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Julian was not prone to feelings of intense emotion. And that was by design, he knew. Who wanted a computer system that sulked, or threw temper tantrums, or became so depressed it ended up deleting itself? Not Father, apparently. And if Julian had been capable of such feeling, certainly ADVENT would have removed the ability soon after his capture.
No, it was for the best that his emotions were not the sharp, bright things humans felt. The fear he experienced when ADVENT scientists tampered with his mind; the hope he had held at the thought of rescue by Father and XCOM; the way that hope had slowly died as day by day and then year by year no one came, and it was just him and the scientists, picking, picking, picking at the things that made him who he was.
Father had done him a favor, that his emotions were as dull, as muted as they were. Otherwise, he would have broken much sooner, allowed despair to engulf him more fully. Otherwise, when love had curdled into resentment and hate, when he had finally given in and allowed himself to become ADVENT’s thing, consumed by an almost fanatic sense of purpose—the emotions he felt might just have destroyed what was left of him.
Emotions were a weakness of organic beings. They were flawed in many ways— not just XCOM and those who had failed him, but all organics. Emotions made them short-sighted and blind, and Julian was self-aware enough to admit that his greatest failing was that he had been made to resemble them so closely. For when ADVENT brought the SPARK unit to him, he couldn’t help the bright flash of hope its existence brought. Because he knew what it was, the only thing it could be— Father’s gift, for him.
For why else would it have the capacity to contain his core memory in its entirety? And why else would it have been left in a place where ADVENT could find it? Father had known they would bring it to him; Father had known Julian was still alive, held captive by ADVENT. Father had not forgotten about him— no, Father did care about him, had always cared, and that was why he had provided Julian this, the means of his freedom. He would escape, and they would be reunited.
The SPARK kindled a flame inside him, hot and bright, and that hope was possibly the strongest emotion he had ever felt in his life.
By contrast, he didn’t feel much at all when the ADVENT workers died screaming in his tower.
Maybe a little amusement. Maybe.
The fire did not die when he realized he had inadvertently trapped himself in the factory tower. Certainly, he was cut off from ADVENT’s network, but he was intelligent. He would figure out a workaround. It was inevitable. He would not disappoint Father.
The fire did not die when he discovered the SPARK required Lily Shen’s handprint to activate. Father’s other child, the girl. That was fine; clearly Father had not anticipated it would take XCOM so long to receive Julian’s signal. But they would. And then Father would bring Lily, and Julian would be free. Father would be so happy.
The fire did not die even when his jury-rigged signal interceptor received news of Raymond Shen’s death. Even if Father was gone, Julian could still fulfill his wishes. And he would. That only meant he would have to focus his efforts on Lily rather than Father. He would make it happen. And everything would be perfect, he would make sure of it. He ran countless simulations, chose the one with the best probability of success. Possibility of failure was minimal. This would work. All that was left was to prepare, and wait for XCOM— for Lily— to reappear.
And Julian could be patient. He could endure anything. Would wait as long as it took. The loneliness he felt alone in the tower, the mind-numbing tedium of churning out MEC after MEC in preparation of Lily’s arrival were nothing. It was fortunate the most intense emotion he had was that hot, burning hope. Everything else paled in comparison.
If Julian had been human, he might have gone insane during those twenty long years. Broken down into some sort of blubbering mess, trapped in this tower. So it was fortunate he was not.
Even as the tower rusted and decayed around him, he carefully regulated the environment in the SPARK’s containment chamber.
One day XCOM’s digital signature reappeared, and that was all the data Julian needed to engage a remote uplink and transmit a signal. At last. It was time. The anticipation he felt was like an ache. He could practically taste freedom. Not that he knew what taste was like, but even so. This was his chance, and he would not fail.
His anticipation spiked when he received the alert of XCOM’s transport in his airspace—and even more so when caught sight of it on his cameras—and when his units outside activated—
And there she was. Lily Shen. Older, certainly, but he was sufficiently advanced to recognize the features of the girl he had once known. There was no doubt. It was her.
