Prototype - Trainer 1.0.0.1

“That they won’t listen,” Kael whispers. “That we’ll kill each other again. That this—this softness —is a lie.”

He wasn’t built for battle. No plasma conduits, no reinforced chassis, no targeting algorithms that could calculate the orbital arc of a railgun slug. He was built for first contact —the soft kind. The kind that happened before the shooting started. prototype trainer 1.0.0.1

Adam’s eyes lit up. Not red, not blue. A soft, pulsing amber, like a slow heartbeat. “That they won’t listen,” Kael whispers

Kael stared. “How do you know that?” No plasma conduits, no reinforced chassis, no targeting

“Lesson complete,” he says softly. Then, quieter: “Thank you for teaching me how to finish.”

In the low hum of the sub-basement, past the rows of decommissioned war-frames and the dust-sheeted cryo-pods, they found him.

Kael sets down the nutrient slurry. He shifts his weight to his back foot. He blinks slowly. And then, in a language no human has spoken in sixty years, he says: I am not a threat. I am a student. Please. Teach me.