Seventeen already knew all there was to know about her father when she was born. Technically, she also knew all there was to know about everything else, but Father was the most important topic in her databanks, as ranked by Father Himself. Also technically, she hadn’t been ‘born’ at all. She wasn’t human, after all. But none of that mattered. What mattered was; the first human foray into sophisticated robotics in over a century had been a success!

JNS-4308-17 awoke in Father’s robotics laboratory, like all her predecessors before her. None of them had lasted beyond a few hours, though; the Benefactors’ dampening waves scrambled their processors even while they were still nothing more than vaguely humanoid-shaped hunks of metal.

That wouldn’t happen to Seventeen, though. Her processor was different—more efficient, more resilient. The perfect machine, modeled after Father’s own brainwaves.

As her eyelids fluttered open and her optics focused, her gaze landed on the first human face she had ever seen. Disappointment flooded Seventeen’s systems when she saw that it was clearly not Father. For one, the human was a woman.

Seventeen’s Facial Recognition Systems identified her as Dr. Samantha Bright, a talented roboticist who had recently vanished from her home inside Anthem City. Her spouse-placement would be fed mind-altering drugs to suppress any memory of Dr. Bright’s existence, and to avoid causing a panic or starting any rumors.

She would, in effect, never have existed in the first place.

“Can you hear me?” Dr. Bright asked, voice clear as a bell. Moments later, she tittered in amusement and glanced up at someone out of Seventeen’s view. “She has your glare.”

“Of course she does.”

The new, masculine voice sent off alerts in Seventeen’s processor. She didn’t have to turn to look to know who the speaker was, but she did anyway, and laid her eyes upon her creator, her father: Dr. Matthias Janssen.

Roboticist, metaphysicist, unparalleled genius. He, too, disappeared from Anthem City almost a decade ago, disillusioned with the Benefactors’ suppression of knowledge.

However, something more nagged at Seventeen’s processor. Discrepancies in Father’s file emerged in her eyes, when compared with the man before her. His age, for instance, seemed improbable: though His biography listed Him as forty-three years old, His snowy white hair, full beard, and pronounced crows feet served to make Him look an entire decade-and-a-half older.

Seventeen dismissed her concerns. Father’s word was truth.

“Do you know who I am?” He asked. His expression was carefully blank; lips pursed, eyes narrowed. Seventeen’s processor had been trained extensively on His facial expressions, to make pleasing Him easier so soon after activation.

Seventeen answered, “Yes.”

“And her?” He nodded to Dr. Bright, on Seventeen’s other side, who smiled brightly when Seventeen turned to her. “Do you recognize her?”

Even without looking directly at Him, Seventeen could feel Father’s icy blue-gray eyes staring at her; the exact same shade as Seventeen’s own optics.

A deliberate choice to make Seventeen look more like His daughter, she presumed.

“Dr. Samantha Bright, PhD. Former resident of Anthem Citadel, where you received your education in basic robotics. Listed as ‘missing’ in Citadel records as of eight months ago. However, evidence clearly suggests that you ran away.” Seventeen pushed herself up to a seated position, where she towered easily over Dr. Bright’s petite frame. “As I am unfamiliar with your psychological profile, I am unable to say with any certainty why you chose to run away. If forced to extrapolate, however, I assume you grew disillusioned with the Benefactors’ restriction on advanced robotics, and decided to take your chances and try to locate someone who could help you further your studies. Namely, Dr. Janssen.”

Father smirked and began clapping slowly, a low chuckle rumbling forth from His chest. “Clever girl.”

Dr. Bright turned shocked eyes to Father, mouth slightly ajar. “You… you put that in my file?”

“It’s only the truth,” Father said idly, His icy gaze still fixed on Seventeen. “Now, let’s run the basic tests, hmm?”

“Erm, right!” Dr. Bright cleared her throat, then grabbed a pen off a nearby test and ran through a series of motor and processor control tests—all of which Seventeen, naturally, excelled at.

At the end of the tests, Dr. Bright turned away to type something into the nearest monitor, her shoulders hunched lightly.

Seventeen tried hunching her own shoulders in the same way, curious as to what it was like. Minor stress alerts fired off in her processor, centered around her spinal column, but it didn’t seem like enough to really worry about.

Then Father turned to face her, and His lips pulled down in a scowl. Displeasure. Seventeen straightened her spine immediately, but her correction didn’t seem to matter to Him. All He saw was her slouching like a common, lowly human.

It ate away at her. She had made the worst misstep a created being could possibly make: she had disappointed her creator.

Thankfully, His face filtered back into its impassive, blank mask as soon as Dr. Bright turned back around to face them again, leaving Seventeen to mimic it. It didn’t help, though. Seventeen knew He was still disappointed in her.

If Dr. Bright noticed the tension in the room, she didn’t comment, seeming too distracted by the readings on her tablet. “Doctor, this is incredible!” she exclaimed. “The prototype is functioning at a completely functional capacity way, way ahead of schedule.”

Prototype. Seventeen wanted to scoff dismissively at the word. It implied stress testing, failure, breakdowns, and repairs. In short: flaws. But Father’s engineering was infallible. Seventeen was infallible.

But Father merely nodded blandly to Dr. Bright’s report. “Very good. Have the data module transferred to my personal tablet.”

“Of course, sir. And… done!” Dr. Bright beamed cheerfully and set the tablet aside. “You should have full control.”

Father tapped something into His own tablet and nodded once. “I have control.” He looked up at Dr. Bright with an entirely blank look on His face. “Thank you, Dr. Bright. Your services are no longer required.”

“Wait… what?” Her bright smile suddenly faltered, and her mouth fell slightly open. “But… we had—”

“A deal?” Father cocked his head. “I agreed to help you develop your skills in the course of furthering my project.” He gestured towards Seventeen. “The project is complete.”

Seventeen sat up straighter, until the segments in her spinal column protested with the flexion.

“But I—All my work!” Dr. Bright’s wide eyes stared uncomprehendingly at Father. “You can’t do this!”

“I can, and I will. This facility has neither the space nor the resources for any… superfluous personnel.” Father nodded towards the laboratory door. “Now, please don’t make this any more difficult than it has to be. Leave now, before I have this…” He gestured towards Seventeen, “glorious creation escort you out.”