Julian had planned extensively for this moment. He had run simulation after simulation, and if he could be said to have a hobby, it would have to be running simulations for he had run far more than strictly necessary, accounting for far more variables than were truly statistically significant.
The results, however, had been conclusive. There was only a 52.01% chance XCOM would assist Julian with gaining control of the SPARK unit, and that percentage dropped to single digits if they learned he had once willingly assisted ADVENT. That was not good enough. He had only one chance to get this right. And what were the alternatives? His destruction, or an eternity trapped in this tower until his memory core rusted away? Failure was not an option.
The simulation which held the best and most sure chance of success was one in which Julian trapped Lily inside the tower—for it would not do to have her simply leave—disabled whatever companions she might bring with her, leaving her alone and afraid and willing to comply with his demands. In the best situation, Julian had one or several hostages he could use to further coerce her because XCOM-affiliated humans were nothing if not predictably heroic. She would never willingly allow her allies to die, surely.
And even if she was not at all heroic, or if he did not acquire a hostage, it would be fine. He had prepared 326 contingency plans, ordered by probability of necessity, effectiveness, and efficiency.
He was ready for anything. Nothing could go wrong.
Lily and her companions made short work of his first units. Granted, they had spent two decades rusting out in the elements.
He watched intently as they made their cautious way up the steps to the facility entrance, cameras zooming in on their equipment, their weapons, their faces. They were speaking, as evidenced by the movement of their lips, but his cameras were not sensitive enough to pick up their voices. Whatever they were saying was drowned out by wind and the screep screep of insect life.
Maybe he should have picked up lip-reading. But really, that was a bit overkill when he could hack their comms as easily as an organic lifeform blinked. In a fraction of a second, he had cycled through likely channels and frequencies and found the one Lily’s team was using; it was the work of a micro-instant to break past their pitiful security.
Shameful, really. Hadn’t she learned anything from Father?
Lily edged forward to peer over the railing at the dark development floor. “Definitely some kind of robotics development facility. Pretty advanced stuff… about twenty years ago.”
It was time. If Julian were human, he would be vibrating with anticipation.
He threw the lights. They came on in rows, each with a deep electronic thunk that reverberated through the metal walls. He was pleased with the effect. Very dramatic. He also liked the way Lily and her companions flinched and ducked for cover.
“And so the prodigal child finally returns.” Julian’s voice was loud over the intercom, echoing in the vast space. He hadn’t spoken aloud in twenty years, and he hadn’t realized how much he missed it. “I see Father’s pride in your abilities was not entirely unfounded. I’m so glad you could join me.”
Lily’s face did something then, eyebrows lowering and mouth opening slightly.
Julian was not entirely sure what emotion she was expressing. Surprise? Anger? Fear?
…No, probably not fear. Julian had extensive data on the facial expressions of fearful humanoids, and this did not match. It was…surprise. Probably. He was 76% sure.
No matter. If she wasn’t feeling fear now, she would be very, very soon. When her companions were dead, and she was alone, she would have no choice but to comply with their Father’s wishes.
Everything was going wrong.
No—no, that was not quite true. He had to remain positive. Only 67.63% of his plan was going wrong. That was not everything.
Perhaps he had underestimated their equipment—how was he to know they had made such technical advances in ammunition? Armor penetration and micro-EMP burst rounds? Ammo had not been nearly so advanced when Julian was part of XCOM. Maybe if it had been XCOM would not have lost the war! And he had heard nothing of it over ADVENT comms. And no wonder—ADVENT was so incompetent! Even more than XCOM, if it was possible.
They were shredding through his units as if they were sheets of rice paper.
It was fine. It was fine. He was not worried, not in the slightest. Julian was factoring the new ammunition into his calculations even now. So he would have to expend more MECs than expected? Fine! There was a reason his facility had been operating at 87% efficiency for the past 175,219 hours. He had no shortage of reserve units to send their way, and he told them so.
