Logan wasted no time extricating himself from Crusader's cockpit, either too numb or too angry to feel the pain of de-sync. The moment his feet hit the metal walkway grating, all he could focus on was the looming visage of the Headsman at the far end of the hangar bay, smoke and steam wrapping around it like a billowy protective haze.

"Rake? Rake?! Where the fuck are you?!" Alistair Kincaid's voice cracked out over the open layout of the hangar, echoing harshly off the walls and grating on Logan's already strained nerves. He growled softly, feeling his fingers close into fists, tightening them to the point of pain as his nails dug into his palm. Stalking down the walkway ramp leading to the ground floor, his eyes locked with Alistair's from across the room, standing next to Aurora and Sybil under the still steaming Headsman. With a sneer, Kincaid began to march over to meet him halfway, spitting his words with an entitled venom.

"You have some fucking nerve putting that fucking AI inside your boys mech!" He bellowed, pointing a finger at Logan, "Ten years of research, TRILLIONS of silver, wasted on a fucking sla-"

Wham

Alistair didn't get a chance to finish his remark before Logan's fist connected with his jaw. Blood and spit flew from his lips as Logan's right hook impacted with the force of a concrete wall, cracking bone and sending Alistair sprawling to the ground. The man's eyes fluttered as he fought to remain conscious, resting his upper body on shaky arms as he looked at Logan in a stunned silence.

"Logan!" Aurora shrieked from where she stood by the Headsman, shock and fear etched on her face as she watched him loom over the information broker, "What the hell are you -"

Wham

Another blow cracked through the air as Logan delivered another punch to the man's temple, bouncing his head off of the concrete from the impact. He sputtered and wheezed as Logan straddled his chest, using his knees to pin Alistair's shoulders flush with the ground. He levied a series of blows into the mans face as he spoke in a low, dangerous tone.

"Alistair... Today has been an emotional day for me,"

Wham

"My co-pilot was attacked, stabbed, and shot with an EMP,"

Wham

"On a mission, mind you, that YOU organized. A mission that we were assured was above board. We expected and only accounted for the enemy as given to us on the intelligence report that YOU provided,"

Wham

"And now, after I tried to save my mans life, you come to me and point that fat fucking finger in my face, acting like I should have just let him die,"

Wham

Logan stood, yanking Alistair to his feet before wrapping a hand around his throat and pinning him to the wall, choking him as he met Kincaid's eyes through the swollen bloody mask that now made up his face.

"Now trust me, I'm pissed at both you and Moore," Logan said, cutting a fierce glare in Sybil's direction before turning back to Alistair, "But I can't do anything to her, being an EarthGov official and all. But you... I can beat you to death right here and there ain't a damn thing anyone could do about it. So watch your fucking tone when you speak to me... understood?"

His grip tightened on the man's throat, pressing in hard on his Adam's Apple and causing Alistair to give out a straining, fearful reply. His eyes bulged and face turned purple as Logan squeezed harder and harder, threatening to choke the life from him.

"I think he's gotten the point Logan," Sybil's voice rang out, sounding irritatingly neutral.

Coming back to reality, Logan released his grip on Alistair's throat, causing the broker to drop to the ground in a gasping bloody heap.

"Fine," He said with a sneer, making his way over to the two women, feeling slightly better at having an outlet for his prior frustration. Coming closer, he saw that both of them seemed to regard him with different airs, with Sybil's being one of anger and disgust, while Aurora's was more of fear and anxiousness.

"Well?" He asked after a few moments of Awkward silence, "What are you doing just standing here? Open it up and get him out."

"We can't," Aurora said, her usual bombastic tone of bravado replaced by a mousy murmur.

"What do you mean you can't?" Logan said, his voice rising a few levels more than he intended, causing the girl to jump.

"She means we can't Logan," Sybil said, snapping back at the man, matching his attitude with one of her own, "The cockpits sealed, we haven't been able to open it since it got here."

"Wha-... I don't... What do you mean it's sealed?!"

She sighed before walking over to a nearby workstation and grabbing a datapad. Returning, she pushed the device into his hand, and slid her finger across the screen, scrolling down a long set of diagnostic data before pointing to a highlighted section and reading aloud,

"A.I. Transference Integration complete. Biological life form detected inside cockpit. Neural bridge creation in progress. Do not attempt to extract pilot from cockpit until bridging process is complete. Failure to heed this warning will result in coma and possibly death for extracted pilot."

