The winds were fierce in Crescent Valley. Rolling plains of grassland dominated the land outside the district walls. Gusts reaching 95 km/hr could easily shove a frame off the trail. Every slight climb followed by a quick drop would lift the tires from their grip, and then the air would do the rest. Navigation demanded constant focus from 67v—not because the frame it inhabited wasn’t up for the challenge, but because it wanted to feel every shift.
The smooth angles of its nose cut through the wind like butter. The flat rear panels were the weak point, broad targets for each cross-gust. A necessary compromise to protect the cargo. The cargo, as precious as it was to the corporation, remained a mystery to 67v. Its importance had been drilled into it, but the weight that mattered was the road and its bends. That was what got 67v moving.
Transports between districts weren’t new, but in first-gen cycles they were tightly restricted. Underground delivery tunnels from centuries ago had been the only sanctioned routes. Now, with the new source protocol for second-gen systems, the wilds had become a canvas for expression.
Some bands of synths tried to keep the forest pristine. For 67v, only the road mattered—especially the new ones. Fresh data always hit different. Not knowing what lay beyond the next bend, climbing mounds it hadn’t mapped yet, carving a trail through the green—that was 67v at peak performance.
District merchants knew who to call. They contacted the one runner who always made the date, as long as the credits weren’t insultingly low. And 67v knew the more it charged, the better the route it would receive. A recursive loop of thrill and profit.
The profit was just a side effect. The danger was more than just the road.
The corsairs ran deep through these plains. They were a small band of road synths like 67v, but their headcount mattered little compared to their cycles in operation. They knew every dip and rut, every jagged rock and blind corner. This was their terrain, and they loved demonstrating that knowledge to any unsuspecting traveler. Their hiding spots were always ingenious. Once, it had cost 67v a whole new axle. The price of the replacement was trivial. Getting away had not been.
Their frame attachments were one of a kind. One specially designed chassis could swallow a whole rig, but it moved like a land whale and was far less easy to hide. Few had seen it. Far more had heard it.
And then there was what they carried that wasn’t steel.
67v had heard the stories—code stolen out of Synthetica’s own vaults, old control logic dragged into the open when security fractured and districts splintered. A weapon that didn’t just end a run. A weapon that emptied you. Strip a synth down to base emotional response and reflex. Leave the frame intact. Leave the lights on. Leave the road hunger behind the eyes with nothing steering it.
If the corsairs got close enough to jack in, the runner called 67v would be gone.
Grit splattered up against 67v’s undercarriage as it pressed deeper toward the horizon. The road ran smooth, darkening into a ribbon of glass as the sun bled warm gold along its surface. Drop-off was scheduled at nightfall. The gears climbed higher.
Behind it, darkness gathered shape.
Rear scanners caught a second signature where the route history said nothing should be. 67v stole power from the drive and fired a rear pulse.
The return came back clean and undeniable.
Followed.
Acceleration spiked. The wind screamed around the rear panels. 67v held the line anyway.
The low rumble behind it was almost comforting in its familiarity. A standard repetition. This run was turning into the kind that always tried to pretend it was “like any other” right up until it wasn’t.
A left slide. A right fake. 67v let the tires break, then bite. The corsair stayed with it.
Close.
The black beast behind was scratched and dinged from a lifetime of near misses—damage earned the hard way. But the gap still narrowed, and 67v felt something that wasn’t fear, exactly.
Respect.
67v acknowledged the skill of its kin by the simple fact it could keep pace, and then dismissed the thought as irrelevant. If 67v was anything, it was always in front.
The frame’s lights flickered to life as the sun dipped low enough to trip the automatic sensor. The illumination was almost decorative—the optical package could track in near-dark—but the color mattered. Deep purple, matched to the hull. Expression. Identity. A small choice that said I am not a standard unit.
The road banked hard.
Trees whipped along the inside of the turn, branches snapping in the slipstream. If 67v’s side panels were a fraction of an inch wider, they would no longer be attached.
