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The Self-Assembler Saga
by viggen
Part 1: It's Not My Name
The first few moments of her life were spent crashing through a rusted roof and wondering at the receding sky on the way down. The ragged hole grew smaller in those split seconds, as if she had been born from the tainted blue beyond. When she smacked to the ground with a cloud of dust, the resulting daze stemmed less from injury and more from the state of mental confusion. Her brow puckered, she lay sprawled on her back trying to wrap her mind around the event.
"AR-11," someone cried in alarm, "Please report."
AR-11? The name didn't ring any significant bells. Several names passed through her apprehension, Yoko, Alita, various others, but not AR-11. She looked around where she lay, searching for whoever had called her that.
The building was a skeleton, its sheet-metal roof tumbling down from rust. Old factory machines, probably hundreds of years in disuse, accumulated the filth of generations. Towering collections of rubble filled the broken warehouse and pools of tepid water sat between them. Near where she lay, the body of a former cyborg, human parts since decayed, huddled in an ancient lean-to at a long extinguished fire.
"AR-11," the female voice repeated, growing more panicked by the word, "what is your condition? Please respond!"
Alita -she suddenly knew her name with certainty- sat slowly. Her cloak was torn and she had no weapon. She remembered holding a large Damascus steel butterfly knife, but it was nowhere to be found. Beneath her hip was a crushed rifle of some sort, but she'd never seen the like before. "Who are you?" she asked aloud, hoping to draw the hysterical woman out.
"You're there, thank God!" the voice said, as if standing right next to her, "For a second, I thought Chief Biggott was going to have my head!"
"Who are you?" Alita demanded, slowly standing up. She squinted into the gloom in search of the voice. "Why are you calling me that name?"
"AR-11," the woman sounded stunned for just a moment, "what are you saying? Is there something wrong with your system?"
"I don't know what you're talking about! Who are you?" Alita growled, "Come out where I can see you!"
"AR-11, you mean..." the woman's words quivered, "You mean you don't remember?"
"Remember what?" Alita shook her head, trying to dredge up something. Anything. "My name's Alita? Where's-.." she struggled, striking out for the first person to hit her tongue, "Where's Lou?"
The woman seemed aghast, "Your memory... it must've been when..." she broke off. "AR-11, what's the last thing you remember?"
Alita turned around slowly, trying to fathom her situation. It was finally clear to her that this woman was someplace else, somehow. She tried to remember, but everything was a blur. She remembered Lou and pieces of a man named Figure -kind of. She remembered a box, remembered opening it with her own two hands to see... The last thing she remembered... "Daisuke's dead!" She cried aloud, her throat constricting.
"AR-!"
"Dr. Ido's dead!" she ran in a circle, both hands pressed to her head. It hurt soooo much! She fell to the ground panting, "...where... where's Nova? I'm going to kill that bastard!"
"Calm down AR-11..."
"My name is Alita!" she screamed at the top of her voice.
"Okay," the woman responded meekly, "please listen to me. You have to calm down."
"He's Dead!"
"Calm down and listen to me," the woman persisted, "just listen for a minute."
"He's.." Alita croaked, pulling herself into a fetal position in the dust.
"This isn't you! You're remembering things that aren't you!"
"...not me..." Alita repeated around a leaden tongue.
"Yes," the woman told her, "I don't know what's going on, but there's something wrong with your memory."
"Th- there's nothing wrong with my memory," Alita protested softly. "Who're you?"
"My name's Kate, I'm your controller. You work for the GIB."
"I don't remember..." Alita shook her head, more confused than placated.
"These things you're remembering happened years ago, to somebody else," Kate continued. "It was A-1 who saw Doctor Ido die. Those aren't your experiences."
"He was dead. I remember him..." Alita stumbled. Why couldn't she remember? Her memories were her own! Weren't they?
"You're AR-11, and we've worked together for a while now. You -must- remember something about me."
"I'm Alita," she protested weakly, "I know I'm Alita! I don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh God," Kate gasped, "Biggott really is going to kill me. There must be something there. You have to remember me!"
Alita touched her own face. Even though her insides hurt horribly, no tears came away on her gloved finger tips. It was not possible to cry with a face that made no tears. Daisuke Ido was dead, she had seen the proof. But, aside for that single haunting memory, her life was diluted into a smudge of incomprehensible shadows. "Why," she asked slowly, struggling to bring the gallows of fear and sorrow under control, "why do you keep calling me AR-11? That's not my name."
"Just try to remember," Kate pressed, "All AR units have a solid state recall in case of system crashes."
"I don't know anything about these damned AR-whatevers you keep talking about!" Alita screamed, "What in the hell is this?!"
Kate swallowed audibly, "You're AR-11, an elite Tuned agent working for the Tipharean GIB."
