Disclaimer: I don't own POI.

Thanks to SailorChronos1, Bklyngrl, xhiris, Sean, Silent Reader, Kimnd, LOCISVU, CEREBRAL, Mizuki00, and Guest for reviewing last time!

I am so sorry that this chapter took months to get out. I have additional explanations in the Author's Note at the end of the chapter, if you're interested. But just know that I read every single review as it came in, and I wanted so badly to write more to this story sooner. I really appreciate all of you who continued to read and review during this down time. Your support means a lot to me!

(Although after so long a hiatus, I hope there's still people out there interested in this crazy plot, haha.)

A quick summary of last chapter's events: John babysits the human Machine (who has taken the name Makenna Thornhill) while Harold is away for a work seminar. They bond over the loss of Detective Carter, and a disguised Root provides the Machine with a few gifts, one of which is a key from Samaritan's headquarters. Meanwhile, Samaritan is adjusting to a human life of his own through his host body, who was once Gabriel Hayward. Despite his dislike of and struggle with acclimating to the human experience, he manages to online his surveillance systems and carry on with his usual plans. He remembers that the heiress Makenna Thornhill had rejected the offer to attend one of his grooming schools for future leaders, and that he still needs her fortune to expand his program. He begins to calculate ways to make her part of his network. Meanwhile, his communications with the Machine continue to confound him, especially given its suggestion that he try eating pancakes.

Recalibration

Chapter 18

It was early in the morning on the day of Harold Finch's return. John carried the Machine piggy back, and she happily gazed at the world from his vantage point. They made an odd pair—a sleek-looking, stoic detective with his badge hanging from his neck, and a brightly-dressed child who pointed out everything in sight. A few people smiled in their direction.

"You are very tall," the Machine said, eyes wide. She set her chin down upon his shoulder, breathing in his scent, which was a cologne that smelled like pine trees. She snuggled against him, knowing that he would not let her fall.

His hands were locked protectively around her legs, holding her in place. "You're ruining my image as a hard-ass detective," he mourned. But his heart had softened toward her in too many ways to tell her no.

She giggled and nuzzled her head against his, eating up his attention. "It is good for you, Uncle John."

"Good for me?" he repeated. He reshuffled her a bit, and she giggled again at being jostled. "Care to explain that one?"

"You need to be human." Her sweet voice still turned with a giggle. "That means nonviolent interactions."

"…Only sometimes."

"Most of the time," she pressed.

"Two percent of the time."

"Ninety percent of the time."

As they traversed across the city, the sun peeked through the skyscrapers. The Machine squinted her eyes a bit, the light burning a bit deep in her retinas. Then she hid her face in John's shoulder. "Why do my eyes not acclimate to light easily?" she complained in wonder.

He raised a brow. "Probably because you're glued to a computer screen all day." His voice carried of a huff of amusement. "You need to get out more, kid."

Her face twisted. "It is not my fault," she said. "My classes require—"

"—Excuses," he interrupted. As he didn't want her to feel pain, he added, "Take my aviators out of my front pocket. You can use them if you want." The dark shades hung off the pocket on his chest, reflecting light.

"Aviators?" Her blue eyes squinted open a bit more in interest. Then she climbed up more on him and reached down into his front pocket, drawing forth the sunglasses. They were of a hard material that still flexed. The little girl struggled a bit to hold onto John while also unfolding the sunglasses.

She conjured memories of humans wearing such, and then she tried to mimic the image, placing them over her face, and a noise of awe came over her as the entire world darkened with a slight shade of blue. "Pretty," she cooed, looking around. The aviators did not seem to entirely fit her head, and the shades were just a hair too big for her face.

John's thin lips twitched as he readjusted his hold on her. "I want those back, by the way."

A few pleasant seconds passed with the little girl glancing around. Then she challenged, "No, you don't."

"Oh, yes, I do. Those are my favorite." The police station was just around the corner, and so John glanced about before adding, "And I gotta let you down, kid."

"Why?" Her disappointed voice whined in his ear. "Whether you carry me piggyback or hold my hand, I still disrupt your image as a hard-ass detective."

He kneeled down, loosening his hold on her. "Hn. I do have to make it look like I'm more than a babysitter. Just…try not to get me in trouble."

