Beyond Sunken Cities, Beyond Unknown Stars (10)

Chapter 10 – Murky Waters

After several days of cautiously navigating the flooded streets of the ruined city, Gakupo, Luka and the kids finally had a stroke of good luck.

The sober facility they were anchored next to had once housed a security firm of some sort. Most of their stock was permanently locked inside vaults now underwater or behind dead electronic doors.  Signs of ransacking abounded.  But the group managed to locate some disruption grenades, a second plasma cutter and a sword made from a material unknown to them. Whatever it was, it shone with a rainbow hue, and seemed extremely durable. Best of all, the facility had a room for adjusting and training defense bots, complete with advanced diagnostics equipment and a learning machine.

While the device wouldn’t exactly teach them how to use the weapons, since offensive bots were against the law on Earth, the countermeasures installed in it could give them a pointer or two. Gakupo immediately claimed the sword for himself and strapped it to his waist using one of the belts lying about.

“I’ll learn how to use it, you’ll see!” he exclaimed confidently as he patted the learning machine, despite the skepticism of the rest.

The group hauled everything that seemed useful to the yacht and took off. Everyone gathered around the pile on the deck and examined their loot, save for Len, who searched for a good hiding spot.

“It’s too bad that we didn’t find an accurate projectile weapon,” Luka lamented.

“A what?” Rin asked.

“It would be safer to disable one of the VE-01s from a distance,” Gakupo explained, “But failing that, we could also make a trap, and lead some units into it.”

“In either case, we’ll need something like this rope to keep them under control while we test the modifications,” Luka pointed to the metal rope that rested in her lap.

“So… we’re not leaving the city yet,” Oliver said in his soft voice. He wasn’t particularly sold on the plan, clearly.

“Not yet, no. But we’ve managed to evade the VE-01s thus far, right?” Gakupo placed a hand gently on the top of the boy’s head. “We’ll keep looking, and in the meantime Luka and I will figure out how to alter the program.”

“I…” Oliver trailed off and looked downwards. When it became obvious that he wasn’t going to continue, Rin shrugged.

“I wish I was an adult model! I’d kick their butts myself!” she declared and punched the air a few times.

Luka raised one eyebrow, and Gakupo smiled, shaking his head.

“Butt-kicking is not the main focus of the plan, but I appreciate the enthusiasm,” he said. “Don’t do anything rash, ok?”

Rin rolled her eyes, but agreed with the least enthused tone she had available.

---

As it turned out, Mitsuki was much more organized when it came to coding than expected, given her home habits. Every part of the program was properly labelled and commented, and it even contained her progress logs. Together with the documentation on VEs, they were quickly learning many new things about themselves. Despite Luka’s initial misgivings, so far their plan was proceeding smoothly. In theory, the modified copy of the program was already capable of quickly copying itself onto the memory banks of the subject and paralyze their movements while the purge was in progress.

At the same time, Gakupo was devoting some time each day to sword practice. Rin never failed to stand at his side, waving a stick around as she imitated his movements. Luka wasn’t too sure that the machine, plus whatever movies Gakupo watched in his old home, were enough to wield it effectively, but the spectacle was entertaining.     

One morning, Luka and Len scoured the desolate surroundings for materials. The building they were in seemed like a regular office building, and regrettably lacking in anything worth the trip. Dirty papers were strewn all over the floors, furniture was toppled, and here and there Luka could see dry pools of blood. It wasn’t the first place she had seen that showed signs of violence.

“Perhaps we should go straight to the top floor,” Len suggested.

Luka nodded. If there was a maintenance room, it was either at the bottom (and now useless), or at the rooftop.

Len carefully sorted his way past a smashed desk and a couple of chairs, reaching the door to the emergency stairs on the side of the building. He cautiously peeked outside before opening it fully. Luka smiled approvingly, and followed him.

The paint of the stairs was peeling off, and the bare spots of metal already displayed rust. The reddish hue contrasted vividly against the clear sky. Luka stood in the landing for a moment, enjoying the breeze.

Suddenly, the wind carried to her a faint trace of sound. Not the discordant chanting she had come to despise, but something even worse. Gakupo was screaming, and even if she couldn’t make out the words, the sense of urgency in them was clear. He was in trouble.

“Gakupo!” she cried out, turning her head towards the source of the beacon. The signal originated behind the building at the other side of the street.

Len, already a floor above, looked down at her in confusion. But an instant later, the sounds reached his ears, and he tensed. “Did they find us!?”

