Cassandra froze the moment she saw him.
Not because she didn't recognize the face—but because she did.
Malachi Stewart stood in the doorway like he owned the space, hands tucked casually into the pockets of his jacket, posture loose in a way only Blazes ever managed. He looked older than she remembered, though not by much. A few new lines around the eyes. A little more weight carried in the shoulders. But the confidence was still there, irritatingly intact.
"Hello, Cass," he said. "It's been a while."
She didn't answer.
Her mind dragged her backward instead—back to the first week after her awakening, when she could barely keep her balance in a reinforced body that didn't feel like hers. Back when she didn't know how to regulate strength, when doors shattered under her grip and recoil nearly dislocated her arm.
Malachi had been there then.
Patient. Smirking. Correcting her stance with a touch that lingered just a second too long.
"Don't call me that," Cassandra said at last, her voice flat.
He smiled, just a little. "Right. Commander."
The deployment officer cleared her throat, clearly uncomfortable. "As I was saying, Commander Cassandra—Malachi Stewart has formally requested reassignment to active field duty under your command."
"No," Cassandra said immediately.
Malachi raised an eyebrow. "You didn't even let her finish."
"I don't need to," Cassandra snapped. "He's retired."
"Forced retirement," Malachi corrected calmly.
"Which means you're not cleared," she shot back. "Which means you're a liability."
The officer glanced down at her tablet. "His records indicate Blaze-class performance prior to—"
"Prior to the accident," Cassandra cut in sharply. "Which you're conveniently skipping over."
Malachi's jaw tightened.
"Enough," he said quietly. "You asked for a Blaze. I'm a Blaze."
"You were a Blaze," Cassandra replied. "Three years ago."
"And you were barely functional when you woke up," he said. "Yet here we are."
The air between them went taut.
Cassandra stepped closer, lowering her voice. "You helped me train. That doesn't mean you get to follow me back out there."
"I didn't volunteer to follow you," Malachi said. "I volunteered because I'm done rotting inside the dome."
"That injury ended your life as a Terminator. You should be glad. Do you how many of us would kill just to sit back within the dome and do nothing all day?," she said.
"No," he corrected. "Politics did. And this is not life" Malachi said swinging his hand as a gesture to represent everything within the dome.
The officer shifted uncomfortably.
"Commander… he's currently the only Blaze available."
" Can you please just give me a chance for old times sake" Malachi pleaded.
" And I promise I won't question your authority, not even once"
Cassandra exhaled slowly through her nose.
She remembered Malachi pulling her back from overexertion. Remembered him stopping her from burning herself out just to prove she belonged. Remembered nights that blurred lines neither of them ever crossed—but never fully stepped away from either.
That was the problem.
"You slow me down," she said finally. "You hesitate."
Malachi smiled faintly. "You always hated that about me."
"I hated that you survived by being careful," she replied. "Out there, careful gets people killed."
His smile faded. "Out there, reckless gets them killed faster."
Silence stretched.
" So much for not questioning me, huh"
"Six-hour provisional," Cassandra said at last. "You deploy. You mess up once, you're gone."
Malachi inclined his head. "That's all I wanted."
She turned away before she could say anything else.
Xenon's first steps outside the chopper felt wrong.
Not painful. Not difficult.
Wrong.
The ground beneath his feet was solid, textured with reinforced plating disguised beneath layers of synthetic stone. Every sensation registered cleanly—too cleanly.
His enhanced perception catalogued details automatically: temperature variance, vibration frequency, distant energy signatures humming beneath the surface.
He hadn't asked for any of this.
And yet his body responded like it had been built for it.
"Try not to stare too much," Jim said as they walked. "Makes the civilians nervous."
Xenon tore his gaze away from a group of children watching them from behind a transparent barrier. Their eyes were wide, curious—but not afraid. Not like the eyes he remembered from the last days before the fall.
"They don't look scared," Xenon said quietly.
"They're not," Jim replied. "They've never seen the outside."
Kira nodded, signing something quickly.
Jim translated without looking at her. "To them, zombies are just a concept. A story. Something Terminators handle so they don't have to."
"That's messed up," Xenon muttered.
