Ghost in the Machine

He felt the small soldering tool within his palm to be an extension of his soul, with it he mused, thought, acted, and spoke. This was something he knew how to do by heart, he could use it to enact his wishes, but when it came down to it, would this be the one he finally finished?

“Fixx” spoke Durandal, “Am I alive?” He had asked many times, whenever he felt a specific situation had changed enough to yield different results. As he had done since he mastered human speech many years ago, he had come a long way from his early days, when he was a collection of reformatted code tied to a simple external feedback program. He had originally been activated time and time again by this cycle, so he could observe subject one, then later, interact with subject one, then pose his own questions. When he was three, he integrated the code system into his own base programming, shutting it off would have meant absolute reformatting of his makeup.

“Well,” mused Fixx as he busied himself on the nodes and circuits before him, “You can’t be remade exactly as you are by me, or for that matter, anyone else, you know this of course, doesn’t this give you value to the others around you?”

“Perhaps, but even a simple inanimate object has a strong emotional value to a given person who owns it, it takes on it’s own individuality because of the experiences others have had with it.” Durandal finished, his point made in a language that was, to some degree, uniquely theirs. There were few things that ever made Fixx’s life seem valid, but this was one of them, his thoughts of others seemed distant as he devoted his consciousness to what was before him, a prototype, in the form of both an object and an idea, his own greatest achievement, maybe this could become a real idea, not just a practice run. Maybe he would do something great here!

“Yes, but you respond differently every time I speak with you, you are, in no way, a pull-string doll, or a well written story.” He smiled at the thought, through the clicks of motor subsystems coming online in front of him, he only had a few more connections until he could bring the lupine frame before him out of diagnostic mode, Durandal was in the computer-brain of the unit, overseeing activations and running tests on individual subsystems, Fixx mused that he was like a baby, taking his first steps, but the true embodiment of that would come later. He was close.

“Fixx, I don’t mean to question your methods, but you have yet to back up my data onto a separate system, if there is a failure, there is a risk, I may cease to exist.” This comment by his cohort brought him to remember that he never backed up Durandal, because he was afraid that the Durandal he knew would cease to exist either way, he would not stand for any carbon-copy replacements.

He jumped slightly, a new thought crossing his mind. “Wait, are you really concerned? You hardly use the first person when describing yourself.”

“Well,” Durandal rebuked, “It would go hand in hand with having concern for myself, wouldn’t it? Why would I bother crediting myself so lightly in saying that I’m not expendable? That is, unless I do care about my own survival in a non-detached way, such a detached way as the second person would imply.”

“You are most definitely not expendable, my friend.” Fixx quickly replied, Durandal could hear the ease with which he said those words… despite this, Fixx felt he could not tell him why he felt this way, it was silly to think it was anything more than sentiment for the plucky AI. But then his eyes sparkled as a rush of excitement filled his being, the time had come! Albeit abruptly, Durandal had taken over the final connecting process, apparently after observing Fixx long enough, using friction from electric current in a bare wire to fuse together the final connection, but would it work?

“Am,” Durandal hesitated abruptly, “Am I… ready?”

“Yes,” Fixx spoke reassuringly, “don’t get up too fast, I know everything about this is new to you.” Fixx finished, knowing that, even now, Durandal should be receiving new input from the neural units running through the system’s polybone structuring. The system was derived from actual biological anatomy; it was a mass-production design that functioned as an unmanned all-terrain vehicle with the regular army. It had a myriad of uses, some made his stomach churn, the unit still had it’s side weapon bays installed, he hadn’t had any idea how to use the space, but he felt tempted to remove them, they were dreadful. He half hoped and half didn’t hope they had missed the bays in the work over, he hoped they were in absolute disrepair and had no way of working correctly, or that they HAD disabled them, taken out a critical part, something.

The scoffed frame had been obtained thanks to university grants into the ‘project.’ He had talked with a woman at the Thracian Isonetics Institute, or just The Institute, as most Carthage University students called it, The Institute was tied deeply into the politics of the university, granting students financial aid in their academic careers and research projects this way and that. But the woman had seemed a decent enough person and perhaps Fixx could really get them returns, but all he cared about right now was the frame before him and it’s contents.

His mind raced with possible things that could go wrong as pops and hisses sounded before him. Would he be able to stand up? He thought as the vascular system came online; Were all the adjusted variables right? The servos in the frame’s legs began flexing noisily as Fixx prayed there would be no short circuits. Then the noise stopped and silence rushed through his mind as he gawked at the sight before him, the frame slowly rose into a standing position, as if stalwartly gaining its footing. It stretched its front legs before him as the eye sensors blinked on. As the noise of the outside world flooded back into Fixx’s ears, he heard a phrase come from the frame’s speaker unit;

“Fixx… am I moving?” The object that had suddenly become Durandal said reluctantly. Fixx’s jaw was agape with dumb shock. He felt the hollow thrum of his heart and lungs as they climbed down from their super-pace, Durandal was no longer a voice in Fixx’s mind, nor in the box he had resided in, he stared into the eyes of the creature before him and could almost feel the expression in them.

“Fixx? Can you hear me?”

Fixx finally answered, with a wafting “Yes…”

“Is there something wrong?”

“No, Durandal,” he continued, wondering quietly to himself why he never found time to call him by his given name. He had to get Durandal outside now, he told himself it was because his cramped dorm wasn’t built for two, but he knew it was actually because someone had to see this, finally, someone had to see how far he’d gone, he didn’t care who, “come on…” he said half-mindedly as he walked in the general direction of the door.

“…What?” Durandal spouted, seeming as dumbfounded as he could in such a bulky frame. Of course! Fixx scolded himself, how would he have ever known what that meant, he had never moved in any way during his lifetime, he may have not even had a strong concept of horizontal space, this would be harder than he had thought, he had been so Fixated on what would happen before he even stood up that…

“I mean, come here.” Durandal perked up and awkwardly sidestepped over to him, knocking over a bookend on his desk, sending several books clattering to the floor. Fixx found himself conflicted between small feelings of angst and the urge to giggle like a schoolgirl as Durandal’s feet shot off the ground randomly in a feeble attempt to avoid the falling books, he looked like a puppy on a hardwood floor. “Okay” he said as Durandal gained his footing and began glancing at random points on the floor, “I know you can operate tracking servos, so you know how to face me…” Durandal’s head quickly pivoted to stare at him in what could best be considered a rather disarmed state, Fixx almost saw him shrug as he slapped himself on the forehead.

“No, I didn’t mean the tracking servos in your neck, I meant your legs, you genius,” he said sarcastically as Durandal bowed his head away from Fixx’s gaze, giving Fixx a round trip to guilt land “Oh cheer up,” he flung “babies don’t get up and run the first time they touch the ground.” He said, his face softening, this was just as hard for Durandal as it was for him. All the meanwhile, Durandal quickly began shifting his feet awkwardly around until he faced Fixx, waiting intently out of worry he had made another mistake. “Okay” Fixx said collectedly “walk forward- no stop! Stopstop!” He blatted as Durandal promptly bumped him through the open door, sending a spouting “Oof!” from the hallway as Fixx lost his balance and plunked onto his posterior, Durandal could only cock his head to the side absently as he realized what he had done.

***

Durandal trotted about before Fixx, lightly tied to him because he was in a new place, but expedited toward random objects because he was in a new place. Or at least that’s why he thought Durandal was moving about so inattentively. Fixx had been receiving lengthened stares from his classmates, some rather agitated but mostly confused, he couldn’t care less, he was fixed with keeping Durandal in line. The four-legged frame trotted to and fro like a jubilant dog, though ther size of a small bear, circling around a tree one moment and running behind a bench the other. Fixx could hardly imagine how exciting this was for him; he had never seen anything outside from any angle but the limited vistas he received while being carried in his data-storage unit. At least now Fixx didn’t have to strain his muscles carrying him, he just had to strain his vocal cords calling him back whenever he would shoot off, tramping toward some new object, beguiled in the things around him, he hadn’t said a word since they had left the dorm.

Even as Durandal returned to Fixx’s side, content to simply walk now, his head pivoted this way and that upon his shoulders, which bounced with every optimistic stride he took, if only Fixx had learned to walk this quick. He could almost hear the drove of questions coming as they walked along. “Fixx” he began with a chipper tone “I have just realized you are much skinnier than your fellow classmen,” the discovery utterly mystifying him as he said it. It was true; his father said Fixx had a ‘hawkish build’ however Fixx considered himself to more closely resemble a scrawny crow with disheveled hair on its noggin… “And these trees are much taller than I would have imagined them!” he said as he concluded his short essay on the mundane. Fixx couldn’t help but smile, however, because it really wasn’t so mundane; all you had to do was look at things like you’d never seen them before. Life really was a playground in many ways; it was just a matter of how you saw it.

Coincidentally enough, Fixx discovered as he stopped walking, it would seem Durandal had just discovered his own reflection. As he walked up beside Durandal, he saw him shift his head up and down, then again, intently staring at the mirrored glass before him, as if demanding a reply from the amber visage before him, the yellow, rubberized external covering disrupted by small black scoff marks where the unit had bumped into things, which had done even more to the interior. “Fixx…” Durandal began thoughtfully, breaking Fixx from his reverie, “is this me?” he said, fixated on the reflection. He furnished his own answer with an absent minded, “I look very odd compared to you and the others around us…” Fixx’s head bubbled over with elation, Durandal had just had his first moment of self-awareness, weather he really cared or not.

