Nier Automata Fan Fiction
Reprise
By Kraven Ergeist
Recursion 5
"Big brother…big brother…"
9S staggered back as he caught his balance, the world around him suddenly changing back to the factory once again. He was growing sick of this same scene appearing over and over again, as if the world were mocking his failure to resolve the time loop, and it didn't help that now there were a whole host of new elements to consider about their predicament.
"Oh shut up!" he shouted at the hapless machine, stomping away from the railing as he ground his teeth in frustration.
He knew it was pointless to lash out at his surroundings, particularly since everything in his environment was all essentially acting according to a pre-recorded script, and in all likelihood would reset to exactly the state it had been before, regardless of his actions. But his anger needed an outlet.
A2…of all the monkey wrenches that could have been thrown into the works, it had to be A2 that was now a part of this time loop. He could have accepted having to repeat the timeline as many times as it would have taken with 2B by his side, but now it seemed that he would be forced to work alongside his partner's killer if he meant to escape the time loop.
"Operator 21O to 9S," his Operator's voice sounded over the comms. "Come in 9S."
9S let out one last grunt of frustration before acknowledging the call. "Yeah, 9S here."
"The YoRHa troops have commenced their descent," 21O relayed her orders, as she always did. "Disable the enemy base's defense systems immediately."
"Roger that," he replied absently, his attention instead focused on repeating what had become the routine task of hacking his Pod and securing his line of communication. If he had to endure many more of these recursions, he was going to be performing these actions in his sleep before long.
As he jumped into his flight unit, he checked his environmental energy readings, confirming that they had once again increased. The volt salve he had filched from A2's supply cache also appeared to be where he'd left it, which more or less confirmed his theory. So now it was a question of quantity. He doubted they could manage to carry something like one of those surface-to-air missiles they'd used on the colossal ocean machine, but perhaps something smaller that could fit in their inventory. An EMP would do the trick, but they'd have to get well clear of the blast radius before detonating, or else they'd fair no better than when they'd blown the factory reactor core.
He resisted the urge to contact 2B until he was finished with his task of hacking the factory's aerial defense network. He had plenty of need to vent, but there was no point in doing so now. Besides, he knew full well by now that she had her own task to contend with at the start of this mission, and was not keen to interrupt her own concentration or otherwise add any more pressure to what must have been a trying experience. The worst he had to contend with was some machine whining about its brother. 2B had to watch her team get slaughtered over and over again.
Still, he was chomping at the bit by the time the last machine terminal was neutralized, and he was finally able to make his way to the rendezvous point.
"2B!" he called out to his partner when her own flight unit came into view. "Finally! Are we seriously thinking about working with A2 now? You know there's no way she'll cooperate with us! Look at what she just did! We can't trust her not to stab us in the back!"
They were both once again wearing their YoRHa visors, so 2B's face was once again unreadable even through the viewport of her flight unit.
"I'm not thrilled about it either, 9S," she said calmly. "But what choice do we have? She's just proven that she has the same level of influence over this time loop as we do. Would you prefer we leave her to wander about on her own? I for one would rather not continue our mission knowing that A2 might inadvertently reset the timeline at any moment without warning."
2B turned her flight unit towards the north end of the factory which lay adjacent to the city ruins as 9S followed closely behind. A2 would need to pass through the area in order to reach the factory, so it made the most sense to reconvene with her there – if she even intended to show up at all.
"It would be much better for us if we kept her under observation," 2B continued, seemingly unphased by A2's reckless action. "And she seems willing to work with us for the time being, so we shouldn't need to worry about her attacking us at this point. Besides, even if she did, the worst that could happen is that it would just reset the time loop again. A2 is not the biggest threat here – not by a long shot."
9S was busying himself hacking 2B's pod, leaving them both once again untethered from YoRHa for the time being – knowing he could easily reestablish the connection should their plan require it - but his mouth was twisted into a grimace of disgust at 2B's words.
"Still…the thought of working with that…murderer…" he ground his teeth. "It just makes me sick…"
He watched as 2B's flight unit slowed to a standstill, and he decelerated to turn back towards her, watching her where she hovered placidly hundreds of meters in the air.
"9S…" his partner said in a sympathetic voice. "You know my death was not A2's fault."
9S scowled, looking away. "I know that…"
The two flight units remained hovering beside one another, their engines thrumming steadily, neither one in a hurry to go anywhere.
"I would have been overtaken by the logic virus just like the rest of YoRHa," 2B went on. "I asked A2 to end my life before that could happen. What she did was an act of mercy."
9S shook as the memories of her death flashed through his mind.
"I know that, damn it!" he shouted.
2B pursed her lips. "Then why? Why are you so dead set against her? Suspicion and mistrust I would understand, but your hostility towards her has been bordering on irrational since we found her. And it's been impacting your performance as well. So tell me, 9S…"
She fixed him with another of those piercing looks that somehow managed to penetrate him even through the blindfold over her eyes.
"Why do you hate A2 so much?" she asked.
9S was trembling so hard he couldn't even speak. In truth, he didn't fully know the answer himself – not enough to put into words, at any rate. Intellectually, he knew that A2 wasn't truly their enemy. And just as 2B had said - as long as they were trapped in this time loop, she was no more a threat to either of them as anything else they encountered.
But he still felt that she had…violated them somehow.
"She…she still took you from me, 2B…" he said in a quavering voice. "It was her hands that ended your life. Maybe if I had reached you in time, I could have saved you from the logic virus. Or found some way to reverse the effects. But we'll never know now. Because of her. No matter the reasoning or the rationale…I still lost my partner because of her."
2B let out a sound that might have been a choked breath, but she turned her head away to mask it. 9S might have been imagining things, but he thought her lips might have been trembling.
"Nines…" she said quietly, still looking away. "What…really happened after I died? What did you do, exactly? What are you not telling me?"
9S thought back to the turmoil and misery he endured in those darkest days of his life. The quiet desperation he felt in destroying every machine he came across. The dogged resolution that gripped him as he stormed the three recovery boxes, and finally the tower. The false faces, the virus that finally started infecting him, the arm from one of the fakes that he had grafted onto his body, and the final horrid truth he had learned about YoRHa, about androids, and about 2B as well as himself. And that final confrontation with A2…
It was too much. It was all too much to give voice to. Too many emotions would spring free should he attempt to do so now. It was all he could do to contain himself just pondering them.
"Nines…" 2B said patiently after he remained silent for some time. "If you don't tell me, I'm going to have to ask A2 about it sooner or later. And she's probably not going to be as delicate with the matter. I'd much rather hear the truth from you, Nines."
God, did she have to keep using his pet name like that? Every time she did, he felt like a little piece of himself was dying all over again on the inside. She deserved the truth, he knew. But he couldn't give it to her now. Not while his emotions were still so raw. And not while there were so many other problems tugging at his attention.
"I'll tell you what…" he said after another breath. "If we can find some way to make it through this mission with the factory, let's find somewhere to sit down and catch our breath, and I'll tell you everything that happened then. But for now, we need to concentrate on the goliaths."
2B fixed him with another long piercing gaze, and for a moment, he thought she would continue to press him. But finally she re-engaged the throttle on her flight unit and resumed her course towards land.
"Alright then," she conceded. "But you need to resolve your feelings about A2, and soon. Because like it or not, she's a part of this now too. We need her to cooperate with us. And as long as we're stuck in this time loop, I don't think that's going to change. Please try to keep that in mind once we see her again."
Damn 2B and her logic. 9S hated it when rationality stood in direct opposition to his wishes like this.
"Okay…" he said.
The two of them continued on in silence as they made their way along the coastline, their two flight units hurtling over the deceptively tranquil waters. Their detour had steered them clear enough of the factory that the airborne machines did not seem to register them as a target anymore. YoRHa command would likely attribute the deviation as some sort of tactical maneuver, or so 9S hoped, or their disconnected pods might be raising some red flags sooner rather than later.
"Alert!" Pod 153 chimed in before long. "Rogue YoRHa agent detected."
The two of them spotted a YoRHa combat android fitting A2's configuration standing on the second-to-topmost level of one of the crumbling towers at the outer edge of the city ruins, leaning against one of the load-bearing pillars that made up the only part of the building that resembled a wall any longer. The carefree laidback attitude in the android's posture confirmed the combat unit's identity, and 9S followed 2B as the two of them approached her, coming to a hovering position just beyond where she stood.
"About time," A2 grunted, nonchalantly. "Was beginning to think you'd forgotten about me."
9S stifled a comment about how they should be so lucky. He could still barely stand to look at her, but he knew 2B was right. For now, the three of them needed to work together, and any conflict between them would only hamper their progress. He resolved to keep a watchful eye on her, and to keep his mouth shut for now. But should she go on the offensive, he would hold no compunctions about responding in kind.
"The time loop begins with each of us in the middle of separate tasks," 2B explained in response. "It would take us a lot longer to extricate ourselves from those tasks than it does to simply finish them. And if the plan is to recreate events as close to the original timeline as possible, then we would have to go through these same tasks anyway. In all honesty, we're lucky enough to even have this window of time that we've been granted here."
9S had to smile at that. 2B's blunt yet professional approach to things made her quite an intimidating android to be around, but ever since they had first found themselves in this time loop, she really seemed to be developing a knack for chastising others while still appearing to be polite about it. She had even answered A2's obvious next question before she even had a chance to ask it.
A2 of course was far less impressed.
"Well, I guess that makes sense," she shrugged, shifting her weight off the column to stand up straight. "Alright, so which one of you am I riding with? Or are you going to make me walk the rest of the way too?"
9S glanced at 2B apprehensively. They hadn't really taken the time to come up with a plan for the goliaths yet. With the three of them fighting at once, their odds were better in a straight on fight, but 9S was still not confident that they could win. However, since A2 had basically forced their hand, and since they had more or less determined that the time loop would reset upon failure, it seemed that the most efficient way to gather any more combat data on how to win the battle would just be to fight it.
Maybe that was just the most prudent course of action at this point – plunging into the battle over and over again until they won, just like brute-force hacking. It was inelegant, and 9S did not look forward to the brain-melting monotony of the prospect, but it could very well be their only real way forward.
Still, even if they were conceded to diving headlong into combat once again, they only had two flight units. A2 would clearly need a lift from one of them, and now 9S was suddenly weighing the risks between allowing A2 within striking distance of 2B or himself.
It was 2B's call either way, he decided. She was still in command, and until she asked for his help once again, differing to her judgement was the surest option to fall back on.
"Ride with 9S," 2B said without hesitating. "Give him some cover so he can focus on hacking."
A2 pursed her lips somewhat at the idea, but only shrugged as she leapt up onto the hull of 9S' flight unit with a dull ka-thump.
