"What do you mean I'm put off active duty?!" Axl cries, stomping his palms against Signas' desk. It's unfair! What did he do?!
Signas sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Your recent medical scans showed up with something in your firewalls, Axl. We can't send you into virus infected areas with a security breech like that."
Axl gapes, wondering if he's hearing things correctly. "I – I'm a new generation reploid! I can't even get infected!" They'd gone over this! They knew he couldn't – he pauses. "Is this about that thing with Lumine again?" Axl demands, teeth clenched. "I thought I was cleared after Lifesaver found nothing after a gazillion scans. I'm fine!"
Signas stares him down over knitted fingers, "This is standard precaution, Axl. It'll only be for a short time while Lifesaver and Douglass go over the results again."
"So forever, then." Axl sighs, slumping. A thought occurs to him. "… And where are X and Zero? Usually they're the ones telling these things to me." His eyes narrow as Signas shifts uncomfortably. "Don't tell me – "
"They're off on assignment," his commander admits, hardly apologetic. "It's nothing exciting I promise you, Axl. They're overseeing the excavation of some old sites where there's a threat of the Virus floating around."
Oh, gross. Guard duty. "Still! Unbelievable! I'm being mistreated here!" Axl whines out of compulsion.
"It's for your health, Axl." Signas says. "No exceptions."
Axl groans.
-ooo-
X stops fielding Axl's calls after the tenth repetition of "I can't believe you!" and "Friendship over!" blearing through his comms. Zero blocks Axl's IP entirely.
They're out in the wastelands without their units, the risk of Irregular infection too high for normal reploids. Even the archeologists and TV crew are entirely human, toiling away with old fashioned digging equipment and radiation resistant suits. X and Zero take turns keeping watch and being a stand-in construction crew, lifting heavier objects out of the way and gingerly stepping around corded off pit holes.
All in all, a thankless job, made worse by the heat cranking up the humans' tempers and impatience.
X wants nothing more than to talk to some of the archeologists, but he's on duty. He can't be slacking off, despite Zero's offer to shoulder more of the weight.
The site they stand guard over surrounds a skull shaped fortress, the subject of this season's "Mysteries of 20XX," and X itches for a chance to look inside.
Crushing the juvenile urge to crane his head towards the slowly exposed mouth of the "skull," X scans along the plains surrounding them, trying to imagine what the place used to look like before decades of irradiation and Irregular Wars. A dried up basin suggests a lake, but whether it had dried up in this century or the last is up to debate. The place might have even been green, X thinks, considering the longitude and latitude.
The stark dessert of a long gone oasis soaks his optics, and X sighs.
They're too far out from major urban centers to really run into Irregulars, and yet the Virus fogs the sky like an angry swarm, looking for a stray reploid to feast upon.
Zero, from the other side of the encampment, stalks around like a paranoid and particularly twitchy cat. His partner has been on guard ever since they arrived on the area, and X isn't certain if it's the Virus or something else getting to the Hunter.
A metallic building made in the image of a human skull, though. It figures it'd be something like this to survive from the 20XX era.
X watches as Zero perks up, his entire body stiffening as he looks at a corner of the camp. He frowns, hand coming up automatically to his ear as he comms Zero. "Zero, is something the matter?" X asks, optics already zooming in towards the direction Zero focuses on. A short hill and boulders obscure the most of his vision, and he frowns. "Did you see something?"
A pause, before Zero responds, "… No. I thought I sensed movement, but there's nothing but shadows." The reploid says wryly. "The heat's messing with my sensors – everything looks like it's ready to jump out and attack."
That much is true. With the radiation and heat, X has been resorting to plain old light vision to see. "There's not much we can do about that until night hits." X says, smiling. "I did send you my optical settings to compensate, didn't I?"
"Yeah, but there's only so much you can filter out." Zero sighs. "And here I thought we'd get a relaxing job for once."
The tone, while flat, is almost a full on whine by Zero's standards. X grins. "One week, Zero. We're almost there."
"Yeah. Just 9300 more minutes to go." Zero quips and shuts the comm off.
X snorts and shakes his head. Always the optimistic one, that Zero.
-ooo-
Zero stands on the side of the encampment furthest from the slumbering humans, holding an E-can like a ticking bomb.
"Gospel," He calls, his voice a hissing whisper. Paranoid, he checks again to make sure X isn't in the area. When no stomps of an armored boot sounds through the sands, Zero tries, "Heeeere buddy!" shaking the E-can out to slosh its contents.
The wind whistles past, taunting him.
He could have sworn he'd seen the purple of the wolf mechaniloid earlier. He'd worried that it would be infected with something by now, but it had simply leveled a glare at Zero before stalking off into the shadows.
What it was doing out here instead of at base was a mystery, but Zero felt obligated to at least attempt to corral it and send it back to Rock. The boy must be beside himself.
"Gospel!" Zero tries, voice rising to a half shout. He grips the E-can more firmly and shakes it with his entire arm, hoping to elicit a response.
