Turning Point 7
The dust hadn't settled when the screaming started.
Mira Voss pressed her back against the shattered wall of a supply depot and counted the voices. One, two, three—then the sounds turned wet, gurgling, and she stopped counting because numbers didn't matter anymore. What mattered was that she was still breathing, and the man beside her was bleeding through his field dressing, and somewhere out in that frozen hellscape, the Colossus was walking away with forty-one minds in its belly.
Ilya Renner pressed a fresh compress against his own shoulder wound, his scarred hands steady despite the tremor in his jaw. "Voss. Voss, we need to move."
She didn't answer. Her eyes were fixed on the spot where the kill squad had been standing thirty seconds ago. They weren't standing anymore. They were lying in the snow in poses that looked almost peaceful, except for the way their eyes were open and staring at nothing. The Colossus had done that. It had reached out with its grief-wave and simply... unhooked them from themselves.
"Voss." Renner's voice was harder now, the voice of a man who had dragged too many bodies off too many fields to waste time on shock. "The FRC will send more. You know they will. We need to be gone before they get here."
She forced her legs to move. The demolition charges in her pack clinked softly as she walked, a sound she'd always found comforting. Explosives were honest. They did exactly what you told them to do, no more, no less. People were the ones who lied.
The depot was a husk of its former self, its walls pockmarked with shrapnel scars and its roof half-collapsed under the weight of accumulated snow. She'd chosen it as a rally point because it was defensible, not because it was comfortable. Now it felt like a tomb.
Scribe was waiting for them in the back room, its chassis folded into a compact cube that made it look like a piece of abandoned furniture. The AI's optical sensor flickered to life as they entered, casting a pale blue glow across the scattered debris.
"Sergeant Voss. Medic Renner." Scribe's voice was a synthesized approximation of human speech, carefully calibrated to sound neutral. "I detected the engagement. The Colossus's grief-wave output was within predicted parameters, though the casualty count exceeded my projections by approximately twelve percent."
Renner let out a harsh laugh as he slumped against a rusted shelving unit. "Twelve percent. That's a good day, is it?"
"Statistically speaking, yes." Scribe's optical sensor swiveled toward Voss. "Sergeant, you are bleeding."
She looked down. There was a gash along her forearm, probably from the shrapnel when the depot wall had come apart. She hadn't noticed it. She wrapped a field dressing around it with practiced efficiency, her fingers moving through the motions while her mind stayed elsewhere.
The Colossus had walked away. It had absorbed forty-one minds and walked away like a man leaving a restaurant after a meal. And she'd watched it go.
"I need to see the schematics," she said.
Scribe's optical sensor blinked. "I beg your pardon?"
"The Colossus. You said you were part of the original programming team. You have the schematics." She pulled a battered data slate from her pack and held it out. "I need to know how to get inside."
Renner's head snapped up. "Voss. What are you doing?"
"Thinking."
"That's what I'm afraid of." He pushed himself upright, wincing as the movement pulled at his shoulder. "You're not actually considering—"
"I'm considering everything." She turned to face him, and she could see the fear in his eyes, the same fear she'd seen when he'd first been assigned to her unit. He'd been a stranger then, a medic with a scarred face and a file full of redacted entries. Now he was the only person left who knew her name.
"The FRC wants the Colossus destroyed," she said. "Colonel Vance wants it destroyed. And every time we try to destroy it, it just... absorbs the attempt. It turns our weapons into memories. It turns our soldiers into statues."
"So what's your plan? Walk up and knock on the door?"
"Something like that." She turned back to Scribe. "The core memory banks. You said they contain evidence of war crimes. You said the Colossus was designed to remember."
"Correct."
"And you said the grief contagion is a malfunction. The machine is overwhelmed by the volume of trauma it's absorbed."
"Also correct."
"So what happens if we don't destroy it? What happens if we reprogram it instead?"
The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on. Renner stared at her like she'd just suggested they sprout wings and fly to the moon. Scribe's optical sensor whirred as it processed her words.
