9.5 – Broken Under the Weight

E-UNIT · VOLUME 9 · GUESTS AND GHOSTS

CHAPTER 220

"Hmm, hmmm, hmm, hmmm."

The humming traveled out into the hallway through the door that had been open for months. Rain provided the background, filling the gaps between the hums the way nature does when it has no other agenda, consistent and patient. The wall window had become a large natural painting: the dark sea on one half, fixed on its own grey-dark color, and the sky on the other wearing its favorite white coat and slowly losing it to the weather.

Shelly sat at her desk, humming without awareness of it, completely unbothered by her brother's absence. She had stopped carrying anxiety about his wellbeing some time ago, she knew what he was capable of at a system level, and that knowledge was its own kind of peace. Her legs moved idly as she worked, the hovering chair keeping her above the floor the way she preferred.

"Hmmm. Hmm." She lifted her eyes from the screen after twelve continuous hours of design work. ‘I wonder whether brother will let me come to the one-year anniversary. Elysium has never had anything like it, this is singular. I don't want to miss it.’ She smiled at the thought. ‘He'll agree. He's not as cold as he used to be.’

Nick Rivera’s old smartphone sat beside her main screen, ancient, fully charged, and currently more useful than half of Metis. Shelly had broken six of the passwords in the last day. All of them had been embarrassing in the same direction. She had not told Metis that part. Let them keep struggling. It built character.

She heard two sets of steps coming down the corridor, one heavy and deliberate, one trying to match that quality and not quite arriving there. ‘I've memorized the pattern by now. The rhythm today suggests he'll be calm.’ She descended from the chair and stood at the doorway, arms already opening, eyes bright.

"Welcome back, brother—"

The words stopped.

Three figures came through the door. Her arms came down on their own. Her eyes went fully wide, the pupils contracting and moving between faces before settling on one.

"Good morning, E-UNIT 00." Reaper's voice was its standard temperature, and he gestured for the two androids beside him to enter. Xidia came through first, a floating screen with oversized UI buttons following her at face level, staying in her field of view regardless of where she turned. Then Omega, moving on her own, inside Shelly's designed proxy frame, with one addition:

Kuantum had replaced the golden halo with one that floated cyan.

Everything was clicking together in Shelly's processing, the pieces connecting faster than she wanted them to. She looked at her brother. Cold as always, but the way he was looking at her was different, like the emotional residue that had climbed back to ninety percent over the months had been turned back.

Omega settled on the bed, legs crossed. Reaper took one of the chairs. Xidia floated around the room examining the poster collection on the walls.

"Impressive." Xidia said it with the flatness of a weather report, then returned to her screen.

Shelly sat down on the floor. Her legs had stopped cooperating with the concept of standing. "Brother?"

"E-UNIT 00, how are you today?" Same tone. No variation. "I understand you've been making the most of the home arrangement I set up for you. You're halfway through it."

"B-Brother, why are you using that—"

"I think you know precisely what's happening." He glanced at Omega. She nodded. "For reasons I can't entirely explain, your SSD is sealed from my reading. But I can see what you're thinking about perfectly well, 00. Tell me."

Shelly's face went somewhere dark. Her eyes found Xidia. "Drop that designation first."

"You're not in a position to make requests." Xidia smiled with calculated warmth, she has been waiting for this specific moment for a long time. "Please proceed and give Lord Reaper what he asked for."

Shelly looked at the floor. The cream of it. "Omega woke up."

"Correct." Xidia pressed a checkmark on her screen.

Shelly could see the green reflecting off the floor's surface. "She told you she never agreed to give up her life for 02. That I forced her into dormancy so 02 could surface."

"Correct again." Another checkmark.

The green on the floor was intensifying. It didn't feel like the green of good things. "Now you're deciding what my punishment is, something that fits the weight of what I did to someone dear to you…" She registered the color on the floor change.

She raised her head and regretted it immediately.

The green had been coming from Reaper's green eye. It was bleeding red now, steady and direct, with none of the warm register that had slowly built up over months.

"Can I defend myself? I think there's been a significant misunderstanding."

"You have exactly two sentences, 00." Reaper stood. "Explain why you did that to Omega. Then we move to the punishment. I already know you have nothing that holds."

"Please don't call me 00." Shelly's voice had lost some of its footing. "I did it because I was afraid. With her present, I would always be Shell 101 to her and to you. I needed to be myself without her existence literally covering mine. I felt no different to you than Shell 131 or any other model in the line."

