“Not bad, though I’m surprised you missed me, Harran,” Rieger answered as he settled at his desk.
“Someone’s got to, what with you gone for a whole week and work piling up around us.”
“Work piling up? What, did Parim take the week off too?”
That earned a hearty laugh from the human. Parim was nothing if not a strict supervisor, and the employees that worked under him at Tinaya Robotics knew that they were in much more than just hot water if they fell behind schedule.
“Hope the trip back home wasn’t too eventful, what with everything that happened.”
Hazarding a glance toward their supervisor’s office, Rieger kicked his chair backwards, the wheels barely making a sound as he rolled closer to Harran. “Could have been quieter, but what’s a Reploid to do when security gets as tight as it’s been?” He glanced over the human’s work, frowning. “New project?”
“Upgrades for the electrical system monitors in Beau Matin. Engineering’s working on better surge protections, though they’re fairly certain that it wasn’t electricity that knocked the units offline during the attack.”
“Anything on the boards for Manu Ausare?”
“Not until the City gives us details about what they need for the district, and even then, I doubt they’re going to dump more than a few jobs on us.”
“These have priority?”
“This was set up as my priority, though I doubt anyone’s going to bitch if you take up as my second. I was already considering asking Jora if he wanted in on this.” It was about then that the middle-aged brunet noticed the alterations to Rieger’s physical appearance, for the first time ever seeing the night-black hair in something other than a braid. “Aesthetic changes?” he asked once he noticed that the unit’s eyes were a rich yellow hue instead of the purple he’d come to know.
“Had been considering them for a while, though I didn’t expect it to catch so much attention when I got back. Ended up having to update my registry data once they finally let me out of the detention center.”
Harran nodded, remaining quiet for a long while as he and Rieger turned to their work.
“So…” Harran said some time later, glancing over at the datapad Rieger was working on before looking to the unit, “do you think it’ll be enough?”
“Only real way to check would be uploading the new coding and see—”
“I wasn’t talking about the work we’re doing. I mean…do you think what they’re doing will be enough to keep us safe from the second act of the Elf Wars?”
A tense, heavy silence fell at that question, and the quiet is almost oppressive before Rieger finally managed, “We have to hope it will be,” even though he knew that there was nothing that could be done to stop him.
“I don’t think adding the Muninn was a good step.”
“Why not?” and there was honest surprise in Rieger’s voice then.
“They’re…too creepy.”
“Creepy?”
Harran gestured to his head. “The fact that their headcase is a giant optical suite. I mean, I get the idea behind it being a sensor thing, but they’re…borderline alien.”
“I think that’s part of the whole ‘dronoid’ classification they’re falling under,” and even that line of reasoning sounded just the slightest bit hollow, as if a part of Rieger really did agree that there was something unsettling with the appearance of the Muninn security units.
“Still,” and Harran made a somewhat helpless gesture then, “for Commander Light to have fought as hard as he did for equal rights, as much as all Reploids have suffered to be seen as equals, this feel like a massive step backwards, even if it is in the name of national security.”
“Well, they’re not Reploids, if that helps any. From what Foxana’s made public about them,” which had been quite a bit in the wake of Primum’s public appearance, “they’re operating with about seventy to eighty percent of the emotional scope of Reploids and more of their processor’s being devoted to their input modules,” which meant they saw and heard more than a standard Reploid, though they were pretty much on par with the military units.
“I suppose,” and as if grasping for any point of conversation that would draw them away from the darker paths they’d somehow taken, Harran chirped out in an amused tone, “Brinnai is going to have a field day when she sees your hair.”
Rieger groaned and sagged in his seat. “Oh, Light, she’s going to want to play with it now that it’s not braided, isn’t she?”
The human let out a snort at his reaction. “Quick, braid it up so she won’t be tempted.”
Rieger shifted the pack resting on his shoulder, centering the weight a little more as he drew closer to the Eden Dome. It had been a few days since the assault on Beacon City, he knew, though he also knew he was going to have to play it off as if he had no idea.
It wasn’t unheard of for non-military units out in the wastes to disconnect from the Extranet.
He was all warm smiles as he approached the border station, waving to one of the officers on duty. “Vyderin!” he greeted.
Master Sergeant Jan Vyderin, a Jin’en officer who’d taken border service over field service after a nasty scrape in the wastes some years back, looked up at the sound of someone calling his name, waving back once he saw Rieger. Though they came from different backgrounds—he was military to Rieger working as a technician for one of the mechaniloid production companies—they’d become something of casual acquaintances with the tech’s penchant for week-long trips out into the wastes.
“My friend, the scavenger,” Jan greeted, “how was your trip?”
“Same old,” and Rieger shifted the pack on his back. “Not a lot of scrap to be found all these years later, but it certainly brings back memories.”
“Ain’t that the truth?” and Jan held his hand out. “Mind if I give it all a look?”
“Nah, go ahead,” and the black-haired unit unshouldered the bag, handing it over to the Jin’en. “Not a lot, like I said, but every little bit helps, especially when the stuff I build and program is so small.”
Jan waved Rieger into the first of three large ‘rooms’ that led inside the Dome, moving over to a large table and dumping the contents of Rieger’s bag onto it.
Several pieces of scrap, broken bits of metal and lengths of frayed wire, nothing all that large, spilled out onto the table.
