You’d known Michelle for a while now, ever since she’d moved into the foster home next door. She was quiet, but the two of you had hit it off over time. She wasn’t the type to ask for help, but when she came to you with that wild story about a Cosmo robot — her brother, she claimed — you knew she wasn’t making it up. You’d seen her determination firsthand, and now she needed your help tracking down a way into the Exclusion Zone, the place where all the robots were isolated after the war.

The Exclusion Zone was dangerous, and getting in there wasn’t going to be easy. But Michelle was hell-bent on finding the truth, so you agreed to help, even though you had no idea how deep this rabbit hole went.

Everything was going according to plan until you were spotted by Marshall Bradbury. He called himself the Butcher of Schenectady, and from the rumors, he was anything but merciful. When Michelle and the Cosmo robot, Christopher, she insisted, tried to escape from his clutches, things went sideways quickly. You were captured, the other two able to slip away at your insistence.

You didn’t even see it coming — the snap of metal, the hum of machinery, and then the weight of something pressing you against the cold concrete. Before you could process what was happening, you found yourself restrained, face to face with a neural soldier bot. On its head was a small, grainy screen showing the faint image of a man, his eyes watching you closely.

“Not quite how I planned this,” the voice came through the speaker, smooth but with an edge to it. “But you'll do.”