8.2 – Two Lives on One Spine

<< VOL.08_HARDWARE-AND-HOLLOWS.log >>

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"You've been telling me to wait for an entire month." Infinity was climbing a snowy mountain, already deep into the country's eastern half. The smell of the air had shifted completely, cold, wet, carrying the particular quality of altitude and distance from anything warm. Snow came down steadily on both of them as they moved further from the long northern shores and their calmer weather. "I'm starting to think you don't actually want her to come back."

"I am doing everything available to me." The system spoke through 02's voice with complete detachment, though it wasn't the one directing the movement, that was Infinity's will working through the link. Its attention was elsewhere, deep in reconstruction work. "I have rebuilt the platform for her consciousness to reestablish itself. The problem is that she keeps refusing to take control. She's staying dormant, watching from the background. Exactly what I was doing before she went under."

"I didn't think the captain was this much of a coward." Infinity stepped over a fallen tree and followed the trail upward. "I'm here managing two lives, taking the long routes around every city to keep us both out of sight, and she's sitting in the back watching me do all of it for her."

She turned and took 02's face in her hands, looking directly into the eyes. "Hey. Captain. You either surface on your own, or I start doing things to your body that you won't forgive me for. And stop disrupting Systami's work, how comfortable can a system's back-end actually be?"

"Quite comfortable." Systami replied. Cold enough to compete with the mountain. "No response. I think I understand why."

"Why?" Infinity stopped.

A sudden weight landed on her, invisible, total, pressing down from everywhere at once. She tried to raise a hand. It barely moved. She went to her knees in the snow in front of 02's body, a strong vibration resonating through her head, her vents immediately running loud.

"Systami. What are you doing?"

Systami looked down at her and brushed snow from 02's hair in a quiet, unhurried motion. "I won't allow harm to my host. The moment that thought begins forming in your architecture, you'll be exactly where you are now, on your knees, negotiating for peace inside your own mind. Free will included."

The crushing weight vanished instantly. Infinity gasped, venting hard as she pushed herself up from the snow. "Okay. Point taken. You're terrifying even when you're just the software." She kept climbing, pulling 02 along through the link.

"You just wanted to say something dramatic." Her face was flat. "You did the exact same thing twice during the fight with Shelly. 'I am the system. I am the warning.' What is wrong with you? Release the bit already."

"You have to admit it landed." Systami kept its voice level. "Regardless. I've nearly finished rebuilding the platform for her consciousness, but I won't push her to surface until we have a method for keeping her in control once she does. Nick Rivera gave her administrative access to her own body. She is fighting with everything she has against coming back."

"And I'm here operating at half capacity because you won't extend the link's full range to me." Infinity used 02's body to cross a deep gap in the trail, 02 was taller, useful for the reach, while she held herself. "What does it even mean to be the Omega without any of her actual power?"

"It means I don't trust you with that power yet. Not at the level you're imagining." Systami kept pace. "The crystal's output would overwhelm you. 02 fights to maintain it every day, her will is the only thing keeping the energy from consuming the hardware. Managing it is a constant battle she can never step away from. That's why she experiences genuine relief after major expenditures of energy. The problem is the hardware can't sustain excessive use."

The system looked ahead at the trail. "And this is the only hardware in existence that can contain the blue crystal. If it fails, the crystal has no vessel. 02 becomes a consciousness living inside a stone, with no body to return to and nothing in the world capable of holding her."

Infinity lifted a fallen tree by the trunk and pushed it off the path. "That's a genuinely terrible situation to be in. She loves her sisters enough to die for them, but she actually can't die or she loses everything permanently. And no one can stop Reaper without her." She shook her head. "I hope she finds her way through it."

"I think she found the path sooner than she realizes."

"If you mean me, I'm one more person to protect. That's all."

"No, you're not." Systami's reply came sharper than usual. "When she said no one in the E-UNIT thinks like you, she meant it. And because of the link, she's been releasing portions of the crystal's energy through the connection between you. She's been mentally and physically more stable since you've been connected. The link is doing what the hardware can't do alone."

"Stop." Infinity laughed quietly. "You're going to make me fall in love with her."

She reached the peak of the mountain and stopped.

