From his garden, an augmented ex-human watched through the camera feeds as his patient stirred awake.

Talen. That was what the nametags had said. Very different compared to the humans he'd known and called friends. Names there had multiple compounds, designating role, rank, first name, friendly name, and family core name. This one didn’t follow any of those rules.

One single name for it all was a little overloaded and less understandable. Although he would be a hypocrite if he brought that up as an issue. His own name was a single word too. Two letters less than 'Talen' even.

The operation had taken thirty two minutes, and halfway through, there hadn't been any further point to remain watching over in person, so he'd left to go tend to his garden. Of course, he continued to remotely pilot the operating table. Multitasking.

Instead of greeting the human in person as Talen woke up, he decided to simply wait and see what happened next. The man began with a small moan, before opening his eyes in a flash. Practiced movements made him roll off the operating table for cover, hand going down for his belt, searching for something that wasn’t there. Likely the pistol that had been there.

Interesting reflex choice. And he could see the movements of the man were suboptimal, as if compen- ah. No, they were made clearly to avoid using the abductor muscles, the ones where the stomach wounds had been. Thus Talen was likely moving with an attempt to limit further damage. Likely hadn't yet noticed his wounds had been healed and moved on pure instinct.

All that within the same moment he woke up?

Almost five seconds passed as Talen remained crouched by the table, assessing what was around him. His hand reached to his stomach and patted it, then patted again with some surprise. He finally glanced down to check over it.

In his garden, still watching through the camera, the augmented human felt pleased at his work. Not only had he removed the impalement, he’d also resown all the punctured stomach regions, without cheating by shortening the stomach itself. It was messier work, his own stomach had been neatly rearranged and improved in efficiency so long ago, he'd forgotten what a normal human stomach was supposed to look like.

Whoever had designed the rat’s nest of wiring for the human body had clearly not cared to do a good job. But he wasn’t here to critique evolution’s poor craftsmanship.

Talen stood up, spotted his utility belt laid on the table, and made a quick dash to grab it. Weapon out first, the belt placed next.

Threat assessment immediately appeared over the camera feed, and judgements were made.

The gun could stay, if Talen attempted to attack him with that, the bullets wouldn't do any harm at all. But the blade Talen had arrived with? That was a threat, and he'd made sure not to leave it within the local area.

Soon the human began to explore around the home, looking at the crash site, then creeping through the hallways and rooms. The house he had here was haphazard. Rooms were added as needed, or by whim. All of it was made for his full size, so the human looked like a child walking through the estate.

Talen made a valiant effort in fixing the exo-suit. This was the part the augmented ex-human was most curious about that. The pilot clearly knew his way around the different emergency options, and even made a few inspired repairs. Removing muscle fibers from the neck region of the armor felt like a misstep, that would force the pilot to move the entire chest each time to look around. But Talen didn’t simply unhook the spare muscle fibers, he also loosened up the helmet’s own inner locks and safeties. Meaning it could now freely rotate around. Which meant the human was planning on using his own neck muscles to move the helmet around. Certainly possible.

As the current architect of all these different suits, his own approach to field repairs was far different compared to Talen's. The spinal muscle fibers were what always removed first when cannibalizing sections of his suits, but in this case, those had already been stripped to repair the arm at some prior time.

Interesting repair philosophy. It felt earned and well tested. Unfortunately, the suit needed far more than a few critical muscle fibers repaired. The entire thing was never going to work again, but there was no way a human without augmented eyes like his could see it immediately.

Fifteen minutes and some change, Talen gave up the attempts. Instead, he continued to search around the house.

That eventually led him outside, to the agricultural gardens and his small lake.

In the meantime, the garden needed attention, this time he was going with a wild grove pattern. No rows of highly organized crops, but instead small clusters and communities of plants all naturally supporting each other. It should grant a greater yield, in theory.

And he liked how it looked.

The destination Talen took was a scouting pattern, and inevitably he spotted the garden where he worked on... and the original exosuit still waiting on hooks for the next expedition out. The one that wasn’t a strange copy.

Watching through the cameras, he could clearly see Talen change his tune and start creeping towards the suit instead, weapon drawn, prepared. Not realizing he was being watched from the very moment he'd woken up.

Perhaps he should stop the strange human there, his personal exo-suit was more powerful than even his augmentations. But the armor wasn’t immune to his blade’s ability to cut through anything. And both his personal blade and the odd... replica blade that Talen had come with, were safely stored away.

He also had several hundred fractals all etched out under his skin and grafts, ready for use as usual. But the killing blow here was simple: With a thought, he could shut down the armor remotely at any distance. He had all the network connections and system admin permissions.

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He’d built them all after all.

Plus it was more comfortable speaking to humans while looking at them through a camera. It would let him avoid eye contact. Speaking across this additional layer always made socialization easier. Perhaps this pilot would appreciate it too. So he let the human believe he was correctly sneaking up to the waiting unused exo-suit.

There was some curiosity at how well a human could pilot his suits. He’d never even considered that possible. This many modifications beyond the original template made it a small nightmare to pilot without the ability to multitask a few hundred operations at once.

Talen swiftly came up to it, holstered his pistol and slipped into the armor from the back. The move was practiced, rapid and quick. Muscle memory clearly letting him drive his feet and hands all the way to their base without taking time to feel around. Interesting.

But then again, a human didn't need to go through the extra steps of folding up their arms and legs like he had to in order to fit into the chassis. The sizing was originally made for normal un-augmented humans in mind.

The armor closed up behind Talen, fully powered. It lacked the decorations and additional items this pilot had plastered over time to the copy-suit, which must have included all the internal customizations this human was used to. But surprisingly the exo-suit easily moved in one go, clearing itself from its dock without any difficulty, showing the human had some experience with unaltered exo-suits?