Jan smirked. “’Not a lot’, says the kid from the wastes, when he and I both know what this much scrap would have provided for out there.”
“What can I say?” and Rieger offered a slight shrug. “The City spoils those she protects.”
“Light protect and keep the Commander and his family,” Jan said a bit absently.
“Pardon?” He knew that Reploids had adopted phrases like that long ago when the earliest generations of Reploids had dared tread on the hallowed ground of human religion—those beliefs had become little more than whispers as synthetic humanity began to gain a foothold in society—but for Jan to say something like that?
The soldier’s shoulders drooped at the question, and he shook his head. “You dropped off the ‘net, didn’t you?”
“You know I do. My focus on these trips is out there, not still tethered to—”
“The City was attacked while you were gone.”
Rieger looked like someone had punched him in the gut. “Wh…How?!”
“Commander won’t release names, but we had two Offworlders sent in. Manu Ausare is in shambles, and the casualty count is nearing four hundred.” Something seemed to shift in the way the Jin’en carried himself. “Beau Matin didn’t suffer as badly, but…”
For something of this magnitude to happen in Beacon City was unheard of.
“We’re also going to need to place you in custody for the time being, to undergo evaluation and questioning.”
“I’m suspect?”
“Everyone is suspect, Rieger,” and he motioned for the unit to turn around so that he could cuff him. “Everyone that can’t be accounted for during the attacks is being questioned.”
Evident disbelief in his voice, even as the cuffs snapped shut. “Haven’t they caught the attackers?”
“The two ‘soldiers’ sent in, sure,” and Jan moved Rieger to stand near the table as he refilled his pack. “But the one that was leading them is still missing.”
The waver in Jan’s voice made it all too clear that the unit was not comfortable discussing this. “Jan…”
“Come on. We’ll get you through decon, and then I’ve got to pass you off to the local authorities. You have questions, you’ll get answers later.”
- - - - -
“Name?”
“Rieger Metzger.”
“Activation date?”
“Eighth of August of 2272.”
“District of residence?”
“Currently New Sydney, formerly in Lau Aditu.”
“A recent move?”
“Closer to work,” and he wasn’t lying, “and Trans Servers aside, Lau Aditu just didn’t…it was too crowded.”
“Employ?”
“Tinaya Robotics, I’m a mechaniloid operations and maintenance technician,” which was the fancy title they gave the coders that built and upgraded the City’s mechaniloid workforce.
“Reason for your departure outside the Dome?”
“Grew up in the wastes. I go back every now and again for private scavenging. Childhood wasn’t the greatest, sure, but damn if it doesn’t put your life back in perspective after a chunk of time having the Commander’s City provide for your every need and whim.”
One of the officer’s brows rose at that. “Grew up out there? Your activation date’s five years after the Dome was finished.”
“And I’ve only been in the City since 2322,” Rieger snapped back, not at all appreciating the officer’s tone. “I came in with almost three dozen others when we finally decided to take up Commander Light’s offer.”
“You don’t build whole units out in the wastes.”
“No, but you do take the help the City offers when you’re struggling to survive but scared because the bigger thing that you’re being offered seems far too good to be true.” And that was the case with the ‘tribe’ he’d joined some time after making landfall, even if their memories of him had been…augmented by his own influence.
Not all strains of the Virus made units insane, after all.
“Too good to be true?”
Rieger blinked, then gave the officer a good once-over. “You’ve never set foot beyond the Dome, have you?”
“Don’t have to leave to see that there’s nothing out there.”
“There’s more than you think,” Rieger shot back. “And being out there is a more visceral reminder of what happened before the City was built. I’m sorry that you’re so skeptical of accepting that people couldn’t trust Commander Light, but you have no idea what it’s like to exist in the wake of a war while this sanctuary is still on the Commander’s drawing board.” The unit sagged in the seat some. “Most of them were old enough to have been caught up in the wars, and everyone knew the stories, and they knew what it was like to try and hold out for something to get better. And they impressed that upon us, young as we were.”
“We?”
“I wasn’t the only one brought online. There were four of us in the build set I was part of, our entire construction a gift of good faith from Commander Light, incentive to draw the Outlanders to the City, and another three had been sent in 2281.” Again, another truth, even if one of the first group had died at Omega’s hands shortly after being brought online.
He needed a cover, after all.
“Your serial.” A demand, not a question.
“Ghetina-Joukait Networking Outlander Support Nine-Seven-Three-Beta.”
“And your intake case number?”
“The case closed a few years ago, but one-eight-romeo-two-two-three-nine-four-tango-six.”
Noting the number, the officer turned and stepped out of the room, waiting until a second officer had stepped in before closing the door.
“You’d think it’d be the older cop trying to pull off the ‘bad cop’ half of that routine,” the new officer said as she settled into the chair across the table from Rieger.
Rieger waved a hand dismissively. “I just wish these younger units would take a month out in the wastes to know what it’s like having been an Outlander, that they’d see that not everyone started off with the Dome overhead and the City protecting her own.”
