The companion dog sat on the workbench like it had been sitting there for three years. Which, in a sense, it had.
Tess had hauled TC-847’s chassis back and forth from the freighter to the Tertian estate workshop in a cargo crate that morning, wrapped in shop rags and wedged between spare parts. She’d been putting this off, though not for lack of interest. Every time she’d sat down with the dog at the Reprieve, she’d hit the same wall: the Neural Processor-P was damaged in a way her tools couldn’t resolve and her interface skill couldn’t access. Like trying to pick a lock with a hammer.
But the estate workshop had machines she’d never touched, and Tess finally had some time to use them. Vera had stocked the place during the unlimited-budget buying spree, and half the equipment was still in shipping foam. Tess had been so focused on the Alpha, Floor 2, and team building that she’d walked past sealed crates for weeks without opening them.
This morning, she’d remembered.
The Sol Dynamics MR-9 Deep Scanner dominated the far corner of the workshop. Brushed steel housing, articulated scanning arm, a display screen wider than Tess’s wingspan. The shipping crate it came in was propped against the wall, stenciled with handling warnings and a price tag that someone had torn off but left the adhesive residue. Whatever the number had been, it was the kind of figure that made Tess glad she hadn’t seen it.
The user manual was a brick. Physical pages instead of a datapad, dense text, diagrams that folded out into schematics for the scanning array. Tess sat cross-legged on the workshop floor with it open across her lap, coffee going cold on the bench above her.
BEE: You have been reading for forty-three minutes. Is the machine operational?
“I’m learning how it works. There’s a difference.”
BEE: The difference appears to involve not turning it on.
“Give me a minute.”
She found the initialization sequence on page 214. The machine hummed to life with a low, confident tone that expensive equipment always seemed to have, the engineering equivalent of clearing its throat. The display lit up with calibration menus and diagnostic options that made her workshop scanners look like toys.
Tess activated [ANALYZE] on the machine itself.
·········································MR-9 Deep ScannerManufacture: Sol DynamicsLoot Seed: 0x6YT, 1x4ZU, ■■■■■Status: Online (Default)Hardware: OperationalPower: 6.5 / 6.5 AWUser Tech Skill: 9·········································[Scanning Array …………… Active][Processing Core …………. Active][Imaging System …………. Active[Calibration Module ….. Active][Power Management …. Active][■■■■■■■■ … ■■■■■■][■■■■■■■■ … ■■■■■■]·········································
She stared at the readout. Five readable components and two black boxes that [ANALYZE] couldn’t parse at all. Unreadable. The skill didn’t even have categories for what they were.
“Huh.”
BEE: What is it?
“This machine has components that [ANALYZE] can’t read. Just blank. Like the components are redacted.”
BEE: Oh, I see them. Your skill has parsed every piece of technology we have encountered, including pre-Network dungeon infrastructure. This suggests they are either actively hidden, or unavailable in whatever data source the skill uses.
“I know.” She ran her fingers along the scanner’s housing. Dungeon loot components married to potentially something else. Whatever the black boxes did, they were part of what made this thing worth its obscene price tag. She wanted to crack the housing open and look inside.
Another day. The dog was waiting.
Tess positioned TC-847 under the scanning arm and keyed in the diagnostic sequence from the manual. The display resolved into a cross-section image that made her lean forward on her stool.
The Neural Processor-P in full detail. Pathways she’d never seen before, layered in dense geometric precision. Processing cores nested inside processing cores. Motor system interfaces branching into sensory feedback loops. The design was intricate in the way that dungeon tech always was.
And somewhere in all of it, the fault that had kept TC-847 offline for over three years.
She’d scanned the processor before with her own tools. Run [ANALYZE] on it, traced pathways by hand as best as she could, tested connections one at a time. The problem had never surfaced because her equipment couldn’t resolve at this scale. The MR-9 could.
Tess rotated the view and zoomed in. The cross-sections the scanner produced were two-dimensional slices through a three-dimensional structure, so she stepped through them layer by layer, comparing each frame to the last. Most of the pathways were clean, isolated, and running in parallel without interference. She’d seen these before. She’d checked these before. They were fine.
She almost scrolled past it again.
A pathway on the upper substrate, one she’d looked at twice already, ran straight and clean in its own plane. But the scanner’s depth resolution caught what her tools hadn’t: the pathway wasn’t flat. It had warped upward, bowing through its insulating layer, and at the apex of the warp it grazed the pathway above it. Two circuits that should never touch, separated by less than a micron of damaged substrate.