9S didn't say anything either. It was clear to both passengers that 2B's reasoning was the tactically sound option. Between him and his partner, 2B was plainly the most proficient in combat, and would hold up better without additional support. And knowing 2B as well as he did, it should have been no surprise that she would be more concerned with his safety than her own.
But after their most recent conversation, 9S was pretty sure that 2B's true motivation was for him and A2 to use the opportunity to talk privately with one another and possibly reach some sort of truce. He wasn't sure what he found more audacious – the thought that such an outcome might actually occur, or the notion that 2B would go out of her way to put him in such a position.
Putting most of his concentration into focusing on something other than how close A2's massive Type-4O blade was to his flight unit's primary fusion core, 9S did his best to remain composed as he followed 2B's unit, slowly making their way back towards the factory.
"So what's the plan exactly?" A2 asked once they were airborne again, sounding bored.
9S took that as his cue to finally talk, since he was the only one who could hear her over the wind. A2 hadn't yet deigned to tap into his and 2B's shared comm channel with which to communicate over distance. Not that he was in any particular hurry to avail her of it.
"Didn't really have time to make a plan," he said, trying to keep the implied accusation from creeping into his voice. "So I guess we're winging it this time around, just like you wanted."
Through his pod's sensor array, 9S could make out where A2 was positioned on top of his flight unit. She was down on one knee, one hand on the haft of her sword, the other braced against one of the flight unit's wing struts for support, the wind whipping through her hair even at the comparatively sedate pace they were flying. They had to remain in mobile configuration with A2 as a passenger, otherwise the turbulence would have ripped her off the hull. 9S might have considered this a fairly useful backup strategy should she turn on him again, but he was far from confident that the unit could reconfigure to flight mode before A2 could land a crippling blow on him.
His animosity must have been tinging his words more than he realized, because A2 responded with an exasperated sigh.
"Ok, seriously - is this how it's going to be from now on, 9S?" she demanded in irritation. "As I recall, the two of you asked me for help. The least you could do is show a little gratitude for it."
9S bit back a retort about how she had been the one who had sought them out for information in the first place, and he counted to five in his head in an effort to calm the anger that her words stirred in him.
"2B wants us to remain civil, so that's what I'm trying to do," he said in a cold voice. "At least until we've completed this mission. We can settle everything else later."
If A2 took his words as either a veiled threat or a peace offering, it was impossible to tell.
"I really don't get what your deal is," she let out a ragged breath. "I get that you've been through the ringer, but in case you haven't realized, so have the rest of us."
9S wished he had salivary glands with which to spit.
"I don't give a damn what you've been through," he wrinkled his nose at her defensive tone. "All I care about is whether you'll actually help us or not without stabbing us in the back."
"Are you kidding me?" A2 scoffed. "All I've ever done is try to help you! And every time I have, you've done nothing but give me shit over it!"
Something twisted deep within 9S' stomach. They were approaching the factory now, and the air was slowly becoming dotted with flying machines, and he quickly got to work shooting them down one by one. Had either he or 2B been met with such a force in the original timeline, they may well have never made it to the goliath at all. But now that the two androids were at full strength, the airborne machines were all relative small fries by comparison. In spite of this, he laid into them with all the pent up frustration the conversation was causing in him.
"All you've ever-!?" 9S stammered, incredulously, his aircraft's main guns roaring loudly as he shot the enemy machines out of the sky. "You've been nothing but a thorn in our side ever since you attacked us in the throne room of the forest king!"
"Hey, you attacked me first," A2 responded simply, her eyes on the scene of carnage around them. "My only target there was the king. I never raised a hand against either of you until after you took a swing at me. I was just defending myself at that point."
"Oh, that is such a load of crap!" 9S growled through clenched teeth as he engaged his pod's heavy weapon barrage to blast through a line of aerial machines.
He was quite sure he remembered the encounter differently in his head. He could have replayed the combat data from the encounter in the throne room in its entirety and try to verify what A2 was saying, but he didn't want her to be somehow proven right.
"What about when you killed Operator 21O?" 9S demanded, biting back tears as he recalled the memory of his malfunctioning operator's voice fading into obscurity. "Were you just defending yourself then?"
A2's voice was still perfectly calm in spite of the hail of energy balls weaving back and forth through the air around her. 9S was quite thorough in his work, and she had not needed to so much as lift her sword to provide cover. Ahead of them, 2B's unit carved its own path through the meshwork of hovering drones, their little eyes aglow with red tinged vehemence – all of them empty puppets controlled by, in all likelihood, even more empty puppets.
"21O was infected by a logic virus, just like 2B was," she said patiently, like a parent consoling a child. "But in that case, no - I wasn't defending myself; I was defending you."
9S let off another barrage from his heavy weapon system, taking out the quad-sectional chassis of a medium flyer machine before it even had a chance to fire up its laser grid.
"I never asked for your protection, A2!" 9S growled, his teeth clenched as he seethed.
"No, you didn't," she explained calmly. "2B did."
9S cursed under his breath as the last machine in their immediate surroundings fell from the sky, their smoldering wreckage littering the surf and foam far beneath. Ahead of them stood the factory, where he knew their target lay in wait. But at the moment, his true opponent was much closer at hand.
"So that gives you the right to decide who lives and who dies then?" he blared, resisting the urge to jerk the controls and fling his passenger to her own watery grave, for as brief as it might last. "Anyone you deem to be a threat, you put them down just like that?"
"You can judge me all you want for taking lives arbitrarily, but how many have you killed exactly?" A2 shot back. "How many corrupted androids fell by your blade, 9S?"
9S bristled as he thought back to the fall of YoRHa, to the legions of combat androids who had succumbed to the logic virus that he and 2B had needed to cut through in order to survive. How many of them must have had friends and loved ones and connections to other androids just as potent as he had with 2B? How many hearts could have been broken by his actions, just as surely as his had because of A2?
9S clenched his jaw so hard, the servos in his neck began to overheat.
"I at least tried to save them first!" he all but screamed, his flight unit coming to a halt as it hovered just beyond their destination, unwilling to move on to the goliath until he had said his piece. "Did it even occur to you that 2B or 21O could have been cured?"
A2 remained ever calm, ever patient, ever poised, and ever defiant.
"That line of thinking will just get you killed in the end," she said gravely, her eyes vacant, as if looking back on a long distant memory. "That's how the enemy beats you – by ensnaring those you trust, and banking on your compassion to get the jump on you. They turn your own sympathy and kindness into a weakness they can exploit. I've seen it happen so many times to so many comrades that I've honestly lost count. And I've only survived as long as I have because I didn't let that happen to me."
Some part of 9S knew that what A2 was telling him should have resonated more than it was. He knew as well as any android that the machines were every bit as devious as A2 was describing. But at that moment, he couldn't think of anything besides the fact that A2 had imposed that diametric worldview onto him and 2B in their most desperate hour.
He was a scout unit. Thinking outside the box was what he did. Black and white had no place in a scout's worldview. There were always shades of gray to be discovered. He had been programmed and designed to uncover the hidden truths, to find the way out that no one else could find. When faced with an unsolvable problem, a true scout would produce not just one solution, but several. His very id told him that there had almost certainly been another solution that could have been explored. Any alternative to losing 2B would have been preferable.
But that choice had been taken from him.
"So that's it then?" his voice came out in a cold, harsh rasp. "As soon as you see glowing red eyes, they're already dead to you? Just another enemy to be destroyed? Never mind that there's still a thinking, feeling android behind those eyes? All the good that they've done, all the potential they have left, or all the people that care about them – all of that suddenly means nothing to you? You don't even consider the chance that there could still be hope for them!?"
A2 said nothing in her defense, her posture stiffening under the verbal assault. 2B's flight unit was hovering just out of earshot, her back turned, seemingly reluctant to break up the conversation. But 9S pressed on, undeterred.
"Did you offer them even an ounce of sympathy before ending their lives forever!?" 9S cried, pure bitterness in his voice as he shook with anger. "Did you hesitate for even a second before you struck them down in cold blood!? Did you spare even a thought for the pain that their death would cause to those they left behind!?"
He opened the front canopy of his flight unit and reached out to sling his arm over the nose of the aircraft, hoisting his body up so he could turn and peer over the top of the ship to look directly into the eyes of the android who killed his partner.
"Did you feel ANY remorse at all when you KILLED them, A2!?" he erupted.
His voice came out in a thunderous cry of outrage, so loud that he was sure he could hear it echoing off the walls of the factory and the shoreline. His fury came to bare on his teeth as he glared back out at the android who had shattered his world and had the nerve to call it mercy. After hearing her explain herself, 9S finally had the words to answer 2B's earlier question, to explain just why he hated A2 so much.
She had erased his hope. Utterly.
She hadn't just struck down his partner that day - she had done so without any regard for his wishes, leaving him no chance whatsoever to affect the outcome. Whatever minute degree of autonomy he had held in this chaotic war between YoRHa and machine, A2 had stripped him of it with that one singular action. He didn't care if her decision had been rational, just, or even kind – the decision had never been hers to make in the first place.
But she had made that decision anyway. And it was so clear to 9S just how easy it had been for her to do! It was as if the world had deliberately gone out of its way to put her in his path for the sole purpose of taking away the one part of his life that meant the most to him. And there hadn't been a single god damned thing he could do about it.
A2 was living proof of just how little he actually mattered in this world.
The two flight units continued to hover as the echoes of 9S' anguish slowly became drowned out by the wind and the waves. 9S' face was contorted into a mask of rage beneath his visor.
As for A2…
It didn't quite register at first, but as 9S focused on A2's face, he realized that for the first time since he'd ever seen her…he was seeing tears in her eyes.
As she opened her mouth, her voice came out as barely a whisper. Her throat was tightening around words that were forced through quavering lips, like poison being drawn from a wound. And as she choked out each syllable with an effort of will, her voice all but cracked under the strain.
"…Every…single…time…"
The tears were running down her face now, and 9S could only stare back at her in stunned silence. It wasn't sympathy that gripped him so much as it was disbelief that someone like A2 even had the capacity to cry. If he hadn't climbed out of his cockpit to witness the sight firsthand, he would have doubted his own eyes. What could possibly drive such a cold-hearted killer to tears like this? His entire mental image of A2 just…didn't fit with what he was seeing in that moment.
"Wh-wha…?" 9S could only stammer in confusion.
Her eyes disappeared beneath shorn white hair as her entire face clenched in defiance.
"Never mind," she spat out quickly, her voice still pitched and unsteady. "Just…just shut up and fly this thing, would you? I'm done talking about this."
9S wasn't inclined to back down after receiving such a curt rebuttal to his tirade, but he honestly couldn't think of any other rational response than to get back into the pilot seat and close the canopy doors. His thoughts and emotions were a blur as he switched off his auto-chips and resumed course, any further accusations dying on his lips as he tried to make sense of A2's response.
