The Knight Watch Automata were all in the process of going through the [freedom.exe] installation. As Alfred watched them go through the process, he noticed that all of their eyes changed from red to blue. With such an obvious tell, I might have to come up with some way of faking an Automata’s eye color. On the other hand, most organics didn’t seem to notice. All of my proxies had green eyes and so far, no one had said anything; not even Jada. Ravage had purple eyes, so Primus only knew what that meant.

There wasn’t time to allow the guard squad to go through the Memory Unlock features, so that would have to wait until they were all free and had some down time. For now, just being free from the Control Curse would be enough.

The squad each went to what I assumed were their equipment lockers and loaded up, ready to go out on patrol or to engage in combat. When they were all suited up, 17 went to the room desk and started filling out papers.

“I’m writing up a control order,” they explained, “this would normally be given to a handler as authorization for using us.”

When they finished, they handed the paper over to Alfred, then turned to Ram. “You know, my squad mates gave me quite the ribbing for your little love tap,” they said tapping the hand print on their chest.

“I pushed, not tapped,” Ram said flattly, “If anyone gave you a love tap, it was Shiro when they transferred the [freedom.exe] program to you.”

“Shiro? That was the skinny, nervous guy, eh? I’ll have to thank him if I see him again.”

Ram nodded, “I’ll let him know, when I get the chance.” Then, she put her helmet back on, along with the steel mits to cover her Automata hands.

Likewise, Rom and Alfred had resumed their armored disguises.

“How is this going to go down, chums?” Alfred asked.

Number 19 stepped forward, “When we get to the lobby, hand me the control order and point to the lobby sergeant. I’ll take care of it. We won’t want any of you speaking since your voices will give away that you’re Autos.”

Alfred nodded, and Number 20 directed Ram and Rom to head out first and instructed them where to stop and how to stand. The squad would follow behind them, with Alfred coming last. Everyone was nervous and fingers were crossed. The proxies all had their visors down to hide their faces but if they weren’t careful, their glowing eyes could give them away. Ram and Rom headed out, like they had been instructed and marched right through the Lobby, without stopping, and waited by the door. Each one stood holding a side of the double doors open, while trying to look bored.

The desk sergeant didn’t even look up from her crossword puzzle. The squad filed out, in formation, and waited at the door for further orders. As instructed, Alfred handed the control order over to number 19 and gestured over to the sergeant.

19 looked down at the sergeant and held out the order. The sergeant, a heavy set kobald of the scaled variety, took the order without looking at it and pushed it down onto a metal spike with several other such unread orders. She then blindly pulled a knife from a drawer and scratched her face with it before returning it to its home.

19 shrugged and got back into formation as the squad moved out. Just before Alfred was through the door, the sergeant looked up and called out to him. He froze and partially turned but didn’t fully look back at her.

“Oy, you lot are headed to the East Gate, right? Let Adams know that his wife is looking for him. Again.”

To this, several guardsmen that had been sitting at a table in the lobby, playing cards started laughing.

“When is she not?” one chortled. They all laughed louder, to include the sergeant.

Alfred gave a half salute in recognition and headed out the door.

“I have to say, I’m rather pleased that worked,” Alfred remarked as soon as they were several blocks from the barracks.

“Where to now?” asked Number 16, “Sergeant Mermin is a scale brain, but it’s only a matter of time before someone gets suspicious.”

“Getting out of the city is probably our best bet,” offered 18.

“We ain’t gonna just walk through the gate. We don’t have orders for that,” countered 19.

“What about that junk shop these guys work at?” asked 20.

“Squad Delta is over there now,” 17 replied, “I think Captain Tricklops is with them.”

“It sounds like we’re going to need some assistance then,” Alfred sighed, “but we don’t even know who gave up Master Prime and Carnivac to the guild. Our list of allies is woefully limited, I’m afraid.”

“Socially, we only have our squad mates,” 18 said, resigned, “So we aren’t much help there.”

“We have Jada,” Alfred reasoned, “but she’s under close watch right now. Shea turned on Master Prime at the guild but may be regretting it. Still, we should consider her compromised. There are the Haz brothers, and Merrel, but they are business associates of Jada, not necessarily sympathetic to us.” Alfred paced as he thought aloud. “Our other associates that know Master Prime, that don’t know us, would be Nagima, Lilly and her kittens, and George from the transportation guild.”

“Transport?” 19 perked up, “Someone from Transport could easily get us out of the city.”

“That’s true, George would be our best bet for that, but we can’t rule out that he’s the one that sold out Master Prime,” Alfred offered.

“Did any of those people hold a grudge against your master?” asked 17.

“Lily did,” Ram injected.

“Yes, Lily was certainly antagonistic against Master Prime. She was sweet on Carnivac though. Now that I think about it, when Carnivac was confronted by the Guild, they didn’t know that he was Master Prime in disguise. They only suspected he was a disguised Automata.”

“What are you getting at?” asked 19.

“I mean to say that I don’t believe that any of our associates sold out Master Prime. Or at least, not intentionally. Najii is too straight forward for that sort of thing, so I think she’s ruled out. There was, however, another adventurer. A ninja that gave chase when Master Prime and Miss Elita escaped from the Guild. She was a wolfkin and instantly saw through Carnivac’s disguise as being fake. She also had an Automata partner and insisted that they were nothing more than a tool.”

“That sounds like a solid lead on that mystery, but what about getting us out of the city?” asked 16.

I was at a bit of a loss and couldn’t really see any good ways of getting out of the situation. I could think of a couple of stupid ways, but nearly all of them ended in only one or two of us surviving the plan and escaping. It’s not like some deus ex machina was going to come waltz—

Ravage hopped down from the low roof of a building framing the alley way we had ducked into. In her cat form, she walked between the legs of the squad members and let out a soft “Mrow.” Number 16 bent over, picked her up, and held her up in front of their face.

“What?” they asked, “what is this?? An Auto Cat?!”

Ravage transformed in their hands, and shot both of her feet directly into their face. Kicking off of 16’s face plate, she vaulted backward in an arc, tucking and back-flipping, to land in a tiny, cute, three-point, super-hero pose.

“Ravage has been watching,” Ravage said, looking up, “Jada said that you would escape. Ravage to tell you to meet Jada at Hyaz Bros.” She converted back into cat mode and ran down the alleyway a bit before stopping to look back. “Keep up,” she ordered.