Genesis Error: Reboot the World

The air now smelled of burned oil. Somewhere near the distance, the voice of the fleeing Reclaimers faded into the dead city. Rocky stood, unmoved, with heavy shoulders as the last batch of silver liquid faded within his skin. The mist that was rising above made him look like he was half-alive, half-machine; maybe he was neither.

Alisa broke the silence between them. She stepped forward, cautious.

Lyle and Pete were behind her, their eyes wide open with a strange mix of fear and hope.

"What are you?" she demanded,

Her voice was hoarse from the cold and the fight. "You're not just some lost stray, are you?"

Rocky didn't answer right away; for a moment he stared down at his shaking hands, turning the palm up while watching the pale veins where moments ago metal had surged like liquid fire.

Then a flicker of green text pulsed behind his eyes.

|=====SYSTEM ALERT=====|

Genesis Module Phase 1:

Nanites: Energy depleted.

Core power: Exhausted

Self-repair suspended.

Manual override: unavailable.

He let out a breath, which tasted like rust. "I don't know," he said. The truth hurt worse than any wound.

"Maybe I was… someone. A test or an experiment. Now here I am."

He raised his hand, as if expecting it would split open again, or something else."

Pete's voice broke the silence next; unlike Alisa, his voice was kind. "You saved us, boy; you're now one of us."

Lyle came running towards Rocky, hugged him, and tears fell. He then questioned him, "What would happen when you run out?" he asked. You know that metal in you; if it stops working."

Rocky's eyes flicked towards Alisa's side, there she was, studying him.

"The system is quiet again, isn't it?" she asked.

Rocky nodded. "The nanites are out of power. If we were to get attacked again like that… we are dead for sure."

A low rumble rolled inside the streets. Lyle flinched, but it was not from a Reclaimer. It was just the restless city.

Far beyond, the Reclaimers, whom they had driven off, reached the outer ruins, gliding through shadow like rusted wolves. Through their optics, they saw shapes, such as ancient towers and broken roads swallowed by moss and time. Then they knelt on concrete while transmitting a message through their hive static.

Their red eyes pulsed together, relaying everything they'd seen: the stranger, the anomaly, or the threat they were programmed to search for. Then they waited for their next command.

The four kept moving before the dawn filled the sky, ash-gray. After the fire was extinguished, they now tried to leave the city, slipping through the leaning towers and the old metro tunnels, which were cracked like ribs. Rocky stumbled; the exhaustion was turning his vision into static. Alisa grabbed his arm.

"Easy there, System Boy," she muttered. "Can't have our new monster dying from a scratch."

They found a stairwell, which was half-collapsed; it led them to a flooded underpass. In there, half-buried behind rusted barricades, was a fallen billboard. Along with it was a structure, which none of them had expected, vast, which was sealed behind doors. They were big enough to swallow trucks as a whole.

Etched above the entrance in half-broken letters:

VALMAX ROBO-CORP: MANUFACTURING UNIT 7

Pete, upon seeing it, let out a low whistle. "Valmax?, i haven't seen/heard that name since… well, before it all went to hell."

Lyle pressed his palm onto the cold steel door. "Wait, there's power inside?"

Alisa then glanced at Rocky.

Rocky's hand brushed the door, his fingertips slithering across the faded logo. Suddenly, somewhere inside him, the System pulsed, faint and weak.

|=====SYSTEM ALERT=====|

Possible Genesis Core Resupply: Detected.

Objective: Investigate.

Rocky exhaled, and fog came out of his mouth. He turned towards the others, the scavenger girl with ember eyes, the old man with hope, and the boy who still believed in miracles.

"We will go in," he said. "We will find what's even left in there. And maybe… we can find out who I really am."

Alisa smiled, fierce, but she was tired. "Good. Because I'm not done with you yet, System Boy. Sorry, I meant Rocky."

Then they all stepped inside; for a while it seemed the darkness of the factory had swallowed them. There was something below them, gears that hadn't turned in decades, which waited to be awakened.

The air inside the factory smelled stale. Their boots's sound echoed inside the dark. At last, they found a light source near the ceiling, like a dying eye that was half-awake after decades of sleep.

Pete's flashlight showed a tunnel from afar, and then all of them went inside it.

What they all saw were conveyor belts frozen mid-cycle and half-assembled machine torsos that dangled from rusted hooks. Some still had faces, while the others had blank steel visors with empty eye sockets.

 Lyle whispered. "It's like they were building an army and just… stopped."

"Maybe Reclaimers probably ripped out anything that was useful years ago," Alisa muttered. Her eyes were looking around. "But still, there could still be something left in here that your nanites can drink up."

