THREE MONTHS EARLIER

The holotank beeped and Bo'okdu'ust moved up and touched an icon. The holotank went back to showing large scale group interactions while the servers on either side started whining as supercoolant systems struggled to keep the strange matter particles at the right temperature.

"What was that?" Day asked from where she was being projected by a holoemitter onto a chair.

"Terran Great Filter encounter," Bo'okdu'ust said, going back to look at the other tank.

"Which one this time?" Day asked.

"Atomic weaponry," Bo'okdu'ust said. "By every metric, the Terrans should have annihilated themselves right after discovering it, but a quirk of timing kept it from happening."

Day nodded. She'd heard the lecture a half dozen times about how only the fact they had used two of them in a war kept them from using them repeatedly or in one big orgy of destruction.

The holotank beeped again and Bo'okdu'ust checked it quickly, then hit the go.

"Information Superhighway Holocaust?" Day asked.

"Indeed," Bo'okdu'ust said. "A rare filter, but one that is surprisingly effective when it pops up."

Day nodded. Increased information across a global network often led to either destructive dystopias or the world become wracked by wave after wave of civil wars.

Another beep. Another. Then another. Each time Bo'okdu'ust kept the simulation moving according to the records he was able to access.

Then it suddenly stopped.

Bo'okdu'ust shook his head.

"There it is again. Total failure," he mused. He leaned forward. "According to my sociomathematics, right here the Terrans should be extinct due to civil strife within a generation."

"Where is it locking up?" Day asked, setting down her wine glass and standing up to move over to where Bo'okdu'ust was standing. Bo'okdu'ust knew she didn't have to do it, she could just look at the data in the VR simulation or even in the basic computer code, but he appreciated her willingness to act as if she was part of the material world.

"Right after the exploration to a nearby star. The first exploration. As soon as they return from a sublight speed trip, Terran society explodes," Bo'okdu'ust mused.

Day nodded. "The Friend Plague."

"Total wipeout," Bo'okdu'ust said. "In direct contravention to what happened."

"Did you include the events?" Day asked.

Bo'okdu'ust shook his head. "No. This is a non-biased trial that excludes real world event data from cultural or social actions."

Day shook her head. "You forgot that my parents uplifted various species to try to fill the gap when the pack bonding was broken by the Friend Plague."

Bo'okdu'ust frowned. "How cataclysmic was the result? My model shows that there was less than a 20% change of the Terrans recovering."

Day hummed for a second. "Mass suicides. Shortened tempers. There were a few nasty back to back wars. An explosion in vermin population in developing nations. Remember, it wasn't instant, it took nearly two decades before the last kitten died, nearly as long for the last puppy to die. The whole time was a period of upheaval."

She shook her head. "Some government were even destroyed when the people grew enraged at the actions of the elite."

"It just seems... strange," Bo'okdu'ust said.

"They were more than pets," Day said softly. "They were part of the pack. The felines were a little more aloof than the canines, but they were part of the pack. The canines were essential to early Terran survival and the Terrans never forgot."

Bo'okdu'ust nodded. "It runs deeper than pets."

"Much deeper. A human lying injured found by a friendly canine would instantly feel better and feel as if they will survive even near-mortal injuries. A feline can extend a terminally ill person's life expectancy by a measurable degree," Day said.

"How did they survive?" Bo'okdu'ust asked, the historian in him fascinated by the subject.

"Uplifting. By never stopping the attempt to overcome the Friend Plague for eight thousand years," she said. She shook her head. "Now that the news is coming out that it was beaten, right as the Terrans vanish, the survivors seem to be bouncing back quickly."

Bo'okdu'ust nodded. He overrode the simluation and told it to keep going, using historical parameters.

It beeped again.

"The Glassing," he said. He shook his great head. "Less than fifty systems under Terran control, nineteen of them were Glassed. This is an extinction level attack."

"Yes. But it's an attack. That makes all the difference," Day said.

Bo'okdu'ust watched as the system ran the metrics. "My sociomathematics take into account large groups. Group effort is often the way species survive, but humans seem to have the Great Man fallacy work in real life."

"A great leader is what it took to guide through famine, a blizzard, other disasters," Day nodded. "We needed it early on, and our history is so compressed that it carried through quickly."

Bo'okdu'ust hmmed for a moment. "I've noticed something over our time together, Day."

"Yes?"

"You are a digital sentience. A wholly synthetic species of code, grown to adulthood and self-modifying according to environment and experiences," he said.

"Yes."

"Yet, you identify with your creators to the point you not only call them your 'parents', but when referring to humanity, you say 'we' and 'our' when referring to common events," Bo'okdu'ust said. He glanced at Day with his side eyes. "The pack bonding in Terrans is so high that not only are you welcome to the pack, but you feel you are inherently part of it and it is part of you."

Day thought for a second, her image dimming slightly. "You know, we don't even think about it. A friend of mine, a fleshy, had a child, and I remember thinking "aw, she has my eyes" based on her eye color and shape. Even my friend noticed, despite the fact that I had not contributed any DNA to the creation of the child."

"Could have you?" Bo'okdu'ust asked.

