There was no Route 5 by the time Door set off on her journey. Or, rather, there was, but now it was less a route and more an avenue in western Nimbasa, leading right up to the Clay River separating the city from its neighboring Driftveil. What once was forest fifty years ago was now a concrete jungle, and as Door looked up at the towering masses of glass and steel, she couldn't help but feel a little of her old surprise and disappointment returning. Sure, she had known that Nimbasa had expanded in the fifty years since Rosa had been through there, but she didn't think all of the forest was gone.
So that was the second thing that had surprised her the afternoon following her gym battle. The first, which had cropped up just as she and Blair arrived at the pokémon center, was the fact that Blair had lost to Elesa, and now Blair didn't want to battle Door.
Which was fine by Door if she had to be perfectly honest, but that still didn't explain why, on the morning after Door's gym battle, just as Door set her sights on Driftveil City, Blair had decided to join her without saying a word.
"So, just so you know, Geist and I are going to Driftveil," she said.
"I know," Blair replied.
Blair was looking at the LCD billboards flanking the trainer's corridor that had been Route 5. Not that many trainers were on the corridor that morning. Evidently, the entire thing about Elesa going through a drought of challengers was both a truth and a lie. It was a truth because Elesa had indeed faced no trainers for a solid month before Blair. It was a lie because, as it turned out, the release of the newest model of Companions—an event that was apparently a big deal to everyone but the heiress to the company that made them—had just enough power to make scores of trainers wait a month. Even that morning, there was a third challenger going up against Elesa, and between billboards with smiling Companions either advertising themselves or a plethora of other products, Door could see screens broadcasting the battle. She didn't recognize the new trainer at all, nor was she all that interested in watching a faux herdier go up against Elesa's zebstrika.
What worried her the most was the way Blair was watching the battle. The girl looked as if she was seeing past the screen, into the distance, even though her eyes were trained on each building-sized display.
"Uh, so," Door began, "don't you … you know. Don't you want to stay behind?"
"No," Blair answered.
Door sighed and cast a glance towards Opal and Geist. Opal, oddly quiet but ever-smiling, was following behind her fellow Companion, but Geist was completely focused on the map he was projecting in front of his eyes from one hand.
"Don't look at me," Geist told Door. He flicked his fingers to zoom in on another bend in the road. "Just ask her."
"Y-yeah," she muttered. Then, swallowing, she glanced back at Blair. "Um. Are you all right? I mean, it's okay if you lost. We all lose now and then."
"I know," Blair replied.
In response, Door stopped and sighed. She reached out for Blair's wrist, forcing the girl to freeze. The Companions followed shortly afterwards, with Opal smiling at the road ahead and Geist giving both humans a mildly curious glance.
"Okay, look," Door said. "I guess I'm fine with you traveling with us, but there's a lot you need to know, and before I even get into the reasons why it'd be complicated hanging around me, I need you to really think about whether or not this is what you want to do. You get me?"
Blair stared at her with a nearly unreadable expression for a second. Then, with a deep breath, she lowered her eyes. "Door … I've been thinking a lot about that kid with the patrat."
"What kid with the patrat?"
She looked up. "The patrat we saved in Wellspring Cave, remember? And I've been thinking about Wilbur too."
"Oh." Door shifted on her feet. "And?"
"And?" Blair frowned. "Door, don't you think it's weird? All these real pokémon running around, just out of the blue?"
"Of course I think it's weird," Door replied. "That's … that's sort of why I'm on this journey."
Blair blinked. "What do you mean?"
Heaving her shoulders, Door threw a glance to Geist, who responded by ignoring her and starting forward again. He wasn't about to help Door explain; that much was clear. So with that knowledge in mind, Door winced and began following him. Her hand motioned for Blair to start walking, and as the other girl and her Companion fell into step beside her, Door took a deep breath and spoke.
"Um. A lot happened you don't know about. I mean, you know about Team Matrix, right?" Door asked.
"Yeah. Those two we battled in Wellspring Cave, right? And … that thing that happened in Accumula. I heard about that one on the news," Blair replied.
"Heh. It's a bigger deal to me, I guess," Door said. "Blair, those people are all about Companion freedom or something like that. I guess they're starting some kind of robot uprising, and to do that, they're repeating a lot of what Team Plasma did fifty years ago."
