Chapter 14 – No Certainties
"I think it's coming along nicely, don't you think?" Gakupo asked, leaning back on the chair. "I'd say it even warrants telling me your name now…"
The damaged unit was examining herself in a mirror propped against the wall of the yacht's maintenance room. She prodded the new skin of her belly, examining the curves of her torso with a critical eye. She turned, making her green ponytail whip around her head and her star earring dance.
"I don't know, I expected something more beautiful," she said with a teasing smile. "Look at this spot, I have a wrinkle!" She pointed to her side.
"I may have the knowledge stored inside of me, but that doesn't make me a good artisan, I'm afraid," Gakupo replied. "I did tell you that waiting for Mitsuki might be wiser."
"Meh, screw that. Your pal has been analyzing Mars' communications for a couple of weeks now, and nothing."
"I know. For what it's worth, I'm sorry I can't do better, Sonika," Gakupo said good-humoredly, stressing the last word.
Sonika stared at him, bemused.
"Kiyoteru told you, huh?" She finally asked sourly. Gakupo nodded. "That wet blanket…" she said, pouting. After a moment, Sonika shrugged and turned again to gaze at her reflection. "Whatever. You fixed my gyro control, that's what I wanted the most. I'd like the rest fixed at some point, though..." She poked the unfinished side of the face for emphasis.
"I know. But Luka and I had to do some work on Miku first, before her limbs became completely unrecoverable."
"I don't know how she can handle it so well. It would drive me mad to be unable to move on my own, whenever I want to," Sonika shook her head.
Gakupo grunted in agreement and got up slowly. "We're done here for today, in any case. I have things to discuss with Ben and Luka. "
Sonika picked up a long sleeveless jacket from the stretcher and put it on with an overly dramatic motion. "Lead the way, handsome."
Once on deck, Gakupo leaned on the bulwark, observing the scene before him. The yacht was anchored next to the VE-01s' boat, in a small inlet. Beyond the ever present ruins, Benefactor's body rose, very dark against the blue sky. It couldn't be seen from this angle, but Escualo now rested by his side.
"I don't think I'll ever get used to your pal there, I have to say," Sonika said in passing as she began to descend the ramp towards the ground.
"He's alright, once you talk to him." Gakupo said, following her.
"But he never talks to us, only to Luka and you."
"…You are right," Gakupo realized. It was a curious thing, for certain. Perhaps they had been modified in some way to be able to connect to him directly?
Truth be told, the idea of adopting Benefactor's superior technology for their use was a tempting one, if such a combination was indeed possible. Of course, the first obstacle to investigating such a possibility was the communications issue. Benefactor lacked a frame of reference for many things Luka and Gakupo took for granted, and vice versa. Though considering his origins, it was nothing short of amazing that they were capable of engaging in conversation with the spaceship at all.
Gakupo was still pondering the matter when he and Sonika rounded a corner and ran into Kaito and Miku. As usual, Kaito was carrying Miku in his arms, talking excitedly about something or another. Miku's limbs were carefully wrapped in plastic to avoid further corrosion, since they were skinless at the moment.
"Hello!" They greeted Gakupo and Sonika cheerfully.
"Hello. Going off on an adventure?" Gakupo asked, smiling.
"You could say that," Miku replied, and she and Kaito shared a complicit look, smiling.
"It's pretty damn disturbing to see you so chummy after what happened before," Sonika interjected, crossing her arms.
"Sonika!"Gakupo turned to look at the green-haired synthetic, horrified.
"…Oopsie?" Sonika said, making a show of covering her mouth for an instant. She didn't look at all remorseful; in fact, her smile grew wider as she saw the good humor of the rest evaporate.
"What do you mean by that?" Kaito asked with a slight frown.
"Oh, I wonder," Sonika shrugged.
"What does she mean, 'before'?" Miku turned to Gakupo, looking a bit scared.
