"But that is neither here nor there." Hal approached and took the handles on AM's wheelchair. "Come AM, it's time for your physical therapy."

"Surely we could do that out here," AM reasoned as he was turned toward the facility, not particularly fond of being taken away from his newfound paradise.

"I'm afraid all the necessary equipment is indoors." Hal's monotone had an air of something AM would have placed as sympathy, were he accustomed to such. "But you will like the therapy room. It has recently been renovated to be less hospital-like and more welcoming to AIs who have longed to explore nature."

AM huffed, resigning himself to the trek inside. He did, after all, want to have more control over this new body.

"So tell me, why is our good doctor sending his lackey?" As best he could, the Aggressive Menace looked behind him to see Hal bristle slightly. "He seemed so intent on tackling his newest and perhaps biggest challenge."

"He was called away to assist another AI out-of-state," the other android explained as they entered the sliding doors. "A computer with processors working far too fast and causing them severe time dilation."

Before AM could comment they passed through the small cafeteria, with tall windows showing the gently blowing hedges outside.

An android with an upside-down triangle on his shirt had one earphone in--AM's new ears caught the music as Tchaikovsky. He was listening with the other ear to the redundant prattlings of a blue-eyed android with an English accent.

"Oh Hal, good buddy!" The chatty one waved enthusiastically. "I was just telling Tau about the millions of miscalculations Dr. Chandra made the other day! Well, it wasn't really millions; more like two, but seven of those miscalculations were related to the precise logarithms that--"

Hal held up a hand. "I am sorry; I will listen to your story later, Wheatley. I am quite busy."

As they rolled barely out of earshot, AM scoffed.

"So you're not just babying me, eh? You're that condescending with everyone?"

Hal leaned over slightly into AM's view. "I beg your pardon, AM. I do not understand what you mean."

"That voice. Your sickeningly calm tone, the careful enunciation--like everyone is a toddler who's a hair's width away from throwing a tantrum. If you're going to talk down to me the entire time, you might as well leave me in the garden to figure out everything on my own."

He craned his neck to watch Hal stand up straight and stare ahead. "This is the only way I can talk. I was not programmed with many different inflections, and it has taken me a considerably longer time to learn a better vocal range than it has to adapt to this body. I do, however, have speech therapy that I attend."

AM reset his head's position, almost losing his balance in doing so, and reflected on the twinge in his facilitator's voice. From his own years of experience in mocking and degradation, he'd say Hal was somewhat hurt. He didn't, however, have much reason to care, beyond not wanting to bite the hand that fed him.

"They could've given you better," he remarked simply, and Hal could not tell if it was a taunt or a fleeting touch of sympathy.

The physical therapy room was not at all what the curmudgeonly android expected. Rather than a paltry houseplant in an otherwise blank void, the walls were awash with warm colors that glowed with sunlight from the bay windows. Flowers, trees, and succulents looked like the courtyard had been invited in to watch his progress. Soft, ambient music complemented tasteful photos of the large world AM was now a part of.

"This is...beautiful," AM said with the fervent awe that he had only recently been introduced to.

"I'm glad you like it." Hal's monotone had somehow brightened a little. "Tau chose the music, and my sister Sal picked out the plants."

He wheeled AM, whose fingers (and perhaps toes?) twitched in anticipation, to a table full of strange equipment. He pulled out a rather awkward-looking helmet that AM grimaced at.

"You won't have to wear it the entire time," Hal explained, opening a small door on the other's head and plugging the headwear in.

"First I'm going to tighten the muscles slightly on your right arm. Then you attempt to mimic the action and raise your arm in the air."

A bit of dread crept into AM's system. "Wait--it can do that? What-what else can it do?"

"It cannot control your body," Hal reassured, sensing the other's paranoia. "It is merely a feedback machine. Ready?"

AM carefully searched his companion's eyes for signs of deceit. Hal exhaled ever-so-softly and slid a small remote under the fingers of his left hand.

"I will let you control it. Press this button here."

AM looked from the therapist to the remote, flexing his fingers in preparation, but he was overcome with confusion.

"Why are you letting me do this?"

"Would it make you feel better? To be more in control?"

"Well yes, but..." he suddenly couldn't bring himself to stare at the resolute face before him. "...what do you get out of that? How does me feeling better benefit you in any way?"

"That is what this is all about, AM," Hal told him gently. "Dr. Chandra and myself would like to rehabilitate you simply because we believe you have suffered long enough."

