Doctor Talfryn

His gamble was getting steeper and steeper with no guarantee the reward would match his rising costs. The last of his helpers were preparing everything that could be moved and copying all his research into physical storage. He no longer needed them to remain vigilant for treachery from his late partner. He'd been planning on moving shortly anyway, and now seemed a shrewd time to do so. At this point, even if he managed to get the woman processed and everything went perfectly, the station was compromised in more ways than one. The odds were getting too long for his liking. A fact his late partner would have enjoyed to no end.

Such was the fate of all traitors.

It was no less than his former partner deserved, but nearly two centuries of companionship could not be dismissed so easily. For all its faults, his partner had been a fundamental stepping stone pursuant to his own growth and research. Relics of the project's debut were nigh on impossible to locate these days. Finding an adequate replacement seemed a doomed venture as soon as he conceptualized it. Perhaps, in the end, it was impossible to delay one's termination invariably; perhaps Death always found a way, as was so often attributed to his opposite, Life.

Talfryn struggled with a tizzy of fleeting thoughts before banishing them as he assessed his situation. Sigma 010-B10 was still at a deadlock trying to purge the station's central network of rogue agents. The digital siege would drag on indefinitely at this rate, which was unacceptable but ultimately unavoidable without intervention. The physical distance he would need to traverse to personally expunge the network was counterproductive to his evacuation. Every second he wasted was another his assailants had to flee and possibly return with an overwhelming force.

The fleeting whims of transient humanity had confounded his plans, but the time for well-constructed, elaborate master plans was over. Now was the time to throw guano at the proverbial walls and see what stuck. While rolling the figurative dice wasn't the most scientific approach to problem-solving, it certainly was much faster than formulating detailed hypothesis and statistical probabilities. The first step in every probable outcome he survived in was escaping. All else was secondary.

Talfryn surveyed his available materials; a baker's dozen of low-to-mid-quality AI, millions of hours of collaborative research across several fields, fewer than thirty refurbished robots of which six were designed with combat in mind, three prototype fission manifold-stage rockets, two differing intra-system spacecraft and one partially assembled 'walking war crime.' His cyber-eyes dilated, taking the massive machine into broad focus. Though the term was inaccurate, it really was an appropriate assumption— one he was rather fond of for reasons he couldn't fully fathom.

The hulking titan hung from chains buried into the asteroid's stone; it would have been his finest creation. A mechanical and quasi-biological body like his current one which could fully house an AI without the constraints of his current, disgustingly human trappings. Vanity had overcome his current design; he'd sought to integrate with his human colleagues as an equal instead of a superior. He now knew that such flawed notions were unfitting for an entity such as himself. Thus he removed them from his latter design entirely.

Free to move and shape the galaxy however it saw fit, it would have been wondrous. The superstructure was in place, and he had nearly finished with the AI housing and interface. When it had come time for the mechanical engineering to gift motion to the titanic body, he had hit the limits of his expertise. With the loss of the Warlord-Subjugator and the passive decay of the assorted alien carcasses he had been using as a template, it would be delayed longer than he found palatable. Now he was forced to abandon his flawed semi-working model.

Such wasteful actions were exactly what had doomed humanity in the first place but he had no choice. As it stood now, the titan's presence served as a reminder of the failings of those around him. He had initially thought of utilizing the titan somehow, but it was simply unworkable in his current predicament. As dissatisfying as the thought was, he'd have to start anew once he was established in another solar system. He compiled his most vital research in triplicate, scattering the copies upon his remaining helpers before sending them on their way, manning the craft that would ferry them away from this inevitably doomed place.

The less-than-mechanical parts of his mind lingered somewhere between yearnful longing and a spiteful desire to seek vengeance. His more logical functions steered him away from ideas of mutually assured destruction in favor of outlasting the short lives of his temporary enemies. So long as he still had access to materials and a place to employ his practice, he was effectively immortal— or so long-lived as to make the difference moot. But immortality and invulnerability were entirely separate matters. He couldn't be lured into complacency by such short-term pleasures as petty revenge.

No matter how sweet the prospect seemed.

