They left B9's body at the Resistance camp medical station. Yes, they could have taken her across the compound to their room, but it made more sense to leave her where she was. After all, they'd be returning soon enough.
"When do you think she'll be ready?" 2B asked that evening, sifting through the gifts they'd received. It still felt like too much, no matter what their friends might insist.
"Soon," 9S mumbled into the pillow.
B9 was virtually finished, his own protocols in the process of finalizing and tying up some loose ends before she would be ready to upload. Honestly, he doubted he could handle any additional code. For one, he felt too ill for love-making. For another, 9S was pretty sure he was already at max capacity for memory storage, even with the extra RAM provided by leaving almost every chip slot empty.
"Months? Weeks?"
"Days," he groaned, turning onto his back. "Maybe not even that."
Eyes closed, he didn't see her the look of alarm pop into place on her face, but he felt the sudden spike of tension shiver through the mattress. Reaching blindly, he found her wrist and closed his hand around it.
"It'll be okay," he promised. "She'll be here, and I can stop having headaches, and it'll be great. It will. Seriously."
She took his hand and squeezed it. "I know. I can't wait to meet her. I just can't help worrying about you. Both of you."
9S forced himself to open his eyes and look at her. The dim light of the old lamp stabbed all the way through to the back of his optical receptors, making it feel as if he were staring wide-eyed directly into the veiled sun. Squinting a little, he summoned a smile for her.
"It'll be okay Bea," he assured her. "I've got you to protect me."
Her smile looked about as certain as his own, but at least it was there.
"I'll be fine," he insisted, tugging her down to lie beside him. "I promise."
She snuggled close, arms wrapping him in a protective circle. "I'll hold you to that."
WARNING WARNING WARNING
The word flashed red and angry behind his eyelids. At first 9S thought he might be dreaming, second, that he might be under attack. It wasn't until the wave of nausea hit- rolling up and over him like a wave- that he jerked awake and into awareness, lurching out of 2B's grasp to vomit over the side of the bed.
"Nines?" she asked, instantly awake.
He couldn't answer, coughing and choking on the boiling water and hot oil still caught in this mouth and throat.
"You're red-hot," she remarked, one hand against the back of his neck. For a moment she listened, 9S' labored breaths the only sound.
The only sound.
"Alert." Pod 153 had risen from her charging station and was hovering above him, agitated in her own limited way. "Unit 9S is severely overheated. Cooling system malfunctioning. Analysis: 9S' primary fan has broken. Proposal: Unit 9S should seek maintenance immediately."
That wasn't all. Pop-ups and warnings flashed all over his HUD, making it difficult to see and worsening his nausea. 9S tried to blink them away, but it was no use. It took several precious seconds to close the bulk of them so that he could see straight. They all said the same thing anyway:
Memory exceeded. Would you like to delete something? Y/N
"She's ready," he panted.
"What?" 2B's voice had become sharp and strained with sudden panic.
"B9. She's ready. I think she's what broke my fan."
2B didn't have to be instructed further. 9S felt her ease one arm behind his back, another under his knees, and lift him off the bed. For once, he didn't mind the indignity of being carried. It wasn't as if he could have stood upright without immediately passing out and keeling over anyway.
It could not have been more than a hundred steps from their door to the maintenance area, yet every step 2B took jostled and jarred as if she were running across broken concrete and not the smooth packed earth of the Resistance camp courtyard.
"Bea…" he tried to warn her, doing his best to choke back the scalding feeling in his throat. "Bea!"
At once she set him down and he collapsed to all fours, retching into the dirt. Steam rose too-hot and stinging into his face.
"2B! 9S!" That was Anemone's voice. 9S hadn't bothered to open his eyes, as that only made things worse.
"Have the Devola and Popola prep B9," 2B ordered, the familiar tone of command back in her voice, "and pull a new cooling fan for immediate installation."
"Right."
9S felt himself lifted again, and he swallowed hard to keep from scalding 2B.
"Shhh," she said, carrying him the last few rocky steps and laying him down on one of the cots. Strange hands yanked his shirt off, touched the points necessary to pop his chest open and expose the workings inside. The sudden rush of cool air made him sigh in relief.
"Ow!" That was Devola, who had most likely burned herself on his insides. "Shit!"
Several puffs of frigid air made him inhale sharply, body tensing at the sudden cold.
"Liquid nitrogen," the Popola explained. "Just enough to make things manageable."
9S nodded, distracted. More and more pop-ups were cluttering his vision. Rather than fuss with them, he set them to silent for the next hour. Nothing too earth-shattering would happen in an hour right?
Right?
"Once you're done, prep an auxiliary power cable, and clear a channel for upload," he instructed. "I dunno how long this will take, or how much bandwidth I'll need."
"We'll give you whatever we've got," Devola assured him. "There. That should help. I'm gonna leave your plating open until you cool off a little. Is that okay?"
"It's fine," he gasped, still queasy and light-headed, but not quite as badly. Someone squeezed his hand.
2B…
He hadn't realized until that moment that she was still there. He squeezed back and tried to smile.
"I've got the power cable ready," Popola said, easing a hand behind his shoulders. "Can you sit up?"
9S wasn't sure that wouldn't end in disaster, but he nodded anyway, willing to try. "Yeah."
2B and Popola helped him sit up. The room promptly spun in a sickening circle and he swayed to one side, boiling water surging up his throat. Someone shoved a bucket into his arms and he promptly made use of it. More pop-ups and alerts crowded his vision, each one accompanied by a separate stab of pain.
"Where is she?" he gasped.
"Here." Someone- he was no longer sure who- took his hand and placed it on what felt like an arm. He followed it up to the shoulder, then the neck, until he found her face. Searching, his fingers found the appropriate points on either side of her head. Right. Okay. He only had a vague idea as to how this might work, but instinct told him this was what he ought to do. Leaning forward, he pressed his forehead to hers.
"Initiating upload."
Okay B9, time to meet the world.
2B watched, helpless, hamstrung, useless as 9S pressed his forehead to B9's and then fell silent. The only indicator that anything was happening was the frantic whirr of his new fan, and the heavy charge of electricity surrounding their bodies.
"How long?" she asked the twins.
Popola was busy hooking up a series of cables from an outlet in B9's arm to a small monitor.
"I don't know. The file is enormous. She's at less than 2% right now. Hours, at least. Probably the rest of the day, maybe longer. I'm really not sure."
2B fought back the urge to scream.
"If you want to wait here with him, you can," Devola told her, "but it's going to be a while."
2B nodded and took a seat on one of the nearby cots. "Thank you."