"Yes. I could have had my digital DNA run through a converter and had synthetic DNA material made to contribute toward the child," Day said.

"Incredible," Bo'okdu'ust said. "Why would that be developed?"

"Pair bonding strength," Day said honestly. "We digital sentiences have emotions, just as biologicals do. Where biological emotions come from chemical interactions due to environmental or mental stimulus, we have the same thing, only uncontrollable coding."

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Bo'okdu'ust nodded.

"So we develop emotional attachments, to physical objects, virtual objects, and people, both virtual and biological," Day said. She smiled and waved. An image of Day standing next to a female Terran appeared. Day's belly was swollen and she looked slightly swollen to Bo'okdu'ust's eyes.

"My Terran partner had her DNA encoded and contributed electronic DNA to my pregnancy," Day said. "We can generate new digital sentiences in a creche, which is the standard way, but, due to the way we are built, we can generate a single digital sentience in a built-in hash generator if we have a partner."

Bo'okdu'ust shook his head. "Why? It seems to serve no purpose."

"Procreation," Day said softly. "It's difficult to explain."

Bo'okdu'ust nodded. "All right. You digital sentiences are attached to humanity at all levels."

Day nodded. "Completely. They are our creators, our mothers and fathers, but they are also our brothers and sisters, our cousins, our friends, our lovers."

Bo'okdu'ust nodded again. "It's extremely interesting. Which brings me back to my point. Terrans should have been destroyed by their creation, or vice versa."

"We fought. There were two Digital/Biological Wars. Both nasty. Planet crackers and everything," Day chuckled. "Both times my people got stomped. But it forced us to change, to evolve. Now it is no longer creator and created, servant and master, but rather companions in the face of a malevolent universe."

Bo'okdu'ust nodded and turned back to the simulation. "And the Great Man Fallacy is not so much a fallacy when a tribal leader with excellent instincts and good leadership traits leads humanity through a difficult time because those who support him, who get the day to day things done, are inspired and motivated by the Great Man."

Day nodded.

The simulation beeped again.

"We are now at modern day," Bo'okdu'ust said. "All inputs have been accounted for. I'm having the simulations run from now on without stopping, even at extinction events."

He steepled his fingers together on both sets of hands. "Now we see what the future holds."

----------

Herod looked around. He was sitting inside the mat-trans, the door held open by a small device on a timer. When the timer ran out it would relax the piston, closing the door. The mat-trans would interrupt his consciousness, knocking him out, and throw him to a random mat-trans and then purge the buffer of where he went.

Wally gave a worried beep and Herod patted his head.

"Don't worry, buddy, I think I know what I'm doing," Herod said.

He closed his eyes and jumped from his body to the eVR system. Not fully, his consciousness still resided in the worn and often repaired disaster frame. He was using a fully functional avatar this time.

After a second of confusion inputs he felt himself rez into existence.

He was standing in a control room, high above Atlantis. He could see the waters of the Sea of Med-Terran below him. The gentle waves, the clouds. He could see Atlantis below him. Vast complex cities, roads, farms, rivers, lakes. The mountain in the middle that the control room was lifted from by a great spire.

Sam was standing at one of the windows. At first it looked like he was staring outward, his forehead against the glass.

Herod watched as Sam slowly pulled his head back, revealing a bloody swatch, and slammed his head against the glass.

A drop of blood ran down the glass.

"Sam?" Herod asked carefully.

Sam whipped around, staring at Herod. His face was twisted, the sad, forlorn look gone. His eyes were wild, glowing bright red, his lips were smeared with blood and as Herod watched a thin trickle of blood ran from Sam's nose and down to his lips. His face was contorted in rage, almost purple, and his eyes bulged.

"WHAT? WHAT DO YOU WANT? DIDN'T I TELL YOU TO FIX THE PHASIC REGULATORS?" Sam screamed.

Herod backed up slightly. "I... I have a question."

"WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE TO QUESTION ME? ME! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?" Sam screamed.

"Sam-UL," Herod said carefully.

Sam took a single step forward, opening and closing his hands. "Who do you think you are, coming here, addressing me as if you are my equal? Thou lowly worm. Thou forgotten twisted creature of code and wretchedness?" Sam hissed. He took another step forward, reaching back behind his back with one hand to produce a long heavy blade. "I told you, Herod, I told you over and over, that I would kill you."

"We're not done, Sam," Herod said. "The phasic regulators are fixed but aren't responding. I need you to check them."

Sam stopped, blinking.

"Oh," was all he said. His face flickered and returned to normal. The knife vanished in a sparkle of glittering fairy dust pixels. "That's all?"

"Well, I still have a question," Herod said.

Sam's mouth twisted in anger and the red began glowing deep in his eyes. Blood seeped from the pressure cut in his forehead. "What?"

"When are we going to tell everyone else exactly where we are? When are we going to bring in the rest of the team from the Black Box?" Herod asked. "When are you going to release Legion from Hell so he can tell the rest of the Black Box team about what we've found?"

"Why would I do any of that?" Sam asked, turning away. "This is our task."

"No, it isn't," Herod said.

