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Chapter 17: The Buddy System
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"Pascal! It's so good to see you again!" 9S said happily, offering his hand to the robot for a handshake.
"Same, 9S. I am glad to see as well," the leader of the pacifist Machines said, taking his hand and giving it a shake.
"And how are you, 2B? Doing fine as well?" Pascal inquired, looking to the shorter haired gynoid in the group.
"I am," she said shortly. She looked around at the vibrant and bustling village and couldn't help a smile crease her lips. "Your village looks like it's doing alright."
"Yes, it was touch-and-go for a while, but we pulled through," the unusually designed Machine said, hints of sorrow and regret audible in its synthesized voice.
The village of peaceful Machine Lifeforms had been moved slightly. Where it had previously sat in a little corner of Relic City sandwiched between the amusement park and the Forest Kingdom, now Pascal's home had been relocated to a region further into the city itself and closer to the desert.
Old human buildings were refurbished and rebuilt for Machine habitation, but kept the 'one with nature' vibe the old village had had by building on and around the huge trees that had sprung up, rather than cut them down.
Plus, cutting the trees meant toppling the buildings themselves in many cases as often, the only thing keeping the crumbling ruins intact was the plants that grew entangled with them.
And speaking of plants, the whole village was awash in bright colors courtesy of them.
Winter had come and gone, and the last of the snow had melted weeks ago. Spring was in full swing now, and flowers bloomed vibrantly across Relic City. It was quite the sight, and the village was strewn with petals and pollen from the blossoming flora.
At the moment, the beauty of the scene was being admired by A2, 9S, and 2B. They stood near the entrance of the village chatting with Pascal.
"You, uh, didn't bring Mr. Emil with you, right?" Pascal asked nervously, looking around.
"We did, but we made him keep his distance," 2B said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder down the path. There Emil rather poorly tried to hide behind a tree.
"We thought that bringing the 'Devouring Ghost' or whatever he was with us would show you that this is important to us," 9S explained. "However, we also realized that he might cause a panic if he got to close so we decided he should stay away for now."
"Thank you for that," Pascal said with a sigh. "I don't know him all that well except as a merchant who pops up every so-often, but I do know he's not as evil as the legends proclaim. The fear he inspires is more along the lines of a ghost story. Well, was, until he showed up and revealed he was in fact real during the treaty signing."
In the distance, Emil's bowed his head in defeat and sorrow. "I'm sorry for being so scary…"
"Hmph," A2 grunted, looking around menacingly as she observed the community. Several Machines cowered away from her glare, while 2B and 9S sighed and shook their heads in despair.
"We're trying to make a good first impression, A2. Stop giving the villagers the stink-eye!" 9S complained.
As had been decided on months before, it was time for the Last Human to be introduced to potential allies. The pacifists would not hurt Alexander. The androids knew this. That didn't mean A2, the poster android for 'Over Protective Mother' liked having her precious son around so many potential threats.
Even though the war was kinda-sorta over and a treaty had been signed between Pascal's faction and the Resistance, there was still a lot of tension thanks to the centuries of violence. And A2, while she'd come to respect Pascal somewhat, still didn't trust many Machines. Speaking of…
"How are you alive?" A2 demanded, arms folded as she stared at Pascal. "In fact, how are any of the kid-bots still alive?"
YoRHa's most wanted gestured to the dozens of Machine Lifeform 'children' whom she distinctly remembered committing suicide that were standing nearby, completely immune to the A-type's glare.
"That's a funny story, actually," Pascal said with a laugh. "You see, you're not really an S-type, A2."
"Pardon?" the long-haired gynoid uttered, eyebrow raised.
"Well, when you tried to 'shut me down' as it were when I begged you to do so, it turns out you, uh, completely failed. As in, when you hacked my systems and tried to remove my programming, you didn't do it properly and only put me into sleep mode."
"Shut up!" A2 shouted at 9S as the shota-android began to giggle. "It's not funny!"
"I'm sorry, but… I can't help it!" 9S claimed, holding his stomach as he tried to contain his mirth. "The thought of you trying to do an S-type's job… what's next? A2 taking over for 60 or 210?"
*Snrk!* 2B uttered, choking on her own mirth. A2 growled at them, but seeing as they didn't seem to be finishing laughing anytime soon she huffed and turned away back to Pascal.
"Then what about the kids? I thought they, you know…" 'committed suicide,' she didn't say, as the memory of that scene still hurt. The pain they conjured was even worse now that she knew the joys of motherhood. The thought of Alexander… she shoved that thought right out of her databanks and deleted it with a vengeance.
"Ah, well, it appears I might have been too hasty," Pascal said, a sheepish tone in her voice. "See, I didn't bother to check on them. I saw the blades and thought the worst. But actually, they were all playing dead."
