2B walked the halls of the factory, it was largely just aimless wandering while she was in-between missions. 9S was with the rest of the resistance and YoRHa androids, there was apparently a drone fight tournament going on. 2B had stayed for a while, but large crowds did not suit her and she had left after a short while.
The current pseudo peace imposed by the human felt foreign and off after so long fighting. Sitting around and playing games with other androids just wasn’t something she could do. Walking around buildings alone was far more familiar though.
The factory was odd, it wasn’t the sterile halls of YoRHa, and it wasn’t anything like the resistance camps, it was corridors of dark metal illuminated with white lights every few feet and lined with pipes and power conduits, each one leading off to some unknown destination.
The tunnels hadn’t been here when the building was first made, it had just been a wide open expanse filled with machinery that the drones could fly and crawl through, but a few to many androids had gotten clothing stuck in the machinery or dropped something that jammed a belt, so safe access tunnels had been installed to lead between everywhere an android might need to go.
It had taken the drones less than four hours to completely remodel the base with the new tunnels in mind, 2B knew that because she had left for a short mission and there hadn’t been tunnels, just an open layout where you could see everything being built or moved, and when she came back they had already been installed.
She was still getting used to the change, the tighter corridors would make maneuvering and swinging her sword difficult, but it would force any invading machines to travel in pairs rather than as a massive group, and based on the turrets at the end of every turn pointed down the halls, the human knew that, or at least the minds knew that.
The clank of machinery along with the sound of turning gears and objects being picked up and moved filled the hall with an ambience, with the occasional sound of a drone flying near the tunnel.
She watched a machine build a suit of power armor for a short while, each individual piece arriving on a belt only to be carefully fitted onto the metal frame; dozens of YoRHa androids had a suit, even if they only wore them for combat missions. Even 9S had one, but 2B had yet to don hers. Eventually she walked on, passing by similar machines, each building weapons or armor.
2B didn’t really have a destination in mind, she was more just aimlessly wandering the tunnel. Which is why she was surprised when she walked through an open door and found herself in the humans workshop, or something she assumed was his workshop given he was currently working in it.
She was just thinking of turning around before he noticed her intrusion, even if the door had been open, when she heard his voice speaking into her head. “I do have to wonder why you're here, one of the minds meddling obviously, you wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t wanted you to be. But it does raise the question of if I need to do something for you, or if you have something for me”
He hadn’t turned around to look at her when he spoke, he hadn’t even stopped fiddling with what looked like a massive bullet. But she still knew he was talking to her, even though she hadn’t made a sound. Maybe a silent proximity alarm? She had heard he had a mental uplink with all of his machines, so could they send information directly to his brain? How could that be used in combat?
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This wasn’t the first time the minds had led an android to me, usually when an android was wandering or got lost a drone would come by and lead them out, but sometimes the minds would decide I needed to talk to them. Either because the android needed help with something that I would excel at, because I hadn’t stopped working for a few days and they needed to distract me, or a number of other reasons.
Meddling minds will meddle in matters of the mind I suppose
I hate you and that pun
Is that even a pun?
Balistraia was made to be observant, and she tended to notice when the androids were having trouble. And given that most androids lacked emotional maturity and healthy coping mechanisms it was my or the mind's jobs to help them.
Wonder if we can find a therapist android
This particular android, 2E or 2B was a YoRHa combat model, and an effective one at that, given her ratio of successful missions to failed missions and her relatively few deaths. Out of all the android models the YoRHa combat models needed emotional help the most often. Games and stress relieving days off helped, but sometimes they needed more direct help.
Yay more conversations with emotional scared killing machines just what today needed
You have to admit that we are oddly good at this
Maybe something to do with our innate understanding of machines translating to how they feel?
A combination of both?
That sounds pseudo magical and I hate it, thanks
Well this world does apparently have magic, also we need to make magical weapons.
Oddly good at does not mean good, it just means better than could be expected. And you just jinxed us.
I thought that only happened when you said it?
