Chapter Text
Kathy rubbed her temples, elbows on her desk and looking for all the world like the frazzled teacher she had been, and the stressed leader she had become.
"I knew it might be a danger with Analog having defected, but we have to assume that the Drifters know exactly where we are and how to get to us, and worse, that they will want to," she concluded.
Glitch nodded, and X spoke up. "Unfortunately. I think she's got some notion that she's going to clean up any Mavericks she can get her hands on, despite the obvious hypocrisy in that notion."
Kathy sighed. "Just what we needed…though, just between the four of us, I've always thought it might end up being us or them."
"Gonna have to shore the defenses up a lot sooner than I expected," Hammer said, already visibly in thought. "And fast. Wonder if I can get any more cement bags hauled up from the home center…that'd be huge."
"We can put Cirocco and Trigger on it," said Kathy. "Glitch, I already see you thinking you're going to volunteer, and no. Not that the help isn't appreciated, but you're staying around home until that's mended."
Glitch's mouth was already half open. "…Damn," he said. "When did you get faster than me, Kat?"
"You don't have to be fast to predict the sun's going to come up."
"First the Drifters are trying to murder me and now my own boss. V, you're my only friend in this harsh world."
X ignored Glitch's melodrama in favor of the actual topic of conversation. "If you'd like, I can have a walk around with Hammer and see what needs shored up the most."
"Hey, that'd be great. Can't say I've got any real combat experience, just a lotta building experience. At least we got all the aggregate and rebar we could ever want, all over the place, for free. Just lemme know when you're good to go…I'd imagine you could do with a rest after the day you two had."
"I'm fine," X said, at the same moment that Glitch did.
"You're just as bad as each other," Kathy sighed, fingertips on her temples again. "Both of you go take a break before you do anything else. I've got a lot to think about and I don't want to see either of you getting into anything more strenuous than a shower until at least tomorrow."
"Yes, ma'am," X mumbled, chastised. Glitch tried to give her a flippant salute, but his shoulder emitted a grinding creak and he gave up with a grumble.
A shower did sound good…and perhaps some clothing that was not so dusty that his fans felt gummy just from wearing it. Once Kathy had shooed him out, he dug around in the public salvage boxes until he found suitable replacements for his current outfit, and headed for the shower Hammer had mentioned in his quick tour.
Valentina nearly collided with him in the hallway, hair wet and a towel wrapped around her body. She smiled when she saw him, evidently unselfconscious about her state of undress, even though she could have been mistaken for human at a glance. "Oh! V, hello, you surprised me. How's it going today?"
"It's going," he answered. Something about her seemed familiar, X thought, though he couldn't recall where he might have seen her. But where would he have met someone who was very likely a sexbot?
"Oof. Going, or going through it?" she asked, and X felt read like an open book.
"Ah, well," he hedged. "Maybe a little of both. Kathy told me to take a break, so I thought I'd have a shower, maybe get the dust off."
"You should! Everything's easier to deal with when you're clean. I think so, anyway. And we're doing good on water supply right now, so you don't have to worry too much about it. I miss hot water, though…that's like, if I could have one thing back, it's either that or texting."
"That reminds me, I had a question," X said. "If someone brought back a phone, where would it end up?"
Valentina considered the question for several moments, fingertip tapping on her lower lip. "You know, good question. I know Glitch uses them for parts for some things, but I'm not really sure where they go. But there's a bunch in a box in the town hall, I think! We haven't sorted them out in a while. Usually Glitch takes them into the service tunnels so that they don't connect to anything. It's kind of a process, so he doesn't always get to it."
X had a sudden hunch. "Nobody would just…turn one on, right?"
"Oh God, no, that would be dumb. That's like, one of the first things Katty drills into us when we get here."
Something wasn't adding up, and X was beginning to have a clearer idea what it was. "Good. Anyway, if I could maybe squeeze past you?"
"Right! Sorry. I already went and forgot you were going that way." She sidled around him in the narrow hallway, and X was momentarily glad that he was not organic, because it would have been very distracting if he were. As it was, it was still a little odd.
