CHAPTER 20

2B would admit that her expectations had been low, when she sent out the request to a few of her more discrete contacts. The request had been vague at best, by necessity. Having information about Cain leak would not do her any favors in her quest - at best, she risked paying for false information. At worst, it would tip off her targets, or Cain himself. The element of surprise was one of the few advantages she still retained.

Someone had made Cain what he is, either by accident or by sinister design. Someone like that didn't come from nowhere - they would leave a trace; a secret workshop, missing parts, a repair person. All of these could be tracked down.

The ground was a blur under her feet as she ran across the rooftop, leaping gaps and sliding through the ruins. Before long, the green overgrowth made way for an ocean of sand. 2B didn't bother engaging the desert machines, she didn't have time to waste. Instead, she danced past them, kicking up a trail of dust in her wake which was the only sign of her passing.

Their slow pace from before, when they were tracking the traitors, seemed like a lie as she swiftly made it to the Housing Complex in record time.

The signal on her map hadn't moved. She slowed down to a more sedate pace as she narrowed in on the area. Her eyes tracked the large buildings for signs of movement. There were hardly any machines in sight now - perhaps a sign that someone living here was keeping the population in check? She surreptitiously peeked through broken doorways and windows, looking for the source of the signal.

Then her eyes caught on it. Her blood went cold, and a shudder traveled down her spine, as she saw it.

A YoRHa type-S unit, alike to 9S in appearance except for raven-black hair, was standing at attention inside one of the buildings. He wore the standard YoRHa uniform with its heavy jacket and boyish shorts, completed by the blindfold over his eyes. He looked for all the world as if he'd just walked off the assembly line.

Her first thought was that's not Cain.

Her second thought, expanding from the first, was there's more of them.

This was exactly what she'd worried about. How many were out there? What was their agenda? Who was doing this?

Carefully, cautiously, not even breathing, she crept closer. The Scanner didn't seem to have seen her yet. She moved closer to the wall of the building and crouched beneath a broken window, angling so that she could still see him but he, with any luck, wouldn't spot her.

Which might not count for much, against a Scanner. They wouldn't necessarily need to see her to detect her.

Still, he gave no outward reaction, so maybe she was in the clear for now.

From her position, she can see both the Scanner and the room at large. It's… barer than she would have expected. Some scrap pieces litter the ground, but otherwise there's no furnishings. Perhaps this Scanner was just a guard, and the real hideout was on an upper floor?

She also, more importantly, saw no other life forms in the room, either machine or android. The Scanner appeared alone. She wouldn't miss this chance.

Faster than organic eyes could follow, she vaulted through the broken window frame and closed the distance to the lone Scanner, grabbing his wrist in her left hand. Her right hand held a sword against his throat.

The whole motion took less than a second.

...It took her longer than that to realize something was wrong.

The body was limp and yielding in her grasp. There was none of the resistance she would have expected, no tug or seizing of muscles. It was slack, like a corpse - except not quite, because as she pulled the arm, the Scanner leaned forward, and his feet stumbled forward to prevent his fall.

She frowned. Something was wrong. Well, everything was wrong, but she felt specifically like she was missing something.

She didn't have time to consider further, because it was at that moment that she heard footsteps from behind her. She twisted around, dropping the arm in favor of grabbing her second sword.

Behind her, standing in the center of the room, was as android as ordinary and unassuming as any she'd seen. The only distinguishing feature was how harmless he seemed. Too harmless to be in the company he now kept.

Unwittingly, she lowered her weapons slightly. She squinted at the man, willing him to make sense. He wore a tattered cloak, practical for keeping the desert sand out of his gears. His build was sturdy and masculine, and he sported a short cropped haircut. Overall, a typical Resistance Android.

Then she remembered that this might be the very Android who was asking for YoRHa parts in the market, and her grip tightened so firmly on the hilt she could hear her joints grind. Because how dare he.

Before she consciously made a decision, her body was moving, colliding into the Resistance android and shoving him violently against the far wall. She grabbed the scruff of his oversized cloak and yanked him up by it, pushing her arm against his throat hard enough to hurt.

"You were buying YoRHa parts in the market," she accused in a low growl.

He seemed to recognize the severity of the situation because he didn't bother trying to deny it. "Y-yes," he confirmed with a stutter. 2B felt a dark pulse of satisfaction at his evident distress.

"Why," she spat. It was not so much a question as a demand.

"I, I just wanted to help him. He-he needed my help," the man pleaded.

"Help who?" she pried.

"The boy. He was, he was broken in battle and they just. They just left him there."

"And you thought it was a bright idea to bring him back. Fix him back up again." A nod from the man confirmed her claim. "To what end? What was your purpose in doing this?"

The number of uses for a military-grade Scanner were limitless, and none of them were good. Not for YoRHa, at least.

"I just wanted a family!" he cried out.

Whatever she was expecting, it wasn't that. What?

"...What?"

"When I saw the machines together, I… I realized I wanted something like that. Someone to keep company, someone to protect - a purpose to my existence. Please understand, I was just trying to help!"

It was an answer that clarified nothing at all. She narrowed her eyes and glared at him, equal parts perplexed and angry. "There are dozens of Resistance androids out there in desperate need of repair, androids that may die if they don't receive help. Why did you look to them for family? Why YoRHa?"

"That's…" He averted his gaze guiltily at that, but didn't back down. "He's just. He's beautiful. Once I saw him I knew it had to be him. He's so young and pure and innocent - not dirty like the rest of us here on the surface. He's like an angel." His eyes shone with conviction that bordered on obsession.

