E-UNIT: The Blue Angels of Death.

Chapter 141: Expendable.

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

Chapter 141: Expendable‎ Ding.

The elevator doors split open. Four figures stepped out into the garden and stopped.

The space was barely recognizable. The pixelated sky had gone dark, a solid deep blue with a white error message floating in the upper corner: [Sky_Simulator.app disconnected]. The lighting had dropped to a level that required sensors to navigate rather than eyes. Plants had been knocked from their positions.

White walls carried smears and scuffs from whatever had been moved past them in a hurry. Doors hung at wrong angles. Lights flickered where they hadn't been turned off entirely.

This was 11's first time inside the Hope Bubble. She had expected more.

24 and Infinity kept their expressions flat. Esoptron followed behind them without sound, the frame of the void in his face running orange, the crystal floating in the chamber with occasional arcs of electricity moving from it into the dark interior of his head.

"What did they do to this place?" 24 turned in a slow circle, taking it in from every angle.

"They left in a hurry," Esoptron replied, his voice carrying the calm detachment of a transit announcement. "Cabling has been left wherever it fell. Maintaining this facility requires active system monitoring, they shut it down the way a person turns off the gas before leaving on a trip. Basic safety, nothing more."

Infinity had her HUD open, scanning her archived footage from when she'd operated here. "They took the power crystals. This building ran on three. I doubt they left all of them behind, but one crystal can't sustain full operation. My guess is they left enough to keep the oxygen systems running."

"You draw connections the way your father does," Esoptron said, in the same level tone. "That is worth developing."

Infinity smiled. "I know I won't reach him. But I'll work on closing the gap."

The group moved into the main building. Broken doors, flickering corridors, walls marked with the evidence of rapid packing and movement.

11 stopped beside a crate of wireless drives that had been left on the floor and crouched to read the labels. "Water and oxygen level readings across the years. Nothing useful." She scrolled through the dates. Then she slowed. "Wait. The recent figures are still climbing. They left the people here."

"The most logical approach," Esoptron said. "Establish a position in the Veridian Coast, then return for the population once the infrastructure is in place. Their captain plans the way Lord Reaper plans when he is sitting at his throne. She does not leave obvious gaps."

24 stalled for a second.

Infinity ran her SSD at speed, the cooling vents in her neck audible. "My records show the population was distributed across the outer buildings. If that hasn't changed, they're all still here."

"Then we should leave them alone," 24 said.

The other three looked at her.

"Lord Reaper's order was to wait. He and Metis confirmed their plan, they're coming back for the civilians. We hold position and intercept 02 when she returns."

11's laugh was short and dry. "First—you think 02 is coming back alone? She came back in the Omega body, took my purple crystal, and used it to revive Delta. How do you think Delta is operating right now?" She folded her arms. "Second, this is the opportunity. We strike the population and she never comes back. And if she does, we fight her here where we control the ground."

24 crossed the space between them. "You're telling me you want to use those people to settle something personal."

"What if I am?" 11's voice dropped.

24 looked at Infinity. "This wasn't the arrangement. When we chose to follow you, the condition was no civilians. That was the line. And she's already moving to cross it."

Clang.

11's uppercut caught 24 across the face and put her on the floor, with a crack of heavy metal against metal.

11 touched the wall beside her. The metal conduction spread through her frame and she began to glow red, her eyes shifting with it. "What level of idealism is this? 'Don't touch civilians', where do you think you are? A story where consequences get resolved by the next chapter?" Matter pulled from the walls and reformed behind 24.

24 started to push herself up.

Something cold pressed the back of her head. She didn't need to turn to identify the shape of a barrel. Yet, she turned. Dozens of weapons were floating behind her, snipers, assault rifles, shotguns, all aimed at the same point.

She turned back to 11. "You're pointing weapons at a sister."

"If the mission requires it," 11 said, "I'll do it again."

The word landed differently than 11 had intended. "Again," 24 repeated, quietly.

Infinity placed her hand on 11's shoulder. "Stand down. She understood the message." The weapons hung in the air between them. "Pointing weapons at an ally is not something father would recognize as leadership. And she has a point, killing the civilians gains us nothing tactically. They're more useful as leverage when 02 returns."

"We need to—"

"11." Infinity's voice was even but final. "Don't let a personal grudge compromise the larger objective. I made a promise when these units came with us, and I will not let you make me break it because you lost a fight to someone father himself has not yet chosen to face directly."

"Explain that," Esoptron said. The orange in his frame brightened slightly.

Infinity helped 24 to her feet. "Father has been developing new protocols and running private training sessions that he hasn't announced to anyone. He told me himself that a direct confrontation with 02 is coming and he is not certain of the outcome at her current level. He said he's focusing on one variable and hoping it holds."

She picked up one of the remaining floating weapons and studied it. "He's hoping that what we're seeing now is the ceiling of what 02 can do, that her current form is her best form, so he has a fixed point to work toward. The Omega crystal is unique and she's using it at a level that shouldn't be possible for someone who isn't its original host. So he keeps sending us in to study her, looking for the crack."

11 dismissed the last of the weapons, the energy dissolving into particles around her. "That's an optimistic read of the situation. She put a precision energy shield at the exact coordinates I was aiming for before I moved. That's not just power, that's a defense system running separately from her conscious control. If we're looking for cracks, we might not find any."

"I know." Infinity exhaled. "But testing her is the only method we have. We fight, we study the results, we report back." She turned to Esoptron. "And father built you specifically for one purpose in all of this, didn't he?" She looked directly at his featureless face, watching the orange crystal spin in the void. "Is your only assignment to stand back, watch 02 put us down, and then retrieve our crystals from our corpses?"

Esoptron said nothing. He didn't even shift his weight. The silence was its own kind of answer.

11 struck the floor. The crack spread from the impact point across the tiles. Her voice was quiet, which was somehow worse than when she was loud. "At least tell me that, Lord Reaper."

24 had already moved several meters back and was watching 11 from a distance, saying nothing.

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