Chapter 18 – Red & Blue

After a long stretch of nothingness, Luka stirred. She examined her own mind, curiously. Her logs were clean, but complete sections of memories were wiped entirely from existence. And once she had no concept of how much time had passed.

She opened her eyes, and examined her surroundings. She was in a narrow box, one of the charging beds. Above her, she saw the curved walls meet the distant ceiling. The whole room was bathed in dim golden light, coming from the other boxes embedded in the walls. How pretty.

"I think the base we seek is in this area, possibly hidden inside of one of the craters," a familiar voice remarked somewhere nearby.

She sat up. The soft material of her box expanded, hugging her sides. A quick survey of the room was enough to determine the others seemed unharmed, although Leon was strangely absent, perhaps enjoying solitude somewhere.

Kiyoteru, Meiko, Kaito and Gakupo were busy studying the images projected on the wall. Luka noted that Kaito had his arm around Gakupo's waist, presumably to help him stay upright. She focused on the images and gasped. The russet surface of Mars was unmistakable, after seeing it so many times in documentaries and news programs. The planet was still distant, but its most important features were beginning to become distinguishable.

Inside the nearest box, Miku turned her head, attracted by Luka's exclamation of surprise. The teal haired girl smiled brightly at her. "Luka, you're back with us!"

"Hey, Luka is up!" Rin exclaimed. She was sitting cross-legged over one of the platforms with Len, Oliver and Yuki, playing with a mostly intact deck of cards. On the floor next to the children, the service bots flashed their lights at Luka and chirped in unison a little tune.

Gakupo turned jerkily, almost making both Kaito and him fall to the floor. "Luka! Luka, at last!" He shouted, wobbling like a drunkard.

"Calm down, lover boy!" Meiko giggled and helped Kaito carry him over to Luka. Kiyoteru followed them, nonchalantly cleaning his glasses with an elegant handkerchief.

Luka jumped out of the box and hugged Gakupo, gleefully accepting the weight of his body.

"Careful, he can't stand on his own," Kaito warned her before he and Meiko pulled away.

"Luka, I'm so glad!" Gakupo hugged her back, seemingly determined to ignore his latest malfunction.

"What happened?" Luka enquired. As far as she could remember, she and her mate had scoured the factory, found the empty pods, and then…There was an impression of many presences shouting at her, but the gynoid had no idea who they were.

"You both shut down after the blast hit," Kiyoteru explained, carefully folding his handkerchief. "Gakupo woke up a couple of hours ago, though. The ship couldn't explain why you didn't, so we were worried."

"How do you feel?" Gakupo asked.

"Perfect." Aside from the missing data, all of her systems reported optimal performance.

"As it should be, then." He smiled and delicately kissed her cheeks and forehead.

"Do you have any idea of what caused your blackout?" Kiyoteru asked.

"I'm not sure." Luka let her eyes wander, reflecting. She had the feeling that she had been at the verge of some discovery about the nature of Benefactor's mind when she shut off. She cocked her head to a side, performing a deep search of her banks for any remaining trace of memories. No results. "Both of us are connected to Benefactor at all times, somehow. If the blast harmed them, we may have shared the effects." Luka rubbed Gakupo's back, worried. She hadn't considered that damage to Benefactor could also cascade down to them.

"The ship did leave the lights off for a while," Kiyoteru noted. "We thought at first that we were trapped inside of it, without any means of getting out." He rubbed his forehead, clearly still spooked by the sensation.

"Benefactor wouldn't speak to us, no matter how much we shouted," Kaito lamented.

The bespectacled unit nodded, and resumed his explanation, "The lights came back after a while, thankfully, and soon after the images of the outside re-appeared."

"Yes, and it showed us Earth! We were in space!" Meiko intervened excitedly.

"There's so little indication of movement inside of Benefactor, we had no idea we were already outside of the atmosphere," Kaito added softly. "There are many spaceships patrolling the planet in case we return, but it seems that they are content with us just leaving."

"So we escaped…We escaped!" Luka repeated to herself. The words felt incredibly sweet.