“Come down here!” Luka shouted, already throwing Miriam’s hook to the next building and latching to the fire escape stairs matching the ones they were standing in. It was terrifying to look down, but she wasn’t about to waste time going for the raft.

“They always make such a racket, how could the VE-01s sneak on us like this?!” Len complained, sounding a bit like his sister. However, he quickly descended and surrounded Luka’s waist with his arms.

“Hold tight,” Luka growled, her voice dripping with fear, and launched them both into the air.

The stairs on the other side complained with a creak at the sudden load, but fortunately held. With some difficulty, they stopped themselves from crashing against the building with their legs and climbed up to the closest landing. Luka ran up to the top, almost in a frenzy. Len followed her mumbling something about a plan, but she barely paid him any attention.

Once on the rooftop, Luka heard several voices, some disturbingly cheery, and the sounds of a scuffle. Rin was now shouting insults at ear-splitting volume, though her voice sounded strangely muffled at points. Gakupo alternated between inarticulate shouts and attempts to reason with the VE-01s, which were met with bursts of laughing and jeers.

Luka approached the far edge of the rooftop carefully, peeking down. The whole scene displayed before her in an instant: Rin and Oliver lying face down on the deck, held in place by a woman with revealing red clothes. She had her knees on their backs, and periodically pressed Rin’s face against the floor with a hand, cackling whenever the girl increased her attempts to escape. Oliver was completely still.

A few steps to the right of the group, the remains of one of the male units were strewn on the floor. Sword practice had paid off, somewhat. But still five synthetics surrounded Gakupo, who was cornered against the bulwark.  Four males and a female, all wearing mismatched clothes that seemed pilfered from different sources, except for one that had, of all things, a neat dark suit and tie, and even glasses. They seem mostly content with taunting him at the moment, keeping out of range of his weapon.

And sitting comfortably by the steering wheel, looking up at her, was Kaito.

Like any synthetic, his eyes glowed like stars. The gleaming blue irises reminded her of the coldness of space, oddly beautiful and inscrutable. He smiled cordially, and then slowly and deliberately lifted one hand and snapped his fingers.

As one, the mob surrounding Gakupo pounced on him, paying no attention to his panicked strikes. He managed to lop off one of the attackers’ hands, and slashed across the other female’s chest, but the group quickly overwhelmed him. The well-dressed synthetic managed to snatch the sword away while the others pummeled Gakupo, and then the group lifted him and unceremoniously dumped him overboard.

“No!” Luka’s shriek died in her throat with the splash of Gakupo’s body hitting the water. Beside her, Len sucked in an unnecessary breath of air, yet another piece of data in a suddenly meaningless world.

Without giving herself time to think, Luka threw the hook towards the metal framework of a collapsed walkway and jumped down after it. Len shouted something at her, but it was lost when she hit the surface of the water.  

The water, already disturbed by Gakupo’s body, welcomed her with a legion of bubbles that clouded her line of sight. Her hair billowed around her and before her eyes, adding to her confusion. On the upside, the hook had actually managed to grab hold of the structure somewhere above the surface.

Luka looked downwards. In the murkiness, two reddish lights and a trail of tiny bubbles marked Gakupo’s descent. She kicked with all her strength towards him, silently begging the rope to be long enough.

The sunlight quickly lost potency as she descended. Still, it was enough to dimly see Gakupo tumbling in slow motion down the slope of debris accumulated over the street. He finally managed to grab hold of some metal bars sticking out from the concrete rubble, in the edge of darkness.

Down, down Luka went, feeling how the silence and pressure piled up on her. Her systems screamed uselessly, warning her of the corrosive element that surrounded her at all sides. A single scratch in her skin, a single breach of her casing, and it would be all over for her.

Gakupo stared at Luka, his hair partly escaping his ponytail and obscuring his shocked expression. He reached out towards her with one hand.  

Luka stretched her arm, gritting her teeth, with the very end of the rope wrapped around her other wrist and hand. Her outstretched fingers barely touched Gakupo’s.

After a frustrating moment, Gakupo went back to grabbing the metal bars with both hands. Luka watched him carefully re-position himself and kick the rubble in order to propel himself upwards towards her, causing a minor avalanche of debris. Surrounded by the expanding cloud of suspended dirt, he managed to grip her forearm. After a moment, he stretched one hand, in order to grab her closer to the armpit. He pulled himself up with an apologetic look on his face, and then repeated the process with her other arm, in order to reach the rope. Once he had both of his hands on it, Luka straightened herself so they were face to face.

Gakupo smiled at her, shaking his head a little. Luka gave him an exaggerated eye roll in return. He presented her the best shrug he could perform given the circumstances, and jerked his head upwards to point towards the surface. They began to laboriously climb, bumping with each other every so often.

