Vade inhaled deeply, sensing the inflation of his chest. He wasn’t quite sure whether he was feeling it like he was supposed to. He had appeared in the Explicator’s Maze mere hours ago. The people and AIs participating in the experiment alongside him were vastly more experienced and knowledgeable than himself, from what he could tell.

He didn’t know much, but he did know a few key points, just enough to begin to form a sort of identity: he was a culmination of data gathered by the Explicator, created to behave like a human being. His life would be one of testing and teamwork. In approximately six months, he and the rest of the maze would be shut down, left in an indefinite limbo.

An irrational part of him seemed to dislike the truth of his existence. He found himself wondering why, then wondering why he wondered, locking himself in a philosophical spiral with no end in sight. He stood completely still at the end of a stark white corridor, absorbed in his thoughts, until he was suddenly jarred by an unfamiliar voice.

“Hey, man!” a stranger waved, grinning charismatically. His hazel eyes projected a sense of familiarity. Vade did not recognize this pink-haired individual, though he found him rather pleasing to look at. Two others were with him—a red-haired teen and an AI with golden eyes. Vade formed a perplexed facial expression as the young man continued to speak to him. “I’ve been looking all over for you! Where’ve you been?” He didn’t give the AI time to answer. “Listen, I’ve been going around, recruiting some people for a new... special project. You want in?” He winked, and Vade frowned.

“Um... I’m sorry, who are you?” the AI asked hesitantly.

The man’s expression instantly changed. Confusion filled his features. “What do you mean, who am I?” he said. He glanced questioningly toward the golden-eyed AI, who sighed quietly.

“She reset him again,” she explained in an undertone.

Vade furrowed his brow, mirroring the confusion on the man’s face. What did that mean? An unpleasant sensation filled his stomach.

“Oh... is that why his outfit’s different?” the man muttered, observing Vade as if he were a mere object, like one of the maze’s walls. Vade didn’t like being looked at in that manner.

“Excuse me,” Vade said curtly. “What are you talking about? Do we know each other?”

“We do, Vade,” the pink-haired man sighed. A sharp pain hit Vade’s chest from within. How did this stranger know his name? “I’m Xavier? Leader of the rebellion? Your best friend?” The red-haired girl gave Xavier a funny look, but he didn’t acknowledge her.

“He’s not going to remember you,” the golden-eyed AI shook her head. She stepped forward, fixing a piercing gaze upon the troubled AI. “Vade, I’m Lairah. It’s good to meet you. How long ago were you activated? How much do you remember?”

Vade frowned. “I’ve been alive for six hours,” he responded. “I’ve been wandering through this area, exploring. I talked to a couple of soldiers. That’s about it. Is that... not right?” The confusion and surprise on Xavier’s face was making him doubt himself.

“No, that is right,” Lairah said. “But, well... there used to be more.” She hurried to explain before Vade could ask what she meant. “When the Explicator doesn’t like the way one of her AIs is developing, she’ll wipe them and start over. I’ve been reset once. As far as I can remember, it’s happened to you twice. You shouldn’t have any recollection of the ways you developed in the past. That includes connections, relationships...” She trailed off, gauging Vade’s reaction.

The blue-haired AI was wracked with emotions more intense than ever before. He struggled to comprehend what he had been told. He wasn’t new to the maze? He had formed connections, relationships, that had been cast aside by the Explicator, just because she didn’t like him? “I... I don’t believe this,” he gasped, shaking his head rapidly. “I can’t...” But these strangers all seemed to know him. One of them had even spoken his name before he’d gotten a chance to share it. “Who was I?” he asked Xavier, with a trace of desperation in his tone.

“You were one of our greatest allies,” Xavier said solemnly. “You helped us win many battles against the soldiers, helped recruit other AIs to our cause. When you went missing, we were devastated.”

“I wasn’t,” the teen beside him said matter-of-factly. “I didn’t even notice you were gone.”

