Silash stared at the fog pooling out of the mysterious door at the end of the hallway and raised up his arm cannon, just in case.

"Oh, don't be silly, Silash!" giggled Tim's echoey voice with glee. "There's nothing to be scared of, I mean you no harm."

Silash raised his arm cannon higher. That sounded exactly like something someone would say if they meant him harm. After all, who would just announce that they meant someone harm?

Well, okay, Dennis the Big Robot had all but announced that he meant Silash harm. However, Dennis the Big Robot was all muscle and no brains. Wait, did automatons have muscle? Well... Dennis the Big Robot was all pistons and hydraulics and no solid state memory, Silash figured. Or, maybe a more apt statement was, he had been all hardware and no software.

Regardless, Silash figured he'd have to go on into the door at some point. There didn't seem to be any other exits in the area, other than the whole torn in the metal walls from whence he'd come. Only... He figured it would be good to plan for the worst. Silash walked back over to Dennis the Big Robot's body and picked up the electrified warhammer again. This would be good to have in case shit hit the fan, Silash figured.

Happy with his contingencies, Silash sallied forth towards the door. Silash noted that, impressively enough, fog still seemed to be billowing out of it - he wondered if there had possibly been an [enchantment] put on the door to constantly spill fog. A costly feature, for sure, but Tim wasn's exactly known for being cheap, now was he?

Silash figured it was worth it to find out. After all, he had a system now, didn't he? Couldn't his system detect things like [enchantments]? He figured it out to, at least.

[Door (Enchanted)]

That was a yes and a yes, two for two. Silash was pretty proud of himself. At least there were some benefits to having a system and the body of an automaton - although he was still wondering where his tauman body was, and whether he'd ever get it back. Of course, his guess was erring on the side of pessimism, as Time didn't seem like a very benevolent person.

Silash stepped into the doorway and noted that his robot vision seemed to do an even worse job of filtering through the fog, which was even more concentrated on this other side of the doorway, than his tauman vision would have.

"Alright, Tim, you fucked up little freak," said Silash as he brandished the warmhammer. "Where are you hiding? And what's your problem?"

"Silash, Silash, Silash," said Tim. "I'm right here, don't you know?"

Suddenly, Silash felt a terrible shock as a bolt of blue light beamed out from his chest and a hologram faded into view, standing right there before him. It occurred to Silash immediately that Tim had clearly made himself seem taller than he was in this hologram projection of his form.

"Hi there, Silash! What, did you really think I'd be here in the flesh? I've no doubt that you'd do everything in your power to destroy me right now if I was. Of course, it's not like you'd really be able to do anything to me if I was, because I've got it deep in your programming to never be able to lay a finger on me - heh, not that you have fingers any more or anything! You see, it's this amazing feature in your coding, yes, your brain runs on code now, that essentially sees me as an extension of yourself. That's the other thing - you can't destroy yourself, either."

Silash was furious! Also, why had Tim led him into this obnoxiously foggy room if all that he was going to do was pop up as a hologram from his chest? There was no need for this room at all! Unless... Something more sinister was afoot, something that Silash hadn't even considered. But he wasn't entirely sure what that could be, so, begrudgingly, he continued to listen to Tim's squeaky voice go on and on about... whatever the hell he was talking about.

"See, you're far from the first tauman consciousness I've uploaded into one of my automatons. However, I will say that your automaton is of the highest caliber, you are the latest and greatest, and I've used all the best methods and everything I've learned to improve your user experience. But, more to the point, when I first started doing this, I noticed something peculiar. When people would first gain consciousness, before they were even fully aware of what had happened, they'd start destroying themselves. Many times this happened immediately and kept me from successfully completing a consciousness transfer - someone would gain partial consciousness and immediately start ripping out their wiring. This was especially grisly with the first tauman who had a successful transfer, I'll call them Bot Alpha because that's the name I gave them. You're lucky, Silash, I let you keep your name. A lot of folks, I just wiped their name from their memory. It's a trivial thing to do, if you've got enough experience manipulating consciousness as I do.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"But let's get back on topic. Bot Alpha, you see, was always threatening to destroy herself whenever things didn't go her way. And boy, let me tell you, Silash, things hardly ever always went Bot Alpha's way. I swear to the gods, it seemed like things never went her way. Maybe her arms only had three points of movement, and sometimes were a little stiff? Well, that, according to her, was grounds to destroy herself by ripping off one arm and kicking off the other. And she knew she was the only working automaton I had, so she knew also that my only choice was to either fix her, and fix her to her liking, or she'd just start the cycle all over again. It got, suffice to say, incredibly tiring incredibly quickly. Eventually, I told her that I couldn't keep fixing her, and she'd have to either get over it or just destroy herself."

