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Xiaojun flew aside, the blindfold slipping off as his back hit a pile of hubris. If he were human, the impact alone would've killed him. Luckily, he was not. (Dead, nor human.)
It was the first time Lucas saw his eyes. They were the color of rust, lightly speckled with green and gold, shimmering in the fading light of day. Lucas would've appreciated it more if they weren't facing imminent death. Still, there was something oddly romantic about finally being able to see the eyes of the man (android, semantics) he loved as they were being skewered by swords the size of small buildings while also simultaneously fighting off a hoard of small, suicidal robots.
--
All of their existence they had been taught that the machines were the enemy. Nevermind that they were machines themselves-- a fact that didn't seem to bother most androids just one bit. They were made by and for the humans, and by association they were almost human. Almost .
They fought for them, they died for them, while the remainder of humankind hid on the moon, safe and far, far away.
But that’s what the YorHa soldiers were created for. That's what they were made to do. That was their purpose.
To take back the earth.
For the glory of mankind.
--
Xiaojun swung a broadsword that was nearly twice his size, splitting a smaller machine in half with great ease. Lucas had always thought it was funny that this small, slender guy was a combat type android. (Alright, fine, he wasn't that small, but compared to himself Lucas would call him medium-sized at best.)
Maybe he was just a tiny bit jealous that he got assigned to tactical support despite being a 1,83m tall, well-built android who could easily swing two of those swords if he wanted to. (Probably. Maybe.)
Xiaojun charged, dodging smaller machines left and right, only to be swatted away by the giant machine (a Goliath class, most likely) like he was nothing. The machine switched his attention to Lucas, its hollow eyes turning in metal sockets. Cold shivers ran down Lucas’s spine. He could hack into the machine, if he had the time, but large machines like that were hard to crack and rarely sat around waiting for him to do his work in peace. (Machines were so rude.)
Somewhere to his right Xiaojun scrambled back on his feet. He was fierce and fast, his movement graceful like a dancer. There was a tenacity about him that Lucas admired. (Stopping to stare as he was being attacked was probably not his brightest idea, to say the least.)
A blow to the back of his head knocked him off his feet. Xiaojun whipped his head around.
“Lucas!”
Lucas couldn't remember when Xiaojun finally stopped calling him 6s and started calling him Lucas . There had been a hint of fondness in his tone. Lucas smiled as he braced for impact.
--
Androids didn't age in the traditional sense. Most androids were created to appear in their early twenties or thirties, but they didn’t age, even though their hardware would eventually deteriorate with the passing of time. Lucas's unit had been activated for two years when he was finally assigned his first mission outside of the Bunker: to provide tactical support for a combat unit on the ground. This usually meant: Lay low. Stay out of the way. Don't do anything stupid.
Lucas knew right off the bat he wasn't going to be very good at doing any of those things. It was his first time on the ground, on earth , and from the moment he landed his flight unit he could barely contain his excitement.
“Unit 13b has initiated combat in the area below. In order to avoid combat situations it is recommended to move the the nearest high vantage point. Marking coordinates on map.” His operator spoke through his ear-piece. He stopped listening after the first few words.
Below, he could hear the sounds of battle. Curious, Lucas peeked over the edge of the building. The android fighting below was small (looking even smaller from up where he stood). He brandished a huge broadsword, which he used to hold back the group of machines that had surrounded him.
Clearly, he was in trouble.
Lucas knew his instructions were something along the lines of “stay up here, don’t get killed” but clearly, the guy needed help, and hacking that many machines was going to take much too long. He unsheathed his sword (a long, standard katana, given to any YorHa unit going out into a combat zone, combat-type or not.) and jumped down, stomping the nearest machine into the ground on impact as he landed on it.
“Whoo-hoo!” He whooped, grinning like crazy because he had never done anything that exciting in his entire existence. (The dangers of jumping off a 50-meter tall building into an active combat situation as a non-combat type unit honestly didn’t even cross his mind.)
In his ear, his ear-piece beeped like crazy. He knew the operator would be mad as hell later. He ignored the call. Ten sets of deadly eyes turned his way. Another set of eyes (presumably, behind the blindfold) wasn’t quite sure what the hell just happened.
“Who the hell are you?!” He yelled, but Lucas didn’t get a chance to reply. The machines attacked, and his world exploded into chaos.
--
The moment Lucas (or 6s, as his unit number was called) heard he would be going to earth, he decided he needed an earth name. He knew the humans used to have names (and, presumably, still did), and quite frankly, he had always wanted one.
“You should have one too,” Lucas suggested later, after their third or fourth mission together, as they sat on the ledge of a building overgrown by trees.
“Absolutely not.” 13b, as Xiaojun was known formally, said sternly.
“Why not?” Lucas asked. Xiaojun sighed, furrowing his brows as he was known to do when he was frustrated. It happened a lot around Lucas.
“Because it is pointless. Let it go.”
But Lucas being Lucas did not let it go, and for the next several months he badgered Xiaojun until he finally gave in and named himself Xiaojun.
