Chapter 106: Reunion Protocol.
V O L U M E F I V E
Chapter 106: Reunion Protocol
Another artificially calibrated day inside the Hope Bubble. The air sat at the same temperature it always did, stable and unchanged, the same as it had been for years. Most of the wounded the E-UNITs had brought in were beginning to recover. The E-Medics had trained through the worst of Altea's wars, a full ward was familiar ground for them.
05 was in the storage room, still working on cracking the password Nick had locked Dave's database access behind. They needed it to install the original E-UNIT framework onto the empty shells, though Dave had been pushing a different approach for a while now.
She had her head resting on the stomach of one of the collapsed shells, typing in a steady, mechanical rhythm, running through combinations of 02's birthday she didn't actually know. Trying to hack her father's system directly had turned out to be a dead end. Nick had, for once in his life, taken security seriously.
"Let's just do it." Dave pushed his laptop aside. "We are never going to crack an eight-digit code when we don't know the numbers or the order they go in."
05 sat up and dismissed her screens. "You really do enjoy those mind games. We can't just copy my system onto every shell in here. That would be a nightmare for the other E-UNITs." She paused. "And for me."
Dave nodded. "Fair point. I can barely manage one of you. Ten thousand of you explaining in detail why their father was unethical and why duplicating a perfectly usable existing system is somehow immoral, I'll pass."
"It's impressive," 05 said flatly, "how easily you reduce us to parts. Two years repairing us doesn't give you the right to see us that way."
Dave pushed himself up carefully. He walked over to the nearest inactive shell and rapped his knuckles against its matte-white armor. The hollow sound echoed sharply in the quiet room. "05. To me, you are talking spare parts with a system running on top. You can replicate human emotions, but that doesn't make you human."
"I cannot believe you set all that up just to say something that makes no sense." She reached into her hoodie pocket and brought up a small pill bottle. "What's this? Medication to regulate human emotions?" She held it up. "Funny, it's almost like a script that shuts off the emotional processing of a living creature. How interesting."
Dave took the bottle and exhaled. "You really can't stand the truth." He turned and looked down the long rows of inactive shells. "What a waste. We could have all of them combat-ready with your intelligence and fighting capabilities already built in. Individualism isn't working in our favor right now."
05 walked to the shell she'd been leaning against and lifted it back into line, straightening its posture until the light above it blinked on. "I don't want to spend the rest of my life wondering whether I'm the original every time I see a copy laughing at something one of my sisters said." She looked back at Dave. "They'd be talking to me, but it wouldn't be me. And I wouldn't remember any of it. It's just... it's unsettling."
Dave smiled. "You do have emotions. I assumed your entire existence was reading technical manuals and taking shots at 03."
05 pressed two fingers to her forehead. "You really—"
The metal door flew open.
03 hit the ground running, crossed the room in seconds, and grabbed 05's hand.
05 pulled back on instinct. "03! What—"
"02 is here." 03 was out of breath. "We heard the system announce her when she came down the glass elevator. Dave was right. She's real. Everyone's waiting, come on!" The memory wall hadn't shocked her this time. Whatever the wall was built on, her excitement had overwhelmed it entirely.
Dave rubbed the back of his head. "Why are you out of breath? You're a robot." He turned. "05?"
She was already moving, a strange energy in her step she couldn't account for. "I don't know why, but I feel, I actually feel excited." She glanced back once. "Sorry for not believing you, Dave!"
They were gone before the words finished landing, thrusters firing at every corner down the hallway.
Dave shook his head. "She really does have emotions." He sat back down and resumed typing combinations. Then he stopped. "Wait." He looked up. "I can just ask 02 directly."
Up in the main garden, 03 and 05 had already pushed their way to the front of the crowd gathering at the double doors of the glass elevator. The front panel had been covered, whatever was inside wasn't visible yet. The E-Medics had formed a line near the back, silent and patient. Most of them had quietly begun to worry that Dave was losing his grip on reality.
The elevator reached the ground floor.
The doors opened with their usual hiss.
A silhouette stepped forward, the glow of blue optics unmistakable even in the shadow of the elevator car. Then she stepped fully into the light. She stopped, her posture perfectly aligned, and took one look at the assembled crowd.
She tilted her head, breaking the tension with a small, confident smirk. "Why is everyone lined up like this? I was trying to surprise you."
Every E-UNIT, E-Medic, and cleaning bot in the garden went completely still.
The memory wall had no power over a person standing right in front of them. Their eyes flickered red for a fraction of a second. A sharp static shocked their audio sensors as the system registered the paradox, and then the memory wall shattered. The memories flooded back in an instant.
03 took one step forward, her voice coming out smaller than usual. "Cap… tain? Is that actually you?"
02 smiled, that same steady, certain smile, the one that said she'd never doubted for a second she'd be back. Her hoodie was dark and clean, the number 02 on her chest glowing like she'd never left. Like the years between then and now had simply not happened. "You forgot your captain, 03. Did I really take that long?"
03 laughed through tears. "What a terrible dry joke." She closed the distance and threw her arms around her.
Everyone followed at once.
The shock overrode everything else. A pile of E-UNITs formed around 02, climbing over each other, the sound of metal against metal ringing through the garden.
02 pulled herself free with some effort, stood up straight, and planted her feet. "Girls. Behave."
They untangled themselves, wiping electronic tears, laughing in broken, overlapping bursts, trying to get their posture back in order. 03 emerged from the edge of the group and wrapped both arms around her again. "Don't you ever leave us like that again. That monster made us forget the most important person on this team."
02 returned it briefly, then pushed her back gently. "I know. I was with him the whole time, there's a lot to report to you. You won't believe half of it."
05 pressed through the crowd toward her. "You can drop the official tone, Captain. There's no E-Police left to report to."
02 shook her head. "There are still people to protect and a serious threat to deal with. The Reaper pointed his weapon at us, remember? We put him in prison, a hospital, or—"
"Straight to hell!" Every E-UNIT in the garden answered at once.
02 looked around at all of them. "Good. I want to see that same energy at training."
The expressions dropped across the board. Half of them had seen that coming from the moment she walked in.
05 tilted her head. "Where's the Omega chassis? Last time we saw you, you were in it."
02's expression settled into something more serious. "I was going to save this for the full briefing, but you need to hear it now. The G-Bots were defeated, completely, by the Reaper. And we lost our father."
The garden went quiet.
"Before he died," 02 continued, "he uploaded a copy of my mind into a standard E-UNIT body he had prepared for exactly this situation. He held the Reaper's attention long enough for me to get clear of the battlefield."
06 pushed forward from somewhere in the group. "You ran?"
"Yes," 02 said. "The Reaper's capabilities were beyond anything we had data on. The G-Bots were carrying more advanced hardware than anything we've used, and he dismantled them without taking a single hit."
The expressions around her shifted. A few faces tightened. Others went still in the particular way that meant the mind was working through something it didn't like.
03 stared at the ground. "Why did father have an empty E-UNIT body ready to go…"
02's eyes sharpened. "Wait, you don't think he—"
"ANYWAY." 05 stepped in smoothly, took 02 by the arm, and started pulling her toward the corridor. "The full report can wait. We have things to tell you too."
Infinity, still wearing 02's face, let herself be dragged, her voice trailing back into the garden as they rounded the corner. "05, I can walk on my own. Wait—"