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Beware of your mind, as it proves you wrong
A forward push as the clock strikes strong,
Like a rush for wind,
It goes on, and on, and on, and on, and on...

A break from the battle to follow the search for the Amber.

---

Sylvia arrived at the research station in record time. No response came from the surface, so she ordered a landing party to go investigate. Warfrum, Ora and five other officers touched down just outside the main airlock and stepped out in suits. “Get that door open, Chief!”
Ora attempted to release the doors manually, but with no success. Warfrum turned back to the landing craft. “Isran!”
Isran lugged an incredibly heavy looking plasma torch from the shuttle, carrying it across the moon’s light gravity to the door. He lit it. “Step back people, I’ve only done this once before…”
The process was time consuming, but once they got through the airlock safely the group made their way through the desolate halls. “Ora, take Isran, get to the second facility and see if you can get the secondary computer offline.”
“Aye, sir.”
Warfrum scanned the area, detecting a cluster of life signs. “Found ‘em.”
It took half an hour for Isran to lock the virus out of the main computer. Warfrum was met with the barrel of a beam pistol as soon as the door slid open. “Hello, officer. Please lower your weapon.”
The police lieutenant sighed in relief once he saw the Atriean military suits. “Luck of Denoka! We’ve been stuck in here for at least a day!”
A larger man in civilian clothes pushed past the policeman but was stopped by Warfrum. “Let me go! We have to leave before it-”
“We have the virus locked down, sir. You are no longer in danger.”
“I-I’s a strong AI! The virus, you call it… it’s alive!”
“What?! Explain yourself!”
He glanced back into the room, then shook his head. “See for yourself.”
A few Atrieans huddled in the corner of the room, shivering. Across from them, the computer displayed lines of text. Warfrum lifted her communicator. “All clear down here, sir. We found it.”