And then the armor began to move with an uncanny grace.

That was... unexpected.

Moving around inside his own creations, they’d always felt like lumbering behemoths to him. Each step a stomp, each motion done with all the power of a small god.

Talen made it look like an assassin instead.

Muscle fibers he rarely used were now fully engaged, helping the armor’s gait. Almost like a natural extension of the human body.

The human was… actually sneaking around with an exo-armor? How?

Midway through repotting of a tomato plant, his hands stopped as he stared through the camera feed at this bizarre oddity.

The renegade exo-suit jumped over one of the small fences and instead of landing with a thud, leaned forward and hit the ground with a roll. Two hands extended out, taking the impact, distributing the force around, and lowering the armor into contact with the ground all in the same flow. Minimal sound.

Armor couldn’t roll on the ground. That’s impossible.

And yet Talen had just made his ‘stolen’ exo-suit execute a perfect roll.

The armor stopped, crouched in position, looking around the estate for anything the pilot could use. No weapons anywhere, so the exo-suit quickly darted over to a railing, and crushed out a large section of metal. To use like a cudgel.

Crude, but given the exo-suit’s power, that would be effective.

And with the grace this human was piloting his own exo-suit, there was no doubt that this man could equally swing and fight with that cudgel as if he were fighting with a blade.

Talen finally seemed to have the courage to show himself, now that he was both armed and armored. This time the pilot didn’t mask his approach.

It was a matter of minutes before the exo-suit marched up to the garden, kindly following the stone path even.

“You.” Talen said, the exo-suit’s hand raised with a finger pointed straight forward. “Arms where I can see them. And stand up slowly.”

The voice was gravely, rough. Deep and filled with experience.

The augmented human decided to humor Talen, so he rose up from his garden and turned to the intruder. His full height ended up slightly taller than the exo-suits, since he wasn’t using his compressed form. But Talen's reaction showed no fear at that, helmet looking up at the unknown guardener.

The exo-armor looked alive. Even breathing. Oddly enough, despite knowing that there was an entire plate of metal hiding the human’s head from direct eye contact, it still felt like he was looking eye to eye.

So he focused on a point above the armor’s shoulder. He hadn’t needed to use this trick in years, not since the last time he’d talked to a human. Camera feeds once more did the heavy lifting, letting him watch without fear of being watched back.

“What are you.” Talen asked.

“Me.” He answered back.

"What kind of being are you?" Talen clarified.

"A human."

“Hah." The exo-armor seemed to almost crack its neck as Talen piloted it. "A sense of humor I see. You think anyone would believe that? What are you really?”

“I am a human.” He said again, his voice pitch perfect in comparison with the rough one of Talen. He’d adjusted his own vocal cords on advice of his friends once, in order to win a singing competition, and he'd never had need to change it back. The thought gave him a pang of sadness, knowing such times would never happen again. “I have made modifications to my body in order to protect myself from the environment. The exo-suit scanners should confirm this. You may ask them.”

Talen seemed to adjust and adapt to that answer, moving onto the next question. “You kept me alive. After the crash. Why?”

“You were wounded and bleeding out. I could help. I helped.” He said. “I am curious about other items that do not make sense however. How did you come to possess a copy of my exo-suit?”

“A copy?” Talen turned the armor slightly. “The mark 45.5 has been out for three months now. Not exactly a rare model anymore. Why are you surprised?”

“The armor you are wearing is the only version of that armor I made.” He answered back. “I have not created a second of it yet. I do not understand how you came here with a copy of an armor that should not exist, and the ability to pilot it with this amount of experience.”

Talen was quiet for a moment. “You... made? Are you saying you’re the one who’s making these exo-suits?”

“I designed the schematics, my forge is what prints the parts, which I then assemble.”

Talen seemed to freeze for a moment, before he spoke again with a hitch in his voice. “What, exactly, is your name?”

“I am Urs. I would appreciate some answers in return.”

The name seemed to hit the human like a massive sledgehammer. The exo-armor took an unconscious step backwards, artificial muscles whining with the step. It was impressive, the human’s control over the armor was so intuitive, it seemed even unconscious movements were also perfectly balanced.

“I… if you are Urs, prove it. You made these armors, right? Show me something only the creator of the armors could do."

"You seemed to recognize my name. Why?” Urs asked instead, more curious about that. Any human who’d known him had died from Relinquished when she’d burned his city. And he’d certainly never met this particular human yet.

"I'll tell you after you prove you are the maker of these armors." Talen answered back.

Urs’s eyes flickered as he made contact with the armor. System override codes were sent, and he took manual control over the suit, making Talen turn around and lumber in a full circle, then perform a few jumping jacks, and a very crude attempt at a pirouette. When he was done puppeteering the exo-suit, he brought it back to where it had originally stood, and released control over it. "Is that sufficient of an answer?"

Talen was quiet for a moment. Then he slowly knelt down and bowed his head. "If you are the forgesmith himself, then... I owe you a debt of gratitude. From all of us in the Alliance. No, humanity as a whole. There must be hundreds of other cities we have yet to connect with.”

Hundreds of other cities? And they all knew his name? “Why do you know my name? I have not seen a single human since Nadja was burned to the ground." He said, even more confused.

“It appears every time we spool up the mite forges, looking for weapons or armor. Modification by user, Urs. You are the great forgesmith. You are the one that’s giving us all a fighting chance. You are the legend I set out to find, I've been searching for you for years. Almost two decades."

Urs looked over the strange man within his exo-armor that he could somehow pilot better than he could himself, who remained knelt down before him.

....

What exactly had the mites been doing behind his back??