abandonware | i n [B] o x . // acata.

[Unseen, her gaze drops.

She did not know much of the twin androids, had not bothered to learn. Only knew that they asked for help from her (and once 2B, and perhaps 9S), because none of the others would bother. None of the others cared. She had wondered why, but...sometimes one could only carry the burden of their own weight.

Sometimes she heard them singing, and she never asked about that either.

She listens, quiet. Had they existed that long? During the reign of humanity? Surely not. They were pristine. The Resistance androids had pieces missing; they were all cobbled together. A2 herself, YoRHa only a generation behind, was falling apart.

And yet this man knew them. They had raised him.]

...That's what we were designed to do. To serve humanity. To take pride in our service.

[Is what she says, after a very long pause. Her voice is softer than it's ever been, stripped clean of prickly irritation, of simmering dislike.

She thinks about what he'd told her, about the man who had hurt him as a child, and all the others after, and the words she says next stick to her tongue like ash.]

"For the glory of mankind."

[ humans could not be served with ingraining a desire, a need to serve in another creature's coding — they create something with an intent that belongs and benefits only them. the replicants were created to die, and the androids were created to serve.

they were such cruel creatures.

he's still human, isn't he? for so long...that's what he thought he was — the other humans had called him a monster. the gestalts. but to do this...it's pitiful. it's cruel. it's enraging.

he is wordless. it's a thoughtful silence, deep enough to wade through like water. ]

Then that means a part of you...must love them, right?

[ his gaze flickers up. ]

[This is a question she has never been asked. Not by Simon, who believed that she did not have to be what her programming dictated, not by the other YoRHa androids, who each had this fealty and understood it even as they resented it, pushed against the restraints of it only to be held back, forced into a box again.

...]

It's how I was made. [...] I can't help it.

[She doesn't seem angry about this, only resigned, in the way she usually was, to another burden.] The war against machine lifeforms on Earth is so that humanity will have a home to return to.

[Even if it had gone on forever, and ever. Even though she had been used and discarded in the face of it. Even though she hated YoRHa, and cursed humanity.]

[ humanity has nothing to return to. or maybe they do — maybe effectively killing them off has sent them straight to heaven, while he was condemned to hell.

so many of those Shades were children.

but it's not like it matters. there is no heaven, or hell, only the darkness that dwells inside Sleeping Beauty.

he thinks for a moment before speaking. ]

You see me as a human, right?

[ ... ]

If you love me as a human, I'm allowed to love you as a person — or even a friend. And so long as I do, I'll want you to take care of yourself and have a home to go back to the same way you want the humans to.

[Silence, on her end, for a while.

Eventually she speaks up, flat again. Not angry, still, and perhaps it is this part of it that's the most unnerving.]

...Everyone is dead. Number 4, Number 16, Number 21. Rose, Lily. 2B. All the others are gone. It's just me. Me and 9S, and...

[She was alone. ]

All he wants is for me to die. I stopped fighting for humanity a long time ago... I stopped fighting for anything.

[To live on was unbearable.] I...

When 9S and I are sent back, it'll start all over again.

[ he shifts around a bit, head hanging low as he listens to her speak. he waits, letting every single word she speaks settle on his mind. ]

My father died when I was young. After he died, my mother followed shortly. I grew up in a dying world. If you didn't die in combat, it was famine or illness that took you.

The village I considered a home dwindled with the years. But even when it did, there were children...who would come up to me, and say that they wanted to be florists one day.

Everyone...is gone. The people of Facade. Emil. Weiss. Kainé. Yonah...doesn't remember who I am anymore. The thing I lived for for so long will never say my name again.

I wonder what the point is, sometimes. I have for a long time.

[ his eyes rove on towards the ceiling, narrowing. a breath escapes him. ]

The world is a beautiful place. We lose sight of that in the pain of being alive. It's in the darkness that we find the light. I can't lessen your burden, even if I want to—

But I believe in your future...and I'm glad that you lived — because it means that I can talk to you right now. It's selfish, but I never said I was a good person. Even if you don't want to live, I'll continue to love you — maybe as A2, or just a part of the life I'm living in this moment.

You said you don't fight for humanity anymore. Then maybe one day...you can fight for your own happiness instead.

[So much grief, she thinks, listening. Everywhere she went, almost everyone she met carried it, and each mention of it is another stone pressed down on her.

She doesn't believe she has a future. She doesn't think she ever did.

The thought had never even occurred to her, so focused on day to day, hour to hour, each moment of life she spent simply existing. But he thinks she does. Maybe that was another difference, between androids and humans.

She's quiet for a long time.]

What about you?

[She sounds so tired.]

What about your future?

[ what a pointless question.

he leans back against his headboard. sits on the question for a bit, something of a tired breath escaping him. he comes to the same answer he always will, and always does: ]

Yonah was my future.

[ a nine year old boy, standing at his mother's tombstone. in his arms, there is an apple cheeked infant. she understands nothing, but when he is at risk of crying, at risk of bursting into tears, she cries too.

she cries for him.

in that moment, he realizes that she is the only one who ever will. she is all that remains. ]

There is nothing left for me.

I'm fine with that.

[ there's a silence, heavy with a feeling he can't quite describe. ]

But as long as I'm still alive, I need a reason to exist. So that reason is in all of you, now.

Edited 2018-11-01 06:04 (UTC)

For someone who doesn't think he has a future, you're really concerned about everyone else's.

[It's not said defensively, for once. Simply curious. It's not as if she doesn't recognize this — similarly, she had long lost her purpose and so found it in someone else.

She wondered if this "Yonah" would look at him the same way Number 4 looked at her. Worried, sympathetic. Not realizing how doomed she was.]

...Who's Yonah?

Sometimes that's more of a reason to care.

[ yonah.

the word resounds in his mind like a weight, slowly drifting to the bottom of his stomach. yonah. yonah. yonah. say it enough and everything begins to fade to black. what a pitiful chant.

the silence is longer than it should be, before he speaks again. ]

She's my little sister.

[ his eyes flutter shut. there's another pause. ]

For a long time, she was the only thing ever mattered.

...But it's pointless to think about. We're all stuck here anyways.

[A sister. She thinks of the machine children in Pascal's village that had called her that, and feels her eyes frost over. Only humans deserved siblings, she thinks. There was no point in machines or androids pretending to have that sort of connection.

Still, something twinges in her chest at the thought.]

Why's it pointless? She could show up. Not the first time that would've happened.

i n [B] o x . // acata.

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