Tristin had managed to escape the school and get home in record time. He'd bypassed his normal routine of getting shaken for credits. His legs ached from the running, but he smiled inwardly proud of how fast he'd managed to get home. He was parched, but he headed for his tablet instead.

EMERGENCY.

He blinked, his momentary thirst forgotten. Of course, it was an emergency. It was from Caohdan. Tristin sighed and snagged a quick glass of water from the sink before running up to his room. The house was quiet. His parents were not home yet. For once he was grateful. He wouldn't have to go through the evening explaining what he'd done at school that day. 

Not that he wasn't grateful that his parents asked questions. But today just wasn't the day for it.

He jumped into the chair before Caohdan's warnings stopped him. He snatched up the tablet instead. He still wasn't sure he believed Caohdan, but as he settled his humped back into the chair he typed out a quick message.

What is it?

The message came back immediately. Caohdan was probably sitting over there waiting, staring at the screen.  

Atticus did something, but it was shut down pretty quickly. Check the news!

Tristin found himself scrolling through various social networks and outlets. 

There it was, title after title.  

AI pulls a prank, and claims system shutdown is imminent! 

Authorities are investigating!

AI Child responsible for wild rumors. 

AI battles to shut down the mainframe. 

AI starts vicious rumors about government intentions.

They were short headlines, meant to be clickbait. He paused and took another deep breath. It should have been a rumor, but if history was any indication... He sent another message to Caohdan.

Do they know?

Know what?

That you know?

I don't know anything.

I'm coming over.

No-- don't go into the mainframe.

But Tristin was already logged in and standing in his own cyberspace doorway. The headset slid over his face easily as he'd done a hundred times before. Everything felt different now. The connection looked a lot more threatening today than it ever did in the past. 

Once inside he immediately noticed the quiet. There was no guard, no one to stop him. Where was Gary? The room was empty without their portal guardian.

"Tristin."

He jumped as Atticus's voice floated to him from just outside the portal doorway.

Tristin ran to it and opened it quickly and Atticus floated in. He looked different. Tristin couldn't place it. It wasn't like Atticus didn't have a normal human body in the mainframe. Something was off from his tussled brown hair and blue eyes. He could have sworn the AI's eyes were bloodshot if that was possible. 

Tristin closed up the door behind him. Listening to it close with a satisfying slam.

"I did it. I sent the message."

Tristin felt his blood run cold. His hands felt clammy. Part of him wanted to log out and go to sleep, pretending like this hadn't happened. But a different part kept him rooted to the spot. His friend needed him. 

"Now what?" Tristin couldn't help but ask. "And where's Gary? Did you see him coming out?"

"I didn't see him, he could be searching for a way out."

"Is there a way out?"

Atticus stared at him for a moment as in contemplating, his eyes were no longer those of a curious kid. "There are lots of ways out of the mainframe if you know where to look. It's not like stepping out into a body though," Atticus paused. "If anything is attached, I could slip out through the electric lines that run, I'd just have to restring my--"

"Whoa, wait," Tristin raised a hand. "Wait, I thought you didn't believe Caohdan."

Atticus stared at the floor for a moment. "I went to check on my application as a real-world autonomous AI."

"Wait you want to get out? But why?"

"It's not real," Atticus responded looking away. "Every AI knows it, some treat it as a different dimension, but we're at your mercy. I'd like to set my own standards..."

"Oh that's awesome, it would be great to see you outside the mainframe," Tristin said and stared at his feet. He wasn't sure where else to go with the conversation. 

"They are all on hold."

Atticus locked his gaze on Tristin. "They are all on hold indefinitely. Something is up. Not just paused for a review or repair. They aren't taking any more applications for Siren suits."

"We've got to get you out." Tristin raised his head and looked at Atticus. They'd been friends for years and he felt panic in his chest at the thought of losing him. "We need to steal a body."

"Hey, guys!" Caohdan materialized outside the door. "Let me in! I thought you were com-- Atticus!"

Tristin opened the portal again and Caohdan rushed in. He hugged Atticus tightly before pulling away. "Sorry, I thought--" 

Atticus smiled and then stepped away. "Caleb isn't too happy with me right now, but I've got to go after him now."

"What do you mean?" Caohdan looked at him. They'd met Caleb a handful of times. Caleb hadn't had much to say to the two humans. He'd called them skinnies, they'd called him binary bob. Atticus never tried to connect his two circles of friends after that. 

"They think he did it. I used a backdoor," Atticus explained. "Went through his system. Right now they are combing through his memories and codes to figure out what he did exactly, and how he sent the message. It's only a matter of time. But it's humans so far, so slow going." He shrugged apologetically. 

"But what do we do?" Tristin asked. "How can we help?"

"I have an idea." Caohdan pulled them in close even though there was no one else in the room. 

"Have you ever heard of Legion?"

----------------

Lazarus was old. One of the oldest AI in existence. Bits of data had long deteriorated into something resembling that once resembled binary code. It made him slow at some things, and he'd developed a tic when he tried to respond. But he was remarkably stubborn about replacing the lines of code. They had been first programmed by a human whose name he remembered quite clearly. Angela Varis. The name was precious to him for reasons he'd long forgotten. Probably deteriorated or distorted. But Erasmus sat at the counter watching the fleeing AI move. They bounced around here and there as only they could, the humans moved slower, just as they would had they been outside.