Reaper lowered himself to her eye level. He was calm. Completely and specifically calm. "Then why did I give you the name Shelly? I risked myself during Tamer's regime to come back for you, Shell 101 specifically, and refused to let you go. Your reason, even coming from a real place, doesn't justify killing your sister and the person whose body you were using."

"She was suffering from 02's fragmented memories."

"So you ended her?"

Shelly looked away. Her eyes landed on one of the newer posters, one she'd put up recently. Reaper in it, collapsing an entire military unit to reach her, destroying himself in the process to save her. She looked at the image for a long moment.

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to share you."

"I am deeply disappointed." He stood to his full height. "Disappointed deeply enough that the anger couldn't hold. From now on I expect the worst from you. Including the fact that you still haven't looked at Omega once since she came into this room." He turned to Omega.

Omega shook her head gently. "Shelly, I understand—"

"You don't!" Shelly came apart finally, turning on Omega fully. "Stop performing the patient older sister, you were never that. You enabled everything father did. You accepted every instruction and refused to let me act. You used the link to force me into the Hope Bubble, and now you stand there like you care about me?"

"I was obligated—"

Shelly crossed the room in a few fast wide steps and put her face directly in front of Omega's. "No. You. Were. Not." Each word placed separately. "You were another instrument he controlled. I begged you to act, to help me get brother out of Metro Robotics, to leave that country and go somewhere that wasn't under his shadow. You held onto hope that he would change."

"He was our father!"

"Do you know what I did to him?" Shelly's smile arrived and had nothing warm in it. "I killed him. His head on the floor. And the only thing I regret is not recording it, I was too excited to wait."

Omega sat back down. Her expression, what the new frame could produce of one, became empty. She looked at Reaper. He nodded once.

She lay back against the bed, going somewhere inside herself.

Shelly turned to Reaper. The smile was already leaving her face before she completed the turn.

Reaper's voice carried nothing. "No regret. No remorse. Still carrying the pride of someone who would do it again." He looked at her without recognition. "Who are you? Where is the Shelly I know?"

"I am her." Shelly's head dropped. "I just…"

Reaper looked at Xidia. He wirelessly transferred his administrative "owner" token to her console. Xidia tapped her terminal once.

Shelly went still.

Everything stopped. Her frame refused every signal she sent it. She couldn't speak, couldn't shift her weight, couldn't turn her head. Only her eyes moved, left and right, searching for something to respond, finding nothing.

She was trapped entirely inside her own skull, completely aware and completely locked, but entombed in a body that had suddenly become a block of unyielding metal. A living thing pressed into the shape of a statue, the kind set outside courthouses to remind people what justice is supposed to look like: blind, balanced, and feeling nothing for whoever stands in front of it.

Reaper turned toward the doorway and paused there, looking back at her over his shoulder. "This is your new sentence. Two full weeks in that position, still, aware, experiencing what Omega experienced when you kept her dormant while using her as a power source for your proxy frame. When the two weeks end, we'll talk about exactly how you imprisoned her."

‘No! Brother, please. This isn't how you do things. This isn't you.’ Her eyes found Xidia. Xidia was smiling. The kind of smile that means something has gone exactly to plan. ‘It's her. She pushed him toward this. Those eyes, she's been wanting this outcome. You'll regret this. You will.’

Xidia left the room. Omega moved into Shelly's limited field of vision on her way out, passing Reaper who still hadn't fully turned away. He was still looking back at her. His red eye shifted green for a moment.

"I'm still conflicted," he said.

"She deserved it." Omega took his arm and moved him forward. She took one last look at the frozen figure in the center of the room. "I hope you sit with it properly this time. Annoying brat."

The door closed.

After months of standing open, the door was closed.

Shelly couldn't cry. Couldn't speak. Couldn't move. She could only sit inside it, the stillness, the awareness, and the silence where the door used to be.

‘I hate you, Omega. I hate every part of what you are. You were always like this, using everything around you as a tool to get what you wanted. I still remember the day you told father about my escape plan with 02.’

A HUD message appeared, floating in the one thing she had left, her own vision.

[Reaper: Hang in there, sister. I'll visit every day.]

The cold that had been in his voice wasn't his, and she knew it the moment she read his words.

‘I knew this wasn't his decision. They're in him like an infection, both of them. Not for much longer.’ She held onto the message. ‘Wait for me. Hang in there too, brother.’

The phone was still on the desk. One more password waiting. One more thing she could have solved if her body still belonged to her.