lpffa Chapter 143: Reward System.
Chapter 143: Reward System.
V O L U M E . S I X : C O D E_R E S E T
Chapter 143: Reward System Click. Click. Click.
The lights came on in sequence, one by one, working their way toward the far wall of the hangar. Old neon fixtures hummed to life, several of them flickering badly, fighting to hold on. The concrete floor was buried under a thick layer of dust, every step left a clean impression in it, the way boots do in fresh snow.
02 led the team in. The others followed her through the door, waiting for the briefing she'd promised them on the Salaska meeting, thirty minutes of negotiation that had apparently covered significant ground.
She set down the first load from the trucks at the center of the floor. The rest fanned out to start unloading the others. Cleaning could wait. There were twelve trucks outside and a limited number of hands.
A few hours later, after the sun had dropped behind the snow-covered Hessonite peaks, the team had managed to get five charging stations set up, which would have been more if 06 and 07's truck hadn't gone in a different direction. They'd shared stations before. It wasn't ideal, but it wasn't a crisis.
Albert moved around the perimeter of the hangar at his own pace, taking notes on everyone without being asked and without explaining himself. 03 and 05 had found two charging stations connected to a wall outlet, poorly, but connected, and settled in. Not because they were tired. Something about finally being in a fixed location, even a dusty one, made both of them exhale without entirely meaning to.
02 came over and sat on the floor in front of them, cross-legged, facing them both.
She looked at 05 briefly. 05 was looking elsewhere.
"I'm not going to apologize for making us leave," 02 said. "But I want to say it plainly, the Hope Bubble wasn't safe anymore, and you know I made the right call. I talked to the team. When your name came up, the one thing that was consistent was this: 05 is smart enough to know the logical choice when she sees it."
05 turned to look at her. Then turned fully. "I know the logic was sound. What I wasn't ready for was receiving that kind of force from someone whose role, in my memory, was always the opposite of that. The captain I knew come through doors constantly that way, but never ours." A pause. "I was shocked. And if I'm being honest, embarrassed."
"If you mean the slap," 02 gestured back over her shoulder toward 01, somewhere in the deeper part of the hangar, "she's already forgiven you and wants to work things out."
"I absolutely have not!" 01's voice came from the far wall at full volume.
"Oh really?" 05 picked up the thread immediately. "That's a relief, actually. Means I don't need to put any effort into apologizing. We can just leave things where they are."
"I am still waiting for a real apology and I want the record to reflect that!" 01 called back.
"She also agreed," 02 continued, the corner of her mouth moving slightly, "to take responsibility for the whole situation, including the spy who fed information out of the team and walked away with the army. Very generous of her."
"Captain, that is not what happened—"
02, 03, and 05 laughed at the same moment, brief and genuine.
05 leaned back against the charging station. "I missed this. The three of us, no large-scale catastrophe actively in progress. Life was manageable when the worst thing we dealt with was low-level crime and the occasional animal stuck somewhere it shouldn't be. Then someone decided to go after Metro Robotics and suddenly we were fighting four-meter mechs."
03 nodded. "No regrets, but you're right. Being a regular officer was, simpler. And there was something almost enjoyable about it."
"We'll get some of that back here," 02 said, pulling up a screen. "Which brings me to the Salaska meeting." She turned the display outward. "Budget negotiations were a significant part of it, but we found an arrangement that works for both sides."
She looked at 05. "Reward system. We handle the major cases exclusively. For each one we close, criminals processed, robot terrorists neutralized, we receive a budget increase scaled to the case's significance."
03 raised a hand. "Does clearing out a single den count?"
"No. Completed cases only." 02 moved to the next point. "Robot terrorist infrastructure is different, we're cleared to be aggressive there. Destroying their bases is actively encouraged. They've already bombed occupied civilian buildings."
05 went still. "That means the human cases—"
"Follow Veridian Coast legal procedure," 02 finished. "Detain, don't destroy. The exception is if a suspect fires on a civilian." She paused. "There are also flight restrictions."
03 made a sound.
"No-fly zones near schools, hospitals, and the presidential house." 02 looked toward the machinery being arranged at the far end of the hangar. "Salaska is aware of how our thrusters sound. Dave and Albert are already working on a solution."
05 clicked her tongue. "Modifying the thruster mechanisms is going to take time."
"We have it. Operations don't start for fifteen to twenty days, we need teams out mapping the city first, and we still have to go back for the people in the Hope Bubble and whatever remains of the E-Medics."
03 stood up and stretched. The click and pop of metallic joints settled into the quiet of the hangar. "I was hoping for one of those old beautiful buildings in the city. Instead we got a dust museum on the outskirts."
"We'll renovate." 02 stood with her. "But it doesn't matter where we are." She looked at both of them. "My beautiful sisters make any building worth being in."
She walked off toward Delta without waiting for a response.
03 stared after her.
05 stared after her.
03 broke first. "What was that."
05 pressed both hands to her face. "How. How does she do that when she's supposed to be cold?"
"I know." 03 dropped back into the charging station. "But honestly? I'm not complaining. I forgot what it felt like to have someone notice my beauty."
05 turned to look at her. "You managed to make it about yourself."
"As always," 03 confirmed, entirely comfortable with this.
"I've run three million decryption sequences on her core drive. There's something else in there. A second wall. And it's laughing at me." Dave’s voice came in the background, as 02 reached Delta, who was working on bringing the E-UNIT production machines in from the last truck. 02 moved to the other side and helped her lift.
"You seem better," 02 said. "What changed?"
They set the machine down and moved to the next one. Delta thought about it for a moment. "Time with your sisters. Dave spent part of the afternoon trying to restore 07 from her backup. She started filing complaints through the terminal before he'd finished, text only, no voice or body yet, but very specific complaints. He was reading them out loud and getting louder with each one. 19 was on the floor."
02 laughed under her breath. "Are they very different from the G-Bots?"
"Not as much as I expected." Another machine down, another one to go. "Most of them have an equivalent. Alpha maps closely to 07. Beta is essentially 03. The main gap I can't fill is, there's no one here who exists in quite the same register as Pi. Detached, calm, speaks like an automated system."
02 lifted her side of the last machine. "That sounds like someone worth spending time with."
Delta smiled. "Funnily enough, she was the one closest to you."
"Why do I keep ending up surrounded by the strangest people?" 02 said. "Everyone warned me about how extreme 03 is, and now I'm hearing I had a voice-mail android as my closest companion."
"We're all strange in some way." Delta lowered her side as they set the last machine down and rested both arms on a crate beside it. "You included."
"I'm perfect."
Delta's smile went wide. "Of course you are."
02's expression changed. The lightness went somewhere else. "Do you want revenge?"
Delta tilted her head.
"I'm going back to the Hope Bubble to finish the retrieval." 02 kept her voice level, but something underneath it had shifted. "11 and the one they called Infinity will be there. They read 06 and 07's drives. They know exactly what we left behind."
Delta glowed purple, the first time that color had ever come from her. "When do we leave?"
"Tomorrow morning." 02 looked around watching the purple light reflect off the hangar walls. "There may be other G-Bots to recover too."
Delta's eyes went red.
"It's not about recovering anyone anymore."