Mark of Man
Chapter 13
A Person Starts Dying When They Stop Dreaming
Slowly Rokko forced her sore body to activate, and she blinked wearily as she realized a large medical examination light had been shining in her face.
"What the hell…?" She asked as she tried to raise a hand and block out the light.
However, she quickly realized that her arm wasn't working and her heart froze. Terror filled her entire being as she quickly realized that her body refused to move.
No, not this again. Not this ever again!
"Easy Huntress! I had to take most of your motor functions offline to finish repairs. You're not going anywhere for while. If you go on another mission right now you'd die in a few minutes at best." The familiar Lieutenant's voice filled her ears and X forced herself to relax.
"So, what's the damage this time Lieutenant Bublik?" Rokko asked tiredly as she closed her eyes in resignation.
"You were incredibly lucky. There were three fragments that had they been any closer to your primary power core, you might have gone nuclear."
Rokko winced, realizing that she had been lucky. While the odds of blowing up weren't high for her, especially compared to Mavericks like Flame Mammoth, she still utilized a highly volatile cocktail of energy to continue to operate. Most reploids didn't due to the inherent danger, but apparently, Professor Thane had felt it best to equip her with a complex array of micro sized nuclear fission, fusion, and solar reactors to operate. Because of this, she was as close to self sustaining as possible, only needing exterior energy when her own reserves were critically drained or she had taken gargantuan damage and could no longer operate effectively.
"So, I'm to just rest for now?"
The woman made a muffled noise of agreement before she spoke.
"You might consider running a defragmentation while you're at it. You probably haven't had time to do that considering."
A… Defragmentation? What did she think she was? A computer? Rokko wasn't sure how to respond, and so instead closed her eyes, once again baffled by humans.
Time passed, and when X next awoke, Bublik was gone, and the crimson leader of the Maverick hunters was kneeling beside her left side while his blond hair brushed against her.
"Hey beautiful. You look a lot better when you're not beaten to an inch of your life." She rolled her eyes and tried to sit up, only for Zero to lay a hand on her shoulder and push her back down.
"Rest X. You're in no shape to be running around. Damn, the fact you've managed to take out Penguin, Sparky, and Mammoth is insane as it is."
Scowling, X let her head slide to the right, and she glared up at the commander.
"It's just a job Zero, and why the hell did you call him 'Sparky'?" She asked as she glared up at him.
Zero simply raised a hand and wiggled a finger in front of her nose chiddingly.
"Now, now, it's 'commander', remember?"
Scoffing at his attitude, X felt a better term would be 'manchild' but unfortunately for her, he was a ranking officer.
"It's just a job… Sir." One day she was going to make him eat that title.
Zero rubbed the bridge of his nose at her statement. Something about it had apparently not been what he'd been looking for. Laying a hand on her shoulder, Zero rose a moment later.
"Anyway X, get some rest. I'd hate for you to go nuclear because you didn't take the time to recover."
Rokko nodded, allowing her eyes to close once again, cursing the red armored hunter as she did so. Everything about him drove her insane. No matter what she did, Zero didn't seem to get the message that she just wasn't interested in him. Of course, if she was honest with herself, she'd be surprised if he could learn either.
Time once again passed slowly for the battered huntress, but until the lieutenant released her for active duty all she could really do was wait around in complete and utter boredom. Nearly a full week passed for her as the technician worked on her systems, rebuilding components that had been damaged beyond what even she could repair despite her advanced nanotechnology.
Near the end of the week, Carlie Bublik approached her, with a clipboard in one hand, and an intent frown of consternation marring her face. Allowing her expression to blank, Rokko stood at parade rest, waiting for the lieutenant to speak.
"Huntress X, you're certainly a confusing Reploid." She stated without preamble as she looked over her clipboard once again.
"What do you mean?" X's eyes sharpened and she focused on the officer.
Tilting her head to one side, Carlie brushed a strand of black hair from her bangs as she finally replied.
"You have over six thousand black box components. Six thousand parts that even I can't figure out what they're for, plus I've been running a constant diagnosis on you while you're in your charge cycles and not once have you undergone a defragmentation. Not once!" Narrowing her eyes at Rokko, she put her free hand on her hip, and glared at her.
