BIRTHRIGHT 2 – THE GATHERING
by Soledad
Author's note:
For disclaimer, rating, warnings, etc., see the Prologue.
A few lines of dialogue are modified versions of what was said in The Mathematics of Tears.
CHAPTER 15 – REUNION
Dylan arrived in record time, Rommie in trail. Right on their heels, Rev Bem and the Perseids tumbled in. For the representatives of Castalia, Radiance of Wisdom initiated a live fed directly to their quarters, so that they could follow everything that would happen. It was their resting period and they couldn't leave their maritime environment at the moment. The Than also sent a live fed to the quarters of her own leader – Born to Starfire was in one of her misanthropic moods again. At least she didn't have to bother with Farrendahl. The Makra and Trance had chosen to remain on Ornithrone for a while… to Dylan's dismay.
Right now, however, the good captain didn't seem to skulk about Trance's absence. Both he and Rommie were staring at he main viewscreen with obvious recognition – and a great deal of nostalgia.
"I think I know that ship," Dylan murmured. "It is…"
"The Pax Magellanic," Rommie finished for him.
The name very obviously didn't ring a bell by any of the others present. No one else had ever heard of that ship before. They looked at each other in confusion.
"She looks just like you, Rommie," Beka finally offered, somewhat lamely.
"Yeah," Harper muttered ominously. "Only gold."
Tyr rolled his eyes but restrained himself from giving the boy a lecture about ridiculous suspicions. Rommie, on the other hand, looked positively awestruck.
"She's my older sister," she whispered. If androids could get misty eyes, she certainly would have.
The others turned to Dylan; identical blank looks on their faces. Dylan sighed. Sometimes he found it bothersome to explain his ragtag crew the simplest things in the universe… or in the long-gone Commonwealth.
"In a manner of speaking, that's even true," he explained. "The Pax Magellanic was – well she apparently still is – a Glorious Heritage class cruiser. She used to be one of the first such vessels assigned to the High Guard."
Rommie was watching the apparently battered golden ship on the screen mournfully.
"Everyone looked up to her," she lamented. "On her first mission, she saved Princess Sucrayat's yacht from a Magog attack. She was honoured by triumvirs and empresses, but now... look at her. I've never seen her in such a sorry shape."
Tyr was having a hard time to keep quiet. Granted, High Guard ships were sentient, but speaking about them as if they were real persons was simply ridiculous. He didn't know who the hell Princess Sucrayat might have been, and quite frankly, he didn't care. But knowing that the other ship had already successfully fought the Magog was a reassuring thought.
Ignoring Dylan's pep talk to Rommie, Tyr sought out Höhne's eyes, and the Perseid nodded. It vas a barely perceivable nod, but enough for Tyr to know that Höhne had understood the importance of that particular piece of information. They would need to download the Pax protocols and study them carefully, before reprogramming – or replacing – the core AI. The experiences collected during the Pax previous battles must not get lost.
After several futile efforts to establish radio contact with the other ship, Dylan decided to pay the Pax a personal visit. He chose Harper and Rommie to accompany him but in the end, he came not around taking Beka and the two Perseids with him as well. Beka simply refused to let anyone else fly the Maru, declaring that her poor ship had suffered enough under Tyr's heartless treatment of her. And Höhne reminded the good captain that as the official representative of Sintii IV, he was entitled to examine every new piece of Commonwealth technology they might come across, and that he needed Rekeeb to help him.
Rommie gave him a decidedly unfriendly look about the phrasing of his request, but the Perseid was already too excited to care. He adjusted and readjusted his hand-held scanner and recording device, babbling enthusiastically about new possibilities, unique chances of learning and so on with Rekeeb, bombarding his assistant with new instructions in every other minute. No one aside from Tyr could see the calculating and wary look of his dark eyes under that mask of cheerful prattle.
It wasn't a surprise for anyone that Dylan had decided not to take Tyr with him. The least surprised was Tyr himself. He had tried the good captain's patience one time too often, obviously. So he could only hope that Höhne would honour their newly found alliance and take a good, close look at the Pax core AI. He hadn't handed the virus over to the Perseid, of course. It was the proverbial ace up his proverbial sleeve; it would have been foolish to give up his main advantage.
