Chapter 6: Interlude - Blast site. Morgue

The assistant looked over at the sheets. The Director had told him to get the autopsy report from the doctor. The doctor was out of the room getting a hard copy for him. He walked toward the body under the sheet, raising the sheet from her head, he looked at her face, slowly he ran a hand down her cheek. "I had faith this day would come. I mean I doubted, I just didn't think it would be in my life time. I always thought that maybe my child would see this day not me..." He looked up at the sound from the other room but the door remained locked.

"The Director does not suspect anything yet. I still don't know how all this works, or how it will all play out. You didn't give us very precise instructions you know, but I guess some things have to happen, and I guess you did it right because here you are Lady Sumner. The autopsy and brain scans show that almost all of your brain is blank, like a new born, just like you said it would be."

He put the sheet back over her head. "I am just glad I got to see your face once."

Just then the doctor came back with the report handing it to the assistant. "Tell the Director its damn odd what's happened to Dr. Sumner. The bullets are what killed her, but if I didn't know better I would say she was brain dead at the time. Something happened in that lab."

The assistant nodded. "Doctor, I don't have to tell you that this is all need to know."

The doctor nodded and the assistant left to deliver the report.

Back in the Directors office.

The lead scientist shifted nervously, after all it wasn't everyday you get to read the report from the autopsy of the person who last had your job. He was sitting across from the Director reading it.

"Well?"

The scientist looked up startled. "Ma'am?"

The women sighed. "Opinions?"

The scientist wiped sweat from his brow. "well I think he's right. I think she was dead before she was shot."

The director nodded. "And the Golem?"

The scientist looked up. "Um, destroyed in the explosion?"

The directors eyes flashed anger. "I mean, either that or it entered the event horizon of the unstable wormhole."

The director nodded. "So we sent a golem to some random place?

The director again nodded. "So what the big deal? We have more golems?"

The Director got up from her desk and walked to the monitor on the wall. She typed in some numbers in a control panel and the display lit up with a picture of the Mark 2 golem.

"Doctor, What if I told you that the military has had this happen before? That a golem connected to a human had a similar experience as what happened to Sumner. Except this one was on the battlefield, and didn't get sucked into a wormhole. The base being used to control the golems in the field got hit with an EMP missile. Much like the effect of the first generator exploding in this incident."

The scientist looked blankly at the director. "What happened to the golems?"

The director pointed at the Mark 2. "Several of them just stopped working, the soldiers got out fine, three of them suffered severe brain damage and the golems ended up with a partial memory of the soldiers, ended up acting like retarded children. One had a complete personality transfer, and the soldier died. his autopsy report read just like Dr. Sumner's"

The scientist paled. "You mean Dr. Sumner could still be alive somewhere?"

The Director shook her head. "No Doctor, our property could be on the loose with perhaps the most advanced AI ever written. The one golem from the military was unstoppable. We could never come up with AI like that on our own. All attempts to replicate it or copy it have failed. That is until now."

The doctor got even paler. "Wait, are you saying this was on purpose?"

The director stared coldly at the doctor. "No, I am saying that fortune has smiled upon us, twice in one incident: first the temporal variance this wormhole has shown, and second the possibility of another way to create self aware golems."

The director waved at the display. "The Mark 2 here is the same golem that I told you about. It has had to be modified to allow for the proper level of control. Unfortunately for it, we did not know how to do that so well at the time, he is no better than a child now but he is fully under our control. We will send him after the Mark 1 once we get a better handle on where and when it is."

"Um, Ma'am is that wise sending another golem? Don't we risk both?"

The director laughed. "Hardly, the military spec golem can wipe the floor with the Mark 1. It won't even be a challenge to retrieve it. Besides, we will be sending probes in to closely monitor the situation."