Chapter 14: Darkness Returns

Artifice turned to Gravix. "What do you mean, I saved you this time?"

Suddenly, things began swirling around Artifice. His head began to hurt with extreme pain. He clutched his head and fell to the ground. All of his memories came flooding back. When his head cleared, he stood up and found that he was back on the space station.

"I’ve gotta tell Wait about this" he said to himself.

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Dark Star walked around the station looking for life signs just as the others did. After turning a few corners he bumped into Waitstate, who was by himself.

"We have no reason to stay. No one is here, and even if there was, there is no harm. It is just an empty space station" Dark Star told Waitstate.

Waitstate looked at him. "A space station doesn’t empty in a matter of hours for no reason. Besides, we can’t go anywhere until Junky finishes the repairs, we’ve got nothing better to do."

Dark Star turned away from Waitstate. "Do what you must, but I do not have to be here."

Waitstate became enraged. Dark Star’s attitude had remained unchanged since the first day he stepped on board the LSS Freedom. "What’s wrong with you? All I asked was for the crew to look for a few bots. For some reason, you feel that’s beyond you. I’m sick of your disobedience! Even when it comes to the simplest of orders, you do nothing! You refuse to participate in even the most significant events on the Freedom, and you spend all of your time in your quarters!"

Dark Star said nothing and began walking away. Waitstate used all of his power to calm himself. Heading back in the direction he was originally going. He closed his eyes, and turned around to see Dark Star walking off. Waitstate decided it was time to do something he very rarely did, to or for any bot.

Was he truly the sparkless Cybertronian drone he seemed to be? This was the only way he could find out for sure. Concentrating as hard as he could, he began scanning Dark Star. Sometimes, if Waitstate was especially lucky, and his target was completely off guard, he could intercept and decode stray data. Not quite mind reading, but it at times had been most informative. It took a lot out of him though. Slowly images came to Waitstate’s mind. They were too blurry to distinguish, but several feelings that coursed through him were overwhelming: anger and loss. There was also a familiar feeling that he had rarely felt, something that whispered to him "organic." Dark Star was once a creature of flesh, of this he was now certain.

Dark Star could feel what Waitstate was doing, and rushed over to him. Until this point he seemed devoid of all emotions, but now he could no longer hold anything back.

Picking up Waitstate, he gave him his only command. "Get out of my head!"

Waitstate fainted. Somewhat satisfied but still angry, he threw Waitstate to the floor. Just to make sure he would not bother him, Dark Star pulled out one of his rifles and pointed it at Waitstate’s head.

"If you ever do that again, I WILL kill you." Dark Star put his rifle away and left Waitstate alone.

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Dark Star was deeply confused. He did not in his most illogical dreams think that he could possibly bare any emotional feelings.

"How can I feel anything? I am nothing but neurological impulses now." Dark Star stopped walking for a moment. "It does not matter, Waitstate knows my true nature. What the others will make of me now is uncertain."

One of Diablo’s spider bots scuttled past Dark Star interrupting his thoughts. For a split second, the shadow it cast was not its own, but that of one of his greatest foes.

"There must be a glitch in the interface between my mind and my internal computers. I will have to fix it when we return to the LSS Freedom."

The spider bot disappeared around a corner. Dark Star continued on his way, walking down a rather large hallway with many rooms. The further down the hallway he got, the more things started to change. Instead of looking like the room and board section, it seemed to more strongly resemble a corridor on the Minchivan ship, Victory Arrow. Dark Star was not bothered much by it. After all, it was just a corridor, they all looked pretty much the same.

At the end of the hallway was a door. It was labeled "Control Room." A normal door it would seem aside from the fact that the words were written in a Minchivan dialect.