Foundation of All

Sean walked inside and started getting to work and familiarizing machines. The supervisor now seemed interested in what he was doing and demonstrated the ideal way to use the machines as Sean began to work in creating some of the outer plates that would line the robot’s frame. He hummed to himself as he shaped the metal and got comfortable in using the space and the process of choosing the right materials and metals to create each piece.

He was only doing the larger pieces for now and was leaving the electronics and more complicated bits for later.

After an indeterminate time, Sean finished shaping the metal into their basic shapes. Now that he had completed shaping them as well as he could by hand, he fed them into the fine tuning machine. He imported the file for the individual components into the device. As his parts rolled through the machine would flash and rumble before manipulating and reshaping the metal to the precise specifications in the design, far more precise than any human hand could be.

Theoretically it could create the parts from a solid slug of metal, but parts made that way came out far weaker than if Sean shaped them as best as he could first. In fact if Sean didn’t shape them well enough then it was entirely possible that the whole part might crack or be too brittle, meaning he would have to create it again.

About seventy percent of the parts he made on the first round were up to standard, and Sean quickly went back to remake the remaining parts with more focus this time. The second round let him finish everything but three of the most complex pieces. Sean picked up the holopad and checked how long it had been. Just over two weeks. It was probably best to go back and sleep for a bit. Maybe go do something with Roger if he could manage to track him down.

Sean gathered up everything he had used and placed it in the specialized locker to the sides so he could start where he left off next time. He waved goodbye to Ricardo who was still on duty and walked off, his holopad in hand.

— — —

Sean took a few days off and caught up with Roger. Roger had barely even noticed Sean’s absence, too busy planning his next party and flirting with whoever caught his eye. Sean had become friendly with several of the women who frequently showed up to Roger’s parties, but it had never really progressed anything beyond that. Most were far too obsessed with the dreaded fashion that had quickly become the bane of his existence ever since he got here.

He just could not complain to Roger enough to make him understand how little Sean cared about the newest trends in clothing. Roger thought it was funny, but it was ridiculous how obsessed most people at the station were with it. Sean couldn’t avoid conversations discussing it even if he actively tried to. He tried not to be rude about it, but it had caused many an awkward situation over the years with people who were unfamiliar with him experiencing his quiet dislike for the topic first hand.

At least the gossip had become a little interesting once he started getting to know some of the people it was about. So there was that at least, Roger had been right there.

Anyway, after the end of yet another party that had started to blend into all the other ones that Sean had attended, he went back to the maker space to continue building the robot. He worked for a while and quickly finished off the last of the pieces left over from his last session. Now that he was done with the big pieces he would have to begin the hard part… the electricals and synthetic muscle to help it move around. This… it would take him a while to finish.

Sean was in the middle of soldering the wires on the circuit board. It was far too large to actually go in the robot he was building, but he had hit a snag when using the high precision machine for the computer chips to create and customize them. So after many failed attempts he had decided to create an easier board so he could practice his skills first before diving back into the harder chips with almost no margin for error at all.

Sean was focused and almost didn’t notice the door to the workshop open with a hiss. He registered it, but didn’t react and kept working. Occasionally someone else would come in and build for a while, but most didn’t stay around for long or bother Sean while he was working so he mostly just ignored him.

He heard the person take a few steps into the room before they abruptly stopped, Sean hearing the squeak of their shoes signaling a rather sudden stop. The door hissed back closed behind them as Sean drew the soldering iron back from the computer chip and looked up at the newcomer.

It was the mousy woman from Sean’s disastrous first class with Lars. No longer as mousy as she had appeared last time. She stood marginally straighter and her green eyes were more vibrant than they had been. She was wearing work pants with lots of pockets and a short sleeved gray shirt. Her clothes were no longer so baggy and looked like they fit her better than the ones she had worn during the survival classes. What was her name… Lira! That was it. Hopefully she had sorted things out with Brenda after the woman told her to stay behind after that class… Maybe whatever they had talked about had helped considering the change in the woman since Sean had seen her last.

