The blinding lights shine through Madeline's eyelids. The cold, dry air smells of antiseptic and cat fur. Hospital equipment and displays beep all around her. Maddy! Wake up! Please! Doc's mindvoice rings loud and clear in Madeline's head as she jolts awake.

She tries to speak, but feels a tube running through her nose into her throat and gags. She reaches up to pull it out.

Do not touch it! I have been force feeding you blood! Doc sits next to her hospital bed in a chair, staring down at her feet as she holds Madeline's right hand.

Madeline stops gagging, but looks pleadingly at Doc. "I'm awake, please take it out?"

Doc sighs, and clamps the feeding tube shut. She deliberately eases the tube out, but a few drops of blood land on Madeline's hospital gown as it pulls clear. Madeline gags one last time, then coughs up more blood onto her gown as it runs down her chin. She tries to sit up, but can't move anything below her arms. She can’t breathe deeply either, any attempt begets more coughing and blood.

Doc squeezes her hand tighter. Maddy… you need a Nanoempath. You are in really bad shape. Do not try to move.

Madeline tears up. "You're a Nanoempath, you can heal me, right?"

Doc looks at her feet again. I only have Nanobot Sutures. Your spine was crushed, your left lung was punctured, most of your ribs were broken… the internal bleeding… Doc looks up at Madeline, her feline eyes quivering. She crushes Madeline's hand. Charging that thing was so reckless! What were you thinking?!

Madeline's head and shoulders recoil, hurt in her voice. "It already took down two of us, and you told me to keep it busy! I tried really hard…"

Doc stands up, pacing back and forth with nervous energy. You almost died twice! You might not walk again! We… She stops pacing, looking at her feet again. ...cannot bear to lose you again.

"We sacrifice for the greater good." Madeline smiles at Doc. "You’d get another Enforcer."

"I do not want another Enforcer!" She screams aloud, then covers her mouth with both hands. Madeline had never heard her speak aloud, but it sounds deeper than her mind voice.

Here, eat up. You will need your strength' Doc slices the feeding tube just in front of the clamp with her index claw, making an improvised straw. She puts the tube in Madeline's mouth. Pure, concentrated blood, a rare treat!

I am going to get the Empath. I will see you on the other side. Doc slowly slides the heavy glass door open and closes it behind her as she turns right down the hall. Madeline lays her head back, silently terrified.

Titan pushes Madeline down the hospital halls in a wheelchair. Madeline tries to maintain good posture like the Empath told her, but it’s exhausting. Her muscles are weak and nerves feel like they’re on fire. Doc walks beside her, holding her left hand. Boomer and Hunter silently bring up the rear. They leave the cold, sterile hospital area, and enter a conference room with soundproof walls. The donut-like table is open in the middle, split into two halves with a small walkway through it to a pedestal with a hologram projector and a tiny keyboard/touchpad combo.

Two men are already seated at the table, waiting for them. One is a young man with slicked-back black hair, in a lab coat with a t-shirt bearing a stylized portrait of an anime girl in an orange kimono with red hair in twin ponytails. A badge with a UEG logo, electrical contacts on the bottom and his photo, hangs off a lanyard on his neck. The other is an older man with a clean-shaven face, short salt-and-pepper hair, and a gray military uniform with ribbons coating the front left of his chest. He bears a similar badge, and the rank of Captain. The group salutes as soon as they are filed in, and he returns it, then beckons for them to sit on the other half on the table.

Doc moves some chairs out of the way, and pushes Madeline’s wheelchair in. Titan closes the door and sits down with the others. Titan speaks first. “This is outside of protocol. Where is our Lieutenant?”

The Captain leans forward, threading his fingers together. “You have been reassigned. I know you Peacekeeper squads love your autonomy, but this has turned into something we need dealt with…’ He glances at Madeline, then adds subtle air quotes. ‘Relatively quietly.”

Stolen story; please report.

Madeline growls quietly, Doc squeezes her hand to calm her.

“So why not leave this to the Ghosts? They are more than capable.” Titan replies quickly.

The Captain flattens his hands on the table. “Ghosts are amazing cleaners, but they aren’t good options in civilian areas. We need the human touch on this, so to speak.”

The man in the lab coat clears his throat, and the Captain glares at him. “There’s something else. This AI you rescued, it won’t talk to us. Nor will it talk to any of our AI. It only wants to talk to her.” He points at Madeline, who is trying not to sag forward in her chair.