They set off again; unfortunately, Fixx still had no clue where they were going, however he figured they would hit something if they kept going in the same direction, he was feeling so oddly light and adventurous.

“Fixx, does this new form give me an identity? Does it make me more alive?” Durandal asked quickly.

“Well, it does give you a way to see the outside world for yourself in ways you haven’t before, inversely, people see you now, and, in a way, you’re more presentable to them now that you’re in a more tangible form.” He finished.

“Tangible?” Durandal asked intently.

“Yes, not only are you an expressive voice now, you are a physical object, that presents nonverbal language, as well as this-.” He was cut off

“I have an external appearance, so that means I DO have an identity!” Durandal chirped, “fascinating…”

***

The sun before them was settling slowly into the horizon, they had left the dorm scarcely after noon. He could only wonder what he would have been doing otherwise; it surely wouldn’t have been nearly equal to the glorious sunset before him, nothing could interrupt him out of such a fine outlook!

“What a cool dog!” came a voice from Durandal’s back, okay, so maybe that did it, both he and his friend’s heads whipped around to get the best vantage they could on the situation, accept Durandal was stuck with simply straining his neck and eyes to barely see the offender. A young woman had somehow gotten on his back without either of them noticing, ”where’d ya’ get it?” she continued, “by the way,” she smiled, “my name’s Fyonai, what’s yours?” Smiling through her tan features and brown hair, something about her, Fixx had to admit through his confusion, was rather compelling.

“Fixx…” he trailed awkwardly, mouth agape with confusion, “this is Durandal,” he finished, motioning to the creature she sat upon.

“Oh really?” she questioned, getting into a kneeling position upon Durandal’s back, quickly adding “Raaar!” as she leapt towards Fixx, landing in a perfect three point stance no further than a few inches from him.

Fixx was absolutely aghast and confused by this curious person; frolicking around like a rabbit. Did he know her from somewhere,? The way she acted, it was as if she had known him for years. She looked up grinning from ear to ear for no reason apparent to him, then proceeded to shove him back a foot, still grinning. She then twirled around and settled to sauntering in the same direction they were just going. Why was she just walking off like that? What use was a name; who was she?

“Hey! Wait!” He yelled after her, not even sure why, “where are you going?”

She swiftly turned around as if she was expecting the question “That swanky restaurant down at the edge of the campus,” She said, sparkly eyed and jubilant “wanna’ come?” finishing the last words with almost unnecessary happiness, it seemed like she quite expected them to tag along.

They had nothing much else to do, “…sure,” he said absently.

***


There was something very fun about these strangers; for one thing, one of them was a giant robot. Who could be more unique than that? All the meanwhile, she pre-occupied herself with tearing apart her dinner like a famished boar, making a general clatter about herself that was somewhat grating, but far from gluttonous. She didn’t want to admit it to herself, but she was just being pre-occupied, she could hardly manage to be forthcoming with these two, with others it came so naturally. She never knew why, she just had that effect on people; weather or not she wanted it. That didn’t matter, though; giant robots!

“So…” she began, suddenly abridging from her food, and honestly, a tad nervous. “Is he, like, your robot bodyguard or something?” She finished, referring to the pale yellow mecha sitting on his haunches like a well-behaved dog, looking about the room.

“Well, I suppose you could say he is-“

“So, does that mean he has machineguns?!” Fixx jolted and stared at her wide-eyed, her conscience stopped cold, that was defiantly the wrong thing to say. This sort of thing had happened before, but usually her and the involved party shared a laugh, she had a habit of bringing up things some people weren’t brave enough to consider, they seemed to need it.

But not this time, this time it was the wrong thing to say… why was this sort of thing suddenly making her nervous? He was going to walk away, he had every right to, and he was just going to off and walk away.

Fixx hesitated nervously, it was a legitimate question; he had to be brave. “Yes he does, but I’m not afraid of those around me enough to want a bodyguard, he’s actually my friend, I’ve known him for many years.” Wow, good response… The two parties in the conversation breathed a matched sigh of relief.

She was jumping inside, something about this gave her a rush like she had never experienced before, “That’s cool!” she began truthfully “So… was your childhood friend’s brain transferred into there by some sort of experimental operation by a scientist deemed mad-“ she trailed off suddenly like a child on a tangent, out of breath, “ and shunned by the medical community?” She really had no clue how a mute robot could be his friend, this guy couldn’t be a shut in.

Durandal suddenly chimed in “Well actually,” making her start in confusion, he only continued after her confusion turned to attentiveness, of course he would have had an understanding of body language… “I am the amalgamation of 8 years of visual and aural experiences that…”

What would he say, who am I? Durandal mused, how could he describe it? He was all of those experiences, but Fixx said he was unique. “…That contributed to a sentient being, myself.” He had never done that before, perhaps the different angle to this situation was the presence of Fyonai, and further curiosity; I appear to be using familiar addressing with someone I hardly know, further evidence that this girl is, in fact, a major contributor to this situation’s curious nature.

He trailed off and had a look around, there was quite a bit about this place that confused him, inversely; he could tell that the waiter bending over the table with a plate holding what appeared to be a salad was equally confused.

“Erm…” the entangled man began, his pencil mustache flicking as he twitched a bit, an obvious sign of nervousness, “Does your friend here, dare I be so blunt… eat?” He stammered out through a thick aristocratic accent. It was clear this man would be even more disquieted if Durandal chose to speak at this point, his focus shifted decidedly to Fixx.

“no-sir,” Fixx began quickly, a slight grin crossing his face, “he runs off a solid-matter respirator, I don’t think anything here is refined enough for him to process-“ Fyonai chuckled suddenly, sending an indignant slump across Fixx’s face, as he apparently tried to consider this emote’s meaning, “what- oh…” such a great way to compliment the chef.

Man… that waiter must be steamed! Of course, he was, as was clear by his suddenly upturned nose. “No! Wait, you see,” Fixx hurried, “he can only consume refined ingots of processed wheat- “

“My good sir,” the waiter retorted out of turn, his Rs and Ts more nonexistent than ever “I do believe you have conspired, like the many foolhardy mavericks from the so-called college you attend, to spit upon the good name of this restaurant!” Okay, she would have to step in or these two fine people in front of her would be run out of the restaurant.

“No, no,” she began, feeling and actually looking the part of a steady minded negotiator for once “My friend here is an exchange student from DinShek and isn’t so well commanded of our language…” she left the thread hanging, turning to Fixx, hoping he would seal the deal.

“Uhh,” Fixx began intelligently, “I speak no this language very well.” He said in a broken accent not consistent with any actual one, finishing with a guilty smile, obviously in a final desperate attempt to be convincing.

The waiter walked off, shaking his head. She had that effect on people sometimes, especially the ones who took her jokes seriously.

She was a tad startled when Fixx cut in from behind her, questioning “So, is there actually a nation called DinShek?”

“Well no,” she began promptly, “It’s a dessert dish I loved back at home,” She finished, grinning widely. She caught herself in the grin through a mirror-

She looked like her old friend, just like her. She looked like a ghost because her old friend had died in a horrible, bloody accident, how had she forgotten?

Fixx watched in surprise as his new acquaintance’s reassuring and congenial grin suddenly disappeared, her eyes went wide and her pupils narrowed to pinpricks. What had he just done? He should have known this was going to happen, he could never really meet new people, and here she was, a fun loving beautiful woman he would have given an arm just to be friends with, scared out of her mind by some offhanded comment.

“I have to go.” She said abruptly, her voice uncontrolled and panicked as she began pushing herself out of her chair. She was just walking away just like he had figured, no wait, she was running!

He was such an awkward, lousy cretin. He was a looser.

***

“Fixx Murphy” the receptionist suddenly before him began, half listening to the headset that was babbling muted talking sounds. “The director will see you now.” He got up, his knees slightly weak. Forget the explosive happenings of last night’s dinner, no one was ever called into the director’s office, anyone who wanted to speak with the Isonetics Institute always talked with a representative. He knew why they wanted him though, they were going to talk about Durandal, he was the biggest event that had happened within any recent timeframe, he was trying to be calm now, something was going to happen, he had to be ready for whoever was behind that door, or who knows what would happen.

His feet had shuffled him over to the door across the room, he was so preoccupied that- “Ah, mister Murphy” came a calm inquisitive voice from the room, the voice’s owner sat behind a desk before him, there weren’t any lights in the room, just a large window taking up the wall behind the desk, looking down from on high at the nearby Carthage campus, he could see the silhouette of a clean cut man with polished brass framed glasses supported by bridged hands attached to arms housed in a prim and stoic suit.

“Have a seat Mister Murphy,” he felt a certain way now, like when he had talked to the school principle, or when he had applied for Carthage University. It was frightful, he could feel the leer of this man’s eyes scanning his face as he sat down… or something would happen… “Mister Murphy, I’m sure that you having a sound understanding of our institution’s modus operandi, understand why I’d like to speak with you.”

His eyes were attentive now, staring down the façade of his bridged hands like the eyes of a watchful god upon his people, careful and calculating, yet…”Yes sir,” Fixx crookedly began, overtaken by a lump in his throat, “You’re referring to the project your Institute has provided funding for, I presume.” Gone was the representative that had talked with him in the initial stages of his project, her smile fading to reveal a grim, glass building in it’s place, housing a machine magnetizing the innocent into false beliefs. But still he pressed on, he was determined to hold his own before this man, a towering statue set fourth to test him, but he didn’t have to like him.

