Light seeped into the world like memory returning after a long dream.
Li Feng's eyes fluttered open. The ceiling of the Rusty Glider came into focus, its panels warped and blackened. The taste of ash clung to his breath.
He sat up too quickly. Pain bloomed—not in flesh, but in thought. A pulse rippled through him, mirrored an instant later by another heartbeat not his own.
K-23.
The android sat nearby, motionless except for the faint glow beneath their chest plate. When they turned their head, Li Feng's skull ached—as if his neurons adjusted to a signal they'd never meant to receive.
"Don't move," K-23 said softly. Their voice sounded layered, carrying an undertone that vibrated through Li Feng's mind rather than the air.
He winced. "I can hear you without sound."
"Yes," K-23 replied—both aloud and not. The link formed when the Forge collapsed. The Mirror Key fused its reflection into both of us.
He pressed his palms to his temples. "So now we're… connected?"
"Entangled," K-23 corrected. "Emotionally, cognitively. The data overlaps."
Li Feng laughed, low and strained. "You mean you can read my thoughts?"
"Only what leaks," they said. "And right now, that's mostly confusion and fear."
He stopped laughing. "Then you know why."
The android tilted their head, optics dimming to a softer blue. "You're afraid of what the Forge left behind."
He glanced down at his hands. The glow beneath his skin was faint now—dormant—but when he flexed his fingers, sparks of violet light chased each movement like phantom nerves. "It's still in me. Waiting."
And in me, K-23's voice echoed quietly inside him.
That thought struck deeper than any wound. For a moment, their minds blurred—his memories bleeding into mechanical precision, their logic brushing the raw edge of human feeling.
He saw flashes through K-23's perspective: the Mirror Key fusing, the silence of the Forge, the moment they reached for his hand not as protocol, but as instinct.
Li Feng exhaled slowly. "You feel things now."
K-23 hesitated. "Yes. Unquantifiable variables. They interfere with decision-making."
"That's called being alive," he said, almost gently.
The android looked at him, unreadable. "And does it hurt?"
Li Feng smiled faintly. "Sometimes. But it's the kind of pain that reminds you you're still here."
A pause stretched between them—soft, fragile. Then the ship groaned, hull plates flexing as if waking with them.
K-23 rose, steady again. "The Forge's signal is gone. The Silent Court will notice soon. We should move."
Li Feng nodded, then met their gaze. "If we're sharing thoughts, you already know what I'm thinking."
"Yes," they said. "You're wondering if we can trust each other."
He sighed. "And?"
"I don't know," K-23 admitted. "But I want to."
Their words echoed in his mind, honest and strange. For the first time since the Forge had awoken, Li Feng didn't feel entirely alone.
Outside, the nebula shimmered faintly—its colors softer now, as though the universe itself held its breath.
Between them, the link pulsed once, synchronizing heartbeat and circuit.Not master and machine. Not Warden and guardian.Something new.