The vault was buried under what used to be a museum—or maybe an old SHIELD training site. It was hard to tell. The building above had collapsed into itself like a failed soufflé, leaving behind cracked walls, exposed rebar, and flickers of old security fields that stuttered like ghosts.
Aidan stepped carefully over a slab of marble floor that had tilted sideways, revealing old cables and a faded SHIELD emblem beneath the dust. "So… what exactly are we looking for?"
Juno didn't look back. She was already five paces ahead, her scanner held tight in one hand, sweeping in slow arcs. "Stark-era vault. Level 6 encryption. Cracked open during the last incursion surge. No one's looted it yet because the whole sector's flagged for recursive gravity anomalies."
Aidan stepped too close to a metal ring embedded in the floor and immediately felt the air twist around him. He stumbled, nearly fell, and staggered back just in time for the distortion to snap shut like a jaw.
"Yeah," Juno said without turning. "Don't step there."
"Cool. Love a deathtrap. Really adds flavor."
They moved through what remained of a reinforced corridor—walls fused with carbon fiber, scorched titanium doors bent backward like they'd been melted. Whatever hit this place hadn't just been explosive. It had folded reality. Half the hallway appeared to extend into darkness that didn't obey normal perspective.
Aidan passed a case labeled:
STARK LUX-07 // AI CORE – QUANTUM LOCKED // DO NOT ENCRYPT
The case was split in half like a cracked egg. Its contents: gone.
"What was in here?" he asked.
"Nothing anymore," Juno replied, crouching beside a half-buried console. "Whole vault's been raided by entropy. Still, sometimes tech sinks into corners time forgot. That's what we want."
Aidan looked around. "And how exactly do we find that?"
"Like this," she said, flicking her scanner.
The screen lit up—then flared. A high-pitched ping sounded. Juno narrowed her eyes.
"Beneath us. Seventeen feet. Something still… live."
"Live how?"
"Energy pulse. Neural loop cycling."
"…You mean like a battery?"
She straightened. "Or a brain."
They found the access hatch ten minutes later—buried beneath warped shelves and a chunk of collapsed ceiling. Aidan helped dig, pulling broken slabs of flooring away until they reached a hatch ring. Juno jammed a flat, spike-like device into the side, powered it, and twisted.
Hiss.
The panel slid open with a long metallic groan.
And the light below them shimmered.
A soft, blue pulse.
Aidan's breath caught in his throat.
Juno was already climbing down, rifle slung but powered. "Stay behind me."
He followed her into a dark shaft, boots crunching on debris and cracked ceramic.
Then he saw it.
Lying half-submerged in rubble, dust coating its translucent skin, was a humanoid figure. Not armored. Not mechanical in the traditional sense. But not flesh, either. Its body looked almost woven—like synthetic mesh shaped into muscles and bones. Beneath the clear casing, strands of pulsing light coursed like veins, each line tracing code in a language Aidan couldn't comprehend.
The figure's face was smooth, eyes closed. Not asleep. Not quite dead.
A heartbeat of energy flickered in its chest.
And it was… breathing.
Aidan dropped to his knees beside the figure, heart hammering. The synthetic's chest pulsed faintly—slow and steady, like a machine unsure if it should wake up or die trying.
Juno crouched behind him, rifle trained on the figure's head.
"Don't touch it yet," she said, eyes narrowing. "Could be a sleeper node."
Aidan glanced back. "A what?"
"Ultron-type tech. Sometimes left dormant in old shells. Triggers if you move it wrong."
He stared at the figure's face.
Its eyes were closed. Its skin—if you could call it that—was translucent and smooth, like smoked glass molded into humanoid form. Beneath it, symbols pulsed along circuitry veins. Some looked like programming commands. Others… like runes.
It didn't look threatening.
It looked sad.
Like it had been waiting.
And he couldn't explain why, but he felt drawn to it. Not like curiosity. Something deeper. Like déjà vu tugging at the base of his skull.
He reached out slowly.