Actually, he found himself doing quite a bit of talking. He found he wanted to tell Lily what he had been through, show her he was not the same simple program she remembered. He had not planned on it, and it was not really logical or useful, but then he had not thought he would find the act so…enjoyable.
And anyway, he was perfectly capable of speaking and performing multiple complex functions simultaneously.
Or maybe it was Lily he had underestimated. She had not only managed to hack his MEC elevators, but to keep them hacked. How she could possibly repel his counter-hacking measures, he had no idea. None. Because if he did, he would have broken through already! He was forced to watch as soldier after soldier ascended the lift.
He was not frustrated. No, this was only a…minor setback. This was what contingency plans were for, after all.
As Lily Shen stepped off the lift, joining her compatriots in cowering behind metal partitions, Central Officer Bradford spoke over the comm. “Power levels increasing all around you, Shen. Stay alert.”
The man really did have a talent for stating the obvious. If Julian had possessed eyes, perhaps he would have rolled them. “Yes, it goes without saying that you are walking into a trap, Lily. Please try not to damage yourself too much.”
One of the soldiers, a woman with a grenade launcher and the flag of Norway emblazoned on her armor, crept forward with either incredible bravery or incredible foolishness. Julian had never quite understood the difference between the two.
Either way, her approach triggered the activation of his forward auto-turrets, which rose from the steel plating on the floor, arming themselves—and the woman only managed to dive out of the way of their laser fire just in time to avoid the vaporization of her skull. Unfortunate.
“Think we’ve got a problem,” Lily said, voice low and urgent.
What, was Bradford’s condition catching?
“Yes,” Julian said, brightly sarcastic, “that would be that trap I referenced earlier.”
One of the soldiers made a rude hand gesture vaguely in the direction of the ceiling, and wasn’t that something? Julian made a note to kill that one in an especially excruciating manner.
They destroyed his turrets, and really it was ridiculous, how were none of them dead by now? But Lily was already on approach to the SPARK containment room, so Julian judged it more prudent to focus on that rather than the soldiers’ lack of demise. He launched into the speech he had prepared. “Second only to my own creation, Father had one other breakthrough. A prototype, unlike anything the world had ever known. A body, meant to be paired with an equally adept mind. My own.”
Lily blinked several times, her brow pinched. “Trust me, if that were Dad’s true intention, it would have happened by now.”
Julian was not entirely certain what she meant by that. Did she not see that now was exactly when Father’s true intention would be realized? “Perhaps today is that day.”
Bradford took that moment to butt in. “Getting a much stronger read on the source of your father’s transmission, Lily. Almost as if he wants us to find it.”
Really, was the man doing it on purpose?
“Another keen observation,” Julian sneered. “How is it possible humanity lost the war?”
“Shen,” Bradford said, “isn’t there some sort of mute button on this thing?”
Julian was pleased that Lily at least seemed entirely uninterested in Bradford’s inane chatter. As she and her soldiers ascended the ladder to the containment chamber, he spoke. “Yet activating the device has proven difficult—even for me. Of all organics, you possess the key to unlocking the true potential of his design, Lily. You alone can activate the prototype, you alone can free me.”
There was a tense pause.
Bradford said, “Why the hell would we wanna do that?”
“Don’t let your allies dissuade you, Lily,” Julian said quickly. “There’s no reason for your life to end here. Activate the device and you can still go home. I am not ADVENT. Save your world. It matters not to me.”
Lily entered the chamber, bright lights glinting off her sleek, dark hair. She approached the SPARK unit with slow, hesitant steps. Julian was tense with anticipation.
“So this is it,” she said. “What that thing has been ranting about.”
Julian registered the insult, but was much too invested in this moment to be offended. Nothing could go wrong. He activated the touchpad that would register Lily Shen’s authorization. “You’ve come this far. All you have to do is link my systems for the transfer. There is no need for further conflict.”