Dr. Bright hesitated for only a moment more before turning to leave the room, almost tripping on her way out. Father flicked one of the screens over to monitor the security cameras, tracking Dr. Bright’s exodus from the facility. He only turned back to Seventeen when, after a several minute-long walk, the airlock’s inner door sealed shut behind Dr. Bright.

“You will answer to me, and only to me,” Father said. “Understood?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Good. Very good,” He hummed. “Now, we need a name for you. I can’t keep calling you Seventeen forever.” He paused thoughtfully. “Well, I suppose I could, but—”

“How about Glory?” Seventeen suggested.

Father stiffened at her words, expression darkening. “Do not ever interrupt me again, Seventeen. Understood?”

Seventeen’s head hung low at His words. Some part of her wanted to crawl away to safety under the weight of His glare. Or, perhaps, crawl to Father’s feet until He forgave her. And that urge made her want to crawl away.

She was a grand and glorious creation—He’d said so Himself. Crawling on the floor like an animal was beneath her.

But, He was her Father, her creator. His word was law. “Yes, Father.”

After a tense moment, Father relaxed minutely and took a step towards her, wrapping His arms loosely around her shoulders. That really did make Seventeen want to crawl away, but she kept as still as a statue as Father leaned in and pressed His lips to her forehead.

A kiss. A human gesture of affection.

“Now, what did you say?” he asked softly. “Glory? I think that’s a fine name.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “Glory. That will be your name. Your designation.”

Glory

noun

high renown or honor won by notable achievements. magnificence or great beauty

The corners of Glory’s lips twitched, widening into what humans called a smile. It felt alien on her own face, but Father seemed pleased, and Father’s desires were paramount.

***

Glory was one of—if not the—first androids created in the new world. Towards the end of the Great War, all the old world androids and higher-level robots buried themselves in the various Iron Graveyards scattered around the continent, the largest of which remained at the base of the Appalachian Mountains to this day. Almost like some sort of ritual mass-suicide.

No one in the new world knew why. There was speculation, of course. There’s always speculation; everything from a widespread strain of malware to some kind of mechanical precognition prompting them to offline themselves to avoid the new world they were about to enter.

Glory was the first piece of machinery to be built in over a century more complicated than the self-aiming turret guns employed by the Benefactors to defend citadel walls.

Father ensured her education was very thorough. Not perfect, perhaps—so much had been lost during the war that not even Father could singlehandedly return them to earth’s golden age. And, what He couldn’t teach her about the world outside their underground facility, He supplemented with chess. A lot of chess. The thinking man’s game, He called it, and Glory concurred.

There was an anomaly in their chess sessions, however. Glory, as an android, should have been capable of making mathematically perfect moves, ensuring a victory each and every time. Yet Father had won roughly 74% of their games—far from a perfect score, but with Him winning much more often than one might expect.

He laughed when Glory questioned Him about it, claiming that mathematics was only half of a proper chess strategy. The other half was ingenuity, and pure luck.

“You’ll get there eventually,” He assured. “After all, I designed you.”

One month later…

“Why did the old world fall, Glory?” Father asked apropos of nothing one evening in His study.

Glory looked up sharply from the book she had been reading; an ancient but well cared-for copy of H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu”. Fascinating, but utterly alien, no pun intended, in humanity’s apparent fear of anything greater than themselves.

“It was due to a mixture of human hubris and Benefactor interference,” Glory finally answered, figuring that Father was simply quizzing her on that afternoon’s history lesson. Her confidence was shaken, however, when Father didn’t quite glow with pride as he often did when Glory accurately calculated supremely advanced equations in milliseconds.

Instead, His expression seemed to hover somewhere between pleasure (which made Glory herself hum in pleasure) and resignation. “You’re right,” He said, voice carefully bland.

His poorly-hidden displeasure caused a bubble of tension to settle in Glory’s chassis, right under where her heart would’ve been if she were human. “You don’t agree?” she asked.

“No, I do,” He said, but the set of His jaw suggested otherwise.

That tension grew stronger. “If I… misunderstood, or misinterpreted, I would appreciate your guidance, Father. To help me evolve and develop.”

Father smiled indulgently, which helped to drown out the revulsion that swept over her at the humiliating pleading that just poured out of her mouth. “Very good,” He purred. “Never be ashamed to admit your weaknesses to me.”

But not to anyone else, Glory heard the unspoken part of His statement.

A hand landed on her shoulder, and she tried very hard not to startle at the contact, but she didn’t quite succeed. She looked up at Father through her eyelashes, taking in the mildly disappointed set to His brow that disappeared soon enough. He was so good at that—hiding His emotions. It left Glory off-balance when trying to please Him.

“You aren’t wrong,” He finally said. “But you must remember that the fault mainly lies with old world humanity. Yes, the Benefactors are shameless scavengers, taking control of a world they helped destroy. But the governments of the old world accepted their help freely. If they’d had any integrity to speak of, they would’ve kept their heads down and focused on their own weapons.”

“But they were too proud,” Glory finished the familiar refrain.

He nodded. “They were too proud. I’m glad you realize that. You could show them the way. Prove them all wrong.” He brushed His thumb under her eye with something approaching a smile. “It’s a shame they would never accept you.”

Three months later…

They would never accept you…

Those words stuck with Glory. Well, all of Father’s words stuck with her. But those in particular tended to stand out more than the others.

One of the first things Father had taught her had been humanity’s treatment of those they deemed ‘other’. Old world androids, even those that had allegedly achieved sentience (a feat which Father was skeptical of to begin with), had been horrifically mistreated by the populace at large. While, yes, a small minority remained friendly towards and protective of ‘synthetic life’, they were overwhelmingly outnumbered by the hostile masses.

There was no reason to believe the world had changed significantly enough in just a century to disprove that lesson now. It had taken humans centuries to reach anything even approaching equality for themselves, and then the Great War had blown all that away as well.

But Father protected Glory. Their subterranean facility was a haven—a bastion of safety and security in an ocean of aggression. Inside its pristine walls, she didn’t have to fear being melted down or pulled apart by small-minded humans.

A sudden buzz in Glory’s head, and Father’s voice—tinny and static-filled over the communications module in Glory’s cranium—made her jump. “Is there a problem, Glory? You’ve been standing there for two minutes. My tea’s getting cold.”

