Dark Father reeled as the text of the e-mail flooded into his mind. Chester was on the streets and in trouble? Chester had composed that message eleven months ago. Eleven months ago. Anything could have happened since then. Chester could be hurt, or in jail, or dead at the hands of a bounty hunter by now.
Spirits curse Serpens in Machina. That bleeding-heart meta lover had cost Dark Father his only son. If only the shadowrunner hadn't stolen Chester's message…
No. If only Winston hadn't been so ashamed of his own son. He loved the boy, despite what he was. Despite what they both were.
Dark Father felt a tear trickle down his bony cheek. He was crying? Without the aid of tear ducts? He supposed he must be crying, in the real world. Ghouls did cry-just like everyone else. They were only… human… after all.
"Why?" he whispered. "Oh, Chester."
Yes, Daddy?
The toddler that stood in front of Dark Father shifted form, his claws reshaping themselves into blunt fingernails and his ears rounding down from sharp points. The jagged teeth in his mouth softened and flattened into the baby teeth of a human and its skin lost its mottling, darkening into a rich, uniform brown.
Chester had become human.
No. The Al that was using Chester's image as a persona had reshaped it into human form. Dark Father felt his heart soften. The boy looked so much like Anne…
Knowing that this wasn't really Chester, feeling slightly foolish, Dark Father spoke: "I love you, Chester. Just the way you are. You don't have to be human to be my son."
Humans are perfect.
Dark Father laughed out loud. "No, they're not. Although my-friends-in the Human Nation would like me to think so."
He sighed and shook his head. "I've been so wrong. About so many things."
We must all become perfect.
"No," Dark Father corrected. "We just have to be the best we can."
Imperfect copies must be deleted.
"That's what the bounty hunter thought. But he was wrong."
I am imperfect. I must be deleted. YOU are imperfect…
Dark Father shuddered, remembering that the virus that had infected the Al was designed to trick it into crashing itself. And now it looked as though the thing would deliberately take Dark Father with it when it went.
He suddenly wished he hadn't decided to confront the artificial intelligence on his own. He wasn't doing a very good job of convincing it not to crash. And-he looked around the duplicate of his living room, wondering which elements were icons and which were just window dressing-he didn't have the first idea how to repair the damage done by the virus.
As if on cue, Lady Death appeared. "Dark Father! The others never showed up, and I had trouble finding you. Did you find the trap door-"
Dark Father didn't think it was possible for Lady Death's face to change color. But somehow, as she looked at the icon that represented the Al, it did.
"Oh," she said in a small voice, blushing furiously. "Shinanai."