Red vs Blue: Heavy 'META'L

Chapter 16

Director: Dear Chairman. I imagine this investigation of our program is providing you with the kind of attention that politicians crave so much. How very predictable. What has surprised me most about mankind during the great war, is not our ability to adapt to the new arenas of conflict, but instead, our willingness in victory to so quickly return to the old.

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Slade sighs in relief, seeing his old A.I. companion alive and functioning.

Slade: Mate, am I glad to see you. After what happened back on the ship, I-

Rho: Cal, it's okay. I told you I'd be alright. The Director has always thought A.I. to be to important to keep alive than destroy.

Slade: Still, I was scared out of my bloody skull for you.

Rho: Seems like you got by fine with three A.I. in your head.

Delta, Theta, and Tex then appear.

Theta: RHO!

Rho chuckles as the purple A.I. runs towards him and hugs him around his waist. Rho pats his head as he sees Tex and Delta come over.

Delta: It is agreeable to see you again, Rho.

Rho: What? No hug from you, D?

Delta: Hugging is a concept I've yet to feel able to do comfortably.

Tex: You'd think after all the time you spent with York you'd have gotten at least a couple of those 'concepts' down.

Delta: How can something holographic and made of algorithms hug something physical?

Tex: Alright, I'll give you that one.

Rho: Allison. Good to see you.

Tex and Rho grip their forearms.

Tex: You too, Rho. Though I have to tell you, being an A.I. is a lot more work than being a Freelancer with a physical body.

Slade: While it's good to see you four getting along, we need to regroup with Wash and Church and find Alpha.

Rho: Wait, we're finding the Alpha? Geez, I'm out for almost a decade and shit hasn't gotten any less serious, huh?

Slade: (laughs) Mate, you have A LOT to be caught up on and told later. Come on.

The A.I. disappear and Slade runs off.

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Church looks down at the storage device, now known to have Wash's A.I. and not the Alpha.

Church: You mean to tell me we've come all this way for this? Your fucking crazy A.I. Epsilon?

Washington: Yes. I thought it was gone. But Delta told us memory was the key. At first I thought he meant to remember our first encounter. And when I met Delta the first time what I told him was-

Church holds his head as he sees a memory of Wash talking with Delta.

Washington: You were encrypted until you could be recovered.

Delta: Recovery carries risk. Destruction ensures that an A.I.-

Washington: You cost a lot of money, okay? It's cheaper to recover you than it is to delete you.

Back to present time.

Washington: When they removed Epsilon from me, he was unravelling, casting off all his thoughts. I was sure they deleted him but it's-