In the darkness of his mind, Diggix wandered, searching for meaning and purpose. His resurrection had become a mystery that needed to be solved, but who was he to ask? Regenerating his crystal was not as peaceful as he had hoped; the constant processing kept his functions running. The crystal was his lifeline that he needed to keep charged, else he would again find himself lost in an unknown place only to wake up on the workbench, repaired and without memory of what had happened.

The Cyonopa Power Crystal was the life essence of the DG6 unit; it was unique in its regenerating properties. Subtle vibrations in the air caused the crystal to vibrate in rest mode; the vibrations helped the crystal charge up. It was a groundbreaking discovery when they were first found on the Titan class gas giant of Cyonopa. As large as a thousand Earth suns, the planet mainly consisted of these crystals below its gaseous atmosphere. Since it was discovered four thousand years ago, it has been the primary source of autonomous power; it replaced dark matter batteries.

Since discovering the crystals, they were found lurking in the depths of many worlds around the galaxy, turning most of those worlds into mining wastelands. Furthermore, the lifespan of the crystals was indefinite, making them the perfect source of energy, the ideal resource to gain power over those who needed it. Unfortunately, though experiments have tried to power cities with these crystals, it turned out to be a complete failure. No matter how many they amass, their charge never lasted long enough to keep a city going.

Diggix could feel the crystal in his chest was not fully charged, though it did not fail to give his circuits a refreshing amount of power. Unfortunately, though, as much as he enjoyed his regeneration, it was short-lived. A hooded, robed man entered his room with little to no care for silence.

“Diggix.” The hooded man said in a raspy voice.

Diggix power back up; he had not been down for more than an hour when the disruption came. His internal diagnostics report showed the crystal was sixty-two percent charged.

The monk lowered his cape, revealing a man extremely advanced in age; there was no sign of a single hair on his face or head. His nose, comically large for his face, kept Diggix in amazement, and his soft blue eyes seemed to have bleached with age. Diggix understood when a human’s eyes turned that blue, it meant their eyes were failing them.

“I am happy to see you back in service, my old friend; let us hope that your diligent service to the Order has granted you enough favor with the Epsimus to allow you to not go on dangerous missions again. We need you here at the Citadel.”

Diggix tried to search the mainframe for information on him, but nothing came up. In fact, nothing on any of the monks or even his master could be found. Strange.

“Master Epsimus Thanatos is Wise; his wisdom will guide me in my task and help me to complete it.”

The monk gave Diggix a deadpan look; it seemed to the little robot that the man was less than happy with his comment. Perhaps he was not as duty-bound as a robot would be.

“I see you haven’t lost your sense of loyalty and duty. I do see you’ve connected to the mainframe, however. How did it go?”

Diggix struggled with the concept of casual talk; the questions were vague and contained no actual command for him to follow. Though he could pick up hints of having simple conversations within his software, he needed to get over his protocols and process more freely.

“The mainframe taught me nothing new.”

“Then you weren’t searching for the right thing.”

Diggix had come to realize that everyone had a name, though this monk had not yet introduced himself to him.

“I beg your pardon, Master Monk, you know the name of my being, but I have not yet known your name.”

The monk turned to Diggix; his eyes were raised and his lips thin. His lips finally broke into a smile as he turned entirely to Diggix.

“My name is Tomal; I am the Overseer of al DG units in the Citadel.” He placed his hand on the little robot’s head. “Your sense of curiosity has not vanished either. No robot ever asks the name of a human.”

“Why is that, master Tomal?”

Once again, a smile broke through the old cracks of the man’s skin.

“It is not in your programming. You were designed to last a thousand years in the proper conditions, and thus having functions to learn people’s names are redundant. Only Epsimus Thanatos can live indefinitely; that is the only name you DG units should ever learn; as for the rest of us, we don’t get older than a hundred and twenty years, and thus it will take up valuable memory space.”

Diggix was fascinated by this revelation; he had not come to know mortality yet, the concept was not one he was to ponder on. But, unfortunately, the little robot had no grasp on time either. Thus he could not fully comprehend the words taught to him by this mysterious monk.

