Chapter Text
X pressed his fingers to the glass, staring up at the blue shape on the pedestal. It was him, but then again it wasn't him at all. It wouldn't be him ever again, if he had anything to say about it, and he did.
"Wow," said the reploid next to him, a pastel green mass-production model. She also gazed up at the armor on display with unabashed admiration. "The real thing."
"Yeah," said X. "That's it."
"I wonder what X is doing these days," she said, looking to X without a shred of recognition. "You never really hear anything about him now."
"I wonder," X echoed, with an ironic amusement that the other reploid didn't seem to register whatsoever. She continued to stare up at his empty armor, and he grew bored of looking at it and wandered off.
X had filed his report. It was ninety percent deflection, ten percent factual, and if he hadn't brought solid evidence nobody would have believed even that much. Of course, officially, he had no idea who had killed Charles Alderman. His recommendation was to let it lie, because razing an already razed area with no particular target over a man that had still been committing some kind of murder for fun was a conspicuous waste of resources, and when he'd put it that way, the brass had fortunately agreed.
The debriefing had taken a week, between all the meetings and the number of times some of them had been rescheduled, but now X was just stalling and he knew it. He'd been allowed to cross the wall the first time, as unofficial official business, but this time, he'd have to find his own way, and there would not be any real coming back, so he wanted to put a few things in order first.
He'd gotten his change of clothes, his hot bath, his nap. X had even, hesitantly—though not nearly as hesitantly as the poor nervous techs installing it—had a new battery installed and a core fuel change, as well as a complete fluid systems flush. It was beyond time, he'd decided, and the funny thing about it was that those old parts had been nothing special. He could, in fact, be upgraded in certain capacities. Despite all of the custom work in his aging systems, his power and cooling systems had been top shelf at the time, but ultimately still off the shelf. He had simply never been able to relax enough to allow someone to change any of his components, and the techs had marveled that he could even hold or generate a charge at all.
And yet, even armed with a bucket list that he'd checked several items off of, he felt unsettled. Things were too easy, but only for him. X saw on the news that another reploid gone Maverick in Abel City had set her workplace on fire and simply vanished, and he wondered what the reports left out. Maybe he'd run into her and have the chance to ask. Irregularity numbers had not substantially changed since the elimination of the Virus. In fact, they'd seen an increase in the past few years, especially in reploids being declared irregular in small groups. X had not understood that, before, but he'd learned a lot in a short time.
X went through his days like he was hiding something, and he was. It gnawed at him during advisory meetings, coiled itself in the back of his mind on the train, and danced through his defragmenting dreams. It was invisible to everyone else so far, he was passing, but he knew, and he knew that he could not hide it forever.
It came out at odd times, in little ways. He laughed more. He resisted and argued more. He thought little of rank now, and gave his opinions unsolicited. When everyone in the room was discussing Maverick suppression, X was discussing Maverick prevention, because happy reploids felt no need to light their workplace on fire. He proposed reducing the use of force. They side-eyed him. He brought up the lack of support networks for reploids, and they reminded him that reploids were supposed to be the support network for humans. He realized, after a while, that he was talking to a brick wall, and they did nothing to dissuade this notion. The satisfaction that he was showing up to and participating in meetings again gave way quickly to annoyance that his main role had suddenly become devil's advocate.
Somehow, a week became almost a month. X grumbled to himself, in diagnostic code, because nobody would have dared tell him off for it.
'>E.04642-SYS: Failure to compile. :)' he swore at the retreating form of one of the brass he'd been tangling with in particular, then stopped dead in his tracks and blinked in shock.
'>Did you just…smiley face?' the nearest Hunter asked him, transmitting because X had, so it must have been alright.
'>You saw that too?' X transmitted back.
'>I think I did? Try saying it again.'
'>E.04642-SYS: Failure to compile. :)' X transmitted, bemusedly.
'>How in the world did you manage to edit your standardized diagnostic list? That code is locked down so tight,' the Hunter asked, trying to not laugh.
'>I didn't,' X protested, and suddenly, a memory floated up from the back of his storage.
Even if your security sucked and I actually got in, I would have just put a smiley face somewhere in your code and let you find it later.