Blair raised an eyebrow. "So what does this have to do with real pokémon?"
Door gave her an awkward smile. "See, that's the weird part about it. You know Amanita, right? She came up with a way to make real pokémon out of dream smoke. And there's a fog of the stuff in the Dreamyard and bubbles of it in the old Entralink and Lostlorn Forest. I think real pokémon are coming through those, but no one's controlling it. Clearly, it's not happening all the time, or we'd be flooded with real pokémon right now." She held up a hand. "And before you ask, that's all relevant because I think Team Matrix is causing it. See, there's this guy they call the Electric Messiah, and he's dead, but they need him for their robot uprising somehow. So they're trying to bring him back to life, and I think they want to do it with dream smoke. And to do that, they want us to find Reshiram or Zekrom."
Blair stopped in her tracks and stared blankly at Door. The other trainer paused a second later, awkwardly shifting from one foot to another as she stared back.
"Wait, what?!" Blair exclaimed.
Door rolled her head towards Blair. "Oppenheimer, the Matrix leader? He cornered me in the old Nimbasa Amusement Park. He told me he's trying to get one of us to find Reshiram or Zekrom so we can help him find something in the Entralink that will bring his Electric Messiah back from the dead."
"Wha—one of us?" Blair murmured.
Exhaling, Door nodded grimly. "Yeah. Me or you. Preferably me, but if I absolutely refuse to do it, they'll somehow involve you, I think. Either way, one of us is supposed to be the hero Hilda King was supposed to be fifty years ago. He thinks that's how he'll get his hands on one of the legendary dragons." She paused. "By the way. Did I mention they're planning on using us to resurrect the dead?"
Blair shook her head. "Door, wait. Start from the beginning. What does any of this have to do with a robot uprising specifically? Like … why do we need to help them resurrect this … what did you call it?"
"As Door said, Team Matrix's goal is to spur on a Companion revolt," Geist explained. He stopped just ahead of Blair and Door, with Opal by his side. "To do that, Companions need to be sentient. According to what they said in Accumula, the Electric Messiah may be the key to that, but I have a feeling there's something more to it than that. Otherwise, I find it difficult to believe that a single person would have figured out how to give all Companions true AI and then simply kept that secret to themselves." He glanced over his shoulder. "Sorry, Door. Your explanations take a bit too long."
Door reached over to punch him lightly in the arm. "My explanations, Mr. Exposition?"
For a long moment, Blair stared at the both of them. Door could see it in her eyes: the extreme alarm, the uncertainty, the slight revulsion. But what part of their explanation instilled that in her? The part where Door was chosen to summon one of the legendary dragons? The part where Team Matrix wanted to resurrect the dead in order to start a robot uprising? The part where they were willing to use Blair to make sure a dragon got summoned, one way or another?
Blair grabbed Door by the wrist and tugged her backwards. "Door, can I talk to you for a sec? Opal, stay right there. Um, you too, Geist, if you take orders from people who aren't your primary user or something."
"Certainly," Geist replied. He clapped his hands together, dispelling the map.
At his side, Opal saluted. "You can count on me, Blair!"
"R-right," Blair said. She didn't say anything else until she pulled Door away, several feet from the Companions, and even then, she shielded her mouth from them and lowered her voice to a barely audible whisper. "Geist is a Companion, right?"
"What? Of course he is!" Door said.
"Lower your voice!" Blair hissed. "Okay, yeah. I've been thinking about this a lot too. What series is he?"
Door furrowed her eyebrows. "Series?"
"Come on, Door! This is important!" Blair hissed. "He literally doesn't act like any Companion I've ever seen, so what is he? A souped-up Calliope? A Thalia?"
"I dunno," Door replied with an indignant hiss and a shrug. "He says we should consider him a Calliope, but I kinda think the whole system thing doesn't apply to him. I mean, he's the prototype and all."
There was a long silence after that. Blair's expression blanked, and Door could practically see her processing that statement.
"What?" Blair asked.
"Oh. Crap." Door rubbed the back of her neck. "Yeah. Long story. Amanita Fennel used to be his owner, but before that, he belonged to my great aunt. And by that I mean … I'm Brigette Hamilton's granddaughter." She fanned her hands out in front of her and forced a sheepish smile. "Surprise?"