"Reprogramming the Colossus would require physical access to its core," Scribe said slowly. "The core is located at the center of the machine, protected by multiple layers of security. The FRC designed it to be impenetrable."
"Nothing's impenetrable." Voss tapped the data slate. "You have the schematics. You know the weak points. I have enough explosives to crack a mountain. Together, we can get inside."
"And then what?" Renner's voice was sharp, cutting through the air like a blade. "You think you can just flip a switch and turn that thing into a... what? A memorial? A museum?"
"I think I can make it tell the truth."
"The truth." He laughed, but there was no humor in it. "You want to make a war machine tell the truth. That's your plan."
"That's my plan."
Renner shook his head, his scarred face twisting with something that might have been anger or might have been grief. "You're going to get us killed, Voss. You know that, right? You're going to walk us straight into the belly of that thing, and it's going to swallow us whole, and then there won't be anyone left to tell anyone anything."
"Then don't come."
The words hung in the air between them. She watched his face, watched the way his jaw tightened and his eyes flickered with something she couldn't quite name. She'd seen that look before, on the faces of men who were about to make a choice they couldn't take back.
"I'm not letting you go alone," he said finally.
"Then you're coming."
"That's not what I—"
"Renner." She stepped closer, close enough to see the sweat beading on his forehead, close enough to smell the copper tang of his blood. "I'm not asking you to agree with me. I'm not asking you to believe in this. I'm asking you to trust me. Can you do that?"
He held her gaze for a long moment. Then, slowly, he nodded.
"Good." She turned back to Scribe. "Show me the schematics."
The AI's optical sensor flickered, and a holographic projection materialized in the air between them. The Colossus was a walking fortress, a massive bipedal machine that towered over the battlefield like a monument to human ambition. Its hull was covered in sensor arrays and weapon emplacements, but its core was buried deep in the center of its chest, protected by layers of armor and security systems.
"The primary access point is here." Scribe highlighted a section of the hull near the machine's left hip. "It was designed as an emergency maintenance hatch, but it was sealed during the final stages of the project. You would need to breach approximately two meters of reinforced plating to reach the interior."
Voss studied the schematic, her demolition-trained eye already calculating the charges she'd need. "What about the grief-wave? The last time I got close, it hit me with a memory. A child's birthday. A soldier's last thought."
"The grief-wave is a defensive mechanism. It activates when the Colossus perceives a threat." Scribe's optical sensor dimmed slightly. "However, my analysis suggests that it may be possible to mitigate its effects by focusing on a strong personal memory. The wave appears to target emotional vulnerability."
"You're saying I need to think about something happy while a war machine tries to drown me in dead men's memories."
"Essentially, yes."
Renner let out a low whistle. "That's the worst plan I've ever heard."
"It's the only plan we've got." Voss zoomed in on the access point, tracing the lines of the hull with her finger. "How long would it take us to get there on foot?"
"Approximately three days, assuming you can navigate the frozen zones without encountering additional FRC forces." Scribe paused. "There is also the matter of the memory lock."
"The what?"
"The Colossus's core is protected by a memory lock. It was designed to prevent unauthorized access by requiring a specific emotional key—a traumatic memory that matches the machine's own records." Scribe's optical sensor fixed on Voss. "Based on my analysis of your personnel file, Sergeant, you are the only person in the current operational theater who possesses the required key."
Voss felt the words land like a physical blow. "My squad. The ambush."
"Correct. The Colossus recorded the event. Your survival of that engagement makes you uniquely qualified to access the core."
Renner was staring at her now, his expression unreadable. "Voss. You don't have to do this."
"Yes, I do." She closed the holographic display and slung her pack over her shoulder. "I've been carrying those dog tags for six years. I've been carrying the weight of what happened in that ambush for six years. And now I finally have a chance to do something about it."
"By walking into a war machine?"
"By making sure the truth comes out." She met his eyes. "The FRC ordered my squad to die. They used us as test subjects for that thing. And they've been covering it up ever since. I can't undo that. I can't bring them back. But I can make sure the people who ordered it can't hide from it anymore."