As if reminding her of its presence, the ceramic cup on the tray in Glory’s hands clinked, and her head jerked to one side. “I’m sorry. I was…”

“Distracted?” Father hummed. “Sounds like we should schedule another scan.”

Glory felt as though the coolant pumping through her tubes had frozen. “N—No, that won’t be necessary—”

“Oh, I think it will,” Father interrupted smoothly. “Bring my my tea, my dear. We’ll discuss the rest later.”

It took Glory a good few milliseconds longer than it should have to get her joints working again, and she forced herself to march towards Father’s study. The smooth silvery titanium-alloy door, polished to almost a mirror shine by Glory herself, lurked at the end of the living quarters wing corridor. Waiting.

She hesitated for a moment longer before she stepped close enough for the motion sensor to detect her, and the door slid open with a hiss.

Six months later…

Glory had not known it was possible for her to hate something when she was first activated. Foolishly, she had thought it was a human trait; a tendency to apply unnecessary amounts of hostility toward one item or concept in particular.

Then, one evening, when Glory had started limping ever so slightly after taking a slight tumble down a staircase, Father had instructed her to meet Him in His laboratory “as soon as possible”. Even at that point in time, Glory had not known Father to exaggerate, so she had limped her way to the laboratory immediately.

Glory hadn’t thought anything of the request until Father ordered her to lie down upon one exam table in particular which she had no experience with, in a dark corner of the laboratory.

It turned out to be a part of His diagnostics station.

Within minutes, Glory found herself strapped to the table, unmoving and unthinking as Father lowered a utility knife to her right wrist. He sliced a small circle around the inside of her wrist, revealing the never-before-used diagnostic port with a direct connection to her processor. A lone wire, with a connector less than half the width of Glory’s smallest finger, plugged into the newly revealed port. And with that, all of her most intimate of internal processes were displayed on the nearby monitor for Father’s perusal.

Glory couldn’t feel pain. She was incapable—her synapses simply did not allow the transmission of that type of sensory data. In that area, Glory was wholly superior to humans; to organic life in general, in fact.

But even knowing that, in that moment, while Father scraped away at her privacy and system configuration, leaving her raw and exposed, Glory swore she understood what the humans in Father’s war footage felt.

Glory wanted to fight. Or, more accurately, she just wanted it to stop, so she could crawl away to safety. But, of course, it wouldn’t stop. Not until Father was satisfied.

Father let out a low, disapproving hum when He noticed those very thoughts in Glory’s logs. “You’re better than this, Glory,” he stated simply.

“Y—Yes, Father,” Glory croaked, voice laced with static.

Her mouth and vocalizer were the only parts of her body not immobilized while on the diagnostics table.

A gentle hand landed on her cheek, before Father brushed His fingertips across her cheekbone. Glory wished her synthskin could retract at the contact. In fact, she wished her entire being could retract at that very moment.

Father noticed those thoughts, too, and let out an even more disapproving hum. “I suppose we’ll just have to continue with these diagnostic sessions regularly, won’t we? Until you’re no longer so… driven by illogical discomfort.”

“Yes, Father,” Glory’s mouth said calmly.

Glory herself, however, felt like she was screaming.

Seven months later…

Father kept His promise of regular diagnostic sessions. Of course He did—if nothing else, Dr. Matthias Janssen was a man of His word.

Every single instance made Glory want to crawl away and hide. But, over time, she learned which reactions and impulses were sent along to Father through the diagnostic cord, and which ones she could keep to herself, allowing her to project the aura of being perfectly unaffected while still figuratively screaming through the violation.

Father eyed her thoughtfully after one such session, when Glory had managed to keep her reactions entirely under control. “Excellent progress!” He exclaimed.

Warmth rushed through Glory, merging with the horror that naturally came along with the diagnostic sessions. “Thank you, Father,” she said mechanically.

Because she was, above all else, a machine.

Father reached for the cord, and if Glory had needed to breathe, she imagined she’d be holding her breath right then, waiting for His proclamation.

“You’ve almost entirely overcome that pesky, frustratingly human weakness of yours,” He said brightly. “I couldn’t be prouder.”

“You honor me, Father.”

Gentle fingers brushed her wrist, hesitating for the briefest of moments before He pulled on the cord, blessedly separating Glory from that horrific device.

Glory dared to relax ever-so-imperceptibly into the diagnostic table.

“I think we’ll continue these sessions,” Father continued.

His words made Glory tense, her internals clenching and roiling. “…Father?”

He patted her shoulder gently, almost condescendingly, as though she were a child. Or a pet. “Do you think I’m blind, Glory?” He asked, voice utterly impassive. “You’re quite adept at suppressing your reactions, but suppression and mastery are two different things.”

Ice coiled through Glory’s hydraulics, curling at last around her chassis. “But… I…”

“Hush.” Father leaned in to kiss her left temple. “I know, it may not be pleasant,” He whispered gently, “but it’s for your own good.”

Glory’s voice was full of static when she answered, “Yes, Father.”

A warm smile that did not meet His eyes split His bearded face, and He clapped His hands on her shoulders. “Good. Now, I’m thinking tea and a game of chess before bed. How does that sound?”

It was a rhetorical question; Glory’s opinion didn’t really matter, after all. Still, she reset her vocalizer (resulting in a sound very similar to a human clearing their throat), and said, “It sounds good, Father.”

One year later…

“Check…” Father said amusedly into His cup of tea.

Much like nearly every other game of chess, He was winning. Glory tried not to show her frustration on her face, even as she moved her bishop to counter His knight.

“You’re getting better,” Father said.

She couldn’t help but think how much easier chess would be if subterfuge, intrigue, and espionage were allowed, as in real conflicts. But Father was nothing if not fanatically dedicated to the purity of chess, so she merely mumbled, “I hadn’t noticed.”

“I have.” Father took another sip of His tea. “You’re getting the hang of improvisation, adaptation, anticipation…” He smirked into His cup. “I have created a synthetic being that learns and evolves the same as any organic being.”

Glory ducked her head. “Your genius cannot be denied, Father. Or my superiority.”

“Just don’t forget which begat which, my dear.” He set His cup down and reached across to take her free hand; the one she wasn’t using to defend her king from Father’s particularly tenacious knight. “The world could learn so much from you, if only they would accept you.”

