Chapter Text
A city block, X thought. I hope that's far enough to count as out of the encampment. He didn't know the tunnels well enough to dare them, knowing that they were trapped, and he didn't want to worry Glitch unduly by taking his sensor offline, so he didn't go further than that. He clung to the shadows of destroyed buildings, avoiding the cloudy sky even though he knew no patrols were likely due, and he moved slowly. Outside the garage, the wind picked up and the cold cut through his clothing and chassis. His joints ached with it.
X found a convenience store across the street from the far end of the block and let himself in. Its front windows and glass door were shattered, and it had long ago been picked clean of anything remotely useful or interesting, probably by the encampment reploids themselves, but it was cover and he was not choosy. X sat on the floor behind the counter, leaned against the cabinet doors, and pulled his legs up to his chest, not bothering to take the tarp off of his head.
He should feel something, he knew, but the strange dead calm he'd felt upon being ordered out had evolved into a system-wide numbness. He barely even noticed the errors and warnings scrolling behind his eyes in their endless procession. X laid his cane across his lap, wrapped his arms around his legs, and laid his forehead on his knees.
X didn't know when he had arrived, but X heard his voice and looked up in surprise, too quickly to stop himself from catching a glimpse of red and white and black. The old, empty ache returned to his chest in force. Zero sat next to him, cross-legged, watching him calmly. "You figured it out," he said.
I don't remember falling asleep, X thought. Maybe I'm just hallucinating now.
"Well, I hope not, that would really complicate things," Zero commented, as if X had spoken aloud.
"I'm probably asleep," he concluded. X put his head back on his knees. "I'm…sorry. It's been a long day. I lost everything again."
"You've got to stop doing that," Zero chided him, as if it were that easy. "Of all the bad habits to pick up, X."
X looked up, right into his memory of Zero's eyes, because at least pain felt like something. "I've gone Maverick," he said, or thought, he wasn't sure. Maybe there was no difference, if he was asleep. Or hallucinating. Weren't dreams really just a kind of hallucination? "What am I supposed to do? You should have been here to stop me, if this happened. Not that I'm a threat to anybody, anymore, except maybe myself."
"Do you want me to be angry?" Zero asked.
X blinked at him. "What?"
"I could, if you think it'd help. I don't think it would, but what do I know? I'm a figment. Do you feel like a Maverick?"
X frowned, searched his systems. "I…don't know. I don't really feel different at all."
"Then are you sure you've changed?"
"I found a human that I probably would have killed if I met him, and someone else killed him, and I don't even care."
"X, what's the difference between a human and a reploid?" Zero's memory asked.
X hesitated. What kind of question was this? "There are too many to even begin to list. I'm not sure what you want me to say."
"Alright, then, how are they similar? That's got to be easier, if the differences are so many."
"Well…" X screwed his face up in thought. "They're…both people, I guess, is the simplest way of putting it."
Zero nodded. "Right. And if they're both just kinds of people…how many reploids have you killed?"
X shuddered, arms hugging his knees a little more tightly. "Don't ask me that. You know."
"Do you see what I'm trying to say, here? What's the difference between killing a human and a reploid, if they're both just people?"
"Then…both are wrong," X concluded, tentatively. "But I don't see how that resolves anything."
"Cut through the meaningless details. They're all people, whatever they're made out of. It's no different than anything you had to do as a Hunter. If you encountered a Maverick walking around with trophies of humans he'd killed, you'd do what had to be done."
"I would hate doing it," X said. "But Charles enjoyed it. That's what I don't understand. Somebody like him would never be labeled a Maverick, only because he's not a reploid, but if the Hunters found out I was staying with the reploids here and demanded to know where they were, and I peacefully refused, I'd be labeled irregular at best."
"Valentina told you this, I know she did. It's not fair. It's a meaningless label. I couldn't even tell you this if you weren't thinking it already, V, don't be dense." Zero reached out with a finger and poked him squarely between the eyes, on the forehead. It felt as solid as reality.
