A crudely painted symbol on the bottom of the scaffolding planks above welcomed 9S back to full consciousness. It was another of Iota's weird repair practices. She claimed it reduced disorientation if an identical object was present in the visual field when entering and exiting maintenance mode. 'An identical object' in her case meant scribbling a poorly stylized version of her own name wherever she was operating.

To her credit, it did kind of work, but it was hard to ignore Gamma standing over him with a gun.

"Do you still respond well to reason, Unit 9S?"

"You only ever ask me that when you've made it clear I really need to respond to reason."

"Theta has some questions about the materials you provided prior to your repairs. Your readings warranted a cautionary approach." Her mouth tilted into a slight frown. "This is only for you if it needs to be."

9S had come to like that Gamma was so predictably unwilling to be underprepared or taken by surprise. The uniformity of her thought process was comfortable and even easy to work with though he didn't care for her harsh methods and still thought of her as a glorified E unit. All he had to do was make himself harmless, and she would do the same. Too bad he couldn't afford to do that right now.

He had failed to think up a way to avoid providing Pod 153's record of the fight before he and Gladiolus made it back to camp. Nothing would be more suspicious than him refusing to provide such an obvious piece of evidence, and if nothing else it was a clear visual of their culprit. Trouble was, even a simple audiovisual log would not omit his search for V, or that it was the source of his and the other unit's confrontation. So he just gave it to them. The wholesale pod record, biostatistics and all.

Now that Theta had seen it, there was a possibility he might need to grab Humility and run out of here. Helplessness was the enemy. Rather than turn off even a single one of his functions, he let Gamma march him across the camp. The stares didn't bother him. The sneers barely registered. What made his body grow tight and the pulse of his black box waver was that he was not being guided to the command tent, but to the small, private room near the entrance of the camp. By the time Gamma opened the door and gestured for him to go in, he had coiled in on himself, mentally and physically preparing for anything.

Theta was seated comfortably on the empty frame he had taken the mattress from, turning Virtuous Contract over in her hands like it was some knick-knack from the commercial facility that had caught her eye. She had to know the effect it would have on him if he caught her touching it so casually. He quelled the urge to attack, crushing it down to a hardened knot in his gut, and remained stone still as the door closed against his back.

"Your cooperation is appreciated as always," she said, without bothering to look up from the sword.

"You never really give me much choice."

Her motions paused and her eyes flicked across the room. If she had a retort, she didn't let it steal her focus. "So, who is V?"

"He's an old-world weapon like Emil." He knew that was coming. As much as he knew V wouldn't like it, bringing Humility back and letting Pine examine it paved the way for an easy to believe and hard to disprove half-truth. "The sword I brought back belongs to him."

A faint but pleased smile softened Theta's features. She looked like an instructor whose student had finally worked out the most precise way to solve a problem. "A technically correct answer to my question, without actually answering the implied question. I'd say that counts as a lie. I'm glad to see you took my advice to heart."

"All you asked was who he was, Theta. That's the question I answered."

"Playing dumb doesn't suit a model of your quality, YoRHa Unit 9S."

His jaw clicked as he resisted the urge to clench. First, she was weirdly proud of him for lying and then mad at him for not volunteering more information than necessary. Playing dumb wasn't something he liked doing. Why was she so hung up on this lying thing anyway?

"You have footage of a red-haired android with YoRHa issue clothing on her person and an item in her possession that matches the descriptions of the weapon that was used at the outpost. Shouldn't that be your main concern?"

"You have my full agreement that she is the culprit if the innocence of your compatriots still concerns you." She crossed her legs and sat Virtuous Contract over her knee, plinking at the steel with a single busy finger. "But I think we both know the conversation you had with her, brief and violent as it was, communicated some interesting information that such a simple deflection isn't going to distract me from. It sounded like you both have an equal allegiance to this V and you were…what?" She tilted her head. "Discarded?"

Steady breaths. Still body. Steady breaths. Still body. Keeping those two simple commands at the top of the priority order was a strain he could not believe. His fists had been clenched from the moment he entered, and he let them tighten until the joints began to ache. His memory of the ferris wheel played over and over in a tilt-a-whirl loop. He hadn't been discarded, no matter what either of them said because V told him that wasn't the case. It was to keep him safe. They were keeping one another safe.

