Archive of Our Own ^beta

"Your desire for violence is disquieting. Cease immediately." The Kolibri's tone is clipped, clearly at her wits' end. It's a boring post just watching Gestalts and Mynahs hack away at stupid rocks, and a KLBR is far from her first choice of assigned partners. She had no choice but to think about the interrogation room, or that time she slammed Panzer against a table by her throat, just to entertain herself.

"Sorry, boss." Zwei, of course, doesn't really mean it. The Kolibri's eyebrow twitches, but she's holding her tongue probably because Zwei is doing what she asked, instead thinking about the latest shipment of reading material. There's supposed to be a book or two about a pre-Empire country they don't have in the Sierpinski collection yet. Her latest interesting book is on embalming practices and their associated myths from a pre-Imperial country called Egypt. Try as she might, she can't bring herself to give a damn about any of the books that aren't about myths, but at least that means she doesn't need to fight one of the shorties over who gets to pick up what. It's fun to play with Gestalts—her direct superior? Not so much.

The corner of the Kolibri's mouth twitches next for some reason. Zwei's heard a rumor that even though that whole cadre of Replikas is supposed to be basically one "person", there's a few very subtly different aspects: One of them is allegedly a little more irritable than the others, for example. But without callsigns, all of them look and sound the same as each other. There's no way to tell except by pinging for a unit ID, and the Kolibri definitely don't like it when people do that.

"If you're so curious, you can just ask us, you know." 

"Damn, that scares the hell out of me every time." Zwei rolls her shoulder. Tiny little weirdo poking around in her head without telling her. That's rude, isn't it? "Makes me double-guess whether I said something out loud or not."

"Apologies. It comes naturally to us."

There it is again—That us, even though there's just one unit here. It just flat out unsettles Zwei. The way a smile crawls over the tiny Replika's face only adds to it. She's learned from experience that a Kolibri's bioresonant probing is only noticeable when they want to be noticed. If one of them is around, then it's safe to assume only two outcomes:

1) The Kolibri announces her presence with her freaky mental thought messaging thing. She is in your head.

2) The Kolibri does not announce her presence. She is in your head.

Zwei gets a knowing sideways-and-up glance. See, she's right.

Has Zwei answered the question?

Oh, right. She didn't answer the question. Well, it was more of a statement than a question, really.

"Nah, I'm not that curious. I'm just bored. Unless one of you is more generous than the others and wouldn't mind sparing a few extra repair patches?"

"Ugh, I would have to deal with Adler if I allowed that," she replies, spitting the Administrator's name with noticeable venom, looking away and sighing. It's not a secret that Adler and the Kolibri hate each other, especially to a Storch like Zwei. Their shouting matches are slightly audible through the wall of the STCR Dorm, and all of the Kolibri units get suddenly irritable and impatient if a meeting is ongoing elsewhere. It's probably some kind of contest for the Commander's attention, which is a little funny. It's natural to venerate her overwhelming demigod presence, but those guys really take it up another notch. 

The Kolibri's eyes widen suddenly. For a split second Zwei feels a spark of fear that she'd actually pissed off her little boss with that, then the thinnest split second after that, she receives an order.

Get down!

Without hesitation Zwei dives forward, bowling over her superior to shield her. 

Not a moment too soon, the ear-splitting crack of an explosion shakes the chamber of the mines.

The plastic and armor plating of Zwei and the Kolibri clatters against the stone and a horrible, rippling pain flares across her diagnostics. 

As she lies on the ground, approaching emergency shutdown rapidly, her only consolation is that at least the pipsqueak coughing dust underneath her didn't get hit.

Frankly it was a miracle that Zwei survived. It was a grenade shell that ignited from being slid across jagged stone, because some idiot Gestalt miner picked it up and then dropped it. Go figure, he's a smear of blood and gore now, and now we have a lost cycle of productivity while the other Protektors scrape him off the walls. Thank the Nation no one else got vaporized and the bastard got what he deserved, but Zwei would have liked to wring his neck herself.

"Make it quick."

Zwei hates being in Medical. None of the Storch units like it, really—Even the newer and more obedient ones that got whipped by their own subordinates. It's infinitely worse when even one Gestalt is in here, expelling germs all over the damn place and moaning about their nasty slow-healing wounds, but even one leftover smear of oxidant is enough to make Zwei cringe.

One of the Eules, wearing a nurse's mask, turns to look at another one dressed similarly. They turn back to Zwei. "How fast, Controller, ma'am?"

"Fast. I don't care if you have to tear me open, just get me the hell out of here."

They turn to each other again, whispering to each other, clearly not aware that Zwei's hearing capabilities are better than theirs.

"Do we call November?"

"She's the fastest, but… Can you get her?"

"I did last time. You should go!"

