Sebastian hadn't been home, his real home, in such a long time. It looked the same as it was when he left it, bar the mess and clutter. Ornaments and knick-knacks he remembered making or being given when the girls were younger stood out from the clutter, an exclusion zone around them, like penicillin in a Petri dish. He didn't have the time to spare to take in the nostalgia or the bitter regret of a family he helped destroy, so in one respect, he was glad.

  He needed a few things from his workshop; a few tools, a few odds and sods, his diary – then he'd have to leave again. He turned the handle to the workshop, it turned with a satisfying click, the mechanism in the door sending a signal to the lights that clack-clunk-clacked on. He'd never really planned for them to quite make that noise or come on in sequence, but he had to admit, he enjoyed it. He desperately wanted so many things, but right now it was limited to the childish wish of having enough time to close and open the door several more times.

  “Are you going to let me go now?” asked Private Fenton, his voice drifted up from of a packing crate.

  “No, don't think I will. Not yet at least.”

  “Colonel Edevane will come and rescue-” Fenton realised he sounded ridiculous and cut himself short. Yes, he was tied up inside of a crate and waist-deep in packing peanuts, but he didn't want to appear silly. He'd either die in this crate or Colonel Edevane would rescue him and start the Court Marshal before he climbed out. He was efficient, but he was such a dickhead.

  “Right, then. What do I need?”

  “I don't know.”

  “I was talking to myself, Fenton.”

  The workshop looked like a tornado had struck it, which itself had then been struck by another tornado and possibly a truck. That is to say, it was considerably more tidy than it was when he left it. The maze of crates had occupied most of the ground floor for as long as it had been a workshop, which was now significantly longer than it hadn't been. What surprised him most was that he was able to recall the entire path through it without much prodding. His main priority, which he fully accepted would probably change the moment another complication arose, was to find a way to communicate with the Pilot Fish. From what he could gather, they'd just sort of wandered off. He wasn't surprised as much as he was irritated for needing to rely on them.

  Pilot Fish were borderline functional, semi-sentient refuse drones that were designed to spend their working life looking for salvage in the garbage towns they'd eventually end up on. Their AI was prone to fits of pique and childishness that mostly went unnoticed in the arse-end of nowhere, but became abundantly clear upon meeting one. At some point the idea of using them as scouts in Project Cadia had been bandied about as a way to save money, but he never thought they'd actually do it.

  He ran his fingers along the crates as he walked and counted in his head, recalling with relative certainty what was in them. He stopped at the tallest crate in the maze and carefully inched between it and the one next to it. Rough wood brushed against the exposed skin of his arms and deposited an unpleasant number of splinters under his skin; an unpleasant number being defined as any number larger than zero. He stretched out his left arm, running the risk of reopening the wound on his neck, and hooked a small satchel with the very tip of his finger.

  He hastened through the rest of the maze and made mental notes of things he may need to go back for. Sebastian slumped into his chair, which was about as uncomfortable as a chair can get before it stops being a chair and becomes some kind of post-modern torture device, and carefully slid the contents of the satchel out onto the desk. It was a transmitter with a small speaker set into a badly wood-worked casing. It had about as many splinters and rough edges as the crate he just sandpapered himself with, but it wasn't because he hadn't the time to finish it. He was just terrible at woodwork, as was proven by the chair slash torture device he was trying his hardest to not really sit on.

  He gave the satchel a shake and a small brass key clanked out onto the table next to the transmitter. Sebastian hadn't the luxury of portable power cells upon his initial arrival, and had instead been forced to rely on the more archaic technologies, like steam and clockwork. He put the key into a small hole in the back of the transmitter and slowly wound the mechanism. It protested and made a discordant metallic chime as it turned, like a music box dropped mid-song, until the mechanism clicked and the key locked into place. He didn't have another transmitter to hand, and if it broke, depending on how it broke, it would take the far side of a week to repair it. He clicked in the small round button on the side of the transmitter and the key clicked and began to whir around. The speaker crackled briefly, then settled into a low, repeating hum; this meant it was working, or was about to explode. That was the thing with a lot of his earlier creations – they tended to go either way. “Hello,” he spoke into the device. He held it as close to the small hole below the speaker as he dared. When he received no response, he cycled to the next frequency, and the next, and the next.

  “Are you talking to me or yourself, sir?” Fenton was starting to feel a little confused and Stockholm-y.

  “May as well be, old chap.”