The minds hear everything we think, for us thinking it is saying it.
And somehow I was the best suited for that. Even if I had a poor grasp on most emotions beyond spite. I kept blaming it on me being human and that making the androids happier on a default level, but that didn’t explain my actual proficiency with dealing with their issues. Something to look into later.
My perception of the world around me let me look at her without actually turning towards her, but I still waited until she was in the doorway of my workshop before speaking. She took a reflexive step back when I spoke, almost like she thought I was a threat. Worrying first reaction to seeing a human.
I finally turned my attention away from the massive cannon shell I was refining and turned to face 2B, given that I had only been working for six hours one of the minds had probably decided something about this android meant they needed an actual conversation with me.
I think she wants to stab me
That's more just a general hatred towards humanity I think
That does not mean she does not want to stab me
Also hating humanity in general is our thing, I think? Can we have a thing?
Welp lets see what general problem we are being blamed for today, you’d really think the minds would give me a sitrep but no we are free styling this.
I'm starting to think these conversations are more to test my empathic abilities than anything else.
She finally reacted beyond the reflexive a full second after I had finished my line snapping off that salute YoRHa androids were so fond of, before she spoke, a second was the equivalent of a minute to my enhanced cognition, and I imagined it was something similar to an android, was the wait between responses because she was thinking or was it a programed wait?. “I had just been wandering, I had no intentions of coming here” meddling minds it was then. Fun.
No reason to fight fair here, I had access to her YoRHa file and it might have clues on why the minds sent her to me, an instant to access the servers and another to process the information.
Oh that’s white hot rage, just gonna bottle that up I suppose
I knew execution models, well executed androids, but letting them build an emotional connection before?
Well that rage just went cold, huh
Yeah the minds definitely had the right on this one
Where do we even start? How do you fix something like this? Can you even?
If you can’t fix the damage, stop more from happening.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
Well….. That was something. My workshop probably wasn't the best place for this discussion. I walked away from my workbench and towards the door to my room, the minds had installed a few chairs and a table in there, this was definitely a conversation I needed to be sitting for.
Her hate of humanity feels significantly more justified, killing a companion over and over again in their name would definitely do that.
Thankfully 2B followed me and after looking around my room for a few moments she sat on the couch facing my chair. “Wandering around the factory huh? Can’t say I haven’t done that when I need to clear my head. Anything particular on your mind? Most androids have at least a few questions they want to ask a human”
Ah the bluntness of an explosive charge, we truly are masters of conversation.
No, this is more a sniper round, an explosive charge would be stating everything outright, we are at least pretending to be subtle.
I turned my gaze from her blindfolded eyes and looked at the rest of her outfit, a short but fluffy skirt, thigh highs, and heeled boots. All trimmed with lace. And tellingly none of the stuff was anything I had made, none of my armor and none of my weapons. Not even that new thermal resistant undersuit most androids took to wearing under the clothes. When most enemies used lasers or plasma attacks something that could dissipate the heat was very useful.
“Why did humans create androids?”
Wow, she's even worse than we are. How long would it take to make a therapist bot? We don’t have enough data on healthy responses to actually make one.
And we can’t even tell the full truth of ‘I don’t know I wasn’t here for it’, wait no we can, we wouldn’t have even been around back then.
Her hands clenched hard enough that I could hear the artificial leather creaking, saying this could be counted as treason and questioning it went against most of YoRHa’s conditioning. The average android would never ask themselves ‘why’.
“I wasn’t there, I couldn’t tell you why but I imagine there were far more reasons than just one, no what you should be asking is why they made you feel, why the made you alive”
And I’m starting to wonder if they even did, or if the magic field here just gives emotions to sufficiently intelligent life.
But more lying is obviously the solution to this problem, and it’s not even technically lying! It's just being deceitful.