He hung up his jacket, which was still clean enough, leaned his cane in a free corner, and stripped off his clothing. It sported new scorch marks, several tears, and once he could get a better look at it, more dirt and grime than he'd thought. X folded it, not that there was much need to do so, and stepped into the shower. Like everything else, it was a bit on the patchy side but made well enough, draining into one of the storm drains that already dotted the parking structure.
There was a bucket and stool parked in the corner of the little shower, which X decided to use in order to save on water, even though Valentina had told him there was plenty. The water that came from the handheld shower head was lukewarm at best, and smelled a little like algae, but it was better than nothing, and they had no shortage of salvaged soap of all sorts. He picked whatever landed in his hand first and sat down to fill the bucket and scrub off.
It was funny, he thought, how humanlike some of the newer models were now. He had an almost shockingly human face and arms, both now gently lined with age if one looked closely, but that was the extent of his synthetic skin. He felt…undressed wasn't quite the word, he thought. Unfinished, perhaps, without his armor, all exposed metal and attachment points. There was a very long stretch of his life that he'd simply never removed it, and he'd probably have kept it that way, but it was so very recognizable. Better that it sit in a case on display at Maverick Hunter HQ without him, almost like a decoy X, drawing all the attention off of the real X. Nobody expected the savior of mankind and reploidkind alike to look like someone had failed to finish assembling him right at the end.
From what X knew of the process of his creation and the age of his creator, this was distinctly possible, too. He was complete as per the schematics that had been unearthed with him, but there was no way to guess whether Dr. Light had been forced by age and failing health to scale back on some non-functional aspects of his design. He wondered, sometimes.
X poured a cupful of water on his head and shuddered. Lukewarm was not any kind of warm, and whoever named it that should have to answer for their sins. He toughed it out, soaping up and rinsing down, even if the temperature made his joints complain. He really should just let Glitch do his thing…but then, he'd likely have to explain himself, and he didn't like being examined by anybody at all anyway, and now he was going in this circle again.
He didn't need this. Shaking his head, X refocused his thoughts. He'd had a long enough day already. It was no wonder he was struggling. Back to the matter at hand, he told himself: he had still found no trace of Charles Alderman, and at the rate he was not progressing, he never would. The only lead he had—the man's cell phone location—remained the only lead he had, and he would simply have to work with it, as nothing else was forthcoming.
If he could just find the phone itself, he had a feeling it might be helpful. Well, X decided, if the phones hadn't been sorted in a while, perhaps he could volunteer to do it. Or just do it without saying anything, he thought. A little sneaky, but he had a feeling that Kathy might run interference if he announced his intentions. Could he recruit Glitch…? The overclocked reploid seemed to have taken a liking to him, though X hesitated to involve him.
Either Kathy was telling the truth and knew nothing about the situation, or she was lying to him, which seemed increasingly likely. And if she was lying, then either Glitch was in on whatever Kathy was hiding and would not be helpful, or he was not aware, and X did not want to jeopardize the encampment's solidarity. So, no, he could not simply ask Glitch for help with this, at least not until he had a better grasp of what was going on.
X poured the rest of the bucket over his head. Blech. Clean, but at what cost, his sensors insisted, firing error after error. He grabbed a torn but serviceable towel, dried off, and changed into his new-to-him clothing. The knees of the pants caught around his large feet a bit, and the waist necessitated a belt, but it would do. He toweled his hair once more, finger-combed it into some semblance of shape while knowing that it would not stay there for anything in the world, and pulled his jacket back on.
Walking slowly, as his joints and servos were still complaining with enthusiasm, X made his way to the town hall. Focus and Drive were there, busily working on a mural: rolling hills under a blue sky, covered in all colors and shapes of flowers. X paused to admire the handiwork.
'>What do you think? We just started earlier today, but it's going pretty fast, except for having to watch the paint dry sometimes,' Focus transmitted without really looking at him, with a fluency that took X a moment to translate to himself.
'>It's nice,' X replied, not nearly so quickly or easily. 'You're both talented.'
"He's better than I am," Drive said, aloud.
'>I have more practice,' Focus transmitted with a shrug. 'I wanted to be an artist.'
"You are an artist," X said. "You're making art right now, aren't you?"
