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” X-7 said gruffly. “Before this. ”
    The Commander shook his head. “You’re smarter than that. Whoever that person was, he’s dead. Your brain is no longer equipped for human emotions, human memories. Trying to dredge them up again would probably drive you to madness.” He paused. “Perhaps it’s already begun? If that’s what’s going on here, X-7, if you’re starting to feel things, I can help you—”
    â€œNo!” Only the truth would help him. Finding out who he was, the whole story, was the only way to decipher the flashes—and make them go away. If he could find that person he’d once been, he could purge all traces of him, once and for all. He could be pure. The Commander couldn’t do that for him. X-7 needed to do it for himself.
    Wanted to do it.
    That was the only reason for this, he told himself. It wasn’t some foolish effort to regain his past. It was a mission, the only way he could heal himself and continue to serve his commander. That was all that mattered, feelings or not.
    â€œYou’re determined?” the Commander asked. “Nothing I say can convince you this is a disastrous idea?”
    â€œNothing,” X-7 confirmed.
    The Commander sighed. “I can’t tell you who you were, because even I don’t know,” he said. “But I can tell you how to find out.”
    X-7 felt his lips curling upward; he felt something warm radiate across his chest.
    It was repulsive, humiliating, but inescapable: He felt happy.
    Footsteps pounded down the hallway, approaching the office. Reinforcements were on their way. Quickly, the Commander gave him a series of passwords that would let him dig deep into the bowels of the Imperial computer system. X-7 took the information, along with several files pertaining to Project Omega’s methods for selecting and training its candidates. Then, without a word to the Commander, he ran full speed at the huge window overlooking the city. A shower of transparisteel exploded as he dropped into the sky.

    Soresh peered out the window. No bloody figure lay sprawled on the ground sixty-two stories below. Not that he could see clearly through the layers of clogged skylanes. But Soresh was almost certain that X-7 wasn’t down there. He’d have had liquid cable, or grappling hooks, or an airspeeder on autopilot waiting beneath the window, some kind of backup plan. He was too smart not to. Soresh should know: X-7 was his creation.
    The stormtroopers blasted through the door, their weapons drawn. “Sir! Sir! Is everything all right in here?”
    Soresh rolled his eyes. The incompetence was breathtaking. He made a mental note to take down all their ID numbers. They’d be dodging energy spiders in the Spice Mines of Kessel by the end of the week. “It is now, ” he snapped. “What took you so long?”
    â€œIt was a sneak attack, sir,” the lead stormtrooper said. “They took down your entire security detail.”
    â€œThey?” Soresh arched an eyebrow. “I think you mean ‘he.’ One man took down seven of your most finely trained men?” At least he wouldn’t have to go to the trouble of punishing them for their failures. That was one bright note to the dark day. And perhaps their replacements would be competent. Although he doubted it. The Empire was having a harder and harder time finding good people—just one of the reasons that Soresh had such high hopes for Project Omega. When men’s minds were properly molded, there was no place for incompetence, no room for error. When you built a man from the ground up, he became incapable of disobedience or failure.
    Or at least, that was the way it was supposed to work.
    â€œDismissed,” he told the stormtroopers, waving them out of the office. Pathetic.
    Of course things would have been easier if the stormtroopers had done their job and taken X-7 into custody. But