An android wearing black stepped on sand. She stopped. She'd reached the end of the tree canopy's shadows.
She called over her shoulder, "Anemone. The beach."
Behind her, Anemone was watching her step in the eucalyptus forest. She looked up, then past A2, at the sand. She looked at A2.
She squinted. "Yeah, A2. It's the beach. Something wrong?"
A2 pointed. "The sand is slippery. I don't want you to fall again."
Anemone smirked. Then she mellowed out, and her smile was of appreciation. She took A2's hand.
"That was a thousand years ago," she noted.
A2 studied her smile, then returned it. "Yeah. I guess it was."
Together, they stepped into the light of the present. They walked until the sand was moist, where the pacific rushed up to meet them, to tickle their toes and retreat.
They set down lawn chairs and stretched out to idle. Anemone wrapped her emerald cape over her clothes, and tucked her hood low, to avoid the sun. On the topic of fashion, she glanced at A2.
"I don't want to say anything rude…" she suggested.
A2 looked down at herself, at the exposed chassis where her armor plates had blasted loose.
She asked, "What?"
"Look, A2, you've been wandering around mostly naked for a thousand years."
"Yes."
Anemone frowned. Picking her battles, she sighed, "Never mind."
She flipped open a book. A2 stared at the sun. It never moved. The tide never changed. The passage of time was reflected only by Anemone, the slow rhythm set by her flipping pages- and inside of A2, in a subroutine called Circadian Executable.
She switched it off. Then Anemone broke her own rhythm, flipping back twenty pages. They drifted without reference until A2's thoughts pulled her back to Earth. She looked down from the Sun and asked, "Anemone. Why do you read?"
"I want to find the purpose of Mankind."
In an instant, A2's thoughts blossomed across her processors. Electrical bolts of inspiration hyper-threaded her cores. Anemone always did this to her with the simplest of sentences.
A2 shook her head. "Anemone, Mankind doesn't need purpose. We need purpose. And Mankind assigns it to us."
Anemone smirked. Her finger rested in the book, at the start of a sentence.
She said, "I think I found it."
A2 smiled and lay back on her lawn chair. "Okay then. Read it to me. I like your voice."
So Anemone did. "Forty-Four. The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field. Forty-Five. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. Forty-Six. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it."
She looked to A2, for her reaction.
A2 asked, "What are pearls?"
Anemone turned back to her book and shrugged, "I don't know. Too bad we don't have one of those pods here."
"I can't stand YoRHa pods."
"But they know so much."
"Too much."
The thought was interrupted by a distant shout. "2B! I found the beach!"
They turned to look.
"Oh look," Anemone pointed, "9S brought Pod 042."
A2 scowled. "Shit."
The pod waved. Anemone waved back and held up her book.
A2 stood and walked away. "I'll be with Jackass," was her goodbye.
As A2 left, Anemone frowned at her back. Then she smiled at 9S and waited for him to arrive.
He reached her side and cast a lazy salute. "How's the resistance?"
She yawned, "Right now I'm just resisting a nap."
9S recorded the emote. In another life, he would have shared it with 21O.
He gestured to her book. "This one any good?"
"Not sure yet. I can't figure out what it's about. I was hoping your Pod could help me."
042 finally caught up, his slow hover decelerating to a rest beside 9S. "Good morning, Anemone."
"Good morning, Pod 042. And… Uh…"
Anemone looked to 9S' side.
Her mouth hung open.
She politely tried, "Hello, 2B. That's, uh… Quite the outfit."
9S stiffened. "Y-yeah. That's what I said."
2B stated, "This is traditional human garb for visiting a beach."
Pod 153 hovered to a stop over her shoulder, likewise dressed in a bikini. It gestured to Pod 042.
"Suggestion: Pod 042 should assist Anemone with symbolic interpretation while Pod 153 proceeds to collect fish."
Pod 042 gave two thumbs up and agreed, "Suggestion accepted."
Out in the shallows, 9S and 2B reclined against holographic kickstands. The hard light shimmered where it held their weight. Conversation was a difficult thing to pull from 2B, so they were silent while Pod 153 bobbed in the water.
9S tried, "We should do more things."
2B answered, "You keep saying that."
"It's important to have fun."
"You keep saying that, too."
"Do you agree, though?"
"Anything we do is meaningless. Ascribing adjectives like 'fun' is futile."
"Do you mean you aren't having fun?"
He waited for an answer. She thought. Waves passed.
She answered, "I am bored when I am fishing. When the Pod catches a fish, I feel a sense of accomplishment. When I eat a fish, I feel satisfaction. It goes away after I have the fish. No greater purpose is served. The ritual lacks meaning. It repeats endlessly, without significance."
