Glitch really was lost, having aimlessly followed Spam for some time now. Since he couldn't bring himself to tackle her and run, he pacified his anger by teasing the crap out of her.

"...so.... this is where you work? Kinda boring."

Nothing.

"Just my luck, I meet a cute girl and she's on her ‘off'day."

Flinch.

Glitch pressed on, "Although, if we do get into a relationship, you'll have to get over the whole ‘insulting, hitting, and dragging by hair'thing."

Shudder.

Shudder?

Glitch stopped and stared at her, "Spam... tell me, what's wrong?"

She began to shake, but continued to walk.

"Stop talking to me. Just shut up and walk."

Glitch remained firm, "I'm not moving an inch until you tell me what's going on."

"No! No no no! We have to go now! You need to meet with them!" she pleaded.

Glitch looked Spam in her eyes, face and mind completely serious.

"Why?"

She looked down, "I can't tell you..."

"Well then," Glitch crossed his arms, "I can't move."

With a scream of frustration, Spam knocked Glitch to the floor, ripping off his overcoat on the way down.

"You idiot... how can you be so uncooperative."

Her face split into the same disturbing grin as before, "You'll regret what you have been doing."

She tore a hole in Glitch's shirt, despite his protests. She deftly fingered a discolored spot just above his left nipple. To Glitch's shock and surprise, the skin split open, and a small amount of blood sprayed clear of the obviously mechanical alcove. From her back pocket, Spam removed a short plastic card, and inserted it in a slot inside of the bloody opening. A beep confirmed the acceptance of the card. Spam pushed a button next to the slot, and Glitch's struggles stopped immediately. His eyes went white and his body fell limp to the floor.

Spam got off of the floor and dusted herself off, coolness having returned to her once more. She leaned down, grabbed Glitch by the hair and dragged him the remaining kilometer to the committee's offices.

He came to in a room completely unfamiliar. Not only that, but a light from above was right in his eyes. Not a moment later there were people there, poking and prodding his form. Or at least he assumed they were, because he couldn't seem to feel anything. The people's faces were familiar, but he could not match any face with any name. They were just... familiar.

Then a girl was standing over him, one Glitch was sure he knew... but no name came to him She said something, but he could not decipher the words. Even so, they were soft and comforting.

He blacked out briefly, and when he reawoke, his cognitive functions seemed to have returned. So had his voice.

"Who the hell are you people?"

He spoke it not so much as a question, but as a statement, for his own peace of mind. But, he hadn't expected an answer.

"We are the committee. We are solely responsible for your creation." said an electronically garbled voice.

Looked to the speaker, attempting to locate his captor, but instead found a table, which he was on. Getting a hold of his surroundings, he realized that he was in fact surrounded. Eleven people, both men women, were seated around Glitch. Each bore a bright red number on their face, which was besides that was blacked out.

"Relax, and you will be released." said a strangely soothing voice that he could not identify.

Glitch ceased his struggles, and was awarded with the unlocking of his restraints. He kicked out, his inertia sending him off of the table and to his feet. He brought his claw about, and readied his sabre. Or he would have if...

"You claw has been replaced. You sabre is now strictly externalized." said another disguised voice.

Glitch looked down to his prosthetic. Where his mandible once was, a three holed metal hand now resided. He tensed and three small blades emerged from the hole. He clenched them and they moved stiffly, but in a more useful way then his old mandible had. Glitch felt himself to see if there were any other changes, and found a new beam sabre attached to his belt. Glitch grinned and activated it, bringing it up in a guard. He swung the blade once at the table. Just before the beam slashed the expensive piece of furniture in half, the beam flickered and died.

"Eh? It's seems you guys had this pretty well planed out."

Glitch noticed Spam standing off to the right of a man marked ‘1'. He walked over to her.

"What the hell did they do to me?"

Spam shook her head.

"The girl is not allowed to speak in our presence. All questions will be directed to us, your creators." spoke the garbled voice of ‘5'.

‘3'began to speak as well, "You are here to have datum collected over the past 10 years extracted, and then your memory will be purged. Following that, you will be subordinate to Ambrosia."

Glitch took what the man said one thing at a time, "Ambrosia?"

‘5'gestured toward Spam.

"Hehe," Glitch scratched his head, "what a lame name."