Focus grinned, briefly and appreciatively, which was the first expression X had actually seen him make. He had a brilliant smile, X thought, though his dark brown eyes always seemed to be anywhere but the face of whomever he was addressing. '>You're right, when you put it that way. I just wish I could do it for a bigger audience, but it's okay. I think we need it here more.'
'>Definitely,' X transmitted back, then, a little clumsily, 'It's a lot nicer here with your work.'
"That's the goal," Drive agreed, even though he wasn't the one being addressed. "Anyway, uh, if you're headed into the main building, could you maybe look for some more green while you're in there…?"
"Sure," X nodded, heading in. Kathy had gone somewhere else, and the inside of the central building was empty of anybody else. Perfect, X thought. He located the cardboard box of unsorted small electronics, tossed a spare flashlight and a few smaller boxes into it to keep his sorted electronics from getting mixed up, and then found the shelf of paints. While he didn't know that much about paint, he could at least find the right general color and guess what sort it was, as it came in the same tubes he'd seen the two reploids outside using. Someone must have raided an abandoned art store at some point, because there was no shortage of it. He tossed a few tubes into a pocket, and tucked the box under one arm.
"Hope this is right," he said, handing the paint off on the way out.
'>Perfect,' Focus broadcast with an affirmative nod. 'Thanks, V. Hey, have you ever painted before?'
'>I don't think so,' X replied. 'Maybe just to label something, but nothing artistic.'
'>Want to try? It's good stress relief.'
X wondered if he seemed particularly stressed. He had his task at hand…but Focus seemed earnestly excited to see him make an attempt, and he didn't want to disappoint. '>I could, sure. What are we painting?'
'>Depends. What's your favorite color?' Focus transmitted back.
'>Red,' X answered, without hesitation.
Focus dipped his brush into the palette of acrylics he held, first into the red, then he just barely touched the white. '>Good call. I'm a yellow kind of guy, myself. Everyone thinks I'm going to say orange for some reason, though…' he joked drily, and with a few strokes of the brush, he painted six long, rippled petals that curled around and under, then six long stamens that curled out and up.
'>I don't think I know what that kind of flower is called,' X transmitted, watching with interest. He'd also never really watched someone paint with any intent other than to cover a wall or similar, and controlling the way the bristles bent and the paint flowed took more dexterity than he'd imagined.
'>It's a spider lily,' Focus replied, a little more slowly. He must have picked up that X was not nearly so fluent as the others in the encampment, and he spelled the words 'spider lily' deliberately. 'They symbolize last goodbyes.'
'>Oh,' X said, a little aback. The flower had reminded him of…he didn't want to think about it. That was too close to home, even now, and with the new context of its meaning… 'Should I have picked a different color?'
'>Not at all. Art isn't only for happy things, you know. Art is also for feeling things you don't know how to feel, and saying things you don't know how to say. That's why some of the flowers have sad meanings. We've all had sad lives. It's good to do art about that, though, because even artwork of sad things can still make people happy. It's funny like that.'
'>It is,' X agreed. It made a measure of sense, though. He was no stranger to emotions he couldn't process. Even with Focus undoubtedly and greatly simplifying his language for X's benefit, X could see and appreciate the reasoning.
Focus held out the palette and brush to X. '>Want to give it a try?' he asked.
X set the box of electronics down. '>Sure. It won't be very good, probably, so if you want me to do it on another surface…'
Focus shook his head. '>You live here. It's your mural too. Don't worry about it. If you don't like it, we can always cover it and try again later. Spider lilies flower in clusters, so you can put another just like the first one right here.'
X held the brush tentatively. Focus had made it look easy enough. Six petals, six stamens, spaced just so. He could do that…right? He touched the brush to the paints. Red, then just a tiny spot of white…alright, that was a little more white than he'd meant to pick up, but Focus hadn't corrected him, so it couldn't have been that bad.
Next, X touched the brush to the wall. How had Focus done this, exactly…? Try as he might, he couldn't seem to get the brush to behave the same way, and instead of a petal with a delicately rippled edge, X had a wiggly red and white line.
'>I might be too clumsy for this,' he transmitted.
'>You said yourself you've never painted. Don't give up after the first stroke. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be yours.'
