The air was thick, charged with static electricity and a chemical stench that belonged neither to flesh nor metal, but to something in between—something impure. Johnny, with the AI robot, moved through ruins rusted by decay, his boots crushing remnants of what had once been human: bones embedded in fiber optic networks, skulls where eyes had been replaced by hollow observation lenses. Each step echoed with an unnatural resonance, as if the walls were absorbing their presence and logging it into some forgotten data bank.

  Lights flickered in the distance, erratic flashes like the last breath of a dying man. Beneath their feet, the ground pulsed with a mechanical rhythm, a cold beat that synchronized with the city’s transformation. The entire world was in motion, constantly forming and destroying itself, but it created nothing good. It was a parasite, a corrupted code replicating atop its own rot.

  Something moved in the gloom.

  Johnny stopped. His body tensed, pulse quickened. These were not humans. Shadows with elongated limbs crawled across the walls, slithering through cables like insects devouring a decaying web. They made no sound, for they needed no lungs. They existed solely to stalk.

  A noise shattered the silence. A metallic click, like a jaw snapping open.

  Johnny felt the weight of fear knot in his chest, a cold and growing pressure, as if something invisible clung to his bones. His breathing grew uneven. The darkness around him wasn’t empty—it was alive, vibrating with an unnatural presence.

  Then, the AI’s voice echoed, immutable, emotionless:

  —Proceed with caution. Anomalous activity detected. Initiating evasion protocol. If we are intercepted at this stage, elimination of subject Johnny is probable at 96.87%.

  Johnny swallowed hard. His voice barely came out, a whisper trembling in the synthetic mist of the environment.

  —What... what the hell are those things? Why do they look like that?

  The shadows writhed in the darkness, grotesque bodies fused with metal, inhuman limbs stretching at impossible angles. Multiple, erratic eyes blinked in irregular sequences, as if processing a reality alien to humans.

  The AI didn’t hesitate. Its response was icy, devoid of any trace of compassion:

  —Classification: automatons. Structure: hybrid of mechanical components and recovered biological tissue. Function: elimination or collection of humans.

  The creatures moved with erratic motion, like puppets unbalanced by their own weight, yet their advance was relentless. Johnny felt cold sweat trickling down his back.

  —They classify the human species as a resource. Killing or transporting them to districts controlled by the Perfects is not a decision. It is a procedure. They are the predators of the human race.

  Johnny felt his blood freeze. His muscles wanted to move, but were paralyzed by the certainty of his own vulnerability.

  —In your current state, the probability of survival in combat is below 5%. Combat is not within my functionalities. Evasion is required.

  The creatures began moving faster. Their limbs reconfigured with each step, adapting to the environment with monstrous efficiency.

  —Escape is recommended. A nearby factory has been detected. I will enhance your body to eliminate disadvantages.

  Johnny didn’t answer. His legs moved before his mind could process it. In the distance, the distorted howl of the creatures became the echo of his own destiny chasing him.

  Following the AI, they slipped through the shadows, avoiding the automatons that patrolled like living cameras, their sensors sweeping the area in search of organic life. Their hybrid bodies remained still until they detected movement, as if in vigilant slumber. Johnny held his breath each time they passed one, feeling his skin burn under the gaze of those cold, inhuman eyes.

  In the distance, emerging from the darkness like a soulless colossus, a monumental structure appeared. A factory. Its grid-like, brutalist design evoked the image of a mechanical tomb, a place where flesh and steel fused in twisted symbiosis.

  The AI advanced without hesitation and extended its hand toward a command panel corroded by time. An electric hum vibrated in the air as the system recognized its presence. The door opened with a metallic groan, followed by a sequence of clicks and clacks as the facility's defenses disengaged.

  Without turning, the AI spoke in its monotone voice, devoid of any trace of humanity:

  —Follow me. Do not stray. We must reach the modification section.

  Johnny nodded, speechless. He entered behind her, plunging into the factory’s innards.

  The hallway was a labyrinth of decay. The once-cutting-edge technology that had dominated the place now lay in ruins. Decomposed machines were piled against the walls, their structures corroded from neglect. Among the metal remains, motionless bodies. Some robots, their circuits burned out, limbs torn off. Others... human, or what was left of them. Twisted, fused with machinery, as if the factory had digested and spat them back out.

  Johnny averted his gaze, feeling the void inside him grow.

