I got to absolutely nothing of what I had planned this chapter.

I'd appreciate feedback on whether you feel that this was a waste of three thousand-plus words or not.


They were in space.

Harpuia had taken Copy-X into the upper reaches of the atmosphere once, to show him the view. Even though Copy-X was flight-capable, Harpuia had still needed to carry him above a certain altitude. He could get higher than Lark, but once the air got that thin…

The view had been awesome, according to his internal dictionary. Not the way Fefnir would use it, but in the sense of awe-inspiring.

He'd been able to see the entire city reduced to such a small thing, the ocean in the distance, the wastes dotted by ruined cities, interrupted by differently-colored patches that were limited ecology areas and purification forests. Copy-X thought that had been Harpuia's equivalent of the way Phantom had taken him to that window to show him the city, both a lesson and a test, to see if he was worthy of trying to bear the burden of X's image, if his siblings' insane plan might actually work.

The city that had seemed so unimaginably huge, full of complicated things and complicated people had been reduced to this small, fragile thing. All alone in this big world, the only place where humans could live, and that meant it was important to reploids too, because… Well, if Ciel died, then what good was he? That was how he'd thought back then. Most reploids didn't have human family members, but humans were family, and if they all died? Because he, because reploids failed, then wouldn't the reploids follow? Because if two, three with the elves, races working together couldn't take care of each other, couldn't survive in this world, than how could only one alone? One that had already failed?

The city really was fragile, really could fall apart if it wasn't protected, wasn't taken care of properly, carefully.

Seeing it this way had explained a lot about Harpuia, really. Why he was so worried all the time, why he wore himself out trying to do everything. Fefnir had told Copy-X to just do what was in front of him, protect the people he could. Leviathan had said to look at what was going on, think about how things were connected and keep in mind that what he did would have ripples, come back to him, but what everyone else did was just as important, so thinking too far ahead wouldn't do anyone any good, he had to react in the now to try to determine what would happen soon. Phantom had told him to be quiet and listen to people, pay attention to them, because one person could only do so much but if he delegated, picked the right person for a task, the one who would try their hardest? It wasn't his job to take care of everything, it was his job to make sure that the people of Neo Arcadia were secure enough that everyone could do their jobs instead of worrying about the future.

Harpuia worried.

Copy-X hadn't thought that was silly of him at all, even though the others had been trying really hard to tell Copy-X not to worry. Because if something was important, than how could you not worry about it when it was in danger? Someone had to look at the big picture. Someone had to keep in mind that things could go wrong.

There was useless worrying, the kind that Copy-X would probably have done a lot of, when he hadn't had a lot of experience solving problems and they'd all seemed so big. He was lucky he had an internal com and the Guardians had made sure he knew he was supposed to call them if anything came up, because if X looked worried, it would worry the city. That kind was a waste of time, just standing around fretting about how he didn't know what to do.

Then there was the useful kind of worrying, which was thinking, 'what if something went wrong with the hydroponics farms?' and going through and making a list of what could happen, what could reasonably be done to prevent it… and then stockpiling enough food for a few months anyway, no matter how much people complained about how they wanted to use that food now, so that even if the worst did happen, there wasn't any need to worry anymore because they'd just land in the safety net.

Copy-X really thought that you couldn't fly without learning how to do that kind of worrying. Because flying was dangerous: a lot of things could go wrong, especially if you were fighting up there, and even if the missiles didn't kill you the fall still might. A lot of the veteran Rekku weren't very well liked, especially by Fefnir's forces. They said they were arrogant bastards. It didn't make much sense that people who did something so dangerous would be convinced they were invincible, but that was actually why. In order to do what they did and survive, they had to think about all the things that could happen, how to make sure they didn't and how to pull out of it if they did. They had to know exactly how safe they were, exactly how good they were, in order to fly dangerous missions that needed doing. It was confidence, not arrogance: it had to be an honest assessment. The cowards and people who underestimated their abilities didn't fly and the arrogant ones died.

Most people other than the Guardians thought Harpuia had tons of that kind of arrogance. The Guardians thought he was a worrywart, because he was honest with them and a lot of his job was telling them that it really was important to lay in stockpiles even though there were things they could have used those supplies for and that… that things could happen, and if they weren't ready Neo Arcadia really could die.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Ciel asked, nose to the glass, not even flinching back when a panel flew by outside.

It was pretty, yes: ocean and clouds and so on were, but to Copy-X it looked like a big to-do list.

If Area Zero was how all of it was supposed to look, how all of it couldlook, then there was just so much that needed doing! It gave him this worried feeling that he was really behind schedule somehow, even though Neo Arcadia was coming along nicely. That was just Neo Arcadia, though.

Still, if he couldn't protect that little corner of the world, how could he protect any of it? And if he couldn't even protect one person, his builder, the scientist whose inventions were saving Neo Arcadia, then he really would be failing everyone. "We're in space?" He was pretty sure that, "No one told me we were going to be in space!"

"You aren't agoraphobic, are you? Or no, what's the word for fear of heights?" Iris' reploid body had come with an internal dictionary her cyber-elf form didn't have stored, since it was a reference, not one of her personal memories.

