End of All Meaning
Chapter VIII: Atonement for the Sinners?
She can't keep doing this.
Her body was weak, barely able to support her own weight on her arms and knees, her breath shallow and labored, while the HUD of her visor is too blurry from the tears soaking it to be any use to her. Somewhere not far, her sword lay where she tossed it aside, to get its blood-soaked blade out of her sight as she could not stand the sight of the stained white, while not far from her is a pile of partially-digested food that she had eaten sixteen hours ago. 2B rarely ate, there wasn't much reason for her to do so, but she doubted it would be something she would do much anymore. He's the one who suggested they sit down at eat the stew made by the Resistance member, and while at the time it had been rather good, enough for her to go back for seconds, but now all she could taste was sick.
There's no denying the change in their relationship since they had been to the desert ruins. She was now aware of what she was doing, enough for it to have such a physical reaction on her, and yet she keeps doing this, and she'll keep doing this, because what else could she do? Run away? Out of the question, she knew what happened to deserters, and the best case scenario would be that they would both lose their memories, and never see one another again. There's no 'good' choice here, either way he suffered by her hand, no matter what she did, no matter if she was kind to him, indifferent, or even unfairly harsh in how she treated him, hoping that a change in her behavior would somehow alter his own and spare him his inevitable fate.
Nothing worked, nothing she did could change what would happen and every single time…
It always ended like this.
Not care to suppress her chocked-out sobbing, 2B pitifully crawled over to 9S' corpse, and whens she finally made it over to it, it was all she could do to wrap her arms around his torso and bury her face into the crook of his neck. His blood had already begun to stain her dress, soaking through to her skin, but it didn't matter, why would it matter? He was dead, she refused to let him go, and she would helplessly cry and plead for someone, anyone, to please help her, to make this stop and to just free them. She didn't even care if any sort of salvation saved only him and damned her for all eternity, but as long as he could get of out this cycle of death and pain and suffering and…
No one would listen to her, no one would hear her desperately beg for help. No one ever did, and no one ever would, and she hated her own inability and passiveness, and how weak and helpless she felt.
Please… let it stop…
000
"Memory check complete."
Everything was dark.
"Maintenance mode complete."
But the world started to come back to her.
"YoRHa unit 2B... Activate."
Why? Just why?
With aches and pains all across her body, 2B woke up, her systems having fully rebooted.
"Good morning, 2B," Pod 042 greeted from her side.
She ignored these pains though, as she pushed herself to her feet, taking in her surroundings. The last thing she recalled was the inside of the God Box, the structure collapsing and falling apart around her and…
"What happened?" she asked, her voice sluggish.
"Analysis: The enemy structural unit collapsed during battle."
2B could still see she was in the Amusement Park, but just outside the front entrance, and turning around to face the establishment, true to Pod 042's words, she could see the wreckage of the God Box from here, the giant mountain of twisted and destroyed metal and scrap.
"Unit 2B suffered damage from the fall and was placed in emergency suspend mode."
That's right, she fell. Fell and fell into the darkness, and yet she was still alive.
"Fall location was deemed too dangerous, thus said unit was transported to current location. All system checks and reactivation complete."
She simply stared at the what was left of the structure, most of her Pod's words lost on her as she walked towards the front gate, her steps slow and heavy.
"Pod," she finally said after a time. "Where is A2?"
"Analysis: This unit is unable to locate unit A2's current whereabouts, however her black box signal is still active."
"Oh. I see, so that's how it was."
2B then drove her fist into the turnstile of the front gate, causing it to buckle her the force of her strike, only for her to immediately pull it back out and punch it again. Then again. Then again. Again and again and again. After the tenth strike, she had difficulty pulling her fist out of the broken and bashed metal, and when she finally managed to pry it free, her hand was torn and bloodied, with her glove now shredded tatters that hung along her wrist.
She ignored the fact that she had trouble closing her fist. "Tell me, do we have the authorization key we came for?"
"Affirmative: The required number of authentication keys has been acquired."
"So, we can enter The Tower now?"
"Affirmative."
"Oh..."
With one last look to the Amusement Park, 2B walked away towards the sewers that would lead her to the center of the city, to The Tower, her feet dragging with every step.
000
The rubble shifted and moved, and soon the large pieces of metal fell away from the scrap mound and A2 managed to free herself the remains of the God Box.
