Chapter Text
X sat heavily on the ground, arms and back aching. The town's little garden plot was not nearly so little as it had seemed at first, when it came time to weed and water it, and he'd found, too, that despite his previous assumptions about the contents of the flower bed, he had no idea what was a weed or not. Next to him, Glitch poked the fire with a stick, and on his other side, Hammer and Kathy chatted with a couple of other reploids that he hadn't met yet. The garden lamps and most of the other lights were off for the night, and most of the light came from the cinder block fire pit around which the little encampment had begun to gather for the evening.
"V, this is Valentina, and Cirocco," Hammer said, turning to introduce him once he'd gotten settled.
Valentina was another human-like model, though she had quite a bit more shape to her body than X usually saw in a reploid. Peachy pink hair tumbled in waves down her back, and the shimmer of permanently tinted makeup brightened her cheeks. Not unlike Kathy, she wore clothing, rather large on her and mismatched; unlike Kathy, X suspected that going without would have been embarrassing for her and awkward for others. "Nice to meet you!" she chirped. "Rocky, be sociable, say hi to V."
"Hi," deadpanned Cirocco, in a deep but still female growl. She was one of the anthropomorphic reploids, generally custom or short-run models with highly specific capabilities. While her overall shape was bipedal, she had the head of a wolf, with a thick mane of tan fur and a tail. Her underarmor was gray, and the rest of her plating was white, with ice blue accents and darker navy edges.
"Nice to meet you," X said, giving her a nod and not pushing the issue. He was well acquainted with the sort of person who didn't enjoy small talk with strangers, and didn't mind giving that sort of person the space they wanted. Moreover, he recognized her production line, and very much hoped that she wouldn't recognize him. He'd had a run-in with another Wolfang series reploid, which she likely was, and it had not ended peacefully.
"How's your first day? Do anything fun? Kat make you play in the dirt? I bet she did, you've got it all over your knees," Glitch razzed X.
"I weeded the gardens," X replied, unfazed. "It's more work than I'd expected. I've never actually done it before."
"Oh, my God, did you hear that? V just said more than three words to me, in a row, and probably even on purpose! We're basically best friends now, I'm pretty sure." He tossed a few more wood scraps in, and slowly, the fire grew. It was well contained in a pit of cinder blocks, and while X could have done with a little less of Glitch being himself quite so loudly, he did not mind the warmth, and he found he did not mind the socialization, either.
"Don't get too far ahead of yourself," he jokingly warned, though it came out deadpan enough that Glitch couldn't quite figure out what to make of the statement for several moments, until Cirocco, who saw it for what it was, chuffed a single laugh.
"You're so hard to read, man," Glitch sighed, all melodrama.
"Tell me about yourself, V!" Valentina exclaimed, apropos of very little. "I mean, if you don't mind, but I heard you're an ex-Hunter, right?"
"I was, yes," X said, with a nod. "For quite a while."
This brought a very canine huff from Cirocco. "I thought there was something familiar about you."
X internally quailed. Had she recognized him? Should he have recognized her more specifically? Was she about to out him to everyone? "Did you?" he asked, mentally bracing and running through about five explanations in the time it took the wolf reploid to answer.
"Yeah, Hunters all have this look. Like you're always studying everyone. Gives me the creeps," she remarked gruffly.
X's anxiety deflated so abruptly he got emotional whiplash. "Oh. Er. Sorry about that," he said, fidgeting with the handle of his cane. "They train you to pay attention to your surroundings at all times. It's a habit." The exact extent to which he had learned that particular lesson was better unmentioned.
"Then there's Kathy, who watches everyone like she's about to give us homework," Glitch snickered, and X was glad for the spotlight to shift away from him. "Dunno which is worse."
"Homework," Valentina declared, without a moment's hesitation.
"Homework," Hammer agreed.
"I do not give you homework!" Kathy objected with a laugh. "Just because things need done around here—"
"It's work and it's at home," Glitch pointed out, very helpfully.
"You are always trying to get me to read more books," added Valentina. "Except I already read plenty of books."
"You are the sole reason we have a human romance novel shelf," Cirocco agreed, though whether she thought this was a compliment or not, she did not clarify. Valentina simply took it as one, nodding at her much larger canine friend.
"See? I read all the time. She'll tell you."
"Those are not educational—" Kathy started.
"Who says?" Hammer interrupted, which earned him a mostly playful glare from Kathy. "I flipped through one of 'em once and I learned all kinds of shit they don't get around to telling you in orientation."
Glitch cackled. "Like what?"
"Ain't polite to say. You'll have to crack one open yourself and find out," Hammer deflected.
