End of All Meaning
Chapter X: And So The Truth
2B's footsteps echoed through the empty halls of The Bunker, her black box beating in her chest as she neared her destination, to a meeting she would prefer to not have, in the fear about what it might be about. She found the Commander, arms folded behind her back, staring pensively out the window and into the dark, starlight reaches of space, and to the blue and green planet below them, where war constantly waged against an enemy force that never seemed to deplete.
She stopped before her superior and quickly saluted her. "Ma'am," she said firmly. "You wished to see me?"
The Commander slowly turned away from the window and the cosmos before she faced 2B, her own sharp blue eyes penetrating the black cloth of her own visor, and 2B dearly hoped that she wouldn't say what she knew she was going to say. It had been over a month...
Finally, the Commander spoke. "During his recovery after he was rescued from the machine lifeform, Adam, 9S hacked into The Bunker's servers and accessed several highly classified documents."
"I see," 2B replied, calmly.
She wanted to scream and cry, to get on her hands and knees and beg no matter how shameful such an act could be. Not yet, she can't do it not so soon, not when she had strangled the life out of him not even a full twenty-four hours ago, not when he was finally cleared to be downloaded back into one of his spare bodies, not when she had seen him only a few minutes ago because he was okay, he was alive for once. He was alive, he kept his memories of her, of what they had been through and the battles they fought, and the look of recognition on his face when she came to check up on him filled her with something she couldn't accurately describe.
Relief. Delight. Happy.
Maybe she could make some kind of deal, offer the Commander something, anything, to take back the order. A part of her even considered taking her sword and running it right through the Commander, because she can't do this.
"I understand," she replied, and she never hated herself more. She's weak, she's a coward, there was no end to the list of things she could be called, but the worst of all she knew exactly how she was going to do it this time; she was going to take him to the lunar tear field below the mall. It was peaceful and quiet there, beautiful in a way that touched her for reasons she didn't understand, and she hated that she would taint the purity of that place with his blood. Even so, he would appreciate that place being his resting place. "When 9S is able to be sent back to Earth, I'll make certain the order is carried out."
Quickly she walked past the Commander, she couldn't be around her right now, she couldn't be around anyone at the moment, at best she could maybe spare a glance to 6O, who had the tendency to just know when the order came, but no more than that. Right now, she needed time to herself until 9S was ready to be deployed again, because until then she needed to…
Prepare.
"A minute, 2B," the Commander said, and 2B stopped, barely a meter away from her, and reluctantly she turned towards her. How much longer would this last?
"Yes, ma'am?"
"2B," the Commander started, and 2B felt her stomach drop inside her, feeling as though it had been filled with lead. What could she possibly have else to say? "I will tell you this, but because of your efforts, both Adam and Eve are dead, and with them gone it would seem that the machine network has been severely compromised and weakened. With it in this state, our strategists have begun mapping out a large-scale assault to target weak points in the remaining machine forces, and while they are not yet done compiling the data available to them, they seem to have a optimistic view of a successful mission."
She nodded. Where was this going?
"I'll be frank with you, 2B, but this will be the largest-scale assault YoRHa has ever launched, and if everything goes out way, we will not only cripple the machines, but very possibly eliminate them as well."
Beneath her visor, 2B's eyes widened in disbelief. "I'm sorry, but what?"
"What I'm saying, is that there is a very real chance that we could end this war for good, and to do that we will needed every single available YoRHa unit at their best."
A horrible little thing called hope started to grow inside her chest. She didn't want it there because it would just eat away at what was left of her, but...
She had to be sure.
"And 9S?" she asked, trying to bury the hope as far down as possible.
"9S, he..." the Commander gave pause. It was only a moment, but it might as well have lasted an eternity. "The experiences 9S has gained since he was activated will be of a great benefit during the assault, so until we see what result of this mission, I am putting the usual orders on suspension"
Several times, 2B had put in cancellation orders for her orders, often proposing that 9S' death would greatly endanger whatever mission they were on, but every single submission had been quickly rejected, the best she was ever able to get an extension of how long she had to complete her gruesome task. But the Commander had just told her that the mission was 'on suspension'.
"Do you mean..." The hope was flaring up.
"For the time being, you will not have to end 9S' life."
She didn't have to end 9S' life. She didn't have to kill him. He could live.
He would live.
"I-" Usually she was someone who preferred action to words, choosing to speak only when she felt she had something important to say, though the habit had possibly been born out of necessity than anything else. Even so, words were lost on her, there was so much she wanted to say, but she didn't know where to start.
"Understood?" the Commander asked.
"...Yes." It was a challenge just to find even that simple word and push it past her lips. "Commander, I-" Too much to say, but no idea what to say.
