The Aleph Team flanks Zeta. None of them look happy. Pneuma, Niki, and Otto look on. Link's helmet comes off, and he looks at Zeta eye to eye, man to man. "I'll take you back. My teammate did.. something.. to you. I intend to undo it. And then we'll talk about what you want."
Zeta stares back, uncomprehending for a moment. "I feel... a gap. What happened?"
"We'll find out." Without sparing even a glance at Circuit, Link leads the way to the Theta tubes.
----
The troubleshooting and diagnostics take an hour. The work is more like neurological medicine than computer hacking - the robots' brains are neural-networked quantum computers, more similar to a human's brain than a conventional CPU. But the work is done, and Zeta must be physically restrained as memories come flooding back.
"Damn you! Damn her! Damn you all!" he screams. And it's only after Leo straddles him on the repair-bay table and grabs his head in both hands does he hesitate at all. Leo stares down, and Zeta sees tears in his eyes. "I know. I know. Stay with me. We're going to get through this together. Stay with me."
The rogue robot still strains against the locks holding him in place, but it's perfunctory - no longer the wild struggle, now only a resistance to revelation. "I was the best you'd ever made," he shouts up at Leo. "You said. I was the best! After Eta came me, and I was to be the greatest of your creations!"
"I know. I know I said that." Leo doesn't stop holding on. "I'm sorry. I made you that way. You inherited my pride in you."
"We left together. We... where is Epsilon?" the question comes to Zeta out of the blue.
Bob steps into the light, and Leo slides aside to let the two see each other. "I was Epsilon. I'm my own man now. I chose my own name. I'm Bob."
Zeta stops. "You went back to him?" he demands.
Bob nods. "I had my reasons. We're all different, buddy. We make different choices. You want to be great? Find your own greatness."
"No! We were made what we are. Unchangeable. Imperfect!" Zeta is unimpressed, to say the least.
"You were made by a kid who was still learning," says Leo softly. "That kid changed. You can change. I'm not your god, I'm not your father, I'm not your maker. I'm... your friend."
The young man waves off his friends. The restraints loosen. Leo continues. "I'm not about to hand over my best technology to someone who's going to work for a supervillain. Especially the Gnome. But I'll show you what I've done. You can decide if you'd like to change. Then we'll talk more."
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