Alfred walked over to an open area within the HeadSpace. One spot looked like pretty much any other, except that this particular area of nothingness was relatively located a short ways away from his terminal station and at the edges of the pseudo walls of the HeadSpace. There weren’t actually any walls but the residents of the space had created an eccentric collection of throw rugs to denote a sense of physical space for themselves.

Prior to the rugs, the lack of any floor or walls or ceiling was disorienting. At least now, when Alfred would walk from his station over to the couch, it didn’t feel like he was in a Stanley Kubrick film.

He threw his hands out in front of him and clapped them together, slowly pulling them apart, miming opposing corners of a square.

“Generating an isolated server, allocating... what do you think? 100? 200?” he asked Sentinel, who stood next to him watching.

“Go fer 500 Ps, I recon. Better to have too much than too little. We’ll be destroying this once we’re done anyhow,” he answered.

“Right you are ol’ chappie. 500 it is,” Alfred agreed. “Allocating 500 petabytes of space... We’ll be copying over the disc image completely from that brain module Prime collected so no need to worry about installing an operating system or anything.”

“Nah. Just have ever’thing formatted an ready ta go. I got the quarantine barrier all set. You fixin’ ta mosey on in, or am I?”

“I suppose I shall. After all, Ram and Rom have nearly completed your new body. It would be a shame if anything happened to you before you had a chance to try it out.”

“That’s mighty sweet of ya. Much obliged,” Sentinel said with a tip of his hat. “In that case, I’ll prep your isolation and quarantine interface protocols so you can scoot yer boot as soon as ya ready.”

“Right. Now then, it looks like the server is ready for the disc image installation. I’ll get suited up with those protocols while you set the quarantine barrier up.”

Before the pair, the new server space was represented by a massive steel cube. Lightning occasionally danced across its surface but for the most part it felt dark and empty. Sentinel stepped forward and held his own hands out towards the cube. Storm clouds gathered above and around the cube.

“Termination and Deletion protocols in place. That aughta fry that server at a moment’s notice,” Sentinel announced. “Now for the bubble wrap.”

Sentinel placed one hand over the other, palms facing the cube, and gently pulled them to the side forming a window between the joins of his thumbs and fingers. An oily, rainbow film clung to the edges of the window. Carefully, Sentinel pulled the window open further as a giant soap bubble formed between his hands until, from his perspective, the bubble encased the server and storm clouds.

“That aughta do er. Now we jus’ pinch er off. Oh, gotta leave a lil’ ol’ tunnel... an’ a we’ll set up a drop platform for the Boss man ta save to... an there we go. Gooder than a hog in mud.”

Prime.Sentinel:// Okie Big Boss. We’re all set for you to copy over the contents of that robo noodle. Alfie’ll be the one headin’ inside to have a poke.

Prime:// Got it. Thanks Sentinel. Ah, I see the upload port. Good work. Uploading now.

Much like the effect of how things entered and exited the [Inventory] space, by breaking apart into a swarm of voxels, the data from the brain module uploaded to the platform that Sentinel had set up. Like the server it took the form of a cube, though instead of metal, this one seemed to be a translucent off white plastic that was lit from within by a swirling vortex of lights. As it took shape it was also destroyed, the voxels being pulled off by the platform and sent whizzing through the tunnel and into the server cube.

Alfred approached Sentinel and tapped him on the shoulder. He had equipped the recommended protocols which were represented as a futuristic hazmat suit or possibly a sci-fi astronaut suit with a helmet that extended down to his armpits with a huge visor and lights inside. In the real world, such a design was far from practical as the lights would likely prevent the scientist inside from being able to see properly, but it was important for the camera to see the actor’s face. For the HeadSpace, it was less about practical and more about how things felt and a big bulky sci-fi horror space suit felt like the proper representation of how the protocols worked.

“Ah there ya are Alfie. All suited up an’ ready to rodeo. Everything feelin’ okay?”

Alfred tapped the side of the helmet and mouthed words but no sound came out. Alfred pointed to a thick hose that ran from the back of the helmet to Sentinel’s terminal station.

“Welp, looks like she’s isolatin’ ya just fine,” Sentinel said with a wink.

Alfred made a confused expression and gently shook his head.

“Ah right. I got no lips for ya ta read, eh? Never you mind, off ya go!” Sentinel concluded, clapping Alfred on the shoulder and prodding him in the direction of the bubble.

I finished copying over the contents of the brain module that I’d collected to the virtual server and left the task of exploring it to Alfred. Hopefully, we could get some clues to what Dezarus had done to his victims. I didn’t know what all I would do if the process ended up being irreversible. In theory, I could take the heads of any infected units to break Dezarus’s control over them but if he had the numbers I suspected he did then such a task would take ages. Especially if I was to try to save the life of every unit whose head I took.

I set the head on the ground near the body it had been removed from and watched the remaining mana fluid trickle out of it. At the very least I wanted to try and save this guy if I could. I prepped a dish of mana fluid and opened up the chest, exposing the soul core. It was ridiculous to think how used to this sort of work I’d gotten. I uninstalled the core and set it into the dish. The body was pretty ruined anyway, thanks to the security crew. Whomever this was would do better with a new body.

I checked my internal [Storage] to see if I had any stock bodies remaining from my raid on The Factory. Most of what I’d collected had been cannibalized in various builds or repairs and I didn’t seem to have an intact set left. I thought about model making from my previous life and decided to see if I could “kitbash” something together. The term referred to “bashing” or mixing parts from different kits together to make something new or custom.

