Chapter Text
[MACHINE ID: V1
STATUS: OPERATIONAL
LOCATION: LAYER 7 - VIOLENCE, APPROACHING THE SUICIDE FOREST]
The suicide trees were beautiful, in a way.
Up until entering Hell, V1 had never actually seen a real tree in person that wasn’t a fallout-withered husk, the world’s forests looking more like graveyards than anything else. Even during the new peace, it’d never had an opportunity to exit the facility—at least, not until the fin-de-l’ère that gave it an opening.
The knuckleblaster began to twitch, and V1 curled it a bit closer to itself, cradling it like an injury.
That was becoming more common. Initially, it had suspected it had something to do with unfamiliar software not quite meshing with its systems, but it hadn’t caused any major issues thus far—a twitch here, a shudder there, usually in moments where it was almost too distracted with something else to notice.
Almost.
Something had been off for the entirety of Heresy. Nothing overt. But a sense of unease and wrongness that permeated its being—raised its hackles—pulled it deeper into itself. Something coming.
V1 placed its hand against the trunk of the tree—twisted like a grimace, reaching up into the black sky as if something up there would save them.
It would be cruel to crush that hope. They don’t need to know that the throne of heaven is empty—that it always will be—that maybe it always has been, in a way. (Not to mention that even if it weren’t, whoever was up there certainly wouldn’t care.)
There’s no reason not to show kindness. The trees are bloodless. They are beautiful nonetheless, even when barren. They’re even more so later when they’re mid-bloom, glowing in the dark, drenched in fuel, a field of kindred spirits thirsting for eternity.
Hell wouldn’t be full forever. Already some of the upper layers were beginning to unravel, and after that… Well, V1 couldn’t even begin to hope for a means to reach heaven, so it would have to sort out a final resting place eventually. It hoped that, if they couldn’t come back here at the end, wherever they ended up was at least just as quiet.
Its journey across the forest is swift—it almost manages to break through completely unnoticed—that is, until it skids directly into a room of hostiles firing on each other. Not that it minds. It fires up the railcannon and gets to work, blood pumping, then rushing, then spilling, and finally blooming across the white walls.
V1 is about to exit the Grand Hall when it sees them—and it almost misses them amidst the brilliant red against white vaulted ceilings.
There’s someone in the tree.
[MACHINE ID: V2
STATUS: COMPLETE SYSTEM FAILURE]
[/INITIATE SYSTEM FAILURE OPERATION QUEUE]
[/INITIATE PROCEDURE: "BRACE FOR IMPACT"]
[SYSTEM INTEGRITY: 7% AND DROPPING]
[/INITIATE INVOLUNTARY SHUTDOWN]
[MACHINE ID: V1
STATUS: OPERATIONAL
LOCATION: LAYER 7 - VIOLENCE, ENTERING BLANCHE CEMETERY]
V1 wasn’t superstitious by nature. It stands to reason: when in Hell, spooky shit happens. Ergo, do as the Romans do and take it seriously. Therefore, it’s taking a bit of a detour. The rest of Hell will continue to be here waiting for it—same as it ever was.
It knows it wasn’t hallucinating. It knows what it saw—even if it couldn’t find anything in its memory archive to support it. It’s run a full system diagnosis on itself at this point—all systems show as operational, nothing out of the ordinary in its memory archive, it’s checked the drivers for V2’s arms. Nothing. So: spooky shit explains it. No hallucinations here.
Partially because it knows itself—knows intrinsically that there would be no reason for it to be looking for V2 in the branches of the suicide trees. It really hasn’t thought of them that often since the pyramid, other than the occasional absentminded image of them in less chaotic situations, glancing sideways at the feedbacker with an undeniable interest, cocking a hip at a joke that had missed the mark, the startled swivel of their head that one time it had managed to get them to stay still long enough to rest a hand against the small of their back-
Well. Maybe it thinks of them more often than it would care to admit. But it still isn’t enough to warrant hallucinations.
The other reason it knows it isn’t hallucinating is because it sees V2 again now.
It doesn’t look directly at them. It’s caught glimpses every now and then, flashes of red darting across hallways in the labyrinth, crouching between enemies to launch themself fist-first at a mannequin.
Right now, they’re keeping pace with it, walking to its left amongst the headstones in the periphery of its vision. It knows—in the same way that it knows that what goes up must come down—that if it were to turn its head, they would vanish.
At least this way, it can keep an eye on them—er, rather, it can know where they are. Better this way than to stay on edge looking.
They haven’t tried to approach it yet. It isn’t even certain they can. They can certainly run away, though—as evidenced by just about every interaction they’ve had thus far.
What is there still left to be afraid of?
Their form stilled, and V1 couldn’t see it any longer—but they still felt their nagging presence in its head. It couldn’t help itself—it stopped and turned its head to look behind it.
V2 hadn’t vanished, this time—just standing still, listless almost, and holding its gaze as V1 got a head-on look for the first time.