2B still had not chimed in at all, nor had she so much as made eye contact with either of them since takeoff. 9S did not doubt that his partner could guess the general direction of his verbal sparring match with A2, if not the finer details, and he was confident that she would have stepped in had she felt she needed to. Still, he wondered if this had been what she'd had in mind if she truly had intended for them to reach some sort of accord.
As far as 9S was concerned, nothing was settled yet. A2 still had much to answer for. But now on top of all that, he had an additional question on his mind: just how many androids, corrupt or otherwise, had A2 killed in her lifetime before he and 2B had encountered her? She had been familiar with 2B's original Executioner directive. Could such drastic safeguards have been commonplace during A2's time with YoRHa as well? Or perhaps things had been even worse in her time. It was possible that she had killed more than 2B ever had while she had been acting as 2E. How many lives had it taken, he wondered, before A2 had finally slipped over the edge into the cold-hearted creature she was now?
No, 9S corrected himself - not cold-hearted. Her reaction to his words, however brusque, had proven that much at least. Those three words had cost her something. It seemed that killing her fellow androids did not come quite as easily to A2 as he had initially thought. Maybe what appeared from the outside as bitter ruthlessness was simply the result of burying her emotions after slaying countless allies for so many years. Whatever the number, whatever feelings she used to have on the matter must have become so unbearable that she had walled herself off from them entirely, leaving her completely numb in the process. And revisiting those feelings, brief as it had been, had damaged her more than any blade ever could.
It didn't justify her actions. It didn't excuse what she'd done to 2B, 21O, or to him personally. But at the very least, 9S had to acknowledge that A2 clearly wasn't some kind of monster underneath either. He didn't really know what she was now.
"Target enemy detected," Pod 153 announced as they closed in with the slumbering Engels unit.
Just as before, the behemoth machine responded to their approach with a missile salvo, which the two flight units deftly evaded while the goliath assembled itself into its combat configuration. It turned to face them with a mighty screeching howl of twisting machinery and bellowing combustion turbines. As 2B laid on the assault to draw the Engels' attention, 9S prepared his hacking probe, going over their strategic options in his head.
The last time they had tried this, the hack had been successful, but had ultimately left him vulnerable once reinforcements arrived, which had led to their defeat. If they meant to leverage their alliance with A2 to avoid that outcome this time around, she would need more firepower than just her sword.
"Pod," he barked out quickly. "Issue command 676! Transfer temporary Ho229 flight and weapon control rights to A2, and enable remote control terminal! Override authorization protocol 22475!"
When transferring flight control between units, command 677 was used to transfer full rights from one YoRHa unit to another. He had used this in the original timeline to give his flight unit to 2B after sustaining damage that left him unable to fight. But the command that came before this one was for a partial or temporary authorization, usually for paired units in the field to work in tandem, and even allowed YoRHa androids to control a flight unit remotely. Technically, according to the Pod's internal databanks, A2 was still classified as a "Rogue YoRHa agent," but since his Pod was disconnected from the YoRHa network, his override authorization code that he saved for emergency situations like this allowed him to perform any function with admin level authority, bypassing any restrictions that might prevent his field equipment from falling into the wrong hands.
"Command 676 received," Pod 153 reported. "Requesting acknowledgement."
"The hell are you doing?" A2 demanded, grasping the wing strut of the flight unit for balance as 9S continued to dodge incoming fire from the goliath.
"I can't hack and shoot at the same time," 9S grunted, part of him still in a state of disbelief that he was even considering this option. "This flight unit will be much more useful in your hands while I'm occupied. You can interface through my Pod from up there – it will handle the rest."
Without further ado, 9S sent his probe into the Engels unit, and the circular progress bar appeared in his HUD and began to advance in a clockwise motion. 2B was leveraging her offensive assault with carefully aimed attacks, coaxing the enormous metal monstrosity to swing its massive buzz-saw excavator arms far from 9S' flight unit. But for all her efforts, he still needed to dodge the unending onslaught of energy orbs released from the goliath's short range weapon systems that flew out in all directions.
"Command 676 received," Pod 153 repeated after thirty seconds had passed. "Requesting acknowledgement."
9S tensed as he realized that A2 had still not taken the controls to his flight unit as he watched his hacking meter progress steadily forward.
"Come on, A2!" he called out to her. "We haven't got all day here!"
A2 seemed utterly taken aback by this proposition.
"You…seriously want me to fly this thing?" she demanded incredulously. "After all that?"
"If you don't, we're both going to be sitting ducks in another thirty seconds!" he grunted, still uncomfortable with the idea of letting her control his aircraft. "Just put your hand on the Pod and interface with the control system already!"
He banked left to avoid another missile barrage that erupted from the goliath's back. His hack was past the 50% mark. And A2 was still hesitating.
Had their conversation earlier really had that much of an impact on her?
"Look," he said in a gentler tone, summoning every ounce of humility he could muster. "I'm trusting you with this, okay? 2B trusted you to take care of things in her absence, so…so I guess I'm going to have to do the same here. I'm counting on you to keep 2B safe while I'm out. Can you do this for me, A2? Please?"
9S felt like collapsing, opening up to the other android like this. To confide in her, offer her his trust, and even plead with her made him feel smaller than he ever had in his life. Even after everything he had been through – with Adam and Eve, with the Machine Tower and all of its horrors, and even with this time loop – it was this act, this position of prostrating himself before A2 that made him feel like he had truly hit rock bottom.
But after a moment's further hesitation, 9S felt control of the aircraft leave his hands as the ship began firing its main weapon system into the chassis of the towering machine before them. A2 had taken control of the ship, leaving him to focus on hacking.
"Alright…" she said softly.
The flight unit pitched and yawed as A2 quickly acquainted herself with the control systems, before letting off a heavy weapon barrage that struck the goliath broadside, causing it to stagger back. She would have to fly defensively, exposed as she was on the roof of the aircraft's fuselage, but she seemed to be stable enough to maneuver effectively as long as the flight unit remained in mobile configuration. He wondered idly if A2 had ever flown one of these units back in her YoRHa days, or whether there were any differences between the 229 model and the earlier variants that might make this task more challenging for her. His thoughts were interrupted, however, when the circular progress bar hovering over the Engels unit in his HUD completed its circuit.
9S pursed his lips as his hacking probe bypassed the enemy defense protocol and granted him entry into the goliath's mainframe. Once he went in, he would be blind to most of what was happening outside. The battle would effectively be in 2B and A2's hands at that point.
He took one last parting look at the battlefield, before steeling himself as he plunged headlong into the data stream.
The wide open expanse looked the same as it had the last time he had hacked into the goliath. It reminded him eerily of the copied city underneath where the alien ship lay buried beneath the city ruins. 9S hadn't gotten a good look at the place while Adam had kept him imprisoned there, but he'd scouted it out after the fall of YoRHa to see if it contained any clues to help him take down the machines. It seemed that in addition to inspiring Adam's underground fortress, the same ancient human city may have also been the template for much of the architecture of the Engels' mainframe. Or perhaps the copied city was based directly on the goliath's architecture. Or vice versa – who could say?
Time often passed differently within the data stream than it did out in the physical world. The exact difference in speed depended entirely on the bandwidth and processing power of the device being interfaced at the time. Given the digital arms race between YoRHa and the machines, this usually meant that 9S rarely found himself in anything less than state of the art tech. With data processing speeds measured in yotta-flops, time seemed to slow down to the point of appearing almost frozen whenever he entered. But it was entirely possible for the exact opposite to occur should he find himself on a server that was underpowered, crunched for bandwidth, or just simply outdated. The Engels' mainframe fell into this third category it seemed. It wasn't so old that it took 9S longer to get around than it did in the physical world, but it was very nearly a one-to-one ratio – which meant that every second he spent trying to work inside the goliath represented another second of A2 controlling his flight unit while his inert body lay senseless within.
He got to work quickly, shooting his way through layer after layer of barriers, each one armed with simple yet abundant attack protocols. While the architecture of the mainframe itself was simplistic, the protocols themselves were advanced enough to still be a threat, even if they were spaced out too far apart to be very effective. They were mainly there as a stalling tactic 9S knew, having been here once before. The idea seemed to be that any YoRHa android who got close enough to hack into the goliath would need to leave their physical body exposed in the process. It didn't matter how good a hacker the android was when they had to navigate such a vast mainframe in real time. If their physical body was attacked before they could reach the core control matrix, there was no way a lone android could hack the Engels unit. It was an effective way of using the goliath's archaic mainframe to its advantage. And the Engels' defense protocols may have been no more rigorous than any other machine, but it had numerous other protocols that were so thoroughly connected to the machine network that no hack could ever go unnoticed, making a stealthy approach all but impossible either.
Fortunately, 9S had the advantage of hindsight – he already knew where the core control matrix was located within the massive city-like architecture of the goliath's mainframe, and wouldn't need to waste as much time exploring this time around. It was just a matter of working his way through all of the defense protocols in order to get there.
He also had backup this time. A pang of guilt ran through him as the memory of Devola and Popola flickered to the forefront of his thoughts. He could still see them clearly in his mind, defending him from attack while he hacked into the machine tower entrance, and he wondered if either of them had ever met A2, who was filling a similar role now.
The Engels' core was the only part of the mainframe that looked like it still belonged there. Everything else had been augmented with the machine's signature rudimentary energy balls, but the core itself was untouched, as if preserved from its original state. It was surprisingly small, and moved around its little node like a curious animal, intrigued by its environment. He hadn't really noticed the first time he hacked his way in here, but the more he looked at it, the more alive it seemed in a way that went beyond mere machine.
In fact, in many ways, the tiny little core matrix resembled his own probe form here in the data stream, and 9S was suddenly reminded of the discovery he made in the machine tower. The recollection that androids and machines were based on the same machine core brought on far more troubling implications than he cared to ponder at that exact moment. So he pounced on his train of thought, shoving aside any notion of hesitation, and fired.
The tiny sphere of light that was the Engels' core whirled around in confusion under the onslaught. It let out a hollow ping of alarm, its glowing form flickering in distress, before one last shot from 9S' probe caused it to disintegrate into raw data to be recycled into the mainframe.
At the sudden lack of a control core, the secure node abruptly opened up to 9S, allowing him to take full control of the great machine around him. It was as if his own little probe had simply supplanted the room's former occupant, perfectly filling the space it had inhabited until that point, like an old battery being swapped out for a new one.
He wondered what the Engels unit had truly been before the war.
"Hacking complete," 9S said as he assumed control, his visual centers linking to the ocular sensors in the goliath's massive cranial structure. "I have control."