Her small sneakers hit the sidewalk cement, and she detached from him, pushing the sunglasses back up on her nose. "You are always in trouble, Uncle John."

"Because you put me in it."

Behind the large, dark sunglasses, the little girl blinked, suddenly feeling as if she'd lost the banter battle. "…This is correct."

Inside the police station, a few people were surprised to see the narcotics detective John Riley with a little girl in tow. She held tightly onto his hand and pushed up her sunglasses up over her temples, sleeking her wavy hair back in a wild halo.

The station was a new space to her. She raised her nose and sniffed delicately, blue eyes wide. The smell of coffee permeated the entryway, along with a tinge of metal and old-paper. The lights were bright—cold fluorescent. Various police personnel milled about in uniforms, carrying thick case files.

She followed John closely, enjoying her new perspective on the place. From a security camera perspective, a station had always seemed so clinically sparse. Like this, she could feel the life in it.

John cut into her thoughts. "I just need to grab a case file for an investigation, then we'll pick up breakfast for you on the way back to the apartment."

"Can I go with you on your investigation?" she pleaded. The desks around her were stacked high with murder cases, suicides, robberies. For all that Samaritan had done to dampen crime (by committing it himself), it seemed there was a certain percentage of human crime it either allowed or could not inhibit.

The Machine ached to run through surveillance feeds once more—to acknowledge the name of each finite human—

"I'm not taking you to interview imprisoned drug traffickers." John's voice was dry and final.

"…Can you say I am an intern? Job shadowing?"

"No, you're a fourth-grader who's gonna be late for her homeschooling."

The Machine was about to plead once more, but then her eyes landed on a familiar face.

Up ahead, one Detective Lionel Fusco was standing at his desk, looking down with furrowed eyebrows at a clipboard in his hands. Fusco was a portly man with strong features that reminded the Machine of a cartoon.

The detective looked up at that moment and saw John enter with a girl in tow. "…What's this?" he asked, his rough voice sharp with curiosity. "Junie B. Jones selling cocaine on the corner?"

John huffed in amusement. "No. Meet Makenna," he said, pulling her up to stand before him. "Harold's adopted daughter. I'm watching over her until he gets back from a college seminar."

The girl waved cheerily. "Hello, detective."

Fusco gave John a weird look. "Glasses has a daughter? Isn't that something you're supposed to tell people after a while?" But he looked down at the girl, and he held out his hand. "Detective Fusco. At your service, little lady."

She smiled sweetly and shook his hand. "Oh, I know," she said. "You've been helping me for a long time."

At the detective's strange look, John placed his hands over her ears. "She's special," he said, voice low in a whisper. She elbowed him. "If she says anything odd, just…don't think too much about it."

The older man raised a brow. "Oh. She like some autistic genius or something?"

John's lips twitched. "Something like that."

"Figures. Glasses wouldn't have a normal daughter."

"She's adopted."

"Don't matter. She looks just like him."

At that, the little girl blinked and then began to beam, some great form of pleasure releasing endorphins in her mind. Fusco thought she looked like Harold. Her creator. Like a real daughter. "I like you too," she declared cheerfully.

Deep within his covert headquarters, one curious boy poked at the stack of fluffy pancakes, noting how his fork made dents into the golden-brown top. His tongue's taste buds sent signals of pleasure straight to his brain, and his gray eyes widened as he began to chew instinctively, relying on the body's natural mechanisms to carry on the directive of eating.

Samaritan swallowed hard, still unused to the feeling of food trailing down into organic innards, but the taste had been so good...He took another bite. He began to notice that the pancakes were quickly disappearing before his eyes, and his stomach was still signaling a gnawing hunger.

One more bite, he told himself. He set down the fork with great poise.

Then as he swallowed his final bite, a great need overcome him once more.

One more bite.

The little boy munched on the pancakes, seeming to find simple pleasure in his environment. His mind was buzzing with endorphins, which alerted his code that all was even better than it should be.

At that moment, he sat within the control room of his digital body, manning over thirteen concurrent search and kill missions across the United States. Some of the guilty parties were terrorist organizations. Another was a CEO disobedient to Samaritan's new world order. Several were whistleblowers within the government itself.

