RONAN I reached down and took hold of the first body. My grip was careful, almost delicate, and I pulled it away a fraction at a time. Part of me did it out of respect. These people deserved more than rough hands and haste. Another part of me was thinking only of survival. Moving slowly gave me time. Time to notice movement. Time to hear a sound. Time to see the drone react, if it was still alive beneath the bodies. I also hoped that slow motion would keep it from sensing me at all. Nguyen eased closer behind me. Every step he took was measured. His boots stayed planted on the solid, even floor, never scraping, never rushing. I felt his presence more than I saw it. It steadied me. Each body I checked revealed nothing but stillness. No metal. No hidden shape.When I confirmed it was clear, I rolled the body aside as gently as I could manage. My lips moved without permission. Words slipped out in a low whisper. Prayers I had not spoken since I was small. Ones taught to me before I understood what belief even meant. The habit surprised me. It felt foolish, almost embarrassing. Faith had never truly lived in me. Not as an adult. Not even as a teenager. Still, fear strips people down. When everything else is taken, the mind reaches for whatever comfort it remembers. Right then, I needed something. Anything. My family was gone. Torn away. The image of my mother’s lifeless face was still burned into my thoughts. It had only happened moments ago, yet it already felt like a wound that would never close. I needed to believe there was more than this. That death was not a hard wall. That somewhere, somehow, we might meet again. So I kept murmuring those old prayers. My voice barely existed. I hoped no higher power would be insulted by my sudden return after a lifetime of doubt. I hoped that all the fear, the cruelty, and the suffering forced onto so many could be undone. If that was too much to ask, then I begged for something smaller. Just one thing. One more chance to see my mother’s face. My hands slid under the next body. It was a child. The boy could not have been more than five years old. His weight was light. Too light. As my fingers moved beneath his small frame, they brushed against something that did not belong. Cold. Hard. Unmoving. Metal. My body locked in place. I stopped breathing. I lifted my head and met Nguyen’s eyes. He saw it instantly. No words passed between us. He gave a short, tight nod. Confirmation. He stepped half a pace closer. I could not tell if it was nerves pushing him forward or training pulling him into position. I ignored it. There was no room to think about that. Very slowly, I began to lift the boy. The surface beneath him was exposed inch by inch. White and gray armor gleamed faintly in the low light. It was smooth, almost clean, except where bullets had struck. I recognized the marks at once. My pistol rounds. Four of them had buried themselves into the shell and stopped. The armor had held. Three others sat close together. Those had done more. One bullet had slipped past the plating and into something vital beneath. That was it. That had been the reason. The freeze. The pause that had saved us.My eyes traced the damage along the curve of the chest plate. Thick black cables ran beneath it, packed tight like muscle fibers. Most were wrapped in the same armored skin. They stretched down from the torso, along the arm, and vanished beneath another body in the pile. I shifted my grip and carefully rolled the boy aside. Before his body had fully settled, the ground beneath me moved. The pile heaved upward. The dead rose as one mass. I was thrown backward without warning. My feet left the ground. The world spun as I rolled head over heels toward Nguyen. He jumped aside, fast, but the tip of his combat boot clipped my shoulder. The impact knocked me off balance again. I hit the floor hard and slid to a stop.I looked up. In that moment, certainty filled me. Clear and absolute. We were going to die. Nguyen was out of position. His rifle was no longer aimed. The machine would be on us in less than a second. I did not close my eyes. I refused to. Whatever happened next, I would see it. A heartbeat passed. Then another. Air rushed into my lungs. I had not realized I was holding my breath. My neck was not twisted. There was no snap of bone. No scream. Slowly, I turned my head toward the pile. The drone sat upright at the center of it all. Nguyen was already moving. His rifle swung back toward the target in a smooth, practiced motion. The machine’s broad shoulders rose and fell slightly as systems adjusted.A thick neck packed with artificial muscle supported its head. The head twitched left, then right, in short, broken movements. A dark smile crept across my face when I saw what remained of its face plate. Nguyen’s earlier rifle fire had hit true. I lifted one hand and waved slowly, deliberately. Then I gave a wide, exaggerated swing. The drone did not react. It could not. Its sensors were gone. Fiber optic lines hung loose. Cameras were shattered. Circuits lay exposed to open air. The left arm hung useless at its side. Locked. Dead. The right hand moved instead, probing blindly through the space in front of it, fingers searching for something to touch. “So what’s the play?” Nguyen asked, his voice tight but steady. The machine snapped toward the sound. Its torso twisted sharply. The working hand reached down and shoved the body stretched across its legs out of the way. The corpse rolled aside and hit the floor with a dull thud. Both of us surged to our feet and backed away a full yard. Nguyen’s rifle was already centered on the machine’s chest. Perfect aim. He still did not pull the trigger. The drone pressed its hand to the ground. With a harsh, mechanical shove, it forced its weight upward. The movement was clumsy, unbalanced. It lurched forward and came down only inches closer to Nguyen. Close enough to remind us that it was still very much alive.