Click, clack, click, clack.

The sound of heels on reflective tile flooring. In time with a rhythm slightly too fast to be a comfortable walking pace, they echoed down the mostly empty halls of one of the Bunker's inner rings.

Click, clack, click, clack.

Short hair bouncing along to each side as she walked, individual clumps of messy strands blinked out of her eyes every few steps. A silvery blonde color to match the gold trim of her outfit. The tight leather of the operator's garb squeaking, stretching as she high-tailed it to her destination.

Click, clack, click, clack.

Down the halls she went.

( ) ( ) ( )

9S watched as the Bunker drew closer and closer. Still a tiny gray speck on the horizon as he burst through the atmosphere with an explosive roar, he tried hard to formulate a plan. He had one arm, was critically injured, and was fairly certain the flight unit's landing protocol was non-functional. He was angry, distressed, and shaken. Haunted.

He was a mess. If he could draw his sword fast enough upon entering the hangar, he could carve a path to the server room through anyone who stood in his way. There he could barricade himself in and directly interface with it, to execute the backdoor and let it do whatever it may to destroy the Bunker and everyone in it. Including himself. That would rid the world of YoRHa's control in one fell swoop.

Obviously, it wouldn't be that easy. Couldn't be. There were too many of them and only one of him. Going on a killing spree against trained soldiers would've been hard enough with two arms to grip his sword with, but in his current state it was a pipe dream. It was all he had to go on. Banking on chaos and luck yet again. He shook his head, watching the speck grow exponentially larger as he approached. If they had a lock on him already, he had no idea. It certainly wouldn't take long. God, how he hoped it'd be over soon.

( ) ( ) ( )

She was staring at her data pad, its dimly lit screen- brightness manually adjusted for comfort -practically overflowing with information. A constant, exhausting feed of everything she could need to know at a moment's notice. The outside temperature in the desert was 31 degrees celsisus. The humidity was, as usual, 0%. 2B and 9S had entered the sandstorm and lost contact forty-eight minutes and six seconds ago.

She looked again. Forty-eight minutes and seven seconds ago.

Now eight seconds.

She sighed. Pretending the waiting wasn't driving her stir-crazy was very much ineffective. It was an important mission for 9S: Send himself to kill himself. Just thinking about it made her brow form a hard line. What a horrible business it was. What a horrible way to go.

But she was still trying not to care too much. It was not in her job description to care, after all. She was to supervise and direct and nothing more. She was to avoid getting attached, and to avoid letting him get attached. For his own sake.

Unsuccessfully brushing her bangs out of her eyes with her free hand, she slowed to a stop in the middle of the hallway. She'd overheard a conversation several days prior- what 49O lacked in work ethic, she made up for with her lack of an inside voice. She'd been talking to her E-unit, assigned to the task of finishing off the previous iteration of 9S. Obviously, the team YoRHa sent had failed.

Shaking her head, she let her arm and the data pad drop to her side. She took a few steps toward the window and gazed out at the vast black expanse before her. It was a conflicting feeling. She'd seen him die over and over, and this time the prospect of NOT seeing it was affecting her. How would 9S react to killing himself? What would 2B's excuse be, or would she even bother coming up with one? Fresh copies of 9S' consciousness would believe anything she said. It was cute in a strange way.

The sky seemed particularly empty today, void of stars as if they'd turned their back on her. In reality it was just light pollution from the sun's beaming unmarred rays, but it felt somewhat poignant. There was nothing out there to see. Just pitch darkness. Another 9S snubbed out.

She brushed her bangs from her eyes again. Once more they fell right back in place. Frustration marked her features. No matter how many times she combed her fingers over her scalp, the strands always landed in exactly the same spot. An endless cycle of trying to keep her hair out of her face. Everything felt annoyingly metaphorical today. What a waste of her allotted break time.

With an annoyed grunt, she went to turn away from the window, but something caught her eye- a strange shimmering reflection somewhere far below the Bunker. An approaching flight unit from Earth, aglow and basking in the mirror sheen of the sun's light. A pure white specter blasting toward their little base like a rocket.

Operator 21O's heart sunk, but her chest remained tight. Her breath hitched. It had to be one of them, either 2B or 9S. The fact there was only one flight unit instilled a fear in her- the previous 9S had killed one of them, but which one? Who had fallen at his feet? She was unsure which would be worse: 2B returning alone, triumphant, or 9S returning alone, shattered. Having watched 2B die at his own hands. Of course, they weren't his own hands in the literal sense, but still... what did the previous 9S look like? Did he wear scars from fighting off the assassins? Had he changed his clothes? Was there fear in his eyes when they put him out of his misery?

21O's lower lip was trembling. She put a stop to it immediately by righting her posture. No emotional connection allowed. Not permitted. She would not let herself succumb to feelings at such a pivotal moment. Regardless of the outcome, 9S would need support in the ensuing days while he recovered from the experience. She was more than willing to provide, as long as it did not involve showing she cared for him even the tiniest bit. She was keenly aware she could not handle it.