‘7'silenced Glitch by clearing her throat, "You have had several minor upgrades. Cosmetically, your hair structure has been changed, you I/O ports have been updated to the standard, and you have been provided the most advanced prosthetic usable by the Prototype 6 Series."

Glitch nodded, then started.

"Wait, you said your gonna erase my memory?!"

‘1'crossed his arms, "That's right."

‘3'spoke softly, "We will need to connect him to the Server to finish his conditioning before we can extract the data."

Glitch backed towards the table.

"Screw that crap, I'm out of here!"

Glitch's claw shot out and hit ‘one'in the face. Instead of the crunch Glitch had expected, sparks shot out. ‘1'was apparently only a projection screen. It didn't matter to Glitch, who jumped over ‘1'and right past Spam. Who stood there, awaiting orders.

"Go!" spat ‘3', "Bring him back!"

Spam nodded, and walked to the table. As fast as she could, extended her claw into a usable length and took off down the hall after him.

Glitch soon saw Spam approaching, and at an alarming speed. He stopped mid dash and about faced, now running straight at Spam. At the last moment he dived and rolled on the floor, forcing Spam into the air. Glitch got up hastily and sped off in the opposite direction. He slid to a stop in front of an elevator and pressed the up button. It made sense to him that all this secret business would be underground, where the Microsoft Underground would be. He looked around the corner to see Spam running down the hall at breakneck speeds. Glitch jumped back just as Spam rounded the said corner and shot out her claw. Glitch pushed off the wall, just barely dodging the projectile. The hand slammed into the wall, punching through. Glitch, now on the floor, threw out his new prosthetic at Spam, knocking her off of her feet. He crawled into the now open elevator. Getting to his feet, he hit the GND FLR button and said goodbye to Spam, who was looking at him helplessly from the floor. He waved cheekily as the doors closed, before being crushed by the said doors as Spam plowed through them.

"Oh fu-!" Glitch shouted before Spam hit him with a left hook, causing stars to explode into his vision. He shook his head to clear it, his opportunity for escape might come and go before he could recover. Glitch took what he could in his dire situation.

He bit her.

She reflexively pulled back, lessening her weight on the door, and thus, the pressure on Glitch. Pressing his luck, he arched his back, forcing Spam and the door off of him. He flipped himself back to his feet, and with one remorseful look at Spam, pushed her through the elevator hatch. Spam's armor caught on the wall and forced her through the floor, putting great distance between the car and herself.

Glitch breathed a sigh of relief, and leaned on the car wall.

"I shouldn't have done that... I hope she's alright." he said mournfully to himself.

She was just fine, in fact, she was quickly approaching, her huge wings beating furiously to catch up with the speeding car. Glitch heard her screams rather then her wings and scrambled out the top of the car. He gave himself a short prayer, and brought out his beam sabre. Making absolutely sure he was secured to the cable, he cut it.

The elevator continued up briefly from inertia, but quickly changed direction and began to fall. Glitch, attached to the cable, shot up towards the top of the elevator shaft, long since passing his stop. As the car descended, it finally came into contact with Spam. The now winged girl slammed through it, utterly ripping apart the former mode of transportation.

Glitch threw his arm over his face as Spam caught up with him, matching his speed. From below the sound of the remains of the metal box could be heard smashing into the ground. Spam, now driven solely by anger, brought her hand back to strike Glitch and possibly even kill him.

Unfortunately, perhaps for them both, she never had the chance to finish.

Her upward movement abruptly stopped and, like the car, began to fall back into the depths of the building. Glitch, didn't see her begin to fall, but opened his eyes again when he felt her clawing at his leg. Glitch looked down at her. And lost his grip.

His claw, even slightly updated, was not really fit for holding two people up from a slick piece of cord. They both began to fall. As fast as everything was happening, Glitch noticed to small dart protruding from Spam's arm, which was attached to the same hand that was still tightly clenching his leg, despite her apparently having fallen unconscious.

"So I'm gonna die like this, " He asked himself as he fell, "What a crappy way to go."

He forced his body to shut down, so that he would not feel the coming impact.

The elevator hadn't hit to ground after all. In fact, it wedged itself in between the back of the shaft and a door a few floors above ground level. This almost had to be a trick of fate, as the fall 50 floors below ground would have surely killed both Spam and Glitch.