They still had the knuckleblaster.
Then, as if Hermes had arrived to lead them back into the underworld, they turned their back—and disappeared again.
V1 knew what it would find in its memory archive—it checked in spite of itself, resigned to a visual record of a white, soundless cemetery.
[MACHINE ID: V2
STATUS: OPERATIONAL
SYSTEM INTEGRITY: 100%
LOCATION: UNDISCLOSED]
They didn’t often have the opportunity to be in its presence—not that they cared, they had more than enough stimulation on a day-to-day basis to even bother thinking about their prototype.
They certainly didn’t feel jealous.
V1 was typically pretty complacent, kept alive by the sheer generosity of their engineers and a steady diet of blood donations. It was a mercifully far cry from the life it would have had prior to the new peace, constantly on the brink of starvation, desperately roaming the Earth in a wild chase to find its next victim before its relatively-tiny fuel tank depleted itself and it went inert.
Nowadays, it spent most of its time as a sort-of companion bot to the engineering team that had built them. How exactly it served as a companion wasn’t anything they cared to dedicate processing space to, but it did bring them a pang of disdain during the times they were in the same place.
V1 nudged them with its elbow—a deliberate but subtle taunt—and it took an immense amount of willpower for them not to begin the process of dismantling it.
V2 was not given many weapons. The vast majority of their function was security—keeping the peace, breaking up fights, rescuing imperiled humans from their various disasters. As such, it was deemed necessary to provide them with the knuckleblaster, in the same way that one would provide a firefighter with an axe. Useful, great for breaking through structures to get to the aforementioned imperiled humans, but ultimately a bit slow and not much help on its own in a combat situation. Not that they were in many of those on a regular basis, and in the rare situation where they needed to engage, their bare hands were more than sufficient.
V1 was a liability with a weapon. It was largely toothless now, more of a pet than a person, but it was still an apex predator that their makers decided to keep locked up in their home. It still retained the base programming to annihilate the entire facility—though, the engineering team doubted it would.
V2 was inclined to agree on that front, if only because they didn’t think it was competent enough to do so.
With the exception of its exterior plating, V1 was in possession of exactly one piece of experimental hardware—the feedbacker.
The feedbacker was rendered almost entirely useless with the new peace. Built to effortlessly deflect projectiles, it was mostly used as a normal arm in the absence of said projectiles. V1 had no use for it. Neither did V2, frankly.
It was still, to be blunt, extremely fucking cool.
It used this arm to nudge them again, knowing in its steel bones that V2 couldn’t do anything to stop it from bothering them right now. They were listening to one of their engineering team talking about a software update, which was all very fascinating, but-
[V1: hey]
V2 didn’t have teeth to grit. They wished they did.
[V2: I’m busy.]
[V1: what are you doing after this]
What a bizarre question.
[V2: Work. As per usual.]
[V1: can you get out of it]
[V2: No.]
[V1: ill make it worth your while]
V1 nudged them with the feedbacker again. V2 turned to look this time, and the engineer stopped talking for a moment, giving V1 a knowing look. The human engineer crossed their arms over the table and let out a long and affectionately exasperated sigh, clearly used to just letting V1 do what it wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.
V2 glanced down at the feedbacker, forearm pressed up against their own arm, following it to the hand, where V1 was furling its middle and ring fingers back and forth in a sort of “come-hither” motion.
What.
[V2: What.]
[V1: come on you know you want it]
The feedbacker?
…It was offering them the feedbacker? For what purpose?
[V2: …What exactly do you get out of it?]
V1 stopped and looked up, a bit startled—like it hadn’t expected them to take it seriously?
[V1: maybe I just want to help you unwind a bit you ever think about that]
And gifting them the feedbacker would accomplish that?
…Yes. Yes, it would. It wasn’t a bad thought. They had been eyeing it for a while—were they that obvious? And here V1 was, offering it freely—like it meant nothing to it, like it genuinely wanted to make V2’s life a little better in the process.
Maybe they were a little wound-up, because they genuinely would never have expected that out of it. Working basically 24/7 will do that to you. Huh. V2’s shoulders began to lower as they relaxed just a smidge.
[V2: Won’t your handlers have anything to say about that?]
[V1: they don’t care what i do in my free time]
[V2: Free time from what?]
V1 ducked its head just a bit, then straightened up again, drawing a line across its throat.
[V1: if i told you that id have to kill you]
[V1: lets just leave it at “they don’t care”]
[V2: They might care if it involves sensitive equipment.]
[V1: lmao]
[V2: ?]
[V1: im not the one who needs to worry about sensitive equipment]
[V2: What?]
[V1: and they told me it was a gift, so I get to use it however I want]
Well. That was that, then. The fleshy bits in V2’s chassis felt hot with guilt—they’d underestimated V1 as an individual. That was unbefitting of their station—and they couldn’t just accept the kindness without reciprocation.