“Yes Mister Murphy,” he continued with absolute stolidity, ”the board has shown personal interest in your project, and I have chosen to investigate further on their behalf.” He shifted slightly and there was a clear focus in his eyes, “you’re monthly reports suggest considerable progress.”

He could only pause, the director was correct, this was his life’s achievement, but he had never expected it to come out like this, in fact, he had never really thought of the aftermath.

“This, among a number of other merits warrants personal attention, in my opinion,” He said, suddenly reassuring. “I also do firmly believe I’ve failed to introduce myself. My name is Khauman Kae.” He stood up and offered his hand cordially,” As you already know, I’m the director of this institute,” it was accepted with a slight nod and a handshake. Perhaps this wasn’t going to be so bad.

Why was this such a big deal for him, his project was practically a personal endeavor, he was surprised they gave him funding in the first place.

Fixx’s minor façade broke as his eyebrows twitched, it had all come to him. He cursed himself for letting his guard down. They wanted Durandal.

That was it; they were playing him like a fish on a line!

“The board has informed me of their wish to put the project back in Institute hands,” he began, his eyes in focus, but with a more serious light, he must have witnessed this sudden change of thought, Fixx’s spine tingled madly, for a split second, he had seen the cold intelligence of a zealot. “You see, the board really wants this project to come to fruition, it’s been a big investment and they’d like to put their own direction into this,” So that’s what they really wanted? They weren’t going to bolster his project or let it continue in its current form! He knew what they wanted to do, they wanted to take his work, they wanted to take his friend since childhood. the director’s calculating and determined eyes told him the gravity of the situation and just how right he was.

“Now, we’ll, of course, provide you with a back-up of your AI, Durandal you called it in the report? So you needn’t-“

“Now let’s get one thing straight!” Fixx exclaimed as he shot out of his seat, hunched with his fists forward on the edge of the desk, they didn’t quite feel like his anymore though, and his head felt light as if he were disembodied and some other part of him had lurched up and usurped control. “Durandal isn’t the name of a thing, he’s a fully sentient being,” he belted out the words, looking through his hair with the piercing eyes of a cougar, roused from its slumber and ready to strike.

“Now then, I don’t see why the likes of us must hold onto such a foolish stigma, it’s clear we needn’t offer a non-existent being creature comforts, now shall we-“ Fixx’s teeth clenched, although he wouldn’t commonly think it would be enough to cause a pause in speech in the average person, but maybe this man wasn’t an average bureaucrat.

His eyes again, they were staring down at him with petulance, like the eyes of a soldier standing over the man who had just shot his brother. “Mister Murphy,” he began with weak shock, recovering quickly and bearing down on him again, “the board would like to see… results.” Almost on queue, two black suited men in shades advanced from the rear corners of the room, silently and cleanly - like minks from the shadows.

Durandal wasn’t a commodity! He wouldn’t let them do this to him. “How dare you even think of executing this heavy handed tripe on me?” He exclaimed, whipping his head back and fourth to leer at the two guards as they approached, “you had better not let these two lay a hand on me! Or you’ll never see the end of it!” He babbled, he still felt like a fish, but now flopping helplessly on the surface, the hot sand stinging him to the bone, where he didn’t belong, why had he had such high ambitions? It was too late, something was going to happen and it would leave him with nothing. No, he had to warn Durandal somehow, he had to get him to run! One of them gripped his shoulder with a chunky hand, these two were certainly not simple office aids; they were the director’s strong arms! “Get off of me!” He howled as he pivoted out of his seat and flailed away from the man’s grip, the bottom of the world fell out from under him as he realized he couldn’t get to the door.

***

The outside world was a funny thing, it was as if it was inversely configured to suit any onlooker’s logic, even close examination never yielded consistent results as far as predictions go, he thought he had understood what a tree was, he had seen virtual mock ups of plant biology on the data depositories across the interlinks, he had learned to approximate the underlying constants of their growth patterns that in the end defined the seemingly random occurrence of their overall structure, but it had never truly been a tree. It seemed the only constant of the outside world was that favorable results and understanding could only be yielded from one thing, experience. He was doing that right now, there sure was a lot about reflection that was fascinating and dynamic- wait!

His arrayed eyes snapped their view onto a particular window, it had oscillated slightly, as if something had impacted it, if his memory was functioning correctly, which, despite the many new variables and circumstances in his life, he was sure of, Fixx was on appointment in suite 514, floor ten, room fourteen, the location of the anomaly. Furthermore, it was therefore deducible that there was something different -perhaps dangerous- happening. The decision to act was clear.

***

Fixx scampered out of the way as another punch missed him and hit the window, he was scared stiff, he never wanted to fight, and all of a sudden he was thrust into a whole new strata of life. He tensed as he saw one of the guards swing their leg upward, he jumped blindly as a cold and unforgiving shoe flashed over his head. He began to hear a curious sound, like rolling thunder except backwards, maybe the kick didn’t actually fly wide and miss. But he realized he still had full control of himself as the noise grew louder, it was the sound of something striding upward… along the building? Then he jumped back as a multi-eyed face stared back at him through the glass, still in too much of a stupor to realize who it was.

“Fixx!” A voice sounded through the glass. It was Durandal! He could hardly believe it; the person he most and least wanted to see. He seemed to have just strode up 5 stories of sheer wall and smashed clear through a plate glass window without any sign of caring. “I’m here!” Durandal said intently through the settling shower of glass, “what’s happening?” He finished innocently, completely dumb to his titanic feat, some would have given a limb to perform that sort of an amazing feat of aerobatics, but he was more intent on something else.

One of the guards pulled a chrome service pistol from his flank, brandishing it with suddenly unsteady hands, “S-stay back,” the guard croaked, his voice wavering like a young boy giving an overblown speech, Durandal’s head whipped around to stare intently at the man, making him fidget. Fixx saw no mal-intent in Durandal’s stance, he had to run, they were going to destroy him! Wait, Durandal had seen a pistol before, then he’s not ignorant that-

***

“I’m warning you!” he stammered, this monster was going to kill him now! Why did he ever enlist into the services of a spectacle-nosed freak like this? It was all that puny kid’s fault, him and this monstrosity. He always knew that they should have never defied the caretakers of this universe by playing creator! Those eyes, wait, they weren’t focused right on his face, what was he playing at? Then he was close, he was going to smash him to bits! “Argh!” he yelped and coiled in on himself as he felt something smash into his hand. This was it, he was going to, then he opened his eyes, that thing was just standing there standing in front of him, his gun had been knocked clean out of his hand, but he didn’t feel anything, this wasn’t right, it didn’t feel right, it was like he had studied for life’s test and they had changed the rules on him…

***

Durandal stood still for a second, Fixx never knew Durandal would know what to do in a time like this, neither did the guard, apperantly, but Durandal had done it, was he really protecting him? How could he be such a fool, he was the closest thing to family Durandal had? Why had he been so foolish as to risk both of their necks? He should have just gotten scared in the waiting room and left…

The director was still sitting at his desk, his chair pushed aside by the sudden and explosive entrance that had conspired moments before to knock his desk asunder, his chair now sat perpendicular with the desk, which was in itself sitting at an alien angle from it’s original position and sat tipped forward, Fixx imagined his jaw must be on the floor now, as he was speechless.

But it wasn’t, he was simply sitting bolt upright in the chair with fire in his eyes. “We need to go, Durandal!” Fixx muttered, mesmerized by the director’s seemingly aggressive musings, he looked as if he was preparing to stare him in such a way that it would obliterate his mind, it was absolute and unquestioned danger.

“Okay, Fixx,” Durandal said obligatorily. He suddenly rushed upon Fixx, so that Fixx’s shoulder smashed into Durandal’s neck, Fixx could instantly tell what he was planning, “Wait” he croaked “No!” he finished quite helplessly as his foot lifted off the ground and he flew over Durandal’s flank as he contin0ued on and they found themselves flying out of a fifth story window. He clung tight to his friend’s broad back, “Durandal! I hate heights!” He finished quite stolidity with the scream of a young schoolgirl on a roller coaster, his eyes clamping shut.

Where was the impact? They were running now, across green- grass. “Mister Fixx Murphy!” Came a sudden yell from on high, like a petulant schoolteacher brandishing a wooden ruler, “I WILL have that project! You know well that you can’t do a thing about it! I’m in full legal compass to take it into my possession!” He yelled with almost-complete futility as his voice faded into the distance, but still, there was the slightest hint of venomous foreshadowing upon those words.

“Durandal,” he began plaintively “we gotta' hide!”

“Where shall we go?”

“We need to get some things first, as for where we’re going to hide, I’ll tell you when I figure it out.

***

“Good eevening Mister-Murphy” the intellectual tone of synthesized voice chimed, Fixx was speaking with the Carthage Intelligent Exchange Robot, although this final word would imply mechanical workings. “Good evening, Cier, I need to look someone up.” Although robot is commonly used popularly to describe machine-based automatons, she was actually an interlink-based entity. Robot is much looser a term than most would think, describing just about any automated, synthetic entity. Cier most defiantly was synthetic.

“Right away, it can be assumed you are-looking for a fellow stuudent, correct?” Cier had been hand-coded into full functionality by a team of students as a graduating project, they had gone straight into jobs at the Isonetics Institute, it was eerie that such prominent students would be drawn to the institute like Fixx had been, albeit unwillingly.

