Chapter Text
One hundred miles south of the ruins of Urayasu, a storm was brewing over the desert, black clouds mixing ominously with the molten sunset. Far below, three tiny figures crossed a plain of undulating sand, YoRHa androids 9S and 2B following the machine courier discreetly from a distance.
"2B to Bunker, operator do you copy?"
"This is operator 6O." An agreeable female voice sounded noiselessly in 2B's transmitter. "What do you need 2B?"
"Weather report on the supercell, how much time before it hits our position?"
For a few seconds she waited, hearing the clicking of distant keystrokes and the murmur of indistinct conversation in the Bunkers ops room.
"It looks about, thirty minutes to the city," 6O eventually replied. "With the usual margins of error, of course. Although..."
She hesitated for a second. "That's strange. I'm reading your position as being in the desert outside the city. The interference from the storm must be messing with the telemetry..."
2B grunted to herself. "Negative operator. The telemetry is accurate, we've pursued the target across the desert."
"What?" 6O's voice turned briefly to static. "---B! You can't stay out --- storm! You'll be killed!"
"We're almost at the rendezvous point." 2B looked back, seeing the city towers rising in the distance above the dunes, endless waves of red-gold sand marked by three sets of footprints stretching back to the horizon.
"Like you said," she continued, "we've plenty of time to grab the package and return to camp before the storm arrives."
"But 2B, the margins of error-"
"2B out," she cut the transmission. Just ahead the machine they were following disappeared behind a sand dune.
Five minutes later 2B and 9S stood atop a weathered stone archway, looking out over a town of concrete ruins half-buried in the sand. Below, the machine courier wandered through the streets, a smudge of dark against the golden sand, the Stubby-class unit armed with a small sword and wearing a strange cloth bag over its shoulder.
"There." 2B said quietly.
The courier approached one of the larger buildings, a dome-shaped concrete structure riddled with cracks and withered by years of exposure to the scouring wind. From inside two imposing machines stepped out and took up positions on either side of the entrance, their yellow-coloured shawls fluttering gently in the wind. The courier handed over its weapon and the guards stood aside, allowing it to vanishing into the building.
"Looks like this is it," said 9S.
2B was looking up at the sky. "Let's get the package," she said. "Stay behind me and keep your eye on the target. I'll go for whoever it's here to meet."
"I don't know 2B... Don't you think this was all a bit too... Easy?"
"Huh?"
"That machine... I got the feeling it was leading us here on purpose. It could be a trap."
"If they want a fight," she sneered. "They'll get one."
"Maybe we could start with something a little more subtle," 9S offered. "Recon gathering, more my sort of thing."
"You lure those two idiots away," he continued, indicating the guards. "I'll check out the building and see if I can find another way in, look for an ambush."
2B looked up again, scanning the darkening sky through her visor, lips tightening for a moment.
"You get two minutes," she said, "then I'm coming in after you and we do this my way."
"Got it."
9S dropped through the hole he had found in the dome-shaped roof, Pod 153 lowering him into the darkened interior of the building. He landed softly on a decrepit concrete beam that stretched across the space, part of the support structure for an upper level that had long since withered away.
He shuffled along the beam, hearing indistinct electronic voices coming somewhere below, until he reached a hole in the rotten flooring that overlooked the main floor of the building, a large chamber flooded with sand and lit by orange pools of sunlight.
The chamber was absolutely crawling with machines. 9S quickly counted fourteen medium bipeds, each wearing a yellow shawl and wielding a rusty salvage-iron sword. They were arranged in two neat rows along the wall, standing to attention.
The courier stood in the middle of the room facing him, conversing with someone that 9S could not see.
"A strange request," said a voice, confident and haughty, and disturbingly familiar. "Your master is a curious one. I should like to meet him one day."
"THE MASTER IS WILLING TO TRADE THE YORHA DATA CHIP FOR AN INTACT SPECIMEN," said the courier, its electronic voice buzzing in the confined space.
"Ah yes, to business of course." The source of the voice walked into 9S's view.
Adam. A humanoid machine with long white hair, wearing a fine white shirt and dark pants.
