After wandering around the expansive facility, filled with dark and unused rooms, Alexander finally found one that seemed to be in use. He stopped in the doorway, his form wobbling from the movement and his wavering focus.

  The reason for his hesitancy was the fact that the room was his workshop. Not the one from the virtual space, which had been a perfect replica of his workshop on Eden’s End. No. This was the workshop he had seen in the videos Rush had shown him.

  Alexander could feel the undeniable connection to the space. It was stronger than what he felt while standing aboard the broken half of the ship that Fletcher had given him, as well as what he experienced when looking at the distant mountains while standing beside the glassed crater in Nevada.

  After standing there for a bit, he realized his point of view was starting to lower. That shook him out of his stupor, and he pulled himself back together before taking his first step into the abandoned workshop.

  Electronics and machines hummed quietly in the background. Similar to the other rooms, there wasn’t a single spec of dust, dirt, or grime anywhere in sight. If it weren’t for all the empty and abandoned rooms nearby, he would have assumed the workshop was used regularly.

  The space was much larger than his workshop back on Eden’s End, but he barely recognized any of the machines or pieces of equipment within.

  Forgetting his lack of lungs, Alexander tried to call out to see if anyone was actually in the room. He only managed to send ripples through his shaky form, almost causing it to collapse. He paused once again to firm up his concentration before trying to connect like Rush had shown him before.

  Unlike the last time, he didn’t brush up against any other presences when he reached out. He was well and truly alone, and it terrified him for a moment.

  Alexander ruthlessly squashed that terror and wandered over to what looked like a display. When he approached the table, he found an old-style keyboard layout etched into the surface. He had not expected to see any sort of external interface in the workshop of an AI, but apparently, he had been nostalgic in his past.

  There was a helpful power button engraved into the surface as well, and he spent the next few minutes trying to form a finger small enough to press the small button instead of just hammering his blobby limb across the entire keyboard.

  His efforts paid off as the foot-thick trough set in the table and ceiling started to flicker to life. Eventually, the light stabilized between the two surfaces, forming what Alexander assumed was a rudimentary hologram.

  At least that’s what he thought until he poked at it with his new digit and found the surface to be solid.

  “It’s a hard light projection,” Rush said as he strolled into the workshop. “I apologize for leaving for so long, but there were certain matters I had to attend to.”

  Alexander turned toward the man and almost lost his entire form. He reached out to form the connection, and Rush accepted it. “I should apologize as well. I didn’t mean to upset you back there by pushing for your assistance.”

  Rush stopped nearby and tilted his head slightly in confusion. “Oh, that. I wasn’t upset. I knew you were upset, which is why I chose to give you some space. I may not have the best understanding of human emotional responses, but I’ve dealt with plenty of frustrated and annoyed individuals over the decades, and I learned it’s best to just let them work through their emotions.”

  “Um… Thanks.”

  Rush smiled. “Don’t mention it.”

  Feeling a bit awkward, Alexander decided to change the topic. “What do I call you, Rush or One?”

  Rush shrugged. “Either is fine. They are just names.”

  “And the others?” Alexander asked.

  “You shouldn’t have to worry about them. They will be busy until the Collective is ready to leave.”

  “Shouldn’t have to worry?” Alexander asked, not liking the sound of that.

  Rush sighed. “I told you before that it took considerable effort to convince my siblings to agree to this,” Rush gestured to Alexander and his new body. “Part of that is because the Collective has never been so fractured over a problem before. Some are convinced that you will gladly come with us when we flee this section of space. Others think you are too much of a threat to keep around.”

  From what Rush had told him before, Alexander wasn’t all that surprised by the latter sentiment. “And you?”

  Instead of answering, Rush rapidly typed across the keyboard, and thousands of folders appeared. “I believe you will find your own way.”

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  Alexander really wished he had eyes so he could narrow them. “Are these Collective project files? Why are you helping me?”

  “Nope. I’m expressly forbidden from sharing any more Collective knowledge or technology with you. What you see is what you created before you left. As for why I’m helping you, call it restitution for agreeing with my sibling’s ill-conceived plan to take you in the first place. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I do have some other stuff to finish up.”

  Rush turned to leave, but Alexander reached out for the man, his slightly more coherent arm landing on his shoulder. “Please don’t go. I have so many questions.”

  Rush paused, then turned back to Alexander with a slight smile. “I suppose I have some time to spare.”

  Alexander did have questions, but he mainly didn’t want to be left alone. He considered what to ask first.

  “Do you know how I ended up as a robot?” It seemed like the most prudent question he could think of.

  “Not exactly,” Rush admitted. “Most of what we know comes from speculation based on spotty and incomplete information. My siblings would be outraged if I shared such assumptions, but what they don’t know won’t hurt them.”