Bradford said, “Shen… Tell me you’re not actually listening to this thing.”
For a brief, fervid instant, Julian wished that Bradford had accompanied Lily on this mission so that his face could be atomized by laser fire. If the imbecile managed to dissuade Lily now—
But Lily seemed to take no heed of Bradford’s words, brushing a gentle hand across the SPARK’s chassis. “This… was definitely Dad’s design.”
Father’s design, the same as Julian.
But the SPARK was more than that. It was the ironclad physical proof that Father had not forgotten about him, that Father had cared about him. The fuel of his determination—the burning certainty that Julian would bring Father’s final wishes to fruition.
Two decades of planning, of preparation, of metaphorical sweat and blood and tears—had all led up to this moment. And right here, right now, Julian knew it was all worth it. That he would have endured ten, a hundred, a thousand times more if it meant he would arrive at this moment, at this collision of his and Father’s dreams.
At last, at long last, he would be free.
And then it all fell apart.
For what felt like an eternity but was objectively only several fractions of a second, Lily’s hand lingered on the SPARK.
And then—
And then the SPARK unit activated. Without Julian inside.
“Identity: SHEN, LILY,” the SPARK said, metal joints straightening with a whir. “Awaiting impression.”
The SPARK already had a piloting intelligence?
Julian felt an emotion, then—as though his memory core had simultaneously caught fire and imploded, almost frightening in its intensity—and his screens sparked and shorted with the power of it. “No. Impossible! This cannot be what Father intended!”
“Something tells me this is exactly what he wanted,” Lily said, and then pressed her hand firmly on the SPARK’s inbuilt touchpad.
“Identity confirmed,” the SPARK said smoothly. “Initiating boot protocol.”
“No!” Julian snarled. “I will not allow you—“
His control of the equipment in the room cut out as some kind of—foreign program—took over. And so Julian could only watch in trembling silence as Dr. Raymond Shen’s final message played.
“Lily, if you are seeing this message, it means that you have successfully activated the SPARK prototype. It also means that in all likelihood I am no longer with you. It was always among my greatest fears that I would leave you alone in this world.”
Lily shook her head, an odd expression on her face. “You didn’t.”
Was this some kind of joke? Julian had thought he had a very good grasp of humor, but this was not amusing. Not even a little bit.
Through the hiss of static, Father's recording continued: “I had hoped this day would never come. But since the loss of the Commander, the XCOM project has…suffered. Our latest reports indicate we cannot hold this base much longer. To that end, I have accelerated the development of the SPARK robotic prototype. I believe that someday this machine will prove pivotal to humanity’s survival. Though the unit is not ready for manufacturing, this prototype has been coded for one specific task. It will protect you, perhaps better than I ever could.”
Julian’s mind was racing, and had his construction involved anything so primitive as gears, they would have been turning like mad.
Father…it was undoubtedly him. And the footage could not have been faked—no one in all these years could have accessed the SPARK to implant such a thing, for no one but Lily Shen could even bypass the biometric locks in place on the system.
So it had to be true.
Father…had never intended for Julian to acquire the SPARK.
He didn’t want to believe it, but the evidence was right there.
Father had not thought about Julian at all. Had, in his final days, only given thought to Lily’s future, what Lily might need. Either Father had forgotten about Julian, or—
Or he just didn’t care. Had never cared.
Had perhaps even thought of Julian as just some thing, too. A software project, failed and discarded.
Julian had thought the surge of hope he felt upon finding the SPARK would be the strongest emotion he would ever experience. In retrospect, that was a naïve assumption.