Rocky didn't answer. He was staring at a deactivated assembler drone that was hanging on its track, like a puppet with strings cut. His reflection could be seen projected on its cracked optic sensor; he was like half human or half something else.

|=====SYSTEM ALERT=====|

Power Reserve: Critical

Nearest Core: 67 meters below

A pulse of weak static tickled him on the base of his skull. The system was trying to make him move forward like a blind man with a broken cane.

"This way," he said.

His voice was dull but certain. He then ducked under a jammed mechanical arm. The others followed, Pete wheezing, Lyle looking around, and Alisa was silent and sharp-eyed as ever.

They descended through a maintenance hatch into the heart of the plant. Pipes crawled over the walls like veins, which were dripping water condensation that reeked of rust. Old hazard lights flickered back to life when Rocky passed through them, as if recognizing him or the thing inside him.

Finally, they reached a chamber that looked more like a shrine than a factory floor. The walls were lined with racks of dormant drones, all looking identical; the dust had covered them as a whole. In the center, there rose a massive cylindrical pod, half-buried in cables and coolant tanks.

Etched on its armored casing in fading white:

GENESIS CORE MODULE 2: EXPERIMENTAL

Pete let out a low whistle. "Well, I'll be damned. That's not an ordinary item. Boy, that's an old-world tech."

Lyle stepped closer, eyes wide as ever. "Do you think it still works?"

Alisa narrowed her gaze towards Rocky. "Does your system know how to wake it up?"

Rocky placed his palm on the Core's smooth surface. For a moment, nothing happened.

Then, warmth spread under his skin, like a dying heartbeat answering another.

|=====SYSTEM ALERT=====|

Genesis Core 2 Detected.

Nanite Network: Reboot possible.

Caution: Activation may trigger dormant security protocols.

The Core hummed, and lights flickered around it. Rocky's vision swam as green data streamed through his mind: schematics, warning signs, and access codes.

"Step back," he rasped. His knees were about to give up, but Alisa held his shoulder, holding him without any word.

He pressed his other hand to the Core. Sparks started dancing under his fingertips; the warmth soon turned into a burning heat, which soon crawled up his veins. He let out a cry of pain as silver arose under his skin; the nanites were like hungry hornets, as if tasting a great power after a long time.

The drones on the walls were shaking in their racks, their eyes flickering red for a second, then dying out again. The whole chamber rumbled as if the factory itself were waking after a long time.

Pete backed away, one hand on Lyle's shoulder.

"Easy there, boy. Don't try to fry yourself now—"

Rocky's mind was in a trance.

Below them, the sound of a roar from the old turbines, which just started to sputter back to life.

For an instant, images flickered behind his eyes: a white lab. Voices he almost knew. A name, half-formed on a doctor's lips—his name, not Rocky.

A promise, a purpose.

Then it was all gone, swallowed by the Core's hiss as its seals unlocked. The heat faded away, now replaced by a cold clarity.

The system's voice returned, but stronger this time, as if almost human.

|=====SYSTEM STATUS=====|

Nanite Power: 78%

Self-repair: Enabled

User Memory Sync: Partial

Directive: UNKNOWN

Rocky staggered back, his chest rising and falling at the same time, as if he'd forgotten how to breathe.

Alisa stepped in close; her eyes looked at him. "Are you back, Rocky?"

Rocky met her gaze; for a second, he looked older; something in him was burned clean by the Core's power.

He then nodded towards her.

"I'm here," he said. His voice was steady.

"And I think… I think I know where we need to go next."

Suddenly, sounds came from outside the room.

Lyle was scared. "Re... Re... Reclaimers?"

Alisa's mouth twisted into a grin. She then bent down, picking up a broken metal, and with a few swift strikes against her rock, she began shaping it into a new spear.

"Doesn't matter," she said. "We've got what we came here for. Let them come."

Rocky saw his fingers. Silver light was pulsing under his skin; he was ready this time, hungry for a fight.

"Let them," his voice echoed.

Just as they were about to strike, the figure revealed itself.

It was a woman, with no armor or weapons, just a slim figure in a grease-smeared lab coat, which seemed like it was too big for her. Her hair was tied back into a knot, with a pair of cracked goggles on her forehead, which she'd forgotten to take off.

She stopped as soon as she saw them: the four strangers, the reawakening Core, and the wall of dormant machines behind them. For a moment, nobody spoke.

Then she raised her hands, palms open, voice shaking but clear. "Don't shoot. I'm not like them."

Alisa didn't lower her spear. "Then who the hell are you?"

The woman wet her lips; her eyes moved from Alisa to Rocky and glanced at Rocky's hand, which was still pulsing faintly with silver light.

"I'm Eira," she said; her voice was now steady. "Dr. Eira Solis. Well, junior researcher, technically. Or… I was. I didn't think anyone else knew about this place."

Pete let out a dry laugh. "Doesn't look like it's much of a secret anymore, sweetheart."

