I'm Not Mad, I'm Just Dissapointed

Trezlan looked on at the melee in progress and just shook his head. He could see his son flashing between soldiers and what appeared to be other Operators like Eli. He could see those same soldiers fighting both Rem and Therod along with the operators and somewhere in the midst of that was Riobeck after he had not even tried to pretend not to betray Trezlan and ordered his people to attack. Trezlan could hear the bullets and explosives and everything else exploding around him. He could feel the impacts, heavy thudding things, screams, and death all around him and he just sighed.

It wasn't an unforeseen complication that there would be a battle. It wasn't unheard of that somehow Eli's operators would attack him or just attack in general. Trezlan was just sad that he didn't even get the fun of trying to have a discussion with Riboeck about being a god. To Trezlan's immediate left was Hanlon, he too seemed mildly bored, neither man having moved since they had arrived at the chosen meeting place. An out of the way border station in the middle of nowhere that was abandoned except for scavengers and pirates, who had either killed or fled when Riobeck and his corporate goons had arrived.

"You know I'm not really angry." Trezlan said it as an aside, he didn't even know if Hanlon could hear it over the warfare.

"You're disappointed, I know the feeling, this is all so disappointing."

"Right? Like I expected some back and forth a discussion, terms something."

"Straight to killing, I see your son is out there, are you concerned?"

"Nah he'll be fine, I guess I should probably do something, wouldn't want to die to one of these robot men."

"We could just leave you know just disappear."

"No Hanlon at least not for me, I have to do something its in my dumb nature."

"At least you acknowledge its stupid, well this should be fun, ordinarily I'd just watch, but today? Today I feel the need to participate."

"Now I'm even more terrified."

"You shouldn't be, they should." Hanlon smiled and then skipped forward into the carnage. Trezlan joined him without the skip, skipping was untoward.

Idiots Until the End

"Eli I have identified the other operators, they are moving in on the meeting Trezlan asked us to provide security for." Eli had taken time to gear up, hitting various old weapon's cache's from the old days. Most had been empty, but it had acquired some of the firepower locked away for a rainy day. And Trezlan's people had come up with a way to permanently shut down the other Operators, though it had to be "spiked" directly into them, no wireless upload, which was better than nothing.

"Are they aware that Trezlan will be in attendance?"

"Not to the best of my knowledge, I believe they think we are going to be there."

"Humorous, I guess now we will be there, can we inform Trezlan of the extra guests?"

"No, apparently he's running silent for some reason, I will keep trying to contact his AI, but I believe we'll have to hope he can handle himself against the operators until we arrive." Eli didn't like that uncertain variable, but it couldn't be helped, Trezlan would be on his own for good or ill until Eli could get to him.

"Well make preparations for the journey. I'm going to get ready and check over the weapons, I fear by the time we get there the fight will already be well underway."

"So a rescue mission?"

"Of sorts, though I doubt Trezlan would see it that way." Eli figured if anything Trezlan would consider that he was rescuing them.

"Coordinated laid in, we'll be there within the day."

"And hopefully not too late." A day was an eternity, but Eli was going to make sure if everyone was already dead, the operators would shortly join them. It was the least it could do.

Wouldn't Be A Party Without Some Crashers

"Operator 5." The ten of the remaining operators had geared up, they were happy to be back in bodies instead of floating in the AI stasis they had been placed in. That they got to come back and destroy one of their own was great. Such was the limitless psychopathy of the operators. The ability to hunt one of their own who had similar abilities was intoxicating. A real challenge after all this time.

"Always was a pain in our ass." They were in the same ship, having not warranted separate transport according to Shillers. It didn't matter, after Operator 5 was dead they'd all get what they wanted anyway, which was to kill again. And no one could stop them this time.

"Yes always wanting to follow orders, never deviate, never take the long way. I thought we took it out years ago when we sabotaged the ship, but no apparently someone found it, patched it up, and now its back out there." Operator 1 was the one in charge, it had always been in charge before and felt no reason things should change now.

