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weapon on their level. The Warden code is too complex, I can’t do much with it at all, other than redefine how it interfaces with the human code. If I leave any trace of anything that isn’t pure selflessness on the human side then the Warden code, even usurped, will seize on it, expand it, and reassert control, because it will make the now dominant human program want that to happen.”
    “Sounds like you want to make me your tool, Doc.”
    Doctor Melon paused, considering. “You may be right, but – ”
    “No buts. I won’t be your slave, or anyone else’s. I’m out of here. Come find me when you’re ready to buy my cooperation with information.”
    Melon shook his head. “I rebooted you too soon. This conversation never happened.” He jabbed a key in a frustrated gesture and the memory file abruptly ended.
     
    I snapped back to the present. So five years ago I pissed off someone who had some answers, all because he was halfway through a botched programming job and I got all uppity? I didn’t know who I was angrier at; Melon or myself. But, the very fact that anger emulation had kicked in made me realise that, maybe, just maybe the doctor had been doing a better job than I’d given him credit for. Fuck. Angry at myself it was, then.
    “Beep. How would you like your toast?” I muttered. Oh, for the simple life.
    I got out of the shuttle seat and turned towards the door, wondering how I’d escaped the doctor’s clutches, after he’d shut me down, without the equivalent of a cyborg lobotomy.
    “Please. Be. Seated. For. Video. Message.”
    I sighed theatrically. “If there’s an intermission there should have been popcorn.”
    “Please. Be. Seated.”
    I sat. A cabled screen popped out of the ceiling, dropped level with my face and flared into life. I found myself staring at the pre-splatter face of Doctor Melon.
    “What are you doing here ? I went to find you ,” said the recording. “After five years I finally figured out how to track you, and now you’re here without me? Go to your cave and wait for me. If you turned me away, find me. If somebody killed me then it’s probably all over before it’s fully begun. If you killed me, then, well, fuck you I guess. Go. I’ve brought you something of utterly crucial importance.”
    What? He brought me nothing, I checked. The tracking device? No, that was just a simple tool, I was sure of it. “That can’t be it ,” I shouted. “What am I? Who am I?”
    Or, perhaps more accurately, who had I been?

Chapter Seven
     
    I burned the last of my jetpack fuel flying back to my cave as dusk fell. There were so many questions queueing up for answers in my head, that I almost feared I’d overheat and have a meltdown. It’d be a bit like a human nervous breakdown, only far more radioactive.
    I’d like to say I tore the space shuttle apart looking for some of those answers, but I was spectacularly unable to damage anything in there. The whole thing went into lock-down the moment I tried to tear one of the seats out of the floor. Screens vanished into recesses, blast shields dropped and the door went ballistic trying to smash its way through the boulder I’d blocked it with. And so, kicking the boulder out of my way, I left while I still could, heading home to seriously scour the area for whatever Doctor Melon had supposedly brought with him, when he decided to come and act like a lemming at my cave.
    As I approached the cliff, out of habit – well, hard-coded protocol – I scanned the area for unexpected biological or electronic signals with every scanning doohickey in my arsenal. Nothing found. Good. I landed on the top of the cliff, directly above my cave entrance and started scanning the ground for metal.
    I’d been at it for all of nought point three seconds before I heard the unmistakable sound of a jetpack coming from the direction of my cave, and coming closer. Only I, on this entire planet, have a jetpack. They haven’t been invented by humans