Lucas's grin spread from ear to ear. “Xiaojun. I like it.” His enthusiasm was infectious. By then Xiaojun had given up on trying to resist.
Perhaps Xiaojun blushed slightly. Perhaps it was just a trick of light.
--
Machines swarmed above him, and Lucas was starting to feel a little claustrophobic. Okay. Maybe a little more than a little. They covered the sky above him like dark clouds, threatening to trample him, suffocate him, or worse. Just as he was about to be swallowed by darkness Xiaojun emerged from above, shining bright like the sun as he broke through the clouds, outlined against the sky like a beacon, his face covered in grime and dirt and yet he was still the most beautiful thing Lucas had ever seen.
Xiaojun reached out his hand, pulling him back up, back to life.
“Come on. Let’s kill this bastard already.”
--
To say Lucas’s first battle was kind of a mess would be a massive understatement. He had fought before-- in combat training back on the Bunker, where the most dangerous injury you could suffer were a few sprains and bruises and maybe a bruised ego, but Lucas quickly realized that down here things worked differently.
Five machines came at him with the intent to kill, and as he held the sword with trembling hands the realization hit him like a ton of bricks. He was not a combat-type model. He had no real combat experience.
He was going to die.
Xiaojun pulled him closer, snapping him back into focus.
“Protect my back. I’ll make sure none gets by.”
Lucas nodded, still scared out of his mind but glad to have something concrete to focus on. He gripped his sword, ready to strike, but Xiaojun had been true to his word. None got by.
Lucas’s flashy entry-- though not according to any sort of plan or protocol, had given him renewed focus, and most importantly it had broken the machines’ formation. Within minutes, the machines were down. Finally, he turned around to meet this strange savior. Xiaojun pushed his hair back from his face.
From behind his blindfold he eyed the newcomer with a mix of curiosity and amusement. He was lean and tall, with short cropped brown hair that did not quite fall over the edges of the blindfold. Judging by his stance (and his previously shown behavior) he was definitely not a combat-type android.
“Who are you?” Xiaojun asked, and without the threat of homicidal machines, Lucas could finally answer.
“I am…. 6s.” He said, adding sheepishly, “...I’m your… tactical support.”
“Oh. Really. ” Xiaojun answered dryly, because whatever that had been, it had not been all that supportive. Or tactical.
Before he could say anything else, his ear-piece beeped, and he knew he could not ignore it. “Operator to 6s, come in. ” Oh boy. She really was mad as hell.
--
Life on the Bunker was boring.
Androids weren’t supposed to feel bored. In fact, they weren’t supposed to feel anything at all, for they were machines, and they were programmed to do only that for which they were made to do.
Fight.
Explore.
Assist.
Still, androids could feel. They were not supposed to, which in itself was a philosophical dilemma that very few questioned, because they were not supposed to.
But Lucas did.
Why could they feel pain, if they were programmed to be sent into battle, no doubt facing terrible agony? Why could they feel loss, and sadness, as their comrades died in battle and they were forced to remember them every single day? Why could they feel love, if they weren’t meant to feel love and loss and pain?
Why were they given free will, if they were programmed to follow orders and act according to protocol? Was it to make them feel more human? Was it to make them feel like they were somehow related to humankind, so strange and far away as they orbited somewhere out there on this distant chunk of space rock? Was it because they were afraid that without free will, they would be no different from the machines below?
Why?
Why?
Why?
--
The Goliath’s massive swords hit the ground, spraying up a torrent of concrete rubble. A few of the smaller machines were blown away by the blast, but Xiaojun kept his ground, standing unwaveringly, defiantly in its path. He had parried the blow, which angered the Goliath, re-focusing its attention back on Xiaojun.
Lucas had always admired this fearlessness in Xiaojun. But he could not afford to be distracted now (no matter how good of a distraction Xiaojun was, especially with his tongue, in Lucas’s mouth, his hands, wandering-- no. No distractions).
He focused on the Goliath, running diagnostics on its weak spots. Hacking was a strange process, from a human point of view. Lucas would get into the mind of the Goliath-- not literally, but inside of its programming, and he would be able to alter it from the outside. The bigger the machine, the more complicated the code, and hacking left his own body vulnerable to attack. He only had one good shot at this.
He better not mess it up. (“No. You got this.” Xiaojun said in his head. He could always count on his own inner-Xiaojun for a motivational pep talk.)
--
Life on the Bunker was boring. Truly, devastatingly boring. The space station was designed only with functionality in mind. Every android’s room had a computer and a charging station, and nothing else. There were no decorations, because androids had no need for decorations. There was no entertainment, because androids had no need for entertainment.
There was no food, no music, no dancing, no laughter. There was nothing. Clinical white nothingness.
There was one book in the library that described the Old World, stashed away somewhere deep and far where most androids would not go and look for it. Lucas did. There were no pictures, of course, but Lucas had a vivid imagination. It described the places humans would go to, (Bars. Train stations. Universities.) the things they would do (ride a bicycle. Pay loans. Go skiing.).
