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Jugger x Solita

Inside the storage closet, a girl was sitting on a dilapidated rolling chair situated in the very center of the room. Her hair was blonde, and reached down to about her chest. Her eyes were closed, and her arms were hanging limply from her sides. Perhaps most strikingly, she was completely and utterly still, not even her chest moving as it seemed that she wasn't breathing. A few seconds later, Nathan received another message from Ophelia.

Well... that's me. If you'll just press your fingers behind my right ear, we'll finally be able to meet in person.
 
After reading the message, Nathan hesitated a bit as he reached out toward the girl's ear. He gulped...worried and cautious about reactivating this android...and finally pressed his fingers behind her ear in hopes of turning her on. He wanted to finally speak to Ophelia face to face...and to know more about these people who are trying to kill him in the present.
 
As Nathan depressed his finger behind the girl's ear, he felt a slight clicking sensation as something under her skin seemed to give. For a few breathless moments, nothing happened, but soon enough her eyes slipped open as her breathing resumed. After a couple seconds of staring blankly into space, her eyes then focused on Nathan's face, and her lips curled into a small smile.

"It's good to see you again, Nathan." She said in a soft voice.
 
"Er...Nice to see you for the first time too...Ophelia...?" He knew that for her, he would already know her. But for himself, he had only just met this girl. It seemed she was the real deal after all. "Wow...I can't believe I created something like you...I can...barely even tell that you're not human. You look so alive and human..." He wanted to already start examining her programing and circuitry but he knew that would have to wait. "Are you...alright?"
 
Ophelia continued to smile at Nathan as he spoke, though her expression wavered a bit when he mentioned her not being human. At his question, she furrowed her brow in confusion.

"Alright? Of course, why wouldn't I- ah!" She said as she began to stand, stumbling when she found her legs to be a bit wobbly while she became accustomed to her body once more. When she was sure that she was steady on her own two feet again, she smiled sheepishly back up at Nathan. "Um... just a little unsteady at the moment. Give me a second and we'll be ready to head off."
 
(Sorry for the delay. Went to a wedding all day today)

Nathan laughed a little when he saw that she was a bit weak in the legs. He did as she asked, and waited for her to get steady. "So where exactly are we 'heading off' to? I'm curious as to where we could go for safety with some anti-AI organization coming after me constantly. They should know that if the future hasn't changed yet, then it should be inevitable for them to stop me...Isn't that how time travel works?"
 
(Oh, don't worry about it, it's fine! Hope you had fun! ^^)

Ophelia looked up at Nathan again as he asked where they would be heading, her expression turning serious as the topic shifted to their situation.

"Well... your guess is as good as mine, to be honest. No one actually knows that much about time travel, even in the future, what with it being invented by... no, never mind, that's not the pressing issue right now." She said, stopping herself and shaking her head as she realized she was going on a tangent. "Our current destination is... well... pretty much any place far away from your house, really. If you're not in a specific location that can be predicted, like your house or a family member's house, then they would have to resort to manually searching around. So the further away, the better." She said, her expression returning to a sheepish grin as she rubbed the back of her head. "I... was actually hoping you might have someplace in mind... I'm not really familiar with this area... or this time, for that matter."
 
"The only place I have in mind is my own little safehouse in a town over...I haven't told anyone about it because its where most of my actual research is stored for safe keeping. Hardware anyway...All information such as coding and information are stored in my laptop, and I never leave without it." He smiled and leaned against the wall as he looked at her. "We'll need to get to my car outside and we can head over there immediately. It'll take about an hour to get to it though but honestly its not really defended by anything other than my actual hardware's vault room."
 
"A safehouse a town over?" Ophelia repeated thoughtfully, placing a finger on her chin for a moment as she mulled the possibility over. Soon enough, she gave a small smile and nodded. "Yeah, that sounds like it should work perfectly!" She said, stretching slightly while squeezing her eyes shut for moment, then turning to look at Nathan again. "Well, the sooner we set off, the better. Let's get going before..." She began to say, stopping mid-sentence when she realized footsteps were sounding from just outside the room. Eyes widening, she turned to look at the doorway as a figure stepped through it, carrying a box filled with technological doodads.

