Black smoke still billowed over the sand. Fragments of burnt, red hot steel drifted slowly with the wind, dissolving into the air like the ashes of a dream that had been incinerated. In the middle of the wreckage, Trung lay still, his body charred, half flesh, half metal.
The last remaining light in his chest the two engraved words, SÁT THÁTglowed red like embers. There was no human sound, only the wind howling through the twisted metal partitions. Far away, the sun set, leaving behind a pale violet halo, a light that made the desert look like the land of the dead.
Trung tried to move.
His fingers twitched, touching something a small chip, coated in ash and dust. On it, silver writing glistened in the twilight:
"Vital Nerve Core, Sector 7."
He clenched it, his hand trembling. The chip was burning hot like an artificial heart. Or perhaps, it was the last remnant of Mai.
"Mai..." he called, his voice hoarse. "Can you... hear me?"
No one answered. Only the wind screamed, like the breath of the world. Then he collapsed onto the sand. The sand was hot, but he felt nothing his body was numb. When he opened his eyes, everything was white. A metal ceiling, fluorescent lights, and cables plunged deep into his back. A mechanical heartbeat echoed in his ears, regular, yet alien.
He started. His body was no longer his body.
His chest was bound by cold, polished alloy plates, and his right arm felt heavy. He turned his neck; glowing blue wires stretched taut from the nape of his neck to his back.
"Don't try to move. You have just returned from the dead."
A strange voice, deep and old, spoke from behind the glass pane. A man stepped forward, tall, with snow white hair and deep set eyes like old wells.
"Who are you?"
"The one who rebuilt your body. But I couldn't rebuild the human part inside."
Trung looked around, his breath heavy. Everything here was chillingly cold. On the wall, dozens of bodies hung in maintenance pods, half human, half machine, soulless. He asked softly:
"Where is this place?"
"The border between man and steel," the old man said, his voice somber. "A place where those who did not die... are no longer truly alive."
Trung fell silent. Light reflected on his face, half shadowed, half bright. The scent of death still lingered around his neck.
"I didn't ask to be brought back."
"No one asks," the old man replied. "You were only given a choice: to be ash or to be steel."
Trung propped himself up, his chest throbbing with pain. The sensation was strange half the ache of flesh, half the electricity tearing through the nerves. From a corner of the room, the old man pressed a few buttons. A screen lit up, showing brainwave patterns.
"Do you see anything?"
"I... hear her."
"Hear what?"
"Her voice." Trung whispered. "Mai's voice."
The old man paused. His gaze flickered for a moment, then returned to calm.
"That's not her voice. That's a memory."
"No." Trung shook his head. "I know the difference between a memory and a call. She... is calling me."
The wind whistled through the room's cracks, even though there were no windows. Trung closed his eyes. He saw fragments of shattered memories Mai standing in the old field, her hair flying in the wind, her gentle smile.
Then the warm Saigon night, when they sat together by the Vo Van Kiet canal, the lights reflecting on the water like stars.
"Do you think people can vanish yet still leave a soul behind?" Mai asked.
"If the soul is strong enough," he smiled.
"Then yes."
"Then promise me, if one day I am gone, you will find me where the soul still remembers."
"I promise."
He snapped his eyes open. His voice trembled:
"And now... where are you, Mai?"
The old man answered, slowly:
"You should ask yourself again, who are you now?"
Silence descended. For a long time, only the rhythmic thud of the mechanical heart remained. Trung looked at his right hand, the metal gleaming in the light, the bright circuits pulsing with his true heartbeat. An uncanny feeling as if there was still blood in every circuit, but it was no longer red.
"I don't know if I'm still human," Trung said hoarsely. "But I know, I can still feel pain."
The old man smiled faintly:
"That's enough. If you can still hurt, you still have humanity."
That night, Trung did not sleep. He sat on the surgical table, watching the light reflect in his eyes blue eyes like a plasma screen. Every time the mechanical heart beat, he heard the past echoing, mixed with the electric pulses:
"You must live... for our child."
"If I'm gone, you'll still find me."
"I will live. For all that has yet to be saved."
He clenched his fist. The mechanical arm creaked, a blue spark flickering along his fingers.
"If I can still hear her..." he said softly. "Then I am still human."
The old man stood afar, his eyes welling up but hidden behind his glasses.
"You don't know, Trần Trung. Even the gods... aren't sure they are themselves after crossing the boundary of flesh and steel. But if anyone can hold onto their soul... it is you."
Trung looked at him, silent. Then he turned back to the chip in his hand. The silver writing was faint in the light Vital Nerve Core, Sector 7.
He didn't fully understand, but an intuition arose within him: that place held not only the answer about Mai but also the source of life and death itself in this world. He whispered softly, eyes directed at the metal ceiling:
"Mai... if you can hear me... I am still here."
The blue light from the circuit on his chest flared faintly, like the responding beat of someone's heart. Trung bowed his head, tears falling. For the first time since she vanished, he wept.
He wept not for loss, but for the realization that between steel and blood, between machine and man, there was still room for a heart.