WHILE ZAN SLEPT POST-INTERVIEWS, Sigma-Prime continued the labor of his word, his order.

  She detached from her charging table and went in-person to check on the nature of the labor. "How goes your hard work?" she asked of Smoothie, who, done with her Interview, had returned to the perimeter to collect automotrons.

  Smoothie looked to Sigma-Prime. "Doing well. Most have been collected, it looks. Some still are there, of course, but all things considered, we should be done by the end of the day."

  Hearing this made her happy. It meant the next phase was upon them. Sigma-Prime told Smoothie, "Good work! Continue the labors and finish collecting every golem. I will be in the Spirit Core Processor Room if you should need me."

  With the roll of a stone down a hill, she made her way to the Spirit Core room, her heels wheeling her to her destination. She entered the room to see the first batch of materials still in the process of breaking down within the spirit core machine. Touching her body to the machine, her HUD filled with data, schematics, and numbers. The data amounted to this: 'it is at ninety-eight-percent completion,' she informed herself after interpreting the data.

  She was alone in the chamber as she waited for the machine's final breaking down of materials. She glanced toward an adjacent corner -- the first haul of decommissioned automotrons had been brought up from the side-basement levels. This was good. She would have need of them soon.

  Now, the data read 'ninety-nine-percent complete.' So close, she thought. Except for the chugging of the machine there was no noise in the room. Being lonesome was something she was used to by now. Loneliness was her friend; she knew its ins and out better than anyone. Sure, the Screen Master, as her technical superior, had been a constant companion through life. As a fellow immortal, he knew the burden of Life better than anyone. Yet his existence was a Screen Master was fundamentally different than her own. He saw and conceived of the world wholly apart from her own conception. She was, therefore, alone. She knew she would always be alone. In which case, why bother with pleasantries at all? It was-- ding!

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  Her flow interrupted by the machine's ding, she let her previous thoughts drown.

  An electrical impulse she sent from her body to the machine informing its door to open. It obeyed and allowed her to open the door. Inside was empty.

  "Very good," she hummed to her circuits. "Nothing is left inside the compartment, which means, degraded quality or not, those resources Zan retrieved for us were much needed. I will authorize the transfer of the appropriate energy to MAC right away so he might benefit as well. He will be expecting resources soon, anyway."

  With the authorization done, the next step was clear -- imbue the Backroads entryway with a smidgen of power to increase its charge rate. She knew Zan wanted to get back to Guygale right away. Although she wanted to keep all the energy for the base, it was clear her commander would not be happy if he had to spend much longer at the command center. She made the sacrifice, knowing there would be plenty more such occasions in the future.

  Picking up a shovel, she scooped a hefty pile of golem scrap into the machine. It was time to begin the true breakdown process. She threw the shovelful into the machine. Then, looking to the corner where the rest of the pile was located, and which overflowed to a good portion of the room, she knew the battle would be long. 'I should really get one of the initiates for this,' she lamented, shoveling away yet another heaping amount into the processors within. To pass the time, she sang to herself a work shanty she picked up from a laborer long ago:

  ? I get blackout drunk, but what do they say?

  It's just another day lost in the hay,

  I labor and moan, demand ever more, and what is my day,

  But another notch in their lane! ?