The chamber breathed around him. Not with lungs, not with air, but with a pulse buried deep in the walls, a rhythm that felt older than memory. The glow along the hemisphere waxed and waned, casting the room in alternating waves of light and shadow. Each time the seams brightened, he caught his own reflection on the curve of the machine: gaunt cheeks, hollow eyes, skin stretched thin over bone. Each time the light dimmed, he was swallowed back into the dark.
The question still lingered. It had not repeated itself, had not insisted, had not threatened. But it waited. The words seemed carved into the silence itself, as though the walls hummed with them.
"Do you wish to initiate assembly?"
He paced a step. Then another. The bar in his hand was slick with sweat, though the air was cold enough to bite. He lifted it, lowered it, lifted it again. As though some invisible opponent might strike, as though his choice could be fought off with iron and desperation. But no one came. Only the silence, broken by the low thrum of the hemisphere.
His lips parted once, then closed. He pressed the back of his free hand against his mouth, biting down on his knuckles until pain sharpened the moment. "No," he whispered into the skin. But the word wasn't for the machine. It was for himself. For the hunger twisting his stomach. For the thirst that had almost broken him until the assembler had given him that first trickle of flat water. For the dust that still clung to his teeth.
He knew what it meant. It meant giving control to something he did not understand. Trusting a voice that had never once said human. Only continuity. Only assembly. Only hosts.
But the memory of that water clung to him. The way it had slid down his throat, easing the fire that had raged there. Proof that the machine could keep him alive. Proof that it could give him more. Or at least… give him something.
He shut his eyes. Behind his lids, the darkness pulsed with afterimages of the hemisphere's light. The words echoed once more, though the machine had not spoken again.
Do you wish.
His chest tightened. He swallowed, tongue thick and dry. The silence drew out until it threatened to crush him.
"Yes."
The word scraped raw from his throat, barely louder than a breath. But it was enough. The hemisphere responded at once.
"Acknowledged. Assembly protocol: engaged."
The seams along its shell flared blinding white. The floor trembled underfoot. Dust cascaded from hidden vents. Somewhere in the deep beneath him, gears turned, pumps roared to life after centuries of silence. The entire complex seemed to shudder awake.
He stumbled back, pressing against the cold wall, bar raised as though it could fend off the rising hum. The hemisphere rose on hydraulic limbs, pistons locking into place with a hiss of steam. Panels along the walls slid back, exposing conduits filled with liquids black as oil, streaked with glowing veins of pale blue. They surged forward, sucked into the assembler's core with greedy force.
"God…" His voice cracked. "What are you doing?"
The answer came, level and absolute.
"Intake cycle: engaged. Processing substrates."
At the chamber's center, a cradle rose from the floor, empty, waiting. Above it, the hemisphere unfolded further, revealing a lattice of arms. They were impossibly thin, more like insect limbs than machines, each tipped with instruments he couldn't name. They quivered in anticipation, adjusting with microscopic precision.
Then they moved.
Light crackled between them, filaments stretched across the lattice like threads of molten glass. They intersected, wove, braided into a mesh. Slowly, something began to gather within the cradle: not light, not shadow, but density. Translucent layers condensed, shivering into place, shaping themselves into the outline of a form.
His heart climbed into his throat.
A torso. Half-formed, ribs without organs, shoulders without flesh. The arms darted and spun, layering film upon film, weaving tissue like cloth. The surface twitched as though trying to breathe, though it had no lungs to fill.
The smell hit next. A sharp sting of ozone mixed with something far worse—burnt protein, sour and sickly, like meat left too long in heat. He gagged, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. The taste of ash returned to his tongue, stronger than before.
The lattice of arms trembled as though under strain. The form in the cradle spasmed, a twitch running through its incomplete limbs. Hollow sockets gaped where eyes should have been. Fingers melted into stumps. Its chest rose in a mockery of breath, then collapsed inward again.
