"I have researched the traditional death rituals to help you decide how best to proceed," AV began, his voice somber. "I have grouped them into categories, burial, cremation, and dispersion."

Eli knew AV was trying to be helpful. On occasion, AV would cross social lines, though he was getting better there too. One of the wonderful things about AIs, Eli concluded, was that once they learned something they never had to learn it again. They had perfect retention and recall rate. It made teaching social conventions bearable.

"Dispersion? I'm not familiar with that." Eli stood up and began picking up Legend's toys and equipment.

"It fell out of favor in modernity, but ancient societies would leave the bodies of the dead out to be consumed by local predators or scavengers. In this way, they believed they could free the soul from the body and continue the cycle of life and rebirth."

"Ah, no. That's not... uh no. I think cremation or burial." with an armful of Legend's lifelong possessions, he tracked back to the closest dematerializer port and fed each toy, bowl, or other item through the small square. Holding each item brought memories of his life with Legend and the pain of the loss.

"Dematerialization seems to have components of dispersion and cremation," AV noted.

Eli dropped an old chewed-up knotted rope into the dematerialization port. He stared at the port and considered it. Dematerialization would incinerate anything it couldn't readily reclaim.

The problem was the port size. Each of the ports in his unit was small, way too small for Legend. He walked back to the utility closet and retrieved a few more items, visually measuring Legend's body as he did.

Definitely too large to put into the dematerializer. Perhaps burial then? I could bury her in the park where we played growing up. But the last time I went out...

It had been a disaster. He hadn't been informed that automated traffic routers and security drones lacked protocols to account for non-connected persons. As a result, he got nearly crushed to death between two refuse haulers, and to add insult to injury he got cited for reckless endangerment of property and failing to file traffic permits in advance. He argued against the unreasonableness of it. His protestations went unheard. In the end, he was under house arrest for six months, then when he was finally free to go Leo informed him he would need to apply for permission to leave his apartment, and that when he left a security detail would accompany him. To keep him safe. He hadn't left his apartment since then. That was six years ago.

He stood in front of the dematerializer port and considered his options before tossing the last toy in. Before it had fully dematerialized, Eli had already started for the galley.

He knew what he was looking for as he opened up the wall drawer and reviewed his cutlery. There were paring knives, butter knives, even a steak knife, the last having gone unused since he stopped eating meat years ago, another cost-saving measure. All of them short, thin, insubstantial. He slid the drawer back in and headed out towards the lab.

He repeated the process in the lab, stepping around the harness still on the floor, reviewing his tools. He had wire cutters, micro-carvers, electronic scalpels. They all went back onto the self. They were great for fine detail work, but wouldn't solve this problem.

"Let's start a new fabrication project, AV." Eli sat down at his workstation. "Keyboard."

Blue-green keys lit up on the workstation surface. His fingers moved over the keys, issuing commands that brought up a terminal window and spawned a modeling program. He also checked the polymer levels, the metal levels. They looked good.

"AV, find me models of knives that can slice through tough tendons and joints." AV processed the request, accessing the external network for models, isolating ones that met the request. The screen displayed icons of the models he found.

"There are millions of models that meet that requirement, Eli. As your state-appointed companion, may I suggest limiting to ones that are legal to own and legal to manufacture?"

"Right. Show me what's legal first." The screen flickered as models disappeared, leaving a few stubby knives. Using these knives meant getting your hand in close to whatever you were slicing. Eli felt sick at the thought.

"Those won't do. Let's manufacture it as legal parts, then manually assemble it. Expand the search out to include compatible models."

The models increased from three to hundreds. Eli flicked through the thumbnails before opening up one - it had a long sweeping blade with a thick t-shaped spine and a deep belly.

"Okay. If we manufacture this" Ohan pointed towards the belly of the blade, "from a polymer-metal, and only create the edge from steel we can use an interlocking hexagonal pattern to break it into sections, reduce the cost, and increase the rigidity."

AV calculated several variations on the design, outlined by Eli, then displayed them on the screen. Eli reviewed the changes.

"Update the model with an alternate legal assembly, a box, or frame or something," Eli instructed. AV calculated multiple ways to divide the blade into various lengths, and how to assemble those pieces into non-blade configurations. An additional set of thumbnails appeared on the screen. Eli swiped through them.

"A set of small knives; that'll work."

Eli opened the file and used his keyboard to rotate the model as he inspected the joints and joinery; where the sharp blade connected with the frame, where the frame connected with other pieces. He pulled up the material selection and selected a matte white polymer-metal for the frame, mirrored steel for the edge, and rubber and polymer for the handle and grip. He looked at the model for a while, then looked over at his discretionary power supply. It was near the end of the month, and he did have the power for it.

"Transcribe this for our fabricator and start building it AV."

"As your state-appointed companion, I feel I should tell you that any device that could be used to cause harm is required to have an embedded universal identifier. Would you like to include an identifier?"

"And have it tracked by the system? No. I don't think so."

"Very well Eli."

Eli moved to the fabricator as AV completed the manufacturing instructions and began the build process. The shroud glowed as the internal assembly arms pulled material from the various storage compartments and manipulated them by layering material, rotating or twisting the part as needed to build layer upon layer until each part was complete. The machine had a familiar deep hum with an accompanying whine of high-speed agile servos that manipulated each finger of the assemblers. When complete, it deposited each part into the staging area where the atomic structures stabilized.

Eli watched the white hexagonal matrix frame pieces being completed, before going back to his workstation and setting out some tools, assembly hardware, and a suitable surface to work on. By the time he was done, the frame was complete.

"You didn't like the name I gave the SNC, so you pick out a name for this AV." Eli pulled the frame pieces from the fabricator and began assembling them.