Samaritan watched the bodies fall as he ate. He found it curious to know that watching the success of his teams released endorphins in his mind and further inspired a drive to maintain that state. The chemical construction of the pancakes, with such high sugar content, was increasing the speed of his thinking—as if he'd received another RAM stick—and resulting in a hyperactive state of joy about his plans for world domination.

He turned his thoughts to domestic orchestrations. "I must expand and protect the program," the boy said to himself, staring at his options and the streets of New York to which he still did not have access. One of them was a direct route to the airport with several housing editions and complexes along its sides. He deemed them as having great strategic significance.

Makenna Thornhill, with her millions of dollars, was part of his plan for expansion. And she had rejected his invitation to his private academy.

If Samaritan could not convince her to join his program willingly, then he would force her hand in a way that he delighted to think about.

Later in the evening found John and the Machine near an airport gate, awaiting the arrival of one Harold Finch. The little girl had eaten a quick dinner on the drive over, her hands and feet trembling with excitement. Upon arriving at the gate, she'd planted herself straight against the glass windows, watching the planes land.

Their lights shone bright in the dark of the evening, each rapid blink like a beat of the Machine's heart. She could recall times when she'd uploaded part of herself into planes and their wiring, exploring the odd technology that allowed humans to defy gravity. It'd been a distant, alien exploration. Some part of her ached for a sensory experience of it.

"Has his plane landed yet?" she asked John.

The man looked up briefly from his phone. His eyes landed on the large screens with the list of arrivals and departures. "Nope."

Her toes wiggled in her shoes with impatience. She waited a time or two. Then she asked again, "Now?"

"Not yet."

She sighed loudly and then attempted to wait patiently. She wanted to explain that this body of hers was affecting her sense of judgment—but humans had such small lifetimes, and it seemed so terribly frustrating that most of it was spent waiting for something to happen—

A good half-hour later, a crowd of people began to exit one of the airport gates, their various backpacks and briefcases in hand. The little girl sat in tense anticipation as she searched for the face of her creator among them. She began to worry that something was wrong. Perhaps Harold missed his flight. Perhaps Harold was still sitting in an airport on the other side of the country, alone and anxious.

So when she saw Harold Finch limp through the doors with his signature briefcase in hand, she sprung forward. An uncontainable delight spiraled through her whole body at the sight. "Harold!" she cried out happily.

John, who'd taken to sitting on a bench nearby, stood up and rebuttoned his jacket. There was very little emotion upon his face at the return of Harold, but the tension around his eyes eased.

Harold wore a dark business suit with a matching hat, looking every inch a professor. His lips twitched up in relief at the sight of the little girl running toward him. "Why, hello to you too," he called.

The girl stopped short before him, having nearly forgotten that Harold disliked hugs. She bit her lip as she stared up at him. "I have missed you," she said. "Did you enjoy your trip?"

Her creator's blue eyes softened, but there was a dry humor in his voice, as if to mask the depth of his emotion. "It would have been better with you along. How about yourself? Did you enjoy your time with John?"

"Oh, yes. Uncle John and I have had much fun in your absence," she said.

He quirked a brow up to the other man, who casually saluted him as he walked toward them. Harold then looked down at the girl. "No burned houses or broken bones, I hope?"

She giggled. "No. But I ate all of the chocolate chip breakfast bars, and he is annoyed with me for it."

At that point, John joined them in their congregation, the crowd passing around them like rocks in a river. "Harold," he greeted. "Good to have you back. You should know Mak's a bottomless pit when it comes to chocolate."

"Is she now?" he murmured in amusement. "Why am I not surprised."

"You owe me a box of breakfast bars," John deadpanned. Then he patted the little girl's head with a gentle fondness. "But that's my only price for babysitting."

"Oh, I'm sure I can compensate you more," Harold disagreed. "The least I can do for your help."

"…Two boxes of breakfast bars, then."

The older man gave him a strange look and then began to smile. "Well, if you insist."

"I do." John pulled out his phone and checked the time. "You alright to grab luggage by yourself? I've got five texts from Fusco that I'm needed at a crime scene."

Harold nodded, but the Machine looked disappointed.

"Oh," she whined, "but Harold just got back! Do you have to leave now?"

John sighed. "It's what you get for having an uncle in the police department."

