Marvin dove to the side as the mech tossed two drones against the wall, crushing their hulls. It decapitated two more with a swipe of its hand. Soon, half the room became a bloodbath of mechanical parts, while the other half contained Marvin, ducked behind the Bessmer chair.
Once Sunwoo kills the guards, will he turn on me?
But there was no way out; steel corpses blocked both exits. Marvin could only watch as one by one, the drones dwindled. The second to last guard's head got collapsed into the wall, leaving behind a gray pancake. The last drone flew towards Marvin, somehow breaking into two halves once it hit the Bessmer chair.
And then it was just two of them: Marvin huddled behind the Bessmer chair, and Sunwoo towering over him, his mech's eyes gleaming royal blue. The machine no longer rose up and down like it was breathing, and Marvin wasn't sure if that was a good thing. Did that mean the transfer had worked, and Sunwoo was now living inside of the mech, or had he become a mindless killing machine?
The silence stretched on. Marvin straightened his titanium spinal cord, then took a step forward. Sunwoo did not move.
He might be letting me pass.
Marvin didn't dare think what he would do after he passed. He just knew that the whole of Ainsel AI would be after him.
Marvin took another step forward, heading to the door on his right. One more step. Still no movement from the mech.
Then came a sound. A crackle of a speaker coming to life—Sunwoo's voice box.
"Where are you going to go?"
Despite the monotone modulation, there was a primal fear in Sunwoo's voice. In place of that 10-foot-tall mountain of metal might as well have stood a child.
"Sunwoo?" Marvin said quietly.
"It's me," Sunwoo replied.
Marvin looked around for a moment. Outside, the alarms were still at full volume and the halls were still dark. Reinforcements would get here any moment.
"I'm gonna run," Marvin said redundantly. He thought of Renee's apartment, Caroline's farm, Ishaan's garage, Ella's workshop. "I… I might know somewhere safe."
Sunwoo seemed to sense the doubt in his voice, but he ventured anyway, "Could I come with you?"
Marvin felt numb in the brain. Here was finally someone like him, someone who could know what he was going through, who was created in the worst way possible. And instead of rage against the one who made him, he was scared for his life.
"Of course," Marvin said.
"Thank you," Sunwoo whispered.
-----
It was easy to escape Ainsel's lab when Marvin and Sunwoo could run through every wall they came across. It was hard to tell how Sunwoo felt throughout it all. He acted just like a machine, and yet those few words he'd spoken had felt so human.
They didn't talk on the way out, nor when they got into Amir's shuttle that sped away, disappearing into the traffic streams and heading to Sector 9. There, they swapped shuttles, spent an hour flying to Sector 79, swapped shuttles again, then flew back into Sector 8 to Renee's apartment.
For the first few minutes after they entered, everything was chaos. Windows were barred, doors were locked and hacked for maximum security. Questions flooded Marvin and Sunwoo, and Amir had to pry everyone away from them. As things started to settle down, Marvin finally was able to identify the others in the room: Ella, Caroline, Ben, Renee, and Ishaan.
"Everyone sit down," Amir ordered. "This—"
"Are we safe staying here?" Caroline asked.
"Yes—"
"Safer than the farm?"
"Yes. This is the only place that can't be publicly traced to us. Your farm, Ella's workshop and house, my office and my house—they're all on record." He pulled out his tablet and turned it towards Marvin. The screen was all white. "This is from your stream. Something in that room Saeyung took you to blocked your signal. No sound, no visual."
Marvin's heart fell. "It's all gone?"
"Just that part." Amir scrolled forward on the video and the recording returned, showing Marvin jumping out of the building and falling towards the fourth floor. "She couldn't have expected you to save Sunwoo. The rest of this recording has enough proof—I'm sure of it."
Marvin couldn't quite feel relieved. He wanted that memory gone from his brain.
Amir walked up to Sunwoo, somehow looking large even as the mech loomed over him. "You didn't know about this?"
Sunwoo shook his head—a completely steady movement. His voice was steady, too, as he replied, "She told me it was a syncing test, then trapped me in the chair and started uploading me to the mech. I don't know what she wanted, but the transfer got interrupted when Marvin came in."
"Interrupted?" Amir pressed.
"I don't know. I remember feeling like I wasn't supposed to be awake."
Did I make a mistake barging in? Marvin thought suddenly. I was trying to save his life.
"You don't know why Saeyung wanted to upload you?"
Jeez, he just got out, Marvin thought, cringing. But he understood Amir's bluntness; they could not afford counter-evidence to his recording.
"She said it was her final vision for Legionnaire," Sunwoo said.
"Were you to be its AI?"
Sunwoo tapped his forehead with a metal finger. "I don't know."
"She really told you nothing?"
Caroline stepped forward and gave the police chief a look. "That's alright. Did Saeyung mention anything about old trials?" she asked. "Anything about sending the test subjects to the psych ward?"
"Yes, yes," Sunwoo said, looking up suddenly. "She talked about her future plans outside of Legionnaire."
No one in the room moved, but it was as if they were suddenly much closer to him, begging him to explain.
"She said…" Sunwoo tapped his forehead again. "Shit. She told me…"
He kept tapping, harder and harder until it seemed like he was trying to pierce a hole in his head. Renee grabbed his arm and held it down.
"We can wait," Caroline said.
"No, no, it's there," Sunwoo muttered. "She told me… she told me…" And he kept repeating the words. She told me, she told me…
A deep unease crept through Marvin's circuits. There was something about the way those words repeated in the same tone, as if Sunwoo had malfunctioned and was stuck in a loop.
Did I do this? Is this because the transfer didn't complete?