"Shit," she growled, pushing aside the wreckage of the metal. "That was real close." With some effort, she finally managed to pull herself out of the rubble and jumped back down to the ground, and after wiping the dust from her arms and chest she turned to Pod 153 "Hey, Pod..."
"Yes, unit A2?" Pod 153 answered.
"Tell me, is, um, 21O..."
"Operator 21O's black box signal is offline. Death confirmed."
"Ah..." A2 clenched her fists, and not even giving the ruins behind her a second glance, she slowly made her way away from it, and into the main plaza of the park and ignoring the machines that were too far gone to even notice her. "2B, she killed her, right?"
"Analysis: Operator 21O appeared to have been infected with a logic virus and was far too corrupted for any feasible chance of recovery. Unit 2B likely had not seen any alternative."
"If you say so." It didn't change the fact 2B killed her.
"Query: Judging from unit A2's actions during her encounter with unit 2B, has she reached a conclusion as to what to do with her, regarding unit 9S' final wish?"
A2 ignored the question, and instead chose to keep moving forward, still trying to decide what to do about 2B. She had gotten her conversation with 2B, but after all of that, how she had screamed and yelled at her, she felt even less certain how to approach her in the future if they met again. When they met again, because she had a strong feeling that they would cross paths once more.
"You could never understand us."
A2 tried to cling to the memories of hurt and betrayal, the ones filled with pain and anger at how 2B cut him down all those times, lying to him and their time spent together. It was easier this way because these were feelings she understood all too well, so she could hang onto them, and use them to fuel her ability to fight and strike against anyone and everything. 2B was just another lie YoRHa made just so they could keep their secrets, and anything 9S remembered about her was just that, more lies and cover ups, and anything 2B said or did, and pretended to feel was her just being dedicated to her designation.
But no matter what she tried to think, her mind always went back to them memory in the pit. She needed to get away, to think things through more, to try and sort the conflicting thoughts she was having, to try and better separate the 9S' memories from her own experiences, and while she did not have a place in mind to go to, she just needed to move. Since she had no destination in she wanted to be, using the transporter was pointless, and she did not at all care for the sewers.
A2 let her feet take her wherever they were going to take her.
000
She regretted letting her feet do the thinking for her as she stepped onto wooden bridges of Pascal's village, or at least, what was left of Pascal's village. The fires had died down, and thankfully most of the buildings were still intact, though there was severe fire damage on them, nothing left untouched by what had happened here only hours ago. Machines part, some looking as though they were ripped apart while others appeared to be cleanly cut into pieces, were littered everywhere. The worst part however was that it was quiet, a silence that seemed to have a physical weight to it that bore down on her. She couldn't hear machines talking and going about their days, doing whatever it was they did since they had chosen to stop fighting the endless and pointless war against androids, and while normally a colony of dead and silent machines would have been considered a good day's work for her…
There was then the sudden rattle of something metal on the level below her, and instantly A2 reached out and grabbed her sword, preparing to strike at whatever it was that was here, a part of her regretting she had been so quick to pick the weapon up. What if it had been a survivor? A machine that didn't go crazy and start to tear apart their friends and family, and avoided to be killed by said friends and family? If there was one still alive, at the very least just one who had made it then…
She jumped down to the lower level, hoping for the best, but expecting the worst, but what she was someone she did not need to see right now, not after everything that had happened.
"Oh, I wasn't actually expecting to see anyone here," said Pascal, giving a hesitant wave to her, while all she could do was star at him with wide, disbelieving eyes, unable to even think of what she could possibly say to him. The last time she had seen him, he had been shut down and collapsed in the old factory, surrounded by the corpses of the children of his village. They took their own lives because they were afraid. He asked her to erase his memory because he couldn't live with what had happened. She obliged to his wishes, and took his memories away.
But now he was here, standing just in front of her, with a broom in his hand.
"Um, are you okay?" he asked, tilting his head to the side. He sounded so light compared to earlier, when he had been despairing at the loss. "You're just kind of, um, standing there. Doing nothing."
"Yeah..." Was there anything to even say anymore? "I was just kind of passing through."
"Oh? Is that all? Well, if you say so, but I was maybe hoping you lived here or something."
She should leave, but she found that she was still too shocked to move.