2B's gut squirmed at the description, because no one in YoRHa was pure, not really. They might be shiny and new on the outside, but inside they were rotten with sin. But then, with the new S-Type models… they were kept innocent by force, weren't they? Never allowed to know too much, reset over and over again, the S-Types might indeed be the most innocent among them.

But this man didn't know that, he couldn't. She took the blooming feelings of affection and guilt and smothered them, pushed them away, because neither was a feeling she could afford to nurture. Both were weaknesses. Instead, she focused wholly on the man in front of her.

"It wasn't your place to do that," 2B reprimanded. "YoRHa takes care of their own. If they left him behind, it was because they determined him to be beyond recovery." They would have ensured it, even, via remote self destruct if necessary.

The man shook his head. "That's no excuse to give up on him. He still has a lot of basic functions, and he's capable of reacting to his environment. See, look." He turned to face the Scanner, as much as his current pinned position allowed. "Kid, how are you doing?"

The Scanner, seemingly named "Paphos", moved for the first time upon hearing the question. Jerkily, he tilts his head to face the pinned man. "I-I-I am f-f-functional. B-b-battery level i-is w-within h-h-healthy ra-ra-range."

The Resistance man nodded in approval, although the motion was stilted by the sword against his throat. "Does it hurt anywhere?"

"N-n-n-no."

2B listened to the interaction with a sort of horrified fascination, like watching a spacecraft crash. Because that… that was not a functional or autonomous Intelligence. "Pod, perform a scan on the S-Type unit," she commanded blankly.

Her pod chirped in affirmation. She only had to wait a few seconds for the pod to send her a data packet with the results. Aloud, the pod chirped, "Analysis complete: Unit's processing and personality matrix appear to be irreparably damaged. Data recovery not possible. The unit appears to be running secondary drivers installed by the manufacturing facility."

2B frowned, confused. "Why is he like this," she asked aloud to both her pod and the Resistance man. "The other one was much more advanced - keenly intelligent, despite signs of psychosis." Why then, was this unit so… shoddy?

Now it was the Resistance man's turn to look at her funny. He seemed to have calmed down some, and it was with pure confusion that he asked, "What other one?"

2B looked at the man askance, because what? He couldn't be serious. "The other Scanner. He called himself Cain. You might know him by the designation 9S?"

The Resistance man only shook his head, looking lost. "I have no idea what you're talking about," he said.

No. No. "You're lying," she accused, but it sounded weak to her own ears. Because he didn't sound like he was lying. Nothing in his demeanor was consistent with the mastermind she'd been anticipating. "You must know something, or you were working with someone who does-" she demanded almost desperately.

He shook his head ruefully. "If I had anyone in my life, I wouldn't need to resort to something like this. I've been alone for years. It's just me and the kid."

2B narrowed her eyes, possibilities flashing through her mind as she tried desperately to reconcile this new information with her own deductions. She didn't like how it added up.

"Shit," she cursed. "It's not you. It was never you."

She was pacing now, her ire suddenly without a target and yet no less violent. She felt it boiling under her skin.

A deadend, a false lead. She'd been so sure.

Now she was back at square one. She had nothing, no answers, only her questions and fears and she was running out of time. Cain, and whoever he was involved with, would already be making their moves. Moves that she was no closer to understanding.

Abruptly, she was interrupted from her racing thoughts by an incoming message alert. She opened her email inbox with the barest thought, out of habit more than anything else, only to freeze when she saw the contents.

From: Unknown sender

Subject: Miss me? :)

And suddenly all of the thousands of thoughts swirling in her mind left her in a rush. The transition was so sudden it nearly made her dizzy. Her mind sharpened and she regained her sense of focus. Because no, she still had one lead, one very crucial lead.

She almost dashed out of the room immediately without a second glance. She couldn't have left fast enough, but she saw the occupants and it tugged at something inside of her. She barely knew the Resistance man, and she liked him less for knowing him, yet still…

"I would advise you to abandon your current course of action," she intoned severely. "That body might as well be a bomb, because the moment you get it working, if you somehow get it working, YoRHa will kill you." Quietly, more to herself than him, she added, "I should kill you right now for even trying."

Maybe the sight of the body, looking so much like 9S, looking almost alive but not, had her off balance, because her expression softened as she advised, "That body isn't alive anymore, not in any of the ways that matter. Don't waste your time trying to save the dead."

She said it to herself as much as to him. A mantra that has kept her sane, or nearly so. Forget the dead, focus on the living. Because that's all you have left.

That would be easier to do if the dead stayed dead like they were supposed to.

Warning delivered, she didn't hesitate to leave the room. Whether he acted on her advice was up to him, she could do no more for either of them.

She waited until she had some distance from their hideout, and was assured of her privacy, before finally looking at the email.

From: Unknown sender

Subject: Miss me? :)

Hey ~*Penpal*~, how are things?

I'm so excited you finally decided to give me a nickname :D

It's been really lonely here, I hope you visit me soon. I'm sure I can be better company than that old man. ;)

Ending T: [T]orture and interrogation

# A/N: This chapter kicked my butt so hard. I got all twirled up in knots about robot ethics, and consent, and if a robot can legally be considered "deceased." Most of these concerns didn't make it into the final cut, because I couldn't decide on a firm answer.

I have this story visualized as two major arcs, and we're nearly to the end of the first one. After some thought, I've decided to mark the story complete at that time, and release the second arc as a sequel. This was the last of the "filler" chapters before we head straight for the climax! I'm stoked, guys! :D

As always, consider leaving a review or a fav/follow if you enjoyed. Your ongoing support has been so important towards keeping this fic going :)