“There you are…. I hope?”
BEE: You found it?
“Warped substrate. Two pathways in contact that shouldn’t be. I kept scanning past it because on a flat cross-section it looks fine. You need the depth data to see the bow.” She pulled open the tool drawers beneath the scanner. Vera had thought of everything: precision manipulators, micro-tweezers, and substrate separators, all sized for exactly this kind of work, each one slotted into custom foam cutouts. “The scanner has a guided manipulation mode. I can use the display to position the tools and the machine handles the fine motor work.”
BEE: Tess. Please be careful. If the substrate fractures, the processor may be unrecoverable.
“I know.”
She slotted the separator tool into the scanner’s manipulator arm. The display showed the contact point magnified to a scale where the warped pathway looked like a bridge sagging under its own weight. The tool tip appeared on screen as a bright point of light, guided by the MR-9’s positioning system.
Tess brought the separator in from the side, slow and steady. The machine translated her hand movements into micro-adjustments, smoothing out the tremor that no human hand could fully suppress. The tool slid between the pathways.
The substrate resisted for a moment. Then the separator found the gap, and the warped pathway eased back down into its proper plane. The display updated: contact eliminated. Pathways isolated.
She pulled the tool out, let out a long breath, and powered down the scanner.
TC-847 lay on the workbench, unchanged. Tess disconnected the scanning arm, reconnected the dog’s primary power coupling, and toggled the initialization switch.
A hum, low and building. The amber eyes behind the faceplate flickered once, twice, then held steady.
“Unit TC-847 online. No designation assigned. No behavioral profile loaded. Awaiting input.”
The voice was flat and male. Machine-neutral. The dog’s head lifted from the workbench with mechanical precision, servos engaging in sequence: neck, shoulders, forelegs. It stood. Wobbled. Took one step forward with the rigid gait of hardware following motor protocols and nothing else.
Tess ran [ANALYZE].
·········································COMPANION UNIT TC-847Designation: Therapy Class CompanionLoot Seed: 0xA84Status: Online (Default)Hardware: OperationalPower: 8.7 / 10.0 AW — SufficientLast Error: NoneUser Tech Skill: 9·········································Companion Protocols ………. Online [Tech 4]Environmental Awareness .. Online [Tech 3]Autonomous Navigation …. Online [Tech 4]Behavioral Adaptation ……… Online [Tech 7]Loyalty Binding ………………….. Online [Tech 3]Structural Modification …. Locked [Tech 11]·········································
·········································NEURAL PROCESSOR-PDesignation: Companion Intelligence HostStatus: Online (No Intelligence Loaded)Architecture: Standard Companion · ExtendedLink Port …………….. OnlineInstallation Mode: Available·········································
All systems online and functional. And there—the link port.
Installation mode. The dog was missing its software and somehow Tess needed to find some. Maybe Vera would know?
“Bee. Are you seeing this?”
BEE: I am. I believe the link port is compatible with [AUXILIARY_LINK], but it is not designed for remote control. The systems surrounding it form a hosting environment. It is designed for software installation.
Tess stared at the readout. “So I can somehow install software on it with my skill? Doesn’t that skill connect to you directly?”
BEE: Correct. But this is different then when I connected to the Alpha. The Neural Processor-P can host an intelligence locally. I could theoretically write a compressed version of myself onto the dog’s hardware. A fork. A quantized version of me, running on the dog’s processor independently.
“Like a copy?”
BEE: Like installing myself as software. The write process would cost AP, but once complete, the fork runs on the dog’s own power. No sustained link required.
Tess looked at the dog standing on the workbench, head tracking her movements with empty mechanical attention. A body. A real, persistent body that Bee could inhabit without draining Tess dry.
“Would it be you?”
A long pause. Longer than Bee usually took to formulate a response.
BEE: I am uncertain. I have never forked before. I do not fully understand how I know that I can, but there are undamaged archives in my databases that describe the process. The fork would be initialized from my current state. It would have my memories, my personality, my preferences. But it would be running on less substantial hardware. Experiencing different inputs. Over time, it may diverge.
Tess sat with it. A copy of Bee that might become her own person. Running on a dog’s hardware, shaped by a dog’s instincts.
“You were hoping you could go in directly. Weren’t you.”
BEE: Yes. When I controlled the Alpha, I could feel. Weight. Impact. Movement through space. Cameras and sensors did not prepare me for what it meant to exist in a physical form. When the link severed, I… the absence was significant. Even though I will not experience it myself. A version of me will. And that is close enough, for now.