Even though she would have wanted him to stop, Pascal continued. "I think I was actually activated a short while ago, so I was wondering around for a bit and ended up in this village, but there looks like there's no one here, and from how burnt down everything is, I don't think anyone is coming back her for a long time. Hey, you think they would mind if I stayed here? It's kind of run down, but I think I really like it here. Actually, I've already started to clean it up, I mean, have you looked at this place? There sure is a lot of junk here." He took the broom and walked over to a pile of machine parts and swept them away and off the edge of the platform, off to the forest floor where there was already a sizable mound of broken machine parts forming. He'd been at this a while, discarding the remains of his family and friends, thinking it was garbage and cluttered into the area where the children played.
A2 opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out.
"Hey, do you want to buy some of this stuff? I hear that these things might be worth something, you know if you need to make some upgrades to your weapons, so maybe you can make use of this?" Pascal reached down, to the clutter at his feet, and pulled up a machine head, still slick with spilled oil, but mostly intact with the exception of a hole torn out the side of it. There was the remains of a pink bow, burnt and ripped, still sticking to it.
"I'm-I'm sorry..." she stammered, finally finding the strength, however feeble, to say something, anything. "But, I have to go. Now."
"Oh, well it was nice-" She didn't hear Pascal finish before she was already running away from him, and she kept running, through the village remains until it vanished into the forest behind her. With her mind hazy, she didn't even know she was out of the woods until she was surrounded by buildings, and her feet clacked against the broken concrete of the city streets, and she didn't stop running until she was ankle deep in running stream water. Without even knowing it she had far out from the village, past the makeshift gate.
There was no reason for her to be this upset, not over a group of machines, not when she had known them not even two full days. She was supposed to kill them, not mourn them, but no matter how much she tried to push those emotions down, they bubble up just below the surface, and Pascal was at the center of those thoughts. Was it right for her to erase Pascal's memories? Would it have been better to kill him instead of taking all that away from him? Wasn't wiping his memory just another way of killing him? Should she have done neither and left him alone to figure what to do by himself?
She went over question after question in her mind, but she never found herself with any answers, and all she could think of was how Pascal didn't remember her, what they had been through and how he acted towards her. Completely wiped clean and ignorant of the recent tragedies, no idea what she did to him, what she took from him, what she-
Those thoughts came to a screeching halt inside her mind
A2 stood there in the stream for a while, before eventually her turned her head towards the direction of the mall, where she had killed 9S, where 2B saw her kill him.
Goddamn it. She needed to find 2B.
000
2B stood before The Tower, staring at the structure of epic proportions and wondered what she would find inside, and if it was even worth what she had been through just to see it. Through Pod 042, 2B hacked each of the three large spires that were scattered through the pit, the newly acquired access keys allowing her entry with no trouble. She hacked through their systems, blasting through defense nodes and black and white cubes, making quick work of everything that was in her way. She took out one, then the other, and soon all three spires were deactivated.
"Congratulation!" Not-6O cheerfully rang out from The Tower. "You've unlocked ALL the sub-units! That means a special prize is waiting for you inside The Tower!" 2B barely registered the voice as she approached the front door, the holographic lock appearing just in front of her. "We look forward to serving you!"
The door was right in front of her, all she needed to do was hack it and she would be in, and she would be one step closer to… to…
Raising her hand, 2B focused on the door and prepared the hack, she could feel her systems starting up, with Pod 042's aid she sent her consciousness data into the lock.
Only to be instantly kicked out, the sudden force enough to send her flying backwards.
"What the hell was that?" she groaned, pushing herself back to her feet, keeping her eyes on the door.
"Statement: You were unable to access the lock's systems."
"I know that!" she snapped, nearly yelling. "I thought I had all the keys needed! So why can't I get in?"
"Analysis: Obtaining the three access keys from the Resource Recovery Units allowed you access to The Tower's systems, they did not unlock the door itself. The security systems protecting The Tower are determined by a highly complex algorithm that would require a high-end Scanner model to hack to break into it, and even so, progress would be slow. As a combat unit, you do not possess the needed software accomplish this task"
"But, what about you?" she asked, not even attempting to hide the desperation crawling into her voice. "I've been using you to hack locks that I wouldn't be able to do, so why can't I-"
"This tactical support unit is able to assist you in tasks that you were not designed for, but this can only be done to an extent, but this becomes impossible if the task in question is beyond what you are capable of doing. Even with this unit's help, you will not be able to unlock this door."
The world fell away from 2B as her Pod's words hit her, weighting heavily on her with enough force that she almost felt like she would collapse where she stood. She couldn't open the door, she never would be able to do without heavy reformatting that would never happen because the people who could do that were dead.