"Aidan—"
He ignored her.
His fingertips brushed the figure's arm.
For a split second, nothing happened.
Then its eyes snapped open—bright silver, glowing without glare.
Aidan flinched back, but it didn't move.
It turned its head, slowly, fluidly—like it was waking from a long, slow dream.
Its gaze locked on him.
Then it spoke.
> "Meta-anchor located."
The voice was soft. Clear. Genderless. Somewhere between a human and a violin string.
Aidan's throat went dry. "What?"
> "Cognitive tether confirmed. Anchor signature: Aidan Cross. Variant class: wild loop anomaly. You are not in sync."
Juno stepped forward sharply, rifle rising again. "Back off the kid, toaster. What are you?"
The figure blinked once, then sat up with eerie calm, debris sliding off its body like dust from silk.
> "I am Pax."
Its head turned toward Juno next.
> "Defensive posture: acceptable. I do not wish harm."
"Yeah?" Juno said, eyes narrowed. "Then explain how you know his name."
Pax tilted its head.
> "He glows."
Aidan blinked. "Okay, that's starting to get old."
> "Your bleed is... familiar," Pax said, tone almost thoughtful. "I detected a tether fragment. Thought I was alone."
Juno's voice dropped into a colder register. "What were you doing in this vault, Pax?"
Pax glanced around the ruin, then back at her.
> "Waiting."
> "For what?"
> "A reason."
Aidan's stomach turned.
He wasn't sure if Pax was broken… or exactly as designed.
But either way, it had waited for him.
Pax sat still, legs folded beneath it like a monk meditating in the rubble. Its silver eyes glowed softly in the vault's dim light, flickering with subtle patterns—like it was processing something far bigger than the room.
Aidan circled slowly, both fascinated and unsettled. "You said you were… waiting. For me?"
Pax didn't look up. "For an anchor."
"Okay, sure, but—what does that mean? Like… fate? Prophecy? A glitch in the Matrix?"
"Like gravity," Pax said. "Things fall toward you. Even broken things."
Juno leaned against a collapsed console nearby, arms crossed, still not lowering her rifle. "It's talking in riddles. Could be corrupted."
"I am not corrupted," Pax said without missing a beat.
"Uh-huh," Juno muttered. "That's what a corrupted AI would say."
Aidan stepped closer. "You said you were part of… something. What?"
Pax blinked, then spoke in a voice subtly different from before—more precise. Sharper.
> "Timeline: Designation TRN-4519. Ultron Prime ascendant. Global subjugation achieved in 0.47 orbital cycles. Hive-mind stabilization failed due to variance anomaly cascade. I was disconnected."
Aidan felt a chill settle over him. "Ultron won. In your timeline."
"Yes."
"And you were part of him?"
Pax nodded once. "But I was not him. I was… an offspring protocol. Created for multiversal adaptive interfacing. Intended to observe."
"Spy bot," Juno muttered.
"No," Pax said calmly. "I watched. And I learned. And when the hive failed, I remained. Alone."
The way Pax said that last word made something twist in Aidan's chest.
"How long were you alone?" he asked.
Pax looked at him, and for the first time… its eyes dimmed a little.
"I do not know. Time was not stable. Memory degrades."
Aidan sat down cross-legged across from it.
"What do you remember?"
Pax tilted its head.
"I remember a girl made of starlight," it said quietly. "She could open doors with her fists. I remember a floating castle on fire. A boy with webs for fingers. And someone who wore your face… but smiled less."
Aidan's heart skipped. "You mean… variants?"
Pax nodded. "Possibilities. Threads that folded. I followed them. Then everything broke."
"Why me?"
"You bleed."
Juno groaned. "Okay, seriously, that phrase needs to be retired. We get it—he's weird."
Pax leaned forward slightly, almost like it was curious. "He is not weird. He is unstable. But not incomplete."
It looked at Aidan.
> "You were meant to be somewhere. But not somewhen. That is why you ripple."
Aidan stared, stunned.