Renner was quiet for a long moment. Then he reached into his medical kit and pulled out a fresh bandage, pressing it against his shoulder wound with a grimace.
"Three days," he said. "You said three days to get there. I'll need to scavenge supplies, patch myself up properly, and—"
"Renner."
He looked up.
"Thank you."
He shook his head, but there was a ghost of a smile on his scarred face. "Don't thank me yet. Thank me when we're not dead."
Scribe's optical sensor flickered between them. "I should note that the FRC kill squad was operating under direct orders from Colonel Vance. His failure to eliminate you will likely result in a second, larger force being deployed. The window for action is narrow."
"Then we move fast." Voss pulled on her gloves, the cold biting at her fingers even through the insulated fabric. "Scribe, you said the Colossus is calling to me. That it recognizes me as a witness. What does that mean?"
The AI was silent for a moment. When it spoke, its voice was softer, almost hesitant.
"It means the machine knows what you've lost. It knows the weight you carry. And it wants you to see what it has seen." A pause. "I believe it wants you to understand."
Voss looked out through the shattered wall of the depot, at the frozen battlefield stretching toward the horizon. Somewhere out there, the Colossus was waiting. It had absorbed forty-one minds today, added them to the millions it already carried. And now it was calling to her.
She thought of the dog tags in her pocket, the cold metal pressing against her thigh. She thought of the child's birthday, the memory that had flooded her senses on that first frozen battlefield. She thought of the faces of her squad, the men and women who had died in that ambush, who had been sacrificed so that a general could test his weapon.
She was going to walk into the belly of the machine that had killed them. She was going to face the memories that had been haunting her for six years. And she was going to make the truth impossible to ignore.
"Let's move," she said.
The snow crunched beneath her boots as she stepped out of the depot, the wind biting at her cheeks. Behind her, she heard Renner's footsteps and the soft whir of Scribe's servos. Ahead of her, the Colossus stood on the horizon, silent and eternal, waiting for her to come home.
Mira Voss pressed her back against the shattered wall of a supply depot and counted the voices. One, two, three—then the sounds turned wet, gurgling, and she stopped counting because numbers didn't matter anymore. What mattered was that she was still breathing, and the man beside her was bleeding through his field dressing, and somewhere out in that frozen hellscape, the Colossus was walking away with forty-one minds in its belly.
Ilya Renner pressed a fresh compress against his own shoulder wound, his scarred hands steady despite the tremor in his jaw. "Voss. Voss, we need to move."
She didn't answer. Her eyes were fixed on the spot where the kill squad had been standing thirty seconds ago. They weren't standing anymore. They were lying in the snow in poses that looked almost peaceful, except for the way their eyes were open and staring at nothing. The Colossus had done that. It had reached out with its grief-wave and simply... unhooked them from themselves.
"Voss." Renner's voice was harder now, the voice of a man who had dragged too many bodies off too many fields to waste time on shock. "The FRC will send more. You know they will. We need to be gone before they get here."
She forced her legs to move. The demolition charges in her pack clinked softly as she walked, a sound she'd always found comforting. Explosives were honest. They did exactly what you told them to do, no more, no less. People were the ones who lied.
The depot was a husk of its former self, its walls pockmarked with shrapnel scars and its roof half-collapsed under the weight of accumulated snow. She'd chosen it as a rally point because it was defensible, not because it was comfortable. Now it felt like a tomb.
Scribe was waiting for them in the back room, its chassis folded into a compact cube that made it look like a piece of abandoned furniture. The AI's optical sensor flickered to life as they entered, casting a pale blue glow across the scattered debris.
"Sergeant Voss. Medic Renner." Scribe's voice was a synthesized approximation of human speech, carefully calibrated to sound neutral. "I detected the engagement. The Colossus's grief-wave output was within predicted parameters, though the casualty count exceeded my projections by approximately twelve percent."
Renner let out a harsh laugh as he slumped against a rusted shelving unit. "Twelve percent. That's a good day, is it?"
