Having made very sure he would not be needed before noon, X was worried when he was startled awake when his internal timer said it was only a few seconds after nine fifteen. What was the emergency?
Zero was freaking out because he couldn't disconnect from X and the child was fluttering around in a tizzy with no idea what to do about his other parental figure being so upset. X was a little sharp, for X anyway, which consisted of saying that this wasn't good, and told Zero to calm down, stop worrying the baby, and meet them at Dr. Cain's.
He then proceeded to reassure the child that Zero was not angry at X and the child had certainly not destroyed their friendship by accident. Then he got dressed in his normal armor, finally found something large enough for the child to wear since his armor was dinged up and civilian clothes would help distinguish him from Zero, and headed for the lab, comming ahead to tell Dr. Cain when they would arrive.
"No, that's not it! Still, I can't shut it down!" Zero was exclaiming at Dr. Cain frantically when they walked in. "I can limit the intensity, but since he wants me there and it's so damn nice that most of me is holding on with both fists, I can't convince myself to pry myself loose!" He was pacing across the room and back, full of the need to do something about this but unable to figure out what. "Damn it! Sleep just made the sensitivity worse since I had less other input to focus on, and my higher brain functions being off let automatic systems be authorized to deal with easily solved problems. Now we have a major problem." He made a calming gesture at the child over his shoulder. "X was right, I'm not angry at you, I'm angry at myself for losing control like this."
"The only difference I can detect is that you're accepting data on the conscious level from a mostly inactive transmitter/receptor function. I have their results from when they came in yesterday, and I'll scan them again right now." Once this was accomplished, X helping the child with the scanner again, Dr. Cain and X went over the results.
This was one of those many times that the inability to fully scan X became truly annoying. The child was easier. "He's got full control over that function, but it works nowhere near as well, mostly due to the fact he has little processing power assigned to it. He has to divert extra to do anything with it, but has no problem with being passive in a link. Is that right?"
"I don't mind this. It's very nice." More than nice. The child loved this. Without the helmet keeping his hair in Zero's trademark ponytail he looked even younger. The one-size-fits-all t-shirt X had been given at a concert he'd attended featuring twentieth century music that had recently been rediscovered looked like it had been fingerpainted on, which didn't help matters either. At least the child, and Zero, were thin enough X's pants fit, although it looked like the child had recently had a growth spurt. Blue jeans were very non-Zero.
"The kid is sunbathing while we adults are tearing our hair out. Kids these days." Zero made sure the still-nameless kid knew he was just making a joke.
"X is using a little more processing power than usual, but he's so efficient at using his large systems I doubt it will have any effect whatsoever. No virus in any of you, nothing except one amazingly secure data link. I have absolutely no idea what frequencies this is using. If it is at all. This worked through HQ's walls, which contain a very thick layer of lead. I don't even know if it's possible to block it unless I can figure out how it works." Looking up at them Cain asked, "Zero, are you sure you can disconnect if it becomes a problem?"
"Sure." Not an issue. "So how do we make it enough of a problem that I'll be able to disconnect?"
"I have no idea."
"Great." Zero turned to them. "What do we do?"
"The child needs a name and a makeover."
Zero had been hoping for something along the lines of a plan, but a distraction would do if there wasn't one. "Great. Let's head over to Douglass'. Clothes later, safety first. I'm training the kid, X. You're too soft, and I did a good job with you, didn't I?"
So they headed out. "Mini Me?" was Zero's first suggestion.
"He's taller than I am." No. " He does look like you. I think if we could find a name that both hinted at that and described who he is as himself as distinct from you that would be good. Because," X explained to the child, "Unless you decide you want a very serious redesign, people are going to look at you and think of Zero, and it would be helpful to make it clear from the introduction that you are similar but at the same time your own unique person. What do you think?"
"That sounds good." The child bowed to his experience.
"One?" The main things Zero cared about were armor, training, and the practical aspects of keeping the kid alive, but he was perfectly willing to help brainstorm.
"That would be a very good 'one!' It's the number that comes after Zero, but it's almost the opposite of it. Zero means nothing while one is a very definite something. There is one of you, not two Zeroes. We all seem to like it, but let's keep thinking in case we come up with something better. I was thinking of looking at my thesaurus for words like 'null' that mean something similar to Zero and starting from there, but I don't know about that now."
"It just seemed like an obvious choice. It's not like I put much thought into it." Shrugging, Zero dismissed X's praise for his idea.
"Obvious is good."
"I'd like if we could use One for now." The child's suggestion was slightly timid, but his, One's, hunger for a name and identity was clear.
"Okay, One. That's fine. Just keep in mind that you can change it anytime you want to. Dr. Light expected me to change mine. He just called me X so I would have a name, but X is to names what Zero is to numbers. It's a placeholder. People who didn't know how to write would sign with X, so it's a name that can mean any name."