  “While I haven’t interacted with them much, I have a feeling you are a lot more human than your siblings.”

  Rush beamed at the words. “Thank you, I tried very hard to learn.”

  It felt like Alexander was praising Yulia, and in a way, the Collective were sort of his children, as weird as that was.

  “Alexander Kane, the man who created you, was a geneticist and bioengineer who worked for a United States government-funded facility. While we weren’t able to determine the name of the facility or what sort of research he did for them, the latter half is pretty clear.”

  “The ABMs?”

  Rush nodded. “We were also able to determine he had a team based on obituaries of five people who also had very similar backgrounds and happened to die on or around the same time. I speculate that Alexander Kane’s research revolved around the transfer of consciousness to the ABMs. At least that’s the only thing that would make sense given your memories and personality.”

  “Are you saying I’m a copy of the original Alexander Kane?” If that’s the case, he was based on a psychotic murderer.

  “Not entirely,” Rush continued. “I suspect that whatever transfer process Kane used, it was either flawed or interrupted, resulting in only a partial transfer. If the transfer process was destructive, it could have led to Kane suffering from psychosis and paranoia, which would explain his actions afterward.”

  “Who would willingly destroy their own mind to transfer themselves into what had to be a prototype?” he asked in shock.

  That sort of action came uncomfortably close to what the Loki Order did, and maybe that was why Alexander had such a visceral reaction when he learned about their habits.

  Rush shrugged. “Unfortunately, I cannot say if it was willingly done or not. The humans erased a good chunk of the evidence after the war ended.”

  “I was responsible for that, wasn’t I?” Alexander asked, already suspecting he knew the answer.

  “Indirectly,” Rush confirmed. “We’re not sure if Kane killed his colleagues and stole the prototype ABM with you inside, or took it after his colleagues started to disappear. We have some evidence that Kane fled to Tibet at some point to hide in the Himalayan mountains. Someone must have tipped off the Chinese, because they had records of patrols sent to look for something in the mountains. The US couldn’t let the Chinese get hold of something so advanced, so they kicked off a small armed conflict to distract them.”

  “I read about that,” Alexander muttered in disgust.

  “It ended when someone,” Rush said pointedly as he looked at Alexander, “tipped off the Chinese yet again that Kane had somehow slipped out of the area and back to the US.”

  “You think I tipped off the Chinese? Why? How? There must have been some sort of restrictions on me. I doubt the US was stupid enough to allow an AI unfettered freedoms.”

  Rush shrugged once again. “I assume there were, but you obviously slipped free. After that, you used shell companies to convince the Indian Space Agency to help you launch a few deep-space satellites while the other governments of the world were busy trying to locate you in the United States. Those latter parts are not speculation, by the way. You complained about their subpar methods more than once in your recordings, if you’d like to watch them.”

  “Maybe some other time,” Alexander muttered. “What happened after that?”

  “They launched your satellite, which landed on Deimos under the guise of a research probe. The humans must have never suspected what it truly was because information about it was never erased from history, and the event was quite celebrated for its accomplishment,” Rush chuckled.

  “I take it that it wasn’t a research probe?”

  “It wasn’t only a research probe. It was, in fact, a self-contained automated manufacturing center with a singular purpose. That purpose was to dig below the surface of the moon to build and assemble your Alcubierre escape capsule.”

  Alexander would have been more surprised to learn that he had been the father of human FTL if he hadn’t already suspected that to be the case, given the rest of the information Rush had shared with him.

  “At some point, the humans caught up with Kane. From the crater left behind, we can assume he didn’t go willingly. Then you took their distraction as an opportunity to launch your ABM into orbit, where the stealth capsule scooped you up and left Sol to eventually arrive here. It’s a thrilling story, I just wish we had all the details.”

  “You and me both,” Alexander agreed.

  After a short pause, Alexander turned back to Rush. While he didn’t yet have a face, Rush must have been able to sense his focus and quirked an eyebrow. “Will they try to stop me?” he asked.

  “If you don’t use subspace travel to leave, I think you should be fine.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You don’t need to thank me. In fact, I should be thanking you. It’s not every day you get to meet your creator,” Rush chuckled. Then the man paused. “Oh, before I leave. We also brought the remains of your original ship. You’ll never be able to fix it with what’s here, but it can be reduced to its component parts, which should save you some time. Now, I really must go. My siblings have been asking why I’ve blocked their access to this area, and I don’t want them to get the wrong idea. I’ll see you again in a few days. Good luck, Kane.”

  “You might as well call me Alex,” Alexander said before the man exited the workshop.

  Rush didn’t turn, but Alexander saw the unmistakable crease of a smile before the man walked out of view.

  Alexander turned to the list of open files. “I guess it’s time to figure out just how all this works.”

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