"I'm not that interested in freaky organic shit, sorry." Glitch poked the fire a bit more, making cinders rise. It was built well away from any buildings, though, so he could fidget with it with relative impunity. "Books are too slow anyway."
"Well, we can't all mainline wifi, Speedy," the construction reploid chuckled. "Reminds me in a roundabout way, though, did you still need a new cable for your project?"
"Yeah, and maybe bring me the rest of the lab while you're out. A cable would be a good start, though, I don't have a spare for the new pod, and the one on pod two is starting to disconnect if you wiggle it at all."
Hammer nodded. "Think I know where there's probably a few. You go up Fifth far enough, over the old bridge, there's a bunch of apartment blocks. Pretty sure there was some reploid housing in there too. I haven't had a chance to go scrounge around yet, but it looks promising. I was gonna have a look tomorrow, but I think I'd better see if I can't get a new room finished first."
X sat up a little straighter. He hadn't even managed to leave the encampment, and he was beginning to worry about his actual reason for being in the quarantine zone. Losing a day, however much he'd needed the recharge, was a lot. "I could go check it out, if you want."
Hammer raised an eyebrow at him skeptically. "Not to imply nothin', but it's a long walk. But if you wanna go, knock yourself out. Just take someone with you."
"Shit, if you're going, I'm going," Glitch declared. "Who knows what I could scavenge up that way? Maybe I'll get extra lucky and someone'll have a nice tablet they didn't take with them. Or more recharge pod parts, it's getting dicey with only three pods and twelve of us, now, but I almost have a fourth together." He sighed. "What I wouldn't give for us to have set up camp next to a conveniently un-looted electronics supply store."
"You and me both, man," Hammer agreed. "At least we got a good roof and floor here. You shoulda seen where I was camped out when I first got here. Ended up having to leave because the roof leaked so bad the floor was caving in."
Focus and Drive sat down next to each other, and right behind them were three more reploids that X hadn't yet met. Valentina sprung into action at once. "V, this is Flip, Siobhan, and Trigger. Say hi to V, guys, he's new," she said, bubbly with excitement.
"Heya," said Flip. He had white and gray plating as well, which was not an uncommon base color scheme among civilian reploids, with lavender and teal accents. He was lightly built, willowy even, and sported two thin metal blades on his back that X recognized immediately as thruster guides. X guessed that he was probably some kind of high-speed model, semi-custom at least, though some of his design elements struck X as several generations ago.
Next to him was a female-model reploid in red, pink, and gold plating, who must have been Siobhan. She had curly red hair, freckles, and pale green eyes, and seemed to be from the same design generation as Flip. Siobhan gave X a small, shy smile and a wave of her fingers, but not much else.
"Hello." The final reploid, Trigger, took a seat next to Cirocco. He was another anthropomorph, built in the image of a crow and plated in mostly black, with dark green and violet trim that suggested iridescent black plumage. Next to the wolf reploid, it became clear to X that they also shared quite a few design elements and indeed had probably been built in tandem. Cirocco chuffed at him in greeting, and he made a friendly croaking rattle noise back at her. X idly wondered how many reploids had arrived here in pairs. It seemed to be more common than not, which tracked with what he knew of Mavericks. That they tended to turn in groups, even without the Virus influencing them, was a known fact.
"Be careful if you go, V," Kathy advised. "The tunnels end at the river. Fifth Street Bridge is the edge of what used to be Old Town, and they never ran them out that far, so you'll be above ground, and there's a lot less cover."
"And there's the Drifters," added Cirocco.
"Aren't they mostly on the southeast side?" Valentina asked.
Cirocco shook her head. "Last time I was up that way, I saw them. Didn't see me, but I'm sure it was them."
"Who are the Drifters?" asked X, though he could guess somewhat from context.
The chorus of answers was simultaneous, but confirmed his guess.
"A gang," Kathy replied.
"Bunch of fucking lunatics," Glitch answered.
"Bad news, that's what," Hammer said.
'>E.04642-SYS: Failure to compile.' answered Focus.
'>W.00142-SEN: Damage detected, left gluteal plate. W.00143-SEN: Damage detected, right gluteal plate.' Drive agreed.
"Mavericks," Flip said.
"They're probably not actually infected with the actual Virus, though, just to be clear," Glitch objected, to Flip specifically. "That's pretty much been eradicated."
"They might have something, though. You remember Analog." As soon as Flip mentioned the name, the circle fell silent for a moment.
"...alright, point, I do remember Analog," Glitch conceded, looking back to the fire pit and feeding it another couple pieces of wood. "Hard to explain that one unless they're infected." Then, turning to X, he explained. "Analog was one of the earlier ones with us, here. Nice guy, until one day he just didn't come back from scavenging. Next time we saw him he was spray-painted with the same red bullshit as the rest of them. Threw a rock at me and Flip, even."