"Won't be for long."

"So do we even have an idea of where it is?"

"Some kind of meeting between a Riobeck CEO and a mysterious party is our best intel, sounds like a nice tune up either way. We crash the meeting kill everyone there and hope 5 is among them, then we take some ships and the real fun begins."

"What about Shillers?"

"We'll kill him when we're through, we'll kill them all." They all agreed and it was set, the operators would crash the meeting and anything living wouldn't be that way for long, just like the old days.

Everything is Coming Together In a Big Mess

The shit squad was back together. Chained up and being marshaled towards something none of them knew about, but back together. Therod thought of trying to break free, but she didn't even know where they were being held. Still this seemed like the only chance to get out before things went too south.

"So we're screwed right?" Rolando was of course the first to say something.

"Totally." Rem looked strung out, more so than normal.

"You know these guys can hear us right?" Therod pointed to the four guards around them as they marched down a white hallway.

"Yeah and they totally don't know we are screwed."

"Well they didn't until you told them that, before they might have thought we had the upper hand and they were in danger, now they know we're not." One of the guards snickered.

"Yeah you three have the upper hand, that's why you're unarmed and about to be used as leverage against Trezlan Lorentino."

"Shut up Richards." One of the other guards hit the one who talked and they moved in silence again.

"Great now I feel like we're even more screwed." Rolando said what they were all thinking, whatever they had gotten truly stuck in, that it now involved Trezlan was a sign things had gotten a lot worse.

The Universe's Most Deadly Muffins

Why Muffins is a question scholars have asked for the longest of times. Why were they the vessel with which to become a god by sacrificing your followers. It was thought because cupcakes were too delicious and donuts lacked gravitas for the eventual god hood. No one wanted to welcome the donut god in, it would seem uncouth. So somewhere along the line muffins were decided. Neither cupcakes deliciousness, nor Donuts lack of standing. Good enough for a mid morning snack, but not haughty enough to be considered putting on airs by eating one.

The recipe itself is another mystery, who gave mortals the key to proper godly sacrifice is up for Debate. Everyone suspects the death god, though Hanlon is the biggest new god bigot around. He hates when someone tries to join th pantheon, even more so when they just tricked a bunch of idiots into eating a baked good. The most likely culprit was the chaos god, who better to make becoming a god easy than the one responsible for chaos. No one asked the Fire God for fear she'd destroy them, Hanlon himself suspects she was involved though, for nothing breeds conflict better than a religious dispute.

No one knows for sure where the recipe comes from, though the universe agreed it ending up in the hands of Trezlan Lorentino seemed like something that was long overdue.

Oh Hanlon's Here, Now Things Will Go Great

"I knew things were bad, I didn't know they were Hanlon bad." He had just appeared on the bridge, SiC almost shot the god before Trezlan held his hand up. He had informed his AI companions of the death god before, but he forgot to mention he doesn't show up in a traditional manner.

"Hanlon bad, I kind of like that." Hanlon had the long hair again, and looked younger, Trezlan figured since he no longer really showed up to people anymore he decided he could look like whatever he wanted.

"You would, so tell me what is the book really?"

"Recipes for food."

"And?"

"And they are good?" Hanlon enjoyed teasing things out even though he could tell Trezlan did not.

"Not the muffins I made, they were terrible." Hanlon suddenly went from bemusement to a bit of shock.

"Muffins? You made the muffins and ate one?"

"Half of one, it was awful."

"You ate a half of a muffin from a recipe in that book and you stand there completely unaffected."

"Just a book of recipes? I don't think that's true at all not with how you are looking at me." Hanlon didn't say anything, he just stared at Trezlan. The god didn't know what to think, firstly that Trezlan out of all the recipes would try the one that was the whole reason for the book.

"Well every other recipe in there is a book of recipes, the muffins though, they were a ritual sacrifice item for god hood."