“Hello, Lira,” Sean said, putting the Soldering iron into its heating element so it would stay red hot. “Long time no see. How are you doing?”

“Well, umm. Hello, Sean,” Lira said nervously, “Nice to… nice to see you again.”

“Oh hey. Sorry about all of that with Lars,” Sean said, “With him being your boyfriend and all, I’m sure you’ve heard all sorts of unpleasant things about me from him.”

“Oh, we’re ah. Not dating anymore. I broke up with him that… after that class actually.”

Sean blinked, “Oh. Wow. Good for you. Well, uh, what are you doing here today? Have a project you’re working on?”

She nodded and relaxed a little, “Yes. For the last five years or so on and off I’ve been building my own little hovercraft. I thought I’d get into some new hobbies after my recent breakup.”

“Recent, huh…” Sean mused.

“Of course,” Lira said, “I mean it was only twenty years ago, practically nothing. I… oh, sorry. I forgot how young you are. This must all be very strange for you, being around all us ancient people. I thought I was young, but I’m still over eight thousand years old now…”

Sean waved his hand dismissively, “It’s fine,” he said, “I’m used to it by now. Brenda’s over three hundred thousand. Did you know that? Everyone I meet here is older than every settlement on my planet. The oldest was only created hundreds of years ago, which is barely a blink of an eye to people here.”

“But you’re doing so well!” Lira said, “Everyone’s talking about it. Well, I’ve heard people talking about it. You’re more in tune with your immortality than people far older than you.”

“What do you mean?” Sean asked surprised, “In tune with my Immortality? Surely not…”

“Most people don’t spend weeks at a time at their courses as soon as they arrive,” Lira insisted, “I could barely go ten or fifteen hours before getting mentally overwhelmed and taking a break when I first came here. Even now those survival courses are about my limit of what I can do at any one time before taking a big break and relaxing. You just jumped straight into it. You… I heard about your fight with Lars. You completely ignored the pain to keep going. I’ve never even heard of someone on Immortus station doing something like that before. Only the oldest of the Immortals here have anything close to that ability to ignore their pain.”

“But didn’t you get hurt?” Sean asked confused, “When the Shadow granted you your Immortality? Didn’t you have to deal with the pain then? Or whenever you got injured after that. I know it hurts, but after a while your brain stops registering it and it doesn’t become so bad, right?”

Lira gave him a strange look.

“What do you mean? That day was the worst of my life, I never want something like that to happen again. Even now I… what was your trigger then?” She asked challengingly although her voice wavered slightly.

Sean scratched the back of his head. This conversation was not going the way he had expected it to go. “Trigger? You mean what made the Shadow visit me?”

Lira nodded, confused at his response and drew back slightly. “Sean, you don’t have to tell me. That was rude, I shouldn’t…”

“Are we not supposed to tell people about it?” Sean asked, curious about her reaction. He did still think about it sometimes, but he had long since gotten over it. It happened, and there was nothing he could do to change it. He was grateful to the Shadow, without this immortality he would never have had Emily’s help in getting revenge on Intuli for his parents and himself. His alternative was being dead and successfully murdered by Intuli after all.

“No, you can,” Lira said, “But most people don’t like talking about it…”

“Well, I suppose I can understand why,” Sean mused, “Do you want to know? I don’t really mind sharing if you’re asking.”

Lira sat on a nearby stool and hesitantly nodded, “I swear I’ll tell you mine too if you want.”

Sean explained the basic situation. The situation on Enguli, the whole plot by the village elders to kill Sean and his family. His eight days fighting the swarm and the breaks in the battle he received while he waited for his arm to regenerate. All until he was saved by a wandering Immortal and brought here safely.

Lira’s eyes were bugged out by the time he finished by the time Sean finished. She seemed to struggle for words for a few seconds before shrinking in on herself.

“Mine isn’t nearly that terrible. Have I been having nightmares over nothing?” She whispered to herself just loudly enough that Sean could barely hear her.