Jim shrugged. "That's survival."
They passed a checkpoint where armed sentries stood watch, their weapons sleek and unfamiliar. Xenon noticed how their eyes tracked him—not with hostility, but with assessment.
He wasn't one of them.
Not really.
"So," Jim said, changing the subject, "you remember dying. That's rare."
Xenon stiffened. "What?"
"Most resurrectees don't," Jim explained. "Bits and pieces, maybe. But full awareness? That's unusual."
"Is that… bad?"
Jim hesitated. Kira glanced at him sharply and signed again.
"She's asking if you hear things," Jim said.
Xenon frowned. "Hear things?"
"Voices. Prompts. Urges."
Xenon swallowed. "Sometimes. It feels like… something nudging me. Like a direction."
Jim stopped walking.
That got his full attention.
"Do you see markers?" Jim asked slowly. "Targets highlighted without you asking?"
Xenon didn't answer immediately.
"Yes," he admitted. "Sometimes."
Jim let out a low whistle. "That's fast."
"Fast for what?"
"For the system to sync with you," Jim said. "Usually takes weeks."
Kira's expression darkened. She signed again—more sharply this time.
Jim sighed. "She says that means you're either very compatible… or very dangerous."
Xenon laughed weakly. "Great."
They reached the edge of the base camp, where the dome's inner wall curved upward like the inside of a colossal sphere. Beyond it, Xenon could faintly see the outside world—gray, broken, and lifeless by comparison.
"So what happens now?" Xenon asked.
Jim looked at him. "Now you get evaluated."
The Terminator laboratory didn't look like a place meant for people.
White panels curved inward along the walls, seamless and sterile, humming with energy that Xenon could feel vibrating through his bones. Thick glass partitions separated observation rooms from the central platform where he now lay restrained—not by force, but by protocol.
"This should speed things up," Jim said, standing behind the glass with Kira beside him. "Manual synchronization accelerates system integration."
Xenon stared up at the ceiling. "You make it sound optional."
"It is," Jim said. "Technically."
Kira signed something sharply.
"She says nobody's ever declined," Jim translated.
"That reassuring," Xenon muttered.
Mechanical arms lowered around him, thin cables descending with surgical precision. As they connected to ports along his spine and temples, something inside him shifted.
Not pain.
Pressure.
"Synchronization initiated," a neutral voice announced.
Data flooded him.
Not images—instincts. Movement paths. Combat predictions. Kill probabilities calculated before he consciously thought to ask. His body responded on reflex, muscles tightening, senses sharpening.
"Seventy percent already," Jim said, surprised. "That's fast."
Xenon's fingers twitched. He could feel something pushing back.
Like a locked door resisting a forced entry.
"Eighty percent," the system announced.
His vision flickered. For a split second, the lab disappeared—and he saw something else. A street. Broken pavement. A shadow moving wrong.
Then it was gone.
"Ninety percent," Jim said slowly.
The machine hesitated.
The hum deepened.
"Synchronization paused," the system announced.
Paused?
"That's not normal," Jim muttered, tapping at the console.
"Attempting override," the system continued. "Error."
The cables around Xenon vibrated faintly. His chest tightened—not from fear, but from something closer to recognition.
"Why did it stop?" Xenon asked.
Jim didn't answer immediately.
Kira was staring at the monitors now, hands frozen mid-gesture, eyes wide.
"Talk to me," Xenon pressed.
Jim swallowed. "The system's trying to complete the merge… but it can't."
"Can't?" Xenon repeated.
"It's like part of you isn't accepting it," Jim said. "Or worse—like something's already there."
"What does that mean?"
Jim shook his head. "I don't know."
The machine chimed again.
"Synchronization incomplete. Finalization failed at ninety percent."
The restraints disengaged.
Xenon sat up slowly, heart hammering.
"So what am I now?" he asked quietly.
Jim met his gaze through the glass.
"That," he said, "is the problem."
The lab lights dimmed, the monitors still flashing unresolved errors as alarms remained conspicuously silent.
Nothing was wrong enough to trigger a lockdown.
But nothing was right either.
And somewhere deep inside Xenon, whatever had resisted the system… stayed awake.