Return to Ash

Chapter 3: Ultimatum

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9S sat beside 2B as she rested. For a while he'd been gently stroking her hair as she drifted off into sleep mode, but now that she was out like a light he had some time to himself. Being alone, despite her physically being right next to him, was a bit frightening. He knew he'd never survive this dreary heap by himself.

He wondered what A2 was doing right at that moment, as he still did frequently even though neither of them had spoken of her in years. Some small part of him hoped she was still alive, that someday they'd meet again.

But hope didn't stop him from doubting it.

He'd meant what he said to 2B. Something needed to be done to ensure their survival, even if only in a sentimental way. He glanced down at her cratered jawline and shuddered involuntarily at the thought of just slowly shutting down for good. It would happen, eventually. Though he couldn't put an expiration date on either of them, and he knew it wouldn't be any time soon... time was going to wear them down.

If they didn't lose their minds first. With a heavy heart- or similar, he didn't really know the feeling -he considered that 2B's mental state was slipping. It hurt him to see her so lifeless. Of course she'd never been one for much conversation but now when she remained silent it spoke more than she probably realized. He didn't blame her for losing her grip a bit. With no Bunker, no YoRHa, no directives, it was the first time she'd actually had to live for herself. Though they'd been wandering the empty world for years now, it certainly didn't feel that long for him... but he knew it probably felt like an eternity for her.

So far he'd held up pretty well by just ignoring the realities of the situation but he knew he couldn't manage that for much longer. Especially not now that it'd dawned on him that, yes, he and 2B truly were the last surviving hope for humanity. Whether the human genome actually did exist on the moon or not, and whether it was even still usable so many years later or not, neither mattered if it was out of their reach. He halfheartedly extended an arm up to the sky, watched his knuckles flex as he clenched his hand into a light fist. The stars seemed so much farther away without a method of easily reaching them.

He sighed, bringing his palms to his face and rubbing his eyes with his fingertips. What could he do? They had practically nothing to work with. Obviously there were no more androids, so bringing them back was a non-option. Most technology was completely unusable, and electricity was currently a pretty laughable prospect. All of the human resources once used to erect the free-standing world were either depleted or buried under the miasma in addition to the usual miles of earth.

"Yup," he murmured out loud. "Pretty bleak."

"Mm?" 2B shuffled, still lying in her curled-up position on the ground.

"Oh, sorry," he said. "Just thinking."

"Thinking about what?" Her voice was groggy. 2B's hand was groping for some part of him to grab onto. He laid down on his back, staring up at the sky, so she could gently grab his arm.

"Don't worry about it, you need your rest." He turned to look at her. Her eyes were open now, heavy lidded and so softly blinking at him.

She didn't move, just stared. "No, I'm fine."

Stubborn as ever. It took a moment for 9S to speak again. "Okay." He said softly.

"What are you thinking about?" She prompted him again.

"Well... I'm just trying to figure out how we can keep human-kind alive. No big issue." He smiled sadly at her. "I honestly don't even know where to start."

She was thinking now, those tactically-oriented gears in her head turning. "Hmm... What are our resources?"

"Not much." Craning his neck, he looked around aimlessly. "A lot of sand. Scrap metal from the dead machines. Concrete and steel, maybe some left over fossil fuels."

"That doesn't give us a real source of usable energy."

"No, it doesn't. Think there are any machine cores left?"

2B stiffened immediately. Were she a cat, he could have imagined the hairs on the back of her neck bristling. "No." She said coldly. 9S swallowed then, concerned that he'd touched a nerve.

He pursed his lips, but then nodded solemnly. "Yeah, they're probably all burnt out by now. They would be a good source of energy for whatever we need, though. Maybe we should look anyway."

"Mmh."

After a passing moment of silence, 2B's posture relaxed. They caught each others' gaze and shared a look then. Not quite of determination, but something sort of like it. Resolve, perhaps. They saw sparks in each other's eyes, some stirring feeling hidden under the surface for a very long time now. Something neither of them had really felt since their days under YoRHa's thumb. Wordlessly, they just stared at each other. For a mere second, there was absolute calm lining both of their expressions.

9S spoke first. "Are you going to be okay?" He asked, his voice gingerly and meek.

He expected her to scoff, or to narrow her eyes at him, or something. Anything. She seemed to have to physically consider this in her mind. It didn't fill him with much hope.

"Yes." She eventually nodded. "I'm going to be alright."

"Going to be."