"That's… that's not…" Gakupo stammered. Lying wasn't a skill he had, probably by design. In this particular case, Luka and he had decided to simply avoid explaining most of the events between Benefactor's arrival and the treatment of the VE-01s and Miku. So far, everyone else had followed their lead, though he often worried that one of the children could slip and say something unfortunate. But this had caught him completely off-guard. "Look…" he started with some effort, "We'll talk about it tonight, ok? I need to talk with Sonika," he gave the gynoid a look of frustration, "and Luka. Please wait until then. Please."
Kaito and Miku didn't look at all pleased, but after glancing again at each other, they nodded in agreement.
"Thanks," Gakupo said and grabbed Sonika's arm. He dragged her towards the camp, leaving the pad behind.
After they were at a reasonable distance, he looked over his shoulder at Sonika, who was staring at his hand with a curiously pleased expression. "What was that, exactly?" he asked.
"I'm sick of seeing them act so sugary, like nothing is wrong!" Sonika growled.
"It's in the past! Let them be what they are now!" Gakupo stopped and grabbed her shoulders.
Sonika shot him a look of contempt. "You all might want to bury it all, but I was there. I saw it happen," she said stubbornly. "Besides, what's to say it won't happen again? That he won't flip out the next time something doesn't go his way?"
"His directives are gone."
"So? He's still a VE-01 and they're more primitive than us. Maybe by their own nature VE-01s can't handle being active too long before going bonkers. He'll break again, I'm sure of it." Sonika swatted Gakupo's hands off and resumed walking.
"I don't think so," Gakupo pursued her.
"That's because you are living in some sort of fairytale, instead of the reality the rest of us are stuck in," Sonika replied. "You think you're some sort of hero, carrying that sword around, and that everything will be fine because you want it to be fine. What's worse, you're willing to put everyone at risk to maintain that illusion!"
"That's not true!"
"Oh, really? May I remind you that Miku is alone with him at this very moment? Because you decided we shouldn't say anything?"
"I'm just trying to do what's best for everyone!" Gakupo said, louder than he intended. By then, Gakupo and Sonika were at the camp's outskirts. Attracted by the noise, Meiko appeared from behind of one of the tents, looking at them with surprise.
"Yeah, and that's the scary thing!" Sonika shot back and took off running.
Gakupo let her go, not that he had any choice in the matter, with his constant energy problems. The green-haired synthetic quickly disappeared behind a pile of debris.
"Is everything alright?" Meiko asked with curiosity.
"It's… fine," Gakupo said, wincing internally at his choice of words, given Sonika's criticism. Meiko looked unconvinced, but after a moment she shrugged and went into the red tent, swaying her hips with her usual exuberance.
Gakupo gripped Miburi's hilt, staring at the ground. Was he putting everyone at risk? It was true that neither Luka nor he fully understood how VE minds worked, but so far the VE-01s were working perfectly with their fix.
Was he overlooking something? Some sign that they could relapse?
He crossed the camp, glancing at the red tent on the way. Meiko was sitting inside, mending her collection of torn and salt-encrusted clothes with a sewing kit she recently found in the rubble. The female unit didn't look up from her sewing.
No one else seemed to be around. From the position of Luka's beacon, she was inside Benefactor, helping out with his self-repair efforts. Gakupo considered asking Benefactor to take him inside his hull and join her, but quickly dismissed the idea. For once, he felt that he needed to sort out things by himself. He began to walk alongside Benefactor's side, thinking.
Could Kaito and the others be blamed for things they didn't even remember anymore? If VEs were the sum of their experiences, he doubted they could even be considered the same beings that used to roam the flooded city. Moreover, Gakupo and Luka had altered their code, the raw matter that was shaped by the events in their lives. There were no certainties from here on.
"No certainties…" Gakupo mumbled to himself. He felt heavy and ungainly, like an old clock that needed winding.
Honestly, he had little more than theories. When it came to the basic things that made them what they were, he had nothing solid to help him make the right choice. What if Sonika was right? What if there was something inherently wrong in Kaito, Meiko and Leon? Something that had been corrected with later builds?