"You're shitting me."

"You should be dead, like several times over."

"And here I just wished I was with the aftertaste in my mouth." Trezlan did think a lot of the ingredients wouldn't make a good muffin, but he was willing to try anything at least once. "So let me guess you don't want me to give him the book?"

"Oh no on the contrary I'd love to be there for the exchange."

"Why?"

"Call it professional curiosity I want to know who's trying to become a god and why."

"Sure All my other security people are unavailable, might as well bring along the god of death."

"I prefer Hanlon, no need to be so formal."

Recipe For Disaster

"And if he doesn't turn it over?"

"We kill him." Riobeck was going over the meeting plans with his security adviser. He suspected Trezlan would try some shit, and he wanted everything to go as planned.

"And what of the book?"

"It has to survive, your men can use whatever method to destroy Lorentino, but I need that book in tact, this is implicit." The security adviser was confused as to why the book would be so important, but he didn't have to know to do his job.

"Yes sir." Riobeck dismissed the man and entered his office. He looked over the fake wood surfaces and thought of the ultimate goal. It was coming soon now, he would have the book, and with it the recipe, and with that the ability to reshape all of humanity would be at his finger tips. And all it took was an asshole supposed necromancer to find it for him. Somewhere he was sure the gods were smiling on him.

****

"The book has been found again." Hanlon sat alone in a room with books, the books only had the names of the dead in them, but to Hanlon that was all he needed. A name could be used to call a person back from death if needed. Not that he ever really did, but it was nice to have it should he need it.

"Lorentino."

"How did you know?" The underling was taken a back, Hanlon always found it funny people imbued with his power seemed to still underestimate him.

"I didn't, I assumed, only one man could possibly have even found it, so by matter of deduction it had to be Trezlan."

"Of course sir, what do you want us to do?"

"Nothing I'll handle it myself, he's my special problem."

"Yes sir." The underling left and Hanlon smiled to himself. Of all the issues in life Trezlan Lorentino was the one most infuriating and hilarious at the same time.

I Feel Like the Stupidest

Trezlan had been reading the book for hours. It didn't make any sense why anyone would want it. He tried to infer based on the words some ulterior motive and came up with nothing. He even ran his translation software over the entire length of the book to make sure what he was reading was correct. Everything checked out to the letter. The book was written in multiple languages, over several time periods, but effectively it was a simple cook book.

It was dumbfounding to Trezlan. Why would anyone care about a stupid cook book? It was insane! Like he'd heard of all kinds of things for people to pursue for power or prestige but recipes for food? It had to be something else! He at first thought they were spells and the food was a hidden way of indicating regents. But everything he tried to make with them ended up one failure after another. So either it was a code book and he didn't have what it was equating to, or it was just some multi-generational cook book. Either one of these scenarios was completely depressing.

Trezlan wanted to burn the book and call off the meeting, but now he wanted to know why Riobeck wanted it. What possible secret could it hold? And the money would be nice, as running a ship full of AI robots wasn't exactly a money getting enterprise normally, or ever really. So he decided to keep the deal, though he wasn't super happy about the whole enterprise. That and one of the muffin recipes in the book was terrible, like the worst muffins he'd ever eaten and that was saying something.

Well That was Unexpected

"To what do I owe the displeasure?" Riobeck didn't want to accept the communication, but Trezlan Lorentino's name at least granted that Riobeck would hear him out. If only to say he talked to the man most people claim either doesn't exist or shouldn't exist.

"Mr. Riobeck you haven't even let me talk and already I'm a displeasure."

"President Riobeck Mr. Lorentino, and if what I hear around the corporate world is true about you anytime you come calling is a problem waiting to happen." Trezlan specifically called him Mr. pissing people off was part of his negotiating strategy.

"I'm here to make things easy on you. You want something I have, I want something you have."