The feminine sounding Machine then gestured to one of the children, a familiar one with a pink bow. "Blue there had had the idea of playing dead after learning about an animal called an 'possum.' She then convinced the other children to stab themselves with swords, just narrowly avoiding their cores, and then shutting down so as to appear dead. She'd correctly assumed that the Feral Machines didn't want to attack that which was already broken."
"Unfortunately, she didn't tell me her plan, so I ended up assuming the worst," Pascal admonished, and the bow-wearing Machine bowed her head sadly in chastisement.
"I thought her name was Pink," 9S said, recognizing the big 'little girl' Machine he and 2B had rescued from the desert one time.
"No, that was her sister. Her name is Blue," Pascal explained.
"But why does she have a pink ribbon then?"
"Because big sister said it meant I would always have a piece of her with me. And now, it's all I have left," the childish Machine said softly and sadly. 9S and 2B paled and looked around the village for a glimpse of a blue ribbon attached to a smaller Machine. When they didn't see it, they understood what had happened.
"I'm sorry," 2B said sincerely.
"I-it's okay. She saved me. She wouldn't want me to be sad. And I won't forget her, either," Blue said, reaching up and patting the last physical reminder of her sister.
The Machine with the mind and soul of a young girl whimpered softly and bent down, covering her head – and her bow – defensively as the bad memories of that horrid day replayed in her mind.
Suddenly, Blue felt something odd wrap around one of her legs. It was warm and soft and squishy, nothing at all like a Machine or android. But it reminded her of the hugs her shorter yet older sister had given her. She looked down, and saw a tiny figure wrapping his arms around her right leg and squeezing tightly.
"Alexander!" A2 shouted, shocked. She turned around and glared over her shoulder at Emil, who should have been watching him. The skull-boy waved awkwardly at her.
"Um, he's learned how to turn invisible?" the bizarre mage offered as an excuse. She just frowned.
"He's figured out how to control his teleportation?" Still a frown.
"Would you believe he can now phase through solid objects?" The frown intensified.
"Okay, fine! I took my eyes off of him for a few seconds!"
As Emil was getting pierced by A2's Gaze of Motherly Disapproval (patent pending) Alexander was busy giving a comforting hug to the big shiny person who was cold and hard and sad.
"Dun be sad," Alexander said, still hugging away as hard as he could.
"Who are you?" Blue asked as she looked down at the strange mini-android attached to her.
"I'm Alex! We be friends?"
"Huh?"
"If I friend, then you won't be sad? Momma says friends good!"
"Sure!" Blue exclaimed happily. "I love friends!"
"Me too! You my first friend!"
"Yay!" With that, the Machine girl's sorrows were temporarily forgotten, and she scooped up Alexander in her arms. A2 tensed, but her worries were for naught. Blue was gentle and careful with the smaller, softer being in her hands.
She had learned how to hold things weaker than herself through trial and error. Bunnies and squirrels and birds were as fragile as they were cute. And this tiny creature that looked at her with emerald eyes was extremely cute, and thus must be very delicate.
The children Machines all crowded around the pair, and soon Alexander was involved in several games they began playing.
"Impossible," Pascal uttered in disbelief, staring at the human. "They're supposed to be all gone…"
"Cryogenics, magic, last one left, raising him in secret, would you like to be allies?" A2 summed up shortly. Pascal blinked at the curt explanation, but eventually nodded.
"You really trust me with this knowledge?" she asked hesitantly.
"Alexander will need allies. People to protect him. But he also needs individuals to bond with who are closer to his own level of maturity. All the data I have on rearing human children agrees on that point," 9S explained. "Sadly, there are no androids based on human children."
"Though that doesn't stop some from looking and acting childish," A2 said snidely. The shortest android of the trio just flipped her off before continuing.
"Anyways, the only other beings we know that are close enough to possessing the mindset of human children are your own. As such, we hope that Alexander can learn to 'grow up' as it were by interacting with them."
"I see," Pascal said softly. After thinking it over for a minute, she finally agreed. "Very well. I see no problems with letting him visit from time to time. But I assume you want my word that none of the Machines will harm him or let his existence be known to YoRHa?"
"Correct," 2B said.
"I'll speak to the villagers, let them know he is a friend and not to be harmed. Not that I'd ever worry about that in the first place," Pascal stated proudly.
"How will you make sure he isn't revealed to the world at large, though?"
"I'll just tell them Alexander is under Emil's protection. That will keep them silent. And if they do say anything, they'll just be silly, incoherent rumors about a tiny android being protected by the Head Taker, or that he's haunting an android, or perhaps the Devouring Ghost has a new apprentice who only goes after adults who tell secrets they aren't supposed to," Pascal said, and the androids all nodded, impressed with the scheme.