Lucas had no idea what it was, but he wanted to go skiing more than anything in the universe. He wanted to ride a bike, and pay a loan, and climb a mountain. He wanted to sing, and dance, and laugh.
He wanted to do something. He wanted to go somewhere.
He wanted to be anywhere but here.
--
Lucas did climb a mountain, once. He also nearly died on a mountain, impaled on a spear thrown by the hands of a traitor. He survived.
The traitor did not.
He also kissed on a mountain, his first kiss, a soft kiss, a desperate kiss, a pleading kiss. A come-back-to-me-kiss. And he did come back, back into the arms of Xiaojun, who patched him up as best as he could, and sheltered him from the weather until he drifted back into consciousness.
He woke to the feeling of Xiaojun’s lips on his, the taste of salt and little wet drops sliding down his cheek. Lucas’s eyelids fluttered, and Xiaojun backed away, wiping away his tears, pretending it hadn’t happened. Xiaojun wanted to pretend he hadn’t kissed and cried, and Lucas was too weak to argue.
They weren’t supposed to have these feelings. (But they did.)
They weren’t supposed to have these feelings, so they buried them on that mountain, deep in that blood-stained snow, where they would lay below the surface until they were ready to face them.
--
After the operator cut the line, giving him several ear-fulls of how irresponsible and dangerous and reckless he had behaved, Lucas and Xiaojun stood together in an awkward silence.
Lucas had come to assist Xiaojun in battle, which he did, sort of (no matter how spectacularly he had failed at the actual assisting), but now that the battle was over neither of them knew what to do. Xiaojun didn’t act unless he got new orders, so he sat down and waited until he could report back to Command. Lucas, unsure of what else to do, sat down next to him.
“Have you been in many battles?” Lucas asked, in an attempt to break the uncomfortable silence.
“Yes.” Xiaojun answered, and it didn’t seem like he was going to elaborate.
“Aren’t you ever… scared?” Lucas felt dumb even asking this. He wasn’t even supposed to ask this-- hell, he wasn’t even supposed to feel scared. He wasn't supposed to question anything. He wasn’t supposed to feel anything.
“No. I’m not programmed to feel.” Xiaojun said, sounding almost incredulous for him even having raised such a question.
“Yeah… but you could still feel, right?” Lucas said softly, biting his lip. He knew he shouldn’t push it. He knew he should let it go.
Xiaojun didn’t answer. The uncomfortable silence returned, broken only by the Commander’s call several long minutes later.
A new mission awaited them.
--
Lucas slipped inside the Goliath’s mind. He had done this many times before (though never before on a Goliath class machine), and he could navigate the code with relative ease. He wasn’t good at many things (combat. Navigation. Feelings. ) but he had always felt strangely at home inside another being’s head.
He could feel things. Machine things. Ancient things. Earth things.
He could see glimpses of lives that had touched the machine’s. The machine was ancient. He could see things-- hear things-- feel things. Usually these moments were so brief, so fleeting that they were meaningless. Flashes of faces-- human or android or otherwise, it was impossible to tell. Voices. Names. Places.
Dark things stirred in the deepest depths of the Goliath’s memory. Great truths of the world. Secrets, wanting to be told, wanting to be revealed. Lucas wanted to see more, know more, but he knew he had reached his limits. These secrets would be lost forever, as Lucas’s mind returned to his own body and the Goliath’s body froze mid-air, its code corrupted, its defenses down.
“Aim for the eyes!” Lucas yelled, and Xiaojun plunged his sword through the eyes and the Goliath slumped forward, dead, defeated. The smaller machines scattered, confused and aimless without their leader.
Xiaojun knelt by Lucas. “Are you okay?”
Seeing his eyes up close was even more breathtaking and for a moment he forgot to breathe. Xiaojun touched his cheek where a cut had opened up from his fall.
“Ah--uh, yes.” He eventually managed as he continued to drown in the depths of Xiaojun’s eyes. Xiaojun, who got shy from all the staring, turned his face away.
“What?”
“Your eyes,” Lucas said, breathlessly, “They’re beautiful.”
“S-shut up.”
--
Two hours later they made their way through the ruined city, newly supplied and freshly scorn (again). “Follow your orders, 6s.” The operator had said, before they took off. It had sounded like a warning. It probably was.
Xiaojun took charge, and despite being smaller than Lucas, he moved a hell of a lot faster than Lucas did. Lucas trailed behind, sulking. He couldn’t believe he already blew it, not even an hour after his arrival on earth. Here he was, supposedly a defender of the earth, and he couldn’t even follow one simple order.
“Keep up.” Xiaojun yelled back at him as the distance between them widened. He had been cold and distant ever since the abrupt end of their conversation.
