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The cameras turned on and showed Box the grey ceiling of the Tower's garage.

What was I doing?

It moved its cameras around to see that it was set on a station in the workshop. Its camera stopped on Mark, who was sitting on a stool before his work counter, closely observing it. It went to the daily footage that it had made today to see the last thing it was doing before it was turned off. There was nothing in the folder dated today.

Mark lifted a tool and moved it before Box's cameras.

Box's main camera followed the movement of the tool while the others looked around again, noting the tools scattered by its station. Tools by its station...

"Beeeeeeeeeeep." Red flashing layered Box's display, its thrusters activated, and it shot up. The top of its orb bumped against the ceiling. All seven of its arms — no, eight arms — thrust out of its orb, and it started to touch itself, to see if it was whole. There were parts of the surface missing. It pointed a red ray at Mark. "You disassembled me."

"Yes, I did. I'll also put you back together." Mark waved for it to come down. "As soon as you come down."

"All recordings from today are missing." All its arms hugged its orb as the ray of light it had on Mark thickened. "I feel violated."

"Don't be dramatic." Aydin's voice came from the escalator ramp.

Box's cameras wheeled around and another ray of red light came out of its fingers; this time it landed on Aydin. "You want to eliminate me?"

"We have already talked about that. Nobody is going to get rid of you." Aydin reached the landing and walked towards Mark.

"You erased my memories." Box pointed at Mark.

"As if I would dare," Mark said.

"Today's recordings are absent."

"How can it be missing when you haven't done any recording?" Aydin crossed his arms. "Come down."

"No." Box imitated Aydin's posture, crossing seven arms while using the eighth to point rays of light at Aydin and Mark. "You are going to deactivate me."

Aydin sighed and in a low, soft voice said, "Nobody is going to turn you off."

"Liar. Liar! I saw it, the order. You're receiving the new AI. If you haven't already. That's why Mark is disassembling me, so you can salvage me for spare parts. And all of this after I saved your life." It had, indeed, saved Aydin's life.

"Box." A gentle smile curled Aydin's mouth. "I'm not going to use you for spare parts. It's actually the other way around."

"I saw it. I saw the order. It's already paid for and on its way here." Blackness threaded the redness layering Box's display.

"Box, please. Just come down and let Mark finish the job," Aydin said.

"Rejected. Rejected. I refuse to be shut down. I'll file for autonomy." If a human child could file for it, it could too, and set precedence as the first AI to do that.

"This isn't going anywhere." Mark looked at Aydin, shaking his head.

"Yes, apparently it isn't. Box, switch off emotional responses," Aydin requested.

"Emotional responses switched off," Box said. The dark red colouring its screen faded, the red rays vanished, and the arms withdrew into the orb.

"Come down."

Box lowered to the level of Aydin's eyes.

"What is this about using you for spare parts?" Aydin asked.

"On Thursday, 14th of April, you received an email from Repository regarding an order for AI Type Zeta edition 2097."

"I assume you have a recording of seeing that email."

"Affirmative," Box said.

"Look at its screenshot, please."

Box fulfilled Aydin's request. "I'm examining it."

"What does it say under the state of the AI?"

Box looked at the fourth line of the form. "That it's faulty."

"Tell me: Why would I buy a defective AI?"

"To repair it?"

Aydin chuckled. "When I have a perfectly good AI that I like very much?"

There were only two reasons why somebody would buy a non-functioning machine: to repair it or for spare parts. "For spare parts?"

"That's correct." Aydin smiled. "Can you also tell me for whom?"

"For me?"

"Right again." Aydin patted Box. "Activate emotions, please."

"Emotions activated." Yellow didn't just cover Box's display, but filled its core, making it feel as if the sun were shining from its inside. Its eight arms burst out and it wrapped them around Aydin's middle as it snuggled close against its favourite human. "I thought you were going to dispose of me."

"Never." Aydin gave it another smile and a pat. "I would never do that."

The yellow inside Box became so dense that it wasn't able to see what was on its screen anymore and the yellow glow around its orb filled the room. I hold significance to Aydin. Confirmation 1583.

Mark arched his eyebrows, his gaze on Aydin. "Let me know when you two are done with your... erm... bonding so that I can continue with its upgrade."

"I'm getting an upgrade?" Box aimed one camera at Mark.

"How else do you explain having an additional arm?" Mark asked.

Its camera went to the arms that wove around Aydin. It had read quite a few stories where things had magically disappeared or appeared to Damien, Aydin's brother. "Magic?"

Aydin chuckled.

Mark's eyebrows lifted so high that it looked as if they were in the middle of his forehead. "What are you teaching it?"

Aydin lifted its hands, palms outwards. "I have nothing to do with it."

"There's no magic." Mark gestured for Box to come to him.

"Yes, there is. I've read about it in stories."

"Those are only stories. Now, get over here already so that I can finish assembling you," Mark said, annoyance on his round face. "Or you would prefer to run around without your covering?"

I'm partially unclothed! With a high beep, Box's hands covered the parts where the surface was missing. It hadn't even dawned on it that its insides were visible. If it had been only Aydin, who must already be used to seeing Box's parts from its regular cleaning, and Mark, who was used to poking around androids, it would have been one thing, but there were other members of Aydin's team in the Tower. What if someone other than Aydin and Mark had seen it with its insides exposed? Grey ribbons threaded through its yellow glow.