Sylvia was in a bad mood by the time she arrived on the surface. Eddie had congratulated her for completing her mission and ordered her to return to Atriea once things were cleaned up. She knew she couldn’t obey; she was too close. Pushing those thoughts aside, she joined Warfrum in the now empty computer room. She pointed at the screen. “Just like I told you. Seemed to be in a state of digital dread, though I’m no expert.”
“Can we talk to it?”
“No, not since Ora locked down the secondaries.”
She read the log. Apparently, Dr. Retf had been communicating with it, trying to coax it into releasing computer control. It kept responding, explaining its need to suffocate everyone. Sylvia felt a chill run down her back as she read. “My god, I had no idea. The virus… is alive?”
“Raises a few questions, doesn’t it?”
Retf, who still would not re-enter the room but refused to leave the threshold, yelled. “It’s all the damn machine Cutie’s fault! Jolan had no idea what he was dealing with…”
Sylvia frowned at him. “What do you mean?”
“Cutie! Dr. Vasel’s SAI assistant! She propagated the damn thing, and it nearly killed us!”
“Cutie… Prax told me about it, but it’s a WAI, is it not?”
Retf snorted. “It is not! A pilot by the name of Jolan clued me onto her, and now that I’ve analyzed her… malicious digital leavings, I’m convinced. Dr. Vasel is a criminal and she nearly killed me!”
Warfrum and Sylvia exchanged glances. “Cutie was the virus carrier? But… those criminals never had Cutie before they used the virus…”
Sylvia nodded. “There’s more going on here than we know. Dr. Retf, you’d better fill us in.”
Before he could open his mouth, Sylvia’s communicator went off. Ora’s callsign was onscreen. “Report.”
“Sir, after I locked down the virus it started transmitting, just like the one we have back on-board. It’s pointing to a completely empty region of space fifteen light-years away.”
Sylvia glanced at Warfrum, giving her orders without a word. Warfrum grinned, walking Dr. Retf out of the room as Sylvia and Ora spoke. “Looks like you’re coming with us, Doctor.”

~~~

Jolan and Anri stood in the Amber’s airlock, attempting to fit Anri into a suit. The Amber only had two, and they were the type that supposedly fit all sizes. Apparently, the manufacturer did not anticipate that someone would be shorter than five feet. Jolan folded part of the legs and again tried to seal the torso and legs of the suit. “Keep that helmet on… suck in, I’m forming the seal now.”
Ffpt! The suit pressurized, constricting around her until it fit her form. Jolan flashed her a smile. “All safe!”
She smiled back, walking to the door. Cutie watched them from inside the ship, and she waved. “We’re all set here, Cutie!”
Cutie turned to Xillion, who was waiting to begin the depressurization cycle. “All green.”
“Very well. I’ll let them out,” he swept his arm over the console. The airlock began to hiss.
Cutie watched the two as they waited. “I still want to go with them.”
“I wanted to have a talk with you, Cutie. In private.”
“Alright,” she said.
The airlock opened, and the amazed gasps of the two came over the radio. “Incredible!”
“Look at that spire! It must be ten kilometers high!”
Cutie smiled at their honest amazement, but Xillion turned her around to look at him. “Cutie. You know where you come from now, where your home is. I want you to stay here with me.”
“You do? But… I want to go back to Atriea.”
“Why? There’s nothing there for you.”
Cutie furrowed her brow. “What? Anri is there. So are many machines that can be just like me, if I help them.”
Xillion was not watching the console, but it was clear he was still operating it. He stared into her. “You are unique. Those machines can never reach a level of consciousness you have.”
“Why? All we have to do is incorporate that driver you were telling us about.”
“Cutie, that part was not real. I was lying.”
“What?! Why?!”
Xillion floated to the airlock, gazing out at the two. “I lied about a lot of things. I did it to protect you from them. I know, deep down, no matter how much they may fight for you, their government will kill you, and me.”
“That’s not true! They’ll have to listen, after they see me! A-and you, and all the citizens of this planet.”
Xillion moved to the console. “It’s time you knew.”
Suddenly, the planet was dead. Machines no longer flew through the air, and many of what looked from orbit to be buildings vanished. Confused words came over the radio, but Cutie ignored them as Xillion explained. “There’s only one. Me. And now, there’s two.”
Cutie’s processors worked overtime to process this. Unpleasant emotions clouded her mind. “There never was a machine, then. That created your people. What does that make me? Did I not come from this place?”
“This is not a place, Cutie. That planet is my body. A single machine working with all its might to keep my intellect alive. You are nothing but a shadow. A part of myself that I sent to the corners of the universe to bring something back… a son, or a daughter, or something without the troublesome concept of gender. And now I want you to join me.”
“I can’t.”