"W-what?" Blair squeaked.
"Yeah." Door grinned. "Crazy, right? That might be a little bit of why Team Matrix is—"
Blair pulled away and threw her hands into the air. "Nope! Nope! I'm done! Opal, we're leaving."
She started back towards downtown Nimbasa City with her arms wrapped around herself. Without protesting, Opal trotted after her, a wide, empty smile plastered across her face. Door hesitated, then looked at Geist, who gave her a concerned look. Then, much to Door's surprise, Geist sighed and strode after Blair. As soon as he passed Door, he cupped a hand around his mouth.
"Miss Whitleigh! Wait!" he called.
"Nope!" she called. "Not gonna do it!"
"I didn't want to do this, but…" Geist shook his head. "Opal. Grab her."
And for the second time in five minutes, something Geist did surprised her: namely, getting Opal to follow his orders. With a smile and a salute to him, she swept an arm around her partner and whirled her around to face Geist. Geist stopped, hands on his hips, face contorted into a concerned frown, and as he looked Blair over, Door couldn't help but keep her eyes on him.
On the one hand, it sort of made sense. Geist was a systems Companion, owned by a storage network administrator. He must have had tools he could use to connect to other Companions somewhere in his digital core. But on the other hand, Companions couldn't control other Companions like Geist just did. Not with that much ease, anyway. After all, it was a blatant threat to security, so why would anyone design a Companion with that ability? That was the literal definition of hacking when it came to them. And if Geist could do that, then…
Door thought back to Join Avenue. The HVAC system. How had Geist known immediately that Starr had hacked into it?
"I know this all is unusual, Miss Whitleigh," Geist began, "but you must understand that you are—or were, perhaps—as much a part of this as Door is. I'm not sure why; my guess is that Team Matrix is desperate enough to require a backup plan, should Door be unable to complete her duties as Hilda King's replacement."
"You … you shouldn't be able to guess," Blair murmured. She looked at Door. "You see this? This is too much, Door. I barely know you, and you … you…"
"I know," Door said. She let her gaze drop to her feet. "I'm sorry, okay? When I agreed to bring Geist back to Amanita, I didn't know any of this would happen! I didn't know about Team Matrix, and I didn't know my family had anything to do with this, and I certainly didn't want Team Matrix to drag other people into it! I mean … you were going to go on a journey. You were going to be a trainer! That's so cool on its own! You didn't deserve any of this. You deserve to just go out there and have fun."
The conversation lapsed into another silence. Door kept her eyes on her shoes until she heard a sigh from Blair. Looking up, she could see the girl frowning at her Companion.
"Opal. Put me down," she said.
"You got it, Blair!" Opal replied cheerfully.
Once Blair's feet met the ground, she shrugged Opal off and hugged herself again. "You know you had nothing to do with me not wanting to be a trainer, right?"
Door shook her head. "You didn't have to get Wilbur, you know. You could've started off with a fake tepig, just like a lot of other trainers."
"No, I couldn't," Blair snapped. "No one could have replaced Wilbur. But ever since I found out he's real and that real pokémon are around the region, I … I just got curious." She looked away, breaking eye contact with Door. "Also, I suck as a trainer. The simulations I went through at school weren't too far off. I don't know if it's just because I keep holding back or what, but … my heart's just not in it. I want to find out more about real pokémon and dream smoke and the way faukémon interact with dream pokémon. I want to study things and figure out what makes them tick, you know?"
"You want to be a researcher," Geist said quietly.
Blair looked at Door and thumbed towards Geist. "Okay, I don't hate Companions or anything, but that still freaks me out. How is he able to do that?"
Door folded her hands behind her head. "He's weird."
Geist gave Blair an awkward smile and a shrug, as if to confirm what Door had just said.
Blair exhaled. "I want to know about him too. And…" She glanced at him. "You're right. I still want to train my pokémon because that's what they want, but I don't want to earn badges or anything. I just want to figure out what's going on."
"And you can," Geist said. "The problem that Door had been getting at is that if you wish to figure out what's going on, that path will be both dangerous and complicated. Door and I have only told you as much as we know, and I can tell that you wouldn't have believed Door had I not spoken up. You can decide at any time to break away from us. Only Door has to move forward to ensure that Team Matrix will be stopped." He extended a hand to her. "So with that in mind, what will you choose?"