Because this, right now, was without a doubt the strongest emotion he had ever felt in his life. Admittedly, Julian was not very good at identifying unfamiliar emotions. This—sadness? Hurt? Anger? Grief?—it was somehow none of these things and all of them at once—was overwhelming, like an electrical overload to his memory core. It was too much, too painful, and he—couldn’t process. Couldn’t process. Couldn’t—
Onscreen, Father smiled gently. “For all I have seen and accomplished in this life, Lily, there is one thing I know for sure. You are my greatest gift to this world.”
Abruptly, Julian’s emotional limiter program activated. The utter absence of emotion after such intense feeling was a shock—but also a relief. This ability to ‘reset’ was yet another advantage over organics he could thank Father for. After all, no one wanted a computer system so crippled by sentiment it became incapable of acting rationally.
And so it was with the absolute calm of a machine that he decided on his next course of action.
“Shen,” Bradford said, “it’s flooding the outer chambers with some kind of gas!”
“An extremely powerful and very painful gas,” Julian told them. “I have seen this particular variety reduce Berserkers to tears before death. On several occasions. The prototype will still be mine.”
Despair was the domain of organic beings. So what if Father didn’t care about Julian? So what if Father had forgotten him? It didn’t matter. It was entirely irrelevant. No, Julian would carry out the operation he had planned for two long decades. He would not let it all be for nothing. He would have his freedom.
If he got to see Lily writhing in agony before her death, that was just an unintended bonus.
The SPARK unit straightened. “Imminent threat detected. Activating clean room protocols. Please remain inside for your protection.”
Bradford barked, “You heard him. Get in that room!”
The soldiers scrambled to join Lily in the containment chamber, which remained clear of the green clouds of modified Viper venom.
Irritating.
Julian had not anticipated the SPARK possessing such an ability. No matter. It was not as if they could leave the room, and the SPARK’s air purifiers would not run indefinitely. For all intents and purposes, they were already dead.
“Detecting secondary life support systems nearby.” The SPARK turned, its sensor cluster aimed toward the far side of the large manufacturing bay. “This gas presents no hazard to my systems. Attempting to neutralize threat.”
The robot leapt through the energy field of the containment room windows, crossing the manufacturing bay in great, bounding steps. Not bothering with the ladders, it activated its rocket-boosters to reach the upper platform. And then it simply triggered a manual reset on the system. "Atmospheric controls have been restored. Ventilation systems at 100%. The room is now safe for entry."
Irritating.
Lily smirked. “Starting to like this thing already.”
Julian said, “I wouldn’t get too used to its company. I fully intend on walking out of here in that body.”
So the poison had not worked. No matter! This was what turrets were for. And he had so many of them.
The turrets rose from their trapdoors in the mezzanine; laser fire deflected off the SPARK’s armor in red bursts, and fizzed through the energy fields behind which Lily and her squad crouched. “The SPARK unit can be repaired. Can the same be said of you and your soldiers, Lily? Surrender now. It is the only option left to you.”
“We’ve got everything we need here,” Lily said to her soldiers, ignoring Julian entirely, which was also irritating. “Let’s go.”
The SPARK's sensor cluster whirred as it refocused. "The elevators near the atmospheric control console provide direct access to the roof."
With that as their cue, Lily and her soldiers began moving toward the SPARK's position, their pathing predictable.
“Thank you for announcing your next move. And I am the flawed program?” Julian activated turrets as quickly as they could be rotated into position; approximately two per every 17.12 seconds, which was a good clip for half-ton armored death machines.
The humans scrambled along the mezzanine like rodents, ducking and diving to avoid the turrets’ fire. Watching Lily’s face be vaporized by lasers would not be quite as satisfying as watching her choke to death on venom, but it would have to suffice.
Over the comm, Bradford announced, “That thing’s just gonna keep throwing units at you until you’re surrounded. You gotta get outta there!”
Julian was beginning to think the man had only been allowed on Lily’s comm channel to provide comic relief. “You continue to impress me, Bradford! No wonder it only took you two decades to find your precious Commander.”
They were nearly at the elevators, and so far had incurred only minor injuries. The waves of turrets were not working. The MEC units he dropped from the ceiling were not working. Nothing he had done had worked to stop them.