X wondered briefly if Focus had lived a past life as an art instructor, but turned back to his work. He painted five more petals, each a little better than the last, though none of them were particularly good, he thought. Next came the six long, curving stamens; he could see why they were called spider lilies. It took his complete concentration to keep the brush strokes even, and he didn't even notice until he finished and looked up that Drive was watching him with interest.
'>There,' Focus broadcast. 'Congratulations. You've made art…so now you're an artist, too. How do you feel?'
X shrugged, looking at the flower he'd painted. It was lopsided, amateurish, and nothing like the one Focus had done…but he had felt calmer somehow while he'd been doing it. '>I can see why it's good for stress,' he answered. 'Can I try one more?'
'>Paint as many as you like, we've got the space for it,' Focus answered, with a pleased grin and several ripples of his fingertips tapping together. He still didn't seem to look directly at X.
X painted a second flower, loading the brush with paint again. Last goodbyes, he thought. Everyone here has had more than enough of those, probably, even me…it's not something anybody wants to think about, I'm sure. And yet, there's an entire flower that symbolizes it, and they're beautiful. They look like fireworks, like…taking the most sorrowful thing possible, and turning it into something worth having instead, without changing it at all. Whether it's a flower or a firework, it's still just as fleeting as an ending, but you're not sad it's over, you're happy you had it.
He was finished with the painting before he quite knew it. X's eyes stung, his tear reservoirs having run dry long ago without being refilled. He blinked a few times to get his expression back under control before turning and offering the paints and brush back to Focus with a smile.
'>Thank you,' he transmitted. 'I…needed that.'
'>Any time,' Focus replied, accepting them. 'There's always another surface that could use someone's art.'
X picked up his box and headed for the access stairs, where he paused to turn on the flashlight he'd borrowed. Glitch had mentioned laying traps in the service tunnels, hadn't he? He'd need to step lightly. At least he didn't need to go very far before he guessed that there would be no signal. X switched his tracking module on, briefly, just to test…and it returned a >I.34034-COM: No signal. Good.
He found a side room that had once upon a time been some sort of minor electrical station and lowered himself to a seat on the floor with the aid of his cane. One at a time, he began to take every cell phone from the box and attempt to power them on. Many of them didn't work at all, or booted only to complain of a low battery and shut back down. Even modern advances in battery life couldn't make something live for years without being plugged in at all. If Charles's phone hadn't held a charge in the few days since its location had been logged…
X put that out of his mind. He'd worry about that if he needed to. The first step was to determine, if possible, if his phone was even here at all. He did at least make a pile of which ones would power on at all, since it would be even more suspicious to test them all without sorting them properly. Phones that looked undamaged but lacked enough battery to power on went into a pile, and visibly broken phones went into their own pile.
He reached the bottom of the box without finding anything helpful. X sighed. This was beginning to feel truly impossible. A human could not possibly just evaporate and cease to exist, leaving no sign of their passing, but Charles Alderman may as well have. He began to stack the phones back into the box, but paused. There were no more phones, sure, but a few of the phones had at some point been in various sorts of phone cases and fallen out, or been taken out, and those were still in the box.
With a shrug, X began to sort through the few phone cases as well. He had nothing to go on, but he had nothing to lose.
None of them yielded much at first glance, and X was about to truly give up and call the entire thing a wash when he saw the tiniest edge of something white tucked into one of them. With a squint, he aimed the flashlight more directly at it: it was a silicone card holder case, dark gray and businesslike. Well-worn and otherwise unremarkable, it still had a slip of something tucked away inside of it. He tried to pry it out, but at some point it had gotten wet and glued itself into the slot. Carefully, gingerly, and with the help of an unrelated credit card that had been tucked inside another case, he pried it out.
It was a business card, bearing the name and contact information of one Charles D. Alderman, president of Alderman Materials and Construction.
He examined it a few times, committing the details to memory, then tucked it carefully into a hidden inner pocket of his jacket, where it wouldn't likely be found even should someone go through his belongings. Next he began testing phones in the case to see if Alderman's had ended up in the broken or dead battery piles. Two of them fit, but neither of them had wear patterns on their housing that suggested they had ever been carried in this case.