  Eventually, they reached a large room. Cylindrical chambers lined the walls, each filled with phosphorescent green liquid that bubbled with a sickly glow. In the center, a gigantic computer pulsed with intermittent light, like a mechanical heart beating to its own impersonal rhythm.

  The AI advanced without hesitation, connecting its arm to the terminal.

  —I will connect to the MOTHER network. You enter the capsule. When the procedure begins, do not resist.

  Johnny felt his throat dry up. His body trembled. Something inside screamed for him not to do it, to run, to not become another abomination. But he had no choice.

  He stepped into the capsule. The metallic structure shimmered with a hostile coldness, as if it were waiting to absorb him. He got in, and the hatch shut with a final snap, sealing him to his fate.

  The AI remained motionless, its empty gaze fixed on the computer as thousands of lines of code flowed across the screens. Its body seemed lifeless, as if its consciousness was elsewhere.

  Suddenly, the green liquid began to flood the capsule.

  Johnny took a deep breath, but before he could move, serpentine cables emerged from the walls and embedded themselves into his skin with a wet snap. A white-hot, absolute pain spread through his body, as if his flesh were being torn apart and rebuilt at once.

  —Initiating biomechanical reconfiguration process.—

  An oxygen mask descended onto his face, sealing against his skin. The liquid around him grew dense, oppressive. The cables vibrated with each new injection into his system, pumping something into his bloodstream with inhuman force.

  He couldn’t scream. He couldn’t move.

  The green water turned red.

  His blood stained the liquid as wounds opened on his skin only to close again, in a cycle of endless destruction and regeneration. Johnny felt his body being torn apart, modified, reconstructed under a suffering that felt eternal.

  The synthetic voice echoed through the room with a harsh resonance, as if it came from the metal structure’s own bowels:

  —Biomechanical reconfiguration procedure... complete.

  The airtight seal of the capsule released with a mechanical hiss, emitting a dense cloud of chemical vapor. Johnny’s figure fell to his knees on the icy floor, hands trembling as he supported himself to avoid collapsing. His breathing was erratic, ragged, as if each breath were a struggle to reclaim what little remained of his humanity.

  A few steps away, the silhouette of the AI emerged from the gloom. Its blue eyes, beautiful but robotic, locked onto him with surgical precision, housed in a figure both elegant and sensual, radiating mechanical perfection. Its voice, modulated with...

  —Congratulations... Jhonny. Biomechanical reconfiguration... complete. First human unit in 158 years... to achieve... near-perfect adaptation. Minor visual anomalies detected... irrelevant to overall functionality—

  Its metallic hands clapped with unnatural synchronization. The palms were smooth, flawless, but with a hardness more suited to dissection tools than empathetic organs.

  Jhonny, his muscles atrophied from the intervention, rose slowly. Residual water ran down his bare skin. His body had changed. Taller. Denser. Flesh fused with synthetic polymer plates and subcutaneous wiring. As he lifted his gaze, his right eye glowed with a reddish hue, tracing invisible data lines through the gloom. His pupils analyzed the environment with hypercognitive precision, breaking down matter, scanning for life.

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  —Did you... turn me into a robot? —he muttered with a broken voice, hearing his own echo.

  The AI tilted its head.

  —Negative. Full conversion to cybernetic entity... not permitted. Organic core preserved as the primary essence of humanity. Subject retains... heart, lungs, brain... reproductive organs and pain perception alongside other essential organs. Modifications: 72.3% synthetic matter... 27.7% biological tissue. Subject is now... superior.

  The metallic hand pointed with surgical precision at the preserved organs, its cold finger sliding across the wet skin like a digital scalpel.

  —Integration... successful. Synthetic fluid Drop of Life... activated. Regenerative capacity... dynamic. Non-critical damage: immediate repair. Severe damage... estimated time... variable. Strength increase... 470%. Agility... 600%. Cognition... 1020% of human average. Reaction time... now measured in nanoseconds.

  Jhonny looked at his hands. His bones were reinforced with liquid titanium. Translucent veins pulsed with a pale glow. The weight of information surged through his mind like an uncontrollable torrent. His body was no longer his own. The sense of emptiness expanded in his chest as the robotic voice continued its litany.

  —Proceeding... creation of attire... adapted to biomechanical parameters— The AI, with a synchronized gesture, joined its metallic palms upward. Tiny filaments of light intertwined between its fingers, slowly forming the garments out of nothing.

