As with most things Tiny related, the backpack used expansion runes to change size when necessary. The storage space was divided into four main sections, each dealing with a different aspect of running a city.

The lower floor was mostly occupied by the thrusters and the massive generators that powered the whole structure.

"It's rare we ever come here," Darius said. "Usually, Tiny takes care of maintenance, and if ever the rune fails, which is rare, I come and take a look."

The professor and Stacy were on a flying disc, slowly going upwards inside the backpack. The second floor was occupied mainly by glasshouses and warehouses where food, milk, algae and other essential foodstuffs were produced.

"Food is one of those things that we don't really produce," the professor continued. "just in small amounts. it's much easier to buy food from existing sources."

"Can't you magic it up or something?" Stacy said.

"That's not how it works."

"Shame."

The third floor was the biggest, occupying almost half the space in the backpack. Rows upon rows of buildings, some small, some big, stacked together on metal shelves. In the middle of this, people zipped about moving materials from one building to another, some jumping from flying platform to flying platform to get to the other side.

"This is where the magic happens, where all of our exports are made. Wands, robot arms, ever-expanding bags, replacement organs, you name it, we probably make it."

"I don't know anything about these words, rules and stuff," Stacy began. "But I'm positive some of the stuff here is highly illegal and dangerous."

Darius shrugged.

The top floor was packed with buildings. Some on top of each other, some on the ceiling, tightly packed like sardines, barely able to walk past them.

"Here is the storage place, where buildings not in use are kept."

"We were not here," Stacy said. "I'm sure of it, I would have remembered the smell of lightly roasted socks."

"Well," Darius said. "As head scientist, I have certain privileges."

"Basically, Tiny lets you do whatever you want."

"Yes. My lab is usually parked on the second level in a nice green patch."

"Where are we going?"

"To the medical ward."

"You let a medical building sit in this place?" Stacy looked at the stained walls, pieces of tiny metal legs scattered everywhere, and pieces of buildings that littered the area.

"It's well-insulated," Darius protested.

The medical ward was located in the back, wedged between a fast-food joint and Rip's bar.

"Since when do we have a McLeaf?" Stacy asked.

"I'm not sure what McLeaf is," Darius began. "If you mean the Leaf Burger then we have had it since the elven kingdom."

"Why?"

"A few elves approached Tiny with the suggestion of opening a branch here."

"He accepted?"

"Yes."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that."

The hospital was a squat building, with reinforced windows and two-inch steel doors on each side. When most people can pick up a miraculous healing potion at a discount, inject themselves with Nanomachines that repair tissue on a molecular level, or chant a healing spell, a hospital is not really needed.

Except for the more esoteric cases, of course, people with sensitive immune systems, delicate operations on the brain, modifications on a genetic level, fusions between machine and man, you know the standard stuff. When you have a mad scientist on board with an unlimited budget and a governor with loose morals, strange things can happen.

At the door, Mark greeted them.

"Oh, it's you," he said with the enthusiasm of a rock.

"What's with the greeting?" Stacy said, putting her hands on her hips, "And why is your hair purple? And why is it smoking at the tips?"

"Every time you and that Curiosity fellow shows up something stupid happens."

"He is not here."

"Then only slightly stupid things will happen."

"Hey!"

"Assistant," Darius said. "please show us to room 6."

"Are you sure you wanna disturb him? He's been pretty restless."

"Did you let Hidara near him?"

"She insisted!"

"He?" Stacy said. "Is the McGuffin a person?"

"What is a McGuffin?" Darius asked, then thought better of it. "Yes, Codec is here."

"Nice."

Stacy smiled internally. Finally, she will have some power at her disposal! No more weak and useless blonde! In hindsight, she should have probably asked what kind of powers will this McGuffin give her. It would not do to get some sort of useless power, like invisibility in the dark or some such nonsense.

"Come," Darius said. "Codec is waiting."

The first thing that hit Stacy when she entered the building was the smell. Or lack of it. A hospital not smelling of antiseptic and unwashed body parts just seemed wrong. Taking another look, this whole place seemed wrong.

It did not look like a hospital at all; it looked more like a dorm than anything. The long corridor they were walking on was tastefully decorated, painting of flowers and mountains along the wall, a soft red rug on the floor, and the occasional door jutting out was painted in soft pastel colours, with flowers and rolling hills.

Arriving at the end of the corridor, they entered a spacious kitchen and living room combo, with soft brown leather sofas around a small coffee table. At the end of the kitchen, a spiral staircase was located, disappearing into the ceiling.

Mark, wasting no time, went to the kettle, put on the dirty apron that hung from the stove's handle, popped something white and smelly into his mouth from the said apron, and began making tea.

"Tea?" the assistant asked. "Or something that wakes you up and shows you exactly how insignificant we are in the cosmic scale of the universe?"