So his phone was definitely here…and now it isn't, X thought. This is too specific to be an accident. Someone has it, and I can guess who. He didn't want to suspect foul play just yet, but neither could he entirely write it off. Kathy was hiding something from him, and, based off of Glitch and Valentina's evident ignorance, everyone else in the encampment as well—or they were both extremely good liars, which wasn't impossible, but didn't seem as likely.
And what if she is? he thought. I'm not here to arrest or decommission anyone. I don't have the authority now, even if I already know that not a single unit in the Hunters would argue with me if I did. Nor do I want to. All I promised was that I'd look into this missing man.
X already knew that coming back empty-handed would not have satisfied him as an answer, though. Whatever wild ideas he may have entertained in the past twenty-four hours, he wouldn't be content reporting back to his former officer just to say that he'd given up, nor did the idea of lying sit well with him.
Well, he had something, and that was more than he'd had until now. What it meant, X couldn't say yet, but he would get to the bottom of it somehow. He hefted himself, then the box, careful to not tip the smaller boxes nested inside, and returned it to the central building.
"Oh, V, there you are," Kathy greeted him. "I was wondering where you'd disappeared to."
"I couldn't hold still, so I sorted some salvage." That was mostly true. "Where do electronics go?"
Kathy looked mildly alarmed for a moment, half-rising from her desk. "Downstairs, right? Not up on the surface?"
"Of course," X replied. "I know better." As does everyone else here, he thought, but did not say.
"Okay. Good." She calmed back down, releasing a sigh and sitting back down. "Sorry. I was imagining the worst for a moment, there. This thing with the Drifters and Seren has me on edge, I guess. Anyway, I'm not sure. I think Glitch has his own system for them. The other door off the main room, that's his lab. You'll want to talk to him about it. I think he's in there right now, actually."
X carried the box to the door Kathy had indicated, and knocked, since it was closed and that seemed polite. This one was new construction, built around the side of the existing office, and X could hear muffled music through it.
"What," Glitch yelled through the door and over the music. X wasn't sure what he had been expecting.
"Where do you put sorted electronics?" he asked.
"What?" Glitch repeated.
X tried to raise his voice, but he didn't have the will to really deliver much volume. He'd never been loud to begin with, and the older he got, the less he liked shouting. "I said, 'where do you put sorted electronics?'"
'>I.34101-COM: Identification requested. E.33090-SEN: No sound detected. I.40011-LOG: Argument expected. I.40990-INT: High motive priority. I.09090-LOG: Query. I.09090-LOG: Query. I.09090-LOG: Query.' Glitch transmitted, which was better in that at least X could hear it clearly, but also contained a ridiculous number of question mark equivalents.
X rolled his eyes and broadcast back. '>W.04877-SYS: Balance systems operating outside of nominal parameters. I.34100-COM: Identification sent. I.00200-SYS: Open. I.20104-LOG: Sequential. A.33099-SEN: Reduce decibel exposure immediately. I.00021-LOG: Boolean: OR. I.00024-VOC: Increase vocal volume.'
The music turned down and the door opened, revealing Glitch grinning an absolutely shit-eating grin. "You shoulda just said something, V." For just an instant, X considered thumping him with the box of scavenged electronics, but he controlled himself admirably.
"I sorted these, but I'm not sure where you want them," X said, holding the box out. "There's three general piles. Left side are likely broken, middle I'm not sure because they won't power on, right side powers on successfully."
"Oh, perfect, that's exactly what I do. Uh, I'm a little…short-handed, though, if you could set that on the desk there?" Glitch opened the door fully and gestured to his lack of arm, and X blinked in alarm.
"Did you…?" he began, but Glitch cut him off.
"Sure did. I got all kinds of soot and shit in that joint when the Drifters plinked me, and it'll repair a hell of a lot faster clean, so I figured, why not just take the whole thing off and really get it flushed out, right? Saves me the trouble later."
X couldn't help but feel his gaze pulled towards Glitch's lack of shoulder assembly. One of his pectoral plates was removed, and the systems inside glowed with warmth under X's IR vision. A number of his parts were stamped with the Toyota Robotics logo. "Do you…do this often?"
Glitch leaned on the doorframe with his existing arm. "I told you, I'm a doctor."
"Removing your arm is a little more of a mad scientist kind of thing."