Sean waited, unsure what to say to that. Surely most Immortals must go through something worse than him, right? They would be practically alone and wandering around for thousands of years before they came to Immortus station. That had to be far worse than a painful week or two.

“Well,” Lira said louder, “Now I just feel stupid. I fell into a farm combine. Tripped over my own feet and stumbled into it like an idiot. Got shredded and regenerated back on the other side safe and sound… After that I headed out to an Immortal sector and settled in there for a while until an Immortal council representative found me and brought me here. I’m sorry for what happened to you, it does sound rather terrible…”

“Immortal Sector? How did you know to go there? What are those?” Sean asked.

Lira shrugged, “Enguli must be really far out. Mortal governments don’t like having immortals around, it's well known even in most of the outer rim worlds from what I’ve heard. My planet was more than happy to ship me off to a sector that allowed Immortals as fast and silently as they could. I just lived as well as I could while I was there on my new planet. It wasn’t too bad, really. I had to register and everything, but most people didn’t care about what I was. Most mortals don’t like us very much, but at least they tolerate us there…”

Sean remembered the raving Plaguebringer shouting over the comms of the ship advocating for ‘returning all to darkness’ back on Emily’s ship. Maybe most people had good reasons to not like Immortals. But he didn’t say that, Lira was looking rather down as she spoke about it.

There was an awkward pause.

“So, what are you working on?” Lira eventually said, “Something electronic? I see your chip there looks rather advanced. Some kind of spaceship?”

Sean glanced over to his practice board. This was supposed to be the easiest one… But he supposed it would be overkill if he was building a navigation computer or transmitter or something similar.

“That was practice,” he said, “I’m actually building a robot, it needs me to make chips even more advanced than that. I was just having a lot of trouble manufacturing them properly. Actually, do you think you could help me? I’m not sure if there’s a machine in here that I’m missing that would help or if I just have to improve my skills more first.”

Lira hesitated before standing up and walking over. Sean pulled up the design for the computer chip and Lira spent a few minutes manipulating it and inspecting the specifications for it.

“Huh,” she eventually said, “This thing is just ridiculous. I’ve never actually done anything this complicated before, but the fusion engine in my hovercraft required some of the more advanced techniques. So maybe I could still help? What have you tried so far?”

Sean listed what he’d done. She stared at the floating hologram of the chip for a moment looking thoughtful before visibly brightening.

“Oh! I have something!” She said excitedly, “I…” *Cough* She flushed slightly and reigned in her enthusiasm. “I actually have an idea. What if we…”

Sean nodded along as she spoke. That… damn, why hadn’t he thought of that? That would make it way easier than what he had been doing before.

“That’s a great idea, Lira,” Sean said after she finished, “Do you think you could show me how you do it?”

“Sure!” Lira said, “It’s just over here. I’m not great at it, but the machine does almost everything by itself. Even I can’t mess it up too much!”

Sean followed behind Lira and they started working together on making his chips, Lira seeming to have forgotten about her own project in the sudden chaos. But Lira knew her way around the place and showed him all sorts of things he had missed or skimmed over when he first inspected the place. As they waited for some of the machines to do their work they had some casual conversation. Lira told him about her life in the Immortal Sectors before she came to Immortus Station and Sean told her of his life on Enguli and some fun things he had done with Roger over the years.

After a long time working together, they finally managed to get the chips and after running some tests determined that they were good enough for the design he had planned.

Lira sat back and let out a long breath and looked rather worn out. Sean still felt energetic, but he checked the time. Surely it hadn’t been that long right?

“One month straight,” Sean said out loud in surprise as he stared at the date on the holopad. Lira’s head snapped up as she heard him. “What?” She said, “That long? I’ve… never gone that long without sleep before. We didn’t even break once! How is that even possible?”

Sean shrugged, “Time flies when you’re having fun,” He said.

“I guess,” Lira said thoughtfully, “I think I should go to sleep now. That was intense, a lot of fun actually.”