Silence. The feeling of being ridiculed increases.
Sighing, Zero crouches into a ball of self-doubt. What did wolf mechaniloids even like? Maybe he needs dog treats? Meat?
The thought of holding a blood-dripping slab of flesh sends an uncomfortable shiver through Zero. Organics were so gross.
Suddenly Zero's comm crackles to life, startling the Hunter onto his feet. "Zero!" X's voice echoes through his helm, sounding harried. "What was Rock's pet's name again?" A growl follow's X's statement with a, "Shh boy!" and Zero closes his eyes.
Of course.
-ooo-
"Gospel, sit." X orders, E-can perched on his open palm.
The wolf, the little shit, twirls, its tail smacking Zero's shin, and obediently flops its behind onto the ground. It gives a pointed glance at the can in X's hand, and thumps its tail when X obliges the unsaid request.
Zero glares at it, scooting out of tail reach. Gospel doesn't deem him a glance as it takes the E-can and crushes it in its mouth, whole.
X pets the miscreant, a praise on his lips. "Good boy!" He coos, scratching behind metallic ears.
"X," Zero snaps, more irritated at the scene than he really should be, "What is Gospel doing here?" And what are you doing? Zero doesn't voice.
X smiles sheepishly. "I don't actually know. I found him digging in the pits, scaring some of the researchers. He doesn't seem like he's infected." He adds, frowning. "I ran a scan past him to be sure, but there's nothing. Not even a residual."
"He's resistant?" Zero blurts, incredulous. Millions of susceptible reploids, and it's a mechaniloid with the basic AI of a house pet that's immune? He isn't sure if he should cry or laugh.
"I'm not sure," X replies patiently. "But at the very least, we can count it a good thing."
Gospel growls and snuffs X's hand when the reploid stops petting. X continues, not even looking down at the mechaniloid.
"I'll call Rock," Zero says at length. "The kid should know where his wayward dog has gotten to."
Gospel snaps his jaws in Zero's direction.
"And demand he get a leash or something." Zero adds, grumbling as he dials up Hunter HQ.
X grins.
-ooo-
"Oh," Rock says, sounding entirely unsurprised. "He's where?"
Zero grimaces. "At an excavation site – Rock, if you want to keep a pet, you really need to keep an eye on it!" He reprimands, channeling as much of X as he can. "He's your responsibility."
"Sorry," Rock replies, sounding at least a little chastised. Good. "Can I talk to Gospel?" The boy asks, and Zero stares, dumbfounded.
"Uh," he manages after a moment, "Sure?" Uncertainly, Zero sets his camera to face outwards and crouches down in front of the wolf, feeling silly. It feels rather unsafe, keeping his arm so close to the mechaniloid's muzzle.
"Hey Gospel," Rock greets cheerfully.
The wolf howls back. X smothers his mouth with his fist from the side. Zero turns his head at the reploid in dismay.
"Did you find anything?" Rock asks, moving to the side as Roll comes into view as well. "You're not hurt, are you?" Roll adds, eyebrows crinkled in worry.
Gospel snorts, shaking its head. It turns around, huffing in the direction of the archeological dig site, and Zero watches as an inverted Rock nods.
"Okay. Be careful, alright? Let us know if you need help." Rock says. Roll nods vigorously beside her brother. "X, Zero, Gospel is going to stay there a little longer. He's looking for something." Rock explains, and Zero turns the camera back around to show the disbelieving face he makes at the statement.
X comes up behind Zero and crouches down to get into the picture. "Rock, this isn't a safe place for him to be. We're sending him back."
Zero, now stuck lying down on the ground to accommodate X, grunts. "X is right, kid. We're on duty. We can't watch Gospel 24/7."
"You don't have to," Roll says, pleading starting to bleed into her eyes. Zero can't look away. "Gospel can handle himself – if not, we can be there in a jiffy." Bright blue, round eyes beseech him, and Zero grimaces.
"You can't come here," X says, the stern voice of reason. "There's a reason only Zero and I are here, Roll. It's dangerous." Discussion over.
Zero silently applauds X's steel will.
"X – " Rock starts.
"How come you're not responding to my calls?!" Axl screeches, bounding into view behind Rock and Roll. The two are pushed aside as the taller reploid fills up the screen, shaking the camera on their side.
The call dissolves into a jumble of "Axl!" and "Alia don't you dare hang up – " and with a click, Zero closes the communicator, thankful for the disruption.
"That went well." Zero says at length, and X snorts.
Picking himself off the dusty ground, Zero works on patting as much sand off, when X asks. "Zero, did you see where Gospel went?"
Zero pauses. "What?" He swivels his head around, scanning for the dark purple mechaniloid, but it's useless. The dark color of the wolf's armor blends into the night and infrared shows nothing except the blips of human figures in the camp nearby.
"I'll go get an E-can." X announces, tired.
Zero groans.
Plot? What is that.
I'm starting to run out of hands to hold all these plot strands. That's probably not the correct idiom.