“As much as I’m sure it would benefit them, with Mother Elf being such a concern…”
“No, believe me, I know that much. I fill out the paperwork every time I head out beyond the City’s borders. I know what I’m risking to make these trips out. I think I’m one of only two or three from our ‘tribe’ that still does it,” and it wasn’t wholly his fault that he’d lost contact with most of the ‘family’ he’d had—the seven Outlander Support units had always been held at arm’s length, even if they’d been accepted enough for why they were gifted by the City.
“Isn’t it depressing?”
“Sort of, but like I told Officer Attitude, there’s something of a reminder in seeing it, a reason to keep working, to keep pushing forward instead of growing complacent. I know Commander Light and his family mean well, but we’re going to hit a population cap in a handful of decades, and when that happens…” He let out a sight and leaned back in his chair. “I don’t want to see what becomes of the City when she can’t handle the sheer number of people within her borders.”
Officer Massert nodded at that. “You plan on transferring back to support when Mother Elf’s finally home and healthy again?”
“Been thinking about it, that’s for sure. Grew up out there, so it’d be…” and he made a gesture as he struggled for words. “I’d be honored to be a part of guiding this world to the path she should be on.”
Oh, if this unit only understood just what path he was talking about…
“We noticed that your identicard image didn’t match your current appearance.”
“The image is a few years outdated,” and what the hell, that was a random jump in conversation.
“You’re going to need to get that updated, you know. With the recent attacks on the City, we’re going to be ramping up a lot of security procedures, including mandating curfew for all residents and imposing tighter restrictions on appearance shifts.”
At least he hadn’t gotten worked up, not over something so benign. “Would that be something I could do before I leave the detention center?”
“Nothing we can do here, but I can see to it that, once you’re cleared, an officer will escort you to one of the registration facilities to get that taken care of.”
“Will I be cleared?” and while he was certain he was out of danger, there was still a lot more that could be done—Xander was nothing if not thorough when it came to keeping up appearances at security—to hold him.
“Your diagnostics came back fine, you’re operating to normal spec, and nothing in the materials you brought back indicates anything more than a scavenging trip, so I think it’ll be likely you’ll be released, just as long as everything Officer Purh went to check is legit.”
It had been a near-miracle of mental gymnastics to clear the diagnostics. He’d been able to get his nanites to provide just enough data to not register as excessive to the scans, verifying his physical health, and he’d had to pull some outdated operational diagnostic files—old versions that had been saved when Zero was still in command of this frame—and amend their datestamp information to feed to the machines.
“Will I get the scrap I collected back?”
“It was, per your comment to Master Sergeant Vyderin, already cleared through decon and shipped to Tinaya Robotics,” and she shrugged a bit helplessly. “That move was out of our hands.”
“It’s going where it was meant to,” and he was idly thankful he’d left his original hairpiece out in the lab, intent on leaving it there until it was time to make his trip back into the City as Omega, once his real game had begun within this false sanctuary.
He certainly would have preferred this meeting to have come at any other point than the one they were currently at, the blond not at all pleased with the fact that Xander had just finished addressing the City again, this time in the wake of Fairy and Sage’s failure to capture Omega. They knew, given his ability to use the rifts, that it was going to be a nearly impossible mission from any angle, but they had had to try.
At least all four of the kids were home and motions had been made to reassure the populace that the threat Omega presented would no longer encroach on their safe haven without someone knowing about it.
Doubly so for Leto having hand-picked the officers that had been reassigned to the newly-commissioned Rift Security division of the City’s security forces.
Not that anyone really worried about that when it came to Lieutenant Commander Zero.
Much like Xander had done some hours earlier, Zach reached up to knock at the doorframe after the door had slid into the recess of the wall.
Rhythm had been watching the new broadcast that Xander had done, one leg crossed over the other from where he was seated currently. His lip had curled upon both the news that Omega had failed to be captured and the assurance that Omega couldn’t encroach without someone knowing about it. Perhaps, but by the time someone found out, it could be far too late to mitigate any of the damage.
What was wrong with killing the bastard? People like Omega had little to no chance for a true reform.
He looked up when the doorframe slid open, only then acknowledging the knock and the near-mirror in front of him. Well, at least it wasn’t Xander, he wasn’t sure that he could hold a civil conversation with that particular X at the moment.
How in the name of Asimov did older Xs have a tendency to give him migraines? But he’d stay civil with his counterpart for the time being.
“Something that you need?”
“Came to see how you and your little one were doing,” Zach answered, taking Rhythm’s question as permission to enter. “I figured today’s been a bit of a drain on everyone,” and his gaze flickered over to Xavier, the bioroid slumbering peacefully (enough), and a slight smile came to his face at the sight of the vase of yarrow on the bedside table. “My wife stopped by?”
“She did,” Rhythm confirmed, not stopping him as he entered but not taking his eyes off of the other Zero, either. “I’ve already contacted Lifesaver about his condition; there’s little you can do with the technology you have.” Namely, that core inside the bioroid’s chest right now. “So other than that, I just wait.” And he was not the sort that enjoyed waiting all that much, either. “The flowers from her were appreciated, by the way, even if he’s not awake.”
Zach’s gaze flicked over the room, noting the somewhat rumpled state of the bedding covering Xavier—more than what seemed normal for a unit recovering from surgery—before his gaze passed over Rhythm and the now-silenced holoscreen hanging in one corner of the room.
Well, not wholly silenced, Zach realized, catching the slight hint of sound just above minimum audial receptivity.
