Noise. The faint hum of engines with accompanying vibrations through the metal of the ship. Not the sound of a burning fire, though; so it was definitely a step up from his previous position.

Shifting slightly, he groaned as pain flared up in his chest. That was alright, pain was good; it meant he was alive.

Ignoring it for the time being, he finally opened his eyes properly and immediately wished he was back in the hangar.

He'd been set against the wall of the dropship, a standard Goblin model, so there wasn't much room to move around. His biggest concern wasn't the ship, though; it was the white Simulacrum standing several feet away and staring at him without so much as a word.

Damn it all.

"I'm guessing it was you that dragged my ass out of there?" he quipped, his voice lacking in any real enthusiasm. In an odd turn of events, it seemed that he's been taken out of the fire and thrown into the frying pan. Weird to hear that figure of speech backwards, but considering the state of the hangar …

Still mute, she gave him a single nod.

He sighed resignedly. "If you want the cylinder, I'm afraid you're too late. Gates has it now, and she's long gone. No point to any of this, unless you're planning to torture me for her location. And I assure you, I'm pretty hard to break."

"I don't care about the cylinder," she softly said, finally breaking her silence.

He rolled his eyes. "Right. Because you definitely didn't kill all those people just to get it back."

"Tobias, I-"

She cut off mid-sentence, but not like the previous times where it seemed a glitch was responsible; instead, it seemed as though she'd legitimately just been rendered speechless. She became quiet again, pausing to take the time to gather her thoughts before attempting to respond again.

"That wasn't me back there."

"Yeah, no kidding," he snidely remarked. "I don't know what you are exactly, 'Artemis', but you're definitely not Kay-"

"I'm not Artemis!" she yelled, her voice now firm and defiant. He fell silent, and prepared for her to attack him.

Upon seeing his reaction, she fell back into her soft-spoken mannerisms as though she was worried of frightening him. "But … I'm not quite who I used to be either."

He bounced that data against the walls of his mind a bit, his eyes widening at the implication. He leaned forward ever so slightly with a flicker of hope stirring in his chest. "… Kay?"

She lowered her head in a gesture that seemed most reminiscent of shame. "Yes … and no."

His emotions seemed to be getting put through the wringer, and it was leaving him more confused than anything. "That doesn't make any sense."

Another thought came to him, and his eyes narrowed. "How do I know you're not just Artemis trying to trick me?"

"As you saw, my- her methods are a bit … blunt," the one before him stated with distaste. "She doesn't have the same self-control that some of the others have, she's too driven. But I suppose that comes as part of my- her nature," she stammered.

He noticed the discrepancies, and remained defensive. "You slipped up there. Hard to speak about yourself in third person?"

She shook her head. "No, it's not like that! It's difficult to explain-" She stopped speaking again, and took another moment to think as she had done before.

"Separating her and myself as two individuals in mind and speech is difficult for the same reason that you have trouble comprehending my true nature," she tried to explain. "And in any matter, you can at least trust me for this; if you haven't noticed, you're not restrained. I didn't bring you here to torture you or get info out of you, I did it to save your life. You're not even locked out of the systems; you're in complete control of the ship."

That was news. Furrowing his brow, he weakly stood himself up and made his way to the pilot's console. He tested the controls, plotted a flight path and was surprised to see a confirmation icon appear waiting for his command. So it would appear that she was telling the truth.

He turned towards her. "Why?"

"I already told you, I'm not Artemis. I'll explain if you allow me, but I don't think you'd believe me unless there was some level of trust involved. Hopefully this is a good start; I know that I don't deserve your faith in me, but I need it if we're going to have any hope of going forward with a plan to stop Spyglass."

She noted that he still seemed to be in disbelief of that statement, and she shuffled anxiously. "I've also disabled the internal tracking device in my systems, the one that led the New Humanity forces to the Embers' fleet. Completely unviable now, even if I'm locked out again. No one but us knows where we are, and maybe not even then. I only warped a safe enough distance away in a random path to allow the frigate to escape, but I was waiting for you to wake up before setting a destination."

He looked out of the cockpit's window to see nothing but black and stars in ever direction. He certainly couldn't garner any specific location or even quadrant, but he was sure they'd have one once he checked with the navigational systems.

This situation kept getting weirder by the minute. But eventually, it was going to come to an end; either she was telling the truth, and he'd have to trust her enough to listen and take her at her word, or she was lying and he'd have to confront the problem. Either scenario was better to be dealt with as soon as possible, so he took a deep breath, walked a few paces back over to where the Simulacrum was waiting, and leaned against the wall.

"Alright. Let's hear it."

…

"Try again."

Gray obeyed, and began to scan all of the comm channels once more for anything resembling a friendly SOS. Gates watched with a stone in her gut, unable to shake the heavy feeling she'd acquired from both the emotional turmoil inside of her and the strong kick she'd received from Artemis.

Davis remained in the back with the researchers, Mayfair and Rye. Seeing as they were the only surviving researchers who had studied KT's new form, it was imperative that they make it to the rendezvous safely. In this war, information was one of the most powerful weapons they had, and they'd take every advantage they could get.

