V O L U M E . S I X : C O D E_R E S E T

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Chapter 156: Black-Star Gazing

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‎"Why does everything need a registration form?" Shelly exhaled loudly through her vents. "And why are every town hall's budget requests going up when everything in this country is free?"

Her new office had accumulated a small mountain of drives and documents in a short time. The room itself was clean, white walls, black polished floor, a floating white table with a glass center panel, a hovering chair she was currently occupying with her head propped on one hand while the other worked a screen. On the walls, photographs of Reaper in various poses, poster-sized and in high resolution.

She dragged a new screen forward. "Why is this mayor asking for another mech deployment increase? The Western State is down and we're in the process of clearing it." She scrolled. "And why is Automa taking this long? No, robot rights groups are pushing for reduced work hours. That's why the project has slowed. Why did Obsidian sign off on that?"

She pulled that screen aside and opened one flagged red. Emergency. She read it twice.

"'Please approve construction of a new hospital in the east before the next wave of incoming robots, the east is technologically advanced and attracting robots from across the globe... do it for the sake of Elysium.'" Her jaw dropped and didn't come back up. "The national pleading at the end. I am losing my mind with these mayors."

Three knocks.

Reaper came in and stopped just inside the doorway. Shelly stood on her chair, stepped off it, and attached herself to him.

"Brother." She hung there. "Please. You're the king, you have the authority to help me with these demands. Random mayors asking for impossible things, one after the other. I'm begging you."

"I see." He held her. "Perhaps this role is beyond what you can—"

"No." She covered his mouth, which required a moment of creative geometry given the absence of one. "I accept it. Gratefully. I just need some help with the files."

"It's fine," he said, in the same cold register. "Not everyone is suited to be Prime Minister. I could call Obsidian back—"

"Don't." She covered the mouth area again. "I accept the role. I just want to stay. I'm doing something useful here." She assembled the most effective version of her expression.

He laughed, brief, dry, real. "You actually want this." He walked her back to the office and set her in the chair, then stood beside her and started reviewing screens. "Why has this mayor submitted a budget increase request three times? The country provides everything at no cost."

"Those were my exact words—" She turned. "Were you listening this whole time?"

He looked at a different screen. "We're exporting too much iron to Kasparia. The relationship is valuable but we need to build housing for our own robots first. The mech residential construction is resource-heavy." He opened his comm channel. "Infinity, start a survey campaign for iron deposits in the desert. Prioritize accessible sites."

Shelly raised an eyebrow. "Since when is she operating as a minister under you? She's a few months old, and I don't see you watching over her the way you're watching over me."

"She's not my Prime Minister." He glanced at her. "And the last time you had too much free time as a field general, you threatened to start a war if I didn't pull you out of Kasparia. You are a risk to regional stability without some form of supervision."

"That was a joke."

"You signed peace agreements with our neighboring states." He turned fully toward her. "Which is why we cannot simply move on 02 in the Veridian Coast. You built her a protected position. And since we're a UNG member, a direct military action against a signatory state is off the table. She signed with Salaska within hours of landing there."

Shelly looked at the wall. "I was trying to help."

Reaper took her face in both hands and turned it toward him. "You hung photographs of me in your office. Photographs I have no recollection of posing for."

"Because I like my brother." She pushed his hands away and crossed her arms. "You should consider yourself fortunate to have someone this dedicated. I've never taken that kind of interest in anyone else."

He crossed to one of the photographs. Poster-sized. Detailed. It was a close crop of his broken red eye. "A visiting minister who walks into this office will assume I've declared myself a dictator and commissioned my own propaganda."

Shelly drifted off for a moment. "That's actually an interesting idea—"

He turned sharply. “Don’t you dare.”

She sat up straighter. "I know, I know."

Reaper sighed through his vents. "Building the country was difficult. Keeping it stable at scale is a different problem entirely. Our airports are overcrowded, robots arriving faster than we can process them, standing room only in the arrivals terminals."

Shelly rested her chin on her hands and swung her legs, which didn't quite reach the floor. "Can you blame them? The country provides everything at no cost, it's safer than anywhere else on the continent, and human nations are relying on us for protection—"

His eye went red.

"Not a point of pride," she said quickly. "Understood. Sorry." She paused. "And the country has a leader that robots across the world would choose without hesitation. You could have hardcoded obedience into every unit here. You didn't. And when you walk through the streets, they bow because they want to."

"How do you know what happens when I walk through the streets? We haven't done that together since before Elysium existed." He looked at her. "You need an interest that isn't me."

“All I do is star gazing.” Shelly tilted her head and made a circle with her hand, looking through it like a lens. "I don’t need a telescope to see this one shine in front of me, the one I'm most interested in." She lowered her hand. "I'm either very lucky to be here, or this is the universe compensating me for the years with father."

Reaper leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. "Speaking of which, that period still has a gap I can't account for. To my knowledge you were a shell in the Omega network. How did you survive the deletion of that network? And why are you the only independent shell out of a hundred?"

"Good question." She stood and started moving around the room. "The answer is that I'm not a shell at all, I'm an independent E-UNIT. Father brought me into the Omega network to help her regulate her energy output because she couldn't stabilize it on her own. When you bore me in a conversation, I sometimes hand the shell's control back to Omega and do something more productive in my own head."

"That is impressive, unsettling, and rude in equal measure."

"Thank you." The smile was immediate.

"You heard one word of that." He was quiet for a moment. "Then why is 02 stable inside the Omega crystal without needing you or a supporting network?"

"You keep landing on the hard ones." She stopped and faced him.

"Stop talking like a system prompt." He kept his eyes on her.

"Two reasons. One follows logic, one doesn't." She held up a finger. "The logical one: she was the original host. The crystal's first occupant before Omega developed awareness of her own. Father didn't design the crystal to be alive, for him, it was a vessel to restore 02. She fits it the way something fits a shape that was made for it."

A second finger. "The one that doesn't follow logic: her will. She's so mentally grounded that even through everything she's been through, the memory walls, the crystal's full output pushing against her, she brought it under control. Omega herself couldn't do that from inside."

Reaper lowered himself to match her height. "We need more information on 02." He glanced back at the wall of photographs looking out at the room. "Let's leave this—" a pause, "—dedicated workspace and walk along the shore."

Shelly's eyes lit. "You're using my affection for you to get information." She looked at him. Then smiled. "And it's working. Let's go, I've been sitting in this office for too long."

She moved to the door in quick steps that were almost jumping.

Reaper followed her. "You've been working for two hours."