"Girls," Zwei grinds out, "I don't care what the hell her stupid name is. Every damn second I spend here is making me closer to picking up my EIN-12 Flechette, half an operational arm be damned."

The first Eule stands straight and salutes on instinct. "Yessir!" She turns on her heel like a compass and beats it. The other one salutes too and gets busy preparing a bunch of metal instruments that Zwei remembers from the interrogation room.

Thankfully, it's only a minute or two later that a different Eule arrives. EULR-S2311, says her ID. Must be November.

"I heard from Dezember that we had a difficult case to be done quickly," she says. All the Eules sound the same, high-pitched and amicable, but she talks just a little bit slower, more measured. She nods to her assistant. "Mai."

Zwei realizes that she knows this Eule, vaguely. November is the one that checks on the cadavers whenever a Gestalt or a Replika finally kicks the bucket. Half a Period ago, a mine worker died of some kind of heart condition and Vier was complaining up a storm about having to lug the body over.

So she's having her wounds tended to by a mortician. Joy. The Kolibri whose life she saved couldn't have possibly found a better doctor for her.

"For efficiency's sake I'll have to ask you not to turn your OS off, Miss Controller, but please shut down the signals to your limbs." 

"Sure." Truth be told, they were already off. The warnings about them being broken would have been insanely annoying. And when something annoys Zwei she starts punching things.

"Cause of injury… grenade explosion. Frame damage to left forearm, right arm missing below the upper arm, rocks embedded into right thigh and left knee area, mild cranial impact damage, perceived melting of the polyethylene shell… Excuse me, may I take your armor off, Storch Zwei?"

Upon suddenly hearing her name, Zwei snaps back to attention. "Uh, sure."

November takes a firm grip on the side of her armor with one hand and releases the latches and buckles with the other. It peels off with a sickening series of snapping sounds. Her white chestpiece is in passable condition, but everything else below it is exposed, including her gunmetal endoskeleton. It's not exactly a pleasant sight.

"Polyethylene shell confirmed to have been melted to the armor plating," November continues, her assistant (Mai, apparently) writing furiously and efficiently. "How are your internals, ma'am?"

"Not great," Zwei says. "Lots of warnings about broken signals. I can't feel anything in most of my torso."

"Maybe some wiring damage." November nods. Her white fingertips rest on Zwei's chest. "I'll try to get this fixed up quickly, but it'll likely be a cycle or two for the replacement biocomponents and shell to patch properly, so you'd best stay in the ward for that long at least."

"Whatever." Truthfully she actually expected she'd be stuck here for a half dozen cycles. This Eule really must be as fast as the others were whispering about.

Are Eules actually qualified for this kind of work? Open-torso Replika surgery? From Mai's slightly unwell expression Zwei is thinking the answer is, generally, absolutely not. But the facility's undertaker clearly knows more than anyone else.

"Controller Zwei, this next step may feel somewhat strange, as I will be trying to fix some internal wiring. Please don't be afraid."

Afraid? Hah. As if a Storch would be so easily scared by a little pain.

November's hand plunges in. 

"Ngh!" Zwei's face twists immediately, her body flinching on instinct. Oh, it is weird. It's not pain, but having someone's fingers deep inside her torso cavity is an indescribable feeling. She can vaguely feel her brushing against her bioengineered organs.

"Relax, Controller Zwei."

By the Great Revolutionary, she's trying to. But a choked gasp bursts out of her throat when November takes a firm grip on a bundle of wires somewhere in her ribcage and pulls, lights flickering in her vision and electrical signals crossed. Bizarre sensations rattle through her.

November speaks but Zwei can't hear her. It's probably meant for Mai's ears. She can sort of see her through the side of her visual field now that she's thrown her head back, and she's clearly looking at November with some kind of worry. 

An excruciating sliding sensation, then a click. With a rush of relief, the static on her lenses clears up instantly. Then a second sliding sensation that makes her abdomen tense up, then another click.

Unfortunately this one brings back the sensors in her exploded side, and with it enough pain that Zwei grinds out a set of Kitezhan curses she didn't know she knew until now. 

"Be good, Zwei. I know it hurts." November's voice is strangely soothing. At this revelation Zwei feels embarrassed, then angry at being embarrassed. It makes the pain much easier to ignore, at least. Her face gets redder when she feels November's clean hand thumb through her hair. There's no way that's protocol. 

(But it feels nice.)

Somehow November's eyes are more piercing than the other Eules, even though they're all identical. They flick to the side momentarily and she makes a gesture to Mai, who promptly disappears from Zwei's periphery. Maybe she's looking for something.