She squinted at the flight unit as it continued its approach, trying to discern anything about its occupant from the way it flew. Straight as an arrow, at mach speed... almost too fast to be a safe approach to the hangar. Definitely so, actually. It was almost certainly 9S, then. He never bothered reading the requesite operational safety instructions before hopping right in. YoRHa technology was more than intuitive enough even for someone as excitable as he, but it still gave her just a little pinprick of annoyance whenever he took to the air without fastening the safety harness.

Turning away from the window for real this time, she began to stride back toward the command center. Her break was now over and if she didn't hurry she'd be late for her shift. With 9S assumedly returning to the Bunker, the Commander would want to debrief him, and she wanted to be there for it... to hear all of the details, whether they be painful to listen to or not.

However, she didn't get far before there was a dull rumble that shook the fluorescent lights strung overhead. A loud sound, practically explosive in nature, rang out through the halls as she wobbled on her heels.

21O put her hand on the window for support as she looked around, hoping to lock eyes with some other YoRHa unit, someone to meet her concerned gaze and reflect it. Anything to calm her sudden rising anxiety. The halls still stood empty. Instead, she glanced above at the lights, swinging back and forth gently like a pendulum as they returned to rest. Their gentle humming was thankfully quite soothing. She began walking once more, but not in the direction of the command center.

The quiet, polite voice of a fellow operator came over the intercom, and 21O broke into a sprint. "Impact in the hangar. Medical Team C, report to hangar, immediately. Repeat, Medical Team C to hangar."

( ) ( ) ( )

'Stupid lousy god damn no good useless landing protocol' was 9S' last thought before the flight unit punched through the slowly opening doors of the hangar like a bullet through sheet metal.

It seemed he'd damaged the core computer of the flight unit when he stuck the doppelganger to it like a shishkebab, and now he was paying the price for it. When he activated the landing protocol to dock with the hangar, nothing had happened. No error message, no manual control switchover, nothing. It was just stone-cold dead and sending him straight at the hangar doors before they could even open for him.

The magnetized floor of the hangar yanked the momentum from the flight unit immediately, sending it rolling along the ground with splinters of the hangar door in tow. He rattled around in its clutches, still stuck tight in his seat. It bounced and shook and skidded, accompanied by an ear-splitting metal scraping until it eventually shuddered to a stop, leaving a thick black skid mark and a ton of barreling smoke in its wake.

9S hit the floor face-down with a grunt of pain as the gauntlets let him free. His whole body was aching- his side especially -and this was not helping. So much for his heroic sacrifice, not that it was all that heroic to begin with. Whatever plan he might have had, it was gone now. With the flight unit on top of him, he'd have to wiggle his way out from underneath it, and he just didn't have the effort to spare for that right now. Let them take him, he didn't care at the moment. If they had their swords drawn when backup arrived then he'd draw his and whatever happened would happen.

"Son of a bitch..." He hissed angrily through clenched teeth. He tried to push onto his elbows but there just wasn't enough room. He couldn't reach his sword either, it was stuck in the flight unit's holster which was- again -currently facing the floor. He wouldn't be able to draw it even if he could get his hand on the hilt.

"Get it off of him. Go, c'mon, push!" He heard a voice from above and craned his neck, squinting to see past the twisted metal. The lights of the Bunker were bright, a hot white. He recognized the white coats and padded black shoulderpads of the station's on-site medical staff as a small gaggle of them surrounded the flight unit. He heard grunts, male and female, as they rolled the broken mech suit off of him. It clattered to the side with a loud thud, and then he was completely exposed.

"Oh, man, his arm." One of them said. Hushed noises of agreement were followed quickly by further questions.

"What happened to him? Where's 2B?"

"Why didn't he slow down?"

"Maybe the flight unit's systems crashed?"

"Maybe the door didn't open properly?"

"Is the Commander coming?"

"Can you hear me, 9S?"

He blinked awkwardly, trying to raise his head.

"9S? Can you hear me?" One of the members of the medical team was staring him straight in the face, crouched down with her hands on her knees. She wore a veil reminiscent of the standard operator outfit, and was craning her neck to try and catch his gaze.

"Anything?" Another member of the staff asked from beside her.

She stood with a shake of her head. "He's dazed, probably from the impact."

"Maybe something went wrong with the flight unit."

"Might be the missing arm." A third said. "I'll file a bug report with the flight unit development team."

"Do it later," the first officer said, "we need to get him to R&D and find out the extent of his injuries."

Panic coursed through 9S' veins then as a sense of awareness hit him. He'd accidentally caused the perfect distraction- the perfect excuse for him to be confused, in a haze, and unable to respond. All of those things were currently true, but he realized then that he had inadvertently created a cover story. But it would last about 5 seconds longer if they got him to R&D and started taking him apart.

An angry voice in the back of his mind was yelling at him. 'Do not let them take you, do not go into their custody! Get up!' But what was he to do? Spring into action, steal a sword, and start spinning like a top until they were diced to ribbons? He didn't have nearly the strength for that at the moment.

"Can he stand?" One of the officers asked.

"Let's find out. I'm going to pick you up, 9S, okay? Try to stand up." The woman in the veil knelt down beside him and hooked her arms under his, careful not to touch the frayed stump where there was once a forearm. He groaned uncomfortably as she grunted with effort, bringing him into a hunched over stance on his knees. The officer that'd asked the question came over then, and each of them took an arm, very carefully raising him to his feet.

