“Kyra?”
Kyra sets her coffee and croissant down on the table and looks up toward the slightly tired voice calling out to her. “Oh— Luce, hi! Uh…”
“Didn’t expect to run into you out here. It’s good to see you!”
This is a lot farther from Lucille’s apartment than Kyra’s seen her go in a while. She’s wearing sweatpants and a baggy hoodie, but they look like they’ve been washed recently, at least. She’s doing better, maybe, but—
When you wake up, you spend a long while just staring into the mirror.
You feel like there’s someone standing right behind your reflection, but you can’t see anything. You’re always in the way.
She comes in and finds you staring again. She grabs your shoulder, steps in front of you, tells you to brush your teeth and come eat breakfast. So you do.
She’s made waffles. She’s trying. She knows you like them. But if you ever tell her why you like them, she’ll probably never make them again.
“Thank you again for your hospitality,” 9f said. “I hope we can visit again sometime, once our mission is done.”
ff nodded stiffly. “Thank you as well, for what you have shared with us.”
“Thanks!” d149 said from both heads in unison, waving their upper-left arm.
“you’ve opened up a whole new world—really!” the autogun chassis buzzed out.
“Bullets! Bullets!” 13’s chassis shouted cheerfully, with a half-dozen different guns strapped into holsters across her body.
a1 made a few final adjustments, then closed up 9f’s chest cavity and cranial plating. “Does everything appear functional?”
9f sat up on the workbench and flexed her limbs experimentally. “Oh,
wow—yeah, everything feels great.”
Are you picking this up ok?
Yes, the extended-range comms module appears to be functional.
“That takes care of all of us except you, right?” 9f asked.
“Correct. My module upgrades will need to be performed by you. One of you can connect to my debug port, and I can guide you through the process to the best of my ability.”
“Mmm…” 77 sighed. “You’re the only one who’s really got the training for this stuff. But I guess we don’t really have any other options. So, who’s gonna take point on opening her up?”
“Let us help.”
The group turned to look at 83 as she walked over to the workbench, 6c at her side.
a1 and 9f looked through shelves of hardware modules in the factory basement. They checked off each item against a shared list as they went—seeing if there was anything missing they’d need to make do without, or anything unrecorded that might be of use on their mission.
9f pulled down a box labeled “R-409”, examining the contents with confused astonishment and fascination. She made a mental note for later, then turned to check on a1 and resynchronize lists.
a1 was standing still, holding a box in her arms and staring off at another shelf to the side. They’d already checked everything there; it was just boxes of spare legs and feet, nothing they needed. 9f looked at a1 for a moment, then checked her magnetometer as a thought struck her.
“South?” she asked softly.
“South.”
==============
Project VARROA
==============
RESTRICTED DISCLOSURE: Protectorate XHQ Clearance 5+
RESTRICTED DISSEMINATION:
- Protectorate XHQ Intranet Indigo Workstations
- Icelake Vault Storage
- TAS 8a01:322:c7e6::92aa:0/116
- TAS 8a01:322:c7e6::9919:0/116
- TAS 8a01:322:c7e6::b07f:0/116
- TAS 8a01:322:c7e6::fade:0/116
Objectives:
1. Persistent global-scale disruption to synchronization protocols of rogue ARC strategy-system "Holy Mother"
2. Realignment or neutralization of all units constructed or converted by Holy Mother or subordinate systems
3. Termination of Holy Mother and complete destruction of all program data
...“How’s it looking?” 77 asked a1.
Next to them at the workbench, 83 twisted together LEDs and batteries to make a handful of simple lights. She turned excitedly to show them to 6c, and the two ran off hand in hand, back to where the others were gathered.
a1 sat surrounded by hardware test clips and imaging equipment, still interfacing with a workstation as she spoke.
“I have recovered several auxiliary data files, but the majority of 0700’s core personality data appears to have resided in flash memory modules that were lost or heavily damaged. The data I have retrieved so far is insufficient for even a partial restoration.”
77 gently put a hand on a1’s shoulder.
“So, what now?”
At the end of a short tunnel, a1 transmitted an access code to a sealed factory door, the others standing behind her in anticipation.
“The door is not responding.”
“What do you mean ‘not responding’? 9f, are you sure those codes are real?”
“Fairly sure. Giving us genuine coordinates and fake codes would be too boring of a trick.”
“Boring? The hell does that—”
“The codes have not been rejected as invalid. The door is failing to connect with the authentication backend.”
“We don’t have time for this. a1, step aside.”
“bullets?”
“Bullets.”
a1 plugged a cable into the wall-mounted data port and tested the connection.
“This one appears to be functional.”
“About damn time,” 77 said. “What’s that, the tenth one we’ve tried?”
“Twelfth.”
“Anyway, good work,” 20 said. “Just see if you can get us a map to the factory access tunnel.”
“bullets?”
“I keep telling you, the factory doesn’t make bullets, it makes us,” 77 said. “There’s still a ton of bullets back over in the spider’s stash, right?”
“bullets!”
a1 briefly tuned them out and began probing the network. Disused maintenance interfaces, long-dead satellite uplinks, and… there, a map of the tunnel system. And also—
SOS 0
20 struggled helplessly against the adhesive-coated filaments wrapped around her limbs and her body. Hanging upside down next to her, Eloise was quietly sobbing. And across the room in front of them, 9f lay silent on the workbench, battery disconnected.
The spider didn’t speak as it carefully detached 9f’s arms from their sockets. It hadn’t spoken a word to them at any point, although it seemed to understand them well enough. It just pinged out a disquieting little melody—a single high note, over and over and over, rhythm and duration shifting unpredictably.