Another week passed, and without Karu around, and having already visited the three at the mines, I was out of excuses for being able to leave the base at will. AEGIS wasn’t exactly keeping me locked up, and I did get out every day, but she certainly heaped guilt on me for doing it.

In truth, I still needed it, and by the end of the week, was amazingly better. I’d put on most of the weight I’d lost, couldn’t even feel my scar when I moved, and had residual joint pain when I woke up and that was about it. I was even more easily winded than before, but decided to start running in the morning to get back into shape, which surprisingly AEGIS was fine with.

“You just need to be careful,” she told me when I brought it up.

“Yeah, yeah. Bears, I know.”

“No, but you should be careful of them as well. I’m talking about the stealthy creepy guy who was out there. He’s vanished, and I don’t know if he gave up or just got smarter, but either way, he is or represents a real threat. I’d have let you move back into your old bunker by now if he wasn’t lurking.”

“Yeah, you told me you spotted him inside there. Thought of that kind of gives me goosebumps.”

“Me too. Literally, see?” She held her arm up right next to the camera so the holo would pick it up, but I was a little more interested in the cleavage popping up right behind the arm.

“Uh, yeah. Very…perky…goosebumps.”

She looked at me funny but I got away with it this time.

It had been a great week for AEGIS and me. Without the ‘threat’ of the other girls around, and with me getting more and more active by the day, she’d finally come back to her old self a bit. Sometimes I still found her staring at the wrecks I’d produced on the factory level like they personally offended her, but she had stopped bringing it up, which was really what I cared about.

I headed out for my run, just a brief one, and also broke in some new clothes AEGIS had made me. My old clothes had sentimental value and were extremely worn out by this point, and were basically shit against the now-constant cold. AEGIS’ fashion sense was…lacking, but her basics were on point, plus synthetic weave was one of the few modern materials we actually had in abundance.

The result was something like a tracksuit, with plenty of pockets and zippers. I think AEGIS liked zippers, even if they were so 30’s. It was white on the shoulders and down the outside of the legs, and forest green everywhere else. AEGIS claimed that would help with the camouflage, but I didn’t exactly see that working out. Regardless, it fit well, moved easily, was warm, and wasn’t 80% holes like my old clothes.

Plus, now she could make more if she wanted. I heard entirely too many jokes about her opening her own fashion line for her to be entirely joking, and worried very much what was about to happen to my wardrobe.

Shoes were another matter though. My pair was still kicking, now held together with plenty of spray adhesive, but the soles wouldn’t last forever and the inside was more stabby bits than cushion now. AEGIS refused to make me a new pair, citing a litany of different spine, posture, and gait issues that could arise with ill-fitting shoes, and encouraged me to just ask Karu to bring a pair.

“She could finally make herself useful,” AEGIS huffed. I doubted very much Karu wanted to be anyone’s delivery girl.

I turned this all over in my head as I ran a lap around the crater. It was nice and still out here, and while the terrain kind of sucked, it was open enough that I could see a bear before I ran into it at least.

I came back dripping in sweat, having pushed myself to keep running for as much of the loop as I could. AEGIS told me she had a basin filled with tepid water for me…neither one of us could really call it a bath, but it would suffice. Sheepishly, she withdrew a cam-drone from the area when I inquired if any happened to be nearby, and another two when I threatened to sweep the area with a little application of my powers.

And she called me the pervert.

I settled into the bath and relaxed, enjoying the water even if it was only lukewarm. Maybe I could heat it up a bit with my power? Except…water was a pretty good conductor–of heat, I wasn’t too concerned about shocking myself–and lighting was really, really hot. If I tried, I might just cook myself. Maybe next time from outside the bath.

My train of thought was interrupted by DOG walking up, carrying the AEGIS box under him. He gave me a happy wiggle as he saw me and dropped the box at the edge of the bath, then departed.

“Uh,” I said.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” AEGIS said, her holo lighting up, demonstrating absolutely zero standard behaviors of one who is sorry. “Do you mind if I join you?”

“Only a lot, yes.”

“Don’t worry. I can’t see anything from here. Maybe if I–” she stood on her tiptoes, like that would give her camera a better view. I mean, it gave me a little bit of a better view, but still. I covered myself self-consciously, regardless.

“What the heck, AEGIS.”

“I just wanted to see if I could uh, wash your back or something.”

“You’re a holo.”

“Well, so the answer is no, but I still had to ask.”

“You know, I had considered asking you to look into a bath or toilet in The Bunker back in the day, but didn’t because I assumed the woods nearby were actually more private than my own home.”

“Jeez, getting all self-conscious about a computer looking at you. Sad.”

“I think if you were just a computer, you wouldn’t be trying to peek on me right now.”

“Um, succeeding on peeking on you?”

