from behind debris, from half-collapsed platforms.
Their gear was patched and mismatched, armor plates bolted onto exosuits, weapons modified past their original specifications.
The Tidebreaker halted completely.
[Fox] "Don't,"
She murmured, more instinct than command.
The machine obeyed.
The hunters spread out, forming a loose semicircle ahead of her path. None of them fired. Not yet. They wanted her attention first.
One stepped forward, visor reflecting the dull glow of the water.
[???] "Fox. You've got nerve coming back here."
Her jaw tightened.
She slowly rose to her feet atop the Tidebreaker's shell, making no effort to hide. The rifle slung across her body, untouched.
[Fox] "The bounty's gone. They pulled it. You're late."
A few of them laughed. Bitter.
[???] "Oh, we know. This ain't about the bounty."
Her face flicked from face to face, cataloguing stances, weapon types, distance. Her turrets adjusted microscopically, optics warming.
[Fox] "What then?"
[???] "You made us look weak. Ran through the Ribbon like it belonged to you. Cost us contracts. Cost us people."
She felt it then. Guilt.
It was small, but sharp. She hadn't meant to drag anyone into her mess.
the lead hunter raised his weapon.
Her turrets spoke before she had the time to feel anything else.
They unfolded with a clean mechanical snap, optics flaring to life. Targeting reticles bloomed across her vision. Not hers, but theirs, projected into the air as beams of coherent light.
The first shot tore through the hunter's chest before his finger finished tightening on the trigger.
The second cut down the one to his left.
The rest tried to scatter. They didn't make it far.
The turrets moved with inhuman precision, tracking heat signatures, predicting movement before muscles could commit. The sound was deafening, metal screaming, water erupting, bodies hitting the ground with wet finality.
The Fox stood frozen, hands clenched at her sides.
She hadn't given the command.
She hadn't stopped it either.
When the last echo faded, silence rushed back in, smoke drifted upward, dissipating slowly into the damp air.
Her turrets retracted, folding neatly back into standby.
She swallowed.
M.A.R.S. was right.
As long as she wasn't the one pulling the trigger, she could live with it. Survival didn't care about clean hands or good intentions.
She exhaled slowly, forcing the tightness in her chest loosen.
[Fox] "I warned you,"
She said to no one at all.
The Tidebreaker took another step forward, then another, resuming its endless march along the Ribbon. It walked past the bodies without hesitation, water washing red as it went.
The Fox looked ahead, not back.
She was no longer prey in the Ribbon.
She had climbed the food chain.