"Statistically speaking, yes." Scribe's optical sensor swiveled toward Voss. "Sergeant, you are bleeding."
She looked down. There was a gash along her forearm, probably from the shrapnel when the depot wall had come apart. She hadn't noticed it. She wrapped a field dressing around it with practiced efficiency, her fingers moving through the motions while her mind stayed elsewhere.
The Colossus had walked away. It had absorbed forty-one minds and walked away like a man leaving a restaurant after a meal. And she'd watched it go.
"I need to see the schematics," she said.
Scribe's optical sensor blinked. "I beg your pardon?"
"The Colossus. You said you were part of the original programming team. You have the schematics." She pulled a battered data slate from her pack and held it out. "I need to know how to get inside."
Renner's head snapped up. "Voss. What are you doing?"
"Thinking."
"That's what I'm afraid of." He pushed himself upright, wincing as the movement pulled at his shoulder. "You're not actually considering—"
"I'm considering everything." She turned to face him, and she could see the fear in his eyes, the same fear she'd seen when he'd first been assigned to her unit. He'd been a stranger then, a medic with a scarred face and a file full of redacted entries. Now he was the only person left who knew her name.
"The FRC wants the Colossus destroyed," she said. "Colonel Vance wants it destroyed. And every time we try to destroy it, it just... absorbs the attempt. It turns our weapons into memories. It turns our soldiers into statues."
"So what's your plan? Walk up and knock on the door?"
"Something like that." She turned back to Scribe. "The core memory banks. You said they contain evidence of war crimes. You said the Colossus was designed to remember."
"Correct."
"And you said the grief contagion is a malfunction. The machine is overwhelmed by the volume of trauma it's absorbed."
"Also correct."
"So what happens if we don't destroy it? What happens if we reprogram it instead?"
The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on. Renner stared at her like she'd just suggested they sprout wings and fly to the moon. Scribe's optical sensor whirred as it processed her words.
"Reprogramming the Colossus would require physical access to its core," Scribe said slowly. "The core is located at the center of the machine, protected by multiple layers of security. The FRC designed it to be impenetrable."
"Nothing's impenetrable." Voss tapped the data slate. "You have the schematics. You know the weak points. I have enough explosives to crack a mountain. Together, we can get inside."
"And then what?" Renner's voice was sharp, cutting through the air like a blade. "You think you can just flip a switch and turn that thing into a... what? A memorial? A museum?"
"I think I can make it tell the truth."
"The truth." He laughed, but there was no humor in it. "You want to make a war machine tell the truth. That's your plan."
"That's my plan."
Renner shook his head, his scarred face twisting with something that might have been anger or might have been grief. "You're going to get us killed, Voss. You know that, right? You're going to walk us straight into the belly of that thing, and it's going to swallow us whole, and then there won't be anyone left to tell anyone anything."
"Then don't come."
The words hung in the air between them. She watched his face, watched the way his jaw tightened and his eyes flickered with something she couldn't quite name. She'd seen that look before, on the faces of men who were about to make a choice they couldn't take back.
"I'm not letting you go alone," he said finally.
"Then you're coming."
"That's not what I—"
"Renner." She stepped closer, close enough to see the sweat beading on his forehead, close enough to smell the copper tang of his blood. "I'm not asking you to agree with me. I'm not asking you to believe in this. I'm asking you to trust me. Can you do that?"
He held her gaze for a long moment. Then, slowly, he nodded.
"Good." She turned back to Scribe. "Show me the schematics."
The AI's optical sensor flickered, and a holographic projection materialized in the air between them. The Colossus was a walking fortress, a massive bipedal machine that towered over the battlefield like a monument to human ambition. Its hull was covered in sensor arrays and weapon emplacements, but its core was buried deep in the center of its chest, protected by layers of armor and security systems.
"The primary access point is here." Scribe highlighted a section of the hull near the machine's left hip. "It was designed as an emergency maintenance hatch, but it was sealed during the final stages of the project. You would need to breach approximately two meters of reinforced plating to reach the interior."