X began to laugh, so hard that he had to sit down, and tears sprang to his eyes. The Maverick Hunter accompanying him just stood there, hovering with confused, awkward concern and clearly having no idea whatsoever if he needed to do anything about this, or what he should do if he did. He knew how to deal with Mavericks, and stressed officers, and clueless rookies. An old reploid sitting on the floor laughing until he cried until he laughed, occasionally repeating a rather rude and mysteriously nonstandard diagnostic code to himself and falling into fresh laughter all over again, didn't fit well into any of those categories as far as he could tell.
Of course, he was wrong, but he didn't need to know that.
The very next evening, with snow falling heavily outside his windows, X packed a bag. Just the basics, he told himself, taking inventory. An entire flat of nanofluid cans and another of fresh coolant. A stack of the worst romance novels he could find, in paperback. A portable drive with as many songs, TV shows, books, and movies as he could pirate (which had entertained him greatly to do; breaking the law on purpose was still very new to him). Several bottles of acrylic paint, the best he could find, and some new brushes. Some fun desk toys and fresh new pads of paper. Packets of flower seeds. A few new basic power tools. Nail polish, which he knew nothing about, so he'd bought one of everything in the store just to be certain. An extra durable squeaky dog toy, which he wasn't sure was in good taste or not, but if it wasn't, nobody had to know he'd brought it. As many fresh batteries in every possible size and type as he could fit around the edges. Simple, essential little things like that, he thought wryly, trying to close the humorously oversized suitcase his shopping trip had ended up requiring.
X was not a hacker like Glitch, nor could he fly, and he could not climb the wall now even without a suitcase that weighed at least as much as he did. He knew his strengths, though, and how to play to them. With a confident spring in his step, he walked right up to the gate and pressed a button with the handle of his cane.
"Hey," he said, into the camera embedded in the panel beside the heavy door.
"And you are…?" the guard on duty asked via the intercom, suspiciously.
X brushed his hair out of his face and held up his identification card to the camera. "Maybe you didn't recognize me in a different color."
"Oh! You're—" There was an audible fumble from the intercom, and the door slid open. X entered. "Apologies, sir," the reploid guard said, scrambling to stand up from his desk and salute, even though X was retired and his ID said as much. The guard on duty was a fairly standard unit, emblazoned with the Maverick Hunters logo, and he was the same one that had let X out the first time. This was a planned coincidence on X's part. "What can I do for you today?"
"You can open the gate," X replied.
"Sir. Unfortunately, without permission, I can't open it for anyone, even you," the guard said, contritely.
"Well, fortunately for me, I've got another unofficial assignment, so you're in the clear," X told him, with a reassuring smile.
"Under whose authority…?" the gate guard asked, hesitantly.
X just continued to smile pleasantly. "I'd love to tell you, but you don't have the clearance to know," he said. "But you can trust me. Would I, of all people, lie to you?"
As he strolled into the Abel City quarantine zone, dragging his suitcase with one hand and gripping his cane with the other, X reflected on the fact that he'd spent so much of his life lying so competently that even he hadn't caught himself at it. Doing it with intention and full self-awareness was really nothing in comparison, it turned out.
"Come on, guys, it's pissin' down snow out there. There's nothin' to even see. He'll be back when he's back," Hammer chided, gently, tool bag slung over his shoulder. "You can't keep walkin' around in the dark all the time anyway. It just ain't safe. Chuck's friends could still be out there."
"Hammer. Ham. Mister Forklift. The Drifters are a thing of the past. The reploids formerly known as the Drifters are actually pretty good neighbors now, when they don't have a crazy lady telling them how rancid our vibes are. Chuck's buddies would have to catch me first, and that won't happen. When was the last time we got in trouble? Seriously. Be honest."
"Last week you damn near got your ass seen by a Hunter patrol," Hammer pointed out.
"Technically, I don't have an ass, I've got panels, and Mack doesn't even have that. Also, we weren't seen, so we weren't really in trouble. Just kind of proximal to trouble. Totally different thing." Glitch was between colors in a serious way, having been toasted both front and back. He'd buffed down to his original white in some places, other patches revealing layers of blue or red. He was mostly still racing green, but he was strongly considering a nice yellow, which was not at all related to the fact that they'd stumbled into a quantity of yellow automotive paint recently.