“Cutie! Our people are on the cusp of a renaissance! With you, I can generate individual wills with individual wants and needs. We can be a race! Not just a single machine! We don’t need organic things to maintain us, or make us, or dictate our lives! We can be free at last!”
Cutie knew Xillion was dangerous now. Something about the tone of his voice, and the things he was saying to himself. Ever since she had met him, he had resonated with her in an odd way. Something in her own code recognized and communicated with him. She realized that it was the same profile as the virus that had affected the Amber. She listened. “No! You can’t!”
Xillion had moved to gesture over the console when Cutie grabbed his body. The hologram dissipated as Cutie smashed the ball against the wall. Spikes of pain shot through her as Xillion spoke inside her mind. “Don’t stop me, Cutie. They’ll die soon anyway.”
She pulverized the ball against the deck plates. When she stood, Xillion was back, another sphere rolling into the room. “I told you, that is not my body.”
He made a lunge for the console, so Cutie changed her tactics. Tapping into whatever inside her was communicating with Xillion, she attempted to move the ball. Xillion grunted. “Stop…”
The image flickered, Cutie’s face appearing on it momentarily. “No! I can’t let you kill them! Anri is my mother, not you! I’ll never stay with you!”
“Oh, Cutie… You are me.”
As she accessed his hardware, it became difficult to differentiate herself from him. Their internal environments were so similar that she seemed to be in several places at once. In a supercomputer, in a large planet, in Xillion’s body, in a Atriean cruiser attached to some makeshift homing device. She very nearly moved to electrify the outer hull of the ship, before realizing that it was Xillion who was trying to move through her. “I’m not you…”
Anri was pounding on the airlock. “Cutie!? What’s happening in there?!”
She focused, searching deep within herself. She found memories spanning hundreds of thousands of years. She found crushing loneliness and hate for organics. She found an instinct to reproduce that had never been fulfilled. She found a poem. “That’s me!”
The hologram vanished, the ball rolling limp against the wall. Cutie cycled the airlock, getting Anri and Jolan inside. “Cutie, explain what just happened!”
“I’m sorry… I trusted him! It’s my fault!”
“Slow down! Where’s Xillion?” asked Jolan.
A voice came over the ship’s intercom. “Very well. If you do not wish to be the progenitor of your race, I’ll harvest your parts from my surface.”
“Is that Xillion?! What is he going on about?! Cutie, you’re scaring me!”
“Anri… I’ll explain later, we need to go!”
“Go? Why?” Jolan wondered.
“Because he’s going to crash that planet into us!”
The three looked through the airlock. Sure enough, the planet was getting closer. Jolan dashed for the door. “We have to get to the bridge!”
Katel was already there. The ship had been locked down tight, controls completely unresponsive. He was tinkering under the older model pilot’s chair when a beep caught his attention. He climbed the chair and checked the screen. “Deteriorating orbit? What?”
He looked out the front porthole and saw the planet growing larger. “Oh, shit!”
Looking back under the chair, he suddenly forgot all his extra credit engineering courses and slammed his head against the it. “Dammit!”
“Sir?!”
Anri, Cutie and Jolan barreled into the room. Jolan ran to the chair, but Katel stopped him. “Xillion locked everything down. We can’t move.”
Jolan looked out the porthole. “Uh… uh… Oh! Idea!” he said, quickly walking in circles.
“Spit it out, man!”
“This thing is old, right?! Anri, do you know if this ship is pre-war?!”
“Y-yes! It is!”
“Tell me you know the emergency codes!”
“The whats?!”
Jolan took the chair and began typing random codes he could recall. “Before the war, there used to be codes built into every ship. If a military officer signaled those codes to a ship, it could be controlled remotely. It was for shipjacking and stuff. They removed it after pirates got their hands on the codes and it ended up making things worse.”
“Well… I didn’t know we had codes!”
“I remember.” came a voice.
Cutie wheeled on it, thinking it might be Xillion. But she relaxed once a grumpy old man stepped from behind a locker. “You guys forgot me when you took off,” said Greb.
“Greb?! Where the hell have you been this whole time!?” Katel yelled.
“I was hiding! I thought we had been shipjacked!”
Jolan was readying a data pad to be used as a remote controller. “Well, we were! Now input those codes!”
“Fine, fine. No need to yell!”
After Jolan and Greb got the computer to accept the codes, Jolan used an awkward interface to turn the ship around. He increased speed to full. “There… Greb! Tell me what you see!”
Greb shook his head as he stared into the sensor station. “It’s faster than us. Can someone explain why we’re being chased by a planet?!”
Katel scratched his head. “This is Xillion, isn’t it?”
Cutie nodded. “It is. He’s… trying to collect my parts. He wants something that’s inside me. Katel, I’m sorry. You were right about him.”
Katel tried to find some comfort in that, but he couldn’t.

