531

Burn It All Down

532 couldn't see any flaws in the building's security. Whoever had set the apartment up was good at the job. It was a decrepit-looking place on the outside on the outer edges of the Builds where they tried to creep up into the view of the skylines. Past a front room that was needlessly gaudy, 532 followed 531 up the stairs to the next story and was in the comfort of a high-end security unit. It would have taken a lot to hide a place like this, but he figured 531 must have planned for any contingency. It was what they were programmed to do.

He was on radio silence from his handlers. 531 said once his memories returned he would understand the necessity. 532 followed orders. He had databases with their older mission files that had already been retrieved. He and 531 were an efficient team and he had no reason to question the other AI.

Something wasn't right though. There was something in his processors that felt foreign.

"531, I need to run diagnostics," he said as he moved away from the stairs and into the room where 531 waited.

531 was disappointed. 532 could read it in the set of his eyes and the way his muscles tensed. 531 was the best imitation of human life Mariner Tech had ever created. It gave him away to 532's programming though.

"Call me Yi. I got tired of the numbers a long time ago."

532 opened his mouth to remark on the use of names when 531 held up a hand to stop him. "The bedroom is right there. You can clean up and run your diagnostics in there."

There was no reason to leave the room, but he nodded, following orders he didn't understand.

The bedroom was white, but warm splashes of honey and green hues trimmed the furnishings and fabrics. A large window looked out across the skylines with the finest security screen and protection modes. He looked down at his body but there was nothing to 'clean up' so he sat on the edge of the bed and began to run his diagnostics.

It was disconcerting. His files had been moved multiple times and he could see the trace of clumsy hands in his head. What he couldn't detect were traces of his own self-scans. Even without the files that constituted his memory, he should be able to see his self-diagnostics over the years.

Pain seared his right eye and he flinched at the unexpected feeling. He ignored the pain but focused on the part of the diagnostic that had caused the reaction. It wasn't in the screening though. He dug further into his processors and saw the root of the problem. The memories he was retrieving.

He delved deeper into it, but the pain exploded like lightning through his brain. He slid off the bed, clutching his head against the pressure. He saw blood dripping from his lip where he'd bitten it. His brain made automatic comparisons between the liquid and human blood, but he tried to understand where he had developed a habit of biting his lip. He flinched as a half-formed memory screamed behind his eyelids, of being tied to a table and treated as nothing more than a piece of metal.

He was just a piece of metal.

No. He wasn't.

He dropped until his head rested against the floor. He filled false lungs with deep breaths because somewhere in his memories he knew it was helpful. Shuttered breath and eyes filled with tears and 532 wanted to shut down and stop the memory retrieval, but he had orders. He was made to deal with the pain, to function even within that state.

He tried to pull up the newest records he had, but they were years old. A mission gone wrong on the other side of the world, a politician who should have been alone but had a small private force waiting for them when they arrived. He remembered the erratic data that came from his thoughts, from the look of 531 on the table, skin sliced and stretched open as they repaired the damage he'd taken when he pushed 532 out of a bullet's trajectory.