Ivan felt the bones of one hand with the other, pressing his fingers aggressively into the, uh, flesh. Doctor Kemp had really freaked out when he’d done that. Ivan wasn’t a doctor, but he was pretty sure the skeletal structure of his hand was different from when he was human. He wasn’t sure if that should be surprising or not—with a sample size of one, he couldn’t really form much in the way of conclusions about how metal men should be made.

Perhaps it was time to try digging into what was happening in his skull. If there was someone or something else in there, he might be able to contact it. Maybe it had been trying to contact him, and that was a scream of frustration. If so, it had a temper.

Ivan lay down on the bed, hands behind his head, stared at the ceiling and tried to relax.

Images began to form, of strange creatures parading through his view. All in chrome, like him. Their physiologies ranged from mildly exotic to indescribable and even terrifying. Interestingly, these weren’t mental images—they were actually projected in some way onto his field of view. That meant that someone was trying to communicate. Was it the Screamer, or the Watcher? Not enough info yet. Ivan tried to relax and just take in the show. Understanding would come later.

* * *

He was watching the news when it happened again. A mental scream. Agony, fear, something. And, although he still wasn’t sure how to explain it, it sounded like him. It was followed by a jolt of something—anger? No, maybe frustration. Irritation.

The images were getting more frequent as well. Indescribable creatures, with different numbers of limbs, eyes, and even heads. Including zero, which was especially weird. And all in chrome. Except, strangely, the bear cub, which was always the last image in the group.

Then, another image. Ivan, this time, chrome and all. As he watched, the Ivan image became two, then three, then four. One at a time, the duplicates screamed and disappeared, leaving the original Ivan image.

Well, that’s interesting.

Whatever else this might be, it was communication. Or an attempt, anyway. One of the occupants in Ivan’s brain appeared to be trying to explain the screams.

Again, the images of Ivan went through the sequence: cloning, screaming and disappearing.

It’s making copies of me. Then torturing them? Not likely. Okay, Ivan. You’re a computer geek. You were top of your class. Time to make use of that Nerd Fu.

Then a third time, but this time with a change. Several clone images screamed and disappeared, but some stayed. Then the ones remaining were cloned. This was repeated for several cycles. Then all vanished except one.

It’s using an evolutionary process or some kind of simulated annealing to…to something. To build communications? The screams—those are versions of me that failed. Maybe failure is catastrophic?