“But I can tell you why I created the minds, and why I would create something like you” her hands stopped squeezing themselves so hard and she gave a faint nod so I continued “I made the minds because I needed a machine that could improve and learn on its own, and I would create androids with thoughts so that they could do the same, so that they could become better than the thing I had built, I would give them emotions so that when they became so much greater than me, as they surely would, they wouldn’t just abandon me, they would take care of their parents because they loved them. I would give machines emotions so that they would have more to live for beyond self preservation and logic, I would give them emotions so that they could truly live at all.”
We didn’t even mean to make the mind’s sentient! It was an accident
I mean it was a good accident, they have exceeded all expectations and are growing well and rapidly, but I definitely didn’t intend to accidentally a bunch of kids into existence.
Creating sentient life at all just feels cruel though. Especially on a death world.
And we ignore the fact that the androids were definitely made to be slave labor, or at least used as such. The ingrained love was more to prevent rebellions than anything else.
Slaves that want to be slaves, and those emotions are going in the bottle.
Her cloth grew a few small dark patches, though her facial expression remained the same. “They made us feel so that we could grow?” she was speaking with just a hint of anger, which was good. Spite was as good a reason as any to keep living. I nodded, “and so that you could find reasons to keep living” her fists started straining even harder, and I heard her gloves rip as her nails torn the fabric, “they made it so that we could suffer just so that we would love them? I suffered so much just so that we wouldn’t abandon them?” my worry levels are spiking rapidly
“Every single mission where I had to kill my own allies, every single time I stained my blade with their blood, it hurt so much just so that we could grow?” I shook my head, that wasn’t a wrong way to think, there was a hint of truth in it at least, but it wasn’t a healthy way to think. “It also made it so you could care about them in the first place, is it better to love someone and then lose them, or to not be capable of love at all?” better to love and never lose I continued before 2B could point out the difference between losing someone and being forced to kill them with your own hands, momentum won most wars. “Their deaths had meaning because people cared, if you had all been unthinking unfeeling machines it would have meant nothing, I don’t even flinch when a machine breaks down, because they aren’t alive, you are, and that is a gift. Even if it doesn’t always feel like one” I took a deep breath, I didn’t really need one I was just pausing for time. “And if my pace keeps up you won’t have to worry about losing friends for much longer, it won’t heal the damage you've already had from their loss, and it won't bring them back. But…. it's something. Even if it isn’t truly enough”
Time to rip this bandage off “I know about your mission, how you’ve been forced to grow attached to 9S only to kill him over and over again. I know your attached to him even after his memory wipes and resets, and I know your scared of losing him again when he inevitable finds out something he shouldn’t” with his track record it was only a matter of time “when he does find out, you can come to Nauvis to stay with him. Even if I’d recommend you spend some time apart, not for long just a week every now and then” she had to have some form of Stockholm syndrome for him at this point, forced to interact with someone for so long. Some time apart would be healthy for her.
Oh she’s crying more, oh god.
We don’t even believe in a god. Why are we saying that?!
Stop trying to distract us from this, what do we do!
Sometimes I forgot that these were essentially children, at least the resistance androids were relatively old, but no YoRHa android was over five years old. They might have had knowledge implanted but that didn’t mean they were implanted with knowledge on how to deal with emotions. That took time to develop, and sometimes never did. They had the emotional scarring of soldiers and the emotional maturity of children. So I stood up and sat down next to her and pulled her into a half hug, then I just let her cry for a bit,
Probably space out the emotional things more, she probably thinks we are going to force her and 9S apart because she was too attached and emotional, which isn’t even wrong.
But she thinks it's a punishment, not something for her own good.
The only good punishments are the ones for the punished’s own good, not the only necessary granted, but the only good ones.
And that isn’t related to what we are doing right now is it? No, then stop thinking it.
“You’ll still be able to see him, you'll just have some time apart to clear your head.
Do we even know if they are sad tears? Maybe she’s relieved that she won't have to do it again?
We aren’t that lucky…. Probably.
We really aren’t cut out for this whole emotion thing
I feel like we are only beginning to deal with her issues, one talk won't be enough. This’ll need to be weekly at least. And talking can only help so much.