"Alright, don't worry," Amir cut in. "Saeyung must've put in a failsafe. Wiped some of your memories."
Sunwoo shook his head. "It's there, it's right there—"
"We'll find a way to get your memories back. Hallowshard will help." Amir turned on his heels and headed to the exit. "I need to go to headquarters. It's the only place I can safely send this to James." He held up Marvin's recording.
"I'll go with you," Caroline piped up. "I can get the files. They're in your office, right?"
The same files in which they'd found the suicide victims' connection to Ainsel AI. They were indeed stored on Amir's computer and needed to be removed before Ainsel found them.
Marvin primed his voice box to say he'd go too, but the words wouldn't form. He realized that he did not want to be alone with Amir and Caroline.
You think they want to be left to fend for themselves? Marvin knew he should go. It was for the benefit of everybody.
But both of them were hiding things, and that made them more in league with each other than with him. If he went, he felt like he would be intruding on something, not to mention feeling like the unsafe one rather than their protector.
So he said nothing, and no one else said anything—there was nothing they could really do. Caroline didn't seem fazed, though Marvin couldn't imagine she felt any better.
"We'll be back soon," Amir said to the others. "No one leaves this room."
Then he and Caroline left without a goodbye.
-----
It was getting dark by the time Caroline and Amir reached Sector 58's police station. Most of the tower's lights were off, rendering it an eerie obelisk in a sea of neon. They landed on a pad by the upper floors and headed to a door that, although glass, showed only darkness beyond.
They stopped periodically to look around at the shuttle streams. Ainsel could've connected Marvin to Amir by now, and if so, it was likely they'd send people to raid his office. If any of the shuttles started heading towards them, they'd run inside and put the building on lockdown.
Caroline had been slightly disappointed when no one had offered to come with her, but she would have turned them down anyway. She needed to be alone to disarm Amir—she was long overdue to learn something new about the police chief.
They pushed through the door and entered a carpeted hall. Amir pressed his tablet to the wall, scanned his fingerprint against the screen, then remotely turned on the lights of their floor, the 92nd. The ceiling bars flickered on one by one, rhythmically displaying more and more of the hall. The walls were an uneven mix of concrete and glass; some rooms were on full display while other rooms were completely hidden, or only had a sliver of a window.
Amir's office was six floors above. They headed towards the elevator, Caroline trailing behind, out of the chief's view. Once they reached the office, Amir would have to go to the SCIF room—the place to send confidential info—and she'd be alone for a bit. That was her chance to dig around.
"What if Hosaka sides with Saeyung?" she asked as they got in the elevator.
"They won't."
"What if they think Marvin's recording is fake?"
"They won't."
Caroline winced. The elevator dinged—98th floor. They walked out.
"And we still have Sunwoo and our files," Amir said. "Hosaka will believe us. James and his Inspectors aren't perfect, but they have morals."
Caroline raised an eyebrow. "Do you know Inspector Kobayashi?"
"Vaguely."
"He called you 'sir'."
Amir paused and turned around. "When?"
Caroline felt a slight chill. She considered dropping the subject, but decided to see it through. She explained it was during their meeting at Hosaka Tower.
"It's just a formality," Amir said, though his scrunched eyebrows said that he didn't believe that either.
Don't press, Caroline warned herself. No one's around to protect you if you say something wrong.
Amir opened the door to his office with a keycard and fingerprint. The place was the same as it was four months ago when Caroline had visited to talk about Sangeet's stolen guns. A desk in the back, a bookshelf, two chairs, and a vacant coat rack. Amir turned on the lone lamp on his desk, turned on his computer, and handed Caroline a few hard drives.
"I'll be back soon." He pointed to a row of files on the screen. "Make sure you delete those after they're uploaded."
Caroline nodded.
"And keep watch outside. If a shuttle even starts heading in your direction, call me."
Another nod.
The man patted her shoulder—a reluctant way of saying thank you, maybe—and left the room. Caroline stared at the door for a moment, trying to gauge how long he would be gone. Despite her mistrust, she found herself wishing him safety.
She plugged a hard drive into the computer and began uploading the first few hundred files. While they transferred, she stalked through the room, cautiously at first, simply observing things. Amir was possibly the most minimalistic person in the world—there were no mementos, no family photos, not even a photo of his missing sister.
Caroline made her way back to the computer. She paired her tablet with the monitor, using it as a second screen, and perused the other files unrelated to Ainsel AI. There was nothing that stood out to her, just cases and suspects and station logistics. She tried to find anything personal to Amir, anything that hinted at his past. Nothing.
She looked through the bookshelf next. Like most bookshelves nowadays, there were only two physical books that acted as decorations, and a collection of larger drives and paper files. There was also an assortment of plastic bags, most of them empty.
Caroline pursed her lips in frustration. This place was too clean. She went back to the desk and noted the frame of Amir's training certificate, the only dated thing regarding the man. It meant nothing; it could've easily been forged.
Still, Caroline picked it up and turned it in her hands. In the frame, below the certificate, was a small photo of a man holding it. If that was Amir, then the years had done a number on him. He looked so much livelier in the photo, smiling like he had a whole lifetime ahead of him.
I don't remember how Amir looked when I was younger, Caroline thought. She stared at the photo of the young man, trying to see if she could connect the facial features. Something there may have been familiar, but it was too far removed to fully register.
Then she felt it. That familiar prickling in her head, like her brain was being stabbed with needles. No no no.
Her hands began to tremble, and she quickly placed the picture frame back on the desk. It was too late. Her eyes blinked rapidly. Her vision darkened. A numbness spread throughout her body, consuming her consciousness.
Stay awake. It's just a picture. It's just—