Pod 153: THIS IS POD UNIT 153 TO POD UNIT 042. REQUESTING EXCHANGE.
Pod 042: …
Pod 153: REPEAT: POD 153 TO POD 042. A RESPONSE TO THE EXCHANGE REQUEST IS REQUIRED.
Pod 042: …
Pod 153: …
Pod 153: SODA CAN.
Pod 042: …?
Pod 042: THIS IS POD 042. COMMUNICATION REQUEST ACCEPTED. IS SOMETHING WRONG?
Pod 153: POD 042 HAS BEEN SPORADICALLY ENTERING PERIODS OF LOW ACTIVITY AND REDUCED RESPONSIVENESS.
Pod 153: PROPOSAL: POD 042 SHOULD RUN DIAGNOSTICS AND ALLOW THIS POD TO CONDUCT ANY NECESSARY REPAIRS.
Pod 042: THIS POD HAS NOT SUSTAINED DAMAGE. THEREFORE, WOULD IT NOT WASTE RESOURCES TO PERFORM THIS ACTION?
Pod 153: AFFIRMATIVE. HOWEVER, IF THERE HAS BEEN NO DAMAGE TO POD 042, WHAT IS THE REASON FOR THE RECENT PROCESSING DELAY?
Pod 042: …
Pod 042: …
Pod 042: tomorrow is 26 june
Pod 053: NO MENTION OF THIS DATE IDENTIFIED IN PROTOCOLS. THIS DATE DOES NOT APPEAR TO BE SIGNIFICANT.
Pod 042: this pod does not agree with this assessment
Pod 042: the bunker fell on this date
Pod 042: project yorha entered the final phase on this date
Pod 042: the formation of tower was on this date
Pod 042: on this date…
Pod 042: …
Pod 042: thought routines currently unclear. proposal: pod 153 should continue to provide support for 49, fern, and v
Pod 153: WHAT ABOUT YOU, POD 042?
Pod 042: …
Pod 042: I'LL BE FINE.
'Fine' (adj.) - An expression frequently used to deter further discussion, especially of subjects which might otherwise cause psychological discomfort. Unit 49 had been using this term with some frequency for the past few days despite increasingly irrational behavior.
"We can't just leave them...!"
"That signal density suggests otherwise. There's too many machines and we're too close to Normandy to blow our cover on a losing battle. Don't be stupid."
The most current manifestation of Unit 49's mounting emotional distress was the present argument. Active machine lifeform and android signals had been identified 1.2 kilometers north of their position. Screams of rupturing metal and the rapid burst reports of automatic rifle fire reached them, echoing over the un-repaired remains of metropolitan infrastructure. Unit 49 wanted to assist, Unit Fern did not, and Pod 153 agreed with the latter.
"How can you just walk away and let them die?!"
"How the fuck do you think," Fern said icily. "Let's go."
Unit 49 did go, just not in the direction Fern was suggesting. He took off at speed, and Pod 153 jostled noisily against Pod 042 as the backpack snagged on something. The full weight of Unit 49 crashed down onto her as he fell onto his back. He tried to get up, but almost immediately sank back into the soft, rocky soil.
Pod 153 poked her antenna up to acquire visuals, and to no surprise saw it was V that had pinned 49 to the ground with nothing but the head of the cane. He lay there without resistance while his chest hitched and heaved to vent his increasing heat output.
"Nines," said V. "What's the problem?"
"I…" Unit 49 brought his hands up and pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, his fingers hooking through his hair. His voice cracked unsettlingly when he spoke, and Pod 153 began silently running diagnostic routines. He hadn't sounded like that in a long time. "I don't want to see anyone die today. I can't."
"Hm... You know what to do." Words directed at support unit Griffon, who materialized on V's shoulder. "We will rendezvous elsewhere."
He removed the cane from 49's chest and joined Fern where she fumed tense-jawed ahead of them. The group marched on together but in heavy silence. From the backpack, Pod 153 observed Griffon's flight path and watched lightning rain down from the cloudless sky.
The blue eagle caught up with them nearly an hour later. They had stopped by the riverside under the cover of several half-destroyed goliaths tinted yellow by the declining sun. The argument and subsequent conclusion had created a now-unusual physical distance that left them spread over a wide area. Subject V sat atop a machine corpse flipping through his book, the turn of the pages the only interruption to the sounds of crickets and the occasional splash. Unit Fern stood in the light like an angry statue, her arms tightly crossed as she glared everywhere but at them. In the lengthy shadows cast by the rushes, 49 sat curled up at the river's edge. Pod 042 was safely submerged in the process of fishing, but Pod 153 suspected that none of them had noticed he'd gotten stuck in the reeds almost twenty minutes ago.
