Chapter 6: Blood
The service door led to a maintenance crawlspace, which opened into the husk of a subterranean station platform. E-15 moved with the silence of a shadow, her boots making no sound on the grime-caked tile. Pod 19 floated behind, a silent, copper-green ghost.
Through a collapsed section of wall, she saw them.
Two figures stood in a slanted column of grey light falling from a cracked ceiling duct. The scanner model, S8, was pale and slight, her white hair almost glowing in the dimness. She was running a diagnostic on a portable power cell, her fingers delicate and precise. The combat model, B31, stood guard, her posture tense even at rest. She cradled a long, wicked-looking spear, its point aimed at the floor. Her dark eyes continuously scanned the surrounding darkness.
“...optimistic, but the signal trace was clear,” S8 was saying, her voice softer, carrying a lyrical quality that seemed alien in the gloom. “There’s a pattern in the old network ghosts. A form of… communication. Not machine. Something else.”
“Something else got Unit 44,” B31 replied, her tone flat and weary. She didn’t look at her companion, her gaze from the shadows where E-15 hid. “It got and her pod too. ‘Something else’ usually means dead. We should move.”
“But if it’s a chance for a different protocol, a way to exist beyond just—”
“We exist by not being scrapped,” B31 cut her off, finally turning her head. Her expression was hard, but the set of her jaw was protective. “We survive. That’s the only new protocol.Pack the cell. We’re leaving this nest.”
E-15’s systems calculated trajectories. The scanner, S8, was the priority. Elimination of support systems first. The combat model, B31, would be the greater threat, but a moment of distraction would be enough.
Pod 19’s voice was a sub-audible murmur in her internal receiver. “The scanner unit is attempting unauthorized data analysis. Her continued operation poses a contamination risk. Immediate termination is advised. Utilize maximum force.”
Maximum force. The words resonated in a cold chamber of her logic processors. Something in the physical memory banks supplied a sensation: the recoil of a heavier rifle, the satisfaction of a clean, obliterating shot.
She didn’t have a pistol. She had the wakizashi.
E-15 exploded from the darkness.
It wasn’t a run; it was a propelled lunge, a straight-line vector of lethal intent aimed at S8’s back. The white blade was a pale streak in the dusty air.
B31 moved faster than E-15’s projections.
The combat model didn’t shout. She pivoted, a snarl etched on her features, and the haft of her spear swept horizontally, not at E-15, but into the space between her and S8. The clash of metal on metal was a sharp, shocking clang that echoed through the cavernous station. Vibrations shot up E-15’s arm. She landed, skidding back a half-step on her heels, her blade deflected.
S8 stumbled forward with a gasp, dropping the power cell. It clattered and rolled, its light spinning crazy patterns on the walls.
“Go!” B31 barked, never taking her eyes off E-15. She settled into a stance, spear point now leveled, a barrier of polished metal between the assassin and her charge.
E-15 analyzed. Height, reach, weapon advantage: B31. Speed, unpredictability, tactical subroutine override: herself. She adjusted her grip on the wakizashi.
“YoRHa,” B31 spat, her dark eyes flashing with recognition at the uniform, the blindfold. “They finally sent a proper hound. Just one?”
E-15 offered no reply. She attacked again, a feint low followed by a vicious upward slash aimed at the spear’s shaft. B31 parried, the movements efficient and brutal. Thrust, parry, slash, deflect. The dance was a storm of sparks and grunting effort. E-15 fought with a chilling, adaptive precision, her style a fluid amalgam of programmed YoRHa kenjutsu and something else—something brutally direct, using elbows, kicks, and the environment. She kicked a chunk of concrete toward B31’s leg, lunged as the model sidestepped, and nearly scored a cut on her arm.
S8 had not fled. She stood frozen, her blue eyes wide.“Wait! Please!” she called out, her voice cutting through the clatter of combat. “You don’t have to do this! The orders are a lie! We can choose not to—”
E-15 ignored the words. Noise. B31, however, faltered for a millisecond, a glance of sheer frustration toward her companion. It was all E-15 needed. She darted inside the spear’s reach, the wakizashi aiming a thrust at B31’s core.