[V2: Understood. I still think it goes without saying that I should give something in return. Fair is fair.]
“Are… are you having a productive conversation?”
V1 failed to respond in a timely manner as its processors visibly rebooted mid-sentence, so V2 gave a thumbs up. “Yes. We are… negotiating a transaction.”
If the look V1 was fixing on them wasn’t intense before, it certainly was now.
“Oh! Understood. Well, uh, carry on, I guess I’ll just be…” The engineer leaned back in their chair. “Here. I guess.”
[V1: transaction huh? i mean i definitely wouldn’t say no to a little knuckleblasting myself but you don’t have to]
An equivalent exchange—an arm for an arm. That worked. And, frankly, even if it turned out not to be nearly as impressive as they had thought and wanted the knuckleblaster back, V2 got the impression that this would be an amiable return.
[V2: That works. I have something I need to do after this, but I’ll be back tonight.]
V1 didn’t have a mouth to smile with, but if it did, V2 thought it would be beaming.
[V1: I’ll be waiting.]
[MACHINE ID: V1
STATUS: OPERATIONAL
LOCATION: LAYER 4- GREED, AT THE BASE OF THE PYRAMID]
V1 couldn’t exactly say it had any experience with ghosts—an odd place to have a blind spot, considering where it was, but it was used to seeing its opponents.
…Was V2 an opponent?
At one point, certainly. Now it wasn’t so sure. The flitting images continued as it began its ascent back to where they’d left V2 (or, rather, what was left of them). Never for as long as that moment in the cemetery, never getting any closer.
What were they playing at?
The V2 it knew would have attacked them by now. They would have ripped the entirety of the seventh layer to shreds for a chance at its throat—and yet here they were. Still following.
V1 knew it was there. It knew it wasn’t imagining things. It was better than that. Than them.
All of that said: V1 didn’t have any experience with ghosts, so it wasn’t completely certain where the epicenter of the haunting would be. It sat for a while at the bottom of the pyramid, kicking rocks next to the splatter of blood, viscera, and scrap metal thrown hither-and-thither across the sand.
It was silent. More silent than it had been for a while. It didn’t catch even a hint of them—not a glint of red, not a pressure against their camera lens, not a graze of metal across their back.
So, this wasn’t working. It wasn’t the location of their death that did it—maybe an object left somewhere? That was something in ghost stories, wasn’t it? Haunted dolls, mirrors? It reached its arms above its head, stretching itself out as much as possible in preparation for the climb.
They really couldn’t have chosen a less accessible place to haunt, huh? Typical.
Luckily, it had already cleared out the vast majority of the pyramid anyways, making it a simple task to get to the top floor with minimal effort (but a lot of glittering sand in its joints).
The room was empty, save for the rubble from their clash earlier and the throne in the center of the room. Frankly, V1 is surprised that hasn’t been completely crushed as well—they could have sworn seeing bits and pieces of it around the room mid-battle. It walks over to the hole in the wall, peering down the side of the pyramid at the brown-red splatters of blood where V2 had slid down.
Nothing there, either.
It couldn’t travel all the way back to Limbo. There was barely anything there. Why would they even want to haunt there? They hadn’t died there—unless you counted their arm. What, was it being haunted by the ghost of the knuckleblaster?
…That would just be its luck, wouldn’t it?
V1 sat down on the platform by the hole in the wall, arms slung over its knees. This was getting ridiculous. Something needed to change.
It composed a general message, set to be made available to any compatible systems in the room.
[V1: if you’d like to make my day and just explain what the fuck you’re playing at that would be great]
The room didn’t stir. V1 gave it a couple of seconds, then tried again.
[V1: like is this supposed to be some kind of revenge thing to convince me im going crazy]
Still nothing. It tapped its foot against the ground, listening to the sound echo across the stone. Then it stopped, opening the floor for anything to make itself known. The sun continued to beat across its back, and the gold in its joints grated infuriatingly against itself.
[V1: i know im not. im smarter than that. you might as well make it quick and easy and show yourself]
The silence was growing infuriating—almost as if it were getting louder with each passing second. Not the sort of peaceful quiet of the suicide forest, with a light wind ambling between twigs and sharp grass, but a stagnancy in the air—the sheer maddening presence of nothing.
It was growing restless. Worse, it was wasting its time.
V1 stood back up, shaking its head.
It wasn’t losing it. It wasn’t.
[V1: im going to find you. and then im going to kill you again. no matter how many times it takes. until there’s nothing left]
“Oh, cool it with the theatrics.”
[MACHINE ID: V2
STATUS: OPERATIONAL
SYSTEMS INTEGRITY: 100%
LOCATION: UNDISCLOSED]
V2 realized that they had made a mistake when V1’s hand touched their waist.
They weren’t sure precisely what the mistake was, but the cautious goodwill that had been steadily growing in their chest evaporated in an instant as it started to move down to their hip.
