WALL-E's Perspective

"Wow..." I breathed. I was watching EVE and Leah work through the code together. EVE seemed to be doing much better since her episode last night, and I could tell she was in higher spirits today. As the code became more complete, EVE's mood seemed to rise, until she was practically giddy from anticipation, but she forced herself to focus on their work. Every once in awhile both EVE and Leah would both become confused about something, in which case they would turn to the other sisters. I felt a bit left out of this whole programming thing, but it was still fun watching them interact like this.

"I..." Leah started, "I think we did it."

"We did?" EVE looked back through the code.

"Yeah!" Leah laughed, "Oh, wow. That took forever! Now we just need the base code."

"Uuuuuuggggghhhhhhhh..." EVE groaned dramatically.

"Calm down there, friendo." Rio was testing the rubber band from before like a projectile weapon, "Better than silence, amiright?"

EVE flinched before Rio realized she'd said something wrong.

The rubber band hit her eye again and fell to the ground, "Eve, I'm sorry, I didn't-!"

"It's fine." EVE hid her irritation, "We have a mission. Leah, how long do we have until the new security-bots are deployed?"

"According to past experience, we have until three pm next Sunday."

"So we've got three days." EVE clenched her hand into a fist, "Then we'd better hurry. Even before that, Auto is likely to catch on to our plan and send other reinforcements."

"Noted." Leah folded the pocket computer and stashed it within her stasis chamber, "We need time. Luckily, the code we worked out will help us get through the security surrounding the base code. Once we're through, we just need to buy time until I can reach it, which will be...difficult."

"Difficult." Rio muttered angrily, the rubber band breaking in her hands, "Like everything else we've pulled off thus far."

"We can do it again." Leah playfully punched EVE's shoulder, "Isn't that right?"

"I don't know." EVE took my optic in her hand. For some reason, she'd taken to staring at my eyes several times over the morning. I couldn't imagine why.

"Why do you keep doing that?" Aya rested her chin in her hands.

"Huh?" EVE blinked, looking up at her, "Oh, sorry. I just...it's nothing."

"Come on, guys." Leah shook a still-sleeping Rose awake, "We'd better get moving."

"Hold on." EVE pressed a finger to the side of her head, "Before we go, I'm comming Captain Burnham. He might have an update since last I called."

"Alright, make it quick."

I could hear a very soft ringing through EVE's system, her fan kicking up as she waited patiently.

"Eve?"

She exhaled, "Captain. Have you managed anything yet?"

"As a matter of fact, I have!" some keyboard clacking could be heard in the background, "I contacted the captain of the Axiom, Captain McCrea, if he would be willing to help us out, and he was more than happy! He's the one who will route the code past the Autopilot so we remain undetected until it's too late."

Listening to Captain Burnham over EVE's speaker phone was a little odd. It was quieter than her voice, but it also seemed to ring out farther. I assumed she could hear him just fine, without any distortion.

EVE clenched her free hand into a fist, "How long will it take?"

"Not too long. If we're lucky, he'll manage it as soon as you get there."

"So..." EVE clicked her fingers against each other, "We're in the clear?"

"You bet! Oh, and also you can remain on the call with me while you're doing it!"

All the EVE's blue orbs widened at that, "You can?"

"I have access to the security code Auto uses on the new city."

"That's amazing!" EVE grinned, "So you can let us know if something happens on your end?"

"And vice-versa." Burnham laughed, "It pays to be captain, eh?"

"Alright, I'll stay on the call with you, and I'll add my sisters if that's okay."

"By all means, Miss Eve One!"

The call was taken off speaker and all the other EVE's seemed to nod when they were added to the call.

"Oh." EVE took my hand, "His name is Wall-E. You know, the old robot I told you about. He won't be able to hear you for this mission, but we're taking him with us." she suddenly, furiously blushed, "Shut up, I get it."

I couldn't help myself laughing a little.

"Okay." EVE lifted me into her arms, "Let's go."

EVE's Perspective

The city itself hadn't changed at all in the past month, but there was a certain atmosphere that definitely hadn't been there before. All the robots that had previously been bustling about taking care of their various directives were now holed up in the tower, afraid to leave in case there was another bloodbath. I couldn't blame them, really. Had I been in their place, I'm sure I would have done the same.

I don't know, though. Part of me was afraid that if the new security robots came early, no one would be out here to help. I still didn't know if this plan would even work, but it was either that or run away, and the second wasn't an option, so here goes nothing.

It could have been really epic, I guess, but really it just ended up being a lot of typing and retyping.

For hours and hours.

"Got it!" Rio slapped the wall beside her, "Did it work?"

I checked and rechecked all the coding, "Captain Burnham! What happened!?"

"Dude!" Burnham laughed, "The Axiom is going home! You should see it any minute!"

"Seriously!?" I rushed to the other side of the room, where the space feed was rolling, "He's right! Look!"

All my sisters gathered around me to watch.

"Whoa!" Rio laughed, "Let's go meet them!"

"Hold on a minute!" Burnham stopped us before we'd reached the door, "Captain McCrea has informed us that their autopilot is pissed off. Please, proceed with caution, as Auto still has complete control over most of that city. You will all likely be silenced."