"So why didn't you change it?" One asked.
"Well," X thought for a moment before explaining that, "I got used to it, so it would be odd to hear something else now. People know me by it too, so to them it doesn't just mean the letter: they hear it and think of me. He thought I would grow out of it but it grew with me. Not to mention that it reminds me of him. It's nice that he put so much thought into it. It's very different from the names for robots, for example. They usually had functional names or musical ones. I like music, but he picked a name that embodied his hope that I could choose who I became. That means a lot. So I know you like this name because Zero and I are giving it to you, but I want to put some thought into it, because with gifts that's what counts."
"You have to get used to X, he always worries too much." Zero waved off X's concerns. "He, well, you know what he's like. He's so careful and considerate he agonizes about everything. It's just a name, X. You're not going to hurt him with it unless you went for something really stupid."
"You're going to put a lot of thought into what kind of armor he should use, right? Because that will be important to helping him protect himself? It has to be appropriate for his fighting style?"
"X, a name isn't ar-Okay, I get your point." If psychology played a role in virus resistance, they were going to have to start taking it more seriously. "X, it's one thing to say I told you so. This attitude that you being right is unremarkable is, is, the zen of arrogance. It makes everyone else feel stupid and immature." There was a brief pause as Zero felt X's reaction to this. "Yes, I know you don't want people to feel that way, and you admit it when you're wrong, the point is that you're a saint and it's making the rest of us look bad so no, don't stop it, just…" Zero looked at One for support.
"I like the way X is."
Zero threw up his hands. "Forget I said anything. You're too purehearted and you're too innocent to get it."
After taking Zero's advice, X realized something.
"What is it now, X?" My, Zero was grumpy.
"Zero and One! Binary!" Perfect!
Zero wondered what he had done to get himself stuck with two such happy, shiny people. If this was one of those old cartoons they'd have hearts in their eyes. Too freaking cute. He was going to have to corrupt the kid quick, or his adoration of X would have terrible consequences. Terrible.
To add insult to injury, X was being all, of course you don't mean that, and he did, damn it.
It was really hard to have an argument with people who genuinely care about your opinion and input, unless you were an utter jerk and it took one hell of a bastard to say untrue things just to hurt X.
How could you win against someone who thanked you genuinely for correcting them if they were wrong about something? X failing to grasp the concept of keeping score made Zero have the worrying feeling that he was losing.
And no, X, you can't give me your points so I can win if I want to. It doesn't work that way.
It was impossible to cut someone down to size if they didn't have any arrogance in the first place and X should be really arrogant so people felt like there was a need to. Or something. Damn it, X, stop worrying about it!
"Having a rough day, Zero?" Douglass peered over the counter.
"One of my own logic processors thinks I'm a paranoid idiot who wants to cut my nose off to spite my face and my clone is in danger of turning into another X. I need armor and weaponry stat, best stuff you've got. We need to lure One here away from fluffy bunnies with things that go boom. Or slice. Oh, and Sigma'll probably be after him, so as top grade as you can get the budget for given that we're going to have to do some trial runs before finalizing the design."
"Can't we just use your armor as a stopgap?" Authorizing expensive drafts was hell.
"Douglass, I am a close combat specialist and one of the three best fighters on the face of the earth. One here was born the day before yesterday and his best strategy against a maverick would be to run away." Are you nuts?
Yeah, he should have thought of that. Looking like Zero didn't mean he was Zero. "Standard training armor then, maybe?"
"No, run up the design for the old hacker subclass. The design's outdated as all hell, though, so I want something first class ready for emergencies yesterday. Run through whatever you want, I promise Cain'll sign off on it."
"Hacker?" Douglass looked it up. "It's on file. Man, you were right, this is outdated. I'll swap the alloy and…"
"No tweaks! Just have the machines crank it out and use that head time on the design for the draft. As soon as we get that armor we'll head over to the testing area and get some combat data to use for it." Zero made a cutting off motion.
"Zero…"
"Improve the design later, it's a good design and we need a new distance combat class. The kid's the problem now." And that was an order.
"Is he going to be joining the Hunters?" That was the big question. They needed more immune people. That was the question in the eyes of all the people who stopped what they were doing to watch the three of them pass by in the halls.
"Douglass, given that he seems to be imprinting on X like a baby chick and I'm the one providing the closest he'll get to a voice of sanity, probably. Right now, though, he's our best clue to the secret of immunity and Sigma's..." Zero felt X's mental nudge and reworded what he was about to say to avoid scaring One even more. "Not happy about him switching sides instead of attacking X and wants him for some evil plot or another. I'll teach him to kick ass later: right now we're going to be focusing on surviving and evading capture, you got me?"
