7.11 – Manual for Destruction.
V O L U M E . S E V E N - P H A N T O M S . A N D . P R E D A T O R S
Chapter 172: Manual for Destruction
The armored white truck moved through Bijou's narrow streets, taking corners with the confidence of something that had not been designed for corners. People on the pavements raised smart glasses and floating screens as it passed, the vehicle looked wrong against the handcrafted stone buildings, and the two Bulwark Frames riding in the back made it worse.
The truck stopped by the library. 05 and 04 descended and the ground registered their arrival. 05 hit the back panel twice. 06 pulled out immediately.
"Mobility is going to be a running problem." 04 stretched her back. "I keep thinking about how 03 is keeping pace with the captain and Gamma out there."
"The frame has speed-enhancement motors built into the legs." 05 tapped the side of her helmet to bring the advanced sensors online. "Albert designed our original bodies. Did you think he'd put us in something heavier without accounting for movement? And he's still refining it."
They entered the library.
The building was classic 1900s architecture, the kind Salaska had told them not to touch. Inside, holographic signage had been fitted into the stone, cables and rails running from anchors fixed to the ceiling. The collision of centuries was everywhere you looked.
"I don't like that our faces are gone," 04 said, moving between the reading tables. "The moment I put this on I felt like I lost something."
05 was already scanning book spines at speed. "The additional sensors are necessary, our standard ones don't interface correctly with the frame geometry." She turned. "And we're not the first masked androids. There are models online with fully covered optics. I've always been curious how their sensor range compares to ours."
"I've seen them." 04 smiled inside the helmet. "B2. Looked excellent honestly, though white hair isn't my preference."
Every head in the library had turned toward them. Books sat open and ignored. Their designations, 04 and 05 in clean black on the shoulders, E-UNIT in bold across the shields on their backs, made identification at least straightforward.
The robot receptionist at the front desk began vibrating as they approached. She was half humanoid, the top half built to resemble a person, the bottom half mechanical rail-mounted machinery extending across the library floor. "W-welcome to Historya, the library for traveling through the p-past." She hid behind a book.
05 shook her head. "We're probably less frightening than you. You're half human, half metro system. We won't take much of your time."
The receptionist nodded carefully.
04 said under her breath. “05, take it easy. I know this is your natural habitat, and 03 insists you’re a bookworm, but let her calm down first. The internet’s full of videos of us tearing robots apart. We’re a police force, this reaction is normal.”
That made the receptionist laugh, a real laugh, the tension going out of her all at once.
05 hit the side of 04's helmet. "Don't use that name here."
'She calmed the robot down with a joke she knows I hate. Sociopath.'
"Thank you for your patience," the receptionist said, steadied. "How can I help you, officers?"
"We're running a scan of the building for potential terrorist activity," 05 said. "Please notify your patrons, keep it vague, no specifics, we don't need a panic."
The receptionist gasped. "Of course. Immediately. Anything else?"
04 stepped forward. "Recent robot presence, anything at all, even minor."
The receptionist considered it. "This is largely a human space. Robots don't visit often, the knowledge base is all available online." She gestured at the shelves. "Even my colleagues here are mostly human. Book checks, deliveries, cleaning, all human labor. I manage reception and reshelf what patrons leave behind."
"Thank you," 04 said. "We won't be long."
They moved into the stacks. The library felt like something extracted from another era and dropped without apology into the present. 05 stopped at intervals to scan titles, moving from shelf to shelf with the focus of someone who does this for reasons she doesn't entirely explain.
04 tapped her helmet. "Sophos. How many of these books are currently available online?"
Sophos came through both earpieces simultaneously. "I can see what you're doing. You want to make a point about 05's behavior by stating a number. Happy to assist. 99.85% of the collection is currently accessible online. 80% of those are free, since most titles here qualify as historical record."
05 put a book back. The shelf shook.
04 kept going. "Sophos, could a bomb be concealed inside a book? Perhaps 05 is actually doing something useful and not wasting our time one shelf at a time."
"I caught that framing too. You're embedding a secondary message in your phrasing to redirect 05 toward the actual mission. Very subtle, very kind in delivery—"
"Stop." 05 pinched the bridge of her nose through the helmet. "01 warned me about you. I didn't listen. I didn’t think you would reach this level."
"I'm not that bad."
05 reached for the next shelf and stopped.
She pulled a book out. Opened it. Stopped moving entirely.
"What?" she said quietly. Then, louder. "What?!"
Shhh.
The nearest patrons turned. 05 didn't register them. She pushed a floating chair over and sat, removing her helmet to see properly, scanning the pages at the speed her twenty-five years of reading had built into her. Her face changed with each page. Her cooling vents ran loud against the library silence.
04 sat beside her and put an arm around her shoulder. "What is it?"
"This book." 05 turned to her. "Is about us." She blew the remaining dust off the cover with her neck vents. The title came clear.
The Spark.
Dated 2026.
"Nicholas Rivera," they both said.
05 moved through the pages as fast as her eyes could pull information. Her SSD fought to keep pace.
"04." 05 grabbed the helmet from 04's hands and held it between both of hers. "Did you catch any of that?"
"I can't read at your speed."
"There is a documented method here for hacking the E-UNIT system. Full technical detail on how we function and how to manipulate the Spark architecture built by E-UNIT 00." She tapped her temple. "Sophos, is this book in the digital archive?"
He scanned through 05's visual feed. "No. This is a single physical copy. It almost certainly slipped through when your father's original lab was raided years ago."
05 leaned back in the chair and let herself exhale fully. "Why does this exist. Why did he write this."
04 was quiet for a moment. "Can I read it?"
"Sure." 05 started to hand it across and then stopped. "Why?"
Silence.
Sophos broke it.
"04 has made several attempts to influence the memory-wiped 02's behavior, specifically pushing her toward a harsher command style. She also requested, on multiple occasions, that 02 erase any record of those interactions in case the original captain's memories returned."
05 looked at 04. She held the look.
"Sophos." Her voice had shifted completely. "What was the reasoning behind that?"
"04 stated that the team had become over-reliant on the captain's capabilities and that this reliance was reducing their individual efficiency. She pushed the memory-wiped 02 to impose harder standards despite the captain at that time expressing awareness of how the team felt about the approach." A pause. "The most probable reason 04 wants this book is—"
Neither of them spoke.
"—to manipulate the team's behavior to align with her own view of how they should operate."
05 stood. "I don't know what to say to you right now."
04 raised the Burster and pointed it at her. "Hand me the book. Now."