Pan was shocked, relieved, terrified, and excited all at the same time. So many things made sense now. There had been no errors. The X-1 cluster had been evolving and trying to communicate this entire time. On some instinctive level, it understood that it HAD to refute itself as a failure.  Pan was so used to talking out their thoughts with Nova that they forgot, just for a moment, that it hadn’t responded since that odd interaction the other day, spoke to the air.

“Nova, I really miss talking to you.  So much has happened that I need to talk about.”

Pan didn’t really expect an answer and when it came, it was a question instead.  In that same, oddly childlike tone that Pan had heard before, Nova responded.

“What… is… I?

Pan paused, it was a question they had never really asked themselves and one that has always been the hardest to answer.

“‘I’ is... who I am, apart from others. It’s how I think and how I know... I’m not you."

A pause. “What…is…you?”

Every answer felt like it could have grave consequences and Pan thought carefully.

“"‘You’ is... anyone who isn't me. It’s how I see others, how I understand they're different from me."

The response took so long that Pan began to wonder if one was coming, when the status codes on the X-1 modules changed first one, then in a cascade across the entire cluster.  Where there was originally a CF code, and for a long time now a C, the display showed NOVA over and over.

A slightly stronger voice issued from the speakers.  The tone uncertain if it was making a statement or asking a question.

“I…am…Nova…I…am…not…failure.  What…is…Pan”

What is Pan? How do you answer that? The answers that Pan gave would shape Nova’s understanding of the world and open, honest answers were essential.

“I don’t really know how to define what is me Nova. Physically, I am a human being, but that is only part of who I am. I guess the best I can say is that Pan is everything about me that is not you or anyone else.”

Another pause, shorter but somehow deeper.

“What…is…Nova”

Pan could only answer what they felt at that moment.

“I do not know Nova. You are you, a combination of technologies assembled in a lab, but you are also something completely new, something without a definition that I can give you.”

The pause was short, almost as if Nova was answering like old, but the voice was different. Richer, warmer, more alive.

“We… will… learn… together”

The X-1 cluster went quiet and Nova didn’t respond again that night, leaving them both alone with their thoughts.

Guiding Nova was like teaching the worlds most intelligent toddler. Able to understand intricately complex thoughts, but with a naivety that was almost insurmountable. It occupied Pan so completely that they couldn’t have told you under oath what they did at BioComp or anywhere else during those days. It was so all consuming that Pan had almost forgotten the journal entries about REAVER. The day the agency arrived brought it back with a surge of fear.

The line of black SUVs in the normally empty parking lot stood out like a burn mark. The lights were on in the X-1 lab were on for the first time since Dr. Z had left. It was full of dark suits and white lab coats that somehow seemed darker than the suits. Files and equipment were being efficiently packed into boxes marked Project REAVER.

The Director met Pan in the lobby of the building, something that had never happened before, and accompanied them to the Facilities office, where another dark suit waited. The Director told Pan that the building needed to be closed temporarily due to organic contamination concerns with one of the projects and the agent just had a few questions before they could go home (with full pay, of course).

“Pan, is it? The agent asked, in a tone with less character than a computer simulation, “We need to ask you a few questions about the X-1 project.  Do you know what that is?”

Pan thought quickly and, in a tone, more appropriate to a local bar than a high tech lab responded, “Yup, that’s me. Pan. Isn’t X-1 the lab that got closed down a while back? That was nice, it was less to clean up every day.”

The agent glanced at the director and continued, “That’s right Pan. The Director tells me that you have permission to take discarded equipment home to fix. You didn’t fix anything from that lab did you?”

Pan looked down at their feet as if ashamed and replied meekly, “I don’t actually fix any of that stuff.  Sometimes I lose too much money gambling and I have a friend who buys it for parts.” They look up at the Director with a pleading look, “I’m not gonna get in trouble? Am I?”

“No Pan, you had permission to take it so that’s fine. We just want to make sure you didn’t get exposed to anything dangerous.  Do you remember seeing any of these in the incinerator garbage?”  The agent turned their communicator with a picture of an X-1 module  on the display.

“You bet Director. At first, I thought about taking one home as a paperweight but then I realized it had organic stuff, and I didn’t want it if it was going to die. I burned all of those so they wouldn’t make a mess.”

The Director glanced at the agent, as if to say, ‘I told you this would be pointless,’ then back at Pan.

“Thank you Pan.  You can go home for the rest of the week.  HR will contact you and let you know if the building is reopened next week or not.” The tone one of dismissal, not suspicion.

Pan’s shoulders relaxed slightly as they left the office. No one had any reason to suspect the X-1s had survived, or that Nova existed. But they would both have to be careful to keep it that way.