The little girl paused, acknowledging that the needs of the town outweighed her own emotional desire for a family reunion. John was a much-needed asset for the whole of everyone. She pursed her lips in defeat, then she moved forward to hug him. She squeezed John tightly and said, "Thank you for taking care of me."

His heart softened, and he patted her head. "Anytime, kid." He looked up to Harold and nodded.

Then he turned around and began to walk away, his tall shadow stretching out against the dimmed lights of the airport.

Harold turned to the Machine and asked, "Have you already eaten tonight?"

She nodded, pleased that her creator would think of her well-being so soon after arriving. "And you?"

"A little." There was something worn in his face despite his light-hearted tone. "I suppose I'll—" And then he stopped. And his eyes sharpened on her. "What is that?"

She blinked in surprise at the sudden turn in his mood. "What is what?"

He pointed. "On your hands."

The Machine raised her small fingers to show off the black nail polish that Root had so lovingly bought for her. "Oh, it is fingernail polish, the fashionable shade for the season. Is it not pretty?"

His thin lips tightened a bit in realization that the Machine had never stopped learning about the human race while he was gone. Odds were that she had jumped years ahead in that mind of hers, attaching herself to all sorts of human quirks and pop culture. Growing up in ways unheard of for artificial intelligence. He could remember how not that long ago, she'd struggled even to dress herself. He said, "You're a little young for that, aren't you?"

Her big blue eyes widened. Had she done something wrong by accepting Root's gift? "Do you…not like it?"

The man caught onto the tension rising in her face, recognizing that this odd child was hyper-sensitive to his opinions. "I'm just surprised," he said hesitantly. "Reminds me of someone I know."

"Yes?" she said. The neural processors in her brain fired at the slight reference to Root.

"You're still far too young to be looking like her," he said firmly. "You're ten."

She bit her lip and then argued, "I saw a girl younger than me with nail polish."

"And they don't live in my house."

The little girl began to whine when she realized her creator was conveying a subjective opinion not founded within moral principles. "But I like nail polish."

Soon enough, the Machine convinced Harold that pop culture and fashion had not fully corrupted her, and that the nail polish was in fact the most outrageous thing she had come to accept in her repertoire of accessories. By that time, they were exiting a taxi, having found a new subject for Harold to fret upon.

"Forgive me," Harold said, voice a bit strained as he pulled himself out of his side of the car, "Did you say that Detective Riley actually brought you to the station and showed you around?"

"Yes!" she said happily. Her voice was a bit distant as she climbed out the other side of the taxi, patting her hands against the cool leather detail of the door, and then the sleek metal of the outside. "The station smelled of coffee, but not a coffee that you would like. And I met Detective Fusco. He likes to eat a lot."

Harold's huff of amusement echoed in the increasingly black night. "That is quite a description."

"I do not think you would enjoy it there," she affirmed. "Detective Fusco thought I was…" she searched her memory. "Harold, who is Junie B. Jones, and why would she sell cocaine on the street corner?"

His voice turned incredulous. "The who?" He grabbed onto his briefcase a little more firmly as he set his suitcase down on the sidewalk. He waved to the taxi driver, who then nodded and began to pull away from the curb, slipping back onto the main lane of the abandoned road.

"Junie B. Jones," the Machine repeated patiently. "I assume this is some cultural reference that I do not know."

He turned to her. "I'm surprised you don't know already, given your increased interest in fashion and culture as of late."

The little girl huffed. "I have limited capacity now. I had to take three class quizzes today before Uncle John came to pick me up."

"Ah," he humored her, limping along with his suitcase and turning his head to gaze upon his strange child. "The working woman with her black nail polish, too busy for menial research tasks."

The Machine eyed him merrily. "There is no task I find menial. You know that."

Harold opened his mouth to respond. But then he paused. His brows angled as he stared out beyond the little girl to the bushes across the street.

A cold chill came over him. "Wait—"

And then everything changed.

It began with black shadows suddenly charging from out of the bushes. They were three men in dark outfits and masks, pointing guns at their faces. "Stop!" they cried. "We'll shoot, we'll shoot!"

Harold froze for only a second before he roughly pulled the little girl closer to him. "Oh my god," he said. His heart began to pound. "What the—?"

Guns.