Though 9S' legs felt like butter, he stood on his own without support when they gingerly released him. Wringing his wrist, he gormlessly looked around on wobbly legs. Four medical officers surrounded him, and a small crowd had gathered at the entrance to the hanger- no doubt gawking at the spectacle. He was sure he looked like absolute hell, like a man defeated. He certainly felt like it at the moment.

"I can..." 9S squinted and shook his head as a harsh whine entered his ears. Something had shaken loose and it was giving him a headache. "I'm fine. I can walk fine."

"He speaks!" One of the medical staff said. "Welcome back to the world of the living."

World of the living, indeed. For how much longer, he wasn't sure. Among the small gaggle of onlookers stood his operator, taller than most of them thanks to her heels. He tried very hard to avoid her concerned stare.

"Come on, 9S, let's go down to R&D so they can put your arm back on." The woman gave him a gentle pat on the elbow, a very subtle push toward the door. She had a kind voice, soothing. It made him hurt inside in a way that thankfully was non-physical, a good contrast to his aching muscles. Perhaps 'thankfully' was the wrong word, but he didn't bother berating himself for it as his head was still spinning.

Though the voice in his mind was still pleading with him not to follow them to R&D, he didn't have much choice. He saw a hell of a lot of swords among the crowd- making a scene right now would be suicide. Playing along was a terrifying concept considering how bad of an actor he apparently was when it came to keeping his knowledge of YoRHa a secret, but there was nothing more he could do at the moment. He was in their clutches, safe for now, but only in the name of deception. If they examined him, they'd find out the truth, and then he'd be stripped for whatever parts could be repurposed like an alien dissection.

The crowd parted like the sea as the medical staff walked two-and-two in front of and behind him, leading him out of the hangar and away from the wreckage he'd caused. On his way out, he heard one of the hangar staff say something about getting the repair crew wrangled to fix the hangar door, mumbling about unnecessary expenses.

Down the halls they went, as if 9S were being led by a firing squad to his post. It definitely felt that way to him, maybe not so to the rest of them. Thankfully they weren't asking questions, probably assuming he was still too rattled to answer them. To be fair, he was, just not in the way they were likely guessing.

R&D was as sterile as ever. Pure white tile, pure white walls, pure white cabinets and beds and machinery. Somewhere in one of the back rooms, the whirring of an industrial saw was ringing out. No doubt performing a mad science experiment on some new technology. Beyond the back rooms lay the assembly room where YoRHa units were manufactured. 9S wondered how many times they'd seen him shamble out of the series of assembly machines and wander off like a zombie, to one of the tables the doctors were now trying to sit him down at, to have his brain plopped in and reset to the same exact default memories every single time 2B slayed him.

"Hop up, 9S. Take a seat and we'll power you down to do the analysis." The woman said, patting one of the plain white beds. 9S eyed the machine hovering over, specially tailored for opening up YoRHa units to poke at their insides. The mechanical arms were already gently rotating in place, just waiting for a willing subject to lay down and be pulled apart.

He swallowed dryly. There was no time to wonder whether or not he could do a good impression of himself. He mustered up his least dead-inside sounding tone of voice and cleared his throat.

"Do we... have to do it right now?"

The medical officer blinked at him. "Well... yes, we do. Otherwise we won't know how hurt you are."

He thought hard about his response before speaking. "Maybe I should go talk to the Commander first? The mission was a pretty important one."

She still had her hand on the bed, and he could see her purse her lips through the veil. "I don't think that's a good idea, 9S. It can't be that vital."

He breathed hot air through his nose. "2B is dead."

"Oh." She let her hand drop awkwardly to her side. "Uh... Right."

He watched carefully as a similarly awkward silence fell over them. She glanced around a bit, looking at the other officers, who had gone back to their work. One of them gave her a noncommittal shrug. She rubbed the back of her neck, trying to think of something to say.

"So?" 9S prompted her to make a decision.

She sighed. "Yeah. You're right, that is important. How about this- let us put your arm back on and do a quick external examination. We'll get you a change of clothes, and we'll do the internal exam after your debriefing. Okay?"

"Yeah. Thank you." He nodded. Whether 2B actually was dead or not, he didn't know, but he wasn't going to tell them that. He was glad he was so attached to her once, it was allowing him to sound genuinely emotional now. Convincing enough for the likes of them, it seemed. The officer led him over to a table for him to sit at and left to go get a compatible arm from the back rooms. In the meantime, he ran a still-gloved hand through his greasy hair and sighed. He definitely was not going to the command center, dearly hoping they would not try to lead him there in a conga line as they did from the hangar. His disguise absolutely would not hold scrutiny under the Commander's imposing gaze. Even then, his cover would be blown very shortly anyway if they bothered to do a simple analysis of his user ID.

The medical officer commented on the clean cut upon returning with an arm to stick on him. 9S didn't respond, hoping she'd assume he didn't want to talk about it. He very much didn't, but not for the same reason. They sat in silence as she took off his dermal plates with surgical precision, attaching the YoRHa android arm with relative ease. He wondered what her kindness was a byproduct of. She must have seen such terrible things in her time on the medical staff- such grievous injuries, androids nearly dead but just alive enough to make it back to the Bunker. She and the rest of the R&D team had seen the true horrors YoRHa had to offer and yet they'd maintained their faith. It was so strange to meet people willing to converse with him without swords drawn. The change of pace was unnerving, to say the least.