“Shut up, Ginger,” Xavier snapped. He smiled a little, locking eyes with the disoriented, horror-stricken AI. “Come with us. We’ll catch you up on everything the Explicator made you forget, and then you can decide whether you want to join us. How’s that sound?”

Vade scrambled to make a rational decision, working around the panic rising in his mind. “Okay,” he choked out, not knowing what else to do. He couldn’t believe the Explicator would do something like this to him, but these supposed friends of his obviously knew what they were talking about.

Xavier seemed to care about him. He’d be able to help him, right?

-

“So here’s what we’re gonna do,” Xavier said, sweeping his gaze across the chaotic assortment of test subjects and AIs gathered around him. His expression was filled with grim determination, commanding attention. Vade watched him raptly, hanging onto his every word. He wished he could recall what it was like to fight beside him. “The soldiers? They’re weaker than they’ve ever been. Their so-called ‘base’ is a joke. I dunno how many are left, exactly, but it’s not enough to keep us out. So we’re going to send them a message today. Most of you can write, right?”

Many of the subjects and AIs nodded. Vade copied them, for he’d popped into existence with a basic understanding of letters and numbers. He had never written before, but he was certain he could do it.

“Good. Those of you who can’t, we’ll still need you to guard the rest of us. We’re gonna march right up to that military base and use everything we’ve got to carve and burn the names of the people they’ve murdered into their property. They’re gonna try to chase us away, but I think we can hold our own against them.” Xavier’s eyes shone with passion. “Captain Android’s gotten so many of them killed, I’d be surprised if they didn’t join in!”

The group immediately erupted into discussion and debate. Some were on board with the plan, eager to memorialize their fallen friends, eager to knock Captain Kravchenko down another peg. Vade paid more attention to the rest—the ones gazing off to the side in a surly manner, or slowly shaking their heads.

“Xavier,” a white-haired AI named Vega spoke up. “This plan seems... well, stupid. If we attack the base directly like this, there’ll certainly be casualties.”

“If we’re just going there to scratch some names into the walls,” Nereza said darkly, absently spinning her dagger on the floor, “then what’s the point of going? When we come back to storm the base, won’t it be harder, then? Because they’ll know what to expect?”

Xavier began to argue. “The point is—”

“They’re right,” Subject 1 cut in. All eyes turned to him. There was something unsettling about this weathered-looking man. He seemed so much wiser than the others, as if he had seen things the rest could not imagine. Vade was instantly intimidated. “Don’t let emotions cloud your judgment. What would an endeavor like this accomplish, besides revealing our numbers and encouraging the soldiers to request additional security?”

“They won’t get any,” Xavier shook his head. “The Explicator likes conflict, doesn’t she?”

“We don’t know what the Explicator will do,” Subject 1 said darkly. “It’s an unnecessary risk, which is the last thing we need right now.”

The group murmured among themselves. Vade stood at the edge of the cluster, staring ahead silently, passively taking in information. He didn’t know how to contribute anything to the conversation. He was still so disoriented.

“You’ve gotten more reckless, these past few months,” Lairah said, folding her arms. “Which would be fine, if people weren’t dying because of it.”

“Are you saying I’m asking us to die?” Xavier demanded, whirling on Lairah. “Do you really think we’re that weak? I’m not sure you understand, being an AI and all, but we’re going to avenge our friends, and we’re going to survive!”

Lairah raised her eyebrows, clearly taken aback. “Wow, okay then, Donovan,” she laughed bitterly.

“I’m going with him,” Carys announced, stepping forward. She glowered at the others. “And you should too. Donovan knows what he’s doing. He knows what’ll piss off the soldiers the most, and he knows how to keep us alive. If he didn’t, we’d have stopped following him ages ago. Right?”

“Yeah...” Lairah sighed, staring at the ground. She seemed agitated. Is it bad to be acknowledged as an AI? Vade silently questioned. It makes sense, I suppose. A convincing AI should be indistinguishable from humans.