Kathy nodded, expression solemn in the firelight. "It's why the buddy system is mandatory. There's too much that can happen. Hunter patrols, other irregulars, buildings can still collapse…it's a dangerous world. We have to have each other's backs, because who else will? But if the Drifters have been hanging around the north side too…that's not good. Maybe you shouldn't go."
X opened his mouth to speak, but Glitch was, unsurprisingly, much faster. "We'll be careful. Could even take a buster each if you're really worried. Besides, if they're only just now getting up there, they might not have stripped everything out yet, and now that there's this many of us, do you wanna start a wait-list for who gets to charge this week? 'Cause I don't. I'm hoping I can scav enough working parts to get the fourth pod going soon, or at least make sure we don't end up down to two."
Kathy relented, though the concern was still clearly written in her features. "Alright, you've made your point. But no dragging V into anything dangerous, okay? He's not nearly as mobile as you."
X's gut reaction was to object. He could force it, he knew. He could expend the extra computational power, override his balance sensors, switch his servomotors to full manual control, make purely visual physics calculations with a certain margin of error…it would leave him exhausted and aching from the strain, but he could still perform in combat nearly as well as before, in short bursts. And if it came to it, he would, of course.
But then, he thought, that would definitely tip everyone off. He did intend to tell them, at some point. His identity was hardly secret. He was not concealing his face at all, nor anything else about his appearance, aside from having consigned his old blue armor to a display case. He had even simply cut the bottom half of his name off to make V. He had just…grown a little tired of the incredible weight of being himself, that was all. And no irregular would want to talk to X. V, on the other hand, they immediately accepted as one of their own.
"Of course not. We see anything at all suspicious, we'll get the hell out. Don't even worry about us. I know every tunnel from here to the river like the back of my hand. And I've installed things into my hands before, so you know I know what I'm talking about."
Besides, X thought as Glitch continued to make words, he couldn't remember the last time anyone had openly considered his safety. It was…nice, he begrudgingly conceded, to feel that someone remembered that he wasn't invincible. Even if it was under somewhat false pretenses, he also thought. The mighty X couldn't be defeated—no, not quite, he couldn't let himself be defeated—but V was allowed his frailties.
But then, that felt like giving up, and while he'd had to make some concessions to absolute necessity like his cane, Kathy's casual concern for his well-being gave him a creeping sense of unease that he was showing too much weakness…even if it was the thing causing him to also appear trustworthy.
X was going in circles, and he knew it, so it came as a relief when his train of thought was interrupted by Mack's arrival. "Alright, I'm here, the party has officially started," it deadpanned, waddling up to the fire. "Has nobody turned on the radio? I have to do everything here."
The little encampment, X included, spent the rest of the evening around the fire, doing nothing useful. Humans would probably have had a cooler of drinks and something to eat, X knew, but reploids needed no such things. Conversation flowed between verbal and digital, though X noticed that Focus never spoke. He was so fluent in I.00100-COM: Diagnostic broadcast. however that X found himself only barely able to keep up.
He was content to say little and listen more. There was much to learn about his new friends simply by observing them, he realized; Focus, his constantly-tapping fingers flecked with paint, nonverbal but animatedly broadcasting instead; his apparent twin sibling Drive, never more than an arm's length or two from him, hovering protectively; the way that Kathy, while she was speaking, unconsciously tucked her hair behind her ear in a way that was so human-like he could have forgotten she was a reploid; Hammer's easy laugh, sounding for all the world as if he did not live a hard life in a refugee camp of irregulars. Flip and Siobhan sat very close together, one of Flip's arms around her protectively at all times, and X understood why Hammer had mentioned their not needing a third wheel. Glitch never held still, though unlike Focus and somewhat Drive, his own tendency was to not remain in one position for long, sometimes even getting up and wandering around for no apparent reason.
X had little to contribute to the gathering, but nobody tried to force him to join in—unless he counted Glitch randomly asking him his opinion on things he didn't have much opinion on, like what color he should paint himself next. He was happy enough watching everyone else interact. Clearly, these reploids cared for each other. They had, against all odds, built a working community in the rubble.
And yet, Kathy's words from that morning drifted to the front of his mind. We've all done something to be out here. Every one of these reploids must have been irregular in some way, he thought, enough so that they had run from the Hunters and the law, or at least society. He might have even recognized them from the news, had he had enough details to put together. It was hard to reconcile, sitting around the fire with them. Even knowing that Kathy had hospitalized two humans…the kind of woman who could do that did not seem like the kind of woman who was currently planning the layout of the next few personal rooms with Hammer, and laughing with Valentina about something.
