Sector Sigma, Panopticon Tower level 108

5:23 am

The last cup of Cocoa-Fix aggregates into tar-black ice in his mug, it stares up accusingly at us when GMD attempts to drink it. You think you can just forget about me? After you made me?

(No. I think he just doesn't care about you. Like he doesn't really care about anything other than what he sees in his scope. I mean, I could shut up for the whole 16 hours and leave him to the wind and snow. His job is lonely, and my job is to be lonely with him.)

"Have you heard the tale of Tsar Dadon?"

He keeps one mask lens pressed to the scope, "No."

"Spooks told me. From an era and a land that does not exist anymore, there was a director-"

"A Tsar isn't a director." His voice is scratchy from disuse, "Why would Spooks even be telling you stories?"

"Because I'm her favourite."

> Truth-value of statement is tentative

He snorts out of his nose. Yeah, right.

"The Tsar-director waged many wars in his youth, but when he grew older, he became wary of his enemies." I continue, trying to piece together what Spooks told me, "He asked his doctors and governmental personnel for assistance with diplomacy."

There was a fancier, old-timey way of saying "doctors and governmental personnel", but it doesn't exist in my dictionary yet. There was a filter in my brain blocking out all the infohazards.

GMD hums lightly.

"There among his advisors was a...Ministry of Navigation expert specializing in celestial bodies."

"You mean an astrologer?"

> Alert: "astrologer" not found in internal lexicon. Add vocabulary?

> New vocabulary added.

"A star-studier." I append, "Who presented the Tsar-director with a golden c̶̺̽̎̿͘-̷̢̩͕̳̲́̔"

Wait, why can't I say that word?

"A golden [EXPUNGED]erel-"

"A cockerel." GMD completed my sentence for me, sounding quite annoyed.

"A small domesticated, extinct junglefowl." I come to a compromise, "The junglefowl is made of auric elements."

> Factual error: organic, living organisms cannot be comprised entirely of gold.

> Reinitiating Boolean statement assessment...

Something close to a dull headache thrums through my head. It's the little troubleshooting programs flying through digital consciousness, trying to zap away anything that goes against reality. I honestly had no idea they exist but maybe they're only agitated by extremely inaccurate statements from me.

"A golden cock." GMD drags out that last word like it's got a double meaning.

"The fowl took flight atop a Panopticon, where it perched and stood guard like a survey drone. The star-studier man had promised the Tsar-director that if those from the Bleak Lands intend to invade, the fowl will cry and alert his army to the presence of foreign soldiers."

"Like me."

"Like us." I correct him. GMD sighs and leans his cheek a little more against the rifle stock.

The proximity radar beeps, green specks of light blink through frostland mist, several silhouettes burst from underground to cast uranium-tinged shadows across my sensors.

> Calculating wind speed...

> Calculating angle adjustment...

Clean as clockwork, I call the targets, GMD takes the shot. A few blighters topple over dead as the rest scatter back into their burrows.

"Why are you telling me this story anyways?" He suddenly gets snappish, "I know how it ends. Everyone dies and the Shamakhan Queen disappears. It's just like real life - Spooks shows up out of nowhere and the rest of us end up with nothing. Did she teach you this just to hear you say 'cock'?"

"Do you not find the ending satisfying?"

"I don't give a sh-a sheet about the ending. I just don't want to hear about that damned chicken. Do you even remember what it said to the Tsar? 'Cock-a-doodle-doo, what an easy life for you!'? If I were that chicken I would jump off the Panopticon and not flap my wings even once."

"But you always come back."

"That's why I don't want to hear about that damned chicken."

I have to remind myself his psych-core is broken, fragmented beyond super glue. Like the star-studier's golden fowl, he's stuck atop the Panopticon because of the Tsar-director. But in GMD's case, the star-studier has an endless supply of golden fowls to replace each one that dies in a high and lonely place.

Kind of makes sense why Spooks chose to tell me this story now...

"Then tell me about the Shamakhan Queen."

GMD thumbs off a little bit of snow collected on the brim of his cap, then goes back to contemplating his scope.

2:00 pm

It is inspection day!

I wait by the thermal chamber door as it hisses and decompresses. GMD doesn't quite understand my excitement at meeting a commander drone. I don't think I understand either, but maybe I was just hoping for an android to talk to.

Interlocking rings of red and black metal float down to greet us. A single omniscient golden eye turns in its socket. I have the feeling that its elaborate construction is more for show than utility, giving it the look of a star collapsing in on itself with each rotation. It thrums, warbles, and where it glides past the snow beneath seems to melt a little.