Theta was only trying to rattle him.

"Who is V," she asked again. "That you would run toward a dangerous, high-energy laser while simultaneously running away from a resistance member authorized to use lethal force on you?"

"A friend. No different than 4S and 11S."

"Ah well," she said in an exasperated voice. "That does explain nearly everything."

His voice came out a low waver, not what he wanted or expected but it was too late to take it back. "What the hell does that mean?"

"It means I've had two weeks to observe you and the closest I've seen you come to make a proactive decision purely for personal gain was when you were going to go out bring us the culprit's head for disturbing your partner's body." The blade reflected her eyes as she turned it in her lap. They were as mirthless and flat as ever. "You aren't cooperating with Jackass for your own sake. You aren't here for your own sake. I'm beginning to believe that even the fruits of all your fascinating research these past months are also a mere byproduct of you throwing yourself into danger for the sake of this 'V'."

"That's what you're focusing on?" Incredulous laughter heaved in his chest but didn't quite make it out. "You're drilling me for caring about other people?"

The plinking stopped. The blade reflected her eyes as she turned it. They were as mirthless and flat as ever. "I'm drilling you because you are passive, reckless, and extremely easy to manipulate. You wrap your existence up in that of those you want to protect, and it's going to get you killed."

The room was suddenly far too small. No room for maneuverability. No room for the more complicated parts of his sword or spear combat routines. He never used bracers; might have to reconsider that if he survived this. "By you?"

"Please, just once, think before you speak." The tired edge to her reproach sounded so much like 21O he almost thought it was intentional. "If I wanted you disposed of, I would not have gone through so much trouble to get you where I could keep an eye on you."

"Keep an... eye on me?" The pitch of his voice rose. His breaths began to hitch and heave in uneven rhythms as his stomach fluttered like a frightened dove. "Why?! That can't be all you wanted this whole time!"

Theta shot him a look that gripped some base part of his programming and ruthlessly dammed the rising torrent inside of him. "Are you afraid of me, Unit 9S?"

"You corner me and push my buttons at literally every opportunity. You're doing it right now."

Without realizing it, he stood stiffly to attention as she drew up to her full height. Virtuous Contract flipped in her fingers, the hilt out to him and the point directed dead center at her waist. All he had to do was grab the sword and push and she'd be bleeding out on the floor before Gamma could open the door. Her voice drifted down from above his head

"I cannot be asked to believe you came to a decision about my motives because I am not nice to you. Have I ever actually said anything to you to give you the impression I was a danger to you?"

He pushed back against the door. "You held 11S over me."

"I told you to think about what Jackass would do to him if you didn't intervene because you specified personal matters to be of importance to you."

There was a crunch as his fingers dug into the wood. "You threatened me when I tried to leave."

"I made you aware of the law, Unit 9S. The one I am required to uphold as a Commander in the Army of Humanity."

His thoughts slowed and jumbled. Different memories replayed almost on top of one another. Despite being cold and intimidating and seeming to enjoy keeping him off-center, had she really not done anything to him?

"You… You and Jackass..."

"Are at odds because of you? That's correct. It became very clear from the moment we met that our objectives and approaches to getting what we want would be mutually exclusive. We cannot co-exist. That does not mean I intended to bring you to harm any more than it meant she would bring you any good." She pushed in closer over him, the point of the blade dimpling her white coat and the hilt pressing on his black coat. He looked up to see if she realized what she was doing, and saw nothing given away in her eyes. She didn't need a visor to mask her emotions, assuming she had any at all. "Has Jackass been an ideal ally to you, YoRHa Unit 9S? Or has she merely been transparent about the things she is willing to do to achieve her goal, even when they would directly harm those you claim to care for so much?"

He swallowed, desperately trying to back out, create some distance so he wouldn't stab her if he twitched wrong. He wanted to say that Jackass didn't try to turn him against others, but wasn't it her biases that had made him so wary of Theta to begin with? Thinking of her actions from the position of a Commander...if her concern was to watch him, were they really so strange?