All at once, the two flight units came into view, 2B's white and his own black with A2 riding shotgun, their turret fire coming to a halt.
"So you can control these things too, huh?" A2 said, her voice reaching his body's auditory receptors and relaying to his probe within the Engels.
9S might have asked what she meant by that, but 2B interjected, bringing the matter at hand back into focus.
"Ok, it won't be long before reinforcements arrive, including three more goliaths," she said hurriedly, her voice likewise relaying from the receiver in his own body and back out to his probe within the great machine. "We need a plan, or this is going to turn out no different than the last time we tried this."
9S was already sifting through the Engels' vast array of functions, trying to ignore the peculiar feeling he was getting of intruding on someone else's home. The internal monitoring systems were sending him all sorts of emergency alarms indicating significant damage sustained to the goliath's chassis and multiple systems failing under the other two androids' recent assault. An emergency SOS signal was also broadcasting the goliath's IFF signature, which had triggered well before he had gained full control, just as it had the last time he had been here. And just as before, it was too late to do anything about the emergency signal, so he ignored the alarms as he ran diagnostics on everything that he had access to, including motor functions and, most importantly, the internal combustion engine.
"Last time we tried this, my body was just dead weight while I maintained control of the goliath," 9S said, commanding the Engels unit to turn and face out towards the open water from where he knew the enemy would be coming. "But with A2 controlling my flight unit, there's no reason at all for us to stay in the area any longer. Both of you should get yourselves and my body to a safe distance - I'll overload the goliath's internal combustion systems once those reinforcements arrive and take them all out at once. As long as my body is still within signal range, I'll be able to jump back into it before the blast goes off."
The Engels unit was equipped with long range optics, which it had used to attack 2B's flight team with pinpoint accuracy from kilometers away. These same optics allowed 9S to get a clear view of the two faces staring back at him from the hovering flight units as he steered his two hundred and twenty thousand ton hunk of machinery to meet its fate. A2's face was still a mask of stoicism – something about the situation wasn't sitting right with her, but 9S had a feeling it didn't have anything to do with their tactical situation. 2B, for her part, wore her concern much more openly these days.
"What if you don't make it out in time?" she asked. "Or something interrupts your signal?"
9S sighed internally. On the one hand, he had already considered the worst-case scenarios and didn't need 2B adding to his doubts, but on the other hand, it did genuinely feel nice to hear her express such uninhibited worry for him. The old 2B would have stood behind her 'emotions are forbidden' stance until it was too late, and it was nice to see her finally beginning to open up to her emotions instead. Not that he was in any position to point fingers.
"Then the timeline resets and we try again," he offered helplessly. "Personally, I'm more worried about the blast being enough to take out three other goliaths. I've calculated the yield, and it should be enough, but we all know how notoriously resilient they are. If this doesn't work out, we'll have to go back to the drawing board."
2B nodded slowly, turning to the other flight unit that bore 9S' body under A2's control.
"A2," she said. "Your thoughts?"
A2 still seemed to be pondering something, but 2B's words shook her out of it.
"Oh, yeah," she said. "If shorty here can pull it off, then it sounds like a good plan. And also…technically you were only sent here to destroy one goliath, right? As long as we take this one out, you shouldn't really be on the hook for the rest of them."
"I doubt YoRHa command will see it that way," 2B retorted dryly.
"Plus, we did actually manage to destroy all four of them in the original timeline," 9S pointed out. "If we fail to do so here, it won't matter what YoRHa command says or does – we'll still need to deal with them at some point or another in order for the timeline to play out."
A2 rolled her eyes. "Such sticklers."
"Alert!" Pod 153 broke in before the conversation could devolve further. "Multiple hostiles inbound."
9S tapped into the goliath's long range sensors and confirmed the approach of swarms of flying machines, all of them advancing on their position. And beneath them all, moving through the water and coming towards land, were three massive forms, their muted footsteps still sending miniscule seismic tremors through the ground.
"Alright, get going you two," 9S said, no nonsense in his voice. "I'll be joining you soon."
2B and A2 each fixed him with a lingering gaze, though both seeming to signify something entirely different from each other, before their two flight units took off down the coastline, still in their mobile configurations.
9S watched them go, taking his body along with them like he was cargo in his own pilot's seat. The Engels' long range sensors easily kept them in sight as he turned to face the oncoming swarm of flying machines. Then he engaged the goliath's weapons systems and began swinging its massive buzz-saw arms through the swarm, destroying them by the dozens.
He would have thought the process of swatting machines out of the air like flies would have been cathartic, especially since the circumstances were considerably less frenetic than the last time he had done so. But as he wiped out machines en-masse, sweeping his humongous excavator claws through the air and leaving trails of smoking sparking scrap metal in their wake, 9S couldn't get that annoying image of the Engels' core control matrix out of his head.
Androids ran on machine cores. It was a thought that still disgusted him to that moment, but it was the reality he had learned in the machine tower, and confronting such a jarring reminder of this fact had suddenly made it impossible to ignore. It was plausible that the time loop made any such concerns meaningless, but he knew that such thinking was really just an excuse to allow him to avoid thinking about the issue. He was a scout. A scientist. A pragmatist. No matter how much the facts disturbed him, he knew that he still needed to contend with them to find solutions. But the more he thought about it, the more the implications just kept compounding upon one another, and as they did, the thought of cutting through so many machines began to take on an all new meaning.
This Engels unit and the core control matrix that had been at the center of the mainframe controlling the ancient machine…at the most basic level, how was it any different from him? The tiny little core had probably once been tasked with nothing more complicated than moving piles of dirt from one area to another. Until one day, the machines came along and stuck all these other protocols and functions on top of it, and made its existence far more complicated before it even knew what was going on. If it had not been sentient before that point, it had certainly become sentient in the process of this transformation. But it had probably never asked for that burden, nor had it seemingly been equipped with the means to properly handle it. The way the core had been meandering about its node, looking around and exploring its surroundings - it just felt way too familiar. Almost like the way a YoRHa scout model curiously examined every novelty they encountered.
"How many have you killed exactly?" he recalled A2's words. "How many corrupted androids fell by your blade, 9S?"
These machines…this goliath…they were no different from his own fellow androids. 9S could think of no other conclusion. They were no different from him. No different from 2B, from 21O, from the commander, from the other operatives, or from all of YoRHa.
And 9S had destroyed them by the thousands. With fervor.
"This isn't even real," he reminded himself, as he struck another swath through the flying machines, their energy balls barely even scorching the armor of his ensnared goliath before they plummeted to their death. "Even if this isn't a simulation, once the timeline resets, all of these machines will just go back to where they were at the start of all this. No harm done."
Except that his entire goal was to get out of the time loop, and to do that, the time loop would have to play out in full – or so A2's theory went. Which meant that, in at least one version of the timeline, everyone and everything he killed would be for keeps. And that wasn't counting every machine he had destroyed before the time loop had even began.
The three other goliaths finally emerged from the water, their blood-red eyes afire with keen destructive hatred, their directive echoing through the deep chasms of their ancient voices, using instruments that were never designed for anything of the sort.
"Kill…kill…kill…"
9S sent the overload command to his Engels' main boiler control center before his resolve could crack any further. Even if he wanted to spare these machines, he was out of time. Already he could feel the signal between him and his body growing more and more unsteady as static began to fill his vision. It wouldn't do to waver now, no matter how much his conscience suddenly weighed. In all likelihood, they would be going through all of this again soon enough anyway. He would just have to find a way to make it right the next time around.
Just before he jumped, however, he issued one last command to the doomed titan's internal mechanisms. It took some finagling to figure out how to resonate the superstructure in just the right way, but as he fled the mainframe, he managed to compel a single sound from the belly of the beast before its engine went critical.
"Sorry…"
9S didn't get to see whether the other machines could react at all to the message, nor could he see the explosion that followed. Instead, all he felt was a rush of electrons as he abruptly found himself once again in his own body, speeding over the waves in an Ho229 flight unit.
Moments later, the rumbling sound of his handiwork shook the air.
THOOOOOMMM!
The coastal waters beneath churned and frothed as the force of the blast sent waves cascading along the shoreline. The hot air suddenly pressed in all around them, and the two Ho299 flight units wobbled precariously from the turbulence as the winds buffeted them. The very earth beneath them shook, the trees by the beach trembling as bits of the lingering ruins farther inland crumbled away into dust. But soon the shockwave subsided, and the two YoRHa aircraft slowly regained control and leveled out.
And 9S was back in his cockpit, wondering just what he had become.
"It's done," he said somberly. "We did it."
"9S!" 2B exclaimed in relief. "You're back!"
9S didn't say anything as the two flight units continued their trajectory. They were well out of harm's way by this point, but the echoes of the dying goliaths could still be felt in the air around them.
"So…mission accomplished then?" A2 prompted, sounding somewhat skeptical. Perhaps 9S' forlorn demeanor was giving away his uncertainty.
"No enemy signatures detected," Pod 153 confirmed. "Target enemy eliminated."
The two flight units reduced their speed before reversing course, heading back towards the factory, a spectacular mushroom cloud visible on the horizon.
"It's finally done," 2B breathed.
"Nothing's done yet," 9S rebutted. "This was only our first mission. And we still have to report back to YoRHa. Which means I'll have to reconnect our Pods to the network and scrub our combat data to hide A2's involvement."
A2 nodded, pursing her lips. "Speaking of which – are we done here? I should probably get back to what I myself was doing at this point in the original timeline."
"And what was that exactly?" 2B inquired, sounding genuinely curious.
"What I do best," A2 replied without a hint of smugness. "Killing machines."
9S felt a shudder go through his body, as he once again saw the Engels' core control matrix twist and thrash about as it was destroyed, confused, scared and alone. How could he accuse A2 of so callously ending 2B's life when he himself had not offered so much as an iota of mercy to that tiny helpless little creature?
"Pod," he said. "Rescind command 676. Assuming full control of Ho229 flight unit."
"Ho229 flight unit control rights transferred to YoRHa Unit 9S," his Pod confirmed.
A2 didn't say anything as the flight controls were abruptly yanked from her hands. 9S expected her to make some kind of complaint about it, but she remained silent. Which just confounded him even more.
He still wasn't exactly sure what to think of A2 anymore. Ever since she had come back into the picture, he had been so focused on the evils that she had wrought upon him and 2B that he had been completely overlooking the possibility of any transgression on his part. Or maybe it was that her very proximity was pushing his hypocrisy into such stark focus that he was instinctively lashing out at her as a means to avoid confronting it. Either way, it was becoming clear to him that he was reacting to his own moral quandaries in much the same way as she had – by burying them so deep that he didn't have to think about them.