Glitch had stolen Mack, and casually mentioned he'd done a number of other electronic crimes. That at least made sense with what he knew of the overclocked reploid. Mack…had its only crime really been being activated? And what of everyone else here? Did they have a body count? Would he have had to retire them, had he not taken his leave of the Maverick Hunters?
X did not want to think about that. He'd had enough of violence for several lives already. His thoughts must have been showing on his face, because Mack sat next to him, tucking its feet neatly under it in an almost cat-like way.
"Zenny for your thoughts?" it asked.
X shook his head with a wry half-smile. "You'd be overpaying me."
"Good thing I'm broke, then. If the crowd's too much, I got a hammock installed in the room for you. The pods are spoken for tonight already, though."
"It's not that. I like this, actually. It's been a while since I had the chance to just be around people who didn't want something from me." He rubbed a thumb over the handle of the cane in his lap.
"It's a good group." Mack turned its optics to the fire, which Cirocco was now flipping wood chips into. "Bunch of strange folks, but mostly the good kind of strange."
"I was wondering…and I know it's nosy of me to ask, so if you don't want to talk about it, that's fine. But did you do anything? Other than Glitch activating you, I mean?"
The C-15's eyes rotated to X. "Depends on why you're asking," it hedged.
"Curiosity," X answered honestly. "Kathy mentioned that everyone here is irregular or Maverick. I wasn't sure if she was warning me for my sake or for yours. Like I said, though, if you don't want to talk about it, that's fine. I don't want to push you."
Mack hummed noncommittally, eyes drifting back towards the fire and then across it to Glitch, and X realized that he hadn't spoken to a C-15…maybe ever. Not at any length, that was certain. "Hmm. Well, I can respect curiosity. Sure, why not."
It paused, collecting its thoughts and doing a little foot-shuffle as it did before resettling. "It was when they came for Glitch. The way he'll tell it, he was a step ahead of them and got away. That's about half true. He knew they were coming, but he didn't have enough time to get away. I figured, I wouldn't even be activated if it weren't for this overclocked little weirdo, so I owed him my life. When they showed up at the apartment block for him, I got into the building's service conduits."
"With the rest of the Mettaurs?" X asked, nodding along.
"Exactly." Mack gave him an affirmative tip of the helmet back. "The Hunters couldn't tell me from any of them in a hurry, not that they were really looking for me. They knew I existed, or at least that I was missing from the museum, but they hadn't considered me a threat at that point. So I started cutting every pipe and wire I could find between Glitch and the Hunters. The building's mechaniloid Mettaurs automatically deployed to repair them, the fire alarms and the sprinklers all went off, and then someone went and dropped all these live wires into the water."
X gave a conflicted little laugh. And to think he'd considered these units little more than unfortunate cannon fodder, back in the first days of the Maverick Wars…he was lucky they hadn't been given more leeway. Or maybe that was what made Mack irregular, ultimately. C-15s had not been known for much creativity or quick thinking, let alone coming up with a way to hinder an entire squad of Maverick Hunters single-...no-handedly.
"I probably could have gotten away without being detected," it continued, still in its mechanical monotone, "but then someone stepped on me, and I happened to still have my cutting laser primed, so I took his leg off at the knee. And then someone else's. By the time I ran into someone with laser-resistant armor, they had realized that at least one of us was Maverick and were destroying every Mettaur they could catch, so I got back into the service conduits and got out of there."
"You saved Glitch," said X, glancing from the fire, to the green reploid who had now wandered over to Flip. Glitch leaned in slyly and said something into one of Flip's auditory sensors, and they both snorted with laughter. Glitch, who is an experienced cybercriminal, by his own admission, X reminded himself. And I'm talking to someone who disabled, if not decommissioned, most of a squad of Hunters. None of these people are safe, and I'm not safe being here…Kathy needed me to know that, or she wouldn't have told me what she did.
…Right? Then why do I feel safe with them?
"I did," Mack said, radiating pride, despite its monotone voice and lack of expression.
"But he tells the story as if you aren't in it," X wondered aloud. "Doesn't that bother you?"
Mack shifted on its feet, rotating its chassis left and right in an emphatic no. "He's protecting me. I don't need anyone but him to know what I did, and he does. That's enough."
That brought a full smile to X's face, at least for a few moments. "It's good that you have each other," he said. An entire squad of Hunters. I don't even know that it wasn't right there when Glitch threatened me, waiting to disassemble me with a cutting laser. But then, Glitch only did what he did because he had to make certain I wouldn't be a threat to the rest of them, because his loyalty is to Mack and the rest of the settlement.
