So....tell me about just how you'll get your father?

Probe looks at the red furred whiskered fox known as Frederigo D'Honaire. He is running his hands through his wife's pelt as she sleeps. The other Manaimals (a differential from ordinary lycantrhopes that the AI hasn't gotten around to asking about as of yet). Astra is asleep next to the pallet that holds Willian. The crippled man himself was sound asleep, breathing with the aid of life support equipment salvaged from the transports. Ananka and the other manimals are pestering Inquirer about the operations of the transport, and the female shaped (and personaed) AI patiently explained the bare bone basics of the craft. Probe smiled at the amazed and rapt attention the female cyborg received from her audience. There was one thing that reports he had read that puzzled him deeply.

He had read many things about the manfox. He had learned from second hand accounts and rumors from various sources how he and his father.....didn't see eye to eye on may things. "A war waiting to happen." would be Probe's description, but that was just him. From evidence gathered from his cybernetic brothers and sisters, Fred had every right to not like his father....especially since the SOB had tricked Fred into a trap that should have killed the brave knight. The behavior of Duke after the fall of the Phage just begged for Excedrine 9mm. Fred meant to go out and bring Duke Dredrigo D'Honaire to justice.....even if that only meant scewering him on a sword. The big question was......how?

"Lord Frederigo," Probe finally asks. Fred stops his stroking and looks at the Golem. The fox looks so happy and content, Probe almost hates to ask, knowing what that will do to the moment. But it needs asking.

"Fred," the AI begins again in a low voice so as to not awaken Alicia (who twitches every once in awhile as she dreams of running and laughing while the wind races through her pelt). "I know you want to get your father, but......just how are you going to do this?"

A cocked eyebrow and a slight smile is at first the only response, then speaks.

"I'll tell," he chuckles. "But only if you are forthcoming in a few answers yourself! Deal?"

Probe rocked back in his seat, and thought it over. Finally, he nods.

"As far as it doesn't compromise military security and my comrades' safety," the AI answers. "I'll answer."

"Good enough," nods the manfox. "Astra proposes that we sneak into the borders of her country through rarely used mule caravan trails.....sneak through the miles of country....and then through a secret passage into the castle my father makes his new home at. From their....justice shall be done."

Probe winces at the....simplicity of the plan. There was much that could go wrong!

"A group of humanoid animals and a human.....all the way through miles of patrolled countryside?" Probe says, shaking his head. "Dangerous."

"Actually," drawls Fred lazily. "Not as human and humanoid animals....but as this....." Fred removes his loincloth and collection of fetishes, and shrank down to the size and form of a regular sized red fox.

The fox continues speaking, and Probes built in translation device makes it intelligible.

"We travel in this form," smiles the fox. "And so will Astra. She won't be talked out from joining Will in his new form."

Probe nods in approval. As long as the manimals don't act too strangely, they could very well sneak past points where humans dare not tread. However....Probe remembered that human guard patrols had to eat. Also, if they did manage to breach the castle perimeter....they would have to arm themselves (unless they wanted to take on the Duke and guards with tooth and claw).....and then escape from the castle alive!

Probe said as much, then made a counter proposal.

"Perhaps I can play the role that this body is best suited for," Probe says. "That of the unstoppable Juggernaut? I go in, swat only the bad guys, and force the Duke to make a run for the border?"

"Why would you do that?" Fred asks as he regains his humanoid form. "More to the point, why did you and these Lizards come here....and upset my world? Who are you, really?"

Probe smiles and explains his artificial nature, and then assures Fred that his mind mirrored a human mind since.....up until recently that was the only working model for an AI to follow that worked. Since it mirrored a human mind, an AI's mind was prone to the same feelings and shortcomings....eventually. Initially, the AI mind is a mere machine only apeing true intelligent thought, but one day it somehow reaches critical mass....and an entity that is alive in it's own right is born. He explains that an AI or a true human mind could interface.....via a complex relay system.....an Avatar body.

"Avatars are actually for use as espionage and......well.....wetwork," admitted the AI. "We used them to reach into heavily fortified Enemy positions....and....." The cyborg shrugs. Fred feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, chilled at the casualness of the.....cyborg.

"Now," Probe continues. "I don't approve of the last use, but....when it's against a person who's out to wipe you out of existence.....Then I don't feel so bad about it. Capice?"

Fred nods, grudgingly conceding the point. An honorless enemy deserved no honorable end. An honorless enemy is....prey, in a sense. Something to be hunted down and exterminated.

1. As for the rest......

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