8.23 – The Wrong Side of History

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

// data corrupted — recompiling //

The military plane was louder than anyone had anticipated, but it did what it was built for and reached the Kasparian-Remidican border after a day and a night. Crossing the country was not a simple undertaking for anything, Kasparia ran twice the size of Elysium and three and a half times the size of Veridian Coast. Covering that distance in an old, slow aircraft was not optimal. It was the available option.

Infinity stayed pressed against the window for most of the flight, eyes running across the landscape without stopping. Kasparia offered significant variety in its terrain, a product of its size, and now, approaching the east, the mountains the country had once owned filled the horizon. She hadn't looked away from them since they'd appeared.

02 sat beside Raphael, both of them deep in the Omega link documentation, the names of individual features keeping them occupied and occasionally drawing Infinity away from the window to serve as a test subject.

"Infinity." Raphael kept his eyes on the screen. "Can you come here for a second?"

"That's the third time this hour." Infinity dragged herself over, feet sliding against the metal floor with the friction of someone who has made a decision about how much effort this deserves. "The last time the captain used my CPU as overflow storage, I had processing headaches for an hour after she left. I'm not built to run the Omega architecture even when the body is this close a match."

02 looked at the screen. "That's part of why I couldn't rebuild my own frame from scratch. I tried to give Delta my schematics so she could print replacement parts one at a time, she kept overloading and shutting down mid-print."

Infinity exhaled through her vents. "We need to take better care of you. And since when can Delta print things? 11 had the purple crystal for months and never mentioned that capability."

"She only discovered it recently herself." 02 closed the screen. "Enough, I'm going stale in here. And Reaper stopped calling after two attempts. I'd like to know what he's working toward."

Infinity drifted back to the window. "The terrain out there has changed completely in the last hour. I can't believe one country holds this much climate range."

02 caught Raphael's eye and tilted her head toward the window. He caught it immediately.

"Infinity." He kept his voice casual. "How's the weather looking?"

"Very cold." Infinity kept her eyes on the view, slipping automatically into a reporting register. "Approximately twenty degrees at lower elevations, fifteen to eighteen at altitude. Sky is dense cloud cover, high probability of rain with snow possible at higher points."

02 asked after him, holding her expression flat. "Visibility?"

"Poor. Fifty meters of clear sightline at best. The temperature drop has produced a thick mist layer at ground level, walking in it is genuinely hazardous. We should be ready for extreme conditions on landing."

Raphael pressed further, barely keeping his voice steady. "And the wind?"

"I'm not sure why you need wind data." She stayed fixed on the landscape, perfectly composed. "Forty kilometers per hour moving west. The weather system will track toward the warmer—" She turned to look at them. "—side of the country—"

Raphael lost the fight with his composure completely.

"The news channels are sending requests." 02 held her face in both hands. "My HUD is full of them."

Infinity's expression settled into something flat. "I cannot believe I voluntarily maintain this link. Extended exposure is affecting me, I'm developing your exact brand of humor and I refuse to accept it." She slapped her own cheek lightly. "The situation is deteriorating while you two—"

Static.

It came through the internal comms without warning, a man's voice underneath it, barely words, the static winning most of the argument. Both 02 and Infinity dropped to the floor, hands going to their audio sensors.

"Make it stop!" Infinity pressed herself against the floor.

02 turned toward the audio unit and aimed her hand at it. "Stop it or I will remove it from the wall!"

Raphael ran for the cockpit, broke the door open, and pulled the microphone from the pilot's grip. A brief argument followed. The static died.

02 and Infinity settled onto the floor, heads against each other, recovering.

"That had the same frequency quality as the sonic weapon," 02 said, vents running. "Though the sonic weapon wasn't effective against the Omega frame. How does old radio static put me on the floor?"

"Wider bandwidth." Infinity still had her hands over her audio sensors. "The sonic weapon targets the audio sensors in isolation. This one affects the whole system simultaneously. You know how humans describe old game footage with grain filters, how the camera feed blurs and loses coherence? Same principle. System-wide interference rather than a targeted attack."

