"I had an idea," Tanya said, dismissing her usual position at Drake One for a different console on the periphery, looking for a control unused enough that she actually had to search for it, rather than reach for muscle memory.

Winterwing wasn't sure how to respond to this, and elected simply not to. Tanya seemed happiest when uninterrupted, and it was probably best that he not interject unless it was clear that she wanted him to. It wasn’t a conversation, so much as a stream of thought that he had been invited to witness.

She found what she was looking for, and motioned him to step back. A large panel of platform’s floor came away, revealing the dark hole underneath. It has never occurred to him that there was anything under their feet, and had always pictured the space as a solid shape upon which the master computer sat. It appeared the space below was at least partially hollow.

From the opening rose a large rectangular box of steel without clear seam or easy access. It was of such implied weight and size that it was clearly never intended to be moved, and its contents were to remain inside. Some neuron in his mind thought that it rather looked like a coffin, or no, something larger, a mausoleum.

"We-we come across strange things, sometimes," she said.

Winterwing did not see the key combination that opened it, and knew that it would be a while yet before anyone trusted him with such things. The side facing Drake One’s monitor came away from the tomb, disappearing back into the base smoothly, and he was greeted by, as promised, a strange collection of things. Each item was given its own compartment, separated from its companions.

Given the hiding place and dramatic presentation, the hoard was a less grand offering than Winterwing would have hoped. He may have been influenced by his mother's career, during which he had seen all manner of strange, unusual, and often visibly wondrous artifacts. Those were packed away in climate controlled cases, rescued from the ground and air and dust, preserved and studied and not touched, as they were likely to never be replaced or equaled.

This collection, by comparison, looked like a strange assortment of trash. The most impressive of the lot was a sword that had not seen proper care in a while. A design at the base of the blade may have been, with some polishing, a starburst.

There was something that resembled a polearm, though did not look sturdy enough to be used as one. It seemed rather cobbled together, from bits that did not originally belong to the same whole. What should have been the bladed end had no sharp edge, just a blunt collection of hastily assembled and notched material, and what may have been a crude input panel, suggesting it was a device rather than a weapon.

There was what may have been a board game, its pieces made of stone, arranged in what could have been a starting position.

There were a couple vials of unnamed but distressing liquid he was going to try to forget as soon as the platform was whole again.

There was the book that they had recovered from the Raptor. The original illuminated pages were held within, far more delicate than his copies.

And in one corner of the tomb, the distinct sheen of a metallic—golden, in fact—metal head, sitting upright on a neck that ended right where it should have met shoulders.

"I'm not sure I follow," Winterwing said doubtfully.

Tanya reached past him, for the head. She pulled it from its compartment and set it down carefully on a clear space on Drake One’s horizontal surface in front of them, such that it was upright and facing them. It seemed in very poor shape, like all the other prizes in their collection, with some sort of greasy film covering part of it. She seemed to notice this as well, and self consciously wiped it away with the back of a hand.

"Droid isn’t t-t-technically artificial. He believes he is, or pretends to. An actual machine mind might be helpful," she explained as she searched its scuffed surface, until finding what she was looking for.

"AH!” the head suddenly sprang to life, its eyes turning a brilliant red, becoming far more expressive than Winterwing was comfortable with. "IT'S DARK IN THERE." As they both stared at it, it laughed. "No no, I'm just kidding you, it's fine, I was off, I got you good though."

"Ummm, so the interface is-" Winterwing began.

Tanya relaxed, and smiled a little sheepishly. "Meet BRAWN."

"I'd shake your hand, of course," the head said, far too cheery. "If you can find where my arm went." It winked.

Winterwing frowned, "Okay, so I understand why you keep it in the box."

"Be polite," Tanya chided.

"You keep it in a box, " he reiterated.

"I like the box," the head said. "It's quiet in there."

Winterwing nodded. "Very understandable."

"If you two are done," Tanya interrupted. "The BRAWN line of androids are r-responsible for guarding the Saurians in dimensional limbo."

Winterwing let that hang in the air for a moment, before observing "I think I see how they escaped-"

"Will you please , " Tanya cut him off again. "The head is just what's left. The rest was crushed. He's still got m-m-most of his memory core."

"Also I play a mean game of Uno!” BRAWN chimed. “Say-"

"Maybe later," Tanya dismissed it quickly. "Everyone try to focus."

Winterwing stood up a little straighter. "Responsible for guarding the Saurians-"

"Oh, so you were paying attention," Tanya let just a little scorn creep into her voice.

"The Artificers were supposed to be beings of light," Winterwing frowned at the metal head.

"Energy," Tanya corrected.

"I'm just a robot," BRAWN agreed. "They prefer to delegate tasks for things outside. Kind of a rude bunch, really.”

Tanya tapped her chin with a finger. “I suppose, if I ever get the time, I’d like to ask you about that. Most of the information we have from the time has been alt-altered or corrupted.”

“Well, you can certainly ask , I can’t guarantee that I’m allowed to answer. Like I said, an unfortunately rude group of folks,” the head said. “They were not thrilled to have been involved to begin with.”

“Is that why they stopped doing their job?” Winterwing blurted.

Tanya looked as if she might scold him again.

“If they’re supposed to be guarding the Saurians, why are here at all?” he said, defensively.

BRAWN went silent, and Winterwing got the impression that he had perhaps insulted the thing.

“Dragaunus is impatient, but it’s hard to argue that he’s not clever,” Tanya shrugged. “I assumed he had just engineered an escape they hadn’t a-a-anticipated.”

“You’ve got me in a dilly of an almighty pickle, because I don’t know how I’m supposed to respond,” BRAWN said.

“That seems unlikely,” Winterwing said, flatly.

“Sir, you will permit me a slight bit of curtness,” it said. “I exist in a hierarchy, I execute orders. I’m a little more chipper about it of late, but I run by protocols, and those are supposed to be updated periodically. They have not been, in some time.”

“How… long is ‘some time’?” Tanya asked.

“I’m not sure I’m allowed to answer that, either.”

Tanya looked back to Winterwing, deflated of her prior enthusiasm. “Maybe this was a bad idea.”

“I’m not sure why you pulled this thing out to begin with,” Winterwing admitted. “It has some interesting tangential significance, but I don’t quite get how it helps with our current problems.”

“It’s not tangential though. I told you this before. All these things are c-c-connected,” Tanya insisted. She stood beside him and pondered BRAWN. “He was built by the most a-a-advanced species in our galaxy. There should be something useful in there, it’s just a matter of asking the right q-questions. I didn’t know there was restrictions on what he could tell us. He’s been cooperative before this.”

“We had aligned objective,” BRAWN said.

“I mean the interface is kind of eccentric but it’s still just a machine, isn’t it?” Winterwing asked. “You’re asking it things and it’s giving you errors because you lack credentials. It’s dressing it up to be more friendly and conversational, but it’s still just a missing password.”

“I feel like I should mention at this time that dismantling me would not yield you anyusable data, and also I will be very put out about it,” the head said, defensively.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Winterwing smiled.

“So what are you suggesting?” Tanya asked.

“There’s information just in finding what is being hidden, even if you can’t directly see it.”

“You know I can hear you, right?” BRAWN said.

“You’re describing a logic puzzle,” Tanya mused. “We’re going to need to take notes.”

“We?”

“Well, you’re going to have to start being useful at some point.”