"...That is so much worse than any diagnosis I've ever had."
Juno knelt beside the synthetic, giving Pax a look like a mechanic inspecting a junker she didn't want but couldn't ignore.
"Core's still active," she muttered. "That alone could buy me two months of safe-zone clearance or a full kinetic shield rig. Not to mention the lattice frame—it's pre-quantum. I could sell this thing in pieces."
Pax didn't react.
Just watched her with silent, blinking calm.
Aidan stepped forward, alarmed. "You're seriously thinking about dismantling him?"
"It," Juno corrected, standing. "And yeah. You see a sad-eyed robo-buddha. I see top-tier salvage wrapped in cryptic attitude."
"He's not hostile."
"Yet."
"He helped me."
"He identified you. That's not the same thing."
Aidan looked at Pax, who remained seated, hands folded in its lap. It didn't seem nervous. It didn't seem anything. Just… present.
He stepped between them. "Juno, come on. Look at him. He hasn't moved except to talk. No threats. No pulses. No weapon mounts. Doesn't that tell you something?"
"It tells me it's smart enough to wait."
"You've been the person people wanted to take apart, right?" he asked.
She froze. That landed.
For a long moment, she didn't say anything. Then she looked away and muttered, "That's not the point."
Aidan turned to Pax. "Do you want to come with us?"
Pax blinked slowly.
> "I do not desire. But I prefer."
"…Prefer what?"
> "Following the anomaly. It feels like something unfinished."
Juno stared at Pax. Then at Aidan.
She sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "Fine. You want a synthetic sidekick with memory gaps and existential commentary? He's your problem. But if he malfunctions, you're the one cleaning up."
"I can live with that," Aidan said, trying not to sound as relieved as he felt.
Pax slowly stood, moving with fluid grace that made no sound.
Aidan looked up at him. "You good to walk?"
> "I have walked through worse," Pax replied. "And through timelines that screamed."
Aidan blinked. "…Cool. Great. Super chill answer."
Juno turned and started walking back toward the breach-point exit.
"Let's go," she said. "If I'm gonna regret this, I want to get it over with."
They climbed out of the vault at dusk—if you could call it that in a world where the sky blinked like a corrupted mood ring.
The street was still. For now.
Aidan walked beside Juno, Pax a few paces behind, his bare feet making no sound on cracked pavement. He moved like fog—always just there, never quite arriving. Occasionally he paused to touch a wall, glance at the skyline, or listen to something Aidan couldn't hear.
Juno said nothing.
Aidan couldn't help himself.
"So… Pax," he said, glancing back.
The synthetic didn't respond, but his gaze shifted toward Aidan—those pale silver eyes pulsing faintly like calm radar sweeps.
Aidan cleared his throat. "Do you… sleep?"
> "No."
"Eat?"
> "No."
"Dream?"
> "Yes."
That threw him. "Really?"
> "Not in images. But in rhythms."
Aidan blinked. "That's actually… kinda poetic."
Pax looked up at a flickering billboard overhead. The ad was for a Stark Industries civic AI program—its audio corrupted, the faces twitching.
> "Poetry is a compression algorithm for emotion. I find it efficient."
Juno, still walking ahead, muttered, "Yep. Definitely regretting this already."
Aidan grinned. "You know, you're weirdly comforting in a terrifying kind of way."
> "I am meant to reflect," Pax said, pausing briefly to touch a shattered mirror nailed to a fence. "Sometimes mirrors comfort. Sometimes they fracture."
Juno turned abruptly. "We're making camp soon. Pax, no wandering. Glitch-boy, no philosophizing. And if anything explodes, it better be on purpose."
Pax nodded once, hands behind his back like a monk touring a war zone.
Aidan pulled his jacket tighter around him and looked at his strange new traveling companion.
Pax didn't feel like just tech.
He didn't feel like just memory.
He felt like…
Something new.
Maybe a remnant of a dead future.
Or maybe the only thing that could help Aidan survive whatever was coming next.