"You…called me V," X said, blinking again in surprise. For just an instant, he'd thought he was talking to Glitch, but that made no sense.
"I've been pretty upfront about being the Zero that lives in your memories, too, and you've been calling yourself V for a week. I don't know what you expected." Zero chuckled, with the same smile as X remembered. After all this time, even with his aging memory throwing the occasional error, he would never forget that smile as long as he functioned. It was burned into his circuits, inextricably linked with his systems.
"But if you caught the Maverick Virus, I guess I'd have to slag you," he added. "I'm not sure how I'd do it from here…or how you'd catch it, since you can't…or even where you'd get it at this point…but don't press your luck."
X tried to smile, but it unleashed every other emotion he'd barely been holding back along with it. "I don't want to wake up," he blurted out, and his eyes filled with hot tears, suddenly. He had to be dreaming, because he hadn't bothered to refill that reservoir in years, but his chest ached too deeply for it to be anything but real. "It's been thirty years and the war is over, but I still don't know how to go on without you."
"I know." The ghost of Zero embraced him, so warm and solid that it hurt, knowing that he wasn't real, wouldn't be there in a few more instants. "Whatever is left of me in the world is in you. It's not enough, I know. It's all I have to give you, but I'm with you, awake or asleep."
X uncurled from the floor, burying his face in Zero's armor as much as was possible. "I know you are."
"Whatever happens, live. That's the first thing I want you to do." Zero held X at arm's length then, one hand on either shoulder, his face serious. X found himself looking into Zero's eyes and feeling safe. How long had it been since the last time he'd felt safe, making eye contact? Since he hadn't felt judged? Not since Zero had been alive…and then again recently, with Glitch. How odd, he thought, that Glitch kept coming to mind at a moment like this.
"Okay. What's the second thing?" X asked.
"Wake up."
X jolted awake. When had he fallen asleep? And for how long? The sky was now a dark leaden gray, illuminated more by light pollution from the surrounding city than any late sunset, and the air hung chill and heavy with the promise of more autumn rain. X rubbed his hands through his already messy hair, trying to chase the cobwebs from his head. His thoughts ran sluggishly as his systems struggled to abort the defragmentation cycle partway through and return him to full consciousness.
The sound of metal scraping gently on stone brought him to full alert. He froze, ears straining. He carried the furthest sensor node with him, but it was inside his jacket, and therefore wouldn't have picked the sound up. Then again, it was entirely possible that it had just been some incidental noise and nothing sinister.
Then he heard it again, followed by a brief burst of I.00100-COM: Diagnostic broadcast., though he didn't at all understand the message. A second message from a different sender replied, similarly clipped and unintelligible. Is it a different dialect? Or encoded? X wondered, though he stayed silent. Whatever it is, I know who's sending it, and I have to warn Glitch.
The wind picked up, and rain began to patter against the debris. X risked shifting to his feet, crouched behind the counter, and peeked through a hole left by a front panel that had fallen from it. Two reploids that he didn't immediately recognize crept through the rubble, armed with heavy buster rifles. One of them was very large, and the other very small, shaped somewhat like a rodent. Whatever color they'd been before, they were both painted red.
X manually suppressed a fan speed change. The sensors should pick them up…but on a dark, windy night, he wasn't entirely sure they would, especially if the weather took any of them offline. He reached into his jacket, took his own sensor node out, and tapped the phone's microphone. Even from a few feet away, it wasn't audible, but Glitch would hear it plain as day. Or so X hoped. It wasn't a two-way communication, so he couldn't be sure, but he had to try.
Two Drifters, moving towards you, he tapped, in Morse code. It was ancient as technology went, but then, so was he. X returned the sensor to his jacket, in one of the more hidden pockets. It wouldn't pick up much sound, but it would at least broadcast its own location relative to the others as long as it remained within range. He dropped to all fours and tucked his cane into his belt. Without his failed balance systems to trip him up, he could move much more quietly, and staying low to the ground meant staying in the shadows and hiding amongst the toppled shelves.