"No, thank you," Stacy said. "I'm going directly up."

Before she could take one more step forward, Darius claw shot out and wrapped around Stacy's pink one. No words were needed, Stacy could feel the concern oozing from every remaining pore of Darius' body.

"I will be fine," Stacy said. "Really, I will be fine."

"Are you sure?" Darius said. "I have not seen him in years. I don't know how dangerous he became. Sure you don't want me there just in case?"

"I will be fine," Stacy said. "That demon lady is already there isn't it? Don't worry, I will manage."

"Alright." Darius reluctantly let go. "I believe in you."

"Scream, and we will come to your aid," Mark added.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence."

"Anytime."

Stacy let go of Darius and stepped into the corner. A panel extended upwards, and Stacy pressed it. The disc began to ascend.

"Be careful!" Darius added.

"I will."

The top floor, if it could be called that, consisted of a small barren area, with the rest of the space walled off. A five-inch reinforced steel door was in the middle. It had number 6 in red seared on it.

Stacy knocked gently. Nothing happened. She tried again. Still nothing. A bit more force this time. Nope. Well, she thought, it was time for the big guns. She raised her claw.

"Enter," Hidara's voice came from the other side. "It's open."

Huh. Right, Stacy thought, common sense exists here too. She entered, Huh. Definitely not what she was expecting.

The room was spacious. Soft, dark red and purple draperies decorated the walls, some crisscrossing the ceiling. A single light source, floating at the top gave the room a blue hue, barely illuminating the pillows neatly stacked along the wall. There was no furniture.

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Two figures were in the middle of the room. They were standing on their fingers. Hidara, using her tail as a counterbalance, easily kept her weight up. She was not even sweating.

The other person was even more impressive. Using one finger on the left hand, he was holding up four hundred kilograms of metal and silicone. This was because he or it if you want to get technical, was a robot. A grey robot, square and bulky, like it, was made from tiny cubes stacked together.

There were no eyes, ears, or a mouth to speak of, just a collection of cubes continually rearranging themselves. Even the finger looked more like a lego piece than an actual finger.

"You could have just tried the door," Hidara said, not turning to look. "We were open from the start."

"What are you doing?" Stacy stepped inside.

"Let me introduce you," the demoness said. "Codec. this is Stacy."

"Pleasure." The robot's voice was level and flat. "So, you finally came."

"What?"

Codec contorted, putting tremendous pressure on his finger, and pushed himself in the air. Halfway to the ceiling, he stopped, and with the sound of hundreds of dice knocking together, he began rearranging himself. Hands went up, feet migrated downwards, his head travelling upwards, along the spine, stopping at his pelvis, now a neck.

With a heavy rattle, he fell back to the floor, standing upright, and took a few unsteady steps towards the blonde.

"So Darius finally let you see me," the robot said.

"What!" Stacy bristled. "He never let me anywhere, I let myself."

"You were right, Hidara," Codec said. "She is different from her."

"She is she," Hidara agreed, lowering herself to the floor, rolling with the momentum to a standing position.

"I have a name, you know!" Stacy snapped. "And it's Stacy!" She trusts a claw out. "Nice to meet you, rude robot."

Codec, using more care and caution his body showed, shook the offered limb gently.

"It's nice to meet you, Stacy," the robot began. "Apologies for the rudeness, it's a bit of a shock seeing you walking and talking, a bit hard to process."

"It's no problem." Stacy waved it off. "I'm rude all the time, and I'm sure I'm gonna be again."

Hidara grabbed a few fluffy pillows from the corner, dragging them over, and arranged them into a circle.

"I recommend," the demoness said, "that we all sit down, especially you Codec before you get over-excited. You still have not let go of her hand."

Codec said nothing, just followed Hidara's instruction, plopping down on a velvet cushion. He didn't let go. Stacy wanted to protest and possibly laser him, but even she could sense the tension in the air. Something was off here. She was not sure if it was the decor clashing with the robot, or the way he jingled like a bag of dice every time he moved.

Even his face, if you could call it, that looked like it could collapse any moment and scatter on the floor. Best exercise caution. Stacy sat down next to him, Hidara did the same on the other side.

"Now," Hidara said. "I would like you, Codec, to tell us a bit about yourself and why exactly you are here."

Codec said nothing, just stared at, well, it was hard to tell. It is hard for other people to tell or see what you are looking at or thinking when your head is a cube.

"Excuse him," Hidara said. "He is in one of his moods. I will continue to tell his story. If that's okay with you Codec."

There was no response.

"Wait," Stacy said, fishing for a smoke. "Let me guess first. Codec is some kind of advanced robotic experiment, made by Amanda, right before she fried her brains, right?"

"Well yes," Hidara looked worriedly at Codec, but there was no reaction there.