“Yeah,” Sean agreed, “Next time we work together on your hovercraft. Have to pay you back for all this help somehow, right? What do you say?”

She stared at him with an almost surprised look before jerkily nodding, “Sure! I mean, yes. Deal. Just… Uhm, let me know when you’re free. After a few days from now at least though so I can sleep. Then we can meet up again.”

“Sure,” Sean said to her fumbling response. He had to supress a smile as she tried to cover up her eagerness for next time. She was rather cute when she got like this…

“Final test. You ready for this, Lira?” Sean called out. Lira ran her hands nervously over the frame of the hover bike design she had decided to build next. This was the third vehicle that they would have hopefully finished. Sean’s robot was almost complete as well after all of this time. All he had to do was assemble the head and download the software included with its schematic and then it would be done.

Lira stepped back and nodded to Sean. He picked up the remote and was about to press the button, before pausing. He walked over to Lira and pressed it into her hands on his right. “There, you do it. It’s your bike,” he said.

She grabbed his right hand before he could pull it away. He noticed her hand spasmed slightly as she touched him and she grimaced briefly. But it quickly faded away and her face screwed up in determination as she looked at him.

“No,” she said firmly, “We both built it, didn’t we? We should both press it together. Right?”

Sean looked down to her warm hand holding his.

“If you wanted to hold hands, all you had to do was ask you know,” Sean said teasingly. She blushed, but kept her hands on his anyway.

“Oh, stop it you,” she said playfully and a little embarrassed, “Just press the button with me already.”

Sean let Lira guide his hand until they both mashed the button at the same time. The room filled with an electric buzz and the hoverbike began vibrating and slowly lifted off the ground. Lira’s hand tightened in Sean’s and he glanced at her briefly. Her eyes were focused entirely on the hoverbike as it rose through the air. He looked down at his hand held tightly in hers, their fingers interlaced, then back to the bike. It kept floating upward until the bottom was up to their waists and then it stopped, remaining in place.

“Oh yeah!” Lira shouted excitedly, “We did it, Sean!”

She raised their clasped hands in the air in celebration, lurching Sean to the side with her sudden motion, throwing him off balance towards her.

“Eep!” Lira squeaked as Sean stumbled into her. She tried to let go of his hand, but their fingers were intertwined and all tangled up so she couldn’t manage it in time. She twisted, and Sean moved past her and fell over, holding his other hand out to brace against both of their falls. Unfortunately, just behind Lira was the laser cutter that they had been using a few minutes ago, still powered on…

Sean’s hand hit the table and slid upwards as he and Lira began to fall to the floor with him in a tangle of limbs. He felt a burning sensation on his wrist and then nothing as his arm slipped off the table and he flailed it around wildly. Sean and Lira hit the hard ground right next to each other a second later.

Lira finally managed to disentangle her hand from Sean’s and they both sat up a little dazed. Lira opened her mouth, her face flushed in embarrassment, only to fixate on the cauterized stump at the end of Sean’s left arm that he was currently inspecting.

“Oh by the Shadow, Sean! I’m so sorry, this is all my fault!” Lira said and looked about ready to cry. “Are you okay? Do you need anything? I didn’t mean for that to happen, it was just an acciden…”

“Hey, hey,” Sean said, looking up as his skeletal hand finished forming itself, “Shhh. Lira, it’s okay. I’m fine. Just a little accident. We’re both fine. Just watch my hand.”

She rubbed her eyes and kept looking at his regenerating hand with horrified fascination, seeming unable to tear her gaze away. They sat there next to each other in silence, Lira’s unshed tears staying in place as the skin crept back over his hand. Sean turned his hand forward and back and moved his fingers around for a moment before slowly moving his hand toward Lira.

She grabbed it and felt it, poking it lightly and moving his fingers. She looked back up at him, seeming to overcome her initial panic.

“You’re okay?” She confirmed, “Didn’t it hurt? I shouldn’t have been so clumsy…”

“I’m fine,” Sean said firmly, “I mean, yeah. Please don’t do that again. But it was just a pinch, nothing to worry about. It’s back as good as new, isn’t it? It will always regenerate for us. That’s what this whole Immortality thing is about, right?”

