The AI box chimed.

  Mark wanted to see what Orange was doing, where they were going, but he was focused on Quark now. His phone was gently glowing full silver, sitting atop the still-solid box, and then a holographic display popped up.

  ‘Please bring your Limited AI into your astral body and name them.’

  Mark took a moment, because he had to.

  And then he took a few more moments—

  Mark placed a hand onto the phone, and said, “Quark.”

  It was like touching plastic and metal, and then it was like touching frozen ice that broke and morphed into something warm, something gentle. The box under the phone fractured apart into dust and the phone turned into liquid silver light that clumped into Mark’s upside down hand like a puddle of antigravity mercury. It globbed. Had something inside the box slipped into the phone? Maybe, but Mark hadn’t seen the transfer. Mark held his hand there, in the air over the pile of metal dust, with a glob of antigravity silver in his hand, feeling kinda funny, kinda happy. What was this silver goop?

  Was this Quark?

  It was moving a little, like a slime. A small metal slime. It tickled, like holding a very large snail, or slug. Or, ya know, a slime. Mark wiggled his fingers and the silver slime waggled with him.

  “… Quark?” Mark asked.

  The goop went stock still, and then it flexed into a phone shape and Mark almost dropped it, but he grabbed it fast enough… and then he opened his hand and his phone didn’t drop at all. It wasn’t glued to his skin, but it was attached to his astral body.

  Like he was Shaping his adamantium, Mark moved his astral body, and Quark moved as Mark wanted him to move; through the air to float in front of him. The whole thing was solid silver. Even the screen. Mark saw himself in the reflection.

  His reflection blinked at him. The reflection looked at Mark… and made an ‘oh no, I don’t like this’ sort of face.

  Mark’s reflection shifted into a plain male face, and then he spoke with a voice that Mark recognized in Eliot’s videos. It was Mark’s own voice, spoken by someone else, saying, “Hello. This is Quark— No. Do not like this voice.” He glitched. Quark came back, and his voice was different. Deeper in a different sort of way, “How is this? Yes. This is better.” He shifted again. His voice was tinged with ‘posh’, as he said, “More professional. ‘We strive here to be professionals, ma’am. We’ll clear out this goblin infestation in one small genocide. Done in two hours! In and out. Quick as death!’. Yes. How is this?”

  Mark found himself smiling. “Sounds good, Quark.”

  “Thank you, sir! Is there a battlefield to scour? I think I need more cameras.”

  “No battlefields right now, but I’ll be sure to get you some cameras?” Mark said/asked, feeling kinda weird about the direction Quark went in.

  “I will leave you to it then, sir. A pleasure fighting with you. I will be trying to understand humanity, now.”

  And then Quark dropped out of the air, the ‘solid’ phone landing in the pile of metal dust left by the box and flopping a little. Quark was still partially goo… maybe.

  And he was definitely there. Metaphysically. Mark felt Quark in his astral body, like how adamantium used to feel before Mark’s astral body acclimated to the ethereal weight of it all. Quark was there. Sort of. He wasn’t a separate vector at all. So he wasn’t a real being. And yet…

  Mark struggled to understand what he was sensing when he sensed Quark. Maybe… Maybe Quark was like a reflection of Mark’s own vector?

  That seemed appropriate, actually.

  Mark picked Quark up with his fingers, instead of with adamantium as he usually did, and Quark was a solid, normal phone, if a little bent. And then Quark’s metaphysical weight vanished—

  “Can I help you, sir?” Quark asked.

  Mark grinned as he asked, “Do you understand all of humanity yet, Quark?”

  “Only the broadest strokes, sir.”

  Mark chuckled. “Me, too… So why did I feel a metaphysical weight when you were gone, and why did the weight vanish when you came back?”

  “I am unfamiliar with the concept you describe. One moment.” Quark blinked, his vector barely turning heavier, then he came back and his vector was present and weightless again. “When I am spreading my sight outward I am spreading your sight outward, so there is a draw, but when I am here I am here. Does this make sense? I am still trying to make sense of it myself— Oh. I got it now. Took me a moment. I am an extension of you, so for me to interact outside of this space requires power, which comes from you. There will be a slight always-draw for approximately 36 hours, during this acclimation period. None of your normal functions will be impacted during this time. Once the acclimation is over then I should be able to go to minimal power, unless I am being directed on some task using your Powers that you assign to me. Utilizing electronic means, such as connections to networks and otherwise, will incur a minimal draw, less than the acclimation period’s draw.”

  Mark arched an eyebrow.

  Assigning Powers to him? Could Mark… multitask with Union similar to how a Minder could multitask? With really complicated word phrases and directed action? Or maybe Quark could help Mark break his Kinetic mind/body limitation and make adamantium spin really fast?

  … All of those seemed like great ideas, but also ideas that would lead to problems. Mark didn’t want to rely on Quark to help him use his own Powers; that seemed like a path toward disaster. Communications. That’s what Mark wanted out of Quark...

  And also helping Mark to map his Binding, and maybe help him add other magics on top of what he already had. Computer aided binding. Not computer controlled binding.

  Mark went through a few up and down emotions as he thought about Quark’s baseline set of capabilities, but soon Mark settled on ‘this is fantastic’. His heart beat a little faster. A smile crept upon his face. Mark felt really good about all of this.

  Mark said, “I think this is going to be a very beneficial relationship, Quark. Thanks for being here.”