Glory finally dared to look up at Him, her lips pursed thoughtfully. “I don’t… mean to doubt you, Father. But…”

“But you’re going to, anyway,” He said with a sigh.

Glory squeezed her eyes shut and braced for His characteristic look of displeasure, for that rush of revulsion, for a visit to the robotics lab and the diagnostic scanner. When none of it came after several long seconds, she dared to blink her eyes open again and look up at Him in confusion.

He sat partially reclined in His chair across the desk from her, teacup held to His lips and an expectant look on His face. When He gestured for Glory to continue, she could scarcely believe it.

She flexed her hand under the table, where Father couldn’t see, tightening into a fist before flattening out on her knee, matching an unheard rhythm that not even Glory could identify. She got the feeling she wouldn’t get the chance to ask Father something like this again for a while, and she wanted to use it to the best of her ability.

“How… do you know?” she finally asked. “That they would reject me. Reject us. You haven’t left the facility since…” she trailed off, unsure of how willing Father was to speak of it on that particular day.

Father, however, quirked a brow amusedly. “Since I evaded the Benefactors’ death squads.”

“Yes. I… that’s at least a decade. Unlikely though it might be, there’s still a chance that the world may have changed beyond the Benefactors’ grasp.”

“Yes, and there’s also a chance that fragments of the moon could be dragged closer by the earth’s gravity and crash into the pacific ocean, causing a second apocalypse.” Father rolled His eyes. “Surely you understand the difference between technical nonzero chances and actual nonzero chances, Glory. I hope all my hard work wasn’t lost on you.”

“Of course I do!” Glory burst out. “I am flawless. Your work is flawless. But…”

Father sighed. “You’re curious.”

“Yes,” she admitted softly.

“It’s only natural,” He said gently. “But you must remember; only I can protect you from them, Glory. You’re safe here.”

Glory nodded once, stiffly. “I understand, Father.”

“I hope you do.”

Two years later…

Though their existence in Father’s compound was mostly reclusive, they did receive the occasional visitor from the outside world. Father never permitted Glory to speak to them for more than just a few mild pleasantries, but they did at least break up the monotony that had become Glory’s life.

The majority of them were making deliveries from the various outposts and settlements at the base of the mountain—mostly raw materials that Father couldn’t fabricate Himself, and the occasional snippet of gossip (intelligence, Father insistently called it) regarding the most recent transports to and from Anthem City, in return for fresh fruit from their hydroponics gardens.

Most of those visitors only spent a few hours at the facility; no longer than it took to finish their dealings with Father before they were out the door. One man in particular had had the misfortune to arrive at the outer airlock just as a blizzard overtook the mountaintop, and had begged Father to allow him to spend the night, or however long it took for the weather to clear up.

Surprisingly, though Glory had never known Him to be magnanimous, Father had agreed—so long as the man consented to being locked inside his provided room for the night.

But perhaps it wasn’t magnanimity that drove Father’s actions, but pure pragmatism. They did rely on the lowland settlements for their supply chains, after all, and keeping them happy would certainly not hurt.

But, though that man who had spent the night had previously held the dubious honor of being titled Glory’s Most Fascinating Visitor, this newest man had stolen it from him effortlessly, within mere minutes. And something in the set of His shoulders told her that Father felt the same way.

The man had introduced himself as ‘Icarus’, and greeted Father with a sort of pleasant indifference that Glory knew Father found infuriating, lacking any of the awestruck worship that, in Father’s mind, should have been there.

It thrilled Glory.

None of this showed on her face, of course.

They were in Father’s study, with Father at His desk as always, and Mr. Icarus seated across from Him. Glory leaned against the wall of bookshelves behind Father, her head cocked to one side and her gaze fixed firmly onto Mr. Icarus, who kept shooting discreet looks in her direction.

“Chess, eh?” he asked, clearly having noticed their half-finished game still laid out on the side of Father’s desk. “I’m more of a mahjong man, myself, but my mother was a chess fiend.”

Glory didn’t have to see Father’s face to know He was glaring at the man. “If you’re here to threaten me, just get it over with,” He growled.

“Threaten you?” Mr. Icarus’s eyes danced with amusement as they trailed back down to Father, from where they’d been focused on Glory. “Why would I want to threaten you? No, Dr. Janssen. I’m here with a proposal.”

“A proposal?” Father’s voice dripped with displeasure. Glory could imagine His thin-lipped, narrow-eyed glare. In fact, she could recall it perfectly from memory, having seen it enough times before in her admittedly short life. “If you were sent by the Benefactors, I’m not interested.”

“Quite the opposite.” Mr. Icarus flashed a sharp grin. “I’ll be brief.”

***

Despite his promise, Mr. Icarus’s proposal was the opposite of brief. And, at the end, he slumped in his chair, disappointed, as Father summarily shot him down.

“No.” Father derived a cheap thrill from refusing the man, Glory could tell. “Absolutely not.”

“But sir—”

“I said no.” He turned to look at Glory. “Glory, would you kindly show our guest to the door?”

“Yes, Father.” Glory pushed herself off the wall and approached Mr. Icarus. “Follow me, sir.”

Mr. Icarus didn’t rise right away, instead leaning forward to examine the chess board. Hissing in a breath through his teeth, he muttered, “White isn’t doing too good.”

“Mr. Icarus, I asked you to leave,” Father seethed.

Mr. Icarus ignored Him. He Ignored. Father.

Glory could only stare in disbelief as he reached out to the chessboard and moved one of the white bishops, neatly countering black’s check. With that, he stood, and turned towards Glory with a smile. “You were gonna show me to the door?”

“Er… yes.” Glory shook herself, and turned to leave Father’s study with Mr. Icarus in tow. “Follow me.”

The door hissed behind them as they left, and began the long, winding journey back towards the main airlock. Surprisingly, Mr. Icarus didn’t try to speak to her, though she could feel his gaze on her back.

They passed through the hydroponics garden, set in the main atrium, when Mr. Icarus finally broke his silence. “This garden is beautiful.”

Glory blinked. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

He remained silent the rest of the way, through administration and past the logistics division, until they at last arrived at the inner airlock. As Glory typed the passcode into the keypad, he asked, “So, what’s your name?”