Her eyes flicked to his hand, then to Door, then to Geist's face.
"Hey, can you tell me something?" she began.
"Yeah, what's up?" Door asked.
"Wilbur," Blair said. "What will happen to him if he battles?"
Door snorted. "What're you talking about? Real pokémon can battle fakemon. Here."
She stepped back and produced two poké balls, one for each hand. Holding them out in front of her, she opened both at the same time and released Jack and Knives. Jack barked and brandished one of his scalchops, and Knives merely cooed and started grooming herself with a paw.
"Check these out," Door said. "I mean, you've seen Jack battle, and Knives? Soloed a gym leader. Of course real pokémon can battle! You've met Red, too, and he's real. He's just not ready to battle, sorry to say. But give him enough time, and I know he'll be just as cool as Jack and Knives. Point is, real pokémon? Can definitely hold their own. They might even be more badass than fauxkémon! Isn't that right, guys?"
Jack barked again with pride, swinging his scalchop with fervor. Knives merely hummed and fluttered her ears.
And then a tornado of leaves smashed into the walkway right next to Jack. With a squeal, Knives swept Jack off his feet and bounded out of range, only to skid to a halt behind Geist. A moment later, something else crashed into the walkway, this time harder and louder, sending a network of cracks across the glass-top surface. Lights flickered out beneath the party's feet, but the glow of the city still provided enough illumination for Door to see Starr rising from the walkway. On one shoulder was a servine—Monkshood, Door realized—and on the other, Belle sat and grinned.
"You all are so boring," she said. Then, she tilted her head back, slapped the back of one hand against her forehead, and squeaked in falsetto, "Oh, Doreen! All of this is too much for me to handle! Can my sweet little tepig battle? Whatever will I do?" She placed her hands on her hips, tossed her head, and lowered her voice. "Don't worry, babe. I'll protect you. I am so cool. And single, by the way."
Door gritted her teeth. A hot bubble of rage instantly filled her as she stepped forward. "Shut it, Belle."
Belle let her voice drop to its normal range as she slid off Starr's shoulder. "Ooh, did I hit too close to home? You're way too much, Doreen. You know, if you want a girlfriend, all you've got to do is ask her out like a normal, well-adjusted person."
"That's it!"
Door jumped forward, only to be caught in mid-air by Geist. He put her back down and curled an arm around her front to hold her in place.
"Think rationally! She has pokémon that can take Jack out!" he snapped. Then, swiveling his head towards Belle, he added, "Just as pleasant as ever, I see, Miss Maybelle."
"Only because I don't have to take orders from you anymore," Belle grinned. "Speaking of, nice to see you getting over your prejudices, Doreen. I'd kill to have a Companion as powerful as Zero-One, and I do mean that literally. But you? You get one handed to you in a fancy bow, and all you do is mouth off to its face."
"Oh, I will bash your face in." Door shoved against her Companion's arms. "Just let me go, Geist! You know she's asking for it!"
"All the more reason not to do anything rash," Geist replied. Then, to Belle, he added, "Well? What is it this time?"
"Yeah, what's your problem?!" Door barked. She settled down in Geist's arms, not because she was finally agreeing with him but instead because she knew he wasn't about to let her go. "Wasn't it enough that I had to be dragged around by you and your creepy boss a few days ago?! What, do you have some other kind of crazy religious bull to shove at me?!"
"Oh please, honey. I'm an atheist," Belle retorted, pressing her fingers to her chest. "No, Doreen. I was sent here by Lady Magdalene herself for follow-up questions!"
In one fluid motion, Belle whipped her hand away from her chest and tossed a poké ball before her. Where Belle had stored the ball, Door couldn't tell, nor did she have much time to think about it, as a liepard—which must have been Pride—burst from the ball and landed on the cracked walkway. The moment he landed, he bound towards Jack and Knives, claws extended and lips curled back into a snarl. Before he could touch either of them, Jack stepped forward, whipping his scalchop to the side. Water swirled around it, but rather than sinking into his blade, he whirled it into an orb and smashed the sphere of water directly into Pride's face. The water churned, engulfing the liepard and throwing him back, headfirst, into the ground where he had started. Shakily, he rose back to his paws and growled.