A red 'negative' icon appeared on the console, and Gates gave a tired sigh. She'd have to hope that both Tobias and the frigate were on their way to the rendezvous already, but it was obvious that they weren't anywhere near where the fleet had been before. Either way, they had to get on with their job.

"Plot a course for Atania," she ordered, "we need to get the Cinder and these two back to the fleet."

"Understood, ma'am," recited Gray, and she began to input the commands into the navigation console.

Feeling like bags of sand were tied to her legs, Gates trudged back into the main bay to get some answers before they arrived. Davis watched her come in, and moved to allow her room in front of the researchers.

"Alright," she began, her voice hard and unfriendly, "I may have just lost a friend to get you two and the Cinder out of there alive, so forgive me if I'm not in the greatest of moods right now. But you two can help with that a bit."

Mayfair swallowed, her face taking on a solemn expression. "Of course. What can we do?"

"Back on the frigate, you were going to tell Four and me what you found out about KT. What happened to her, to be more precise." She stepped forward, placing herself right in front of the two scientists. "For all we know, there might be some info on it in the Cinder, but I can't exactly access it right now, so I have to settle for you two. If you have anything on her condition, I need to hear it- what happened to her might be applied to every Titan AI that Spyglass has at his disposal, and I'd like to know how to beat them if he has an army of these things."

The woman nodded. "I understand. Before I continue though, I think I can reassure you a small amount; if what we think happened to her is what happened, then the risk of there being more like her is minimal."

That did ease a bit of the tension from Gates' body. "Good. Now, the cause?"

Mayfair took a small breath to relax herself. "We think she underwent a process known as fragmentation."

The term sounded familiar to Gates, but not quite to where she could place specific knowledge to it. "I think I've heard of that. Something to do with malfunctions, right?"

"Not exactly," Mayfair explained, "though malfunctions can be a symptom of the root problem. Fragmentation is more of an archaic term we have for a phenomenon we haven't seen a case of in decades. And even that case is uncertain, so it's more theoretical at this point than anything."

Gates would have pinched the bridge of her nose if she wasn't wearing a helmet. "So let me get this straight; you've diagnosed her with something that you're not even sure exists?"

"I understand that it's difficult to believe," she said, "but I believe all the signs are there."

Gates looked at Rye. "What about you? You have anything to add?"

He shook his head. "No, I don't know nearly as much about this subject as Dr. Mayfair. But the other researchers seemed to agree with her assertion, so she has my support."

Great, so Mayfair was the only one alive with even a possible grasp at what happened to KT. Gates couldn't help sighing again. "Alright, get on with it then."

"When the first Titans were built, their purpose was little more than a labor force," she began. "They were designed as heavy mechs that could be controlled by an operator, or left to their own devices. They didn't have an AI's back then, only OS's."

"What's the difference?"

"Picture a Titan of today without its data core," Mayfair suggested. "There's still an OS built into the chassis, but it's little more than a very basic defense protocol. It can move and follow simple orders, but that's as far as it goes. It doesn't think, it's more like an automated program than any kind of intelligence."

Gates nodded, understanding so far. "Go on."

"Well, as the purposes for Titans broadened and grew, so did development of the Titans themselves. There became a greater need for these Titans to act more efficiently, to be capable of tasks that they weren't with the OS's. Since artificial intelligence was no longer just a distant dream but a reality with several successful cases, the next step was to integrate them with Titans. And since then, we've only gone further and further; Spectres, Stalkers, and Reapers are all products of decades of research into military uses for simplistic AI's and OS's. We're even able to put human minds into artificial bodies, as seen with Simulacrums. But our greatest achievements were the Titan AI's that saw use until about six years ago."

Gates remembered the timeframe all too well. "That was the same year we assaulted Erebus."

"Yes. And not long after, the Vanguard Titans were introduced to the field. But they weren't just new chassises; they were imbued with 'new' AI's that were designed without advanced emotive processors like the previous incarnations."

She noticed the emphasis on 'new' that Mayfair had used, as though it wasn't entirely an accurate term. "Sounds like you have something to add."

Mayfair nodded. "I was one of many who worked on advancements in artificial intelligence for Hammond industries. I'd like to add that I never was allied with the IMC, not really-"

Gates waved her objections away dismissively. "Doesn't matter what side any of us were on before, we're all on the same one now. Continue."

"Well, we were tasked with creating AI's that found a middle ground in both the extreme efficiency that advanced emotive processors gave, and the weaknesses they provided when agitated."

She thought back to KT, and her distraught over Tobias' capture on Erebus. "Yeah, I know a thing or two about that."

"Indeed. We found that while the current AI's had greater efficiency when working together in a bond with their Pilots, they performed far poorer than acceptable when the two were separated. We traced the root of this problem to their emotions."

Gates crossed her arms and regarded the researcher doubtfully. "What do you mean, 'emotions'? Their emotive processors are meant to replicate and mirror emotions, not actually generate them."