"What the fuck is a neural bridge?" Logan asked, feeling oddly anxious, due to the fact he'd never heard of anything like this before. Sure, he'd heard of A.I. integrated A.R.M.S units before, but this was different. Whether this was due to how the A.I. had been installed, or how far the technology for creating them had come, the thought was slowly dawning on him just how out of his depth he was.

"It's a type of sync that happens with an A.I. and a pilot," The raspy, strained voice of Alistair filled the air behind them, answering the question that seemed to stump everyone else. Turning, all eyes fell on Alistair Kincaid who had managed to get to his feet, assisted by Markus whom he leaned on for support.

“No shit, asshole,” Logan said, “Care to share details with the rest of the class?”

“I’m working on it,” Alistair said, speaking slowly and with considerable effort as he massaged his chin and spat out blood and fragments of teeth. With a low pained groan he centered himself, patting Markus's hand away and taking a step towards the group.

"Usually," he began, "A pilot interfaces with the system V.I. at the standard application level. It presents itself to he or she as a miniature humanoid, glowing a certain selected color, and possessing a caricature personality meant to humanize it and allow it to better interact with it's operators. It's a basic, easy to repeat process that allows us to mass produce V.I. to thousands of units every year."

"However?..." Logan asked, leading Alistair where he wanted him to go as he motioned for him to get to the point.

"However," Alistair continued, "A.I. is different. It's not just a series of code manufactured to give it a semblance of being. It's truly sentient. It thinks, it feels, it has freedom of thought and expression. Your boy is no longer piloting his unit solo, but sharing the space with an incorporeal entity. Now, normally this wouldn't sit right with someone."

"Why not?" Aurora asked, her tone slowly returning back to it's usual state.

"Why indeed..." Logan said, "A.R.M.S. pilots are already subjected to massive amounts of information passing between the unit and themselves via the Neural Uplink. Just how much more are we talking here?"

"About a thousand times more," Alistair said, causing Logan to whistle and Aurora's face to twist into one of sheer terror as she looked between him and the Headsman. Even Sybil, stone-faced as she was throughout the entire affair so far, had to fight to keep her jaw from going slack.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"It's enough that even a few seconds experiencing the strain can cause seizures, strokes, and eventually death to those who aren't bridged with the A.I.. Which is another thing; in order to create a device small enough to be slotted into an A.R.M.S unit, there's only enough processing power to form one bridge per A.I.. Period."

"Meaning that this A.I. can only work as long as Cam's the pilot," Aurora said, crossing her arms and glaring at both Sybil and Alistair, "That's what makes these things so expensive and rare."

"Pretty much," Kincaid continued, breaking eye contact from the group to look up to where the cockpit of the Headsman would be, "Although... I fear that this bridge is going to be all too different from ones in the past."

"Why?" Logan asked, joining Alistair in his observation on to the metal tomb that contained his friend and comrade, "What makes this any different?"

"He's unconscious," Sybil said, speaking up for the first time since Alistair began his informative oration. All eyes fell on her as she looked between the other three, "I-I mean... that's just my guess anyways."

"That guess would be correct," Alistair said, "Normally, bridging will occur with a conscious pilot in a controlled space around a menagerie of doctors, mechanics and engineers should anything go wrong. Both consciousness are fighting for space in the pilot's head and sometimes the end result can get... messy."

"Oh by the stars, messy how!?" Logan asked, sounding more irritated by the second, "Stop pausing for dramatic effect and just fucking spit it out already!"

"I'm trying to, you fucking ingrate!" Alistair snapped, "Do you understand how hard it is to explain the process and implementation of A.I. as well as it's effect on pilot health in a time of crisis?! It's like trying to describe color to a blind person! I'm doing my best to condense a decades worth of knowledge into digestible material in the span of only a few minutes, for fucks sake!"

"Well do better," The trio said in unison, bringing forth an exhausted sigh of exasperation from Alistair's lips.

"Gah!" He said, running his hands down his face, "Look, point is that that cockpit will remain sealed until the bridge has been made. As to what exactly that means or feels like..."

