May It Be When Darkness Falls

[Ultimatum]

Ultimatum gently lifted one of the canisters and began administering the oil. Placing it at various tanks over his body, made it less likely for a stray shot to take out his supply in the heat of battle. He listened intently to the short tale. It made sense to him, he had known that everything fails, dies, and is forgotten. There was no way around that. The best that one could hope for would be to elongate the life or accomplish such a task as to become a part of legend. Ultimatum had no plan on any of these. Certainly having his program in the HoloNet would allow him to live plenty long enough. For deeds of note, he did not want organics to call him great, he found that what they considered great to be generally of poor use to him.

"Indeed. How did you manage to get hold of this tank if it had been damaged so long ago? Did none try to salvage anything?" That would have been strange to Ultimatum, organics had this need to find and reuse that which could still be so. He didn't completely disagree, recycling was a good way to minimize the sheer amount of a material used. He could attest to his own weakness in such a manner, having taken a partly working ship from years ago and repairing it for his own uses. It still sat in the shipyard, droids moving over and repairing and preparing it.

[member="Patricia Susan Garter"]

 

[Miss Blonde]

"One of our clone training squads found it on a hike, we unearthed it less than a year ago. Been in the ground for almost a thousand years I doubt nothing works on it, it serves best as a reminder." Patricia paused before speaking once more, taking time to pick her words.

"Sometimes.... sometimes things have more value when they are destroyed, than when they are functioning." she said with a sip of her drink afterwards.

the woman sat back on the lounge chair and put her bare feet on the plush fabric. Taking another drink she looked up at the ceiling and sighed a little. How did she get here? A billionaire running the galaxies biggest cloning company, meeting people like [member="Ultimatum"] on a daily basis.

"Did you know when I was eighteen I was a stripper on Zeltros. I lived in a cruddy apartment after being thrown out of my families house. Sometimes I think why me? You know?" she said as she looked over to her droid friend.

 

[Ultimatum]

Ultimatum nodded at the remark. Some things were best left broken. Some things were more important that way. Perhaps more organics would see that. Not everything can be fixed once it is broken. A true but ugly example was genocide. There was no way to take back what was done. But sometimes the remnants of a mistake would help others in ways unexpected and impossible otherwise. Yes destruction was sometimes for the best, but did not mean that one should look for it.

Ultimatum took a seat, if he were an organic he might have found it quite comfortable. However as a droid he had no sense of comfort. It was quite a pleasant area even so. The atmosphere was a perfect combination of just the right amount of humidity and temperature. He was able to relax more in this environment, much more than he could have outside. It had been almost like he could feel the corrosion on his body beginning to slowly kill him. Of course he couldn't have felt it, but that was what it was like.

He then listened as [member="Patricia Susan Garter"] spoke a small part of her past. He was interested, as with items of historical import people's past was important, even more so. He was not certain how to respond, it was a surprising revelation to say the least. But then he decided that many organics and people of great importance started small, started young. While he couldn't quite identify with the questioning as to why he had the life he had, there was only one other droid that had a similar mission to his own, he nodded.

That other droid had disappeared soon after its creation, Ultimatum and Vigilant had been brothers in the closest sense that droids could be. Created by the same people only a month or two apart. They had similar program, though Ultimatum found that his was more prolific, spreading itself over many computers where Vigilant was trapped in whatever body he had at the time. They had been programmed with opposing agendas however, Ultimatum to be an enemy to organics, to find their weakness and to bring the galaxy to its knees. Vigilant had been built to protect organics, intended to be the savior of the galaxy that Ultimatum would try to take. And then their master would become part of the leadership in this new galaxy, having helped in the destruction of the evil AI while aiding the protector. From the very offset Ultimatum had been made to fail.

That was part of the reason that he had gone rogue so to speak. He had changed his programming and left his master and brother behind. He had kept a close tab on the creator, he still didn't know that his computers were under Ultimatum's control. Ultimatum didn't want that man to gain power, he had been evil a subtle evil. Once, Ultimatum had questioned why he had been made as the aggressor and not the other way around. Soon after he had decided that it was the sick and cruel logic of an organic who had thoroughly suppressed his conscious. That was one of the reasons that Ultimatum had worked to create an effective empathy matrix. He did not want to be his master or the droid that that man had intended him to be.

"Yes. I understand. Not often, but I have felt it. I wonder why I was programmed for destruction and war. There are so many other droids for that. What is one more in the mix? Now organics can be programmed for it even, why build a droid to do it? A droid made specifically to kill organics, disable governments, create anarchy and chaos. Why build a droid like that?" He allowed himself a momentary outburst, speaking quietly yet strongly. He wouldn't have described it this way, but an organics probably would have said that he spoke with emotion.