Copy-X managed to point at Ciel, beginning to understand why Harpuia could get so annoyed when people missed the obvious. Harpuia was usually patient with him, because Copy-X tried hard to learn things, to keep his ignorance from letting people get hurt and Harpuia recognized that effort. "Human! And we're in space?" Maybe it was combat mode's fault that everyone seemed to be so slow right now? It probably wasn't their fault, and he shouldn't be short with people but oh, oh crap. "Spacesuit!" Help me find one! Where had the other two elves gone? They could fly through walls and even though Copy-X had a couple sensors that would see through them, he wasn't sure how to make sense of that data enough to find a spacesuit… Actually, he couldn't see through these walls. Well, there went that idea.

Even though he hadn't wanted to leave Ciel behind somewhere, if he'd known Weil's base was in space he would never have let her come. He'd have made them find some way to teleport her somewhere else.

Vaccuum. Narrow corridors with no cover. And what was all that outside the windows? Space garbage, the remains of ancient orbitals and space projects? What if some of it crashed into the station? Not to mention that there had to be sensor coverage everywherehere, if the station was still maintaining itself well enough to have hull integrity and atmosphere.

It wouldn't be safe to fight when Ciel was in the same room as him and the enemy, not safe at all. Leaving her in a closet somewhere out of the way with her gun and Zero's saber was also out of the question, because whoever was running security would know she was there and could send mechanaloids to outflank him, get behind him and get to her.

"Oh no!" Passy was the next to realize it. "Why didn't I realize that?"

"What are you talking about?" Iris asked apologetically.

"Humans can't breathe in space! Ciel, get away from that window!" What if one of those big hunks of metal crashed through it and hit her? Passy was so agitated her energy levels and the light she gave off were fluctuating rapidly: it was a good thing the genes responsible for that kind of seizure had been edited out of the human population already.

"But she's breathing fine now…" And Dr. Cain had visited Repliforce's station a few times.

"That's because there's air here." The floor under them was already vibrating, not just from the station's engines but as though it was constantly getting knocked into.

Copy-X spun around a bare half-second before a wall opened, revealing itself to be an airlock. A recorded voice began speaking, the kind of generic female voice that was used for announcements in old movies, where it was clear some things, like numbers, were being patched into a template. "Replekia mode conversion forty-three percent complete. As of now, two minutes and counting until disassembly of this sector. Fifty-eight seconds until all systems are shut down and accessways closed for transport. All non- construction personnel, please relocate to a hub sector so that your crushed bodies do not get in the way during reassembly. Thank you, and have a nice day."

Ciel dove into a corner for what cover there was when the airlock opened. That last part of the announcement made her pause in the act of getting back to her feet, since it sounded like going through the airlock, or going somewhere, would be a better idea. The question was which way. But, seriously, who programmed an announcement like that?

Copy-X grabbed her arm, pulling her up the rest of the way. "Go outside the station and find out which way the hub is!" he ordered Passy and Iris, who were just floating there, also surprised. "Hold on," he told Ciel, lifting her up and triggering his dash boots. He wasn't sure this was the right direction, but if they stayed here she was dead. A fifty-percent (more, if he was fast enough and this area was small enough that he could turn around and still make it in time if he ran into a dead end) chance of survival was better than none.

What was really limiting his speed was the fact he might have to turn around and these passages were small and twisty (which made sense, for a space station). He couldn't afford to crash into a wall: he'd be fine, Ciel wouldn't. Phantom had made sure he knew how to make use of his dash boots in tight spaces, but he didn't have Phantom or Harpuia's turning radius. Not only did they have more experience, but they'd been built for agility, so in that respect they might even be superior to X…

"Stop!" Ciel shouted, pointing to something in front of him that became something behind him as he skidded to a halt. "That console wasn't covered." It wasn't the kind of console she was used to, that was half-desk, but a viewscreen and keyboard with an i/o jack set into a wall. They could probably be retracted into it or covered.

"So either this area won't be disassembled or it won't be disassembled yet…" He hoped it wouldn't. But then, the second might be better, because Weil's forces might hesitate to go into an area that would get taken apart soon.

Well, no, he knew better than that. They'd do what Weil told them to, and Weil wouldn't care about their lives. Still, if Weil was in the 'hub area,' and had Zero there, then he had to know that they'd come to him.

Ciel was already pushing his arms aside and heading for the console.

Iris was the first elf to find them again. "Why did you go rushing off like that?"

"Didn't you hear the announcement?" he asked her, a little shocked. She was a copy of X, so surely she couldn't be stupid, right? Modern elves tended to not have a lot of brainpower because that took energy: maybe that was the problem? Had she put most of her mental functions into sleep mode, or something?

Actually, there was a perfectly logical reason Copy-X had instantly understood what that message meant and Iris was still trying to figure out why the two of them had scrambled to get out of there. "I set your translation software on automatic," Ciel told him, trying to see if she could use her finger to tap a window and get it open and relieved to find this was a touchscreen. "Maybe set it to give you a notification when something isn't in the modern language?"