They would have to wait until he, too, could go aboard the Pax – but that wasn't going to take long. Given Dylan's unique talent to get any team of his into deep trouble in record time, they'll need the cavalry sooner or later. So Tyr relaxed on the command deck of the Andromeda and watched the events on the viewscreen.
Dylan's team boarded the Maru, and they made their long way carefully towards the other ship. The Pax grew gradually on the small freighter's main screen, glittering with a golden, almost otherworldly beauty. For a moment, even Höhne's prattle ceased, and he stared at the golden ship with naked admiration.
"She's a beauty, a real beauty," he muttered. "Do you think that you'll find your way around her, Captain Hunt?"
Dylan opened his mouth to answer, but Rommie was faster.
"Her deck plan is the same as mine," she explained patiently. "We all should be able to find our way aboard."
"The same deck plan, the same access panels, the same controls," Tyr commented softly, watching on the big viewscreen of the command deck the Maru sliding into the almost completely dark docking bay of the other ship. The Pax glittered gold in the inside, too, and seemed in a much better shape than in the outside. A beauty indeed, albeit barely visible at the moment.
"Do you think they'll be able to get the ship working again?" Glittering Starlight, currently sitting in the pilot's chair, asked sceptically.
Tyr shrugged. "Who knows? They've got Harper and the Perseid with them. They're good. We'll see."
"Probably," the Than commented sarcastically. "If they ever find the light switch, that is. Of course, my eyes would be able to see perfectly well with such limited illumination, but Captain Hunt, in his eternal wisdom, chose not to take any of us with him."
Tyr glanced at the semi-darkness on the viewscreen, then at the big compound eyes of the Than, and silently agreed. Sometimes he wondered if the human had truly lived through his three hundred year long timeless captivity in the event horizon mentally undamaged. Surely, they had been taught in the High Guard how to choose the most suitable crewmembers for a landing party? Or could it be that Hunt mistrusted the Than as well? Just because they hadn't jumped at the opportunity to join the still nonexistent New Commonwealth?
Tyr watched the events on the screen with avid interest. Would the Perseids be able to make the necessary modifications unnoticed? The modifications that, eventually, would gain them access to the core AI? And if they succeeded, would Höhne keep up his side of the bargain and hand over the ship to the Nietzscheans? Had Sinti IV suffered from Nietzschean raids enough for the Technical Director to backstab this particular Nietzschean? Unlike Hunt, Tyr didn't expect people to be trustworthy or to keep their promises. This fact had saved his life uncounted times.
He heard Hunt ordering Harper to give them some lights, and the little engineer muttering, "Man, I really should shave those little hairs off the back of my neck."
Harper was still clearly frightened; his scowling lacked any real fire – which was a bad sign. Ridiculous as Tyr found the human's ghost stories, he also knew that Harper was the ultimate survivor. An unmodified human of his weak immune system and fragile constitution who managed nevertheless to survive on the Magog-infested Earth, under Drago-Kazov rule, no less, had to have excellent survival instincts. And if those keen instincts now were screaming alarm, the others should listen to Harper, ghost stories or no ghost stories.
In the meantime, Harper had managed to bring a control console back to life, and the lights came up, bathing the corridor where the landing team was standing in soft, golden glow. Beka looked around with appreciation.
"Big sister, you said?" She asked Rommie. "More like identical twin, I'd say. Amazing…"
"What's even more amazing, is the state of the ship," Dylan said. "Three hundred years later, air's still clean, AG fields still work."
"That could be an automatic reaction to the ship being boarded again," Höhne suggested. "There's no proof that anyone aboard is still alive."
"What about the voice transmission we received?" Beka reminded him. Höhne shrugged.
"Could be some centuries-old message leaking out through a failing comm system by accident. We won't know until we checked the main systems."
"We should head to command, then," Rommie said. "That's the most likely place to find answers."
That was finally something everyone agreed with, and they moved on in the direction Rommie had pointed out to them. They didn't come far, though. As soon as the approached the next hatch, alarm claxons started going off, and shots were fired at them. Everyone scattered and dove for cover.
"Well," Harper shouted from behind an unidentified piece of equipment, "at the very least the auto-security system's still activated – and working at top efficiency! I find that good in a warship."
Dylan, rolling away from the firing line, called, "Deactivation code: Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771!"
Tyr stiffened in the command chair of the Andromeda. He hoped Freya was recording the events. He'd forgotten to ask her, but one could count on Freya in such things. If not…. Well, Nietzschean memory, if not exactly eidetic, was still pretty good. And reconstructing Dylan's voice problem shouldn't be too hard, if necessary.