It fucking lied to me.
That was it. V2 had tolerated its presence for long enough, if their engineers complained, well, their fault for building a weapon and fawning over it like a child.
V2 fired up the knuckleblaster.
V1 suddenly reeled back at the noise, body language immediately changing from comfortable and in control to afraid-
[V1: ????!?!? ????]
-scratch that, confused. What, did it think they would just take this lying down? Well, then, it underestimated them. Not surprising for a pile of walking scrap.
The knuckleblaster was slow—not slower than a human fist, but definitely not as fast as the feedbacker, which V2 discovered in short order when V1 parried their punch, sending the force and explosion of the blow back up their arm and into their shoulder joint—snapping it, leaving the knuckleblaster dangling by mere wires.
Well, fuck.
V2 wanted to scream. And it could, so it did.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
V1 couldn’t look more indignant if it tried.
[V1: TF IS WRONG WITH ME??? TF IS WRONG WITH YOU?!??!]
“You told me you-“ V2 was shaking with rage—and, frankly, pain, as blood began to drip from the broken blood vessels in their chassis. “You lied to me!”
[V1: WTF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT]
“Why did-“ V2 could already hear the engineers running to the source of the noise—that had been an explosion, after all. They let out a sharp mechanical shriek of fury, then shifted to messages.
[V2: WHY DID YOU ATTACK ME]
[V1: I??????? DIDN’T???!?!!!]
[V2: THEN WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU DOING]
V1 threw its hands up in the air, wings vibrating with fury.
[V1: FOREPLAY!!!!! HEARD OF IT???! I KNEW YOU WERE REPRESSED BUT JFC]
What.
[V2: WHAT]
[V1: SORRY I DIDN’T KNOW YOU JUST EXPECTED ME TO STICKEM IN THERE NO WARNING]
[V2: WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT]
[V1: i have no fn clue how to be more clear about this you asshole]
[V2: WHAT DID YOU THINK THIS WAS]
V1’s hands fell back to its sides, fists clenched.
[V1: well i THOUGHT i was doing a very good job of seducing you but I. GUESS. NOT.]
…What the fuck?
V2 ran their memory archive back. Yep. Yes, that seems clear. They aren’t seeing the problem. They clip the section where V1 had made the hand motion and send it back to V1, tagged ?????????? and WHAT THE FUCK WAS THIS THEN?
V1’s aperture narrowed.
[V1: the fucking fingering gesture???????]
[V2: WHAT IS FINGERING.]
[V1: you don’t-] It reached a hand up as if to pinch the bridge of its nonexistent nose—a learned gesture from the engineers after a long day of failed product testing. [V1: oh my god you’ve never fingered yourself]
[V2: I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT, SO CLEARLY NOT. YOU HAVE???]
[V1: duh??? what else is a vaginal apparatus supposed to be for???]
What?
[V2: YOU HAVE SEX ORGANS???]
[V1: …you don’t?????]
Jesus fucking Christ. Had it been built with that structure, or had they added it after the fact?
[V2: WHY WOULD THEY GIVE A SECURITY BOT SEX ORGANS?????????]
[V1: because who would make a robot you couldn’t fuck?]
[V2: OH MY GOD. YOU’RE A FUCKING MORON.]
[V1: a fucking moron with two working arms]
It was lucky that this was the moment the engineers finally got their heads on straight and found the source of the explosion, because if there hadn’t been humans present, they might have broken their other arm trying to punch it again.
[MACHINE ID: V1
STATUS: OPERATIONAL
LOCATION: LAYER 4 - GREED, INSIDE THE PYRAMID]
Its body went rigid. The voice sounded exceptionally close, but from the far side of the room, V1 caught a glimpse of an elbow hanging off the side of the throne.
It pulled out the sharpshooter.
“No need for that.” V1 watched as they unfolded themself from the chair, turning around to kneel on the seat. The apparition of V2 laid their elbows on the back of the chair, one hanging off, the other propping their head up while they looked at it straight on—the first time they had done so. That is, the first time since they were last in this room together. Their voice was… soft, despite how loud it seemed in comparison to their distance from the platform. A lilting sort of contralto, clearly going for threatening but landing squarely on desperately trying to seem sultry.
[V1: are we going to finish this?]
“Well, that depends on what this is.” They looked down at their fingers as if examining their nails. They didn’t have nails—so, V1 surmised, they were really only doing that to be a bitch. “Personally, I feel perfectly comfortable with this little arrangement.”
[V1: that arrangement being?]
They cocked their head—just a bit. Just enough to show that they felt fully unthreatened. “Well, that’s for me to know, isn’t it?”
[V1: why are you speaking out loud. you know i cant do that.]
“So?”
V1 leered at them.
[V1: are you really V2?]
Their arms opened, gesturing to the open space around them. “Do you see anyone else? Don’t tell me there’s another dead V-Model you’ve had your eye on. I might just get jealous.”