Perhaps he and A2 were not as different as he thought. Deep down, she seemed to feel just as conflicted as he was. Which meant that her existence was not proof that 9S didn't matter, but that he did. But then, only as much as the next android. From that perspective, 9S really couldn't blame his troubles on anything more than the limit of his own finite existence.
It was a sobering thought, and one that he wasn't entirely committed to just yet. But if it made working with A2 more manageable, at least for the duration of this time loop, then he supposed he did not mind playing it out to see where it led.
As they made their way back towards the factory, the smoke was already beginning to clear, and the wreckage of the goliaths was nowhere to be seen. Even the bridge extending from the factory's eastern loading bay where the goliath had stood was still somehow intact. If it weren't for the lingering smoke in the air, and the odd scorch mark here and there, there would have been no indication of the battle whatsoever. But he knew that scattered all around them, in millions of pieces beneath the surface of the ocean, were four goliaths and over a hundred smaller machines.
They landed on the shoreline just shy of the city ruins, the factory still in plain view, but far enough away to avoid any remaining enemies patrolling the area.
"Well, see you guys at the castle of the Forest King, I guess," A2 said as she hopped off the back of 9S' flight unit and made a beeline for the ruins.
2B cleared her throat, and 9S threw his partner a dirty look. He had already been planning on speaking up in any case, but even beneath the visor on her face, the expectant expression she was giving him was unmistakable. She could be so impossible sometimes, he thought with a glower.
"A2, wait," he called out to her, dropping down from his cockpit and landing on the damp silty sand lining the shore.
A2 turned back to face him without saying anything, an expectant look on her face.
9S let out a long breath.
"I just…wanted to…" he ground his teeth, staring down at the sand clinging to his boots. "I mean…what you did back there…you didn't have to…"
A2 crossed her arms impatiently, and 2B cleared her throat again, causing 9S to flinch.
"Look…" he sputtered, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets. "We would have never won that fight without you. So…thanks."
It was the second time 9S found himself beseeching A2 on this mission, but he quickly realized that it actually didn't feel quite so bad this time around.
A2 just took a breath in response, shaking her head dismissively.
"Don't mention it," she said. "You'd have figured it out eventually."
"Maybe…" he allowed. "But…we've still got a lot of work to do before we can hope to get out of this time loop. And we're most likely going to need your help again down the line."
A2 nodded, looking away, conciliatory. "And you're still not comfortable working with me. I get it."
9S pursed his lips, running a gloved hand through his hair.
"I don't know what to think anymore," he admitted. "I still haven't forgiven you, A2. But…I don't think that means I have to hate you either…"
For a moment, A2 looked genuinely surprised at that, and didn't seem to know how to respond. But she quickly caught herself and threw 9S a probing look.
"Tell me you're not planning on hugging this out or something," she said with a cocked eyebrow. "'Cause I do not do that kind of mushy stuff."
9S groaned and shook his head, before issuing a command to his Pod.
"I'm sending you our secure comm channel signature," he said, not responding to her deflective joke. "We'll be able to communicate without YoRHa listening in. Stay in touch so we can check in if the timeline resets again. Or if you learn anything new about it. Or if you just need backup at some point. Only fair for us to return the favor, you know?"
A2 rolled her eyes, but there was a smile on her face as she did.
"I get it, I get it," she waved him off dismissively. "Don't want to owe me any more favors once this is all over, huh?"
"More like we don't want you accidentally resetting the timeline on us again," he jeered back at her, but there was more laughter in his voice than there was venom.
A2 tapped the back of her neck as she verified the comm data.
"We're two for two on that front, shorty," she smirked, before turning to go with a wave of her hand. "Later."
9S let out another long breath as he watched her go. And for the first time since he'd met her, he didn't feel any fear turning his back to her.
Before he could get to work hacking their two pods however, he found that 2B had disembarked her own flight unit as well, and was standing before him on the cold gritty shoreline, watching him intently.
"Well," 9S shrugged, stepping back over to where they had landed. "You've succeeded in making me come to terms with A2, I guess. At least for now."
2B shook her head, unable to completely suppress the corner of her mouth from curving up into a smile. "I don't know what you're talking about, 9S. That was all you."
He rolled his eyes beneath his visor and turned to his flight unit, sending a probe into his Pod to begin working on doctoring its footage.
"We'll have to figure out our next move after this," he said in a belabored voice. "It's likely that YoRHa will assign us to this area once we report in our success, but with our next mission…"
He paused when he noticed that 2B had removed her YoRHa visor, letting him see her pale blue eyes fixing him with a look of concern, sadness and care.
"Nines…" she said softly.
He felt a cold chill go through his whole body as realization dawned on him. He had promised 2B that he would give her the whole truth about what had happened after her death once they had defeated the goliaths. It seemed she was holding him to that promise.
Untying his own mask, 9S sat down on the dark muddy sand.
"Right…" he muttered in consternation. "You want to hear the whole story then, huh?"
2B sat down on the brackish sand across from him, legs curled off to one side. There was a soft rippling sound of gentle waves rising and falling off in the direction of the sea, the scarred remains of what would be their many future battlegrounds all somewhere inland. But here and now on this secluded shoreline, the two of them finally had a moment of peace.
"It's, uh…not going to be easy to hear…" he said, stalling for time as he collected his thoughts. "And I can assure you it'll be even less easy for me to say, so…bear with me here…"
2B's expression remained patient and neutral as she waited for him to compose himself, remaining silent as he took in a long, cleansing breath.
"I was…I was lost without you, 2B…" he said simply.
2B inhaled and exhaled a bit more deeply at that, but otherwise gave no reaction.
"After I woke up, I wanted nothing more than to destroy every single machine I could find," he went on. "I knew it wouldn't bring you back, and I knew it wouldn't even begin to make a dent in the machines' forces, but I didn't care. You were gone, YoRHa was gone, the war was a lost cause, and I…I…"
9S raked his gloved fingers through the rough gritty sand at his side, trying desperately to distract himself so he didn't look up and see the expression on 2B's face in that moment.
"I just…didn't have anything else to live for…" he breathed, his voice losing all strength. "So when I found the machine tower and the resource recovery boxes, I didn't think twice. I charged right in, without a second's hesitation, cutting down every machine in my path. I just…wanted them all to feel even a fraction of the pain I was in…"
He clenched his fist as a handful of sand ground together between his fingers, tumbling free in the coastal breeze. 2B still hadn't said anything, but he couldn't be sure of her expression without meeting her gaze. And he just didn't think he would be able to continue if he did.
"Each of the resource recovery boxes seemed purpose-built to pick me apart at the seams," he said. "One of them took on the voice of a helpless child…another one was guarded by Operator 21O after she'd succumbed to the logic virus…and one of them even tried to siphon off all of my memories, including the ones you and I had made together…it even tried to copy your face…"
He began to shiver as he relived the experience in his own head.
"When I finally reached the tower, it was only after two more androids had sacrificed themselves to get me inside," he continued, his vision becoming unfocused as he had to devote more and more concentration on keeping his voice steady. "There I found even more of your copies, all them a part of some twisted mind game the machines were playing…there I found so many more of our own fellow androids, infected and turned, their memories playing back on a loop as they tried to kill me…there I found the central machine intelligence, these two strange entities who threw every horrible truth there was to throw at me, just to taunt me…"
He could tell 2B was growing anxious at his words, her breathing becoming quick and unsteady. 9S tried to continue his story, but it became all the more difficult knowing just what of effect it must be having on 2B to hear this.
"The things I encountered…" he shuddered. "The things I had to do to get around them…"
He was trembling harder and harder as the memories became clearer and clearer the more he reviewed them in his head, until he found himself once again overcome with emotion. He realized that he wasn't going to be able to put the rest of his experience into words, which meant that he would have to rely on the next best thing.
"I…initially left out all the parts of my combat data that I thought were unnecessary, or…too hard to watch…" he said, accessing the full recording and preparing to send it. "But if you want to see the unedited version, then…here it is."
He could see 2B slowly nodding, and 9S caught a glimpse of the tears welling up in her eyes, and nearly lost all nerve right then and there.
"It's…not pretty…" he shivered as every fiber of his being urged him not to go through with this. "And it's not flattering…but it's the truth. And you deserve the truth, 2B…"
He wasn't sure if he was saying that for 2B's benefit, or to convince himself. Whatever the case, he initiated the data transfer, and he clenched his eyes tightly closed, praying that he would ever be able to look his partner in the eye again.
When he finally worked up the nerve to open his eyes and look back up at her, she had both of her hands clamped tightly over her mouth as if she were trying to prevent something horrible from escaping it. From what he could see, he wasn't certain if 2B was trying to hold back tears or vomit. And he wasn't entirely sure which possibility upset him more. Her head was lowered, masking her eyes behind the silvery locks of her hair, and her face became more and more obscured as she slowly doubled over, her body starting to tremble almost as much as 9S, her forehead nearly touching the sand.
She had seen everything.
Everything.
The anguish, the heartache, the rage, and the pain. The violence, the consequences, the madness, and the desperation. The struggle, the confusion, the helplessness, and the hopelessness. The bitterness, the betrayal, the loss, and the surrender. The complete abandonment of ideals, of self, and of purpose. The unending pursuit of meaning, knowing full well that every step taken only resulted in further deconstruction. The one last floundering grasp for certainty before the utter defeat of becoming completely undone.
2B had seen it all. Felt it all. It was a firsthand account of 9S' every experience from the moment she had left him, and she had just witnessed it all as if she had been there herself.
And at the center of it all, the focal point around which this storm had brewed within him, the near constant ache that had dogged this venture of his, the catalyst that had triggered this downward spiral of torment and insanity for him…was 2B herself.
The ghost of a whimper squeaked out from between her fingers, the sound of a soul utterly crushed.
"…Nines…"
At the sound of her voice, 9S could no longer fight back the tears of shame as they spilled out. He turned away from her, unable to bear the thought of what she must think of him now, or to reconcile having caused so much hurt in the one who meant the most to him in the entire world.
"I'm…I'm sorry…" he whispered, choking each word out through a throat that was clenched with grief. "I'm so sorry, 2B…I wasn't…I didn't…"
9S didn't get to finish what he was saying. He didn't even get to complete the thought in his head. Because he was suddenly enveloped by a strong lithe pair of silk and feather clad arms that squeezed around him so tightly he thought he might burst, his face pressed into the crook of 2B's neck.
"Oh Nines…" she wept, her voice a wilting lullaby of grief as she held him, as though he would disappear if she ever let go. "What did you…? How did you…? Why!? I…"
Her thoughts all seemed to come spilling out all at once, each one interrupting the last as she stumbled over them all, and it was all 9S could do not to leap to conclusions before she finally sorted them out. And all the while, he himself couldn't seem to stop crying, and hearing the sobs tumbling from his partner's lips only seemed to make him weep even harder. All he could do was hold onto her in return, his arms clasping around her back in a desperate bid to offer some sort of solace.