The only problem was that the automatic security system wouldn't accept the deactivation code.
"They must have overridden the original codes," Tyr realized, and he Ruby Than wiggled her antennae in agreement.
"Whoever 'they' are," she said. "And since Captain Hunt hasn't taken any well-trained warriors with him, he might have a problem right now."
Fortunately for the landing party, the hatch opened now, revealing some people, clad in proper High Guard uniform, and the clear, authoritive voice of a woman ordered,
"Hold fire! Deactivate defence system!"
The shots ceased in a nanosecond. Glittered Starlight's antennae stiffened in surprise.
"There was no deactivation code," she commented in a low voice.
"No," Tyr agreed slowly, "there wasn't. Interesting, isn't it?"
He watched with interest as the Pax crew entered the corridor to meet their visitors. They were led by a tall, athletic woman, who had a smooth face with high cheekbones, wide, ice blue eyes, a sensuous mouth and long, shining hair of the same golden hue as the Pax' interior. She radiated a strong command presence and obviously had a great deal of authority. If not for the lack of forearm spikes, one could have mistaken her for a Nietzschean.
At the moment, however, she was staring at Hunt with very human astonishment.
"You… you're High Guard," she whispered in awe.
"Captain Dylan Hunt, from the Andromeda Ascendant," Dylan told her, delighted to finally have found someone who'd appreciate his long gone status. She looked properly impressed.
"Lieutenant Jill Pearce of the Pax Magellanic," she replied, and then she gestured to the dark-skinned man on her side. "And this is my ship's engineer, Hideki Osaka."
Damn, that was bad. Höhne might have been able to sabotage the ship's AI, but not with the Pax' engineer looking over his shoulder. Tyr's mind raced, weighing the possibilities. It was still too early to include Harper in his plans – the little professor had major trust issues when it came to Nietzscheans in general and Tyr in particular. They 'll have to wait and look for opportunities. Who'd have thought that the ship still had a crew?
The same question must have occupied Beka's mind, because she asked the engineer (who'd just told them to call him 'Dutch', stating that everyone else did anyway), "Are you descendants of the original crew?"
There was a moment of silence. Then Pearce shook her head."
"No," she replied simply. "We are the original crew."
"That's impossible," Radiance of Wisdom emphasized. "According to the readings, they are humans. They've had some genetic modifications, like almost everyone else, to make them more resistant to radiation, and that Pearce person has apparently had a Nietzschean somewhere up her family tree, by the looks of her, but they are still humans. And human tissue isn't designed to remain unchanged for three centuries. No way."
"She assumed it's a side effect of whatever weapons the Nietzscheans used to blow up Herodotus," Rev Bem reminded the Than. Tyr snorted.
"That's highly unlikely."
"Why?" Arkazha asked. They were having a video-conference, so that the Castalians wouldn't have to leave their maritime quarters.
"Because the Nietzscheans were just about to win the battle," Born to Starfire answered. "The Pax Magellanic was sent to rescue the detachment of Lancers who'd been pinned down by Nietzschean ground forces on the planet's surface. The Lancers were under the command of General Sky Falls in Thunder, one of our greatest war heroes."
"I've heard of her," Rommie's holographic image flickered to life. "She was a teacher of the High Guard's Advanced Studies Institute, on Patterson's World… a most excellent strategist."
"That didn't help her much, obviously, "Born to Starfire said. "The last message that had got out from her was a distress call… that her forces were encircled. We've never heard about her anything else – until now."
"What a coincidence," Arkazha commented dryly.
"What ones see as coincidence, others may interpret as the guidance of the Divine," Rev Bem said placidly. That earned him another derisive snort, but no comment, from Tyr.
"I don't believe in coincidences," Born to Starfire said. She turned to look directly at Tyr, which was an interesting attempt, considering that she was still in her quarters. But the famous Than orientation skills worked their wonder once again. "What sort of Nietzschean weapon could have been capable of blowing up an entire planet?"
"A Maximum Charge, containing two AS4V," Tyr replied without hesitation. "We haven't developed anything with more destructive power in the last three hundred years. Unless someone has Nova bombs, of course."
"Could an analysis of the planetary debris reveal the use of either of those weapons?" Arkazha asked. Tyr nodded.