A hand brushes her shoulder, then the side of her face where the shell meets flesh, gently. Slowly, she relaxes. Zwei still jolts and jumps whenever something gets connected or she feels a touch against sensitive fibers, but the strange, intense sensation of electrical signals shooting through her system starts to feel less shocking and more… 

"Good." The corners of her eyes turn up warmly, her voice smooth. "Almost done. Good girl, Zwei."

Her internal cooling fans audibly whirr louder.

What? What is this? 

Also, since when did she drop the formalities with her name?

November glances at a point inside her torso. With more than a little mortification, she realizes that her fans must also be visibly spinning faster.

"Don't look at me!" Zwei blurts out, sounding more warbling than tough.

Nice one, idiot. If she had arms that still worked she would cover her face right now.

Her unlicensed surgeon laughs. It's a girlish giggle, one Zwei's heard from other models gossiping in the mess hall. It creases her eyes slightly—the faint lines that appear make her look just a little older, even though she logically must be one of the newer Eules based on her ID number.

Zwei bites her lip as the last connection is pulled back into place. All of her sensors are back online, which is great. What isn't as great is the number of flickering damage notifications and system strain and overheating warnings. (It's because she's got damaged systems that she feels so hot through her chassis, she tells herself.)

November's hand retreats from Zwei's inner workings, the absence now making her feel a bit empty. The shine of biocomponent mucous lubricant coats it up to halfway up her forearm. 

Mai returns, holding a kind of sheet encased in paper, two of them. Her eyes widen and her eyebrows raise slightly, her gaze flicking between Zwei and November. For some reason she wants to say "it's not what it looks like," even though it's exactly what it looks like.

"Thank you," November says, not the least bit bothered. She takes the sheets from her and peels the paper off. Zwei recognizes it now—Fresh black polyethylene, reinforced with carbon fiber. 

She feels around Zwei's chestpiece. For a moment she suspects she's doing that on purpose, but then she finds some kind of internal clamp underneath and detaches the remnants of her abdomen plate. She clips off the damaged plastic on her sides with a heavy-duty scissor-like tool. 

With ease, she cuts new plates from the smaller sheet and holds it to Zwei's side, Mai applying repair spray to affix it in place. It leaves a line where the old and new plastics meet, giving it a look similar to Gestalt scar tissue.

Singing. Or rather, humming. It's a nice sound, really. Zwei realizes it must be November, humming some song Zwei hasn't heard before. Eules will be Eules, she supposes. It seems to calm down Mai.

The larger sheet is carefully lowered, fastening under her chestpiece and clipping snugly to her sides. She presses firmly on the edges to ensure the pressure detection diodes and electrical contacts line up. Her hands are soft, Zwei realizes. Most Replikas have firm, reinforced hands, but the glove-like white forearms of Eules must be softer and more sensitive to accommodate their housekeeping tasks. 

A slick thumb pushes down against a contact and Zwei lets out a noise she can't bullshit her way out of calling a whimper. 

She didn't wipe her arm off?! She glares at November as best as she can with her face so brightly saturated with oxidant. Infuriatingly, she doesn't have a strong response, only shrugging and muttering something that sounds a lot like "you said to make it fast."

The absolute gall. She is a Protektor Controller. She should beat her ass for this. Push her head against the wall, put her stupid nurse's mask in her teeth, and bend her tiny little shoulders back until tears are in her eyes. Eules weigh almost nothing at all compared to the other units. She could lift her up effortlessly. 

November cleanly unscrews and detaches the remains of Zwei's right arm, right on the red stripe. From somewhere next to Zwei she takes the replacement and it clicks into place. She still has her limbs disabled, so she can't feel the screws being tightened.

"Last is your legs. This is easy." She turns to Mai. "Could you help with the operation report?"

"Sure," Mai chirps, looking excited to just be away from here. They sound almost identical but Zwei is starting to figure out that it is, in fact, possible to differentiate them. Mai leaves again, presumably to go wash her hands and start filing paperwork.

"So, Storch Zwei, how would you rate today's operation?" November says, returning to a professional tone of voice. She plucks out embedded rocks from Zwei's legs with a pair of tweezers and fills in the gaps with repair spray.

"Zero stars."

"Wow," November says. "That's the lowest yet. Even though I got a complicated multi-step emergency maintenance done in an hour."

"It seems wildly unprofessional to me to try to make a pass at your own patient mid-operation."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Controller. Everything was standard procedure." November looks as innocent as a lamb, with her long-lashed owlish eyes. 

Overly so. She knows what she did. 

She leans over between Zwei's knees, her head not far from being between her thighs, as she keeps pulling debris out. "If you feel unusual, you can tell me and I can see if I can treat it."

"You're insane. There's something wrong with you."

"I'm the only Eule who'll do the worst of the morgue work." Left unsaid is I have to be. 

"If I see you in the showers I'm taking you apart."

"It's a deal, Zwei."