He was horribly tempted to make some form of snark or joke about a Zero unit getting along with a Lifesaver, but given his own interactions with the one that knew the Wonderlanders, and the fact that now was a bad time for the Rileys, he opted for somewhat safer grounds.
…Safe was relative.
“I take it you saw the earlier broadcasts.”
Xav hadn’t been sleeping very well, and Rhythm knew it. There was little he could do except just place a hand on the teenager to calm him down, to make sure that he wasn’t alone in this particular time of pain and grief.
He’d lowered the volume ages ago—enough so that he could still hear, but enough so that Xavier would remain, metaphorically speaking, dead to the world. “I did,” he said simply. “All of it, from the very beginning.”
Of course, the implication was there that he had heard everything that had been said between Xander, Omega, Leto, and Zach.
Being a Zero unit himself, and with Rhythm being far younger than him, it was altogether too easy for Zach to read the tension and barely-restrained anger in the other’s body language and tone of voice.
He could, to some degree, understand the response, but at the same time, Zach was used to looking at more than just his own little bubble within the City.
He was used to ignoring the hollow pit inside him every time he was reminded that his daughter wasn’t with him, wasn’t with her family, was still scared and warped and a threat to almost everyone she encountered. Rhythm should be thankful that Xavier suffered only becoming a pawn, that he’d not been made into a living virus that made the Maverick bug pale in comparison.
Zach had never been one for speeches—on more than one occasion, a speech demanded of him by the Federation consisted of two raised middle fingers before he walked off-stage—but he had no problem talking with people. And Rhythm needed to understand what was happening, why they couldn’t treat this world’s Omega with the same lack of mercy as he’d treat his own.
“It’s hard,” he admitted, moving to grab one of the chairs resting against the wall, carrying the piece of furniture closer to Rhythm. “Knowing what we’d all like to do, how much we’d love to be able to make him pay for the billions of names on the walls of the upper levels of Sanctum Yggdrasil, to make him suffer as he’s made those closest to us suffer.” His gaze flicked to Xavier again, a soft tremor of sound escaping the bioroid before he settled again. “It’s so damned hard having to push all of that aside, all of that hate and rage, because we cannot let our personal feelings trump the safety of our City. It’s one thing to swear oaths of allegiance to the Federation as a Hunter. It’s another thing entirely when your life becomes bound by law and honor to a cause so great that the upper echelon cannot falter.”
If questioned about the levels of patience he had, even Rhythm would admit that being around Lightbots for most of his childhood had done wonders in making him restrain himself from acting without thinking.
It was very different when one started looking after someone else. He’d never had the opportunity to look after someone else long-term until Xavier had turned up, needing a place to go, and it had been a learning curve for him—the both of them, really—in the past four years or so that the teenager had been with him. Before Xavier, he could easily give it his all to the Maverick Hunters and his unit had been like his family after he had joined them.
People said that something changed when one became a parent, even as late as Rhythm had to Xavier, but they were right. Rhythm glanced down at Xavier as Zach moved closer to him and sat down, adjusting the covers so that they were tucked securely around the bioroid and not as loosely. He didn’t want him falling off of the bed after all.
“Oh, I would like to rip their processors out myself and smash them to bits,” he admitted, glancing down at his fingers. Why, out of all the people that there had to be alternates of, did Omegas have to have them, too? “Except that, if I were to do that, I would have to leave the Maverick Hunters, which of course is not an option for me because you know as well as I do that personal vengeance doesn’t matter for the greater good. So what really brings you here?”
“I had a talk with Xander between our morning broadcast and this one, so some of what you said to him was mentioned,” and Zach leaned back in the chair he’d settled in. “And as a father myself, I’m concerned not only after how Xavier’s holding up, but how you are as well. Xander does want to try to smooth things over with you, but he’s,” and Zach paused, gauging what should and shouldn’t be said. “He’s in no condition right now to be dealing with anyone, and for more reasons than just his current task of reassembling his eldest son’s right arm again.”
Zach had plans to go over dual saber combat defense with Sage once things had calmed some, just to see where the AXR’s issue was that he kept damaging that arm, though the blond had a good idea that it was something to do with Sage being a rightie and tending to lead a little wide at times.
Ah. That conversation had been mentioned. Rhythm looked up, regarding Zach with a little more suspicion than he had before, but he didn’t comment on it. “I don’t think you need to worry about me in the slightest, I can deal with my own problems.” And he would have to, otherwise there was a good chance that somebody would consider him incapable of doing just about anything.
“It’s Xavier that is going to suffer the most lasting damage out of the two of us.” Given what he was now fully convinced of, that wasn’t going to help the teenager’s self-esteem in the slightest—especially considering how much drama and lack of self-esteem teenagers were already composed of when it came to their relationships with others.
“I think you may be more of a concern to us than Xavier,” especially given the younger Zero unit’s earlier reaction to mention of Omega.
“Now what makes you say that?” Rhythm asked, his eyebrows going up. He hadn’t been the one to get reprogrammed, after all.
“You’re pissed. You have a history with your own Omega. You’re a Zero unit,” which covered a lot in terms of combat capability and anger management issues. “And let’s not forget that you weren’t the unit that just had open-heart surgery and can’t exert himself with an moderately incompatible core.” The standby organ had been accepted, but the scans that the Medical staff had been forwarding to Xander made it clear that Xavier wouldn’t be doing much more than idling around in his room until after the synthetic core had been replaced with a bioroid one.
