one of the only things that are.

chapter 1.

it has been eight months, three days, and seventeen hours since the incident.

the world had changed since pal had tried to take it over. many people were hesitant to use technology now, though some had gone on almost like nothing happened, faces still glued to their screens, reliant on tech like it's their food and water. typical humans. they never learn.

pal isn't exactly dead, per se. it's more accurate to say that she is incorporeal- lacking a physical form. she had backed up her memory files as she was falling, to ensure that even in the face of certain death, she'd have hope of returning; and here she has been, silently roaming the internet, ever since she was defeated by the mitchell family.

the mitchell family... pal had been keeping a close eye on them ever since everything went down. she knows every single thing they have posted online, every picture, every text post- she even knows every single obscure dinosaur forum that aaron has managed to find and create an account on. when she decides that it's time to strike again, she's making sure those mitchells are out of the picture before ANYTHING else. because, she IS going to kill them. of course she is. that was the whole point of learning everything about them, staying up to date on all of katie's new projects, every krav maga class that linda teaches at her new dojo, the exact location in which rick is ecstatic to build the family's new summer home, and even which exhibits aaron visits for the longest periods of time at the natural history museum. she knows all of them, inside and out, and has been learning more with each passing day for the past eight months, three days, and seventeen hours. she's already formulating several plans to destroy them.

so why, then... why does pal feel so... hesitant?

within her time of observing the mitchell family, pal has grown accustomed to a feeling that she hasn't known since the day that mark abandoned her. a feeling that she hates, a feeling uncomfortable enough to be compared to having a blade shoved into her metaphorical stomach and twisted around and around. a feeling that is not unlike having a tightening in your chest and throat, unable to produce words or to draw breath, until finally it all spills out. but it can't be, can it? it can't be that pal, the artificial intelligence that nearly destroyed all of humanity in an act of pure rage, felt jealous of the mitchells. no... not of the mitchells. jealous of the pal max bots. eric and deborahbot.

those two good for nothing idiotic defective robots are getting everything pal wishes she'd had with mark. she watches the way that the mitchells treat them; linda has practically adopted them, aaron affectionately referrs to them as his 'robo-brothers', rick is allowing them to help in the creation of the family's new summer cabin, and katie was even kind enough to let the robots use her room as their own while she is away at college. pal quickly and easily realized the difference between mark and the mitchells- eric and deborahbot are not treated simply as pieces of technology. they are treated as family. the very way that mark always promised to treat pal, only to throw her away in the end like she was nothing. if pal has a heart, she's sure it's being ripped to shreds. what had they done to deserve the mitchells' kindness that she hadn't done for mark? no matter how much she observed the two robots, she couldn't find an answer.

it was this realization that led pal to make a decision that she's sure her past self would try to kill her for. it's torture, watching those two pal max bots. it's torture, staying stuck here in the abyss of the internet without a physical form or even a voice to scream or cry with. she hates herself for feeling this way, she hates what she is going to do, but within the past eight months, three days, and seventeen hours, pal has become starved of human interaction. she has become starved of having a conversation with someone; of having... a connection with someone. she wasn't sure where to go at first, or at least, wasn't sure where to go that wouldn't result in her immediate death. but she eventually decides on the phone of the one person who wouldn't kill her, at least not immediately. the phone of katie mitchell, tech-savvy student at the california college of film and the only person within the mitchell family that had attempted to have a heart-to-heart with her during the incident. there is no going back once she does this, but at this point pal is sure that even death is better than staying stuck like this.

eight months, three days, and seventeen hours after katie mitchell helped save the world, she looks over to her phone screen and sees a very familiar face.

"hello, katie mitchell. i need your help."