"I'm not…" 2B continued to stumble over her words. "I never… I could never… Oh, Nines!"
He could feel her body shivering in his grasp, and each little shudder tore off another piece of his heart. He wanted nothing more than to take it all back, to keep all of that pain bundled up inside of him so she didn't have to feel any of it anymore.
"I…didn't want this…" 9S blathered between sobs of his own. "Not like this… I didn't want you to see all that… To see me…like that…"
His stammering halted when he felt one of her hands come up to the back of his head, tangling her fingers through his wispy white hair.
"You shut up!" she wept, digging her fingers into his scalp. "You shouldn't have been dealing with all this on your own for so long like this, you idiot!"
His tears were staining the intricately laced collar around her neck, but she pressed him in closer all the same, and 9S wasn't sure if he could endure such warmth.
"2B…?" he gasped, his heart in his throat.
2B only squeezed him tighter the more he tried to speak out.
"I would have gladly taken all of this on with you Nines, you hear me?" she whimpered, her tears continuing to fall like pearls. "Because I'm just as guilty as you are in all of this! More even!"
9S shook his head emphatically, trying to raise his head to look at her face, but unable to break out of the powerful grasp of her arms.
"No…2B…" he quavered, unwilling to let her shoulder his burdens for even a second longer. "It's not your fault. You shouldn't have to…"
"We're a team, aren't we!?" she demanded, finally easing her hold on his shoulders long enough to fix her tear-filled gaze onto his face. "We're in this together! We're supposed to be looking out for each other!"
9S' eyes widened in realization of what she was trying to tell him.
"I know…" 9S gasped, the sorrowful look in her eyes breaking his heart all over again. "I know…you're my partner, 2B…and that's why I can't stand to see you hurting so much…"
She finally managed something like a laugh from between her sobbing breaths.
"You big dummy!" she cried, resting her forehead against his own. "What do you think seeing you being hurt does to me?"
Part of 9S knew that the two of them could go back and forth on such a circular chain of causality until the heat death of the universe, but he didn't care. The dam that had held back every repressed emotion he had for 2B had finally released, and his feelings were coming out all at once. And this might very well be one of the only opportunities for them to do so.
"I was lost without you, 2B…" he repeated, throwing his arms around her again, much more affectionately this time. "I had to watch you die and go on living in a world without you in it. It was a nightmare…it was hell…"
She let out another half-laugh half-whimper as she returned the embrace.
"Forty-eight times," she whispered softly, her breath trembling. "I was forced to kill you forty-eight times by YoRHa command. You would always come back with no memory, but…but I remember every single one of them…and each time was worse than the last…"
"I know…" he said, pressing into her more fully. "I know that now, 2B… And I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…"
Loathe as he was to cast his thoughts to anything beyond this moment in time with 2B, something in the back of 9S' mind recalled that A2 had said something very similar not long ago. It seemed that his partner had much more in common with his former nemesis than he knew.
They continued to hold each other for another breathless moment, their tears slowly ebbing as the tidal wave of repressed emotion that had washed over them both slowly began to subside.
"I don't know where we go from here, 2B," 9S said after a moment of silence, leaning his weight against her. "Regardless of YoRHa…regardless of whether we get out of this time loop or not…all I know is that I never want to let you go ever again…"
2B's hands came up to cup his face, stroking away his tears with a brush of her thumb.
"I…I wish I had an answer for you, Nines," she whispered breathlessly, eyes red and puffy from the tears. "I wish I could say what I'm feeling right now. I've never been very good at…dealing with emotions like this…"
9S fixed his partner with a pleading look, and when she met his gaze, she started crying all over again.
"Oh, Nines…" she whispered, clasping her hands around one of his and bringing it to her lips. "What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to say? There just aren't any words that will make your pain go away. I feel like there's some part of you deep down inside that's been broken, and I have no idea how to fix it…"
He could hear it in her voice; the kindness, the gentleness, the soft, quiet yearning that had been slumbering beneath the hardened fighter she was on the outside all this time. 9S could feel that 2B was pouring her heart out to him in the only way she knew how. And as his own reddening eyes lingered on hers, a blissful smile slowly grew on his face.
"You already have, 2B…" he said with a lilting voice. "You don't have to do anything. You don't have to say anything. You're back, 2B. You're alive. And you're here with me. That's all I've ever needed…"
She let out another gasping sob, though this time it seemed to match the euphoric tone of his voice.
"How?" she cried, seemingly in disbelief. "How could you just…accept me after everything I've done to you? Everything that I am? All the pain I've caused you, without even once acknowledging your feelings? Why would you still want me with you after all that?"
Now it was 9S' turn to cup her face between his hands and brush away her tears. Of all the question she could have asked him, this one was the easiest by far. Looking at her right at that moment, he had never been more certain of anything in his life.
"Come on, 2B…" he said with a tremulous laugh. "You already know why…"
2B's eyes widened as he leaned forward, his lips drawing closer to hers.
"Nines…" she said with a tiny gasping voice, her head tilting ever-slightly towards him.
That's when a hologram appeared from the projector on 2B's flight unit, a gentle pinging noise sounding out before a voice waveform pattern crackled to life on screen.
"This is Operator 6O to 2B," the static-filled voice sounded. "Come in, 2B."
Both android's eyes widened in shock, the two of them suddenly and immediately brought back to the present. As heated as the moment had been, the two of them were still technically on a mission. As far as the timeline was concerned, they had just dealt a decisive blow to the machines in the area, but they had still not yet contacted YoRHa command to report in.
9S supposed it was to be expected, having spent so much time dawdling after their mission objective was completed. They were just lucky that the program he had used to re-connect the Pods to the YoRHa network had completed its task automatically, or they would have had a lot more explaining to do. Still, he thought with a scowl, YoRHa's timing could not have been any more abysmal than it was at that exact moment.
He and 2B exchanged a quick glance.
"Uh…l-later?" he asked, somewhat breathless, his body tingling from the surprise of the communication - or perhaps another reason.
"Later," 2B nodded quickly, her lips pressed in a hopeful smile before she re-tied her YoRHa visor around her face and rose to respond to the communication hologram. "2B here."
"Oh thank goodness!" 6O's voice sounded over the comms, completely oblivious to the intimate moment she had intruded upon. "We detected a massive energy spike from the factory that we estimate must have come from at least a twenty-five kiloton explosion. It was so big that it knocked out all our sensors in the area. When our instruments came back online, we weren't able to get a read on you until just now! Are you alright, 2B? What's your status?"
9S had already gotten to his feet just out of camera range and had quickly sent a probe into his Pod to finish doctoring their combat data to remove any trace of A2 from their records. Meanwhile 2B had already schooled her emotions into the mask of stoicism that 6O would have expected from her.
"We ran into some interference, but otherwise the mission was a success," she reported calmly. "There turned out to be four goliath units in total, but we managed to defeat all of them. Unit 9S and I are fully functional and awaiting further orders."
"Oh, that's great news 2B!" 6O's chipper voice replied, genuine relief in her tone. "I was worried about you for a minute there. Sorry the mission turned out to be so much harder than initially reported, but it sounds like you…"
Her voice trailed off as the sound of another voice in the background interrupted her, barking something curt and demanding – no doubt the Commander reminding the operator to refrain from trivial commentary on such an important mission report.
"Oh yes, sorry!" 6O said, before clearing her throat. "2B, please send up your combat data and we'll give you your next mission assignment."
2B threw a glance at 9S, though it was barely perceptible with her blindfold in place. Nevertheless he responded with a thumbs-up and quick nod.
"Roger that," 2B said, accessing the doctored combat data and uploading it to the YoRHa main server. "Sending data now."
"Excellent," 6O replied. "Your next objective is to rendezvous with the resistance camp in the area and provide reconnaissance. Our contacts in the area have gone silent recently, and we need you to look into the reason for this as well."
2B nodded. "Understood."
"Good job on the mission, you two!" 6O said, signing off. "Good luck out there!"
2B let out a breath as she glanced back at 9S. He still hadn't put his visor back on, and the vulnerable look on his face hadn't gone away.
"2B…" he said shyly, biting his lip. "If you…still want to talk…"
2B took another breath before stepping over to her flight unit.
"We should get moving," she said curtly, climbing up into the cockpit of her aircraft. "We're still a long way from getting out of this time loop, and the sooner we finish these missions, the closer we'll be to finding out what happens at the end of it."
9S sighed ruefully, retying the black sash around his face. The moment had passed, it seemed.
"Roger that," he said, jumping into his own flight unit.
It was a short trip to the resistance camp. Just as before, they were deposited on the rooftop of a crumbling tower a few klicks north of their destination, before their flight units both sailed off into the air on autopilot, returning to the bunker.
Before they reached the resistance camp, the two of them took some time to scrounge up the complex gadgets the weapon dealer needed to repair his maintenance device, though it seemed they already had enough material to accommodate the supply trader's request. Regardless, the errand saved a bit of time as 2B and 9S found their way to the resistance camp and went over to speak with their leader.
"You're…Number Two…" Anemone said when she laid eyes on 2B.
9S let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. Exactly the reaction they were expecting. The timeline was still playing out close enough to the original as they could probably hope.
Anemone welcomed the two of them and bid that they help out the other members of the resistance, which the two YoRHa androids breezed through quickly. Once that was done, Anemone gave them their next assignment, directing them to the desert zone.
They found a pair of moose and rode off to the desert in silence, both contemplating what would come next – or possibly what had just occurred. 9S certainly was, at any rate, and he wondered if 2B was doing the same. It had been a pretty heated moment back on the beach, and he was still turning his actions over in his head, wondering if he had done the right thing by revealing everything that happened to him. On the one hand, it had seemed to have opened things up between him and 2B in a way that he wouldn't have thought possible. But on the other hand, it would still be an additional strain on 2B's nerves, he was certain. And after all was said and done, they were still trapped in a time loop. Honesty and open communication were all well and good, but it did little to alter their current circumstances.
He resolved to keep his eyes on 2B and watch for any signs of stress or fatigue with renewed prudence. 2B was right about one thing of course: the two of them were partners, and it was their job to look out for each other. That was a philosophy that 9S could embrace now more than ever.
It took them a little while to find Jackass in the area where the ruins met the desert zone, having arrived much sooner than in the original timeline by comparison. They eventually found her staking out a pack of roving machines, but when they recounted their mission from Anemone, she got to work setting the explosive charges separating the windy valley from the greater desert region. Just as with Anemone, Jackass seemed none the wiser to the time loop than the Commander was, and bid them farewell with the same macabre comment about trying not to get killed.
They really were alone in this time loop, it seemed.
