E-UNIT: The Blue Angels of Death.

Chapter 148: Yellow Apology.

V O L U M E . S I X : C O D E_R E S E T

Chapter 148: Yellow Apology‎A week later.

The last group of civilians came in on the trucks from the Hope Bubble. The back-and-forth had taken days, but Elysium never launched a second attack on the transport runs, which was its own kind of message. When the team had returned to collect the population, they found the area around the bubble sealed behind energy walls, blocking any civilian robots from approaching the building. Whatever Elysium wanted with that space, they wanted it undisturbed.

02 climbed down from the truck and stretched her joints. Driving for days accumulates in a robot the same way it does in a person, differently, but it accumulates. ‘ The quiet was useful for a while. Then it started turning into something else. Too much stillness and I start pulling at things that don't need to be pulled at.’

The hangar had changed. A second floor had been added, management rooms running along the top level. Below, the main floor had been reorganized into a wide central corridor with new doors cut into each side for traffic flow. The terrain beside it, the one 03 had "flattened" through a process she refuses to explain, had been laid with concrete and was waiting to become a training range.

02 walked to the main entrance with the returned units behind her, E-UNITs 21 through 50, filing in behind her like they were using her as a shield. The original team had gathered at the sound of the trucks, moving toward the door with the particular energy of people expecting to see someone they'd missed, and then going still the moment they saw the blue hair behind 02.

02 raised both hands. "I know this is difficult. Rebuilding trust after something like this doesn't happen quickly." She glanced back at the group behind her. "But we need the numbers. Even if some of those numbers—" a brief pause, "—are people who made choices we wouldn't have made."

03 pushed through and planted herself in front of 02. "Captain, I respect you too much to pretend I'm fine with this. 05 confirmed it herself, we can't be hacked. These units chose to leave on their own. What stops them from doing it again the moment something better comes along?"

24 stepped forward from 02's side and bowed low. "Please forgive us. I am asking you directly."

"No." 03's voice was flat. "The nerve of that."

"We hated how humans betrayed us," 24 said, head still down. "We wanted to live somewhere that wouldn't turn on us. And we were told the civilians we had in custody would be protected—"

"And now you want to talk about betrayal." 03 moved closer. "You think your sisters will trust you again after you chose yourself over them? You think anyone here takes you seriously knowing you put your feelings above your family?" She looked at 24 with the expression of someone doing arithmetic. "What role did they actually give you when you got there? Let me guess, frontline deployment in a war?"

24 looked up. "Yes."

"Right." 03 spread her hands. "And I don't even blame him for that. I'd do exactly the same." She reached out and took 24's chin between two fingers. "Actually, I'd do worse. I'd send you somewhere remote and quiet where nobody would hear about it." She released her face with a small push. "Far enough that the number doesn't show up in any report that matters."

24 held her ground. "They did exactly that. Kasparian border, frontline, against the Remidican Republic."

03 waved her off. "Why am I always right." She refocused on 24. "How many of you didn't come back?"

25 stepped forward and held out ten SSDs in a single hand. "Permanent loss of 42, no new bodies were provided to these ten."

“Predictable.” 03 looked at the drives for a long moment. Then back at 24. "So what are you asking for, exactly? We clasp hands and pretend the last few months didn't happen? They didn't trust you, so tell me why we should."

24's head came up. "They did trust me."

"Excuse me?"

"I said they trusted me." Something changed in 24's expression, a small, controlled smirk. "They gave me a crystal and didn't take it back before we left."

03 looked past her. "Where is it."

"Up here!" A voice came from the second floor management rooms, bright and loud and unconcerned with the tension it was cutting through.

Every head went to the staircase on the right.

A yellow light came first, vivid, building with each step. Then the source cleared the half-landing and came into view. A G-Bot with a smile that occupied a disproportionate amount of her face.

Gamma came down the stairs at pace, spotted 02 standing in the center of the hangar, and covered the remaining distance in a short run and a small jump that ended with her arms locked around 02 and small arcs of electricity jumping off her frame.

"Captain! It has been so long!"

02 found her balance. "I'm sorry, who are you? Based on what Tau told me, I'd guess Gamma. Loud and yellow."

Gamma released her and took both of 02's shoulders in a grip that made the frame audible. "You don't remember me?! You helped me learn to control my speed! And where is Delta? If you and Tau survived, their plan worked!"

"Can you lower your volume?" 02 gently removed the hands from her shoulders and took Gamma by the arm, steering her away from the group. "Wrong moment. Delta has been waiting for you for days though." She lowered her voice. "Come on."

"But captain—" Gamma's voice faded down the corridor.

03 watched them go. "Very useful crystal you brought us."

"I didn't expect her to be quite so—" 24 pressed her lips together, containing something. "—present. But we used the situation to our advantage. Without going back in there, we never would have gotten her out." She paused. "Another crystal we walked away with."

"What happened to the other three?"

24 sighed. "One of their units replicated himself using the orange crystal and used the civilians as leverage to recover the two they valued more."

"So we ended up with ‘Speedy-Loudy’ as the trade." 03 shook her head slowly.

"03."

02 was back, without Gamma. Her voice carried the tone it used when she was done discussing something. "She's a sister the same way I am. We don't need more fractures in this team when Elysium is operating as a single coordinated unit." She stopped between 03 and 24. "And I wasn't asking your opinion about bringing the old units back. I was informing you that it's happening."

03 blinked. "How is that—"

"This city has eight million people in it," 02 said. "Those people have put their safety in the hands of the kind that is currently attacking them. Mecha-Terrorists aren't just a threat to lives, they're doing damage to the image of robots across this entire region. Salaska didn't come to us out of admiration. He came because he had no other option. We owe him something real."

24 added quietly. "We said we were sorry. And we watched forty-two of our sisters disappear without new bodies, without being fixed, without anyone noting the number. We're not throwing our family away again for a personal grudge against the humans we took an oath to protect."

02 exhaled. "03." She lowered herself to 03's level. "I know you're treating the Veridian Coast as a staging point, somewhere to rebuild before the real fight. But if things don't move the way we hope, this could be home for a long time. Longer than either of us wants." She held 03's gaze. "Let's leave what happened behind us and work. For the people in this city. And for me."

03 looked into the blue eyes for a long moment.

‘She's using it. She knows exactly what she's doing, using whatever connection I still feel to the captain I remember. And it's working, which is the most frustrating part. ’ She looked at 24. ‘And I know exactly why 24 ran away, she hated my leadership so much that she preferred Reaper’s, and once 02 came back…’

She pulled her arm back.

Clang.

24 hit the floor.

"I needed somewhere for the frustration to go," 03 said, in the tone she uses for completely reasonable statements. "I'm sorry."

24 came up from the floor already loud. "Why does everyone keep hitting me in the face?! I just had that fixed! There are walls in this building!"

"Hitting a wall isn't nearly as satisfying, walls don't make that face." 03 turned and walked away. "And I'm still angry at you. At least now it's mutual."

24 glanced at 02.

02 smiled. “Fair trade.”

‎