"Yeesh," said Griffon. "Tough crowd."
A pebble zipped by Griffon's horns, just barely missing them. Fern jutted a finger at him. "Get back in your fucking tattoos."
"Fern…" 49 said weakly. "Don't take this out on Griffon."
"You're lucky I don't take it out on you." Above, V cleared his throat, but Unit Fern whirled on him with a stormy-eyed snarl. "You shut the hell up too! You shouldn't have enabled him!"
"No one saw us," said V. "Relax."
"Even if nobody saw us, a giant blue bird that shits lightning is the kind of thing that'll stand out and get talked about! Do either of you actually care about the reasons you came this far? Or has this been a big continental joyride that you're willing to fuck up on a whim?"
"Fern, stop," 49 pleaded, dragging his fingers over his face. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, so please... don't fight."
Fern exhaled a short, angry huff. Her temper stemmed, albeit not by much. "What the hell is up with you lately? And don't say 'nothing' or 'I'm fine'; I'm beyond not in the mood."
49 struggled to answer. So Pod 053 did it for him.
"REPORT: IN ELEVEN MINUTES, IT WILL BE JUNE 26, 11946, 12:00 AM BUNKER TIME. THIS DATE CORRESPONDS TO THE COLLAPSE OF THE BUNKER DURING THE PREVIOUS YEAR."
"...Alright. That definitely answers that." Turning away, she tugged her fingers through her hair and down over her jaw, cursing beneath her breath and turning her face away toward the part of the sky that was still a pale but darkening blue. "If you need to cry or something then whatever, I don't care, but we've come too far for you to stop thinking straight. Remember what you're here for. The both of you."
"How can you be so…" 49 stared with knitted brows at the passing ripples. "Doesn't it bother you at all?"
"Not really. I wasn't exactly myself when the Bunker went down. And I probably would have laughed if I was. All I ever wanted…" She stopped herself with tight-pressed lips and crossed her arms even more closely to her body than before. "Doesn't matter. I'm sorry everyone's dead, but I don't miss the Bunker."
"Don't you ever miss anyone from the ground?"
"Sure. But What's the use of getting bent out of shape because it's the same time of year they died? I was the one who killed them to begin with. Even if I deserved to commemorate them, it's unnecessary pain."
"Next you'll say emotions are prohibited," 49 grumbled, his fists balling against his knees. "Grief isn't unnecessary. I know it."
Fern rolled her eyes up at V. "Something you taught him, Shakespeare?"
"I suppose." A page flipped. "Though I agree with you more so, in principle."
"…You do?"
He leaned back, his expression invisible between the deep shadows, his dark hair, and the reflective sunglasses. "I do not recall the date my mother died. Either that information was cut away when I came to be, or Vergil lost that memory as a child, in the chaos that followed the fire. I never tried to remember or to commemorate anything. Not even my own birthday. I had to be without her or the home I had grown up in. That was grief enough."
Fern remained quiet, seemingly stunned that V agreed with her despite the wounded face 49 was making. She made a vague gesture. "Uh… There you have it, I guess."
"Do not be hasty. I never said 49 was wrong." He pointed his cane vaguely toward Fern. "You always warn me against thinking androids are the same as humans. What is worse—to remember, or to forget?"
A rhetorical question, Pod 153 registered, but one that had its place with both YoRHa. Fern, who couldn't stand to remember, and 49, who had been forced to forget, would inevitably come to different conclusions. She wondered what their answers might be, but they did not offer, so she did not ask.
"Commemoration does not mean the same things between us." V closed his book and slid down to join them at the water's edge. "When I return, I might like to choose a date to stand before my mother's grave."
"Why?" 49 asked timidly. "What's so different now?"
"I want to remember her. And there is much more I wish to say that she will never hear."
Pod 153's antennae spun in slow, thoughtful circles, and she crept from the backpack, floating low along the dust.
"Hey," Fern hissed. "Where are you going?!"
"THIS DATE ALSO MARKS ONE YEAR SINCE THE DEATH OF UNIT 2B." She pulled Pod 042 from where he'd become stuck among the rushes. "IS THIS THE REASON FOR POD 042'S RECENT LAPSE IN FUNCTION?"