(“Of course he was,” Lucas thought, “He wasn’t programmed to feel. ”)
Xiaojun was fast, and he was lithe, jumping over tree roots as thick as the Bunker’s jumper cables with the greatest ease. Lucas felt slow and clumsy in comparison, and worst of all he couldn’t keep up even though his legs were at least twice as long as Xiaojun’s. (Okay. Maybe not that much longer, but still.)
“What are we even looking for?” He complained.
“We’ll know it when we see it.” Xiaojun answered curtly, because that is what the Commander said, so that was all they needed to know.
They walked the rest of the way in silence.
--
Things were awkward after the mountain. The unspoken feelings hung heavy in the air between them. Xiaojun became more distant, and Lucas overcompensated by being too loud-- too bright-- too much, only pushing Xiaojun away even further.
But they kept coming back to each other. Mostly, because their missions demanded the two of them to work together, but also because they knew they needed each other, no matter how much they might deny it.
To keep each other safe.
To fight.
To win.
( To live. )
They were more in sync with each other than any of the other teams out there-- and Command knew it and gladly took advantage of it. Their missions became increasingly more dangerous, more complicated, but with Xiaojun’s superior fighting skills and Lucas’s natural affinity for hacking, there seemed to be nothing they couldn’t face. (Aside from feelings .)
They needed each other. (And slowly, very slowly, they started to realize that they needed each other more than just as mission partners.)
--
Lucas grinned. “Why? Are you embarrassed?”
“No.” Xiaojun answered, but he still wouldn’t turn back to face him.
“I think you aaaare,” Lucas singsonged, and if this were before Xiaojun would’ve scolded him for being insolent. But this was now, and now Xiaojun straddled him, pushing him to the ground where he kissed him until he stopped making fun of him. (It took a while, but neither of them really seemed to mind.)
Later that night, as they made camp at the edge of the desert, sore and exhausted from fighting, sleep did not come easily to Lucas. Usually, whenever they would sleep under the stars Lucas would fall asleep almost instantly, eternally mesmerized by the map of stars laid out above them. But something about what he had seen in the Goliath’s mind kept nagging at his head. It bothered him, because he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was even though it was obviously very important.
“Can’t sleep?” Xiaojun said, his voice heavy with sleep as he propped himself up on his elbows. Lucas shook his head. He had tried to explain hacking to Xiaojun before-- what it felt like, how it worked. But explaining hacking to a combat-type unit was about as useful as trying to get a machine to do a backflip (they simply weren’t programmed for it, and the last machine he had tried it with had exploded in mid-air). Still, Xiaojun tried to understand, and Lucas appreciated that.
“There was something there .” He said, trying to make sense of the tangled mess of words and images that he had seen in the Goliath’s head. He smiled, looking at Xiaojun’s sleepy face, his dark hair tangled and messy, as he tried to understand something he wasn’t programmed to understand but somehow did have the ability to understand if only he could figure out how .
An android's mind was complicated.
“Go to sleep.” Lucas smiled, planting a soft kiss on Xiaojun’s forehead.
“Nuh-uh. Not without you.” Regular Xiaojun was already impossibly stubborn as it was-- sleep-drunk Xiaojun was a whole other story. He pulled Lucas closer to him, wrapping his (small) arms and legs around Lucas’s body until he gave up trying to make sense of the universe in just one night.
“You’re impossible.” Lucas whispered just before drifting off to sleep.
Xiaojun snorted softly. “Says you.”
--
They had been walking for hours and Lucas wondered if Command was just screwing with them because he hadn’t followed his orders. They passed through the ruined city, overgrown by trees and plants, occupied only by wildlife and wandering groups of machines. They went past countless buildings, crumbled down and unrecognizable, having become identical chunks of steel and bare concrete after centuries of desertion, stripped down to their core. Vehicles, abandoned in the streets, gone aside from their metal carcasses.
These were remains from the Old World, the last reminders that humankind lived here, long, long ago. Maybe, in time, all that they had built would fade, and this world would return to dust. No, it wouldn’t. It couldn’t. That’s what they fought for. To save this world-- so that they could give it back to humankind.
Xiaojun stopped dead in his tracks. “This is it.” He said, and Lucas wasn’t exactly sure what he was looking for except that it was a long, long way down.
“Any chance that this it we’re looking for is up here?” He tried, but Xiaojun didn’t grace him with an answer. Instead, he jumped off the ledge.
--
Android bodies technically didn’t need sleep or sustenance in order to function. However, when one was far from a charging station, it could prove to be beneficial for said android to power off during the night in order to save battery life.
While the YorHa units were designed with superior durability, resting occasionally might still be favorable in certain circumstances. Android units were advised to keep their Pods switched on and connected to the network at all times while their bodies were resting. In case of emergencies, the Pod could switch their users back online.
Androids were unaffected by weather or temperature, though they might experience feelings of discomfort or sluggishness in temperatures above 30 or below minus 20 degrees celsius. The android could feel the cold or heat, but it did not affect their software.
--
It had started out as a simple rescue mission. Command had lost contact with a team two days prior. One of their signals had resurfaced-- in the middle of the ocean, miles and miles away from their last known location.