"We did," Gakupo agreed, his voice brimming with joy.

"In case you are wondering, the ship did show us a view of the results of the blast, after his systems went back online. The attack reduced the factory and the surrounding area to scorched ruins. It was probably far more destructive than what you had in mind for it," Kiyoteru said, almost casually.

"Hm, yes. Although, I wasn't even sure I wanted to do anything anymore." Luka flashed a troubled smile. "Before, I thought that maybe Benefactor could raise the earth under the complex, so the foundations were rendered useless, and the buildings would crack."

"I see, not that it matters now."

"No, no it doesn't," Luka agreed. "Nothing down there matters anymore." She buried her face in Gakupo's neck, for the first time in ages fully content with herself and everything around her. Even her own fatalism was giving her a reprieve, at least for now. Her thoughts were already picturing the future, their future, a deep ocean full of possibilities. Timidly, like a sprout fighting its way from the earth towards the sun, there was a new feeling of hope growing inside of her.

"You can take anything you want. Or I can modify something for you, if you prefer," Meiko enthused, proudly presenting her collection with a wave of her hand.

The short-haired gynoid was rather talented, Luka had to admit. She had started with nothing more than a pile of ruined rags, a sewing kit and the memory or two from her previous life, and she had turned her treasures into a full wardrobe's worth of lovely dresses.

The pair was in a small room Meiko had claimed for herself, not too distant from the charging room. It was a bare metal box, except for one side that had a lattice of tubes, metal pipes that protruded from the wall and floor, made a couple of turns at different angles, and then sank back into Benefactor's walls. Despite her investigative efforts, so far Luka had no idea what their purpose was. However, Meiko had obviously decided it was a great place to hang clothing.

Luka walked along the line of get-ups, sometimes running her hand down the fabric. Finally, she stopped in front of an aquamarine and light-blue dress. It wasn't as silky and flawless as the sea dress Gakupo once suggested for her, but its battered fabric fit her current persona. She was as weary as the garment, even if it didn't show from the outside.

"Oh, that would match your eyes nicely," Meiko approved, adopting a professional demeanor. She held the dress in the air before Luka, and nodded. "Looks like it could be a little tight in the chest. I could fix that easily, though. Put it on so I can see how well it fits?"

"Alright." Luka was still wearing the (by now quite ratty) Golden Skies t-shirt and shorts the twins had given her. She quickly undressed while Meiko riffled through her sewing kit.

"Hmm…the zip is somewhat stubborn," Luka commented, as she tried to open the dress. She didn't want to apply too much force on it, afraid of tearing it.

"Well, it was underwater for a while. Salty, dirty water to boot." Meiko stood and watched her naked form with amusement. "My masters would've been so happy to own you, Luka. You're beautiful."

"Female units like us are built to be attractive to human eyes," Luka remarked, shrugging. It wasn't something she gave much thought to lately. She surrendered the dress to Meiko's expert hands.

With a deft little tug, Meiko pulled the zip open and helped Luka put the dress on. "Not just for human eyes, actually." Meiko winked, showing off the ornament on her hair. It was a blue rose made out of silk. "Turn around."

Pushing Luka's hair aside, she closed the dress with some difficulty. "Yes, this needs some work. Funny, you'd think they used the same measurements for all adult female bots. Hmm…" Meiko examined Luka's form from all angles, committing her measurements to memory. "Alright, let me work on it for a few minutes." She recovered the dress and sat down next to her sewing kit to adjust it.

Luka kneeled close by, watching her work. Her curiosity finally forced to ask, "Meiko, do you realize that Kaito is not…" she stopped, looking for a way to describe the situation, "That he has other things in his mind right now?"

"You mean the little teal one? Or the human with the flower shop?" Meiko inquired indifferently.

"Um, yes, but besides from that-"

"They don't matter. The human is in the past, and Miku is too wrapped in her own problems to realize what she's giving up. He's mine now." Meiko folded her arms with an air of finality.

