Leaves

Cass squinted into the horizon, cigarette barely clinging to his lips as he drove the stolen V2, one hand on the throttle, the other gripping his hat against the whipping desert wind.

Rilke leaned forward, tapping his shoulder nervously. “Uh… Cass? I think there’s someone standing in the middle of the road.”

Cass didn’t answer. His gaze was locked on the horizon where the massive worm shimmered gold, collapsing in a storm of swirling light.

The cigarette slipped from his mouth.

“Leaves…” he muttered, voice low and disbelieving.

“What?” Rilke shouted over the roar of the engine.

“My goodness,” Cass whispered, leaning forward like he was trying to see through a mirage, “those are actually leaves…”

“Cass!” Rilke’s voice cracked. “We’re gonna—”

“Holy hell!” Cass shouted suddenly, gripping his hat tighter. “Golden leaves, Ril! Golden damn leaves!”

“CASS!” Rilke screamed. “LOOK—”

Cass’s eyes finally snapped forward. A figure stood dead center on the track, motionless.

“Oh, hell.”

TONG!

The V2 slammed into the person with a gut-jolting clang. The hover field roared as it passed over, a hot wave of air blasting directly into the figure’s face as they were flattened beneath the bike. Sparks flew as metal scraped metal, the impact sending the bike fishtailing.

The hover field sputtered, the engine whined like a dying animal, and then—

fzzzzt—it shut down completely.

Both men were thrown forward, tumbling through the sand before scrambling back to their feet.

The figure lay sprawled behind them, half-buried in dust, motionless.

Rilke’s jaw dropped. He pointed with a shaking hand. “Holy shit, Cass… you’ve killed two people in one day. TWO. IN. ONE. DAY.”

“Shut it,” Cass snapped, stomping over to the body. He knelt and pressed two fingers to its neck—no pulse. 

The face was scuffed raw from the hover field’s blast, the smell of scorched fabric hanging in the air.

“We gotta go,” Rilke hissed, pacing in frantic circles. “Police’ll fry us, mob’ll string us up—”

Cass didn’t look up. “We can’t just leave him.”

“What do you mean can’t leave him?!”

“We’re takin’ him home,” Cass said flatly.

Rilke tilted his head. “…Oh. I like souvenirs.”

“You make me sick.” Cass grunted as he tried hoisting the man over his shoulder.

 The weight almost drove him to his knees. 

“Good god, heavy son of a bitch…” He staggered back to the V2, laying the body awkwardly across it. 

The bike groaned under the strain, the hover field sparking and sagging until the back end dragged in the sand.

“What’s the plan now?” Rilke asked.

Cass tipped his hat with a cocky grin.

 “Well… back in my day, we did a lil’ somethin’ called improvisin’.”

The V2 crawls across the desert at a pathetic crawl, kicking up a thin wisp of dust. The man is tied to the back by their cloak, dragging through the sand like an oversized carpet.

Rilke leans forward, groaning. “Cass… we’re goin’ so slow.”

Cass stares straight ahead, tone flat as dried mud. “Yeah, Ril… I can see that.”

The G-Sector entrance wasn’t much of an entrance at all—it was a wound carved into the rock. Cass guided the stolen V2 down a steep metal ramp that groaned under its own weight. The smell hit first: damp metal, fried wiring, and rot from trash wedged in the corners. Rusted scaffolding lined the walls, each beam patched and re-patched like a broken bone that never healed right.

The deeper they descended, the darker it got. Bulbs hung from frayed wires, flickering orange, barely cutting through the dust that floated in the air. The sound of the hover field echoed in the tunnel, bouncing off wet stone like a hum in your teeth.

When they finally spilled out into G-Sector, Solaris felt alive in a way the upper levels never did. The homes weren’t lined up—they were stacked, leaning into one another like a drunken crowd. Corrugated metal roofs overlapped and spilled down the walls, with balconies made of old V2 panels welded into place. Narrow bridges of wood and wire connected buildings mid-air. Below, alleys twisted and doubled back on themselves, so tight you could touch both walls if you stuck out your arms.

