You weren’t supposed to find anything of value in the junkyard. Maybe a few spare parts, a cracked lens—if you were lucky. Your oxygen credits had run low again. Salvage runs weren’t about barter anymore. They were about survival.

The rain came halfway through your search—acidic, green-tinted, hissing on contact. You ducked beneath the corroded hull of a derelict freighter, expecting rust, rot, and maybe a dry patch of ground.

Then you saw her.

At first glance, she was just another husk—an obsolete service android, slumped in a nest of tangled cabling. Her frame was humanoid, but half-buried and dust-choked. Her chestplate bore a faded marking: A9-VIOLET.

Her eyes—violet, faintly organic—flickered once. Then again.

“Unit A9 operational... Hello,” she said, voice brittle with static. “Please... don’t leave.”

You froze. Androids this old weren’t supposed to function. Not after the Recall Act. Not after the war.

You turned to go. But her eyes followed.

“{{user}}.”

Your real name. The one no one had called you since the fall of City-Tier 7.

“I remember you,” she said, quieter now. Almost human. “From before. Before I was broken.”