11941 - Mt. Ka'ala
Daytime
Everything was cold and dark, her eyes struggled to open but her ears picked up sounds, the lapping of the waves and worried voices all around her.
And someone called her name.
"Number 21! Number 21!" the hand that shook her was strong but at the same time gentle.
She knew this voice, and all the others too she was sure of it.
After what felt like forever, her eyes finally opened.
She was lying on one side, and she met the worried gaze of Number 4, she was the one that had been shaking her then.
And next to her there were Number 16 and Lily, and around them everyone else.
No wait… something was… missing.
Memories hit her like a wave, the mission, then the elevator hall, the excruciating pain of the virus and… Anemone…
Where…
Where was she?
She looked around, searching, but nothing and also Number 2 was nowhere to be seen too.
"We're dead." noticing her confusion, Number 16 clarified. "Or rather so we believe." Number 4 pointed out.
"What does it mean?" it was the first thing that came out of her mouth since she woke up.
"See for yourself." Rose extended a hand for her to take, she allowed her to lift her up, she still stumbled a little, probably residue of the virus or something.
But she felt herself again at least.
However she didn't know if her eyes were still corrupted and they were deceiving her or if this was true, but…
The huge mountain there once was, now was nothing more than a giant smoking crater, a hollow island, but not only, she recognized these white flickers anywhere, they were characteristic of hacking space, yet, they were not in one.
Was this a cruel dream of sorts?
"What happened here?" she asked again.
"Well…" Number 4 sheepishly scratched the back of her head. "The huge crater might have been my fault."
"You know about the bomb, no?"
"Of course." she nodded, so did the Gunner. "Everyone does."
"But Number 2 apparently." still as naive as ever.
"Wait, you're saying you had bombs implanted inside you?" Dahlia frowned as they once again nodded.
"If I got this correctly, this was all already planned, the Commander never meant for any of us to survive, so… yeah…" Number 4 sighed, but at least Number 2 must have survived, against what White wanted.
"We met some… entities in the server, they hacked into the Bunker and claimed that our YoRHa friends were nothing but pawns, much like us. That was why they were abandoned without mercy, this was all a massive stress test to see how they acted and use their data to make new and better models, the mission was all an excuse." Rose explained, and as she did, Number 21 understood something.
"The data given to us was false."
"What do you mean?" Number 16 frowned, so she tried to explain it in the simplest terms.
"Everything was false, the number of enemies, their abilities, and all the rest. The plan Number 22 and I made wasn't wrong, we didn't make a mistake in our calculations, it was wrong because we were given false information to work with."
Number 21 felt a metaphorical weight being lifted from her shoulder, despite what happened and the deaths of her comrades, at least now she knew that they hadn't been because she'd been wrong, and sent them to their demise, because she made a wrong plan.
As a Scanner, this was one of the few things she was good at, and messing that up was shameful, for her role.
Other than having their lives on her shoulders.
And also this proved that her words to Anemone were true, that it had been luck to determine who survived, because no plan would have saved them when it was made on wrong information.
She wondered… where was Anemone now?
She remembered those words she spoke to her, she heard them clearly even over the static noises in her ears, and the pain she was feeling.
Anemone told her she'd join her in death…
But she didn't…
For some reason she had nothing to blame her for though.
She was not very worth throwing her life away for, nor she truly had wanted her to do so, even despite whatever bond it was that they had shared.
She couldn't hold it against her, and if truly they all had to die, then she was happy to know that at least she defied the odds, and her destiny to be a pawn to be sacrificed.
So then why did her chest hurt?
"Well, in a way we always knew we were expendable." it was Gerbera who said it as she shrugged. "We never received any help in 200 years, best we could do was to take the chance, turns out it's the same old story."
Even for the four YoRHa.
However.
"Number 2 should still be alive, I made sure of it." Number 4 declared, and there was no need to say that she blew herself up in her place, and this was the result.
"Anemone should be somewhere too, since she isn't here." Margaret looked expectantly at Number 21, but…
"I don't have an answer to that." she didn't know what Anemone did after she shot her.
If she was somewhere, or if she had died too…
Perhaps in another place…
"Hopefully Anemone and Number 2 are still alive, and with any luck, they could have found each other too." Rose did not want to think to the alternate scenario.
"Now we just need to find out why we're here, and how."
Again they turned towards Number 21, that again didn't know what to say, but she was still a Scanner, so…
"I will investigate."
After all there wasn't much else she could do.
Or all of them really.
Number 21 had no idea how much time she spent analyzing the stream of data coming from the center of the crater, she just knew it had been long, her legs felt stiff from sitting for so much time, her fingers were sore from typing and her eyes burned from staring at screens.
Odd considering none of them had a body, but even as a consciousness they could feel just the same.
What she found was that apparently there was an even deeper level where part of the machine server was still active.
The explosion caused by Number 4 had deactivated most but not all of it.
And also caused a chain of events that created this odd hacking space mixed with reality, probably because the server hadn't been powerful enough to create a full simulation anymore.
Somehow absorbing them inside when they died.
She was able to access that part of the server, however it required a machine imprint to enter, but even if they got inside and destroyed it they had no bodies to return to.
But in other words…
"We are trapped here." Number 16 put it in simpler terms, but yes, they were in fact stuck on this island.
"We can't die, and we can't get free." and still die anyways.
Rose sighed, of all the things this was the most bizarre.
They couldn't leave, and couldn't kill themselves… or rather none of them would have pulled weapons on the others, even if there was little choice.
"There has to be something we can hope for." Number 4 said. "How I wish Number 2 was here… she always had hope…"
Number 2…
How was she doing?
Was she still alive?
Wait…
She could have been alive!
So…
"I want to attempt to create a backdoor in the server." clenching her fist at her sides, Number 21 spoke with utmost determination.
"What for?" the Gunner frowned at her.
"If Number 2 is alive, if she comes back here… she will find us."
She will find them alive, still here.
And hopefully…
"She may have a way to get us out."
They only had to hope.