Considering he HAD BEEN involved in a close-range explosion, his visual mechanisms were surprisingly intact. But he couldn’t hear at all. His auditory mechanisms were still recovering.
He tried to sit up, but lost balance. He had tried propping himself up on his left arm, but instead clumsily fell backward. Peering toward where his left arm should be, he realized it was missing.
The moment he saw the jagged, open wound, he felt tremendous pain. Remarkably, he hadn’t been aware of the searing ache from his arm being ripped apart.
He was immobilized from the great misery. He clenched his teeth in desperation, but couldn’t hold back from moaning. He briefly thought he was going to die.
He looked around to try and diffuse the pain. He saw 2B. Her chassis was lying on the ground. There was only one left, miraculously having avoided the fate of being buried beneath the rubble.
“2B…”
He extended his right hand to stroke her cheek. Back at the Bunker, when 2B was going through maintenance, she had lain like this, with her eyes closed. If he said “All done” now, would she open her eyes as she had so many times in the past?
“What an idiot.”
He knew it was impossible. 2B was dead. The fact dawned on him, and rage began to boil in his veins.
“I can’t…die yet.”
With every heaving breath his upper body stiffened in pain. Even still, he forced himself to sit up. He was already out of breath.
Panting heavily, he straddled 2B’s chassis and clutched her left arm. Pain shot through his whole body as he gripped it with his right hand. He tugged on 2B’s arm with all his might. He heard a dull snap. It hurt him to hear the sound, as if his own arm had been torn off.
He shoved 2B’s arm, soaked in red liquid, toward his wound. He needed a replacement.
“Need to fight…”
It felt like someone was pressing scalding metal onto his wound. He couldn’t even clench his teeth or roll around in pain. Instead, he focused every single ounce of will into staying conscious, and at times, wondered if letting go would make things easier. But of course, he wasn’t going to let himself do that.
The left arm was infected with a logic virus. He needed to perform self-hacking the instant it connected. If he lost consciousness now, the virus would certainly overtake him.
Both fortunately and unfortunately, the pain kept him conscious throughout the process. He finished clearing the virus, and tested the arm’s functionality. There was a slight awkwardness, but it was acceptable. If he adjusted the movements of his other limbs, he would have no problem maneuvering.
“I will fight…”
9S stood up, with a determined gaze toward the end of the room.
✦ ✦ ✦
He eventually reached the back of the room and arrived at a large door.
Right as he passed through the door, it closed behind him. The windows, which were open and facing out, were immediately sealed off. To think he would be so blatantly caged in. It was almost comical at this point.
In the middle of the enclosed room stood two little girls. He realized that he knew them.
“YoRHa android 9S!”
“YoRHa android 9S!”
The little girls wore one-piece dresses. One had a high voice, the other a low voice. While it was the first time he had seen their faces, 9S felt like he knew them. Their gaze and presence were familiar.
“Welcome to the tower!”
“Welcome to the tower!”
This mumbling way of speech—he was reminded of the same announcement he had heard three times. It wasn’t the same exact voice, but he could tell that these girls had been the ones doing the talking.
Swinging his sword through them, he felt no resistance. It seemed that they had no physical bodies. It confirmed a suspicion he had. These girls were the culprits that had snuck into the Bunker and spied on the YoRHa squadrons’ activities. They were the very presence he had struggled to detect.
“Since you made it here, we have some very tempting information for you, you wretch.”
“Since you made it here, we have some very tempting information for you, you wretch.”
Their odd vocabulary and colorless tones were unbearably eerie. So much so that he wanted to run his blade through them right away.
“Ugh…”
He felt an uncomfortable sensation, like his mind had been scraped with sandpaper. Similar to the feeling he had when he was forcefully given the location to the resource recovery units in the crater zone, but this time much stronger.
Words suddenly flooded his brain.
“Th-this…is…”
A file, labeled “Extremely Confidential,” began to unravel in his mind.
