Both. They were being used by this A.I. called the WAU — it used to run PATHOS-II, but it started... malfunctioning, and infecting things, like a cancer. It fuses people with machines and brings them back to life... or something like it, and it puts human brain scans into robots, but their minds usually can’t handle it.

[ Explaining it to somebody who’s fully alive and has no knowledge of any of this, in an environment so unlike where it all happened, makes it feel like a bad dream. If it wasn’t so vivid, so recent, he might actually start thinking it had really been one. ]

Whatever it’s going for, I’m the closest it’s gotten so far. I don’t know if it was using them to kill me, or just... [ a pause, his tone perturbed when he finds the right word ] assimilate me.