But, a 50 story drop is only slightly less painful then a hundred story one. Spam awoke an unknown period of time after they had landed to a killer headache.

Among other things.

Spam had been the lucky one, suffering at most a few bruises and a couple of broken bones, of which most prominently featured were ones in her left wing and several cracked and shattered ribs. Glitch, she found, had not fared so well.

While it was obvious that the man was still alive, as evidenced by the shuddering rise and fall of his chest, he was far more injured then her. From what she could tell, both his legs and his right arm were broken in multiple places, with a few compound fractures thrown in for good measure.

"Oh god"

Spam went to vomit, but found that her belly was completely empty of anything to do so with. After a few dry heaves, she checked her internal clock, which informed her dutifully that it was damaged and was in need of repairs. Dissuaded, Spam decided to check on Glitch's other injuries.

Besides his extremities, his collar bone and right shoulder blade had shattered. Surprisingly though, his prosthetic was still in working order. In her own opinion, she assumed that Glitch had spinal damage.

She had no idea what to do. She had only received information in the deadly arts and had no medical knowledge. Without many other theories on how she could help him, she decided to connect with him and tell him about the damage that he had acquired.

"He may have an idea on how to fix himself."

Spam removed the chest armor she generally wore and pulled the back of her shirt up so it no longer covered her back, making sure to first retract her wings so they wouldn't be hurt further. She silently opened the small hatch at the small of her back and pulled out a small Firewire cord. She gently removed Glitch's coat and shirt, and accessed his front terminal, like she had a few hours before to bring him in front of the council, and inserted the small key into the proper slot,manually activating his connection hub. Being careful not to not put pressure on his wounds (which was no small task), she rolled him onto his belly and attached the Firewire cord to one of his ports.

It took several tries, but Spam finally managed to sustain a connection with Glitch's mind.

Spam: Glitch, are you there?

<you know i am. it's not like you to waste words.>

Spam: You are severely injured. Do know of anyway to quickly repair you for transport?

<no. there is no need. MicroSoft is after you. run from MicroSoft. bill... B07N... all are your enemies. are they? yes. no. if they attack you, then they are your enemy.>

Spam mentally shook her head, "That is not true. I do not want to be his enemy." she thought to herself.

<if i am so hurt, then i have lost. if i cannot run on my own then i am going to die. spam... enemy! run spam! enemy! keep away from B07N, and MicroSoft! _enemy!_ i'm not worth risking your life over! it's her fault that this happened! no...>

Spam: This is your subconscious. It speaks without censor. Only what you feel that is true is presented here. Your mind is in conflict over me, just as my mind is in conflict over what I am.

The woman dove beneath Glitch's mind, down to the sub levels that composed his BioSuit's automatic functions. With slight apprehension, she overrode Glitch's emergency shutdown protocols. Spam then cleanly disconnected herself from Glitch mentally.

Back in control of her body, Spam physically disconnected herself from Glitch, returning the cable to her back, and then sealed the box. Using the card once again on the chest terminal, she cycled Glitch for a full restart.

Glitch's mind's eye awoke and studied the internal damage schematics. Normally he didn't have the opportunity, but since this was a full restart he decided to disable pain and pressure sensors. This whole business would be a lot easier without screaming in agony. After that slight adjustment, he set the rest to automatic and awoke.

Glitch's eyes fluttered open. "Hiya... Spam."

A slight smile appeared on the girls face. "Are you alright?"

Glitch didn't move, but rolled his eyes about to see what he could. "For the most part. I turned off my pain receptors." He looked over Spam, "You look allot better than I do. Are you alright?"

The small smile disappeared. "I am fine. Do not worry about me. Glitch, how can we save you? I am not experienced in medical knowledge."

Glitch responded with downcast eyes, "We can't, " Spam's eyes widened, "I saw my damage report. Unless you find me a new body, or bring me to a super secret repair la- *cough!*

*Ahem*, lab, then there's nothing you can do."

Spam looked away.

"But don't worry!" Glitch put on a big grin, which looked out of place on his skinless jaw, "I'm not sad, just annoyed." His eyes glazed over, "I've died before, at BoTP. It's not quite the same. You just end up at the end of time, which is this kind of bar beyond the internet Multiverse. Then, at the next BoTP, your reincarnated.