"Okay, okay, I'm a Maverick doctor. But I'm still a doctor. With no doctorate, but details. I was pre-loaded with the equivalent knowledge, so it's basically like being a doctor, only cheaper. For me, anyway. I probably cost more than an education, but that's not my problem. Hey, while you're here, are you completely sure you don't want just a little maint done…?"
The urge to thump him with the box returned. "You have one arm, Giltch."
Glitch sighed, straightening so he could gesture dramatically with that single arm. "Not an obstacle, obviously! I'll have two again any minute now. I'm just letting the solvent do its thing, then I lube everything up, reassemble it, plug it all back in, and Bob's your prototype."
"I'll…let you know," X hedged. He was not generally squeamish, but watching Glitch glibly going about his evening with one arm detached was starting to be a little disturbing.
"Yeah, yeah. You say so. Oh. I should move so you can actually put that down." Glitch stopped blocking the door and turned towards his workbench with an excessively dramatic spin. His shoulder was disassembled across it, the various parts carefully laid out on a clean towel, with the rest of his arm still intact and lying alongside. He'd polished the external scorch marks off already, exposing some of his previous paint job. Evidently, he had been red before this. The damaged servo had been isolated and disassembled, which was an impressive trick with a single hand.
"Okay. Question," Glitch asked, as X set the box down where he indicated. "Do I self-repair it, or do I replace it? Because I've got a spare, and it's higher torque than this one, but then I'd have one arm stronger than the other, which is a huge pain in the panels to calibrate around."
"Self-repair it until you've got a second equivalent servo," X answered, trying to keep his eyes off of Glitch's arm. Somehow, he almost expected it to move on its own…which, knowing Glitch even in passing, was not entirely impossible. "Then upgrade them together, as long as you can handle the power draw. That way you're not applying uneven stress to your frame."
"Oh, damn, good answer. I'm starting to think my next bottleneck is going to be my power core, and then what do I do, you know? I guess I could tether myself to an external power source and…ugh, but if the generator picked right then to go out, or even worse, there was a surge?"
"You already run like a furnace, though," X countered.
Glitch half-shrugged, because it was the only kind of shrug he could currently do. "I mean, yeah, but some of that is my power core being under load. A more efficient one would actually generate less heat."
"Until you upgraded everything else and put it under load again, and then you'll be running hot enough that we actually will be able to keep you in a water tank and take hot showers."
"Ah, V, you know me so well already. Come on, don't tell me hot water on command doesn't sound great. Imagine it. I'd be so useful."
"That was not the detail you were supposed to take away from that."
"But am I wrong?" Glitch grinned again.
"...No," X begrudgingly admitted. "But it'd be a lot safer to just find a water heater somewhere."
"Yeah, slight problem where to get a better power core, I'd have to take someone else's who probably doesn't want to give it to me, and while it's not like I'm not currently using—" He stopped to count on his fingers one-handedly and in binary, "—eight different components I got doing exactly that, installing a bad servo is a pain in the panels, but installing a faulty or incompatible power core kills you and quite possibly anybody standing too close to you. Why are you making that face?"
X simply stared at him with the kind of expression one might make if one was listening to someone else casually discussing murdering another person in cold blood and stealing their body parts for personal use. "You really are a Maverick…I'll give you three guesses."
"How about you give me two hands? I'm a little short-ha—shit, no, I used that joke already. Never mind. But I could reassemble all this a lot faster with a little help, if you don't have anything else going on." Glitch spun a rolling chair around and pushed it vaguely in X's direction, beckoning him to sit.
X relented and sat, leaning his cane on the workbench. "Alright, but no more hand puns. You've only got the one, anyway."
There was a beat, and then Glitch snorted with laughter. "You can make a joke! I knew it. Yesterday I got you using complete sentences, today I located your sense of humor. Tomorrow? Who knows."
Between the two of them, they got Glitch's shoulder assembly put back together and installed. It still made a grinding sound when he moved it, once everything was connected properly, but it was a lot less angry of one now. "You don't need to power cycle or anything for this?" X asked.
"Oh, fuck no, I patched that out of myself ages ago."
"I can't imagine being bold enough to tinker with my own code," X said, somewhere between respect and apprehension.