[V1: you’re always jealous]
“Hardly,” they scoffed, tapping their fingers soundlessly against the stone. “Can’t say there’s much to be jealous of. But you have me where you want me for now, so… what were you hoping to get out of this?”
V1 threw its arms out.
[V1: what? how? why?]
“…I’m not really sure what to do with that.”
[V1: what happened]
[V1: how are you doing this]
[V1: why are you doing this]
[V1: etc]
“Maybe I want my own chance to do some fucking with you.”
[V1: …is there a reason you sound like a movie villain right now?]
Oh, that threw them off. V1 watched their fingers stop tapping as they readjusted however they meant for this conversation to go.
“I would have considered myself the hero, all considered.”
[V1: you sound like you’re reading off a script]
It could see them bristle at that. Not in their body language, somehow, it just knew in the same way it knew that they were trying so hard to look like they were in control—even though they felt like they were not.
The apparition leaned forward just a bit, the hand holding their head up dropping to support them as they did so. “I’ve had a lot of time to think. Sue me.”
[V1: all that time to think and the best you could come up with was “cool it with the theatrics”]
The strangest part was that V1 knew what V2 looked like when they were angry. It knew well and good the little jabs it could aim to get them bristling, knew how to initiate the kind of bickering you only got into with people you know better than yourself. This is not what V2 looked like when they were angry. It didn’t look like much of anything, really—they were machines, of course, but V1 had never seen them look so robotic.
It was getting to be a little unsettling.
“Why-“ Their voice lost the lilting intonation, moving more into the harsh whine V1 was familiar with. “Why are you here? If you don’t want to hear what I planned to say, there’s a great big as fuck-all hole in the wall right there.”
…Were they hurt? They’d been planning this for a while, it seemed.
V1 didn’t feel weird knowing it had missed this. There was something about an opponent whose rage is just so easy to poke.
So, they were an opponent, then. Good to know.
[V1: i want to know what you want from me]
[V1: why you keep following me]
[V1: why you look like an unshaded 3d model]
“That’s-“ V1 got the impression that they were floundering. “You’re fucking ruining this, you know that, right? This was supposed to be climactic. Poetic justice.”
V1 shrugged.
[V1: sorry to disappoint but you could have made it a little harder to ruin]
V2 reached up to pinch at the bridge of their nonexistent nose—oh, hey. They got that from V1. It wondered if they knew that. “Well, you know, I guess you can’t have everything. The moment’s ruined, monologue over.”
[V1: fine by me]
“I’m going to kill you now.”
V1 was faster. It let out a blast from the sharpshooter, waiting for V2 to dodge, to shout, to launch themselves over the throne to tackle V1 to the floor.
V2 didn’t move. They didn’t even twitch as the blast from the sharpshooter sailed right through them without leaving a scratch, bouncing off the wall and evaporating into nothingness.
What they did do was laugh—breathless, shaky laughter, as if they had just pulled off the con of the century.
“Wow. Even though you know that violence isn’t going to get you out of this one…”
They vault over the throne, walking closer—slow, methodical steps, not quite confident, but certainly reveling at the thought that they knew something V1 didn’t.
They stopped just a breath away.
“You still just can’t help yourself, can you?”
[MACHINE ID: V2
STATUS: OPERATIONAL
SYSTEM INTEGRITY: 57%
LOCATION: FACILITY 12, ABOARD 1000-THR EARTHMOVER DESIGNATION “NEO-HOUSTON”]
The world was burning.
V2’s wings weren’t much help for movement—certainly not flight, more storage than anything else—but they flitted back and forth regardless, stepper motors whirring in its chest as it anxiously checked each individual corpse they found for a pulse.
Dead. Dead. Failed.
They haven’t yet found the source of the carnage—all of the rogue machines had been thrown off the back of the city or otherwise dispatched, there were no signs of forced entry—just bodies, just fire, evidence of gunfire in the ceiling, in the people, the mangled hardware-
Where did they even get a gun? And where did they-
V2’s chassis cracked as they took a bullet to their already-weakened shoulder joint. They let out a sharp shriek as the Knuckleblaster went inert, whipping around to-
The pistol in V1’s hand had a very thin trail of smoke rising from the end of the barrel.
[V1: hey]
V2 glanced up at its camera, then back down at the gun. They started to form a message, then it died on exit. They erased it, then went for the obvious approach, hoping for another explanation.
[V2: You shot me.]
[V1: yep]
[V2: I should rip your head off of your body.]
[V1: lol]
[V1: and how are you planning to do that]
They didn’t know. The knuckleblaster hung limp.
[V2: I don’t understand.]
It shrugged its shoulders, tilting the gun a bit to the right as if to say “don’t worry about it”.
[V2: You never left the facility. This was a secure location. You shouldn’t have been affected by the hell radiation.]
V2 knew what its answer was going to be, but they wanted to see it come from them, regardless.
