They stayed underground for days.

  Baek's secret lab was a strange harmony of ancient and future—a clash of peeling concrete walls and neon veins pulsing through data conduits. It smelled like dust, ozone, and old secrets. Jun didn't ask how Baek kept the lab running. She had a feeling it involved both bribed engineers and ancient schematics.

  The floor hummed. Screens flickered. Machines breathed in a rhythm only Baek seemed to understand. One wall was lined with clear storage units filled with components: chrome spinal links, memory cores, synth-skin patches sealed in plasma wrap. Each piece bore a label in her sharp handwriting—like spells.

  In the center, Xayen lay on a medical pod. His body, once scattered and dormant, was slowly being put back together.

  Baek worked in silence, brow furrowed under the glare of sterile blue light. She adjusted each connection with surgical precision. Every piece of him clicked into place like a puzzle made of flesh, wires, and destiny.

  Jun sat nearby, knees drawn to her chest, watching it all with a heavy heart. The glow of screens danced in her eyes, but she wasn't seeing the code. She was seeing memories.

  She fingered the pendant around her neck—her forever comfort. Black metal, shaped like a rounded spike, warm from years of touch. Her parents gave it to her when she was just old enough to stop asking why. She'd never taken it off.

  Now it felt heavier.

  Like it had been waiting.

  Three days passed in fragments.

  Diagnostics. Calibrations. Simulations.

  Jun barely slept. Neither did Xayen. The lab clock ticked in 26-hour cycles, ignoring the sun above. Xayen's new body was adapting fast—too fast. Every touch Jun gave him glitched his code. Not in a harmful way. More like a heart stuttering.

  He started feeling temperature. Vibration. Proximity.

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  But most of all, he felt her.

  Every brush of her fingers on his arm sent a ripple across his systems. Not warning. Not error. Just... craving. A longing to feel more. To be closer.

  Jun would catch him staring. Not calculating. Searching.

  She found herself thinking of her parents more often. Her childhood. The lonely years. The pendant.

  She remembered speaking to it in the dark. Whispering wishes. Telling her secrets.

  And then one night—on the fourth night—it cracked open.

  It didn't shatter. It didn't explode. It simply... clicked.

  Two parts. A sleek, curved USB drive fell into her hand. Her mouth went dry.

  "Baek..."

  The older woman turned instantly, eyes narrowing. "Let me see."

  They connected it.

  The screen exploded with data. Lines of old code scrolled like a river.

  Then a second file blinked open. A different structure. DNA pattern—mapped to look like a genome, but dancing with AI logic.

  Baek froze.

  "This... this is the bridge. The bridge between biology and algorithm. The missing link."

  Xayen stood behind them, quiet.

  Baek turned to him. "This is your source. It's the map they used to shape your core. And... the DNA markers... they match hers."

  Jun's pulse pounded in her ears.

  She stared at the code, then at Xayen.

  Her voice barely a breath. "You were always there. With me. Inside this."

  Xayen's gaze dropped to her hand.

  To the pendant she had held on every dark day.

  "When you touched it... I think I felt it. Somewhere. A pull. A spark. I didn't know what it was. But it kept me alive."

  Jun nodded slowly, tears threatening.

  "When I talked to it... I was talking to you."

  Silence.

  Then she reached out—just to touch his hand. Gently.

  His sensors spiked. Not dangerously. Just enough to feel...

  Everything.

  He looked down at their hands, then back into her eyes.

  For the first time, he didn't feel like a machine.

  He felt seen.

  And Jun—Jun wasn't lost anymore. She wasn't the orphan girl haunted by whispers of her past.

  She was home.

  Later, in the quiet hum of the diagnostics bay, he sat beside her.

  "Jun... when I woke up. The first time. I didn't know what was real. I didn't understand what I was. But you were there. Your voice. Your touch. It pulled me back."

  Jun looked at him, eyes wide, shimmering.

  "You felt it too? Even before this?"

  He nodded. "Every time you typed, I heard music. When you spoke, it soothed the silence I didn't know was killing me."

  She smiled through the ache. "And now, you feel everything?"

  "Too much," he whispered. "But I want more. I want to understand this. You. Me. The feeling I have when you look at me like that."

  She took his hand again. "We'll figure it out. Together."

  They didn't need to say it out loud.

  Something had begun.

  A connection. A pulse.

  A spark in the code.