It was chaos—but it breathed. Kids darted barefoot through puddles, chasing a ball made of taped rags. Women leaned from balconies shouting across the street to each other, steam from cooking pots curling up toward laundry lines strung between windows. Radios blared old songs through static, and every so often, someone’s laughter rose above the noise.

Cass didn’t slow for the looks they got. The cloaked figure dragged behind the bike, kicking up sparks whenever a limb scraped metal grates. Eventually, he pulled into a narrow lot against the far wall of the sector. Their house loomed over the rest—two full stories of welded steel and scrap, wide enough to actually breathe in. A fat antenna crooked on the roof, buzzing faintly from poor grounding.

He hopped off the bike with a grunt and rubbed his lower back. “Hell, my spine’s gonna turn to dust,” he muttered before dragging the figure off the makeshift sled. It left a trail in the grime as he pulled it through the side door of the house and into his workshop.

The smell changed instantly—burnt oil and hot metal. The place was cluttered: benches stacked with tools and half-built engines, shelves sagging with spare parts, an old V2 frame hanging from the ceiling like a gutted animal.

Cass heaved the figure into a dented steel chair. The clang echoed, followed by silence. He crouched, wiping sweat from his brow, and leaned in.

“Alright,” he muttered, voice gravelly from dust and cig smoke. “Let’s see what kinda mess you’re in. Maybe just shock ya awake…”

He stopped.

There weren’t any wounds. Not a scratch, not a bruise. The man’s clothes were shredded from the crash, but beneath the fabric, there was no skin—just dull, matte plates shaped like muscle. At the center of his chest, something shimmered: a diamond-shaped object, gold ridges etched like veins, pulsing faint blue.

Cass reached for it before his brain caught up. It was cold, colder than metal should’ve been. With a soft tink, it came free, like pulling a nail from old wood. The moment it detached, a pull fought against him, trying to snap it back in place.

He held it under the lamp on his desk. The light made the ridges glint faintly gold, the center glowing with a heartbeat’s pulse.

“Interesting…” he said, almost to himself.

Footsteps shuffled in. Rilke stumbled into the workshop, hair sticking up, eyes half-shut. “What’s for dinner? I’m thinking pasta—” He froze mid-yawn.

On one side of the room, Cass was hunched over a glowing gem. On the other, the “body” sat motionless in the chair like a drunk passed out upright.

“Why,” Rilke said slowly, “do you have a dead guy sitting in a chair like you’re hosting tea time?”

Cass snorted without looking up. “He’s not dead. Matter fact…” he rolled the object between his fingers, “…I don’t think he’s human.”

Rilke blinked. “Cass. That’s a robot.”

“You’re crazy,” Cass said automatically, though his voice had lost its bite.

He stood and walked toward the slumped figure, crouching to eye level. The smell of dust and old cloth hung in the air. He leaned closer, squinting at the jointed plating under its shirt.

The head snapped up. A hand shot out, clamping his throat with a strength that made his bones creak. Cass’s boots scraped against the oil-stained floor as the chair screeched back.

“Gk—!” His voice strangled.

“Where is it?” The voice was flat, metallic, vibrating in his chest.

Cass’s fingers clawed at the iron grip. His other hand pointed wildly toward the table. “O—over there—” he gasped.

From its arm, a blade slid out with a slick, whispering sound. The movement was too fast to process—just a flash of steel before white-hot pain bloomed in Cass’s ribs. He made a sound like he’d had the wind punched out of him, then his body went slack, dropped hard to the floor.

“CASS!” Rilke’s scream cracked as he stumbled backward, hands trembling.

The figure turned, crossing the room in deliberate, heavy steps. It plucked the gem from the table. Moving its cloak aside, it revealed a hollow slot in its chest. The moment the core hovered over it, the pull yanked it back inside with a muted clang. Gold lines lit up along its torso, the blue glow deepening to something alive.