"Without any doubt. The decay of such remains begins only after half a millennium."
"Then Wisdom should run the analysis," Born to Starfire suggested.
"You don't believe Lieutenant Pearce?" Iason Havila, who'd been listening quietly all the time, asked. The Diamond Than shrugged.
"I find it hard to believe that the Nietzscheans – any Nietzscheans – would destroy a habitable world. Particularly when they were standing on it. They are out to conquer, not to kill their own people, just to make a point."
"There are also natural causes like geologic instabilities or asteroid collisions," Havila said.
"We should try to rule out natural causes as well," Tyr said.
"Do you also think they're lying to us… to Captain Hunt?" Havila asked.
"They can lie to Dylan, since he's willing to believe them, while we are not," Tyr corrected. "But they're definitely hiding something. They must have a reason to hide in this asteroid field."
"A reason aside from the fact that the planet's explosion destroyed their slipstream drive?" Arkazha asked. Tyr snorted again.
"I'm not Harper, so I cannot say with certainty that it's impossible, but… destroying the slipstream drive only, while the ship as a whole is relatively unharmed… just how likely is that?"
All eyes turned to Radiance of Wisdom, who shook her head.
"I can't tell," she said. "I'm not an engineer. But perhaps someone should get over to that ship and consult Mr. Harper discretely?"
"With 'someone' you mean be, don't you?" Tyr asked sarcastically. The Sapphire Than shrugged.
"I'd suggest that you don't go alone," she replied.
Harper disconnected himself from the Pax' control panel and blinked at the two Perseids in confusion.
"I don't get it. There's nothing wrong with the AI's automated connection. It's still hooked into the power grid."
"What about the neural net?" Höhne asked.
"Seems to be sound," Harper replied with a shrug. The Perseid frowned.
"Can the core sentience be buried?"
Harper shrugged again. "Yeah. Perhaps. I dunno. It's like it is in a coma."
"That sounds unlikely," Rekeeb commented.
"Not more likely than a planetary explosion damaging nothing but the slipstream drive," Harper replied. "At any rate, we need a closer look. I'll enter the Pax' VR matrix."
"No," Höhne said. "Let the Andromeda avatar do it. If the matrix is damaged, it could fry your neural net."
"That's exactly why I must go there," Harper argued. "If the core AI is damaged, she could short-circuit Rommie and send a feedback loop through her to the Andromeda."
"True enough," Höhne nodded. "But I wand Rekeeb to go in with you – as a precaution. Perhaps between the two of you, you can find out what's wrong."
"If the system is too badly damaged, we may have to rewire the entire neural network," Rekeeb added. Harper made a wry face, calculating the amount of work that would take, even with the help of the Pax' engineer. Who didn't seem to have achieved much in three hundred years, by the way.
"But what if we can't fix it?" he asked.
"Then we'd have to erase the core AI and start over from the scratch," Höhne replied calmly. "I just hope you're up to it."
Harper shot him a disturbed look. "Isn't that a little… ya know… drastic?"
Höhne shook his head reverently. "I don't think so. I've checked the Andromeda's database: it was standard procedure to erase an AI, if it has been compromised."
"But why?" Harper frowned, "It seems such a frigging waste!"
"The core A.I. of a High Guard ship always contained countless classified High Guard documents," Rekeeb pointed out. "Those tactical procedural commands could not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands."
"Really?" Harper was still not convinced. "I thought the Commonwealth considered AIs as sentient beings. With the same rights as other lifeforms."
"They did," Höhne said. "But sometimes they had to make sacrifices. That's why all ships' AIs swore a military oath to self-destruct when they were at risk to be captured."
"How nice," Harper scowled. "Did the High Guard captains swear to kill themselves, too?"
The question took Höhne unaware. Quite frankly, he found the idea of sacrificing an AI sound and never thought about it. They were just machines, after all.
"Not that I know of it," he finally said. Harper's scowl deepened.
"Thought so," he spat angrily. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to take a look at these engineering records."
"He's not ready to choose sides yet," Freya commented softly, watching the events on the viewscreen of their quarters, through Höhne's live feed. "You were right. He'd have fought you, had you tried to execute your original plan. Fought you – and died. That would have been a waste, indeed."
"He'd die for a machine?" Amritray, currently on duty, asked in surprise.
