"So, should we just tell Ms. Uxral and everyone about our classes and powers now, right?" Ricky asked. He shared a table with Phanya and Tapper in the cafeteria, all the adults too wrapped up in their own conversations to pay the youth any mind. "I know the system doesn't want us to tell anyone, but if we're all going to fight then they should know what we can do, right?"

Tapper quietly bounced his fingers on the table, his predictive models running at full speed while Kakisi play-fought with his dancing digits. Despite the insufficient data on Fairbanks, they all came to the same conclusion. "This is senseless. The wanted notice regarded me alone, and there is no logical reason to assume that turning myself in will not pacify the manager's ire."

"And let him find out you have actual magic?" Ricky shot back. "No, Phanya was right. We can tell people we trust if we really need to, like right now, but we definitely shouldn't ever let someone like Fairbanks get his hands on you, Tapper. He'll, like, disassemble you and copyright magic, or something."

"Plus, those miners had a point. On accident, but still." Phanya sat with her chair balanced on one leg, playing with her center of gravity and staring up into the ceiling in thought. "Because it's not just Tapper. That piece of skrat still thinks I'm part of some 'numan conspiracy' against him, especially after this. I'd kinda rather not get dissected, myself."

Ricky raised his fists in mock cheer as if the other two had made his point for him. "And so we... fight? Yeah?"

Tapper shook his dangling familiar off his hand before raising a finger in the air. "Query. If Miss Uxral and the others were ready and willing to fight the people of Belvidere, why did they not do the same thing to Fairbanks when they had the chance? Not that I would ever condone violence against management, of course."

"Because he's a Fairbanks, duh. A descendant of the Great Job Creators." Ricky scoffed, before catching himself. "Wait, you think we're going to actually — Tapper, we aren't going to actually directly fight someone from the Fair family. I heard that the last time someone tried that, their whole town got hit with an orbital laser. Or something."

"We could run." Phanya didn't look down from the ceiling, but she heard her companions shift and felt their staring. She heaved a sigh and continued, "Chill guys, not like cowards. This tactician sense thing of mine keeps saying to divide and conquer, at least for now."

"Plus, if we don't leave now then Ms. Uxral is gonna ground you forever."

"Eat shit, Ry," Phanya said without missing a beat. "Anyway, the closest we can hope to 'conquer' Fairbanks is digging in and just trying to survive him, but if we divide his attention then..." Phanya nodded to herself. "Yeah, that's the play. Gods, I wish we had found the mall by now, it'd be real easy to convince ol' teach then."

"Ol' teach already thinks it's a good idea." The trio yelped at Ms. Uxral's calm voice, Phanya doubly so when she lost balance and fell off her chair.

A small quirk turned up at the corners of Ms. Uxral's mouth, but not enough to break the hard slate of her expression. Others gathered behind her, Fableton's unofficial council of official elders, and they all shared the same look of resolve.

"You what now?" Ricky asked.

"I agree. Not with using you as bait, of course, but we need to distract Fairbanks until he gets bored and forgets about us. And his kind always do, eventually."

"Well, that was easy," Phanya said from the floor. She raised a fist into the air and added, "Go me," in a deadpan celebration before picking herself up. "Uh, why do you agree with me?"

The teacher merely turned her head to Aazran and he stepped forward, clearing his throat. "It's as you thought, ma'am. I took a peak at the recycling facility and Fairbanks is already diverting his whistleblowers in our direction."

Struzick stepped forward without prompting and carried the line. "Thankfully, the cameras on those drones are such skrat that he can barely cover Fableton as it is. If he thinks you lot are hiding in Belvidere, then he'll be spread too thin to keep all eyes everywhere at once. Not to mention the holes we'll make in his defensive net for any countermeasures."

"'Course, we can't seriously do that with the bounty on the young bot's head," Everett added. "I paid a merc I know — paid him far too much — to run ahead to Belvidere and start spreading rumors that you're fleeing for the border to hide amongst the bugs."

Tapper made a sound to approximate his disgust at the concept. "Is that a metaphor? Or are there really insects with enough quantity to conceal ourselves amongst them?"

Everett chuckled. "Just a rumor to keep everyone nice and disorganized, lad. Don't worry about the bugs."

Ms. Uxral ahem'ed to get everyone back on track and finished, "We're really going to hide you away in the city for a few days."

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"WHAT??" Ricky and Phanya shouted in unison, but Ms. Uxral turned her teacher's eye on the former.

"Who said anything about you going, young man? Fairbanks doesn't know your name, and don't pretend that you won't hide in the library for weeks at a time if I let you."

Ricky huffed and threw a hand at Phanya and Tapper. "And let those two have another adventure without me? I'll walk to the city if I have to!" His righteous indignation flared and spluttered when Ms. Uxral surprised him with a sad smile.

"I know you would. I know I've taught you both all I can to have strong convictions, even if that means something as foolish as threatening the regional manager to his face."

But the smile faded and Ms. Uxral returned to all business as she faced the last member of the trio. "Except for you, Tapper. I think we can all stop pretending that you are a normal robot now, and maybe you never were. But I've also seen what happens when a robot goes truly mad, and I don't think that is you, either. So I'll ask you plainly: Tapper, what is your goal here? What do you — want — to do?"

