Disclaimer: Still own nothing.
AN: I had fun writing this chapter. So much fun, mostly because it deviates so far from the norm. And because it tickles that little fancy I have for villains.
He was a survivor. 7 knew that. He was clever—he could hide, and he could fight, and he could…
He left to die. He was never going to hide.
"No," she muttered to herself, shaking the thought out of her head. She wasn't going to believe that. She was going to find him. She was going to find him and save him and then make him sorry he put her through all this. And then someday, a long time from now, she'd bring it up again and they might laugh about it. They might call it a grand adventure.
He just had to be alive. He just—tracks.
Not her tracks. Or his. They were huge, like shallow craters.
She knew these tracks. They belonged to the biggest, most evil, most terrifying beast that could possibly exist. The Machine.
It took longer to reach the First Room than 9 remembered. Probably because the last trip there had been a matter of life and death, and this time he was inclined to walk, thank you very much. Or because he was being followed by a monster that took one step for every twenty of his. Or it might have had something to do with the fact that his leg hurt and the Machine got irritated every time he stopped to rest.
The Machine wasn't the most pleasant companion, he discovered, even when it wasn't trying to kill him.
The resulting journey took half a day before they reached the building that housed the First Room. What little support it once had was already starting to erode away—the bare beams looked thinner, more fragile.
A new problem occurred to 9: the Machine was huge. Not just in a frightening way, not just to him and the others, but even compared to the human world. Its central orb couldn't possibly fit through the doorway that led to the room, and even if it could its weight would easily collapse the crumbling building.
But that was only the first problem. He didn't even want to think about what the Machine would do once it learned about the Scientist.
"He's in there," 9 said, pointing at the ruined building. "The top room with the window." He sat down, rubbing his sore leg, while the Machine climbed a pile of rubble. On top of the pile and stretching out its gigantic legs, the huge central orb found itself level with the open window. For a while it looked around, and then sank back down to stare at him.
WHERE?
The moment of truth.
"Under the papers," he said. "On the floor."
It took exactly two and a half seconds for the meaning of his words to sink in—two and a half seconds before it sprang to its full height with a violent jolt. The rubble pile groaned and crumbled beneath its feet, but the Machine didn't seem to care. Its arms tore at the ruined walls, covering it and the room inside with a cloud of pulverized plaster. Minutes later the dust settled and the Machine was clearly visible. It simply stood there, still and silent, a single lifeless form cradled in its metal arms.
9 knew it was the Scientist—it couldn't possibly be anyone else—but it didn't look like him anymore. Decay had finally reached his body, and already he resembled the blackened corpses that littered the streets. The only features left to identify him were his tattered clothes and a few tufts of gray hair, yet somehow the Machine had no problem recognizing him. It held his body tenderly—there was no other way to describe it—against its orb and closed its iris.
It was mourning him.
For a long while 9 watched in silence, leaving the Machine to its grief. He could leave if he wanted to. He knew it wouldn't look for him for a few hours at least. But something held him back—a vein of anger that slithered through him. No. Not anger. Fury.
The Machine had killed 5 and 2 and 1 and 6 and 8. It had killed off every plant, every animal, every living human. And only now it decided to feel sorry? After murdering an entire world, it decided to feel bad about the death of one man? It was sick.
Worse, it wasn't fair.
"I don't know what you were expecting to find," he said, his voice suddenly acidic. "Your bombs, your gas—you killed all the humans, remember?"
An arm slowly scratched at the nearby rubble.
HE WASN'T HUMAN
"You know that's a lie."
HUMANS ARE EVIL
HE WASN'T HUMAN
"Is that how you justify it?" He laughed bitterly. He wanted to hurt this thing—this awful, horrible, genocidal monster. He wanted to tear it apart inside and out. He didn't care if it killed him for it. "You want to know something? Those people you murdered had lives. They had families and friends and people who loved them and you wiped them out. You destroyed everything that was good in this world."
I MADE IT QUIET
"You made it dead. You killed everything you could get a hold of. My friends. My family." He could feel it draining away now that he'd uttered the words; slowly the rage leaked out of him and left him feeling hollow and cold.
YOU HATE ME
Its iris hadn't opened, it hadn't lowered the Scientist's body. It hadn't moved at all, except that single arm, yet somehow it seemed smaller than before. Weaker.
"Yes." The word tasted like poison in his mouth.
YOU HATE ME
WHY DID YOU WAKE ME UP?
It was the question he had been asking himself for weeks. It had plagued him and gnawed at him and left him hollow inside, and always he had come up without an answer. Just 'because I have to'.
"Because you're the only one I could bring back," he said quietly, knowing it was true. "Not 5 or 2 or 6, not the Scientist, not anyone—just you. So I had to."
For a long time it didn't reply. It returned to its stillness for what seemed an eternity. Finally the iris opened and it turned to look at him.
WHAT NOW?
Of all the places to go for answers. 9 sighed.
"Now we bury him."