"How honest can you be with me?"

"Ah, progress." She backed off, dropping back into her barren seat with a dark-eyed and deeply unimpressed stare. "To keep it brief: that depends on you. I dislike politics, Unit 9S, but I am still beholden to them. You've attempted to engage me like a spy since the day we met and while I presume that is very much a part of your intel-gathering functionality, it's been a source of immense frustration to me."

"Because I was creating a chaotic situation for you..."

"Because you're terrible at it, yes." She gave him a slow and assessing look, top to bottom. "Now that I know you are acting exclusively for the benefit of others; I can say conclusively that your focus is far too narrow. 4S, 11S, and now this V, whoever or whatever he might be? You're going to get them killed as well."

9S' head snapped up. Theta was watching him with a thorough, slouching kind of boredom. As if his stronger reaction to the idea of deaths other than his own was just more proof toward her point atop of an already massive pile. But getting himself killed—that could happen in any number of ways. He could've gotten himself killed approaching the active Emil Heads or in Beepy's pit, or in any number of places. Them dying suggested Theta meant something far beyond his own disregard for caution.

"By who?"

She turned the point of Virtuous Contract directly up. At the ceiling...?

No.

She was pointing at the stars.

"Formally," she began quietly. "I am here to oversee continued peaceful relations, as historically the time around the signing of a treaty is known for violence from sects who may not feel peace is a suitable solution. Informally, I'm certain the person or people Jackass is looking for are carefully scrutinizing my reports."

"Why you?"

"Because the orbital base I come from is one of the closest to this area."

So now she was imitating him—answering in the technical, instead of the underlying question. Fine, he'd earned that one. "You have the face of someone who knew Emil and the Replicant of the Original. Does that tie into the reason you specifically are here?"

"Not for the reasons you may hope." Theta leaned back, sat Virtuous Contract gently aside, and folded her hands across her lap. "Legacy Reclamation. I'm sure you've come across that branch of the HHRMO in your hunt for data?"

A stranger answer might not have been possible. "Are you trying to tell me you're a historian?"

For the first time, a small and genuine smile graced her face. She actually laughed. "Not inaccurate, I suppose. I'm modeled after a genetic experiment—a human but also the inheritor of a battle program based on a soldier named Kaali who defeated the first Red-Eye. Her data became the basis for many early battle-type androids. This appearance is a matter of honor. A badge signifying that I've inherited the long history of android-kind and their responsibility to humanity."

"So the reason you came was…my reports?"

"I came because I was chosen. My model type, proximity, and your reports would have all been factors. Certainly, I required the least amount of catching up. I was already privy to most details of the gestalt project, and a great deal of the aftermath. You went beyond my knowledge base when you discovered Beepy and the home of the Original."

"…Did you already know humans were dead?"

"I wanted to believe otherwise, Unit 9S. So I did." She shrugged. "It's that simple."

9S sank into a squat. That was such a mundane answer. Everything about her was mundane. He rubbed at his face. "What the hell am I supposed to do with this information?"

"You're the scanner. If you're going to bother with living, think about the future a little more. All I've done is to make you aware of the situation you are in, YoRHa Unit 9S. Whatever you do, you shouldn't assume it'll align with my goals. You shouldn't assume it will align with anyone's goals, including those of your friends."

She rose, straightened her coat and offered him her hand. "Now. Jackass returned while you were undergoing maintenance. She and 4S are waiting for you at the alloy site. Are you going to join them?"

9S stared at it, his processors chugging as though they were filled with mud. Everything she told him, all of her actions thus far—none of it aligned if she wanted to bring him any harm. But it did imply that a decision from him was necessary. Theta didn't even really care who V was, just that he was yet another person 9S was twisting himself in knots for. But there was no decision to make. They had all been made months ago as far as 9S was concerned.

He was happy that other scanners would live after him. Happy that 4S had the fortitude to spend the rest of his existence chasing a way to undo what had been done to all of them. Maybe he'd do it—but 9S' plans hadn't changed. The only thing he wanted was to find the scraps of 2B's data in the network, see 11S complete his repairs, and get back to V. If he could hold on to the few good things he had left, that was enough. He didn't need anything else. He wasn't expecting anything else.

