Chapter 29: Deviant
=Alnub Forest, Central Base=
'Deviant'
A designation given to the rogue Alpha who deviated from direct orders of the Machine Network. The Deviant was sealed in a heavily fortified chamber underground, allowing no means of escape and its connection having been severed from the Network. Ten Elite Androids guarded its chamber from the outside and twenty Android soldiers were on the surface directly above the chamber.
In an event the Deviant would try to escape, the Androids were ordered to destroy it. Although the Deviant hasn't shown any acts of desertion against the Machine Network ever since it came back on its own to the base, Artemis wasn't taking any unnecessary risks.
Artemis and the supercomputers back at Earth concluded that the simple AI controlling every Android and drones in the network was too simple to act against orders, let alone feel emotion. The Deviant proved them wrong.
"Vengeance?" Artemis thought, he was walking back and forth in his room thinking throughout the night of what could've caused such a glitch or unforeseen change within the Android's simple AI. Why would the Android want vengeance? As far as the Machine Network's supercomputers know, only Artemis possessed the slightest bits of emotion and whatever what's left of humanity in him to feel such an emotion but for some reason, this simple AI defied all of that.
He was lost in thought for three hours, contemplating a reason for such discrepancy. Maybe it was his fault? What if whatever was left of his humanity was leaking to the network and affecting his machines? If that was the case, how far would it go? Will his machines stay under his definite command? Or will they deviate even further and go against him?
The revelation of the Deviant quickly took a toll on Artemis' mental health. It was an unexpected error in a magnitude he could not handle. He had to investigate further to understand what was causing it, or is it just a simple glitch?
From his room, Artemis directly connected with the Deviant with a Super AI acting as a firewall to ensure the Deviant doesn't take over Artemis' neural link. Artemis sighed and closed his eyes for a bit before connecting himself to the Deviant via the psychic neural link.
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"What's this?" Artemis opened his eyes in a void, emptiness surrounded him. He was suspended in the air, there was no solid ground beneath him nor was there anything at all. He assessed his situation and reassured himself he was inside the Deviant's AI.
But, instead of seeing the psychic structure of the AI, he saw nothing. If there wasn't anything here, how could it possibly deviate?
Artemis then spent his time experimenting his body within the void which was just a psychic projection of his body, he 'swam' in the void similar to when astronauts would swim in space to propel themselves to their desired location there of.
"Interesting," Artemis was basically playing inside the Deviant's 'mind' but he looked at his actions as nothing more than little experiments.
Suddenly, a bright flash of light illuminated the void. The flash of light seemingly came from all directions before converging on a specific spot in the void. Artemis witnessed what was comparable to the birth of a star. The light gathered itself towards one spot of the void and formed an orb. The orb was white in color and so was the light it was producing.
Artemie swam towards the light to investigate, as he got closer and closer. He felt something abnormal.
"W-why do I feel… so… so sad?" Artemis said as he floated towards the orb. The orb became bigger and bigger as Artemis finally reached it. It was a large orb of pure white light and as Artemis touched it, a surge of emotions he had never felt since he awoke came inside him.
Happiness, Sadness, Loneliness, Depression, Love… all kinds of human emotions came back to him in a wave.
Artemis' eyes lit up as he stared directly against the orb.
"Who are you?" Artemis asked the orb, sadness was prominent in his voice. Tears began to flow from his eyes and into his cheeks. He felt his body change itself, he began to feel what a human would normally feel with its body, hunger, thirst and most of all, acute pain.
He felt a surging pain spread throughout his body, a feeling he had never felt ever since he began his mission. Artemis began to gasp for air, he began to sweat profusely and felt weak.
Due to his condition, he let go of his grip on the orb's surface and began to drift away slowly. He floated in the space in which they were in, motionless but alive. Tears still fell from his eyes as he inched further away from the orb.
The orb looked like it was following him. Even though he was inching further and further away, the orb seemed to change its shape slightly before seemingly expanding. He didn't receive an answer to his question so he asked again.
"Who… are… you?" Artemis asked. The tone of his voice was soft and gentle.
He then stopped drifting and was suspended again.
The orb then gradually shrank to Artemis' surprise. He helplessly watched as the Orb shrank and shrank before another flash of light blinded him. His eyesight was back to that of a human's. The light was bright enough to make him reflexively close his eyes from the sheer amount of light it emitted.
Artemis opened his eyes after three minutes, his vision was blurry and his senses numbed.
The orb had shrunk itself to a size similar to his, and was taking another form. Artemis' eyes were fixed on the morphing orb as it morphed into a humanoid. Its two arms and legs stretched out as if it had just woken up, while its appearance was just pure white light in the shape of a human, Artemis could feel it staring at him.
The humanoid was silent. The entire dimension itself was silent. Artemis didn't receive an answer to his question yet again and so, he asked one more time.
"Who are you?"
There was no reply, until…
"It's been so long, Zack"
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Artemis099
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