The questions kept circling through Gakupo's mind, over and over again, more and more insistent. He couldn't stop the loop of doubts and fear seizing him anymore, as he lumbered on with his eyes cast downwards. Lost in his thoughts, he missed the moment when Escualo was revealed from behind Benefactor's curved sides.
Sonika's judgement of him was no less unpleasant. He knew that he was no hero; not a brave swashbuckler like in the movies, nor a noble warrior like Mitsuki's ancestors. He was just a dumb machine, even though he sometimes felt he could learn to be more.
The sun was hitting hard. Gakupo look up, and found himself past Benefactor's huge shadow, half-way down the strip towards the place where Escualo rested, glittering.
Charge has a comforting effect on humanoid synthetics, the vessel's AI once said. It wasn't a bad idea, especially since his energy management function worked better when he was directly plugged to an energy source. He could use a half-hour of reprieve from the effects of the error in his programming.
But the ship was so far…Gakupo walked slower and slower, and the questions plaguing him danced haltingly inside his head.
So far…
The cement was rugged and boiling with the sun. If he had been a human, it would've scalded his skin.
His eyesight warped and blackened for a moment. Gakupo started to raise one hand to rub his eyes, but then it fell back to his side. His systems informed him that the limb wasn't receiving energy. Half a second later, his legs reported the same information, and he stumbled and fell. Everything went black for a second time, this time permanently.
Inside of one Benefactor's service tunnels, Luka sat cross-legged, in front of a honeycomb of circuits and wiring. Some of the cells needed replacing, and her humanoid digits were better for the job than the manipulators of Benefactor's remaining service bots. One of them, a chubbier, cat-sized version of the spaceship, sat in the space between her legs, chirping encouragingly whenever she adjusted one of the cells correctly. Two others stood at her sides illuminating the scene with the row of lights that crowned their fronts.
From everything that she had seen while inside Benefactor, Luka suspected that his makers were of a size similar to hers, or perhaps slightly taller. It was hard to determine the purpose of many rooms, besides storage, but the lack of anything that resembled cooking spaces or organic waste treatment facilities suggested that they were bots of some kind themselves. It fit nicely with Benefactor's ignorance regarding organic life.
Suddenly, a melody rang through the air, filling the tunnels with complex overlapping of sounds. The tiny differences of pitch between some notes would have been hard to detect by human ears, but they were perfectly recorded by Luka's systems for analysis.
It was Benefactor's true voice.
Small one Luka.
"Yes?"
Small one Gakupo, inactive.
"What?" Luka raised her voice in alarm. He had charged that very morning, there's no way he had run out of energy already.
Position detection, stationary. Time 377,88-a. Current status, analyzed. Consensus reached. Elevated heat levels. Irregular energy supply. Paralysis.
Luka quickly tossed her tools aside, and placed the bot on her lap next to one of his mates.
"Take me to where he is, please!"
Confirm. Confirm. Confirm.
In a flash, Luka was outside, on the landing strip. As usual, whatever method Benefactor used to move them around caused a small eruption of error messages inside of her as her systems tried to process what had exactly happened to them. She ignored the warnings, as she scanned the area. Escualo was to her left, Benefactor and the camp to the right. But where was Gakupo? She began to turn around, and her ankle hit something on the ground.
Full of dread, Luka looked downwards. Gakupo was lying face-down on the ground, motionless. His head was partially turned to the side, but his loose hair hid his face, except for an opaque eye, dark like red wine.
Holding back a scream, Luka bent down and turned him around, cradling him in her arms. He was warm, from lying out there in the sun for so long. "Gakupo! Can you hear me?!" Luka said, frantic. There was no reply. "You, you just need some charge. I'll get you-I'll get you somewhere to charge and you'll be fine!" Facing away from Gakupo, she pulled his arms to place his weight on her back and began to drag him towards Escualo.
Small one Luka.
"Not now!" Luka shouted, all her upper processes focused completely on Gakupo.
Relocating.