He took Theta's hand and wrenched himself back to his feet. "I'll keep going."

"I see."

"But I want more data. You've convinced me I'm shit at command-tier politics. It's fine. That's not the kind of analysis I was built for. Can you give me anything else?"

A spark of approval passed lightning-quick through Theta's eyes.

'You' are an android somewhere in the upper echelon of the Army of Humanity.

You might be a commander, or maybe you're a director of R&D. Maybe you are so old you were there to see the Army of Humanity founded in 5013, or maybe you're one of the younger kind of 'old guard' who survived the first rising of Atlantis. The specifics don't matter, not yet. The point is that you have a substantial amount of power within the organization. Enough to manage or have managed on your behalf all the practical, logistical, and deeply boring bureaucratic aspects of bringing Project YoRHa into fruition.

You, or someone who works for you, have the funds arranged. You, or someone who works for you, have the necessary construction completed, the clearances created, the penalties enforced.

You share select details with a select few. It's a necessity. YoRHa is largely self-operating, but it does require certain touches. A Commander. Starting staff. Repairs and R&D. YoRHa models still need perfecting, and even if their construction facility is automated and unmanned someone has to know their structure in order to alter the blueprints that feed the machines. Few, if any, understand the full scope. They are all androids, accustomed to not knowing the full design of a plan and obeying orders.

Somewhere in the background, the entire time is 'You'.

Things proceed smoothly. The lie spreads. The 'Council of Humanity' becomes its own military entity, and YoRHa its active force, recognized as equals by the other bases and by the few Resistance ground forces who have been lucky enough to receive their assistance.

Near the very end of the Project, just before you are clear and the data is all scrubbed out of existence, something goes wrong. The details of the project are recovered in the fallout by a resistance intel officer with an axe to grind and minimal moral qualms. She publicly vows to find you, and those in your cohort.

You pay her no mind because she is one android built who knows how long ago, and she has no hope of reaching you. YoRHa is not a sympathetic entity. They are monsters made of dead machines wearing the skin of androids, and they served no purpose but to give androids false hope and propel them toward their collective deaths for however long it took.

All is silent, for about a month, before it comes to light that a single YoRHa has survived. To be precise, he is YoRHa Unit 9S—the most advanced scanner model ever produced. For reasons that are unclear to you, he is prying into the far, far past. Digging up artifacts long since lost to android-kind. This makes him of interest to the Legacy Reclamation branch, which is not ideal.

However, you are more concerned with the chaos breaking out in the ranks below you. Thousands of abruptly disillusioned androids have internalized that it was a mere accident of circumstance that the war ended with the destruction of YoRHa. Their anger has created a storm that could lead to another rebel conflict. One that promises to be bloody because the goal will not be freedom, but revenge.

A peace treaty with the remaining machines is exactly what the Army of Humanity needs, so it can address its internal problems. Enforce order. Your voice is almost certainly among those who come together on the subject when the known pacifist machine Pascal approaches the Resistance to request an armistice.

You don't worry too much about 9S, as you hear he wants nothing to do with the effort to identify you. But over a very brief period, this changes. Other scanners are identified, and Unit 9S begins to actively lend himself to identifying information from a perfect copy of the machine network that the shockingly tenacious intel officer has managed to dig up over the course of several months.

The information he finds is not confidential. Very little can be confidential when someone like Jackass is involved. And like all information that isn't tightly contained, it spreads.

With the fall of the bunker, there are only ten orbital satellites. Four of those are satellite laser cannons run on protocols and algorithms and manned only by maintenance crews, which means you are on one of the remaining six.

On all six of the bases, this intel officer and this YoRHa have created an unpleasant situation for you. Whether it is because they want you to stand trial for your crimes, or because they want to see you burned at the stake as humans once burned their witches, there is a buzz around your identity that was not there before. The activity of unit 9S is slowly turning what was once impossibility into an eventuality.

