-=Episode 6/p2=-
-=-=-=-

I hope I didn't just reset the whole queue with that outburst, but frankly if I had to say 'next' another seven hundred and thirty times I'd fucking lose it.

"Question Six: Hey Wildman. A group of skeptics like myself have come up with an ironclad method of settling this recent controversy. If you would just provide us with live footage of your bare endoskeleton, your biological features should be apparent.

If you have nothing to hide, then give us your skin."

…that is the single creepiest way I have ever heard 'send nudes' worded.

"You cannot have my skin, but if I'm still lacking for evidence, that does give me an idea…" Try to refute this one, skeptics. I hope- genuinely hope this would be the last time evidence is asked for.

"Hey, Paddy. Can you do X-ray scans?"

"Several X-ray scans were performed in order to ascertain the exact nature of your injuries already."

Convenience! Blessed convenience! "Oh, lovely! You've got a projector, right? I think I remember you having one from when we explained 'what is love'. Please, show them on the far wall here these X-rays. I can't give you lot my skin, but I can show you my bones!"

Paddy projected the first image on the gray wall, and at some unseen signal the light dimmed a bit. My good arm started unbuttoning my dress shirt, and I only just got it unbuttoned when I saw the image projected - my ribcage.

"Oh, right, didn't I break… what was it, seven ribs? I'd count them, try and point out the bumps, but they're a bit under the cast… Oh, wait, hold on… Paddy, come here. See- the twins took off the bandage for that big laceration recently, right where those ribs were. Can you see how it's sewn up in this light?" I ran my good hand just under and above the cast, just over where my forearm was draped over my torso was a long, uneven and angry red scar, surgical staples still in place. I chuckled- "I kind of look like some kind of Frankenstein's monster, hehehah-ow. Ouh. Next x-ray, yeah?"

Paddy cycled to the next picture, and I finished taking off the rest of the shirt. I'd be keeping the pants on though, boo hoo for the viewers at home.

"Oh, my forearm. Which bone is that specifically? I keep forgetting my basic biology, haven't needed it in over a decade."

My pod, dutiful thing it was, answered perfectly. "In reference to the cracked bone, that is the Ulna. The others presented are the carpals, metacarpa-"

I cut him off. "No need to go that far, Paddy. Thank you kindly. Cracked ulna… Can't show that, I don't think. Cast has to stay on, you see. Still, that's the whole forearm! Mine, in fact! I think that's everything in that area… Next, please?"

Another image. Last one, I think. Clavicle. Not quite sheared in half, closer to… snapped?

"Oh! I can actually point to this one! Come here, paddy!"

The pod got all too close to my shoulder, but that was perfectly fine. I pointed to paddy, by proxy my audience, just where Devola and Popola had opened me up to realign the bone. They did a pretty flawless job, too, could hardly see the stitches there. Paddy moved again, to get a better view of my form, from the top of my head down to the floating ribs, where the cast was just barely in shot. "See, way back at the amusement park right before that big raid on it, I was trying to figure out why the machines over there were so passive, willing to talk even. Not entirely unique, but certainly a novelty. I think it was on stream actually, that big fight with that big red opera goliath."

I pointed again to the stitched-up collar bone. "That, I got from falling. I think. The Goliath dropped me and I landed on my shoulder just the wrong way, put too much stress on a bone that wasn't supposed to be getting stress from that particular angle. Snapped like a twig!" I said exuberantly, accidentally touching and then cringing away from the wound.

"Ah, ow… fuck, Well- I hope that's the last of the evidence I have to provide. The kind droids upstairs have already felt my pulse, some of them even surgically operated on me. I've shown you my bones for gods sake. All I have left that I can do is to gut myself like the fish I've shown and present my innards to the world." I shrugged–pointedly with one arm. Really, I wasn't sure why I felt like I needed to actually prove my claims. I knew I was human, my faith in that was unshakeable and that's all that should've mattered. Was I really so incredibly starved of contact that unheard voices passed on second-hand by a sentient brick had really become a cornerstone and supporting pillar of my social life?

What a fucking pathetic thing I am.

"Oh, and, before I forget…" I gave my best TV smile; not great, not terrible. "Thanks again to Jackass for that Detblock. Really saved my skin with that Goliath–I might be wanting another one soon. Another question, Paddy?"

"Question Seven: How stupid do you think we are?"

"Thanks Paddy. Remind me to get you a hat later. Next question." Oh, that sounded a bit more terse than I wanted it to. Can't take it back now, though…

"Question Eight: What model human are you?"

