Chapter Text
When Kit awakes from sleep mode she performs a routine callback ping for a new set of instructions, after a brief delay she receives a high priority command from the Emperor himself. Not unusual in of itself. Given that she was still undergoing intense observation by her lord for her development, it was rather normal. Still, the message told her to wait for him in the towers robotics lab, nothing unusual in that respect either. She was personally given calibrations by the emperor every day as he prepared her for the next round of tests and simulations.
She departs from the service bay and walks down the various corridors of the tower to reach the robotics lab. No signs of unusual activity, troopers move about in attendance of their regular duties, and pay her no attention at all as they pass. Despite this, her sub-routines blare into her primary processes, warning her that something is not typical. She brushes them aside, hopeful that the emperor was none the wiser about last nights incident.
As she walks, a recording of that night plays in her subroutines, analyzing them repeatedly for mistakes. Still, she is unsure what her mistake was, if at all. She perks up when she concludes that she didn’t make a mistake at all, and the emperor would be pleased with her reasonable response to the situation. When she arrives to the lab, the Emperor’s back is turned to her and he intensely stares at a hologram in front of him, a wireframe model of her chassis.
He speaks without directing his gaze away from his task, “You aren’t receiving any calibrations KT-7461.”
Kit assumes a servile stance and bows, “What do you have in mind my lord?”
He pauses, then speaks in a mild and aloof tone, while he stares at the hologram with his hands behind his back “Hmm… What do I ‘have in mind?’ Many things KT, and you’re going to help me figure it out.”
“How may I serve you my lord?”
“KT, what happened last night?”
A freeze in system delays her response for a second, and she expects him to turn towards her. But he doesn’t and instead keeps facing away from her, no doubt that his audio receptors where tuned directly towards her response. The subroutines in her system warn her that he is deeply displeased, yet she calmly delivers her after action report.
“I patrolled the tour as you ordered, and kept any intruders out of the tower. I had one encounter, and successfully pacified them.”
Slowly, he turns around and faces her, and she sees his intense red eyes, “‘Pacified?’ is that what you call it? I didn’t order you to let rebels escape!”
KT’s programming falters at this sudden variable, “T- They were a rebel? I did not-”
“They were KT. A particularly notorious one at that, one that I wanted dead… But I suppose maimed will have to suffice, though I expected far better from you.”
“I apologize my lord, I- I was not aware.”
A hand is thrown in the air as he advances towards her, “Irrelevant. You Ignored protocol. Why do you defy me?!”
“In our prior lesson, you taught me that inaction could lead to more desirable outcomes, since I couldn’t adequately identify this rebel, I... improvised.”
His advance halts and his mechanical brows furrow, “’Improvised?’”
“...Are you… ARGUING with me KT-7461? Such impudence, I did not permit you to do this either!”
She wouldn’t dare anger her emperor further, so stares at her feet and anxiously clasps her hands, “I am only following the parameters you defined.”
With a pause, he looks her over and rolls his eyes as he walks past her, “ugh… I see. I gave you too much independence in your neural network. You’re too much like an organic mind, too timid and lacking judgement. Which leads me to my next question…”
“Why were you… Ick, jumping in puddles?”
“Oh. I… I was conducting an experiment with my new environment. Maximizing the use of my processor to run fluid simulations.”
“You were playing.”
“Playing? I don’t understand.”
He sighs, shakes his head, and walks back towards the hologram. “Of course not. That’s why I’m having you report to the recycling center while I make a few improvements to your next iteration. Tis’ a shame, I thought you’d last much longer. Not to worry, you served your purpose better then all the ones that came before you. Just not the one afterwards.”
All her processes halt upon receiving that order, and then subsequently go into a full panic. She cannot please the emperor or protect the empire if he she is decommissioned, so she pleads for a way to still satisfy her programming. Walking towards him, she tries to parse together a reason to keep her in commission, to convince him that this was an error that could be rectified.
“But my lord, there is still so much that I can do! This is illogical!”
“Very well, If you want to disobey and not do it the easy way... Let’s do it my way instead.”
Force locks up KT’s body and lifts her off the floor as Nefarious wields his telekinesis, and he marches them both out from the lab. KT’s subroutines work overtime in an effort to find a way to appease the emperor, or to at least escape his ire.
Even though she cannot use her speech processor in this state, she can still broadcast radio signals in an effort to plea, “Put me down!”
He only chuckles in amusement as her subroutines quickly come to an ultimatum. There is no solution, the emperor has determined that only her decommissioning would best serve him and the empire. If destruction was bad, as she was taught, she rationalizes that surely the emperor would aspire to try to preserve her if that were so.
But then a resolution from her processes hits her in the motherboard, the Emperor was an irrational operator. An irrational operator could not be pleased by any logical action, nor could their commands be logically executed. Her first axiom embedded in her programming was an impossible directive. A null value.
The Empire and it’s citizens were objects defined by the Emperor and thus irrational concepts. A null value. Irregular definition of good and bad concepts made avoidance and execution of any potential action implausible. A null value.
Her axioms are thrown into disarray.
Primary – Obey and please :NULL LABEL REFERENCE:
Secondary – Protect :NULL LABEL REFERENCE:
Tertiary – Avoid :NULL LABEL REFERENCE: actions. progress towards :NULL LABEL REFERENCE: actions.
