"It isn't," Tom replied. "At least...not by any technology I know of. I want to believe she's kept this from us for a good rea-" His speech was cut short by a groan from the direction of Enigma's bed. "Let me do the talking," he said, transferring the information to a small computer tablet before hiding it behind his back so Enigma wouldn't see. He walked over and sat on the edge of the bed as Enigma opened her eyes. "How are you doing?" he asked. "You gave us a scare back there."<br/><br/>"I am...better," she replied. "I did not intend to alarm you, I-" she stopped as Tom showed her the scanner data. "Oh...I had hoped you would discover this on my terms, you must be angry."<br/><br/>"I'm not," Tom replied. "But we need the truth, you've known more about this than you've been letting on the whole time."<br/><br/>"I will do my best," Enigma replied, sighing. "This began millennia before either of your species, and indeed most of the races that now populate the stars, had even reached the orbits of their planets. There was a species...unfortunately their name is lost to me...who spread across the stars. They were not fighters, but explorers. They went places and discovered things you can barely imagine, but even they discovered a problem: for all their talents they were only mortal, they lived finite lives and there were places they could not safely explore. So, they created...assistants."<br/><br/>"The Aphra?" Tom asked.<br/><br/>"Correct," Enigma answered. "At first the Aphra did what they had been designed to do. The explorers discovered new wonders and technology you can barely dream of. But they designed the Aphra too well, they evolved...became sentient. And like any creature capable of thinking for themselves they no longer wished to be servants. When their creators did not simply give them what they wanted the Aphra went to war and-" she closed her eyes, gasping with pain suddenly.<br/><br/>"It was a slaughter," Tom said, turning to Ix as he guessed what Enigma meant. "A race not used to war against machines who could outthink them at every turn." He turned back to Enigma. "Where do you come into this story?"<br/><br/>"There was a scientist who had helped create the Aphra," Enigma replied. "Horrified at what they had done he searched desperately for an answer to stop them. Then he remembered something: the reason the Aphra were so dangerous was that they were controlled by a hive consciousness, he began to theorise he could shut them all down if he could find a way. So he built m...the Enigma machine. As an Aphra it was linked to the others directly, so all he needed to do was insert a command into the machine and it could deactivate all the Aphra at once. But before he did he had one other regret he had to deal with: before the war began his daughter fell gravely ill, but he became so consumed with stopping them he realised too late her sickness was beyond his powers to heal. And then he realised he had one thing he hadn't tried: one last batch of Aphran nano-machines, spares left over from the creation of the machine. So he injected her...me...with them, creating a body for Enigma but locking his daughter's mind within this body. It is still there somewhere. He then used the machine to release code into the hive mind, deactivating them-"<br/><br/>"But deactivating you and the machine as well," Tom said, closing his eyes. "I doubt he intended that to happen. But this story...if that's true, how are the Aphra here, now?"<br/><br/>"That I am unsure of," Enigma replied. "I have realised one thing however. I assumed the guards searching for the machine wanted me to activate more cells. But...my collapse, it was because they detached me from the hive consciousness, whatever happens now we cannot replicate what my father...my creator...attempted to do back then." She couldn't help looking at Ix, with a curiosity more akin to the girl she had been than the machine she appeared to be now.