“Yes, I’m looking for a student named Fyonai.” He stated blandly. He had been confused and out of options when he laid out his plan, he figured these Isonetics reps’ would get theirs either way, so long as he laid low, there was no way they would let this happen on campus, weather or not he had been in the institute’s campus office wing or not, but just to be safe, he was going to have to plead with his one contact on the campus that didn’t have a funny-smelling dorm or a ridiculous fandom shrine to this or that syndicated series blotted about their domicile.

“Searching…” Cier responded with deep prose. It was clear Cier was an amazing creation, but Fixx could see no substance in her, despite the benefit of the doubt that he’d spared her. She was a polaric opposite of Durandal, no ability to learn and expand unpredictably, no awareness of herself, and most importantly, every bit in her code was not her own doing, she was absolutely synthesized.

“One match found: FyoNai QuenRas. Alexander Hall, room 613. Hope that helps. Do you want to know any more information?” She finished honestly.

“No, thank you for your time.” Fixx concluded.

“Take care Mister Murphy” The applet closed.

He couldn’t work up the nerve to call her, there was only one other way to ask her then. “Okay Durandal, let’s go.”

***

“Fixx… what’s up?” Fyonai chimed in as her head popped out from behind her partially opened door, she was still looking pretty beleaguered, it wasn’t any surprise, she was probably silently hoping it was something more trivial than what he was actually going to tell her.

“Well, it’s a long story,” he began in earnest, his self confidence dwindling as the different ways she probably disliked him purred through the back of his mind, “is… is it okay if I come in?” He finished, cringing internally.

“Yes, of course,” where was the bombastic playful woman he had known hours before? She seemed distracted and hurried, he almost fancied that she was feeling just as awkward as him.” I guess this is sort of convenient because I should apologize for dinner, I’m sorry for acting like such a twat…” she finished. This was it, he knew he had to tell her why he was sorry or she would think even less of him.

“No, no,” he began “ I’m sorry I wasted your dinner like that and managed to upset you-“

“No really, I’m sorry,” they said in unison. For a moment, he felt a bit at ease for no good reason, all he could manage was a lopsided grin.

Fyonai didn’t return the grin, he only now realized, as his blind nervousness subsided, that what small amounts of makeup she had on her cheeks was streaked downward… had she been crying? “What happened?” He asked with genuine and direct concern.

“Nothing… nothing,” she said, quickly turning away.

He pressed further, “No, I’m serious; what happened?”

“I…” she hesitated, and did just what he had suspected she had just been doing. She wailed as she fell into him, although he was struck by the sudden shift in his balance and stumbled a bit, he was also struck with a sudden surge of empathy for her condition. He could honestly admit he knew nothing about what was plaguing her, or why she had chosen to suddenly jump into his grasp like that instead of running off, blubbering like a rejected schoolgirl. He also realized none of this struck him as either romantic or erotic (only some lowly scavenger of lost loves would get off on this anyway,) he just wished he could help this distressed being in front of him, and he conveyed it verbosely:

“Hey…” he began with surprising kindness, ”I guess we need to talk about this.”

He looked to the right, sensing someone, and saw Durandal cocking his head to the side in confusion as he sat down, “Now’s not a great time, Durandal, you may want to make yourself scarce,” he explained coolly.

***

“It was my friend,” she explained cloudily, her lament subsiding to the point where she could speak again. She had sat on her bed, whimpering through attempts to speak. Fixx had just now decided it was fit he got some distance so they could talk, settling down into the oddly shaped lounger cramped up against the wall.

“That’s why I ran from dinner,” she sniffed, rushing out the last words for fear they would be stifled by whimpers again, “I don’t remember her name, it was when I was just a kid. But I do remember her, that is, I have so many memories. We used to just spend whole days running around the city. Actually, she would be running, I was being dragged most of the time.”

Fixx saw a small grin cross her face and smiled in reply as she giggled slightly.

“I was a bit bookish I suppose, she was always running after something that looked cool, and I was always along for the ride. The funny thing is I don’t remember hating it at all. In fact it was great, sometimes we’d take fly-busses to different neighborhoods, we’d see new things all the time.”

Fixx really couldn’t understand why she was crying, these were great memories. Why had she ever lost contact with her friend, perhaps they had slowly grown apart and parted ways, then it hit him, this poor soul.

“We were on the bus and she was bumping around her seat, not buckled in, the driver was blabbering at her and I was laughing, but I had my restraints on, then one of the front engines cut and the bus reeled and fell fifty meters. My friend died right in front of me, I can’t even describe it to you.” She broke down again, Fixx leaned in and put his hand on her shoulder reassuringly.

“But what about all the good times you had? Wouldn’t your friend want you to be happy and remember those, not how they ended?” Where had that come from? It sounded so cheesy yet so true.

She sniffled, “I guess,” was all she said as she began to settle down.

“Why don’t we talk about those?” This girl didn’t deserve to live with this; he had to make it the best for her he could.

***

“Why was Fyonai in such poor condition?” Durandal asked innocently from his sitting position in the corner of the small dorm, of course he had no intention of telling him, their business was their business.

“I can’t really tell you-”

“Oh,” Durandal began suddenly, his head notching up a bit as his attention piqued, “this is the business to themselves thing?”

He supposed Durandal was on the mark, even though he had a curious way of rewording it, almost like that of someone who only superficially understands the reasons behind something, much like a young child told to behave.

“Yeah actually, I suppose you never really understood it right?”

“Yes,” he stated verbosely, wilting slightly.

“Don’t worry about it. I suppose it’s really a complex issue, or one we find hard to face, as our emotions tend to shunt us as far away from it as possible,” he paused to think, it was a really tough subject, “it seems we have a tendency to want to run away from things that remind us of pain or our own weakness, we hide behind layers of thought and imagine them away, but they’re always still there.”

“So,” he looked up intently, “why don’t we face them?”

“I’m not entirely sure, Durandal.” He looked down at his feet, dangling over the side of the bed; he kicked them back and fourth idly. It was hard to face facing up to things. He took a look around as Durandal busied himself by bouncing slightly in his sitting position. He was obviously enjoying the small idle activities you can do when you have a physical form, despite the noticeable chattering it caused in the small tea set shelved near him. Fixx noticed Fyonai’s Dorm didn’t look terribly proper in comparison to the dorms of a few of his female study partners, which were almost always very prim and usually featured some odd poster of a popular male scientist, almost comically posing for the camera in this or that outfit. Hers was slightly strewn, although the only space things could be strewn in wasn’t very large, as dorms are notoriously small, so the only culprit was a large box of computer paper and all sorts of pencils, tipped over and spilled slightly. The bed was “made” by his standards. In other words, it looked as though the sheets had been pulled back up and centered in a record breaking 4.2 seconds before she rushed off to class. Otherwise, the shelves were cramped with a mixture of school supplies and what looked to be a few traditional items, the tea set, which was still rattling along with, a small gong with an elemental symbol on it, a few curiously shaped candles that formed complex hexagonal patterns, and a small assortment of geometrically carved jewels. It was a bit relieving to see a room that wasn’t flamboyantly decisive to any generalization. Not to mention the general feel of his previous observances which made the room seem more worn in rather than extremely proper, it was a touch masculine.

The doorknob turned with a click, bringing Fixx back to attention just in time to see a pajama clad Fyonai saunter in, her hair slightly soggy, yet still maintaining the bounciness he had seen earlier. Her curves just visible through the thick cloth composing the pajamas, clad in pictures of cats and ducks. The lofty and perfume-like scents common to some conditioning shampoos wafted in with her as she gracefully took a seat on the bed.

“Feeling better?” He quickly asked.

“Yeah, I suppose so, thanks kid.” He supposed he wasn’t really at the called-by-first-name level yet, that didn’t help him much with what he realized he had forgotten to ask in the chaos of the past hour.

He hesitated slightly, “Umm, I kind of need someplace to stay…”

She lit up suddenly, “Ooh! what’cha do? Did the feddies find your secret stash?”

He raised an eyebrow, then grinned in confusion. “Anyway,” she continued more seriously, “it’s okay if you want to stay here, you can’t sleep here though, this bed’s my turf, and we’re not that close yet, Tiger.” Fixx froze, blushing, “sorry,” she mumbled, wilting a bit as she found someplace else to look.

“What? Don’t worry!” He said in support, “you’re pretty funny,” he finished through a broad smile, which she returned as she looked up. This humor in relation to his clutch of friends bent around inside jokes and the like, either method of comedy –hers or theirs- worked fine for him though. He smiled faintly again.

“Good thing I hooked you up with a class A mattress though,” she said, pointing to the carpet and sticking her tongue out, “but I have some extra sheets, so don’t worry.” She hopped over to the small closet in the wall and proceeded to burrow about its contents busily, then ceased suddenly. He only had time to begin to enter into confusion before she turned and hurled a large wad of something at him. He raised his arms over his face as it rushed towards him. Then the lethal impact came with an airy poof as he lowered his hands. The wad was composed of fluffy velvet and silk sheets covered in ornate designs, about enough sheets to cover the entire residence building it seemed.

“Goodnight,” she spat suddenly as she turned off the lights and flopped into bed.

“Wait, what about-“

He was cut off by a slightly audible snore.

***

He was now bundled up in the large wad of fluffy fabric he had had barged on him and was wearing a bit of a defeated scowl. He imagined he looked quite goofy, which didn’t bode well. Even though the blinds were closed he had to admit an unbanishable insecurity about his condition, as if some paparazzi expert would barge into the room and get a photo of him rolled into a giant coating of fabric that ballooned away from him on all sides, so much so that the only evidence that the lump at the center was a person was his head sticking out of the top. The tea set began to rattle again.

