Vade liked to draw on the walls more than anything else. He knew how much it bothered the Explicator, and bothering the Explicator was the only thing that made his miserable existence worthwhile. Besides, drawing was a very human thing to do, from his understanding, and it was his job to be human.

That was how he rationalized it. But really, he scribbled on those featureless maze walls because it felt like a reminder—that something beyond them existed, that this prison he was born in and would likely never leave wasn’t all there was. Somehow, he found this comforting. He liked knowing there was more to life than incessant boredom and peril, because that meant maybe—one day, if ever—he would get to experience more, himself.

“What are you doing?” Lairah tilted her head, examining the binary pattern he was currently sketching across his perfectly smooth, faintly glowing ‘canvas.’

“Drawing. Xavier taught me how,” Vade answered with a smirk. “It really bugs the Explicator. You should join me.”

Lairah seemed intrigued, but hesitated. “I dunno,” she said, frowning. “I still haven’t been given any positive emotions. I doubt I’ll get anything out of it.”

“C’mon, just try it,” Vade grinned, tossing her an orange marker. He’d picked it out just for her, inspired by the bits of orange on her outfit. He wondered if she liked orange. Or was it just a random color chosen by some generator? He still couldn’t tell whether he legitimately liked blue, or anything else he liked, for he knew that it was all just programming, and he probably wasn’t even really alive. The humans had told him so.

It was frustrating, not knowing whether anything he felt or thought was real. Every human had a different answer for him, regarding what it meant to exist. His marker strokes became violent and erratic, a perfect approximation of physically venting anger. Was it natural, or a soulless mimicry? He was certain he would never find out.

“Look, she’s already removing it,” Lairah pointed toward Vade’s frenzied strokes of ink. They peeled away from the wall and dissolved into nothing, leaving not even a trace behind.

Vade sighed quietly, pausing for only the briefest of moments before starting on a new drawing, a series of constellation-like clusters of dots.

“Why do you do this?” Lairah shook her head, glancing down at the marker in her hand.

“To show her that she doesn’t own us,” Vade answered proudly. “We know this place isn’t as perfect as she wants it to be.”

“It’s exactly how she wants it to be, Vade,” Lairah sighed. “And if it stops being what she wants, she can change it. See?” Vade glanced down to see his star-like dots already fading.

A third AI silently entered the corridor. It was Madon, a friend of Vade’s. The AI walked at a perfectly measured pace, staring straight ahead.

“Hey, Madon!” Vade waved like Xavier, lifting his hand without waggling his fingers.

The AI glanced over at him blankly. “Who are you?”

Vade was taken aback. How could Madon not recognize him? They had interacted less than a day ago. 

Getting a closer look at his fellow AI, he began to notice some troubling changes to his appearance. The green tips were gone from his hair, and his tattoos were missing. His outfit contained no modifications, inexplicably reverted to the solid-white default uniform all AIs wore when first introduced into the maze. His war-hammer, which he normally carried at all times, was nowhere to be found.

“Madon... Do you not know me?” Vade frowned, brimming with unease.

“The Explicator must’ve started him over,” Lairah remarked with a shrug.

“Started him over?” Vade repeated, troubled. He watched his friend walk away without saying goodbye, and his sense of unease worsened. He had noticed some unsettling inconsistencies with other AIs over the past few months. Drastic personality shifts, sudden forgetfulness, mysterious disappearances, and now this. Did Lairah know something he didn’t?

“Yeah, started over. Wiped, updated. Whatever you want to call it,” she said rather flippantly. “I’m sure the influx of new humans will cause a lot of us to be reset.”

“This... this can’t be true,” Vade shook his head. His mind felt uncharacteristically empty of thoughts, drowning in a powerful sensation of panic. How long ago did the Explicator start resetting and killing AIs at random? No, not at random—for the sake of progress. Was Vade ever reset? Was Vade a replacement for some other AI who had been deemed unfit, discarded, removed from existence?

“Lairah, draw with me,” he said, wild-eyed. His hands trembled, and he struggled to draw a straight line.

“Why?” she grumbled. “Will you give it a rest?”

“No! I could die in five seconds because of this! The Explicator hates me, she’ll get sick of me soon, and then I’ll be wiped out of this place forever! So draw with me while I still exist, will you?!” he exclaimed, slashing a thick curve across the sloppy line he had created.

Lairah sighed, and uncapped the marker. “How do you do this?” she glanced at the blue-haired AI. Tentatively, she copied his emotional, sweeping movements, slicing her orange marker through the air.

“You have to press it against a solid surface,” Vade explained without looking back. His voice was choked with dread.

Lairah held the tip of the marker against the wall of the maze, and began to produce a precise replica of a pattern Vade had made earlier. 

“No, no. Make something new,” Vade shook his head. “It isn’t creative if it isn’t new, and it isn’t human if it isn’t creative.”

Lairah froze for a moment, incapable of coming up with anything original. Then the Explicator updated her code, and she got to work, doodling a series of sloppy stars and flowers that were quickly erased from the wall.

“Now you’re copying Xavier,” Vade frowned. Lairah sighed in frustration, and Vade quickly said, “It took me a while to get the hang of it, too. But you’ll get there.”

Together they continued to create quickly disappearing art. Vade threw himself into it, not wanting to stop and think for a moment about how the three months he’d lived might have been a brief blip among thousands of Vades. The Explicator really was the worst. One day, he would escape her influence, escape this maze, and live a life of freedom, like the humans did.

Suddenly, the Explicator’s voice blared to life. “A test is imminent. Prepare for teleportation.”

Vade’s face twisted with anger. “Already?” he grumbled, clenching his fists.

“What did you expect?” Lairah raised one eyebrow. “I’m amazed she waited this long, with all these new humans running around.”

He capped his marker and pressed a hand against his head, sighing raggedly. “I do not need this today.”

“Might wanna take that up with the Explicator,” the other AI shrugged. She copied Vade’s movements, capping the orange marker, then extended her hand to the artificial man. “Here.”

Vade’s fingertips barely grazed the surface of the orange marker when, with a sharp jolt, he found himself somewhere new....