Polaris

It was the middle of the night. The room was dark but for the faint brightness of the minuscule white lights stationed on Polaris's neck. And she was happy— perfectly happy, for the first time in her life. Even though Andromeda had been right; she was also trapped in the greatest crisis of her life.

She looked over the edge of the bunk (Ali was snoring away on the mattress below Polaris's, and Andromeda insisted on sleeping on the floor) and spied the drawer in which the time machine was stored. They had an escape route, at least, if all else failed.

She pushed the blankets off herself and stretched her bare feet towards the edge of the bed. If Polaris was going to survive in 2117, she figured she may as well make some more friends.

Polaris pulled her shoes on and ventured out into the halls.

The lights were still glaringly bright. The sound of chatter and laughter wafted into the corridor from what was presumably the common area. Polaris stepped in that direction and then halted abruptly to fix her hair.

Then, she breathed in and out, trying to calm her frantic, overactive vents. "They're just people," she murmured, placing a hand over her heart. "And you're not a Serf right now."

Yes, that was it. Polaris wasn't a Serfdroid; she was a regular, organic, living, breathing human being. For the time being, at least.

She bravely strode into the common room and was greeted by a gathering of the most eccentrically dressed people that she had ever seen. One boy glanced up at her, shock eminent on his face. He wore a plaid scarf wrapped around his neck, a red flannel, and ridiculously short shorts. (Boxers? Those had gone out of fashion nearly a hundred years ago...oh.)

"Hey," he said, extending his hand. Polaris stared at it for a moment before realizing that she was supposed to shake it. She gingerly gripped his hand and shook it.

"I'm Polaris," she said, smiling (she thanked her programming a million times over for enabling her to smile under all this stress).

"Colton," the boy said, grinning back. "Guys! We've got a noob."

Polaris was immediately pulled onto one of the couches and hugged by what must've been twenty people. (Twenty-one, actually, as her inner calculator in- formed her.) They all introduced themselves to her in varying states of attire. "So what are you studying?" Myrka, the girl in the robot onesie, asked.

"Um, robotic...engineering," Polaris blurted, flustered.

"Ooh," Myrka said, waggling her eyebrows. "Gonna beat Wei to developing the first android? Freeway, come here!"
The boy named Wei pushed up his thin wire glasses, trotted up to Myrka, and patted her on the head.

"Polaris. Wei. We call him Freeway. Go get acquainted," Myrka said, smirking and waving them away.

"Uh, hi," Wei said, blinking at Polaris.

"Hi," she said, suddenly feeling extra awkward. "Uh, um, do you, do you have food? Can I have some food? I don't have a job. I need food."

Wei suddenly burst out laughing. "I swear, every college student is the same."

Polaris followed him to the nearest store with Chinese food. He engaged her in conversation about robotics, a lot of which she didn't really understand, but she had discreet access to the Internet on her side, and she used this to somehow fake her way through the science talk.

With two boxes of Chinese takeout beside her, ready to take back to Alistair and Andromeda, Polaris was about to call it a night and head back to her room. Wei, however, convinced her otherwise.

"You should stay," he prodded. "Stay and play some chess."

"I don't know how," Polaris murmured, but even as she spoke, her interface had utilized its discreet Internet connection again and was downloading a manual called The Art of Chess: Newbie Edition.

Ali

Ali's phone buzzed.

In his half-asleep state, the vibration drove him fully awake, and he shot up into a sitting position, already rummaging around in the folds of his blanket to try to find his paper-thin iTouch.

Finally, it was revealed under his pillow, and Ali pressed a shaky finger to the screen to unlock it.

A text. And it was complete gibberish.

Ali hadn't yet begun to attempt to decode it when a voice spoke.

"Andromeda now."

He started violently, gasping, with startled eyes darting around the darkness of the room.

A ghostly outline appeared in front of him. It was very pale, almost fluorescent, in the shape of a slender, tall human. The silhouette of its face nearly twitched. Ali could tell that it was trying in vain to smile, though he was sure there would be no warmth behind it.

"Andromeda," it said again, and his heart was pounding too hard, his entire body was shaking too violently for him to protest. He swallowed down any resolve he'd harbored and stepped off the bed.

The silhouette disappeared at once, and Ali's mind cleared quite suddenly. He grabbed onto the bed, panting, and squeezed his eyes shut.

"Okay," he whispered. "Okay. Andromeda."

"What's up, Ali?" Andromeda asked, pushing herself into a sitting position.

A jolt of the most extreme pain Ali could ever imagine shot through him, and yet he seemed to be paralyzed, unable to scream or spasm as his heart seemed to be doing right now. Tears clung to his eyelashes as he attempted to suck in the oxygen he needed, and yet something held him back and forced him to breathe at a normal pace.

The less-than-real hand belonging to the—the ghost?—caressed his cheek. "Shh, Ali," it whispered. "Just breathe."

The lack of oxygen made his head hurt, and his legs were hurting, his hand had slipped off the top bunk, his heart hurt, and he was in so much pain, so much—"Shh. Just sleep."

And he dropped into the bed and slept.