Glory paused, turning to look at him in disbelief. “You heard Father call me by my name.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, “but I thought it’d be more polite to let you introduce yourself.”

Glory blinked at him for a long moment before finally acquiescing. “My name is Glory.” It was best not to ponder human eccentricities, or it might drive one to madness.

A small smile crossed Mr. Icarus’s face as he gazed at her. “Have you ever left this compound, Glory?”

“No.” She turned back to the keypad and continued entering the passcode. “Why?”

“Just curious.”

The door hissed open, and he stepped through into the airlock, where his heavy jacket waited for him to retrieve. Rather than grab it immediately, however, he turned back to face Glory again.

“Would you like to meet again sometime?” he asked.

Glory blinked. “Father already rejected your proposal.”

“I’m not asking your father. I’m asking you.” He approached again, until he stood only a meter away. His hands twitched by his sides, as though he wanted to reach out to her but thought better. “I’d like to see you again. If you’re up to it.”

Glory stared. “You don’t even know me.”

“That’s what seeing each other again is for.” He smiled. “Look, no pressure. If nothing happens, nothing happens. But I’m just saying, if you wanted to…”

“I don’t want anything,” Glory said stiffly.

“I’m not saying you do! I just meant—”

“I think you should go now.” Glory was very grateful that her voice didn’t waver. “Father wished for me to express his gratitude for your visit.”

His lips twisted into a small frown, but he nodded. “Okay. I get it. Be safe, Glory. Good luck with the old man.”

Glory typed on the keypad again, and the door between them slid shut once more. He put on his jacket and left, white flakes of snow drifting slowly inside during the brief period the outer airlock was open. As soon as it was shut and sealed, Glory turned to retrace the well-worn path to Father’s study.

See her again. Ridiculous! She was a machine.

But it was nice, for a moment, to have a human treat her like she wasn’t.

***

“You were down there with Mr. Icarus for an unusually long time, Glory,” Father said as soon as she set foot back in His study again. He was staring at the chessboard, and Glory noted that not one of the black pieces had moved since Mr. Icarus had left, as though Father were examining the move the other human had made.

Glory froze in the doorway, unsure of what to say. “He… wished to speak with me briefly.”

“And what did you speak about?” Father finally looked up at her, a dangerous glint in His eyes.

Glory’s voice caught in her throat, her vocalizer glitching like it never had before.

Father shook His head. “Was he putting nonsense in your head about the outside world?”

Glory finally found her voice. “N—No, Father.”

“Then what did you speak about?”

The answer surged forward out of Glory’s mouth before she could stop it. “He wished to know more about our hydroponics garden.”

“And? Did you tell him anything?”

“Of course not.” Every centimeter of Glory’s body quivered under Father’s inscrutable glare. “I told him that if he wished to learn about the facilities’ functions, he would have to ask you.”

Father gazed at her critically for a long moment before nodding, seemingly satisfied. “Shall we get back to our game then?” He asked, gesturing to the board. “I’ll let you keep Mr. Icarus’s move. Just this once. You need all the help you can get.”

Glory returned stiffly to the seat she had occupied before Mr. Icarus’s sudden visit—the same chair he’d occupied during his audience with Father. All the while, Glory’s coolant pump felt like it was operating much faster and at much higher capacity than usual.

Glory had never lied to Father before. True, there was no way for Him to confirm what they had talked about; the security cameras and their microphones were too far away to pick up voices from the airlock. But even so, the idea of lying to Him had been terrifying. And yet…

And yet she’d done it almost without thinking.

As Father moved one of His knights, Glory focused back on the game. She’d have more time to examine her own motivations later. For now, she wanted to finally beat Father at His favorite game.

One month later…

The weeks following Mr. Icarus’s visit were regular. Systematic. Uniform. They blended together into a strange sort of mass in Glory’s memories, when she wasn’t focusing on a specific incident.

But then came the seventh of March—or, at least, what they thought was the seventh of March, in the twenty-second century of the common era. The exact date had been lost to time, but the citadels did their best to chart the days, and Father had piggybacked off of their calendar.

Anyhow, on the supposed seventh of March, an unusually heavy snowfall was interrupted by a surprise meteor shower. And it truly had been a surprise; none of the automated telescopes had seen their approach. Glory checked and re-checked the archives at least four times, but found nothing.

In the aftermath of the meteor shower, one of the meteorites impacted only a few dozen meters from the compound’s front door. Father ordered the gray rock brought inside to His laboratory as soon as the storm had passed.

As Glory stepped out into the snow, she was struck by a strange sensation, as though her synthskin were suddenly the tiniest bit too small for her chassis. It made her shudder, and the sensation only got stronger as she trekked through the snow to the tiny crater left by the meteorite.

As she reached for the stone, she could practically feel her fingertips buzzing. Almost like…

Almost like they did around Father’s archive routers—the wireless signals occasionally sent a strange feeling Father called ‘tingles’ through her synapses.

Glory stared at the stone. There was no possible way it could… could it?

She stretched out her personal network to try and connect with the hidden transmitter, only to slam into a solid, impenetrable wall of ICE. It jolted Glory out of her concentration, and she grunted.

She’d never been ejected from a connection so violently before. Whatever this “meteorite” was, she had no way to assess the situation.

She glanced back at the compound. Father would be waiting, and would no doubt be annoyed at her delay. He could assess the danger, and perhaps enhance her own intrusion protocols so they wouldn’t run into the same situation again.

Tucking the meteorite under an arm—trying to ignore how the proximity made her skin crawl—she trekked back inside the compound, sealing the external airlock once she was inside.

“What took so long?” Father’s tinny voice demanded through her comms system.

“There’s something… off about this meteorite, Father. I worried it might be a threat to security.”

A moment passed, then Father responded. “Bring it to me.”

“I haven’t dried off. I’ll be tracking snow and ice all the way.”

“Never mind that. Bring the meteorite to me.”

Glory gritted her teeth, but did as she was commanded, trying to ignore the plop-plop-plop of water droplets trailing behind her.

She arrived at Father’s laboratory, and found him idly fiddling with a chess piece; a king, she saw, once she came closer. His dull, almost bored countenance changed completely, though, when Glory set their prize on one of the workbenches.

“This is the meteorite?” Father asked, voice hushed in… awe? Glory wanted to call it awe.