A small cliff-side path led to their destination. (Command could’ve just as easily sent down two flight units, but Lucas figured they liked to see them suffer.) Lucas, having had quite enough of cliffs and mountains and all things rocky walked slowly, too slow, and it irritated Xiaojun.
“There will be nothing left to rescue if you keep going at this pace.” He bristled.
Lucas whipped his head around. “There will be nothing left of me if I fall down this cliff!”
“Good riddance.” Xiaojun muttered, and something about his passive aggressive reply pissed Lucas off. It was the last straw. He’d had enough.
“Yeah, well maybe you shouldn’t have saved me then!”
Xiaojun grimaced. They hadn’t discussed the mountain at all, and all the repressed emotions came bubbling back to the surface.
“Just forget it!”
“Yeah, you’d like that wouldn’t you?!”
The wind whipped at his hair, and the tension between them seemed to make the already small ledge they were standing on even smaller. Xiaojun’s nose flared in anger. “REALLY, WE’RE DOING THIS NOW?”
Xiaojun hated it. He hated how stubborn Lucas was-- how he never let things go. He never listened to him, or anyone, for that matter. He hated how persistent he was. He was loud and clumsy and he asked too many questions and even after all this time he still sucked in combat. He hated that, even despite the tension and the silence and the anger between them he still looked at Lucas and thought he was cute .
He was loud and clumsy and asked too many questions but he was also positive and warm and caring and a damn good hacker. He was confident, sometimes brazenly so, and he carried himself with a certain boldness. He was tall and gorgeous, with chiseled features and soft, plushy lips which he definitely hadn’t thought about kissing again a million times over. His hair was short and his ears were kind of big which he thought was adorable and he had a lopsided grin and his hands were big and strong.
No.
He hated this.
He didn’t want to think like this-- he didn’t want to feel like this. He wasn’t programmed to feel, damn it, so why did he feel so goddamn much?
“Why did you kiss me, Xiaojun?” Lucas asked, and all the sound in the world dropped away until all he could hear was the beating of his own heart. (He didn’t even have a heart, technically, but he heard it all the same)
Because you were dying.
Because I didn’t want to lose you.
Because I feel things for you.
Xiaojun said nothing, and averted his eyes.
“WHY DID YOU KISS ME, XIAOJUN?” Lucas asked, louder, more demanding. Xiaojun winced. He was afraid of these feelings, afraid of what they might mean, afraid of what they might make him do.
There was maybe 2 meters of space between them but Xiaojun felt trapped. He wanted to go, get out, leave. He didn’t want to face these feelings. He backed away, but Lucas followed. In a frantic struggle between them, Lucas was the one who lost his footing, falling down yet another cliff side.
He couldn’t lose him again. Xiaojun leapt forward and grabbed Lucas by the arm, pulling him back to safety. He held him close to his body with trembling hands.
“Because I love you.”
It was barely a whisper, yet it was the loudest and clearest thing Lucas had heard in a long time.
--
Morning came with new orders from Command, so Lucas and Xiaojun packed up their things (not that they had many things, since androids had no use for things) and went on their way. It was a sweltering hot day, with no shelter in sight for miles and miles, making the desert a truly unforgiving place.
There were no buildings here, no animals or any signs of life past or present. Steep slopes of red sand stretched beyond the horizon. Far, far beyond, was a formerly human housing complex, where a large number of machines had gathered.
It was strange seeing Xiaojun without the blindfold in the light of day. He seemed more vulnerable, somehow. More human. (And yet he appeared stronger also, because Lucas could finally see the determination in his eyes.)
The blindfolds didn’t serve a point beyond shielding an android’s emotions from the world. They were not to take it off-- ever, because an android should never show emotion. Lucas didn’t dare take his off-- insubordination was seen as treachery, and he had seen what happened to traitors.
Xiaojun’s blindfold was ruined in the battle with the Goliath. A new one would be included in their next shipment of supplies-- there was no question whether or not he would wear one again.
This meant Lucas probably had less than an hour to take in Xiaojun’s face-- eyes and all. He wished he could imprint the image in his memory. His long, dark eyelashes fanning those big, beautiful eyes. In the light they were even more golden than the night before. His eyebrows were full and dark, standing like archways over those brilliant golden orbs.
He wanted to hold Xiaojun’s face in his hands and just look at it for as long as he could, but he knew he couldn’t. Command would be watching their video feed. Besides, they didn’t have any time.
There was never any time.
--
Lucas peered down the ledge. He had already jumped down a tall building earlier-- so a jump like this should have been nothing. But the fear that had seized him earlier had not let him go, and despite his usual confidence and bravura, something was holding him back. Xiaojun motioned from down below, probably pissed and wondering what was taking him so long.
He steadied his breathing. This was fine. It was fine. He was fine.
( He was tactical support, damn it, there was nothing tactical about this!)
In the blink of an eye, Xiaojun re-appeared on the surface. He hopped up those tall buildings like it was nothing.