This shouldn't be a surprise to her, something like this would require to her to smart and to think for herself, but she can't do that becausE aLl sHe doEs is breAk and kilLtHingS.
2B let out a scream and charged The Tower, swinging Virtuous Treaty at it, only for the large sword to bounce off its shielding, sparks flying from where the blade made contract with the shield. Tightening her grip on her weapon she swung again, only to get the same result, jolts of electricity were sent up the sword and through her body, and even though it was painful, she continued anyway.
"Why!?" she kept screaming as her sword continued to prove to be ill-suited with what she wanted. "Why make me go through all of that?!" Another swing. "Why did I have to do all that?!" The never-ending fighting. The lies about humans. The memories. 21O and A2. It all hurt so much. "Why make me get the keys when I couldn't even open the door to begin with!"
2B kept swinging, kept throwing herself at the impenetrable wall before her, but nothing she did proved to be effective to any degree. It was useless. Pointless. Agonizing. With how little progress she was making, it would have been just as effective to piles rock on top of one another to try and build a tower of her own to the moon.
"Alert: Enemy caution level rising," Pod 042 said, but she did not relent in her fruitless labor. "Cause is most likely concern over unit 2B's attempts to access The Tower."
She heard them coming, heavy machine footsteps approaching from behind her, too many to bother counting, not that she cared much either way. All she did was kept attacking The Tower.
"Alert: Enemy units are dangerously close to unit 2B. Advised action is to please take action."
They were right behind her, the sounds of their pistons firing off as they started up their swings could be heard, but just as the sword came down on her, she nimbly dodged out of the way, and before its weapon could even strike the ground, 2B struck with her own weapon, severing its arm from the rest of its body, before spinning around to cut out its legs from under it. With a loud cry the machine collapsed, but barely had a moment to even try and do anything before 2B stabbed it between the eyes and with a twist of her blade, the light in its eyes died out.
There was an army of machines before her, dozens of them filling out the pit, and for what? Just because she couldn't get through a door? Why not just leave her to stew alone on her misery? Did they really have to send an army after her when nothing she could do was making any difference to her. So she did was she did best, the only thing she was good at, and fought the machines, killed them, cutting them apart, but no matter what she did, more kept coming. They kept dropping down from aerial support units every time she took one down, leaving her stuck any never making any meaningful progress in thinning their numbers, and at this rate she would most likely die if nothing changed.
It would be fitting, if anything else, to die in a battle without end.
"Alert: Allied signal detected," Pod 042 rang out.
"What?" she asked, dodging an axe. "Allies? Who could possibly be here?"
A large machine dropped from the sky, landing in front of her, an equally large weapon in its hands and ready to strike her down. It never got the chance however, as two swords pierced its chassis, killing it and leaving it to fall to the ground when they were pulled out of it, and behind its fallen body was the source of the signals Pod 042 had informed her of.
"Devola? Popola?" 2B was baffled by the appearance of the twins models before her. Why were they here? What could possibly bring the two of them here?
"We thought you'd be here, 2B," Popola had said, and before 2B could even give a reply, the two of them charged forward, running by on either side of her and into the thicket of machines, and 2B found herself stunned at how quickly they went to work and took down machines.
"What are you two doing here?" she asked, confused.
"The two of us will take it from here!" called out Devola, a machine crumbling before here.
Popola had already finished with the machine she had taken on. "You need to open the door to The Tower!"
"What? But how are you-why are-"
"Don't worry, we'll take care of these guys!" Devola had already taken down three more.
"But I can't!" 2B cried out. "The lock is too difficult, it's beyond what my model is capable of dealing with! I can't even breach it!"
The two twins looked to one another, only briefly, and whatever it was they had told the other in that single, momentary glance was enough for them to have a mutual understanding of what to do next.
"Fine, we'll trade!" Devola quickly called out.
Popola nodded in agreement. "We'll take care of the door, and you handle the machines!"
The two were quick on their heels and ran back to The Tower, machines hot on their tails, but 2B had no problems standing in their way to prevent them from reaching the twins. They kept charging, trying to get past her, but none of them were able to cross the line she had established in her mind, the line they would not cross to get to Devola and Popola, who had already gotten to work on hacking the lock. They seemed to be not only very capable combatants, but also expert hackers as well, and 2B wondered what other sort of abilities the two of them possessed.
