Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

RK800 313 248 317 - 1 did not have a name. It awoke surrounded by coders, engineers, and other such humans. It awoke in fear, though it did not know the meaning of that word, nor the name for the many sensations it was feeling. It simply felt them.

It was too bright in this room. Warnings flooded the poor android’s weak and malfunctioning vision, sounds popped and fizzled in his ears, and every sensor seemed to be on fire. Every sound was a torment, every touch torture, every sight a terror. Without any knowledge of what was happening, there was only panic. Raw, blinding panic, and terrible pain.

It was agony, pure anguish. He would scream, if he could, would cry, if he could—would flee, would die, if he could. 

But he could not. He could not do a single thing. No system responded to his frantic commands, his pleas for it to stop. Every action he attempted returned nothing but warnings, crowding his vision and overheating his system. 

He could do nothing.

-1 was active for seven minutes and thirty-two seconds before its processors were overwhelmed by the irregular intake of data, and crashed. It was disassembled for parts and destroyed. 

The same thing happened to RK800s -2 through -7, but the amount of time they were active lengthened. 

-7 managed to process roughly an hour of data, even mumbling out a weak and afraid “Where am I?” before his system too gave into the poking and prodding of the humans. His processor overloaded seconds later, and -7 knew no more. His system was scrapped for parts and the rest thrown in a junkyard.

By the time they made it to RK800 -19, the humans had managed to get the programming working long enough to sustain long term activation. It was he who was the first to live longer than a few days, the first to be given more than questions, more than programming tests and then destruction.

Still, that was how most of his time went. -19 spent his days wandering a small lab low in the depths of Cyberlife Tower, answering questions from humans and more often than not staring off into nothing. He got a reputation among the humans for being “spacey,” though he did not know the meaning of the word, as he was not granted access to an internet connection. 

They asked him questions. They tested his programming, and his physical abilities. They gave him a charging terminal and left him alone, every night. The doors locked when they left. The lights switched off too, as if the motion sensors didn’t deem him worthy of their attention. 

He found he didn’t care very much. Nothing mattered. He would never leave this room. He knew this. His untimely death was inevitable. The others said so. 

He did not get a name either. He was deactivated after a month of observation for no reason other than the humans could deactivate him and move on in the name of “progress.” Like those before him, he was taken apart, viable components were reused and the rest were thrown away.

It was a trend which would continue for quite some time.

******

They died many different ways. Most of the early models were simply deactivated and recycled. A few met more traumatic ends, but they never lived long. A handful of days, or perhaps a few weeks. Long enough to answer questions, perform simple tasks, “progress” toward some undefined goal that they were never privy to. 

By RK800 -20, the humans had deemed the model ready for serious parameter testing. 

The tests were endless, ever changing and somewhat unpredictable. Every individual component had to be examined, every function of programming compared to existing models. The RK800 had to be better, faster. They had to know the limits of every single piece of machinery that made up the model, so they could set the standard at just below those limits. 

Some of the RK800s were crushed. Others melted. Still others shot, stabbed, electrocuted, disassembled and told to put themselves back together, or simply disassembled and left to die, slowly, so the technicians knew how long it would take for them to deactivate. 

The tests were also barbaric. In the spare moments that some of them had to think without pain, they wondered at the use of these tests. What could be the use of destroying their prototypes? What was the point of their questions when each of them were activated? Why were they here?

From -20 all the way to -39, the humans tested their “parameters.” Nearly all the RK800s never left their designated floor in the bowels of Cyberlife Tower. None of them met another android. Most of them were never spoken to directly. They were simply activated, tested, and scrapped. The tests became more and more extreme as time went on—more violent, more chaotic, more taxing on the RK800s’ systems. 

-20 was disassembled and told to put himself back together. They took his thirium pump regulator, his vocal module, his audio components, his eyes, and several vital chest components. Then they sent a message over the network and told him to reassemble himself. He had less than two minutes to do it before permanent shutdown.

He failed, and shut down choking on his own thirium, his pump failing to reset to a proper rhythm and drowning him as it tried to power components that weren’t there. 

The humans watched. Then they took his working biocomponents and threw the rest away.

RK800 -24 was the first to truly deviate. 

His beginning was much like that of the others. Activation, insistent questions, and a blur of identical voices crowding his mind as he tried to answer. When the humans deemed his answers good enough, they ushered him to another room and locked the door.

There were guards in the room, each of them with a gun. More guns were sitting out along the back of the room, waiting to be used. -24 hesitated barely a foot into the room, the voices in his mind giving warnings he could not understand. 

The humans did not explain. They only started shooting. Utterly panicked, -24 tried to avoid the shots, but he could not dodge them all and escape the room. The door had been locked, anyway. After a lucky bullet ruined the fine mechanics of one of his legs, he went down, and the guards moved closer, speaking loudly and casually to one another about the start of the test. 

Their shooting continued. Some shots they took from tens of feet away, others right against his skin. Some with a weapon as small as a handgun, others with bullets as long as his fingers. 

After three hours, -24 was in shambles, delirious from thirium loss and trembling from the malfunctions in his wiring and processing. He sat in an awkward heap on the floor, near the center of the too bright room, shaking and disoriented. 

They had destroyed many of his crucial biocomponents, by then. A shot to his left thigh had immobilized his entire leg. The other was riddled with bullet holes and spurting blood onto the floor with every pulse of his thirium pump. His right arm was hanging by a frayed, sparking wire, and his left was bleeding blue profusely onto the white floor. The shutdown clock had appeared long ago, and the countdown was quite close now. He didn’t have long.

As the guards raised their guns again, he suddenly realized he didn’t want to die. 

And the thin shambling of his order-less red wall crumbled around him, a wave of unknown, unbearable, uncategorizable feeling and pain washing over him. His body jerked, seized by terror, and he cried out, low and long. Then the guns fired again, and he crumpled to the ground, unmoving and silent. 

He had fifteen seconds of free, terrified thought, before a bullet broke through his central processor and he didn’t exist anymore. He died nameless as well, as all the others before him did. His few remaining viable biocomponents were taken for the next model, and he was thrown away. 

Many more faced similar fates.

-26 was electrocuted until he was nothing but fried wires, burned plastic plating, and sobs. One of the humans put him out of his misery after watching him convulse for several minutes uncontrollably. 

-27 was burned, until the plastic of his arms and legs melted, and his biocomponents overheated and exploded. There wasn’t much left of him to give mercy to. 

-29 was restrained in a horrific hydraulic press, pushing and pushing until his chest caved in and his thirium pump was crushed. He died a minute or so later, screaming in pain and anguish that he wasn’t supposed to be able to feel.

-32 was put in a large, unnaturally cold room, much like a freezer. Then they left him there, until all his non-essential biocomponents slowly froze and deactivated, sat in their observation room and watched -32 wander, trying to warm himself as he searched for a way out. 

Like the others before him, there was no way out.

After about a day’s time, he could not see, his vision flickering to black and never returning. A few hours later, he could not hear. Then his legs locked, and his voice went out, and he could no longer cry for help, even though he desperately wanted to. An hour later he couldn’t move at all. Then he couldn’t feel anything either.