Did these people deserve to die? They'd just saved him, without even questioning who he was. Sure, they thought he was the replacement they'd manufactured in this very lab... but they still had nothing but trust. They knew nothing of his mission, only that he was injured and alone and it was their job to help. It was just another assignment from YoRHa, their designated staff position. Even so, their job being assigned to them didn't dictate their personalities. He thought of 21O and 6O- same job, polar opposites. Did they deserve to die for his cause too?

But it wasn't just HIS cause, was it? It was for the good of all androids. The Bunker had a couple hundred androids on it, if that, and the only tools in existence that could manufacture more YoRHa soldiers. It was the central hub for all YoRHa operations, and without it, the organization wouldn't exist at all. It was a shame... but he'd come too far now to just give up because he felt bad. He could barely live with a couple of deaths on his conscience. He was glad he was going to die too so that he wouldn't have to live with hundreds.

"All done." The woman said from the other side of the table, standing up. 9S shook his head a couple times to break out of his thoughts, then looked down. There it was, porcelain white and completely unmarked. A fresh arm. He turned it over, flexing and wiggling the fingers, watching the veins in his wrist extend and stretch. The knuckles popped as he did so- stale air hissing through the tiny cracks in the outer layer. The arm's first owner. It was brand new. He was whole again.

"9S," she caught his attention once more. "We're having fresh clothes delivered to your room. We'll take you there so you can change before going to see the Commander, okay?"

He shook his head perhaps a bit too quickly to be nonchalant. "Oh, no, it's alright. I can go there on my own-"

She held up a hand. "Please. We're already taking a big risk here by not doing an exam. The faster we can get this done and get you back here, the better, okay?"

His mouth was dry again as he stood up a bit straighter. "Okay."

"26H," she turned to one of the medical staff, "let's go."

He looked up from his computer, bored expression lining his features. "Huh? Oh, yeah. Sure." Taking his sweet time shutting down his console, he joined the two of them and off they went. They led 9S to the door, thankfully walking ahead side by side instead of trapping him between them. When the trio stepped out into the hallway, however, a familiar voice cleared her throat.

Standing awkwardly against the opposite wall, pretending as if she hadn't been following the group to R&D, was 21O. She stood stock-still, looking between them and presumably deciding why she had cleared her throat. Whenver her eyes flicked to 9S, he felt a sting of hurt and perhaps a bit of panic.

She nodded then. "Hello."

The two officers shared a glance. "Uh... Hi, 21O." The woman said, her lips once again pursed in apparent confusion.

"I'll be taking 9S to his room. You can go back to your duties." Her voice was plain, to-the-point, and proper as ever.

The kind woman- whose name 9S still did not know -was frowning now. "Why? If we go with him we can explain his injuries to the Commander."

21O just stared without responding for a moment. Then, as if emerging from a trance, she shook her head. "I am heading in that direction already. It'll be a shorter trip and he will be back here faster. Besides, don't you have a bug report to file?"

The man, 26H, rubbed the back of his neck. "Well... I was gonna do it later."

21O's eyes squinted just slightly. It seemed she'd found her stride. "The quicker you file the report, the quicker the flight unit development team can get to work. You wouldn't delay them in order to go for a pointless walk, would you?"

His posture stiffened a bit and pointed a drifting finger at the veiled woman. "U-Um, no, ma'am. It's just, she wanted me to come along, and..."

The medical officer turned to him. "You didn't file the report? What were you doing on your computer then?"

"I was going to! I just had some work to finish up first is all." He shrugged halfheartedly.

21O folded her arms, data pad gently tapping against her elbow as she drummed her fingers. "Perhaps you should go and do that. The Commander would be displeased if you turned up in the command center without doing your write-up through the proper channels first."

The woman sighed, turning to her co-worker. "She's right. Let's just go do it, I don't want to get yelled at again. But please," she gave 9S a concerned and frustrated look, "come right back here when you're done."

9S gave her a reassuring nod- or at least, he hoped it was reassuring. The two of them disappeared back inside and the door closed behind them, leaving him alone in the hallway with 21O. He wasn't sure if he was better or worse off walking with her than them. At least they didn't have such piercing, accusative eyes.

( ) ( ) ( )

Click, clack, click, clack.

9S was listening to her heels as she walked in front of him, staring at the ground and trying not to think about how completely screwed he was. She hadn't said a word to him since leaving R&D, and technically still hadn't spoken directly to him at all.

However, the lack of conversation may have been a boon, as being around her made him incredibly nervous. He knew very well that 21O was extremely observant. If he acted even a little bit un-9S-like, she'd notice. The solution then, of course, was to simply pipe down.

But what if THAT was un-9S-like? What if he was just psyching himself out and he should be blabbering on as usual? He barely had any idea what constituted acting like himself anymore. He was so tired and disoriented that he could barely remember what he was like a week ago. Part of him wanted to fall face-first on his bed and fall asleep and damn the consequences afterward. Part of him wanted to freak out and run down the halls screaming.

