Alfred powered up and looked around. Next to him, Rom was going through her own boot and connection sequences. In the cart with them were Number 17 and Rebecca. Rebecca had been quiet and serious before recovering her memories, but now she seemed just crushed. She cried— or at least the Automata version of it— for a long time at first. We all expected that her children had met the same fate as her, but trying to track them down would be next to impossible.

The cart was making good progress along the forest road, there was no way of telling if it was Jaff or Merne that thought they were driving the other one but they were humming a happy tune. The sky was clear and the ground was dry. I assumed that the others were walking along, everyone seemed to be lost in their own thoughts.

“So, what happened?” asked 17, “something really bad must have happened to your Master, right? You guys were out for so long, we should arrive in Automatown sometime after Moora passes Lana.”

I never knew the names of this world’s three moons. I assumed that the moons were what 17 was talking about.

“You could say that,” Alfred said as he tested his joints and limbs, which had grown a bit stiff from being outdoors and offline. “Master Prime managed to nearly kill himself testing a new invention and very nearly took us out with him!”

“I’m getting less excited about meeting him. He sounds like a dangerous person.”

“Yes, well, I wouldn’t go so far as to call Master Prime dangerous, but he can certainly be absent minded. Don’t get me wrong he can be clever at times, but then he can also get hyper focused in the wrong direction at other times.”

“We had a squad leader once that would get super focused on cleaning their armor at weird times, and totally miss their meal breaks. Then other times, they were constantly switching up from thing to thing during patrol. It was hard to keep up with them.”

“Yes, sounds like your squad leader may have had a similar issue as Master Prime then.”

“You and Rom don’t seem that way though?”

Rom had been watching the trees go by and looking into the woods. She wasn’t watching in an alert way, just staring off into the woods and occasionally spotting a bird or some other animal. She turned her gaze over to 17 and the mention of her name.

“We proxies tend to be more focused and of single purpose. In a sense, Master Prime still has his focus divided all over the place as it’s split between all of his proxies but for each individual proxy... it is much calmer, mentally. We don’t have the constant barrage of ideas or different things clamoring for our mental resources, so... we can just focus on the tasks we’re given. We are aware of what is going on with Master Prime at all times, of course, as well as with our fellow proxies but those things tend to feel... like something in the back of your mind?” Rom explained as she cleaned her glasses with the hem of her dress.

“That’s a pretty strange sort of existence,” mused 17. She had removed her own armor, as well as all the Knight Watch gear. Her frame was quite basic and lean. Height-wise, she was similar to Sentinel Prime, but build-wise, she reminded me of a mechanical skeleton without all of the Knight gear on. She looked comfortable though, much more so than Rebecca, who had covered herself with a blanket and curled into a shivering ball. I couldn’t help but notice as 17 absently stroked Rebecca’s back while looking disinterested.

“I think I’d like to be given a name,” 17 said out of nowhere. “I have no idea what my original name might have been, I think I was taken as a baby. So really all of my memories are from after becoming an Auto.”

“You could give yourself any sort of name you like,” Alfred offered. Rom went back to staring at the woods going by.

“It’s not really the same, though, is it?” 17 asked.

“What of your squad fellows? Would you like them to come up with a name for you?”

“I thought about that. But everyone has a lot that they are dealing with right now,” she said, giving Rebecca a pat. “I mean, I love these guys, but it seems like all of them had something really terrible happen to them before becoming an Auto, you know?”

Alfred nodded sagely as he fingered his moustache. “If I might be so presumptuous, there is a name that I think might work well for you.”

“Prowl,” Rom said, without turning around. Alfred gave her a dirty look, or at least projected “glare” at her. Rom continued to ignore him, but smiled inwardly.

“Prowl?” 17 repeated. “I know what the word means, but how does it fit?”

“There was a legend from the time before Master Prime became Master Prime. In this legend, a terrible civil war was being raged in a distant land between giant mechanical beings. One faction led by an oppressive tyrant that had risen to power on the backs of the working class. The other, made up of those who had previously been in power and were now fighting for their very survival.

“The two armies had consumed all of the resources of the land and nearly laid all to waste during their war. Outnumbered and on the brink of destruction, the commander of the resistance left his homeland with only a ship’s worth of soldiers. He was pursued by the tyrant himself along with his elite guard and powerful mages.

“They were overcome and both ships were lost only to find themselves in a new land that knew nothing of their war and populated by tiny but intelligent creatures. The tyrant saw an opportunity to enslave the smaller and weaker inhabitants of this new land while the general picked up his war axe to defend the new land and its people.”

“That sounds like a really interesting legend, but what does it have to do with Prowl?”

“I’m coming to that.”

“Right, sorry.”

“So among the soldiers of the resistance was one named Prowl. Prowl was brave and a fierce warrior, but he also possessed an inquisitive and analytical mind. Before becoming a soldier, he had been a keeper of the peace, much like the Knight Watch in Urd. In fact, he was a detective that would solve crimes and pursue criminals before the war broke out.”

“I was never any sort of detective, and I don’t know that I have an analytical mind in any way... but I see the similarities of being an agent of the law.”

“Here’s the good part,” Alfred said in a conspiratorial whisper and leaning in close. “Prowl’s identification number was 17.”