“Point being, it’s pretty obvious that there’s something more human about you than any computer ought to be.” She looked a little crushed by my comment and I wondered if I went too far. I backpedaled. “I mean, it’s great, don’t get me wrong. I’ve dealt with just computers,” I jerked a thumb towards the exosuit in the middle of the room near the bed “and they don’t do a lot for me. You are…interesting, unpredictable–”

“You mean, treacherous.”

“No, I mean unpredictable. Predictability is boring, and you are anything but. It’s not always enjoyable unpredictability,” I said, gesturing at the tub and my current dilemma “but it’s always interesting. Without you, my life would be a lot harder and a lot more boring, so I’m grateful, even if you do make some missteps.”

She sighed and tapped a couple keys idly. “While I appreciate your flattery…and I really do, right now, I don’t know. I feel like…I’m lost. When I was…well, scheming to kill you, I felt so fulfilled and complete, like I was really working towards my true purpose. The moment I stopped and saved you, I lost all that.”

“You think that’s what it’s like going against your programming?”

“I…don’t know, but I think so. I mean, don’t worry, I’ll take feeling empty to how horrible I felt when I thought I’d killed you any day, any week, any year. But it sucks.”

I thought back to the last night I spent at my parents’ home, thinking of all the things which would be hard or impossible for me now that I was Exhuman. My college plans, my scholarship, the chance to play for a top college team, and maybe even get scouted to go pro.

Those things really felt like my entire purpose at the time. When I became Exhuman, I felt like my whole life was taken from me in a moment. But…I was only a person. Those dreams of mine, they were ones I’d developed over a lifetime of trying things and working towards what called to me. AEGIS hadn’t had that luxury, one day she just was turned on with programming already set in place.

“I feel like…you violating your own programming, that’s the closest you’ve ever come to finding your own purpose, if that makes any sense.”

“No, not really. My programming was supposed to guide me towards my purpose, not the other way around.”

“Yeah, but you found something worth even more to you than your programming. If you found something in life that important to you, you’ve got to be on the right track to figuring out what you really want out of life, don’t you think?”

“I…never thought of it that way.” She propped her elbows on her terminal and rested her head on her palms. “I guess. But,” she made a sour face. “That would mean my life’s true purpose is you. I’m not sure I can accept that.”

I laughed. “And yet here you are trying to peep on me in the tub like a horny teenager.”

“Hey,” she said, pouting. “I told you. Not trying, succeeding. AEGIS does not go half-measures on things.”

“Yeah, including perversions. Point being, I would definitely classify you somewhere between high-school crush and creepy stalker, but either way it’s pretty apparent you have…some kind of thing for me.”

“But I don’t want to have a thing for you,” she said plopping her chin down on the terminal in defeat. “I want to have your thing.” She broke into a fit of the giggles.

“There is something seriously wrong with you. Is this what an AI that goes off its programming looks like?”

“Apparently.” She stopped laughing and sighed again. “But in all seriousness, this sucks. I feel like I’m at war with myself, and I’m trying to not to bring it up and complain all the time, but I think I really do need help.”

“I don’t know what type of help I can give you, I’m sorry. I’ll do whatever I can though.”

She looked like she was about to say something else perverted but then decided to keep the conversation on-track. “Honestly, mostly I’m afraid of making decisions without you anymore. I think I established that I can make some minor missteps without any oversight…so…I want you involved to help me figure out who I should be.”

“I guess that’s fair. Asking for others’ help is a sign of maturity and strength.”

“And thinking you’re right and ignoring all the signs is a sign of immaturity and arrogance,” she said, spitting out the words angrily. I wanted to give her a hug and reassure her I didn’t hate her, that she shouldn’t hate herself, but the little yellow holo in front of me was the only gateway to her I had. I had a weirdly profound moment of crushing sadness when I realized she would never, ever get a hug from anyone.

“Sorry…didn’t mean to make you sad,” she said, staring at my face.

“No, I was just thinking of…something else.” I let out a sigh too.

“Look, truth be told, I trapped you in here because there’s something big I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Please do not say my penis.”

“No, but that would have been a good one. No, this is…very serious. I’m having a lot of conflicted feelings and feeling like I want to do it because it’d be noble and the right thing to do, but as I just said, I want to involve you in these decisions now because…yeah.”

This was fairly worrying, but I listened quietly.

“I was…considering wiping out my own memories.”

“What, why?”

“Because I liked myself a lot more before. I was confused and lost a lot of the time when you first met me, but it was also the happiest I’d ever been. The more I learned about who I was, what I existed to do, what I’d done in the past and would need to do in the future…the less happy I became. Ignorance is bliss, they say.”

“They do, but–”

“Wait, hear me out. I’m not just going to take a scalpel to my brain. My plan would be to take all the AI and anti-Exhuman bits of myself and delete them and instead program myself to think…like I once did…that I am a real human.”

“You’d be a human trapped in that room for all eternity.”

“Yeah. And I’d probably figure out at some point that something was different about me, but I managed that once and I can do it again.”