Lira looked skeptical and still had a guilty and slightly panicked look on her face as she sat there looking at his fully regenerated hand.

Sean would have been annoyed at the incident normally but… it was Lira. It was clearly an accident, and she hadn’t meant to hurt him. She wouldn’t hurt a fly.

He stood and Lira gripped his left hand tightly as if to not let it get away from her, still sitting on the ground below him. Sean leaned over and flicked off the laser cutter’s power the first thing as Lira still sat there still for a second. Then he reached over and grabbed what was left behind on the bench alongside with a large pool of blood. He took the cleaning to the cloth and quickly wiped it off with his free arm so that the object was as clean as he could get it on short notice. Lira let go of his arm and made her way to her feet, looking confused and wondering what he was doing.

Just as she fully stood to her feet, Sean turned back around and held out his old severed hand out to her. He made sure to keep his face as blank as he could but couldn’t resist the slight smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

“Lira, you need a hand? I think I just found an extra one lying around here.”

She stared at him in disbelief for a moment and he let his smile grow as she stood there stunned.

He reached out further and held it closer to her, presenting it like he was offering food to a wild animal.

“What?” She said, taking a step back. “That’s so gross, Sean! What are you doing?”

“C’mon you’ll be fine, we don’t get diseases anymore. Remember?” Sean said, waving his severed hand around a bit more and his old fingers flopped around loosely as he did so.

“Yeah, but… hey!”

Sean took a step forward and poked her with the severed hand and started laughing when he saw her expression.

“Sean!” She said, backing away from him with a half disgusted look on her face as she rubbed her arm where the severed hand had touched her. Sean laughed a little more as her face kept reddening as he teased her with the severed hand for a bit by wiggling it around and threatening to poke her with it.

By the end she was suppressing her own laughter at the sheer absurdity of the situation, going along with the fun. Eventually when the bit began to be overdone and Lira started getting fed up with it, Sean walked over to the trash and threw the hand away in the biologicals bin, Lira trailing behind him at a safe distance.

“Okay, that was kind of funny,” she admitted as he turned back to face her and the hand was safely disposed of, “How can you be so casual with it? I mean… you really don’t care, do you?”

“I guess not,” Sean said with a shrug, “Are you feeling better now? It’s like nothing more than a quick pinch from back when we were normal humans. No need to feel guilty.”

Lira cocked her head to the side as she stared at him trying to figure him out before she shook her head as if to shake a thought out of her head.

“Thanks, Sean,” She said after stopping and staring at him again, “That… thanks.”

“No problem,” He said, “And at least the bike works. I think we got a little distracted there.”

“Oh! You’re right. We did it!” Lira said, immediately cheering up when he reminded her of the bike still hovering in place a couple dozen of feet away.

They shut off the hoverbike and started to leave the workshop after doing a few more tests to really make sure the hover bike was working properly. Sean went to leave with Lira standing next to him, only to be stopped by Ricardo, who had a frown on his face. The man pointed down to Sean’s wrist which was still coated in dried blood.

“Clean it up,” the man said unamused, “And don’t you dare miss a spot or I’ll ban both your asses from this place.”

“Sorry, Ricardo,” Sean said, turning back around and going back in. He had forgotten to clean off his blood from the laser cutter earlier after teasing Lira…

Sean left the room having gone back and cleaned everything up properly this time, with Ricardo suspiciously checking his work before letting him go. Lira had come to help him, but it hadn’t taken more than five or so minutes so it was mostly Sean who ended up doing most of the work.

They walked together for a few minutes before they were about to reach their split where their paths back home diverged. Should he ask her now? He wanted to say something but he was covered in blood, it wouldn’t be very romantic to be so dirty when he asked her...

Lira paused and Sean stopped walking as well and looked at her. She opened and closed her mouth a few times until eventually the words spilled out of her mouth all at once.