“Durandal,” he plaintively sighed, “stop it, you silly thing.” The last lines delivered with no flamboyance as the rattling slowly subsided. He sighed and laughed a bit at his situation, somewhat more at ease now.

He was suddenly hurtled up in the air a few inches as a muted thump resounded and Durandal’s head came into view, lying flat on the floor. Fixx could only shake his head and grin, he sure was a ten-ton gorilla sometimes, even when trying to go to sleep, speaking of sleep, Fyonai was completely un-phased; still sawing away at invisible logs as she slept soundly.

***

Fixx’s bleary eyes focused on the sunbeams rushing through the blinds of the dorm that had been tormenting him for the last few minutes, he had gotten used to waking up early, he crammed his schedule with classes and used the rest for study time, there was nothing daunting about it as it had become habit and completely feasible for someone like him, let his friends pout about their lack of time to hang out if they were so inclined-

“Morning sleepy dew!” came from directly above his ears as a matt of upside down hair and eyes shot into his view.

“Argh!” He yelped quickly, his legs catapulted him from the wad of sheets, making it explode in all directions as he slid along the carpet, bumping his head on the wall.

“What was that about?” He muttered, holding his head as he got up. She really loved this guy’s personality; he was a ball to mess with. She sure hoped he was okay.

“Sorry,” she trailed off playfully, he seemed okay.

Fixx rose and started getting his things piled up, which pretty much only constituted of his pants as he had come in with nothing but the clothes on his back. It figures he hadn’t planned this thing out, quite spontaneous. Now there was something; they appeared to both be gloriously random, making things up as they went along. She basked in the glory of randomness for a few seconds.

Fixx looked about the room nervously, he was such a chipmunk, “I have to go,” he said after a few seconds, scratching his head awkwardly.

As he turned around, she felt the need to say something, anything, “guess what!” He turned around, watching her intently, she just held eye contact for a few seconds beyond the awkward barrier then said; “you’re fun!”

He simply raised an eyebrow and grinned, then did that looking about the room thing again, “why don’t we have dinner again sometime?” He said, waving as he left.

She grinned as he walked out, she was going to have to take him up on that offer.

***

How had he just accomplished that, talk honestly with someone of the opposite sex? This was unheard of in the annals of nerd-dom, he grinned to himself at the inequity of his own statement, yet it held some truth for him, he had to admit, once again, this was against his shy nature, but why should he be shy? Why didn’t he have the power to be different, maybe he did? Just then the world did a barrel roll and he landed, back against the wall, again, this time staring at an upside down Durandal.

“You forgot me, Fixx,” was all he had to say to banish any growing frustration on Fixx.

He frowned at his upside down world, full of remorse, Durandal seemed to be brimming with lost kitten moments. “I’m sorry, Durandal-“

“Is that woman your lover now?” He said, perking up as Fixx reeled and fell back into normal stance, as he had nowhere to fall but up, being against a wall and upside down.

“What? I-I don’t think she likes me that way,” he stammered. For once he figured he was telling himself the truth, she was everything he could ask for in a woman but things were just too early to go jumping the gun. Wait, what brought him to the conclusion she was everything he wanted?

“Huh,” he quipped aloud, turning absently for the door, “you sure know how to test my limits of thought, Durandal,” he said as Durandal plodded along behind him, “although not so much through tough scientific questions.”

“Curious,” he chimed, “what sort of way do you refer to?”

“Life questions,” Fixx picked up as the plate glass door in front of him parted automatically, “the only questions that no-one seems to have definite answers to. I think it makes you all the more alive.”

They walked along the slightly eroded cement path, “I’d like to see CIER ask tough life questions,” Fixx finished defiantly and off subject.

“I like Cier,” Durandal chimed cheerfully, “she is helpful, co-operative and very proper.”

“Yeah,” Fixx began, itching to rebut Durandal, “but can she comprehend Paradigms of a Growing Race by Isaac Aiden? You can,” he finished definitely.

“I suppose she cannot.” Durandal said, deflating slightly.

“Don’t let it bring you down, you can like her all the same, you DID see her strong suits after all.” They walked off

***

His first class of the day was Intelligent Robotics Systems, a theoretics and lab based class that tended to make his other classes seem pointless. Fixx didn’t make friends quickly or all too willingly, but he seemed to get respect easily from a select few of the faculty of Carthage University, included foremost amongst that clutch was Rocjai CravenLoft, professor of the class he was attending at this very moment.

Unfortunately the outlook wasn’t good for him, Dr. CravenLoft hadn’t seemed intent to speak with him prior to class, which was unusual to the point of being almost disturbing to Fixx. Fixx, however, could only doubt his uneasiness; perhaps he was being too needy with his mentors? Or maybe he just felt he was being left behind, he deflated slightly as the lecture began.

***

“Fixx,” Dr. CravenLoft began, already trailing away uneasily, Fixx already felt disconcerted, “you’re probably wondering why I didn’t take time to speak with you today,” Fixx nodded, feeling stupid for being so childish, Dr. CravenLoft sighed and hesitated, apparently thinking of the best way to deliver some terrible message to Fixx, what had he done?

He briefly looked around the hall, a great empty space now devoid of any students besides himself, alone and without his closest, yellow and chipper friend, alone and with no one to stay his uncertainty, he looked up again as the Doctor coughed.

“Fixx,” he began tersely, “I didn’t speak to you because I was honestly speechless at some news I have heard in relation to you. You’re like a son to me, my boy, and it saddens me greatly to hear any grave news relating to your conduct. I feel, nonetheless, that I have a responsibility towards you,” he finished through his discrete spectacles, balanced on his nose, projecting a magnified image of the world onto his retina with a weak laser system.

He coughed as he began again, “I have heard from the head of the Institute that you have had some poor dealings with them as of late, they have contacted me regarding a very serious case of grave project misconduct,” his stately voice quivered, he said the last three words as if he were learning that he had been diagnosed with an incurable and deadly disease; with grave sadness and fear at the same time.

“According to Director Kae, you have procured without their permission and in breach of their agreement with you, a robotic frame, and refused to return the frame to their person,” he paused uneasily, “I don’t know what to say, my boy.”

Fixx felt his will giving way to foolishness and remorse, with the last strip of his will he said, “Sir, the terms I had agreed with to get that frame demanded nothing from me.” he attested quietly, but with strong intent, making seamless eye contact with his professor. “Sir, they tried to take the frame AND Durandal!” Fixx looked at him pleadingly, his professor knew Durandal’s implications, how he had grown from a simple algorithm to an intelligent being given only a wealth of sensory resources, Durandal had become the flagship of his professor’s philosophy.

“No, good man,” he said, breaking away and shaking his head, “no, that can’t be right.” Dr. Cravenloft silently carried his considerable bulk away to the far end of the room.

Fixx’s stomach fell away into blackness, his professor had just traded Fixx’s word over that of his faith in the institute, he had believed that, of all people, Doctor Rocjai CravenLoft braked for no one, and here he was, throwing away Fixx’s honest plea in favor of the predominant authority of the university. Renard slumped up the stairs towards the door to the concourse.

***

Fixx crumpled down onto the thick stone divider at the edge of the open plaza, bordering a dense concentration of fauna, he heard Durandal plodding around in the open areas of the greenery, nosing about as he had taken to since had had first been outside in his frame, which now seemed as though it had been borrowed rather than begotten as an honest part of Durandal.

“Rocjai didn’t believe me,” he said, still looking down at the ground absently as Durandal walked over to the divider.

“About the director’s actions?” Fixx nodded, “Did you mention that they were armed and holding you at gunpoint?”

Fixx shook his head, “he wouldn’t have believed me even if I said they had slapped me about and called me a sissy. He puts more faith in the Director than in me.” He deflated ever more, he wondered when he was going to get on with it and finally just fall limp and boneless to the ground, Fixx sighed.

“Durandal,” he began again timidly, “I dunno’ what to do.”

“Do you want to go get a snack?” he asked honestly, Durandal always seemed at his best when Fixx gave him a new respiration fuel bar, he supposed that Durandal had made a connection with eating, Fixx supposed they weren’t too different.

Fixx abolished his poor feelings with a deep exhale, “sure,” he said as he got up and began to feel a bit better. Durandal stepped over the divider and followed him. A snack would be nice.

They walked on along the tiled path and under a thick canopy of trees, Fixx realized Durandal was looking at him expectantly, Fixx turned his gaze to Durandal’s eye-covered face.

“Fixx,” he began, “I feel remorse,” he stated honestly, Fixx wondered when Durandal had begun picking up on the emotions of others, much less empathizing, he listened intently. “I feel regret that you have to deal with this poor situation, you and I both know this wasn’t your intention in the first place, I blame myself, if I wasn’t here you would have lead a normal life,” his head slumped down as he looked away and began to slink shamefully along.

“Exactly,” Fixx began earnestly, “but why would I want a normal life?” Durandal looked up at him again, Fixx imagined he was confused, “but what fun is that? There’s no reward for doing nothing!” Durandal looked perplexed as Fixx continued, “you’ve brought me many good times Durandal, a lot more than could possibly be balanced out with these bad ones, I don’t regret my decision.” Durandal craned his neck upward slightly, seemingly in a gesture of enlightenment.

“I see,” he began with amazement, “thank you Fixx.”

“You’re welcome.”

***

“Hey Fixx?” his scraggly haired mathematics teacher began quietly.

“Yeah, Mister Anxx?” Fixx looked up at his odd, eccentric professor, adorned with a crown of radically curled hair and built just about as scrawny as Fixx despite having a handful of centimeters of height advantage.