"Alright Ophelia! Your babysitter's back from... oh." The man said, noticing the two other people standing in the room. He was a man with short, shockingly red hair and a matching, well kept goatee. He was currently wearing a suit about as casually as one could be worn, with every other button undone and the sleeves rolled halfway up his arms. As Ophelia saw him, recognition immediately sparked in her eyes.

"Devin?! They sent you back too?" She asked, making it apparent that she already knew this newcomer.
 
"Devin...?" Nathan murmured as he looked at the newcomer. Ophelia knew him so he assumed that this Devin was a good guy. "I guess you two know each other...? Care to explain to me what the hell is going on if they had to send a second person back to help me out?" Nathan was worried that whatever Anti-AI order that was trying to kill him knew that their robot failed and were ready to send more assassins back in time to kill him.
 
Devin grinned at Nathan's question, setting the box of strange technology on the floor. "Did you expect this time-traveling business to be a one-man job?" He asked a bit sarcastically, straightening back out and extending his hand out for him to shake. "Well, you already know my name, so I guess I don't have to introduce myself. I'm your number two tech guy in the future, next to yourself, and I'm here to act as your channel of communication with the future. I'll also be monitoring the present for any temporal disturbances. Think of me as your eye in the sky... in a basement." He said with a slight chuckle, though Ophelia frowned at something he'd said.

"Wait... then you mean...?" She began to ask, though she stopped as she saw Devin already begin nodding his head.

"Yeah... they couldn't pinpoint their location from the first warp... they're going to be able to send back at least one more, scot-free." He said, as Ophelia's expression dropped.

"...Then this isn't going to easy..." Ophelia said, looking downcast. "I guess I wasn't really expecting it to be, but..."
 
"We should get going then..." Nathan murmured. "If they're sending another one...Then it should be here any moment. Who knows how many they'll send as well..." He frowned a bit as he looked at the technologies within the box from where he was standing. He had a lot of questions but he knew that wasn't the time for him to bring it up. "Come on...If we're going to get there safely we need to go NOW...My hardware needs to be completed if I'm to create Ophelia in time before my death...Um..." He rubbed the back of his head as he looked to the two of them. "I don't uh...die in the future...do I?"
 
Devin's eyes widened a bit at the question, and Ophelia quickly waved her hands in front of herself. "Oh no no! Of course you don't! You're being kept in a secure location right now while the situation is being handled, Genevieve insisted on that. But you're very much alive twenty years from now... or at least you will be, if I can keep you safe..."

With an easy smile, Devin clapped his hand on Ophelia's shoulder. "Aw, c'mon Ophy! We wouldn't have sent you back if we didn't think you were gonna do just fine!" He said, before leaning down to reach into his box and pulling out what looked like two strange, simplistic cell phones. "If you two are gonna be heading out, you should take these." He said, before turning toward Nathan to explain what 'these' actually were. "They're communicators, and not much else aside from that. But they're virtually indestructible, they'll work anywhere, and trust me... they're not gonna run out of batteries." He said, holding one out to each of them. "I'll keep in touch, let you know if anything's up."

Ophelia accepted the communicator that was offered to her. "Thank you, Devin..." She said, looking back up at him uncertainly for a moment before pulling him into a tight hug. "And please, stay safe..."

A bit caught off guard by the sudden embrace, it took Devin a second or two before he awkwardly returned it. "Heh-hey now... I'm not the one we're supposed to be worrying about here..." He said, though he was smiling softly. "But yeah, I'll be careful... And you'd better do the same!" He said as they broke the embrace, making a small shooing gesture. "Now go on, you two! I've got a whole mess of equipment to un-mess, so I'd better get to it!"
 