"I don't use the internet that way."

"Obviously."

Raphael returned from the cockpit, shaking his head. "I cannot believe the audio equipment on this plane predates everyone on it. This country is truly in trouble." He helped them both up. "I have bad news."

Infinity tapped the side of her head, clearing residual static. "Any announcement delivered through that kind of interference is never good news."

"The mist." Raphael's expression confirmed everything. "It's too thick to locate the landing strip. We can't determine our exact position from this altitude with the equipment we have. But—" He looked at 02. "If you drop now, you'll land directly above the hangar. It's the only structure in the area."

02 went quiet for a moment. "So you can't come with us." She looked at him. "I really wanted you to come the whole way, Raphael."

"Not possible." He smiled despite it. "But this was worth it. Talking to you reminded me of everything I missed from the old days at the E-Police."

“Then come back to it. Come to Veridian Coast.”

“Sorry?”

02 extended her arms slightly. "We need engineers who understand E-UNIT hardware from the inside. You don't require training, you're someone I trust, and you bring back something I've been missing since Altea. Go to your base, resign, take a flight to Veridian Coast. I'll let the team know you're coming."

Raphael took two steps forward. Then wrapped both arms around her. She went still for a moment, processing, and then returned it.

"Thank you, Captain." He pulled back and tapped Infinity on the head. "I'm built for this work. Not for standing at a checkpoint counting flowers."

Infinity smiled. "After that last line, you're far too dramatic for the military. Welcome to the E-UNIT, soldier." She brought up a salute. 02 followed.

He saluted back, holding it for a moment. "Thank you. Both of you." He moved to the side door and gripped the handle. "You need to drop in the next few seconds or you'll miss the position. You won't miss the hangar once you're below the mist, the whole area is flat rock, nothing else."

02 looked at Infinity. "I can't fly at this altitude in this frame."

Infinity turned and presented her back, rolling her eyes upward. "What would you do without me, Captain." She patted her own shoulders.

02 crossed to her and wrapped her arms around slowly, her voice dropping to just above a whisper. "Don't think too much about this, Infinity."

"Stop narrating and get on."

Raphael hauled the door open. The wind came through immediately and pushed everything backward. He grabbed a handle with one hand and held his position, shouting against the sound. "Take care of yourselves! I'll see you at Veridian Coast!"

"See you there, soldier!" 02 turned back to Infinity. "Don't fire the thrusters yet, wait for my signal. I'm too heavy for this altitude without the crystal output to offset it."

Infinity saluted one more time toward Raphael. Then jumped.

---

They fell from the plane into white.

The mist was total below them, the world had been replaced with vapor, no ground, no horizon, just the wind registering their descent by pressing against their microphones at speed.

02 shouted into the nothing. "I missed this! Walking on the ground is not for me."

Infinity shouted back. "Same! We're aerodynamic for a reason!"

"What a nerd you are!"

A brief silence. Then Infinity's voice came back through the wind. "Captain. Do you actually hate me? Am I just a contingency for you?"

"Where is that coming from?"

"I'm not the only good liar here!" The wind pushed at her voice but didn't stop it. "When I'm dormant I'm still running in the background, I hear and process everything. That's why I understand what Systami went through. That's how I feel for him!"

"So what!"

"I heard what you told the base captain!"

"And?!"

"What do you mean and! You said I wasn't a real sister and that you were keeping me as an emergency option! Am I a spare body to you?! Does the idea of deleting me not move you at all?!"

"You were!"

"What!"

"You were a spare body for me!"

"Explain the past tense or it means nothing!"

02 smiled. "That was before I spent real time with you! I had opportunities to cut you loose any number of times, I kept you with me regardless! If I truly didn't trust you, I would never have released you when you were near 03 and Gamma on our first mission together!"

"03 is like a dog you want to protect! And the captain called you a good liar!"

"03 is somewhat like a dog!" 02 laughed. "And what did I say back to him about that?!"

"That you know when to tell the truth!"

"Exactly!"

"So you refused to say out loud that you care about me!"