“What is taking so long?” He asked. There was a hint of annoyance in his voice.
“I--” Lucas started, but he didn’t want to admit he was scared. Again .
Xiaojun made a disapproving sound and took hold of Lucas’s arm. Before he could even object he was hurtling down the buildings, dangling from Xiaojun’s arms like some ridiculous oversized balloon. He carried him with such ease he almost felt offended.
Unceremoniously, he was dropped on the ground. Finally, he saw it. A pulsing orb, half-buried beneath the earth, shimmered before them. Xiaojun drew his sword.
“Wait--” Lucas said, scrambling to get back onto his feet, “I think there’s something on there. Let me try to hack it.” Xiaojun turned to him with a look like he had just told him Command had taken away his favorite sword (that was a joke, androids didn’t have favorite anything s), but he stepped aside either way.
Lucas focused his mind, hacking into the orb’s code with ease. The orb held messages, machine messages. The messages didn’t mean anything to him, but they might prove useful to Command, so he sent them to his Operator.
The orb flickered one more time and then went dead. Xiaojun looked almost disappointed.
--
In the end, Xiaojun had been right. When they arrived at the spot marked on their maps, there was nothing left to rescue. Granted, it might have been too late for this android whether they had hurried or not-- there was nothing left of it aside from its transponder and a few scraps of metal.
The android had literally been ripped apart. Lucas felt sick to his stomach. He tried not to think of the kind of pain this unit must’ve endured, but the more he tried not to, the more he did. He turned away.
Xiaojun picked up the transponder. “Come on. Let’s go.”
Later, Lucas would hack into the transponder, and he would see the android’s final moments, and he cried silently as he sent the footage to Command.
They sat together on the rocks with the world at their backs and the ocean at their feet. The air had cleared between them. Though they were unsure of what to do with them exactly, they had finally spoken out about their feelings, and it had been liberating. Carefully, Lucas had picked up Xiaojun’s hand. It had felt so small in his. They hadn’t been able to face each other, but that was alright.
They held hands in silence, and just for a moment the world felt right.
--
The way to the housing complex was long and hot and riddled with small, angry machines. Hacking small machines was easy but exhausting because they just kept coming one after another, and Lucas barely had time to return to his own body.
The housing complex existed of rows and rows of identical grey gallery flats. Miraculously, most were still in one piece. It did nothing to lift the dead atmosphere. They loomed over them like large, empty skeletons, blocking out the sun, creating long, menacing shadows in the sand.
And in the shadows machines teemed like insects, countless metal arms and legs scurrying around, crawling on top of each other, their eyes flashing in the darkness.
“Ew.” Lucas made a face. “They should’ve just called pest control.”
Xiaojun looked at him with a puzzled expression. Lucas shrugged. “It’s an Earth thing.”
His Earth book had taught him about these things called rodents. It’s what he would call these machines if he were to name them. They were bottom feeders, small fry, fighting over scraps left behind by the bigger machines.
And there were big machines hiding here. Lucas could feel them, their presence weighing heavy on his mind. Something else too, something he couldn't quite put his finger on, something sharp and dangerous and alive .
They moved deeper into the complex, slashing their way through the smaller machines. Lucas had given up on hacking and had drawn his sword. His fighting had improved compared to those earlier days, even though he was nowhere near Xiaojun’s skill level. Still, he could hold his own, at least against these smaller ones, and he felt proud of it.
The further they went in, the closer the buildings were packed tight. There was no sunlight here. Luckily, they didn’t need light to see, relying on internal scanners and heat sensors to map out the terrain and the location of the enemies surrounding them. In these dark burrows of concrete and steel there were hundreds, thousands of them. But the deeper they went, the less they were attacked.
It was as if the little machines were waiting for something, afraid, hesitant. They scurried away on approach. They made way for them, beckoning for them to go deeper. So deeper down they went.
--
The orb turned out to be the first of many things they were supposed to find. It felt like a treasure hunt to Lucas-- taking them through cities and forests and parks and many other locations he had only dreamed about before. Sometimes the things turned out to be specific machines that had to be destroyed. Xiaojun killed, and Lucas hacked, and they turned out to be a pretty good team once they got the hang of it. Sometimes the things were objects, like the orb, or they were items they needed to retrieve.
They assisted the Resistance, the only colony of androids living on earth. They were mostly old types, pre-YorHa type androids. Some were even rumoured to have been made on earth by the last living humans, centuries ago, long before the humans departed to the moon.
Most Resistance members regarded them with distrust. They had heard the rumors about the YorHa soldiers, how they were heartless machines, barely any different from the machines they were fighting.
Regardless, they helped them, on Command’s orders, of course. They helped them secure a supply route, retrieve specific items and defend the camp. Lucas got to see a new way of life-- a free life. Life at the Resistance camp was hard and dangerous, but they had something which the YorHa units would never have.
Freedom.