The two reploids did not notice him. X silently crept along the floor on his knuckles and the tips of his metal feet, silent as a spider, until he reached the outside wall. The glass along the wall from the shattered windows was painful to move across, but he kept on, ignoring how it dug into the synthetic skin of his hands. More importantly, they muffled the noise of the shards shifting against the stained linoleum tiles.
X made it to the door. He settled against the wall next to the blown-out entrance, pressed his back to it, and listened. They were just on the other side of the windows, and occasionally conversed in their mode of I.00100-COM: Diagnostic broadcast. He weighed his options: attack them, but risk opening hostilities earlier than strictly necessary, and risk his own life; let them pass, hope that his friends could deal with them but risk that they couldn't, thus endangering everyone in the encampment; or try to talk them down, but lose the element of surprise, and risk that they wouldn't listen and would still attack him.
When he put it like that, it wasn't much of a choice. He had to try. '>I.34100-COM: Identification requested. I.34018-COM: Awaiting signal.' he sent. They'd know he was close, because his signal would be very strong, but there was at least no directionality involved.
Both of them paused immediately, exchanging a rapid series of their own messages. "Who's there?" one asked. "Show yourself." At this distance, X hoped that the voice would pick up on his personal sensor.
'>I.34100-COM: Identification requested. I.40011-LOG: Argument expected. I.09090-LOG: Query.' X demanded, more insistently. 'I.09076-LOG: Hypothetical. I.00981-NRG: Negative. W.00186-CMB: Engage.' They could identify themselves, or if they refused, he would attack.
"Big words from someone who won't show their face," the same reploid said, and X concluded that since they understood the common I.00100-COM: Diagnostic broadcast. dialect, their version was likely a code. A light swept over the interior of the convenience store, but even though it fell across X, they didn't spot him underneath the tarp he still wore. "They're nearby somewhere. Keep looking." Then, to X, "Why don't you tell us who you are first? It's only manners."
'>W.04877-SYS: Balance systems operating outside of nominal parameters. I.34100-COM: Identification sent. I.34100-COM: Identification requested. I.34018-COM: Awaiting signal. I.09090-LOG: Query.' X responded, not giving away his location.
Another flurry of encoded communication between the two Drifters. Then, aloud, "You're new here, right? How about you come out and we talk this over like civilized reploids?"
'>I.00910-GEN: Acknowledged. I.04053-REC: Home region registered. W.18900-POS: Increase distance. I.00098-LOG: IF/THEN. I.34035-COM: Signal established.' X sent. In other words, 'Alright, get away from my home and then we can talk.'
"Well, now, that's going to be a problem, because we've got some business here. But we can talk here, can't we? After all, you're right…" The hulking red-painted reploid stepped forward, shining his light under one of the fallen shelves. "…here, somewhere…surely you don't mean to inconvenience us. That would be unneighborly."
X couldn't get a clear look at him, but he made enough noise that he was simple enough to track spatially. The second was still outside, and the now-steady rainfall made them very difficult to pin down, but fortunately they had a light as well, and began shining it around through the windows. X hoped that they'd be visible from the encampment, but he didn't expect it. 'I.34003-COM: Resending. A.09657-SYS: Major systems damage detected. I.40910-INT: Negative motive priority. I.04053-REC: Home region registered. W.18900-POS: Increase distance. I.00022-LOG: Boolean: XOR. W.00186-CMB: Engage.' X broadcast. 'I'll only say this once more: I don't want to hurt you. Stay away from my home, or I'll be forced to fight you.' His hand settled onto his cane, slowly, carefully, so as to not shift his tarp and give away his location.
"Maybe we should—" a second voice said.
"Shut up."
"—sir," the other voice conceded, deferentially.