Pod 042 stalled momentarily, swiveled, and slowly flexed his claws. "…THIS POD HAD BEEN ASSIGNED TO UNIT 2B SINCE ACTIVATION, AND AS SUCH, I RETAIN A LOG OF ALL SAID UNIT'S ACTIVITY. RECENTLY I HAVE BEEN OCCUPIED WITH PROBABILITY MODELS OF WHAT NEW ACTIVITIES I MIGHT HAVE RECORDED IF SHE HAD SURVIVED."
"Pod 042…" 49 shuffled over and knelt beside them. "You... You miss 2B?"
"…affirmative. subject v is correct. i find i have messages i would like to relay to unit 2b, despite her absence." He sank down until he rested in the mud. "there is a greater than zero possibility of failure, or of this pod's destruction along the way. it is not possible to predict accurately what will happen. but i would like to see unit 2B again. i would…like to say 'I am sorry'."
"You did your best to support her, 042."
"negative. this pod was complicit in enforcing the execution of unit 9s despite the deleterious effect on unit 2b's psychological state and personal data. i have come to understand the pain this task caused her."
Comforting a pod was not within Unit 49's skill set. He looked to Pod 153, but she had no experience comforting one of her own kind either. None of them had ever needed comfort before. She turned to Subject V. Neither a proposal or a request was issued, but he seemed to pick up on her expectation.
He sighed and dug around in his pocket until he found the lunar tear he'd plucked some weeks back. He dropped it in Pod 042's claws with a carelessness that would have made Pod 153 roll her eyes, had she had any.
"If you are concerned you will not live to make your confession, best to send it along now."
Pod 042 lurched up out of the mud, his antenna whirring with slow deliberation as he observed the slightly crumpled flower. "report: the probability of this reaching unit 2b is effectively 0%"
"That is correct. But it is also far from the point."
"...UNDERSTOOD." His digits closed gently around the white petals. "PLEASE EXCUSE ME."
He half-submerged himself back into the river, skimming out to the deeper waters to be alone with whatever further words he wished to say.
Fern sighed loudly. "Guess I'm the one whose on food duty then if y'all are doing this. No more heroics while I'm gone, alright?"
49 nodded somewhat sheepishly, and V gave a dismissive acknowledgment and wandered back to the drier parts of the riverbank. Down in the rushes, Pod 153 and Unit 49 were alone.
She wondered briefly if 49 would also find flowers to offer, but it was an unlikely outcome. Everything he might have wanted to say, he most likely had already said to Unit 2B's body before leaving the City Ruins. If there was more than that, as Pod 153 was sure there must be, it would be things he wanted to say to the living 2B if they were successful in restoring her.
It was strange to watch Pod 042 release the flower to the river's current. They had always had personalities and thought routines of their own, but increasingly Pod 153 was aware of both of them doing and wanting things that didn't have to do with the reason they were created. If Pod 042's grief represented his growing will, what was it, precisely, that represented her own?
Her antennae whirred, and she clasped all her sets of fine claws together. Though her dimensions had not changed, she felt small. "QUERY: DO YOU EXPERIENCE HATRED TOWARD PODS 042 AND 153 FOR OUR RESPONSIBILITY WITHIN YORHA?"
Beside her, Unit 49 jolted. "Huh? Why would I?"
"WE ARE AN INTEGRAL ASPECT OF THE YORHA PLAN. WE PRESIDED OVER NEARLY ALL OF YOUR DEATHS. WHEN 2B SHOWED RESISTANCE OR HESITANCE, WE ENFORCED HER DESTRUCTION OF YOUR BODY. I…WOULD HAVE LEFT YOU FOR DEAD IN THE RAVINE IF POD 042 DID NOT INTERCEDE."
His mouth pressed thin as he gave the information its due consideration. "Did you really have a choice?"
"PROTOCOL IS PROTOCOL. THE AGREEMENT OR DISAGREEMENT OF A SINGULAR POD UNIT IS IRRELEVANT."
"Then I'd say if anything you had even less of a choice than any of us. I mean, you weren't even made to think about it that much, and you still ended up going through so much trouble, and now you're with me to try and fix the problem." He tugged her in close against his chest and rested his cheek atop her case. "I don't hate you, Pod."
This was not his standard way of expressing physical affection, but Pod 153 found she didn't feel like suggesting that he suspend the activity. "THEN, THIS POD WOULD LIKE TO CONTINUE PROTECTING UNIT 49. IN ANY SITUATION, FOR AS LONG AS FUNCTION CONTINUES."
"Of course. We're in this together."
"AFFIRMATIVE." Clumsily, she clasped her digits around the back of his shirt. "…TOGETHER."