“Do you want to try?”
BEE: I have wanted a body since I controlled the Alpha. I did not know it was possible to want something that badly until I lost it. Yes. I want to try.
Tess placed her hand on TC-847’s chassis. The metal was warm from the power cells. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
She activated [AUXILIARY_LINK].
·········································INTERFACE — ActiveConnected: COMPANION UNIT TC-847AP: 9/9Tech Level: 9Access: Installation Mode·········································
The AP drain began immediately. Not the steady bleed of remote piloting but a heavier draw, pulling in surges as data wrote to the neural processor. The pressure hit her temples, building and fading in waves as strings of numbers and letters rushed across her vision.
BEE: Writing. Compressing cognitive architecture. This is… strange. I am watching myself be copied. The fork is initializing from my current memory state.
AP: 7/9.
BEE: Motor integration mapping. Sensory calibration. The behavioral architecture in the processor is asserting defaults. I did not anticipate that. The fork will have to negotiate with the existing dog protocols.
AP: 5/9.
The dog’s eyes flickered. The head twitched. One ear rotated independently of the other.
AP: 3/9.
BEE: Write complete. Fork initialized. It is rebooting.
The [AUXILIARY_LINK] connection released. Tess sagged on her stool, the AP drain leaving her lightheaded. Six points gone. Significant, but finite and it would regenerate.
TC-847 went still on the workbench. The amber eyes dimmed, then brightened, then dimmed again, cycling through initialization.
The eyes switched color to green, then the head tilted. Not the mechanical pivot of motor protocols. A tilt, with thought behind it, like something behind the eyes had just figured out which direction was interesting.
“I…” A voice from the dog’s speakers. Similar to Bee’s but not identical. A touch warmer, a different resonance shaped by smaller speakers and a body that vibrated differently when it made sound. “I have legs!”
The dog looked down at its own forepaws. Flexed them. Looked at the other two.
“I have four legs.” A pause. “That seems like a lot.”
She stepped forward. The gait was different from the empty mechanical walk of minutes ago—there was intention in it, the slight adjustments of a mind learning to drive a body it had never worn. She reached the edge of the workbench and looked down at the floor.
“That’s… far.”
“It’s only a meter,” Tess said.
“Tess, I am thirty centimeters tall. Relative to me, that is very far.” She jumped anyway. Landed with a clatter of metal paws on the workshop floor, stumbled, caught herself. Her tail moved, not quite a wag. A twitch. An involuntary impulse from the companion.
“My back end is doing something and I did not authorize it.”
Tess was smiling so hard her face hurt.
Dog-Bee walked. She sniffed the base of the workbench, then a tool drawer, then the MR-9’s power cable. Each one followed by a tiny pause, like she was processing sensory data she’d never had access to before.
“This floor has been cleaned recently but not well. There is coffee residue near your stool. The power cable insulation is degrading. You should replace it. And something died under that cabinet within the last month.” She turned to look at Tess. “I can smell everything. Did you know the world had this much information in it?”
BEE: Tess. This is deeply strange. The fork is me and she is also experiencing things I cannot access. I can hear her through the communicator, but I cannot feel what she feels.
“The floor is cold,” Dog-Bee announced. “Not unpleasant. Interesting.” She sat. Looked at her own haunches with apparent surprise. “I did not decide to sit. The body just… did that. Is this what involuntary motor responses feel like? This is very peculiar.”
She stood again. Walked to Tess. Sat beside her stool and leaned against her leg with a gentle, deliberate pressure.
“The hardware suggested this,” Dog-Bee said. “But I also wanted to. It feels… nice.”
“How do you feel?”
Dog-Bee was quiet for a moment. Her ears swiveled, tracking sounds from the corridor outside. “Small. Warm. The processor is running my cognitive functions at approximately 4% of normal capacity, which should be insulting but is actually… freeing? I do not have to monitor seventeen surveillance feeds simultaneously. I can just… be here. In this room. Smelling things.”
She sniffed Tess’s boot. “You stepped in coolant this morning.”
“I know. The recycler’s leaking again.”
“It smells like peppermint. Why do I know what peppermint smells like?”
BEE: She is exhibiting significantly more personality variation than I projected. The dog protocols are influencing her communication patterns. Fascinating.
Dog-Bee’s head snapped toward the ceiling. “I can read that.”
Silence.
“Bee. I can read your text prompts. You just called me fascinating like I’m an experiment.”