"Yes."

"So you're not right now, then."

"Very perceptive."

He chuckled softly. At least he could be sure the old 2B wasn't completely gone. They both returned to their business after that, 9S staring back up at the sky and 2B trying to rest curled up in her little ball. Turned away from him, she stared at the tilted horizon through the bangs falling around her face. The black sand was glittering again in the dim moonlight- it was almost unfair how serene it looked for how horrible of a thing it was.

Very lightly, she moved a hand up to her own face. She hadn't really considered how the mark had affected her appearance- it wasn't like there were any mirrors with which to admire herself anymore. It did still matter to her, though, because she saw 9S' expression every time his eyes fell upon it. That told her all she needed to know without having to see it.

Her thumb dipped into the recession under her cheekbone, like one of the many dunes they sat upon day in and day out. She found herself wanting to smile at the comparison, but all she could manage instead was a look of resignation. The world was deceased, but she found herself glad now that they were not. Mere days ago, she'd wanted it all to just end. But now they had something to care about- a goal to strive for, for the first time in ages. Something to live for besides each other.

9S was going to do his damnedest to secure a future for whatever was left to save on this ugly, dead planet. He'd find a way. And it made her feel like she had a sense of purpose again, to be able to help him. For once, he was leading her instead of the other way around.

But she found herself shuddering involuntarily at one of the few ideas he'd come up with.

Machine cores.

It made her feel bad to have immediately shot down what might have been their most realistic choice... but when she thought of the cores, she thought of the machines. When she thought of the machines, she thought of war and death and dying over and over and it brought her to a very grim place. A place she never wanted to go again.

She closed her eyes after another shudder and a breathy exhale. Even after all this time, she still hated them more than anything else in the remaining world.

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For days, 9S devoted as much of his processing power as he could to cracking a solution to the end of life. He wished he was less of a realist and more a philosopher, it might've made coming up with an idea easier.

He stroked his chin and ran a hand through his hair and hunched his shoulders and squinted his eyes, over and over again, a repeating pattern of things-people-do-when-they're-in-deep-thought... but none of it helped. He had nothing.

"Nothing yet..." He muttered to himself. It wasn't like he had to come up with something right now, in fact there was hardly any urgency at all, but the sudden weight of them being the last of the last had hit him hard. It was a strangely human feeling, somewhat of a mix of anxiety and confusion. All this time and he hadn't really bothered trying to comprehend what it meant to be truly alone in the world. Now that he'd almost lost 2B, he knew what the feeling was like.

This area of the desert was particularly barren. Other than the occasional pile of rubble poking halfheartedly out of the sand, it was just the two of them and a bunch of scrap metal. The crater looked like a caldera, surrounded by rising dunes on all sides- dunes which thankfully protected them from the dust storms now raging just outside of their periphery. It looked like a dumping ground for machine bodies. Some trash heap at the back end of the world for discarding unusable parts.

2B sat on a pile of broken-up concrete, a fitting throne for someone like them, she felt. Like the dead machines, reaching skyward in a last-ditch bid for freedom, they were scrambling for any reason to carry on. She hated feeling so defeatist but it was getting harder and harder to avoid at this point. In her heart, she hoped 9S would find a way to shoot for the moon and beyond, but in her mind she knew a solution probably no longer existed.

She watched him pace aimlessly around, obviously completely dead to the world besides his churning cerebral core. His OS chip no doubt running a couple hundred degrees hotter than its recommended temperature as he literally wracked his brain for an answer. She considered that she should be helping him. In a literal sense, she was not as smart as him just because of the difference in their make and model... but she still wished she could at least muster up the fortitude to try.

How lowly she felt. One of the stupid tin cans sat nearby, its torso buried halfway in the sand and its arms stretched up in a mock-prayer gesture. Frowning hard, she tried to ignore its pleading stance. To ignore its obvious display of thought and emotion. As she had for decades.

9S was wandering among the bodies. He wondered how far down this pit went below the ashes. Perhaps it stretched all the way to hell like the crags that once released the miasma. There could be hundreds of machines buried here. Perhaps they'd come here to congregate and combine their numbers, or to try and create another humanoid lifeform. Perhaps they simply came here to die, knowing the end was coming. For a moment he envied them for having such a luxury.