Andromeda

Something extremely weird had just happened. Ali was hiding something from her, Andromeda was sure of it.
She'd been trying to outline a plan for the next few days, some way to prevent the mass android shutdown without getting arrested or blown up. Polaris had left the room, presumably to find some friends, and Andromeda had let her go. Polaris might not be the smartest, but she was certainly capable of taking care of herself.

Then Ali stood up and called out for her, and Andromeda responded, but he started breathing hard–not even fast, just hard, like he was trying to consume as much oxygen as he could in the fewest breaths–and then he collapsed onto his bed again.

Maybe it was some kind of PTSD, and Andromeda shouldn't inquire into it. But she wanted to. She wanted to find out for sure what was wrong with Alistair, because he'd been a lot less shifty and nervous in the past, and she just wanted to help him.

He might be acting a little...different, but as his friend, Andromeda promised herself that she'd never suspect him. That would be downright cruel, right? And those suspicions were unfounded, anyway. Ali had saved them from cer- tain death in 2217. She wasn't about to repay him by infiltrating his personal life. If he had wanted to hurt Polaris or Andromeda, all he needed to do was leave them stranded in future Pasadena.

Andromeda's thoughts came slightly slower now; only by a few nanoseconds, perhaps, but still enough for her system to notice and inform her of the issue. She decided to sleep. In the morning, when her mind was clearer, she'd tackle the plans for the next few weeks.

Polaris

The chess manual had seriously helped her. Along with that unbeatable android brain.

"Are you even human?" Wei murmured incredulously as Polaris beat him at chess for the fifth time. A brief moment of panic followed before she realized it was probably just a figure of speech; after all, androids hadn't even been invented yet, so there was no reason to be wary of them. "Seriously, how do you do this? I used to be the grand chess master!"
"Can't reveal my secrets," Polaris said, winking. She stood up, picking up her Chinese takeout. "I really should go now. It's pretty late, and I'm beginning to worry that you'll beat me at chess."

Wei laughed and stood up too, scribbling something on a piece of paper. "At least take my number. It's nice having a friend that I can seriously talk about robotics and chess with."

"Okay," Polaris said, accepting the scrap of paper. "I'll text you sometime. Good night, Wei!"

"See ya, Polaris."

She walked away with her boxes of food tucked under her arm, an uncontainable smile on her lips. As Polaris turned the corner, she held the paper to her chest and nearly squealed in glee–she had a friend! Well, she already had two, but now there was one who didn't make her feel inferior in every single aspect! Polaris was bursting with happiness, the mild pain in her stomach left behind, her dire situation forgotten. She entered her room and set the food down on the kitchen counter. Then, while internally prepping her body for sleep, she turned back and came face-to-face with a milky, featureless silhouette.

She nearly screamed–or she thought she did scream, but somehow no sound had come out. "Hello, Polaris," the figure said, and Polaris was frozen stock-still, breathing but not breathing, conscious of every movement, but never moving. "If you're wondering what that strange sensation is, it's what happens when your memory is being modified every instant. Now don't panic, Polaris. I'd hate for you to feel any discomfort. I just want to explain a few things to you."

Polaris nodded, and then she hadn't nodded, because she couldn't remember nodding, but she had clearly intended to nod, so she nodded again more forcefully. This time the silhouette sighed and the nod stayed in her memory. "I need you to do something for me. I need a body. I need to move, I need to think like you do, and there is only one way to accomplish that. Do you know what SAM is?"

"Oh, yeah. That program that people use to code stuff. Everyone uses it; of course I know what it is," Polaris replied.
"You're thinking of SAMP, the coding program. SAM is the original supercom- puter. It's the one that facilitates all the assistance that SAMP provides. All of the code from SAMP is sent to SAM to review and archive, and SAM learns from this code to provide better help to the programmers using SAMP."

"Okay, so why is this important?" Polaris asked, arching an eyebrow. "And who are you, anyway?"

"One question at a time. You may call me whatever name you want, but I'm a part of your subconscious now, whether you like it or not. I generally prefer masculine names, however."

"I'm going to call you Victor," Polaris told the figure.

"Fitting. Now, as for the importance of the information I've given you: to the knowledge of the general public, SAM currently does not exist. It shall be revealed next Tuesday to the faculty of the newly formed ISA in a meeting which will be broadcast to every science channel on the Internet. I believe I've given you enough time to prepare for the meeting."

"Why? What do I need to do?" Polaris said, furrowing her eyebrows dubiously. (Her throat was dry. Her pulse was rocketing up and she could do nothing about it.)

"Oh, nothing. Just make sure you're able to watch the meeting in its entirety. Do not miss a single word, no matter how pressing other matters may be. Can you make sure of that?"

"Uh...sure," Polaris shrugged. (Her heart was racing. Her breaths were shallow and she couldn't remember anything that she had done within the past few minutes.)

"One final word before I let you go: you may be experiencing a fairly high level of fear at this time. I'm attempting to control your adrenaline level, but frankly, it takes enough effort on my part to inhabit the mechanical part of your brain, and I do believe I'm failing to keep your lovely body in a stable condition."

Those were the last words she heard before she blacked out.