What? I nearly skipped this one too, nearly thought it was identical to the first five. Wait, just how misinformed could they be about Humanity? They near enough worship us, as much as I hate the fact. Oh, hell, when was the last time my middling knowledge on genetics was relevant…? Never before now? Fuck. "Uh… humans don't come in models. See, every human was just a mix between their two parents. How do I translate this to something that makes sense for an android's understanding…"

Maybe, 'i inherited traits from both my ma and pa?' Did they understand even 'ma and pa'? I suppose I had to start with the basics…

"So, any two people can decide to become parents and have a child together. Usually, a man and a woman because you need opposite equipment to actually make a child, but adoption and donation was available to any couple who couldn't make a child on their own. That's how a human is made, and a child nearly always comes out as a mix between the two parents. Might inherit some features from the Mother, some from the Father. For instance, I got my pa's jaw namd hair, my ma's cheeks definitely. Don't know where I got my nose from though, that's definitely unique to me."

I rubbed the bump on the bridge of my nose, a big thing it was. Nobody up to my grandparents had one like it, confounded the whole family. Never broke it, either.

"I suppose there isn't really a good translation for Androids… maybe if you mentored an android fresh off the production line? Not exactly raising a kid into an adult for eighteen years, but too much just doesn't translate. Not cleanly, anyway. In summary, there weren't really any defined human models; each of us were built entirely unique to ourselves. Except identical twins, but they're made of identical genetic material."

I hope they didn't mean actual models. I'd feel fucking silly if they meant professional models. I leaned back just a bit, relaxing my good shoulder. "Next question?"

"Question Eight: How do you make a baby?"

"...huh?" How was I supposed to explain this? Oh, god, were they asking me to demonstrate?

"Question Eight: If you are injured and humans require biological components, can you not print out duplicates of your components to replace the damaged parts with?"

"That's… definitely not what you asked, but I can roll with it." Better this question than the last. I leaned forward, considering how to best explain for a moment.

"Well, to start with… I'm anything but a medical professional so take my answers with a healthy dose of skepticism, but I'm also the only human around. There aren't any on the moon no matter what anyone says, and you can prove it easily by looking. Nobody's up there, not even radio signals outside of the CoH broadcasts - so it's a miracle the equipment and know-how to even perform surgery on me was available in the first place. Something like organic cloning is, as best as I can tell, completely lost to time. Without that kind of technology, 'duplicating parts' is… astronomically unlikely. The only reason I don't say 'impossible' is because nothing is."

Paddy had no witty remarks about chances, nor any confirmations about the status of organic cloning, I let out a breath took that as a que to continue.

"Secondary to that is that humans are just really big, really complex chemical reactions–at a very basic level, anyway." I explained. I found myself looking anywhere but the camera, eyes going to either side, up or down or diagonally with my good hand cupping my chin. "How to explain… Sure, every individual member of the species is a sort of gestalt, something greater than the sum of its parts; but we don't care about that right now. Again, 'Medical Professional' is not on the long list of things that I am, but I really don't think just attaching a new limb would work. If we did what newts could do - just regrow the whole limb - that'd be great, but when an arm is gone then the arm is gone, no amount of crying will fix that. Our own bodies can't fix an injury like that, and our immune system would just reject any organic replacements that aren't exactly identical. Not to mention how complex an undertaking it would be to reattach every nerve at the site of the reconnection, every vessel and artery…"

I trailed off, out of breath entirely. Sucking in another liter of air and restoring a healthy color to my face, My eyes locked once again with Paddy for the conclusion. "Not impossible, not but astronomically unlikely. Personally, if my arm was lopped off, I'd prefer a mechanical prosthetic. Mechanical limbs seem to work well enough for you lot, anyway."

"Right, well… Shouldn't ever come to that, but Murphy is a pretty funny guy." I heard a finality in my own voice. "I feel like I could keep going for a few more. I feel like I'm answering a few more than usual, but It's only fair to make up for my absence to you guys with a few extra questions. Next up?"

-=-E6-=-


-=-P2-=-

YoRHa No.6 Type O was inconsolable.

It'd gotten to the point that 2B was considering trying to open a direct line to the Commander instead, because it'd been ten minutes now and she could barely get two words in without being interrupted by some manner of sob or whine. Really, knew the poor girl was trying her best - that some other operator she'd been close with had rejected her advances or maybe even a healer or scanner model this time. But really, this was terrible for 2B's mission efficiency. She hasn't even heard a spoken word from the operator yet beside whines with a slightly more affirmative tone than the rest.

Making a report like this was impossible, so she'd just have to go back up to the bunker to give the report about that humanoid Machine in person. But still, what happens after? Should she just let 6O recover on her own?

That might take a frighteningly long amount of time, though… definitely longer than an hour or two. How was she supposed to get anything done without her relay to the Bunker? No, no no. This had to be fixed somehow. Didn't 6O say she liked flowers? 2B couldn't very well take organic matter up to the Bunker in orbit, not without very special air-tight packaging and an Ho.229 flight unit. She could send pictures, though. Rare flowers, like… like that desert rose she wanted to see! Maybe even a small forest mammal, should 2B see one around the city.