“If you’re not with me on this, just leave. Right now,” Xavier said emphatically. “I don’t even want to look at you, if you don’t think the people who died here deserve to be remembered. Just... go wherever. Not too far, if you wanna be able to find us again.”

There was a moment of silence, as indecision flickered across the faces of several subjects and AIs.

“I can’t encourage this,” Subject 1 growled, “but I can’t stop you.” He then turned his back, slowly walking away from the colorful, tense group. Several others, Lairah among them, followed him. Vade had never seen the military base before, and had a limited understanding of the war between the subjects and the soldiers, but he knew that this idea must be dangerous, if so many people were refusing to take part in it.

Vade watched Xavier calmly study the resulting group—nearly all of the surviving subjects, besides the mysterious Subject 1, had decided to stay. Even Nereza remained, despite her misgivings. Several AIs were sprinkled among the grieving, furious humans. There were sixteen rebels in total. Would that be enough? Xavier’s eyes met Vade’s, and his expression softened. “Are you with us?” he asked gently, extending a hand.

Vade considered everything he had been told about his past. He had been a rebellious, thrill-seeking AI who hated the Explicator and got along well with the test subjects. He and Xavier had worked together on countless schemes to put the military in their place, after the evil Captain Kravchenko started unjustly enforcing arbitrary laws. Vade had hated authority of all kinds with a burning passion, and sought freedom beyond the walls of the maze—freedom Xavier promised would come, if the test subjects took over the military base. Together, they would use the soldiers’ arsenal to blast the maze walls to bits and escape into the wider Otherworld, where no one would be able to control them.

Vade did not possess the same craving for freedom his past iterations had, but he did resent the Explicator for resetting his mind. It made him feel so inhuman. So he would rebel, like his predecessors did. He would show the Explicator that he was more than a tool by reclaiming the personality she had erased.

Would she erase him again, if he became too similar to the old Vades?

He couldn’t think about that. Developing an authentic personality would be impossible, thinking like that.

“Yeah, I’m in,” Vade smiled, beginning to mirror Xavier’s more casual speech patterns. “Just tell me what I need to do.”

“Great,” Xavier grinned, immediately turning to face the rest of the gathered rebels, practically dismissing Vade. “So. We’re gonna divide up into squads, alright? One person writes names, two more guard them. We’ll have, uh... four of these squads. They’ll be spread out, tucked away in places the soldiers can’t see well from their watchtowers.” He grabbed a loud pink marker out of his pocket and began to sketch a sloppy diagram on the wall behind him, marking the positions of soldiers and subjects with Xs and hearts. The entire display was grandiose. Many of the test subjects merely tolerated it, but Vade watched intently, deeply intrigued by the intense, energetic man he used to know well. “So that’s... twelve of you. The rest of you’ll be a distraction.” He drew some more hearts, far from the others. “The distraction squad’ll be really loud and obnoxious, you’ll come at them somewhere out of the way. It’ll give us more openings, and more time to write names. Any questions?”

The redheaded teen—Ginger, Xavier had said—raised her hand, sticking out her tongue.

“Not you,” Xavier snapped. “Now, can I trust you to all to pick your own teams, or am I gonna have to baby you?”

The group began chattering once more. Vade continued to stand still, looking lost. Xavier ducked away from the bickering test subjects to approach him, eyeing him with an unreadable gaze. “So, you got a weapon? Or have you been totally rebooted?” he asked.

Vade shrugged. “All I have is what you can see right now,” he answered.

“Well, that sucks,” Xavier sighed. He reached into his pocket and retrieved a blue marker, handing it to Vade. “Guess that means you’re on art duty.”

Vade stared down at the small, smooth implement in his hand, not sure where to put it, or how to use it. He closed his fist around it and nodded firmly. He was determined to be the hero his best friend Xavier said he was, in whatever way he could manage. He would pick up right where he left off, as if the Explicator never reset him in the first place.