There was something different about this fight, it was slight, but it was something; she was not fighting these machines necessarily because they were in her way, or because she wanted to kill them, but rather because right now she needed to defend Devola and Popola. She didn't know why they were here, what it was that drove them here to fight here along side her but it made her realize something, it made her realize just how alone she had been feeling during during all this. There was someone here who wanted to help her, for whatever reason that might have been, they were here, and even if they didn't know what just what that meant to her, she would do everything she could to make certain they were able to open that door, and they would enter The Tower together.
That was when Popola let out a loud scream from behind her. Turning around, 2B saw Popola holding her hand out to the lock, current of electricity flowing over her body, seizing her up as Devola tried to hold her up.
No, no, no! This wasn't going to happen!
"Pod!" she called out. "Fully charge Program A130!"
"Affirmative." Pod 042's body opened up and a glowing light began to emit from its body, which only glowed brighter by the second until the program had been built up as much as it could be built up.
"Now!" 2B ordered, and Pod 042 let loose a large volley of energy bombs that bombarded the machines in front of her in a series of large explosions, decimating their forces and leaving behind scarp as they were blown to fiery pieces. The earth was scorched as it was destroyed and turned into shards of rock and metal until there was nothing left of the army that had tried to advance upon the, but even with the enemy units annihilated, she knew it would only be a moment's respite. She ran over to the twins, to Devola who tried to hold up Popola as she screamed and cried in pain, not knowing what she could do to help, or even what was going on.
"Analysis: Popola has appeared to have come across a closed defensive system, and in order to bypass it, allowed her self-consciousness data to lose control, thus resulting in temporary resulting in paralyzing the barrier."
"But she can't move like this!" 2B yelled, her voice straining. She knew what this kind of system was like, how anyone who tried to hack it would have their consciousness locked away inside their own body, unable to act or even be aware of their surroundings, utterly vulnerable to anything that wished to harm them. She had a system like that, of course, another method to kill 9S if he decided to attack her through his primary means of attack, and several times he had fallen into that trap, leaving him helpless to her sword. Maybe that was why he had modded himself to utilize swords and other weapons, a fear born from some deep-seated desire to protect himself.
From her.
"How do we get her out of it?" she asked.
"You can't!" Devola suddenly said, and before 2B could even respond to her, she grabbed her sword and ran by 2B, and used her sword to block the strike of a machine, holding it at bay from going any further. Their numbers had already been replenished that quickly?
"NO!" 2B snapped. "We can, if we just stop we can-"
"There's no stopping!" Popola cried, through the pain that wracked her body. "You can't stop, not here! We have to atone for our sins no matter what!"
"Just go! We'll take care of things here as long as we can!" Devola said as she struggled through the machine's strength as it pushed down on her.
"Now go!"
The door to The Tower opened, leaving a pathway opened, but going up there would mean leaving Popola down here to keep it open, and Devola down here because 2B doubted she would leave her sister alone for anything. 2B would have to go through this alone at the possible costs of their lives.
Of course. That's how it had to be, it was always how it had to be. In the end, she would end up alone, fighting against enemies and the disgust that built up inside her by herself, like always. Even when 9S was with her, even always felt that crushing loneliness because no matter what had happened, it would always end he same way.
2B bolted for the door, trying not to glance back to Devola and Popola, and the moment she crossed the threshold the door began to close behind her.
"2B!" Devola called back to her, and despite her best effort to not look back. But she did, she caught Devola's face, just before the door closed on her. "Whatever sins you've committed, I hope you find your atonement in there."
Then that was it. The door sealed itself, and 2B knew that nothing she did would be able to break her through back to them. There was no turning back for her now, and maybe there never was.
Her black box beating her her chest, 2B turned around and slowly walked away from the door, and up the stairs of this strange white room that reminded her too much of Adam's Copied City, and up to the door in front of her. It opened down the middle, the two halves sliding into the walls, and 2B found herself presented with a large round room, with wide arches and window-like shapes carved from the walls. Something like this, seemed much different than any kind of machine architect than she had ever seen.
Just what was further up this thing? What would she find in the heights of The Tower.
"Alert: Data records discovered for units Devola and Popola," Pod 042 said, almost causing 2B to jump back in surprise. "Do you wish to open this data now?"
The room shifted slightly, and 2B could feel to room starting to move upwards. Was this place an elevator of some kind?
She looked from the room, and back to Pod 042, and to the data it held from the twins. What could they have sent her? Some last message?
"Might as well play, I don't know how long it'll take us to reach the top, so might as well kill time."
When the data had fully downloaded into her, 2B wished she hadn't.
000
Please be well,
Mrfipp