"So what exactly are you Codec? Some kind of sentient blocks put together? Magnets that think? Why are you locked up in this place?"

"He is not locked up," Hidara added quickly, eyes darting around madly. "This is his home. You like being here, don't you Codec?"

"Do you know," Codec began. "How does it feel when your creator dies for you?"

Stacy wanted to respond with her customary what, but a slap from the demoness tail stopped all sounds. Hidara shook her head nervously. Codec continued, ignoring the exchange.

"I was one of her first projects, a new type of artificial intelligence," Codec lifted a hand that started shifting rapidly. "Each of these blocks is as powerful as a high-end tablet, capable of transmitting information to each other in nanoseconds. Each one has a small gravity field, capable of moving around, giving them the ability to assume any form for any number of tasks," Codec let his hand down. "Marvellous is in it? True genius."

"That sounds pretty useful," Stacy agreed.

"The problem was," Codec continued. "That there was no personality matrix, no base, no instruction for the block on how they behave, what kind of passive form they should take, nothing. They could jiggle around sure, but that's it, just a heap of mighty blocks that could do simple tasks, but it was not true intelligence, no capability to make their own decisions."

Codec lapsed back into silence. Stacy started shuffling uncomfortably on her pillow. Hidara let out a huge sigh.

"Codec," the demoness provided gently. "Would you like to continue the story? Stacy is not familiar with the whole picture."

"I can figure out the rest!" Stacy said quickly, seeing an opportunity to talk and not wasting it. "Amanda tried to cheat and use her brain pattern, or whatever that kind of shit is called to give the blocks a base, an idea of how the whole body interacts, and in the process..."

"She fried every inch of information stored in her brain," Codec completed the sentence.

"I would not put it so bluntly," the blonde said, ignoring the incredulous look Hidara was giving her. "But yes. That."

"I am well aware of what happened," Codec said. "Well aware. Each day, after waking up from my power nap, the first memory that is accessed in my database is of her, sprawled on the floor unresponsive, while the pile of blocks that was me, first started to gain sentience."

The following happened way, way too fast. Codec sprung up from his seat with the rattle of a thousand vengeful dice and slammed full force into Stacy.

There were three reasons Stacy did not become a modern art on the wall, first, her claw wrapped around her as many times as it could, creating a sort of flexible barrier, the first point of impact, absorbing as much of the kinetic energy as it could.

Second, this is the exact reason the demoness was here to stop this kind of outburst happening. The problem was, she let her guard down, allowing the fact that everything went alright till this point to cloud her judgement. Codec even opened up; he did not do that in ages.

So she did the only thing she could in that short amount of time, throwing, with pinpoint accuracy, the pillow she was sitting in between the charging Codec and the blonde, giving her another layer of protection.

Thirdly and most importantly, the robot was not aiming to kill.

"DO YOU UNDERSTAND!" Codec was screaming now, millions of little blocks rotating rapidly, making his shape inconsistent. "THE PERSON WHO CREATED ME IS DEAD?! THE REASON I WAS CREATED IS DEAD?! THE SOLE PURPOSE OF MY EXISTENCE IS GONE?! IN THE ATTEMPT TO CREATE ME?!" He pressed his shifting head as close as possible to Stacy's. "CAN YOU COMPREHEND?!"

"Now," Hidara was slowly approaching. "There is no need for this kind of behaviour."

"SHE IS PRANCING ABOUT IN MY CREATORS BODY!" The Codec body was starting to blur, smoke coming off from overheated dice.

"Remember, each part makes up the whole."

"WHAT RIGHT!"

"Past is only data; data can be rewritten."

"WHAT RIGHT!" Codec shouted, thousands of spinning dice clanking in guilt.

"Good maintenance is the key to a good lifestyle; don't let your processors overheat."

"What right!" his voice was cracking, hundreds of tiny speakers shutting down to redirect energy.

"Byte by byte, that's how the future is built."

"Does she have," Codec finished lamely, fully visible.

Right, Stacy was starting to get pissed off. Who is this Roblox character to question her existence?

"Do you understand," Stacy said through clenched teeth. "What is it like to wake up in a grown woman's body with the memories of a man?" It was her turn to lean uncomfortably close to the A.I. "Do you understand what it feels like waking up, not knowing who you are, what you are and where you are!?" Spittle was flying from her mouth. "Do you know how it feels to have reflexes, habits, and feeling incongruent with your memories?"

Silence.

"DO YOU?" Stacy screamed.

Codec looked sheepish, or as sheepish as a bunch of blocks can be.

"No," he said finally, wiping the split off his face.

"Then," Stacy said, lowering her voice. "What gives you the right to question my pain? My existence."

"Stacy," Hidara butted in, not liking where this was going. "Why don't we all calm down and sit down for a cup of tea. There is no reason to act irrationally."