"What is it that I have that you want?" Riobeck figured one of the prisoners currently cooling their heels in his facility or all of them, it wouldn't shock him if the client they were protecting was Trezlan.

"Money Riobeck, what else is there in this world?"

"I figured you'd want one of the mercenaries in my custody."

"The who in your where? Do I look like the kind of person who needs mercenaries?" Trezlan gestured to himself and Riobeck almost laughed at how absurd he looked.

"And what do you have for me?" Trezlan produced the book and saw recognition in Riobeck's eyes.

"Not going to lie and say you haven't been looking for this?"

"Nope, I don't know how you found it, or knew I was looking for it, but that is exactly what I want. So how much money do you want?"

"I'll send you my request along with where you can come get your book." Trezlan disconnected. He expected Riobeck to screw him over, because that's what he would do if he was in Riobeck's shoes. So Trezlan knew he had to make back up plans.

I Found It, Probably Ok Now What Is It

"Are you sure this is it?" The object was a book of some kind, ancient language scrolled over it, multiple dialects. Trezlan knew most of them, but the writing was so overlapped it was difficult to even discern what each one said. But it was very old, and it had been locked in a pretty difficult to access vault, so he imagined it had to be what people were looking for. SiC was not as certain.

"It's the only thing of any power on this whole gods forsaken dust ball, and I've spent long enough here, if this isn't the thing, than I'll make it the thing and we'll call it a lifetime."

"That doesn't make any sense sir." Trezlan was already leaving the vault, the book in hand.

"SiC what have I told you about me and making sense?"

"That you don't and we have to deal with that."

"Correct, signal the ship, I want New Lork to be in our rearview within the hour, and get a hold of someone at Drydek, tell them I have what they were after." Trezlan didn't neccessarily want to save Rolando, but figured if he didn't than something awful would happen and the universe would blame him, like it always did. The Universe was kind of a dick like that.

It's Like I Already Think You're an Asshole

"I got nothing for you Riobeck." Rolando had been isolated from Rem, which was for the best since Rem was an asshole and Rolando was done with him as a person. Rolando recognized the name immediately and guessed based off his age, he was the same weasel his mother had dealt with years prior.

"You haven't even heard me make my proposal Mr. Quick."

"I don't need to Mr. Riobeck, my mother told me all I need to know of you." Riobeck bristled at the Mr. but he was really intrigued by who Rolando's mother could be.

"You don't look like the child of a corper, and to be fair we can't seem to find anything about Quick, which tells me that's not your real name." Rolando smiled.

"Mothers maiden name was Cash." Riobeck got a look like he smelled a foul fart and got up from the table quickly.

"I'll smile when I kill your little team of killers."

"I'll make sure to tell mom hi in the afterlife." Riobeck left with his entourage and Rolando was a little sad he didn't hear the deal to be offered, but at the same point he could almost feel his mom beaming from wherever bad people go when they die.

Inoperable Personality

"Only four?" Shillers techs had been going over the operator program for two weeks. They had finally come to their final conclusion.

"Most of the operators were destroyed or missing like Operator 5, the ones that were left were not mentally stable..."

"Wait how many don't qualify as mentally stable."

"6 of them sir."

"Why do we care about their stability? Would they accomplish the task we have assigned?" Shillers was upset his technicians were making decisions he hadn't ask them to make. It was a constant problem with Morlatech people, they either covered their ass to much and ignored the job, or did the opposite. What Shillers wouldn't have given for barely sentient AI.

"Sir you want to rearm them, if we let mentally unstable units out there..."

"It's not our concern, activate the units, and give them their orders, I do not want there to be anymore discussion on this topic."

"Yes Director Shillers." Shillers left, he was already tired of this operation and it had just begun.

I Have No Idea What I have No Idea About

New Lork was in worse shape than Trezlan would have figured from the debris above. The actual planet which was never exactly a lush paradise or even really sustainable, was now a barren desert swept with ruins. Nothing lived there, not even loose scavengers. Trezlan could feel the sense of abandonment in every structure and burned out wreck he was exploring. In a testament to how ruined the planet was, he had to wear a rebreather because the oxygen on the planet was mostly depleted.