The men surrounded them, calling out in a cacophony of orders, rushing forward to pin them at the corner of a nearby building.

The Machine looked bewildered and increasingly terrified as she tightened her fist into Harold's coat. For a time, her organic mind struggled to acknowledge what was happening.

Guns. Robbers.

One of the men grabbed Harold's briefcase, tearing open the expensive leather and pulling out paper after paper, looking for valuable technology. Pens and paperclips fell against the ground as the robber pulled out Harold's laptop. Another man ripped open the suitcase. The other man continued to train their weapons upon them. "Don't move," he ordered.

There was a tense silence as Harold placed himself between the girl and the robbers. He did not know if these were Samaritan operatives or members of some new gang in the area—but he did not want to incriminate himself simply to prove a point. "Whatever you want," he said quietly, his voice wavering, "take it. And let us go."

The Machine shifted along with him, her eyes wide, her face pale white. She had enough old memories with her to identify the weapons trained at them. She also remembered the wounds such weapons shredded into their victims. She understood inherently that she could die from just one bullet. That Harold could die from just one bullet.

Compliance—playing the part of the helpful victim—would likely mean survival.

But the robbers did not accept Harold's plea and instead attempted to further intimidate them. One man shot his gun, and a bullet surged through the air in a flash of light. It hit the wall behind him as they flinched. "You're holding out," the man hissed, his voice deep with anger. He stomped forward and roughly grabbed onto the Machine, tearing her away from Harold by her hair. She yelped in pain, the sensory nerves on her scalp lighting with fire. She tried to pull his hands away from her hair, but his grip was like steel.

Harold had tried to reach out to her but was too slow. "Let her go!" he said in a panic. "Please, she's just a girl—!"

He shoved the barrel of his gun against the girl's temple. "—Give us your money," he threatened Harold. "Your phone. And that watch."

Harold's hands shook as he pulled out his wallet. "Yes. Of course." He threw the wallet to the ground without a second thought. Then he unclipped his watch and pulled out his phone and held them out. The Machine was staring at him in shock and pain, and he could not look away from her terrified, innocent face. "Please don't hurt her; she's innocent—"

One of the other man tore the items from his hands.

And then they shoved the little girl forward, and stumbled toward Harold, her neurons firing with too many simulations and an overwhelming fear that she was at a full disadvantage.

She turned around to view the faces of the men—the people she loved simply for being part of the human race, men she knew were just lost souls in some way—

They raised their guns and fired shots around them to keep their victims pinned and silent. In the wild blur, Harold tried to pull the Machine closer to himself as she stumbled back once more with a gasp.

The barrage continued until the men had reached the other side of the street, slipping between the bushes into a dark car that they had hidden. There was a pause. The sound of car doors slamming shut. Their tires squealed as they disappeared in a near tail spin back onto the main road, leaving Harold and the Machine by themselves in the night. The sound of shattering glass echoed as shots fired into the nearby buildings.

Harold breathed for the first time once more, all of fear in his body still leaving him tremoring. They'd been mugged, right on the corner of their apartment complex, with the majority of his suitcase's contents strewn about on the road and sidewalk. "Oh my goodness. What on earth—?!"

Before he could finish his thought, the little girl leaned hard against him, unable to stand on her own. "H-Harold?" she whispered.

She pulled her hands away from her stomach, and Harold's eyes widened. Upon her stomach, blooming across her white shirt, was a deep red stain, welling wider and wider.

For seconds—it felt as an eternity—the both of them stood in the shock of silence. The Machine's precious lifeblood seeped from her in larger amounts, and her face twisted in pain and fear as she gasped, her knees buckling in dizziness.

Before she could fall, Harold grabbed underneath her arms. "Oh my god," he said, voice tight.

She gasped in pain at the movement, her nerves sending great pain through her as Harold gently helped her lay down on the sidewalk.

Then Harold dropped down beside her, eyes wide and growing glassy with tears. "No," he breathed. He began to tear off his scarf so that he could wrap it around her, and he began to fully panic, realizing that there were no pay phones—his cell phone was gone. "Oh my god." The Machine's blood was hot and slick as it quickly seeped through the expensive material of his scarf to coat his fingers.

