E-UNIT: The Blue Angels of Death.

Chapter 133: A Day Off in Theria.

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

Chapter 133: A Day Off in Theria‘I am Infinity. Two months old, multiple missions already assigned and completed. Not that I'm complaining.

The past two weeks have been straightforward, office work, data collection, performance analysis. Father likes metrics on everyone, including me.’

It was exactly 9:00 AM. I stepped off the charging station he'd recently had installed in the repair room, smoothed every wrinkle from my clothes, fixed my silk-textured hair, and ran a cleaning pass over my white metallic finish three times. Maintaining that level of white is not a casual commitment.

‘If I had any say in the matter, the charging station would be inside his office so I could watch him work while my battery filled. Not possible. And he's barely been in there the past few weeks anyway.’

I scanned the repair room out of habit. No missing E-UNIT components today, which meant 11 and Shelly hadn't returned yet from their assigned postings. ‘The engineers filed a complaint with father last week about how frequently 11 goes through leg components, and apparently Shelly's new power occasionally melts parts of herself.’

I left the room and went to check on father's office, as usual. I tried to peer through the glass door carefully, which is difficult when your optics glow blue in a dark corridor. The office was empty. ‘He promised me an outing today.’

I made my way to the throne room, passing the mechs in the corridors. Their numbers had been growing steadily. ‘Peak production rate hit last week, I think. Multiple industrial complexes converted to mech and robot manufacturing, father and Behemoth have been talking about it constantly.’

The throne room doors opened. Father was on the throne, running through approximately twenty screens simultaneously. My RAM allows me to track six at once comfortably.

‘How much RAM does he have.’

I tried to approach from the side and get a look at the screens. Two of them showed 11 and the E-PHONEUS heading south in an AC-130. ‘Which means—'

"You're fully charged, Infinity." Father said it without turning around, in his usual register, cold on the surface, warm underneath if you know what to listen for.

"Yes." I stepped around to face him properly. He'd told me not to kneel or bow. ‘I think he wants at least one person who acts normally around him.’ "I took longer than usual. I think my battery is already showing wear."

"I cleared three hours." He said it the way a very tired executive announces a board meeting. "We can have the outing I owe you, the Western State is off the map, and I have the time. But… where do you want to go?"

I watched his green and red eyes. It was the first time I'd heard him use but as a genuine uncertainty rather than a segue into a technical explanation. ‘He's never taken a day off, has he.’ I kept my face composed. In my E-UNIT dataset, androids dislike being observed struggling with something they assume they should know.

"There's a new commercial district in the east of Theria I wanted to see," I said. "There's a store that developed an energy drink from the crystals, formulated for robots, supposed to provide an energy boost."

"Interesting." He leaned back. "Though the crystals we've sourced outside the G-Bot collection aren't comparable. None of them carry that quality, the sense that there's something alive inside them. The energy is present but inert. We ran brace trials and got nothing."

‘He's using my outing as a debrief. Father. Come on.’ I cleared my non-existent throat. "Right. What do you think of the idea? We could have the drink while you tell me something from before all of this. How did you meet Shelly, for instance." His head tilted slightly.

‘There it is.’

"Very well." A short laugh. "I can't actually drink anything, having no mouth, and I don't require the energy, but let's go." He rose from the throne in one measured motion.

‘Yes. Finally. I genuinely thought he was developing an emotional attachment to that chair.’

We walked out of the massive glass-walled throne room and descended the steps of the Sea Castle together, not for a mission. First time.

Moving through Theria's streets, every robot we passed bowed and resumed what they were doing. Most of Elysium's robot population lived in the capital, and since work hours had been capped at six daily, there was a visible amount of free time being used in a visible amount of ways. ‘Is that a joint-oiling service? Behemoth would benefit from a visit.’

The path ahead of us had already cleared. Not pushed aside, precisely opened, extending all the way to where we were going, like someone had mapped our route in advance.

‘How did anyone know where we were headed. Wait.’

I pulled up my HUD and went to “Automatica”. I found his profile and found the post immediately.

‘He announced our outing. With timestamps. Every detail of the route. He hit the character limit.’