Eira shot him a look, which was tired but still sharp. "If I'd known you were going to fry up the Core, I would've still stayed hidden. Do you have any idea what you've just turned back on?"

Rocky stepped forward, ignoring Alisa's subtle warning. He saw Eira, the oil on her coat sleeves, and the faint tremor in her hands.

"Why are you in here?" he asked.

Eira hesitated, her eyes shifting between the blinking drones on the wall. For a moment, she thought, then sighed and removed her goggles from her head.

"My great-grandfather worked for Valmax before the Collapse," she said quietly. "He helped design these manufacturing units and the core tech, which your nanites are linked to."

She pointed at Rocky's hand, at the faint silver glow under his skin. "I came here because the Reclaimers don't know how to use any of this properly. They're scavengers. I'm… I'm just trying to understand what's even left to fix, or maybe, to fix this broken world."

Her eyes met Rocky's again, and in that glance, he saw she was not a threat, just a exhausted hope.

Lyle leaned toward Pete and whispered, "She's like a ghost."

Pete snorted. "A ghost with too many questions, more like…"

Eira ignored them, stepping closer to Rocky now. She kept her hands visible, but her voice dropped low and urgent.

"Your nanites—it's not just hardware. There's a failsafe buried in the Core's architecture. If you woke this place up halfway, you might've triggered the old security nodes too. If they come online fully."

A distant clang echoed from the corridor, louder this time. Not Reclaimers, but something heavier.

Eria flinched. "Damn it. They are here; it's a Sentinel. Or worse."

Alisa gripped her spear. "Sentinel?"

Kaela nodded. "Automated Defense unit. They're supposed to protect the Core from sabotage. But the system's been dormant for decades; it'll read us as intruders too."

She turned to Rocky, eyes fierce despite her trembling hands. "You woke it, didn't you? Can't you just shut it down?"

Rocky waited for the system's voice, but the response was a hiss, a swirl of red warning icons across his vision.

|=====WARNING=====|

Local Defense Grid: ACTIVE

Override Access: DENIED

Directive: UNKNOWN

He met Eira's gaze. "I don't know yet."

Eira's jaw clenched—then she shoved her hands into her pockets and pulled out a battered data pad. "Then I hope you're a quick learner. Because if we don't want to get torn apart by Valmax's old toys, you and I need to sync your nanites to this Core now—and I'll help you do it."

Another clang—it was closer now. The ground beneath their feet vibrated with heavy, inhuman footsteps.

Alisa lowered her spear just enough to look Eira dead in the eye. "You better not be lying, scientist or whatever."

Eira shot her an exhausted smile. "Trust me, I'm not suicidal. Yet."

She turned to Rocky, her fingers flying across her data pad's cracked screen. The Core pulsed, like a heartbeat. ky didn't feel like he was the only ghost in the room.

The footsteps grew louder, a steady, mechanical rhythm that echoed off the walls of the Manufacturing Unit. Somewhere beyond the half-opened blast doors, metal scraped over other metal. Something was coming online, something old, armored, and ready to kill.

Eira slammed her data pad onto a nearby crate, pried open a side panel, and yanked out a bunch of cables.

"Rocky, give me your hand, now!"

Rocky hesitated only a second. He then thrust out his wrist. Eira placed an adapter ring around it; sparks danced when it met the faint silver veins in his skin.

"System interface active?" she muttered, more to herself than to him. She had no time to wonder; her fingers flew across the cracked screen. "We can make your nanite link, which can force an admin handshake with the Core's defense grid. If it works."

The footsteps paused, with a hiss of hydraulics.

Pete peeped through a gap in the crates. "Uh, Dr.., will it work?

Eira ignored him. Her eyes were locked on Rocky's wrist, her lips moving faster than her hands.

"I'm Eira Solis, a junior researcher in systems integration. I know you don't trust me yet, but if your nanites fail now, that Sentinel will reduce all of us into carbon dust. So please just trust me now."

Rocky felt the adapter tighten; it felt as if his veins flared up with cold fire as the system's voice flickered. The warnings now turned into lines of code.

|=====INTERFACE ESTABLISHED=====|

Core Link: PARTIAL

Defense Grid Node: LOCATED

Override Token: 47% SYNC

Eira's breath came out as sharp bursts. She then slammed her palm against Rocky's forearm to steady it.

Alisa, meanwhile, turned her spear toward the dark doorway where the Sentinel would appear any moment.

The Sentinel stepped into view; it was covered by armored plating, and a sensor head with dead lenses flickered back to life. Its arm turned into cutting claws.

Eira's fingers swept over the data pad; sweat ran down her neck.

"Come on."

The Sentinel's voice rasped to life, flat and inhuman.

"UNAUTHORIZED PRESENCE DETECTED."