"I can't imagine being stuck with someone else's code, so we're even." Glitch stretched, gingerly. "Shit, my battery's beat after today's misadventure. I'm gonna go charge. I wrote us into the schedule already."
"Did you? Great. I could use one too. I don't usually run out of battery this quickly, but…" He trailed off, not quite ready to admit just how much processing power he'd blown earlier that day having a double breakdown. Glitch must have picked up on what X wasn't saying, though, because he waved it off without waiting for X to finish.
"Long day, man, it happens to the best of us. Shit's always easier after a good defrag cycle. Tomorrow's a new day, and probably a busy day, considering we got the Drifters to worry about and a lot of reinforcing to do…but if they were gonna make a move, they coulda done it any time. No use stressing that they're suddenly gonna do it the instant we first hear about it, right?"
X nodded agreement. There was, for once, some wisdom in what Glitch was saying. "Right. If it can't wait eight hours, we were already in over our heads."
"Exactly. And we got at least one person on watch at all hours anyway, so it's not like we're gonna get completely surprised no matter what." He closed the door to his workshop and headed for the recharge pod shed, X close behind. It was still relatively early, and all three pods were empty, so X picked the same one he'd used before, in the corner. Glitch picked the middle pod, saying he needed to test the cable, and flopped unceremoniously into it. He shimmied a bit until the port connected, then folded his undamaged arm behind his head.
"I am, like, this close to being able to put together a fourth one of these bad boys. You have no idea how excited I am. I think I've even got all the parts, now, it's just actually doing it and making sure it runs. Although it's gonna be tight in here with four…three's already kind of pushing it. But hey, good problem to have, right?"
"Definitely." X pulled his shirt out of the way of his port and settled into the pod, connecting with a click. Lying down…what a luxury. His constant vertigo intensified for a few unpleasant moments, then calmed considerably when it decided he wasn't going anywhere and couldn't fall over besides.
"Maybe once we get this shit with the Drifters sorted out, Hammer can knock out a wall and we can get more room in here."
"Maybe." X closed the lid and then his eyes. Would he be here long enough to see that, he wondered? Probably not…he would need to report back eventually, and maybe take another random excess case, if he couldn't talk himself out of it. The thought was a little disconcerting. Don't tell me I've gotten attached to the well-being of a bunch of irregulars in the middle of nowhere, he internally groaned. That is the last thing I need.
Glitch closed the lid on his own pod, though the double barrier did nothing to shut him up. "Dunno what they think they're doing lately. Gives me the creeps. I'd put money on it, they got some kind of virus. Not like, the big one, but something for sure. You run any antivirus? Because if you don't, you should."
"I do," X lied. He didn't, but even direct exposure to the Maverick Virus itself hadn't actually infected him in any way that mattered, so he'd long since stopped worrying about viruses. If it couldn't get him, nothing could.
"Oh, good. I need to update mine and pass it on to everyone else soon."
As much as X wanted Glitch to shut up and let him recharge in peace, he had to ask. "How? Isn't connectivity dangerous?"
"Yeah, but if I told you, I'd have to kill you," Glitch laughed. He was probably joking. …Probably. But then again, if X had found a question that prompted a one-liner response and no rambling follow-up…maybe he was only half joking.
"Fair," X agreed, and settled down to defragment.
After a few minutes, Glitch spoke. "Hey, V."
X grumbled, systems grumpily suspending the defrag startup process. "What?"
"After you find your guy, or whatever. What are you gonna do?"
"Don't know yet." X was not in the mood to answer that question, even to himself, and certainly not aloud to anyone else.
"Gonna go pretend to hang out with the normies? I would."
X simply made a grumpy sound and wished he had something to put over his head.
"I've thought about it. You know, if I left here. I could get another fake identity, maybe a new face…I kinda like my face, though, I'm attached to it. And vice versa. And I dunno what I'd do with Mack. I'm not going anywhere without it, it's not going anywhere without me, and I think it likes it better here anyway. Hey, V?"
'>I.09090-LOG: Query.' X pinged, pointedly.
"What do you want to do, after this? If you could do anything, let's say?"
"Sleep," X deadpanned.
"Yeah, okay, fair. Good night."
Finally. "Good night."