"For him, that life-sized love toy of an avatar is more than just a machine," Tyr replied. He'd just returned from the command deck, transferring command to the Ruby Than. "He's developed an unhealthy emotional attachment to the Andromeda – and only partly due to the fact that he'd built the android in the first place."
"The typical Pygmalion-syndrome," Amritray said with a shrug. "The maker falling in love with his own creation. How very… human."
"What he need is a healthy relationship," Freya said. "A… distraction to make him stop obsessing about he android – and open his mind for other possible alliances."
"Maybe he'll find someone aboard the Pax," Amritray said.
"That would be most unfortunate," Tyr replied. "I don't want him to be allied with those High Guard fossils. I want him to be allied with us. His skills are unique, and he's resourceful. I want that on my side."
"There's a way perhaps," Freya said. "His libido is very strong for a kludge. If we could channel it in a way that he'd find… satisfying, we'd have him hooked." She looked at Amritray. "I'm sure you cold smell his interest as well. He won't mind your… condition. Humans don't restrict themselves to reproductive sex."
Tyr nodded slowly, speculatively. The suggestion did have its merits. Omegas were the exclusive property of their Alpha, true, but Harper was human. He could never challenge Tyr's dominance over Amritray – and he was after girls all the time. It might work. Giving him a personal interest in the welfare of Tyr's family could be… useful.
So, why was he hesitating to seize the opportunity? Who cared if a kludge's insignificant feelings got hurt?
"Are you volunteering?" he asked Amritray.
"Me?" Amritray laughed. "I don't think that bedding me could be considered 'healthy' for him, my… Tyr. He's a kludge from a slave world – it's unlikely that his interests include Nietzscheans."
"Unlikely – but not impossible," Freya said. "If he were to be the dominant one, given the chance to woo and eventually conquer, it might give him a kind of satisfaction he would never reach with other partners."
"Until he realizes that we have played him," Tyr said, "in which moment everything will go straight to hell."
"Why should that happen?" Freya asked. "He'd never expect one of us fall in undying love with him; he's no fool. Casual sex, however, is something kludges do all the time."
"Perhaps," Tyr looked at Amritray again. "Are you willing to give it a try? I want you and your brother to befriend him. As he's rather small, he might find you less intimidating than other Nietzscheans. Teach him to fight, if he's interested. He can defend himself, but not well enough, and he's too valuable to get killed by accident."
"Do you want me to bed him?" Amritray asked bluntly.
Tyr hesitated again. He'd become dangerously considerate where the little kludge was considered. That was a weakness. He couldn't allow weaknesses to get in the way of his destiny.
"It's up to you," he finally said. "If you think it would help to win his trust, do it. But more important is to befriend him. It's in the human nature to care more for a friend than for a casual bedmate."
Which wasn't exactly true… well, not always. In Harper's case, however… as enthusiastic as the little professor could get while going on about his amorous adventures on various Drifts, he'd die for his friends, without a moment of hesitation. Tyr was certain of that. It might not be the human nature generally, but it certainly was Harper's nature.
The way some humans interpreted friendship had striking similarities with the Omega oath. With the significant difference that humans did the same things for a friend voluntarily that an Omega would do for his Pride Alpha by obligation. For his part, Tyr preferred the Omega bond, as it left the Omega no chance to back off or change his mind. But he had to admit, someone doing it merely out of loyalty to a friend was – impressive. As long as this someone wasn't a Nietzschean, of course.
"Be careful with him," he instructed Amritray. "He doesn't trust easily, especially not one of us. I want him to trust you… to trust us."
"How can you expect a kludge with his background to believe that a Nietzschean could be his friend?" Amritray asked doubtfully.
"The only way to achieve that is to become his friend," Tyr said. "You and your brother will have to prove yourselves. You may go any lengths you see fit, as long as it doesn't interfere with your primary duty to me and my family. Be creative."
"But why is this particular kludge so important?" the young Omega asked in confusion. "There are plenty of good engineers among our people…"
"None of whom could have created the weapon that destroyed the major part of our fleet in the Battle of Witchhead," Tyr pointed out. "I want that sort of creative talent on our side the next time."
"He would never turn against his own people," Freya warned.
"I know," Tyr said. "But the next time, it won't be the humans or Dylan's pathetic new Commonwealth that we'll be facing. And I don't think that Harper would have any problems with destroying the Magog. Or the Drago-Kazov neanderthals."