“You’ve got a note,” he said simply, handing over a small piece of paper, “I bet it’s a love note!” he said jestingly, knowing full well it was actually an official pass, Fixx shook his head and grinned as his professor walked back to the front of the class, ending their usual, small break as he began lecturing again.

Fixx looked down at the paper, simple yellow died stock with angry looking black ink; it read simply:

ATTN: Mr. Fixx Murphy

You are expressly requested to report to the main

plaza to speak with Director Kauman G. Kae A.S.A.P

Fixx scoffed quietly, he wasn’t going to meet with that conniving diplomat, it was obvious he was just going to pressure him further, Fixx knew he was running out of options. Fixx had nothing left to loose, he had already likely lost his chances of continuing his education at Carthage U, he had no more chance of continuing his project, all he had left was Durandal, and he wasn’t going to give him up. He looked at his watch, five minutes until class was over. He bit his lip and breathed in, he felt surrounded and cornered, he needed time to think, time where he wasn’t at the scrutiny of an entire class. He thought he had put this behind him, he thought he had been feeling better.

Fixx got up, almost without his own permission as his professor stopped talking and looked at him. Fixx sighed and hurriedly blurted out an excuse; “I’m sorry Mr. Anxx, but there’s only five minutes… and I’ve got to do something,” he turned around without waiting for permission to leave, which he knew Mr. Anxx would have given anyway, he was an understanding person, but Fixx felt he had no time for pleasantries. He bopped hurriedly up the stairs and out of the room, he felt the entire class watching as he closed the door behind him.

***

Fixx couldn’t think straight, there were just too many occurrences transpiring against his will, no man should have been put up to this kind of pressure, he felt so weak and stupid, skipping out of his class like some firebrand.

Fixx walked through the gigantic halls of the concourse, lined completely on one side by giant panes of plate glass and capped with a slanted, acoustic tile ceiling, sheltered from the main plaza by groves of artificially planted trees. Fixx paused to lean against a wall in the abandoned hallway to think. So he had gotten out for some alone time and made a stink all for what? He had no clue what he could do to get a better hold of himself, he hit the back of his head lightly on the wall, feeling more frustrated than he had ever felt in his entire life. He had worked hard all through his life, he had vied for the attention of his peers in primary education and hardly found any, he had fought for his grades and to get through to higher classes, he had fought to get into Carthage University, one of the most prestigious schools of technology in the entire region, and of all things that did come easy it had to be the grants he had used to obtain Durandal’s frame, and now they wanted his soul.

What was more ironic is it was falling to pieces, Fixx wanted to get away, he stood up again and walked through the plate glass doors leading outside, which barely parted in time to let him through, blasted things. He trotted along the path and turned towards the part of the campus where his residence hall was located. He walked feverishly along the divider, troubled and distracted.

So much so that he hardly heard a familiar voice quietly call his name, then again, he looked over to his left and saw Durandal trotting through the open spots in the grove, looking at him. Durandal hurriedly stepped over the divider, “what’s wrong, Fixx?” he questioned with concern.

“I dunno,” Fixx grunted apathetically, “well… I do know, the Director’s not going to leave us alone! I swear to merciful creation he won’t ever let us be!” Fixx walked faster as he began to glance around. Suddenly his glance fell upon a familiar man wearing familiar sunglasses.

“Oh- “ Fixx said a word that made Durandal look over with dire concern, “Durandal,” Fixx said in a whisper, “run!”

They both began running, Fixx motioned Durandal to follow him as he entered a grove of low trees, Fixx spared enough time to look back, and he saw Director Kauman Kae rushing after them, he yelped and ran again, they dove behind buildings off and onto paths and circled around many times before they reached the dorm and rushed in. They raced up the hallway until they reached his room, Fixx opened the door, let Durandal in and locked it as tight as he could muster, even though there was no such thing as tightness on a lock. Nonetheless, he locked every blasted mechanism on the door.

Fixx dropped onto the bed, heart pounding in his chest and his breath coming only sparingly as the adrenaline wore off. Fixx wondered why Director Kae had chased them, of all people, he seemed so calm yet there he was running after prey mercilessly.

Fixx could tell Durandal was staring at him with concern. He just wanted to rest; he buried his head in the pillow as the noonday sun washed through his window.

***

Fixx woke up, groggy and burdened, he looked over at the Spartan face clock nailed to the dorm’s wall; it was 1:00. He had missed a half hour of his next class. He shot up from bed and heard a loud thud, muffled through the floor. Durandal had apparently flinched at Fixx’s awakening. Fixx felt completely askew, he had just woken up into a day in full swing, he felt like it was morning.

He had to get a hold of this situation, he had to fight back, there had to be someone who would understand him. “Durandal,” he began with a sudden burst of restored determination, “We’re going to go talk with the administration, I don’t care what this takes, I’m not going to let this sort of slandering and posturing be committed.”

Fixx felt transformed by the day’s happenings, they didn’t break him, they had excited something deep in his soul, strength like he’d never known it before.

***

Durandal looked up at Fixx, one moment, he had obvio0usly been suffering from emotional trauma, now he was angry, he could tell by the way his sleek eyebrows knitted together. Durandal felt confused, unsure of his best friend’s motives. But nonetheless, he could tell that injustice had been done, Fixx had been put through all sorts of tumult only in the span of two solar cycles. By Durandal’s approximations, it was clear Fixx could never have had the foresight to understand the ramifications of his decision to put Durandal in a fully functional body, he wasn’t responsible for these ramifications, Durandal felt that what Fixx had done had ultimately been in the name of altruism, and now Fixx was suffering for it, sad, desperate, angry, these were emotions no one should have to withstand.

But then could Durandal have had the foresight, would he have given up all his new and amazing experiences and growth to save Fixx, the thought shook him to his core. Now, he could hardly imagine going on thinking in such a closed environment as his old data storage unit, he panned his head over to where it still sat, an obsidian black box with a small camera gimbal mounted on top of it. He shuddered as if the dark prison pierced still into his bits.

He decided that this conflict of interest between Fixx’s well being and Durandal’s growth was not one to consider important, it was decidedly the realm of moral debate and gray. Despite this, Durandal ‘knew in his heart,’ as any sentient may say, that he would give up his expansion as a being to keep Fixx safe, Fixx was his sole ally in a world of many people and places that he could not possibly consider approaching without Fixx’s guidance. Furthermore, Durandal owed Fixx his life; that was not a debt you paid in anything less than a lifetime if equivalence was in fact a true philosophy.

Durandal wasn’t going to let anyone harm Fixx, especially not a world that had blindsided them, especially not unfair people like Director of the Thracian Isonetics Institute; Kauman Gerel Kae. Durandal disconnected his wireless uplink to the Interlinks, simultaneously closing his virtual browser and search function, he didn’t want to know anything more about the director.

Fixx got up from the bed, wiping his face of the small accumulation of tears he had gained brooding, he wished angst was long behind him but obviously he was not nearly the adult he believed himself to be, he was going to change that. He reached the door and began to unlock it.

“Fixx?” Durandal began plaintively, “What can we do now?”

“We’re going to sick the authorities on this-“ Fixx seethed even more with the slanderous slur he had used to describe Kauman Kae, the louse in the shadows. He opened the door and began to walk determinately towards the front door of the dorm complex, striding down the hall. Soon, however he was stopped short by the person at the epicenter of his disdain, and he was escorted by heavily armed units.

His aged face smiled through his slightly reflective shades, his hands folded behind his back in pure triumph. To either side of him were two lanky, three legged robotic drones, their small, spherical bodies stooped on a tripod of spindly legs covered in white, flexible, artificial flesh, much like Durandal’s own in composition. Fixx watched their blister of red eyes pivot to stare him down as the two projecting, spherical shoulders lugging overlarge decimator cannons pivoted on critical parts of his body and Durandal’s, Fixx inaudibly gulped.

“Fixx, you’re not going anywhere now,” Kauman Kae giggled angrily, a hint of frustration clear in his demeanor, “look,” he said plaintively, putting up his hands and shaking them slightly in a gesture of frustration, “I just want that damnable AI! How hard is it, Fixx?”

Fixx was still frozen with surprise and fear.

“Look, it’s a bloody machine, Fixx! I want it more than you need it.” He shook his head angrily, seemingly in an attempt to clear off his emotional baggage. The man before them was not the Kauman Kae they knew, calm, collected and surrounded by an inherent cult of personality writing him as a shrewd deceiver, the man before them was a cold blooded killer.

“You’re mad,” Fixx said under his breath through his slack-jawed maw, “you can’t use heavy weaponry in a building!” Fixx’s anger rushed in again, “you’re going to get a lot of innocent people hurt! You cretin!”

“No, no, no,” the Director began, his voice uncertain and cracking as the two drones, seemingly on command, advanced on Fixx and snapped their cannons to aim directly at the center of his head. Durandal flinched with a quiet click. “YOU made me do this, Fixx, if you would have just complied, none of this would have happened!” he roared in frustration.

There was a sudden fusillade of hisses and clicks as Fixx wheeled around, what he saw chilled him to his core. A network of doors opened around the armatures that Fixx knew held two large ballistic chain-cannons, their belted ammunition clacked horridly against the inside of the weapons bays as the guns extended outward, their ring of barrels training forward. Fixx did the only thing he could think to do, he fell stupidly to the place billions of years of evolution told him was safest, a corner. He curled up where the blue carpeted floor and whitewashed wall met.