Stacy's neck began throbbing. Hidara, for all her strength and goodwill, for a demon, had the psychological and calming capacities of a teenager who after reading a bit of Freud and watched a YouTube video about therapy, decided that she's an expert on the problems on the mind.

"Irrational?" Stacy's voice could cut steel. "Irrational?" She wanted to blow up, she really did, but what would that achieve? Hidara was clearly useless here, and someone needed to slap some sense into this bag of bricks. "There is absolutely nothing irrational about my outburst! Especially not when a fucking Roblox character questions my existence!"

"A what?"

"Oh just shut the fuck up Hidara and let me fucking talk!"

"There is no reason to talk to me like that; we are all civilised beings here."

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Stacy and Codec screamed at the same time. Hidara took a step back.

"Fine," she said. "if you wanna be like that."

"Oh, just be quiet and let me finish," Stacy said, exhausted. "You are making things worse."

Hidara looked down in defeat. She opened her mouth again, but Codec whirled his head around noisily to look at her. She closed her mouth. Without a word, she went to the corner, picking up a few pillows on the way. Arriving at a corner, she plopped down and started peeling the velvet cushions around her like a blanket. When only her head stuck out, she gave Stacy and Codec one last mournful look and covered her face too.

"Finally," Stacy let herself relax, but not for long, there was a conversation to finish. "As I was saying, I don't have any idea what I am supposed to do with my life either, and my personality, well it's a work in progress," Her claw uncoiled from her body. "You are not the only one without a purpose you know, most living beings have no fucking idea what to do with themselves either."

"I am not a living being," Codec said. "I'm a robot."

"Semantic," Stacy waved it off and plopped down on a pillow. "It's the same thing really."

"No, not really," Codec sat down in front of her. "An A.I. has its purpose programmed since the date of creation. Mine was to protect and aid Amanda."

"Right, what about Tiny?"

"What about him?"

"He's millions of years old right? His purpose was already fulfilled or gone a long time ago, right?"

Codec said nothing.

"So he programmed a new one," Stacy continued, smiling faintly. "He found something and reprogrammed himself to like it." She gestured around them. "Look at what he achieved since doing that. A whole city is living on him, with people who care about him, even with his destructive tendencies."

"He's developing a personality as well," came to the muffled reply from the corner.

"Shut up, Hidara!" Stacy snapped. "But yes, she is right. He is doing something with his existence, just by a simple reprogramming. You can do that too."

Codec said nothing, but you can clearly tell he was thinking. Millions of little cubes started to spin around, this time, however, they were controlled, with a purpose, thousands upon thousands of small processors working in tandem, analysing and processing all the information said recently.

"Can I," Codec began. "Can I do anything I want? Any purpose?"

"Yes, heck you can even change it midway if you don't like it."

Codec processors were coming to a decision. Any object, anything he wanted.

"Can I…," the robot began, "…update my original purpose?"

"The one about," Stacy swallowed, she could see where this was going, "protecting and serving Amanda?"

"Yes."

"She is not here, you know, and I am not her."

"I know. Protecting and serving Stacy then."

Stacy wanted to act surprised but decided against it.

"Are you sure?" the blonde said.

"Yes."

"You can always change it if you don't like it," added Hidara, peeking out behind her pillow. "Finding a purpose can be a work in progress."

"Shut the fuck up" Stacy snapped, then added in a softer tone. "Are you sure this is what you want?"

"If you have no objections, then yes."

"Sure," Stacy was not sure. "Let's just roll with it."

"The future is built one byte at the time, yes?" Codec said. "It will be easier for me to make a small adjustment in my original purpose then come up with a totally new one."

"Good point."

"I will start the countdown."

Huh, Stacy thought, he was right, byte by byte, one step at a time. Maybe she should make a small adjustment to her goals then, taking into consideration her strange existence. The million-dollar question, however, is what exactly her purpose is? What does she want?

Well, her memories supplied, booze, cigarettes, a tasty meal, and a good lay. Her hormones nodded in agreement.

"Three."

No, her brain added, we are a fucking genius with the mind capable of creating a sentient fucking robot from fucking scratch, and we can do so much more than drink and waste our years away doing nothing on the side-lines, watching all these cool people do their stupid shit.

We don't have the necessary knowledge, supplied the memories. And? We sit down and learn; we can do this, continuing the brain. What about doing both? Oh, yes, Stacy liked the idea, and the rest of her nodded in agreement.

Drink, smoke, fuck, and learn to be badass.

Sounded like a plan.

"Two."

Stacy smiled in satisfaction. There were worse goals out there.

"One. Start."

"What?" Stacy blinked twice, leaving her mind. Sadly, it was too late.

Codec surged. Thousands upon thousands of little blocks, rattling madly towards the blonde, enveloping her so fast, she did not have enough time to yelp.