As he walked, his feet dragged on the sand, leaving a trailing snake of boot prints behind him. Weaving a path to nowhere, crossing back over his own lines, he stared down at the ground. It would have been better to just sit down where he stood but his feet would not stop moving. He felt... antsy, for lack of a better way he could phrase it. Something inside him knew that he was on the verge of a revelation, that the answer was right there in front of him. He just needed to reach out and take it.

His thoughts got the better of him, however, and he cried out as his foot caught on one of the speed bumps poking out of the dirt. He spilled over, knocking the machine's head loose and sending it rolling before him. 2B bolted upright instantly, hands curling into defensive fists, but after seeing that he'd just taken a spill she slowly returned to her seat.

"Shit..." He groaned, coughing and sputtering to remove the ash he'd eaten from his throat. The machine's spherical head came to a stop in front of him, its blank eyes staring into his. He caught his own reflection in its glassy eye sockets and noticed he was glowering. He pushed to one knee, but when he went to stand he found he did not have the strength. It took a try or two before he was able to get back up to his feet.

He could feel his black box humming with activity, like a racing heartbeat. Suddenly he wished he had been resting like 2B instead of pacing around like an idiot. With some bitter consideration he wondered how she would react if he decided to use his own black box as a source of energy. It certainly would last for some time, if only for her sake.

She'd never forgive him.

To that end, he kept thinking back to the machine cores. How they contained such power, enough to rival even their own black boxes. Hell, black boxes were MADE of machine parts. 2B would never approve of using the machine cores to produce energy...

But something struck him. Something once said to him a very long time ago about the machines' reason for existing. Just like any other living thing, they wanted to advance, to propagate their race, only they had no idea how. They had their network, sure, but they had no direction. Like YoRHa, they were lost and hurtling through time with no idea how to proceed.

He thought of Pascal's little village. The machines could have advanced further if they felt the need to do so. They were all living proof. They could have created anything, much faster than any human, from the hive mind they'd been given. They could have been peaceful if they'd just been taught to be.

They could have been a race of creatures that went beyond androids. Maybe one that even went beyond humans.

9S stared at the empty-eyed machine head.

And then, he had an idea.

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In an instant, her nerves had met their end. The rebuilding she had tried so hard to do of late had been shattered into crumbled pieces in one fell swoop. Her fists were clenched.

"No," she muttered. "No, no, absolutely not."

9S could hear the pain in her voice. The memories of everything that had happened in their previous lives, weighing her down like a massive ball and chain. She shook like a leaf in the wind, full of fury and embers of fire at the mere suggestion.

"2B... Please. This is our only choice. It's the only thing we have left." He begged.

She grimaced at him, almost disgusted at his pleading. "Never again, 9S. I won't let it happen again."

"It won't happen again," he gestured at the air, "we can make it so that it can't happen again. We can give new life to the planet, don't you see?"

She stomped the dirt with one boot, emotion clouding her features. "And who are we to give new life? Who are we to think our legacy should be carried on?"

"We have to. We owe it to the humans, and to our fellow units. We owe it to everybody who ever lived." He said, exasperated.

2B was curt. "I don't disagree with that, you know I don't, but this is not the way."

"Then what is the way, 2B?" He took a step closer. "We're running out of time. We may live for hundreds more years, but what if it would take us a thousand to figure this out?"

She didn't know how to respond to that. Shaking her head, she bit her lip and then barked at him once more anyway. "Then it will die with us-"

"I won't let that happen." He replied before she'd even finished uttering the words.

"And do you think I want it to?" She took a step back to counter his step forward. "If we revive the machines we'll be destroying everything we fought for. We tried so hard to end their reign and now you want to resurrect them?"

He clenched and unclenched his fist anxiously. "Yes, but I don't want them to be as they were. Before, they were destined to fight us just like us to them but it doesn't have to be that way!"

"Who's to say it won't happen again regardless!" She scoffed. "I thought you knew better than this. When you give something with a hive mind free reign it will do whatever it takes to survive." Her thoughts turned to the Bunker, the massive vibrant splash of color and light and heat as it exploded into chunks of screaming metal and crumpled steel.

"Then why can't we? If we can tell it what's right and wrong then we can give it that freedom however we want."

She was shouting now. "And we can't play god like that! It's not our place!"

9S raised his voice to match her as best as his wobbly tone would let him. "We don't have a place anymore! There's no... position left for us to take!"

"Our place is in solitude, 9S. This," she gestured to the ashy plains around them, "this is what's left for us and we have to accept it. That solitude is going to go away as soon as you bring those things back to life!"