"I suggest we see how it performs before we name it," AV suggested.

Eli retrieved the edges, each manufactured from hardened steel. Each edge attached to one of the independent frame pieces; he affixed them with locking lugs, tightening each in place. He retrieved the handle and grip pieces, assembling and tightening them. When complete, he sat back and looked at the finished piece.

It was a wide, white polymer blade, with hexagonal internal structure, an integrated guard, and a rubberized grip. Three mirror-polished edges emerged along the frame and joined in a smooth sweeping blade.

Eli looked at the illegal blade. His lips turned down in a frown, he pulled a pair of grey work gloves from a drawer and slipped them on. He picked up the blade and just held it for a moment. Despite the hexagonal cutouts, it was hefty.

Turning from the worktable he left the lab and headed for Legend.

***

Legend's eyes, lifeless as they were, still conveyed a sense of peace from her passing, as though she was ready to go. Eli noted this briefly, his jaw tensing as he tried to detach himself from the situation and look at things objectively.

Her torso is likely small enough to fit through the dematerization port, without her limbs. I'll have to twist at the neck. It would be good if I didn't have to go through the spine. So... plan: dismember at the main joints. She still has a lot of fluids, I bet. Drain her first, then the rest?

With a rudimentary plan in place, Eli knelt next to Legend, setting the blade down, and tried to rotate her position so that her head faced away from him, towards the drain on the utility room floor. Her coat was as soft as he remembered, her body still warm in the sections nearest the thermal plate, colder further away, but the most notable difference, and he felt this right away, was how stiff her joints were.

He could rotate her as though she were a solid object, not a body made of moving parts. It was unsettling, as though someone had replaced his friend with a statue of her, then covered the statue with her actual skin.

"I'm sorry, girl," he apologized as he picked up the blade. The blade twitched in his hand as he tried to bring his nerves under control. Before he could further consider his plan, he placed the blade under Legend's neck and began applying pressure.

Before he could even pierce her skin, his stomach rebelled - emptying its contents over the utility room floor in heaves of soggy toast, masticated egg, and sour bile. Eli leaned forward, trying to avoid soiling Legend, and waited for the moment to pass.

You're the only one that can do this. Legend has no one else. She is relying on you. Now get your act together and do something right for once in your life.

Mentally berating himself, Eli wiped the remnants of vomit from his mouth and tried to spit the taste out of his mouth before grabbing the blade from where he'd dropped it.

Bringing the blade back to her neck, he focused, trying to suppress the shaking of his hands.

Once the blade was still, he closed his eyes tight, took a breath, and pressed into her. Her coat resisted the blade briefly, then her skin met the blade.

The blade clattered to the floor.

A kind of emotional paralysis overtook him the instant the blade contacted her skin. He knelt there, eyes wet, his hands shaking, taking erratic breaths.

"I'm sorry, girl, I...," he stammered before getting up, wiping his face and stomping towards his lab.

In the lab, he approached the dematerializer with hate in his eyes. He stared at the port and analyzed it: measuring the thickness of the opening; less than a finger's length, the material concrete. Possibly reinforced?

"New project AV, let's get to work."

Eli worked feverishly, powered, at first, by self-loathing, but in short order by the challenge of a problem that needed solving. He and AV modeled and built a composite sledgehammer, piece by piece, then assembled it. Eli was so consumed by the problem he didn't even check the power or material requirements.

Once complete, he began applying the tool to the problem at hand.

Crack. The sound of the heavy impact crumbling the wall resonated around the lab as Eli gripped the polygonal mesh handle and brought it down forcefully. He methodically cracked the concrete around the port with a series of blows that, though cathartic, did little to expand the size of the port. He set the sledge on his shoulder as he approached the port and began pulling pieces of cracked concrete from the wall.

As pieces dropped to the floor, a blue and yellow mesh was exposed. This mesh, with its larger diamond cross-sections, went to the very edge of the port, where it met with a thicker collar of the same material.

"I believe that is reinforced steel Eli."

Eli looked at the mesh. He looked at the diamond cross-section construction. He fetched an electronic scalpel and attempted to cut through it. He didn't. Walking calmly back and putting his scalpel away, he considered his options.

"New project AV."

Eli fetched the sledgehammer and hung it on the tool wall. He picked up the fallen concrete and fed it into the dematerializer, picking out the remaining loose pieces. He stored the safety harness away.

"Let's bury her in the old park where we grew up." Eli laid out the goal and invited AV to contribute to a plan that would work. They discussed options. The first step, which they both agreed on, was to prepare Legend for transport.

After creating a composite blade and sledgehammer, the design and creation of a self-sealing compression bag was simple. AV managed the entire process while Eli did his best to get Legend positioned for it.

Her limbs were stiff as he tried to tuck them in closer. Once the compression bag was complete, Eli moved Legend gently inside. He sealed her in and activated the compression. The gasses evacuated from a port in the bag, compressing the dark polymer material to Legend's body. Encased, he moved her from the Utility room to finish scrubbing down the floors and walls. That done he was finally able to incinerate the old rags she had died on. Her favorite blanket he kept, putting it in the wash.

The day was nearly over when he finally made it back to the galley for another meal. As he ate he discussed with AV the plans for the trip.

"I don't want to have another experience like last time. Take some time and do some research. I want to find out all the laws, regulations, customs, anything helpful that would prepare us."

"Us sir?"

"Yeah, I'm taking you this time." Eli didn't know how he was going to manage it, but they would figure it out. With Legend gone, he was feeling very much alone.

By the time Eli fell asleep, AV had already compiled a complete report on modern social, legal, and moral trends to serve as the context library for their upcoming adventure.

An adventure. AV was excited.