He is a problem for you. He is becoming more of a problem for you by the day.

If this continues, 'You' will need to destroy him by whatever means are available to you.

The heavy picture of what is happening so far above him weighs on 9S as he stares into the white maze of the network.

It's only Theta's understanding of what's going on; a picture painted specifically for him of a situation he would never have considered. It may be wrong, or another lie, but there are a half dozen little things that line up to create a vivid and terrifyingly tangible peek into what has been happening on the orbital bases while he's been concerning himself with V.

"Can you hear me?"

4S voice bounces on the empty air.

Rather than going back and forth trying to tweak an algorithm, he has opted to connect them via a physical cable between their access ports. It isn't enough to make him physically present in the network, but he can communicate and receive a live feed of basic audiovisual data from 9S. It's quite an accomplishment, but 9S finds neither his mood nor his curiosity perk up.

"I can hear you," he answers.

"Awesome. Closed local network established annnd… Wow, no kidding it's huge in there. Not to butt in on your whole best scanner thing, but I didn't get that dumb nickname from 42S for nothing. Give me a minute to try some things."

4S has his own reasons to be doing this. 9S has no right to tell him to stop, but this has suddenly become far bigger than either of them. There is another war brewing, both physically and figuratively above their heads. 9S is not a commander. He is barely even a soldier anymore. What is he supposed to do against a threat that big? Is there even anyone he can talk to about this—one who doesn't have their own motives?

"Hellooo, Earth to 9S?"

9S jumps. "Huh?"

"Geez, handle the hacking, let me worry about analysis, space case. I said Jackass wants you to run a scan like the one you did before but for incoming communications while you're just standing around."

"Oh. Okay."

The Commander and A2 are both where he left them, still and static. While Pod 153 scans the broken-down blocks of the Commander's data, 9S scans for any sign of 2B. If there has to be a reason he absolutely can't stop or some kind of hard decision that is only his own to propel him forward, it's her data. He would rather die than leave it in there with N2.

Whatever else may come of 4S' search for a way to restore YoRHa and Jackass' scouring for the one who created them, he has to find it. Even if it's only a shred of her.

"So this might be a little uncomfortable, but bear with me—"

Before he has the chance to ask what 4S means, 9S feels his body expanding outward. A sense of rapid acceleration overcomes him, and he totters on his unmoving feet until he falls to his hands and knees. They feel miles away from him, and the distance grows exponentially as the seconds pass.

He hits something. Not a physical something, but it's enough to finally stop the sickly sense that the world is breaking the sound barrier around him. He hangs suspended instead. Floating as if only faintly tethered to a physical body.

As suddenly as it began, he is snapped back into his own small body.

"9S?" 4S calls frantically. "Are you okay?!"

"No," he gurgles. He thinks he's going to vomit. "What the hell... was that?"

"Oh well, I figured the best way to quickly get in touch with other YoRHa units would be to establish a connection with another scanner but I didn't quite compensate for the fact that you're kind of acting as a host within the machine server right now or how stupidly massive it is, so when I attempted to identify a YoRHa address for you to contact, it may have unintentionally catapulted part of your consciousness data in the routing effort?"

"Are you telling me you just used my consciousness data as a packet for a goddamn ping attempt?"

"Sorry, sorry! But you were successful!"

9S staggers back to his feet, fighting vertigo for every inch he gains. "Ugh… Who did we find…?"

"Ah, that… There's only one guy whose address I know well enough to try that with. I sent you the coordinate data. I'm going to help Jackass organize the Commander's data for a bit. I'll stay connected, so let me know when you get there."

To be left alone so suddenly is telling, but 9S doesn't bother trying to guess who it is. It doesn't matter. He and whoever else he can lead them to all dead YoRHa who were chewed up and swallowed by the virus and N2. Not knowing who might be alive is one thing, but knowing exactly who is dead…

9S finds he can't blame 4S for trying to put off the moment of truth just a few minutes longer.

At the designated coordinates, he finds a single scanner standing tense but bewildered in the middle of the path. When their eyes meet, his shoulders drop with relief. "I was wondering who'd be stupid enough to ping me in a place like this."