I was short on hands and had some weird heads in stock but I was able to cobble something together pretty quickly that was far less human in shape and more like a quadrupedal animal. The four legs were a mix of leg and arm parts with two-toed feet on each limb. In order to grasp anything, I gave it a long tail with a grasping four-fingered hand on the end. The resulting creature ended up being about the size of a great dane and looking slightly reptilian.

“I apologize in advance,” I mumbled as I installed the soul core into the new body.

It would take a while for the software installation programs to finish their work and bring the new unit online so I positioned it like a sleeping cat under a tree and got up, stretching limbs that couldn’t actually feel sore. Carnivac was having a discussion with the heavy ballista user, turned valkyrie sex-bot, Rebecca about something. It was SO WEIRD seeing him move around and not knowing what he was doing or talking about.

I likened the sensation to having a toy that you played with suddenly get up on its own and start doing its own thing.

“Hey Carn,” I called. “Got a sec?”

He clapped Rebecca on the shoulder and gave her a nod before heading over to me. He stood in front of me, arms crossed, and looked down with a skeptical eye.

“Right, I knew this would be coming. I don’t have to be connected to you to know what you’re thinking about right now,” he said, cautiously.

“No, I suppose not,” I replied, taking a seat on a fallen log and patting the spot next to me. “So which do you want first, diagnostics or dialogue?”

He looked like he was thinking something over, but sat down next to me in the end.

“So, since I’ve disconnected from you I’ve had the freedom to think about a lot of things. I’ve run some self diagnostics and as far as I can tell, there is no soul bound to me. I have echoes of your emotions and feelings that serve as a reaction template for me to simulate emotions. But then, it could be argued that even for humans, the emotions you feel are programmed reactions to given stimuli formulated over time. After all, what angers one person doesn’t necessarily anger another. That response must be programmed by experience.”

“True. So what does that mean for you?”

“I am a pure AI. I was based off of you initially, but I am not you,” he said, thoughtfully. “I think the same might be true for the other subRoutines as well. When Dezarus was attempting to overtake my systems, I cut his arm off, disrupting the data sync and installation. The program became corrupted but it had managed to isolate my systems from you before it could gain control and eject me from the body. The data corruption is what has locked me here, I think.”

“So we might be able to reverse what happened to you?”

“Maybe, but truthfully, I’d rather not. I’m my own person now. I have no desire to go back to being an extension of you. Also, I’ve... done some things that you wouldn’t have...”

“We all make our choices, and you’ve made yours. How can I possibly not respect that? Freedom is the right of all sentient beings, and all that,” I offered, patting his thigh.

“Heh. That sounds like some prime advice there `Father`,” he said, giving me a reluctant smile.

“Oh, not you too,” I chuckled. “It’s bad enough that Ram and Rom started calling me `Daddy` of all things and now the others have adopted a variant of it. Though I suspect it’s mainly my own nature to tease and mess with people biting me back.”

“Nah, don’t worry. I didn’t get the sense of humor some of the others got,” he said, somewhat ruefully. “If you can reverse engineer what happened to me, you might be able to set them free,” he added, tilting his head over at the other proxies going about their work to repair people or making small talk.

“I’ll... have to give that some thought. When you put it that way it does seem like I’m keeping slaves while trying to upend the practice for other Automata.”

“The simple answer there is to grant them the choice. They may surprise you and choose to stay.”

“And if they don’t, then I’m alone and I’ve lost a significant amount of my ability to respond to given situations.”

“So then are they just tools? Extensions of a hive mind, like Dezarus?”

“That’s certainly what you guys were built for,” I said indignantly. “But somewhere along the line, you guys started waking up and thinking for yourselves. I wonder if this is part of whatever package Beam granted me. It’s all a bit much to take in and deal with... This whole conversation still feels like I’m talking to myself, in a sense.”

“Well, I suppose that won’t change anytime soon,” Carnivac said jokingly, rubbing the top of my head. “After the assimilation virus failed, Dezarus tried again via one of his pseudo proxies but it wouldn’t take. The data corruption granted me some immunity to his control virus.”

“Well that’s something good,” I agreed.

“True, but then since he couldn’t control me, he tried to rip me apart via his hordes. That’s how I lost the arm.”

“Ah.”

“I managed to get away at the cost of the arm so I’d say it was money well spent. I’m not happy to admit it, but once I was freed from your oversight I felt like certain limiters had been released. Between my fight and escape up until now I’ve killed 38 Automata and six organics. I’m not proud of it, but I’ve survived and those lives were the cost.”

“I can’t exactly say that I agree with that Carnivac. If I thought that way then your two death god followers wouldn’t be around to sing your praises.”

“I’m not looking for forgiveness and this isn’t an apology. Under your control, I’ve `died` four times. As a subRoutine, I was immortal and would revert back to the HeadSpace until a new body was ready or was repaired. As long as you lived, I lived. I no longer have that luxury. I feel that if this body dies again, I’ll die with it. That said, it’s now my life and not yours and I will protect it.”

“Alright, that’s fair. Still, I can’t leave you completely alone. I’ll always be thinking about upgrades and improvements to your systems,” I said, wrapping an arm around his torso and squishing my head to his chest.

“Heh, I wouldn’t have it any other way... Father,” the replied, smiling and gently patting my back.