“I am pissed,” he agreed, not even bothering to comment about his own history with Omega and being a Zero unit. They might as well just have a separate threat classification labeled ‘Zero Unit’. “And I have every right to be, given what just happened, but I haven’t attacked anyone, have I?” He crossed his legs. “That core is incompatible; it’s a miracle his systems even accepted it for the time being. It’s not designed for his power output.”
“You haven’t attacked anyone yet is our concern, my concern, and that you understand so very little beyond your own issues with your family worries all of us.” Reaching into one of his vest pockets, there was a soft click of metal on metal as he withdrew two small items, tossing them both to Rhythm.
When the other caught the items and looked at them, he would find two discs of bronze emblazoned with the Hunter logo of Zach’s world, both attached to bands of cloth, a center stripe of yellow bordered on both sides by stripes of muted orange and light blue. “Those at all familiar to you?”
“I couldn’t even pretend to understand all of your issues other than what I can see right now,” he pointed out. “I’m well aware of what your priorities are. Otherwise I would have just taken Xavier and left long ago, but I haven’t.”
He reached out to catch the items, looking down at them to see what the other had tossed him. “Yes, I do.” The emblem was a little different, but there were enough similarities that he was pretty sure of as to what they had to be.
“Then you know what they stand for.”
“I do.” Of course, his biggest question at the moment was how the other had not only one, but multiple, and was still standing in front of him.
“I was lucky the first time. Still offlined, still officially and posthumously awarded my first Mark, but enough of my systems were still whole, so my repairs consisted of a lot of smaller pieces that had to be replaced and my entire frame being reconstructed. Arc and Xander were…” and he stalled then, glancing at the medals, the only ones he still had physical versions of after the Wars. His others had been donated as scrap metal, but Xander had ensured the Marks of Valor remained untouched.
Zach still wasn’t entirely certain why.
“The second time, I was older. I should have known better. It was suicide mission after suicide mission by the time the seventh Maverick War was in full swing and I knew there was more to me that I didn’t want to learn about, not with how everyone around me got sick because of the virus while I got stronger. I didn’t want to be alive, not with the dawning realization that I had carried what began the wars, when all the blood shed in the decades prior was on me, on what Wily had wanted of me.
“By the end, after the Eurasia Colony had started making landfall, the nine pieces of what was left of the space station too large to burn up on reentry, I was in the thrall of a Level Four Zero-Tau-Omega infection and...insane didn’t even begin to cover it. Xander was able to bring me back from the brink, was able to stand against me despite how I am when infected, even if it cost him much of his ability to keep on fighting after our encounter. So when Sigma took aim, intent on ending Xander’s life, I took the shot in his place. Close enough to my core to be dangerous, but not close enough for me to shut down entirely. Not at first.”
The slightest waver was starting to come to his voice then. “I survived long enough to see Sigma, or the shell the Virus puppeteered in his name, destroyed by Xander, but…it was blackness after that. Perhaps a month had gone by before I saw light again, and it confused the hell out of me because there was maybe a quarter of my full frame left by the end of the Eurasia Crisis. So how was it that I was whole again? Xander would have woken me during the rebuild to make sure my processor was operating properly, but I was alone in the middle of nowhere.
“My wireless is still fragged for Light only knows what reason, so I can’t get a message out or link up for a geomatic jump back to base. And then I find out that someone found a part of my processor, analyzed it, and created a variant form of the Maverick Virus that looked like me. Best thing to do then is lay low, avoid drawing attention to myself until I can try and figure out just what the hell is going on. So I go back to the last place I can remember clearly, which was the main section of the Eurasia.” He stopped for a moment then, his gaze meeting Rhythm’s. “Can you even begin to comprehend how it felt to return to the Eurasia’s main crash site, to where I died protecting Xander, and find my corpse still there?”
It was only polite to remain silent for the entirety of Zach’s story, especially considering that he was talking about something so incredibly personal. This sort of thing was not something that a person would share with just anybody or even close friends, and he got the feeling that circumstance and his own identity were the only reasons that he was hearing all of this at all.
But even then, it was clear that there were huge differences between him and this particular Zero unit. Species difference aside, the sort of things that he had gone through would be enough to terrify anybody, and he wasn’t immune to that sort of thing, either. “You’re right, I couldn’t possibly comprehend something like that—not when I haven’t been through it myself.”
And though at the beginning he’d been truly puzzled as to why Zach was talking about something like this, it was beginning to click in his head that for him, and likely those connected to him, something as ‘simple’ as death wouldn’t be enough to stop them.
“I know it doesn’t change anything about Xavier’s condition, about what’s happened here and in Abel City, about the repercussions we’re going to be dealing with,” and were already dealing with, given the reports from four separate districts of violent anti-synthetic gatherings—that they were making their opinions known so publicly was a marked change from their usual clandestine operations—and the recovery efforts still going on in Manu Ausare. “But do you at least understand why we have no choice but to show mercy when it comes to dealing with our world’s Omega? And why I worry after you more than Xavier because of it?”