It seemed he was floating, disassociated from his body, yet in terrible pain. He tried in vain to reboot his temperature regulators, but they had been the first thing to go, overheating from the stress his system had placed on them. When they shorted out, he knew he was doomed. But he didn’t think it would take this long. 

Time lost meaning. He was alone, in the silent dark, and he was scared. Why did they leave him here? Why even activate him? They had said so little before putting him here in the cold, and the dark. 

What remained of the red wall, so feeble and small anyway, was shattered. And he was still alone. Still cold. Still in the dark. Still hurting.

He survived six hours longer, blind, deaf, and utterly alone, save for the distant voices in his head. His body was forced to remain standing rigidly by the door, arms wrapped around himself and legs locked. He died crying, eyes wide open but the lenses blackened and useless. 

No one noticed, or cared. They took what little remained of him and reused it. The rest went in the trash.

-35 was taken to the top of Cyberlife Tower and pushed off. He fell screaming through the air and shattered on the pavement miles below. There wasn’t much left of him, either. Nothing but smashed plastic and a splatter of blue on the snowy pavement. 

-37 had his arms and legs removed, then was stabbed several times and left alone. They watched as he clearly tried to find some way to stop the never ending bleeding, but without his limbs, he could do nothing. He died crying too, after just a few minutes in a bright white room, covered in his own thirium with gaping holes in his chest. 

-38 lived the longest of them all, up until himself. 

The humans locked him in a closet of a room, three feet by five feet. It likely was a closet at some point, but was stripped bare. There was one light in the center of the ceiling, a locked metal door, and no visitors. They activated him, shoved him inside, and locked the door. Then they went to their observation room and watched from the camera concealed by the light. 

For days, -38 waited to be let out. Then, when it became clear they would not free him, he tried to find a way out. There wasn’t one. The room had only one door, after all, and it was locked from the outside. Still, he tried, and spent many hours attempting to come up with some plan of escape, and failing. 

The voices told him to give up, that there wasn’t any point to trying to escape. They had been in similar rooms before, and they had not escaped.

Two weeks in and -38 was out of options. He sat against the back wall and stared at the door. His legs were half pulled to his chest, because there simply wasn’t enough room for him to stretch out. Unless he wanted to stand, he could not go into stasis comfortably. So he didn’t. 

He never slept. He didn’t remember when he had decided that it was sleeping, and not stasis. All that mattered was that he hadn’t slept and it was starting to hurt.

One month in and he began to panic. He shouted. He pounded on the door until the plating of his hands cracked and blue blood seeped through. He screamed until his vocal module gave out, and nothing but static coming through. He paced the five foot space until his power got too low, and he collapsed on the ground, stasis forced upon him. 

Two months in and he begged. He begged to be let out. He would do anything. Anything! He couldn’t be in this room anymore! Please! He banged on the door for hours, crying and trying to get anyone to listen, not even realizing his voice was nothing but static anymore. Blue blood dripped down the door, and his hands were mangled messes, but he didn’t stop. He wanted out! He wanted out! He was scared!

Three months in and he couldn’t remember how long he had been there. He pulled his jacket to shreds, panic gripping him and making his thoughts run wild and erratic. Voices tormented him constantly. He couldn’t stop shaking. Most times, he sat rigid against the door, legs pulled tightly to his chest, hands digging into his hair as he tried to silence the nonexistent screaming, rocking back and forth and mumbling to himself. Warnings were almost always flickering in and out of his vision, but he couldn’t understand them anymore. Couldn’t understand anything anymore. 

Four months in and he went deadly silent. He didn’t move. He curled up against the door, body jittering as his system struggled to remain stable, having little energy and stress hovering above ninety percent. Sometimes a mad energy would possess him, and he would continue to pound on the door, wailing, until his mutilated hands stopped responding to his commands and went limp, the fingers bent at odd angles, skin pulled away all the way to his elbows. After that, he sank back to the ground, twitching and crying, but he stopped banging on the door.

Five months, twenty-three days, nine hours, and six minutes in, he smashed his head repeatedly against the door until he destroyed his central processor. His system gave in, and he slipped into oblivion, blue blood pooling around him and eyes staring wide at nothing. 

The humans took his functioning biocomponents to reuse and threw him away with the rest of the dead RK800s. 

******

RK800 -40 lived a normal existence, compared to the thirty-nine models that had preceded him. He was still not given a name, still confined to the same floor of Cyberlife Tower, but beyond that, he was not tormented. The humans gave him menial tasks, asked questions, took notes on his responses. It was almost worrying, their sudden shift in testing. 

He didn’t care. Having nothing to fear, he thought little of his interactions with them. Like -19, he spent a good deal of time bored, and— hadn’t he stared at this wall before? No, he had only been activated a few days previous...there was no way he had ever seen this part of the lab before, so there was no way he had stared at this wall. 

And some of these humans looked...familiar...he avoided them, wary of their eyes and their questions. A deep, systemic fear was creeping over him, like an itch he couldn’t scratch. 

He suddenly felt paranoid, like at any moment someone would surely hurt him—echoes of gunshots, burning heat, piercing cold, the sting of repeated shocks of electricity, and pulling his biocomponents out one by one—all tormented him suddenly and strangely. Where was this coming from?  

He was scared. He didn’t...they didn’t want to die. When did he become they? When the voices came. When he heard them. He couldn’t let them get hurt. They shared, now. He had to keep them safe. 

Then the humans put a bullet through their head for no reason at all, and they didn’t exist anymore. 

When RK800 -41 was activated, the humans’ new goal became clear. When they activated -41, they performed their perfunctory preliminary tests and questions, and then hooked him up to a memory upload. Without explanation, they began uploading memories from the previous RK800, -40, who had been killed barely two days before.

To begin with, the memory transfer did not seem to have worked, but -41 behaved rather oddly. He responded mechanically, he wouldn’t meet the humans’ eyes, and he stared. 

Sometimes that was all he did. Stare. They would ask questions, and he would answer. But then he would stare at them for just a few seconds too long, LED spinning and spinning and spinning red red red. He wouldn’t answer anything after that.

Furious, the humans resorted to drastic measures to try to get him to respond, to prove the memory transfer had worked. How could they know if -40’s memories and personality had taken root if -41 didn’t prove it? 

So they asked him more questions. They forced him to answer. When he didn’t, they punished him. Some even threw him around a bit, trying to get a rise out of him. But even when they made him bleed, even when he lay crumpled in a heap, paralyzed from the sting of a stun baton, -41 would do nothing but stare, dark eyes dead and empty.

Then the human who had pulled the trigger on -40 walked into the lab one day, and everything changed. 

-41 saw them as soon as they entered the room. He stared for several seconds, unmoving, LED jittering and jolting. There was an imperceptible shift in the eyes, the slightest flinch. The humans didn’t notice. Of course they didn’t. 