Just… anything to get the normal 6O back. This crying one wasn't working.

Now if only 2B could figure out why this was happening…

"Hey, 2B!" 9S called. "I think I can see the edge of the desert, the Gate Jackass blew up."

2B nodded. "I think we should make a detour, 9S."

"Oh? Why's that?" Curiosity was evident in his voice. 9S never just asked to be polite - there always was genuine interest there, no matter the topic.

"I want to look for a certain flower."

-=-E6-=-


-=-P2-=-

Pascal considered himself a particularly learned Machine.

The works of Neitzche, of Schopenhauer and Plato, Freud and Jung, Orwell and the Brothers Grimm, none of these stood a chance against the literary appetite of the machine aptly named after the philosopher Pascal (who's works also hadn't been spared).

He'd had a long day in his village. A Disconnected little hamlet, far from the war but all too close at the same time. When he'd taken his colony of disconnected Machines away from the front lines. He picked the Japanese Isle to establish his village because of how out of the way it seemed to the front lines. And such held true even, a good hundred years ago anyway! After the Behemoth-class machine sunk back into the Izu-Ogasawara Trench three centuries ago, The AoH's East Asia Army had decided to pull out of Japan. The Behemoth had apparently weakened their position on the Island too much that the once-fortress stronghold had needed to be abandoned.

The Deployment of Major Anemone's 405th Forward Reconnaissance Group was a minor complication that brought some manner of fighting to Pascal's door, but frankly it wasn't anything close to what he had seen while still connected to the Machine Network. He figured his village wasn't in any terrible danger.

Still, this artificial life has a way of becoming complicated whenever it pleases it. And while Pascal couldn't put a date on exactly when the war had moved so close to his door, he thinks it started just a little after those unencrypted broadcasts started up.

As best as Pascal could tell, it was short bursts of audio/video all about some mad, unshaven android taking and answering questions about the old world, and the Humans beside. An interesting pastime, Pascal thought. He'd partake in it more often if he wasn't so busy keeping up with the young machines around the Village.

And then he visited the Amusement Park. Moments of screaming turned into a long silence - and then just hours later, the only thing that could be heard from the Amusement Park was the rattle of gunfire and the deep roar of bombs.

Pascal couldn't stand it.

Not the bombs, not the gunfire or the screams - he knew those well.

He could tolerate those.

No, but the children couldn't. It was the cries of those children he found intolerable. Pascal held them all for the whole of the battle, consoling them and quieting them, assuaging their worries. Machines did not age, no- but these ones were freshly disconnected. Their cores had not yet made the same neural pathways as what had constituted an Adult in the village. They were used to the peaceful life of the village - they had never consciously experienced war before.

The Old Village Leader cursed war. Pascal would put an end to the whole war if he could, make peace between all sides–but such was so far outside his capabilities that even dreaming of it took more processing power than he'd like to admit.

For now, all he could do was offer sanctuary to the disconnected Machines of his village.

-=-E6-=-


-=-P2-=-

Colonel Hyacinth was a busy android normally. A few constant stretches of work was nothing to him anymore - really, the hours of paperwork had become so familiar to be relaxing somehow. Or maybe that's just how he'd reprogrammed himself to better cope with the amount of work he had – he wasn't sure anymore. But here, relegated to be the delegate to YoRHa? He had more free time than he knew what to do with. A whole four hours worth out of twenty four! Unprecedented to him.

Now, Hyacinth was renowned for a long career made primarily of successes. The android himself would claim two reasons for these successes - the Colonel couldn't hesitate to boast about superior tactics, organization and a good logistics company as the primary factor in his battles, but he didn't often touch on his superior E-war tactics. Because of his free time, he decided to do his old student a favor.

The Colonel laid back on a bed for the first time in weeks, closed his eyes and accessed YoRHa's mainframe for a little bit of testing.

He did not like what he found anywhere he looked. So many holes, nearly no redundancies and the encryption/decryption methods were outdated by years, probably hadn't been updated since the day the bunker was put in geostationary orbit. And what was that back door doing there? What moron designed these systems? The only really secure part of this system was connections to the Pod's Tactical Network, and there wasn't even any connection to AoH:HC proper. Almost like the systems were designed to fail - if there weren't so many androids using the system at the same time, Hyacinth would've taken it for a decoy.

Hyacinth decided White didn't deserve to deal with the work of an incompetent-because that's the only kind of Android who could have done this. An incompetent or a malicious actor. But no, complaining about these kinds of things wasn't what got the Colonel where he was –

– and so he decided to fix it himself.

-=-=-=-
-=Episode 6/p2 - Diagnosis=-


::man i am really running out of ideas already
i know where i wanna go with this but every milestone i can see is a long ways away, and i gotta put a lot of somethings between the 'here' and the 'then'.
ill figure it out though, i always do - if all else fails i can write up another cooking episode