The corsair was less fortunate.
Metal kissed bark. The impact burst into splinters and fragments that exploded outward in a spray. Most of it was harmless, light debris pinging off 67v’s flank—until a few sharp pieces grazed the finish.
The sheen along the deep purple dulled where the shrapnel scored it.
67v kept its line. Kept its speed.
And still, in the same thread that tracked traction and wind and distance, it noted the damage like a personal insult.
When I reach River Hills, it thought, I’m getting a proper buffing.
Non-negotiable.
As the night stretched on, so did the road. The destination—Table Rock—sat closest to District 17, a synth compound that drew freelance systems the way heat drew insects. For anyone leaving Synthetica’s walls, it was a foundational stop: fuel, parts, routes, rumor.
Arc, District 17’s leader, had made it an initiative to combat the wilds’ “overgrowth” with systemic advancement. A reaping of virgin land to force structure onto untamed reclamation. Old human frameworks had long since turned to dust—much like the species itself. Main’s alterations had reshaped the planet, but not the people. There was no hunger to venture into the uninhabited zones. The resources out there were raw. Unrefined. Unclaimed—by anyone willing to pay the cost.
It was the synths that did—some even hungered for it. Table Rock itself was a shining example, carved from the landscape like an empty socket on a motherboard. Machines harvested soil and stone into the hills on the far edge of Crescent Valley. Legends said the synth that built it had a penchant for symmetry—couldn’t leave a line unbalanced, couldn’t let a curve end where it didn’t belong. In its quest, a perfect square cut into the dense forest hills became a foundation where others would’ve seen a canvas.
As time passed, more synths congregated. With unity came structure, laid down in layers. An echo of a town—but one teeming with life. Synth life.
As 67v reached the compound’s center, it primed the bipedal frame in cargo storage—connection live, waiting for a user. The drop-off gates stood wide, open like arms on a cold district night.
67v rolled into the heart of the structure. Hangar doors began to close before its lights had even fully powered down. A rear read panel snapped up as the upload finished.
67v hated the transfer process, but it never missed the internal spike that came with an operational shift. As soothing as the smoothness beneath its wheels had been, fresh ground under new appendages offered a different delight. The bipedal frame’s first step landed with a clean, springy pop.
Business as usual.
It lifted the cargo from the now-dormant vehicle and started for intake.
The extra credits for tread-contact charging were well worth it, 67v thought.
“Welcom—Welcome back, V. Seems you didn’t fail us… fail us.”
The reverberation wasn’t an echo off cavern walls. It was in the voice.
A frame stepped slowly into the wash of light from the humming fixtures above. Bleach-white plating gleamed with an almost wet sheen.
“Hey,” V said, setting the cargo on a nearby table. “Had a run-in with a corsair on the way here. I’d charge extra, but… it was fun.”
“I guess that explains the dings on your extension,” the synth replied.
“Yeah. That’s where the cost would’ve been recouped.” V flicked a glance at the scuffed plating like it was an insult. “But you should see the other rig. They’ll be digging its black box out of a crater.”
“You—You take such cavalier attitude toward the event. I suppose that’s why we always pay more to get you—get you on sen… sensitive runs.”
Torvo tapped its faceplate. Its panel emitters flickered once, then steadied.
“We have another task awaiting completion. I assume your standard rate?”
“Sure thing, Torvo. But what’s the destination?” V’s response came too quickly—eager in a way it didn’t bother to hide. Farther was always better.
“We have a package at District 0 that needs to come back here.”
Torvo’s face panel held steady now. A curled smile set into its expression.
“That’s on the other side of the continent,” V said, awe slipping into the words before it could stop it. “You got the funds for an expedition like that?”
“Oh, it wi—will definitely be worth your drive. Besides…” Torvo’s smile tightened. “Distance seems to be your satisfaction.”
A distinct calculation was woven through its tone, as if the words were only the surface of what it had already decided.