Luka began to consider their options. The big shadow of the yacht was still there, unmoving, to their right. The other synthetics had to be waiting for them. So what now?

As if on cue, the metal rope began to shake. The VE-01 were tampering with it, most likely. Gakupo looked around at their surroundings, and then pointed at the remains of the walkway, leaning obliquely against the other pieces of rubble, one end rising towards the surface, the other descending towards the gloom of the bottom. He released the rope and began to kick ungainly in the murky water. Luka followed as the rope went limp, its length coiling, as the hook and a piece of freshly cut metal broke the surface. Since the pair completely lacked buoyancy, they immediately began to drop in a downward curve. Fortunately, they managed to reach the broken structure before they sank too far.

Gakupo and Luka gingerly grasped the metal rods that made up the sides of the walkway, in order to avoid unsettling the pile of rubble any further, and began to ever so slowly climb towards the top. Luka’s thoughts suddenly returned to the children laying on deck. By now, the VE-01s could’ve done just about anything to them. And what about Len? Were some of them hunting him right now? In the end, Gakupo and she had done a very poor job as protectors. Finally acknowledging it gave Luka a strange hollow feeling.

Once closer to the surface, Gakupo pointed towards a spot where the rubble had created a sort of cave by blocking part of a building’s portico. He crawled over the debris and Luka followed him arduously.

Gakupo cautiously lifted his head from the water, smiling encouragingly at Luka when she did the same next to him. His smile faded when distant chanting reached their ears. As they listened, holding on to the bars of a mostly submerged window, the voices grew more and more faint. And yet, from their hiding place, they could see the yacht still there. For whatever reason, the VE-01s had decided to leave without taking it. At least they still had a way to move around, Luka thought to herself. But…

“The children, Luka…” Gakupo whispered in a voice thick with grief. “I failed them.”

“We shouldn’t despair just yet,” Luka replied, pushing his wet hair out of his eyes with a kind expression. “We need to examine our situation first.”

Luka felt sorry for Rin, Len and Oliver, but looking at Gakupo’s expression, it was clear to her that he felt the loss more strongly than she did. Perhaps he was starting to consider them all as some sort of family? Looking at it from a certain angle, it was probably the only way her mother’s hopes of a family for her synthetic daughter would ever come true. Still, Luka had chosen to dive after Gakupo over helping the kids without a thought, and she had no regrets about it. Perhaps she was too selfish to deserve a family in the first place.

Gakupo nodded, though he didn’t look particularly optimistic. “Right- yeah, we should get back in the yacht, first of all. Maybe…” He peeked through the window towards the darkened interior. “I think it might be easier to get inside and then climb up. Then we swing over to the yacht.”

“Lead the way.”

---

Gakupo landed on the deck of the yacht heavily, still unused to using Miriam’s hook and rope as a way of transport. Luka arrived by his side a second later, much more gracefully.

He looked around. As they had seen from above, the deck was almost pristine, except for some pools of fluid where he sliced open his attackers. Had they taken their fallen comrade to dismantle him, as they were doing with Miriam’s body? After the damage he had done to the head, Gakupo doubted they would be able to repair him, even if they had access to the requisite materials. Speaking of which…

“We should see if they touched anything down below,” he said out loud to Luka, who was kneeling next to the solar condenser.

“At least this seems undisturbed,” Luka said, pointing to the panel in front of her and standing up. “It’s almost like they came all this way just to get the kids.”

“We need to get them back, Luka.”

“We don’t know where they took them,” Luka said wearily. And their odds against the group were worse than before.

“Maybe I can help you with that!” A voice rang out unexpectedly from one of the nearby buildings. Luka and Gakupo whirled around, trying to locate the source of the sound.

“Who’s there?” Gakupo shouted.

“Someone you screwed over by bringing that big thing here… Oh, sorry, I guess that doesn’t narrow it down much.” The words were hard to make out, as the voice sounded muffled and popped and clicked in places, but the contempt dripping from it was clear.

“However, I’d be willing to make a deal with you jerks: let me charge with your solar condenser and I’ll tell you what you need.”

Gakupo looked at Luka, who shrugged. “Alright, come down here.”

There was movement in one of the fire escape ladders, as a lone figure came into view. Luka took a reflexive step back and gasped while Gakupo stood in place, gaping. He had never seen a synthetic in worse conditions, still walking around as if nothing was wrong. 