21O's voice was quiet. "9S," she finally spoke. She did not break her pace, nor turn to look at him over her shoulder.

He took in a breath before responding. "What's up?"

"Make sure you change into your new clothes, alright?" She murmured, her voice a lot softer than it had been with the R&D staff- but still pointed as usual.

"I... planned on it. That's what we're going to my room for, right?" He asked, though he already knew the answer.

"It is." She nodded, then returned to silence.

What a strange conversation. It sent a chill down 9S' spine- he couldn't help but wonder what she meant. There was no way she could know of his plan. Obviously he hadn't told a soul, and in the desert she couldn't have been monitoring 2B or the other 9S. Maybe it was just her playing mind games to get him to behave, as she so enjoyed doing what felt like ages ago now.

He cleared his throat, trying to make conversation. The quiet was starting to get a little eerie. "So... Anything new happen since I left on the mission?"

21O shook her head, her hair bouncing a bit as she kept her gait. "No. The machines that were mobilizing and heading toward the desert are still on their way." She sighed. "We've pinpointed their destination- a small group of buildings near the center of the valley. Our energy readings from that area are still steadily increasing."

9S furrowed his brow. Machines heading toward the desert? His sense of timing was impeccable- if he'd stayed there for a few more days he may very well have run into them. He thanked his lucky stars they hadn't tried to ambush him. It wasn't out of the ordinary for the machines to congregate in large clumps, but they hardly ever actively went somewhere. He was suddenly very glad 2B attacked when she did.

"I told you all of this yesterday," she said wistfully.

9S' eyes went wide. Whoops. "O-Oh. Guess I forgot, heh," he tried to chuckle, hoping that was appropriate damage control.

"Please pay more attention during the Commander's briefings in the future." She replied, her voice dull and still carrying that plain tone. It unnerved him some. It was as if she were on autopilot. As if she were reading from a script.

Paranoia was biting at his jugular again. 9S was trying very hard to keep his cool, but he was quickly running out of time. There would be no way for him to remotely interface with the Bunker, he was surely still locked out even though he was literally standing in its corridors. It was frustrating, to be so close and yet still so far from his goal.

The silence thankfully was giving him a chance to think, he needed it and needed it fast. If he could hack the terminal in his room, it would give him full access to the Bunker's servers all the same. That way the console could serve as a middleman and he wouldn't need to connect to the Bunker with his own technology in the first place. It wasn't much to go on, but it was all he had. He just hoped it wouldn't put up too much of a fight because someone somewhere on the ship would absolutely be alerted immediately. He'd have to be quick about it.

"We're here." She said, nodding to the door to his room. They slowed to a stop, and she turned to face him as he wordlessly held his hand out to open it... and nothing happened. Of course. The doors were ID-locked, and his didn't match.

"Uh..." He dropped his hand, feeling pretty stupid for trying. "Must be the new arm."

She squeezed her eyes shut and sighed. "That's unlikely. I'll open it." She held up her data pad and tapped away on it for a second, fingertips prodding seemingly random points on the display as she gave him the necessary access. There was a pleasant tone as the door acknowledged 9S as its new owner and slid open with a 'thunk'.

"Thanks. I'll be back in a minute." He nodded to her, and of course she didn't nod back. She followed him with her head, those icy eyes still piercing his back as he went inside.

The door slid shut with the same satisfying whoosh, and 9S let out a breath he felt like he'd been holding for days now. Peace at last. The tension drained from his posture as he eyed the fresh set of clothes on his bed, neatly folded and separated by article. They'd even provided him with a new set of boots. All they needed to do now was stuff him full of preservatives and put him in a casket and he'd be ready for his funeral. He flexed the fingers on his new hand, gazing over at the terminal as it blinked and beeped and let him know it was alive and well, waiting for input.

And yet, he couldn't help but feel like he was being watched. He felt a presence in the room, very close behind him, and he spun around with a sudden burst of anxiety... to see that 21O had followed him in.

His posture sagged once more as he relaxed. "Uh... Operator, I... need some privacy, y'know?"

But then he gave her more than a quick glance. She was leaning against the door, arms at her sides, hands curled into tight little fists. Her brow was furrowed. Disgruntled. Lips, in shadow behind the veil, curled into an angry frown. She was obviously upset.

She ignored his words. "What happened to you?" She asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

9S raised his head slightly, staring down his nose at her. All that tension that had just drained from him came back with a vengeance. He hadn't been fooling her from second one. From the moment she saw him in the hangar, she knew. Of course he couldn't fool her. How dim he was for thinking he could.

He swallowed, holding up both hands in an attempt to keep things nice and calm. "It's... Not what you think, I swear. It's not... I'm not..." His voice was shaky. He had no idea where to start, what to say. He was trapped.

She nodded. "You are. You're the one that's gone rogue." There was no point in denying it any further. He was caught. Screwed again.

9S' breath quickened as he began to panic. He had no desire to fight her- he very easily could kill her, even unarmed, but there was no way he could ever do that to her. And she knew it, too. From her confrontational stance and her angered stare, she was very much aware of it.

As his rear bumped the window against the far wall, he realized he'd been instinctively backing away. Out of fear, most likely. "Please," he said, "Just... Don't freak out. Please."