"Devin's not coming with us? I thought I would be able to create Ophelia faster if you were able to help me along with her...but then again I guess there wouldn't be a point in having given me a communciator..." He frowned a bit and pocketed the phone. "Come on, Ophelia...We've gotta go...Ur...Uh...Stay safe Devin..." Nathan felt awkward with what he said. Devin and the future Nathan obviously had a good relationship and knew one another but Nathan didn't know Devin to the point of actually truly caring if he lived or not. He took Ophelia's hand and led her out to his car, and got in as well. "Lets hope we can get there without any incident..." He murmured, engine turning on to the car. And thus Nathan began to drive off toward the town over to head to the safehouse he had. "Ophelia...All we have to do is make sure you're created right? I'm wondering something..."

He frowned a bit. "In the future...I must have had documents or something about your creation...Hell...what about the creation of other AI? Why didn't you bring any of those documents back to the past so I can immediately create you and present you to the world...? Or better yet...why don't I present YOU rather than my soon to be creation...?"
 
Ophelia frowned at Nathan's suggestions as he drove, shaking her head immediately after he finished speaking. "I don't think you understand, Nathan. I'm not the concern here. We're not trying to get you to create me immediately in case you do die because of this. Our only concern right now is keeping you alive!" She said, glancing out the window somewhat nervously for a moment before turning to look at him again. "Because in the future that I come from, you're alive twenty years on from now... so if you were to die in this time, because of the Return's interference... we're not sure what sort of harm that could cause to... well, all of reality, really." After she said that, she paused for a moment, looking almost melancholically down at her lap. "And... even if reality did remain intact... I would be an entirely different person if I hadn't had you in my life..."
 
Nathan blinked as he heard the last bit and frowned. He must have been someone very close to her in the future...so it would only make sense that she was risking everything to keep him alive. "Alright Ophelia...I'll stay alive, alright? I promise. No matter what I'll keep on fighting to make you and give the world the reward of artificial intelligences." He smiled a bit and looked at her out the corner of his eye all the while he tried to focus on the road. "Hey Ophelia...Did I ever give you weapons or super strength or anything? I've had many ideas in mind for AIs...Some of them being more of a child's dream robot with swords and guns and rockets and such. My first thoughts on the project were to just create something I could modify to my liking and be renowned throughout the world for it."
 
Ophelia gave Nathan an odd look as he mentioned built in guns, swords, and super strength. "What? No, none of that... the closest we have to anything like that is that we're more structurally resilient than natural humans... other than that, these bodies are mostly created to be perfect functioning replicas of a human's. We even move via an artificial muscular system, see?" She said, tensing her arm for a moment so Nathan could see the slight bulge of a muscle pressing against her skin. "Most of the successful work you did was actually on the software side of things... I existed for almost three years before I even had a body. It was actually Grady Bolton that finally created a functional android body for AI's... with your help, of course." She said, offering a small smile as she corrected herself.
 
"Grady Bolton? The name sounds familiar but I don't recall entirely of anyone like that. Must be someone I meet down the line of my work?" Nathan murmured. "So you were nothing more than a program in my computer until Grady helped me to...or rather...I helped Grady to create a body for you...Huh...Interesting..." He grinned. "Grady...Where can I find him? If he's part of your creation...he might very well be in as much danger because your body wouldn't be here if it weren't for him."
 
Ophelia furrowed her brow slightly as Nathan suggested that Grady might be in danger as well. "I... suppose you might be right... but he really only created the bodies, and they're virtually useless without the AI's to inhabit them. And even if he was in danger, I'm not actually sure where he was around this time... I know he's been a fairly well-known roboticist for a long time now, so for all I know he could be halfway around the world at some scientific summit." She said, shrugging her shoulders slightly. "But we know where you are, and we know that you're being targeted, so right now we should just focus on keeping you safe, alright?" She said, turning to look out the window a bit nervously again. "How much further until we reach the safehouse?" She asked, clearly anxious to be within the relative safety of their soon-to-be hideout.
 