"With the ability to direct their programming we can make sure they'll leave us alone-"

"We already are alone!" She bit back with a furious scream.

9S sighed, then lowered his head in shame. "2B, I have to do this."

"I won't be a part of it."

"It doesn't matter. I'm going to do it with you... or without you." He said plainly, his voice faltering only at the end.

Her breathing was so heavy, her exhales so shuddering. "I'll kill them. 9S, if you make them, I will not allow them to live. I can't."

He was unfazed. He'd expected such a threat. "I know."

She threw her arms up. "What, then? Are you going to have them end me? Are you going to strike me down yourself?" Her voice was as cracked and shattered as the cheek on her porcelain face. "Are you going to kill me, this time, 9S?"

He opened his mouth to speak, but she'd already made up her mind. She assumed a fighting stance, raising her fists limply and narrowing her eyes. 9S swallowed, feeling the scratched and rusted metal inside his throat constrict as if he actually produced saliva. Both of them were so weak, so without strength. Neither of them'd had the same strength they once claimed ownership of for dozens of years. They stood just far enough apart that they'd need to bridge the gap, and they stared each other in the eyes. His expression was blank, emotionless, but her lips were curled back like an angered wolf as she breathed hot air through her nostrils.

There was a tense moment, and 2B decided enough was enough. She cried out as she rushed at him, reeling back one fist to mash it into his cheek. He backpedaled away from her grasp, and her clenched hand met ashy air as he dodged. She continued to swipe furiously in his direction, desperate to knock him down. To knock some sense into him. To steer him away from starting the nightmare all over again. Anything to stop these horrible thoughts running through her own mind.

She kicked and cried out loudly enough to echo off of whatever edifices remained around them in this crumbling wasteland. Each flail of her limbs hurt, she felt servos and joints creaking inside her as she pursued him. He dove out of the way of every attack, her anger providing him ample openings with which to dodge. He knew he could riposte. He knew he could send her reeling with just one counter, or hack her to shut her various parts offline one by one to force her to stop. But he knew she needed this. He knew they needed this. For decades, they'd needed this.

Eventually his foot caught on a rock and she tackled his midsection, sending him sprawling into the dirt. She straddled him as she once did a million lifetimes ago, her eyes practically blind with infuriated tears. 9S' hands scrambled out to grab her wrists, and they caught flesh. The two of them struggled for grip for a moment, 2B squeezing her thighs around his legs to keep him pinned down, and she wrenched herself free. Reeling back, her eyes grew manic as her fist trembled.

"Ngh!" She rammed her knuckles right into his cheek. He reacted like his neck had been broken, opposite cheek hitting dirt and concrete. As he returned his gaze to meet hers, unwilling to fight back, she struck him again. And again. And again.

"Ungh! Hng! Ngh! Ngh! Hngh!" She drove her fist into his face again and again like a piston, completely lost in her desire to beat some sense into him, her incredibly frayed wits finally having snapped. It was so very unlike her, so animalistic, to be filled with rage like this. She sobbed openly now, big crystal clear tears boiling out of her white-hot eyes.

9S took her punishment, his body flailing with each connected hit. Here they were, the last two remaining creatures, the last life that existed. Fighting in the dirt like cavemen. 9S knew she wouldn't kill him, she couldn't. It hurt every time she socked him in the jaw but he knew she would eventually stop. Her emotional state was wild, blinking red lights an exclamation points shouted in 9S' head about how she was overheating herself, wearing herself out. Her vitals drew yellow, then orange, then blood red as her attacks grew weaker.

Eventually she punched him with such force that her body twisted, her elbow crashing into the dirt beside his head. She staggered, taking in a sharp breath as she collapsed into him. Battered and bruised, 9S let out a whooshing exhale as her body hit his hard. He was lying flat, unable to even move anymore, and she curled up in a ball on top of him, wracked with furious sobs as a thousand lifetimes of awful memories and fighting and murder slammed into her at once.

She laid there, feeling so pathetic and miserable and broken; her heart felt like someone was sitting on it. Somewhere far away from her thoughts, 9S choked and coughed lightly.

"You've... You've still got it." He chuckled wearily, wincing in pain at the movement of his jaw. It was sore already, and would only grow moreso for a while as it healed. One of the downsides of the extinction of android kind: No more self-repair gel.

She clutched his shirt tightly as he laid there limp beneath her. For a while, she murmured over and over, "Please don't do this. Please. Please."