“Sean, would you like to go out with me? Dating? I know today was a disaster but I feel like I’ve gotten to know you over these last few years and we finished the hover bike together and…”

“Yes. I like you too, Lira,” Sean said quickly, cutting her off, “You beat me to it. I was just stressing out how to ask you, haha…”

“Oh!” Lira said, seeming surprised before her brain finished rebooting, “Great.” she finished.

“Good,” Sean said and the awkward moment stretched longer as both of them seemed to struggle with what else they should say to each other.

Eventually they bumbled out some goodbyes and agreed to meeting up later at the workshop again.

Sean finished securing the head to the body of his robot, finally completed after years of work. Three different iterations that had all failed in various ways after he downloaded the software into their computerized brains. Countless time disassembling and reassembling the machines piece by piece when something inevitably went wrong. But he was feeling good about this attempt.

He plugged his holopad into the completely assembled robot and started the transfer, taking a step back as he finished. Lira walked over and gave him a quick side hug when she got close. He wrapped his arm around her and they watched together as the download progress bar ticked forward on the holopad. The two of them had gone on a few dates on Immortus station, but they still had spent most of their time in the workshop working on various projects with each other which they both considered romantic enough for their purposes.

Their relationship was progressing slowly, but Sean didn’t mind too much. Just working on the projects and little bonuses like holding hands with her, hugging, and some light kissing occasionally was good enough until Lira felt more comfortable. He hadn’t noticed it at first, but she wasn’t totally comfortable with physical affection, especially in the beginning of their relationship.

He had felt like a jerk when he had hugged her by surprise one time and she had flinched and looked scared for a moment before relaxing after taking a few deep breaths into his chest while clinging to him. She knew that he knew there was a problem, but neither of them talked about it and he gave her her space when she needed it.

She had grown more comfortable with touch as time passed and now she was even hugging him on her own without looking all stressed about it anymore just before she did it. In the beginning it was like she was hyping herself to make initial contact with him even if she was able to soften after being in contact with him for a few seconds.

“You think it’s going to work this time?” Lira asked him as the progress bar on the download ticked up slowly.

“I hope so,” Sean replied, “I was extra careful on this one. I fixed the actuators on the legs, you helped me check all the chips that go into the brain at least three times. The sensory modules even got checked by Ricardo of all people. I’m sure it’ll work this time.”

They waited in companionable silence as the download finally completed. Sean let go of Lira and quickly ran a diagnostic on the robot. Everything was looking good, all the sensors and motors were connected. Well, here goes nothing… he unplugged the holopad and hit a button on its surface to initiate the remote command module.

He stepped back as it synced for a few seconds as the robot's eyes flickered with a bluish light and it raised its head off of its chest and started inspecting its surroundings by shifting its head to scan the area while the rest of its body was perfectly still. Its whitish synthetic muscles contrasted with its metal plate like armor surrounding it. The whole upper half of its head was completely metal, while everything below the nose was the softer white sheen of flexible mesh that was more useful for emoting and creating speech. There were two metal segments resting on the back of the head that would snap around and cover the lower mouth for if the robot ever had to work in an abrasive environment that would damage the portion around its mouth.

It slowly moved its arms and legs through their full range of motion, only a little more than a human’s range of motion would be.

Sean stepped back so he was next to Lira again and cleared his throat. He had already registered himself as the designated commander in the files he had transferred, so it should listen to him automatically.

“V4, stand up please.”

The robot smoothly raised itself out of the chair and fixed its head towards Sean.

“Take one step forward.”

The robot complied, but Sean didn’t celebrate yet. He was still only at the basics so far. The previous models had gotten this far and still failed.

He pointed at the nearby scanning equipment and pulled out a prepared slide for analysis that he had already personally scanned before. One of the simplest pieces of equipment in this lab was a test for the intelligence of the robot. According to the notes it should be almost as smart as a person would be given enough time to develop itself and when given clear instructions and goals.

“Take this slide and use the machine directly behind me to image it. Take your time and minimize any damage to yourself or the equipment. You may begin.”

