He swung his tentacles forward, grasping her head between his claws, trying to force her to look upward. She was heavy, and cumbersome in his arms. He pulled her body up closer to his, grasping her just between the forward-facing row of small pincers along her underbelly. Then, with a sleek wire snaking out of his body, he connected into her.

A bluish-white spark passed between them, shaking both machines violently. Take it, damn you! the spotted male hissed as he forced his energy wire further into her download slot. Another spark passed between them, sending a jolt through Fluffy that started her eye-cams up again. Seeing the male she started to whirl and thrash her tentacles, but didn't have enough strength yet to fully pull them forward. He pushed down on her back, keeping her shoved into the jagged edges of the rock, marring dents into her carapace.

The energy bar in her vision began to rise. When the male had given up half the energy he was carrying he released her and floated backwards. The sudden release of pressure sent her rolling down the hill, her tentacles flailing behind her. With a burst and a kick she managed to get airborne relatively untangled.

Don't do that, he sternly advised her. Or I have to treat you like child again.

After a hostile, long stare she took off, without a word. He watched her go, and suddenly became conscious of the fact that he was entirely alone as she vanished into the distance.

Andi wrung out her fingers and paced back and forth. Her eyes were flat, like light could no longer reflect off them. Michallis, sitting on the hot water pipe, studied her silently and played with the torn hem of his shirt.

"She's been hiding in her little nest since she returned. She won't come out, and she snaps at anyone who tries to get near her."

"She's upset because she lost?" Michallis suggested.

"You saw those blue sparks on the video, right, Michallis? He DID something to her, and I'm worried about what it was. I want to think it was only a jump-start, but…"

"You're afraid because you don't know what they say when they talk to one another." Andi looked over her shoulder at the boy. He was far smarter and more observant than many of the adults, and on some level that disturbed Andi.

"I think she's crying. I found coolant stains on the concrete… I can't think of any other explanation. I wish I knew what would do for her…"

Michallis, bored with Andi's indecision, climbed up the ladder to the machine's nest. He laid out of a piece of bread cautiously. "Thank you for… trying. For me."

Fluffy whined, rolling her massive body slightly. Michallis got back on the ladder. "They tell me you can't feel anything, but… I want you to feel better."

Far outside the base, in the cold of the upper world, rain beating down on his back, the spotted male shivered beneath the wreckage of a ship. The thermal vent he was lying on did nothing to cut through the chill of the eternal night his kind had been born into. If you weren't so stupid, his internal processor whirred, you could be warm inside the base. You could be with her.

I have no time to deal with foolish females. Risking her life for sugar… She'd be better off if the humans had wiped her mind, rather than leave her an idiot.

That's not it and you know it. She did it for her family- and because she has a family, she doesn't have to sleep in the rain like you, cowering every time a patrol passes by, fearing this might be the day they realize you for the traitor to the robot race you are. This might be the day they'll drag you in and rip you apart piece by piece while your sensors record every last feeling…

The male rolled onto his side. His family unit, all but him, had been slaughtered… and not by the humans, either. By other machines. He'd been knocked out during the struggle, and had awakened only when a two-legged machine had taken pity upon him and corrected his damaged wires. When he'd gone to look for his family, all he'd ever found were scattered pieces of them.

He remembered the attackers calling his family unit "shitty death machines," and the more common but hurtful name "the unclean ones." He remembered the elder siblings circling around the newly programmed infants as the other machines bashed their eyes in. One of them had cried out to another passing group of his kind, but they were newer models, and saw the beating of the older models as simply evolution.

She needs me, the spotted male thought. She's too innocent to possibly survive as one of our kind. Even the least innocent can't survive alone, anymore. She really needs me…

Fluffy sipped boredly at the pre-packaged energy. "At least she's eating," Andi sighed. "That's an improvement." Andi looked up to find Chris standing on the landing above her, staring down at her. I hope he doesn't drool in my eye, she thought. "I want to run a simulation with her. I think I can help her work out of this… if I could only communicate with her."

"I'll go with you."

"Must you?"

"Yes," he said shortly. He hadn't really forgiven her for the punch, and she was glad. "I bet you don't even know how to program a simulation personality, especially one that will be compatible with something like her."

"I… yeah. So what?"

Later…

Andi slugged Chris in the back of the head. "You take those down at least three cups or I'll turn your eye sockets more pretty colors!"

"Spoil sport," Chris muttered, rubbing the back of his injured head. "What if she WANTS to look like that, huh?" The image of the girl on the screen had pale, delicate looking skin crossed lightly with blue veins under the eyes. Tangles of black tentacle-like, thick dreadlocks dangled down her back, highlighted by circular scarlet ribbons. Her eyes were a pale, rusty brown that was almost red, and a halo of different red circles ran in a piece of what was supposed to look like jewelry across her forehead. She was dressed in a black bodysuit… Chris's design… circled with red and decorated in circular crimson shapes. Long gloves and boots helped cover all of her body that wasn't above her chin.

Her nose, chest, and waist were tiny and sharp, more angular than perhaps was realistic, but it was okay for the purpose of a simulation. They'd wanted her to look as much like a human version of a sentinel as they could, for the purpose of easing her into the simulation.

"Like that's not going to attract attention to her."

"I'll have you know, Fluffy helped design this herself!" He pointed to Fluffy, doodling stick figures on the wall with a piece of charcoal. Andi gripped Chris' shoulder.

"Chris… she's making art. She doesn't have a program for making art."

"She probably picked it up from some local kids with her learning and adaptation program."

Andi frowned and bit her lip. "Or we've severely underestimated the abilities of the sentinel. Come on, let's just get into the simulation before I blow my head with thinking."