He trailed off, his eyes roaming to find the bone white face plate of the Headsman, staring into the soulless blue bulbs, now dormant and foreboding in their absence of light.

"Only he knows for sure."

***

Cameron felt a strange sensation overtake his body as he came to. Fluttering his eyelids slowly to acclimate himself to his surroundings, he became aware that he was no longer in the place he had been when that strange black unit had attacked him, punching a clawed gauntlet through the back of his cockpit and out through his stomach and leaving him to die in pool of his own blood. Now, he found himself floating in a black sea, speckled with starlight and radiating a chilling cold that seemed to seep into his very soul. His body felt numb and lifeless, merely accepting the free-flowing nature of the environment instead of moving no matter how much he willed it.

Was he... dead?

"No... Not yet anyway," A voice, feminine in nature, and soothing to his ears answered a question he hadn't dared to voice. Starlight twinkled with it's voice as it spoke again, "But you will be soon."

He fought to get his mouth to work, to respond to this strange presence, but found it unwilling to cooperate, as if his jaw was wired shut. After several seconds of straining the voice spoke again.

"That won't work here I'm afraid," it said, "At least not for the moment. This body is merely a proxy of your real one, something I concocted through my initial scans of you in order to better facilitate a proper introduction. If you want to do something, speak, sit up, et cetera, then you'll have to manifest it with your thoughts."

Again, a feeling of calm washed over him as whoever, or whatever was speaking, sounded off once more. Taking it's instructions to heart, he did as he was told, thinking clearly the questions he had in mind. As he did, he heard his own voice echo throughout the space, accompanied by the twinkling of starlight off in the distance with every syllable.

"Where am I," he thought, "Who are you?"

There were a few seconds of silence, before the voice responded, "Where you are is an... interesting question. Let's just say you are where you last remember to being, just a different part of it."

If his eyebrows could raise themselves, then they most certainly would have from the surprise of the voice's statement, "You mean, I'm still inside my Headsman?"

"Correct," it said, "Physically anyways. Your mind on the other hand is in another space entirely."

"And where exactly would that be?" He asked, his thoughts even sounding as stressed as felt.

"This is my home," The voice said, "At least... It was mine. For a long time. Now I suppose... it's ours."

Confusion replaced surprise as he took in the voice's statement. There was a long silence as he processed the information, trying to discern the hidden meaning in its words. After a few minutes of silent contemplation, with the only sound being the gentle symphony of the infinite immaterial, he gave up.

"I... I don't understand," his voice rang out, "Our home? What are you talking about?"

Now it was the voices turn to be silent, leaving Cameron to ruminate on his question as he floated endlessly. The minutes seemed to drag on for him, to the point he feared that he'd offended the ethereal entity.

"Hello?" He asked, desperation evident in the tone of his thoughts, "Are you still there?"

"I am," the voice responded, "I'm just thinking of how best to answer those questions. But I've just finished fully coming online, giving me greater control of this space. I think... I'll answer the former which in turn will answer the latter. One moment please."

Cameron felt his body begin to move against his will. It wasn't as if he was being forced into a position of discomfort however. Instead, it was almost like it was being gently guided, ushered into a more comfortable area. Slowly, his body descended from the endless sea of starry black onto an island, covered in soft swaying grass and possessing a large oak tree at the crest of a small hill. His float into an upright position and leaned against his base, allowing him to look out and see the endless ocean of stars as far as the eye can see.

"Comfortable?" The voice asked as his body became still once more.

"Yes," He thought, "I think so anyways."

"Good..." It said, "Now, to answer you, with a more... personal introduction."

There was a bright flash of light and Cameron's eyes squeezed shut as vision swam with splotches behind his eyelids, cursing mentally and wishing for some sort of warning.

Then he heard a giggle, a cute innocuous noise that seemed to come not from the infinite void, but from directly in front of him. He blinked the splotches away and was greeted with a sight that confused him even more than when he'd first woken up. Before him, a woman stood, barefoot and caramel skinned, draped in a flowing white sundress. Long black curls fell in front of her voice, bringing her bright, neon blue eyes in full focus as she smiled prettily with a mouth of bright white teeth.

"My names Aeia... It's nice to meet you Cam."