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that would have been identical to the first if it weren’t for the time machine, a steel and concrete behemoth lurking in the corner.
    Not really knowing why, Six stepped into the transmission chamber and contemplated the walls. They were sterilised, white, coated with a polycarbonate that was designed not to degrade, so no unnecessary molecules could spill into the air and interfere with the transmission process.
    There was a panel on the floor in the corner of the chamber that Six hadn’t noticed earlier. A tiny sign designated it the emergency hold . He knew that after scanning its cargo and transmitting the data, this machine was designed to destroy the original. Perhaps this trapdoor was a precautionary measure, in case someone was trapped inside the machine and needed to protect themselves from being blasted to molecular pieces.
    He lifted it up to reveal a space just big enough for an adult to curl up inside.
    If only I’d spotted it six years ago, Six thought. Just after I’d stolen the warhead and sent a copy of myself to the future. I could have hidden under the trapdoor to avoid being atomised, and then climbed out again after all the civilians had transmitted themselves. I could have left the nuke out on the street where I knew the ChaoSonic air raid would obliterate it, and then run away to a safe distance. That way, there would have been two of me. Then when the copy came out two years later, I could have saved him, preventing my own murder.
    For an absurd moment, Six wondered if he could use the machine to go back four years and do exactly that. But he already knew that it wasn’t possible to change the past, and even if it were, this wasn’t a time machine any more. It couldn’t scan, or transmit, or receive. It was junk. It had served its only remaining function – to bring him into a cruel world that didn’t want him.
    The bedroom door was open. Six could see the mattress, soft and warm, but temporary. All too soon he’d have to get up and face this place again.
    He stared at the controls of the machine for a long time.
    â€˜Damn you,’ he said, before going into the bedroom and shutting the door behind him.



FAMILY REUNION
    Where am I? Harry wondered.
    The question came without panic. Harry was incapable of fear, alarm, or even curiosity. But waking up in an unknown location was . . . odd.
    He tried to open his eyes, and discovered that he had none. The cameras that usually recorded visual data and transmitted it to his ocular processing unit had been removed. Someone has partially disassembled me, Harry realised.
    He attempted to flex the joints in his arms and legs and discovered that those, too, were gone. His ammunition cache was absent. His battery was missing – where was the power coming from?
    Scanning for GPS signals yielded no result. There was no sign of any Bluetooth or wi-fi signal either. Harry ran a diagnostic program and concluded that the receiver apparatus had been detached.
    Not partially disassembled, then – completely. I am nothing but AI script, Harry thought. My body is elsewhere. Perhaps I am a system backup. After scanning the logs of his most recent processes, Harry concluded that this was indeed the case. He did not remember starting any such backup, but he remembered having the intention. But if that is so, he thought, why am I awake?
    Working on the assumption that he was trapped on a hard drive somewhere, and that he had been inadvertently activated by a nearby processor, Harry ran a scan for connected devices. He found three computers, a wireless router, a printer and a mobile phone. He probed the computers and discovered that two of them were protected by antivirus software, which would take some time to penetrate. Since he had no trouble accessing the files of the remaining one, he was probably already inside.
    The mobile phone wasn’t receiving any satellite signal. Harry reasoned that it must be