Of course, he was the one freaking out and they both knew it. His plan, whatever little of it there had been, was now falling apart. He was caught red-handed, and there was a whole lot of red. His mind was already racing, trying hard to formulate an idea. If he hacked her, shut her down, he could steal her data pad and lock the door. That might keep the backup she'd surely called for out long enough to interact with the terminal. It was so close. It was mere paces away.

She'd ratted him out. She had ratted him out in secret and it was over. He'd tried as hard as he could, struggled for as long as possible, but A2 was right. It was only a matter of time. He was as good as dead now. YoRHa was going to serve up his addled brain on a platter.

21O brought him out of his panicked thoughts with her voice. "Why are you here?"

He struggled for an answer that didn't involve his plan to murder the whole station. When he couldn't come up with one, he settled for a compromise. "I'm... I came back here to end YoRHa. I can't let all this killing go on any longer."

That shook her a bit. "Oh." She said, weighing his answer.

9S suppressed a shiver that rose to meet her confused expression. She looked almost hurt. "I have to. I have to stop it, so that nobody else ends up like me." He said.

She stood up a little straighter, out of her leaning pose. "And how did you plan on doing that?"

9S' breathing grew more ragged as his frustration and pent up anger overtook him again. His fists clenched and he drew inward just slightly.

"The only way... is to destroy the station. That way YoRHa can never recover. Nobody will have to suffer any more of their lies." He repeated himself, this time with more fervor. "I have to."

21O's stare was so intense 9S feared it would cause spidery cracks to appear in the window behind him.

"Do you?"

He grunted, and then the anger spilled over. "Yes! They're brainwashing all of these androids into fighting for a lost cause! YoRHa has everyone fooled into thinking they're fighting to preserve mankind but they treat us like slaves! They don't care about us, we're just pawns in a pointless chess game. It's gonna go on forever unless someone does something about it but nobody will because they're being controlled!"

He jabbed his chest with his thumb. "People like me, people who know the truth- we get hunted down like animals, and for what? To hide their secrets? To protect the lie? This can't... end, until YoRHa ends. Nobody understands that the only way to stop it is to destroy it! And I'm gonna do it by blowing this stupid station to hell where it belongs-"

"9S." 21O hadn't moved a muscle. "Perhaps you should consider this instead."

She held her data pad up and began to tap away at it. He stood in silence, lower lip quivering in anger, as she adjusted her posture and stared down at the thing for a solid minute.

"There." She said, with a final decisive poke at the screen.

He shook his head, still simmering. "There... what?"

She barely even glanced at him. "I reset your user identification. The server now considers you to be a fresh iteration of personality number nine."

9S' shoulders sagged. "What? So?"

"So," 21O said, righting her stance, "as far as the YoRHa systems are aware, you are a new 9S fresh off of the production line. If anyone checks it, they'll see nothing amiss."

"Why would you do that?" He asked, still genuinely confused.

"This way, you have a clean slate and there do not have to be any..." She lowered her head just slightly. "...unncessary casualties."

9S was baffled. "Are you... actually suggesting I just pretend like nothing is wrong?"

"Yes."

"That's ridiculous." He spat.

"Is it? It seems fairly reasonable to me." 21O clutched her data pad a little tighter. "The staff you've encountered already believe you to be the current 9S, and when 2B returns she won't know the difference either way. You can return to your former life with the knowledge you have."

"And go on living a lie?" His reply was a harsh whisper.

"But you'd be living." She said with a single nod.

9S scoffed. "I don't wanna live. I'm fine with dying here and now. If you knew what I've been through, you'd understand."

"I know more than you might assume." She said somberly. Then, she shrugged. "The others don't speak quietly enough. Girls will gossip."

He took a second to let that sink in. People on the ship knew about what he was doing down on Earth? How much did they know? How much COULD they know? They had to have been tracking his position, and they had to know he'd wiped out the assassins. But beyond that, there was a whole world he thought was his own that now was much less private. He wondered if any of the other operators sympathized with his struggle, or even were aware of why he was struggling. If 21O was aware humanity was long gone, and the rest of them were too... how could they live with themselves? Were they really that strong?

Was he really that weak?

21O had taken note of his sudden existential crisis. His terrified expression probably gave him away. She began to take a step closer, but thought better of it and attempted to root herself firmly in place.

"Look," she said pointedly, "this is your chance to start over. You know what you know and that can't be changed, but destroying the station, destroying everyone here... it won't erase what's been done. To you or anyone else."

He squeezed his eyes shut. "Why? Why are you trying to help me?"

"Because in the end, everybody deserves a chance to live. Don't you agree?"

Didn't he? At some point he must have. Before the events of the past few weeks he believed in justice, the moral good. He believed in protecting the weak, those who couldn't protect themselves. He believed in the discovery and preservation of knowledge such that a person's legacy could outlast their lifespan. That was one of YoRHa's guiding principles- your memories are more important than anything else.

If you don't know who you are, if you don't remember where you came from, you are worth nothing. You're just a body with a brain steering it around.

When did he stop caring about who he once was? Could he even remember that much?

"Give it some thought." 21O said quietly.