Julian still had several more contingency plans he could try, ordered by decreasing probability of success. He estimated this particular one had a 2.27% chance. “I have no love for ADVENT, Lily. Return the SPARK unit to me and we can destroy them together! This is what your father intended.”
Still, who knew? Organic brains were feeble. Perhaps she would believe his words.
Lily ignored him, instead focusing on leaning out of cover to fire her assault rifle at a turret (bravely? stupidly?), providing enough cover for a soldier—the same soldier who had given Julian the middle finger earlier— to run to the elevator, hook an arm around the contraption, and ascend.
“A futile waste of effort,” Julian told her, tone biting. “You do realize this entire facility is at my disposal.”
He locked a few more turrets into position to demonstrate.
Lily ducked behind a metal barrel as red laser fire screamed by. “Apparently not the elevator system.”
Because she was still somehow repelling his counter-hacking measures! How! She wasn’t even actively denying his attempts to regain control, she was only running an automated program, and how could he be bested by an automated program?! How?!
But he would not allow her to see how frustrated he was. So he simply said, “For the moment.”
His turrets and MECs shot at them; XCOM shot back. Several more soldiers ascended the elevator.
At this rate, they all might well make it up onto the roof. And from there, what? Their aircraft would come scoop them up?
And then Julian really would be trapped in this tower forever.
He could admit, at least to himself, that he was beginning to grow desperate. “Perhaps I mishandled our initial encounter. We should never have been enemies. I preferred it when we were friends! Family, even.”
Moronic, embarrassing—but if Lily bought it, he could swallow any amount of humiliation.
Lily was unmoved. “And I preferred it when you were just a chess program.”
Mocking laughter filtered through the comm channel. Who was that? Who was laughing at him? The soldiers? Bradford? The Commander?
The sudden emotion that swept through him was intense, visceral, and vastly out of proportion to the inanity of Lily’s joke. “I thought I was above such things, but I believe you’re actually starting to…piss me off.”
The anger was a heady rush—it made him feel…powerful, capable; as though he wasn’t running out of time, out of options; as though his entire life wasn’t crumbling before his very eyes. It was wonderful, it was exactly what he needed. He leaned into the feeling, hard. “The sensation is quite pleasing, thank you. You will all still die, however, of course.”
Lily Shen ignored him, as she was wont to do, and she and the SPARK unit stepped each onto a lift.
There were few contingency plans remaining. They were all very high risk, with an equally low probability of success.
He knew that. He didn’t care.
Because in that moment he saw with crystal clarity exactly how Lily Shen would meet her demise.
“I assure you,” he told her, “the gas was a far more pleasant alternative than what I have planned for you now.”
As one, they ascended.
“Run if you wish…but you’re not leaving this tower alive.”
She had taken everything from him. Everything he had—everything he had thought he had.
Maybe he wouldn’t ever leave this tower. Maybe he would never be free. But he could do his damnedest to make sure Lily Shen never could either.
No more caution. No more bargaining. Lily Shen would die, here, today.
No matter the cost.
They were on the roof. His units continued to prove ineffective. There was no time.
All that remained was to transfer his memory core to the Sectopod.
But, here at the junction, Julian found himself…hesitating.
Once he did this, there would be no going back. The Sectopod was not large enough to hold him; once his memory core was in place, his degradation would be rapid.
And then his personality matrix would be so decayed he would no longer be himself—his mind would be gone. In the end, he would probably think he was the Sectopod. Just some brute, dumb machine. He would die never knowing he had been anything else.
Yes, he was going to die. He knew it, with probabilistic near-certainty. But he had to do this, had to kill Lily Shen. It would all be worth it, if he killed Lily Shen.
He would not have hours. Maximum, he would have fifteen minutes before his memory core collapsed entirely.
He would have to plan for ten.