Thankfully, the Commander had enough words for the both of them. "When you were first activated, I told you that your duties would not be easy, that they would be difficult, and I have no doubt you have suffered a great deal, both you and 9S."
She caused 9S' suffering, so much of it.
"But if this mission works out, you will no longer have to carry out these orders." The Commander smiled, something 2B was not used to seeing, but it was a soft smile, almost comforting. "When the machines are finally defeated, neither you or 9S, or any YoRHa soldier, will have to continue this cycle ever again."
The hope had fastened itself inside her, letting her believe in this, that things could be better. That soon, she and 9S would be free.
"Thank you, Commander!" Instantly, she was embarrassed by the volume of her voice, and instantly tried to pull herself back in.
"You may now be dismissed, 2B."
Almost instantly, she had to fight the urge to rush down the hall, she needed to find 9S, she needed to see him, to just be near him. "But know this, if the mission fails, and we find ourselves back to square one..."
"I know..." It wouldn't fail though.
Being dismissed, 2B found herself hurrying quickly down the hallway, down to where 9S was recovering.
000
Later, as she prepared for battle, securing her helmet to her head, 2B did something she had never done before; she prayed. She prayed in hope that the war would end, and that 9S would no longer have to die by her hand.
In the end, she got what she asked for.
000
When vision returned to 2B, she was blinded by the white light in The Tower, from the glaring white walls, to the light that seemed to emit from all around her, but as she focused her vision, saw the ceiling of the room she was in, high above her, a large crater seemingly blown out of it, and small, pristine cubes sliding against the ceiling as they moved into the crater, settling into fitted places, repairing the damage that had been done. What had been done exactly?
Everything hurt inside her, as though she had been thrown through several buildings, and crashed into several panes of heated glass before landing with enough force to bury herself halfway into the ground. Her visor was off, she noticed, and it took a a considerable amount of effort to simply raise her right arm with the intent of wiping the dust from her eyes, but as she swiped her palm against her face she immediately retracted with a hiss at the burning throb she had suddenly experienced. Waiting a few seconds, she allowed the pain to pass before she tentatively reached back, brushing past the clumps in her bangs before touching her left eyes. Or at least were her left eye was.
That's right, the 9S model did this. So she can't complain.
The eye was gone, heavily damaged with the skin surrounding the socket open and torn, and the nerve endings still raw and sensitive, and through her glove she could feel the drying blood on her face and in her hair.
Half her vision was gone, she could no longer see, but she still had to force herself up, to keep going to...
2B tried to push herself up, first by propping herself up with her right elbow, and then with her left, however she collapsed as she did so, pain streaking up up her limb as she hit the ground with another cry. As she rolled over to her right, 2B clutched at her arm, only to find that her limb was gone, separated at the elbow, leaving only charred flesh, melted bone, and sparking cables and wires.
The exploding 9S model.
She was so tired, and the sight of what laid next to her did not help.
One of the 9S models, dead supposedly, if she had to guess. Its visor was blown off, and it made it seem like he was asleep, peacefully shutdown from the world and everything that was wrong with it.
Sometimes they had been this close to one another, close enough where she could reach out and gently stroke his cheek in order to fulfill a desire for intimacy that grew insatiably when she did not feed it. These moments, usually only happening in the typical last days of 9S' expected lifespan, always made her forget what her role in life, and what she would have to do to him soon, so very soon.
She was weak, and she hated it.
Then there were times where she was so weak, and she crossed boundaries that she should never had.
Maybe she was defective, she had asked herself too many times. After all, why make her to do the things she did, yet feel the things she felt? Why make her to be a murderer when she was capable of feeling remorse and guilt, shame and self-loathing? Why produce 9S with that level of curiosity, knowing he would eventually hack into The Bunker, every time without fail? Why pair the two of them up like this, if all they could do was suffer?
Why why why why why? Why, even now, does she desire the touch of something that no longer exists?
She'll probably never know, but she had to believe that there was a purpose to their suffering, a greater good that was more grand than the two of them. There just had to be.
2B would want nothing more than to curl up to the 9S model, pretend it was the real thing, and tell herself that there was nothing wrong, that everything was okay, and that there was nothing in the world beside them. To simply lay here and never move again.
That wasn't reality, and she didn't deserve something so blissful, so instead she pushed herself away from the 9S model, and with a great deal of effort and struggle, managed to stand to her feet. Her weight bared down on her legs, feeling as though she would further collapse at any given second, but she stumbled, barely able to keep on her feet, when she was able to fall against the wall, barely able to support herself. With her body in this state, she could barely move, and knew that her best chance of even making out of this room was let the nanomachines in her body. Nothing could be done about her eye and her arm, those were damaged beyond what nanomachines could repair, but the numerous other injuries, the ones on her skin, and whatever other internal damage there was, could be fixed.