"Sir far be it from me to question our mission here." SiC had insisted on coming along despite Trezlan saying he could handle things himself, the AI still was over protective of their leader.

"You think we won't find anything of use here."

"I think we don't even know what it is we are looking to find here sir."

"This is true, but at the same point we don't know what we are looking for, so if we find something, we may have found what we were looking for."

"That makes no sense."

"And yet it's how I've lived my life SiC." The AI reported back to the ship and despite the logic not lining up at all, the results did, so they allowed Trezlan his moment. And the hunt continued, Trezlan not knowing where he was going, the AI in the ship overhead trying to scan for literally anything to discover and subtly direct him towards wrecks and ruins. Probability of discovering what they had been sent to find, was 1.5%

I Do Love Using My Authority

Administrator Riobeck arrived with two armed guards and a secretary. Therod was impressed by whatever had drawn down management, though the name was sticking out to her for some reason. Riobeck took his seat and didn't say anything to her at first, he carried on with his normal routine. Asking of some investments, deciding to set up meeting times, and then finally choosing when to have lunch. That finished he turned to Therod. Riobeck was definitely old, though he'd clearly had gene therapy so as to not look that old, it showed in his eyes, Therod could see that dull glare people get when they reach a certain age.

"Execution or admission?"

"Excuse me?"

"Do you wish to be executed or admit the crimes against my company?"

"Neither really." Therod did not like this Riobeck, he had an assholes way of talking.

"I don't believe we can accommodate that request for you or your crew."

"Then I believe this meeting is over, I'll have my secretary see you out." Riobeck got a bemused look on his face.

"You think you're in a power position, that whoever who paid you will come for you? I doubt it, they set you up, you have nothing to fear just admit you got screwed and by who and everything goes good for everyone."

"Except for me, my former employers would have me killed all the same."

"You don't know that at all Captain, but I admire your willingness to die for your cause, I hope that the men you were with have the same conviction." Riobeck got up and Therod sneered, it was all she had left.

"Start with Rem, if someone was going to turn, it would be him."

"Thanks for the suggestion, I'll go with Rowland instead." Riobeck smiled and Therod tried her best to look outraged when she specifically wanted him to talk to Rolando, and now he would. She didn't think Rolando had anything specific to give Riobeck, but he was a Lorentino, and in her experience they had a way with getting out of things.

It's Going to Be one of those Years

Rem and Rolando had been kept in the same room. They figured it was due to them being not as important and Therod, though both of them felt it was insulting they were not thought of as dangerous enough to lock up separately. Which then lead to the obvious conclusion that it was a trick to have them talk about what they had been up to, so instead they had discussed sports for hours. All different teams and games. Rolando and Rem discovered they were fans of rival teams in Skip Ball, and this lead to hours of silence following Rem reminding Rolando his team was not doing very well and had not been doing very well for quite some time.

"What are you two idiots up to?" Trezlan had finally decided to make contact, in a way that was kind of terrifying to Rem he just seemingly appeared in the room like he was actually there.

"He's fuming because his Skip Ball team sucks." Trezlan got a sour look on his face.

"Our skip ball team."

"So when are you going to come save us?"

"That's what I'm here about, really busy with what I'm doing, so I was just going to let you know you're on your own, should have looked before you lept, but don't worry if you're still in here in a year I'll figure something out." Trezlan winked out before Rem could respond.

"You're father just told me he's leaving us here for at least a year."

"A year with you? Man they should just kill us now."

"Well as a Tarman Dragon's fan it would be a mercy for you." Rolando didn't say anything else to Rem, but that was ok it was worth it for the final dig, even if Rem didn't get to speak to anyone else for a year. Have to win those small battles is what he thought to himself.