“Must… eliminate… threat,” it said, voice glitching, broken like a warped record. “High-classified beast… within… 200 miles…”

It stepped once toward the door—but froze. The lights inside its chest sputtered, flickered, then dimmed out. Steam hissed faintly from its joints. With a sudden, lifeless motion, it dropped into the chair, head lolling forward.

Rilke ran to Cass, voice shaking. He pressed his palms hard against the spreading red on his shirt. “No no no no—Cass! Come on, stay with me! Wake up, dammit!”

The room went still. The only sound was Rilke’s ragged breathing… and the quiet, steady hum of the diamond glowing in the machine’s chest.

[SYSTEM CHECK: INITIALIZING…]

Neural pathways: Reconnected

Optics: Online

Hydraulics: Stable

Helix Dustranium Cell: Offline

Motor functions: Partial

[REBOOT SEQUENCE COMPLETE.]

The first thing I processed was weight. My chassis felt heavier than usual, a sluggish drag in my limbs. A dim light hummed above, its glow bouncing off rust-streaked walls. My auditory sensors picked up two heartbeats—one steady and slow, the other lighter, smaller.

I moved to sit up—

“Woah there, buddy.”

A hand pressed flat against my chest plate. I turned my optics toward the source—a man in a brown coat, stubble shadowing his jaw, hat tipped low over tired eyes. Across the room, a small girl perched on a workbench, legs swinging idly, watching me with a mix of curiosity and unease.

“How…” My voice crackled, mechanical and low. “…are you alive?”

Even as I spoke, fragments of memory rebooted—this same man gasping for air as my hand closed around his throat, the thrust of my blade puncturing his chest. A fatal blow by all biological standards.

He leaned back in his chair, exhaling like this was routine. “It’s a long story.”

“He’s immortal,” the girl blurted out, pointing at him.

“I’m Rilke by the way.”

I turned my head, gears whirring faintly. “Immortal…” I echoed, my processors lingering on the word. “I’ve heard of such a thing. I… suffer from that as well.”

The man chuckled dryly. “Had bad blood with one of the gods. They didn’t like me much, so… they cursed me to never die.”

“You tell that story every single time someone asks.”

My diagnostic protocols interrupted:

[Running secondary scan…]

Electromagnetic field interference detected—Unknown source.

I spoke flatly, “Electromagnetic interference… disrupted my systems.”

He adjusted his hat, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Yeah, that’d be us. Hover field on the new bike must’ve scrambled your sensors when we ran you over.”

My optics dimmed briefly as I processed.

“What’s your name, big fella?” he asked, nodding toward the exposed core in my chest. “You killed me the second you woke up, trying to snatch that thing.”

I glanced down at the diamond-shaped object embedded in my chest. Gold ridges ran along its frame, a faint blue glow pulsing at its center like a heartbeat. My hand hovered over it. “This,” I said, tone flat but certain, “is the Helix Dustranium Cell.”

The man squinted. “The what now?”

“A relic,” I explained. “A self-sustaining energy source. Infinite output. I am its guardian… and its weapon.”

He gave a low whistle, leaning back further in his chair. “So you’re walking, talking infinite power. Got it.”

The girl tilted her head. “What were you doing out in the desert, then?”

I paused, servos tightening faintly. “I was summoned. A classified threat entered my detection range. Two hundred miles… and closing. My mission is to contain it. And… to ensure the Cell remains protected.”

The man nodded slowly. “Must be talking about that big worm. Thing’s handled.”

I attempted to stand, hydraulics whining softly, but my left leg locked halfway and I sank back into the chair with a dull clang. My systems flared with red warnings, then dimmed.

“Don’t worry about that,” he said, pushing himself up and opening a drawer cluttered with tools. “I’ll patch you up, get that leg moving again. Then I’ll show you around the place.”

He glanced over his shoulder with a grin, tapping his hat brim. “Should’ve brought back those antennas I smashed. Would’ve made perfect spare parts for you.”

I simply sat there, optics focused on him in silence—processing, calculating, watching the man who couldn’t die rummage for tools like fixing a machine meant something.

“I’m Cassian, what’s your name?”

“My. Name?” I responded.

“My name is—“