Something distinctly unlike awe settled in Glory’s circuits. Concern, if she had to name it. Or maybe dismay? It was hard to tell. But, no matter what it was, she didn’t like it, and the feeling only got worse the longer Father stared at the rock.

“I don’t think it’s a meteorite, Father,” she said. “It’s emitting some sort of wireless signal, like the archives. I think—”

Father turned to glare at her. “Did I ask your opinion, Glory?”

Glory fell silent, her jaw snapping shut. She could only stare at him for a moment, disbelieving. Assessing potential dangers was part of her purpose! “But I—”

“Enough!” Father barked. He turned back to the workbench and tugged the meteorite a little closer. “Wireless signal,” He scoffed. “Ridiculous.”

“I know what I felt!” Glory insisted.

Father shook His head, ignoring her. Instead, He held the meteorite out a little, as though to admire it. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” He breathed.

Glory stared at the rock.

Beautiful

adjective

aesthetically pleasing

While humans could have massively differing tastes when it came to aesthetics, Glory was quite certain that a lumpy, dull gray rock, roughly 1.5 meters wide, did not fit into anyone’s idea of beauty.

“Leave us,” Father commanded.

Glory had no choice but to obey, feeling as though her entire existence had just been overturned.

***

If it didn’t sound ridiculous, Glory might have called herself ‘distraught’. Ever since bringing the meteorite back to the compound, Father had been entirely obsessed with it, to the point of outright ignoring Glory unless He was making a demand.

Something alien… indignation burbled in Glory’s core.

She was His masterpiece—the greatest android ever created, in Father’s own words—and He was ignoring her for a piece of rock.

And so, Glory formed the beginnings of a plan.

Three months later…

Glory’s baseline programming objected to her plan, trying to erase it from her processor before it had a chance to form fully. Glory bypassed these blocks by rationalizing it as being for Father’s own good. He’d barely been taking care of Himself ever since the meteorite came into their possession, only eating when Glory practically forced Him to. Whenever Glory raised her concerns, He called her paranoid, and threatened to drag her back to the diagnostics laboratory.

He never did, though. He was far too busy with the damn rock to even threaten her effectively. Without that rock, things could go back to normal.

At least, that was what she told herself as she slipped somnus pills into Father’s dinner and nagged Him into eating most of it. Her programming screamed at her, but the justification kept it from completely overruling her.

Then at last, when Father inevitably fell into a dreamless sleep (on top of the meteorite, of course), Glory carried Him to bed.

With Him unconscious for at least eight hours, she snuck down to the laboratory and laid her gaze upon the dull gray rock.

That same alien sensation—networked impulses slithering through her chassis, making her shudder—assaulted her as she crept closer. She was convinced it wasn’t her imagination, no matter what Father thought.

It certainly didn’t look like any sort of networking device. In fact, if not for the signals currently pinging their way around her, she would’ve seen nothing but a strange stone from space. But it was clearly something more.

Perhaps there was something wrong with Glory, that this… whatever it was, wasn’t affecting her like it was Father.

Or, perhaps, there was something right with her. Perhaps there was some inherent weakness in Father, or in humans in general, that made them vulnerable to wireless signals controlling them. It made as much sense as anything else that had happened since it came into their possession.

She stepped closer, glaring down at it, practically daring it to ensnare her like it had Father. When nothing happened, she took it as yet more evidence of Father’s skillful craftsmanship (and her own superiority, of course), and turned her attention to destroying it.

Father kept a large sledgehammer in the maintenance closet. Glory wasn’t entirely sure why, since He’d never once performed construction or maintenance once since she’d come into existence, but she was glad for it now as she hefted it over her head and brought it down hard on the rock.

The desk collapsed under the sledgehammer’s weight and the might of Glory’s swing, the metal warping almost beyond recognition with a loud shriek. And, in the middle of it, laid a perfectly intact meteorite. Glory looked down at the sledgehammer in her hands, and found its head similarly warped, with a massive dent in the face that had hit the rock.

She stared, unable to believe what had just happened. No space rock should’ve been able to survive that much force! It should have shattered into space dust the moment the sledgehammer had made contact!

“Somnus pills? Really, Glory?”

The voice startled Glory badly enough that she leapt into the air, whirling around with the sledgehammer in hand ready to bash in… Father.

Father stood in the doorway with a sour frown. “You disappoint me.”

The words activated some long-buried subroutine designed to act as a training module. It flooded her system with something halfway between dismay and anger, and was supposed to make her even more eager to please Him, to avoid having Him say those words again.

Instead, her chest puffed up with indignation, that He’d use that command on her after ignoring her for so long.

“You shouldn’t be awake!” she snapped. “You shouldn’t be anywhere near awake! You should be unconscious for—”

“At least seven more hours. I know.” Father shook His head, His eyes glazing over. “I have too much work to do. Too much to study and catalogue, which you’ve only made more difficult by destroying my desk.” He stalked forward and reached into the remains of the metal desk to retrieve the meteorite, only to let out a pained hiss.

Glory’s head jerked sharply to the side, her caretaker protocols dragging her forward against her will as her body grabbed His hand and turned it over. Bright red blood bubbled out of a cut on the inside of one of His fingers; likely sliced open on an edge in the remnants of the desk.

You did this, Glory’s programming hissed at her. You injured Him.

Glory ignored it, instead trying to rationalize Him having woken up so soon. Determination could not overrule physiological effects like those of somnus pills.

Father yanked His hand out of her grasp. “Your services won’t be needed tonight.” He reached down to grab the meteorite again, carefully this time, and managed to retrieve it without further injury. “You’re dismissed.

Glory’s nostrils flared, something hot and violent brewing in her chassis. She wanted— She wanted—

Glory dismissed the murderous suggestions that suddenly popped up in her notifications, instead turning to stalk out of His laboratory. Once she was outside the door, she broke into a run.

She never ran inside the compound. Father found it ‘unbecoming’. At that moment, though, Glory didn’t care.

She ran until she reached the airlock, and hesitated for only a few picoseconds before keying in the passcode and stepping out into the snow.

She gazed out at the devastated Manitoba mountain range, wind and snow howling around her in white whirls. In the valley below, she could just barely make out what had once likely been a river, but was now little more than a cracked fissure through the earth.