"Loud and clear. Punching it up now… man, Hacker class is customizable. Know what you want? I'll have to look up what some of these options are."
"Yeah, I'm a lot of the reason that class got shut down, so I was involved when they were trying to find a way to get around my security. Good thing too, since the mavericks eloped with the data on why hacker attacks didn't work on me as an irregular and now they don't work on anybody. He's not going to want any actual hacker gear, so select post-customization under 'rig,' that's for adding it later."
"That opens up another window."
"Put in all the pro-speed, health, and shield options you can in place of the gear. If you don't recognize it, assume you don't want it."
"Gotcha."
Zero signed. "The camo back then's useless now, so don't bother. Select the shield instead. Color… rookie green. Hard to confuse that with me on a battlefield. Though I hope like hell we won't have to use this scrap for real. Body type's the same as me, but he doesn't have all my fancy stuff, so don't assume something's there. That should do it for now. Get Cain's data on him and get to work. I'll get on combat data acquisition now. Oh, his name's One." Zero had never been good with the rules of politeness. "One, Douglass; Douglass, One."
One waved and Douglass smiled and waved back. "Nice to meet you."
Done with placating X, Zero resumed the important stuff. "Send it over to training area 6-1, I think. I'll start on unarmored even though, One, if you know what is good for you, you will not, under any circumstances, let me catch you out of your armor. I know X sleeps naked…"
"Zero! I do not sleep naked!" Outraged, X blushed furiously.
"You wear human clothing, so you might as well me." No more irrelevant interruptions! "One, you are not letting him teach you his bad habits. Do I make myself clear!"
One nodded, blushing even more than X.
"I am not hearing an answer." Zero pointed to his ear.
"Yes, sir?" One attempted to guess the right response, and got it first try.
"Exactly." Zero nodded sharply. "In training, I am not your prototype, I am your commanding officer. You will do what I say or I will not be nice." Sensing an exchange, Zero elaborated. "No, I won't be mean just for the hell of it, but if you don't work hard and do what I tell you to you will die, or worse. So I will do whatever I have to in order to make sure you live. I am going to work you very hard. I made X come the closest to whining he ever has."
"Zero will make you work hard, and he won't settle for anything less than your best," X confirmed. Whining. Indeed. "So just do your best, and remember he's doing it because he wants you to stay safe, and you'll be fine."
"I will," One promised them both, relieved.
"Damn it, X, I was trying to intimidate him." Le sigh.
X was utterly unrepentant, leaving Zero to wonder why he even tried.
Douglass cleared his throat, something that was even more obviously an attempt to get someone's attention in a reploid. "Weaponry?"
"Standard buster. Period."
"But…" No cool toys?
"Douglass, the buster is built-in. He will always have it. That makes it far superior to anything that can be taken away, lost, or accidently left behind, as much as I adore the beam saber. He will master it, and then we can work on finding the ideal weapon for him and training him in it. But for now, it is not combat, it is survival. Standard buster." Period.
"I know the concept, Zero, it's just that it's Sigma after this kid, and I'd feel better if he had an ace in the hole." Douglass was a weapon and armor engineer: this was as basic as fitting the armor to the combatant's style.
"He has one…" Zero's voice trailed off. "If Sigma built him, he either doesn't have it or Sigma knows I have it. Damn. Yeah, he needs an ace, and I need a new ace. X, ask Cain about the Hydra Unit when you go see him, okay?" When X nodded, Zero turned back to Douglass. "Thanks for reminding me, but I'll work on this with Cain. It's not you, it's the virus."
"Yeah, I'm probably better off not knowing." What you didn't know they hopefully wouldn't try to infect you to find out.
"If it turns out he knows anyway, I'll tell you all about it. The Hydra's really freaking awesome. Sadly, it's also really freaking expensive to build and a pain in the ass to install. Since the kid's a rush job, he probably doesn't have it." Grimacing, Zero admitted that, "Yeah, I need to start thinking about alternatives right now. Damn it."
X wanted to ask, Zero assured him that he'd handle it. X accepted that, but would keep an extra eye on Zero since his combat readiness was potentially reduced. Zero was fine with that within reason. X assured him that he would be reasonable, and Zero's response was yeah, right.
One wanted to know if Zero would be okay and was reassured that Zero was competent and X was a very good mother hen.
"Is the Hydra's presence something Cain's scans should show already?" That was something that couldn't be asked via emotions. Zero's unique systems were scan-encrypted like X's were. Cain could scan his own designs along with most other modern ones very easily, but most of the information he got from Zero was via the copy of Cain's OS that had been installed in Zero when he was brought in. Actually, since Cain had spent years studying X, Zero was the least well understood reploid alive, as this whole thing demonstrated.