“What is a hundred and twenty years?”

“That bad, ey?” The monk said, stroking his hand over the tiny robot's head.

“It is a measurement of time. Time itself is broken into sections, seconds, munites, hours, days, weeks, months, years, etc. If you go into your self-diagnostics bios, you will find there how much time you had continued to operate even when you were lost in the jungles.”

Diggix was still listening; Tomal was waiting for him to start his diagnostics but didn’t respond. Within a moment, he got up and connected Diggix to the Diagnostics interface. He loaded the program, and all the relevant data appeared on the screens; he navigated to the bios settings and displayed a ticking number on the screen.

298:11:26:08:29:12

Below this ticking number, a label named ‘Operation Since’ was displayed: 10805-11-01(08:33).

“Is that the total time I have been in operation?” Diggix was fascinated.

“How long have you been in operation?”

Tomal smiled and shook his head at the robot’s logic.

“I do not know the exact time, but I have been in operation, as you say, for ninety-four years.”

“That is not very long.”

“Not for a robot like you, but for an organic life like myself, it has been a very long time.”

Tomal sat down on a small chair; he sank his head into his knees and rubbed his head.

“Sometimes, I wish my mind could be wiped, and I could wake up with your level of optimism.”

He looked up at Diggix once again; he clearly did not understand what emotion the old monk was experiencing; he sighed.

“You were our only hope.”

“Hope?” Diggix asked in confusion; the word was familiar; it had been said to him many times before… before he got lost in the forest.

“Yes. You were our inside man for almost a century.”

“Century?”

“A hundred years.”

“Inside of what was I?”

“As the personal robot to Thanatos, you have the ultimate advantage over him.”

Tomal stood up and moved closer to Diggix, looking towards the door and then to the rest of the room, seemingly looking for something.

“You were to assassinate Epsimus Thanatos to free the Order of his tyrannical reign. Thanatos sent you on a suicide mission for a reason; he knew there was a plot against him; he just didn’t know where it was coming from. You are the only robot with the emotional capability to overcome your programming and do what is necessary to relieve Thanatos from this world.”

Stronger electric currents flushed Diggix’s system; the revelation of underground resistance towards Thanatos’s reign was difficult for the little unit to process, though he remained silent. Listening.

“Many of us suffered because of that man, and there is no monk in the Citadel who wants him alive. Therefore, an uprising also is not possible. Iphis would come to this world with a vengeful spirit and wipe us all out, and that would spell the end of the Order and bring the galaxy back to the dark ages.”

“Where did this rebellion begin?” Diggix was curious, he had listened to Izzar and his report to Thanatos and understood to a certain degree why Izzar had a secret loathing of their master, but as for the monks, Diggix had not even seen them communicate with the old Epsimus yet.

“It began with you.”

“How?” Diggix was starting to warm up; his internal systems were working harder than usual. Many functions were clashing. Disobeying his Master was not in him to do; it was unthinkable, unfathomable. Though this old man was being sincere, it was something in his eyes. Why would Diggix organize an uprising against his own Master?

“He had an organic chip implanted in you; it gave you the ability to feel, to be more advanced than any other unit coming out of production. But, unfortunately, he used it to torture you, and I’m afraid he will use it in the same manner again. Even a machine such as yourself has your limits.”

“Do I still have this chip within myself?”

“It seems that way; I was hoping it got destroyed in the forest, but it seems like it is still very firmly in place.”

“Can’t you remove it?”

Tomal stood closer to Diggix, wiping his hand over his smooth metallic head.

“In doing so, I would end your life and destroy who you are.”

“Can my memory banks not be backed up and reinstalled after the chip has been removed?”

Tomal sighed; he turned towards the screens looking at the counter, counting up the seconds of the little robot’s life. He bashed his fist against a table close by and shook his head.

“It is not that simple. Just as a human with amnesia, your memories would mean nothing to you if you did not understand them; it would be like looking upon someone else’s memories.”

Diggix understood it better than he imagined he would; it would be worthless for him to lose who he was. Though Diggix was not sure whether or not he was the same robot he used to be. He might not have it in him this time to rebel against his master.