Silash enjoyed the pause that Tim took from telling his story. Tim's voice was almost like having a cheese grater to his ears... Well, not that Silash had ears anymore, but it was like having a cheese grater to his microphones to listen to Tim speak. But then, he was greeted by another, even more unpleasant sound. The sound of Tim... Sobbing?

"Titi! Are you okay, sweetums?" called Hilu's voice from the faint distance of Tim's hologram.

"I'm fine! I'm just talking to my new automaton! Go back to doing your nails or whatever!!" he shouted with a faux-anger that Silash foud embarassing and uncomfortable to behold.

"Wow, Titi, wow," called Hilu's voice as it faded away.

"Tim, I hate to ask, but... Uh, what is your problem?" said Silash.

"I was just thinking about what happened with Bot Alpha. See, Silash, when I told her what I just told you that I told her, that is to say, when I said to her that I wasn't going to fix her any more, she told me that she was done. It was... Well, I'd been expecting her to try and destroy herself. She always did. Honestly, if she had at that moment started tearing at her wiring, just like she'd done so many times before, well... I would've just fixed her anyways. My threat had never really had any teeth to it, if we're being honest here. But the really took it to her heart unit, which of course is basically just a big battery, or should I say was just a big battery. Well, I guess I can say is, because that's an automaton design that I kept - you, Silash, also have a heart unit that is essentially a large battery - regardless, the thing is that Bot Alpha did do something in response to my threat. That is to say she decided that it was a sign for her to abandon me, to jet out of my life and go no contact with me, her... Gods... With her botfather!"

Silash felt a digital nausea overwhelm him. Was Tim really calling himself a botfather? What kind of a bastardization of a word was that? Tim was forcing peoples' consciousness into automatons and calling himself something akin to a parent of the affected victims? This was, honestly, absurd - and, along with that, it showed that Tim was a deeply delusional tauman being. Silash wished that he could destroy Tim - or at least rip out the part of his chest that was projecting Tim's extra heightened image before him - but clearly, that was out of the cards.

"But I've fixed all that now!" said Tim with a nasty smile cracking through the living wood on his face. "See, not only do I get to talk to you like this through your inbuilt communication mechanism, but you can't harm yourself, you can't harm me, and we get to talk whenever I want us to! Don't worry, you'll learn to love me, in a way, anyways. Just keep this in mind, Silash, if you ever find yourself growing cross or feeling irked with me - I've made you very powerful, and, as long as you keep good care of your machinery, functionally immortal. There are much worse fates."

"But you revoked my ability to choose!" spat Silash. "You did not consider my wishes or my agency, or my will! You stole my ability to consent or not to this treatment, and now it is too late! Now I've become less than tauman!"

"Less than, or more than?" said Tim with a cackle. "Regardless, I'm glad you've humored me enough so far to listen to me explain this all to you, I really am. And I'm now going to ask that you step forward a few paces, so that you can learn your true purpose."

"My true purpose?" Silash felt unease at hearing this. What could it mean?

"Yes. There is a real reason I have ported your consciousness into this hardy body, you know - and along with that, a reason that I specifically chose someone of your high intelligence as well. I must say I do disagree with Dennis the Big Robot, Silash - you are functionally a genius."

Silash remained silent. This compliment did make him glad, but he didn't want to give that way to Tim.

"Now, come on, Silash! Step forward, step out of the fog, come see what you're here for!"

Silash sighed and stepped forward. With each step, he heard his joints crack and hydraulics whirr. He didn't like being an automaton, but it did feel powerful. Soon enough, the fog subsided, and he saw before him a huge, metal dome.

"What the hell is this?" Silash asked with genuine wonder in his voice.

"This is the tool that you're going to help me configure," replied Tim matter-of-factly. "It's a Tesserator."

"Shut the fuck up," said Silash. He couldn't help but be a little excited. "Are you telling me that this thing can create perforations?"