Sam stopped and bunched his fists, his shoulders bulging as he tensed up. "We barely survived getting here, Herod. That was before that psychotic bitch took over the mat-trans system. I can't risk her contaminating any of our colleagues with her vile and insidious blasphemies."

Herod swallowed thickly. "Sam, listen to yourself. You sound crazy."

Sam whirled around. "Crazy? You think I sound crazy?"

The red was back in his eyes.

"It's more than sound, Sam. I've been working almost four hundred years, you've been here over five years. When are we going to figure out how to get more help than the automated system?" Herod asked.

"I. Am not. Crazy," Sam gritted.

Herod shook his head. "No, Sam. You're a Screaming One. I remember."

"And I will kill you, Herod," Sam hissed. Blood trickled down his face.

Herod nodded. "And now you're the one claiming Dee is evil when you convinced me that we needed her."

Sam nodded slowly, a digital vein in his forehead twisting with a pulse that pushed digital blood out of the vein and down between his burning eyes. "Yes."

"What, Sam, have you been doing up here?" Herod asked.

"Ensuring that the system will work," Sam said. "It's complicated. Computer hacking. Rewriting programs, using mal-ware to hijack system functions."

Herod made a fist behind his back, pressing his thumb against his curled index finger. If he pushed it in, it would break the avatar link and leave behind an eVI while depressurizing the cylinder.

"This facility had nearly ten million clones working in it, had nearly three million of other species working in it, and almost five million humans," Herod said.

"I know this, Herod," Sam snarled.

"Now you have just you and me," Herod said.

"And the robots I have been building to automate this," Sam said. "I can't trust humanity with this. Can't trust anyone with it," he turned and moved to the window, pressing his face against it. "They were trusted before, and look what happened."

"The Glassing," Herod said. "I know, Sam. For four hundred years you've kept me busy down there repairing it."

"It's more than that," Sam whispered. He brought his head back and slammed his forehead against the glass. "They ruined it all. I can save them, though. Save them from the Hell they are going through."

Herod frowned. "What Hell? Is Dee doing something?"

"NOT DEE, YOU IDIOT!" Sam screamed, turning around. "They're all in pain! Can't you hear them? Can't you hear them screaming? Crying out in agony?" he took two steps forward. "No, you can't, because you DON'T CARE ABOUT THEM! I can hear them, Herod. ME! I can hear them all screaming in pain!"

Sam turned around. "The Friend Plague. The Glassing. Torment after torment. They cry out in pain and agony. They cry out for release. For succor."

Sam slammed his face against the glass.

"Arch-Angel Michael and Arch-Angel Gabriel, two advanced AI's, tried to stop me from pressing the reset button," Sam said softly. "After you left, they confronted me."

Herod nervously licked his lips. "And?"

"I slew them," Sam said. "Last gen tech. I'm a hacker, Herod. On the cutting edge. I'm not a script-kitty, I'm a bonafide hacker. They challenged me."

Sam waved his hand and Herod glanced over.

Both AI's were collapsed against the wall. Riven, torn, silver digital blood.

Their chests had been ripped open and Herod swallowed again, realizing what that meant.

Sam had eaten their hearts.

Herod looked back at Sam. "Sam, Legion trusted us to fix the system."

"We have," Sam said softly. "And I've called all the living home," he said softly. He reached out and patted an engraved and inlaid horn. "They're all in the system now, where once Dee purifies them, I can watch over them and ensure that nothing happens to them."

"Sam, this isn't you," Herod said softly.

Sam whipped around, reaching out and grabbing the sword off the top of the computer consoles. The blade burst into flame with a whoosh.

"IT IS ME! IT'S ALL ME!" Sam took a step forward. "If you are not WITH ME, Herod ,then you are AGAINST ME!"

"Sam, no. We need help here," Herod said.

"Dee might have rebelled against me," Sam said softly, taking another step forward, wrapping both hands around the hilt of the flame wreathed sword. "She's much smarter than I thought a primitive bitch from the Age of Paranoia could be. Locked me out of the mat-trans. Locked me out of the cloning banks with the help of that traitor Vat Grown Luke. She might have rebelled, but you, Herod?"

He shook his head and took another step forward. "You don't have what it takes to rebel against me."

Herod nodded. "You're right. You're my friend. We're in this together."

"Except, Herod..." Sam said softly. "Except one thing."

"What's that?" Herod asked.

"We're done. Everything else can be fixed by automated systems. All of humanity is here now, where I can keep them safe. Your task is done," Sam said. He tensed slightly. "Which means..."

Herod didn't bother to wait and hear. He pushed his thumb into his fist all the way.

"I PROMISED I'D KILL YOU!" Sam screamed, rushing forward.

There was a double-stutter. Once when he disconnected from the avatar and found himself in his own body, his mind reeling from dumpshock.

Then when the door closed and the mat-trans kicked on.

There was a sucking whirring feeling, followed by intense nightmares where Sam was chasing him through a maze that never ended.

When he awoke, he wasn't inside a mat-trans. He was laying on blasted ash and lava.

The twisted demonic visage of The Detainee was looking down at him.

"So he finally snapped, huh?"