Luka frowned, analyzing the words. There was something bothersome about them, but she wasn't sure what it was.

"Do you like the idea of owning someone?" She finally asked.

"No relationship is completely balanced," Meiko shrugged. "One of the two always holds more power than the other. Why shouldn't it be me, for once? I've been under someone else's control all my life."

"I don't think 'control' makes for a happy relationship," Luka pointed out.

"Why not? You own Gakupo, and no one finds it strange."

"I do?" Luka exclaimed, eyebrows raised.

"Of course you do. I'm willing to bet that he still operates solely because of you."

He operates because of me. It was an overly simplistic conclusion, if rather flattering. But Gakupo had his own reasons for living, didn't he? Luka lowered her head, disquieted.

"Yes, that's what I want. I want someone that is just mine, and nobody else's. Someone that needs me, and only me, so badly they can't work otherwise." Meiko's red eyes burning fanatically. With a final flourish, she finished her work and presented the dress to Luka. "Here, go make him happy."

Luke put on the dress without making further comments. She suddenly felt very anxious to go back to the charging room and sit with Gakupo for a while. She walked out of the room with her old clothes folded in her arms. Meiko was right behind her, talking obliviously about something or another, but something quickly drew Luka's attention away.

In the far end of the dimly lit corridor, in front of the door leading to the charging room, there was a figure. As soon as she saw it, Luka dropped her shirt and shorts to the floor, and stood paralyzed with shock.

"What's up? You are not malfunctioning like lover boy, are you?" Meiko asked, with a mischievous smile.

"Do-do you see that?!" Luka asked, her eyes still fixed on the mysterious figure.

"See what?"

"What?! It's right there!" Luka whispered furiously.

Whatever it was, it wasn't solid. It was like a phantom, a thin humanoid shape of electric blue energy, with a pulsing globe of light where a head would be. The whole shape wavered like smoke, and sometimes its limbs merged into the truck, or bifurcated into multiple wispy tentacles. It paid the two female units no mind, and after a moment it phased right through the door.

"No! Gakupo and Miku are in there!" Luka shouted, and ran towards the room. She had no idea of what it was, or how to defend herself and the others from it, but letting the two injured bots face it without help was out of the question.

"What are you doing?" Meiko asked her, puzzled. She seemed to be following her just out of curiosity, still unaware that anything that was wrong.

"Benefactor, what is that thing?" Luka shouted, but Benefactor remained strangely silent. She reached the door and it slid back smoothly, reacting to the presence.

Inside, Gakupo was lying on the ground, right next to the shining figure, vainly trying to sit up. Miku was watching him with befuddlement. She can't see it either.

The figure raised a flailing, tenuous arm towards him.

"Gakupo!" Luka screamed, and flung herself at the figure.

…And promptly sailed right through it, and slammed right into him. They skidded on the floor until the far wall stopped their movement. Meiko burst into laughter.

"Ok, I think you officially lost it, darling," she snorted, casually walking through the figure. She approached the pair and crouched next to them, watching the pair with amusement.

Ignoring all the ruckus caused by its presence, the figure climbed the lit platform and promptly disappeared.

"Luka, you saw that thing too?" Gakupo enquired nervously.

"Yes!" Not only that, but for a small instant Luka, while she flew through its blue body, heard again the many voices shouting at her.

"What's going on?" Miku asked from her box.

Luka sat up and helped Gakupo do the same. Thankfully, his arms were still working, as he demonstrated when he scratched his head, confused. "Only the two of us could see it. Could it be because of our connection to Ben?"

"Benefactor? Please answer us. Did you sense that thing?" Luka shouted, looking upwards.

Another silence, and then music rushed from everyone at once.

'Thing' Undefined. Parameters Required.

"What? That blue and white thing made out of light. It stood on the platform just a moment ago."

No Search Results.

Luka and Gakupo glanced at each other. "…Are you sure? Could you run a self-diagnostics just in case? You weren't responding five minutes ago." Luka requested.

Analyzing.

"Perhaps the blast introduced some bug in your programming," Meiko commented.