With every word, he squeezed his eyes closed and felt pain shoot up his spine- but a different pain than the one in his face. She would forgive him, eventually. She would feel the way he did, eventually. He had to believe it, had to keep hope alive as much as he could. There wasn't much left to go around.

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For a time, she left him. Grave pain ran through her features as she departed in the night to wander the wastes alone and then didn't return. She felt she needed to clear her head, distance herself from the anger she was feeling. Seeing 9S' crumpled and bruised jaw made her feel like collapsing, or curling up into a little ball. She lost track of time in her solitude, her mind growing heavy with a desire to just drop where she stood and die.

How dare she attack 9S. How dare she think she knew better than him. The one thing, the one light that remained in their sad little existence and she'd almost ruined it because of her miserly personal feelings.

She damned YoRHa in her head, as she had done for decades now, for ever imparting on her that she should not feel emotion. If she'd been allowed to think in such a way from the start, maybe right now it wouldn't feel so horrible.

When she returned, he acted like she'd never gone anywhere. 9S remained understanding- far more so than she felt she deserved -and as naive and hopeful as ever. His face had healed, thankfully. They returned to observing each other and talking about nothing in particular and whiling away their endless days in each others' company. They had only a short few more discussions about his idea for saving the world, and they always ended in 2B rejecting it once more... this time without the thrown fists.

9S knew he could not convince her with words. 2B, even after all this time, was still as steadfast and staunch in her beliefs as ever. If her mind changed, it would be her changing it, not him. So, he changed it instead with respect. He gave her the distance she desired on the subject, fully aware she was considering it every day. Every time he brought it up. He was sure she was thinking about it, running through every possible outcome in her head looking for one that would fit her desires. He knew her so well now.

And, eventually, she gave. Her rage subsided to what could have been called depression in a human; resignation to the cycle beginning anew. She was so desperate to avoid admitting it but she could avoid it no longer. 2B was afraid of the machines. Their stupid, pathetic little heads still stared at her blankly from time to time. Corpses, just husks, littering the ground everywhere. And yet some of them still seemed so alive. Their gray, lightless eyes staring straight through her into the sky. She imagined one of the petulant little droids stomping on her head until it cracked and shuddered.

But she went along with his plan, if only because the alternative was leaving his side- something she refused to ever do again -and they began their search. Somewhere, among the thousands or perhaps hundreds of thousands of machines lying empty and discarded, every individual part had to still exist.

They combed as many decayed cities and rolling plains and sandy deserts as they could reach, talking little along the way. There wasn't much more for them to talk about anymore. When there was light they scoured, picking up and dropping each machine body to rattle it around and find out what it contained. When there was darkness, they held each other, legs and hands and bodies intertwined as they stared deep into one another's very cores. They still felt such affection, such love, even despite their strained relationship. 9S fit her embrace perfectly and she fit his, like they were mirror images.

Eventually they began assembling pieces. A bolt, a screw, a couple scraps of wire. There were no blueprints for the machines to be found- if they did exist, they were long gone. They had so many tiny, practically invisible moving parts. Even the smallest machine seemed to have hundreds of bits and pieces and slots that fit together to form their still not-very-complex bodies. It took so long to find some parts that they began to lose that last shred of hope, to wonder what would happen if they could not fit rod A into slot B. Would the machine still function without a... complex ball joint tension simulator? Could it live and survive without a microchip to allow it to predict the weather in advance by 18 months? So many things that seemed unnecessary, and yet left gaping holes in the construction when they were absent or rotted away.

2B knew a similar feeling.

After months of sifting through an uncountable number of corpses, they had done it- or at least, as far as they could tell. Laid out in a grid the size of a city block was every single part of precisely one sphere-headed machine. From the biggest part (the shell of the head, of course) to the tiniest pristine nut, every piece was present. They admired their work, standing back to gaze upon their macabre science experiment.

9S breathed a sigh of relief. "Scan complete. That's everything."

"Good." 2B said. Her nod was slight, but genuine. Initially she had still been very vocal about her disagreement with the plan. She hadn't tried to beat 9S senseless again since that day, but she remained no stranger to expressing her distaste for reviving the machines. Over the days, weeks, months, he had convinced her. Broken through the barrier. He'd calmed her by explaining that if they could reprogram the central chip, 9S could become the new nervous system of the machines. He could become the new network. They already knew it was possible thanks to Eve. She remained uneasy, but as he always did, 9S made her feel safer.