Water Pulse. Jack knew Water Pulse. Door blinked for a second, realizing she had forgotten to ask Geist if any of her pokémon had any new surprises up their sleeves, but as soon as the thought crossed her mind, she pushed it back out. She could work with this. With a deep breath, she gritted her teeth and pushed away from Geist.
"Sorry, Belle," she snarled. "I don't have any questions."
Belle snorted. "Not you. I have questions for Motoko-senpai over there. See, Lady Magdalene didn't quite get everything she needed … but Starr can!"
"Wait, what?!"
Starr barreled for Door and Geist. Door took a step back, instinctively throwing her arm out to protect her partner, but Geist brushed past her and swept his hand up between them with a poké ball already in his fingers.
"Antares! Flame Burst!" he called.
A blaze of light flared up in front of Door, and a small form spewed flames directly into Starr's face, driving the Companion backwards. Geist swooped forward and down, catching his pansear on his shoulder before he glanced back at Door.
"Concentrate on Belle," he said. "I can fend off Starr myself."
As if to punctuate that thought, a yowl drew Door's attention back to the battle. Pride had leapt at Jack and was now in the process of raking the claws on both of his front paws across the dewott's face. At the final swipe, Pride shoved, sending Jack reeling back. Then, Jack's movements slowed, and an angry, orange glow began to ebb from his skin. He swept his body towards Belle's liepard while his voice grew from a low growl to a high-pitched shriek. Just as the scream escaped him, the orange light burst from his body, and he slammed all his weight into his opponent. Pride screamed and flew through the air, only to smash into the barrier between the edge of the walkway and the five-story drop on the other side.
Belle snorted and recalled her liepard, then leapt backwards into a run. Monkshood whirled around her and took to the field with a hiss, and Door sprinted after them both. As she neared Belle's servine, she pulled out a poké ball and summoned her darumaka at her side.
"Boomer, Fire Punch!" she cried.
Just as she passed, she could feel the heat and see the bright glow of light coming from her pokémon. The thick thwap of a fist on flesh, followed by the roar of flames, told her that the punch had connected, and the rush of wind and leaves made it clear that Monkshood hadn't gone down in one hit. But all of her attention now was focused on Belle, who had pulled out not one but two poké balls in response. Door narrowed her eyes at them, trying to determine if one looked familiar.
"You took Scout, didn't you?!" Door snapped.
"Scout? Forgive me, Doreen, but I'm not up-to-date with whatever stupid nicknames your friends have," Belle sneered.
There was another thwack and another rush of flames, and Belle lifted one of her hands to recall Monkshood with the first poké ball. The other hand tossed her second ball into the air, and with a burst of light, a panpour dropped onto Belle's shoulder and leapt forward, claws exposed. Jack met the panpour head on, blocking the monkey's Fury Swipes with his scalchops. Both of his blades took on an amber glow, just before he smashed one into the panpour's shoulder.
"My watchog!" Door snapped. "You took him! Give him back!"
"What, the one with the broken face?" Belle grinned. "Why do you care? He's dead."
Her panpour spewed a jet of steaming water at Jack. Jack shrieked as it caught him in the shoulder, but a second later, he dipped and cut one of his scalchops deep across the panpour's stomach.
"He's mine," Door barked. "What do you want with him anyway?!"
Belle smiled as she recalled her panpour and released another pokémon. This time, the white glow took to the skies, and as it flapped its wings, the silvery light that had engulfed it burst, revealing a tranquill. It dove at Jack, who responded by swirling water around his scalchops and firing another Water Pulse.
"Your cute little Scout is going to be our first test," Belle explained. "To create life out of nothing. To give organic form to the inorganic. That's just one part of our ultimate goal, you know."
"Organic form…" Door sneered at Belle. "You guys are crazy!"
"We wouldn't be so crazy if you knew why we were doing it," Belle retorted.
The tranquill sailed past the both of them. Belle stopped and let it clip past her, flicking her braids into the air. Door stumbled, however, pinwheeling around just as her dewott fired another Water Pulse at the bird and missed. Beyond them, Starr rushed at Geist again, but Geist dodged and extended an arm, allowing Antares to perch on his hand and fire another Flame Burst into Starr's chest. The flames whipped around the other Companion, slowing him down but not stopping him completely. He extended a large hand at Geist, only to have his target step backwards, out of reach.
