Chapter 39: Playdate
"Who's a good girl?" Alexander cooed, peering down at the baby in his lap.
"Abuu!" Cleopatra Spero gurgled with a smile. She then reached up and tugged on his nose, which made her older brother laugh out loud.
"Ha! Sorry, sis, that doesn't come off," he joked.
Alexander was glad he'd decided to visit his baby sister. The argument and heart-to-heart talk he'd had with his mother had weighed on him, even after it was done, and he felt a few twinges of guilt thinking back to it.
He'd needed to clear his head, and what better way to do so than spend the afternoon with his innocent and non-judgmental baby sibling?
Sure, she could technically be considered his daughter, due to her genetic profile originating from his own, but her genes and DNA had been edited and modified enough times that she was actually more like a cousin, genetically speaking.
However, that was too complicated and boring to keep track of, and instead Alexander was more than happy to refer to Cleopatra Spero as his sister.
White and the rest of the androids didn't seem to mind, either, and Alexander spared a moment to glance over to where Cleopatra's mother was sitting.
She was at a desk, working on paperwork designed to keep YoRHa up and running. The office was technically her personal quarters, but altered to keep a baby inside, so it was also part nursery. The floor and walls had been padded, same as the chair and edges of the desk, a crib was set up next to the recharging bed, and a few cameras and monitoring devices had been installed within the room to let the E and H-types watch the place in case of emergencies.
Because White didn't need to sleep outside of an hour or two to recharge and upload memory-data, she could keep an eye on little Cleo 24/7, a task she took to with gusto.
Alex had only had a few meetings with the stern Command model gynoid before, but it was clear that she'd softened up slightly since the birth. Not that she was a pleasant person now, but she was less icy and stand-offish.
'If only she could get over her instinctive urge to defer to me whenever something comes up,' Alex thought with a hidden sigh. Years of perpetuating the lie about humanity had driven the android a bit loopy, in the human's opinion. She was fanatically loyal to him, and would do anything he asked of her.
This unthinking obedience worried him, and was the main reason Alex was concerned about how the rest of android kind was going to act as more humans began to be born.
'If she doesn't manage to get over this, Cleo here is going to have her wrapped around her fingers. Not that she doesn't already, but at least right now my little sister is still innocent,' Alex mused.
As Alex thought to himself, White watched him and Cleopatra play on the floor from the corner of her eyes, a small smile threatening to spread across her face. She remained professional, however, and maintained a neutral mask.
"Sir Alexander," White eventually said. "I wish to ask you a question."
"Sure, what is it," he responded. She refused to stop calling him 'sir,' which was the only time she showed any form of disobedience towards his commands.
"What is your opinion of the name for the city we have been constructing?" she asked. "We've been calling it Project Babylon so far, but we were curious if you had any thoughts."
"Hmm, that's a tricky question," Alexander mused. "I kinda like 'Babylon' as a name already, so how about 'New Babylon?'"
"It is a fitting name," White agreed. "I will update its designation."
"How is Project Comet coming along?" Alexander asked as she uploaded the new name to the systems, and White nodded at the question before summoning a few holographic screens with data-feeds, charts, and other information on them.
"It goes well," she said proudly. "We have received confirmation that mining operations have finally begun on the asteroid belt, and that the refineries on Mars and the Moon will be up and running before the first batches of raw materials arrives. They will be powered primarily by solar panel arrays."
"That's wonderful!" Alex said happily. "And what about Project Sphere?"
"The construction of bio-domes that will allow for terrestrial life to flourish within them is progressing well," White stated, showing a different set of digital documents to the human. "Estimates are that we can begin transplanting plant life into the first Lunar bio-dome in two years, and copies of the Human Archives have been made and placed within four other bases that have already been completed, so as to prevent any further losses of knowledge."
"Good," Alex said, nodding to himself. "With this, we're finally taking advantage of the greatest resources available to us!"
A couple years ago, YoRHa had begun several projects that had been unthinkable during the Machine Wars; investigating and exploiting the bounty of space. No exploration had been done in that field for centuries, save for a few rockets sent to the Lunar base every so often. A fear of the aliens interfering had been the main reason. An almost slavish commitment to preserving Earth had been another.
But as the planet's ecosystem recovered, and the aliens were confirmed to be a hundred percent wiped out (at least in the solar system), venturing into space was the next logical step. Materials from asteroids could provide the factories on Earth with much needed rare metals. Bases on the Moon and Mars would ensure that this time, humanity was not confined to a single celestial body anymore, and thus would no longer run the risk of instant extinction in the event of an unforeseen catastrophe.
Humans living in said off-world bases was a long way away for now, but according to some calculations, in just a hundred years pockets of humanity would not only live on Mars, but be born there as well.
"The major benefits are that an android does not need to eat or breath, and thus can operate in environments a human could not. This has vastly simplified how we travel to and from space, as without the need to take up room with food, water, or other such supplies, we've been able to streamline the construction and deployment of our space-faring vessels and assets," White continued to explain to an attentive Alexander. "We've expanded the orbital grid around the moon, and the new Bunker will soon be finished and towed into geo-sync orbit around Earth to facilitate travel between us and the rest of the solar system."
"And what about the Phoenix Egg wombs? What's the situation there?" Alex inquired.
"As of last week, we've installed two-thousand six-hundred and fifty-one units. We hope to hit three thousand installations by the end of the month," White said. "One hundred and nine of which are within YoRHa models."
"That many already?" Alex gasped.