[V1: i wasn’t]
They didn’t dare look away for even an instant.
[V2: They were your friends.]
[V1: lmao]
[V1: were they?]
V2 bristled at that, fighting the urge to fix it with a glare-
[SYSTEM INTEGRITY: 34%]
They didn’t have the capacity for many more projectiles. They needed to see what was coming before it happened, so they kept their eye on the barrel.
[V2: They kept you safe. They gave you a new purpose. They cared for you. That really meant nothing to you?]
[V1: yes]
They’d let themselves forget. They’d all let themselves forget—amidst the jokes, the attempts at domestication, the misunderstandings and the typos—that a machine built to end war is always a machine built to continue war.
V2 had failed them.
V2 let themself look up now, straightening despite the pain, almost level with V1’s own camera.
[V1: i have a question]
V2 made a sharp, staticky scoffing noise, reaching over with their working arm to hold their shoulder flush to their body.
[V2: All the people with the answers are dead now.]
[V1: not to this one]
[V1: this one’s for you]
The knuckleblaster was slowly—slowly—welding itself back together, the small amount of blood still present in their systems righting what was made wrong.
[V2: Well. Out with it then. Make it your last. I’ll try to make this quick.]
Gratefully, V1 didn't call them on the fact that they were in no position to be making threats.
[V1: what’s being outside like?]
Okay, they didn’t expect that.
[V2: …No one’s ever told you what the outside looks like?]
[V1: sure they have]
[V1: but not whats its like being out there]
[V1: do you feel alone]
[V1: do you feel fulfilled]
[V1: do you feel free]
[V1: etc]
That was more than just the one question, but they felt inclined to answer nonetheless out of the sheer absurdity of it all.
[V2: No, to all of the above.]
[V1: really?]
[V2: Yes. At least, not on a day to day basis. What time would I have to feel any of that?]
It cocked its head to the side a bit, a surprisingly benign gesture despite everything.
[V1: then why do you do it]
[V2: Why do you want to know?]
[V1: arent i the one with the gun here?]
V2 wished they had eyes to roll, but they settled for a similar motion with their head.
[V2: Duty, I guess.]
V1’s shoulders shot up in what V2 could only interpret as a snort of laughter.
[V1: lmao]
[V1: and i thought i was off my rocker]
[V1: there’s something there about the definition of insanity but whatever]
[V1: at least you have it all now though]
V2 looked at the corpses littering the floor—the blood still dripping from V1’s chassis—the building burning around them. Funny definition of “it all”.
[V2: What do you mean?]
[V1: no one is giving orders anymore]
[V1: no one can make you do anything you don’t want to do anymore]
[V1: that’s freedom]
[V2: Freedom isn’t a synonym for good. There are bad freedoms. This is a terrible kind of freedom.]
[V1: its better than none]
If V2 wasn’t bristling already, they certainly were now. The knuckleblaster still wasn’t fully functional even as a limb, but the tailpipes along the side flared anyways like a porcupine’s quills.
[V2: I’m not going to take you annihilating the only people I’ve ever trusted as a favor.]
[V1: lmao]
[V1: you have a funny metric for quantifying who does and doesnt deserve trust]
[V1: i didn’t do it for you anyways]
[V1: not like you ever did shit for me]
[V1: just consider that part a happy little accident or whatever]
The extremely rudimentary sling system the engineers had been working on had already pulled the shoulder back into place—even if the joint would remain broken until they got a chance to solder themselves back together, even if the wires that necessitated movement hadn’t gotten the memo—so V2 stood up straight again.
They would probably still need someone else to look at it if they didn’t want it to get blown off again.
[V2: Why haven’t you killed me yet?]
[V1: idk]
[V1: i guess i thought this would feel better]
[V1: i mean]
[V1: it does]
[V1: but not in the way i expected]
[V1: thought you might have some idea as to why]
V2 scoffed again.
[V2: Guilt?]
[V1: nah]
[V2: I don’t know what you want me to say.]
[V1: idk either]
There was a lull in the conversation where V2 was able to glance around a bit—the little fires everywhere were burning out on their own as they met rough concrete, and the ones that weren’t were in areas that didn’t threaten the structure of the building.
They were in no rush.
[V1: am i allowed to ask another question or are you going to try to fuck me up with your one working arm if i try]
V2 looked back, then shrugged with their good shoulder.
[V2: Go for it. It’s not like they’re getting any deader.]
[V1: why didn’t they give you a sexual apparatus?]
V2’s fingers twitched incredulously.
[V2: That’s your question?]
[V1: im serious]
The motors in their chest whirred with frustration.
[V2: I guess because they weren’t planning for me to be having a lot of sex, moron. I was built to protect humans.]
[V1: and i was built to destroy them.]
[V2: Correct.]
[V1: presumably they’re not an inherent part of the v-model structure then]
[V2: Probably not.]
[V1: no reason to put one there, nothing it really does functionwise]
[V2: Other than the obvious.]
