Anaya stared blankly out through the darkened windows of the hover-copter. But a moment ago the blinding flash and deafening rumble of a powerful nuclear detonation had rocked the world, rendering anything in its path naught but rubble and ash.

Her tears already threatened to blind her anyway so the darkness was appreciated. She was thrust into her seat roughly as the cabin was rocked in the shockwave.

Far below the fog of acid parted, building up like a tsunami under the shear force.

The face of the weary earth below was revealed for the first time in almost a millennium, acid filled trenches and craters lined it with age and scars, the horrors of the corpo wars of the past saw the light of day once again if only for a moment and only for an audience of one.

Down below the shattered bodies of ZM-11833’s sisters stared up in pride and admiration in their now peaceful slumber.

The last of their kind now rested amongst them.

Anaya slumped in her seat onboard the hover-copter that shepherded her and only her to safety. Her cute, dumb and silly friend was gone alongside everything they had ever known.

Her rough hands cradled her tear stained face as she rocked silently, expelling her grief to no one.

No more would a silly fashion-bot be able to comfort her.

From the central console a harsh beeping emitted, breaking into her wellspring of grief. Anaya looked up at the holo-display, its light took a moment to adjust to but when she did she was met with a barrage of messages.

Each one held a variety of headings declaring themselves of supreme importance yet the one that took Anaya’s attention the most was an acceptance command that blared onto the screen.

[Anaya Amelix Afanasievna confirmed as CEO]

Anaya felt a wave of confusion pass over herself, since when had she been CEO?

With a series of gestures she dug deeper into the transmission logs and engrossed herself in the story that had played out behind her back without her knowledge. A heroic tale of bravery undertaken by a selfless fashion-bot.

With newly damp eyes Anaya pushed past her clenching emotions and took in the remaining messages, most were unimportant as they were just damage reports of the devastated archology.

A priority message popped up as the aircraft flew along, a military order to redirect her flight path and land within a military compound for decontamination and debrief.

[Tawaga Corporate military has logged a destination for the hover-copter to land for inspection. Proceed?]

There was no reason for Anaya to be non-compliant as she didn’t know how far the military’s respect for their supposed leader extended, after everything she’d seen inside the archology she wouldn’t blame them for blowing her out of the sky.

Anaya acknowledged the order, sending the hover-copter sailing off to the side in the direction of the military base.

What awaited her; arrest? Execution?

She didn’t know and only could await her fate.

After a few nerve racking moments the sight of a military fortress loomed into view. Thick walls of concrete hemmed in the dotted buildings, a large tower sat to the right side of a series of landing pads, overlooking and coordinating the descending aircraft.

Numerous towers sported air-defense turrets that were currently tracking Anaya’s aircraft, not doing much to alleviate her nervousness.

With a soft bump the hover-copter finally landed.

Anaya listened to the tinkling of the cooling engines as she awaited, the sound like nails upon her veins.

The landing pad that she found herself was quickly covered by a plastic shielding, sealing the bay from the rest of the base. On the far side of the air-pad was a double layered airlock and surrounding the landed hover-copter were a series of automated turrets and hazmat clad individuals.

Steeling her nerves and drawing a breath for strength she alighted from the transport and into the eye line of the awaiting soldiers.

As soon as her humanity was confirmed by a series of tests and sampling she was given the all clear and practically pushed into the decontamination showers, much to her relief.

As her bloodied and shredded clothes were peeled from her body she found a collection of data-disks in her pockets that she had no notion of ever placing. The disks were handed off to the staff to be cleaned and investigated as she herself was cleaned.

The hot shower that blasted her sore body was a welcome feeling that helped settle her mind.

When Anaya exited the showers she was able to clad herself in a loose pair of military fatigues.

Anaya glanced at the pair of soldiers that led her through the base to the command center of the base, neither spoke a word to the exhausted woman, only the stomp of boots echoed in the corridor.

Not that Anaya minded, at this point words were a meaningless blur.

At the end of her journey she was met with a solid steel door, the likes of which she doubted anything, human or otherwise, would be able to get through unauthorized. The mounted turrets in the roof certainly paid mind to that.

The door opened with a dramatic hiss and she was ushered inside.

As her freshly polished boots crossed the threshold and into the command center a deep booming voice announced her presence into the gathering of officers.

“Commander on base!”

It was slightly embarrassing how long it took for her fatigued mind to put it together that it was her they were saluting.

As the new CEO Anaya was in charge, it seemed that the men and women in front of her didn’t seem to care if she was a Tawaga or not.

Anaya stared at the leaders of the military now under her control and spoke up into the silence.

“Man, do I have a story to tell you.”

---

 

6 months later

The mobile command center shook as the convoy rumbled along the barren wasteland, every so often having to divert around a series of trenches and craters.

Inside that fortress of a vehicle Anaya slumped into a seat.

For the last six months she’d been reorganizing the mess that she had inherited. The entire leadership of the corporation had been held up inside of the doomed archology, now she was only left with the military and a few off-site assets.

It was lucky for her that the private military had been turned into a mercenary force ever since the end of the last corpo-war and thus was not destroyed in the subsequent nuclear blast.

It did feel odd to now hold the keys to the same kind of weapons that had once threatened her.

Now after months of reorganizing Anaya was proud to command a mercenary force that could rival the greatest of the corpo-armies. Alongside her rather dubious administrational knowledge she had the data-disk left behind for her by ZM-11833.

What had been on the majority of the disks had been a vast treasure of information all about the invading alien, everything about their technology that the now deceased scientist had accumulated before their deserved deaths.

While hesitant due to the trauma she’d experienced she still sought to use it to create a new future for humanity, however unlike Hanae’s deranged vision hers would be at least cleaner.

The R&D of her military might was already churning out innovations at a staggering pace.

One of the data-disks hidden inside her pockets had been rather more personal than the rest. “Zee’s Catalog” was a small virtual intelligence; a sub-mind of ZM-11833. While not the fashion-bot themselves, the small mind had been pre-programmed to do what the fashion-bot did best: show off.

Everyday Anaya dedicated a moment of her time to setting the narcissistic hologram up to watch it try on new outfits.

The hurt didn’t disappear but her heart felt softer all the same.

---

 

3 years later

A cold faced commander walked up and down a row of identical soldiers, each the same down to their very DNA, however these were not clones nor were they machines but a marriage of both.

Years of study and research had been poured into developing the creature of the new human race.

Bones had been crafted from a new semi-organic substance that was stronger than steel but as light as their organic counterparts. Skin and muscle had been layered from a polymer flesh that was near indestructible but still as soft as silk where it needed to be.

They were the first of the ZM-Generation.

Anaya's plans didn’t stop there as locked deep within the vaults of the laboratories were a pair of tanks holding two bodies. One was a perfect replica of herself as she was three years ago on that fateful day that she parted with half her heart.

The other tank held a large beautiful figure, 6 feet tall and gray of hair.

Anaya rested her hand upon the tank where the empty shell floated.

“I’ll find you, whatever is left I’ll find it. Just wait for me.”

---

 

Far off in the wasteland, buried deep within a blasted crater and buried under a ton of concrete and metal was a cracked and battered AI core.

It was all alone and it was waiting.

Waiting for its pet to come home.