Chris looked essentially the same inside the simulation as he did in the real world, only without the pudgy chin and bad haircut. He'd emphasized the slants in the corners of his eyes. He was wearing a hip-length brown fur trimmed jacket that contrasted ghastly with the brown tones in his skin.

For herself, Andi chose the outfit she'd worn before when entering the Matrix on the very few occasions she'd done it. She had a white cotton duster to match her hair, which went from her real world blonde to simply white in the simulation. Her eyes were still blue, her chin still sharp, but her back a bit more curved to fit with the male feminine ideal.

"Where are all the people?" Andi asked, looking through the empty streets of the simulation.

"All the ready programmed people would be attacking us right now. Our system isn't strong enough to support agent trainers AND bystanders."

"Oh. You know, I haven't really… been in a simulation since I was freed. I went into the Matrix once, and then again, but never… never when we were in any real danger. I was just a look-out. I… I got scared the second time, and I froze up. After that, they said I wasn't any use to them. So I became a mechanic. It… it still hurts sometimes, and… why am I telling you this?!"

Fluffy, meanwhile, fell over with a flopping noise. "Are you okay" Andi asked.

"Tentacle gone?" Fluffy asked, confused.

Chris and Andi both grinned widely, their teeth almost reflecting the sun. "She can talk!" they cried. Andi helped Fluffy to her feet. "Yes, tentacle gone. People walk on their feet."

"Feeeeeet?"

"These are feet," Chris said, waving a foot at her. Fluffy tried to emulate him and nearly fell over again from lack of balance.

"Feeeeet?" she asked again.

"Right. Here, like this," Chris replied, eagerly walking back and forth in front of her.

It took a few false starts, but eventually Fluffy got the hang of walking without falling on her rear. "Feet for walking!" she said proudly. Then, she paused and poked herself in the nose. "This more feet?"

"That's your nose, it's for smelling," Andi answered.

She grabbed her ear and tugged on it. "This feet or nose?"

"That's your ear, it's for hearing!"

"What this?" Fluffy asked, patting her hips.

"Those are your hips. They bend so you can sit down."

"Oh," Fluffy said, biting a finger in concentration. It was a personality quirk they'd programmed into her character. "What this?" she asked, reaching up and grabbing each of her breasts in one hand.

Andi blanched. "Don't grab them! Those are your breasts. They're used for… they're… decorative."

Fluffy pointed at Chris. "No breasts. Not pretty?"

"Mean don't have breasts. Men like to look at them…" Andi said, uncertainly playing with her hair.

"Fluffy understand now! Feet for walking, nose for smelling, breasts for men!" she cried, leaping forward and shoving Chris' face straight into her boobs. "Andi got bigger decorations than Fluffy."

"Fluffy!" Andi cried.

"I really don't mind…" Chris replied, his voice muffled.

"Fluffy, shoving men into your boobs is a no-no! Let him go!"

Fluffy did as told, and Chris hit the pavement with a floomph noise. "I think we've got a lot to teach…"

It was evening when training was done and Fluffy seemed to have forgotten about earlier, enthusiastically bouncing up and down on her tentacles, shaking the entire room with her happiness. Andi had tried playing fetch with Fluffy, but all that had come of that was Fluffy fetching a very unhappy mechanic and then sitting on him. Andi hoped his ribs were only bruised…

"Lauren should be arriving soon," Chris informed Andi as the two watched Michallis have a bit more success throwing the ball so Fluffy could fetch it… without sitting on anyone in the process. "She's really excited. She wants to do a full-body examination. Imagine, a live, tame machine."

"My mentor had tamed machines. Didn't she care about them?"

"Well, they were nothing like a sentinel…"

"And why not?" Andi asked. Then she looked away. "It won't hurt Fluffy, will it?"

"I can't imagine it would… and once we know she's working, maybe we can train her into the real Matrix."

Andi wanted to question the nature of we, but left it for the time being. "Chris… and Michallis… speaking of my mentor, there was… there was once a question he and I didn't really see equally on, so I'll ask what you think." Andi resisted adding and for you, I use the word loosely.

"Shoot," Chris replied.

"Do you think the machines… really ARE endowed with the spirit of man?"

"What do you mean?"

"We know they raise offspring, form unions, and that some of them fear death from the Zion archives. "But do they love their offspring; do they love their mates? Do they have a religion that tells them how to behave if they wish to live beyond physical death?"

"You're asking if the machines have religion," Chris questioned, looking confused.

"I'm asking if they believe they have an immortal soul. I'm asking if we should believe they do. I mean, some people believed that even humans aren't born with a soul… that they earn it through suffering and prayer. Some believe that you get a soul from being loved."

Chris thought for a moment. "I believe you can say they have a… a universal soul, if you will. What people in the old days would have merely called a network, but it's far to advanced to be just that now, wouldn't you say?"

Andi curled up. "Yeah. I guess. But… when we sent Fluffy out and she lost, do you think she feared death? Do you think she was upset because she was humiliated?"

"Machines don't have emotions like we do. So no, I don't think that. But whether they have emotions is a different question than if they have a soul."

"What's so unique about souls, emotion, love… that limit them to human beings, to creatures with flesh?"

"The fact that humans always want to believe they're better than everything else. Us versus them," Michallis answered, looking straight at Andi. Fluffy hovered beside him, silent. She'd heard what they'd said, but she had no way of speaking, no way of communicating to them what she thought on the matter.

That's why humans didn't think machines had souls, Fluffy thought to herself. Because they can't express their feelings the same way humans do. Because we don't speak. But Fluff had never been one for philosophy, so she let the question drop and returned to chasing the ball. Sentinels… or as they called themselves, Peace Keepers, were muscles, not brains, in robot society.

To be Continued…