When he stopped shivering and cracked his eyes open, what was probably several minutes later, she was gone. At some point she'd about-faced and left and he hadn't even heard the door close behind her. Now he was truly alone, and thanks to her, nobody was coming for him. His cover preserved, his ruse successful. He was safe.

9S' legs felt like they were made of melted rubber. In a daze, he turned to his bed, his fresh clothes, his fresh life. His blood-crusted jacket was stiff as if it'd been starched. The leather on his shoes and gloves were frayed, one boot long since missing its shiny golden buckles. Socks and shorts a chafing black velvet and stained with dark red. Gently and with shaking hands, he removed his visor. The blindfold left a thin wisp of sand in the air as he let it fall to the floor. Like the last little grains in an hourglass.

He mindlessly changed into his new outfit amidst the dull heat clouding his thoughts. Fastening the new boots, sitting on the edge of the bed, he finally came to some sense of awareness. They hadn't given him a new visor, probably to save on having to construct a replacement.

He didn't mind. 9S could see just fine without the blindfold now.

And so there he sat, alone with his thoughts. He was to report to the command center for his debriefing about the mission he hadn't gone on... and then what? 2B would surely raise hell when she returned, if she wasn't back already. But a quick examination would show a 9S with a fresh ID, fresh clothes, and two arms. He would flawlessly get away with murder. Her murder.

Was it worth it? All that killing he'd done, the struggling to survive, just to end up right back where he started. What was the point? He knew YoRHa was a sham, but so what? All that knowledge had ever done was hurt him.

He ran a hand through his still-dirty hair. It deeply bothered him to admit it, but 21O was right. These androids, all of YoRHa's androids, they were pawns just as he'd said. They didn't deserve death just because they'd been misled to believe in its cause. Going by his own logic... the only one that deserved to die in this case was himself.

He'd caused so much pain, and had so much inflicted upon him. It was all just another cycle. Hurt and be hurt. Kill and be killed. Live and die, or in his case die and live. It wasn't just YoRHa that was pointless, it was ALL pointless. The head bites the tail, no matter what.

He tapped his heel anxiously as he leaned over, elbows on his knees, thinking very hard about what he wanted to do now. He very well could just go on pretending like nothing was wrong, either until he slipped up or something happened to cause the end of YoRHa. He still maintained he wasn't that good of an actor, but it'd gotten him this far so it likely could continue to work. But just thinking about living like that made his heart feel like it weighed a thousand pounds in the pit of his stomach.

Destroying the station was no longer on the table. Out of the question. It hurt him to consider that, too- he'd spent so long stewing in his anger, thinking about his revenge, that he'd become keen to the idea of killing hundreds of people at once. The greater good was a load of bullshit. There was no greater good, and nobody knew that now better than him. It really was all just chaos and luck that had led him to this point safely and alive.

Chaos and luck.

He knew what to do.

His feet were suddenly carrying him out the door and down the halls, but he wasn't going to the command center. He'd read in an old world gardening book that the best way to trim a weed was to pull it up from the root. The terminal in his room didn't have deep enough system access to do what he needed, even with hacking.

Though he was no longer going to destroy the Bunker, in the end he was headed to the server room anyway. And thanks to 21O, nobody would stop him. He left his bloody clothes and the blindfold and the last little bits of doubt on the floor of his quarters. He wasn't coming back.

( ) ( ) ( )

9S was bathed in a deep red light as he confirmed the hacking protocol that would grant him access. The massive metal door before him, nearly as large as the hangar's airlock shuter, slowly slid open. A loud, angry hiss came from beyond the door as cold steam billowed out toward him, ruffling his jacket.

He stood inside the innermost ring of the Bunker's donut-shaped layout. The heart of the beast, opening up for him to drive a spear into it. The server room was borderline freezing, which was understandable. The amount of heat generated by the servers powered the electricity for the entire transport network. Along the ring were dozens of rows of towering supercomputers capable of computations beyond his wildest imagination at speeds faster than he could blink one eye. The veins of YoRHa, running electronic blood through the entire system. He was lost for words. It was marvelous.

In the center of the ring, standing tall and proud above its peons, was the Bunker's main server. It was remarkably similar to how it appeared in hacking space, even down to the pathways that wound between the maze of computers that gave the room the appearance of a spoked wheel. It was a floating monolith, gargantuan and imposing and containing the knowledge of tens of thousands of years of history, human or android or otherwise.

The dull electrical humming sent shivers up his spine. He could feel the crackling energy in his boots. It made his legs quake. The machines were children's toys compared to this immaculate structure. If 9S felt insignificant before, he sure as hell was feeling it now.

He squinted against the deep red light as he started the long walk around the ring to get to a connecting pathway. Thankfully there was no chance of running into resistance here; the server maintained itself, no need for repairs or really any physical access at all. He doubted the thing even had any removable parts. Just like himself, like his arm, like all of YoRHa's hyper advanced technology- it wasn't meant to come apart, and so it didn't without a hell of a fight.

Thankfully he had his hacking. He hadn't brought a cable to hook himself up to it anyway. He hugged his shoulders and shivered, finally starting to feel the deep freeze. YoRHa units were acclimated quite well to cold- living in the vacuum of space probably helped with that -but the sudden shift in temperature was giving him frighteningly human tingles on his porcelain skin.