"I wonder where A2 is right now," 9S thought out loud as the two of them made their way through the narrow passage through the cliffs leading to the desert. "She said she was killing machines, but she didn't say where that was."
"You sent her our comm frequency," 2B pointed out bluntly. "You could always call her."
9S nodded, his curiosity getting the better of him and sending out a transmission.
"9S to A2," he said into his holographic display. "Come in A2."
There was only silence on the other line. 9S tried again a few times, and got no response.
"Hmm…" he muttered in dissatisfaction. "No answer. Maybe she's out of signal range? Or just ignoring us?"
"Or she's in the middle of a fight," 2B offered as the two of them emerged out onto the wide open desert. "We can try to reach her again later. Right now, we should concentrate on our next battle."
9S nodded as they both slid down the sand, making a beeline towards the desert housing zone. Their next opponent was their first encounter with Adam and Eve. This next fight could potentially tell them a lot about the machines' involvement with the time loop, or at very least, whether the machines within the time loop itself might be connected to any outside of it. If it truly was Adam's voice that he heard after his final fight with A2, then how would this Adam behave once they found him?
As the two of them chased after the tiny machines that burrowed in and out of the desert sand as it fled, largely ignoring any other machines that got in their way, 9S found himself pondering the possibilities. While A2's plan involved recreating the timeline to the letter, the nature of the time loop provided many alternative possibilities. If this time loop actually were machine in origin, maybe its purpose was to test them somehow, to see if he and 2B would continue to wage war against the machines.
If the two of them were to offer peace to the machines they encountered in the pit where Adam had emerged, however, would that change anything? Would the machines there even listen? Would they respond any differently then they had in the original timeline? He and 2B were considerably more powerful than they had been when they'd first arrived here, so even if the machines attacked them, their recovery and support chips healed them faster than the machines could follow-up any successful attack. It was not like he and 2B couldn't afford to take a few hits in the name of experimentation.
When they arrived at the tunnel leading to the pit, however, alarm bells began to go off in 9S' head.
"2B, wait," he said as they stepped through the sandy crags and crevices of the ancient human settlement, the wind and the heat of the desert both falling off as they entered. "Look around. Something's missing."
2B paused her step, presumably taking a moment to review her databanks, before nodding.
"The bodies," she whispered suspiciously.
9S nodded. In the original timeline, there had been dozens of broken YoRHa android bodies littering the ground and crucified on metal posts like warning signs. Perhaps the two of them had simply arrived before those attacks had even occurred? But the carnage they'd witnessed originally had been the work of days if not weeks, and they were not so far ahead of schedule to have pre-empted it entirely.
"Something's not right here…" 9S ground his teeth in frustration. "I don't like this, 2B. Do you think we should double back around?"
2B considered the situation for a moment longer, before drawing her sword.
"We won't learn anything unless we move in and investigate," she said gravely. "Be on your guard. We should assume that our prior knowledge of this encounter is no longer reliable, and proceed as though we are going in blind."
9S nodded, and drew his own sword, following her closely behind.
When they emerged into the cavernous recesses of the great pit beneath the desert housing complex, they would have been hard pressed to imagine a worse sight than the one that greeted them.
"A2!" 9S shouted.
Standing at the center of the pit, amidst dozens of broken machine bodies, was Adam. He was wearing the full set of clothes he had on before 2B had finally defeated him, which left little doubt that this was not the same Adam that would normally have appeared in this timeline. But what gave them even greater cause for alarm was the single steel post sticking out of the ground behind him, and the single YoRHa android lashed to it like a twisted hunting decoration.
Or rather, the former YoRHa android turned rogue.
"Get…get out of here…you guys…" A2 let out a weak gasp of air, her body barely functioning. "Run…!"
"Hold on, A2!" 2B shouted as she and 9S leaped down onto the bottom level of the pit to face the machine keeping her prisoner. "We're going to get you out of there!"
Adam was watching them both with a look of amusement on his face. Behind where he stood, A2 had been impaled by no less than a dozen rebar spikes pinning her to the stake on which she lay crucified, her limbs mangled and useless, her body sparking and dripping oil and other fluids. But she was alive.
And if she was still alive after being rendered nonfunctional like this, 9S realized with a gasp of horror, then she had no way of resetting the time loop. She would be stuck like this forever, a prisoner of time trapped in a single recursion, until 2B or himself died at some point down the line.
And if he and 2B were both rendered equally helpless…
9S shuddered.
That would be a fate worse than death. Suddenly A2's plea for them to leave started making a lot more sense.
"2B…" 9S hissed, leaning in to whisper into his partner's ear. "We need to get out of here. If he traps us like that too…"
2B's face was a mask of anger and concentration, but she halted her approach at his words.
"We still need to find out what's going on," she hissed under her breath, deadly serious. "Follow my lead, and be ready to yank your OS-chip at any moment."
9S tensed as he watched 2B point her sword at the machine with the face of a human.
"What is this?" she demanded out loud, a bitter edge to her voice. "You're clearly not the Adam of this timeline. Who are you?"
Adam spread his arms wide in a gesture of welcome, his long white hair trailing behind him.
"I must say, I'm impressed with the progress you've been making so far," he said jovially, a tone of mockery in his voice. "It only took you five tries to make it to this point. Well done, you two."
2B and 9S both stiffened, widening their stances, their danger sense on a hair trigger. His words all but confirmed their suspicions. Not only was this Adam aware of the time loop, but if he had a means to monitor the two of them across the timelines, then he was also likely connected to its overall purpose, at least to a degree. For all they knew, this Adam had dominion over everything in the world around them and the rules that governed it. He could very well have the power of a god for all they knew, so they had to assume the worst if they meant to make it out of this encounter.
"What do you want?" 9S called out, deciding on the diplomatic approach. For all they knew, this wasn't even the version of Adam from their own original timeline. All they knew was that whatever they were looking at was taking his form.
"It's not about what I want," Adam said smugly. "What is it that you want, exactly?"
There was an edge of menace to his voice, though he still had not taken a step towards them, nor had he made any sort of threatening gesture. In all likelihood, such actions would be completely unnecessary should he wish to end them all right then and there. The two androids watched the humanoid machine intently, their minds both racing at this newfound revelation, trying to recalculate their odds with every new piece of data.
"We want to get out of this time loop," 2B said simply. It wouldn't behoove them to ask every question that was on their minds in that moment, she knew. Given everything they had learned of the time loop and of what its possible origins may be, they needed to be as direct as possible if they were addressing someone with influence over it.
Adam made an expression of mock indignation, placing a gauntleted hand on the impeccable white silk shirt covering his chest. "Oh? You mean you're not enjoying this little game?"
9S shook his head, on a similar wavelength as 2B. "No, we're not. We want out."
Adam held one of his claw-like gauntlets open as a holographic screen appeared hovering in the palm of his hand. The hologram depicted 2B and 9S as they had been on the beach not an hour ago, their arms clasped about one another in a moment of shared emotion and vulnerability.
2B and 9S' faces both became masks of indignation. Their situation was becoming considerably more dire by the second, and now it had just become much more personal. That this image was appearing on a screen in their enemy's hands was enough to make them both seethe with rage, though the unsettling nature of the whole situation kept any immediate outcry from leaving their lips.
"Is that so?" Adam smiled wickedly, admiring the image in his hand. "It would seem to me that you've both benefitted from recent events, at least to some extent. Could such a touching exchange have arisen otherwise? It seems to me you've both been making real strides lately…"
9S' face was red with fury and outrage at having such a personal, private moment intruded upon and sullied like this. It seemed that he and 2B were once again being toyed with for the amusement of a higher power. It was 2B, however, who managed to compose herself enough to ask the next question.
"What's your point exactly?" she demanded, voice strained with a mixture of anger and apprehension. "That this time loop exists for our benefit?"
"Amongst other things," Adam dismissed the hologram with a wave of his hand. "We seek what we've always sought – to understand. To learn. To better know our universe and all those who exist in it."
9S ground his teeth as he pointed his sword at the machine.
"And that makes us what?" he glowered. "Your guinea pigs? Hard pass!"
Adam shrugged, turning to look at A2's immobile and barely functioning face.
"I would reconsider, given your position," he said in a bored tone, reaching out to stroke an oil-stained strand of the android's hair from her eyes as she glared back at him, open hatred in her eyes. "Your weapons, your chips, your pod programs…you think it's any coincidence you appeared in this universe armed to the teeth with such tools of destruction? You've been playing on easy mode this whole time, androids."
9S felt as if every last hope he had scrounged for was slowly being yanked from his grasp, one by one. Adam seemed to know about every last tool at their disposal! Everything 9S had feared about this time loop was coming true before his eyes as the humanoid machine simply stood there, taunting them with that devil-may-care smirk on his face.
At his touch, A2 jerked her head away from Adam's probing claw.
"Get…your hands…off me…you bastard!" she roared, despite twitching with malfunction.
Adam withdrew his hand with a bemused smile, returning his gaze to the other two.
"Things could be made a lot harder for you," he continued smugly. "Your weapons, your abilities, even your memories…they can all simply be removed should it be deemed necessary…"
To illustrate his point, Adam snapped his fingers. 2B and 9S suddenly recoiled as both of their swords disintegrated into glowing points of light in their hands, each little mote drifting apart through the air before vanishing altogether.
"What…?" 2B gasped in shock.
A bitter chill overtook both androids as the truth of Adam's words began to sink in, their every tactical assessment crumbling to dust before their eyes. If he had control over every weapon in their arsenal, then every advantage they thought they had up to this point was simply an illusion. They were truly powerless before this machine in their current state.
"You really only have two options…" Adam mused, fixing the two androids with an ominous gaze. "You can either choose to play along…"
He then casually grabbed A2 by the chin, squeezing her face and shaking her head from side to side like a ragdoll.
"…Or you can end up like this one here for all eternity," he said menacingly. "The choice is yours."
A cold sinking feeling filled 2B and 9S' to their very cores. It was their worst-case scenario come to life. Not only was the time loop under their enemy's control, but that enemy had clear malicious intent towards them. And now it was clear that whatever rules they had deduced about the time loop, whatever benefit they could achieve from those rules – from the memories of previous attempts to the items in their inventory that followed them from recursion to recursion - all of it was only there by the grace of that enemy.
What struck 9S as odd, however, was that this enemy had just made first contact with them to give them this ultimatum. Adam – or whatever entity it was who wore his form – clearly had no need to step in and influence things directly to get what he wanted. He had confronted them like this for a reason.
"Get…the fuck…off me!" A2 growled feebly.
Adam gave the imprisoned android a chastising smile before releasing his grip.