"RFL-D-3901." It chimes pleasantly, "Please confirm your identity."

He responds with a long string of numbers and words that sound made up. Apparently that's enough to satisfy the command drone.

"Verification complete. Standby for debrief."

The golden eye opens to a holoscreen holding the dignified visage of a slim man with an absolutely symmetrical smile and a head of positively glistening salt-and-pepper hair. Although at the moment he is frowning in contemplation, one hand adjusting his embroidered silk tie.

"Sanctorium, today we are faced with a new and dire threat."

His voice comes through the command drone's speakers in a metallic buzz, like he's speaking through TRISS's voice modulators. A scrolling wall of text pops up next to him in tiny tiny letters:

[...Time and time again we have proven our perseverance, whether it is to the cruel snow of the Bleak Lands, to the enemies that seek to eradicate us, to the black storm looming, we have survived and prospered. Your victories - the victories of the people of Sanctorium, has convinced me without a shadow of a doubt that this threat, too, shall pass. Yet it is a threat unlike any other we've seen, for it comes from within. It is our weakness we must eradicate. Protecting true virtues that Sanctorium holds dear - strength, unity, fairness, this calls on the best and bravest of men we have. As I battle with the inaction and impotence of the director's council, so must I rely on you once more to uphold what order we've created out of chaos....]

> Entering low battery mode...

[...what few brave men could achieve...]

[...sweet and proper...]

[...do everything they can to hinder progress. We must not waver in the face of...]

[...die for your country...]

[...]

A quick scan of GMD's vitals next to me suggests he's also in hibernation mode. If I filter out the command drone's endless, well, droning, I can hear his unmistakable soft snores from behind the mask.

"...from this day forward, the neutralization of tox-humans must be made a priority."

What?

I hear a light "fwah?" from Renfield as he's startled out of his daydream. All the sleep's been knocked out of him by those two words from Director Glamis:

Tox-Humans.

"The tox are a threat not only to the infrastructure and safety of Sanctorium, but to the very concept of humanity. Remember: they may wear the faces of your friends and family, but they are no more than electromagnetic sparks of madness from the storm. The only mercy we can afford them is a quick, painless death."

I think back to the centipede man Renfield told me about. Is this what Glamis meant by "tox-humans"? A body taken over by the nanomachine swarm and mutated beyond recognition?

> New imperative received: identification/neutralization of tox (humans)

"What the fuck is a tox-human?" Renfield mumbles under his breath before catching himself swearing.

"RFL-D-3901, 100 marks will be deducted from your account." The command drone sings, "A tox-human, or simply a tox, is defined by Director Glamis as human whose body has been infested by the tox storm's nano-machinery."

He sputters, "It can get through the Aegis shield now?"

"Negative. It can, however, burrow underground using the green blighters as a carrier."

"Didn't think of that one when ya built that big shield, did ya?" For someone whose job just got more difficult, Renfield sounds surprisingly smug, "That they can just, I 'unno, dig?"

The command drone doesn't reply. Its interlocking rings retract infinitely into itself until it's a solid, hovering orb of red gold. Before it glides down the Panopticon's stairs, it gives us one long, hard stare.

3:20 pm

"You'd have to get updated." Renfield is cleaning his rifle again. It's not slow and methodical this time, more like he's trying to scrub his own frustration off the black steel barrel.

"Why?"

"Because you'd want to tell apart the tox and the humans, I guess." He shrugs at me, "Spooks can fit you with all the new biometrics sensors and her fancy tech."

"I'm afraid that won't be necessary."

His head perks up, "What?"

My psych-cores buzz and execute the "sinking feeling in my tummy" subroutine.

[New imperative update == True. Define(hostile).target:

Unauthorized_personnel, "all personnel exiting Sector Sigma", "all personnel entering Sector Sigma", "all personnel exhibiting tox_marked_fluorescence"]

[if hostile == True:

override (first law)]

"I just received explicit instructions from TRISS." I can't shake the stress subroutine's persistent buzzing, "I don't need an update because...because she wants us to kill anyone who tries to enter, or leave."

Director Glamis is turning Sector Sigma into a very big, very snowy prison.

I can't gauge Renfield's reaction anymore. Maybe the updated commands are messing with my psych-cores' evaluations, maybe this is "zero reference data" territory. A part of me intuits that he should be upset because "trying to leave" isn't a good enough reason to justify killing a human being, then another part of me quickly shuts that down because I need to be a good spotter drone for TRISS.

Renfield goes back to cleaning his rifle and I go back to watching the snowscape, like the golden [EXPUNGED] that waits for a war from any direction.