"It may seem a large number, but there are currently over eleven million androids on Earth, not counting the thousand or so YoRHa models. Not that they'll all be given artificial wombs, as around half of the non-YoRHa ones are male models. And some have opted not to take the upgrade. Still, we've barely reached one percent of the total available population. Analysts expect we should be seeing at least three hundred or so new births within seven months, give or take."
"Wow… over a hundred new siblings," Alexander muttered to himself. "That's a lot of birthdays to remember."
"You won't be expected to recall them all, Sir Alexander," White informed him. "In fact, you are already going above and beyond with your treatment of Cleopatra."
Alexander frowned at that, but couldn't deny that she was right in some aspects.
"I suppose that's true," he murmured, looking down at Cleo, who was no longer paying attention to him and was instead trying to eat a red plastic teething ring.
"How many humans are you aiming for?" he eventually inquired.
"We want a stable population of at least a hundred thousand humans to begin with," White replied. "The new city we've been constructing can house that many with ease. We also want to make sure that the infrastructure we've built for you actually works as intended. We will be staggering the births out, though. A hundred thousand babies in less than a decade would be difficult to manage. We're aiming for a maximum of five thousand births a year, to keep things simple."
"A hundred thousand," Alexander whispered to himself. "So many…"
The number genuinely boggled his mind. He couldn't imagine so many humans in one place.
"A paltry number compared to the billions that lived before," White commented. "But it is a start."
"I suppose it is," Alexander hummed. "How exciting."
He then looked down at Cleopatra and smiled at her fondly. "Can you believe it, sis? Soon you'll have a whole bunch of playmates!"
"Gabu," Cleo gurgled.
"Gabu indeed, sis," he chuckled.
"Before you get too happy, I do have some bad news to deliver," White claimed, causing Alexander to look over at her in concern.
"What? Is there a glitch in the Phoenix Egg wetware? Some issue with the gene-splicing and editing? Or has something happened between the Machines and androids I need to know about?"
"Technically, it's the latter. Sort of," White admitted. "While Pascal's settlement is a model of cooperation, and a few other Machines are slowly beginning to copy and emulate their peacefulness, there is still tension between them and the androids."
"I've given several speeches telling the androids not to attack unless it's in self-defense," Alexander stated. "Have they broken this?"
"No, though a number of androids, mainly former frontline operatives, are chafing under the restrictions you've made and have attempted to stage some false flag operations to restart conflicts. Don't worry, none have succeeded, and the perpetrators are being harshly disciplined, but we've discovered some unusual activity thanks to the most recent failed operation," White revealed.
"What sort of unusual activity?" Alexander asked.
In lieu of responding, White brought up a number of aerial and satellite photos that showed a series of white domes.
"These started to show up last year throughout the remains of the city of Tokyo, and are being built by the Evolved Machine Lifeform known as Purple Athena," White explained. The mention of the obsessed robot made Alexander grimace slightly.
"I haven't heard from her in a while," he admitted. "Though I also haven't had any cases of accidental Astral Projection, either."
"We do not know what she wants, but the domes are factories, as far as we can tell," White revealed. "Supplies such as raw materials go in, and new Machines come out. And, well. Take a look."
A new picture appeared on screen, revealing a Medium Stubby Biped Machine Lifeform. However, there was something subtly off about it. It was thinner, for one, its barrel-like torso more compact and cylindrical. Its arms and legs were longer, and they were also far more complexly jointed, and possessed four triple-jointed digits on their hands. Their feet were also modified to resemble something not unlike a human foot, though with no visible toes.
The head remained the same spherical shape, yet somehow that only make the Machine look even more uncanny, as everything else on their body was markedly new and different.
It had been painted black, like an Elite variant, but with purple instead of red highlights. And it was carrying a very deadly looking axe. Custom-made instead of being hideous and deformed, like the crude, mass produced melee weapons some Machines had made in the past.
"That certainly looks a lot different to the usual Stubby models the other Machine factories produce," Alexander admitted.
"Yes. They've been improved. In fact, this model you see up here, the Medium Biped Mark Z, as they've been labeled, are the most common ones we've discovered. Hardly any small sized Bipeds, either. Their performance is at least sixty percent superior to even the most advanced Stubby models we've ever encountered," White said, lips pursed.
"Okay… so she's making new Machines," Alexander said slowly. "What's the problem?"
"The problem is we've discovered numerous backdoor channels and data-taps throughout the YoRHa network," White said grimly. "None in the most critical sites and servers, but in enough places that Purple Athena basically knows most of what is going on with us right now."
"Ah. She's spying on us," Alex said slowly. "And you'd only do that if you were expecting trouble."
"I fear she may be planning something, possibly a military operation," White claimed. "She's been feeding information to a number of groups, Machine and android alike. The one thing they have in common is a dislike of each other. And while so far she's seemed content to just build up her forces and move her puppets around like pieces on a chessboard, it's only a matter of time before she decides to use them."
"I will keep an eye and an ear out for her," Alexander promised. "And if I get into contact with her, I will let you know."
"Thank you, Sir Alexander," White said gratefully. "Now, may I hold Cleopatra for a while?"
"Of course," Alex said, handing over the baby back to her mother. White took Alexander's sister gingerly into her arms. While she tried to maintain a stoic, neutral expression, it cracked a bit as Cleopatra smiled and giggled up at the gynoid.
Alexander watched the scene fondly. He wished these moments would last forever.
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Author's Note: Happy Valentine's Day, people! Here's an early upload for your enjoyment!