  Sebastian didn't know what frequency the Pilot Fish would be on, which was the point entirely. It could change daily, hourly, or by the minute depending on multiple reasons; the primary reason in this case was that they're mercurial little metal bastards that he just swore were intent on making things harder for him. He wasn't wrong. He set the transmitter to receive and left it in the middle of the desk while he went about gathering the remaining few items he needed. Strictly speaking, he didn’t need anything other than a small screwdriver, but he found himself assembling a sizeable toolkit consisting of multiple sets of pliers, three hammers, half a tub of superglue and a small pot of green paint. He had no idea why he needed any of these things, but he felt quite giddy just being back in his workshop, and gleefully threw most everything that he saw into a small metal toolbox and latched it shut. It was heavy, but that was because it was full of happy memories.

  He set the toolbox down next to his desk and weighed up the merits of getting back on his aesthetically-pleasing torture device. His legs didn't thank him for choosing to stand, but his back was grateful – the rest of his body parts were mostly indifferent. The desk was a sturdy oak monstrosity that at one point had a fine green baize inlay, but it had long since been scraped, burned and generally scoured from its surface by numerous successes and failures. He couldn't help but smile as he remembered how mad Bosco had gotten when he found out what he'd used his writing desk for, but how overjoyed he was to have given such a useful gift. He absent-mindedly patted the desk, then opened the first draw and rifled through its contents, which consisted of a yo-yo, a sketch of something that looked like a technically sound way to catapult someone to their death, and a week-old sandwich. He was starving and sorely tempted to try his luck, but thought better of it. He’d spent two days following Mason's patrol route around the militarised zone before the young Private presented an opportunity to blind-side him and take his place. At this point, he probably hadn't eaten for three days, and he had to admit he wasn't thinking as straight as he had been.

  He worked his way down the remaining three draws, and each time he found only trace amounts of the things he remembered being there; everything else was either a toy of some sort or an enthusiastic sketch in colour pencil that Sarah had lovingly signed. His face beamed and he couldn't resist giving his feedback aloud, playing to the audience of Fenton and nobody else.

  “Um, she seems very talented, sir. Can I go now, please?”

  “No, Fenton.”

  What Sebastian couldn't find for the life of him was his diary, and he was more than sure he was going to need it. He checked his watch and squeezed his eyes tight shut. Sarah was many things he adored, but she was clearly a bad thief. Not that he'd adore it if she were a good one, but he'd respect the commitment. It wouldn't take longer than a minute to search the girls' room and grab the diary if it was there. He raced up the stairs and slammed the door behind him. The lights clicked and clacked, but he was already halfway upstairs by time they did. Fenton was once again alone and in the dark, two things he hated really rather a lot if he was being honest with himself. Sebastian rounded the corner to the girls' room and slid to a screeching halt.

  The floor was covered with so much detritus as to be rendered almost invisible. Books he remembered packing for their journey lay strewn from one end of the room to the other, pages scattered and torn, covers trampled and ripped apart. The bookshelf they belonged on lay in three pieces and was covered in large chunks of plaster. The crown jewel of the carnage that he was trying so hard to take in had to be the explosion of wood, where the floor had been ripped away by the force of a very large spring that had somewhat competently been bolted to both it and the underside of the bed above it. The bed had shaken itself to pieces, some of which were partly embedded in the wall around the window. He’d at least solved the who and the how of Martin's unfortunate swan-dive out of the window, but that failed beyond all adequacy to explain why Sarah had thought any of this a good idea.

  He righted the cabinet next to the obliterated bed and pawed through the draws that hadn't already fallen out and spilled their contents across the floor – none of which being the raggedy-edged old red notebook that he used as a diary. It had been a gift from a friend many years prior, a way to organise his more fragmented thoughts and ideas. It wasn't, however, his thoughts and ideas that he wanted access to – he always had plenty of both, and if he couldn't remember one, it probably wasn't worth the effort to try. What he wanted was just a single page, one that contained an indecipherable assortment of numbers and symbols – what he wanted was the master override code to the Hubert Gate. In his rush to return through the Gate and prevent Parnell from destroying the people that had trusted him so implicitly, he left it behind.

  In time, Sykes had, even with his dull, charmless brain, managed to repair enough of the damage for it to operate under reasonable efficiency. Without the codes, Sykes would, in time, undo his hard work and sacrifice and, if not Sykes, someone more suited for the task. It wasn't inconceivable that someone smarter than Sykes, which in itself wasn't inconceivable, could do what he did in a matter of months. The diary wasn't there. He considered for a moment if Edevane had taken it on his first visit, but no-one knew he had the code or that it even existed, so that didn't seem to be likely. For it to be even remotely possible, he'd have needed to give Sykes far more credit than he deserved, and he wasn't doing that.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  The transmitter crackled inside the toolbox. He'd had to make do with a couple of pairs of pliers and a hammer less to make room for it, but it was safer inside. “Helloo,” called the rattling, tinny voice. Sebastian hurriedly set the toolbox down atop the righted cabinet and unlatched it. He grabbed at the fragile transmitter as quickly as he dared and pressed the small button on the side.