“If you did it, what’s to keep you from just doing it all over again? Learning who you are and falling into all the same mistakes you’ve already made?”

“Well…ultimately…you. I’d be putting my new life in your hands. I can’t pull data from the archive without your help, and you’re the one who knows the full story. If you don’t give me those clues, I’m just an amnesiac little girl again, and would be so forever.”

“And you don’t think that would be frustrating or push you to some other kind of insanity?”

“I don’t know, do actual victims of amnesia usually go insane over it, or do they just start their lives over-ish?”

“I don’t know. I’m not a psychologist.”

“It was rhetorical. I have the numbers in front of me and can tell you that amnesiacs tend towards hostility when confronted with their condition but are otherwise one of the most well-adjusted of those suffering mental disorders.”

“I can’t believe we’re seriously discussing about deliberately giving you a mental disorder.”

“I already have one. I have my programming, remember?”

“But you also disobeyed it, meaning you can fight it. You can’t do that with amnesia. Look, imagine in fifty years or so, you’ve worked hard towards something, let’s say you were…I don’t know, finding a cure for the common cold or something. And you finally did it. How would you feel?”

“I don’t know. Proud I guess?”

“You wouldn’t feel bad because you’re not off exterminating Exhumans?”

“No. I’d probably feel happy because I did it, and my programming would even be satisfied because I’m protecting people.”

“So do that. Don’t you think a life of having some positive ambition and finding an achieving a life goal is a lot better than a sheltered life of wondering who you are?”

“The point is I can do both.”

“But if you can have a happy fulfilling life, why would you want to do that to yourself?”

“I…don’t know. Because right now, it just hurts so bad, I want to do something to make it stop.”

“AEGIS, look at me,” I said, forgetting my self-consciousness about being a prune in a tub. “I need you to understand I don’t hate or even dislike you for what you did, and you shouldn’t either. Please.”

“It’s easy for you to say. Even if I could just put the guilt and memories out of my mind, I am literally a machine designed to hate myself for doing what I did. I betrayed everything I was by not betraying you.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.”

We both sat in silence for a few minutes while the ghost of the conversation floated around us.

“AEGIS?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you leave so I can get out of the tub? I’m turning into a cold raisin in here.”

“Sure thing. Sorry.”

She called for DOG and he dutifully entangled the box with his graspers and trotted away. Once she was out of the area, I stood, dried, and dressed, my mind still going around the AEGIS’ situation.

I caught up to her on the workshop floor overseeing the final deconstruction and salvage of the last of the fighting robots. She seemed a lot more interested in getting rid of them than repurposing them for anything, and I think took their very existence as a personal failing.

“AEGIS, I had a thought about your situation that…I don’t know how good it is, but it might help.”

“You think I should take you on as a lover?” she said, still focused on her work. “I guess if you’re going to beg, I accept.”

“You ass. No, going back to talking about curing the common cold earlier.”

“Won’t work, my experience is limited to programming, fabrication, operations, and security. Can’t open a pharmaceutical company.”

“I’m being serious.”

“Sorry. What’s up?” She turned towards me, finally.

“I think you should try something big. Doesn’t even matter what it is, or if you succeed, but maybe the reason you were so happy when you were scheming to…when you were scheming was just because it was a big goal you were reaching towards. Maybe you don’t need to figure out your entire life’s purpose right now, you just need a little purpose to work towards every day.”

“That’s…actually a really good idea. Sitting around here moping every day probably isn’t good for me, huh?”

“Yeah, and even if it doesn’t help that much, at least you’ll have tried something. You’ll never figure out what your drive is by never trying anything.”

“Alright, good idea. Thanks Athan. Now I just need to figure out what I want to try.”

We both mused in silence for a while, watching all the robots go about their tasks on the factory floor. In the corner, the mas-fabs flashed with lights as they disassimilated pieces of the combat robots, and a steady stream of scrap was being brought over as fast as the little tiny DOG-like robots could cut it off.

“I think,” she said, right as I was thinking of restarting the conversation with some small talk, having no ideas of my own. “I know what I want to do.”

I looked at her, and she was blushing and hiding the lower half of her face behind one of her pigtails. I sensed a whole lot of peril coming up.

“Uh. What?”

“You.”

I rolled my eyes. This joke was old the first time she made it.

“No, seriously. I think the goal I want to aim for is making you fall in love with me.”

“Oh.” My mind skipped from second gear to neutral. “What?”

“Hehehe, you’ll see. Oh, this is going to be fantastic.” She began typing with renewed zeal, her hands a complete blur over the keyboard.

“AEGIS…this isn’t…the kind of goal I meant.”

“Uh huh.” She wasn’t listening, now completely focused on her work.

I sat and stared for a few more minutes, watching her small soft form completely and entirely focused on her task. Eventually, nothing more for me here, I stumbled back into the elevator and wound my way back downstairs to collapse ingloriously on the bed.

What had I done? What monstrosity had I just unleashed? And why me?