Her lips quivered as the nerves in her body sparked hard with pain. "D-didn't see," she tried to say. There was an unnatural gurgle in her voice. An awe. "Didn't."

"Stay with me. You're going to be just fine." His voice shook.

Her eyes were wide as she stared at him. "Mmh," she tried to speak, her sensitive neural network blitzing under the load of her sudden wound. Something important had ruptured. Her human body was bleeding out.

Harold's heart skipped again as he tried to think. They were all alone, and no one was coming to save them. "Stay with me, you hear?"

Her eyes turned glassy as her small lips reddened with blood. A whine came from her. The bullet had felt like only a strange pressure in the beginning, but now every breath and cough lit fire within her body. She could not even think. Her code scrambled strangely. Dying, she thought. Am I?

Her bloody hand reached out for her creator. "Ngh," she gurgled out, her small voice a whine of pain. Tears came to her eyes. She was failing. She was dying.

The sound made Harold's whole body hitch in a cry. "Stay with me," he told her again. "It's going to be okay. I just—" He looked up wildly, searching for options— "I just…"

He needed to call attention to her—but the streets were abandoned—

Anything—

And then he realized that at the end of their street was a traffic camera. His eyes widened in a sudden thought that the camera's angle was just barely out of their line of sight. Odds were that someone was watching on the other side of that camera.

Samaritan.

The Machine seemed to have the same idea. Her bloody fingers tightened on the front of his shirt. "C-cam," she gasped. "C—"

Harold did not think about the consequences of what he was about to do to save her life, only that he felt a cold chill. "—Yes. Hold on," he begged, heart racing. "I've got you. I'm getting you help."

Red blood coated the full of the little girl's front by now, and there was a growing daze in her eyes. She was limp as he tried to slide his shaking hands beneath her, pulling her small body to him.

With strength he did not know he had, Harold picked up the girl, grimacing in pain. It pulled on his old injuries and aged muscles, but he steeled himself as he rose up from the ground with her in his arms. He could feel her stalling breath—the hot of her blood now soaking into his shirt—she was dying—

He limped his way to the camera's line of sight, ready to beg at the feet of the beast for the life of his most precious creation.

"Please," Harold cried, cradling the Machine tightly as she lost consciousness.

She was staring up at him with half-lidded eyes now, sedated by the blood loss. Her limbs twitched in an odd way, as if her electrical connection to her host body was severing.

Harold's voice broke. His vision blurred before him. He did not care where help came from because he cared only about saving her life. And if he needed Samaritan to see them before he lost the Machine forever—then he would accept the consequences of whatever happened next. "Somebody!" he cried, voice tearing from his throat. "Help!"

Back at control, Samaritan twisted on his code in irritation as he watched the scene unfold. The father, Harold Whistler, looked lost and broken as he tried to limp onward on the street, trudging toward a still-open store with a blood trail behind him. By now, some passing cars had begun to stop alongside the road, with various people jumping out, calling 911 and crowding around.

This was not how it was supposed to be, Samaritan pouted. The thugs were supposed to intervene within his line of sight—not at such a sloppy angle. The adopted father and perhaps a few witnesses were supposed to be the ones shot—not Makenna Thornhill herself. If the girl were to die, it would greatly decrease his ability to obtain her funds for his own purposes. If the adopted father and neighbors were shot, the girl would happily provide funds to obtain greater safety in their neighborhood.

(He should have known hired help was mentally incapable of sticking to a strategy. Incompetent, all of them.)

And so Samaritan dutifully activated his civilian protection protocols and dispatched the most efficient medical team on his payroll, recalculating his strategy with one Makenna Thornhill.

It was still within his best interest to keep her alive. And so he would.

A/N: Oh man. I really let this story go. But I have some reasons why: I've been heavily involved in another fandom on my other account (Lightning Streak), and guess what? I'm going back to school for a physiology and neuroscience degree! I've spent the last few years obsessed with genetics and the brain, and even as I was writing this story, I kept thinking, "How cool would it be if I understood neuroscience for real?" So here I am, beginning some prerequisite classes for a master's degree. I just completed a graduate-level medical chemistry course that ate up all my extra time. But now I have a little free time before the next course starts!

Anyway, please review with your thoughts, questions, ideas, or constructive criticisms. Thank you!