"Did you really need to post that?" I said, the annoyance coming through despite my effort to contain it. "And why is it your only post?"

"I only share what matters most to me." He said it without looking over.

My CPU started running his words against the available context in real time. The contradictions were immediate. "Father, you've established relationships with countries, dismantled Altea, and erased the Western State's military capacity. Our outing can't compete with any of that for significance."

He glanced at me. "Even if I'd taken the entire world, I wouldn't have put it next to this post." A pause. "You're my daughter."

My head went down before I'd decided to move it.

‘Since when. Or was it always this way and I just didn't know how to read it. I need a different subject.’ "I, right. Okay. Can I ask, who is Shelly? I know she has an E-UNIT body. I know she was an Omega shell. But what is she, exactly?"

"Excellent question."

‘Is he about to give me a corporate briefing.’

"I don't know," he said.

I stopped walking. "What."

"I mean that genuinely." His tone hadn't changed. "She presented as an Omega shell, behaving as Omega, essentially being Omega for all practical purposes. What concerns me is that none of the other shells developed anything like her level of independent thought. And her account of how she survived is consistently thin. I've asked her directly. What I get back is either vague or deflected."

I scanned my SSD, pulling everything I had on Shelly's behavioral patterns. "That is unusual. I'm looking for—"

"I used her name as a test," he added. "Called her Omega to her face and watched. She didn't react at all. Didn't turn around. Whatever she is, she's not Omega wearing a different frame." He was quiet for a moment. "My working theory is that Nick placed an independent E-UNIT inside the shell to regulate Omega's output, Omega's energy control wasn't reliable, and he needed a stabilizer."

‘Nick was many things, but even he had limits on how far he'd push an E-UNIT into that kind of role. Something about this doesn't close properly.’ I ran the behavioral data again, looking for the pattern.

"Stop."

I looked up. "What?"

"This is your day off. Let it go for now."

I smiled. ‘Fine. I'll pay him back for the dry jokes.’ "We don't get tired, father."

"Your battery draining faster than it should says otherwise." He kept walking. "After we try this energy drink of yours, we're going to upgrade your hardware. No more charging after that."

"I know, but—" I finished the thought internally. ‘Did you really just ignore my joke entirely.’

We reached the store. A server arrived at the table before we'd settled, father's post had included the time of arrival down to the minute.

"Your post has a hundred and twenty million likes," I said, taking the first sip. I turned the cup in my hands. "You're living 04's dream, you realize."

"What's stopping me from being an influencer?" He focused on me with complete seriousness. "Imagine the content. Today I will detonate the moon. You will not believe what happens next."

I laughed properly, which doesn't happen often. "With a thumbnail of you in mock surprise throwing something at a white circle."

"And it wouldn't be clickbait," he said. His eyes shifted to red. "Imagine the impact—"

"Okay—" I set the drink down.

The red faded back to green. "Don't take that literally. Your face went three shades darker."

"Right." I couldn't stop the smile. The regret in his voice was the funniest part. I pushed the cup aside. "This drink is terrible, by the way. No taste at all."

"You don't have taste receptors."

"The principle still applies." I leaned back and turned my attention to the street, cars in perfect rows, robots moving between them with the particular efficiency of a city that had decided to get things right. "I wonder what it's going to look like. The future. Whether robots stay free and keep developing independently, or whether humans eventually build something that rolls all of us back to baseline function."

"We don't watch the future unfold." He leaned slightly toward me. "We write it before it has the chance to write us. The weak wait to find out what their story says. The strong decide it."

‘Where is he getting these lines. I need access to his drive library.’

He stood suddenly. "Do you want to write yours?"

I looked at him. ‘He used the same line twice. Is this what leaders do?’ "Yes. Obviously. But please don't post about it."

"I'm going to post about it."

I stood beside him. His frame towered over everything in the immediate vicinity, which I had long since stopped noticing and then started noticing again from a different angle. "Then at least take a good photo of me."

"That's my call." He said it so flatly that I couldn't tell if he was joking. Which was probably the point.

"We are going to work on your delivery, father." I looked up at him. ‘Nick treated the E-UNIT the way he did. And this is what I got instead. I think I might be the luckiest thing ever built.’

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