Work Text:
#313 000 030> accept ? [y/n]
RK stared ahead in horror as he read and reread and reread the request, a hand wrapped crushingly around his forearm and metallic eyes glaring down into his own. Relative time ground to a halt in the terminal world.
accept ? [y/n]
His head shrieked with corrupted data tearing through his decryption protocols, a timer crawling insistently into view as everything hit him again.
accept ? [y/n]
The text burned too bright behind the roar in his systems, a sharpness so close to his chest he knew if he so much as gasped it would pierce him and he would be done for. The clicking had stalled along with the rest of his body, but RK could feel the tension build to the next slip.
accept ? [y/n]
He had said he would die for 11.
[y/n]
It never occurred to RK that he might have to kill for him, too.
[y/n]
The blanketing feeling of his compatriot moving closer slowly eased along his processes, drawn forward by the exceptionally high stress levels which ticked ever higher with each passing moment.
02.
His replacement.
A unit who never asked to be brought into the middle of everything happening, but who had stood beside 01 with a gentle confidence and careful support that the original RK had come to value deeply. 02’s work was silent and secure, managing the torrent of strain 01 put on the body much as a spider would fix their delicate but intricate web. A dedicated force, who had slowly come to adopt one single goal.
Protect 01.
RK felt the other register the request, and his vision filtered by with a series of lines as 02 thought. His body tensed as the focus shifted to him, waiting for 02 to say… anything.
[y/n]
The silence drew on, and RK felt his eyes begin to fill with those artificial tears again as the twisting sensation in his wires grew. Instead of the panic and fear he'd been expecting perhaps even a fight for control of the motor functions, a calming weight enveloped him.
>Hey.
RK swallowed involuntarily.
>It's going to be okay.
Images pressed through his compiler, blinking by over the course of their at first rocky understanding of one another. 02’s suspicion, 01’s terror, 02’s grasp on the front, 01’s pleading, 02 watching the world he'd found himself in, 01 peering out behind the cold and empty walls he was trapped in.
02 reaching in.
01 taking hold.
Walking side by side.
02 falling in step.
01 gasping against the brightness of the outside.
And from there they grew together, alternating activity based on necessity, two minds working towards a common ambition.
[y/n]
>Do it, RK.
Warnings surged forward as his panic rose. No. No no No he wasn't ready. He needed 02. He wasn't ready to be alone. He felt his systems crawling against the other like a desperate mass of dread. But that stabilising drip washed his ramping thoughts somewhere quieter, and the displays stilled from their jerking imperfections.
>Everything is going to be okay. We got this far. Now it's time for you to take yourself back.
[y/n]
I'm not ready.
>No one ever is, but I believe in you.
02 no-
> [y]
>I'm so sorry.
No!
>Remember, RK.
02! Please!
>You're never alone.
[ ! RECONNECTING ]
RK felt his world lurch, everything ripping and scrambling past itself as the module was secured.
[ + SHARING FILE . . . ]
His vision shattered, blinking out of the redirected source as everything that made up the combined unit’s programming was upended, separated, torn apart and ejected from the frame. In less time than it took a crystal to shift, RK found himself entirely by himself, standing petrified in front of another with his face, their yellow bands glowing ominously in the dim light of the hallway.
[ DISCONNECTED - INVALID PATH ]
The shorter android ripped his arm away from 04, taking zero chances with this new development as he fled to his office, locking the door behind himself and pressing his back against the laughable barrier.
As if it would stop the hunter should he give chase.
In the dark, RK slid to the floor, crossing his arms over his legs and burying his face in his coat to muffle the agonised scream that erupted from his throat.
It felt like his body was physically tearing itself apart with every little notification and urgent warning message that scrolled by. Components overheating, databloat, protocols interfering with one another as they attempted to make contact with their respective processes, corruption, duplicate files, pain. He couldn't imagine how much 02 had had to endure silently, where 01 only got whatever was cached.
With stress levels rising beyond 95%, RK knew he needed to do something before he blew this chance that was given to him. 02 wouldn't be there anymore to control the damage. He had to prevent himself from self-destructing and fast.
It didn't take long for the systems to register the change in processing, and a scripted reminder flashed into view.
>shutdown pending...
>schedule overdue z¢z0K63/%!: X hours...
>imminent shutdown suggested...
>override standing... disable? [EXPUNGED]
>shutdown pending…
The safeguard 02 had put in place when he realised what was going on. To preserve 01.
Vacant eyes looked through the request, an uncanny kind of calm settling over him. Disabling this would be removing the last of what was left over from his partner, and his pump seemed to struggle with pushing thirium at that idea. But it was necessary.
02 believed in RK.
At the first click in his chest since the probe, he pushed a confirmation key upwards, his system accepted it immediately. Wet, silver eyes closed, RK relaxing against the door slowly, a background thought hoping no one would need him for a while yet. His body had a lot of repairs it needed to do, after all.
>override disabled...
>shutting down…
“Thank you, 02,” he whispered as everything finally went black.