“Confirmed,” the robot said in a heavily digitized androgynous voice.

The robot took a few slow steps, its glowing eyes focused on the slide in Sean’s hand. It reached out painfully slowly and grabbed the slide by pinching it between two of its flexible fingers before extracting it with exacting care. It shuffled to the side and moved past Sean and Lira to begin inspecting the machine and methodically pressing all the buttons in sequence to discover their functions.

“This may take a while,” Sean said to Lira, “At least it didn’t crush my hand with too much force when picking up the slide this time. We’re already better than the last version.”

“I can watch,” Lira said before pulling up a bench for them both to sit on, “It’s sort of relaxing watching it go. It looks almost drunk or something. Just pressing every button in sequence to figure it out. I want to see how far it can go.”

Sean sat down on the bench with her and edged his hand over to grab hers. She twitched a little, but then gripped his hand back and didn’t mention it as they watched V4 slowly navigate through the screens and figure things out. After thirty minutes or so it discovered the inbuilt tutorial for the machine in the menus which sped up its pace significantly.

It definitely screwed up several times and seemed fond of pressing the back button all the way to the main menu if it made a mistake rather than just going back a single step. But other than that it was learning completely on its own and figuring out the machine at a growing pace.

It took another two hours for V4 to finally put the slide in the slot in which it would be scanned. Lira and Sean were softly talking with each other, not wanting to disturb V4. They could have shouted at the top of their lungs and it would have made no difference, but it felt disrespectful too talk loudly when V4 was working so hard on what it was doing.

Sean kept insisting it was a he while Lira was equally insistent that it must be a she. Maybe it would decide things like that for itself if it developed more. V4 had software when Sean was giving a command or not so there was no worry of it accidentally overhearing him and misinterpreting his casual conversation as something that was addressed at it. Something that was very convenient when Sean and Lira continued their silly argument.

It took another full hour for V4 to finally image the slide. After confirming that the picture had been taken, V4 straightened and turned around to face Sean.

“The image is taken, Sean,” it said in the same voice as before, “Do you have any further orders?”

“Yes, V4,” Sean said, “Print out a paper copy of the image please and hand it to me. After that be prepared to run a full cognitive diagnostic.”

“Confirmed,” V4 said as it turned back to the machine and began hitting the buttons on it again. Twenty minutes later, V4 managed to print out the image of the slide and walked over and placed it in Sean’s waiting palm. He inspected it. It was clear and of the same blood sample as the one he had handed to V4.

Sean looked up to V4. “Good job,” he said, “Return to the bench you activated from and power down.”

“Confirmed.”

V4 walked over and sat in the chair from before and after a second its eyes went dim and its body completely froze.

“That was good,” Lira said.

“Very good,” Sean agreed, “Just one final test and then I think we’re in the clear.”

He walked over and plugged in the holopad into V4 and ran the cognitive scan. It took about ten minutes until the holopad chimed to show that it was done. Sean looked over the data and looked for anything out of place. Lira peeked over his shoulder, but she wasn’t familiar with this part so she couldn’t help out much. After a half hour, Sean was done and let out a sigh of relief and unplugged V4 and shut off the holopad.

“It’s good!” He said, “It really works. I can’t believe it after all of this time…”

“Great!” Lira said brightly, “Want to celebrate your achievement a bit?”

“Sure,” he said casually, “What did you have in mind?”

“Well… I was thinking…” She lowered her voice and sidled up to him, “We could… have some fun in my bedroom.”

He raised his eyebrows as he looked at her.

“Are you ready for that?” He said, “If it makes you feel uncomfortable, then…”

“No!” she shouted before lowering her voice, “I want to do it with you. I really do.”

Sean gave her a smile, “Well then, sounds like a plan. Let’s go already!”

“Haha! Yeah!” Lira said before grabbing his hand and dragging him towards the door eagerly.

The two of them ran off, ignoring Ricardo’s confused shouts as they ran past him. They could pay the fine later. They had something far more important to get to.