--
“They've discontinued my unit type.” Lucas said, as they walked the streets of another dead city. It was a few days after their cliff-side confrontation.“Too many….errors.”
Xiaojun grimaced. He knew it was exactly those errors that made Lucas.. Lucas . He was an anomaly, an irregularity in the system. An android that wanted to feel , wanted to know . It was unheard of.
(Maybe there had been others like him. He wondered if those coined as traitors by Command were actually anomalies as well.)
“I am…. The last one.” (And the only one, as well, because the other units had had their software patched.) There was a sadness in his voice.
You’re all I need. Xiaojun didn’t say it. Instead, he cheerfully clapped him on the shoulder. “Good. I couldn't bear the thought of having more than one Lucas around.” He grinned. “It’d be a mess.”
“Hey, rude .” Lucas huffed.
Xiaojun skipped ahead of him, dark hair dancing around his face. There were hundreds other combat type units, but there was only one Xiaojun.
In a way, they were both the last of their kind.
--
At the end of the dark tunnels there was a hole. It led out to some sort of courtyard, hundreds of meters down. The buildings here were broken, allowing beams of sunlight into the middle of the square.
At the center of this courtyard sat a man. He wasn’t an android, Lucas could sense that much, but he wasn’t a regular machine. His appearance was humanoid, with long, silver hair and lifelike features. He appeared to be...waiting. He looked up at them and smiled. Something was wrong with him. Very, very wrong.
Lucas grabbed onto Xiaojun’s wrist. “ Don’t .” He whispered. But they both knew they couldn’t go back at this point. The descent into the courtyard seemed to take ages, but the machine man didn’t seem to mind. He regarded them, patiently, legs neatly crossed as he sat on what appeared to be an iron bench. Drones of smaller and bigger machines moved around at the edges of the courtyard, but none came close to the middle. This was clearly his courtyard.
“Hello.” He said calmly, as Lucas and Xiaojun had reached the ground, and they both were too stunned to reply.
Machines didn’t speak. They mimicked human sounds, occasionally, but they didn’t have the capability to understand human speech. But this machine, this man, he spoke.
“My name is Adam.”
He had a name. He spoke, and he smiled, and he had a name. A human name, a chosen name.
“Have you come here to die?” He smiled, unnaturally wide, unnaturally long. His face contorted into something that wasn’t very human-like at all. And then he charged.
--
Over time, they did gain the Resistance members’ trust. Not all of them, perhaps, but their leader believed in them, and that was enough. Lucas felt at home in the Resistance camp, where androids were allowed to laugh and talk and be free.
Xiaojun, not so much. He was awkward and too formal, speaking only when spoken to and even then his replies were short and curtly. He never laughed when someone told them a joke at the camp (sometimes Lucas would roar with laughter and Xiaojun stood next to him, looking lost and vaguely annoyed at the nerve of these people). He would stand up too straight, standing out like a sore thumb in his crisp clean pressed YorHa uniform.
Xiaojun felt relieved whenever Command would call in and give them a new mission so that he could leave the damn place. (In hindsight, it might have gone wrong at the feeling part already.)
He hated the place, and he hated how comfortable Lucas was around pretty much anyone but himself. They worked so well together on missions, but outside of battle they were nothing but strangers. They shared a journey and a goal, but not much else.
Lucas just couldn’t follow orders, and Xiaojun couldn’t (and wouldn’t) stray from them. (And yet somehow, they made a good team, which frustrated Xiaojun immensely.)
--
Adam was impossibly fast. One moment he shifted out of sight, and the next he curled his fingers around Lucas’s neck, flinging him backwards into a concrete wall at a frightening speed. Xiaojun began drawing his sword but Adam was faster still-- kicking the sword from his hands before he could even ready his stance.
“Tsk. Disappointing.” Adam said in his calm, metallic voice.
Even just from quickly scanning him Lucas could tell that there was no hacking him. His code was dynamic, ever-shifting, alive . It was unlike anything he had ever seen before. He drew his sword, and Adam allowed him to get close. It was like he was toying with him-- mocking him, teasing him. He was arrogant. Smug. He was good-- and he knew it.
Perhaps they could use this against him. Being overconfident had its flip side (Lucas should know, for he had walked that line). Lucas quickly formulated a plan, sending it directly to Xiaojun’s memory input. Their eyes met. Xiaojun nodded briefly.
It was time to die.
--
Adam was so confident in his abilities that he believed he could easily kill one of them. Perhaps he could-- if they hadn’t been in this together, and Lucas hadn’t been such a damn good actor. Lucas took charge in attacking Adam. Adam easily dodged most of his attacks, growing more confident by the minute. Lucas managed to damage one of Adam’s sensors, which set the plan in motion.
Lucas took some hits, but none that were convincing enough for him to die. Luckily, aside from being overly confident, Adam was also impatient, and his attacks became stronger and more reckless. Finally, he hit Lucas square in the chest, sending him flying against a wall where he slumped down and stayed put.
Adam waited for him to come back up, but was cut off by an angry growl from Xiaojun.