"Will this be to your master's liking?" He held out something for the courier to inspect, some kind of small white box. Though the lid was open, from his vantage point 9S could not see what was inside.
"THE SPECIMEN IS OF EXCELLENT QUALITY," said the courier. It reached out for the box but suddenly stumbled awkwardly as Adam stepped back, quickly withdrawing whatever he was holding.
"The data chip?" He asked imperiously.
The courier righted itself, its eyes flashing briefly red. It hesitated.
And then it pulled open the cloth backpack it had been wearing and retrieved a small item from inside. 9S recognised it instantly. It was an android's black box. The powercore and emergency data backup of his own kind.
"THE DATACORE OF THE YORHA UNIT THAT WAS REQUESTED," said the courier.
"Ah." Adam seemed entranced by the thing, a perfect cube of deepest black lit by lines of silver white pulsing over the surface.
"So close," he reached out wistfully. "And yet I find my curiosity overwhelming... Your master, a machine who has left the network to build his own nation. What could he possibly want with a sample of-"
"THE MASTER IS WILLING TO TRADE THE YORHA DATA CHIP FOR AN INTACT SPECIMEN," the smaller machine repeated aggressively, somehow managing to affect an angry finality to its words despite of the toneless buzz of its voice.
"Of course," Adam said quietly. And then the two machines took hesitant steps toward each other, reaching out to exchange the two objects, both pairs of hands touching for an instant. And then they both froze. Alarmed by a quiet bang that sounded from somewhere outside the building.
"But I suggest we be quick about it," said Adam. "For it seems they have found us."
"WHAT."
"You've lead the androids right to our doorstep. And I know exactly who would be sent for a mission like this..."
"Isn't that right 2B?" Adam shouted, projecting his voice over the servos of the machine guardsman as they shuffled into position around him.
"YoRHa's finest murderer and her snivelling pet." He continued, turning and addressing the other wall now. "Come to destroy me like everything else she has ever touched."
Before he could say another word, 9S jumped.
He landed on the uneven sandy floor, finding it a shallow coating over a layer of concrete. He drew his sword and pointed it squarely at Adam.
"You are in possession of YoRHa property," he said, voice even and emotionless. "Hand it over."
The machines turned toward him, freezing, fear showing in their blank eyes. All except Adam, who smiled.
"Oh. You mean this?" He held up the black box. The courier was now holding the object he had been carrying.
"You seem to be a little out-numbered, little scanner unit," Adam continued. He gestured to the other machines, prompting them to fan out around him. "They didn't send you alone did they? Or has unit 2B just grown tired of your fawning?"
"We're just here for the box," 9S hissed. "But I guess now it's personal."
A smile crept over Adam's face. "Well then," he gestured with the cube, "why don't you come kill me and take it."
"Sounds good to me."
Adam turned at the new voice, half of his guards turning with him. 9S felt his pulse rise even further. He could see the expression on 2B's face even with her eyes covered. He had seen it before, and so had many other machines moments before they died.
"Android number Two..." Adam started to speak, some condescending remark that died suddenly in his throat. The pod orbiting 2B was pulsing red. Then a second pod appeared. Then a third. Three red lights blinking in unison, faster and faster and faster. A long white sword appeared in her hands. And then the room erupted into chaos.
9S ducked a swipe from one of the machines and counter attacked, slicing through the servos connecting one of its arms to the circular shell of its body. He heard the arm clatter to the floor and kept moving, dancing away from the short reached machines as they tried to crowd him. 2B's lasers had sent half of them flying, and 9S could hear fighting coming from the other side of the battle, the sound of angry machines attacking wildly, and the sounds of them dying, limbs and armour and wires flying as 2B cut through their ranks toward Adam.
"9S, the courier!" He heard her shout and looked around, leaping away from two of the guards who were closing in from both sides. The machine they had followed through the desert was scampering away, making for a sun-lit crack in the walls, throwing the cloth bag it had been wearing over its back.
"I'm on it!"
He dashed around one of the machines in his way and parried a blow from another, the shock of the impact jarring through his arm. He countered again, knocking the thing away and leaping through a gap in the crush of bodies, running for the crack in the wall, just as the courier's legs were vanishing through it to the outside.
