The Treasure of Lei Fong Wu

Chapter Fifty-Eight

ALPHA TEAM REMNANT –37:25

“You have some explaining to do,” Master Lei said reprovingly to the dimly lit figure in front of him. “What you have done . . . it is . . .”

“Do not judge me! You were not there!”

“But I am here now, and we are in a dire situation because of your decisions. This goes beyond any mere curiosity on your part. You have placed us in a perilous circumstance, and you have done so for the sake of political necessity and capricious sadism. It is not an honorable thing you have done.”

“You dare lecture me about honor?” His voice was becoming shrill.

“I do,” agreed the monk. He had not slept in a long time, but he seemed completely serene and at ease, sitting in the Captain’s chair. “You may consider yourself a gentleman, but you place your own purposes above the good of your family. That denotes a lack of honorable behavior.”

“I placed the good of the Empire above the good of my family, perhaps,” he demurred. “That was my duty.”

“Duty!” Master Le scoffed. “What of your duty to the Way? To filial piety? What you did . . .”

“As I said,” Emperor Lei’s hologram stated flatly, “you were not there. You were not me. I had a short time in which to act, and there were political situations arising which you are oblivious to.”

“You had him, right in front of you. You know what he did . . . what he represented. Shan Yu the Tyrant. How many of our own people did he have killed? A million, perhaps? And on Xiao? Millions. Yet you hesitated. Explain yourself.”

“You should not treat your ancestors with such disrespect in the same breath you speak of our family’s honor!” the machine insisted haughtily.

“Oh, give it a rest,” Master Lei complained, wearily. “You are not my ancestor. You are an artificial personality algorithm grafted on to a sophisticated computer program. You are the result of a few hours of my real ancestor’s ennegram encodings, and a bank of technicians tweaking the algorithmic output. But yo