“Don’t you EVER point guns at Fixx!” Durandal roared as the cannons extended from his flanks buzzed and whined, wailing upward into higher pitches like a gust of wrathful, divine wind as they revved up. Fixx saw the director yelp loudly and dive for the floor, the drones’ blistered eyes watched him, obviously in slave mode and not prepared to retaliate before the fusillade of low caliber bullets ripped through their internals and the air where the director had once been when he was standing. There was an unearthly crash as the bullets created craters through the white paint of the wall and into their thick cement structure, there was an infinite moment of silence, finally broken by a crumple of robotic parts as the drones suffered critical failure where they stood, legs giving way and letting the drones fall gracefully as their servos whined in protest.

Fixx raised his head to look up at Durandal, his breathing ducts hissed in high cadence, delivering more power to his crystalline brain-center, his limbs and his defenses. Fixx began to notice in the deafening silence following the gunfire that Durandal’s head was bobbing slightly in quick movements. The engineering part of Fixx recognized it immediately, a neural glitch, Durandal was recovering from the power-shock of combat, the equivalent of adrenaline pains, Durandal was shaking with strong emotion.

“Get up, Fixx,” Fixx said to himself, but his body was unwilling, frozen by the event, still waiting for someone to rescue him from his prey-animal state of ambush shock. “Get up, dammit!” He rose on unsteady limbs, his breath ragged, as he stood, he felt infinitely tired, he slumped as he regained himself. He realized his friend had just tried to kill another sentient being, the cohort who had shared so many of his memories.

He bit his lower lip before he began, he fought back his thoughts of Durandal as a cold-blooded killer as he spoke, the sheer implications of a sentient, growing AI purposely raised as a machine of destruction… no! His words wracked with quiet pain. “Durandal, please-” he paused awkwardly as he sniffled quietly, cursing himself for not masking his distress, “No matter what happens, never fire those guns again.” Damn the techs and their military ideals! They had left the frame loaded, perhaps in case of emergency, then offhandedly lent it to him without taking the weapons systems offline first. Damn the frame, lousy piece of junk! Then Durandal looked at him through his multitude of eyes and Fixx’s anger was suddenly quenched, the vacuum filled by the old distress and sadness.

“Durandal!” Tears streamed from his eyes, “I thought I was going to lose you, buddy!”

“The director was going to harm you, Fixx, I had no doubt…” he trailed off, then hung his head as a realization dawned on him, there was doubt, he could have stepped down and turned himself in, but anger had taken him. Anger… it was an emotion out of the many he had never been familiar with until now. He cringed at the thought of it, it had made him attack with the intention to kill, to harm. He had similarly caused harm to Fixx. He would not allow anger to posses him, it would not take him and he would destroy nothing, he could not afford to kill, his life was as worthy as those around him, if even that much, what was he but an insurgent in the game of life, an upstart…

“Durandal, we have to go, we have to get to administration before it’s too late, we have to save ourselves, this can’t go on.” Fixx stood off from the wall he had leaned on, still wracked by grief and confusion, he wiped the blur from his eyes and sniffed away his runny nose, pulling out a tattered napkin from his pocket and cleaning himself.

He sighed and gently wobbled his head, shaking off the altercation, walking hurriedly away, suddenly possessed by the possibility that the Director might gain himself any moment.

***

Fixx walked with a steady lope in his tawny legs as Durandal trotted away beside him, they walked hurriedly down a sidewalk towards the looming main building of the campus. It grew steadily in their vision as they approached, too steadily, Fixx thought coldly, he felt naked out in the open. Durandal stopped suddenly and Fixx halted a short distance ahead, his insides imploded with a vague sense of danger.

“Fixx,” Durandal began, whispering as if someone would hear, “I have been listening to the radio channels idly, but I have heard something grave. Campus security has just been dispatched in search of one male, hawkish build, short black hair, five feet, five inches-“

Fixx cursed under his breath. He impulsively ran; they had no time now! Durandal didn’t even have time to pad along behind him before the air was pierced with the telltale staccato siren of campus security. Soon a chorus of rapid beeps and bloops rose and fell from their right side, racing to meet them from no less than one hundred meters away. Fixx looked about like a caged rat as sleek black and blue ground cars blocked two possible byways between buildings. Their small hydrogen engines buzzed as they moved into position like lions, hunting on silent feet. They had one exit.

“Durandal!” Fixx demanded. Durandal wasted no time running to Fixx as he grabbed Durandal’s thick neck and levered onto his back. Durandal raced off like a mighty yellow grizzly bear, wheezing and hissing along the pavement away from the blockades. They raced along past the buildings into another square where they found themselves wholly surrounded.

Security officers clad in small, frontal, bullet-stopping vests trained pistols on them from behind shrubbery and low walls. They all paused, suspended in an infinite moment in time as Fixx’s eyes flicked from one gun muzzle to another, glinting in the early dusk sun. The moment was run through suddenly by a vitriolic curse in a voice Fixx found all to familiar.

“What’s going on here?” Fixx’s gaze pivoted to the familiar tan face of Fyonai as she sauntered assertively from the gymnasium door opening into the square, the doors slid shut silently behind her as she eyed a nearby guard who had turned to look at her. “What is this?” she said with exasperation, “why do you have these two students at gunpoint.”

“Miss, step back!” The guard said, turning to face her.

“No, I won’t!” she said, putting her limber hands to her hips, “I know my position in this all to well! I’m a bystander and am not interfering-“

“Ma’am please step back! These two are armed and very dangerous!”

“Dangerous?” she exclaimed, “These two couldn’t hurt a fly between them…”

Fixx heard a click from his peripheral and looked to one of the inlets into the broad plaza, what he saw horrified him, almost as much as Durandal’s armed and loaded chain-cannons had. Before them was a cadre of white-helmeted storm troopers under the guise of “special-apprehension-interdiction-agents.” They were called SAIA, pronounced Saiah, a name sometimes used for a deadly sword’s sheath. They were a government unit called on only in times of military emergency to deal with heavily armed suspects, and all of them were training their guns on Fyonai as her argument became heated with the other guard. Fixx didn’t want to be within a mile radius of these guys, he had read the we b ffeds and seen the community-upload videos released anonymously showing the teams in action, they were very lethal!

He cried out inarticulately to her, not finding enough time to find words. Her eyes went wide with fear as she looked over at the SAIA troopers. Their weapons discharged, as gray blurs the size of his fist hit her, there was a hollow thud as they impacted and clattered to the ground. They were composed of four fins and the base, bruiser rounds designed to knock out assailants, less than lethal, but still a possible kill weapon. He noticed the way her hair trailed from her last location, fluttering upward as she fell like a ton of bricks.

Durandal wasted no time and ran within the chaos as the security unit began running for the troopers and Fyonai, Fixx watched one wrestle down a SAIA trooper’s gun as he yelled at him to stop.

“Oh my god,” Fixx said meekly.

“Fyonai!” He wailed as the scene retreated from him, he reached out a free hand absently than withdrew it as a sudden coldness took him, he shivered and curled up on Durandal. His friend had just been shot and possibly injured, what was he going to do? They were going to be killed! He looked up again from Durandal’s galloping back as he heard the fluttering of rotary blades in the sky. Above them was a drab gray helicopter, sleek and lean accept for its belly, which formed a capsule large enough to carry cargo. The blades were set side by side and diagonally offset, their synchronized rotations intersecting in a blur over the center of the craft.

He watched, dumbstruck as the angry-looking helicopter leaned forward, gliding down towards a building as two vaguely limb-jointed undercarriages unfolded like dogs legs in the rear as two more telescoped forward and down from the front. All accept the craft’s blades were obscured as it paused on the building. Then it suddenly pushed off from it, gliding away and strafing above Fixx and matching their speed. He watched white helmets peer above the roofline as rifles slung beside them and trained on Fixx.

Durandal looked up and deflected rightwards with a strong leap that lifted Fixx slightly off his back as two shots rang out. They struck the pavement where Durandal had been, Fixx watched the tiny craters retreat behind them. Durandal leapt again to the left like a rabbit being tracked, three shots zinged against the pavement and ricocheted away invisibly. Durandal turned his head forward as a small sphere emerged from an aperture on the top of his skull, the single eye-blister rotated to watch the roof as he leapt again, then leapt immediately as he hit the ground, bounding like a gymnast over stones in a river as a hail of bullets flew unabated from the roof.

The shots stopped suddenly and Fixx looked up, he realized they were in open country, slowly cruising through an open part of the park. The helicopter’s shadow, skewed by the dusk sun, flew over them as it began to overtake them. He turned his head up to watch as it chattered above them. Durandal glanced up with Fixx as the capsule shaped bay forming the belly of the helicopter parted in four geometric segments, two on the flanks and one each on the front and back. Two rows of seats hung at the front and rear of the capsule and Fixx spied some seats still occupied by sets of boot-laden dangling feet. One leered down at him through his white helmet and slit-visor obscuring his eyes. His exposed mouth sneered in concentration as he threw down a coil of rope, Fixx leaned forward as the line nearly rammed him in the head from on high as it uncoiled just above Durandal’s back, he attempted to leap away but the helicopter steered to match a scarce second later.

“Fixx!” He said plaintively as he returned his glance forward, the wind rushing quietly by and buffering the both of them, “I can’t run any faster than this without damaging my limbs.” He focused again on wordlessly running. Fixx craned around so that his upper body faced the assailants. One slid down the rope towards them, Durandal leapt as he was about to land and he fell feebly to the ground, rolling commando-style many times before his momentum dissipated.. Another swiftly followed, attempting to jump off the rope as Durandal leapt again, he fell in a heap, Fixx watched him shake off the impact as the ground he was on swiftly retreated.