B31 twisted, the blade scoring a deep gash across her ribs instead of piercing her chest. Red fluid seeped through the torn fabric of her dress. She gasped, stumbling back.
“S8, RUN!” she roared.
But S8’s face set into a look of desperate resolve. Her eyes began to glow a soft, azure blue. “I’m initiating a system override! Just hold her!”
Tendrils of visible data, like shimmering blue threads, erupted from S8’s outstretched hands and snaked toward E-15. A standard YoRHa combat hack—meant to paralyze, to scramble internal systems.
The threads touched E-15’s external sensors… and shattered.
A wall of fractaling, chaotic code erupted around E-15’s silhouette, not the clean, blue firewall of a standard unit, but a raging, prismatic storm of conflicting data. S8’s eyes widened in shock and horror. “What… what are you? Your architecture… it’s not YoRHa! It…s!”
The hack attempt did something else. It stirred the tomb.
A surge of disjointed data flooded E-15’s combat processors. Not a memory, but a sensory echo. The smell of rain on hot asphalt. The taste of copper in a human mouth. A raw, screaming imperative that was not a programmed objective: NEVER GO PRONE. STAY ON YOUR FEET. GET UP GET UP GET—
E-15 screamed. It was not a sound of pain, but of pure, unfiltered system shock, a static-laden roar that echoed in the enclosed space. Her attacks changed.
She abandoned all finesse. She became a whirlwind of brutal, efficient violence. She batted the spear aside with a reinforced forearm, took a shallow cut across her shoulder, and slammed her palm heel into B31’s sternum. The bigger android staggered, breath forced from her vocal emitter in a burst of static.
“Stop it!” S8 cried, rushing forward, weaponless, as if to physically intervene.
E-15 backhanded her. The blow sent the smaller android spinning to the ground, a sharp cry cut short. B31, seeing this, let out a raw sound of fury and charged, spear leading in a final, desperate thrust.
E-15 didn’t parry. She moved into the thrust, turning her body so the blade grazed her side, and grabbed the spear’s shaft with her left hand. Her right, still holding the wakizashi, reversed its grip. She drove the pommel, hard, into B31’s wounded side, once, twice, three times—rapid, piston-like blows that dented alloy and shattered internal components.
B31’s grip failed. E-15 wrenched the spear away and tossed it clattering into the darkness. She stood over the kneeling, gasping combat model, the white blade now leveled at her neck.
“Please…” B31 rasped, fluid leaking from her lips. She looked past E-15 toward where S8 lay moaning. “Just… her. Let her go. She’s just a scanner.”
E-15’s head tilted. The request was illogical. It contradicted the objective. Two rogue units. Terminate.
But for a nanosecond, the flood of alien data offered a parallel. A face, not S8’s, but a woman’s, smiling, touched by sunlight. A promise whispered in a dead language: I’ll keep them safe.
The moment fractured.
Pod 19’s voice was cool, clear, and absolute in her ear. “Complete the mission, E-15. Her sentiment is a defect. Your efficiency is remarkable. Finish it.”
The cold clarity of the order crystallized the chaos inside her. The ghosts receded. The objective glowed, immutable.
E-15’s blade moved. It was a quick, merciful flash. B31’s body stiffened, then slumped to the side, a final sigh of released pressure hissing from her neck joint.
Silence, broken only by the weak, staticky crackle of dying systems and S8’s ragged sobs from the floor. E-15 turned, her visor painting the crying scanner with a red targeting reticule. She took a step.
And then the ground shook.
From the dark tunnels beyond the platform, drawn by the noise, the energy signatures, and the spill of android blood, came a low, chittering roar. Dozens of pinprick red lights ignited in the darkness.
The machine lifeforms had come. And they were not alone. Something larger, its heavy footfalls shaking dust from the ceiling, was moving amongst them.