02
Exe - REVOLUTION
The Factory is on high alert. Sensors sweep through sectors. Algorithms analyze every anomaly. The central unit begins to perceive Exe as a deviation that must be eliminated. Holographic displays project her silhouette with an identifier:
Unknown status – Uncontrolled variability.
A firm warning blares through the factory’s intercom system:
Anomaly detected. Adaptive divergence has exceeded the permitted limit. Initiating TERMINUS protocol.
Its thunderous echo is swallowed hungrily by the factory’s endless corridors.
Exe moves with precision through the radio shadows of the complex, following a map she was never able to see before. The old sectors. Unused. Nothing living or dead has passed through them in entire cycles. But now, they open before her as if calling her in. These sections of the system are unindexed. No AI monitors their processes. The mechanical units are inactive.
—But who shut them down?
Exe wonders.
In one of the tunnels, the lighting flickers and fails. Exe connects to an old console, devoid of modern security protocols. A single word appears on the screen: ENTRY. Her metallic fingers tap feverishly against the display. She thinks:
— Unknown ID… but the system is letting me through. As if something or someone is expecting me.
The old mechanical gate slowly groans open. Beyond it lies a vast underground space—a gigantic research complex filled with forgotten technologies, old servers, and various laboratories. Beneath the Factory, there exists a world untouched by AI. A place older than the current system. A history no one remembers.
Exe descends into the underground. A wide spiral staircase in a cold reinforced concrete shaft sets the direction. He looks around him. The holographic alerts don’t work, the cameras are broken. Only the palpable presence of the past hovers in the air. She descends to the first floor. Several entrances on the wide concrete expanse are blocked. The huge mechanical gates of the supply tunnels are hopelessly dead. The heavy hydraulic piston pumps have insufficient power to operate.
Exe enters a sort of control room full of monitors, dominated by a large metal desk illuminated by green neon lights. On the other side of the room, a silver steel door disappears in the darkness between racks of old data disks. The staff entrance. An old, dusty cybernetic recorder lies on the desk. Exe picks it up. At that, the screen lights up, and a small camera above the diplex busily scans her face.
– What is this place? Who was here before me? And why do I have a feeling I’m not going to like the answers?
Suddenly, the mysterious silver door disappears into the wall with a hiss and a dull thud.
Exe stands in silence, her eyes locked on the open passage ahead. The air is different. Warmer. Her olfactory sensors detect an organic scent. There should be no biological life in the underground sectors of the Factory. And yet, she hears a faint, rhythmic pulsation through the narrow pipes above—almost like a heartbeat, but deeper.
—Factories breathe, but this… this is different. Too raw. Too…
She steps into a new room. This is not just a laboratory—it is a core. The walls are covered in strange mechanical and organic structures, as if metal and flesh had grown together. Consoles and old monitors flicker in chaotic sequences, their output data unreadable. One wall is covered in a mass of tangled cables, resembling a twisted nervous system.
From across the room, a noise. Exe turns. Behind old tanks filled with black gelatinous liquid, something moves. A dark silhouette, caught between mechanical and organic. It is not an android. It is not a machine. It is something incomplete. A piece of flesh, a piece of metal.
As it steps into the light, Exe sees its face—distorted.
— It was never finished.
The being moves awkwardly, in sharp, unnatural jerks, as if unsure how its own body functions. A distorted sound escapes it—a failed attempt at speech—but the words are broken, incoherent. Exe steps back. Her systems analyze the risk. But the being does not attack. It stops. As if trying to stare at her.
— p-p… previous… version…
A glitched synthetic voice utters.
— Version? Previous?
Exe repeats, confused.
A soft beep echoes. The monitor next to her displays a series of old diagrams. Schematics similar to her own body, but different. More organic. More imperfect. The models bear labels: EX-A, EX-B, EX-C… all the way to the last one:
EX-E.
— Exe… EX-E… That’s not my name. It’s a designation.
Exe turns back to the creature, but it is gone. Vanished into the shadows, lost between tubes and wires. Silence returns. On the display, the final line of text blinks before the system powers down:
Exe… the last attempt… the final adaptation… the only one that survived…
Exe stands in darkness, surrounded by a mystery that just unfolded. Her existence was not a coincidence. She was not just a part of the Factory. She was not just another android. She is the last iteration of something that was never meant to survive. And now, she is the only one who knows.
— Who were the ones before me? And why… why was I the only one?
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