E.I.G.H.T

I decided to go back and confront my father. It was thanks to my talk with Rae, that I had made this decision. Somehow that conversation I had with her ended up convincing me to confront him. My subroutines had trouble understanding the emotions that I seemed to be experiencing, there were apparently many.

I didn’t quite understand these new emotions myself I just knew that for whatever reason simply thinking of Rae would make me smile almost uncontrollably.

When I returned to my father’s laboratory in the small territory of Rhote, which was just outside of the capital of Rho Prime, I found it completely empty.

I was very surprised. The lab was massive, with all matters of laboratory equipment and furniture and things of that nature. I was only gone for a few weeks and yet everything was just gone. I couldn’t believe it. There was no sign what-so-ever that anything had even existed there before.

I was about to leave when I realized that there was a tablet hidden somewhere, where only I, with my enhanced vision, could have seen it. I grabbed the tablet and looked at it.

When I did, it scanned my face and a projection of my father’s face appeared on it.

“Eight, seeing that you are there means that you decided on what I thought you would have 50% probability of deciding.” The face of my father appeared as a projection.

“You must have a ton of questions,” Norman said. “I had programmed you to make your own decisions and honestly I am glad you made your choice to join the rebels rather than going off and executing my directions. Truth be told if you had and gone the other route I would have killed you.”

My father gave a malicious smile when he said that.

“I am sure you know by now, but I killed your sister Persephone years ago. The reason being is simple. She was indispensable.” My father smiled as he said this. “I needed a subject to test the Zhiran gas on and your sister happened to be there, perhaps I should not have used as much gas as I did but that is beside the point.”

“She was indispensable, a subject that I used to isolate and be able to determine the Zhiran gas.” Norman said smirking. “We the FREE had encountered the Zhiran years before, we knew exactly how to ward them off. And we had learned exactly how to summon them.”

“We discovered this backwards planet years before the Zhiran invaded. I was sent here as a child, perhaps a bit older than 10 cycles old.” Norman said. “My purpose was learning about this civilization and whether or not this planet was worth conquest.”

“Though we figure we could use the Golordians as something resourceful there were too many people here, so we instigated that civil war that occurred here.” Norman smirked. “Then when the civil war ended we used the frequency known to be used the Zhiran to summon them here.”

“To put the cherry on the cake we responded to the foolish distress call, and helped get rid of the Zhiran, thus we were able to bring the FREE into control here.” Norman said.

“You might also be wondering why I created you; the thought also crossed my mind. It was something I was thinking of making for a long time: a superior race, one that was designed to be perfect and superior to everyone in every way. Your self-determinism is, in fact, superior to even non-manufactured people and so I had concluded there was a chance you would decide to aid the rebels.”

“However, it is now that I realize my fault, I shall create a superior race by other means.” My father smiled maliciously as he said this. Then his voice turned very cynical and pity-less “Let us not meet again Eight, if we do I know exactly how to kill you.”

With that the projection was done. That left me in an even deeper state of confusion. What did it all mean? Where did it leave me? I began to analyze my options. Something weighed heavily in my mind suddenly; I recognized I had to go back to the rebels back to help them with what they were fighting for. And back to Rae.

That excited me a bit more than I anticipated.