Prologue

The morning sun streamed in through the small skylight windows of the old automotive garage where she was sitting, working on three laptops at once. Each one had a screen packed with code. She needed those three screens to examine and switch between all the necessary files. Constant window-swapping would just waste time, and delay the start of the work by days.

At the center of the garage was a pathetic lump of metal—the torso frame of an arm slave, dangling from chains. It had no arms, no legs, and almost no armor. The head—hanging there almost like an afterthought—was badly damaged, with only empty cavities where sensors and machine guns had once been mounted. Even the cavity meant to hold the cold fusion palladium reactor lay hollow.

The screens continued to spill out data. She absorbed it hungrily while typing, punching in orders with a programming language known as “BAda.” The language was swift and precise, far more efficient than any programming language that had come before it. A hundred orders could be issued with just a few lines of code... so long as the programmer was capable of comprehending it.

As she typed, she began to speak to him.

Hello, there. I think you almost died.

It probably felt like your final defeat. You must think it’s all over, all gone dark... that you’re freed from the fight. But no, you’re not even thinking, are you? Right now, you’re an inanimate husk, and husks don’t think... or regret.

Let’s put an end to that darkness. Everyone else thinks you’re a hollowed-out wreck, but not me. They destroyed your vocal interface—I’m repairing it, of course—but your mind remains intact. The quantum patterns continue to rush through the near-infinite canals of your brain. I can feel them.

The light was streaming in through the skylight at a different angle now.

There wasn’t enough oxygen reaching her brain; there weren’t enough calories to keep her mind going. She took a deep breath and relaxed her stiffened shoulders as she took a bite of the chocolate lying on top of the table, and sipped at her coffee with cream. It was cold. Then she began to type again, knowing every line of code would bring her closer to “him.”

Around the time the angle of the light told her that it was evening, she realized she was close. She called out to one of her comrades—a woman waiting in the corner of the garage, absorbed in her reading. “Turn it on.”

The woman closed her book and connected a power cable to a unit next to the damaged arm slave—an electronic device about the size of a refrigerator—then pulled a large lever on the wall. The lights in the garage flickered for a moment, and then the unit began receiving power.

“Are you finished?” the slender, dark-haired woman asked.

“Just testing it now. It may take a while yet.”

“I see. Tell me if you need anything.”

“Sure.”

The tests took a day and a half. She modified the program, measured the unit’s responses, then made even more modifications, over and over again. Whenever she got tired, she shared a club sandwich silently with her waiting comrades, had a nap, then got back to work.

Around the time the sun took on the red hue of evening again, she said, “It’s finished.” Then she hit the ‘enter’ key, delivering the final keystroke. An icon indicating a connection to the unit blinked in the center of the screen, and letters of the English alphabet began to appear in one window.

e... e...

She hadn’t touched the keys. The output was coming directly from the unit to her PC.

e... es... escape... immediately. Repeat... recommended to abandon unit and escape immediately.

Thanks sergeant. Good luck.

Inside the garage, silent except for the sounds of the generator and the cooling unit, lines of irrelevant yet frightening words crossed the screen. This was probably what the unit had been attempting to relay just before it lost functionality.

......

She waited a little while longer. It would take “him” a while to notice the incongruities, and to work out the situation “he” found himself in.

Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?

A strange question. Was the complexity of the input confusing him? Or was he dreaming?

Protocol signals came through to her laptop. He seemed to have realized that he was connected to it, and that tests had been run on him before he’d awakened. The colorful three-dimensional graph in another window indicated a change in his simulated psychological state. Then a part of the graph that had been red turned yellow, and the rapid undulation of the lines flattened out. It had gone from the tension of battle to caution—extreme caution. He must believe he had fallen into enemy hands.

She twined her fingers together, stretching them lightly to loosen up, then typed out a greeting. Hello, Al. I’ve been looking for you.

The artificial intelligence maintained his silence. Not a single signal was returned.

Smart boy, she thought. He won’t talk that easily. It was going to take a lot of work to convince him that he was safe, and that they were on his side. Still, after about an hour of determined communication with him, Al at last made a response in two simple words:

What’s the situation?

The raven-haired woman who was watching her work over her shoulder let out a faint laugh.

“What is it?”

“He’s just like his master.”