At the same time, Harper, completely oblivious to the fact that the campaign to seduce him (theoretically – or literally, if needed) to the side of the Übers had started already, was having a heated discussion with Dylan and Rommie. As expected, both the captain and the android wanted Rommie to enter the Pax' VR matrix. Theoretically, they were right. Under normal circumstances, she'd have a better chance to interface with the other ship's core AI. But these weren't normal circumstances, and Harper was afraid that a feedback loop might damage Rommie beyond repair.
"But you might need High Guard override codes," Rommie pointed out.
Harper crossed his arm. "Fine. Give me them"
That earned him the Look from Dylan… which made him positively mad.
"What?" he demanded angrily. "Am I suddenly not trustworthy?"
"You're not High Guard," Rommie answered. At which Harper almost literally exploded.
"No, I'm not," he snarled. "And I don't salute either, and don't hand in written reports. So what? Does this make me a lower life form?"
"Of course not," Dylan said soothingly. "It's just…"
"It's just that I'm the one who's built Rommie from the scratch, using spare parts," Harper riposted. "I'm the only one who could repair her in case she gets damaged, and frankly, I can't tell what may possibly happen to her if she directly interfaces with the Pax. I won't take that risk. Not before I've seen the core AI for myself."
"But not alone," Höhne warned. "You need someone who watches you and breaks the connection, if necessary."
"I agree," Dylan said. "Rommie will go in with you."
"No, she won't," Harper protested. "It seem to me that you haven't got the whole point of this argument, boss."
"I have," Dylan interrupted, "and I decided to disagree with you."
"Respectfully, Captain Hunt, this is the worst possible solution," Höhne shook his head. "The two would be equally vulnerable, when they interface with the Pax directly. We might end up with a dead engineer and an android damaged beyond repair."
"Then I'll go with them," Dylan said with a shrug. But the Perseid shook his head again.
"With all due respect, Captain, you wouldn't be much help when it comes to technical problems. Neither would I, due to some neural damage I've suffered during a Magog attack on Kingfisher. I suggest we send in Rekeeb with them as a watcher. He's good at cybernetics and will be able to bring them out, should anything go wrong."
Hunt wasn't happy with the solution, but didn't have any good argument against it, either. So he was almost relieved when he was called to the command deck to meet Lieutenant Pearce – at least he could safe his face this way… well, sort of. The others returned to the Maru, as the freighter's virtual net seemed the safest way to enter the Pax' memory archives.
Harper rummaged a little under a console and came up with a pair of VR goggles, which he handed to Rekeeb.
"You'll need these," he said. "And remember, you're here to watch – no interfering. Let Rommie and me handle things."
Rekeeb nodded in complete agreement. He wouldn't try to manipulate t he Pax' AI on his own, even though the virus to erase it was already stored in his cranial implant. Not before he saw for himself in which shape the core intelligence was in. And certainly not while Harper and the Andromeda were watching. They'll find the best opportunity to download the virus into the Pax' system eventually – without frying his neural net.
"Good," Harper said. "Maru, establish virtual reality interface with the Pax' A.I. core."
"Interface established," the monotonous male voice of the Maru computer replied. Harper took a deep breath.
"Ooooookay, here we go…" he jacked in and his entire body went slack for a moment, as always, when interfacing with a highly developed system. The initial data input was overwhelming, until his brain adjusted. Even with the Andromeda, where he always had an icy smooth slide-in. Unlike here. He winced in momentary pain. "All right, Rommie, you can come in," he said, "but be careful. It's a bumpy ride."
He saw Rommie laying her hand on the panel and Rekeeb putting on the VR goggles. In the next moment, their avatars were standing next to him on the virtual reality plane.
If he had expected the clear, elegant – and utterly functional – VR environment of the Andromeda, he was sorely disappointed. The virtual room surrounding them was all gold, but strangely shapeless – to be frank, it was positively nightmare-ish. And so was the Pax avatar itself: a blurred, barely humanoid golden figure, wandering around aimlessly, and lamenting barely understandable, repeating the same mindless sentences over and over again.
"Can machines cry…? Do computers weep…? Can machines cry…? Do computers weep…?"
Harper looked at Rommie across the virtual plane worriedly.
"Rom-doll, I'm afraid we're having a serious problem here."
TBC