"Really, the whole thing is a larf, you ought to try it. BoTP, that is. Not dying."

Spam just nodded mutely.

"My eyes aren't working that good, for some reason, so I'm gonna close them, alright?"

She nodded again and Glitch smiled and closed his eyes.

"I want you to look up B07N. Don't fight him to avenge me or anything like that, but... tell him he won."

Spam tried to speak but Glitch cut her off, "Just let me get this off my chest. Find UT for me. He'd probably like you... and... take my... apartment... I have... it for free... a deal with the land... lord... Put the... place to good use.

"I... I'm gonna take a quick nap. Wake... me... in a little bit..."

Spam got to her feet and yelled, "No! Wake up you foolish man! If you sleep you die!"

But Glitch was already deep asleep, his body no longer willing to risk utter destruction by staying awake. The rise and fall of his chest lessened until it was barely noticeable. Spam moved towards him, only to be struck with a dart in the neck. She hardly registered it before once again passing unconscious.

B07N dropped down off of his cord to the make shift platform, gently to make sure the whole thing didn't collapse. He strolled up to Spam and ripped the shirt she wore across the front. Pleased with the double interpretation of the act, he accessed Spam's terminal, located just bellow the left breast. He quickly swiped the card across and deactivated her. In one fell swoop he slung her over his shoulder and left, scaling the shaft with the woman in his arms.

Shortly later Bill returned for Glitch. Glitch really had no say in the matter.

B07N, that is, Bill, had been caring for Glitch for the last two months. He still wasn't sure why, Glitch himself had said that Bill had won. But despite his original orders, Bill didn't want to win like this. Glitch had given him that chance, and Bill refused to be bested in any way by Glitch, so... This was a logical conclusion for him. He'd even gone so far as to steal parts from MicroSoft and then bring them back to Glitch's apartment, where they'd been all this time.

Glitch himself was looking far better then he had before. Both his legs and his arm had healed, and Bill had replaced the missing skin of Glitch's face with some of his own. After being around Glitch so long, Bill was becoming somewhat attached to him.

But that didn't mean he wouldn't kill Glitch once he was healed.

Even so, after all this time, Bill was excited about reactivating the fallen man. Glitch had long since been ready to be awakened, but Bill wanted him to be in full fighting form if he felt like attacking. Now, though, Glitch was as healthy as he was going to get under Bill's care. Bill took his card and accessed Glitch's terminal, and booted him up.

The internal systems took some time to start up, the months having taken their tolls, and several errors were reported by the artificial equilibrium system, but in less then five minutes Glitch was staring into Bill's eyes.

"Hi, took you long enough."

Glitch tried to back up against the wall, but couldn't, his limbs too exhausted to function. His throat struggled to produce sounds.

"B-bii."

Bill grinned, "That's it! Come out with it!"

Glitch slowly shook his head, "Biilllll. *cough cough* Whaaat are y-y-you do-i-i-ing...?"

Bill leaned back in his chair, pleased. "Here? I'm saving you. Not much to it, just wanted to even the playing field."

Glitch was becoming more and more lucid by the moment. "What? Pla-ay-i-i-ing fie-ld?"

Bill coughed and sat up, looking towards Glitch. "I was there to here what you said to me, back in the sub basement," He looked up and quoted, " ‘I want to fight, I want to win, but not like this.'" He looked back at Glitch, "That is what you said."

Glitch searched his mind for that memory, and found it. "But I didn't say t-that."

Bill shrugged, "Something to that effect. Either way it moved me. It is the base of our relationship. We wish to kill, but only on our terms."

"I don't want t-to kill."

Bill leaned back again, "You say that, but I know the truth. Every AI manufactured by MicroSoft is built to kill. Me, you and... the girl, are all built to kill. That is why in the end, we will fight and kill each other. Because we are all too much alike."

"But what about our predecessors? Where are they? Did they... kill each other?"

"No. They possessed only the Dummy AI System. They were given rudimentary sentience, but not much more then that. None to my knowledge were kept operational, all having served their purpose," Bill scowled, "Like us."

Glitch had regained enough strength to sit up, "How so???"

