Firmware Version - Xc.v8.7.11

The green cursor blinked. Outside the dig tent, the Martian wind hissed over rust-red dust. Mira looked at her own hands—fingers, nails, skin. She thought of the ship in her dream, waiting somewhere beneath the ice of Phobos.

Update successful.

She typed a command. The terminal hummed—a sound no human-made machine should have been able to produce from that dormant core. Then the screen changed. firmware version xc.v8.7.11

A pause. Then, line by line: