E-UNIT: The Blue Angels of Death.

<< VOL.07_PHANTOMS-AND-PREDATORS.log >>

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The brown hospital stood tall and wide at the eastern edge of Theria. A metallic brown exterior with tall strips of reflective glass made it one of the few buildings in the capital with actual color, most of Elysium's architecture preferred glass over exposed concrete, chasing something closer to a utopian aesthetic than a brutalist one.

The cell ran through the heavy trees lining the capital's eastern border. Giant infrastructure projects were consuming the forest in pieces, energy walls sealed off construction zones marked with warning signs, concrete and steel rising into the dark night sky without concern for the hour. Robots worked regardless.

"I apologized," Infinity said, as the group moved toward the hospital. "Why are we cycling through the same argument? I said I didn't have enough trust in you yet. That's an honest answer."

They stopped near the glass entrance. 02 turned to Gamma. "Hold the perimeter near the windows. You're the crystal transport, the moment we hand them to you, run for the border at your ceiling speed. We'll generate enough noise inside to keep their attention on us."

Gamma saluted. Then her expression softened. "Thank you for making the G-Bot sisters part of the objective. I missed them."

"They were my sisters too." 02 glanced at Infinity's chest, where the grey crystal sat. "I spent more time with Pi after waking up than I did with father. She deserves to come back." She turned toward the glass doors. Esoptron silhouettes were visible through them. "03, I'll keep Infinity behind us. Sonic weapons only work on the shells, but I want you and I taking any discharge before it reaches her."

Infinity couldn’t step back, but her mind raced. ‘There is no way I was keeping her favorite one too, what kind of luck I am having right now?’

03 reached behind her and brought the tall metallic shield forward. "Let them try. I've been waiting to actually use this thing."

The cell walked toward the entrance. The silhouettes dispersed as the blue glow of the Omega symbol registered through the glass. The doors slid open. 02 entered first, 03 behind her, Infinity last, a second pair of eyes under the link.

"What do I need to do to prove I'm being honest?" Infinity said. The link was something she'd stopped fighting against. "I kept the crystal because I thought I might need it. That was the reason."

02 reached the nearest Esoptron copy and hit him with an uppercut before he got to the trigger.

Clank.

The copy went up to the ceiling head-first and stayed there, suspended in whatever hollow space lived above the thin paneling. 02's knuckles nearly went in with him.

"Stop talking." Her eyes had already moved to the next copy. "Nothing you say changes what you did. You kept my sister from me while performing closeness. 'I like the link now, it feels warm', and I believed it. That's on me for not reading it from further away."

03 swung her shield at a copy in a clean downward arc.

Crash.

The frame compressed and dissolved into orange particles. The shield's edge dug into the floor, 03 forced it out with one pull. "Can we please be reasonable about this? Let Infinity return to her father after the mission and move on. I don't want to hear the same conversation from both of you for another week."

Both of them ignored her completely.

"But I wasn't lying about the link," Infinity said, using her own voice, which 02 had left her for now. "I genuinely liked it. Being close to what you see, the way you process things, it changed something in how I think. I wasn't performing that."

02 launched down the next corridor toward a copy waiting behind the sliding door, running him back into the far wall at full speed.

Clang.

The copy flattened between her and the concrete, dissolved, and slid to the floor as orange light. 02 turned back to Infinity. "You think flattery lands on me now?" She pulled her closer by the link's control, forcing her face level with her own. "Nothing leaving that mouth reaches me anymore. I mean that."

Infinity was shorter but held her ground, not like she had much choice. "Then why haven't you silenced me? I've been inside this link long enough to know what those eyes are doing. You want me to say the right thing."

02 looked at her for a moment.

03, behind them, drove her hand through the hollow frame of another Esoptron, punched through the empty chest, and caught the sonic weapon as the copy tried to raise it toward her head. She hit his leg out from under him, pulled her hand free, and threw the shield.

Cling.

It passed through the copy lengthwise, bisecting it cleanly. Both halves dissolved before they reached the floor. The particles drifted toward the ceiling.

03 looked back at the two facing each other. "That is the strangest argument I've watched in my operational life. 02 is hoping for something real from someone she can directly control at will. What a spectacular mess."