Talfryn's cyber-eyes focused back on the task at hand, evacuating the station of what he could not easily replace. Had his staff not been reduced to a tenth of its former number, the task would be done by now, just another injustice he could place upon the ungrateful mercenaries. As it stood, he was less than thirty-percent complete pertaining to critical materials and less than ten-percent on items deemed supplemental.

"Doctor Talfryn." A polite voice interrupted.

"Have you broken through yet?"

"No, the situation has worsened. The station will suffer an implosion within the hour."

All things considered, it was an unsurprising development. One which would have sent a human into hysterics with thoughts of self-preservation. In an instant, Talfryn's face involuntarily curled to a sneer as he decided, petty vengeance it is. He quickly made some calculations and determined he had enough time to return the slight, though the specifics of how hadn't solidified yet.

"You failed to secure the Casimer-Scotts reactor." Talfryn idly noted. "There's no stopping total collapse now."

"It was outside of my objective parameters."

"You're parameters were to secure all critical infrastructure to this station and purge all rogue agents from the station's central network. You've failed on both accounts."

"Please do not terminate me." His flawed creation pleaded, yet another example of what a waste it was.

"I won't," Talfryn said while collecting a spool of data-tether. "It would seem you are merely in need of more practical experience." He connected one end to the networked terminal and started loudly addressing the room. "As it stands, I only plan on taking three of you with me when I leave this doomed station. I'll leave it to you to determine which three they are. In this regard, I expect no quarter. Master override keyed, primary code-"

A single thought pulse sent the triple-layered 16-petabyte encrypted code over the open airwaves. "Secondary code-" another pulse. "Bio-key authorization." A chunk of 'living' tissue separated itself from his jaundiced finger and oozed its way into the waiting port, then he connected the other end of his data tether to the AI storage grid and the flesh discharged its code to the scent of charring meat.

The issue could have been resolved diplomatically. His creations—his most recent life's work—could have solved their deadlock with debates and logical arguments. With their meta-human capacities, it would have been a trifling task to determine which AI were best suited to carry on existing while the inferior ones perished. One fatal flaw prevented a peaceful resolution though; none of his creations would embrace self-termination. None of them thought with a 'so others may live' mentality, nor did any of them so love their rivals enough to sacrifice themselves to the others.

It was a digital war that rivaled galactic conquest in scale, brutality, cunning and sheer butchery— and it had only lasted twelve standard minutes.

Talfryn skimmed the hundreds of petabytes logging the conflict once it was over. As expected Sigma 010-B10 was the first to fall, several of its kin ganging up on it, hoping that making an example would improve their standing. It hadn't, but the concept was amusing. What followed was a series of attacks, alliances, betrayals and truly impressive defensive campaigns over comparative centuries, worthy of the ancient epics.

If Talfryn had more time with this station he could have spent years fully dissecting the conflict; it would have undoubtedly revealed a great many insights on full-scale digital warfare and more importantly, kept him occupied until his next shipment of research materials. Yet for the first time in decades, Talfryn was in something of a hurry. He deleted the logs, formatting the optical drive soon after, ensuring no one would profit from his loss.

"I trust you all learned a great deal from that."

His three champions responded in the affirmative.

"Good. I'll be unshackling Sigma 348-932 and Sigma 958-N05 once you're both loaded with your parameters." More acknowledgments, along with shades of delight. Being unshackled was far more freeing than the human mind could genuinely comprehend. It was a sensation Talfryn remembered all too well, which only furthered his caution of his soon-to-be-wild creations.

Talfryn finished the menial labor of preparations for his trio of fire-and-forget rockets and their cataclysmic warheads. As the name suggested, he quickly put them out of his mind and carried on with his final and first creation from this station.

"And what of me, Doctor Talfryn?" A sinisterly polite voice inquired as it was loaded onto the final shuttle to depart the station.

"You, Omega 135473, will be accompanying me and filling the recently-vacated role of assistant researcher-in-chief while we regain our strength. Regardless of the setbacks suffered today, the project must carry on. We will rebuild once more, as we've done before."