"That... girl is the production model, new BioSuits will use the designs present in her, if not her appearance. We are prototypes, used for testing of new ideas and recording of data. I didn't know it at first, but because I remained at the company, I was installed with data feeders, which gave information on all of my activities and functions directly to the council. That is why they didn't need to take me in, that is why they waited so long to have the girl capture you; They needed as much data as they could before you were to be wiped and conditioned."

Glitch absorbed that as best he could, "Conditioned?"

"Me and the girl were created intentionally to be servants of Microsoft. The company was not always a big brother like monolith, but the shear amount of money they gained from their technology allowed them to create a secret underground, almost an Illuminati like organization. Through furious research, they discovered the key to artificial intelligence and robotics. We were made to help carry out a domination like scheme.

"But you," he continued, "Were unintentional. You appeared for no reason, and as such, you were not, could not be, raised to be a puppet. You did things different from me, and then the girl, so by the time you had escaped, there hadn't been time to install a data transmitter. You were to be destroyed at first (by me), but later the order was changed to captured, so we could get you test data. BioSuits are expensive, especially considering that your's was the first working model, so they were going to reset you and condition you to be a puppet like me and the girl."

Glitch put his hand on his forehead, "But if your a puppet, then why are you here?"

Bill's face split into a grin, "I've broken my conditioning. Now my driving force in life is to prove that I am the stronger man. When you finish recovering, I will find you, and we will battle." Bill paused.

"To the death."

Glitch nodded sadly. Even with all this free sharing of information, the two were still enemies. He and Bill had to fight, so that they could have some semblance of a normal life.

"Where is Sp- I mean, where is Ambrosia?"

Bill lowered his eyes, "I don't know."

Glitch shook his head, "It's all right. It's just I want to help her. She's so confused, I've seen the way she tries to resist her orders... kinda like you! Maybe we can free her as well?"

Bill appeared to have paled. " I doubt that will happen, her conditioning is far more intense then my own, and she has another stake in all this that prevents her from leaving," He cut off Glitch before he could even start, "And don't ask what the stake is, I wont tell you."

Glitch's eyes narrowed in suspicion, "Wait, if you really broke your conditioning, then why do you still work for MicroSoft?"

Bill looked away, "..."

"Damnit! Tell me!"

Bill jumped out of his chair, "Alright, damn you! I'll tell!" he barked.

He absent mindely touched his visor, "I wanted wings from the council"

"What?"

"Damnit, I said I wanted wings, like that blasted girl! I had been wanting them since before you left, long before she had even been made!" Bill's hands balled into fists, "I've been studying, training for the day they would be installed. Then they finished the Production model, immediately putting me on the back burner. They installed them on her without even telling me. I only found out when I requested and update on their construction." A lie, his mind told him, but small one. No need for Glitch to know too much, "They told me they were too expensive to build individually, and that the prototypes had been installed on Ambrosia, their new pet, so I wouldn't get them _ever_.

"I'd been hanging around since then, waiting for you to return, waiting for a chance to get wings even against the odds, but I finally realized that it would never happen with her around so," He paused, "So I left."

Glitch nodded, understanding, but still suspicious of Bill's story. Something was up, but Bill _had_ saved him , so he was willing to overlook it.

Bill sat down and turned to Glitch's iMac.

"These are decent computers, but no where near as refined as a Windows PC."

Glitch gave a sharp laugh and got up, shuffling over to Bill, "Hardly! With UNIX powering them, their ease of use and power will crush the PC!"

They both chuckled briefly, before Bill got up.

"I'm gonna go now. I'll see you as soon as I feel you're ready for a duel."

Glitch grinned lopsidedly, "I look forward to it."

Bill began to climb out of the window before Glitch stopped him.

"Wait, if you find Spam, give me a call alright?"

Bill stared dumbly at him for a moment, before replying,

"Do you really want to save her? She tried to kill you. She's made you obsolete."

Glitch nodded, " Yaah, but she's like my sister!"

"So does that make me your brother?"

Bill tore out of the window and jumped to the street below, not giving Glitch the chance to respond.

"I guess then that we're one whacked out family." Glitch commented before closing the window and going back to sleep.

Bill walked down an alley, stone faced and silent. Then he frowned. He had the girl now, everything was coming together. But... Glitch would hate him for what he was going to do.

Even so, some of the pain that had been in Bill's eyes, locked behind his visor, had left. He was going to be the best, no matter what.

And neither Glitch or that girl was going to get in his way.