9S sprinted after it, approaching the wall at full speed and then leaping into a slide, a spike of rust-red iron rebar just missing his face as he slid through the opening and passed through the ancient wall. Outside he slowed to a stop in the eerie orange and black twilight.
The sand was still hot underneath him, a strangely pleasant intrusion into the fog of battle fever. He didn't even look at the sky, but he knew it was ominously dark. Too dark. The machine he was chasing was just ahead, heading back the way they had come, running toward the endless maze of dunes that lead back to the city. He gave chase.
9S slammed into the back of the courier and the two of them tumbled forward, rolling awkwardly down the slope of a steep sand dune. He dropped his sword, the weapon misting away as soon as it left his hand.
"AHHHHH." The machine wailed in terror. "ANDROID. S- SCARY."
9S resummoned the blade and took a step toward the machine, the thing climbing clumsily to its feet.
"TAKE! TAKE IT. LET ME. LET ME. GO. I DO NOT WISH TO BECOME."
It grasped the bag it had been carrying and hurled it toward him, the thing sailing through the air with more inertia than the cloth alone should have had and rolling to a stop just at his feet.
9S stepped forward and scooped it up just as the machine turned and started running, still wailing madly. He opened the bag, finding Adam's offering still inside, a white plastic box about ten inches wide that was bulging with panels and buttons and indicators. On top of the lid was a small decal inscribed into the plastic, a faded red addition sign.
Strange. He thought. Where have I seen that before...
He shook himself, realising the courier was twenty feet away now, waving its arms wildly and struggling to run, one damaged foot sliding uselessly in the thick sand.
Thirty feet now. The box heavy in his hands.
Thirty five.
9S felt the clock rate of his body falling, a feeling of calm pushing through the intoxicating fog that had been filling his senses.
I have what we came for.
And then suddenly an explosion cut through the sound of the wind, a sharp crack that left a reverberating boom that settled slowly over the dunescape.
The noise had come from behind him.
"2B!".
9S arrived back at the place they had confronted Adam, finding a scene of complete destruction. The dome-shaped building had been cracked open like an egg and lay half sunk into the sand, reduced to a jagged cave of twisted metal and shattered concrete. Beneath it 9S found a radiating pattern of scorched debris; rocks, machine parts, weapons and armour and arms and legs and servos and heads sent flying or half buried in the sand. At the epicentre of the blast he could see a bright white light, a glowing female shape, lying prone in the sand. Very still.
"2B!" He pulled her into a sitting position. "2B are you alright?"
"Analysis:" An electronic male voice buzzed as Pod 042 descended, 2B's robot companion hovering protectively above her.
"Unit 2B is critically injured following use of her emergency self-destruct function."
2B groaned incoherently, shifting slightly in his arms.
"The machine life form code-named Adam has escaped, but not with the missing YoRHa unit's blackbox."
"What?" 9S was stunned. "What happened to it?"
Stirring, 2B pointed at something lying nearby on the sand, her arm shaking with the effort. 9S gently lowered her to the ground and approached the thing, freezing in surprise when he realised what it was.
It was a hand.
The thing was lying in a pool of dark red fluid, splotches of it staining the sand around the shallow depression it had fallen into. The hand been severed at the wrist, exposing a tangle of wires and a strip of pale skin sticking out of a strange black glove, a glove with thick red prisms where the nails would be, like claws.
Next to it was the blackbox they had been sent to retrieve.
"He tried... To translocate away," 2B said slowly, pushing herself upright using her elbows. She was glowing a little less brightly now. "I got his hand just before it went with him."
"Huh." 9S misted the black box into storage. "I guess he must have committed to somewhere far away. And didn't have the energy to come back once he realised..."
She groaned, nodding at him. Suddenly a rumble of thunder rolled across the desert, and a flood of panic descended on 9S as he looked up at the sky.
"Oh no. The storm!" He ran to where 2B was sitting and pulled her upright.
"Let's go 2B. Let's go!" Together they staggered out of the crater she had made, 9S with an arm wrapped around her torso, keeping her upright and pulling her forward, toward the endless sea of dunes, toward the distant ruins of the city.
Overhead, the dark sky began to flicker.