"We are not here to play silly little games with Mavericks," the first voice said, mostly to the second reploid, who seemed to be his subordinate. Then, more loudly and directed generally at X, "Especially ones that shouldn't be so far from home alone. Where are your friends?" he asked, turning over another tipped shelf. Soon enough, X knew, he'd be found. For a blessing, the second reploid was still outside, probably searching there too if the occasional sound of metal on concrete was an indication, and they didn't sound at all enthused about X's threat of combat. He might be able to disable this one and reason with the other…if he was very, very lucky.
Luck had not been on his side today. He didn't expect much.
X closed his eyes and centered himself. He'd tried to talk to them as much as he could without giving them a major advantage over him. They clearly had nothing good on their minds, and whether or not he was allowed to return, he would not allow anything to happen to the encampment or its residents. X hated violence, despised it with every molecule of his being…and yet, he had been honed as a war machine for eighty-four of his now ninety-six years.
If my fate is to be a weapon to the end, he decided, then from now on let it be that I am drawn only as I choose.
Eyes still closed, X began to calculate. His balance would not avail him, so he would need to make manual corrections at high speed, meaning he couldn't keep it up for long. He didn't have visual from where he was, but he had audio, and the memory of the interior's dimensions. He'd worked with less.
He would probably also feel like death warmed over after this, but if he still functioned enough to feel at all, X wouldn't complain.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are," the Drifter in charge said, his footsteps approaching X's tarp.
In one fluid motion, X twisted his cane's handle, pulled it apart, and whipped around the brilliant green beam saber that burst from the hilt hidden in the shaft. It shredded through his tarp, spraying melted and burnt plastic everywhere, and cleaved through the knee of the reploid before him. X leapt into the air up and over him, furiously burning bandwidth to maintain his equilibrium, and as he arced over the larger reploid's head the blade ignited and flashed out a second time to lance a surgically precise hole through the shoulder joint of his right arm. X landed more heavily than he'd intended and his systems reeled, but he couldn't afford to stop yet. He spun, swinging once more. The beam of plasma sliced the air with a crackling hum and severed the connectors of the Drifter's other knee before disappearing again.
The red-painted reploid collapsed to the floor with a scream that pushed his vocal synthesizer beyond its capabilities, and he only managed a scrambled, strangled digital gurgle. X took a deep breath, letting it out into the night air, and approached the other reploid outside the destroyed store, each step costing him dearly but knowing that if he stumbled now, it was over for him.
"He can be repaired," X said, no malice in his voice. The second reploid was shorter and rounder, designed not unlike a bipedal mouse and clearly not made for combat. He stood his ground, though from his wide eyes, pinned ears, and trembling tail, he may simply have been too afraid to run. "Whatever you're doing, I don't want to have to hurt you, but if you're here to cause trouble, I will do what I have to."
"Wh-who," the mouse stammered, "wh—what the hell are you?"
"Drop your weapons and leave, or you'll find out." X raised the saber's hilt, not yet turning it on.
The mouse-shaped reploid sputtered wordlessly, stumbling several steps backwards and raising his rifle. X spun his aging cooling systems up to max and began to calculate every single motion he would need to execute, then once he'd finished that, partial variations in case he needed to improvise. A constellation of alerts he didn't have time to process properly blurred past behind his eyes. Tomorrow's regrets could sort themselves out tomorrow, if indeed tomorrow came.
X feinted a dodge to the mouse's left, then lunged right instead. As he'd expected, the Drifter aimed left and fired, burning a hole through the trailing edge of X's tarp and singeing his jacket sleeve, but otherwise doing him no harm. X brought the saber up and around, activating it halfway through its arc as he passed. The beam lanced out again, passing cleanly through the rifle's strap—and nothing else. The panicking reploid suddenly found himself with an unsupported and front-heavy weapon, dropping it with a fearful little shriek and dancing backwards away from X. With grim determination, X performed a final series of calculations, saber at the ready to divest the mouse of one of his knees…
…and the antique saber sputtered, battery dying partway through the swing, leaving X with a trail of green sparks and then, finally, nothing. Four swings. That was all the charge Zero's old weapon held, now; one less than he'd counted on. X could have had the battery replaced with a new one, he knew, but he'd never had the heart. It was the only physical memento he had left. Changing any part out of it just felt…wrong.
