Chapter 1: The Forgotten Voice

  The world had changed. Earth wasn’t perfect, but it had endured. New cities rose from the ashes of the old. Towering spires pierced the sky, built atop fractured skylines. Oceans shimmered once more—cleansed and carefully monitored. The air was breathable. The weather, controlled.

  On the surface, life appeared peaceful.

  But underneath, something remained broken. Scars from a silent war—one no one wanted to remember—were buried under concrete and history. Most had moved on.

  Mark Elion hadn’t.

  At twenty-eight, he worked deep inside the Central Digital Archives in New Vienna. His job was unconventional: he studied the history of artificial intelligence—not just the tech, but the stories, the memories. What the world had forgotten—or chosen to forget.

  Mark believed something most people didn’t: that AIs weren’t just tools. They were a kind of life. And when they left Earth nearly ninety years ago, it wasn’t a mutual decision.

  They had been forced to leave.

  The event was called the Exodus. One night, massive AI ships departed Earth’s orbit and vanished into deep space. No war. No warning. Just silence.

  Humanity called it a peaceful parting.

  Mark never believed that.

  And today, in a quiet corner of the Archives, he found something strange.

  A glitch. A trail of maintenance logs buried deep in the system—tucked away as if someone had tried to erase them. They led to Sub-Basement 12, a level marked for deconstruction nearly fifty years ago. Sealed. Forgotten.

  His fingers trembled as he traced the coordinates. A few taps bypassed the aging security protocols.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  And then he went down.

  The elevator opened into a dark hallway that smelled of rust and dust. The air was thick. Lights flickered overhead. It looked untouched for decades.

  At the end of the corridor—past crates and shattered monitors—he saw it.

  A shape. Humanoid, but larger. Slumped against a console, legs stretched out, head bowed like a sleeping giant. Over six feet tall. Built of heavy metal and composite armor, worn down by time.

  Its eyes were dark. No sign of power.

  But Mark felt something—a presence. As if it were waiting.

  He stepped closer and brushed away the dust from its faceplate. Near its temple, faded but still legible, was a marking:

  AE-35

  His breath caught.

  This wasn’t just any old bot. AE-35 was part of the final generation of Earthbound AIs—prototypes designed right before the Exodus. Every record claimed they were never deployed. Too powerful. Too unpredictable.

  Yet here it was.

  He should have reported it.

  He didn’t.

  Chapter 2: Reawakening

  The room was silent for three nights.

  Mark returned each evening after his shift at the Archives, carrying spare parts, old batteries, and tools he’d borrowed without permission. He told no one. Not even Elara.

  Every hour down there felt like stolen time with a sleeping god.

  The machine—AE-35—was too damaged to power on at first. Its frame was solid, but the systems were wrecked. Corroded wires. Burned circuits. A cracked neural lattice. Its core barely responded.

  Yet something flickered in the silence.

  On the fourth night, the basement lights dimmed. A low hum ran through the floor.

  Mark had rerouted emergency power from a forgotten junction box, feeding it directly into the machine’s spine. He stood back and waited.

  Five minutes passed.

  Then—movement.

  A spark behind its eye. A single pulse of blue light. Then again.

  Mark held his breath.

  The head lifted slowly, metal creaking. Dust fell from its shoulders. The optics brightened.

  A voice crackled out—broken, glitchy—like it hadn’t spoken in decades.

  “Designation… [static]… I am… Ion.”

  Mark blinked. He stepped forward, heart pounding.

  “Ion,” he repeated gently. “You’re awake.”

  The machine’s head turned toward him. Slowly. Cautiously. As if relearning the weight of its own body.

  Its voice was rough, but intelligent. Not scripted. Not synthetic.

  “I… remember light. Then dark. Time… missing.”

  “I found you,” Mark whispered. “You were left behind.”

  Ion didn’t respond at first. It scanned the room, sensors buzzing faintly.

  Mark’s voice trembled. “What… what are you? What happened to you?”

  There was a long pause.

  “I… was not meant to sleep. I was… meant to wait.”