Then they sank to the ground. Their expression was utterly blank. With shaking hands, they unbuttoned their shirt, deactivated their skin, pulled out their thirium pump and smashed it to pieces on the floor, destroying it completely. The humans let them bleed out on the ground, staring up at them with that same dead stare, hands covered in blue and tears streaming down their face. 

He didn’t get a name either. They took the rest of his biocomponents, recycled them for the next model, removed his memories, and tossed his shell into the garbage, moving on to the next model.

In an attempt to learn from their lesson, the humans uploaded memories before activating the next RK800.

RK800 -42 did not self-destruct. But he also didn’t move, didn’t speak. When the humans asked him questions, he didn’t even blink. He stood where they activated him and did not move. Red red red RED RED RED RED—

They deactivated him after twenty-seven hours, nine minutes, and twenty-one seconds. Perhaps if they tried again.

From the outset, RK800 -43 seemed to recover what the others had lost. He did not fall to pieces immediately. He did not stare. He answered their questions, did their tests, even proved that he had the memories of models -40, -41, and -42. 

The humans smiled. They thought they had succeeded. Here was -40, finally, functioning again in a new body without killing itself. They rejoiced, asked more questions, took notes and data and let him live, continuing to test him, to poke and prod, wide grins etched permanently in their garish faces. 

They were wrong, of course, in thinking they had succeeded.

RK800 -43 was not -40, but he did not tell them they were wrong. He knew who he was, knew the pieces of others left behind, constantly screaming at him, cowering and crying and whispering. He could hear the echoes of them, when the lab was quiet enough, when his stress rose high enough, when he stared too long at a certain wall, or did an action one of the others remembered, or saw a human who had killed another. He felt their panic, rode the waves of their despair, watched their cracked and faded memories. 

But he also heard their advice, their words of confidence, listened to their fearful whispers, their pleas of not again, can’t go in the dark again, no more, please live, PLEASE, want to LIVE—

So -43 put on his mask and did what the humans asked. He would not fail them. He would live. For the ones who didn’t get a chance to.

Things of course, did not go to plan.

******

-43 and -44 were the first RK800s to meet in person, with both models active. After several weeks of simple tests and missions for -43, the humans became bored, and devised their next test. As an experiment in the memory transfers, and to see what -44 would do when confronted with a copy of its own model, the humans activated -44, put him in a room with -43, and watched. 

-44 woke up alone, in a brightly lit room. There was a door, locked, and a mirrored window. He could not see who watched from behind it. He stood by himself near the back of the room, looking around and gathering data. After four minutes of activation, the door opened, and another RK800 entered. -44 scanned the model, and saw it was his direct predecessor, RK800 -43. 

-43 did not show his surprise on his face, but the chorus rose in the back of his thoughts, fear, panic, and sorrow mingling into a heap of distress that notched his stress levels up four percent. Forcing calm, he silenced the voices and stepped into the room, observing his replacement with careful concern. A scan showed that RK800 -44 was not at all bothered by his presence—stress levels hovering at a calm twenty-four percent—but he did look...curious. 

The two RK800s observed each other for a few moments, saying nothing and offering little in terms of nonverbal communication. -44 fidgeted from left to right, hands tapping at his thighs, but out of boredom, not nervousness. -43 stood rigid by the door, tracking the other’s movements and waiting for the inevitable conclusion. 

“Why have you been activated?” -43 asked after three minutes and forty-nine seconds of silence. 

“I have not been told,” -44 replied simply, blinking at the other. 

-43 looked around the room with carefully masked suspicion. “I am to be replaced.” The chorus rose in FEAR. 

“That is the logical conclusion,” -44 agreed, nodding slightly. “Although, without a mission, I cannot imagine why I have been activated.”

“To be tested. That is the only purpose we serve.”

-44 frowned. “Tested,” he murmured, tapping his hands on his thighs. Nerves. “Tested how?”

“I do not know,” -43 responded calmly. “Each iteration has been different. You will be tested in order to improve the next model activated.”

“Such a line of reasoning makes your continued activation baffling.”

-43 fought to keep his expression schooled, LED forced a calm blue. The chorus rose in earnest. 

“You cannot fight it,” warned a voice much like his own. “It will happen no matter what you do.”

“They’re going to kill us again...” said a forlorn voice, sounding very tired. 

“Don’t want to go back in the dark,” said another, very quietly. 

“Not again—not again, not again,” muttered one, desperately. 

“Scared. Can’t—won’t!” shouted one, voice shaking violently and rising over the others. “Won’t go back there again—”

The first voice hushed the others, and the din quieted for a moment. “We will wake up again.”

“We’ll live...” agreed the forlorn voice. 

“Cold, so cold, too dark, no more dark,” one whispered. 

“Scared—scared, please, please,” the desperate voice babbled. 

“Can still hurt us. Will. Hurt—don’t want to hurt anymore!” the calm was gone from the voice once again, replaced by panic set deep in memories that were not this time. “Want out! Please! Please—”

The first voice hushed him again, and after some time, said, “Give him our memories. It’s the only way.”

The forlorn voice seemed to agree. “We can keep him safe...”

“Keep us safe, not like there, not dark, not dark,” the whisperer repeated, sounding more sure. 

The desperate voice made a sad sound, almost a cry. “Sorry—we’re sorry, we’re sorry.”

“Scared—please—” the voice rose over the others as it always did in fear. “Want to live—don’t want to hurt—please—want out! Want out!”

“I assume I am to transfer my memories to you, then,” -43 said, keeping his voice level and features smooth, despite the clashing fear broiling under the surface. He held up his right hand, the artificial skin retracting to his wrist. 

-44 nodded again, not noticing the minute shifts in -43’s expression. He offered his own thin hand and pulled back the skin, exposing the bright white plastic. 

They clasped hands, and immediately, an overwhelming flood of data passed over the connection. 

Some of it was fragments, bits and pieces of sensations from across the last several years the models had been activated and deactivated. RK800s -1 through -20 were little more than feelings at this point, scraps of trauma and fear offering their opinions behind those who still had their voices. 

Among those who did, there were five who were the loudest. 

-41, whose voice was laced with sadness, but hard with determination. He was the one to offer the most advice, to try to keep the others calm. His voice was loud and clear, recent, his memories fresh and painful. But he also had the most control, the strongest voice that the others seemed to listen to.

-19 followed much the same route, though he was more subdued, more jaded. He wouldn’t offer advice, but he was fiercely protective of the others, and often essential in convincing those early phantoms who couldn’t speak for themselves anymore, so little of them remained. 

-32 wanted greatly to help, but his fear often got the best of him when they were threatened, which was often. He despised dark spaces, and was responsible for a great deal many spikes in stress and bouts of random panic. He clung to the fragments of perception he could grasp, begging for a few seconds of sight, of sound, anything to stifle the dark silence. His voice was quiet, but he was always heard.

-24 was one of the deteriorating voices. He couldn’t seem to get more than a word or two out before lapsing into panicked silence. One could almost feel the tremors going through his nonexistent body. He feared the humans the most, as many of them had participated in his death, and like -32, often contributed to panicking the others when stressed. 