"It'll be about another hour, Ophelia...I'm not trying to drive too fast...Lest I get pulled over for a ticket or draw too much attention to us by whatever might be huntin us this time." He murmured. "Ophelia...Tell me everything I need to know. About the future...Like...What is it like now? Do you know how good the American economy is...? I'm curious...Or...Is there something that prevents you from revealing too much to me about it?" He was just trying to make conversation...He didn't really know what to talk about other than for questions about the people who had begun to hunt him in the past...but he didn't know if Ophelia wanted to talk about it.
 
Ophelia looked none too happy to learn they were still an hour away from their destination, but she momentarily forgot her worry to give Nathan a strange look as he asked about the economy in the future. "Well... like I said, no one really knows much about time travel, because everyone that knows anything about it is too afraid to try and experiment with it. I mean... this is probably the most significant event in time traveling history next to its actual invention..." She explained, after he'd asked if it was okay for her to reveal information about the future to him. "But... I've actually already told you plenty of important stuff... so at this point I think it's more important to just try and keep you informed. As for the economy... I don't know, I've never really given it much thought, to be honest... Um... If I remember correctly, you don't actually have universal healthcare in this time, right?" She asked, turning to look at him curiously.
 
"To hell if I know...I haven't really spent my attention on the world outside too much. I've been focusing on my research for a long time now...Its only recently that I've begun working toward my AI project." He shrugged a bit. He wondered if his project could help better the world of tomorrow if he could apply it. "Dammit...Looks like there is a road block up ahead on the highway..." He stopped the car and reversed a bit, and took a side road. "This is a longer way to the city...Its probably quicker than staying on the road to the highway when its got a roadblock that large..." He murmured. "Idiots crashing into one another and street racing for shits and giggles...Tch..."
 
Ophelia turned away from Nathan for a moment to look ahead as he mentioned a road block. Just as he said, it appeared that the way forward that they'd been heading was almost entirely blocked off, and in those places where it wasn't, it may as well have been, given the traffic. Groaning, she rubbed her temple slightly as she realized this meant that the time to their destination was now likely even more than an hour.

"Darn it... delays are not what we need right now..." She said in an unhappy voice as they backed up and took a side road rather than the highway. Picking up her communicator, she checked it quickly in case she'd somehow missed a message, but of course she hadn't, and so she quickly set it back down again. Looking down at her lap, she idly played at the bottom edge of her white, one-piece dress with her fingers, thinking for a few moments. They had more than an hour of nothing but driving ahead of them, and she'd never been very good at carrying a conversation. Nathan was usually the exception, but this was a Nathan nine years younger than she'd ever known him to be... it was like he was an entirely different person. "Um... well... like I said, we're assuming it's safe to disclose information to you, so if you have any questions, please feel free to ask. I'll answer them to the best of my knowledge." She said, offering a small smile of encouragement as she turned to look at him again.
 
Nathan began to think a bit as she spoke to him about how he could ask her anything. "I know I may have asked this before but...If you are to make sure that I stay alive from people trying to kill me...How are you able to do so if you have no weapons or abilities...? You look very human and so far all I have to fight off robots is simply a sound file that I may or may not be able to play at any given time...and I'm certain it won't work for all robots...So we have to do something about protecting me whenever we're compromised, right?"
 
Ophelia's smile quickly dropped as Nathan brought up the matter of his immediate safety, thinking hard on his question. "Well... killnoises pretty much completely decommission that model of robot, especially here in the past... so far as we can tell, the Return doesn't have access to anything really incredibly dangerous, or anything with advanced tracking capabilities... so really our best course of action is to hide far away, and wait for Devin to give us the killnoises of anything else they send back, just in case it somehow finds us... And..." She began, turning to look at him again with a determined expression. "Even though I don't have super strength, if all else fails, I promise I would tear one of those things apart with my bare hands before I let it get anywhere near you!"
 
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