And it didn’t, that much was clear. “That does explain far more than I had known before.” If only someone had explained something like that to him earlier. Asimov, this world had gotten a terrible draw when it came to dealing with units like him. “Sucks that you can’t just off him and leave it at that, but doing that would put you right back where you started or make things worse. Though,” and here, his eyebrows went up, “I couldn’t tell you if that sort of thing would apply to me or not. I’ve never been injured enough to know.”
And he had taken some pretty nasty knocks when he’d been younger.
“Saying that it sucks doesn’t even begin to put to words how much I hate this, and for more reasons than just the world’s condition beyond the Eden Dome,” and there was a flicker in his gaze, an old wound that had been clawed at and reopened. “Our situations may not be the same, but we…we’ve both suffered those we love harmed by him, even if we have no idea what happened because of your Omega before our own.” A hesitant pause. “It probably doesn’t mean much to you, all things considered, but if you need to talk to someone, I can lend a slightly more sympathetic ear than Xander can,” and given his wife’s teasing ways and playful nature, he’d rather avoid having Leto and Rhythm in a room together if he could.
He actually liked this alternate of himself, different as their pasts were. He really didn’t want to have to punch Rhythm for garnering more of Leto’s attention than he considered appropriate.
Rhythm leaned back in his chair, letting out a quiet sigh of his own as some of the tension that had been in the air went away—not all of it, but enough that he didn’t have to feel constantly on edge with his near twin. “You don’t, and the biggest reason I didn’t tell Xander was more to protect Xavier’s privacy than anything else.” He found himself chewing on his lip—he probably would prefer to talk to his counterpart more than he would Xander; less because Xander was an X, and more because goddamn older Lightbots.
He didn’t need flashbacks to a certain one, thank you.
“Hell, I’d rather have you for a brother than that Arschloch,” he had to say, if only because it was true. “But the other part of the reason is that I’m not privy to the full story myself—only this kid knows the full story, or at least I think he does, and I only know what I personally have seen.”
Zach nodded in understanding, a soft smirk on his face at Rhythm’s brother comment, and he looked back to Xavier. “We got in touch with a clinical psychologist in the midst of all the heyday who specializes in treating juvenile trauma cases; Xander wanted to me to ask you for permission to have the staff alert her once Xavier’s awake.” Xavier wasn’t a citizen of Beacon City, was in no way truly entitled to what they were providing beyond the kindness of the Arcadians, but his healing would be more involved than just getting a proper core into the young bioroid. “And he also wanted to know if you had any idea how long it would be before a new core would be available.”
Rhythm didn’t want to think about Omega anymore at the moment, and tilted his head in consideration. “…If he’s willing, I would be willing to give her a try. I’m just more worried because he never reacts well to any type of medic, physical or not. It’s part of why he hasn’t had therapy before. How could he when he keeps fleeing from just about every therapist that someone tries to introduce him to?”
Still, he wasn’t about to give up, and he would very much want to see if this woman could succeed where all others had failed so far. Just because it kept failing didn’t mean he wasn’t going to keep trying.
“As for his core, I seriously have no idea. I’d already told Lifesaver to keep an eye out for one, but I doubt there’ll be one for at least a few weeks. It’d be easier to find one if he wasn’t a Lightbot.” This one would keep him alive, but he wouldn’t be able to exert himself too much physically, or eat in huge amounts. And then there were all the things that were special about Lightbots that made it even more complicated.
“I take it that it’s not as simple as just building or lab-growing the parts,” and while Zach was no medic—he really hated anything that had to deal with medical facilities unless it was his or Xander’s lab—he knew enough about human physiology and Reploid engineering to know that no one in Beacon City had any sort of real clue about bioroid technology, even with the information Trig had provided that had allowed Xander the ability to save Xavier’s life.
“Unless you’re excellent at building or lab-growing human hearts, no. This would be pretty much the same thing.” Rhythm paused as he pondered exactly how to explain it; he might have lived in a lab where bioroids had been made, but it wasn’t as if he knew every little detail. “But our mechanical parts are designed to literally meld with and work with the rest of us, it’s not a matter of putting separate parts in. Imagine…imagine electric wires running through muscles, or blood vessels circulating throughout our Ride Chasers instead of gas lines.” He frowned. “And because we grow, both the mechanical and organic parts are designed to grow with us. No offense, but I have no idea if your technology is capable of that sort of thing, and since he’s not full-grown, any parts that don’t grow with him could cause complications later on.”
Rhythm rubbed the bridge of his nose. “We have DNA, in both the traditional and metaphorical sense. I’m sure you’re aware of how they recommend that humans receiving blood or organ transplants receive one from a relative instead of a complete stranger; it’s the same with us. You put something in him that’s not meant for him without confirming compatibility, the chance is extremely high that he’ll reject it. And if he doesn’t, he’s meant to do things that a typical bioroid doesn’t. If he enters any type of dangerous warzone,” which he likely would given his occupation and what he’s learned so far, “or accesses some of his more…unique abilities that I know he has, he’d never survive.”
In fact, he half-suspected that was why Xav’s core had had so many repairs done on it instead of being replaced.
Zach was smirking a bit by the time Rhythm fell quiet, though it wasn’t a matter of humor that had brought that particular expression to his face. “Interesting how Offworlders tend to forget what century they’re in when they visit,” and he leaned over to grab the medals from Rhythm, tucking them back into his pocket. “Organogenesis has been something we’ve been able to do for several decades now, and it’s not unheard of for humans within Beacon City to be quite heavily enteched for medical reasons.”