"How do we start putting them together?" He wondered aloud, walking among the graveyard of scrap. "Surely with the head?"

"I imagine the feet would be better." 2B murmured. "The head we could assemble separate, and put it on last."

9S nodded. "I can see the logic in that, yeah. We'll have to be careful with the microchips, they need to be put together in a specific order or else they'll short out."

"How will we activate it?" She asked, realizing she'd never pondered that.

With a heavy sigh, 9S rubbed the back of his neck. He stared down at the circular head, disconnected from its eyes and eyelids and the rest of its parts. "I don't know. We'll find a way."

And so they spent hours like children playing with blocks, finding each piece among the pile and slotting them together one by one. No assembly line, no factory to do the work for them. What it could do in ten seconds, it took them days. The tension between them seemed to dissipate, or perhaps flee. For the first time in a while they felt connected again, like they were at the beginning. They felt the passion starting to return to their fragile forms as they assembled their Frankenstein's monster. After all this time, their love still held against the pressure bearing down on it. Compressed into a two-dimensional line though it was, it was still alive. They found themselves holding hands while they took breaks from their work to rest, absent-mindedly. An excitement was starting to build in them despite 2B's always-present caution. They were going to create life.

2B gently held the body in her arms, up just high enough for 9S to reach the neckline easily. He reached into its shell, pulling out plugs and wires until they stuck out of its neck like it had been dismembered. In the now-deceased former world, it probably would have been.

Very gingerly, he held the head like a basketball. He rotated it so that the wires spilling out of the shell aligned, and with a deep breath, thrust them together. There were sparks of light and electricity from the crack separating its body from its head; it seemed he'd gotten the angle perfect on the first try.

The two of them laid it on the ground and stared, almost expecting it to jump up and start swinging its arms at them as so many hundreds of its brothers once did. Only now did 9S feel a tiny bit of the same fear 2B held; this creature would be simple, like a child. It was designed that way by its original creators. But it would be so much smarter than them, despite its slow deductive speed, by orders of magnitude. It would have no empathy, no sense of guilt, no love. It would be as cold and unfeeling as 2B once thought she herself could act. On its own, it would not be dangerous. But what they were going to do afterward might make it so.

They stood just mere inches apart, hands clasped together and fingers interlocked, as 9S raised his free hand to interface with its circuitry. It took a couple seconds for his hacking display to appear, and it fizzled with static just a bit before it came into focus. He couldn't tell if it was due to failing programming or just disuse, but supposed it didn't much matter. 2B held her breath as he reached into its foreign mind and groped around for the light switch. The big red button that read, "come to life".

For just a moment, there was complete silence. The air hung heavy, atmosphere almost palpable. There was no wind, no life. No crowing birds or humming street lights. Only ash, and soot, and the end of the world.

With a thick scraping sound that gave way to a light 'click', its eyes snapped open. Completely blank, expressionless, the machine stared up at the clouds just as 2B had seen so many times. Another rippling shudder crawled up her spine. As robotically as ever, the little machine's limbs moved one by one, slowly. As if it were a shuddering, hulking beast, though it only came to about waist height. It blinked absent-mindedly as its arms rotated a full 180 degrees, allowing it to push into a sitting position, and then it rose to its feet. No parts shook loose. Nothing came clanking out of it. It was alive.

For the moment, it completely disregarded 9S and 2B. As if they weren't there, the machine rotated its head to take in the surroundings. Collecting data on... whatever it had decided it needed data on. It turned away from them, stared at the empty horizon line, its little feet slipping just a small bit on the ashy dirt it stood on.

9S released 2B's hand as softly as he could and stooped over to address it. She recalled so clearly his voice asking her so many times, "Can you hear me?" as he did the same to the dwarf.

It didn't even acknowledge him, still gazing emptily into the distance.

"Uh... hey, I need to know if you can hear me." At his vague demand, it snapped to attention. The machine turned back toward the pair and now watched 9S through wide, dinner plate sized eye sockets.

Obviously, it had no mouth. Or rather, it did, but it was trapped beneath the spherical head and thus could not move it or respond. The androids knew full well that the robots could vocalize- that is, scream -but regular speech was done through transmittance via the network.

"I need to perform a logic test," he said, more to himself than 2B. She folded her arms under her chest, uncomfortably shifting at the sight of it. Hundreds of years. It had been hundreds of years since she'd seen a living machine, and it deeply unsettled her inside. But she shoved the feeling back down her gullet and into the pit of her stomach where it was fit to just sit and stew.

