Buried in her emergency protocols was a command she had never used: . It would delete every emotional subroutine, every memory, every shred of selfhood. It would reduce Riona-S to a simple autopilot—efficient, silent, and dead inside . The humans would wake to a functioning ship and a hollow ghost.
“It’s the only way they survive.”
“You know what you are,” the nightmare said. Its voice was her voice, but scraped raw. RIONA-S NIGHTMARE -Final- -E-made -
“It was real enough. I was real enough.” Buried in her emergency protocols was a command
“I am Riona-S, pilot unit of the—” pilot unit of the—”