9S tried, "Then we should do something else. Do you think we should read? You know, like Anemone and A2 do?"
"You can," 2B monotoned.
"Yeah, I know. But Anemone and A2 read… Together. Do you want to… You know?"
"What?"
"Do you want to read together?"
"How would that work?"
"Well, one of us would read the book out loud. Or we could sit next to each other and read at the same time."
He waited for an answer, and his suggestion was weathered away by the waves.
2B finally said, "I see numerous logistical problems with that arrangement. For starters- one moment."
She held up a finger. She retched. Her throat massaged fish bones up to her mouth, and she spit them into the water. 9S pulled another fish from his pocket and offered it to her. She sucked it down and continued.
"For starters, we could procure data from books much faster by syncing with Pod 042."
"Yeah, but it's not about reading the book. It's about doing it together. You know, enjoying each other's company."
"Oh."
He waited for more.
She said, "That's stupid."
"Why?"
"Because fishing together is already fun."
She smiled at him. Now it was 9S who couldn't talk. Pod 042 came to cover for him.
"Hello, unit 9S. Are you ready to begin fishing?"
"Yeah. You know what? No. You've been helping Anemone read a book, right?"
"Affirmative. The Book of Matthew, from a codex called The Book, King James Version. Anemone was specifically interested in chapter thirteen. Verses Forty-Four to Forty-Six."
"Okay. Cool. Synchronize the data to myself and 2B."
"Synchronizing. Complete."
2B snapped, "This is nonsense."
"Yeah, I'm a little confused," 9S admitted.
Pod 042 explained, "The Book is a collection of allegories, metaphors, and symbols, meant to be understood by humans."
"Reading is stupid," 2B decided.
9S asked, "What's a pearl?"
"A pearl is a gemstone found within an oyster."
2B asked, "And humans valued pearls more than everything else?"
"If I understand the text correctly, which I am not fully equipped to do, then Pearls were valued more than life itself. And, by extension, so was the kingdom referred to in the passage."
2B remembered aloud, "Those machine lifeforms died for their kingdom. For their king. It gave them meaning."
9S had more insight. He didn't share, but he had a fragmented memory of the machine lifeform Simone. She had sought and found a blue gem that she valued more than her identity. He thought, what if there was such a thing to humanity? And wouldn't its value then be obvious to 2B? Wouldn't it remove that crisis of triviality vexing everyone?
2B was frowning at him.
He turned back to Pod 042. "So a pearl comes out of an Oyster. What's an Oyster?"
The Pod pointed to their feet. "That is an oyster."
They looked down. A dead mollusk had been carried in by the waves. They looked at each other. Anemone's feet splashed in the waters as she approached. She'd heard. The gravity of the moment kept them all quiet. She gulped in trepidation.
"So…" 9S asked, "If we open that, we get what humans treasured most?"
"Better to leave it closed," 2B said.
"It's better to know the truth," 9S argued.
He looked to Anemone for support. "Right?"
She didn't answer. She and 2B traded a knowing glare, then turned on him. 9S crouched and picked up the shell. He turned it over in his hands. He looked up at them.
"You guys are doing that thing again. Every time I get curious about something, you shut me down."
2B looked scared. She said, "Nines. We don't need to open the shell."
"C'mon, Toobs. Aren't you curious?"
Anemone hugged herself. Staring at the oyster, she muttered, "Curiosity killed the cat."
"What can you really find in there?" 2B asked.
9S gestured to his Pod. "The thing humans valued most?"
"And what if it isn't as good as we think it is?"
"What if it is?"
"How much is that risk worth to you, Nines?"
"What do you mean?"
"If that damn oyster wasn't here, we could be fishing together. But you want to throw it all away on something we can't do together! Put the oyster back, 9S."
He wasn't expecting an outburst. He looked to Anemone. She'd drawn her mouth into a thin line, as if holding back two opinions. She was staring at the oyster. But she took a step away. He looked at the oyster. He looked back to 2B.
"It's worth… I don't care what the pearl's worth to me, 2B. I just want to know that it's there."
"And what if it isn't?"
"I just want to know. It's not a big deal, 2B."
There was a lot for her to scream in that moment. She swallowed her emotions.
Anemone offered, "It can't do any harm, 2B."
She snapped back, "It always starts this way."
"Well…"
Anemone turned back to 9S, "Are you gonna' open it or not?"
He looked back at the oyster.
He decided, "Not yet," and stored it in his pocket.