U.L.T.R.A. Builder

POSTLUDE /// ACT THREE FINALE: The Amalgam

Life at Shelter 7 had returned to the boring monotony that V1 had observed in the past few months. The only exciting moments were in the few days after they had returned from the mission. They were the only days where the day was different, even if the day was mostly just filled with writing reports about the mission.

No one knew why there was a sudden increase in Quarks and Void Particles. It was like an outside influence was controlling the events, pulling strings from a place so high up no one could see.

Even the Cybergrind was getting boring for V1. It had nothing else to do. The machine sat in its room, thinking. It thought about the sentience of Quarks, and the implication it had.

Do they know we're also sentient? Are they invading out of malice? Or do they think we're not intelligent? Why, why are they here?

V1 was interrupted from its thoughts by Uri.

"Yo," said Uri as he waved to V1 in the hallway.

"What's up?"

"Not much, just wanted to talk."

"About what?"

"Not much, just mainly chatting about random stuff."

"Alright... you can come over here and sit down or something."

Uri sat down next to V1, scooting over to avoid its yellow wings.

"So... I've been thinking... about the Quarks and everything. If they're sentient, we should be able to reason with them. But we can't. They don't communicate with each other, but still coordinate things with each other. If we can find a way to communicate with them, we can... we can end this war."

"We might. But, what if the Quarks are doing this on purpose? For the sake of being evil?"

"They might be. But there's you. You were a genocidal war machine, but you came to regret your ways. You changed. I think every being has the capacity to do that."

V1 suddenly remembered its own realization. That it was gaining humanity on its own. It chuckled to itself.

"Uri, you struck deeper than you meant to, without even knowing it."

"I can see your point. The one issue is that we can't communicate with them."

"If only we had a way to do that," Uri looked down dejectedly as he said that.

"Wait. Aren't we killing sentient beings by fighting off the Quarks."

"Oh, right. We never told you. When we say 'Quarks', we refer to the Void Particles. The bodies you see are just their manifestation. When a Quark 'dies', it just decomposes back into pure Void Particles."

"That's... very interesting physiology."

"Yeah. There's a lot of things we don't know about them."

Uri looked up at the ceiling.

"This war has been going on for ages. I wonder if I'll live to see the end of it..."

"I know we will. Trust me."

"Thank you, V1."

Uri didn't know how long he sat there, next to V1. It felt like hours had gone by with them just sitting together, in V1's silent room.

Their silence was interrupted by Reina walking in on them.

"V1 they- Oh. Did I interrupt something?"

Uri quickly stood up.

"Nah, we were just talking, What is it?"

"Well... Command wants everyone to come down and look at something in the control room," she answered, looking nervous.