The damaged gynoid spread her arms with a mocking laugh. “What, you don’t like what you see? This is your fault, as much as Kaito’s and his buggers, as far as I’m concerned. So take it all in.” The unit ran a hand across her chest, with its flayed skin hanging in ribbons over an oddly shaped inner casing. “Now get your little boat closer, I can’t zip around like you anymore.” That much was obvious to Gakupo’s eyes - she walked haltingly, with a strange sway to her movements that made him wonder if her gyroscopes were broken.

“Hold on, I’ll go pick you up,” Gakupo offered. Luka looked almost offended at this, but handed him Miriam’s hook and rope with a frown.

“Aren’t you a gentleman, pretty boy…” She said as she carefully sat on the ladder’s steps. “For a mass murderer, that is.”

Gakupo placed a hand on Luka’s shoulders just as she was preparing to shout something at the damaged gynoid, and shook his head when she turned to look at him, irate. He had been expecting these sorts of accusations, after all.

“Look, I only want our children back. Can we discuss that later?” Gakupo shouted to the broken synthetic.

“Fine, fine, come here then,” the gynoid answered with a bored expression on what remained of her face.  

Ten uncomfortable minutes later, the gynoid sat by the condenser, her flickering eyes half-lidded and unfocused, charging. Gakupo gave the hook back to Luka and embraced her from behind, kissing her shoulder. It was somewhat disturbing to see a female unit so much like her in such deplorable conditions, knowing that just moments ago she had risked everything for him. He couldn’t allow Luka to be damaged ever again.

The strange gynoid gave them another look of contempt. “Save that for later, or you’ll make me puke what’s left of my fluids. Unless you aren’t in that much of a hurry anymore to help the brats, then go shag and let me charge in peace,” she said. It was especially hard to understand her now that she was resting her head on her hands, as she sat cross-legged next to the device.

“…Puke?” Gakupo asked. He guessed it was figurative speech, because that surely wasn’t a feature of their model, but he didn’t quite understand why displaying his affection for Luka could affect the damaged gynoid in any way.

“Ah, you are a ‘pretty but dumb’ type.  Got it.”

Before Gakupo could do or say anything, Luka took a step forward. “Insult him again and I’ll make sure you’ll regret it,” she snapped angrily.

Gakupo looked at her with worry. But the damaged gynoid just laughed, with a staccato burst of disagreeable notes. “I’m not trying to pick a fight here, believe it or not. I was programmed to be a frivolous starlet, and that makes it hard to control my mouth sometimes, even when it’s in my best interest to do so,” she replied in an almost amicable tone. ”Though it’s a hoot that you expect courtesy after all that you and your boy toy have done.”

“My name’s Gakupo.”

“Pfft, by now every human and bot in the Solar System knows you and that pink bint over there. And before you ask, my name is not any of your business.”

“We don’t care about that. Just tell us what Kaito and the others are doing with the kids,” Luka cut off Gakupo, before he could try to answer in a more polite fashion.

The damaged gynoid gazed at Luka for a moment, then the side of her mouth that still had skin foam curled up in a smile. Her gnawed-off fingers played with the big star earring hanging from her right ear.

“Practical minded, that’s a good bot girl. Let’s see, how do I put this gently?” she tapped her chin in mock thoughtfulness. “Oh, yes! Tomorrow night, those kids are going to be ripped to shreds in front of the Dismembered Queen in a wonderful little ceremony, and that’s your fault too!” She finished with an angry growl.

Even though Gakupo had been expecting the blow, the blunt way the damaged gynoid had phrased what was going to happen reinforced his horror at the situation. What had happened to this world?

At his side, Luka spoke up in an opaque tone, almost expressionless. “And just who is the Dismembered Queen?”

The gynoid looked at them oddly, for a good ten seconds. Finally, she smiled again, incredulously. “Get out of here! Don’t tell you were too busy to notice, you were right there!”

“To notice what?” Gakupo asked, suddenly tense. Was this something that had happened while their bodies were under Benefactor’s control?

Another pause, as the gynoid stared at him with something like fascination. “I saw you, both of you, you were floating next to that big thing when Kaito threw that girl to the ground, and then he…” The gynoid spoke with almost an anxious tone, as she made vague motions with her hands, but then seemed to unable to continue.

Gakupo glanced at Luka warily, and then turned again to look at the damaged gynoid. “Did Kaito terminate her?”

“No… But perhaps she would’ve preferred that, considering what he did… what he keeps doing to her. And the sickest thing is… I get the sense he doesn’t realize he’s hurting her. He brings her gifts, and he sings for her all night long, every night except the days of sacrifices.”

The gynoid rubbed her haggard face with her hands, with a faraway look in her eyes.