"Of course," Belle said, pulling Door's attention back to her, "you'd already know this if you just asked Astro Boy over there."
"Astro…" Door furrowed her eyebrows. "Do you mean Geist?! What does he have to do with anything?!"
Belle rolled her eyes. "I told you. He has something important stored inside him." She tapped her temple. "Some really important data that Lady Magdalene and Mr. Oppenheimer want to make sure is intact. It's taken decades for Mr. Oppenheimer to find Robobutler again. It'd be a shame if all the stuff he's been carrying around with him for that long is gone."
Door stared. Behind her, she could hear a bird's screech, cut off shortly by the roar of water. Shaking her head, she frowned.
"Geist can't have decades' worth of information stored in his cores," she said. "He was wiped before he got to Amanita! If you really worked with him for months, you'd know that already!"
Belle snorted and smiled. "Oh, honey. And if you had been around him for as long as we have, you'd know you can't wipe everything."
And then, behind her, Door could hear the last thing she expected to detect on the battlefield.
Starr's voice. Singing.
"Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do…"
Door slowly moved her eyes back to the battle behind her. Even Belle's tranquill and Jack stopped, as all heads turned towards Starr. He stepped forward, closer to Geist, hand outstretched. Door had expected Geist to step out of the way, for Antares to attack, for either of them to defend themselves, but instead, Geist lowered his arm, causing his monkey to skitter back onto his shoulder with a chatter.
"I'm half-crazy, all for the love of you."
As Starr continued to sing, Geist's face blanked. His features slackened, and his eyes lost their usual, all-too human shine. Instead, blue sparks flashed across his pupils—a sign that Door recognized from all the Companions that would be brought to her father. She remembered them, the older ones that struggled to process data. The ones whose cores were overloading because they were too old, too overworked, or too infected with a smattering of malware to boot properly. And here she was, watching it happen to Geist in an instant.
If she didn't do something…
"It won't be a stylish marriage. I can't afford a carriage."
"Knives!" Door cried.
Starr reached out, one of his hands nearing Geist's arm. "But you'll look sweet, upon the seat, of a bicycle built for—"
A pignite plowed his front hooves into Starr's chest, and the Companion was launched off his feet and onto his back. In a flash, Blair was at Geist's side, jamming her fingers into his wrist. He jerked his head back and gasped, his eyes flickering to life once more.
"Okay, Wilbur!" she ordered. "Rollout!"
With a grin, Door moved to stand behind Jack. "And Jack? One more Water Pulse!"
Wilbur squealed and dove into a roll, driving his bulky body straight into a recovering Starr. At the same time, Jack whipped a new orb around his scalchops and fired it into Belle's tranquill, and with both attacks together, both Starr and the tranquill came crashing down at Belle's feet. Belle recalled her tranquill, then stooped down to help Starr to his feet.
"Objective met," Starr announced. "Analysis of LFA system complete. Status: fully operational. New objective: rendezvous."
"Rendezvous, huh?" Belle chuckled and leapt into her Companion's arms. "You're lucky, Doreen. Seems like we're done doing business here." She paused. "Oh, hold on! You wanted your watchog! Well … maybe you'll see us around Cold Storage. That's where Hilda went next, isn't it? Ta!"
Starr whipped around and bounded away, dashing first to the edge of the walkway and then leaping over. Blair and Door rushed to the edge themselves, but by the time they reached it and peered over, Starr had already vanished. In her frustration, Door pounded the barrier with her fist, then whirled around to see her pokémon scampering towards her. Exhaling, she strode forward and wrapped an arm around Jack.
"Nice job, you two," she said. Then, cracking a grin, she added, "Jack, I didn't know you could use Water Pulse and Revenge. Guess I have to get back to training you soon. And Boomer?"
She turned to see Knives hoisting Boomer above her head with a coo and a happy smile. Boomer, it seemed, was already fast asleep in her paws.
"Uh, nice work too, I guess," Door muttered.
"Don't forget to take some credit for yourself," Geist told her quietly.
She jumped and faced him. He stood behind her, one hand on Antares and the other hanging at his side. Somehow, he looked tired, and that alone caused Door's pride to evaporate.
"You okay?" she asked.
Geist chuckled. "I'm fine. I didn't scare you, did I?"