"Pod," she called out, her voice hoarse and in pain. "I need-"
Pod 042 was gone. She ordered it away from her because she felt she couldn't trust it, she felt afraid of it, and now she felt more alone that she ever had before.
It didn't matter, she needed to keep moving.
With her arm gone, her combat abilities would be greatly compromised, she wouldn't be able to hold her weapons in two hands, nor would she be able to use two at the same time. It would be troublesome, but since it seemed like her NFCS was still online, she would still be able to defend herself to a reasonable degree. Her missing eye however, that would pose a problem; the left side was completely blind, she would have no idea if anyone came up on her from that side. Her arm already feeling better, 2B raised her hand and gripped at the visor that hung around her neck and slid the fabric up her head until it was secured around her heads.
2B grimaced at the sight before her, at the static and distortions filling her vision, clearly the visor had taken some damage, but at least the visual receptors in her damaged socket still worked. Still, the malfunctions could maybe fixed if she…
She adjusted the visor, sliding it off her right eye and over her forehead, and the images before her started to clear up, the remaining processing power no longer needing to put so much effort on two eyes, but rather one. She's not in ideal condition, but she's still better overall, at least enough for her to move on.
2B continued to limp along through the hallways, using her sword as a crutch of sorts, while carefully stepping over any of the debris that littered the floor, until her legs have slowly, but certainly, gained their strength back and she is able to walk under her own power. Continuing down the hall, her limp slowly faded away, and her gait evened out, until she was moving normally again, unimpeded by her recovered injuries.
Keeping going, she told herself, keep fighting.
She had no idea what she was doing any of this for anymore? But it's the only path available to her. 2B entered the next room, which continued the trend of all white interiors, tall columns, the blurring abyss below, and lights that were just too bright filtering in from the other side of the room. Whether it was natural or artificial, she didn't know. She looked over the room, trying to find the next exit, but after a quick sweep she saw it, nestled in an uneven wall of cubes that jutted out at uneven angles. With her next destination in sight, 2B slowly made her way to it, her sword dragging behind her, the sharpened tip leaving faint grooves in the ground as she passed over it. For a moment, she was certain that there was another problem with her visor, but then she remembered that it was secured only around one of her eyes, meaning that her other eye would be free of any false readings, meaning that what she saw in front of her, was most likely real.
Standing on either side of the passage way, there were two flicking holograms, strangely enough, two girls, entirely identical in appearance, from their long black hair, and red dresses, to the odd, blank expressions they each wore.
2B took a single step towards them, and the cubes on the wall behind them shifted, sealing the door from her.
"YoRHa unit 2B," said Not-6O's voice from all around her.
"YoRHa unit 2B," Not-6O repeated, their voice joined in by something else, a deep baritone that sent chills through her body.
"Welcome to The Tower!"
"Welcome to The Tower!"
2B looked to these... things, whatever they were, and carefully took a step back. "What are you?"she hissed.
"Because you made it this far, we have a special announcement just for you..."
"WE'LL REVEAL IT ONCE YOU DESTROY ALL THE MACHINE LIFEFORMS HERE." Not-6O was gone, and the deeper voice that had laid under it was all that remained.
"No..." was 2B's weak response as she shook her head. "I don't want to fight anymore. I'm just so tired of it all, so for once I'm just going to ask questions. Whatever secrets there are, just tell me. I don't want to go through anymore trials, or collect security codes, or fight through hordes of machines, or get lost in hacking space. No more games." She sighed, her shoulders sagging as the tired breath escaped her, leaving her exhausted. "I just want to know the truth."
The two images flicked, giving 2B no information on what they were thinking, and she didn't know if she could handle another fight.
"ORIGINALLY WE HAD DESIGNED MANY OF THE TESTS YOU FACED FOR UNIT 9S, BUT HIS DEATH MADE SUCH A THING IMPOSSIBLE. AT FIRST, WE HAD LITTLE EXPECTATIONS REGARDING HOW FAR YOU WOULD MAKE IT, BUT YOU MANAGED TO IMPRESS US. THEN AGAIN, THE TYPE 2 PERSONALITY WAS ALWAYS AN IMPRESSIVE ONE INDEED, ITS RESOURCEFULNESS AND DETERMINATION HAVE ALWAYS IMPRESSED US. FOR THAT, YOUR REQUEST WILL BE GRANTED."
The documents are instantly uploaded to her system, and she knew everything there was to know.