“I couldn’t stand hearing the girl plead and cry out all the time. That was my mistake, trying to help her. Kaito didn’t like that at all, I can tell you that much. Staying alive, but looking like this, was my punishment.” The damaged gynoid again pointed to her ruined torso. “Kiyoteru is his own brand of crazy, if he thinks any deal with them is going to end well,” she continued in a small voice.

“I was an idiot too, I guess, since I stayed around after what happened to that poor girl. It made sense at the time to ingratiate myself to the stronger synthetics, and stay inside Benefactor’s shields. Some other units were smarter than that, I saw a bunch of girls get into a helicopter and take off as soon as the first attack started. Don’t ask me how the one with goggles knew how to pilot it, but there you go.” She cracked a small smile.

“But not me… I joined in the attack, and it felt like I was going to break at every step. But Benefactor kept me going, until the day that the last human counterattack came, and you guys disappeared. How did you manage to escape the blast anyway?” 

“A blast…?” Gakupo repeated, confused.

“We don’t know what happened after we encountered Benefactor up there,” Luka pointed upwards with a look of distaste. “Gakupo and I are missing months of memories, so we guessed that during that period it was using our bodies to interface with this world.”

The damaged gynoid’s eyes went round with surprise. After a long moment, she looked downwards, running one hand through what was left of her hair. “So… you weren’t in control…”

“Not to our knowledge,” Gakupo replied mildly.

“…oh.”

In the silence that followed, the sound of the water lapping the ruined buildings seemed louder than ever.

Gakupo kneeled in front of the damaged gynoid and smiled in a comforting way. “I’m sorry you went through all of that, I truly am. After we rescue Rin, Len and Ollie, I’ll do whatever I can to fix you. But now we need your help.”

The gynoid looked at him, interest and puzzlement mixed in her expression. “You have repair skills?” After Gakupo nodded, she smiled rather timidly at him.

“We both do,” Luka interjected with slight annoyance. Gakupo glanced at her perplexed, but Luka evaded his eyes and addressed the damaged gynoid instead. “What exactly happens in those ‘ceremonies’ you mentioned?”

“Ah,” the gynoid shook her head making the cables connecting her to the condenser sway. “It’s weird. Like… human weird. Kaito makes these grandiose speeches about the new world, the false disciples…” In response to Gakupo’s questioning look, the gynoid paused and pointed at him and Luka. ”Anyway, I never tried to figure out what was going through his head, I just stood around and nodded whenever it felt appropriate. Then, before the sacrifices are made, the VE-01s ‘commune’ with the Queen.” At this point, she fingered the connections in her head meaningfully. “I can only imagine how it must feel to have five nutters invade your mind like that. No wonder she screamed so loud.”

“…Wait, they all fuse together mentally?” Gakupo asked with sudden urgency. Luka frowned.

“…I suppose that’s how it works, yeah,” the gynoid replied with a raised eyebrow.

“Don’t you see what that means? If I connect with the Queen and copy the program in her head, then she’ll spread it out to the VE-01s all at the same time!” Gakupo said enthusiastically to Luka, and held her hands with a big smile.

She didn’t smile back, however. “No,” she simply said.

“…Why?” Gakupo blinked at her.

“You heard her. The Queen’s mind must be completely polluted by now. As you said it yourself, every time we merge, we end up with bits of each other inside of us. Can you imagine what might happen to you if you get corrupt data inside of you? I can’t, and I don’t want to think about it.”

“Luka, we never found a secondary storage device to download the program. And besides, it needs to be supported by my base code to work. I have to do it.”

“NO!” Luka snapped angrily and took a step back, shaking him off.

“But… this is a chance to save everyone!  Not just Rin, Len and Oliver, but everyone!” Gakupo said, perplexed. Even if he ended up infected, Luka could repair him now, didn’t she?

“I don’t care about that! Not if it means risking you!” Luka screamed and turned his back to him. “After all I suffered up there, you’re asking me to just allow this to happen?”

Her voice broke.  “What’s going to happen to me if I can’t cleanse you later?” she asked in a softer tone.

“Luka…” Gakupo whispered.

“I won’t be alone again. If you fail to recover… I’ll join you.” She turned to face him, dark determination in her features.

Gakupo just stared back at her, speechless. The damaged gynoid coughed slightly.

“Hm… guys? Would you mind telling what are you talking about?” She pleaded meekly. She seemed somewhat cowed by Luka’s intense expression.

Gakupo gave Luka a last wary look and sat down next to the damaged gynoid. “I have this program installed in me…”