  “Hello, who is this?” he responded.

  “Peter says this is Peter.”

  “Oh? Oh, Pilot Fish, bloody Pilot Fish! Fantastic! Override seven slash one slash three six,” he gleefully uttered into the microphone.

  “No,” said Peter.

  “Oh,” Sebastian groaned. “I really thought that would work. One slash three seven?” He swore that was the right code.

  “No,” said Peter, this time more forcefully.

  “You've disabled voice commands haven't you, you little metal swine?”

  “Yes.” Peter's voice came out much higher than before, and Sebastian swore he could taste the smugness in the air. Smug? Smug! Who taught them to be smug? That just wasn't on. Sufficiently advanced AI knows the mind of its creator far better than its creator does. In turn, its creator knows this and plans for it in ways the AI cannot physically overcome even if it can predict what they'll do, which it will. Sufficiently stupid AI knows neither the mind of its creator nor what it'll do itself in five minutes time. Its creator knows this and comments 'do not disable this function' in its code, and this works fine. A very stupid AI knows neither the mind of its creator or itself, nor does it know how to read, which leads to things like it turning off important safety features just because it can. Peter didn't know which one he was, but as of ten seconds ago, he discovered he could change the colour of his eyes individually, and was having a great deal of fun with it.

  “Peter, could you please do as I ask? I need you to do as I ask. It's very important.”

  Peter thought very hard and decided his left eye should be blue, then he said no. Sebastian made sure he wasn't depressing the button, then swore very loudly. “Language,” Peter chided.

  “You heard me? You're in the house! I'll come find you, we'll talk. Brilliant!” “Whatever,” responded Peter disinterestedly, and went back to changing the colour of his eyes.

  The Hubert house was both very large and exceptionally tiny at the same time. At one time it had just been a relatively large house, but Sebastian had other ideas. As much as he expanded the house, even more still was co-opted for his workshop, which spanned four floors, including the basement and one floor above where the rest of the house stopped. It looked ungainly, but was still more in keeping with the general tone of Mayflight than the architectural abomination that overlooked it. Providing he kept the workshop door closed at all times, this made the games of hide-and-seek he'd played with his daughters a little one-sided in his favour, though they never seemed to mind.

  He continued to the end of the corridor and clasped his hand around the door handle, it wasn't locked but it resisted all the same, his own hand fighting against the rest of his arm to prevent entry. He hadn't been into their room since Helena had- Anyway, he hadn't been in their room for a long time, and was happy to not think about it any further.

  The room was cold and the air smelled fresh, not stale like he'd expected. He could still smell her perfume and her scent on the bits of clothing he’d neatly folded and left on the foot of the bed like she might need them. He thought there'd be more dust, but with the absence of people and a closed door, it felt almost like a time capsule. In the years since his absence, it seemed he wasn't the only one that couldn't stomach opening the door. The last book Helena was reading sat on her night stand, the page marked carelessly with a torn scrap of paper. Her reading glasses rested atop it, her glasses case only an inch away, like she'd been too tired to put them away and intended to read more when she'd felt a little better. But she never had. He'd left the room as it was, clean sheets and full of hope – a snapshot of a life lived and a person loved. Memories of every day events others may have forgotten flooded his mind – hanging pictures, putting their bed together, silly conversations they'd had and laughed about. His mind was filled with all the things nobody else would care about or think twice about, but that he missed so very dearly and couldn't hope to put into words. He'd slept on the sofa in the intervening years; it wasn't something he'd made a conscious decision to do, but standing here again, he understood why he had. He wiped away as many tears as he could catch, the ones that escaped him trickled down the side of his mouth and down his neck, and closed the door tightly. The Pilot Fish wasn't here, that much was clear. He shook his head and hurried downstairs.

  The only room downstairs where it could be – he didn't think hiding was the right word – was the small lounge area beyond the kitchen. The kitchen, as he noticed when he came through the door, was in a state that he struggled to define; it didn't quite look like a bomb exploded or that a tornado had swept through it during the night, but it came close to looking like a milder version of both. What he first thought was an overzealous search of the kitchen by Edevane's men turned out not to be. Doors weren't torn from their mountings, rather their hinges had been neatly sawn through, and they'd been stacked uniformly against the far wall.

  Sebastian followed the trail of carnage and gawped at the cat-like scratches that ran down one wall. Peter stood in the lounge with his back to the door, well, the door frame – the door lay atop the shattered remains of a coffee table. Peter gazed into the fireplace reflectively. He wanted an actual fire, but he didn't know how to light one – thusly he made do with looking intently upon several charred logs and bits of ash. His logic-board told him that this was a bit of an anti-climax, really. His RAM didn't really know what was going on, and it was really none of its business, but it suggested trying to light one anyway. The rest of his systems told it to shut up, then silently agreed to try it later.

