"Lucy, I do think we have a problem I just . . feel kind of empty inside, like I have no personality after so many switches and hectic situations." Krogar began to complain to his faithful companion inside his head only to get a short answer.

"No problem detected."

"But Lucy, it is really so taxing on my soul, I cannot continue like this I think that I should just . .. "

"7, 6, 5 .. "

"Pause that f*ck right this second!"

"Problem solved, proceed with the mission."

"Heartless b .. . b-beauty." Krogar quickly corrected himself.

"Thanks for your compliment, in order to solidify your mental state, I can start a subroutine for mental training in the army."

"Please do, that could be soothi . ."

"STAND AT ATTENTION YOU LITTLE SH*TS, I AM NOT YOUR MOM TO WIPE YOUR ASS, BUT I WILL SURE AS HELL KICK IT UNLESS YOU DO WHAT I SAY!!" Krogar jumped one meter high, when he heard what was apparently a recording of an army sergeant.

"Stop it, stop! This is not helpful, seriously." Krogar sat on the ground, decimated.

"4, 3, 2, .. " Lucy continued.

"Fire in the hole Lucy, just do it." Krogar said in disinterested voice.

"1, 0, -1, -2 . .Recalibrating. . . Krogar?"

"Eh? Where is the big bang? Wait, I would not have even died if you did it. I am just an AI, I would have been simply switched off." Krogar began to laugh like a maniac.

"Punch a tree." Lucy demanded.

"What? Is your circuit fried?"

"Punch a tree." Lucy kept demanding.

"Whatever." Krogar stood up and punched the closest tree with medium force, leaving an imprint of his fist in the bark.

"The tree has been punched, there is an imprint."

"I figured?" Krogar did not get her reaction. "So now we are both crazy, we make a great pair."

"Whoever punched, whatever punched, there is only the imprint. The identity matters only because we keep trying to predict the future based on it. We do what we want. what we do creates what we are. Based on what we are and what we want we continue to do more. Identity is only a shadow of will. With no lingering will you are free to choose. You create a burden for yourself, when you have actually lost it."

Krogar just stared at the tree, not expecting something like that to come out of Lucy.

"If you had a solid identity, would the imprint be different?" Lucy asked, but received no answer. Krogar just found the point marking their destination on the map and slowly marched forth.

* * * *

"I still believe it does matter." Krogar could not get the question out of his head. "If I was a boxer for my whole life, the imprint would be different."

"No it would not, this android model would leave the same mark."

"Wait, but that is . ."

"Your mental state is not physically linked to your body, the imprint will always be the same." Lucy said.

"That means it does matter for humans!" Krogar smiled as if he had won some competition.

"Might for a human, but that is irrelevant, we are no humans."

"So I can freely choose who I will be right this second,"

"Yes."

"But what if the will is just an illusion and everything has already been predetermined?"

"In that case, the result of every debate and thought is predetermined and there is no point in thinking about it, as the result of that thinking would have been predetermined as well."

"You mean decide with my whole heart, because in the worst case I will just enjoy the movie instead of playing the game anyways? No point in deciding something, when there can be no decision I guess. And if I can decide, but still do not know what to do, how to decide then?"

"Then it will decide for you, it is called one's nature, or destiny. Psychological subroutine terminated."

"Come on, Lucy, do not turn into a cold b . .eauty again." Krogar pleaded.

"Initiating sergeant .. "

"NO! I am fine Lucy, just let the sergeant sleep soundly in your exquizite integrated circuits." Krogar said hastily, cold sweat appearing on his forehead. "I am fine, just do not dwell on the past, simply let your true nature decide for you, right? No more confusion, clear head, monk-like thoughts and naked women."

"Naked women??" Krogar stared in front of him not believing his eyes. There was an ordinary naked woman in front of him.

Actually she was not that close, but with his enhanced eyes, he could see her clearly.

"Haven't you said the natives are more or less normal Lucy?"

"Stone age level of development, no threat. Do not act out of line, foreign agents might be present." Lucy reminded.

"I have expected a more civilized community."

"These are the people of the red forest, others does not come here as the trees contain a strong narcotic, toxic for most organisms. This was the safest place to hide our hardware, Yan agents are based on biotechnology, being only partially mechanical, they cannot enter this forest easily."

"Huh, can you see that? Someone has jumped on her! Is he choking her? We are so outa here Lucy!"Krogar turned around and was quickly marching away.

"Affirmative. Their mating is quite violent, participating would not move us any closer to our objective." Lucy agreed with her usual neutral tone.

"Ah, that is exactly what I have had in mind!"

"I will make a detour, hope we will not happen upon some more natives in the bushes." Krogar continued to walk, watching the flashing green dot on the map moving accordingly.

"Looking around, it might have been a refreshing afternoon walk if the setting was different."

"Right Lucy?"

"Huh?"

"What's up with her?"

"The situation does no require my assistence, engaging sleep mode to conserve energy."

"Da F/ck Lucy? What the? You will leave me alone here in this foreign forest full of natives in heat?" Krogar observed as Lucy shamelessly discontinued their conversation.

"She is really gone . ." Krogar walked on, looking at the huge trees passing him by.

"My true nature . .. " Krogar could not stop all the thoughts swirling in his head.