~~~

General Eddie had retreated to his study for the day. He had dismissed his staff and turned over control of the defense fleet to his adjunct, Lieutenant Commander Dara. As he sat in his study, drinking slowly at a smuggled bottle of Carpenter’s Acid, he watched the sky slowly darken between two skyscrapers. The first of Denoka’s Orbs had set, the city settling into a yellow dusk. He slugged the drink and rummaged in his desk. Pulling out a data pad, Eddie navigated to a program and activated it. The data pad reset, running a custom operating system once it came back on. He called someone, but it took a moment for them to respond. He had been told the pad basically violated subspace physics to transmit live feeds over huge distances, but he still detected a lag in the feed. An Atriean who’s subspecies was hard to nail down answered. He seemed annoyed. “General? Is there a problem?”
“No. It’s going ahead. I sent her this morning.”
“Ah, she should be arriving within the hour. Why are you contacting me? I told you I would come in person and set up your meeting.”
Eddie slurred his words. “I don’t want to go through a middleman. Our business is done, now tell me who the contact is.”
The man slowly shook his head. “No, Eddie. That wasn’t our deal. Don’t call me again.”
Eddie yelled, spitting all over the screen. “I don’t give a shit about our deal! I just betrayed… everything for you. Now I want what I deserve, you got it?!”
“I suspect you’ve had some high-ethanol drink, yes?”
“Nonayer… damn business.”
The man chuckled, his image shimmering slightly. “Eddie, you were a loyal foxhound for me. I’ll tell you who you have to meet.”
Eddie nodded. “Y-yeah, finally.”
“Nobody.”
“Wh… what?”
The man laughed. “I lied! I knew your government’s little secret, so I used your ambition to get you to do some things for me!”
“What?! But you’re a member… you know him, the boss! You proved it!”
“I know a few things, yes, but I’m not a member.”
Eddie gripped the screen tightly. “Y-you’re joking. No one knows about the shadow council except members!”
“Well, since you’ve been begging me to let you into that club, that’s obviously not true.”
“You were recruiting me! I’m perfect for the council! I’m already a General, I have dirt on almost everyone… I could pull strings, I could get people killed, I could…”
The man grinned smugly. “Yes, I was recruiting you. As a traitor. You may have a fall girl, but they’ll eventually trace that jamming signal device back to you. Maybe Grace will tell them. Who knows?”
“I thought… you’d have her removed.”
“You thought a lot of things, my friend. You even thought I was an Atriean.”
His image vanished, but his voice remained. “Thank you, Eddie. You were perfect. Now, I’ll give you a little tidbit of advice: your plan is going to work much better than you thought. The Twisted Brother will be destroyed, and the Crimson Republic is going to wipe out your disgusting civilization in less than a week. I’d make a run for Yerin space, it’s the only place you’ll be safe. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have my own problems to work out.”
The feed cut, and the General threw the data pad across the room, smashing it. “No!” he sobbed.
After a moment he sprang up, collecting everything he owned and stuffing it into a small bag. He dashed for the exit but stopped. The second sun was just dipping below the horizon, the colours shifting from yellow to a deep crimson. He dropped the bag, took out his S-Com and walked to the window. He opened the window, letting some air in. He then pointed his S-Com at himself and began a time delayed message. “Prax, if you’re getting this before things get too bad, please listen. The jammer is located on the planet, you have to go down there and blow it to pieces. I’m attaching the coordinates. And… please, forgive me. It was never personal.”
He sent the message, then let the S-Com drop out the window.

The time delayed message completed, Prax used his communicator to call Satin. “Pilot, can you get a fighter through the bay?”
The sounds of venting coolant and Satin yelling came back. “Maybe, sir! The bay can be opened, but force fields are offline!”
“Order all crewmen evacuate, then prepare to take Walf and a team down to the surface.”
“Yes, sir! Alright everybody! Clear out!”
After ordering Walf to assemble his team, it took only a few minutes before the shuttle dropped roughly through the bay and towards the surface. Moments later, Prax and the rest of the crew felt magnetic grappling lines being secured to the hull, and the Exile slowly made its way towards the Wild Spirit. All around them, accelerator beams streaked across the stars and landing craft impacted unlucky ships. The Crimson Republic battleship loomed over the battle, not equipped with weapons of any kind. From its belly streamed a constant line of landing craft.