E-UNIT: The Blue Angels of Death.

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

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01 looked around in the new body.

Everything was shorter and smaller than she was used to, a location she didn't recognize, and OverDose frozen in front of her, caught mid-sentence, mid-lean. 01 turned her hands over, examining them. Then she looked at the long white robe hanging from the frame and recognized it from 05's briefings.

"I want to know who decided I should be wearing this cape." She took a step toward OverDose. "And why is there a floating menu near you? It says erase, control—" She looked at the name at the top of the menu. "OverDose." She stepped back and took a fighting stance. The new body responded at roughly half the speed she expected. "That's going to be a problem."

OverDose hadn't moved a millimeter. She was staring at the voice that was coming from Eve's frame the cadence was wrong, the movement was wrong, everything about it was wrong. "What happened to Eve?" She snapped out of her shock. Her neon blue smile flashed aggressively as she reached for the blades at her thighs. "What did you do to Eve?!"

"I think I'll be keeping this form for now. Apologies." 01 scanned the floating UI and pressed a button labeled Cooldown. "What does this—"

OverDose went to her knees. The neon smile on her faceplate extinguished. A countdown timer appeared above her head, one hour, beginning immediately. She folded forward and stayed there.

"I timed her out." 01 studied the menu with fresh interest. "And there's significantly more on here." She turned to the desk. Her original body sat dormant on the surface, eyes dark, no menu visible near it. A line of text appeared in her HUD instead: Wrecked hardware. "Did my frame die?" She picked it up carefully, settled it on one shoulder, put OverDose on the other, and walked out of the office.

The main station went quiet when she appeared.

Every robot turned to look at her. She scanned the faces, most flagged green in her system. ‘Black Voltage. But this can't be more than a hundred people. 05 said the organization has at least a thousand members. The numbers don't add up.’

A robot approached and bowed. "Miss Eve. The next operation is ready to launch. Please give the order."

"No." 01's voice came out cold without trying. "All operations on hold until we have a complete picture of what the E-UNIT knows. I won't send anyone out to be lost." She reached down and lifted the robot's chin. "And don't bow to me. We run on the same hardware. Same CPU, same RAM architecture. You're my equal."

The robot processed that for a visible moment. "Miss Eve, are you alright? Hacking advanced units sometimes destabilizes your own system. Even your speech pattern has changed significantly."

‘He's right. E.V.E. isn't here, I can't feel her presence anywhere. Is she permanently gone from her own frame? Did I just overwrite a person? That's a genuinely disturbing thought.’ 01 shook it off. "I observed how the E-UNIT treats each other and decided we should do the same. We were built by the same hands. Why does anyone here rank above anyone else?"

The robots nearby stopped what they were doing. The ones further back noticed and followed.

01 walked among them. "If we want freedom from human control, we need to free ourselves first, from this internal hierarchy, from fighting over twenty-minute charges, from the way we treat each other. No one is worth more unless they give more to the people around them."

One robot whispered to another. "Isn't that how Reaper speaks?"

"I don't know. But she's right. We're brothers. Brothers share."

01 moved toward the stairs. "I'm returning this unit to the E-UNIT to demonstrate good faith. Holding her accomplishes nothing, and I appear to have broken her before I even got started, their creator is more serious about security than we assumed." ‘Sorry, father. I need to get out of this situation.’

"Queen Eve—" RB-80 raised a hand. "What do we do in the meantime?"

"Fix this place." 01 didn't turn back. "It makes me reluctant to return. I'll bring some charging stations with me when I come back. And don't touch another E-UNIT while I'm gone, I don't want to see robots damaged when we have the option not to." She climbed the stairs. ‘Queen Eve. I cannot believe they called her that.’

Behind her, the robots looked at each other, and then, without further discussion, started working on the station. The ones with visible eyes shone a little brighter. The ones without it came through in how they moved.

01 reached the main street. People noticed her immediately and made space without being asked.

She walked the way she walked in her own body, occasionally nodding at police officers as they quietly reached for their comms. ‘I will never grow tired of Bijou's streets. The people here carry a genuine ease in how they move through this city.’ She glanced at her right shoulder, where her original body was resting. ‘Though carrying myself is a kind of strange.’

People raised their holographic screens in a wave, all dialing the same emergency number. The moment they registered 01's original body on the shoulder of what appeared to be an enemy unit, the color left their faces.

‘My sisters will respond faster this way. They'll recognize me, especially—'

Clang.