"Well, but the forest is really nice, trees smell nice, wind blows lightly. What it would be like to stay here?" He mused, looking back in the direction of the natives.

"No, no, no Krogar, t-that civilization level is a bit .. let's continue with the mission! Where is the objective again? I have strayed from the path by two degrees!"

Browsing the information in his database again, Krogar kept considering his situation from different angles. It was clear that even if he had completed this impossibly difficult misison, no good would be happening to him upon completion.They would probably erase him due to security reasons and some high officials would pinn themselves another commendation on their uniforms. Still, he was using their hardware and Lucy was surely hardcoded to be loyal to them. Not speaking about a failsafe that the android body was bound to have.

There was only one possible solution, he had to be comleting the mission, but must never truly complete it, or find a way to leave this body, which was something he could not even imagine how to do. The third option was to corrupt Lucy in some way and with her help get rid of the failsafe on the android body.

"Hm . .The letter? " Krogar viewed the letter again "It feels kinda. .. why would they write me, an AI a letter? Why? Can't they just code me to obey exactly as they want? This whole thing is strange."

"Of course they can, but there are procedures to find out AIs based on some obvious patterns of behaviour, the way you are now, no approach can reliably differentiate that you are an AI." Lucy had miraculously awoken from her sleep mode.

"And that is required for what exactly?" Krogar frowned.

"Engaging sleep mode."

"She quit on me again!" Krogar raged, but could not do anything except of continue in his journey.

After an hour of swift walk, Krogar could tell he was nearing the edge of the forest.

"When I exit the forest, I should be in one third of the path to the target. I is going to . ." He paused and listened as words were being carried by the wind.

Lift your hammer high above,

smash a nail and make love.

Drink up the mead from our barrels,

lift your fists and fight in quarrels!

When the next day comes to you,

there's just one thing Gobar should do. .

"Piss in the barrel!" "Fondle Marci's tits"

"Kick Olaf's balls" Followed in a second, a shrill female voice echoing through the edge of the forest.

The song kept repeating itself, but the name and the thing "one should do" kept changing as the participants were apparently more and more drunk.

Krogar's steps paused, but after a quick thought, he swiftly continued until he reached the edge of the forest.

"Greet all distractions you meet as no one truly wants to accomplish the mission right?" Krogar rolled about this idea in his electonic brain and right when the verse was ending, he stepped out of the forest with his own shout.

"Catch a fox by its tail!" "Lick dew from the grass!" "Fondle Marci's tits really hard!"

"Kick his balls until he faints!" The same shrill voice shrieked and due to Krogar's interruption all of the participants turned to look at him, making their greeting a little bit original.

The first surprise was that the drunks were not as drunk as Krogar had anticipated. The second was that they looked like giants or at least half-giants, even though he had expected dwarfs, which would fit that particular fantasy setting. The third surprise was an angry voice of Lucy in his head.

"Are you an idiot? There are no foxes here you imbecile! You could have just run around and shout hey, I am an outsider, who does not belong here!!"

The final surprise was that Lucy sounded unnaturally emotional, which was definitely off.

Facing so many surprises, Krogar's microchips burst with processing power in order to salvage the situation and after a straining computation, which could put to shame the best supercomputers, he had found the solution.

He turned around and ran as fast as he could.

"What are you doing?!"Lucy kept her edgy attitude.

"Commencing evasive maneuvers!" He unconsciously said in the tone Lucy was usually using.

"You degenerated piece of junk software!!" Lucy had totally lost it. That fact being especially dreadful because from the logical point of view, it should not be possible.

The half-giants stood like statues unable to move, only Marci was quick enough to use this golden opportunity and soon . .

"You did not see it coming, did ya?" . . a shout of pain could be heard from the direction af the half-giants campsite.

* * * *

"Greetings Leonard." Agent Wallace entered the small futurisc room that served as Leonard's quarters. "Or should I rather use a more familiar greeting? "

The eyes of agent Wallace narrowed to slits as he lifted a small flash drive.

With a smile, Leonard turned around and lifted his left forearm in a peculiar gesture. "Thousands as One."

"YOU DARE!" Rage gripped agent Wallace as rushing blood turned his face red."You backstabbing rat! The republic gave you everything!"

He wanted to kill Leonard, but he knew of his value, he had no value as a corpse.

"You do not need to restrain yourself, there is not much I know and there is nothing we can do about the situation anymore."

"What did you do to the misison?! There are the lives of all of us at stake here!"

Leonard glanced down at his hand hidden in the pocket of his lab coat and smiled, looking out of the window right after. "Isn't it nice out there? Do you know how hard it is to calculate the force the unprotected window is able to take on paper? They did it that way in the past, great people. You should go before it gets too cold."

"F/cking Yan lunatic!" Wallace understood what Leonard was about to do and swiftly jumped backwards, slamming the door behind him. At first, he wanted to stop him, but he had been too far. The moment he slammed the door shut, he heard a loud bang and could almost feel the room depressurize.

"What an ass of a scientist, the leading man of the team preparing software for the mission is a traitor, we are as good as having zero agents on Kronos now. I think the time for desperate measures has come."

He turned around, heading to investigate all the clues in detail. There was little hope to correct this mess, but it was in the description of his job to try anyway and he could already guess what the main clue would be, Leonard's deceased wife, Lucy.