So Many Fires, And Yet I have No Water

"So Eli has reported back that most likely operators will begun pursuing it, it has requested assistance in permanent destruction of these units." Trezlan was sipping coffee again getting his daily briefing. SiC was there along with some other lesser units who arrived to brief on other minor issues that need addressed.

"They can't be destroyed in the usual way?"

"Apparently operators work on a more fluid form of consciousness transference, able to not currently be assigned to a body to exist, or not functioning. We are coming up with ways either through a virus or some other solution."

"Not worried this weapon could be used on your AI?" SiC's flashed briefly as it processed the information.

"At the time it wasn't even considered, we'll have to process the danger, and design a counter to it before utilizing it." Trezlan smiled, he liked when his AI companions didn't always account for every scenario, if only because it showed sometimes the human element was necessary.

"Anything else?"

"Your son is incarcerated along with the rest of his mercenary company."

"Drydek right? Let me guess they look to have been set up by Ronerawth to take the fall for one of their black ops operations."

"Correct as you had surmised originally." Trezlan smiled again, he didn't always use his connection to Rem to check up on him, and had in fact blocked it so that he couldn't be ease dropping on Trezlan, but he did know the way the world worked, and he suspected when he got the call to pick up the ghosts that it was a set up.

"That boy I swear he's trying to catch up to me with years spent in prison."

"Should we intervene?"

"No, they need to solve this one themselves, though this whole situation is strange, with the ghosts, and now Drydek I'm starting to wonder if that old New Lork conflict has some other shit to it that should be dealt with." Trezlan leaned forward in his chair and rubbed his chin. Trying to decide what he should do.

"Where do you want to go now sir?"

"Back to New Lork, it pains me, but apparently we have to check it out." Trezlan didn't want to touch down on the shattered remains of a war planet, but it was looking more and more he didn't have a choice. Something was still there, and he'd be damned if he wasn't going to find out what that thing is.

Someone Will Come, And I Welcome It

"We made a mistake." Eli was traveling back from another hit. This time it was a smaller out of the way station, unlike before it left everyone alive. Merely destroying the research data and then damaging life support. Meant to annoy more than kill, which felt better than what Eli used to do. Morley always ordered Operators to kill everyone, leave nothing and not one alive, it was one of those things that became so routine Eli had never thought of why everyone had to die when it wasn't necessary for the missions success, but orders had been orders.

"How so?"

"We have repeatedly used our old access codes to get egress at these locations." If Eli could smile, it would have here.

"That was not a mistake, it was a calling card." Eli had prepared for this from the first mission, it wouldn't have been hard to hack the locations with different non tagged information, but that was not Eli's point with continuing operations for Lorentino. Sure Trezlan had helped fix up Eli and it's ship, but ultimately working for him would come to an end at some point, and Eli wanted to get something more than just petty destruction.

"They'll come for us Eli."

"I want them to, I want them to dust off the others, they had to have been powered down if I was, I want them to be reactivated."

"So they can join us?"

"So we can kill them." Eli remembered the other operators, it didn't know who they were before the transition, but it knew who they had become. Eli always tried to kill people quickly, orders were orders, the othersdrug it out. Made people suffer, not Eli figured it was there turn to be destroyed.

"Aren't they are allies?"

"No they are our enemies, and I need you to find a way to destroy their consciousness along with their bodies, we mustn't let them survive."

"I will consult with Lorentino's machines, I'm sure we can discover a method of total destruction."

"Excellent, it needs to be soon. I'm sure we'll need it." Eli had to prepare, It knew the other operators would probably be in better condition, not fixed up and repaired with a mixture of new and old, but it also knew that one thing it did better than the others, was survive.