"It's essential that you perform a defragment, otherwise your memories will start getting all messed up. I'm not sure why your systems don't do that as soon as you begin a charge cycle anyway, but you have to do that otherwise you run the risk of a terminal error in your central processing unit."
Furrowing her brows, X shook her head slowly as she absorbed the information.
"I'm not a computer Lieutenant."
The lieutenant gave a half nod of agreement but she continued.
"Maybe not, but it's still important that you defragment your memories. One of the first reploids had his mind snap because he wasn't able to defragment and started hallucinating because of it. Ever since reploid construction standards require that all reploids are created with a subroutine that when they go into a charge cycle their mind automatically defragments."
That explained one mystery at least.
"If I understand it correctly, I'm a fair amount older than standard reploids." Between Sigma, Professor Thane, and the capsule he'd left for her…
'Mother of all Reploids...' What a title.
At that though, Carlie frowned and her green eyes slowly inspected the clipboard.
"According to this, you were activated only about nine months ago."
X closed her eyes. Nine months… It seemed like an eternity ago… But, she could still feel the brutal chill as she was shoved into the unforgiving world for the first time, she could still feel the oppressive darkness as she descended an abandoned facility looking for nuclear weapons that weren't there. She could still remember Cobalt's gruff tone, she could still remember his harsh, yet somehow still kind grin as he taught her how to handle her new life, and she felt her heart freeze as she remembered seeing the spike in his head, killing her first, and only friend.
Her hate bubbled to the surface once again, and only from sheer resolve did she shove it down again. Eventually, humanity would answer for its crimes, but for now, Sigma had to go.
She forced her eyes to open.
"Activated; not created."
Bublik's expression twisted from frustrated and angry to concerned, surprising Rokko.
"If that's the case we'll need to do a diagnostics to be safe. I'll need you to enter a recharge cycle and I'll run a few scans while you do so."
That was easier said than done. Thanks to Rokko's energy systems, she really only needed to rest when she'd taken critical damage, and most of that 'rest' was simply rerouting her energy systems to focus on her repair functions. Of course, most reploids weren't equipped with a series of energy systems to make them essentially self sustaining either.
"Fine." At least her repair functions were operating well enough that with a 'recharge' cycle, she felt she'd be able return to the field.
As soon as Rokko had agreed, the lieutenant led her to a medical tent. There, a large hovering table waited and above the head of it, a series of strange ring like devices were tucked in a cylindrical tube.
Pulling a steel chair next to the table, Carlie gestured for Rokko to lay on it. Obeying without a comment, Rokko took her place and the twelve rings gradually descended around her.
"I'll need four hours at the very least, so set your recharge cycle for six."
Trying to ignore the series of glowing green and blue bands that were slowly spinning around her, Rokko closed her eyes and initiated the repair cycle.
A gentle hum distracted her for only a moment but her dreams soon overtook her. Several hours passed and when Rokko next awoke, the Lieutenant was slumped over the nearby worktable. But, as the rings returned to their stationary position above the table the noise woke her and she turned her green eyes on Rokko.
"Huntress X, I don't know how the hell your creator managed it, but you can dream?" Rokko simply nodded, feeling incredibly confused as to the strong reaction that Bublik had responded with.
The black haired woman rested her elbow on the table as Rokko rose, rubbing her eyebrows in disbelief.
"I'm one of the best in reploid engineering and I don't know half of what this data means." She admitted with a small scowl as she gestured at a holoscreen with tens of thousands of figures.
Furrowing her eyebrows, Rokko tilted her head slightly as she looked over the human's shoulder. The holographic projector continued to sort through endless walls of text and numbers alike, and even Rokko had trouble keeping up due to the sheer amount of data.
After a few moments Carlie twisted her head to the left and glanced over her shoulder to look at Rokko. "The long and the short of it is reploids aren't designed to dream, it's impossible for them! Instead, they're supposed to utilize recharge cycles to defragment data, and reconfigure their systems automatically so they continue running smoothly, a lot like a computer running a repair program. You…. You're… Odd, it's almost like whoever created you based your AI off of the human brain, utilizing a series of 'pathways' to store and retrieve data at any given time. I haven't a clue just how effective the system is since I can't analyze much of it."