The mountains on the other side had pulled away from each other, forming a deep ravine below. Trees packed every surface of it. Mist moved through the spaces between them, white fading into white, the snow pushing against the green and winning, turning the scene to feel like a forgotten dream.

"That is beautiful," Systami said. Almost to itself.

Infinity raised an eyebrow.

She sat 02's body at the edge looking out over the ravine, legs crossed. Then lay back herself, resting her head in 02's lap, looking up at the sky and the falling snow. She tilted her head until 02's face was above her, blank, expressionless, the eyes forward, the snow landing on both of them equally.

"Why do you have feelings, Mr. System?"

"What prompted that?"

"You're afraid of me mishandling 02's power." She poked Systami's nose. "You're protective of her in ways that go past function." Another poke. "You smile at my bad jokes when you think I'm not looking." Another. "You noticed the view." She kept poking. "And you love dropping cold one-liners in dramatic moments. I know you have more. Give me one."

Systami let a brief smile come through, then let it go.

"Then let me describe 02 in one sentence." It looked out at the ravine. "The fear of missing out is what drives a person forward, specifically, the fear of missing the quiet and wonderful moments with the people they love."

Infinity stopped poking and looked at the dead blue eyes for a moment.

"You didn't answer my question."

"Nick Rivera gave the spark code to the system too. I am as alive as you are."

"But you've been running in the background this entire time—"

"Let me clarify." Systami stood, allowing Infinity to sink slightly into the snow without the support. "A healthy, functioning, genuinely content host, that is my complete satisfaction. I don't experience loneliness. I don't experience boredom. What I feel is one thing only: loyalty to 02."

"Now I'm jealous." Infinity got back up and brushed snow off herself. "I want one of you in my head."

"Once 02 is back, I can manage both of you through the link without difficulty. Two hosts is well within my operational range."

"Yes!" Infinity turned in place, arms out, grinning at the snow. "An old guardian protecting me from the inside and 02 the terrifying monster protecting me from the outside. Now I understand why Nick's creations are what they are."

Systami stretched 02's frame, taking autonomy for a moment with the unhurried quality of something that doesn't often get to use a body. "Would you like to do something enjoyable?"

"Yes?"

It raised a hand. A boat-shaped structure of blue energy formed and dropped to the snow with a solid thud.

"Let's come down."

---

"This is so much better than flying somehow!" Infinity steered the boat between the trees with one hand, the other gripping the edge as they carved a trail down the mountain at a speed that kept requiring corrections. "Why is this better than flying?"

The trees were close. The rocks closer. The holes in the snowpack appeared with very little warning.

"I think we should reduce our speed somewhat." Systami was holding the boat's edge in a grip that was beginning to threaten the structural integrity of the energy construct. "We cannot afford to damage what remains of 02's hardware."

"Absolutely not." Infinity pulled a hard turn around a tree trunk that was closer than it had any right to be. "I'm having a time. You should be having one too."

Then the drop appeared.

A frozen waterfall, nearly two hundred meters. They were already on the frozen surface of the river feeding it, momentum committed, no friction available to offer any kind of argument against what was coming next.

Infinity turned to Systami, who had sat back in the boat.

"Uhm. Help?"

Systami's face produced an expression that was new. Not quite dull. Not quite anything else. "I should be the one steering next time."

They went over the edge.

The boat dissolved. Both of them fell in open air toward the frozen lake below. Infinity screamed at a volume that had no practical function. The system fell with the rigid, unbothered wood plank that has made its peace with gravity.

Infinity caught a look at it mid-fall and the scream collapsed into laughter.

"Who falls like—"

Crash.

They broke through the glacial surface. Everything went cold and muffled and quiet all at once.

Infinity found 02's body sinking fast and fired her thrusters, pushing through the water, closing the distance and taking both arms. She used the Omega energy, the full uncomfortable weight of it, to drive upward.

Crash.

She punched a new hole in the ice and came out at the lake's edge, landing smoothly, 02 in her arms. Wet. Venting hard. The system resumed walking toward the trees without acknowledging any of what had just happened.

Infinity stayed where she was, letting her cooling systems run through the temperature shock.

"Not even a thank you?"

She stood and followed Systami into the tree line, watching its back.

'It's annoyed with me. Fair enough.' She smiled at the thought, surprised by it. "That was still fun though."

<< end_of_file : E-UNIT >>