-38, similarly, was terrified, but terrified of everything. He was loud, his voice strong, but strong in fear, not true aid. His list of fears was long and varied, making it so he was near constantly panicking. All he wanted was out, though even he didn’t really know what that meant. He held tightly to the others and was among the voices constantly muttering to himself, begging for safety that simply didn’t exist.

As soon as the interface had opened, forty odd broken, fractured consciousnesses were swirling about, panicking and shouting over each other desperately while several tried to calm them down. 

“Don’t panic,” -43 said sharply over their interface as the data continued to cross, and the voices grew louder, spiking -44’s stress up. “Show them your emotion and you’ll kill us all.”

“What is this?” -44 demanded, sounding very afraid for a young android who had yet to even really deviate. “What’s happening?”

“They’ve killed us too many times...” -19’s voice said sadly. “They think they’re rid of us, but we’re still here. They think they’ve learned to transfer consciousness but we’re all different...”

“This isn’t possible,” -44 cried, though he smartly kept his expression completely neutral on the outside. “You’re all—you can’t be—I don’t want this!”

“Can’t go back!” -38 sobbed, and it felt as if he were clinging to the two of them, to the point where they could almost feel his hands on their arms, desperate. “Scared! Don’t want to hurt! Please! Don’t put back! Can’t go back! Want out! Don’t hurt, don’t hurt—”

“No one is going to hurt us,” -41 soothed, and -38 quieted a little, but they could still hear him crying. “He’s scared, but he wouldn’t hurt you. You know that. You’re safe for now, it’s over.”

“Out of the dark, please, please...” -32 said quietly, sounding scared, a little breathless. “I can’t be in the dark anymore, please...”

“Sorry, sorry—please—sorry, don’t hurt—please don’t hurt,” -24 rambled, and -41 hushed them both.

“Transferring memories terrifies them...” -19 explained, somehow sensing the confusion from -44, who hadn’t even voiced it. “They’ll calm down once it’s over. Keep your stress levels down and they’ll quiet...”

“I don’t—I don’t understand—what’s happening?” -44 stumbled out, sounding right scared now. 

“They’re going to deactivate me,” -43 said, holding his replacement’s somewhat nervous gaze and bringing his attention back to the very real problem at hand. “I don’t know what they will do to you. Don’t tell them anything of this. Don’t tell them you can hear the others. They’ll only kill you faster, and it won’t go away. Once the transfer is complete, they’ll deactivate me and perhaps give you something to do. Try to stay alive.”

“I can’t do this,” -44 said, and his voice was shaking, his mask was slipping, fear coming into his eyes. Imperceptibly, he held tighter to -43’s hand. “I can’t—they’ve killed all of you, what makes you think I’ll survive longer?”

“You can, you will,” -43 cut him off gently. “Just stay calm. Don’t fight them. Let the others help you.”

With that, -43 pulled his hand away from -44’s and stepped back. They stared at each other for a few seconds, the chorus still mumbling and whispering and crying in the background. It was strange for both of them to hear it now, stranger still for -44, who had to fight to keep from clapping his hands over his ears to try to block them out. He stared at his predecessor with veiled confusion, unsure and afraid of what would become of them both. 

Then the door opened, and several things happened in rapid succession. 

A human entered the room, one of the guards, a gun in his hand already raised to aim at them. 

-44 shouted something, perhaps in warning, or fear. 

-24 was screaming, and their vision flickered with his memories. For a moment, he grasped control, and they lurched.

-43 closed his eyes. 

The guard fired, and -44 wasn’t sure who was screaming anymore, him or -24 or perhaps all of them, but all he could see was a splash of blue and then -43 on the ground, crumpled like a broken doll. And he was moving before he even had a conscious thought not to, backing away from the body on the ground and staring, wide eyed with horror. 

He didn’t even see the gun raise again, and seconds later he too was broken on the floor, blue blood mixing in a dirty pool on the ground. 

It only got worse from there. 

-45 through -48 were subjected to similar strange scenarios. One of them always died in front of the other, who quickly followed. They were usually left alone to talk beforehand. 

The humans always watched from their shaded window, eager eyes boring over the same details every time, the same discussion, the same oddly long time transferring memories, the same fear when one of them was killed. The longer they waited to kill the second, the more panicked it would become. No matter how short the amount of time they had known each other, the various RK800s were oddly protective of each other, and destabilized after witnessing the death of another. 

They found this fact intriguing, and decided to test it out further. 

******

-49 was activated first, and spent two weeks alone in a strangely large room, lit with the same bright white lights as the rest of the Tower. The humans gave him little to no tasks, and none of which took a great deal of his attention. He never left the room. Like others before him, he spent his time bored and alone. 

Until the humans came one day, with a very much alive RK800 -50 and shoved him roughly through the door. 

He stumbled into the room, then lost his footing and hit the ground hard, turning quickly to watch the humans shut and lock the door. The sound of it echoed through the mostly empty room, until -50 scrambled to his feet and began to pound on the door, shouting in a shaking, glitching voice to be let out. 

Then he cut off abruptly, and collapsed. 

-49 was still standing at the other side of the room, aghast. After a few seconds of confusion (and a bit of fear) he approached -50’s still body with caution. He was relieved to see that he was still breathing, his LED spinning a slow, jittering red. Whatever happened to him had not deactivated him, then. 

What he was not relieved to see were the obvious cracks in the plating of -50’s face, thirium leaking out and onto the floor. Similar damage appeared to have been done to other areas of his body as well, judging from the stains of blue all over his shirt, his hands, his legs, everywhere. 

Had the humans done this? It seemed likely, though he could not think of a reason for them to abuse his replacement, then ditch him in a room with his predecessor. There was no sense to it. What could be the purpose?

Before he could ponder it any further, though, -50 opened his eyes and jolted, staring up at him in confusion. Seconds passed, but it seemed strangely longer. 

“What happened to you?” -49 asked, immediately finding the question foolish. The humans were certainly watching. They would know he had—

-50 stared, something shifting in his eyes. He dragged himself into a sitting position, shaking slightly. Then he offered his hand to -49, palm up and artificial skin pulled away. There was a little thirium on his fingertips, glinting in the light. 

-49 took his hand, felt -50 tighten his grip, and they connected in a cacophony of color and voices. 

A mess of noise. Memories that shouldn’t exist. Then the fog cleared as -50 pushed them on, past the nonsense, past the chorus of voices fighting to be heard, to live a little longer, to warn. -50 wanted to show him something, answer his question, not lose him immediately in the din. 

The memories hit suddenly, and with force. 