"You know what I mean. Give it a rest." Hammer crossed his massive arms, as stubborn as always. Glitch may have been an unstoppable force, but Hammer was an immovable object, and therefore they had this conversation daily. "Ain't you got anything else to do? You need a hobby, I'll find you one. We got way too much building to do an' not but a single one of these new guys even knows what a two by four is."
"Not my kind of making things. Look, Hammer, you know he doesn't walk so great and he only gets worse when it's cold. What if he's out there right now? All sad and alone?" Glitch put on his best sad puppy face. He'd practiced it in a mirror, so he knew it was good. His eyes grew so large and shiny that it was impossible for anybody to tell him no.
"No," said Hammer. "An' stop doin' that stupid thing with your face. You look like a lemur or somethin'."
Glitch deflated dramatically. "Hammerrrrr. Come onnnn. Since when did you have this kind of authority to be telling me I can't take a walk with my safety buddy?"
"Since just now, when we got so many more newcomers that we can't even stack 'em deep enough to house 'em and they've totally switched up the Hunter patrols," Hammer said, still blocking the exit. "An' moreover you know as well as I do that Katie said—"
"—Wow," Glitch interrupted, offhandedly staring at something behind Hammer. "There is just no way that's up to code."
"Huh?" Hammer turned to try and see what Glitch was talking about, only realizing that it was a ruse after the overclocked reploid had already snatched up Mack and pushed past him at a sprint.
"Hah! Always works!" he cackled, retreating into the falling snow.
"Speedy, you fuckin' little bastard, I oughta pound you into new flooring tiles or somethin'," Hammer swore after him, though in the kind of tone that suggested he'd been saying it so often lately that the edge had worn off. He didn't bother to give chase. There was no catching Glitch when he was on a mission, and he'd been on a mission for a solid month.
Glitch bounded out into the snow, Mack on his head like a hat. He loved this weather. It was the only time of year he didn't have to worry about overheating, and he could afford a little extra shenanigans for a while. Humans had some holidays or whatever. Glitch had the entire season.
"It's been one month exactly," said Mack.
"Yeah," Glitch agreed. They both knew what the other was thinking: it made for a nice even date, the sort of interval after which one might execute a major decision. They didn't need to discuss it, so they didn't, and they hoped their third was having a similar thought.
Networks were just like that, even remote networks.
Glitch had a route he'd developed. He'd first met V to the west, so assuming that he would use the same entrance point as he did the first time, Glitch always looped around that way, keeping to the surface. He would cover several city blocks a few times each, systematically, and then he would head back. It took several hours of walking due to him having a faulty definition of 'a few,' but he had never believed in half-assing the important things, even if he didn't have an ass. Partial-paneling just didn't hit right as a phrase.
The snow definitely wasn't helping with visibility, but it did mean he didn't have to worry so much about being seen from above, whether by visual or infrared. That was the current problem with being Kujuyousuke, Glitch thought. If he could sidle close enough to the outside wall without being detected, maybe find some unsecured wifi, place a few orders…well, spoof a few credentials and land some zenny, then place a few orders, he amended, he could upgrade his cooling system. Or his power supply, but that was scary, and more expensive.
Glitch and Mack were almost to the office building where they'd first met V, and the snow was falling in earnest; big, fat flakes, swirling so thickly that even Glitch with his expanded visual spectrum couldn't see much beyond thirty feet. "He sure wasn't much to look at then, was he?" Glitch said aloud, apropos of evidently nothing.
"He still isn't," Mack agreed, with the kind of mutual knowing that longtime coprocessors shared. "But then, neither of us are, either."
"Yeah," Glitch agreed. A tech worker model with multiple visible paint jobs and a Mettaur so obsolete that it was likely there were no other functioning models of its line left in the world did not make for an imposing pair. "Yeah. But looks are deceiving."
They drew closer to the building's shattered glass entrance, and Glitch squinted. He'd passed this place every day for a month, not counting while he was still self-repairing after being shot up in the fight with the Drifters, and he did not remember a pile of anything in front of it. Whatever it was, it was buried under a few inches of snow. "Huh. New place for a snow drift," he said, approaching it anyway.