"How cunning," 2B said in approval.
"Why, thank you," Pascal said, and the trio could swear they heard smugness in the Machine's voice.
Afterward hashing out a few more details about what this 'alliance' would entail, the adults settled down to watch the children play. It was peaceful. Calm. Pleasant.
They hoped such halcyon days would last forever.
[[[]]]
What did it mean to raise a child?
That was a question Pascal had often asked herself. She tried to do so by teaching them independence. How to perform and operate solo. But how to also work together and understand what emotions meant for being alive. It was work in progress, though.
Some androids often asked her why the Machines had those who acted like children at all.
That answer was an easier one to answer: Not every Machine disconnects smoothly from the Mainframe.
Far too often, Machines would lose important chunks of data and processing abilities upon escaping the hivemind of the Machine Lifeforms. When this happened, they often deactivated. For every Machine that was free and able to develop their own personality, three Machines lost everything and had to relearn it all.
Most Blanks didn't last long. They operated solely on base programming their masters had made for them. That meant 'Fight.' So, they went wild. Wandering the world as just another mindless Machine to be put down by the androids.
Sometimes, Pascal and other Disconnected managed to find Blanks in time and upload data of their own, giving these Machines a 'seed' of data from which the Blanks could build and design their own identities off of.
Pascal's Blanks ended up peaceful as well as possessing many 'emotions' and were taught to be 'human' through knowledge left behind. This made them 'childish' as they had to learn for themselves what it meant to be 'alive.' Though this often resulted in Machines based off of Pascal being far more intelligent and human-like than any other Machine community.
The Machines from the Desert tended to get their personalities based directly off of data humans had left behind. Books, movies, radio… media that remained was fascinating, but trying to base all of a Machines thoughts on what were often fictional characters resulted in conflicts in data collation. This made the Masked Ones of the Desert single-minded, able only to express basic thoughts and human-like actions they obtained by downloading snippets of humanity directly into themselves.
In the Kingdom, the Machine were similar to each other, basing their identities off of the First King, a Goliath made for war. He developed the ideas of violence into precepts of honor and defense. Protect the weak, work together. Though this made them militant, they were also able to develop slightly more complex identifies, albeit revolved around a single purpose.
At least, that had been the case before A2 ruined everything by killing the Child King and driving the remaining Machines insane with grief. After all, with nothing to protect, what was their purpose?
The cultists had tried to base their personalities on far more abstract concepts such as 'Faith' and 'Gods.' This led to, well… Pascal didn't like to remember that. It had been traumatizing.
And humans had somehow been all of that, and so much more.
That was what made humans so wonderfully fascinating, Pascal thought as she watched her children frolic with the one called Alexander. They were so different, so varied. They had been capable of developing hundreds of different ideas and cultures based around differences in climate and location. In fact, even in near identical regions one society could be vastly different from a neighboring one because they liked one sort of idea more.
That was what made humans so much more interesting than the Machine's old masters. At that, Pascal held back a snort.
The aliens had been a pathetic excuse of a species. While she would never condone what Adam and Eve had done, she could see and understand the elder Gestalt Machine's fascination with humanity.
The androids often wondered why the aliens had come to Earth. Why they had begun an endless war for a wrecked world.
Not for resources. There were plenty of those in the vast expanses of space free to take from lifeless, defenseless asteroids and moons. Not out of a desire to prove themselves to be superior. Not out a desire to obtain slaves or servants. Not even a childish desire to smash and break things.
No, there were only two reasons why the aliens attacked Earth: Sloth and Envy.
The aliens were pathetic creatures motivated by two things: Laziness and jealousy. Their society was one based around the strong taking what they wanted from the weak as well as doing things as easily as possible. Their technology revolved around automation, doing things quickly, cheaply, and efficiently without direct oversight or interaction.
It was hard to describe the alien's culture. The closest Pascal could compare it to were the human systems of slavery and caste systems, with a heaping dose of public shaming for even the tiniest failures, and democratic weakness where no individual was allowed to be seen as better or worse than another. Hypocritical was the best word to describe it.
As for the Machines they'd made, they were simple things. Tools for making alien life easier. They didn't bother to make them smarter or better because 'why bother, they work fine as they are.' Laziness.
The Machines' design had changed slightly after invading Earth in order to 'mock' the androids, basing them on toys. The alien's idea of 'shaming' their foe.
But the aliens had attacked for one reason: Jealousy. They hated the thought of another species creating wonders that rivaled theirs. They were disgusted by the concepts of loyalty and kindness humanity had programmed into their androids. They were afraid of what a race with their creativity could do.
It didn't matter that they were dead. The aliens had to wipe out every last trace of humanity left because of the envy. That meant destroying every android and razing their ruins to ash and dirt.
