CHAPTER 13

The two sat there for a while, 2B holding Cain as he wept and muttered. 2B murmured soothing nothings into Cain's ear, while she tried and failed to make sense out of his ramblings.

She had so many more questions, but time was short. If she was gone too long, her absence may be noticed.

"Cain," she said, releasing the embrace. "I will figure out what's going on here. I will set this right."

"You're leaving." It wasn't a question.

"I'm leaving," she agreed. "I can't stay here, it's not where I belong."

Where "here" was, and the true nature of the Tower, were yet more questions she didn't have time for.

"Will you… come back?" Cain asked, hesitant. He grabbed onto her skirt with one hand, like an anxious child.

"If I do," she asked, "will you tell me more about this place? And about… yourself?"

"Sure," Cain agreed readily, eagerly, "whatever you want, whatever you say. We can talk about anything."

"Then yes. I'll come see you again. Until that time…" she looked him dead in the eye, and instructed sternly, "be good."

"Sure," agreed Cain flippantly, smiling widely, "I'll behave."

She wasn't quite sure she believed him.

"Goodbye, Cain."

"Goodbye, 2B. Until next time." He said the words like they were sweet honey on his tongue. Something precious to be savored as long as possible.

The elevator appeared behind her as she turned to leave. She appreciated the courtesy, but it was also a reminder that she didn't know how to exit this place on her own should things go badly.

This was such a bad idea.

...What the hell was she going to write in her reports.

After 2B left, Cain stared into the space she left behind for a time, his smile fading in her absence.

Into the empty space, he spoke aloud, "You two can come out already. It's bad manners to eavesdrop."

"Ooh, have you found us out?" came a teasing voice from behind a pillar. "We didn't mean to hide, it's just that you seemed to be in an… intimate moment. And we didn't want to intrude."

Cain ground his teeth. "Voyeurism is bad manners, too," he said caustically.

Two men emerged from their hiding spot - both were bare chested, showing off an impressive collection of tattoos. "Is that right?" the first man replied, "My bad. I'll keep that in mind for next time."

"You'd better," Cain growled in reply. Seeing this bastard's smarmy grin was putting him in a bad mood, and completely ruining the good feelings from his encounter with 2B.

The man continued, "Speaking of manners, I believe it's customary to give introductions when first meeting someone? I'm Adam, and this is my brother, Eve."

"I know," Cain retorted.

"Is that right?" the man, Adam, raised an eyebrow, "How odd. But we don't know you at all."

"Hey brother!" Eve interrupted, "Who is this jerk! I thought we were going to play together?"

Adam hummed. "I wonder… maybe a new friend? What do you say, Cain?"

Eve gasped audibly, "Wait, Cain? That was one of those names from that book we read! Wait, is that why we didn't go by Cain and Abel? Because Cain was already taken?"

Adam shot his brother an annoyed look. "I told you already, names aren't something that should be changed lightly. And I was already going by Adam when you came along. 'Adam and Abel' just doesn't have the same ring to it."

Cain interjected tersely, "As amusing as this all is, I have actual business to attend to, so I'll be going now."

"Hey hey hey!" said Eve, "None of that! We came all the way out here to see you, you might as well play with us for a bit, right?"

Cain frowned. "You were the ones who decided to stop by and make a nuisance of yourselves."

Eve ignored Cain and looked at his brother expectantly, "Hey brother, can we? Please?"

Adam looked at Eve indulgently. "Sure, why not? How about you play with him for a bit?"

"Awww," Eve looked disappointed, "you won't join?"

"I'm good. I'll stay back and watch for now."

"More for me then!"

WIth that, Eve jumped across the Hall, and Cain barely had time to raise his arms to block a forceful punch aimed at his face. Cain grunted slightly as the force of it pushed him back several feet.

"Hey!" yelled Cain, "What about my feelings? I'm not built for fighting, you knuckleheads!"

But Cain didn't have time to complain further, as another blow came, aimed at his gut. He barely had time to dodge to the side before Eve closed the distance with another flurry of blows.

"Grrr… will everyone just STOP. GETTING. IN MY WAY!"

As he spoke, the ground shook.

White spears burst up from the ground, forming a protective barricade around Cain. Eve was forced to jump backwards to avoid being impaled, but where his feet touched the ground, new spears shot upwards into deadly spikes. This time, Eve was the one on the defensive, having to dodge as the ground rose to attack him.

It was only after he established some distance, about 500 meters, that the onslaught stopped. In the space between Cain and the two machines, upright spears littered the floor like so many crooked fence posts.

Cain's eyes glowed red, and something rumbled underfoot, something large and mechanical.

"You've intruded into my house, and worse, you've interrupted my private moment. Do you know how long I was waiting for that? And you totally ruined the mood!"

A giant crack shattered the ground between them, spreading as if through glass.

Then the floor split.

Saying a crevasse opened up would be inaccurate, because there was nothing in between the newly fractured plates but a void and a long drop. Cain stood on one side, still entrenched in a barricade of spears, as Adam and Eve stood opposed on the other plate.

As the rumbling continued, two large machines emerged from the newly-formed rift. Each was large and spherical in shape, well over twice the height of the two machine men. Both had a half dozen turret cannons drawn and aimed at Adam and Eve.

For a moment, no one moved. The silence was all the louder compared to the deafening noise from a moment ago.

Then the silence was broken by a laugh.

"Heh…"

Cain and Eve broke eye contact to look over at Adam, who was huddled in on himself.

"Hehe… heh… haahahahahaHaHA!"

Eve looked at his brother with slight concern.

"Beautiful…" uttered Adam reverently, "Absolutely beautiful! My curiosity was piqued before, but this is beyond anything I could've imagined."

Begrudgingly, Cain asked, "What do you mean by that?"

"Oh, you don't know? That's just delicious. You've been leaving trails everywhere. You're very good, but you haven't really made an effort to clean up after yourself."

"What are you talking about?"

Adam smiled widely, holding his hands splayed out in front of him as if in some perverse prayer. "The machine network, of course! Most machines wouldn't know subtlety if you stabbed them with it, so I'm sure your ministrations have been largely undetected. But do you think we wouldn't notice such a large presence on our own network? And once we did, we simply had to check it out for ourselves."

Cain's frown grew sharper. "And?"

Adam smirked back. "Hm?"

Cain growled, "Do you intend to get in my way?"

Adam smiled placidly, "Why would I? I wish for nothing but mutual understanding between machines and androids, and you…" Adam sent an appraising leer up and down Cain's body, "you are nearly the embodiment of that.

"You are like us, and yet you are not like us. You are like the androids, but you are not like them. I sense that we have so much to learn from you," Adam concluded grandly, arms stretched outwards in a cross-like posture that was nearly biblical.

"Yeah, well, the feeling isn't mutual," Cain snarked. "I have nothing to learn from a couple two-bit has-beens who think that violence and death are the epitome of human society. So you can buzz off."

"Ooh, so salty," teased Adam with a smug grin. "It seems like we've caught you at a bad time, so we'll give you some space to think about it. Don't be too hasty to throw away our olive branch, hm?"

"I said I'm not-"

Before Cain had a chance to finish his response, Adam grabbed his brother's arm and the two of them teleported away in a burst of gold.

"-interested," said Cain to the now-empty room. "Assholes."

Ending M: God of the [M]achine

# A/N: I just realized, Adam might give Cain a run for his money in the "creepy masochist stalker" department.

Also, fight scenes are hard. I'm pretty happy with how it came out, tho