Aha. There it was, the word that had been somewhere in the back of his mind all evening: loyalty. It didn't take much at all to see that each and every one of these reploids would risk death for each other. Of course, he'd seen it before no few times between Hunters, but the longer the Maverick Wars had dragged on, the more Hunters had defected, or been infected…it had become a hindrance, eventually. Being a Hunter meant that one had to be ready to die for the reploid by one's side just as much as one had to be willing to put a round through their power core. Loyalty struggled to grow in such terrain. Loyalty to one's allies over the mission could and did result in entire squadrons turned at once. The only loyalty that could put down roots had been loyalty to the Hunters as an organization, and X hadn't rested easily thinking about the implications of that.
The only Mettaur model to be made with full awareness and emotional processing—which is kind of fucked up to begin with, that's a lot of weight to put on a little thing without even thumbs—and here they got the last intact one on display like a paperweight. Glitch had stolen Mack purely because it was wrong to keep a sentient being, even a potential one who hadn't been activated yet, like an object. And it was, wasn't it? X couldn't fault him for that opinion in the least.
I…all I could think was that this person should not be allowed near children. That—that I would not allow this person to be near children. He couldn't argue with that, either. Kathy had tried and failed to reconcile two impossible statements. Was her loyalty to the system, which refused to help, or her children, who she cared for day after day? Of course she had to choose her children, even if the means she chose to defend them in the heat of the moment were entirely wrong. A human at the end of their rope might have done the same, in her position. The only difference was that Kathy was stronger, and therefore more capable of harm. Where the human justice system would have handled the situation more or less fairly, or at least tried to, a reploid would simply be terminated, in more ways than one.
Was that actually fair, just because she was stronger? Especially if she had never been given the time to develop the emotional maturity of an adult human in her role?
"You alright, V?" Mack asked, peering up at X. "You look tired."
X blinked. What was he even thinking? Justifying Maverick behavior…he must have been tired. Maybe Kathy's real warning was meant to be that they were all contagious even without the Virus. "Ah? Yeah, I am. It's been a full day."
Glitch slapped X on the back out of nowhere, plopping down on Mack as if it were a stool. It played an irritated buzzer noise, but did not try to dislodge him. "You oughta go get some rest. We got another one tomorrow. I gotta go recharge before we head out, it's been a while and if I don't defrag a little I'm gonna start seeing shit." He stood up just as quickly as he'd sat, using X's shoulder as a handhold and then headed towards the recharging shed. X had to brace to not simply fall over sideways from the extra force.
"Glitch is right, as much as it pains me to say so," Mack agreed. "I'm recharging too, so you even get the room to yourself tonight, but don't get used to it. See you in the morning." It waddled off, following Glitch.
X decided to take their advice. He hadn't objectively done that much today, he knew, but he felt as though he'd climbed a mental mountain. Gripping his cane, he stood and turned to head for the rooms, but didn't get more than a few steps before Valentina's voice interrupted him.
"Are you leaving? Goodnight, V!" she called after him.
X turned around, a little sheepishly, to see the rest of the group of reploids watching him expectantly, now that he'd been addressed. "Uh, yeah. Goodnight."
A chorus of 'Goodnight' and 'Sleep well' and 'Don't let the code bugs bite' and '>I.02400-SYS: Sleep mode engaged. I.00980-NRG: Positive.' answered him. Then he was actually allowed to go.
X hadn't really looked into the room he'd been assigned when Hammer had gone around with him, and it took him a little feeling about in the dark to find a light switch. It was not large in the least, but it did have strong walls, onto which someone had painted little sunflowers here and there. Two hammocks took up the far corners. One of them looked freshly installed, which X assumed was his. The material itself, upon inspection, was stitched together from heavy curtain fabric. Salvaged carpet remnants covered the floor, giving at least a little noise protection from the echoing concrete. A dog bed in the near corner must have been Mack's.
X hung his cane and armored jacket from a coat hook on the wall, testing the hammock carefully. It held without even a creak, so he pulled his legs up and into it. There was a blanket, too, which he settled over himself. Reploids didn't generally have much to worry about, temperature-wise, and indeed most of them preferred to run a little cold for heat issues, but X had found that the older he got, the less crunchy he sounded in the morning if he kept a little warmer. The light switch was close enough to reach from there, so he flicked it off and settled in.
A recharge would have been nice, he thought, but he wasn't doing badly at all. A little time to defragment and rest would be enough. He closed his eyes and, after a lifetime of practice in sleeping whenever he had the chance, X was shortly out like a light.