He could hear wordless voices as he drew closer to the center, accompanied and muffled by a continuous rumbling thud. Like someone was going to town on a diving bell with a heavy hammer. It sounded as if he were on the inside of a storm, lightning and electricity crackling and droning all around him. His body was picking up interference from all directions, radio signals and wires inside his ears bouncing around like bullets. He could feel YoRHa's pulse running through him. He could hear whispers, sentences out of context, communications between operators and soldiers and transmissions to space. All at once, and then dulled by the swinging hammer of the master server's clockwork engine. He swallowed heavily. It was a lot to take in. An understatement perhaps.

Finally 9S ascended the stairs to the inner ring surrounding the main server. It was encapsulated in a cylindrical glass viewing chamber, which he'd noted was represented in hacking space by forked tubes leading to the outer circle of computers. He had very little idea where he was going, but it all seemed to lead to the same direction so it didn't bother him all that much.

9S walked up to the glass, shuddering from the impact of another thunderous roar of the server. It sounded like a living beast ready to strike out at him. Ready to break the glass and reach out with swarming otherworldly tentacles to smack him away, lest he uncover even more of YoRHa's forbidden knowledge hidden under locks and chains.

Gently, he let his hand raise until it was pressed against the glass. The server may've had locks, but he had the key.

The server complained as he began his hack, shooting up a dozen access violations as soon as he'd begun to interface with it. He batted them out of his way, ignored the flashing red warnings. Class six, class five, class four. Not even the Commander had this level of access. He scrambled through the server's rotted brains, listening to the dull hum of his user interface underneath all the racket around him. He searched and searched, scouring thousands of data packets. It was much harder in reality than it would've been in hacking space, but he couldn't risk his consciousness getting lost among the computers. He had to do this the hard way.

Then, after some minutes of trawling through a sea of files, he found it. The protocol that, though it was dozens of lines of code long, he knew as the machines' backdoor access. Their velvet curtain, their red carpet leading straight into the Bunker's self destruct protocol.

He set his jaw and squinted his eyes. He had his personal vendetta, but it could wait. His sense of justice had come back with a firey vengeance.

With a single decisive button press, the data was expunged. Just like that, there went their bargaining chip.

After that, finding the files he'd already accessed was easy. Pairing the data with that of his own ID let him basically look himself up in the system. There, in his own data logs, sat a copy of those damned YoRHa production notes that'd started this whole nightmare.

The holy orders.

The truth.

He copied the files to a spare bit of his own OS' memory, duplicated for ease of use.

Pasted them into a blank log.

Incremented his newly christened user ID down by 1.

And hit 'send log to user'.

Then he incremented downward again. And sent again. And again. And again, and again. Over and over he duplicated the message, faster and faster until he was practically mashing the send button. Hundreds of times he pushed it until his forearm hurt from the angry, vengeful jabbing motion and then some.

He sent the production notes to every single user ID, active or not, from his own down to the very first. Everybody. Every single YoRHa unit would receive the same files that had driven him to rebel in the first place. He didn't need to destroy the station to destroy YoRHa. Hiding the truth from their soldiers was all they had, and without it, they had nothing. Screw the machines. Screw YoRHa. Screw the war. Screw it all. If nothing truly mattered, then YoRHa's thousands of busy worker bees deserved the choice to quit their jobs and find their own destiny if they so desired.

He closed the hacking prompt and let out a few furious shuddering breaths.

Now everyone would feel as lost as he once felt, but without having to be stabbed through the stomach to get their eyes to open. It was better that way.

The warmer air in the hallway felt good on 9S' skin, cleansed him of the icy frost that'd gathered on his hair and the trim of his clothes. Already things were starting to go sideways. Random YoRHa units were bustling through the halls, crowding them, everyone rushing from somewhere to somewhere else. It was not quite a panic, more of a loud murmur. A low rumble preceding the storm. 9S pushed his way through the packed hallway, glad nobody was paying him any particular mind- he hadn't even been noticed coming out of the server room.

An alert came over the comms as he rounded the outer rings of the Bunker. Apparently a top-level security breach had caused a memetic virus to spread in the form of a data log appearing as an unread message. At least, that was their pitiful attempt to keep people from reading it. It was far too late, from the moment he'd sent it. No amount of damage control could keep the truth from getting out now.

The hangar was deserted, the broken hull still sitting halfway open and scattered in chunks around the floor. The skeleton of his broken flight unit still lay in the center of the room, and as he walked past it, he wondered if that was what he'd looked like to 2B after she gutted him. Just a broken sprawled-out husk of something that once mattered, left to rust and be forgotten.

9S climbed into a fresh flight unit and set a course for Earth.

He wouldn't allow anything he'd seen, anything he'd learned to be forgotten. The violence, the bloodshed, the lies and deceit.

31E's blonde hair.

11G's green eyes.

21O.

A2.

2B.

The truth.

He was never going to forget again. He owed it to them all.


Thank you for reading. This story was a joy to write, and I look forward to exploring more concepts that are far outside the game's scope, but still within its universe. As always, leave a review and let me know what you thought of the story, and I'll see you in the next one.