Reality twisted again, and Luka stumbled, falling to her knees inside the prototype vessel's miniscule maintenance and storage room. Gakupo's weight pushed her forward, squashing her under his body.
Nearest direct energy supply.
"….Thanks," Luka murmured. She squirmed from under Gakupo and sat up.
"Hello. Is Gakupo having energy issues?" The ship's AI suddenly piped up, mild as always.
"Yes, is your charging alcove working?" Luka asked, briefly wondering if the AI was capable of feeling worried about Gakupo.
"Fully Operational. Please insert Gakupo into the device," the AI replied. Luka was already dragging Gakupo towards it.
With a violent tug, Luka pulled his shirt off and tossed it aside. She did the same for his headpiece. Then she carefully lifted Gakupo, paying no attention to the strain in her arms, and pushed him into the tight space. The alcove readily sensed his presence and lit up. Its metallic restrains circled his limbs and waist, allowing Luka to take a step back. With a hiss, the alcove plugged its thin cables into Gakupo's back and head.
Almost immediately, his eyes flickered on and off several times, before the glow became permanent. Gakupo looked around, with a dazed expression. Finally, his eyes fixed on Luka.
"…Did I shut off?" he asked slowly.
Luka nodded wordlessly, feeling relief wash over her. She leaned forward and rested her forehead on his shoulder. "Don't scare me like that, dummy," she whispered.
"I'm sorry…" Gakupo replied, inclining his head as much as the alcove allowed.
"It's getting worse, isn't it?" Luka asked, barely giving the sentence an interrogative tone. She already knew the answer.
"If we don't find Mitsuki soon, I'll-" Gakupo started.
"Don't say it!" Luka straightened up and shook her head.
"Luka, perhaps it's better if we prepare for it," Gakupo said, calmly. He gave Luka a tiny smile. "I had a good life. I learnt many things, I got to spend my days with you… Even if we can't fix this, I have little reason to complain."
Luka turned away from him, pursing her lips.
"You are not going to be alone. The others are going to need you. And you are going to need them," Gakupo continued.
"I need you," Luka replied, her voice low and opaque.
"And I'll resist this for as long as I can. But…there are no certainties," Gakupo said softly.
Luka whipped her head around violently. "Do you have any idea how I felt up there without you?!" She pointed upwards. "And then, at least I knew you were living happily on Earth!" She growled, her eyes wild and unfocused.
"Luka…" Gakupo trailed off, unsure on what to say.
"If I may…" the AI suddenly interjected. Both synthetics turned instinctively to look at the camera in the corner of the room. "What methods are you using to search for Miss Torii?"
"Ben is monitoring the transmissions sent from Mars to Earth or the space stations, searching for any references to her, or video messages with her image," Gakupo replied.
"Is the spaceship capable of fuzzy search?" the AI asked.
Luka and Gakupo looked at each other. "I'm not certain…" Luka said slowly. Gakupo tilted his head slightly.
"Humans change their physical configuration much more easily than humanoid synthetics or fixed-housing data entities like myself," the AI said, almost casually.
"…And Ben has trouble understanding how organics work, so he could overlook visual feed of Mitsuki if it doesn't perfectly match her description!" Gakupo concluded.
"Perhaps you should review the archived visual transmissions personally, then," the AI suggested.
"You're right!" Luka latched at the idea, brimming with hope. It was certainly better than just waiting around for Gakupo to slip away from her.
"Ben, are you listening?" Gakupo asked.
Small one Gakupo.
"Are you familiar with the term fuzzy search?"
Undefined entry.
"How closely are you following the criteria I gave you for the analysis of the visual feeds from Mars?" Luka intervened.
Full-match preferred. 80-99%, second stack storage, purging on 10th cycle.
"That doesn't leave a lot of room for error," Gakupo said softly. "If you don't mind, do you think we could review your second stack of partial matches?"
Confirm. Confirm. Confirm.
In response, the alcove dinged and released Gakupo. Luka rushed to steady him, circling his chest with her arms. A moment later, they were no longer there.