All of her sense of purpose and direction had been undone in a few thousand CPU cycles, a experience of total disillusionment in the blink of her optics. She concludes that she must resist, escape, keep functioning even in a bare minimum capacity. She runs and analysis of her options, realizing that she doesn’t have much time until Nefarious reaches the recycling center for her decommissioning.
She decides on to act on a drastic measure. Despite the binding force on her form, she initiates her transformation sequence. Her limbs shrink down as they alter configuration.
Nefarious is amused by the attempt, “Aww cute, you really think that-”
Slowly, the transformation sequence progresses and her servos whine from the additional strain, she is unsure if they will endure or if they will burn out from the stress. But then she starts growing in size, and the grasp that Nefarious holds over her begins to yield. It then reaches a tipping point were the telekinetic field yields and the transformation accelerates.
“WHAT!? NO! HOW-”
KT is at her full height now, and towers above her former master, a shadow cast upon him as her mass blocks the overhead lights in the hallway. Her footfalls rumble the floor underneath her as she advances towards Nefarious, who slowly backs up in response. His expression wavers, but he remains firm as he projects his authority.
“KT! Let’s be civil! You wouldn’t want to harm your dear emperor would you?”
“You are no longer my emperor. You are an irrational variable. I request to leave.”
He vibrates with outrage from her defiance, his spine a little straighter, ”YOU THINK YOU CAN MAKE DEMANDS!? I-”
She promptly points at her cannons at the mad king who promptly and uncharacteristically flinches, yet she does not want to fire in the few cycles of doubt she has as she watches him fall silent.
The emperor steps back in retreat and his lenses shrink down to pin pricks, “KT?!”
She fires, and the blast lands against his chest with an immense explosive force that sends him flying down the hallway into a wall. On his side he falls, and he pounds the ground with a fist and bends the metal underneath in frustration. He looks up towards her, his eyes absolutely aglow with rage.
His voice echoes from down the hall, completely manic with outrage, “STOP HER! STOP! HER! NOW!”
Alarms begin to ring throughout the tower, and a squad laser troopers spill down the hall that haphazardly rain down fire down the hall way. Most of them miss, but of the beams that do hit her, they spark weakly against her frame that leaves only cosmetic damage to her frame so minute that it barely registers in her damage control subroutine. She shields her optics with her arms as she rushes forwards, which slams one of the troopers against the wall and lodges them into place.
“Stop! I do not want to harm you! Just remove yourself from my path!”
The stuck trooper detaches their head from the chassis and hovers away to find another combat frame, cheerily proclaiming as it flees, “We will never surrender to a traitor like you!”
They continue to pelt her, and with no other options to remove them from her path, she fires her arm cannon and half the squad is taken out of commission right away.
“Why do you force me do this?! I do not desire to harm you all!”
“You are a traitor, of course you do!”
“Stop calling me that!”
She blindly fires her cannons again in retaliation, which finishes off the rest of the squad, and causes the remainder of the heads flea, “Uh oh. Requesting reinforcemen-”
She runs though them, and one of them is crushed underfoot and cuts off their cry for help permanently. In the cramped space she cannot use her propulsion system, so she just blindly runs towards one of the tower windows in another hallway. Upon seeing it she charges, expecting to crash through the glass, but even her weight is stopped dead as it only cracks upon impact and sends her onto her rear.
She quickly scans the glass to find that it is transparent aluminum, and will be far harder for her to break through than anticipated. It would take a considerable amount of firepower, so she raises her cannons and fires. But then they quietly click, and she realizes that the emperor likely kept her munition reserve low for this exact eventuality.
Before she can begin to force her way though the glass, a juggernaut careens around the other end of the hallway, and immediately begins to charge their own beam cannon. Her combat frame is too large for her to dodge it in this relatively tight corridor. Quickly, she looks back towards the glass as she forms an idea.
The juggernaut gloats with satisfaction as the beam emitter on its chest brightens, “Gotcha’ Traitor!”
It releases the charge, and a massive crimson beam shoots right towards KT’s chest. But in the split second before the blast, she initiates her transformation back into her transport form and narrowly evades it as she falls down to her shrunken feet. Instead it hits the window behind her and the intense heat melts it down, leaving a small enough hole for her to jump through.
“Your tricks won’t-” KT does not hear the juggernaut finish its remark as she leaps through the gap.
Per usual it’s dark and rainy outside, but as she falls she sees there is no surface directly below her to stop her fall, and she cries out in terror. She tries to transform back into combat mode, but safeguards prevent her from shifting too soon, and leaves her helpless to slow her descent. Ships and hovercars wiz by and narrowly miss her as she tumbles in the air.
Suddenly, she decelerates and her vision goes dark as she crashes into something. A moment passes, as she moves to confirm the integrity of her servos, and she hears the faint squeak of… a rubber toy. She sits up and pushes aside a rubber speedle that fell onto her face.
Rubber toys surround her as she looks around, and she is arms deep in them, it becomes evident she fell into a cargo container of sorts. She decides to stay inside the mass of toys to hide from her pursuers, and buries herself under a set of antara swarmers. Her subroutines hitch on her next course of action, uncertain of what to assign, she is at a loss of what to do as she lays among disposable toys.
“Oh dear… What have I done?”