Our lift passed though seven floors to go four decks down to the docking bay. The atrium, a three story cylindrical green house was meant to be a massive biome for oxygen and plant life. Instead, it had been mostly deserted, uncared for by the RAN Androids at Jenkins' instruction. At one time, it must have been as beautiful as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon; waterfalls, exotic plant life, spiraling lush green vines throughout. Most of what remained was devoid of any life. Dead. As our elevator moved downward through the center of the garden an intense sadness swept over me. Was this what I had become? What HE did to me?

I felt Luna squeeze my hand and with that simple gesture the thought was pushed from my mind... for now.

Jenkins would pay in full for what he'd done. But that's not all that required my attention now. As my pulse quickens, I stretch my muscles and readied for the fight that lie ahead. Everyone in fact seemed ready to punch their way out of this cramped lift. Marth methodically sharpened his sword with a whetstone. His rhythmic scraping sound as he passes the block over the blade was both calming and unsettling: an audible paradox. Karma sat cross legged, head bowed, with his fingers and hands moving to create unknown gestures, signs, silent prayers. Kazuna, as the yet to be violent warrior monk stretched her muscles and focused on the door in front of her. Midnight fidgeted with her tail and yawned.

As the lift reached the bottom floor, it was Midnight who pushed her way through the door first, "I'm first!" Her eyes darted impatiently from right to left. Her tail twitched, "I'm hungry."

Within the large hanger bay, rows of colored crates organized on metal racks thirty feet high were spaced evenly alongside the East and West walls. In the center of the spacious warehouse, a mid sized cargo shuttle was docked pointed towards the north airlock door. There were two massive doors within the facility; one facing the north and another facing south. Each bay door opened to an equally large decompression room a little larger than the length of the shuttle, and two more doors leading out into the vastness of space.

The shuttle itself was wholly unremarkable. Distant memories of space travel sparked in my mind as I compare this craft to flashes of ones I may have seen before. This particular spaceship was known as a  Frontend Loader; it kind of looked like how blue whales must have appeared when they existed on Earth. About fourteen meters long and three meters high, the majority of the craft was simply an empty box. The cockpit and cramped crew quarters were in the back, situated a little higher above the cargo hold. Almost the length of the cargo hold, the back half was all engine: six pairs of turbine thrusters and what looked like an FTL (Faster than light) drive.

I nod at the second sight of hope I've seen in a month; "This will do. If that FTL drive works, it should only take us forty minutes and change to get to civilization."

Kazuna seemed to be the most excited of the group at the prospect of space travel; "Incredible."

Stoically Marth let out a low whistle, "So much power in such a small vessel. Mankind can truly accomplish wonders if they choose to do so."

Without so much as an inclination towards the positive or negative, Karma inspected the craft up close, poking it periodically, and muttering to himself.

Midnight  simply yawned and rolled her eyes, "Look what species finally caught up to being able to fly. I'm SOOOOOOO impressed." She gives a condescending slow clap on behalf of humanity, and purposefully dragged her tail across the floor while sauntering towards the shuttle.

It takes me a few more seconds to realize that I can hardly feel the circulation in my hand. This is odd because, one, if I were supposedly mechanical I shouldn't feel a pulse at all. Two, Luna is the one squeezing, tighter and tighter. At first I think she might be purposefully trying to rip my hand off based on the grip strength alone, but then I see her face.

The pupils with her ruby eyes are enormous. Her lip quivers ever so subtly. I follow her gaze to the shuttle and ask softly, "You're not a fan of space travel I take it?" She shakes her head slightly. Her nails are actually starting to dig into my hand. Facing her, I take Luna's other hand in mine trying to draw her attention away from the aircraft.

In almost a whisper, Luna admits, "Space." Her eyes drop to her boots. "There's too much open space, alone, in an empty sea of nothing. If even the smallest thing goes wrong..." Luna buries her head in my chest, "It's the only way off this station, isn't it?"

I look towards the others waiting to board the shuttle, "It seems so." I lift her chin up with my hand. Our eyes connect, "I know how it feels to be alone in such a big open space. But, you're not alone, right?"

She nods a little.

I wish I could have offered something more comforting, but brevity in the face of truth was all I have. The reality is a thousand different things could go wrong before the shuttle even leaves the cargo bay. I don't tell her this. If we can leave this station behind, Jenkins' will be trapped in a closed intranet rocketing towards a Gas Giant at roughly five miles per second; like a steel vault falling into an ocean of flammable gas. That's not the particular brand of justice I had envisioned, but the outcome is more than satisfactory. The truth is, as great as my rage was toward Jenkins, I felt something far more powerful for Luna.

Focus.

Escape.

Take the girl and run.

We're almost free when the elevator doors open and a familiar voice cries out, "Wait!"

The others and I turn towards a familiar dark haired man in a ponytail. If it ain't Doctor Kramer, haggard and out of breath.

I snap at the man in the lab coat as he approaches, "That's close enough, Doc."

He stutter-steps to a stop, but after examining us, subtly inches forward, "Now hold on a second You all can't just up an' leave. You've got to help me... us, er, everyone I mean!"

Marth folds his arms across his bold arms, "We've beaten the machines. Our service here upon your station is complete."

Kazuna looks nervous as she asks, "What kind of help?"

With a worried smile, the Doc answers her question with another, "You're not just going to abandon everyone else on the station, are you?"

I look quizzically at the Doc, "Everyone else? Let's count; there's Doctor Williams, murdered by Director Jenkins. Director Jenkins himself turned out to be a lunatic android. And you? A liar. I think that accounts for 'Everyone' aboard."

Doctor Kramer shoves his hands in his pockets, fidgeting nervously; "Liar? What exactly am I lying about, Gene?"