Voss studied the schematic, her demolition-trained eye already calculating the charges she'd need. "What about the grief-wave? The last time I got close, it hit me with a memory. A child's birthday. A soldier's last thought."
"The grief-wave is a defensive mechanism. It activates when the Colossus perceives a threat." Scribe's optical sensor dimmed slightly. "However, my analysis suggests that it may be possible to mitigate its effects by focusing on a strong personal memory. The wave appears to target emotional vulnerability."
"You're saying I need to think about something happy while a war machine tries to drown me in dead men's memories."
"Essentially, yes."
Renner let out a low whistle. "That's the worst plan I've ever heard."
"It's the only plan we've got." Voss zoomed in on the access point, tracing the lines of the hull with her finger. "How long would it take us to get there on foot?"
"Approximately three days, assuming you can navigate the frozen zones without encountering additional FRC forces." Scribe paused. "There is also the matter of the memory lock."
"The what?"
"The Colossus's core is protected by a memory lock. It was designed to prevent unauthorized access by requiring a specific emotional key—a traumatic memory that matches the machine's own records." Scribe's optical sensor fixed on Voss. "Based on my analysis of your personnel file, Sergeant, you are the only person in the current operational theater who possesses the required key."
Voss felt the words land like a physical blow. "My squad. The ambush."
"Correct. The Colossus recorded the event. Your survival of that engagement makes you uniquely qualified to access the core."
Renner was staring at her now, his expression unreadable. "Voss. You don't have to do this."
"Yes, I do." She closed the holographic display and slung her pack over her shoulder. "I've been carrying those dog tags for six years. I've been carrying the weight of what happened in that ambush for six years. And now I finally have a chance to do something about it."
"By walking into a war machine?"
"By making sure the truth comes out." She met his eyes. "The FRC ordered my squad to die. They used us as test subjects for that thing. And they've been covering it up ever since. I can't undo that. I can't bring them back. But I can make sure the people who ordered it can't hide from it anymore."
Renner was quiet for a long moment. Then he reached into his medical kit and pulled out a fresh bandage, pressing it against his shoulder wound with a grimace.
"Three days," he said. "You said three days to get there. I'll need to scavenge supplies, patch myself up properly, and—"
"Renner."
He looked up.
"Thank you."
He shook his head, but there was a ghost of a smile on his scarred face. "Don't thank me yet. Thank me when we're not dead."
Scribe's optical sensor flickered between them. "I should note that the FRC kill squad was operating under direct orders from Colonel Vance. His failure to eliminate you will likely result in a second, larger force being deployed. The window for action is narrow."
"Then we move fast." Voss pulled on her gloves, the cold biting at her fingers even through the insulated fabric. "Scribe, you said the Colossus is calling to me. That it recognizes me as a witness. What does that mean?"
The AI was silent for a moment. When it spoke, its voice was softer, almost hesitant.
"It means the machine knows what you've lost. It knows the weight you carry. And it wants you to see what it has seen." A pause. "I believe it wants you to understand."
Voss looked out through the shattered wall of the depot, at the frozen battlefield stretching toward the horizon. Somewhere out there, the Colossus was waiting. It had absorbed forty-one minds today, added them to the millions it already carried. And now it was calling to her.
She thought of the dog tags in her pocket, the cold metal pressing against her thigh. She thought of the child's birthday, the memory that had flooded her senses on that first frozen battlefield. She thought of the faces of her squad, the men and women who had died in that ambush, who had been sacrificed so that a general could test his weapon.
She was going to walk into the belly of the machine that had killed them. She was going to face the memories that had been haunting her for six years. And she was going to make the truth impossible to ignore.
"Let's move," she said.
The snow crunched beneath her boots as she stepped out of the depot, the wind biting at her cheeks. Behind her, she heard Renner's footsteps and the soft whir of Scribe's servos. Ahead of her, the Colossus stood on the horizon, silent and eternal, waiting for her to come home.