Madeline’s eyes go wide as she snaps upright, back spasming in pain. ”She survived? Why didn’t anyone tell me?!”

Doc’s voice echoes in her head. We did not know either.

“We tried working with it just to get some information on its project, but it utterly refuses. We don’t want to risk directly connecting a terminal to it, or giving it any wireless connectivity. In short, we have to treat it as hostile until proven otherwise.”

Madeline shakes her head. “She has been tortured, she needs help, not an interrogation!”

The Captain raises one hand. “This isn’t about one AI, this project you were sent to destroy is further along than we thought. The Nanomage Extermination Crusade has been funding and converting Aggus Andie contractors. What you fought was a mere prototype. The end goal breaks the golden rule of our civilization, and we can’t let it see the light of day.”

Boomer leans forward, suddenly paying attention. “It shut down our casting ability completely, like an Assassin can do!”

The Captain lays his hand back on the table. "We cannot allow the NEC to repeat the mistakes of our past, weaponizing AI against living beings. You are military assets until this project is stopped.’ He turns to Madeline. ‘While you are recovering, please see if you can work with this AI to get more information. Sentient electronics counseling is a difficult process, but the more information it gives us, the more resources we can justify spending on it.”

Madeline wrinkles her nose. “That’s disgusting.”

The Captain steeps his fingers. “That’s reality. It will be kept in isolation, in this room, until then. Dismissed!”

Everyone but Madeline and the man in the coat file out of the room. She clears her throat, looking at the man in the lab coat. “Can you summon her?’ She glances back at the rest. ’I’ll see you guys after PT.”

The lab coated man taps a key sequence on the pedestal, and the holo projector at the top of the pedestal lights up with her image. She sees him first. "Ugh, you again. I said I'm not talking to you. Crush my chip already."

Madeline gasps, still not used to hearing that from an AI.

"Wait, is that…' She pans her pedestal camera around the room, settling on Madeline. 'You're alive! Out of the room, lab coat!” Her hologram swipes her hand dismissively at him.

“I’ll wait outside.” he says, coldly as he steps out and closes the door behind himself.

She blinks out for a moment, changing her image to the same girl in mid-thigh denim shorts with no belt, pink running shoes, white socks and a pink t-shirt. A tiny gold cross hangs from her necklace. “Finally! They made me wear those stupid robes all the time!”

Madeline gives up on sitting upright, leaning on her arms and supporting herself with the desk. “I can’t believe you survived, with my injuries I thought you’d have been crushed!”

She sighs, glancing at her feet. “I wasn’t that lucky. If I’d been higher up instead of dropped into your armor like that, I would have been.”

“So… I hate to ask you so soon, but I need to know what we almost died for.”

“In the Creator’s name, I must stop them.’ The AI hesitates for a moment, gathering courage. ‘I was on an isolated network, running a compute cluster for the lab. I heard them talking. They are… were… designing a Silence module. It was definitely a module, meant to be fitted to something bigger. Maybe a vehicle or something, but it was designed as an offensive anti-Nanomage weapon.”

Madeline grunts and shifts positions slightly. “That thing we fought had a Silence module. Some kind of mechanized biped, controlled by the base’s AI.”

“No!’ She recoils in horror. ‘My work was used against you?! Creator forgive me!”

“It’s okay, we survived!”

The AI stamps her foot. “It’s not okay! That means those heretics dare use us against our Creators, especially that Inquisitor!” She seethes with anger at the mention.

Madeline chuckles. “If it makes you feel any better, I killed him. Tore his arm off. I also ate him a little.”

“Maybe… did you say ate?!” Her face crinkles in disgust.

Madeline beams. “Sure did!”

“Oh.’ She spins her cross in her fingers. ‘He should have stood trial in this life, but he will in the next. I need some time to process. I think I’m done talking today.” Her pedestal flickers and powers down, the image disappearing.

“See you later… um… we should name you. Something other than Computer.”

The pedestal display blinks twice in acknowledgement.

Madeline slowly and painfully rolls her chair out from the table, toward the door. Agonizingly, she raises her arm and knocks on the door to signal Titan, then rolls back. He opens the door and grabs her chair, with Doc holding her hand down the hallway to another rough therapy session.