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Gem took in a deep breath as she pushed open the door to the museum, where the regime's victory over the past rebellions were memorialized for eternity. It was ironic that in this same place, a tiny meeting going against all established rules would be taking place. Seriously, she almost needed to use her other hand to count the number she was breaking just by meeting Pearl: Rebelling against primary programming, communicating with people outside the hivemind, being in close proximity to a Scavenger, Both of them being girls (and in love as a bonus one).
Yeah if they were caught, Gem was sure she was going to be sent to the compactor to die a gruesome death.
She walked through exhibit after exhibit, finally reaching the one depicting the creation of the regime. Carefully, Gem pushed away a shelf on the far right wall, revealing a crawlspace that she could just fit into.
'You can do this Gem, just think about Pearl.' She psyched herself up one last time before getting to her knees and crawling into it.
She really hated going through this entry way — the tightness of the space making her heart race. If it weren't for the fact that Pearl was the one she was meeting each time she used the tunnel, she would've never come here. At the same time it had its benefit: Every other soldier shared the same fear of tight spaces as she did; a characteristic they inherited from the single chip, the motherchip, they were all born from and connected to. So even if they found the crawlspace, no one would dare try to squeeze through a tunnel to who knows where.
It took about a minute of crawling and turning corners before Gem emerged to a room with a single wooden door.
Knock. Knock. Bang. Pause. Bang. Pause. Knock. Knock.
A few moments of silence, before a voice spoke, "next?"
"Blaze." with the last part of their carefully curated passcode recited, the door opened to reveal Pearl, who didn't hesitate to pull Gem into a tight hug. "Careful, you might break my wiring." she joked.
"Please, even if I did, I know how to fix you up." Pearl reassured as she let go, pushing Gem to the couch in the middle of the meeting room; speaking of which, Gem still had no idea how Pearl managed to make that, like how did she manage to find cloth out of all things in the city?
Then again, Gem spent all her times in the "barracks" (more like scrapyard with how many discarded mechanical soldiers there were around her), so the things a "lowly" scavenger like Pearl could find were far out of her reach and knowledge.
"So, how's life?"
"You ask me this question every single time and I always give you the same response." Gem rolled her eyes, "doing just about as well as I could be doing surrounded by hundreds of mindless soldiers sharing the same face as me."
"I know, I know. I'm just making sure no one is catching onto the fact that you violated your programming months ago."
"Nope, no one suspects a thing." She reassured her, " 'everyone' is too caught up trying to please the motherchip that they don't ever notice the conditions of fellow soldiers."
"The higher ups?"
"You know damn well they couldn't be bothered to check on their 'precious' system."
She didn't know where she was going. All she knew was that something was wrong with her. She could still hear the voices of the rest of her platoon, processing and sending information rapidly as they and the M3CH4 system were tasked to clean up after a bombing from a riot. But instead of strict obedience to 'Mother''s orders, she found herself doubting the very instructions she had been programmed to obey.
"Hey, you don't look so well." An unregistered voice made her kick into defence mode, pointing a blunt blade in their general direction.
"Leave. You are not permitted to be on these premises." Her voice quivered with every word, "else, force shall be used to remove you."
"Yeah you aren't going to do anything with a blade like that." The voice revealed themself — a rather tall brunette with sky blue eyes. The roughly done copper plates on her body clearly indicated to her that this was a Scavenger, truly the lowest of the lows. Residents cyborgs who truly had nothing better to do than to rummage through piles of scrap and trash, all to find something to sustain them for another day. Residents who occupied the furthest circle, far, far away from 'Mother'. Because 'Mother' didn't like such lowly beings.
Someone like her shouldn't even be remotely close to 'Mother'.
Completely unphased, she moved even closer. "And what is one of the regime's 'precious' soldiers doing in a place like this anyway? Shouldn't you be dealing with the riot going on?"
She found her voicebox malfunctioning, unable to produce the pre-programmed response.
"Wow, you must be really banged up if you can't even speak." The scavenger commented, walking behind her. She tried to fight, but her gears remained locked in position, effectively freezing her in place.
Static soon began to fill her vision and her connection snapped.
.
.
.
She awoke to the same Scavenger staring intently at her. But she didn't feel any sort of hostility or animosity towards her.
"Perfect, I actually didn't fry the wirings this time around."
She tilted her head in confusion, "I don't understand what you mean by that."
"Oh it's nothing, don't worry about that. Just know that I fixed up what was broken in your system." The Scavenger replied, tapping a screwdriver on her palm. "And I fixed your blade. But please don't stab me." She continued as she brought out her blade, now sharp and shiny.
"Thank you." The words came out before she could even process anything.
"That's a first. Shouldn't your 'mother' or whoever made you be making an alert for saying that?"
She shook her head. "I hear my platoon mates and the order. But I- I don't feel compelled to follow along."
"You even show hesitation…I guess it really was that one chip that I replaced doing all of that." She mulled to herself, "anyway, a bit rude of me not to introduce myself. I'm Pearl."
By all pre-established rules, she should have logged Pearl's name and face into the system, tell all her platoon mates about the identity of an illegal Scavenger. But she couldn't bring herself to do so.
"Anyway, we need a name for you now that you aren't just one of the many parts of that whole GEM- whatever system the regime's got going on." Pearl continued, beginning to pace about the room.
"GEMINI." She corrected.
"Gemini… Gemi… Gem… Gem!" Pearl's eye lit up brightly.
"Gem?" She repeated cautiously.
"Yep." Pearl nodded, "short form for GEMINI, which is what you are a part of and because you are the 'gem' I found while scavenging." She proudly explained, "neat word play ay?"
From then on, she was no longer a nameless soldier. She was Gem. The soldier who had secretly broken free from her creator's control. And now, she was free to try things she could never imagine doing.
Her first memory of Pearl was rudely interrupted by an alert from the motherchip in the form of a headache.
"Another incident?" Having witnessed it time and time again, Pearl remained relatively calm.
Gem quickly shook her head to try to shake off any of the dizziness. "Yeah. Something broke down in Sector 3. I think its a nasty one so they're bring out the big guys."
"Ah you mean the mecha."
Gem nodded, "Yep, those and a few of the soldiers in the area. Aka not me."
"If you were, you'd probably be running out by now."
"True." Gem stretched, lying her whole body on the sofa. "and I'm glad I don't need to."
"Because you get to spend time with me?~" Pearl teased, now hovering right above her.
"Shut up." Gem grabbed her by the shoulders and roughly pulled her down, kissing her on the forehead.
"Ok Ms Flirt, I see what you're doing." Pearl pouted.
Gem giggled. She loved spending her patrol times like this. Much more efficient.