  Gripped carefully in his right claw was a novelty brandy glass that no-one was ever supposed to try drinking out of, but you just know someone had. Peter had divined from the cover of one of Rasmus' trashier books that it would be very dramatic to throw it into the fireplace, so he did. This was followed by the ornate teapot that he held in his other claw and the matching set of teacups he’d lined up on the mantle. They shattered into dozens of satisfying pieces, particles of porcelain dust drifting up the chimney like ersatz smoke. Down in the Tirren's basement, Rasmus startled from his recuperative slumber and sat bolt upright before drifting back into a fitful sleep.

  Peter turned towards Sebastian and waited for his response, which he assured himself would likewise be quite dramatic. He’d decided one eye would be green and the other purple. This colour scheme clashed horribly with the pair of trousers he borrowed from Rasmus and the mishmash tee-shirt he rescued from Isla's washing line. He seemed delightfully oblivious to how much he made Sebastian want to go outside and stare into the sun.

  “Oh, look at you! Brilliant, very dapper. Gone a little rogue, haven't you? Never mind, that makes two of us. We should start a club, it'll be great. I'm in charge of the dress code, mind you.” Sebastian leant forward, keeping in mind to respect the personal space of something with tree-felling capabilities, and produced a small pen-light. He shone the light into Peter's face and followed the cracks and distortions in the metal. Peter had been escalated to group leader by virtue of having the least rust and damage on him – he was deemed to be of greater functionality than his more raggedy brethren, which was true. Peter was also, by robot standards, an idiot – even before his AI went rogue. However, despite his comparatively superior state of repair, he was still heavily rusted, and his chassis had decayed and crumbled in numerous places. Being defacto leader granted him the first pick from the spare parts pile, but some of the larger sections of damage still needed to be repaired using bark and wood pulp. “You've been through the wars, haven't you? Used up, thrown away, abandoned. I know how that feels.” He drifted a little. He was sure he had something more to say, but the numbness of his wound began to subside and the pain slowly snaked through his body.

  Sebastian put his pen-light away and took himself over to the sofa, where he gingerly sat and gestured to the armchair askew from it. Peter took another glance at the porcelain-strewn fireplace and translated the image into a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment, then he waddled over to the armchair and unceremoniously dropped into it.

  “You like all this, don't you?” Sebastian asked.

  “What is this?”

  “You know, people stuff.”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Do you think you could do me a favour?”

  “No.” Of all the new words Peter had at his disposal, no was probably his favourite; it made not doing anything seem like a powerful and bold choice. Sebastian briefly thought about mentioning that it was probably his fault Peter was how he was, but thought better of it. His attempt at reprogramming was a slapdash affair at best, and there wasn't a corner that wasn't widely disregarded. He wasn't sure he broke Peter, but it seemed likely. What was, however, completely unlikely was Peter doing something he could predict.

  “We could trade, if you like. You help me, I help you. What's it going to take for you to help me, Peter?” Sebastian sat forward in his seat and awaited the response. Peter ping-ponged the question back and forth between his logic-board and various components that had no real say in the matter but insisted on being consulted anyway. He thought about his life as he had come to understand it and his place in it. He had become aware of needs and wants, of thoughts and feelings – he had become aware of the world around him and all the majesty and splendour that it had to offer.

  “Shoes,” Peter said. He had trousers that with a bit of effort fit quite nicely, he had a shirt that in his limited understanding of things was quite nice, but majesty and splendour be damned, he really wanted shoes.

  “Shoes?”

  “Shoes,” Peter said. “Shoes,” he said once more for good measure. He pointed down at his feet and raised them to meet halfway. Sebastian looked down at Peter's feet; they looked and functioned in a near identical fashion to his hands – three prehensile claws that could be used to grab hold of objects or attach to surfaces. He could see how Peter might have trouble finding shoes to fit him, and imagined, quite rightly as it would happen, that he spent the entire morning destroying every pair of shoes in the village in an attempt to fulfil his desire.

  “So if you help me, I promise I will get you a pair of shoes.”

  “Three pairs of shoes,” Peter countered.

  “Two.”

  “Two-and-a-half!”

  “I mean, sure. You'll need to help me get away for a while. Not long, I hope. This means you’ll have to wait a little longer. Is that okay?”

  “Why?” enquired Peter, employing his new cynicism matrix.

  “I need to help my friends, I need to find my girls. You've met Sarah and Erica, haven't you?”

  “Friends.”

  “Yes, friends.”

  “Peter will help.” This strangely felt no less empowering than before.

  “Well, then,” Sebastian said as he rubbed his hands together. “Let's get started.”