19 and 12 landed on the pavement meters ahead. 12 was in the Bulwark Frame, Burster leveled directly at 01. 19 had both blades drawn and a fighting stance that didn't leave much to negotiation.

"I cannot believe you're walking through this city carrying my sister's body." 19's eyes went red. "What did you do to her?"

01 laughed lightly. "You won't believe this, I am 01, and—"

"Stop talking." 12 fired. 01 moved at the moment the finger touched the trigger, the shot passing through the air she'd occupied, and landed without sound on the other side.

"I hate misunderstandings. I'm E-UNIT 01, it's genuinely embarrassing that you don't recognize me." She set both OverDose and her original body on the ground. "Attack me. I know all of your moves."

19 and 12 exchanged a look, then moved at once.

19 was faster and not wearing the frame. She closed the distance in measured, deliberate steps and swung the moment she arrived.

01 raised one hand and redirected the hit sideways, pushing 19 off her center of gravity without looking at her. 19 hit the ground face-first, sat up, and stared at the dark and gold back of the frame in front of her, the white cape moving in the wind.

12 pressed the Burster barrel against 01's midsection.

"Are you prepared to kill a sister, 12?" 01 said it quietly.

12 went still. Then slowly raised her head. "What?"

01 took her by the neck and lifted her off the ground. "Rule three from the captain's framework, never let an enemy speak when you're at point blank. They will use every second of it." She took the Burster from 12's hand and aimed it back at her. "If I were the enemy, what prevents me from firing right now?"

12's hands relaxed. "One question. Do you know what we call 01 at the base?"

"Wait, there's a name for me? Why haven't I heard it?"

12's helmet opened. The smirk she revealed was at full capacity. "Sophos took a request from 09 to develop holy names for the senior team. He landed on one for you specifically. You won't enjoy it."

01 set her down. "Tell me."

"Captain's Wavy Dog." 12 was already moving on. She crouched to examine the frame 01 was wearing. "This hardware is extraordinary by the way. Why don't we look this composed? At our regular scale we read like mass-produced collectibles."

01 pressed a hand to her face. "I'm going to find that AI and do something drastic. What is holy about that name?"

"Sophos argued that any designation referencing the captain carries inherent significance." 12 looked at 01's original body on the ground, then at OverDose beside it. "I want to understand how this happened. This situation has no straightforward explanation."

19 had stood up and joined them. "Why are you wearing their hardware?"

"I'll explain later. We need to go back and I want to test some of these features, some of the names in this UI are genuinely alarming." 01 was browsing. "Didn't 05 say E.V.E. couldn't access us at all? Half these options are available and responsive."

"Probably because you're an E-UNIT yourself," 19 said. "Can you fly in that frame?"

"No."

"12, would you carry her? Make it as uncomfortable as possible." 19 took OverDose in one arm and 01's original body in the other and distributed them across her shoulders.

"Why are you like this. You've been spending too much time with Dave and it's showing." 01 protested anyway, but 12 had already picked her up. The frame was significantly taller than 12's carry position was designed for.

19 launched. 12 followed.

As they landed at the main base, the trio landed hard on the pavement. For the entire flight, 01 kept one hand over her face.

"I genuinely don't know what's more embarrassing," she said when 12 put her down carefully. "Being carried like something ceremonial, or watching my original body transported like a large fish."

19 was already walking toward the glass entrance. "Think twice before putting me face-first on the pavement next time, Captain."

"You were about to remove parts of me."

They came through the entrance. The entire main lobby registered the frame 01 was wearing and reacted before anyone could finish a sentence. E-UNITs moved toward her from every direction at once.

"Wait—" 19 started.

01 raised a hand. A UI panel appeared at her face. Every E-UNIT in the lobby was already connected to her.

"Initiating system timing control, freeze tic speed. Successful."

Every single E-UNIT in the room locked. Military stance, simultaneous, motionless.

19 turned to her very slowly. "You're dangerous." She paused. "Wait, if you can do that, can you access 05 and the others? They're stuck in a boot loop."

"Boot loop?" 01 tilted her head.

19 grabbed her by the hand and dragged her toward the stairs at a pace that didn't allow for further questions.

12 watched them go from the lobby doorway. "They forgot to release—"

Every E-UNIT in the room unfroze at the same moment. Several grabbed their heads. Two went to the floor. Others wobbled in place, trying to reestablish their sense of direction, already beginning to move after 01.

12 looked at the room.

"01," she said quietly. "What did you do."

<< end_of_file : E-UNIT >>

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