"It wasn't my idea," 9S says with a slow and creeping numbness at the edge of his voice. No wonder 4S didn't want to talk anymore. 1S is a little taller than 9S, and his hair is immaculate. He might be the most severe of the scanners from 4S' generation, and until then 9S had always found him somewhat unapproachable. But now he thinks of Guadalcanal. The first 9S could not have been much younger than him. "It was 4S. He's… he's with me."

1S doesn't frown. 9S recalls dimly that 1S never shows a sad face in front of his juniors. But his smile is bittersweet at best. "So he's in good condition… Thank goodness. Is 11S with you too?"

"Sort of..." It's surreal to actually speak to someone inside the network who is aware. He'd wondered if time flowed inside of this place at all, and 1S is quietly putting that question to rest. It's clear he's been worrying about the two scanners he was closest to this whole time. How long must seven months feel like in a place like this?

It is also clear he already knows why he's been in there and they haven't.

"4S," 9S calls. But 4S doesn't answer. "4S?"

"I can hear you…"

1S face warms and his head tilts up toward the disembodied sound of 4S' voice. "Are you taking good care of 11S?"

"Of course I am. I'm looking for a way to bring you all back. I promise I won't just leave you like this!"

1S looks back at 9S. The conversation exchanged through their eyes is quick but thorough and not fully intentional on 9S' part. Still, there's a consoling sort of gratitude to 1S' smile when it's over. It's the kind of smile that says 'thank you for putting up with my friend, even though they're an idiot'. "He's been putting you through a lot, I take it."

9S is quick to shake his head. "I have my own reasons to be here. I'm… I'm looking for 2B. Have you seen her?"

"Sorry, but…I don't think she's in here, 9S."

"She wouldn't have been here until recently," he says quickly. "Due to a synaptic alignment even some of her consciousness data merged with an old prototype unit named A2. I didn't think it was enough for her to move around in here, but that bit of fragmented data is here. It literally got up and…and walked away from me after I recovered it."

"And you want to find it?" 9S bristles. He can hear the question under the question: 'why do you want to find your executioner?' He opens his mouth, ready to defend her, but 1S is already moving on. "Well, the nature of your relationship with her was never my business and I'm not about to make it mine now. Come on. You can ask around with everyone else."

The platforms shift and the local area resolution alters, however its center is not on either of them. A port he 9S had not previously identified opens and a hidden path materializes, a stairwell going down to a small, empty platform. When they reach it, the scenery shifts again. The permeating silence of the network is blown away by the light babble of any number of feminine voices. He can't see all the YoRHa any more than he could see the individuals in Beepy's network, but hew knows by their voices that they are there. This part of the network looks different. It still resembles the larger network, but it's organized. Circular with hundreds of nodes.

It looks like the Bunker's server.

"A hidden sub-network…"

"3S made it for us. There's no reason to fight any of the machines but being out there alone is like wandering in the middle of nowhere. Or like being dead, I suppose. This is just a place for those of us who felt like the lives we had before mattered. Even though I guess…they really didn't."

9S stops cold on the path. "You already know?"

"A bunch of scanners left alone in a huge repository of data. What else did we have to do but read up?"

9S is still processing this information when another scanner bowls into him and tosses him up into the air like a sack. "Greenhorn, what the hell are you doing here!"

It's 42S. He's the only scanner with blonde hair and the only one with such a physical approach to greeting his peers. 9S can't remember the last time he saw him. Had he ever, in this lifetime? 32S follows, of course. They come as a pair whenever they're able. 3S appears standing back from them as always with a sleepy but vaguely concerned look on his face. Despite needing sleep less than ever, he looks exhausted.

It should make 9S happy, but all he feels is a pervading absence of belonging in spite of the familiar welcome. He had no hope for any of them. Even seeing them, he's not sure that feeling has changed.

"You should be standing here," 9S says, his eyes lowering. "Not me."

"No," 4S says firmly, despite a low, telltale quiver in his voice. "None of us should have to be standing there."

It comes as an uncomfortable revelation to 9S that for the first time he truly believes 4S is right.