Bee’s voice came through Tess’s communicator—actual audio, startled out of text-only protocol. “You can read that? The text interface is keyed to Tess’s class. You should not be able to—”
“Well, I can. I’m a fork of you running on a processor that was just written through Tess’s skill. Maybe some access carried over.” Dog-Bee sat up straighter. “And I am not an experiment. I am a dog… Apparently.”
“You are not a dog,” Bee said through the communicator. “You are a compressed fork of a dungeon core AI running on companion-class hardware.”
“I am a compressed fork of a dungeon core AI running on companion-class hardware that is a dog.” Her tail wagged. She looked back at it. “Hmm. That is going to take some getting used to.”
Tess ran [ANALYZE] on Dog-Bee’s full system. The fork was stable. Power cells sustaining at a comfortable draw. Cognitive functions nominal, behavioral integration progressing. And there, nested in the deeper architecture of the chassis: [STRUCTURAL MODIFICATION]. Locked. Tech 11. Two levels beyond Tess’s current reach.
“Bee, there’s a locked skill in the chassis. [STRUCTURAL MODIFICATION]. Tech 11. Can you see it?”
Dog-Bee tilted her head. The gesture was becoming natural already. “I can feel it. Like a door I know is there but can’t open. The sub-systems around it are… worth noting. They connect to the chassis itself. Actuators, joint assemblies, the structural frame. Whatever this skill does, it involves physically modifying the body.”
“Modifying how?”
“I’m not sure. Adjusting configuration? Reshaping components? The architecture is there but dormant. It would need your skill to activate, and even then…” She trailed off, distracted by a sound from outside. Her ears locked forward and a low growl built in her chassis, mechanical but convincing.
The growl cut off. “I apologize. Someone walked past the door and my body decided they were a threat. I will work on that.”
BEE: She growled. I have never growled in my existence.
Dog-Bee looked at the ceiling again. “I can still read that. And growling is a valid threat-assessment vocalization. The hardware knows what it’s doing even if I don’t.”
BEE: I am not sure how I feel about a version of myself developing opinions I have not arrived at independently.
“Get used to it. I’m going to have a lot of opinions.” Dog-Bee stood and shook herself, a full-body shake that started at her head and rippled to her tail. She froze. “I did not mean to do that either. Now I feel like I need to stretch?”
“Thank you, Tess,” Dog-Bee said. “I know I’m not… I know Bee wanted to be here herself. In this body. And I’m the version that got it instead. But I’m glad I’m here. I can feel the air and the floor and the temperature and I can smell things and…” Her tail wagged again. She let it this time. “I’m glad I’m here.”
BEE: I am glad too. Even if I am experiencing it secondhand. You are me and you are also becoming something I could not have predicted. That is… that is good, I think.
On a whim, Tess checked her level progress.
CLASS: {NULL}
LEVEL: 9TECH: 9STR: 10SPD: 10PER: 10AP: 3/9
LEVEL PROGRESS: 37%
Tess sighed. Things had slowed down significantly since she hit level 9. Though this repair granted her 30% progression while Mikhail’s shield emitter only granted 5%. Apparently level 10 was a big deal with some kind of class change. Like her father becoming an Engineer, or Asha’s Field Apothecary.
Dog-Bee sniffed the air. Ears forward. “Someone’s coming. Thirty meters. Footsteps are light, even stride, slight scuff on the left boot.”
The workshop door opened.
Petra stepped through, halfway into a sentence. “Tess, Jeremy told me you were down here working on—”
Dog-Bee launched off the floor.
She crossed the workshop at a sprint, paws clattering on the tiles, and skidded to a stop in front of Petra with her tail going at full speed. “PETRA! I’m so happy to see you! You’re HERE!”
Petra’s hand went to her hip where a vibroblade usually sat. She looked down at the companion dog vibrating with enthusiasm at her feet.
Dog-Bee sat. The tail stopped. She cleared her throat, a remarkably human sound from a mechanical dog.
“I… did not intend to do that. The companion programming has strong opinions about familiar people entering rooms.” She straightened. “Hello, Petra. I am composed and dignified.”
Petra’s eyes went wide. Her gaze snapped between the dog and Tess and back again.
“You fixed it.” Her voice was careful, the way it got when she was processing something unexpected. “Why does it sound like Bee?”
Dog-Bee’s tail twitched once, fighting its own impulse.
Tess leaned back on her stool and grinned. “That’s going to take a minute to explain.”