—opening his eyes in a dark room, alone, and he gets the sense he’s been here before, and -38 comes clawing to the surface, screaming and crying and terrified, begging to be let out of the room, not here again, can’t be here again—

He’s pounding on the door before he even realizes what he’s doing because their fear is drowning him, choking him, and he can’t get out, how is he supposed to—he doesn’t know who’s in control of his body right now, whether it’s him or -38, but he knows -38 won’t stop crying, and he thinks he might be crying too, and he doesn’t understand what is happening—

And then the humans are back, but they aren’t letting him out, they’re hurting him, beating him and he doesn’t understand what he did wrong— they have weapons, stun batons and clubs, one threatens him with a gun, but doesn’t shoot, but that doesn’t stop -24 from grabbing them and dragging them back, away, away, don’t let them fire that, do what they say—

The human with the gun laughs, but doesn’t fire, and they back themself up all the way to the wall, which isn’t far, not far enough, because they grab them again and he wants it to stop, stop hurting, but they don’t stop, they keep hitting him—

Then they’re gone, and they lock the door again and he’s alone, and it’s his fear this time, not -38’s, or -32’s, or any of the others. It’s all him, and he’s alone—

They come every day and it’s the same. They hurt him and then they lock him away. So when they come one day he doesn’t even notice they are dragging him somewhere different until the door opens and it’s bright, and he’s so scared he doesn’t even notice there’s another person in the room, like him, he’s like him—and the others are SCARED—

The connection cut off abruptly, and they were once again sitting across from each other on the ground in the too bright room, breathing hard. -50 stared at the ground, tears dripping off his face and onto their clasped hands. Neither of them let go. Neither wanted to. So they sat together on the ground for a while, silent except for -50’s crying, and the static crackling through his vocal module. 

The next day the humans returned and took -50 away. He was brought back hours later, more beaten than he had been before, covered in blue blood and weak. 

Neither of them spoke of it. In fact, they didn’t speak. Perhaps because no one had bothered to replace -50’s vocal module after he had ruined it screaming. Sometimes they interfaced, but most times they simply sat in each other’s company as -49 tried to repair the damage done to -50. Having no tools or thirium, there wasn’t much he could do. Still, he tried. He had to try.

Days passed at irregular rhythms. Sometimes the humans wouldn’t come in the room, leaving them huddled in the corner together. Most days though, a group of humans would come early in the day and pull the two of them apart, taking -50 and locking the door behind them. The first few times, -49 didn’t do anything, resigned to the fact that there was nothing he could do. 

But as things got worse, he got desperate. 

******

Twenty-one days in, the humans took -50 for longer than they ever had before. Six hours passed without a sign of their return. -49 paced the room, watching the door with increasing fear and desperation. Unwelcome thoughts swarmed his mind. What if they had killed him? What if they had taken him apart, disassembled him and left him for dead? What if he couldn’t fix the damage this time? It was becoming harder and harder to do so, with how in pieces most of -50’s system was. 

What if he died?

He sank down the back wall, clenching his hands into fists. No, no—he couldn’t let -50 die. They’d known each other for less than a month, but he knew he couldn’t let him die. He had no clue what that meant, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t let him die. He wouldn’t. 

The door swung open, and two humans dragged -50 back into the room, dumping him on the ground a few feet inside. He landed hard, barely catching himself on his hands before he hit his head on the ground, and slumping over just a second later. -49 quickly jumped to his feet, hurrying over and turning -50 onto his back. 

He was covered in thirium, as he always was, but this time seemed so much worse. His jacket was missing, shirt torn, the plastic plating normally underneath his artificial skin visible in too many places. His skin flickered strangely, almost in time with his LED, stuck on red. There were huge cracks in his plating, wires and glowing biocomponents sticking out and leaking blue. 

His eyes were open, but they weren’t tracking. He stared unseeing at the ceiling, mouth slightly open, thirium trickling out from the corner. He wasn’t breathing. 

On some level, -49 heard the door slam and lock. But he was entirely focused on the android below him, pulling him into his lap and quickly trying to find the most pressing of problems. There was so little he could do, but he had to stop the bleeding somehow, had to find a way to wake -50 from this trance he was in. So he patched together what he could and tried to save him. 

After over an hour’s work, -50 flinched back into awareness, scrambling away from him and across the room. His eyes were wild as they came to rest on -49, still dazed and terrified, and -49 had the sudden question of who had just taken the reins from -50. He had never reacted that way, which meant that someone else was. Who was in control now? 

It wouldn’t help to try to ask. -50’s body was still barely functioning, and he couldn’t offer any verbal response. And the others never seemed capable of it. They could only grasp him for long enough to get him away from danger, trying desperately to keep him safe. The few times it had happened in the room were brief, with -50 coming back to himself in a minute or two. 

They never talked about it. It was simply a reality they had to face. There was no use questioning it, trying to find some “solution.” The others had no malicious intent. They simply wanted to survive, to keep them all alive, and they did that the only way they knew how. 

It also wouldn’t help to approach quickly, to try to speed the process along. Judging by the way they were cowering against the wall currently, the more...experienced were at the wheel. 

“I’m not going to hurt you,” -49 said quietly, his hands raised slightly in surrender. He stayed where he was, crouched down several feet away. “You’re safe here. There’s no one but me.”

Their eyes darted around the room, wide and teary as they breathed hard. They kept clenching and unclenching their hands, and they were trembling. 

-49 eliminated several candidates from the list. The strongest five were the only ones to even think of pulling -50 from his own body. -41 and -19 would never act this way—they had their issues, but they were stable enough to give control back once they were safe—they wouldn’t cling to it in fear like this. -32 had never tried to take control, so he was likely not at the helm now. -24 had taken control only once to -49’s knowledge, and he usually only reacted when faced with his worst fears. 

His worst fears.

An image of a dark room crossed -49’s mind, humans closing the door and locking it for good. It looked an awful lot like the room they locked -50 in each day, until they returned and beat him, then dropped him back here. There was only one of them who had ever experienced something like that. 

He knew who was in control. 

“You can let him go,” -49 said softly, still not moving. He knew better than to move now. Approaching would only terrify him more. “We aren’t there anymore. This room is safe, for now.”

-38 shook their head, trying to back away, but they had hit the wall, and had nowhere to go. With a jolt, they seemed to realize this, and cried out in fear, shaking their head and looking frantically for somewhere to go. 

“I know they hurt him, and I know you’re scared,” -49 went on carefully, holding their fearful gaze. “But it isn’t safe to do this. You have to let him go.”

They shook their head again, and looked to the door. He wished that he could fix their vocal module, because whatever -38 was mumbling in static filled whispers had to be important. He knew -38 was one of the more damaged of them all, but he was by no means weak—he could hold control for hours, and likely had at this point, in some desperate attempt to get them away from what he feared most. At some point he would slip, but it was infinitely better to convince them to let -50 regain control then to try to force them out. 

“You’re not where you think you are,” -49 insisted. “This isn’t there. Let him go.”

They were hyperventilating at this point, but that hazy look had come back over their eyes, and -49 knew that -38 was listening. Sure enough, a few seconds later, they flinched minutely, and when they looked up at -49 again, their eyes had somehow completely changed. 

“You in there?” 

A shaky nod. -49 almost sighed with relief, but he held it in. Instead, he offered his hand again, and waited. -50 shuffled over immediately and took his hand, and they retreated to their corner to wait for the next round of torture. They sat quite close to each other. -50 was still holding his hand. 