“NOOOOOOO!” He screamed, clearly having learned some dramatics from Lucas. He lunged at Adam, giving him no time to check whether or not Lucas was really dead. Besides, with his sensor broken he couldn’t read Lucas’s heat signature anymore. Xiaojun forced him closer to the wall, where Lucas drove his sword straight through his chest.
Adam made a terrifying gurgling noise, followed by a dreadful, hollow chortle.
“You have won, for now, androids.” His face hung low, hidden behind the curtain of his hair. “I will remember this.” He shifted back out of sight, re-appearing at the top of the courtyard. Pitch black blood oozed from the hole in his chest, leaving a trail behind him where he disappeared out of sight.
With Adam gone, the other machines awakened.
--
Lucas wasn’t sure how they made it out of the courtyard alive. All he remembered were machines-- pouring out of the holes in the concrete in waves, adding to those that already stirred below. The pit filled with machines, big and small, until he feared they would drown in the sheer numbers alone.
He looked at Xiaojun. They would never be able to fight this immense amount of machines.
He could detonate his blackbox. He could kill them all in one fell swoop-- he could keep Xiaojun safe.
But his physical body would be destroyed. Once his memory data returned to the Bunker, they would almost certainly patch up his software and Lucas, as he had existed until now, would be erased.
(But Xiaojun-- Xiaojun would live.)
He felt a hand on his, snapping him back to reality. Xiaojun shook his head.
No. No, that’s right.
They would do this together.
--
He had never seen Xiaojun fight like this. He had seen him fight for his own life, but now he realized he also fought for Lucas’s. He was a beast, tearing through machines with sword and hand and teeth. Lucas had his back, just like he had in that first fight when they met five years ago. And just like back then none came through.
He watched as those hands, so small and soft when he held them in his, tore off a machine’s head clean off. But Lucas had no time to stop and stare. He hacked into the nearest bigger machine, letting it rampage around itself until it finally self-destructed. He hacked into a smaller machine and made it do a backflip-- letting it explode in mid-air. He hacked into any machine he could see, until the strain became too much on his body and he was forced to return.
They made little dents into the sea of machines, but as soon as a hole opened up it filled up with new machines. The stream was endless. They had to escape.
--
Trying to escape the machine mass was like trying to swim upstream, except deadlier and with more guns and swords and pointy sticks aimed towards them. They took one step forward and two steps back, pushed back by the sheer mass. They waded forward on will power alone, hurt and exhausted from the fight with Adam and the first wave of machines.
Lucas took point, shielding Xiaojun with his body while trying his damndest not to be skewered by a thousand spears. Xiaojun fought off as many machines as he could, until his arms were so damaged he couldn't lift his sword anymore.
Lucas prayed, and if there was any sort of god it heard his prayers.
Against all odds, they made it out.
Against all odds, they survived.
--
Every part of his body hurt, but somehow he was still alive. Lucas dropped to the ground just outside of the housing complex, happy to be back in the dead, hot world. Xiaojun lay down next to him. He looked like hell. Lucas probably did too.
“Let's run away together.”
Lucas thought his audio systems must have been damaged in the fight. He turned to stare at Xiaojun, unable to close his mouth out of sheer surprise.
“I'm serious. Let's run away.” Xiaojun repeated.
“W-what?” Lucas stammered.
“This fighting….it never ends. And I don't wanna die.” He blushed, and added, “I don't want you to die.”
“What? How? Where would we even go?” Lucas asked, clearly thrown off his game.
“Anywhere. It doesn't matter, as long as you're with me.”
“They'll hunt us down... we'll be traitors.” Lucas wasn't used to being the voice of reason, and he didn't like it one bit.
“Let them try.” Xiaojun said defiantly. He was being serious, heck, he had never been more serious in his life. He was sick of the endless fighting. He was sick of the pain and the pressure from Command to do more, beter. He was sick of following orders.
He reached up his heavily damaged arms and untied Lucas's blindfold. It was the first time he saw his eyes. They were as beautiful as he had imagined them to be.
“Will you come with me?” Xiaojun asked, as he looked into his eyes. He tried to sound confident but his voice was shaking. What he was asking of him was high treason. And it was damn near impossible. But he had to try.
Lucas questioned a million things, but there was one answer he knew for sure.
“I'll follow you to the ends of the Earth.”
They cut the transponders out of their arms. They took our their ear-pieces. Lucas hacked into their remote access control and shut it off. Lastly, they disconnected from the network.
For the first time in their existence, they were free.
“So what do you want to do first?” Xiaojun asked.
“Oh oh oh, I know. I want to go skiing!” Lucas clapped his hands, and his enthusiasm was infectious.
“What even is skiing?”
“Who knows. I guess we'll find out eventually.” Lucas grinned.
“I guess we will.” Xiaojun smiled.
Lucas took Xiaojun's hand in his, and it was small and perfect, and there was nothing in this world that they couldn’t face together.
“Let's go.”