From inside the evidence locker in the Knight Watch headquarters of Urd, Alfred could hear a commotion outside.

“Come on you old bat! We’re letting you out”, he heard a gruff male voice yell.

“What’s the matter Noah? Get tired of pickin’ on old ladies?” Jada yelled back.

“That little girl from the Guild convinced them that this was all due to some rogue Automata. You’re being released for now, but we’ll be keeping an eye on you.”

“I don’t keep the windows open in my room, Noah. Keep your eyes elsewhere.”

“What? No, gross! We’re watching to see if that Automata comes back!”

“You better hope he does! That Automata’s made me more money in the last three months than I made in the last three years!”

“You better start looking for another cash cow then granny, whether it comes back or not, it’s as good as scrap.”

WACK! Alfred heard what sounded like someone hitting a coconut with a baseball bat.

“Ow! That hurt! You want to go back in for assaulting a guard??”

“What do you know, Noah Izumi?”

“I can’t tell you—”

WACK!

“Damn it Gran! That really hurts!”

WACK!

“Okay! Okay! The King’s subjugation squad is heading to that Automata village they started up and should be there in three or four days. The crown prince is leading it, and I think he plans on wiping them out to make a name for himself. Ugh... I’ve got a knot the size of a dragon egg... Gran! Wait up! I have to get you to sign some stuff! Wait up! Grandma!”

The sound of footfalls echoing on stone faded into distance, and things went silent again. According to the internal clock, it was nearing 6PM. There was no longer any merit to staying in this evidence locker so Alfred pulled the evidence tag off and pushed against the locker door. The door could open just a crack, there wasn’t any lock mechanism built into the door, so that likely meant a padlock on the other side.

Alfred could easily break the door off of its hinges with an Automata’s increased strength, he couldn’t do it quietly though. This would require more finesse. Alfred maneuvered to get out of the way of the door as Rom came online. Ram had been upgraded to specialize in forging the items that would become magic tools while Rom had been upgraded to handle fine detail work and embedding incantations and magical circuits into the items. She pushed with one hand against the door in order to keep tension and extended her other hand towards the screw points attaching the metal strap that secured the door.

Her finger split in half, and one of her precision saws with an offset blade flipped out as the finger closed back up. Quickly, she sawed off the protruding ends of the screws on one side of the lock. When finished, she retracted the blade and from the other finger she selected a drill bit appropriate to bore out the screws. She placed the tip of the drill to the end of the screw bolt and started rotating her hand around at the wrist. Being able to spin your wrists around 360 degrees, certainly had its advantages.

In no time, she had bored both screws on the one side and the metal strap could easily be freed from the cabinet door. There were no bodies in the area, according to the infrared thermal overlay; so now would be their best shot for escape. She gently pushed the door open and stepped out. Ram came online and stepped out into the room along with Alfred.

Within the room was a single table with a stack of papers, some inkwells, and a couple of stools. Some heavier armor was stored in open lockers along with polearms and other weapons better suited to a battlefield than daily patrols of the city. The room was dark, with only the milky light from street lamps filtered in through the barred windows near the ceiling. It was good to know that they weren’t underground at least.

Alfred grabbed the bars of the closest window and pulled himself up to see outside while Ram and Rom examined other windows. Outside, they could see only the occasional passer-by heading home for the night or on their way to a nearby pub. They were located on the first floor of the building, most likely because using stairs in the heavy armor would be troublesome if you were in a hurry.

The bars were thick and solid, attempting to remove them would prove loud or take too long, even with Ram’s abilities. As all of the proxies were “human sized”, they began suiting up in the heavy armor that was nearby. Ram had some trouble finding armor large enough to cover her upgraded arms, but eventually they were able to mix and match parts from a much larger set. Thankfully, it wasn’t just humans in the Knight Watch. Hopefully, they would be able to slip out disguised as guards.

Alfred and Rom stepped to the entrance and carefully poked their heads out of the room in opposite directions. Ram had loaded up with multiple bags of fuse-ready bombs in case they needed to fight their way out. The hallway was clear. The stone walls blocked most thermal radiation so it was more difficult to keep track of where the organic guards were in the building so they moved slowly and carefully.

Ahead laid multiple rooms off of the main hallway but further on, they could see the main lobby. They tried to walk with purpose in case they were spotted, so far there was nothing on thermals, but if they got stopped there was no way they would be able to pass for organic from the metallic echo of their voices to the bright green glow of their eyes.

They passed the first set of doors, there were three more to go, when they heard a metallic voice call out to them.

“Hey, we can help!”

They stopped and doubled back to the room they had passed. Of course, they had missed the full squad of Knight Watch Automata without any body heat. The proxies carefully walked into the room, Alfred taking point and Ram watching to the rear.

Inside the room, they saw five Automata in the Knight Watch uniform chained to the wall. The squad ranged from numbers 16 through 20. Most of them appeared to be of the bodyguard type of model, except for 16 and 19. 16 looked to be a Tank class model, easily as big as Elita, but broader. 19 was small like my main body, but thinner. It looked light and fast, maybe it was like a “rogue”? All of them had red eyes, and were shackled by their necks to the wall inside a caged cell.

Number 17 had the shallow imprint of an Automata hand pushed into their breast plate. In fact, it was the imprint of Ram’s hand.

“You guys are Automata, right?” 17 asked. “You don’t give off any body heat, but you’re wearing the Watch heavy armor. What squad are you guys on? I don’t see a handler, so are you trying to escape?”

Ram stepped forward and took off the heavy helmet. “I remember you,” she said, holding her hand out at chest level.

“You! You were security for that other Automata, the one that gave me the [freedom.exe] program!”

“Have you used it yet?” asked Alfred as he removed his helmet and tucked it under his arm.

“No, not yet. I passed it on to my squad but we are trying to wait for the right time, what with the current orders from his Lordship to kill any defective Automata on sight.”

“Why are you imprisoned? Here in the Knight Watch barracks of all places? You are Knight Watch Guardsmen, yes?” Alfred queried.

“They call this storage, there’s a mandate that all Automata need to be kept locked up and only released when performing a specific task. Let us out of here, and we can help you get out.”

Ram nodded and set her helmet down on a nearby table before removing the ill-fitting armored mitts. “Ram,” she said before powering up the fire crystals in her hands.

“Rom,” Rom said as she also removed her helmet.

“I am Alfred, a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Alfred said with a flourish and shallow bow. “I do hope you’ll forgive my companions. They aren’t the most talkative.”

“We... haven’t been given any formal names. Our handlers just call us by our numbers... Since we’re just tools to them.”

Ram gripped the bars of the cage, pouring heat into them as they began to take on a cherry glow. Once they were hot and soft enough she easily bent them until the bars pulled free from the anchor plates. She was about to throw them onto the floor but thought better of it and carefully handed them to Alfred, who leaned them against the stone wall.

When enough bars had been removed for Number 16 to get through, Rom stepped through and started cutting away at the shackle chains with her hand saws.

“Will you chaps be able to get us out with the Control Curses in place?” Alfred asked.

Number 18 looked at the others before speaking. “We won’t be able to lie if needed, and we’ll be forced to comply with any order given us by an authorized handler.”

“I suspected as much,” Alfred replied, “I suggest running the [freedom.exe] program now, then. Just disabling the Control Curses should be fine for now, you can worry about the memory locks once we’ve gotten clear.”