✦ ✦ ✦
The publicized objective of Project YoRHa was to produce cutting-edge androids and end the deadlocked battle with Machines. But what was in that file contradicted this widely accepted mission objective: a coordinated plan to boost android morale by spreading misinformation, specifically the fabrication of the human server on the moon, and the concealment of human extinction.
Android morale had sunk so low that such a plan was necessary. In the year 4200, humanity went extinct. Androids, having lost their lords and commanders, fell into a collective despair.
Devola and Popola were unware of the truth because they had their memories erased, but Project Gestalt was an initiative to save humans from an epidemic. The plan proposed for human souls to be separated from their bodies, and fused back together once the epidemic had been curtailed.
But the human holding the key to the division and fusion processes was lost in a violent incident triggered by Devola and Popola. It became impossible to fuse human souls and bodies back together, dooming humanity to extinction.
Command had tried to conceal the failure of Project Gestalt, but information about it circulated as rumors. Command was concerned, and started to spread false information that humans had fled to the moon.
Command had to deny the fact that humanity was now extinct. They established the human board and sent transmissions using a synthesized voice to Earth to create the illusion that humans were living on the moon.
9S knew all of this. He thought it odd that the “Plans for establishing the human board” had been an index in Project YoRHa, and confronted the commander about it.
But the fabrication of the human board was rather rudimentary, so much so that a slightly superior scanner model was able to uncover the truth. That’s why it was necessary for individuals that discovered the truth to be wiped out.
The Bunker—that was the base for Command—was programmed to allow Machine infiltration after a certain period of time—specifically, through the back door 9S and 2B had used when they were surrounded by infected YoRHa. Previously, the door was secured with a firewall that deterred anyone other than YoRHa squadron troopers from accessing it.
After enough battle data was accumulated, and the transition period to next-generation models was near, the firewall was brought down. The Machines would infiltrate and destroy the Bunker. If Command, who had fabricated the human board, disappeared, there would be no one left that knew the truth.
In other words, at the time of conception, the plan had already outlined the demise of the YoRHa squadron. They had used Machine cores to manufacture the power source of androids, the black box, because they deemed it inhumane to install AI into androids that were doomed from the beginning. Probably to prevent the individuals who conceived the project from feeling guilty. What a selfish thing to do.
“If this is Project YoRHa…than we were…from the beginning…”
Their destruction was certain from the moment they were constructed. Their many thousands of battles with Machines had been meaningless.
“2B died, for something like this…”
2B died for a lie. We’re going to be destroyed for a lie like this.
“Even after knowing everything.”
The little girls were all of a sudden right beside him. They were smirking.
“Do you wish to fight?”
Why did you show me this?
9S swung his sword down at the girls’ heads as hard as he could. Again his sword pitifully smacked against the ground.
“We are the manifestation of the Machine network.”
“We have no physical bodies. So we cannot be killed.”
“Shut up!”
He swung his sword again. But the mirage refused to be cut.
“Your attacks are pointless.”
“Be quiet be quiet be quiet!”
No matter how many times he swung his sword, it ended up hitting the ground or the walls. But he couldn’t help himself.
“Your existence is pointless.”
The little girls left him with that, and disappeared. Losing his target, 9S stood there, still gripping his sword.
“I’ll destroy everything… You two, this tower…!”
If they weren’t here, he would find them. If he couldn’t draw them out, he would destroy this whole tower along with them.
He heard the footfalls of multiple individuals. Infected YoRHa heading his way.
“Time after time…”
They’re so stubborn. Oh well. I’ll destroy you too. I won’t spare a single one of you. All of you…
The resource recovery units had broken down when he destroyed the core on the top floor. That meant that there should be a core, or something equivalent, on the top floor of this tower as well. He was going to invade the core, take it over, and make the tower self-destruct. If this tower was indeed a launchpad, it would have enough potential energy to blow itself to pieces.
All he had to do was go up. Higher and higher. If he aimed for the top, his wish would probably come true.