"Tipharean GIB?" Alita repeated. "Why don't I remember anything you're saying? Why don't I recognize this place or your voice or something? I don't even know how you're talking to me."
"We, both of us, you and I, work for the Ground Inspection Bureau," Kate told her, "And if you don't snap out of this, Chief Biggott's going to have my head and self-destruct yours."
Alita rolled onto her back to look straight up through the hole in the decrepid ceiling, "I don't believe you. How can you prove I'm not just crazy and imagining your voice. Maybe..." she floundered, "maybe after Daisuke died I went nuts and this is all a big dream."
"No, no, no, don't... I mean, I'm talking to you by radio," Kate continued, "It's built into your body so that Tuned agents can keep in contact with their controllers at all times. I've even got partial telemetry on your body and I can see some of what you see."
"A voice in my head has the same advantage," Alita said, "it doesn't prove a thing."
"But I can also tell you where you are and how to get out of that factory."
"Maybe a part of me remembers," Alita retorted, "maybe that part knows everything and my craziness made it into a figment of my imagination. And that's you."
"Dammit," Kate spat, "I can't keep arguing with you like this. This is the second thing screwed up today and if Biggott finds out, I've had it. You and I have to get back to work."
Not responding, Alita sat still, looking at her hands. One glove was torn. She pulled it off. The artificial fingers beneath were unlike any she'd seen before, sophisticated like the berzerker, but different. This body was not the one she remembered, not the one she wore when she held the box containing Daisuke Ido...
A distant peal of rolling thunder, like a storm on a spring afternoon, stirred the quiet of the deserted factory. Something far off rumbled, sending a plume of dust into the air. There were sounds, small ones, like jingling bells. Screams?
"This is really bad," Kate groaned, "we have no time to waste. It's coming toward the pipes again and the factory troops have already proven how ineffective they are. If you don't stop it, I don't know who will. AR-11, you have to try to remember."
"Please stop calling me that," Alita replied in exhaustion, "I don't understand and I don't remember."
"I wish the GIB had left the A-1 persuasion devices in the ARs," Kate moaned, "then I could get you moving, no problem. But now... is there any way I can convince you..? Least then Biggott won't care what happened... wait, I know!"
"What," Alita asked dryly, not certain she really wanted to find out.
"All that water there!" Kate happily cried, "look in one of those pools of water and tell me what you see!"
"Fine," Alita's eyes narrowed. On hands and knees, she stooped over a pool to take a look. Her face reflected back at her. She had the same dark, shoulder-length hair and reddish brown eyes as usual. Her lips were as pouty as ever. On her cheeks were the familiar metallic cheekbone insets she never did completely understand why she wore. There was also one final feature she did not know. As plain as day, in the middle of her forehead, was printed a large "11."
"You see that?!" Kate crowed, "That proves it! You're AR-11."
"I don't..." said Alita in shock. She didn't understand this AR stuff. Tipharean GIB? AR-series? Kate the controller? She splashed water onto her forehead with a cupped hand and tried to scrub the mark away. When it refused to disappear, she stuck her face into the pool and washed more vigorously.
"What do you think you're doing?" Kate demanded, "That's your ID mark, you can't wash it off. You're not Alita!"
Horror boiling up in her heart, she continued to wash. The fingertips of her gloveless hand cut scratches into her fake skin. The mark lay embedded underneath, untouchable.
"AR-11," Kate called to her, "we don't have time to waste."
"What have you done to me?" Alita continued assaulting the number. "This isn't me."
"You've got that right!" Kate agreed, "If it were you, we'd be down to business by now."
The forehead of her artificial face scratched and marred, but still reading "11," Alita sat back away from the water in a daze. "It's not my face. You changed it."
"It's the face you've always had."
"It's not mine."
"Accept it, you're not Alita," Kate intoned.
"I don't understand," the black haired girl with the "11" printed on her forehead said quietly. "If I'm not me, who am I?" What if this woman was telling the truth?
Ido was dead.
"You're an AR series automaton, built to be a full-time Tuned agent. You were designed with the very best combat programming available."
"What does that mean?"
"AR, it means Alita Replicant."
"Replicant?" Ido was dead. This had to be a dream.
"Alita was a fighting genius. Tiphares needed agents on the surface, so my boss recorded her skills and made the ARs."
With Ido dead, her mind had to be running wild. That was the only answer, "Recorded her skills..."
"Yes, you're a duplicate of Alita with her skills. You always knew that before this whole ordeal!" Kate said angrily, "If only you'd reset your memory like any other good, predictable machine!"
"I'm a copy," Alita mumbled softly.
"Now that we have that established," Kate exclaimed, "Do you think we can get down to business."
"I don't believe you," Alita laughed abruptly. "You're lying."
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to be continued