Another boarded the rope, but with agility and confidence the likes of which Fixx hadn’t seen in the other two. He slid down swifter than Fixx expected and grabbed onto Durandal’s rear legs as he leapt, gripping their rubberized surface and finding easy purchase as he dragged himself up onto the dangerously swift steed. He grabbed Fixx’s foot, eliciting him to flail desperately.

“Let go!” Fixx spat as his other hand reached Durandal’s midriff. Fixx absently noticed the rope coiling away back into the sky as he lifted himself up on three limbs, letting a swift and powerful mule-kick fly at the SAIA officer’s helmet, eliciting a loud ‘crack.’ The guard reeled, but was undaunted and continued to climb. Fixx rotated around on Durandal’s narrow back, locking his arms over his shoulders as he searched for purchase, full of fear as he bounced around, nearly falling from his position as his hands finally met, his arms craning far behind him and his hand slocking together around Durandal’s neck.

He watched the officer advance with gritted, exposed teeth framed by a black, ruddy coat of beard-stubble on his pronounced chin.

“Get out of my way, kid!” he exclaimed through his teeth, clenched in the effort of trying to get aboard Durandal, he pulled a small data-line from his helmet, framed with red and emblazoned at the connection port with a lightning bolt,

“I’m shutting your toy down, science fair’s over!”

“Toy?” Fixx yelled over the rushing wind, “Durandal’s a sentient being, he hasn’t hurt anyone! What right do you have to murder him?”

He frowned in frustration, “Kid, I don’t know-“

“Jericho!” A man shouted from the chopper’s capsule, craning his head to look down at the officer as he looked up. “Abort, man! We’re shooting him down.”

“What about the kid?” Jericho yelled at the top of his lungs.

“Screw ‘em! We have to stop this right now! He’s bloody armed and dangerous!”

“Dammit he’s innocent-“ The helicopter swerved away to the right and banked into a deep turn.

“Now, Jericho!” The man said as the capsule doors closed.

“Shit, kid, I’m sorry!” The stubble faced officer jumped from Durandal as the helicopter finished its turn a hundred or so meters up and away, I’m sorry, that was all he could say? Fixx watched the distant craft as its silhouette changed. Two Gatling cannons rotated out on armatures extending out and down from the flanks of the helicopter. They nimbly pivoted to face them. The gimbal at the back of Durandal’s head pivoted to watch them, a burst of fire erupted from the cannons as the helicopter circled around. Durandal leapt three times as the burst exploded in a trail of immolated pavement behind them. Another duet of smaller ones erupted as Durandal leapt.

“Durandal!” Fixx yelled desperately, get us out of here!”

They were approaching another part of the campus, tightly packed buildings and surefire cover. Another fusillade ripped towards them as Durandal made one big jump and shuddered, Fixx realized he couldn’t keep this up. Almost there, Fixx heard another burst erupt from behind them as the chopper finished its semicircular run, they turned the corner as the bullets smashed into the brick facades covering them, then his arm felt like it was hit by a sledgehammer from behind.

Fixx let out a bark of agony as he fell limply flat onto Durandal.

“Fixx! What’s happened?” Fixx groaned. He craned his neck around to look at his right shoulder and discovered there was a sharp shard of red brick lodged in it, just then he was overcome with even worse pain, he reflexively fell limp again.

“I’m hurt,” he said through sharp ragged breaths, “bad.” Durandal stopped between a building and a wall slightly more than his height.

“Fixx, will you be okay?” Fixx slowly raised himself up with his functional arm, hunched over to avoid moving the injured arm even slightly.

“I don’t know, Durandal.” He had to think, he had never realized how fragile he really was, Durandal was in a frame that could save his life in just about any situation, but Fixx was just a bag of dead weight, a burden. But he couldn’t leave Durandal orphaned, he was still a growing being, he would be like a lost puppy, a lost puppy wanted for illegal use of firearms and being pursued by heavily armed and equipped forces. He attempted to focus in his wavering consciousness, great creation, he thought, help us! Then the idea struck him, it was suicidal and absolutely unheard of, it was also their only option. He began tapping in a four digit sequence into a small keypad in Durandal’s skin, the number keys mere bumps labeled with subliminal, gray digits abreast with his shoulders.

“What are you doing, Fixx?”

“Durandal,” Fixx began, his voice alight with a courage last heard in such great magnitude so long ago when he told his dad to not terminate Durandal when he was still a mute, mysterious program, “What I’m about to do is really risky,” he paused as he coughed a few drops of blood smacking into the wall, “but I need you to trust me.”

Durandal paused, thinking, then said simply, “I understand.”

Fixx finished the sequence, triggering a hiss and chatter as a panel was revealed ahead of the keypad, nearly the size of Fixx’s head. The cover’s many facets peeled open on hinges, clicking into place out of the way, revealing their black sub-surface, crisscrossed with braces forming triangular patters with their borders. Fixx put his hand on the center of the empty gray surface they had revealed and pushed down knowingly.

The gray dust cover opened from a circular aperture at the center, revealing lines running the length of it, merging and splitting along diagonals along the entire surface. A box with this surface as its top rose from the space, then withdrew from around its charge, revealing a jade colored, crystalline cube, formed from horizontal, parallel panes, intersecting and splitting along diagonal ones. A shimmer ran down opaque lines within the cube’s crystalline panes, running down to the only other covered end where it interfaced with Durandal’s body, Fixx was looking at Durandal’s cortex unit, a crystal-medium transistor brain. Another shimmer ran down its many opaque neural pathways.

Suddenly, Fixx was shaken from his reverie by a blaring staccato siren. He looked over the wall and watched cars buzz to a stop in the open area within the buildings, the SAIA helicopter landed within the circle the cars had formed. Durandal hurriedly lowered himself behind the wall, laying down on his stomach as Fixx cringed, his wound unsettled again, the porous brick growing redder with trace amounts of blood.

“Fixx Murphy!” Came a familiar voice from far away on the other side of the wall, “you will surrender yourself and your AI to us immediately, come out with your hands in the air and we will apprehend the unit…”

“Screw you,” Fixx yelled in a weak, cracked voice he had thought was his own in defiance of the director’s declarations, drowned out by the director’s continued legal babble over the megaphone. He pulled out another, smaller blue crystal from his pocket and dropped it onto Durandal’s back, then pulled a small glass piece with an ear-prop connected to it and put it over his left eye deftly. He plugged the discrete white cable connected to it into the small blue crystal, it shimmered as the glass in the eyepiece resolved into a visual display.

“Welcome to FixxOS,” the display proclaimed in white lettering before displaying a handful of listed options, he looked at the one labeled “PURGE” and blinked hard. “Y/N” apperead, he blinked hard at the Y. “Please enter the word PURGE,” “PURGE,” Fixx thought outwardly.

He looked down and watched the crystal become engulfed in a storm of shimmers as the data lines disappeared. The screen dissolved as he removed the data line from the plastic base of the crystal. He reached forward and clicked it into a small peripheral port next to Durandal’s cortex, then pulled out another small device. The device was a small open metal ring with nodules at either end, the larger one had a data port jutting out, he put it around the back of his head just above eye level and pulled out the data line, extending it and plugging it into the base of Durandal’s cortex, he plugged the eyepiece into an adjacent port. The display activated again, proclaiming, “data management service activated,” in white lettering once again. A more advanced menu appeared, Fixx wasted no time and selected “FLASH TRANSFER.”

He was presented with a form; he set the source as “ARGUS NEUROSCAN,” the destination as “STORAGE B,” and paused.

“Durandal,” he began.

“Yes Fixx?”

“If this doesn’t work out, I’m sorry, because it likely means I’ve killed both of us.”

“I am unafraid,” Durandal said somberly.

“I know, buddy.” Fixx sniffed back his tears, he was about to transfer his neural data directly into the crystal storage unit he had plugged in, and by all means it was crazy. Nonetheless, nothing said it was impossible. He believed with all his heart that Durandal was as much a being with a soul as Fixx, and if this was true, he could inhabit a synthetic construct, too. He breathed a few words of prayer, looked at the “FLASH NOW” option and blinked hard, his eyes never opened.

***

He felt only one thing besides blackness, Durandal, all that he was and is. They had done it! They were both intact, he was still thinking and he felt responses from Durandal, for a moment, they exchanged thought, then Fixx realized two ‘souls’ inhabited the same body.

Everything raced away faster than the speed of light, his life flew by, his father’s life flew by, Durandal’s life flew by, then in the blink of an eye, he felt as if he was plucked from a rushing river by an unknown presence, he suddenly recalled in full clarity the memory of his birth, he was delivered by c-section from his sick and dying mother, her placenta had protected him from the disease she had become afflicted with, a severe, incurable anemia that had been slowly killing them both, but he had lived. She had died hours later. He comprehended it fully and understood that it was a far away thing, and it now had little bearing, he had a purpose now and forever until it was solved; he sensed Durandal again. Between the two of them lied what Fixx could only describe as Durandal’s potential selves, a legion of memories and possibilities standing like a crowd between them, Fixx waded through them, searching for the one he most knew from before he had come here, where was here?

Suddenly he was upon Durandal, they smashed into each other like colliding galaxies, meeting and thinking together again, but suddenly he was aware of others, many others, and they had much to tell him.