"…But I couldn't read what you wrote, and it didn't translate when the two of you were talking about the languages."

"Well, X's system is supposed to adapt," she reminded him. "Either that, or there's a special case for when people are talking about words that aren't in the main language they're using. Check your settings." It wasn't that she'd mind being tech support, he was her creation, but she was kind of busy here. "Huh?" She stared at the screen. "That's not good." Only one alternate language option, and now she could only understand one term in six instead of about half of them. That was no help, so she switched it back. This was the 'user interface' level, too. If this system really was programmed in New Testament, then it would use more of those compound symbol-words the more precise it needed to be, or the more complicated the concepts were. "There aren't any human language options, it's using a language developed by Dr. Wily and I'm betting the other setting is that other language he mentioned, the one only robot masters used. I don't think Weil built this station."

"You think this station was run by a robot master, before the Cataclysm?" Copy-X asked, most of his attention on his sensory data. He couldn't see through the walls and all the thumps would make it almost impossible to tell what noises were the footsteps of someone trying to sneak up on them.

"I think it belonged to one of Dr. Wily's robot masters. Wasn't he the enemy of Master X's family?" Her face was pale.

Copy-X might be in more danger here than she was, if X's signature really had been known back then, at least by the really good scientists? What if the station thought X was here? There had to be a defense system, even if… Yes, it was mostly shut down right now because everything was being moved around.

"Can you control the station at all?" Iris asked.

"No." This was a locked terminal, probably for maintenance people to check and so on. "I can get it to display data, but it won't run commands unless they're elf-type input." Mental commands. "Exec… I mean Method programs. From reploids too? I think that's what the i/o jack is for. Or robot masters, I guess, if this was built by them." Wow, that was a weird thought, to be somewhere that ancient. This place might even be older than Master X. "I'm pretty sure whoever made this didn't want humans using it, at all." Human accessibility was the default: leaving out normal language options and the rest of it had to be deliberate design choices. Wait? "Where's Passy?"

Copy-X held up his hand for her to be quiet. He didn't want to fire, not when these walls had the kind of polish that meant they were hardened against plasma blasts and other energy shots and would even reflect some of it. Probably not enough to bother a reploid unless it was a specialized laser, but he couldn't take chances, not with Ciel. "Can I borrow your beam saber?" He didn't want to, not when Zero had given it to her, but otherwise, he would have to fight unarmed. He did have some unarmed combat training, courtesy of Phantom, but all of it was focused on flinging the enemy off him so he could then either fire his buster or run for his guards, and that wouldn't solve the problem right now.

Ciel opened her mouth to say yes, but closed it and just nodded, reaching into her pocket.

Copy-X didn't really know how to use a beam saber, either, but…

Apparently he did. Or rather, his systems did.

The fight made a lot of noise, since they were both covered in metal and so were the walls. He could hope it was lost in the general din, but he knew that they were probably being watched anyway, so this wouldn't make any difference or give away their location. Just a single reploid without any elves, sent to attack a copy of X with two cyber elves?

Weil had thrown this reploid's life away. Copy-X felt a little sick inside when he realized that, and even worse when he realized that the reploid he was fighting knew that and was happy.

No one… no one should want to die.

No one should want to hurt anyone else.

He'd told Iris, not that long ago, that someone should think before killing people, but he had thought. Ciel would be safer in one way if he let her be captured, but… Ciel, his builder, in Weil's hands?

Fighting this way felt more like piloting a ride armor than fighting himself. Like he was entering commands to slice like that, when his systems prompted him. Like he was baggage, and all he could really do was get out of the way and let this body's trained reflexes do the fighting for him.

It felt like pushing a button, or gripping a joystick. Not really real.

And only a few seconds later (although it felt like so much longer in combat mode, watching that flurry of quick dodges and slashes) someone was dead.

He'd just killed someone. A person, Weil's or not. Not a mechanaloid, a person.

He didn't know how to feel about that. That itself bothered him: shouldn't there be an immediate reaction? Horror, more of that this is wrong sickness, something? Was there something wrong with him, would he really go crazy and start killing lots of people the way that man had said?

Yet he did feel something, he just… didn't know how to deal with it.

Maybe it would be wrong if he did, if he could just come to a conclusion about this instantly, like it was a simple thing instead of someone's life. Should he cry, when that wouldn't bring them back? Cry just so that he would feel better, as though mourning would make this any less wrong of him?

No. This wasn't something that he could just come to terms with an instant. He couldn't try to deal with this now, not when Ciel was in trouble. Not when other people had to be saved.

He'd told Iris that he'd just do his best, if it came to this, and he couldn't make himself a liar so soon.

He wanted Harpuia, Leviathan, someone. They'd said they'd try to keep him from having to kill anyone. But that wasn't right either, to want to force the burden of killing onto someone else and keep his hands clean when he wanted Ciel protected, Neo Arcadia safe just as much as they did, and that meant that he was responsible for whatever it took to bring that about, whether or not he was the one that fired the buster or held the beam saber.

This wasn't right, but he couldn't think of another way. So he'd just have to do this now, and see if he could live with himself later.