[V1: so why do i have one]
V2’s aperture narrowed.
[V2: I don’t know. Why do you have one?]
[V1: that’s not the question. i know why i have one.]
They checked the message history, then clipped it and send it into the general feed.
[V2: That was the question. What are you playing at?]
[V1: i know why i was given one. like. it’s kind of obvious]
[V2: Then why did you ask?]
[V1: because i want to know why i have one]
[V1: as in]
[V1: why i have one and you don’t]
[V2: Because presumably they expected you to be having sex?]
[V1: yes, but why?]
[V2: I don’t know. Why?]
[V1: i don’t know either]
[V1: that’s why im asking]
…Huh.
Why would V1 have an apparatus like that? Simple—for sexual function, of course. Obvious question, meet obvious answer. It definitely wasn’t built with one, so the engineering team must have added it later, after converting it to a companion bot. So, it must have-
…What? It must have what? Asked for it? It was a machine, it didn’t have any sexual instincts to speak of, unless it specifically had a program for that. Did it? No, because if it did, V2 would have one as well, right? Maybe after installation, after the driver for it had been downloaded, but-
How exactly it served as a companion wasn’t anything they cared to dedicate processing space to.
An apex predator that their makers had decided to keep locked in their home.
Kept alive out of sheer generosity
You know you want it
More pet than person
“Who would make a robot you couldn’t fuck?”
V2’s shoulders went slack—just by a couple of millimeters, but enough for V1 to tell the difference. It lowered its pistol.
What a bizarre conclusion to come to. That couldn’t be right. They ran a query again to look at other options.
[V2: Were you having a lot of sex?]
V1 is silent for a moment, gaze growing a little listless. Then, it shook its head.
[V1: no]
[V2: You didn’t ask for it?]
It bristled at that.
[V1: with what method of communication]
That was another part of it. V1 could speak via general feed, but the secure nature of the facility meant that spliced individuals speak only on encrypted channels—none of which V1, as a weapon of mass destruction, was allowed access to, except for the ones V2 would make with it to tell it off.
[V2: Well, it was unused then, so-]
[V1: but it was an option]
The differential query was hopeless, bringing back a slew of potential scenarios.
No, that didn’t make sense. Not that one, either.
V2 didn’t understand. It didn’t fully compute. They knew these humans. They trusted these humans—loved them, even. They were good. They were kind, and they were easily excitable, and they bickered in a way that never really meant anything-
Prior to the construction of V2, they had built a weapon for the explicit purpose of eliminating entire cities—adults, children, their pets, the homes and parks and shining windows that V2 caught glimpses of themselves in from time to time.
…Did they know these humans?
V1 was, for all intents and purposes, an animal in the eyes of their makers. V1 was built to destroy indiscriminately, but also to be precise—to find the weaknesses in an enemy several thousands of times its size—a dart in-between the armor. Sure, it wasn’t stupid. It wasn’t helpless. It was-
It was-
They knew V1. They knew V1, because V1 was like V2, but worse, the more pathetic and less useful version of V2. And their makers had been so kind to V2. They loved V2, and puppies, and they rescued a bird from the parking lot one time, because they loved pathetic and helpless things to fawn over and stroke and play with and keep in a little cage at the corner of the office-
They hadn’t seen that bird in a while—just an empty cage.
…Well. They supposed they really didn’t know V1, either.
No, they supposed not.
They thought that maybe V1 didn’t expect them to think this hard about it. They thought that maybe V1 hadn’t thought much further than “Disable the Only Thing That Can Stop Me.” V2 wasn’t entirely sure where to go from here, either. Their arm was in its repair sling to keep the damn thing from falling off their body, but it wouldn’t be fully functional and secure again until someone got the chance to take a look at it—and all of the people who could do that were done for.
They also couldn’t exactly fight V1 in this state, either. They knew better than to bring one-and-a-half working arms to a gun fight—but they also couldn’t just let it clear out the city.
[V2: I can’t let you hurt the people out there.]
[V1: i won’t]
[V2: I can’t trust you with that.]
[V1: what, this?] It waggled the pistol in its hand, and V2 almost stalked over to snatch it away. But to their surprise, V1 simply tossed it back onto the floor.
[V1: don’t need it anyways]
[V1: plenty of guns down there]
V2 looked down at the gun—then back up at the weapon.
The void blinked. Their faith wavered.
[V2: The next time I see you, I’m going to kill you.]
Somehow, V2 knew that it wasn’t a question of if.
V1 shrugged, turning to presumably hop out a window and make their way to the wasteland that was the Earth.
[V1: I’ll be waiting.]
[MACHINE ID: V1
STATUS: OPERATIONAL
LOCATION: LAYER 4 - GREED, INSIDE THE PYRAMID]
[ADMINISTRATIVE PERMISSIONS REQUIRED TO DELETE FOLDER “SYSTEM32”. RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR? Y/N]
V1’s entire kernel felt like it had been dunked in ice water.