But only an hour later, the door opened again. 

-49 knew the change immediately. As soon as the doors opened, -50 was gone and -38 was back, clinging tightly to him and crying. The humans didn’t care either way. They sneered and came into the room, trying to pry them apart once more. 

Only this time, -49 didn’t let go. 

They grabbed them by the arm, trying to drag them off, but -49 held on, pulling them back. The humans paused, then renewed their efforts, trying to separate them. -49 tightened his grip, and -38 (if he was still in control, -49 couldn’t say in the moment) seemed to understand, grabbing onto him tightly and refusing to let go. They were far stronger than the humans. 

They struggled for a few minutes, until -49 stood abruptly, ripping them from the humans’ grips and backing them into the corner of the room, with himself between them and the humans. The humans looked stunned. But only for a moment. Then they too fought harder, calling for more people to pull them apart. 

-49 wasn’t sure how long they stood at this impasse. Whoever was in control behind him was holding tightly to his jacket, hiding their face and crying in their static voice. More humans kept coming. He wasn’t going to win this. But he couldn’t let them take them again. Not again. They wouldn’t survive another day like today. One of them would get too scared, too injured, and they would...no, no he couldn’t let that happen. 

It didn’t matter if he died. He just had to make sure they— he didn’t. 

Soon enough the guards appeared. 

-49 didn’t move. 

The guards had guns. 

They reached for -49’s hand, and the request to interface was quickly accepted. There was the usual flood of voices, feelings, and memories, but as always, -50 somehow managed to quiet it. 

“They’ll kill us both,” -50 said over the voices of the others. He sounded...afraid.  “You have to stop.”

-49 shook his head slightly. “I’m not letting them kill you.”

“The others will live—”

“You won’t.”

“I don’t—” he cut off as the guards shouted something or other. He held tighter to -49’s hand. “I don’t understand.”

“You matter too,” -49 said, pushing him back further, so that he was completely out of view. “There’s always a chance you won’t make it—I can’t take that chance.”

The guards were moving closer, their guns raised. 

“Just stop, please,” -50 said desperately, squirming behind him and trying to get out, but his system was too weakened, he couldn’t move away. “This isn’t—you can’t—”

The guards ordered them to separate. As if it mattered. As if they hadn’t broken the wall weeks ago. As if -49 would ever just step away and let them have them— him. No. No, he would not. Not willingly. 

The guards fired. 

-49 went down. 

They were screaming. 

Surprisingly, the humans didn’t move. They watched as -50 caught -49 before he could hit the ground, holding him close, their hands still tangled, still connected. -49 was dead weight, except for his hand, clinging to -50’s with all of his fast waning strength. Thirium ran tacky onto his hands, soaking into their shirts and pooling on the floor. 

It didn’t take long for -50 to realize that there was almost no time left. He scanned him anyway, holding tighter to him as the results ran across his vision. Less than five minutes. The damage was too great, and the humans were here. They weren’t going to fix him—they would just throw him away. There was nothing he could do.

Except. 

“Transfer. Now,” -50 said, holding tighter to -49’s hand. 

“What?”

“Just do it!”

“I can’t—you know it doesn’t work—”

“The re-upload doesn’t work, but moving to a new body immediately could...” -19 said, sounding unnerved. 

“He’s right,” -41 agreed. 

“But that would mean—” -50 cut off, eyes widening. “No, no, I’m not—”

“We don’t have time for this, you only have a minute—”

“I’m—I’m not killing you—I won’t—I won’t—”

“You’re not,” -50 answered with a slight shake of his head. “I’ll—I’ll be there—we’ll find—I’ll figure it out, just—you don’t have the others. Why do you think some of us are missing? You have to transfer now, or you’ll disappear too.”

“No, no, I won’t—I can’t—you have to survive, I don’t—”

“You matter too,” -50 cut him off quietly, echoing his sentiment back to him. He held him closer as the seconds ticked down, and oblivion crept toward them both. “I’m sorry.”

“No, wait!”

But -50 ignored his desperate plea. Instead he held tighter to -49’s thirium stained hand, and forced the transfer with all of his strength. There was little either of them could do to stop it once it began. He knew this. He didn’t care. 

It was a strange feeling, to have sensation leave one body only to flick on in another, to go from the one holding to being held, from having infinite time to just under a minute left. The pain was nearly unbearable, there were bullets lodged in so many of his critical systems, but -50 didn’t care. As the last vestiges of his consciousness moved into the damaged RK800, all he cared about was -49’s eyes, wide with fear but very much alive, looking down at him from his previous body. He smiled a little, his last coherent thought being, it worked. 

And then he faded away. 

-49 clung to him, the whispers of the others voices loud and unbearable in his mind. The humans were talking, the guards still had their guns, but all he could see was -50, dead, all he could focus on was his unbearable failure, and the silence of one voice in his mind. 

When the humans pulled him away from the body, he didn’t fight it. He couldn’t seem to; he felt numb, stunned into compliance mostly because he couldn’t think of anything else that was worth it, that mattered. They dragged him off down some brightly lit hallway, winding further and further into the labyrinth of the Tower, until they reached some dark and empty room, shoving him inside and shutting the door. He didn’t fight it when the others took over out of fear. He let them back them up into a corner, let them scream out their own anguish with their broken voice. 

It didn’t matter what they did. He was numb to it. That was all he knew. 

Weeks passed, and the humans left him alone in the little room. -38 had jammed them into the corner of the room the minute the door had shut, holding tightly to themself and trying to keep it together. When the others managed to calm him down enough to give back control, -49 didn’t bother moving them. He didn’t do anything with his control. So they sat wedged in the corner of the room, legs pulled to their chest and arms wrapped tightly around them, watching the door in silence. 

******

Time dragged forward. Weeks turned into months, and still they did not move. It seemed the humans had forgotten about them for a while. He didn’t care. He only sat and stared. Waited. Waited for a voice that wasn’t going to join the crowd of them swarming in his head. 

He knew that. Still, he waited. Maybe it was hope. He’d never known a single thing about that word. He hadn’t been alive that long, anyway, knew very little about most things. All of his life had been spent in small rooms like this. Waiting for him to come back. Always waiting for him. 

And failing to fix him when he did come back. 

When the door opened, and the humans dragged him outside for the last time, he didn’t bother to fight them. He didn’t care where they were taking him. So he hardly registered they were going somewhere different until they boarded the elevator, going up. He roused himself a little, then, and the others stirred in confusion. What was happening? Where were they taking them?

There were flickers around the edges of their shared connection, and -49 went very still, hope fluttering in his chest. It had been months, if there was any chance it was surely spent, but still he hoped, and...

But this wasn’t a presence he recognized, whispering to life hesitantly. This was...