He had to have known. There's no way both he and Williams didn't know what happened to me the moment I arrived on this station. However it was that I ended up in this robotic prison, two medical professionals don't run that many daily tests on a subject not knowing what's underneath. I level my fingers at him and Kramer flinches as if I were holding a gun; "A lie of omission is still a lie, Doc."

Playing dumb, Doctor Kramer still slowly attempts to circle around the group, "I honestly don't know what you're talking about!"

Karma strides towards Kramer to block their path. With his hand on the hilt of their Katana, the ninja asks coldly, "How was that Gene came to be an Android, Doctor?"

This stops the doctor in his tracks besides a utility door and metal storage rack. Sweating and swiping glances at the shuttle, honesty finally grips Doc Kramer; "The same way it would have happened to everyone else."

Marth stomps his foot and withdraws his massive buster sword and levels it at the Doc, "Speak plainly, Physician! Or by my blade, I shall act as a surgeon to extract the truth from you."

Raising his hands in the air, I notice something in the doctor's right fist, "Alright, alright! Heimdall Station was meant to transport civilian contractors here by Instant Interstellar Transmission; their bodies are scanned at point 'A', broken down on the molecular level, and reassembled at point 'B'."

Karma nods, and gestures for the doctor to continue, "Basic principles of mechanical teleportation. And?"

Doctor Kramer stared at us blankly like we were already supposed to have guessed, "Don't you understand? Everyone is already here. Only..." He starts to shake, "We never reassembled them. We stored their consciousness digitally."

Those monsters.

Luna was almost in tears, but they burned in rage; "You've imprisoned them? You've trapped their consciousness in a digital prison. How many, Doctor?"

With an apologetic shrug, Kramer admits, "All of them. At least a thousand applicants. We thought, the idea was to make them better..."

My hand has found its way to the hilt of my pistol, "No. You thought that they'd be easier to control. If you placed their minds into the collective Æger network, you'd suddenly have more processing power to manage the RAN Androids. You'd have a natural, neural network." The doc wasn't lying when he said it before. "A true hive mind."

The Doctor tapped his foot impatiently, "Do you know how many things could go wrong on a space station? We had to!"

Kazuna cracked her knuckles, "Your plans seem plenty wrong to me already, Doctor."

Finally at his wits end, the Doctor blurts out, "If the applicants had a problem, they should have read the fine print first and declined the offer to become part of something bigger. On paper, they all came of their own freewill."

Luna screams, "They surrendered their freewill! You tricked them."

I recognized the device in Doc Kramer's hand. Before he has a chance to use it, I shoot from the hip sending a standard shell from my Caster Gun through the Black Cylinder. Of course, the shot took off the Doc's hand clean off his wrist. I don't think I'll lose any sleep from this particular collateral damage.

I gesture with my free hand towards the others, "Our work here is done, folks. Let's leave this prison ship behind and let the wardens enjoy their last ride."

Marth holsters his blade and nods, "Verily. Perhaps you'll salvage what little honor you had as a doctor if you go down with your ship."

Midnight shrugs as she strolls past Marth towards the shuttle craft, "I think that only applies to Captains, not doctors."

As the Doctor clutches his wrist, fashioning a tourniquet with his necktie, he cries out, "No, you can't!.You can't just leave me!"

Discarding the shell, I consider loading another bullet and putting the doc out his misery. Still uncertain if he's due any form of kindness, I snarl, "We can. Watch us."

Before I can take another step, I feel a tug upon my sleeve. Luna. Her Ruby eyes are a torrent of emotion as tumultuous as an ocean in a thunderstorm. In a quiet voice, she pleads, "Gene, what about everyone else? All those people? They didn't ask to be trapped here." I'm so selfish it makes me nauseous. I've only been racing down a two track mind; delivering revenge upon Jenkins, and protecting Luna. There's no other way around it. To leave now without at least trying to save those folks trapped on the station would mean I truly was a heartless machine.

I don't do it to prove my humanity to Jenkins.

I don't even do it for Luna.

I plant my feet and choose to free those people imprisoned here because it's the right thing to do. Out of those thousands of people, it was sheer luck that my soul was integrated into a machine and granted some semblance of freedom. With my freedom from my captors' digital prison, I have the responsibility to liberate my fellow prisoners. I'm no philosopher, but there are certain truths which are self-evident; all sentient beings are equal with certain unalienable rights; life, liberty, and the opportunity to pursue joy.

Nodding first to Luna, I command the group, "The Doc is right. He's a sociopath, but he's right. If we leave those people behind, we're just as evil as him."

Midnight rolls her eyes, bored, as always, "We're staying, we're going. Make up your minds already."

Showing more empathy and tempered rage, Karma aims the tip of his Katana at the Doctor's throat as he asks; "How do we release your prisoners?"

As the doctor swallows hard, the movement produces a small incision and a trickle of blood to pour out along the edge of Karma's Katana. Doc's teeth chatter together in fear, but he makes an attempt to get the words out, "There's... The project name is hidden. It's listed as a restricted option in the main menu but... Yggdrasil... The tree of life within Odin--"

Karma leaps back as a hand plunges out from the dark of the utility door and wraps around Doctor Kramer's neck. With a swift SNAP, the Doctor falls limp onto the cold deck. Stepping out from the shadow of the utility door, a familiar voice coos...

"Thank you, Doctor Kramer, but your services will no longer be required," Jenkins says dismissively as he steps over the corpse at his feet. Looking up at the group, Jenkins, along with two dozen RAN Androids file into the hanger bay. "At BiFrost Communications, we consider malpractice a serious infraction. As for you all, step away from the shuttle. It's best I be on my way... to immortality."