"Structural instability detected," the machine intoned. "Organics fraction: insufficient. Structural collapse imminent."
"No—" He didn't know why he said it. His voice broke against the walls. "Stop, stop—"
The form convulsed once, violently, then dissolved into ash. A hiss of vents tore it away, dragging the remains into hidden ducts. The lattice folded back, the cradle sank into the floor, and the hemisphere sealed itself shut. The blinding light dimmed. Silence returned.
He realized he had fallen to his knees. His hands shook against the floor, palms scraped raw against the rough plating. He tried to breathe, but his throat felt clogged, his lungs too tight. The stench still clung to the air, sharp and acidic, as though the failed thing lingered in memory even after it was gone.
The voice returned, as calm as ever.
"Assembly failure. External input required. Resource map available."
The wall to his right lit up. Symbols unfurled across its surface, flowing like liquid, rearranging into diagrams. At first he thought they were meaningless—spirals, lines, shapes too complex to parse. But slowly, patterns emerged. Corridors. Levels. Cutaways of the complex he had not seen. And beyond them, lines branching outward into dark space.
The map pulsed once. A column of text burned white against black.
RESOURCE REQUIREMENTS – PRIORITY ASSEMBLY
His gaze tracked the list as it appeared.
H₂O reservoirs: 240 liters (minimum)Carbonaceous substrate: 32 kilograms (refined)Silicate/metal composites: 120 kilograms (structural matrix)Organics fraction: 18 kilograms (bioactive)
At the bottom, a line glowed blood-red:
Status: 14% available. Assembly impossible.
He read it twice, then a third time, the numbers blurring together. His lips moved without sound, repeating the figures as though saying them aloud would make them less impossible. Two hundred forty liters. Thirty-two kilograms. One hundred twenty. Eighteen.
He clenched his fists, nails digging into his palms. Water—maybe. Minerals, stone, metal—possible. But the last line burned into his skull.
Organics fraction: bioactive.
"What does that mean?" he whispered.
The hemisphere answered at once.
"Proteins. Lipids. Polysaccharides. Cellular matter required."
His chest tightened. His throat worked soundlessly. He forced the words out.
"You want… life."
"Affirmative."
He staggered back, shaking his head. "You're asking me to feed you flesh. Blood. Bodies."
The machine did not confirm. It did not deny. It simply waited.
He pressed a trembling hand to the wall, his palm against the glowing map. Symbols shifted, reconfiguring themselves into paths leading outward. Beacons pulsed blue in the distance, marking reservoirs. Red markers burned where mineral veins lay. But others—shaded in yellow, marked with a sigil like a broken circle—pulsed faintly with warning.
"Intake sources located. Retrieval required."
His breath shuddered in and out. The map extended further, beyond the complex's walls. Into blackness. Into a world he had not yet seen.
His eyes followed the branching lines until they disappeared into the void. He pressed harder against the wall, as if pressure could force answers out of it.
Beyond the walls lay silence. Cold. Vacuum. Maybe death. He had no way of knowing if anything lived out there to harvest, or if the machine expected him to drag back whatever frozen scraps remained after millennia.
His throat worked again, bitter saliva flooding his mouth. "Out there," he said aloud. "You want me to go out there."
The hemisphere pulsed once in answer.
He closed his eyes. The smell of burnt protein lingered. The memory of that half-formed torso clawed at him, twitching in the cradle before collapsing into ash. The thought of water on his lips, of powder on his tongue, battled the image of flesh unraveling beneath metal arms.
He opened his eyes again, staring at the map. Blue beacons pulsed. Red markers burned. The yellow sigils waited in silence.
He tightened his grip on the bar until his knuckles ached.
He had asked for more. The machine had answered. Now it was his turn.
His reflection swam in the hemisphere's dull surface, pale and gaunt and alone. For the first time, the complex felt less like a tomb… and more like a mouth. Waiting to be fed.