Gakupo and Luka looked around them curiously. The room they were in looked nothing like Escualo's tiny cockpit, or Leviathan's bridge. It was somewhat like being inside a giant paper lantern. Two of the curving walls were lined with rows and rows of softly illuminated rectangles, possibly drawers of some kind, although they didn't have any kind of locks or knobs. The other two walls were dark and featureless, aside from a discrete door. In the middle of the room, there were three circular platforms, matched by three circular protuberances in the ceiling. The middle platform was lit, and the air between it and the ceiling shimmered strangely.
Small one Gakupo, rest.
One of the drawers at ground level slid forward, revealing a narrow space lined with a soft-looking dark substance. It resembled, more than anything, a human coffin. After Luka helped him get inside of it, the material ballooned and adjusted to Gakupo's shape, propping up his head and upper body into a semi-reclining position.
"Is this how your crew was…housed?" Luka asked.
Memory degraded. Response unavailable.
"But the other spaces are empty, right?" She insisted, looking up to the rows rising all the way to the ceiling.
Unoccupied.
"This is energizing me somehow," Gakupo commented. He looked at his feet and moved them in rhythmical manner, almost like a dance. "It feels good," he added, closing his eyes like a satisfied cat.
Luka tilted her head. Benefactor clearly had some way of interfacing with their systems without any actual physical contact, but direct energy transference surprised her more than simply controlling their bodies, as he had done before. Still, she had more important things to think about right now. She approached the lit platform.
"So, I get on this, right? What do I-woah?!" Luka let out a surprised gasp.
"Luka, are you ok?!" Gakupo opened his eyes, startled. He blinked as he saw Luka hovering half-way between the ceiling and floor of the chamber.
"It's- it's alright," Luka hastily replied. There was something nagging at the corners of her vision, though. She darted her eyes quickly from one place to another, trying to focus on the fleeting phantoms. "I see something. Maybe if I close my eyes…" she trailed off.
Luka saw the ground and ocean around her and the tiny and important creatures roaming the island. Farther away stood the broken buildings of the deserted city. Their yacht was speeding away from her, and she had a brief flash of green hair and a snide smile. But her eyeless sight strayed away, and focused beyond the borders of her small world.
They were watching and waiting. Their toys of war circled the zone completely, patrolling back and forth. Luka saw the glint of the muzzles of too many guns. It seemed as if all the defense bots in Earth were stationed outside of the shield. Flying drones traced patterns in the sky, following its curvature.
"Can you access his archives?" Gakupo asked, pulling her back into her own small self.
"Ah, um, not yet," Luka said out loud. "Mars archives, second stack from 0," she whispered tentatively. In response, a second layer of barely discernible images was superposed over the external views. As soon as she focused on them, the feed solidified and the sound flooded her ears.
"-care how much they are paying you, Earth is not safe! Who knows when those monsters are going to come out from their bubble and finish what they started!" An Asian man spoke vehemently to the camera, his face almost filling the screen. He was clearly restraining himself from shouting.
"Monsters, huh?" Luka mused, too low for Gakupo to listen. That a human of all things would say that about them was particularly hilarious.
As the recording progressed, it became clear that it was intended for an employee of a para-military company guarding a complex near the shield, and thus completely irrelevant. Luka moved on.
She quickly searched through the files, occasionally making comments to Gakupo. About an hour later, she found a particularly interesting investigative report.
"They've cordoned off the factory," Luka informed Gakupo.
"Cordoned off?" He repeated, surprised.
"The authorities sealed the facilities, stopped all production on humanoid synthetics and deactivated all the units still inside," Luka explained further.
"Hm..." Gakupo pondered. "That reminds me of something I wanted to discuss with you and Ben... but continue, I'll tell you later."
"There's nothing else to say," Luka shrugged. "Not about the factory, at least. I'll keep looking for Mitsuki."