Carlie's lips pursed into a thin frown as she observed Rokko. After a few more seconds, Carlie turned, and her voice lowered to a near whisper. If she'd not been paying attention, or had been human, she'd have never picked up on the words.
"Just what exactly are you…?"
Rokko shrugged and walked to the tent's entrance. She wasn't sure of what she was, but she did know who she was, and that was far more important. Sure, it'd be nice to understand why she was built 'differently' than other reploids, even though they'd apparently used her as a blueprint, but it didn't really matter.
"So, when can I go back to active duty?" Maybe she was obsessed, but Sigma had killed her only friend.
A small squeak from Carlie's stool warned Rokko that she'd turned the stool, likely to look at her again, but Rokko didn't bother to turn around and face the human. Being in the lieutenant's presence for any extended amount of time always bothered the huntress, then again, being the the vicinity of any human tended to anger her anyway.
"Soon, but you'll need a few more days of rest and repair before I can give you the clear to head out on another mission. Part of the problem is that some of the supplies I requested haven't arrived yet. There is a rebellion putting a strain on resources after all." Carlie pointed out.
She wanted so much to demand that Carlie ask herself why the rebellion started, and why reploids hated humans so much. But Maverick uprising or no, asking that was a death sentence. Maybe not right away, no she had a feeling that high grade fighters like Zero, or even herself were so desperately needed that commanders were willing to put up with a handful of their insults for the moment.
But once Sigma was terminated? Well, anyone that had pointed out the obvious wouldn't be… Needed anymore. There was a reason that she, and the other hunters alike weren't allowed to watch news broadcasts, or take part in an interview.
No, Maverick Hunters were a silent arm, shackled to their human masters. She had learned that in Hunter Basic, what with the books of rules, regulations, and laws that they'd been forced to learn had made that all too clear.
"With all due respect ma'am, the hunters are the best chance at finishing off Sigma permanently."
"I know that, you know that, hell, they probably know that. But, Politicians don't want the public to think that things are too desperate when they are."
"Don't want civilians asking why the war happened in the first place or something?"
The stool squeaked again and Rokko heard the lieutenant's head drop onto the desk with a dull thud.
"That, and they want to be reelected next year. If they cut too deeply into the civilian supplies for the war effort, odds are they'd lose votes."
"They're worried about getting reelected?" For a moment, even X couldn't believe how stupid that sounded.
Shaking her head slightly, she realized that it was a very humanlike thing to do. They had power and they wanted to keep it for as long as possible. Greed in its purest form.
"Of course they are," Even the black haired woman sounded cross for a change, "They're politicians, when do they think of anything besides their own skins?"
Tilting her head over her shoulder, Rokko glanced back at the tiny woman. Maybe Sigma had a few right ideas, maybe reploids should be in charge of humans. Shaking herself, Rokko pushed aside the the thought. That was incredibly dangerous territory and if she walked down that road, she might not return from it.
Without responding, Rokko left the tent, only releasing the tension she felt once she was well away from the Lieutenant. Walking to the edge of the highway, she rested her elbow on the barrier. She was starting to ask questions, dangerous ones, and those very questions quite possibly would lead to her own demise if she wasn't careful. If she died, what then? What could she accomplish?
Below her the city was slowly recovering from the initial attack, debris was slowly being shifted away from the roads and transported out to the dumps a few miles away. Outside of the initial attack, and the inconvenience of having to take a different route the humans were already starting to act like the battle had never happened.
Was war so common that people could just shrug it off and forget about it? Pushing off the railing of the roadway, Rokko felt her frustrations bubbling just beneath the surface. She'd need to let off some of her pent up anger, and soon. Hopefully that thrice damned lieutenant would let her back to the field and soon.
Walking the fine line between life and death, it was only there did anything make sense to her. There, she didn't have to think about how much she hated someone, there she didn't have to let her mind wander to… More difficult thoughts, and there, she felt truly alive. Maybe that said a lot about her, about how little she really understood, but it was the only way she knew how to live.
Not going to lie, this wasn't an easy chapter to write up. First, little actually happened in it, and those are always more difficult chapters to write. Secondly, I just finished moving, and thirdly, I got my legs messed up in said move. Yippie -_-
Anyway, I should be updating rather regularly again now. Cheers.
Best Regards,
Gardian X