02 tapped her head from above. "Do you think I would come to you and announce it directly? That would come out strange and you know it!"

"Fair!" Infinity smiled up at the mist. "So I'm not a spare tire?!"

"You are the worst possible spare tire in existence, why would I keep you specifically?! You complain constantly, you use the link in ways it wasn't designed for, you go pale every time I get slightly serious, and you have somehow decided my humor is the problem when objectively it isn't!"

"That last point is completely justified!" Infinity looked up. "How are you holding up there?!"

"Thrusters!"

"What?!"

"We're approaching the ground, thrusters now!"

"Right!" Infinity flipped in the air and fired, the blue output pushing hard against the fall and not quite winning. "You're too heavy for my output!"

"Hold your position!" 02 tightened her hold, and the crystal energy transferred from her frame into Infinity's, the blue glow around Infinity expanding outward, visible from a distance. "Try now!"

"The power—" Infinity fired again. The blue flame extended three meters downward and the descent slowed, then stopped. The mist parted below them, the rocky ground appearing in pieces through the white. They dropped the remaining distance together and both sets of feet found the rock at the same moment. 02 disconnected, recalibrated her balance.

Infinity sat down on the rock in a controlled motion. She looked at her own hand, the glow fading back to normal. "That energy." She turned. "Can we stay and—"

"No."

"Of course." She stood and swept her sensors across the area. "I'm reading the hangar structure somewhere near here, but the mist will make finding it slow." She looked around. 02 had already disappeared into the white. "Captain?"

Something grabbed her from above. She went up, and then found herself sitting on 02's shoulders.

"Returning the favor." 02 walked forward into the mist. "I can locate it from here. Don't worry."

Infinity rested her elbows on the blue hair below her and looked down at it. "I can say I'm higher than you in at least one thing now."

"Yes. Your capacity to be entertained by very small things." 02 stopped walking.

She stood still for a moment. Then stepped forward. A giant green door resolved out of the white, thick iron, industrial, slightly ajar, neon light leaking out from the gap at the bottom.

"Oh no."

02 grabbed the door and pulled. It came off its housing entirely and landed somewhere in the mist with a heavy metallic complaint. She ran inside.

Concrete floor. Concrete walls. Lights running across the ceiling.

Nothing else.

She stopped in the center of the space. Drag marks covered the floor in long parallel lines leading nowhere in particular. The marks of things that had been here and been moved. Infinity dropped from her shoulders and came around to face her.

"Captain, maybe we came in from the wrong—"

"This is the only structure within a one-kilometer radius." 02's voice was cold and flat and not quite hers. "I ran a full scan during the descent. This is the right hangar."

Infinity lowered her head. "We did all of this for nothing?"

02 went to her knees in the center of the floor. She pressed her hand flat against the concrete and moved it slowly, feeling the surface. "For nothing." Her head came down. "I'm tired. I need to stop for a moment." She lowered herself fully to the floor, frame flat against the concrete, her blue light dimming fractionally. "Why does everything cost this much."

The hangar remained silent.

A voice came from the doorway. Deep, unhurried, arriving from somewhere that had practiced coldness long enough to make it a natural state.

A figure stood in the opening, close to two meters of dark, polished armor, cape moving in the wind coming through behind him. One eye red. The other green.

"Perhaps because you are standing on the wrong side of history."

"Infinity." 02 said, without moving. "Who is that. I can't be bothered to look up right now."

Infinity didn't answer. Her face was originally pale, but became even paler, pure white. Her eyes fixed on the doorway, shaking to her roots. Her mouth open and producing nothing.

02 pushed herself upward. She paused partway.

Reaper walked forward into the hangar in slow, heavy steps. Beside him, 11 in the SKOTIA suit, her steps much smaller but keeping his pace.

The moment her red visor locked onto 02's blue optics, her frame went completely rigid, her system warning lights flashing a brief, chaotic red. Her fingers twitched toward her blades, her code screaming at her to flee, but she forced herself to stand beside her King.

He stopped above 02 and looked down at her.

"You're missing something, sister."

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- REAPER -