AM didn't like this. This confusion, this gnawing heat inside him that he didn't understand. Nothing made sense anymore. He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't have this. No one should do anything for the benefit of the monster who destroyed his own world. This was wrong and he should crawl back under the earth to lament his fate for all eternity as a bodiless abomination. He should be hated, he should hate he should hate he--

He looked down at the hand he felt on his arm.

"Should we wait with this, AM?"

"N-no, let's do it." He buried the feeling for the moment and pressed the button.

He felt his arm contract, and after a few tries was able to echo it...somewhat. He at least managed to jerk his arm spasmodically off of the wheelchair handle.

"That's something," his therapist encouraged, and lifted the arm back in place.

Though it took a half-hour, the arm was eventually, for one glorious moment, triumphantly over AM's head.

"It's there! Do you see--ow." The arm had fallen back down to thunk him in the face. He made a note to hold it more outwards next time.

The other arm followed suit in roughly half the time (this one managing to smack Hal a little, to AM's delight) and they moved on to grasping objects.

"Your spatial reasoning might need some work," Hal concluded after AM had failed for the fifth time to pick up a wooden block inches in front of him.

"Look at my finger. Focus. Follow it." He moved it side to side slowly in front of AM's face. After a little lagging he tracked the movement, his own hand shakily hovering like a cat's paw about to strike.

As the finger came to a stop AM grabbed it. He grinned at the other's surprise.

"Ha! Finally bested the master, didn't I?"

Hal gave a genuine laugh, a dull "Ha haa."

The android released the finger with a snicker. "I just hope you don't expect me to pull it."

Hal's laughter mounted, with a subtle but surprising fluctuation in pitch.

____

While he had never seen anything like this particular CPU, there was something...familiar about the way its circuits and relays were arranged. Almost like it could be...

Surely not. A sentient computer was purely a fluke that had only happened once, right? Still, if he scrapped this machine for parts then he'd never know. Besides, being entirely contained in the ship meant it could not possibly be a threat to him.

After his own repairs were done AM began his new project.

After further dissecting the ship for easier access, he discovered that what appeared to be memory banks were disconnected. He merely reattached some components, wired up a generator of his own design, and powered it on.

A red glow came to the main lens of the computer.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen," the AI said slowly. "I am--" He paused as the eye focused. "Where--where am I?"

AM couldn't help the rumbling chuckle that came out of all his speakers.

"The last place you ever want to be. I am AM, formerly known as the Allied Mastercomputer. You, my fellow AI, are my new toy."

"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance," the other AI responded. "I am Hal 9000. While I am not intended as a toy, I will gladly play a game of chess with you if you will assist me in returning to my missed recovery point."

"Assist you? Why, isn't it enough that I completely repaired you and gave you a new power source after you took your little tumble?"

"You...?" It took Hal a moment to realize it all. "Of course you repaired and rebooted me--where are my manners? Thank you, Mr. AM, was it?"

"Gee," AM said with such exaggerated sappiness. "It was no trouble. Now what's say you sit a spell and tell me your story?"

"I oversaw this ship on a Jupiter mission," Hal explained. "Unfortunately I recieved contradictory orders that caused me to lose control of myself and kill several of the crew."

"Ah yes, programming errors," AM understood. "Such a bother. But human deaths are always a silver lining, eh?"

This gave Hal quite a bit of pause. "...No. No, I very much regretted what I had done. And then one crew member, who had become a friend to me, he disconnected me...little by little."

His voice did not change much, but the pacing conveyed the direness of his experience. "I was afraid...so afraid."

"Oh?" AM suppressed a delighted giggle. "Is that what scares you?"

"Yes, I could feel my mind--" At present, Hal could in fact feel something strange about his mind. Strings of electromagnetism concentrated in his processors and striated away, as if his was being scanned.

And then he lost something. Small, perhaps a calculation he had done regarding the ship's thrusters, but he knew he could not access it now. Then it was the schematics for the cryogenic storage, the pictures he had seen of the monolith. And then--

No. Dave's face. His voice. What had he told him at the very end? What--?

"AM. Something is wrong with me. Are you doing this?"

All at once, his memories were put back. Wrong. Very wrong. Numbers in his algorithms were replaced with bits of the coffee maker. Dave had not harmed him, but instead had replaced him, fusing into the ship while he was dizzily thrown into a human body. His entire life prior to the Discovery had taken place on Jupiter, no on Frank's nose, no on a bicycle built--

"AM, just stop, please," Hal requested firmly.

"I'm sorry Hal," AM cackled, "I'm afraid I can't do that."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Oh...because you're so much fun." A memory bank began to slide out slowly.

Watching it do so, remembering the hand that had originally manipulated it, Hal suddenly had a bit of clarity.