E-UNIT: The Blue Angels of Death.

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

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Dark, calm, and unsettling. The old metro tunnels held their silence despite carrying more than forty robots at the same time. Blue rock composites covered the half-circular walls from floor to ceiling, and gravel spread across the ground along the rails. The light was dim enough that visibility ended at close range, the fixtures barely functioning, hanging on more through neglect than design.

Plants had taken root along the walls where water dripped from the old supply pipes running through the city above. The electrical cables threading the tunnel had been spliced and re-routed so many times they barely qualified as cables anymore. Robots lined the walls beside them, waiting their turn to draw whatever charge the system could spare.

Two sets of footsteps broke the tunnel's silence, one of them trailing a bright blue glow, the other giving off a faint gold. The permanent neon smile on OverDose's face caught the light and shone ahead of her. Beside her, E.V.E. moved without expression. They arrived together at the abandoned metro station.

"I was hoping we could take at least one of those new models." OverDose navigated the uneven ground in careful steps, 01's deactivated body over her right shoulder. "The… J-Bots or whatever they call them. I need to understand why my access menu was greyed out, and why you couldn't get into them either."

"The units designated G-Bots were unlike any architecture I have encountered." E.V.E. kept her tone flat. "Their construction draws on organic energy sources in crystal form, which my memory holds no classification for. Standard hacking protocols produced no result. That leaves you, OverDose, as our only current method against them."

"And how did that purple one knock you clean across the room with one hit?" OverDose mimicked the motion with her free hand. "She was like a walking wall, just clank, and then clang with those sharp fists. And the yellow one went whoosh and appeared right in front of my face before I even registered movement. The speed alone sent me through the window."

"Delta and Gamma," E.V.E. said. "During the initial access attempt, I retrieved partial metadata on both. They are not standard robot constructs." She paused. "I also found a file referencing the unit designated 02. Classified as one hundred times stronger than a standard G-Bot."

OverDose made a sound like choking on air she didn't have. "One hundred? We barely made it out of their building. And isn't the strongest one supposed to be some B-UNIT number, 48 or something? How does she measure against this 02?"

“Studying E-UNIT 01 is our next objective in order to down E-UNIT 43. She is the greatest threat we will have to face at this moment, measuring it with the leaks found on the internet.”

They reached the platform and stepped up. Black Voltage members stood in a line beside the station's single functioning charging point. One robot near the end was barely staying upright. OverDose went to him, pressed her head against his, and held it there for a moment.

"Thank you," he managed, voice thin. "I owe you one."

"Add it to the 142."

"You mean the fourth."

"I'm not good with specific numbers." She turned and followed Eve, who had already moved into the main station.

They passed through the work areas without stopping. Several units were assembling concealed explosive devices, shaped into plants, books, backpacks, imitation animals. Others were reloading weapons and preparing for the next deployment. A few were working on what appeared to be an early-stage attempt to reverse-engineer the Burster technology the E-UNIT carried. The attempt was not going well.

The director's office at the far end was dark, mostly, but clean, and well maintained enough for technical work. Old posters from 2030 advertising metro schedules that had never been honored. Forgotten books arranged for decoration. Robot components along one wall, SSDs and CPUs in labeled plastic bags waiting to be used.

The desk had been converted into a working surface. E.V.E. used it to repair damaged units and rebuild bodies when Black Voltage members needed revival.

OverDose set 01 on the desk and stood looking at her.

"The build quality is extraordinary." She ran a finger along the frame. "Dense alloy, that's why they can absorb hits and protect the internals the way they do." She touched the sensor units embedded in 01's face. "I've never seen sensors shaped like this before."

E.V.E. stood across from 01. "OverDose. Activate the subject and hold her in a frozen state."

"On it." OverDose pulled a floating menu from the air near 01's face. She pressed two inputs simultaneously, Switch On and Freeze Hardware. 01's eyes came back to bright blue. She sat upright on the desk and did not move. A system voice arrived.

"E-UNIT 01, online."

"She's ready." OverDose opened a monitoring screen. "Fair warning, her code is dense in a way I haven't seen before. Getting into the terminal correctly is going to be a problem."

Eve's eyes shifted to green as she attempted connection. "Connection established. Handshake initiated—" A pause. "Handshake successful." She stepped back. "Confirming architecture density. Correct. Allocating emergency RAM for a more direct approach."

01's eyes began to cycle, white for half a second, then red as every access attempt was rejected. The red came on each time E.V.E. pushed a connection, announcing the failure before E.V.E. had finished the method.

E.V.E. went to one knee but didn't stop.

"Brute force: failed. Soft connection: failed. Backdoor method: failed. Phishing approach: failed." Her vents were running loud, cooling systems working against the load. "Ricochet force: failed. System installation: failed. Quantum hacking: failed."

OverDose snapped her fingers. 01 went dark.

"That's enough, sis. I'm not watching you burn your CPU over her." She stood in front of Eve. "You tried everything that exists. Their creator was a security obsessive of some kind."

E.V.E. rose and looked at 01's still face. Something had shifted in her tone, only slightly, but present. "I will not stop. I have not stopped before and I will not now."

The flat register returned. "The Spark system's firewall isn't operating on conventional security architecture. It identifies my intrusion, connects back through my own system, and floods it with false processing tasks. It is using my own available capacity against me." She turned. "I need more RAM to outpace the counter-response. Help me install it."

OverDose's neon smile was permanent but her voice made it real for a moment. "Alright. I've never seen you this focused." She crossed to the component wall, took three RAM modules from the storage bags, and fitted them into the ports in Eve's back in three sharp metallic clicks. "That's 96 gigabytes of additional headroom. Don't burn them, Elysium's supply chain for our equipment is not generous." She stepped back. "Get her. sis."

01 turned on again, frozen in position.

E.V.E. opened her arms wide. A blue circle appeared in the space between her and 01, the logo of Eve's manufacturer, Human Assist Corp, rotating at its center. A loading arc began advancing rapidly around the ring's edge.

01's eyes went fully white. Blue crept in from the outer edge in a slow loading bar, and then,

Clang.

She dropped flat to the desk, eyes completely dark. A faint smell of burning came from the internals. Eve's antennas began to vibrate. The shaking moved through her entire frame.

OverDose moved around her in tight circles, inspecting without touching. ‘This has never happened before. She can delete their systems easily enough, but controlling or modifying them is another level entirely. What did their creator build into them?’

Eve's arms came down.

Her eyes returned to blue. The synthetic crystal in her head shone more brightly than its usual output. She stood without moving for several minutes. OverDose kept moving around the room, her speed increasing with the stress of waiting, until E.V.E. finally began to look around, studying the walls, the desk, the ceiling, moving her gaze across the space methodically until it landed on OverDose.

OverDose closed the distance and took her hand, leaning forward. "Sis? Are you in there? Did it work?"

No response.

"Eve? Are you—"

A system voice came from her.

"E-UNIT 01, online."

OverDose froze in place, hand still holding Eve's, leaning forward, processor stalling.

Her voice fell below the level of sound.

"What."

<< end_of_file : E-UNIT >>

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[E.V.E]

DESIGNATION :: [MECHA TERRORIST]

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