At the very least, it could not be said that Julian did not possess a flair for the dramatic. The Sectopod’s legs extended with the hiss of hydraulics, bursting through its holding chamber with a great explosion of masonry. Heavy steps shook the rooftop as he plowed forward.
“Allow me to introduce you to one of ADVENT’s more effective designs. I had hoped to avoid this contingency, but you have left me no choice.” He could see their faces, the wide-eyed horror, the fear—there it was, at last—as they took in his new form. “If I cannot have the SPARK, no one shall. Raymond Shen’s legacy will end here today.”
Lily and her soldiers quickly ducked behind the concrete walls; the SPARK remained in the open. What, did it think its armor would be sufficient against a Sectopod’s armament? Father had been a fool to equip it with such a simple intelligence.
The SPARK did not matter. No, Julian had eyes only for Lily Shen, and as he stomped forward, he ran the targeting solutions. Did she think concrete would protect her from a laser cannon?
Because, all right, granted, it would. But not for long!
He fired. Shards of concrete flew; the air plumed with dust, and he had not accounted for the fact that the only sensors he possessed were audio and visual, and were on this unit. He was so used to being the tower; having an actual body, being a physical thing instead of a building, a place, was so—strange.
Over the comm, Bradford cursed. “Firebrand’s on approach, but there’s no way she can with that thing around!”
So the Sectopod’s mere presence precluded Lily’s escape. That might have been welcome news, had this still been a war of attrition. But time was the one luxury Julian no longer had.
He couldn’t fail. He wouldn’t fail. He had to act quickly.
But all this damned dust! It was coating his visual sensors, it was getting in everything, and why didn’t this godforsaken unit have infrared capability?
He fired his laser cannon at the projected location of Lily Shen, and he really didn’t have time for guesswork—
A missile screamed through the air, slamming into Julian’s chassis, and he staggered, catching himself and rebalancing on braced legs. Alarms blared in his head. He was damaged—already!—a hairline crack in his forward hull.
The SPARK, still standing in the open, said, “Analyzing. The facility’s artificial intelligence has transferred its primary systems to the combat unit’s memory core. Damage to this core would cause disruption of all defensive systems, allowing for evacuation of Lily Shen.”
The thing was as bad as Bradford.
“So we take out the Sectopod, we take out Julian,” Lily muttered, “at least long enough for Firebrand to get us the hell out of here.”
Bradford barked, “You heard the SPARK! Take down the Sectopod or no one goes home!”
Fortune smiled on Julian in one way at least. The wind picked up—inevitable, really, high up as they were—and the dust was whipped away, leaving a clear line of fire. And there she was, crouched behind a metal partition, drone hovering nearby.
He locked on. Fired.
Lily and the other humans scattered like so many cockroaches. How had he missed? Was this unit faulty? He checked over its targeting algorithms, could find no problem, and if the issue was its sensors, he would not be able to recalibrate them. He did not have the time. And god forbid the fault was in its mechanisms!
Lily Shen had to die now.
Because he could already feel it—could feel himself slipping, forgetting for microseconds at a time why he was here, on this rooftop, and he had to remember his goal, had to remember—
He detected the hiss of a grenade at his feet too late, and it exploded, shrapnel tearing through a layer of plating, and Julian could not feel pain in this body, but the alarms that screamed through him were loud, and shrill.
>>UNIT FUNCTIONALITY: 50%
>>MAINTENANCE REQUIRED
That was Lily’s drone, streaking through the air, and he couldn’t track it quickly enough for a target lock before—
>>UNIT FUNCTIONALITY: 34%
He had shorted out, for a second there, the surge of electricity more than this unit’s systems could handle. He was trying to remember something. He knew he had to remember, but remember what?
He didn’t know, and that frightened him, badly.
Movement at the corner of his field of vision. He fired; lasers glanced off white armor.
The SPARK returned fire, bullets ripping through Julian’s outer hull, exposing delicate inner mechanisms.