Well, X could still improvise, after all, even if it cost him several moments to reset his calculations and begin again, and his processor speed wouldn't keep up with reality nearly as well without the headstart while he had to calculate and correct his movements manually. He would lag, and unless he could keep his opponent off balance, he'd only lag further behind with each passing second. It wasn't his favorite position to be in, but he could manage. He let his momentum carry him to a three-point landing behind the mouse reploid, then launched himself up with as much force as he could muster. He brought the end of the hilt down across the mouse's head with both hands, hard enough to send him reeling back.
X landed, calculated several variants on a spin kick that would let him push the reploid off-balance and to the ground, and hopped to his other leg to deliver—and his knee froze, throwing his computations off with no time to adjust. The kick went off, but his inertia was all wrong. He connected, sending them both down to the rain-slicked asphalt.
He couldn't keep up. X scrambled to his feet, but without something for support, he fell again, losing precious moments as the much newer model sprang up first. The mouselike Drifter broadcast a burst of I.00100-COM: Diagnostic broadcast. that X didn't understand, and four more similarly-encoded signals answered him.
X's eyes widened. Four? No, he'd only seen one other Drifter…if there were others, he wouldn't have any chance at—
He felt a massive downdraft and heard something land behind him. Before he could whirl around and see more than the silhouette of a winged reploid, something dark and opaque even to infrared fell over his head and clamped tightly around his neck. With no visual input, his balance systems entirely gave up, unable to compute anything but cripplingly intense vertigo that sent him to the ground. Strong hands gripped his jacket and hauled him to his feet.
X fought like a cornered cat. He threw the saber as hard as he could in the direction of the encampment, hoping beyond hope that the Drifters would leave it alone, and lashed out with both hands at whoever had him.
"None of that, now," said a voice that he recognized instantly. Seren. He launched himself in her direction, but either she stepped aside or he had miscalculated, as he landed hard on the cracked road. "Feral little thing, aren't you? Not so great now, though. Ric, take Faraday. See if we can't get him patched up. Maglev, Analog, this one's yours. Careful he doesn't bite you, he's feisty. Who knows what sort of diseases he's got."
Unseen hands seized both of X's arms, roughly lifting him to his feet. "Now what did you have to go and do that for?" said a voice he didn't recognize. "You made a hell of a mess out of Faraday. You shouldn't have done that, you know. He holds grudges about that kind of thing." X pulled against his captors, thrashing as hard as he could bring his systems to move, but after a brief conversation in I.00100-COM: Diagnostic broadcast., they simply and simultaneously let go of him, and he crumpled to the ground with no concept of which way was up.
"See, Ana? He's not so scary now, is he?" the reploid said.
"N-no sir," the rodent reploid agreed.
X's pride stung. The best he could do was pull himself to his knees; the moment his hands left the ground, he couldn't stay upright. The street may as well have been spinning, for all he could tell in between critical balance alerts.
"But, as entertaining as this is," the same reploid continued, "we don't have all night. Now, pay close attention, little Maverick, I've got a very convincing argument for why you should calm down and behave."
X turned his head in the direction of the voice, though he couldn't see a thing through the fabric. What could he have been talking about—
—A burst of electricity shot through him from the collar that clamped the bag over his head, brief but disorientingly painful. Both of his hands flew to the collar with a cry of surprise, but it was already over, and the mechanism didn't give even a millimeter under his fingers. His ventilation systems hung for a moment, fans disrupted by the shock.
"I think he's got the idea," Seren said, approvingly. "Call it off for tonight. We'll take what we can get. I bet he knows all sorts of interesting things about their firepower and defenses that he just can't wait to share with us."
The unseen hands seized X again, and this time, he didn't resist them when they dragged him away over the uneven ground.