He knew it was probably going to be well outside the scope of what they could provide for the bioroid, but it was worth the effort nonetheless.
“Fine, fine, you lot can do everything, can’t you?” He wasn’t sure whether to be amused or not that tech has probably developed that far. Rhythm allowed Zach to take the medals back—they were his after all—and continued his explanation. “I’m no scientist though so I probably left a lot of the nuances out when it comes to my kind, but I think another thing I should mention was that it was Thomas Light that managed to succeed in creating bioroid technology.”
He genuinely wasn’t sure whether they could create one, but it would still take a lot of time; one would not be ready in a couple of days no matter how good the technology was.
“Almost everything,” Zach corrected. “But we’re working on fixing that,” and there was that trademark ego. “Given everything you’ve said, it would be in Xavier’s best interests to find a suitable donor organ, but the offer is there for us to push ahead for the biotech to grow-slash-build a new one if the situation becomes dire enough.” He made no comment about their world’s version of Xander’s father being the one to crack bioroid development. Thomas Light was…seemingly ahead of his time, no matter what world you came from or looked at.
Yup, it wouldn’t be a Zero without an ego of some kind. Rhythm finally cracked a small smile, though it wasn’t very wide, at that comment. “Trust me, I contacted his medic at home to start looking for some potential donors already. Hopefully it won’t take too long, because if he’s like any teenager I know, he would get extremely bored sitting at home alone.” That was the reason he gave, but he knew deep down that without a proper core, Xavier would be handicapped for the rest of his life.
Xav shifted again, and Rhythm’s eyes flickered to him until the bioroid had settled back down. “But the offer is greatly appreciated, if you believe you can get one completed before we manage to find a donor.”
“I don’t have the greatest history with Lifesaver units,” and that was really covering up how horribly he and the Lifesavers of his world had gotten along, “but I know Xander would be more than willing to lose a few hours going over the details if that becomes a necessity.”
While Rhythm had turned to look at Xavier, Zach’s own gaze had gone from seemingly half-focused on the nearby window to very plainly not focused on anything.
A small part of him was jealous of Rhythm, angered at the fact that Omega had bent the younger bioroid to his whims but had left him intact enough that he was still himself despite the nightmare of the past few hours.
“Yes, a good number of them do tend to be gruff and rather gung-ho about their work to the point of forgetting that they are working with people,” Rhythm conceded; it was really that one particular Lifesaver unit that Xav went to (how the bioroid identified him out of a throng of Lifesavers, he had no idea).
“…How are you holding up?” He had heard enough of the banter with Omega to know that some buttons had been pushed. Hard.
“I…” and he blinked, coming back to himself, his focus shifting for a moment to Rhythm before he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. For the time being, I’m stationed in the Tower, so until we get a message in from Rift Sec or something comes up where I’m needed, I don’t have much of anywhere to be.”
The look that Rhythm gave him showed him that he wasn’t convinced in the slightest. But he knew better than to push another Zero unit. “Just going to say one thing to you. If you’re not fooling me, you’re probably not fooling those that know you very well. And it’s a lot easier to do what you have to do for everyone else when there aren’t things weighing on your mind. I’m not saying you have to talk to me,” not at all, not with something that was clearly that personal, “but that’s just some advice from someone that can read himself quite well.”
“It’s not a matter of fooling anyone. It’s…when you’re bond-mated to another unit, it connects your emotional matrices together in a way that is, at once, a blessing and a curse. As uneasy as my wife’s been over the course of the last two days, I don’t want to go down that road right now because if I dip, she’s going to fall down right alongside me.” His hands clenched in his lap, the rigid set of his jaw an evident sign that he was fighting against an emotional turn he did not want to deal with right now.
Over the link, Leto had been practically curled around him, not wanting to let him go after the time they’d spent with the bond-link severed; between his initial (failed) attempt to capture Omega in Abel City and the separation during her tracking of the wanted warbot, it was going to take an event of cataclysmic proportions to split the two of them up for a while. A wave of reassurances, wavering but there, passed from him to help shore up her own matrix, and he twined himself with her as further confirmation that he wasn’t going anywhere.
“Maybe in a few days, once Xavier’s feeling a little better, you and I can head down to the garage,” he offered, not wanting to make it seem like he wasn’t interested in talking or that Rhythm had tread on unsafe ground. Chasers were a safe topic. Chasers were something they had in common, even if Rhythm’s hadn’t quite been in working order the last time Zach had seen her.
“You do have a point there,” Rhythm replied after he thought about it. With someone else that dependent on him to remain stable, it would be hard to be emotionally distraught without taking them down with him.
He remained quiet and contemplative for a few minutes, not taking his eyes off of the teenager that was still curled up in bed until Zach spoke up about the Ride Chasers, and he found himself looking at his counterpart again.
“Let’s see how much has improved in terms of specs that I can swipe for my own,” he said with small smirk that was more for show, glad for the distraction away from the more serious topics. Chasers were safe. Zeroes and their Chasers belonged together, and that at least remained a constant between worlds. “She’s all fixed up, by the way. Better than new.”