Mayfair shook her head. "No. They can feel, just the same as you and I. Or, the old ones can. Now, the same type of AI's Vanguards use are present in just about every current generation Titan."

"But that doesn't make any sense," Gates argued confusedly, "we built them. You're telling me that they somehow developed feelings?"

"The very nature of an AI almost requires that they have emotions," Mayfair clarified. "It's much easier to start work on something when you have a head-start rather than starting from scratch, and the greatest example of intelligence we had was ourselves. AI research began by taking human brains and trying to convert them into an inorganic form. The first AI's were just exact copies of the brains and people they'd come from."

This was a lot to take in, and it was giving her a headache. "You're telling me that AI's are just dead people?"

"Not anymore, no; that was decades ago. From there, we were able to create VI's, much simpler versions that handle processing and data for our ships, important facilities, and more. And as time went on, it was discovered how to create an AI without the need for a human 'parent', so to speak. So, as I said, you can see why it's more difficult to create an AI without feelings than with them; our emotions are one of the core traits that make us human, that make us feel alive. And for all intents and purposes, AI's are alive. Just, much more advanced. It's hard to remove something so ingrained within us when you're trying to copy it into an AI."

"But you found a way?" remarked Gates, finally starting to see what Mayfair was getting at.

"Yes. The culmination of our project was an AI that possessed slightly less efficiency than the previous bonded pairs when together, but was much more likely to survive on its own if need be. From there, we were able to develop a new generation of AI's that were integrated into IMC Titans almost immediately. The old AI's weren't decommissioned, but as time went on they pretty much became extinct anyway due to the war. No production meant no increasing numbers for their kind. That was ten years ago, one year before Demeter. But it took the Militia four to five years to implement it into their own Titans. Probably just because it took them that long to steal it."

Or maybe they saw just how big a problem it could be when KT had to shut off her emotive processors just to deal with the pain of losing Tobias, and decided it was necessary to avoid that at all costs. But Gates wasn't about to talk about that period of time right now.

"I still don't get why the project was needed anyway," she admitted. "It can't have just been for that minor boost in efficiency, right?"

"You'd be correct," said Mayfair. "It was to prevent any mass cases of fragmentation that may have occurred in the years to follow. Though it was unlikely, it was still a possibility that fragmentation could become widespread amongst Titans due to the stresses of war. It would render most of them useless, and they couldn't afford to have such a large portion of IMC forces handicapped in such a way."

"How would it leave them useless? You still haven't explained what fragmentation is."

"None of us truly know, considering that it's all still theoretical. But the gist of it is that an AI splits itself apart, fragmenting into separate pieces of the whole. It was deemed so dangerous a process that any Titans who lost their Pilots but survived were taken to be decommissioned as per standard protocol."

The same protocol that almost made her decommission KT after she lost Shears on Nedar. If it hadn't been for Dimitri's intuition that Tobias would interfere …

"So that's why we had the protocol and phased out the old Titan AI's? To avoid fragmentation?" she asked.

"Yes. You see, we theorized that fragmentation would result after incredible trauma and stress were inflicted upon an artificial mind. Similar to victims of dissociative identity disorder, where the individual conjures up an entirely new personality to deal with the pain rather than facing it themselves. Except … worse."

"How so?"

"People with multiple personalities can heal, but we're not so sure of fragmentation. You can get rid of an extra persona, but fragmentation doesn't create new ones, it only tears the old one into separate components. To recover from fragmentation, you'd have to stitch them all back together somehow … but it might be rather difficult to overcome."

Gates tilted her head. "Yeah?"

"Whenever you make a decision, you play devil's advocate. You weigh every possibility until you come to an agreement with yourself on what to do. It may take place in less than a fraction of a second, but it still happens. But a fragmented AI would literally be fighting with itself constantly as the different pieces of its mind would likely have far different ideals and opinions depending on their nature. We think that fragmentation would cause an AI to shatter into the core traits of itself at first, then into minor traits with every subsequent split. And you can see where that might be a hazard in a war."

If Artemis was a core trait of KT, then Gates had some serious concerns about whatever that trait was.

"So, while potentially possible … we just don't know the specifics of how to put an AI back together after fragmentation, or even how one would fragment in the first place."

"I thought you said-"

"We know that it has to do with trauma," Mayfair hastily interrupted, "but just not the specifics; how much, of what kind, the toll it takes on the AI itself, et cetera. And it's highly unethical to perform any kind of experiment for the purpose of seeing the cause and effects of it, they're still real minds like ours. In fact, the only one suitable for knowing the ins and outs of fragmentation is probably an AI itself."

An AI itself.

Now she had a pretty good idea of what exactly Spyglass had been doing with KT ever since she was captured. And assuming Tobias found out about it, the leader of New Humanity was going to have a very angry Pilot out for his blood.

A/N: work and school are kicking my ass right now

all i ask in payment is that you enjoy the chapter and leave your thoughts

i'm too tired to come up with anything more for this authors note so toodle-oo

- mattpoptarts