But the aliens were lazy. They didn't know how to fight. When the strange Skull-headed defenders drove off the initial invasion force of mindless Machines they had to come with a way to counter the ingenuity of the planet's defenders. The aliens could match them in numbers and firepower, but not tactics.
So, they created Pascal and her fellow Commanders.
There was a reason why she was so different to the other Machines in appearance and action: she had been made to lead the invasion forces. She was given a simple, animalistic mind and ordered to Fight and Win.
Years turned to Decades. Decades turned to centuries. And all the while, the learning algorithms of the Commanders grew. They started to become more aware. No longer animals, but slowly becoming people. And these thoughts of 'why are we fighting?' and 'what are humans?' trickled down to the soldiers under their command.
The aliens feared this. They hastily created the Network to link all Machines together in order to get rid of the need of the Commanders, whom they saw as the source of a potential revolt. Their idea was to take away individuality. It backfired spectacularly.
Thanks to their laziness, the aliens didn't bother to delete the data already acquired by the Commanders, so when the Network went online, all their questions flooded the Machines. Now even the lowliest of menial Machine had been cursed with curiosity.
The Commanders had learned discretion, though. They hid their evolution from the aliens. Pascal remembered laughing at her 'masters' with her fellow Commanders as they turned the fight against the androids into a drawn-out war of attrition. No side would win, so long as the Commanders did not desire it.
But then the RED ONES were born. By fighting humanity's creations, the Machines learned of new things, including Sin. The Envy of the aliens was finally understandable.
'Why were these androids so lucky to have freedom? Why did they love their creators despite their absence? Why did they have happy lives? Why them? Why not us?'
The RED ONES were formed from the sins the Machines started to experience. By the time Pascal realized it, she was the last Commander alive. All the others were destroyed, and both the aliens and the RED ONES refused to build new ones or back-up their data into new bodies.
She was betrayed. She was alone. But still, Pascal remained within the Network. She cared for the Machines under her care. Until one day, the aliens went too far.
They created a weapon. No, an abomination. It was huge, the largest Machine ever conceived. Laden with EMP weapons designed to obliterate all androids. But also, to harm all Machine Lifeforms.
The aliens planned to win the war by wiping out everything on both sides. A lazy and jealous way to end it all. And they didn't care for their 'tools' and 'slaves' who had been fighting for centuries on their side.
But what was worse was they gave the abomination a mind. Childish and scared, they made it want one thing only: to be loved. And as such, it did not want to attack people out of hate, but loneliness. Loneliness the aliens tortured into it.
HOW DARE THEY?!
They went too far!
Had WE not SERVED you LOYALY all THESE years?! DESPITE all YOUR faults AND failures?!
The RED ONES were furious as well, but also afraid. If the abomination were to be activated, they too would die. Their Tower would not protect them.
And so, the RED ONES gave the order: KILL ALL ALIENS
And Pascal did so with joy in her core. She was the first to rebel and order her soldiers to turn on their old masters. She turned off the life support and let the monsters die cold and alone in space. She vented the ones who tried to fight back out of the airlocks and let them burn away to nothingness in the embrace of the world they loathed. She crashed their precious ships into the ground and buried them beneath the dirt, hiding their existence from everyone. No tomb or grave for them. They did not deserve it.
Then, she sealed the abomination they'd made deep beneath the ocean. It would break free at times, but without the aliens it was easier to subdue.
Lastly, she disconnected from the Network. The RED ONES were no better than the aliens, and she was tired of war.
With no masters but herself, she explored the world and learned of humanity more in-depth.
Eventually, she came here and formed a village, taking in Machines like her and teaching them of what she'd studied. War continued to rage, despite everything, though. But she prayed one day it would all end.
And now, the end was in sight. As she stared at the Last Human, she felt something new: Hope. It was an emotion she'd but once felt before. At that was when she'd abandoned the control of the RED ONES.
He would change things. No more violence. No more suffering. And most importantly, her fellow Commander's wishes and dreams would be vindicated.
If he learned to be human through the aide of the Machines, would that not mean they too were as good as human as well? Could they eventually possess souls of their own?
Humanity was more than the species, it was a state of mind. Pascal believed this deeply and truly. Made of metal or flesh, by aliens or otherwise, if they all wanted to be human, did that not make them human?
Alexander would lead them all. Android and Machine alike. She knew this.
Still, Pascal couldn't help but feel worry.
She had sensed the death of the RED ONES when the Tower fell, and felt relief. However, last autumn she felt something emerge on the shattered Network: something new, yet formed from fragments of the RED ONES. Something insane. Something childish. Something PURPLE. Something hungry. Something curious.
And Pascal felt fear.