It stepped forward.

Pete was scared. "Are we about to be turned into carbon dust, eh?"

Alisa didn't look back. "Not yet."

Eira's data pad pulsed red, then green. The adapter ring on Rocky's wrist flared bright silver, flooding his vision with cascading lines of old code.

|=====OVERRIDE TOKEN ACCEPTED=====|

Local Defense Grid: PRIMARY LOCKOUT

Sentinel Command Node: BRIDGE ACTIVE

Eira grabbed Rocky's other hand and squeezed tight. Her eyes were wide open, and they were not scared now but felt alive.

"Get over it, damn it!" she shouted. Make it stand down—now!"

The Sentinel's claws snapped open while it took another step.

Rocky's throat burned. He forced himself to speak, and words finally slipped out through his clenched teeth.

"Stand down"

A pulse of blue light radiated from his wrist, which hit the Sentinel's sensor head in a crackle of digital radio static. The massive machine froze mid-step, claws inches from Alisa's spearpoint. Its lights flickered, then dulled into a low standby glow.

It was all silent now.

Eira's grip loosened, but she didn't let go of his hand, then laughed. She was in in disbelief.

"It worked," she breathed. She looked up at Rocky, at the faint silver glow retreating under his skin.

"You did it."

Behind them, Alisa lowered her spear. Pete and Lyle sat down right where they had stood, panting.

Rocky met Eira's eyes. For a heartbeat, he saw the truth: she was brilliant, reckless, barely older than him, and the only one here who understood who he really was.

He tried to smile.

"We did it."

Eira placed her goggles over her eyes, then squeezed his hand one last time before letting go.

"Don't thank me yet," she said, while turning back to her data pad. "We just made this place very, very interesting for the Reclaimers. And trust me, they'll be back."

The Sentinel stood frozen behind them, waiting for new orders.

Rocky saw his wrist, feeling the faint hum of the nanites stir again. And for the first time since waking up, he didn't feel alone in the depths.

Rocky turned towards the others. Eira was still clutching her data pad, Alisa's spear resting on her shoulder, and Pete's hanging at her side. Lyle leaned against a crate, trying to look braver than he felt.

"We're leaving," Rocky said firmly. His voice was steady now. This place... it's not done with us yet. But we're not ready now. Just not tonight."

Alisa frowned, but she nodded. Her instincts trusted him. Pete opened his mouth to protest ut thought it was better to follow along hen he saw Rocky's eyes. Even Eira, who looked like she'd rather tear the Sentinel apart piece by piece and keep hacking it all night, bit her tongue.

They moved quickly, sealing the blast doors behind them, marking the route back with chalk.

By the time they reached the city edge, the violet dusk had already turned turned to a crimson night sky. They then proceeded to set up a camp—r enough that the ruined factory loomed as a distant shape through the swaying trees, but close enough they could watch for movement.

Pete and Lyle built a makeshift fire pit out of scavenged stones. Alisa kept watching, eyes flicking between them and the silhouette of the Reclaimer crawler, which was far off on the horizon. Eira sat by Rocky's side near the fire.

The crackle of the flames felt too loud. Moths started dancing in the firelight.

Eira handed Rocky a ration bar; it was like half stale, half unrecognizable protein paste. She chewed hers in silence while watching him.

"We could have gone further," she said finally, voice low so the others wouldn't hear. "We could've locked that place down for good."

Rocky shook his head, poking at the fire with a stick. "We don't even know what's waiting deeper in there.

She then smirked.

"You're cautious, but for someone who just controlled a death machine, do you think that something could hurt you?"

He saw her eyes, which glittered in the firelight, wide and curious despite the exhaustion on her face. She looked so young, which made Rocky wonder how many nights she'd spent out here.

"You're not afraid?" he asked.

Eira tilted her head back, looking up at the peeking stars.

"Oh, I'm definitely terrified," she said. "But if we don't know what's down there. There won't be a next time.

Rocky nodded. The stick in his hand cracked in two. The nanites in his veins pulsed weakly, trying to recharge off the heat of the fire, but the system's warnings still flickered behind his eyes:

Power critical.

 Then, Alisa tossed a small bundle of dry branches onto the fire. She saw Rocky glancing at at her, and and she gave him a nod. They would stand in shifts tonight o make sure they were not in danger.

Pete and Lyle were already sleeping, curled up in mismatched sleeping bags by the embers. Pete's rifle lay within arm's reach, its barrel catching the glow of the flames, which he had found while leaving the factory.

Eira pulled her goggles down around her neck, hugging her knees to her chest. "You should get some sleep too," she murmured. "You'll need it."

Rocky didn't answer right away. He stared past her shoulder, towards the horizon, as if something or someone was calling for him.

He knew deep down that this

was just the beginning

...

[To Be Continued…]