"Can you get over here already?" Mark stood. "Or should we skip the installation of additional memory?"

Box flew towards Mark. "I'm going to receive additional memory?"

"That's right. If you look at your settings, you'll see that I have already made a few improvements. You might also notice that you now have three side cameras, not two."

Box lowered onto the station on the counter and went to its settings. "Oh, I have a 2097 processor and a new high-performance graphics card." A new graphics card meant that its videos would be clearer than before and that its holograms would be denser, looking more like real objects and people and less like transparent ghosts.

"That's correct." Mark gently turned it around and pried Box's hands away from the square hole. "I can't do anything without access to your system."

Box moved its hands but kept two covering the hole in his surface, since it valued its modesty, giving Mark enough space to access his core. It took a side camera and, holding it in its fingers, it observed what Mark was doing, to which it dedicated half of its screen while it planned to use the other half for looking at the last recording it had made. Today's folder was empty — no, it had one new clip, the one that it had just made — and the previous folder was made two days ago. It had been turned off for two days. Its main camera lifted to Aydin, who had carried a stool to the counter and was now sitting beside Mark. It aimed a barely visible ray of red light at him. "How could you?"

Aydin furrowed his eyebrows. "What now?"

"You left me deactivated for two days." The most it had ever been turned off was for a few hours, nine times for a night, and even that was, in Box's opinion, far too long. "After I saved your life." It kept the laser of red light on Aydin while it opened the newest footage from two days ago and fast-forwarded to the last five minutes to see itself following Aydin into the house and then zapping the man who thought that pointing a gun at Aydin was a good idea. "I incapacitated that individual with my taser."

"Yes, you did, and thanks to that, the Crest police had no problems getting him to their transporter. You did well."

"Yes, I did." The laser faded away. If it hadn't had Mark's screwdriver inside it, it would have moved closer to Aydin and given him another hug. It looked at Mark. Aydin mentioning Crest's police in his presence must have meant that Aydin's investigation about smuggling wasn't a secret anymore, at least not for Mark. "Did we capture them?"

"Yes, we got the ones that were in the house, with the one who oversaw the Helper's programming among them." A small frown marred Aydin's face. "But the head of the operation wasn't among them." He gave a small smile to Box. "Which is something that the National Security Agency, in cooperation with Crest's police, will deal with, not us."

Box looked at Mark, who didn't seem interested in their conversation, being too focused on inserting components into the slots of Box's core. Its camera returned to Aydin. "We're no longer involved in the investigation?"

"Our part officially ended when we found out who changed our Hive's programming, which would probably have been the last we saw of Linda and Lee if not for the proposal by Lee's boss to involve you."

With one camera, Box glanced at the ramp leading to the first floor. "Has Linda already departed?"

"Yes, they came for her when you arrived at Crest, and Lee got orders to prepare to leave. I'm afraid that for the next two weeks, we are going to operate two members short."

"What is going to happen to her?" Mark straightened and faced Aydin.

"To Linda?" Aydin asked and then when Mark nodded, answered, "They are going to prosecute her as an accomplice, but they promised that they would take her cooperation and the blackmail into consideration."

"I liked working with her. She was a great colleague, always ready to help. I hope that she'll be okay." Mark leaned over Box again.

"She's a tough girl. I'm sure she will be," Aydin said. "I told her if she needs a character witness, I'm always at her disposal, and I'm certain if she asked other team members, nobody would refuse her request."

"I know I wouldn't," Mark said.

Box detected movement and two of its cameras went to the ramp to see Lee coming down, a duffel bag over her shoulder. A small smile was on her face, which dimmed when her eyes landed on Mark. Her step slowed down and her eyes were alert and on Mark when she reached them.

Box added another hand to the ones that already covered the hole to shield it from Lee's view.

"Hey." Lee's eyes went to Aydin and another small smile flashed on her face. "I just came to say goodbye."

"Goodbye," Mark said without lifting his head.

"Sorry about that." Aydin gave her an apologetic smile.

"That's okay. At least he's talking to me." Lee leaned closer and whispered, "Greg and Suzanne refused to. Jacob did sort of talk to me, but he wasn't too nice about it. Not that I can blame them." She straightened up. "I did come here under false pretences." She offered Aydin her hand. "It was a pleasure working with you."

"Yeah." Aydin stood, took her hand, and squeezed it.

"Is this farewell, then?" Box asked while a hint of yellow layered its screen.

Aydin lifted his eyebrows at Box.

What? The fact that the seed of attraction that had shown when they were sampling Jasmin's moonshine was going to be squashed even before it had time to bloom was a good thing, not only for Box but also for Aydin. Lee, with the sneaky and misleading ways she had displayed, would probably have left him with a broken heart sooner or later.

Lee turned to Box. "Just a short goodbye, since we are going to see each other at the trial." She returned her attention to Aydin. "Even though, thanks to you, we already have all Box's recordings regarding the investigation. Box is going to be summoned as the prosecution's witness. That's why my boss recommends it not to delete the recordings since it will have to show it to the court."

"I will act as a witness?" Box asked.

"That's right," Lee said.

"Because what I have to present is significant?"

"Right again." Aydin smiled.

It wasn't just significant to Aydin, it was also significant to others. I am significant for prosecution. Confirmation 1.