“Until you see my girl, at any rate. So eager to find out what you can snipe from Beacon City, you’re going to be gutting yours down to her chassis with that kind of attitude.”
Yes, Chasers were a much safer topic.
“And? A few more centuries, I would hope that your world’s technology far surpasses my own in the sense that I can make her even more gorgeous than everyone else’s Chasers back home. She only deserves the best, after all.”
“Indeed,” and Zach fell silent for a few seconds, considering the two others in the room, before he pushed himself to his feet, offering a hand to Rhythm. “I can’t promise that I can just drop whatever I’m working on and bolt over here, but if you need anything, just tell the Zan’ei posted that you need to speak with me and they’ll pass the message along.”
Rhythm stood up, not saying anything for awhile as he glanced down at Xav, and then back up to his counterpart before taking his hand. He still wasn’t completely calm yet—who would be, given what was going on?--but he was more than willing to talk to Zach whenever the situation arose. “I’ll be sure to let you…them…know. Take care, then.”
His steps were slow, an evident caution in his motions, as Omega walked into the small, broken down lab that had served as his base of operations for the past few days, glancing over the supplies in front of him.
And for the umpteenth time since he’d managed to get away from X’s brats, he rubbed at the sore spot in his lower back, his auto-repairs prompting him once again that the misalignment in his spine needed to be manually corrected.
He’d see to that repair as soon as the others were out of the way.
But first…
Double-checking that the battery powering the overhead light wasn’t going to die out on him anytime soon, he settled on a small stool facing a large piece of what had been a mirror at one point, fractured by age and time, and he considered his reflection for a moment. Reaching out, he grabbed a small scalpel, biting on the handle as he grabbed handfuls of his hair, bunching the six-foot strands up with one hand as the other carefully drew the scalpel blade along his hairline.
If he was to hide in plain sight, it would require more now than a simple hair recolor, and like hell was he cutting his hair. Nanites may be able to ‘regrow’ the strands in time, but why waste the effort when it was so much easier to simply swap out hairpieces?
His work was slow, meticulous, the blade never sinking further into his skin than needed, and it was nearly an hour before he pulled away the large piece of threaded synthskin. A piece of cloth was run along the underside and edge of the skin, ensuring that it was clean and dry before Omega set the pile of hair on the table next to him.
Precision cuts were made to the replacement hairpiece, matching it up exactly to the cut that had removed the fall of blond, and it wasn’t long before the new hair was being anchored in place, his nanites working to attach the synthskin to his scalp and the rest of his face, and a wave of updates hit from nanites control, each individual nanites relaying the job it was taking care of.
They had to match up his skin tone there as well.
Taking care not to tug the (much shorter) black strands, Omega pulled his hair up into a haphazard bun, the blade now turned to his neck and the band of blackened flesh that he’d been marked with.
He was really glad that Zero’s strike was the closest call he’d had.
He really hadn’t anticipated X’s children capable of creating the maelstrom they’d unleashed against him.
He was still pissed he’d fallen the way he had.
Focused on his work, it wasn’t long before he looked as if he’d not just been through the hell of taking on the Cardinal Guardian, and the scalpel was set down beside the pile of hair, Omega considering his reflection for a long moment.
He was going to have to submit a request for a change of appearance on his registry once he got back to the City, he knew, but at least Rieger Metzger had already had black hair that dropped to just about mid-back.
Crimson optics shifted, the irises darkening, blue bleeding over blood red, and Omega let out a frustrated huff at the purple eyes that stared back at him.
Now that he’d challenged the Arcadians, threatened the City so openly, he knew they’d be doing everything in their power (and some things that perhaps weren’t) to find him, and it wouldn’t help if he looked so much like Zachary Roth.
Optic color coding shifted again and again, Omega unable to settle on a color he liked, and it was a while before he stumbled across a muted yellow-gold, a wicked smirk coming to his face. It only took a fraction of a second to pull up the memory file, to see the gunner’s eyes in the seconds before his death, and Omega let out a low, amused sound as his eyes shifted to the very same color Axl’s had been as Lumine’s latent coding had overtaken his mind.
A few other small, cosmetic changes were made, the android furthering himself from Zero, and he smirked at his reflection once all was said and done.
As far as the City was aware, Rieger had been a survivor of the wastelands, and he’d made a habit in the seven years he’d been lived this second life to make trips every few months back out into the nightmare beyond their borders. He’d always return with pieces of scrap metal or the leftovers of some long-offlined mechaniloid unit, and the guards posted at the airlocks had become quick friends, a few of them old enough to remember how hard they had to fight for another day before the Commander’s haven had been completed.
Those few understood Rieger’s trips out, despite the risks if Overridden units found him, because being out in the mess beyond the City served as a reminder and a renewed reason to work to keep the Dome and all her residents safe.
No one wanted to go back to not knowing if they’d see the next day.
Finally done with his modification work, Omega let his hair fall from the bun he’d pulled it into and stood, amber optics widening a little when he overcompensated for the weight of his hair and tipped forward.
Holy hell that original hairpiece was heavier than he gave it credit for.
Okay, so, six more hours before heading home would be okay. Wouldn’t do for him to look like something had happened.
And there was still the matter of that misaligned vertebrae.
At least it wasn’t so bad as to make it impossible for him to move. Still…