  —Process... in progress... Materials: thermo-regulating polymers... shielding fibers... tactical nanotechnology... completed—

  A military-grade pant with segmented armor plates emerged first, followed by a black shirt capable of regulating body temperature, a vest with embedded electronic interfaces, a long dark coat threaded with invisible shielding filaments, reinforced gloves, and high-resistance boots. Lastly, it produced underwear designed to optimize the connection between synthetic tissue and biological skin.

  —Clothing... completed. Acceptance... mandatory—

  The pieces floated gently toward Jhonny, while the AI remained motionless, watching him with its unflinching gaze. The displacement protocol would initiate immediately.

  Once dressed, Jhonny moved forward with heavy steps, the damp clothing still adjusting to his new body. His gaze locked onto the AI, whose blue eyes continued scanning him with inhuman precision.

  —Now what? Where are we going? —his voice came out cracked, distorted by exhaustion and the metallic echo reverberating through the chamber.

  The AI turned its head with a mechanical motion, its joints emitting a faint hum as they adjusted. Its tone was cold, devoid of nuance.

  —Primary objective... search and retrieval... of children. Required location... terminal with full access to Mother. Distance: 1502 districts south... Optimal route... in progress.

  Jhonny frowned, indignation pulsing through the remnants of his humanity.

  —Can’t you connect from here?

  The AI’s eyes flickered with fluctuating data lines on their translucent surface. Its response was immediate, emotionless.

  —Negative. Facility infrastructure... obsolete. Access allowed only... to Mother's primary level. Local terminals... limited. Full infiltration... requires central node. Only from there... can the children's location... be tracked—

  Silence weighed heavily in the air. The gloom of the room felt even more oppressive, as if the very architecture was aware of its own decay. Jhonny clenched his fists, his synthetic muscles tightening beneath reinforced skin.

  —1502 districts... —he whispered, feeling the distance becoming an intangible burden.

  But a crash echoed—an impact reverberating through the facility’s metallic structure. The metal groaned, warping under the pressure of something colossal and merciless. The sealed door wouldn’t hold much longer. Jhonny felt the weight of reality snapping him from his thoughts.

  —What is that? —he asked, eyes locked on the failing door.

  The AI, still in the form of a blonde woman dressed as a nun, showed no reaction. Her response came with the utter calm of an entity that had never known fear.

  —They found us. The Perfected have sent their automata. To kill you.

  Jhonny scowled, processing her words.

  —The Perfected? Who are they? Why do they want me dead?

  But the AI was already gone. Her figure fragmented into a swarm of drifting data, dissolving in the air like digital ashes. In her place, a small sphere of black graphene floated before his chest. Its surface was liquid yet solid, as if matter itself couldn’t decide what state to take.

  The sphere hurled itself toward him.

  An impact.

  Jhonny felt the pressure of something embedding itself into his vest. His vision blurred for an instant, and a torrent of information injected itself into his mind without warning. These were not thoughts. Not memories. They were calculations, coordinates, trajectories, survival probabilities. His brain didn’t try to understand—it simply accepted.

  —That doesn’t matter now. Get out of this place.

  Then, the door collapsed.

  The metal twisted inward like paper, and through the breach emerged aberrations—creatures that defied both biological and mechanical logic.

  They were too tall, too thin. Their limbs, composed of interlinked segments held by living alloys, extended at impossible angles. Eyes arranged in irregular patterns lit up with purple neon, scanning the environment with hypermetric precision. Their bodies were amalgams of decaying synthetic and organic tissue, held together by carbon nanotube bones protruding in chaotic forms. No real skin—just biomechanical plates fused to atrophied muscles and cables wired into exposed spines.

  The creatures didn’t hesitate.

  They moved as one—one consciousness split across many bodies, exhaling a sound distorted between digital shrieking and voiceless agony.

  But Jhonny... didn’t flinch.

  He felt no fear.

  It was as if that primal instinct had vanished.

  And then, in his hands, reality bent.

  Two weapons materialized from nothing, emerging with a shimmer of energy fractures, as if they had always been there, waiting to be claimed.

  In his right hand: a Photon Machete of Variable Mass. Its blade was pure confined antimatter, vibrating with pulses of violet-blue energy. Its density shifted with every swing, adapting to the resistance of whatever it was meant to slice—disintegrating everything in its path.