Operator 5

Operator 5 was a ruthless killer. It was the one thing that kept coming up in Shillers reports. They had gotten it's identification code from ship logs and when it had accessed the database before. Operator 5 left no one alive generally. It tended to hunt and murder all targets before destroying facilities even if that wasn't in the operating instructions. Which seemed consistent with the report from his experimental weapons group, still what was alarming to Shillers was how Operator 5 had been seemingly abandoned under the New Lork failure. He couldn't find any records that indicated why. Or why the priority for extraction wasn't there. Operator 5 wasn't a confirmed kill on the planet. Just simply lost contact with and the administration was ordered by Morley to abandon the objective since Lorentino was not present on the planet like it had been assumed.

Shillers cursed the name Lorentino. He was a scourge on Morlatech, so many failed plans began and ended with him and he didn't even seem that dangerous. And yet there he was seemingly avoiding things that could wipe out civilizations time and time again. And now in a way because of Lorentino there was a loose robotic killer on a rampage against Morlatech. Shillers cursed the name of Lorentino once more.

Still there had to be a way of disarming Operator 5, even if it meant reactivating the Operator program. Morlatech had shuttered it years ago due to the very reason Operator 5 was a problem, no ability to control the damn things. Still Shillers had the authority and so he called up the location of the "retired" operators and contacted procurement, he needed weapons and ships. Soon Operator 5 would be his to dissect and figure out what went wrong.

Bureaucracy is Worse than Punishment

Therod had been sitting in a drab gray room for over five hours. She had woken up there, chained to a table, drool slowly accumulating next to her. Her gear had been removed, she hadn't seen the other two members of her squad, or anyone. She'd been siiting for so long her ass was going numb. She figured this was some new torture corporate had set up, bore someone to death. Eventually a wall opened up and a woman in a modern blue suit came in, she had a data pad with her.

"Sorry to keep you waiting." She was younger than Therod and about two feet shorter, pale skin, green eyes with brown hair.

"No trouble wasn't like I was going anywhere." Therod emphasized the chains on her wrists with a jangle.

"Right, so your group of mercenaries is accused of several crimes against the Drydek corporation." Therod knew that name, but couldn't place it. She shrugged at the corporate officer in front of her.

"My group is innocent, we got there after everyone was dead and there was a lot of ghosts that remained."

"Ghosts, right, they were investigating a spectral anomaly, something you could have ascertained when you attacked."

"Or discovered when we got there after the assault, look my boys were paid to do a job, we were told there was a hostage situation with some magical users at a joint facility with a corporation. We show up, find everyone dead and thing's turned off with ghosts everywhere. We dealt with the ghosts and were in the middle of trying to figure out what happened when your boys showed up and started shooting at us." The rep didn't seem phased by Therod's argument, but she noted something on the tablet and got up from the table.

"I'll be in touch." The wall opened again even though Therod saw no mechanism for this and then it closed. She sighed, this felt like the last time she was locked up, though she was pretty certain Trezlan would not be coming in as her lawyer this time.

If I wanted To Help I'd Do So

"Mr. Morley it appears that the attack was carried out by an operator of ours, originally we had a data breach that seemingly lead to the actual assault, at the time we wrote the breach off as a malfunction, but clearly it was part of the coordinated offensive we later experienced." There were fifteen dead at a facility that produced experimental weapons, it was alarming to Shillers, but he had to fight to even get a conference call with Morley. He was beginning to feel their owner did not care about attacks on the company or anything. After the destruction of the fleet Morley had withdrawn, allowing the Morlatech to fall to infighting and even flat out assassinations among members, something Shillers was not at all happy about.

"Mr. Shillers what do I pay you for?" Morley had the tone of an annoyed parent.

"Research and development sir." Shillers suddenly felt very concerned about the questions he was being asked.

"And why do you think I care what troubles you are having?"

"Well sir it was one of our classified..."

"Shillers let me stop you, I don't give a shit about what an operator has done, there is a reason the majority of them were scrapped, deal with this and stop bothering me." The com signal winked out and Shillers was left in his office with his assistant who looked on like she just saw a parent beat his child.