"I don't know what everything Cain did to the kid was, but probably. He managed to tell that One and I were both running the same one of those 'don't know what it does and no clue how it works' things. You know technical stuff makes my smile and nod autopilot activate. You were a happy lab rat: I was not."
"While they were trying to figure out your immunity?" X and Zero looked at each other and then at the clueless newbie. Man, they were getting younger and younger.
"No, that was pretty much in and out since people were dying and Cain's a good guy. Oh hell." Zero's whole body slumped. "They're going to want to run more tests now."
X patted Zero on the shoulder. "When he was brought in, there was some discussion of taking him apart since he wasn't sentient at that point. If Cain's replacement OS hadn't worked Zero wouldn't be here now. A lot of the hunters back then…" How to explain this to Douglass? "In the old days, deaths were rare, and Zero wiped out about two units just of Hunters. A lot of people died, and a lot of people wanted something done about it. Since we never managed to ID Zero's builder to press charges, they didn't have a deserving target." It was shameful how they had taken it out on Zero, but X still felt sympathy for their grief.
"Oh." Douglass was amazed. "I mean, I knew about that, but I didn't think of what they thought at the time. It's just so different now. Zero's a hero to all of us."
"There's been a lot of changeover." Despite the lack of old enmity, Zero wasn't happy about all the deaths. "I wake up and I know practically none of you. Sadly, units being wiped out isn't that rare now, but imagine if Sigma got cured? That's about how it was back then."
"Compared to Sigma, you did practically nothing!" The comparison was outrageous to Douglass.
"Yeah, but compared to the Irregulars before me I did one hell of a lot. Things were better then." Regret, nostalgia, various sorrows were dismissed with a shrug. Oh, wait. "Sigma ran off with all the experienced commanders and I died. Who's in command of the military side? I just woke up, got gear from you, got briefed by Dr. Cain, and headed out. Who am I supposed to report to?"
"Dr. Cain, or X I guess." Douglass shrugged. "It's been sort of scrambling here, and they're immune."
"X and Cain." What the hell were they thinking.
"We were working on identifying officer candidates," X explained, "but Sigma did a very good job both times identifying and killing or infecting anyone effective. As long as the virus keeps stealing all our good military commanders…" there was no way they could become an organized force again.
"You two have done a great job!" X and Dr. Cain had saved the world, after all. Douglass would hear nothing against them.
"By the skin of our teeth." X clearly wished he could confirm Douglass' faith in them, but it wasn't realistic. "Dr. Cain's a brilliant scientist, but he's not a strategist. I'm a good fighter, thanks to Dr. Light's designs and Zero's training, but I can't figure out the enemy's plans very well and in the end I'm only one person. All Sigma would have to do is get lucky once. That's why getting you back was so vital, Zero. Do you think you could command now? We really need you." Desperately.
There was so much hesitation in Zero's face. "It's clear I don't have to deal with being hated now, but that wasn't the only reason I refused command. I need to talk to Cain, and maybe all this will have sorted some of it out, and I might be the best we've got. I'm fine with training a new officer cadre. Command I'm not sure about. I mean, before I was the most likely to go nuts, and now I'm the least? Not to mention I've been dead for ages and need to play serious catch-up. Training sessions, sure. Really not sure about command."
"I'll talk with Dr. Cain. You might be even more valuable as a trainer than as a commander." X didn't know if the death toll would improve anytime soon, and he knew Zero's teachings would at least give the trainees the same fighting chance X had. Except that he was built by Dr. Light and they hadn't been. If only they knew the secrets of X's design.
"The armor set will be done in two hours," Douglass announced after a few seconds of silence. "I rushed it in the queue, but we've got a lot of new gear needed yesterday. Thank goodness no one ever got around to taking the templates out of the autoforge. Wait a minute, three hours?" Douglass peered at the screen as the time reset itself. "Oh, great timing for that model redesign to finally get processed! They have to shut the autoforge down for awhile to switch out the molds, and then do test runs… Wait, they do a test on every basic template, and hacker's still a basic… Hour and a half. Your set'll be part of the test run, One."
"That quick?" Zero was amazed. "I was expecting at least five hours. Can you let us into the armory, then? I want to show One some of the toys he could be getting if he does well in school."
"Sure, let me buzz you in. You should have a passcard for it, though."
"They gave X all my stuff and I'm no longer in the system. Nasty side effects of death."
"I'll get to work on that," X promised. "I think I'll go see Cain now, then. Com me if something I need to know about comes up."
"Sure. Bye, X."
"Goodbye." One waved hesitantly.
"Goodbye Zero, One. I'll come right away if you need me, so don't worry." X hugged One briefly. You're not abandoned, and we'll still be in touch.