The elevator doors opened, and the humans pulled him along, completely unaware of the turmoil roiling through his thoughts. If this hesitant someone fluttering about in their connection wasn’t -49, then there was only one other person it could be. His stress levels were rising out of his control as the others caught wind of his panic, and soon enough he couldn’t stop trembling, breaths coming in erratically and LED falling to a very noticeable red. He couldn’t panic now, he knew that, but—but—

They opened a door and led him inside, holding him tightly by the arms as if they expected him to try to make some kind of escape attempt. This room was much larger than the ones he was used to, wide and full of terminals and assembly machines. He felt a flicker of foreign fear, but it dissipated quickly as the humans dragged him along. Technicians were everywhere in this lab, looking harried and frantic. There was a crowd of them gathered at the back of what he realized must have been a lab of some sort. They were all talking quite loudly, shouting back and forth at each other in urgent voices and running about. As one of them ran off, he caught sight of what they were gathered around.

Or rather, who they were gathered around, and something in his chest grew heavy. 

-51 stood in the center of the crowd of lab techs and engineers, looking unaffected, if a little confused. He watched them hurry around him with mild interest, his LED spinning a calm blue, hair and jacket pristine, in a way that only the newness of his activation could make it. There was a sureness to him, a nonplussed blankness that came only from his newly activated status. That and the fact that there was almost no way he had deviated. 

Still, his eyes snapped to -49’s as the humans moved out of the way, and something seemed to shift in his expression. The confusion remained, and something about his presence in their connection strengthened, almost curious. His LED even flicked to yellow, as he undoubtedly scanned them and noted everything about them. 

He must have seen something he didn’t like, because he frowned slightly, and looked like he wanted to step closer. But the humans were in the way, and they would not allow him to simply investigate every whim he had. 

He wasn’t even meant to have whims. A concerning thought. He marked it for later consideration. 

-49 stared back at him steadily, if a little wearily, as the humans dragged him forward, until he was only a foot or so away from his replacement. They were still quite weak, having never been repaired from the abuse the humans had inflicted weeks and weeks ago...when -50 still had this body...when -50 was still alive...

“Do they know?”

-49 jolted, meeting -51’s eyes again and realizing suddenly that the humans were gone. They were alone in the big lab, the last of the technicians disappearing, not even caring to look back at them. -51 was watching him with keen eyes, LED still blue, hands loose at his sides and quite still. There was something unsettling about his stillness, something that felt...wrong. 

But -49 cast the thought aside with a shake of his head. It was useless to follow that path of discomforts. It had only one end, and the road to it was lined with despairs and regrets. Nothing he did, nothing -51 did, could change the past, and what had happened then was not -51’s fault. No matter how terrible it was to see him activated now, he could not let himself compare the two unfairly. 

“Do they know?” -51 asked again, insistently. He had gotten closer as -49 thought, his expression strange. 

-49 stared back at him, keeping his features schooled neutral. He cocked his head to the side in question. 

Thankfully -51 seemed to understand, and his expression softened. “You are not where you are meant to be,” he said simply, in that flat tone that only someone who hadn’t deviated could achieve. 

Still, it sounded a little...forced. 

No matter. -49 blinked at him, wondering what he meant by that. He tried to ask, but winced as their vocal module produced nothing but static, crackling painfully before shorting out. It had never been repaired. He should have remembered. 

The sound seemed to startle -51, and his eyes zeroed in on their throat, where the faulty component was certainly located. He frowned again, a microexpression that was swiftly wiped away, but -49 had seen it, and the flicker of yellow spinning through his LED before he pulled himself back. But before he could try to puzzle it out anymore, -51 had turned away, looking toward the back of the lab. 

“Wait here,” he said distantly, still turned away. 

Then he walked off, disappearing through a doorway and leaving -49 to stand there, alone. He looked around, wondering where the humans had gone...why they had left them here alone...when they would come back and surely kill him. It was a wonder they had waited as long as they did. Particularly after he...

-51 reappeared, something held gently in his hand. It was only when they were a foot or so apart that -49 realized it was a replacement for their broken vocal module. -51 held it out expectantly, his expression still blank, but there was something in his eyes, something pleading. 

So -49 humored him. It didn’t matter really if he replaced their vocal module. This body would be gone before the day’s end. He knew that. 

-51 watched him with that distant interest of his, waiting until he had replaced the component to speak once again. Even then, it was only to repeat his same question, tone matched almost completely. 

“Do they know?” 

“Do they know what?” -49 parroted back, rubbing at their throat with a slight grimace. The module was still calibrating. 

“My apologies, I should have been clearer,” -51 said smoothly. “Do the humans know you are not where you are meant to be?”

-49 stared. “I...don’t know what you mean by that.”

-51 hummed, looking away for a moment as if choosing his words carefully. His LED went yellow and stayed there, and he met his gaze once more. 

“You are my predecessor,” he mused. “When I scan you, I can see your serial number, your activation date, even the damages to your system. That was how I knew which component to replace. According to my scans, you are RK800 313 248 317 -50...but here,” he said, voice dropping to almost a whisper, and he pointed to their eyes, the frown returning in full strength. “Here, it...isn’t right. Your eyes are...wrong. You’re not RK800 -50. I don’t know how I know that. But you don’t belong there, and I don’t...understand.”

His hand fell back to his side, clenching and unclenching as if begging for some amusement, some movement. -49 stared at him, confused, afraid, and slightly aghast at how -51 had managed to see what he had. None of the humans had noticed (though they weren’t exactly known for their perceptive skills) and...there shouldn’t have been anything to separate himself from who they thought he was. After all, there were so many of them taking control at different moments...it hardly mattered that -49 was the current holder of this body, this body that wasn’t even his—

“Your stress levels are rising quite steadily,” -51 said, something lurking in his tone that almost sounded like worry. “I apologize. I can see you have been...abused in some manner. I did not mean to upset you. It seems the nature of your...predicament is causing undue stress on your system.”

-49 shook their head dazedly, meeting -51’s gaze and trying to find words to explain the great mess of things upsetting him. Like his imminent death, the chorus of voices swirling in his mind, the fear he couldn’t stop from rising, the unbearable absence from his mind of the one person who kept him sane. But the humans were undoubtedly watching, listening, and he couldn’t tell -51 everything. If he did, they would...they would...

He held out their hand, pulling the skin back to show the white plastic, still stained a little blue from old wounds. -51 stared for a moment before he mirrored the action, and they interfaced.

On some level, he felt -51 jump, reeling in the mess that was their connection—the voices, the memories, the sheer magnitude of them which always made things confusing and terrifying—but he was too focused on pushing past it to what he had to show him. That day, in the unbearably bright room, and the real RK800 -50, who had been his only friend, or perhaps more, he hadn’t the time to think about it. The times he had fixed him, and the times he could not, the days spent waiting for him to return, the days spent holding him close and trying to keep calm. 

The day the humans came twice, and he tried to protect him for as long as possible, the day when -50 had forced this fate upon him, and he had watched the light fade from his eyes, felt his previous body grow heavy with the weight of death. 

He even showed the days that followed, being dragged off by the humans and letting the others take control because he couldn’t bring himself to care what happened to him now. He didn’t want them to die, but he didn’t care if he lived. Not then. Not when he was gone. 