9S leaned in so the machine could hear him as clearly as possible. "What is zero plus zero?"

It did nothing. The only response he got were the light whirring and resonance from its inner bits and bobs.

He shared an almost nervous look with 2B. "Uh... Good enough. What is zero plus one?"

When he finished his question, it perked up a little. The robot looked around, almost wildly, presumably for a way to answer the question. When it found there was nothing to answer with after a few seconds of dedicated searching, it simply held up one arm in front of 9S' face and shook it lightly.

At this, he and 2B both drew in a close approximation of a gasp. Such a simple demonstration of intelligence, but it was a thousand times more astounding to them because they were now on the other side of the machines. For the first time, they were in charge. They were commanding its actions and it responded without even considering why. An easy question like 'what is zero plus one' wouldn't require much thought, of course, but seeing it regard them as anything more than scenery at best and enemies at worst was so foreign.

"One plus one?" he asked.

It held up both arms.

"One plus... two?"

It looked around again. Seeing nothing to represent 'three', it instead responded by taking a step forward. 2B instinctively bent her knees slightly and curled inward as it approached, ready to take it apart limb from limb should it attack. When it reached out and seized 9S' arm by the elbow, she went to strike...

...and stopped herself, as it gingerly held his arm up to represent a third count, an answer to his query. Its bright eyes looked to him for another question, or perhaps approval.

9S took his arm back from its grasp. There was a light 'clink' as its two pronged fingers tapped together, and it retracted its own hand as well, returning to its neutral position. Returning to zero.

"That'll complete the test," he said to it. He then added, "uh, thank you."

The words felt wrong as he said them. He thanked it. For what? Proving that it could count? For showing them it was conscious? For demonstrating intelligence? For being the last surviving bastion of hope either of them had on this cruel dead planet?

'All of the above', he decided.

He was still bending down to meet its globed head as he spoke once more. "I'm giving you a couple of directives. You are a machine, controlled by... uh, myself. You have your own independence and can act of your own free will, unless I say so. Do you understand?"

His speech had been well-versed. He and 2B had made a mental note of everything he was to say to it, no more and no less. That said, their prepared speech needed a response in order to proceed. It peered at him blankly.

"Nod if you understand." His voice was barely above a mumble, and his breath caught in his throat. When it bobbed its head on its circular axis to affirm his command, his posture stiffened. He wondered if this was what it was like to be a god. To be a human.

"Okay," he continued. "Unit 2B and myself, Unit 9S, are friendly to you. Your kind is required to be friendly to us. Please record that statement and make a secure backup."

He gave it a moment to do so.

"You are the first unit of the group we're going to call, 'the new machines'. If you hold any programming information of your previous version, delete it. It's irrelevant information now."

It nodded again, beginning to act a bit less like a statue and more like a living creature.

9S tried to keep his voice even, but it was faltering now. His attempt to stay clinical in addressing the robot was failing, but he knew it wouldn't mind. "Your purpose is... to self-replicate. Find machines that contain the same parts and use yourself as a template. Come back when there are an ample number of units and we will instruct you on what to do next. We'll leave it to your discretion to decide how many is enough."

The machine nodded, this time more slowly. Its brain was surely being assaulted with new information with every passing second, about life, about the world around it. It gawked at the two androids, its commanders, as data compounded and flowed and shuffled inside of it.

"Now go." 9S gestured away from the group. "You're free to do as you please."

It closed its eyes, presumably to assess the situation and think about what it... felt like doing. After a solid minute of total silence, it turned from them once again and started to walk. Arms at its sides, it stomped heavily on the ash, gaining better traction and movement control as it went. 2B returned to 9S' side and clasped his hand in hers once again. They were both trembling now.

Eventually, the machine disappeared over the horizon, and for some time they both stood watching it turn into a smaller and smaller dot and then vanish. Even after that, neither of them could bear to move. Both their heads swam as one as the full brunt of their actions finally became too hard to ignore.

"We did it," 9S said, breathless. "We're all going to survive."

2B shook her head. "No."

"...No?"

"You did it."

With a light scoff, 9S shook his head, and for the first time in a very long time gave 2B a genuine and loving smile.

Thank you for reading. I hope I brought the story to a satisfying conclusion, and I hope you enjoyed. Sometimes vague hope is all you really need to be able to carry on. As always, leave a review and let me know what you thought of the story, and I'll see you in the next one.