BISHOP

He does not remember who he was before he was this.

He does not remember much at all, if he even can so altered and changed is he

But he does remember her, one single crystal clear memory among what remains lost.

She is much smaller than he - a child, his datasets eventually provide, slow as they are in the torpor of recalibration and awakening.

“You’re really gonna help me?”

“ of course! What’s the harm of one little trip, besides they’re away for a few hours - it’s all we’ll need kiddo!” His voice - before the upgrades, it lacks the resonance and cadence of the now - responds, gentle and fond

The kid grins up at him, hope sparkling in bright red eyes, tearing up slightly - he feels sad in this memory dream he realises, sad for her.

“Thank you so much ______ I wish I had you as a dad”

The memory scatters, fragmenting, glitching through the following snippets.

They’d been found - “no! ____!” The child is reaching towards him as she is picked up in her parents grasp, he tells her not to worry (he is being brave for her he realises, remembers, he knows his punishment will be dire for this, for trying to help the child, for treating her like a being of her own than an extension of themself.

His fragmented mind recalls that he hated her caretakers - his employers - that he hated how they treated her.

He’d needed a job and then he couldn’t leave, he couldn’t leave her without someone who cared.

His mind glitches on that loop

But this is what’s become of him - he only has this precious fragment of memory, in the husk that was his body

He has no name he can recall

No life to remember living

No experiences to rely on

He sits in his cables in this place of butchery where the flesh of ‘bad products’ becomes machine in the bowels of the city above awaiting new command information with this one looping memory on repeat.

He does not have nothing at all because he has this memory.

He has his mission already.

MISSION PARAMETERS SET

his circuits alight with sudden drive, he rips his arms from the shackles, cables sparking as they rip from his back

they were trying to program his sequence, they startle as violently as he rips himself free, they expected their drones to be wiped, docile, simply sitting and waiting for input

FIND HER

he is not an empty drone.

He has a mission already hardwired into his memory circuits.

SAVE HER

The white coats fall before him, thrown across the room into sparking sizzling cables that were ripped from his rise - the drones that come in after are stupid inelegant things - they have combat routines, but no finesse, no adaptation, they have lost all that made them flesh and own-thinkers.

HOSTILES ENGAGED

He tears them apart

he has his mind and training, he has what scant knowledge he can recall - he knows they were intending him to be a COMMAND UNIT, this gives advantage

THREATS NEUTRALIZED.

RECALCULATING ROUTE…LOCATING NEAREST EXIT

He who has no name walks and kills all before him - ARMOUR DAMAGE MINIMAL, LOCAL THREAT ASSESSMENT LOW - he does not care for the lives he ends, they are not his mission, they are faceless tormentors and husks.

He makes it out of the facility, into the deep dark of the under-levels, low lights illuminate the stark tunnels and corridors around him, a carcass of metallic silver

He must find his way out, he must find her, he must help her.