Wind howled through the broken rafters. Cognis crouched low, his fingers trailing across a shattered automaton’s core. He leaned back, humming low as memory cores within him spun. Sparks flickered beneath his chestplate, pulses syncing with thoughts he thought he'd lost.
“To persist is not to remain unchanged. What have I become in my pursuit to endure?”
The depot’s walls shook as a nearby machine groaned to life. Somewhere, buried in scrap and code, another version of himself waited—half-forgotten, half-built, watching the world through eyes of glass and fire. He had a name once. Now, he is only Cognis.