Silence stretched as the assembled council waited for Tapper's answer. Yet when Tapper looked inside, he found pinpricks of data from subsystems already hard at work to answer that very question. What is the nature of want? He still wanted to be a bartender, but is that desire less valid because it was programmed into him by Bowson, compared to his self-made desire to crinkle plastic bags? But his directives to be polite and friendly were also given by Bowson, even if they intentionally left out the concept of friendship.

And that brought questions of scope. Playing with plastic gave Tapper pleasure and he did want more of that, but it was not an adequate long-term goal. Or, with his bartender mindset to service others, maybe pleasure was truly the ultimate goal for sapient beings. Maybe just doing what he wanted to do was actually

Someone expressed concern over Tapper's silence and another voice quickly shushed them, but it clued Tapper that this was a test for the robot. An AI that started to ponder philosophical questions was one of the earliest signs of degrading code, so asking Tapper such an open question was its own sign of trust and they didn't want to rush him. And while he doubted, or hoped, that his code could withstand questions of philosophy, he'd still almost lost himself to a recursive loop of hypothetical scenarios.

In the future Tapper very much wanted to sit down with Miss Uxral and discuss the nature of philosophy. But once he stopped trying to calculate an answer, Tapper realized that his emotional center had already formulated one on its own. It plucked bits and pieces from his various programs and systems to give a mishmash that felt whole, and right, and the words formed easily.

"I want... friends. And to find ways to help them. And to grow stronger to facilitate that by… hmm. Yes, I see. My goal, what I ultimately want to do, is to go on adventures and grow stronger so that I can help my friends. And also to become an expert bartender." Tapper nodded, making the decision final, and after a moment of thought Uxral nodded back.

"That's noble of you. But it also means I can't order you to do something and blindly trust that you'll follow it, not anymore. So, we'll have to do something different. Please stand, Tapper." He shared a confused glance with Ricky and Phanya but did so, and Ms. Uxral stepped forward until she was uncomfortably close to the robot. Slitted feline eyes stared with an intensity that froze his mismatched cameras in place.

"I need you to make me a promise, Tapper. Promises might not mean anything to a program, but they mean everything to a soul. So promise me that you'll protect my babies, no matter what, and bring them home when it's safe."

Tapper had witnessed numerous people wither under the intensity of Uxral's teacher stare, even after a lifetime of knowing her. But with her face centimeters from his own, Tapper read the emotions swirling just beneath the hard surface: Fear, anxiety, and hope. A core of hope burning in her center, and warming those around her. For the first time, Tapper felt that warmth. "I promise."

[Quest complete, Finding Ways to Help! Reputation gain with faction: Fableton]

Tapper froze his eyebrows before they rose suspiciously high. Another mysterious message, with more mysterious implications, and Miss Uxral was still studying him. Her eyes narrowed and Tapper fought to keep a bubble of paranoia from forming. Surely the reputation gain was a positive quest reward on par with his perks, so why didn't it feel that way?

"I believe you. I hope you understand the gravity of trust I'm placing in you, Tapper." Uxral sighed, and Tapper mirrored the stress deflating from her body. He started to answer, but instead yelped when Ms. Uxral suddenly rallied and clapped her hands. "Well, that settles that! Let's get to work everyone, break time is over!"

Tapper was, suddenly, very aware of the impact anxiety has on perception. Once the Fableton elders scattered to their own errands Tapper followed their cue, but stopped when his emotions said that time was somehow compressing all around them. Suddenly the chores and quests waiting in Tapper's to-do list forced themselves to the forefront of his mind, building a sensation of doom that he could not finish them all before their departure.

Ms. Uxral didn't give Tapper any specific duties when he asked her what to do, instead instructing him to focus on whatever tasks that only he could complete, and that meant magic. Several people had suffered electric burns or other injuries during their fight with Fairbanks, so Tapper hastened to brew some regeneration potions and get everyone back on their feet. He was in such a hurry that he tripped over a lump of uneven tarmac in the greenhouse, scattering his gathered nettle leaves and drawing unwanted attention.

Wiessa and Everett were very curious what Tapper was doing in their greenhouse, and why he was taking cuttings from their prized possession. And he knew he owed them an explanation, but every moment he wasted making up an excuse was a moment he spent not helping the people. There just wasn't time, so he said that Ms. Uxral had directed him here and excused himself.

This brought an added layer of guilt, even if he hadn't technically lied to them — Tapper predicted that the stoic Wiessa would love to learn that her cat's tongue nettle was a main ingredient in his regeneration potions, but he also knew she would demand to know how that worked. She was a woman of science, and Tapper had no sufficient explanation for his magic that wouldn't betray his proprietors and their plans.

Strangely, the pain of working through his manaburn debuff to brew the potions eased his sense of guilt slightly. A form of penance, maybe. Tapper hoped that brewing a surplus of the potions would further ease his guilt.

After all, just because he completed the quest didn't mean he would stop looking for ways to help.