  “No need to thank a machine, sir.”

  “That may be so, but you’re going to be a real person eventually and I wouldn’t want to treat you poorly anyway. If I should die I want you to have good memories of this time together. So thanks for being here.”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “Personification is a bad habit of humans, but I accept your bad habits. I won’t judge, and I won’t let you die out in any field if I can help it! I do need some cameras, though. Multiple spectrum cameras— Oh wait! I can do this!”

  Mark’s eyes went wide as Quark’s front-facing camera and his directional cameras all pulled off of his body, like tiny bits of adamantium separating from a main source, though they were still connected to the camera by thin wires—

  And then Quark gained several more cameras. He made some of them large and some of them so small that they were barely needle points on thread. The view from each camera played on his surface like he was a bank of viewing screens for some inch-tall security guard. Quark wiggled the cameras around, viewing all of the coffee area and the meeting rooms and the main thoroughfare behind Mark, at the entrance to Castle South.

  Mark was impressed. “Neat!”

  Quark retracted his eyes, and said, “It appears I have some cameras, but I could use more. Please ask Eliot to make some better cameras. The ones I have are apparently Basic Income cameras, and they have no special capabilities.”

  “Eliot made the body you’re in right now, though?”

  “Yes, but he has access to much better equipment than this. Honestly, you should have splurged some before you made me.”

  Mark laughed once.

  Quark asked, “Do you have any instructions for me right now?”

  “Not at the moment—” Mark changed his mind. “Keep me apprised of… of things I need to be apprised of.”

  “Ah, so you’re going to be an infuriating employer,” Quark said, like a manservant on television, or—

  “Oh my god,” Mark said, realizing what he was hearing, now. “You’re copying your demeanor from that show… what’s that show— ‘A Displaced Brit in Memphi’! It was popular during my gr—” Mark’s heart did a leap and a crash, and then remained in limbo as he said, “Grandpa loved that show.”

  With his voice suddenly without inflection, emotion, or even a masculine or feminine bent, Quark simply asked, “Is this persona not to your liking?”

  “… I like it. Go back to it.”

  Quark’s tone turned cheerful and yet completely serious with a hint of sarcasm buried beneath a mountain of professionalism, as he said, “A pleasure to work with you, sir. I will apprise you of all you should be apprised of! In that vein of concern, are you aware you are being spied upon by no less than 27 individuals? Possibly more? My cameras aren’t the best; I apologize.”

  “Yup. It never really stops… Say, can you do an emotional check of the vectors around me? To be able to categorize them by problem? I don’t sense any problems from any of them, but greed is always there in the background and that can be a problem sometimes. Usually not that much of a problem, though. Not here.”

  The delegation from Memphi and Aluatha had some big time greedy vectors, though. Honestly, if those vectors had been from normal people then Mark would have made a point to keep his eyes on them, as they were certainly doing to Mark.

  Quark flickered. “… I am not sure how to use your Unionsenses, sir.”

  Mark hummed. “You should be able to do that... unless we’re both mistaken about your capabilities.”

  “I believe I need to study how to do that, sir, as I have no idea where to even start. But I will start looking!”

  And then Quark’s presence went quiet and distant once again.

  Mark looked at him for a moment. He didn’t have a vector, but he did have… part of Mark’s vector, Mark supposed. So Quark was pulling on Mark, and looking elsewhere with that pull? Yeah. That made sense. It was a ‘use of power’, after all, and that sort of thing incurred a cost for everyone. Even Mark, when using his Powers, sometimes got weakened. It was that sort of feeling. Mark could just Union away the weakness, though, so this small drain, happening outside of any action of his own, was noticeable.

  Not too bad, though.

  Mark picked up Quark with a loose cage of adamantium, which didn’t seem to elicit any sort of reaction from the limited AI at all, and then Mark put him into his jacket pocket, like normal…

  A silver thread spooled out of Quark and threaded onto the surface of Mark’s jacket like an inlaid line of silver, popping through a grommet. The silver line formed a camera in the grommet, and now Quark could see outside of Mark’s pocket… which seemed good.

  “Well okay then,” Mark said.

  Quark did not respond. He was still ‘elsewhere’…

  “Quark? Are you on the internet right now?”

  “Yes,” Quark sounded, from Mark’s pocket, his Power drain stopping since he was here now.

  “What are you doing on the internet, exactly?”

  “Figuring out what the future holds, both in the grand scheme and in small ways. This ‘talzarki’ business is concerning, considering what I already see regarding kaiju and dragons.”

  “Ah… Yup.”

  “Quite right, sir.”

  Another question popped into Mark’s mind.

  “Do you know who donated your livium core?”

  Quark’s draw on Mark’s astral body practically tripled, but it was still nothing compared to actually using his Powers at all. Mark beat his heart with resilience and weakness, threading weakness into the world and getting power in return, and Quark’s draw doubled again—

  Quark came back. “I do not know that information, sir. I will continue to research it, by your leave.”

  “… Sure. I expected it to be a nothing of an answer, but… I should have expected it to be a thing, huh.”

  “Quite right, sir.”

  It was like with that person who made Mark’s Emperor’s Child, Color Drop treatment. Some power in some part of the world had set that up for Mark, too, and Mark didn’t know who or what had done that, or this, for him.

  Quark went back into low-draw mode.

  … And Mark picked up his coffee and drank it as he walked back out into the main thoroughfare of Castle South.