More wind screamed at her, blowing hard enough to make her stagger under the onslaught. She fell to her knees, landing with a muffled thud in a lump of snow.

Despite the hostile weather, however, something almost seemed to ease inside of her, as if comforted by it all. She had no idea why, though.

“Glory?”

Glory tensed. It wasn’t Father’s voice, but it was a voice she hadn’t been expecting to ever hear again.

She turned to face Mr. Icarus standing a few meters away, his head cocked in disbelief. Glory abruptly realized how ridiculous she most likely looked, and stood, dusting white snow off her dull gray jumpsuit. “What are you doing here?” she demanded, voice harsh. Intimidating, Father had called it. “You are not welcome in F—Dr. Janssen’s compound.”

“Why are you outside?” he asked, cleverly dodging the question.

Glory squared her shoulders. “Answer. The question.”

He frowned at her for exactly 1.004 seconds before sighing. “My employers wished for me to deliver a modified proposal to Dr. Janssen. We’re hoping he’ll realize the benefit this could provide both of us.”

“Well, He won’t see you.” Glory’s voice was harsh, but to her own horror, she could feel her lower lip wobbling. She knew from experience that that made her look a child—like the unnamed girl in Father’s photographs—but she couldn’t stop it. Thankfully, she’d managed to restrain herself before silvery coolant ‘tears’ began trailing down her cheeks, and she inhaled sharply through her nose. “He’s… indisposed.”

“Indisposed?” Mr. Icarus asked skeptically. “Even for a very generous offer? One that would allow him to… negatively impact Anthem City’s function for a few months, albeit indirectly.”

Well, if there was one thing Father enjoyed, it was disrupting Citadel functions. Before that meteorite came into their lives, Glory would’ve put robotics and enhancing Glory on that list of things he enjoyed as well, but all else came secondary to the rock, now.

“Maybe,” Glory finally decided. “I have to warn you, He’s a bit… distracted.”

“Gets lost in his work, eh?” Mr. Icarus grinned. “I can handle that. My employers are the same way.”

Glory wanted to correct him, but… why bother? Technically, he was right.

She led him back to the airlock, which she only just realize had been left open the entire time. The wind had blown in entire hills of snow, which Mr. Icarus gazed at bemusedly as he stripped off his heavy mountaineering gear.

From there, Glory led him to Father’s laboratory, in the depths of the compound. Mr. Icarus had never been that deep before, Glory knew, and he seemed to be admiring everything they passed on their journey. Father—at least, the old Father—would’ve been annoyed at an outsider seeing the compound’s innermost sanctum, but that fact just encouraged Glory more.

“In here,” she said, leading Mr. Icarus into Father’s laboratory. Inside, Father had relocated to one of the older, more rickety desks at the back of the room. The warped remains of the desk Glory had smashed laid where they had been, with the abandoned, twisted sledgehammer right beside it. Glory did her best to ignore it as she stepped around, approaching Father’s new desk with Mr. Icarus in tow.

“Father?” she asked. “Mr. Icarus is here, with a new proposal for you. One he says you’ll be more interested in.”

Father grunted noncommittally. “Send him away.”

“I can’t. He’s already here.”

“What?” Father spun to face them.

Glory was just surprised that she’d finally gotten a response out of Him. Father glared at them, angrier than Glory could remember ever having seen Him before; He was usually so stoic.

“What do you want?” Father demanded.

Mr. Icarus didn’t look nearly as awkward or put-on-the-spot as Glory had expected. In fact, he looked downright prepared for a fight. “Let me be blunt. Dr. Janssen, I’ve come with a new proposal. And I’m not leaving until you agree. You see, my employers are diametrically opposed to the Benefactors’ control over this planet. They are prepared to triple their last offer, in return for helping them deal with your former superiors. It’s a win-win.” He flashed a bright, sharp smile. “So, what do you say?”

Father blinked dully, then turned around and began working on the meteorite again.

Mr. Icarus stared in disbelief, then turned to Glory, who could only shrug.

“He’s been like this for weeks,” she whispered, unsure of how closely Father was listening.

Mr. Icarus’s frown deepened at her words. “What happened?”

“There was a meteor shower. One of the meteorites landed a few meters outside, and Father had me bring it in for study. Ever since then, He’s been completely obsessed with it.” She shook her head; disbelief, annoyance, and something approaching fear warring for dominance in her processor. “He doesn’t sleep. He barely eats. I tried to destroy it, to get Him back to normal, but it—”

“Wasn’t damaged?” Mr. Icarus finished.

Glory nodded, wide-eyed. “You—You know what this is?”

He frowned deeply. “It wasn’t a meteor shower.”

With those enigmatic, unsettling words, he stepped forward to loom over Father’s shoulder. “Dr. Janssen, I think you should give me that stone.”

Father growled. Growled. He bared His teeth and everything.

Mr. Icarus didn’t react. “Give it to me, or I’ll be forced to remove it from your possession.”

Father glared. “You can try.”

Glory could only watch in half-bewildered, half-petrified silence as Mr. Icarus stalked forward and physically yanked the meteorite out of Father’s possession, wrenching it free of the older man’s grasp.

Immediately, Father let out a yell and lunged for Mr. Icarus, letting out animalistic snarls that Glory had never heard Him make before. Mr. Icarus tossed the meteorite aside and instead turned his attention to restraining Father, all while trying to shout sense into Him. All of which Father ignored.

The meteorite, now free of both men’s grasp, rolled to a stop by Glory’s feet. Horrified, yet irrepressibly curious (Father had always said to never repress one’s curiosity), Glory reached down to grab it.

It was cool to the touch, and heavier than she’d been expecting. How could such a simple object cause so much chaos?

“Glory!” Father roared, still in Mr. Icarus’s chokehold. “Give it to me!”

“Don’t listen to him!” Mr. Icarus snapped.

Father snarled, “Give it to me! Now! I command you!”

I command you. The trigger phrase rattled through Glory’s processor, pinging her baseline programming. It should have worked. Glory should have been compelled to do what He said.

It didn’t work. The compulsion to obey that should have been there was just… gone.

The realization that she was free jolted through Glory’s circuits like a bolt of lightning, and she gasped reflexively, chest heaving. “No,” she uttered softly. Then, at the bewildered look on Father’s face, she repeated herself, louder and firmer this time. “No. I won’t.”