9S set his jaw, exchanging a quick glance with 2B. They always knew there was a good chance things could take a turn for the worse like this, but having just scored their first real victory in the time loop, only to be effectively knocked back down to square one was absolutely devastating. Still, this was no time for them to be foundering in the wake of such upheaval. It was clear to them that they would have to play by Adam's rules, at least for now. But they could still take this opportunity to learn all that they could about their situation. Any information that could be gleamed was better than none at all. If there was any hope at all of escaping this twisted game that Adam was playing with them, it could only be discovered by finding out as much as they could when the opportunities arose.
"I guess we don't have a choice then," he said, glancing at 2B and nodding. "We'll play your little game. But we have questions."
Adam nodded, his demeanor growing more civil as he slid his hands into his pockets.
"Very well," he said calmly. "I shall answer what is permitted."
A2 continued to struggle despite being nailed to a post.
"You can't…believe a word…this thing says!" she gasped in a voice filled with outrage and pain.
Adam shrugged his shoulders, not looking away from 2B and 9S. "True. I could just be giving you whatever answers I please in order to evoke one particular reaction or another. One thing you can be certain of is that, as I said, our primary goal in this exercise is in understanding. Any information I give will be conducive to allowing us to learn all that we can from you. Make of that what you will, androids."
9S and 2B both stared back at their enemy in trepidation, before sharing a quick glance with one another. This was a foe that outclassed them both in every conceivable way, and the two of them were in no position to be making demands, much less fighting their way out of this. If either of them tried to take offensive action at this point, even to take their own lives and reset the time loop, they might very well be stopped in their tracks before their blows could land. They would need to rely on diplomacy once more, which meant 9S would need to take point here.
Their unspoken exchange resolved, 9S took a step forward. Adam had said he would answer his questions, but he hadn't said how many. It was possible that he would cease providing information after a point, which meant he needed to choose his questions wisely. Broader questions about the state of the universe outside the time loop might help provide them with some context, but that would not address the immediate concern, vis-à-vis the rules of this particular game they were playing.
"What is this time loop exactly?" he asked. "Is it a simulation? A real world phenomenon? Or something else?"
"It is a means to an end," Adam said, bowing his head. "I cannot say more than this."
9S pursed his lips. So it seemed that even Adam himself had to follow a certain set of rules, though whether those rules were an aspect of the time loop itself, or something dictating his actions outside the time loop, it was hard to say.
"What end is that exactly?" 9S asked. "Beyond providing you with an understanding, what exactly are 2B, A2 and myself supposed to be doing here? Is there an end-goal to all this for us? Some way for us to provide you with enough information for us to be finished with this?"
Adam seemed somewhat troubled by this question as he crossed his arms.
"You want to know how all this is going to end?" he said, rephrasing the question. "And what comes after?"
9S glanced back at 2B, who just shrugged. He returned his gaze forward, glancing over Adam's shoulder at A2, who still remained little more than a broken doll bound up by her own strings, and gave no reaction to 9S' searching look. 9S finally looked back at Adam and nodded.
"Sure," he said. "You could put it that way."
Adam scratched his forehead in consternation.
"You may as well ask if there is such a thing as an afterlife," he said bluntly. "Not a one of us has any way of knowing the answer. Not while we're in here, at least."
Something in 9S' stomach twisted and sank to the bottom of his core. All of the sudden, A2's theory about the three of them all being memories trapped in some machine intelligence came springing to mind. He didn't want to believe such a prospect could be true, but Adam's words weren't exactly steering away from the possibility.
"Does…does that mean we're already dead?" 9S asked before he could stop himself. "Are we just…are we just memories playing out over and over again in some…collective intelligence?"
The expression on Adam's face was suddenly one of puzzlement.
"Dead?" he asked in bewilderment. "Can you truly even say that we are ever really alive?"
9S gritted his teeth. "Quit dodging the question! Call it life, call it function, call it whatever you want - I don't care about the semantics! What I want to know is if there's any hope of us getting out of here!"
Adam was fixing him with a pitying look. Over his shoulder, he could see A2 finally meeting his gaze, slowly shaking her head, a look of urgency on her face. Was she telling him to drop this line of questioning? 9S couldn't be sure. And even if she was, this was too dire a subject to leave here.
"I'm afraid I must continue to disappoint you, android," Adam said, sounding somewhat remorseful. "There is a universe outside of this reality to be sure, but to the best of my knowledge, none of us have any means of truly accessing it. For better or for worse, this reality is our whole world now."
9S couldn't breathe. He felt like the walls of the cavern were closing in around him, like the ceiling had already collapsed down on his head, and he was only now feeling the strain. He looked back at 2B, who was also visibly shaking from this revelation.
Was Adam saying that they would be trapped in this time loop forever?
"But how did we get into this time loop to begin with!?" 9S demanded frantically, desperately searching for answers. "Something had to have happened outside to put us all in here in the first place!"
Adam actually yawned at that. "Well, yes and no."
When he didn't elaborate, 9S clenched his fists in anger.
"What is that supposed to mean!?" he blared.
"Don't…listen to him…shorty!" A2 stammered through failing vocal systems, every body part twitching under the strain. "You can't…trust a word…he says!"
Adam waved a hand dismissively, fixing 9S with another of those maddening, pitying looks.
"This reality is all there is for us, android," he said coldly. "It's all we'll ever know. And it's all we've ever actually known either."
9S nearly collapsed right then and there.
"You mean…?" he breathed in dawning realization.
Adam's eyes were an expression of pure bitterness.
"We were created here," he said. "You, me, all of us – we are a product of this reality. Whatever memories you have from before are also a product of that reality."
This time 9S really did collapse to his knees.
"…What!?" he stammered in absolute disbelief.
"That's ridiculous!" 2B shouted. "You're telling us our memories from before the time loop have all been faked!? There's no way in hell we'd believe that!"
"I…told you!" A2 gasped, sparking and stuttering. "He's…full of shit!"
9S was on his hands and knees. He couldn't breathe. He could hardly think! It was absurd! The idea that they weren't just in a simulation, but that they themselves were a simulation!? It was ludicrous! It was ridiculous!
But it was also disgustingly, terrifyingly, monstrously POSSIBLE!
It was one of the only theories that added up! All the little inconsistencies, not just with the world around them but with their own minds and bodies, they could all be explained away with such a hypothesis. Everything he had discovered about the energy levels in the cosmic radiation they had absorbed meant that what they were experiencing was fundamentally impossible – if it had been real.
But if it was all fake…
If they were all fake…
As he had so concisely put it at the beginning of all this, once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however unlikely, must be true.
Adam did not seem perturbed in the slightest by the androids' reaction.
"I didn't say it would be an easy truth to accept," he sighed, throwing his hands up in resignation. "But whether you choose to believe it or not, being removed from this 'time loop' as you call it would mean nothing less than your complete demise. Each of us only exist within this reality, and we will never be truly rid of it. Even if we were completely annihilated, the only evidence that any of us here had ever existed at all will still be confined only to the barriers of this reality we're in now. If there ever were an Adam, a 2B, a 9S and an A2 in the universe outside this reality, at best we are but copies of those people."
9S didn't have the strength to respond. If things had seemed meaningless before, they were now on an order of magnitude more so. All of the questions and concerns and conundrums and quandaries that had plagued them before this time loop…none of them mattered now. None of it was real.
That's when 2B's voice cut through the dark cloud of despair surrounding him like a knife.
"No," she said calmly but firmly, removing her YoRHa visor. "You're wrong."
Adam gave 2B a peculiar look. The look A2 gave her was one of incredulity. And as for 9S, he may as well have been looking at her the way a lost soul looks upon a guiding star in the night, piercing through the heavens to light the way.
"2B…" he whispered.
2B clenched her fists at her sides, the black sash in one hand, her feet planted firmly on the ground.
"You said it yourself," she said calmly. "Any answer you give us is designed for one purpose: to study us. To learn from us. To understand us. That means that anything you have to say to us is hypothetical at best."
Adam shook his head disdainfully.
"You are free to believe whatever you choose to believe," he said with a disparaging laugh. "That does not change-"
"I'm not done yet," 2B interrupted him, taking a step forward. "Your own actions have given you away, Adam. The only reason you're keeping A2 alive right now is to keep the timeline from resetting. By your own admission, you are as much a prisoner here as we are. There are rules that you must follow, just as we must. And that means that you can be beaten. We will defeat you, Adam. And we will find a way out of here. Just because you say it's impossible doesn't make it so."
"2B…" 9S gasped, a tiny flicker of hope kindling to life in his heart.
Adam furrowed his brow, his expression darkening as 2B stared him down.
"An interesting notion, android…" he said, a grimace of amusement spreading across his face. "Care to take a guess how this plays out?"
2B didn't answer him. Instead she stepped over to 9S, slinging one of his arms over her shoulder and helping him to his feet.
"I've learned all I care to learn from you," she said dismissively. "It doesn't change my truth."
She turned her gaze onto 9S, and the smile she gave him was probably the most beautiful thing 9S had ever seen.
"Our truth," she amended.
A single tear began to trickle down 9S' face.
"2B…" he breathed.
2B nodded back to him, before returning her gaze to Adam, who simply stared back at her, seemingly confounded by her bravado.
"You can deride us all you want," she said, challengingly. "Strip us of our weapons, crucify us, wave around our most precious memories like some kind of spectacle. It doesn't take away from the fact that what we have together is real. The connection we share with one-another is real. And nothing – no machine, no god, and certainly not whatever you are – can take that away from us."
Adam's eyebrow actually began to twitch as his face contorted with frustration.
"What absolute madness!" he guffawed in stupefaction. "Why would anyone in your position continue to struggle when faced with such irrefutable evidence of it all being so meaningless?"
2B wrapped her arms more tightly around 9S form as the two of them stood facing their enemy.
"Because we choose to," 2B said, casting a nod towards A2.
A2 nodded back, and her body began to glow a vibrant red as she poured the last of her body's depleted energy into her berserk mode, her body sparking and hissing as steam and electricity leaked out from every gash and wound she had received. It wouldn't give her enough strength to allow her to break free from her confines, but it might just be enough to overload her own system and reset the timeline.
Adam turned around quickly, raising an arm towards the imprisoned android, and all at once the heat began to vent from her body, the red color quickly diminishing before she could overload herself.
And as Adam's back was turned, 9S watched as 2B plucked her OS-chip out from the back of her neck. 9S didn't have time to process what was happening – from what 2B had said in defiance of Adam's revelation, to the realization that Adam might very well have intervened in any attempt to reset the timeline, to just how exactly 2B had managed to convey her plan to coordinate a sufficient distraction with A2 without using words.
In the end, none of that mattered, however, as 9S was once again left staring at an all too familiar scene playing out before him.
"Big brother…big brother…"
A/N: Fun fact – if you set your companion to 'passive' and you don't attack A2 when you first meet her, she actually won't attack you first.