"Well, that doesn't seem so bad anymore." Leah placed her arm around Rose, "Um...right?"

Burnham didn't respond at first. He just let the silence hang until the atmosphere around them tensed.

"Silence isn't a memory wipe." he finally said, all the humor in his voice replaced with dead seriousness, "There's a reason it's called Silence and not Relocation; You aren't relocated, they just kill you."

"What?"

"They can't do that!" Rio said. We could hear the Axiom touching base, but none of us seemed to care about our victory at the moment, "It's a waste of..."

She didn't finish.

"Resources." I tried to keep my voice even, "Just say it. Killing robots is a waste of resources."

Leah flinched, moving to the front of the group, "But that's disrespectful..."

"Disrespectful!?" all the stress from the hack was catching up to me, and it was getting harder to control myself, "Do you think they care!? They just want you gone! If you can change once you can change again, so they just..."

"Eve, are you okay?" WALL-E took both my hands. I hadn't realized how much they were shaking.

I squeezed my eyes shut. The humans were back. Whatever AUTO had wanted, well...he had lost. Right? I tried to make the hushed breathing sounds to calm myself down, but something still didn't feel right.

"No." I answered honestly, "Not really."

My nightmare the previous night was crashing back to the front of my mind. I was right. AUTO was a murderer. And I had no idea what to do with that information.

"Well, come on then." WALL-E gave my shoulder a gentle tug, "We'll stay far away from him if that makes you feel better."

He still had no idea. None of them did. I hadn't told them about...

"Eve, are you still there?"

"What? Yes. Sorry." I shook my head to clear it, "Let's just get out of here."

The Axiom had touched down gracefully. The humans on it scrambled to get off, some on foot, others on hovering chairs, but most of them were aided by other robots. It was astounding how fast they could move with so much extra weight on their bodies, but perhaps they were fitter than I gave them credit for.

"Auto! Lemme go!" a man's voice, "That's an order!"

Aya moved to the front of our group, "That's Captain McCrea!"

"All authority to humans has been terminated." Auto had managed to strap the captain down into one of the hover chairs, which was following the wheel like a lackey.

"Terminated!?" McCrea struggled under the bindings.

"Captain!" Aya went after him.

"Aya wait!" Leah tried to stop her, but she'd already slipped by.

"No!" Rio hissed angrily, unsheathing her weapon.

"Rio! Stop!" Rose gently pushed the laser away, "We don't want to provoke them!"

"But Aya-!"

Before I could do anything to diffuse the situation, we were suddenly surrounded by the humans.

"Guys! It's those Eve Probes!"

"I remember them! Did they find plants?"

"I can breathe here, if that counts for anything."

I was beginning to feel the ground sway below me. I'd just been staring at a screen of code for hours, and now sights and sounds were all around me. I was overwhelmed. All their words began to blur together. I waved my arms around, knowing that if I didn't find something to lean on I would surely lose consciousness.

"Hey! Everyone back off!"

The blurry filter subsided, and I realized I was leaning on Leah. She had one arm wrapped around my back and the other hand on my cheek, "Are you okay?"

I blinked, slipping from her grasp and landing with a thud! on the ground. The smell of plastic in the fake grass made everything worse.

"Guys! Stop it!" Leah seemed out of it too, but not as bad as me, "We've had a long day! We need space, please!"

I lifted my head, just catching a streak of brown in the thinning crowd. I was suddenly alert.

"W-Wall-E! Wait!"

AUTO was staring Aya down with an intense ferocity. Never in my 20 or so years of living had I seen someone look so angry with just one inexpressive optic. I remembered how his eye looked in my dream, and my desperation to get everyone away from him heightened. I could not risk anyone getting hurt from his reckless actions, especially at such a level of rage.

"Stay away from him!" Aya blocked AUTO from the captain's hover chair, pressing a button on it to make it halt in place.

"Eve!?" McCrea stopped struggling, "What are you doing!? Get out of here!"

I couldn't tell clearly in my muted senses, but Aya was trying hard not to shake with fear.

"N-No!" Aya pushed the chair away from AUTO, "D-Don't hurt him! He didn't do anything wrong!"

I looked back at all my other sisters, who were not only distracted, but seemed to be almost as dazed as I was. What was wrong with me!? And why was Aya putting herself in such deliberate danger!?

Aya was trying to find a way to free the captain, but she couldn't take her eyes off AUTO, and she couldn't risk putting the captain between herself and the livid wheel. Besides, even from where I was, I could tell that Aya had very clumsy fingers. Did she realize she was playing with fire!?

The world suddenly swayed, and I found myself falling to the concrete. My vision blurred again.

AUTO suddenly turned, and my heart lept into my throat, but he wasn't looking at me.

"You..."

That one word burned my internal microphones. I realized what was happening too late.

AUTO, in his blind, failure-induced anger, shoved WALL-E with all his might, clicking one of his spokes which remotely controlled the holo-detector.

It came down too fast.

"WALL-E! NOOO!"

All I could hear in my panic was the grinding of soft metal, caving in, crushing batteries and circuit boards. Tears. Pain. More panic and more noise.

So much noise...