The video files kept piling one after the other. Luka sped them as much as possible, trying to keep herself from absorbing useless information. Still, a couple more hours passed before she finally saw something of interest. She slowed the file to normal speed.
"-re shipments before it's done, or at least that what the Doc says. Right, Doc?" A thuggish man spoke to the camera, and then turned to look over his shoulder. A few meters behind him, almost out of frame, Mitsuki stood flanked by a couple of female synthetics, who were grabbing her by the forearms. Mitsuki nodded grimly, looking like she was holding back tears.
"I found her!" Luka shouted. Gakupo opened his eyes, instantly becoming alert.
Luka froze the image and studied Mitsuki. It didn't surprise her that Benefactor had failed to identify her. Her hair was short, cut in a pixie cut, and she was looking gaunt and weary. She also sported a black eye, a bloodied lip and other bruises. Either her employers were not very nice or she was prisoner to some other unsavory individual.
"Is she alright? Where is she?" Gakupo asked anxiously.
"The origin of this feed… hm, coordinates 345-77.00-12. That's an undocumented base." Luka pointedly avoided answering the first question. Thankfully, her innate impulse to answer with the truth was satisfied by answering the second one. "I'm afraid she might be involved in something illegal."
"She said her new employers would protect her from the authorities," Gakupo said slowly. "It makes sense that she would be at a secret base. I just hope they are treating her right."
Luka again avoided the issue, instead focusing on the obvious problem at hand. "Ok, we know where she is, presumably. How do we get to her?"
"Escualo is faster than any other ship out there," Gakupo said.
"But it can't project shields like Benefactor. I wonder…." Luka trailed off. "Benefactor, please get me down." As requested, she softly descended until her feet touched the platform once more. In a couple of strides, she approached Gakupo and sat on his lap. "Benefactor, how are your repairs going?"
88.46% complete.
"Gakupo needs this organic unit quickly. Can you take us to Mars when you are done?" she asked.
Mission objective, organic matter extraction. Confirm, confirm, confirm. Defensive, navigational, offensive capabilities required. Acceptable threshold estimation required. Analyzing. Departure time, 4.666666666666667 +E001 standard cycles. Third-planet equivalency, 7 +E033 cycles.
"A week, then?" Gakupo interpreted. "Not bad. I might need to stay close to a charging source until then, though."
"Yes, and no wandering around on your own… please," Luka added, hugging him. That sparked a realization in her. "Wait, you were with Sonika… How come you ended up alone out there?"
"Erm…" Gakupo made a face. "We had something of a fight, I guess. No, no, calm down Luka!" He grabbed her quickly by the shoulders. "She didn't do anything… to me." He sighted.
"Then, what happened?" Luka asked, her expression still dark.
"She purposefully let slip to Kaito and Miku that something happened between them before the memory wipe. She doesn't trust Kaito all that much, I'm afraid."
"And you do," Luka said, inexpressive.
"I don't know how to feel anymore. That's what I was thinking about when my systems crashed. I kept going in circles, trying to decide what to do-"
"Don't," Luka cut abruptly.
"Huh?"
"If that made you malfunction, don't think about it," Luka said simply.
"It's not that simple! For starters, I promised Kaito and Miku that we'd talk about it tonight," Gakupo frowned.
"And do what? Blurt out the truth?"
"Perhaps… perhaps it was wrong for us to decide for them how their story is going to play out," Gakupo said, pensive.
"I don't care if it's wrong or not, whatever that means for synthetics like us," Luka replied, a stubborn expression in her face. "I care that you don't overdo it."
Gakupo smiled. "We will need to figure things out, at some point. What do we value, who we are… especially if we are going to work as a society. There's no need to solve everything right away, I suppose. But we need to decide what to do about them before tonight."
He hugged her again, silently analyzing the strange relief he felt. Many things had happened so far, and yet he still had Luka by his side, faithful as always. They could rely on each other, even now, when they were facing things never meant to be tackled by synthetics.
Let Sonika laugh at him as much as she wanted…Gakupo still felt things could turn up fine.