02 pushed forward and took the next hallway. It forked, one sign read Backup Bay, the other Revival Rooms. 02 looked at Infinity.

Infinity let her expression go flat. "I apologize. I'm the liar who can't be trusted. You were very clear about that, Captain."

02 raised an eyebrow. "Where is 24?"

Infinity shifted into information-extraction mode, eyes level, tone robotic, everything personal vacated from the voice. "The shortest path to the subject designated 24 runs through the Backup Bay and exits through the door on the opposite wall. Happy to assist with anything else."

Then her eyes returned to dull, and Infinity came back. "You love that mode. And here you are presenting yourself as someone who values her sisters as individuals."

02 turned right toward the bay. "That mode doesn't hold my sisters from me while performing friendship. I value personality in people I trust." She moved. "I don't see you that way anymore."

Infinity lowered her head. 02 used her hand to push the bay door open without looking at her. "You say all of this after weeks of using me as a second pair of eyes. Removing my autonomy. And me accepting it because I liked your company."

02 stopped. She turned around, took Infinity’s hoodie off, and reached for the grey crystal.

"Okay, captain, not in a server room, I didn't realize things had progressed this—" 03 caught 02's expression and closed her mouth. "I'll turn around. I will report nothing. Doing it now." She turned.

02 reconnected Infinity's battery pack to her back, then disconnected the link in one clean motion. "You're free. You're not being kept here anymore. Go report the infiltration to your father, we have nothing to hide."

02 didn't wait for a response. She turned her back and walked into the Backup Bay, 03 trailing quietly behind her.

Infinity was left standing alone in the sterile white hallway. She looked down at her own hands, suddenly entirely her own again, and found how empty they felt.

The Backup Bay ran the length of the corridor alongside it, server racks in dense rows, all running continuously, updating the memory backups of Theria's entire robotic population in real time. The blue light from the hardware columns ran uniform and cold across the floor.

02 scanned the space as she walked. "Our revival system looks rough next to this. Albert needs to see this room." She looked around. "I can sense movement. They're hiding."

"Same." 03 dragged her shield along the floor behind her. "Guardians, maybe. Waiting for us to commit to a position."

02 went still.

[Infinity has connected to the Omega link. Welcome.]

02 looked around the racks. "Infinity. I freed you. Why are you still inside?"

03 tilted her head. "What happened?"

"She connected herself back."

"I can do that?!" 03 reached for her own HUD.

"Don't you dare." 02 turned on her sharply, then returned her attention to the room.

03 lowered her head and became very interested in the floor.

02 used the link to turn Infinity toward her. "I'm disconnecting you again. Leave—"

"No."

02 pressed her hands over her face. "What did I do. Why was connecting her to the link the first response I had back in Veridian Coast? I built a tail that now follows me back on its own." She crouched down, head still covered.

Infinity reached through the gap between 02's hands and rested her fingers gently in her hair. "You're more of a control problem than you're willing to admit. And you still need me to open 24's cell."

02 removed the hand. "You think I can't take a door apart?" She stood, disconnected the link again, and walked out of the server room.

03 remained standing beside Infinity. "Soooo… can you show me how you reconnected yourself?”

“Sure.” Infinity started explaining. “First reach the connection setting. Because 02 held me in the link for so long, my system cached the handshake. If you bypass your own firewall—” Her mouth stopped working mid-sentence. She looked at 03 with sharp gaze, then walked out without a word.

03 exhaled through her vents. "She silenced her. In real time."

The storage room was in the same corridor as the bay, a heavy, thick metallic door, sealed. 02 looked at Infinity. Infinity looked at the wall.

"Control me."

02 pressed her palm to her own face. "You're now the one demanding the leash at this point." She used the link to open the door anyway and walked through first.

She stopped at the doorway.

Her CPU ran for a full minute without producing output.

03 came in behind her, shield lowering to the floor with a dull thud. Then Infinity. They both went perfectly still in the same moment, for the exact same reason.

"24?" 02 said.

Her voice came out quiet and hollow, aimed at no one in particular.

<< end_of_file : E-UNIT >>

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