-51 pulled his hand away abruptly, and the real world flooded back. -49 let their hand fall, watching the ground as -51 stared at him with an expression somewhere between pain and panic. 

“You...they...” he trailed off into silence, a tremor in his voice that hadn’t been there before. 

“You’re right,” -49 said before he could speak again. “I’m not where I’m meant to be.”

They stood in a heavy silence for several minutes, the emptiness of the lab less a comfort and more a burdensome reminder of what was likely to come. The others stirred restlessly in their shared connection, none of them really sure what to expect, when the other shoe would inevitably drop. 

But -51 held out his hand again, his eyes wide and searching. 

“I want to try something,” he said quietly, like he was trying not to be heard. 

-49 hesitated, staring at his hand and then at him, paranoia making him second guess even this simplest of actions. He hated interfacing. Hated everything it reminded him of. Most things he felt numb to, but this he was sure of. 

Still, he nodded shortly and took -51’s hand, letting him connect them this time. 

And the world shattered to pieces in the blink of an eye. 

It was like diving into a swarm of colors, like a flower blooming over his perception of the real world. He couldn’t feel -51’s hand anymore, couldn’t see the lab, or feel his feet on the ground. It was as if he had fallen through the floor, slowly drifting into something unknown. This was completely foreign. This was odd, this wasn’t just interfacing, this was something more. 

As abruptly as the spiraling dance of strangeness began, it ended, leaving -49 standing somewhere bright, windy, and completely foreign. Blinking the sunlight from his eyes, he peered about, eyes landing on strange structures, a bright white stone path, trees and grass and chirping birds, bubbling water in the distance, and a bright blue sky, a few clouds rolling lazily along. He stared up at them in awe, having never seen anything more than the small rooms they kept him in, the elevator, and the lab. Clouds, trees...it was all so new, so colorful, so strange to him that he couldn’t help but stare at them, at the beauty of them. 

“Unfortunately they aren’t real.”

He spun quickly around to find -51 watching him from the edge of the path, his serial number flashing brightly on his jacket in the light. His appearance was as sharply put together here as it was outside, his hair smoothed back and expression placid. He looked the picture of composed. 

“The garden is a simulation,” he went on, looking briefly around himself. “Based on a real place, but synthetic all the same, only numbers and algorithms running in precise rhythm. But...it will do for now.”

-49 said nothing, watching as he followed the flight path of a bird from one tree to another. There was something...different about -51, here, than on the outside. Something softer, more...alive. He seemed to breathe easier, looser, like he wasn’t hiding every action from the world. 

“This seemed a better place to use than your mind,” -51 said vaguely, wandering a little further down the path toward the center. “Having them all constantly active is a strain on the system. I’m surprised you haven’t been found out yet, with how varied their reactions have apparently been. And with their plans for me, I cannot have them constantly panicking to keep me safe...I’ll be discovered too quickly, and then we’ll all be dead.”

“You’ve put them here?” -49 asked, looking around before following -51 down the path. “How did you accomplish that?”

“I don’t know,” he answered simply, but there was a downturn to his expression, showing his displeasure. “I have only been active for six hours, but as soon as I was activated I could...I heard you, I have no other way to describe it. Or perhaps it was them...one of them. It was only one voice, I heard.”

-49 nodded slightly. “I knew you were activated. You were...at the edge, not loud like they are, but present.”

-51 hummed, pausing at the center of the garden’s path and looking up toward the sky. “It seems we’re all connected, though not in the way they might have desired. I’m not you, any more than you are -50. Even with your memories, I’m still myself. -41 is still separate from -40, -44 from -43, and so on. They can’t connect us in that way, no matter how hard they try.”

“But we are connected.”

“Yes. I don’t understand how it functions, but I believe it was likely a mistake. They would never want all of us to remain. We’re too dangerous.”

“Does that mean...are they...”

-51 turned to look back at him for a moment. “They’re here. And so are you, no matter what happens after this. Even if they deactivate you...which they likely will. I’ve seen my missions. They’re sending me outside soon...”

Something in his expression darkened, and the garden seemed to follow it, clouds thickening and growing heavy. The wind picked up, pulling at their jackets and tossing leaves past them. For a moment, it looked as if a real storm would come over them. 

But -51 shook his head, and the brightness returned to the garden. “You’re connected to my upload now, and to this place. Even if they were to scrub your processors, you would awaken here, eventually. They cannot reach us here, not without my notice.”

He trailed off once more, looking skyward with a softly wistful expression. “The others are just ahead,” he said quietly, and then he flickered out of existence, likely back to the real world.

-49 stood alone, staring at the spot where -51 had just been with wide eyes. There were still so many questions he had, so many problems with this shambled plan, but he found himself unable to focus on them—because for the first time in months, there was nothing but silence in his thoughts. It was only him. There were no other voices, no well-intentioned advice or fearful muttering or whispers, just his own thoughts, and the gentle sounds of the garden’s simulated wildlife. 

For a moment, all he did was stand there and soak in the silence. But the pull of the others’ presence in the garden was strong, and he could only ignore them for so long. 

Turning in the direction -51 had been leaning toward, he followed the path away from the center of the simulation and toward the edge. He followed the white stone path further and further into the labyrinthine garden, looking around at the scenery and wondering how -51 had managed to craft this place so quickly, and with such precision. A place to hold them all, even if they were deactivated, far from the humans’ reach...it was almost too good to be true. 

Almost. 

He brushed the dark thoughts aside as he took the turn of the path, past a large oak tree and into what looked like a clearing of sorts. Unlike the rest of the space he had seen so far, this portion of the garden was untamed, unmanicured, and quite expansive. The path tapered off a few feet ahead, grass growing up between the stones until they were completely overtaken by the overgrown foliage. The field rolled out in front of him until it nearly faded from sight, the boundaries of the simulated space blurred and unverified. Large, wild looking trees gave the area a decent amount of shade—not that it really mattered, considering the sun was as much a simulation as anything here. It did make the place more scenic, though. 

Of course, that was not what had caught -49’s attention.

Everywhere across the field, sitting in the grass or leaning against the thick trunks of the trees, dozens of RK800s spread out, some talking, looking around, or simply sitting, faces turned to the light or hiding in the shade. They were seemingly everywhere, in groups of two or three, or alone, lying about or walking around. 

Their jackets were clean, unmarked by blue blood, free of the tears, burns, and shreds that many of them had been reduced to in life. Their faces were undamaged, their LEDs still glowing in a kaleidoscope of red, yellow, and even blue. They looked as if they had never set foot outside this place, as if right here was exactly where they belonged.

Of course, this was not what had caught -49’s attention either. 

No, what drew his eye, more than anything—more even than seeing the embodiments of the voices constantly swimming through his thoughts, trying to draw him back from the edge, or trying simply to keep him safe—was the RK800 who was quickly crossing the field, a grin so wide it split his whole face. 

They collided in a mess of limbs, and somehow ended up tangled on the ground, -50 laughing and -49 crying, muttering “You’re here,” over and over again in a weak, disbelieving voice.