It was Wildwing that ended up having to make the phone calls to continue the part search. Everyone else had the sense to make themselves scarce when Tanya asked. He required her constant supervision and coaching. Eventually, in frustration, she wrote out terms phonetically for him to repeat. Much to her chagrin, as Emily had predicted, he did have more luck getting straight answers out of suppliers than she had.

They sat atop Drake One’s platform, wasting the morning following the extended practice session on it. Wildwing worked through a phone book, and then a second one, while Tanya used a second line to troubleshoot her dead credit cards. Occasionally, in those moments of time that they were both trapped in cycles of waiting, they would compare hold music, keeping a tally of whose was worse, for no particular reason other than it passed the time.

It was Tanya that got so annoyed that she had take a break first. She did not stand up and leave, unwilling to walk away in case Wildwing made a breakthrough. She sat, stewing. He finished up his call, placed the handset in its cradle, and unceremoniously brushed the phone book to the floor, where it landed on top of its own flimsy pages, marring them permanently.

“Nothing?” Tanya asked.

“I don’t understand how a lunatic built these things with such special parts without anyone noticing,” Wildwing complained. “You?”

“My credit limit has been set to zero,” Tanya said, gesturing accusingly at the phone. “The cards are still there, the accounts are in good standing, but every t-t-tr-transaction is declined. How does that even make sense?”

“Can they fix it?”

“I asked one why a credit card with zero limit would exist and they said they were going to ask their manager,” she snorted crossly. “And then they hung up on me!”

“Seems like half the hurdle we’re dealing with is humans,” Wildwing sighed.

Tanya made an irritated noise, leaning her weight on the console. “Why is this just happening to me?”

“Maybe Droid is jealous of your work,” Wildwing offered. “I’ll put Phil on it. His job is supposed to be making things easier for us. It’ll be a year late but maybe he can start now.”

Winterwing appeared from the entryway below them. He made his way across the floor, and up the stairs to the platform where they sat. Their conversation at the top stalled as they waited for him.

“Need something?” Wildwing questioned, once his double had made it close enough to speak normally.

Winterwing looked to Tanya. “You’re going to watch back the conversation I had with the head today, right?”

Tanya faltered in her speech. “I… Uh-”

“You’re fine,” Winterwing said, waving a hand. “I know I wouldn’t be let loose in the lab without any supervision. I wasn’t ever under the impression otherwise.”

Though even as he said it, Tanya felt guilt, and she looked to Wildwing before answering. He shrugged, seeing no reason to hide the truth.

“When I had the time,” Tanya said at last, mumbling at the floor.

“You should,” Winterwing said, “it started asking me about death.”

“Death?” Tanya frowned, her bashfulness suddenly forgotten.

Wildwing blinked. “Is… that relevant? To anything?”

“Its only job is to maintain order in a prison. Who programmed it with existential dread?” Winterwing asked.

“He has a personality,” Wildwing said simply.

“No, he’s right.” Tanya said. “Our personalities are built on a c-couple million years of biology attempting to survive, he was built by someone for the task of guarding Dragaunus. Why would he need to care about death? If he were d-damaged beyond repair a new unit would take his place, just like he took over for the p-p-previous unit. Preservation is not as vital in a system made of individual parts rather than individual people.”

“You don’t think he’s a person?” Wildwing questioned.

Tanya shrugged. “Doesn’t matter what I think, what m-matters is what whoever programmed him thinks, and I’m not sure we know enough about them to say either way.”

Winterwing seemed more agitated as they spoke, interrupting them. “You need to tell me if you hear the same thing I did.”

“What do you mean?” Tanya asked.

“It told me it wanted to help me, right before it started asking me about life and death. And then it started talking about the Artificers. I didn’t even ask, it just started telling me about their civilization, after spending the last few days insisting that it couldn’t.”

Tanya scowled, troubled.

Wildwing prompted. “I don’t understand.”

“We... have an interesting discovery on our hands,” Tanya said. “Which is either a backdoor into information that we’re not supposed to be able to access, or a robot that can lie.”

“Is it remarkable that a robot could lie?” Wildwing asked.

“No, not- I mean all you really have to do is teach it the utility of withholding or falsifying information, and weighing the statistical likelihood that would aid its overall mission-” she looked between the two of them, and coughed. “It’s not p-particularly advanced. Drena was capable of deception.”

“Then how does this help us?”

“What exactly did he tell you?” Tanya asked.

“You should watch it back,” Winterwing insisted. “It made the Artificers sound almost… paranoid? About dying. It said they’re just as afraid of everything as we are.”

“And he said this was supposed to help?” Tanya asked.

“I guess? It implied that it should.”

She contemplated this for a moment, and sighed. “Well, maybe it’s a suggestion. Maybe the point is Droid has all the constraints we do. He isn’t immortal, he’s just sus-susceptible to a different combination of things than we are,” she tapped at Drake One’s console idly, pondering. “Maybe there’s enough machine in him that an electromagnetic pulse would disable him.”

“You think so?” Wildwing asked.

“Well, maybe. He’s b-brilliant, or was at one point. If I were to mechanize myself I think the first thing I would do is shield the chassis, but maybe his is lost.”

“Isn’t that also going to knock out everything else around him?” Winterwing asked.

Tanya laughed. “Will it ever. I’ll try to come up with something with modifiable range.”