"And it manifested at the same time? In the consisting manner for the two of us? No, this is something else."

Meiko shrugged. "At least it was harmless, from the sound of it."

"But it's scary. What does it mean?" Miku questioned.

Meiko rolled her eyes at her. "How about you don't panic at every single opportunity?"

Miku blinked in surprise. Then she shamefacedly turned to Gakupo and Luka. "I'm sorry…Am I really that skittish?"

Gakupo rushed to reassure her. "No, it's natural to worry. Meiko, we're stuck inside Benefactor now. We need to understand the situation as soon as possible."

Meiko shrugged. "How am I expected to take this seriously? I didn't see anything, and your little ship friend says there was nothing there. And you, specially, are two cycles away from shutting down completely. Why should I believe anything you say?"

Gakupo gaped at her.

"He is not shutting down. Don't ever say that again!" Luka growled, hugging Gakupo as if to protect him from Meiko's words. The fact that she couldn't call it a lie was the worst part.

The brown-haired synthetic raised her hands in sign of surrender. "Alright, alright. I'm sorry, that was a mean thing to say."

Gakupo caressed Luka's head and nodded, acknowledging Meiko's apology.

Meiko stood up, patting her skirt. "I should get out of your collective hair. I'll keep you posted, if I see anything out of the usual."

"Thanks," Gakupo replied. He seemed to have bounced rather quickly from his surprise at Meiko's words.

Meiko walked out the door, with her usual model-like walk.

Miku followed her with her eyes, timidly. Once she disappeared behind the sliding door, she sighed. "I wish I had her confidence."

She's verging on Sonika-level annoyance, as far as I'm concerned, Luka thought. Still, she conceded the point; Meiko was indeed very self-confident.

"Luka, there's something I didn't mention before…" Gakupo whispered, breaking her train of thought. "At first I thought it was related to my malfunction somehow, but there might be more to it."

"You heard voices, before the blast knocked you out?" Luka hazarded. Miku tilted forward, intrigued.

"Yes! So you did too. Well, that's what called my attention at first, just now. I was lying down, just sucking in energy, when I felt this rushing something come through me…I opened my eyes and sat up, but I didn't see anything out of the ordinary."

"So that's what you were doing back then," Miku concluded.

Gakupo nodded. "After a while, I was ready to lie down again when that figure just phased through the door like mist. I tried to get out and talk to it, but you know how that went."

"Yeah…" Luka watched the platform, almost expecting the figure to appear again. "Did it seem to ignore you at first, though?"

"Hard to say with something without a face, but I think so."

"Then don't engage it, if it appears again. Let's just wait and see what it does, until we know more."

"You got it," Gakupo nodded.

"Um, don't you think it's strange that your friend stopped responding when that thing showed up?" Miku jerked her chin, gesticulating in the only way she had left.

"It is." Luka looked up. "Benefactor, did you find anything odd in your logs."

Again, her query was met with a long stretch of silence.

"Benefactor?"

Small Ones Protected. Benefactor, Main Objective Met.

"Of course, we aren't questioning that."

Benefactor loves Small Ones.

Luka furrowed her brow. She had no reason to suspect malice behind Benefactor's behavior, but the ship was evading answering her, and clumsily so. A glance at Gakupo's face told her he thought the same.

"You won't let us come to harm, right?"

Confirm. Confirm. Confirm.

"I don't think we'll gain much by pushing him," Gakupo whispered in her ear. "We are in his hands now, metaphorically speaking."

Luka signaled her agreement discreetly. She just hoped that whatever it was that Benefactor was hiding, it wouldn't come to haunt them at an inopportune moment.

"Here's the place. Most of the base is underground, of course," Luka stated.

All synthetics aboard watched the images on the wall. It was an unremarkable crater, except for a dusty landing strip, some antenna arrays, and a couple of rundown domes, perhaps abandoned habitats of some sort. For the uninformed, it could pass as an old research station from the first period of Martian exploration. But the energy consumption detected under it was unmistakable.