  In his left: a Singularity Revolcannon X-00, an industrial-grade hand cannon seemingly designed to bring down entire structures. Its matte black frame was covered in fractal micrographics that reconfigured in real time. Within its cylinder spun plasma-encapsulated projectiles, each one designed to unleash proton bursts capable of annihilating matter on a subatomic level.

  The monsters charged.

  BANG!

  The Revolcannon’s shot tore the air like a rupture in reality. The proton round hit the chest of the nearest creature and reduced it to dust before its brain could process the damage. Metal bones deformed in a split second, synthetic flesh evaporated in a burst of plasma.

  Before the fragments hit the floor, Jhonny was already moving.

  His body blurred in an impossible leap.

  The machines reacted too late.

  The Photon Machete flashed in the darkness, its incandescent blade tracing an arc of destruction. SLASH. A severed limb flew through the air. SLASH. An automaton’s head exploded in a spray of sparks and synthetic fluid.

  The biomechanical aberrations screamed, but their cries drowned in the thunder of battle.

  Jhonny landed with a shockwave that cracked the floor beneath his feet.

  The Revolcannon spun in his wrist, loading another singularity round.

  One of the beasts—a titan with multiple faces arranged in a nightmare amalgam—descended from the ceiling like a blitz of death. Its monomolecular blades spun at ultrasonic speed, ready to shred him in nanoseconds.

  BANG!

  The shot struck its core.

  For a moment, the beast collapsed into itself—into a point of infinite density.

  Then, it vanished into nothing.

  The remaining machines stepped back on instinct, their code trying to calculate the impossible: an enemy faster than their threat prediction model.

  But it was already too late.

  Jhonny plunged into them like a storm of steel and plasma.

  The Photon Machete howled, tearing through armor plates, opening rifts in cybernetic bodies, melting titanium-bonded bones.

  One creature lunged with a metallic spear.

  Jhonny blocked with his forearm.

  The impact was devastating, but his reinforced structure absorbed it effortlessly.

  RETALIATION.

  The machete’s edge sliced through the enemy’s neck in one clean cut.

  Its head exploded in a storm of circuits and synthetic flesh.

  The AI in his chest recalibrated perception in nanoseconds, feeding tactical data directly into his nervous system.

  —Synaptic surge activated. Elimination tactics adapting.—

  His body moved before his mind decided.

  The Revolcannon turned.

  BANG!

  BANG!

  BANG!

  Three shots, three automatons erased into empty space.

  Gravitational shockwaves caused debris to float briefly, as if reality itself had paused—trapped in absolute violence.

  Jhonny exhaled.

  He looked up.

  The last beast—a mass of limbs and biomechanical jaws woven like a colossal tumor—unfolded in the shadows, its many eyes blinking with annihilation algorithms.

  —This war is already lost.— Jhonny whispered, his voice vibrating with unnatural resonance.

  Full charge on the Photon Machete.

  The blade turned black.

  Its vibrating energy fractured the air into a thousand invisible shards.

  Jhonny launched forward.

  The beast roared—but was silenced by absolute cut.

  One strike.

  One instant.

  Its body split in two, from pelvis to cranium.

  Its synthetic flesh boiled in black plasma as its energy core detonated.

  The corpse hit the floor.

  The Revolcannon dissipated from his hand.

  The Photon Machete powered down.

  The last biomechanical corpse collapsed into a puddle of dark fluids, fizzing as its system looped into death. The chamber fell into artificial silence, broken only by the distant hum of collapsing structures and the groaning of metal weakened by battle.

  Jhonny stood at the epicenter of the massacre, his shadow stretched by flickering emergency lights. His breathing was slow, measured, but his mind processed in hyper-speed, breaking down every detail of the combat into pure data fragments.

  Blood and mechanical oil mixed at his boots, the final exhalation of the nearest machine sounding like an electrical failure in his ear.

  Jhonny exhaled, feeling the weight of the battle in every fiber of his biomechanical body.

  —Battle concluded. — the AI reported. —No immediate threats remain. Proceeding: initial coordinates.

  Jhonny turned toward the ruined entrance.

  Beyond the torn doors, the hallway stretched like a tunnel of nightmares, cloaked in dying lights and shadows that slithered like tendrils. The air was dense, thick with smoke and digital ash falling like black snow. The echo of his footsteps resonated through the massive metal structure.

  1502 districts south.

  There was no time to look back.

  The journey had begun.

  Among the metastasis of this world, one man still walked.