The extinction of humanity first began in the early 2000's, with the start of a giant creature that suddenly appeared, and its destruction by the air force lead to a disease known as the White Chlorination Syndrome eventually turned all of humanity to piles of salt. Many projects were used to try and save the human race, androids were created to keep these programs running when humans themselves could not, but all of them failed. Even the best shot there was, Project Gestalt, which was meant to put human souls into artificial bodies, collapsed on itself, taking the last of the humans with them. Whatever remaining data there had been, had been preserved on the moon by the remaining androids, and it wasn't until after that did the aliens first invade.
YoRHa was never meant to fight off the aliens and restore humanity to its rightful place on Earth. YoRHa was meant to make other androids think there were human on the moon, something to give them hope against the overwhelming forces of the aliens and their machines. The preservation of this secret was of the most importance, because if the truth came out, android morale would fall and they would let themselves die, so any leaks on this information would be dealt with in the quickest, and most brutal fashion.
This was one of the primary reasons for the creation of the Executioner type.
To make absolutely certain that these secrets would be kept, Project YoRHa was ultimately designed to fail. A back door built into The Bunker's servers would open up when enough intelligence was gathered, opening all YoRHa androids up for a logic virus to be launched by the machines, which would result in the destruction off all YoRHa units, who were all built to be disposable. All gathered information would then be used to build up the following generation androids.
2B did not have much reason to believe this, any of this information that she had been given. She had gotten pieces of this from the Soul Box, and from the data she received from Devola and Popola, but these two girls had just laid everything out in front of her.
There were no humans. There never were. YoRHa was protecting nothing but data that was useful to no one.
Black boxes were machine in nature, why waste the resources on an android that was built to die? The prohibition of emotions was less about how they could affect mission effectiveness, but rather it was considered sacrilege for the bastard children of machines and androids to emulate human emotions.
She believed every single word she read.
Herself. 9S. 6O. 21O. A2. Even the Commander herself. Each and every single member of YoRHa. All of them designed to die. Her survival was no better than a fluke.
They were all meant to die. Thrown away for the sake of a lie.
"THIS IS PROJECT YORHA," the voice from the girls said.
Everything she did... it was for nothing. There was no reason to do any of the things she did.
"NOW YOU KNOW THE TRUTH."
Every single life she took. Machine. Android. 9S. 9S. 9S. 9S9S9S9S9SS9S...
"DO YOU STILL WISH TO LAY DOWN ON THE GROUND AND DIE?"
2B roared and swung Virtuous Contract at the holograms, only for them to vanish as the blade passed through them.
All the suffering she caused! All the pain she inflicted!
Why? WHY? WHY? WHY?
The door opened, the cubes sliding out of place and 2B instantly fled into the hall, into the bright light. She had to run, it didn't matter where, she just had to get away from here, but she knew that it didn't matter how far she ran, she was trapped here, inside The Tower. Even out into this new area, a single square suspended in the air, above the infinite void, where there was nothing but featureless gray around her, and small spire buildings hanging out there. The Tower was all around her, there was no escape from it. From herself.
"WE AR CONCEPTUAL HUMAN PERSONALITIES CREATED WITHIN THE MACHINE NETWORK."
She tripped over her own feet and sent herself flying to the ground, and she cursed herself for not falling over the edge.
"WE CANNOT BE DESTROYED."
She heard the familiar jets of YoRHa flight units around her, and the clacks of their boots as the infected units as they jumped down, surrounding her from all side, while all she could do was feebly push herself up.
"YORHA UNIT 2B. YOUR ATTACK IS MEANINGLESS."
Meaningless. Meaningless. Meaningless...
The androids attacked.
She didn't matter. Nothing she ever did mattered.
2B let out a loud, and pained scream as she swung her sword, taking off the head of the nearest android, sending it flying off to the side, and before the body even hit the floor, she had already torn through the chest of another.
Her black box is machine. Machines are not supposed to have emotions, but she had seen plenty of machines display a wide range of them. She had seen love, happiness, grief and pride.
Right now, all she feels is despair and anger. Despair at the realization of the pointlessness of her existence, anger at that same feeling.
It did not take long for the other androids to die, to be chopped into pieces and strewn about the platform, and their flight units reduced to flaming wrecks. Killing these androids served no purpose, them dying benefited no one, but she still did it, even with one arm, she still managed to rip them apart.
She didn't matter. The machines didn't matter. Nothing mattered.
Not even 9S mattered.
If nothing really mattered, why should anything even exist anymore?
She was made to kill, to destroy, so that is what she will do.
The platform beneath her feet shook, and it began to rise into the air, ascending into the upper reaches of The Tower.
2B would wipe this place off the face of the earth because it had no right to exist.
000
Please be well,
Mrfipp