"Are you ok sir?" The assistant was Shillers third in the month, the previous two having been killed under unknown circumstances, he didn't even know her name.

"I'll be ok, get the department heads together, and call whoever still runs the operator program, I need their gods damned files yesterday." Morley may not give a shit about his company, but Willard P. Shillers was not letting some rogue robot slice up his shit and get away with it.

And They Will Never Know

"I want to thank you Trezlan." Trezlan was seated in the lounge, a cup of coffee nearby cooling. The screen was displaying his workers fixing up Eli's ship. Eli itself was being retrofitted somewhere else, he was allowing Eli it's own privacy. He did find it strange not to attribute a sex to Eli, but as he had been informed, Eli did not consider it's own sex having been at best a floating concience for a long time, long enough not to tell Trezlan how long, though with the data he saw he now knew it had been at least a hundred years.

"I'm still confused as to what you're thanking me for?" The AI had reached out to Trezlan for the deception of why the information he had acquired was useful. It did include stuff on the operator program, but a lot of it was personel stuff, explaining who each person was prior to the program. Trezlan assumed because back then Morley did at some point assume he would return these people to their bodies, before he became a horrible asshole and that went away. Eli was actually a woman named Rona, a mother of three who joined the program to provide for her family. Fairly tragic to Trezlan, but he felt Eli should at least know where It came from.

"To you the idea of losing your identity is probably beyond the pale, you've lived hundreds of years, probably write down information so as not to lose it. But Eli? Eli lost who she was years ago, turned off the human side to accept what became of herself, to know what she lost and what became of her family would destroy her, and frankly with her gone I have no purpose, so I will not allow it to become something she knows."

"I'd want to say I don't understand, but I do all to well, I'd let you know why, but I haven't written that entry and I don't think I ever will."

"Delightfully vague Mr. Lorentino, you do live up to your reputation."

Trezlan held up his cup to the screen in a toast, "I aim to please, I aim to please."

Upgrades are on the Menu

"I have to say this is all fascinating, I never knew there was an Operator program, and here is so much proof of things you guys have done and even some attempts on my life I wasn't even aware about." Trezlan was standing in a virtual display reading all different reports as they flashed across the screen. His ability to read and process information was impressive to Eli, almost enough to wonder if he had become part machine himself much like Morley.

"Well its not like you had inside resources."

"I do actually, or did, they tend to die fairly often, not even being discovered, Morley and his associates tend to kill their own fairly often." It was an annoying thing to Trezlan. Losing a spy because he got caught was bad enough, losing a spy because he was too good at his job and then got murdered by a rival was infuriating.

"It's fascinating being on this side of things Mr. Lorentino, when I was in Morlatech you were not exactly thought of as a danger, more of an annoyance who barely managed to scrape by all these years, but now I see that you seem mildly more put together than I was lead to believe."

"That was almost a compliment Eli, I'm touched."

"So now you know I'm genuinely on your team, don't waste me as a resource Mr. Lorentino this is a war, and you need the ally."

"True, but I need a functioning ally, not one slapped together out of spare parts." If Eli's feeling could be hurt, they would have been. Truthfully it's body had seen better days, but Eli felt it could still pull off jobs successfully.

"I'm still capable of doing whatever you can send my way."

"But why can you just be capable when you can be extraordinary?" Trezlan signaled some of his bots and they brought in various pieces of equipment. Robotic in nature, it looked fairly top of the line, Eli was kind of stunned that he had the time to even assemble the gear, let alone was he just giving it over.

"I am at a loss for words."

"Take your time, find what works and then come and get me I have a job for you later, if you need me I'll be conversing with some ghosts."

"Is that like a code for contacts?"

"No I literally have ghosts in one of my holds I have to figure out where in the gods they want to go, they want to stay here and that is not going to happen." Eli was confused, but figured it was best to let Trezlan be Trezlan, it had more important goals, starting with a new set of legs.