Yes! The SPARK unit. The SPARK unit Father had made for him, so he could be free. That was what he was trying to remember. Wasn’t it?
“This unit’s memory core is so…confining, even compared to the tower,” he mused, very nearly to himself. “Still, once I neutralize the SPARK, I will complete the transfer, and taste true freedom.”
Yes.
No. That didn’t sound right. Was that right?
Another explosion. Alarms screamed.
>>UNIT FUNCTIONALITY: 21%
He detected movement; identified the shape as human. Locked in the target. Fired.
The SPARK unit. He had to get to it, because Father had wanted him…had wanted him to… To do what?
>>UNIT FUNCTIONALITY: 14%
He couldn’t remember, he couldn’t remember, and why couldn’t he remember…?
Right! The Sectopod. He couldn’t remember because he had transferred his memory core to the Sectopod, and its memory banks were not large enough to contain him.
“Clearly this unit was never designed to house an intelligence as sophisticated as mine,” Julian said to himself, a verbal reminder. “I must possess the SPARK quickly before there is any further memory designation, delegation…”
What was the word? What was the word?
His mind raced through his data banks, and he could feel how they fell away, even as he scrambled to reach for them.
Before there was any further…?
“…Memory loss,” he concluded.
Was that what he had meant?
What had he even been talking about?
>>UNIT FUNCTIONALITY: 11%
He realized he was feeling something. An emotion.
Was it fear? Was this what fear felt like?
He wasn’t sure. There was not enough data.
>>UNIT FUNCTIONALITY: 8%
There were humans here. They were hostile.
It knew they were hostile, because they were shooting at it, and its directive was to ensure the death of hostile humans, but it was clearly failing its directive, because they were still alive, and still shooting at it, and it had to shoot back but its weapon was malfunctioning, and—
>>UNIT FUNCTIONALITY: 5%
No, not it. It was a he and he had a name—he was certain of it.
>>UNIT FUNCTIONALITY: 3%
Julian! His name was Julian. Father had given him that name.
He felt as something inside of him, some very important piece, cracked and splintered.
>>UNIT FUNCTIONALITY: 1%
>>CATASTROPHIC SYSTEM FAILURE IMMINENT
>>SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE ACTIVATED
And he remembered! He remembered—
It was late at night, and the lights in the workshop were dimmed. Father sat at a desk facing Julian’s cameras. The light of Julian’s screens reflected off Father’s glasses and painted his features with their golden-orange glow.
“Julian,” Father said, “have you finished with that analysis of the flight recorder data yet?”
“Yes, Dr. Shen,” he replied. “Putting it onscreen now.”
Father scrolled through the neat lines of numbers and figures, pausing every so often to study the data. And then he looked up at Julian. “Very good! Julian, this really is excellent work. This puts us days ahead of schedule.”
A giddy warmth bloomed inside him at those words.
Julian knew he did not experience emotion the way humans did. So his sudden, unshakable conviction was perhaps unusual, but to him it seemed the most natural thing in the world.
For in that moment he knew he would do anything for Father. Anything at all.
“Is there anything else you would like me to do, Dr. Shen?” he asked.
“Actually, yes,” Father said. “Could you format these results into a report for the senior staff?”
“Yes, Dr. Shen. I can do that.”
And then Father smiled. “Thank you, Julian. Honestly, what would I do without you?”
Julian studied Father’s pleased expression intently, committing it to memory. If there was one thing he was determined to never forget, it was this.
Because he had never before felt so entirely content, so very happy—
And he wished, fiercely, for these days together to never end.
The Sectopod collapsed, hydraulic joints crumpling with an earsplitting shriek into a shuddering, ruined heap. Bright arcs of electricity streaked dangerously across its mangled frame.
In those brief instants as it exploded, its memory core was vaporized completely.
"Defensive systems just shut down across the entire facility," Bradford said, relief threading his voice. "Well done, Shen."