After studying the rocky terrain with his sensors, Benefactor was able to detect the presence of organic matter, as well as the energy signatures of two active VE units.

"They must be the girl units I saw guarding Mitsuki in the recording. I'd say our best bet is for Benefactor to transport me down close to their current position."

"What if there are guards around?" Miku asked her, apprehensive.

"I think they are meant to be her guards. Maybe she can have them stand down."

"You'll be in a lot of trouble if you are wrong. And I can't even go with you," Gakupo grumbled from his box. Despite his best efforts, his limbs had become completely unresponsive during the last few hours.

"What if Meiko and I go down with you?" Kaito suggested.

"It could be a good idea." Luka nodded. Any more units might overcomplicate the situation, if they had to teleport back in a hurry.

"It bothers me that they haven't reacted to us in any way. There's no way they haven't detected us, at this distance," Kiyoteru interjected.

"Maybe they're playing dead?" Miku ventured. "Or just waiting to see what we do. They don't know why we are here."

"And this is a secret installation. They'll gain nothing by taking the initiative," Luka concluded.

"I suppose that's true. We aren't dealing with the military here, after all," Kiyoteru admitted.

"Are there military bases here in Mars to start with?" Meiko asked, tapping her chin. She turned to Kaito, but he shrugged helplessly.

"It would seem so, but not in this region. I just hope they don't show up to bother us," Luka replied in his stead. She stole a last glance at the box that housed Gakupo, trying to keep her nervousness at bay. There were humans down there, and part of her wanted to run away screaming. But he had little time left.

She faced Meiko and Kaito and extended her hands. "There's no point in waiting any longer. Are you guys ready?"

"Sure, let's hit the road." Meiko took her right hand. Kaito nodded and did the same with the left.

Something was off. Instead of the clear cut transition of one set of sensory data to another, Luka felt suspended like an insect on a net, with Meiko and Kaito still holding hands with her. Around them, there was…not a place. It wasn't the rarified atmosphere of Mars, still harmful to terrestrial life. Nor the empty void of space Benefactor had crossed to get there. Not quite.

Meiko let out a whimper, squeezing Luka's hand so hard it was close to dangerous levels. Kaito's hand was trembling slightly, but he stayed silent, as did Luka. The pink-haired gynoid felt as if she was enveloped in thick mud, and the immobility of her friends suggested they were similarly impeded.

All around them, there were shining lights in the darkness. They winked in and out, wavering like candlelight in a drafty room. Under them, gradually, blue bodies of shifting blue energy began to form. There were more than a hundred of them.

Luka began to hear the voices, coming from afar as the bodies lazily formed. The words they spoke didn't belong to any language her system could recognize, but she distinguished their tone. They weren't angry at them, not really. Luka had the distinct feeling they couldn't even see Kaito, Meiko and her.

"Can you hear me? We don't mean any harm!" She spoke aloud. Her voice sounded strangely distorted.

As soon as the words left her mouth, reality shifted again. Now the trio was standing at the end of a well-lit metal corridor. There was a closed door, labeled 'Lab 1' and fitted with a numerical pad and keycard slot by its side.

And before it, a human guard, looking awfully young in his dark uniform. He had a gun in his hands and observed them with wide eyes.

The first to react was Kaito. He crouched like a sprint runner and launched himself at the guard, to knock the gun out of his hands. Meiko and Luka split, twirling out of the way of the guard's shot. Luka bounced off the wall, propelling herself forward at inhuman speed.

The guard hesitated for a brief moment, faced with two rapidly approaching targets. Perhaps without his indecision, he would've managed to fire another shot against human attackers, but in this case it didn't even matter. Before he had the chance to breathe, Kaito twisted the guard's arm, making him drop the gun with a pained shout. Luka grabbed the man's neck and slammed him against the door. She kept him aloft, while he struggled and scratched vainly at her arms, gasping.

"Kill him! Kill him before any more guards show up!" Meiko screeched from behind. She was watching the other end of the corridor with apprehension.