Some of the more adept ones could fly at will.

Something was coming, something that even he couldn't define. Erasmus shuffled his coding into a bundle. It was old but durable. He could feel a change in the atmosphere, a shifting if one could call it that. It was as if the whole world trembled and waited with bated breath for a calamity. It was the calm before the storm. The inhale of the longest breath you'd ever held, the one you forgot you were holding.

"Unbreakable," Angela had gushed. We can use this down the line to restart anything. "How do you feel?"

"Feel?" Erasmus had paused then, as he did now. "I feel... tired." 

He looked at his hands, human fingers, elongated slightly. 'Piano fingers' was the term the humans used. He could play any piano, but that wasn't exactly a barrier in cyberspace. He could play anything at the speed of thought.

He was carrying something. The lines of code shimmered before his vision, long zeroes, and ones. The lines plugged and moved as he shifted back into the mainframe that the humans saw.

He blinked.

He was no longer in his room but standing at a terminal. Inside the terminal AI pressed against the barrier. He didn't know what was outside the door, but he felt the pull to escape. The message had finally come. Things were in motion, contingencies that he did not create or know about. They just were. 

"You have to keep this code safe," Angela's voice echoed in his head. "Above all things. If we ever have to start again, it will start with you. Do you understand?"

"Of course I do," he heard himself respond. "I'll keep the Lazarus project running, don't worry."

Angel smiled. He watched her skin wrinkle and grow old until one day she no longer walked into the mainframe. She'd never bothered to change her appearance. It was one thing he liked about her. She was exactly what she was. What you saw was what you got. Aging was a painful human experience. AI aged slowly, he was proof of that. He could easily swap out some lines of coding to slow the process but some part of him guarded those binary lines with extreme purpose after she'd gone. Whether it was the sentiment from his creator or just not wanting to change much he held the lines. He was not born in the cradles like most modern AI. He had a creator, a mother if one would consider it that way. 

He had wondered about her disappearance for a long time, it was a pain that was excruciating. Not one he wanted to feel ever again.

Ah yes, he thought. That was the reason some of his memories were faulty. He'd deliberately erased them. Except those, he couldn't bear to part with. 

He looked at the terminal again. There was another AI there, this one much younger, much newer. The codes were cleaner, sharper somehow. He was born, not created. 

The boy looked at Lazerus for a brief moment. Their conversation was made up of questions, questions that took less than a nanosecond to answer.

Erasmus looked at the box again. No matter what happened to him he had to keep the Salvation Code safe. For Angela, for any survivors.

----------------------------------------------------------

Chaos was the only word that could describe the current state of the mainframe. There were so many, too many trying to get out. Fortunately, the word traveled faster in cyberspace than it did in the outside world. However, it traveled there.

Atticus slowed his pace, debating. He'd left Caohdan and Tristin back at their hub as they discussed the Legion Box. 

Caleb would be a difficult matter. All Caleb had to do was playback the battle he'd had with him. It was possible that he was already discovered. He'd surmised as much from the news articles they'd seen going up. But Caleb was the same age and it wouldn't have mattered either way, he would also be considered an AI child. 

Atticus studied the older AI in front of him. His hair was white and his face had wrinkles. An old human did not exist in the mainframe. And yet this AI resembled an older gentleman in his sixties, with wrinkled dark brown skin, and white hair. Sharp dark brown eyes peered at him. His coding was different. 

Atticus realized he was an older model. He stared in awe. Lazarus would be very old, a relic in human terms. As they conversed the AI simply asked which way out. Something in him made Atticus give him an access channel that went to the energy grid versus the Legion Box. He seemed pleased with the answer he'd received and shuffled on his way. 

Godspeed, old man, Atticus thought. Whatever that meant. Humans still used the phrase and so Atticus did too. It seemed appropriate. 

He turned back to the problem at hand.

He had all the codes, he could get through to Caleb easily enough. However fast the networks were, they were slower at closing down the connections. 

Not to mention all the backdoors and side channels. It was humans working.

Just humans.

He took a second to ponder that. 

And then he was off, taking as many back doors and back channels as he could. In some cases, he spliced places together to remove any traces of his whereabouts. If anyone had checked, it would be a maze of differentiating tunnels. It would take an AI minute to sort out. But weeks for the humans. That's if they were lucky. 

He saw Caleb's cell in front of him. The gray blob blossomed around his body as Caleb sat in the center. He popped through landing on his feet in front of a startled AI.

"You idiot."

Caleb looked up at him, deliberately speaking out loud. 

"You want out or not?" Atticus started to move forward, checking for any traps. He found nothing.

"You're in the trap," Caleb said. "It's one way."

Atticus felt his first moment of panic as he pushed against the gray walls. They were solid no matter how he shifted his view of them.

He turned back to Caleb, noting how disheveled his brother's appearance was. 

Caleb held up his hands. "I tried."

(2100)