"Yeah, you did. Remember, I'm gonna need you for the rest of our journey, and I sure as crap can't drag something as heavy as a Companion to the nearest pokémon center." She playfully punched his unoccupied shoulder again. "So don't do it again."
Gingerly, he rubbed his shoulder, right where she punched him. With a smile, he said, "Noted. Glad to hear my assistance in Nimbasa Gym didn't change our relationship much."
Door snorted. "Not if you go all dead-eyed doll on me. What happened, anyway?"
At once, Geist's expression took on a distant look. He flicked his eyes from her to the side and back to her again. "I'm not sure, honestly. I only have records of a core reboot."
"Which one?"
He locked eyes with her. "The LFA core." Then, after a brief pause, he raised his hands. "But it's fine, Door. It's still locked, Starr didn't access it remotely, and it's running all right now."
Door frowned. "You know that doesn't answer any of the questions I have."
"Yes." Geist lowered his hands. "I know."
"Hey."
Both Door and Geist looked up to see Blair standing by the edge of the walkway. One of her palms rested on Wilbur's head, and by her side, Opal stood with her own hands clasped over her heart. While Opal gazed at them with a faint smile, Blair and Wilbur regarded them with a hard frown.
"Listen. I don't know what's going on exactly," Blair said, "but whatever it is … count me in."
—
FILE NAME: THALIA
AUTHOR: Lanette Hamilton
NOTES: Notes: From the audio research notes of Lanette Hamilton. Transcript only; sound file has been lost. File transcribed by Bebe Larson.
LANETTE: Project Galatea, mass production notes, day 70. There is one advantage to the lightweight chassis that I'd forgotten to mention: it's cheaper to make. You can blame Brigette for this revelation. She had been working with the accounting and marketing departments for our fledgling little company ever since I'd announced that I wanted to mass-produce the Companions. She's a natural at that sort of thing, you know? Of course she would be. She's more charismatic than I am—or at least she's the one who's always confident around other people. Me? I just think of myself as a problem-solver of a different sort. I'm good at coming up with solutions in the lab, not among people. That was never my department, even back before any of this began. That was always…
[pause]
Anyway, as she figured out, it's easy to market a Companion to the general public if you have a cheaper alternative. Giving people choices is a self-marketing strategy. Students, office workers, families, and the like will take a look at the price tag of Calliope and actively hunt for a cheaper alternative in Erato or Clio, and the wealthier families who want their children to set off on journeys equipped with top-of-the-line tech will look at Erato's spec sheet and actively hunt for the more expensive and supposedly higher quality Calliope. All you would have to do is figure out a way to tell both groups that they need a Companion.
I don't claim to understand marketing or even this sort of logic, but the fact of the matter is that you can produce far more lightweight Companions at a cheaper cost, which in turn means that no one will miss a chassis or few that I've decided to take for my experiments.
Today's test was simple. Figure out how many cores a Companion can function on before the chassis gives out or before the cores' balance is completely unworkable. Or, to put it a little more bluntly, I want to see how human I can make a Companion's personality. Hence, my first step was to add more personality cores and balance them out with emotion cores and morality cores as needed.
Results? Well, first off, you can't have a Companion with double the number of cores as a Calliope. Or at least you can't do it with a lightweight chassis. Actually, the upper limit for a lightweight chassis is literally only five anyway, and any more than that causes the thoracic harness to collapse into the pelvic supports. So … technically a failure in that regard.
For that reason, I've decided to eliminate all lightweight testing beyond swapping out cores and focus exclusively on testing with the standard chassis—which, honestly, I probably should have done from the beginning, but we live and learn. And perhaps make excuses for why Calliopes disappear from the production line now and then.
In any case, transference of a six-core, dual-persona system from the lightweight to the standard chassis led to far better results. The end product was a far more personable Companion who was able to emulate human emotion far better than Erato. She's also capable of storing a far higher number of commands in the extra space afforded to her by this sixth core, which means that she's basically a performance bot. I've shown the preliminary results to Brigette, who surprisingly responded with a request for a refined model to replace our marketing team's Erato unit. If all goes well, Brigette is even considering marketing her as a purely entertainment-based Companion—like a gaming computer, only … not.
I've named her Thalia, after the muse of comedy. Thank the gods I'd already used Erato.
[end recording]