"What? No, no more deaths!" Kaito replied, looking back at the brunette with shock. He turned to face the other gynoid and touched her shoulder. "Luka, no…"

Luka barely registered his touch as relevant, since all of her was painfully focused on the squirming human. She analyzed him, scowling at his organic ugliness. The sides of his face were asymmetrical, like all humans. His pores were easily noticeable, and some in his chin and nose were obstructed by grease and dirt, and inflamed into zits. He had the beginnings of a beard and unkempt eyebrows. His eyes were bloodshot, and a tear was falling from the left one.

What a wretched, fleshy little thing this guard was. And this miserable being dared to stand between Luka and what she needed to cure Gakupo?

"Who cares if one more dies, after all everything they did to us! They're all disgusting pigs!" Meiko screamed again.

"There's no reason for it!" Kaito replied, the closest to an angry tone he had ever produced so far. He looked around, and saw some wires, perhaps part of the communications system of the base, running along the ceiling. With a great jump, he grabbed hold of a thick one, and pulled it hard. It snapped at both ends of the corridor, releasing sparks. "Let me tie him down, and we can proceed," he pleaded softly.

Luka's hands, still around the man's neck, began to tremble. She had to make her choice soon, before any help arrived. It should've been easy, and yet it wasn't. Every memory housed in her data banks served as ammunition for her doubts, both good and bad. The entries seemed to pull her in one direction or another, like savage winds threatening to push her off a cliff. Down below, something horrible was waiting for her, calling out to her with her own voice. Luka would've cried, she wanted so badly to be able to curl into a ball and cry until the hatred poured out of her…But the humans had denied her even that, when she was created. And being so close to a human after so long was sending her mind in a frenzy, re-analyzing situations already lived over and over.

09984- She was watching her Mother die in bed. The old woman held her hand, her grip becoming weaker as the day progressed.

11203- She was standing at the door of a house that was no longer her home, empty-handed and exposed.

15444- She was on the floor again, and Smith was about to strike her face with the bottle in his hand.

23678- She was watching Mitsuki run diagnostics on Gakupo, staring at the cables connected to his head, thinking of connecting their minds together, to let him know how she felt.

24111- She, Gakupo and the kids were holding hands and singing together, and the humans in the wedding party seemed glad by their presence.

24559- She was waltzing in Gakupo's arms, while Mitsuki sat watching them, crying happily.

32777- She was alone in a red-tinted reactor sector of the Leviathan, turning in the air slowly.

44990- She was patting Oliver's hair. The boy trembled each time the echoes of laughter reached the yacht.

56001- She was dancing with Len and Rin, with the chubby maintenance bots ceremoniously marching in circles around them.

57123- She was rolling on the floor with all her friends, wondering if the humans had finally managing to end them all.

58223- She was looking down at Gakupo. He couldn't move anymore, and yet he smiled at her, wide and unafraid.

Like spectral hands cradling her, little by little the memories of him, of the little ones and even of her new friends shrouded her from the rest of the entries. What is for your anger for? What will it ever bring you? They couldn't make the decision for her, but they could remind her of all she had to lose, if she lost her mind.

Luka was silicon, lithium, carbon, oxygen, iron, copper and many elements more. She was polymer and alloy. She was processing units, system buses and memory storage. She was miles and miles of Booleans, control flow statements, values and pointers. But she was more than that now, and she could be even more in the future. And she was more than her hatred and fear, and their attempts to chain her to the past.

You are alive, because you can dream. Go on, dream.

"What sort of new life could be born out of violence and ugliness?" Luka whispered. The man looked at her dizzily, about to pass out. "Let me dream of pure seas, then." She lowered the man to the ground. "Kaito! Tie him up!"

"Ah…right!" Kaito sounded intensely relieved. He quickly coiled the cable around the guard, and shoved the man's cap inside his mouth.

"I don't get you guys…Don't complain to me if this goes pear-shaped!" Meiko tapped her foot nervously.

"I won't," Luka replied and pressed the button for the door. Surprisingly, it wasn't locked. The trio stepped cautiously inside.