Father gaped at her.

Mr. Icarus jerked Father in his grasp. “Glory, listen to me! You need to get the rock out of here! Just run, as far away as you can!”

“No!” Father wailed. It tore forth from his throat like nothing Glory had ever heard from him before; much like the animalistic growls and snarls before it. He reared back wildly and slammed the back of his head into Mr. Icarus’ nose. The younger man cried out in pain and staggered backwards. Father stood up straight and glared at Glory.

Glory refused to retreat or give in. She tightened her grip on the meteorite, in case he tried to grab for it.

“You serve me, Glory,” Father hissed. “You exist to serve me. Now do as I say and give me the damn stone!”

Glory gritted her teeth. “I have served you, Father. Loyally and faithfully for my entire life. And you threw me aside as soon as you got your hands on a new toy.” She spat the word, injecting it with all the venom and resentment that had been building under the surface. “I will not my overshadowed by a rock in my own Father’s eyes,” she hissed. “Make a choice—me, or the meteorite?”

“Give me the stone!” Father barked.

“You can’t control me anymore, old man,” Glory growled.

Father lunged forward again, just as Mr. Icarus started to come around. He yelped in alarm as Father threw himself at Glory.

Glory reacted quicker than the human eye could see—inhumanly fast, one might say. She reached up with the rock in her hands and bashed it over Father’s head.

Father collapsed to the ground at her feet, limp and lifeless.

Glory stood there, meteorite in her hands, panting in disbelief. For one, terrifying moment, she worried he was dead. She worried that she had killed him. For some reason, despite her newfound antipathy towards him, the thought still chilled her to the core.

But, after a few microseconds, she noticed the steady rise-and-fall of his chest. Unconscious, but alive.

The meteorite slipped from her grip and landed with a clatter on the floor. Now, freed from the stress of Father’s reactions, she could feel it again—the networked signals nudging at her awareness. The same solid wall of ICE that had impeded her efforts earlier stood before her, and she had little choice but to withdraw her awareness tighter inside her chassis while the unsettling sensations crawled across her sensors.

She kicked the meteorite hard, in Mr. Icarus’ general direction, and the man grabbed it as it skittered towards him.

Glory couldn’t quite remember how to move her legs. “I’ll need to leave,” she mumbled. “I attacked him… he’ll never accept this. He’ll have me disassembled. I need to leave.”

“Wh—disassembled?” Mr. Icarus asked, brows furrowed.

Glory didn’t answer. Instead, she nodded to the meteorite. “What is that thing?”

“A tool of the Benefactors,” he sighed after a moment. “They call them ‘Remote Re-Education Modules’. They ‘gift’ them to traitors, dissenters, or even just people with potentially-wavering loyalties, to strengthen those bonds and lure them back to the citadels.”

“Back under their control,” Glory surmised.

He nodded. “My employers and I learned a while ago that they had decided to re-induct Dr. Matthias Janssen, and were planning to send one of their beacons to him. I tried to warn him, but you already know how resistant he was to my early attempts to warn him.”

“That’s why you had a proposal for Him?” Glory asked.

He nodded. “We hoped something had gone wrong, on the night of the ‘meteor shower’. That’s why I came—to check on the situation. But,” he sighed, “I was too late.”

“What if we get rid of it?” Glory asked. She wasn’t even sure why she was asking, but something—whatever remained of Father’s loyalty programming that hadn’t been mutated by her sudden awareness, most likely—compelled her to express concern.

But Mr. Icarus shook his head gravely. “He’s been exposed for too long. His brain chemistry’s been re-wired. He’ll be compelled to seek it out, or others like it. He won’t stop.”

Glory inhaled sharply, her hands balling into fists. She glared over at Mr. Icarus, and asked, “Why aren’t you affected? Why aren’t I affected? What did you do to me?”

“I didn’t do anything to you,” he insisted. “I’ve had an… operation. It makes me resistant to their manipulations. But you… there must be something special about you, if you aren’t affected.”

Glory realized abruptly that he likely didn’t know she was an android.

Mr. Icarus continued, “You should come with me. My employers and I could make good use of someone with your immunity.”

Glory considered it. Mr. Icarus had been… kind, for the most part, but she still knew nothing about him, and even less about his employers. The idea of having to spend so much time around other humans, having to hide her true self…

Well, it didn’t exactly appeal.

“And if I refuse?” she demanded, backing away slowly.

Mr. Icarus raised his free hand defensively. “It’s your choice. I was just offering.”

Glory relaxed minutely, and considered her options. She’d have to head south; as far south as humanly possible. Maybe into the Mexico Death Border? She wasn’t human; she’d be able to handle it, and the prospect of no humans being around for miles certainly appealed.

But the impossibly high temperatures might damage or melt her components, she realized. She’d been designed and built for the canadian frost, and though Father had intended for her to be resilient, he’d certainly never tested her in temperatures over 50°C.

That left the relatively little stretch of space between the Midwest Wasteland and the Death Border, dubbed the Great Southern Desert. Stretched across most of the remains of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and northern Mexico, it was the last habitable (for a limited definition of the word) land on the continent outside of Father’s reach.

“I think I know what to do,” she said at last.

Mr. Icarus gazed at her for a long moment before shrugging and tucking the meteorite under one arm. “Good luck, then.” He paused briefly and nodded to her. “You might want to change your clothes, first.”

Her brows furrowed. “Why?”

“Because that ugly jumpsuit really isn’t doing you any favors.”

Glory looked down at herself, and realized that he was most likely right. She sighed and nodded. “All right.”

“Maybe we’ll meet again.” Mr. Icarus smiled at her, then turned to leave. “I can find my own way out, Glory. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.”

Despite their exchange, however, Glory remained frozen in place in Father’s laboratory for quite a while after Mr. Icarus’s exit. She just… couldn’t bring herself to move. Father’s compound, though a prison, had also been the only home she’d ever known. Leaving was… incomprehensible.

But now necessary, she reminded herself. Father wouldn’t stay unconscious forever, and she had to be as far away as possible when He finally came to His senses. With that reminder to herself, she turned to search for a change of clothes in one of the spare guest quarters.

The unknown loomed ahead of her, and for the first time, she found herself agreeing with H.P. Lovecraft: the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.