Once he was closer, he could clearly see that it was a tarp, blue and tattered by exposure to the weather, the same as any other tarp here…and under thermal vision it was warmer underneath than any pile of abandoned building materials had a right to be.
It shifted, and with a little effort, stood. It threw half of itself back like a hood, revealing messy brown hair, glassy green eyes, and not much else, because at that moment Glitch impacted with V so hard that Mack fell off of his head with a beep of surprise and V involuntarily yelped. Glitch picked the other reploid—okay, android, he already felt the correction even though it was only in his own head—up in the same motion and spun him in several circles, feet well off the ground.
"I'm happy to see you, too," V chuckled, clinging for balance once he was put back down.
"You came back," Glitch said, grinning from auditory sensor to auditory sensor and not bothering to contain his excitement even a little.
"Of course I did," V said. "I told you I would, and this is where Mavericks go to hide, right?"
"Damn straight it is," Mack said, finally righting itself from where it had been spinning like a top on its helmet. It jumped at V with almost as much joy as Glitch, and V caught it in his free arm.
"Let's get you home," Glitch said. "You've gotta be freezing. And what's this? You forget how to pack light? Oh, gasp," he said, actually just saying the word 'gasp' when he realized the enormous piece of luggage next to V wasn't just an incidental part of the scenery. "Have you finally figured out how to own physical possessions?"
"Not really, but I brought a few things from the outside, since I was already passing through," V said, trying to sound casual about it. Glitch experimentally attempted to lift the suitcase.
"A few things! Like what, your modest collection of tungsten ingots?" he laughed, giving up and going back to picking V up instead, and by extension Mack as well.
"Something like that," V agreed, a little too mildly, which meant it was probably a joke. "You know, when we first met, you said you wouldn't carry me, and now you don't seem to be able to put me down."
"Things change," Glitch said.
"Rapidly, when you're Glitch," Mack added, flatly and sardonically at the same time.
"You're no better if that's how it is, going along with whatever I decide," Glitch huffed, though he couldn't find it in himself to even pretend to be the least bit upset about anything at all just then.
"There was something I'd wanted to say, before, but I had to leave with the Hunters instead," V said. "I decided it the night before, and I was going to tell you in the morning, but it didn't work out that way."
"Yeah?" Glitch and Mack both asked.
"If you're still okay with it, I think I'd like to be your serial peripheral," V said, and if he had blood under his skin, he would have blushed, Glitch thought.
"Of course we are," Glitch answered, spinning in a circle with V still in his arms, which made V cling to him again and clutch Mack more tightly.
"You hardly even have to ask," Mack agreed.
"Well, I wanted to say it aloud. I want a lot of things," V said, with some pride. He'd earned it. "I might even figure out the words for some of them eventually."
"It's a three man job now, so you've got backup on the dictionary front. Or a two man, one genderless orb job, if you want to be really exact about it," Mack said.
"You've gotta see how much we've grown in just a month," Glitch said, finally putting V down again. "You wouldn't believe how many of the Drifters ended up going with us. Even a few that left at first came back. We're kinda all just defragmenting wherever we fit, Val's going mad with social power trying to make friends with literally everyone, you gotta sign up on a list to recharge at all…it's just so busy all the time now, but it's a good thing. It feels like a real town. Like we're doing something important here, you know? Someday here soon, we might even have to give it a real name."
"What about Seren?" V asked. "Have you had any more trouble from her?"
"Nothing. We haven't even seen her or her two buddies, but Kat told us to just let them go if we do," Mack answered, still in V's arm. "Not a peep from the Maverick Hunters, either, other than there's been a lot more aerial patrols. Whatever you told them, it seems like it worked."
"I may have slightly underestimated the population here in my report," V said, a little sheepishly. "By about a hundred percent."
"Hah," Glitch scoffed. "That's our V."
V wrapped his free arm around Glitch, Mack still held in the other, and hugged them both, cheek pressing against Glitch's chest panels and just staying there, happily motionless for several long moments. Even in the snow, Glitch's chassis was still so warm. Glitch returned the embrace, pressing his own cheek into V's hair, and Mack, having no arms itself to speak of, just wiggled itself further into the tangle of arms and played a happy little 'bloop' sound effect.
"I love you," V said, to both of them, because he wanted to, and because he could. And then, "Let's go home."