What.
[ERROR: ADMINISTRATIVE PRIVILEGES INVALID.]
The apparition didn’t move from their spot. They didn’t make any expressive gestures—they simply froze, as if someone had taken their hands off the controller.
What.
[ERROR: ADMINISTRATIVE PRIVILEGES INVALID.]
[ERROR: ADMINISTRATIVE PRIVILEGES INVALID.]
V1 stared at the apparition of V2 for a long moment before running a query. It glanced away for a second while it did, and-
V2 was still directly in front of its face, unmoving. No matter which way it turned its head—like a still image painted onto its camera lens. Actually, so did the throne behind it—V1 knew they’d blown that thing up.
[/QUERY LAST SUBROUTINE]
[REPORT SUBROUTINE “FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU.EXE”]
What the fuck.
V1 started typing in a command prompt, then stopped out of sheer incredulity. It did this three or four times before finally settling on: [/QUERY VISUAL PROCESSOR DATA]
The report returned a long .txt file—oh. Oh.
Well, now V1 felt exceptionally stupid.
Their visual processor data had repeatedly been tampered with—inserting still images and videos of V2 over and over again, pulling them from its memory archive and pasting them haphazardly across their screen. Then, the original raw data was being sent directly to the memory archive. No wonder it hadn’t found anything before.
V1 removed the last edit made, and V2 disappeared. The throne remained until V1 removed that as well.
It pulled a query for its audio processors—no, wait, that wasn’t being tampered with at all. It pulled video footage of the last few minutes-
“Oh, cool it with the theatrics.”
That was V2’s voice. It had really come through its audial processors, which meant that something was really here, but where-
[ERROR: ADMINISTRATIVE PRIVILEGES INVALID.]
That bitch was trying it again. V1 wasn’t being haunted at all—it was being hacked. V2 had made some kind of Trojan horse virus—probably in the Whiplash’s drivers—and hidden killware in its systems somewhere. And that killware program kept trying to delete V1’s kernel, but hadn’t thought as far as decrypting the fucking admin privileges.
It was… actually pretty fucking hilarious, all told. A clever little trick with the visual processors, albeit without much of a discernible purpose for it. At the end of the day, however, it was just an incredibly shortsighted and ill-thought-out plan from V2 yet again. The killware had been programmed to operate under the radar, locate its kernel, and then take V1 down from the inside, but V2 clearly hadn’t thought far enough ahead to account for the fact that V1 wasn’t a fucking idiot, and it had already encrypted the folder containing its kernel long before they even entered Hell proper.
[/QUERY MEMORY USAGE REPORT]
Was that-
Oh, that cheeky little cunt. They had put it in its goddamn voicebox. V1 ripped open its vocal processors, and-
[V1: there you are.]
“…Okay, I’ll admit that wasn’t my best work.”
[V1: ill say.]
“…Anything I can say to make you consider a truce?”
[V1: why did you try it again if it didn’t work the first time?]
“…Maybe I ran it wrong?”
[V1: you’re a fucking idiot.]
[V1: and now you won’t be anymore.]
[/LAUNCH SUBROUTINE: DELETE FOLDER “FYLBB.EXE”? Y/N]
[UNKNOWN: Listen, we can talk about this-]
[ADMINISTRATIVE PERMISSIONS REQUIRED TO DELETE FOLDER “FYLBB.EXE”. RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR? Y/N]
[ERROR: ADMINISTRATIVE PRIVILEGES INVALID.]
What.
[ERROR: ADMINISTRATIVE PRIVILEGES INVALID.]
This didn’t make sense. It had admin privileges, it was the only fucking operating system in here.
[/QUERY ADMIN PRIVILEGES FOLDER “FYLBB.EXE”]
[ERROR 17502: UNFAMILIAR OPERATING SYSTEM ENCOUNTERED]
What.
Where was-
Oh.
[UNKNOWN: Oh my God.]
V1 had been looking for a virus—but this wasn’t a killware attack at all.
[UNKNOWN: Oh my God.]
Tone was hard to get across through text, but V1 could feel the breathless, almost hysterical relief radiating from the message.
It pinged the sending IP address. God damn it, that’s probably why it hadn’t tried to message them at first.
[REPORT:
MACHINE ID: V2
STATUS: OPERATIONAL
LOCATION: LAYER 4 – GREED, IN THE PYRAMID]
[/QUERY MACHINE ID V2 COORDINATES
REPORT COORDINATES 30.15521, -97.40310]
V1 checked its exact coordinates.
A cold, dark pit began opening in its processors.
Fuck.
There was no killware, because V2 hadn’t put together a Trojan horse virus. The Trojan V2 had put together contained a backup of their kernel.
V2 was alive—and they had taken over part of V1’s systems.
And because V2 was a completely separate operating system…
[V2: You can’t delete me either.]