Machine ID: V1
Day 1, 0600
Met at the boundary line between campus and the woods. V2’s carrying most of our supplies. Mirage refuses to put her mic in my wings. Turns out I left an entire floor tom in Wing_04 and had to run back to leave it in my dorm. V2 will never let me live that down.
Gabriel says he hasn’t had any episodes since that night. It seems to be entirely random. He swears he’ll tell me if he needs a distraction from the pain but I can tell he doesn’t want to burden me. Stupid angel.
Headed into the woods just as the sun began to rise.
Day 1, 0734
Mirage heard an interesting bird but we were being too loud so it flew away before she could switch on the mic. She’s walking around with the thing switched on the entire time now and hoping she has enough storage. So far she’s been capturing nothing but the sounds of us walking on dried leaves and V2 trying to teach Gabriel to identify birds.
By virtue of having feathers I think he can be classified as a bird. A massive bird. Though there’s the matter of his body being more mammalian. Why should he fit into either category? He’s an angel. By nature created for a specific purpose. Ironic, isn’t it.
Can he even see like we do? He keeps mistaking the koels for spotted doves. My visuals are low and even I can tell them apart. Their wingbeats sound different, should I teach him that? V2’s leading him away to check out a cool mushroom.
Mirage has placed her mic in a conveniently-shaped tree hole. Not sure what she picked up but she seemed happy when she rewound the recording.
Day 1, 0904
Straight shot to the transmission tower. Still a full-day trip. V2’s written down almost twenty distinct bird species now. I told her the last one shouldn’t count since it’s a subspecies but she told me to shut up and threw a branch at me.
Gabriel seems tired. Asked if he was okay, he said he didn’t expect the Council’s punishment to wear him down so much. Asked about the Ferryman.
No reply yet to his emails.
Tried to cheer him up by grabbing his ankles when he was checking out a pond. Startled the frogs. He dragged me down with him while shouting at me about how reckless and dangerous it was. I feel like his point would have been stronger if he hadn’t been trying to strangle me. Don’t know why he thought that would work.
V2 took a picture of us in the pond. We’ve been begging her to delete it for the past hour. No progress.
Day 1, 1458
V2 caught a cuckoo. Wretched creature. By its nature it takes and destroys. Gabriel let it go but it seemed to like him too much to take off from its perch on his hand.
Mirage managed to record its panicked chirp when I nudged it off Gabriel’s fingers. He swore at me for that and I offered to square off right then and there. He muttered something about needing an open area for a fairer fight.
What’s happened to him? I liked it better when he was threatening to kill me every other sentence. Something’s put out his fire and it feels wrong. I thought if he managed to work out his guilt over everything he’s done he’d start feeling better. Is that not how it works?
To be fair most people make mistakes like not handing in their assignments and breaking their neighbour’s windows, not removing an old man’s face and blinding another one. Maybe he needs more time.
He keeps staring at me when he thinks I’m not looking. I don’t know what he wants from me. I’m not exactly the best at offering consolation.
Day 1, 1600
Lake.
Mirage won’t take off her clothes to dry them even though I’m pretty sure there’s nothing to see. I could be wrong. V2 just skirts around the question when I ask her about it.
Gabriel only removed his coat. The gold lines on his waist show through wet clothes. I’ve seen him naked so I don’t know why I’m so fixated on that. I’m pretty sure I’m not capable of feeling arousal with war-machine hardware.
V2 took off her jacket. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her like this. Nothing to hide the fact that she’s a machine. She still looks just like me.
It’s weird. I keep thinking about our last fight back home, when I had my hands in her wires and she was clawing at my chestplate. Raw efficiency: we fight to keep our instincts in check, no time wasted on anything except refuelling. But now she reads books page by page and listens to vinyls in full. Enjoying living, like something alive.
Mirage took her from me and that was for the best.
Day 1, 2028
Started raining. V2 pitched tents in record time. Don’t want to be anywhere near Gabriel while I’m this agitated and I don’t want Mirage interrogating me. I think she got the hint so I’m sharing a tent with V2.
We decided to rest for now. Mostly for Gabriel’s benefit. He’s not nearly as strong as he was a week ago. The light emanating from his tent is dim.
V2 keeps trying to talk to me.
~~~
‘Hey. Hey.’
V2 pokes V1 in the neck again. Giving in, V1 turns to her, arms crossed, the two of them curled up under the smaller tent. The rain is as relentless as ever, the pattering of raindrops drowning out every sound other than V2’s jarring synth.
‘What is it?’
‘Just asking if you’re ever going to kiss him.’
V1 props itself up on an elbow.
‘No way.’
‘I’ve seen the way you look at him.’ V2 crosses her legs, staring up into the darkness. ‘Me and Mirage have a bet on who’s going to initiate. Please, you have to win this.’
‘Have fun losing all your money,’ signs V1. V2 flips it off, a gesture it returns in kind. ‘We’re not going to become a thing.’
V2 sighs. ‘So that really was a one-night… one-afternoon stand.’
‘Why do you want me to be with someone so badly?’
‘Not anyone. Him. You want him.’
V1 wishes it could snort. ‘Stop projecting. You have two hands and Mirage won’t mind.’
V2 stretches out like a cat, the glow of her eye the only thing it can see in the darkness. ‘Okay. Sure.’
It doesn’t like her tone.
She continues, ‘He’s a bit of a loser, actually.’
‘The being a cop part? Yeah.’ V1 swings its legs. ‘He has mental illnesses we’ve never heard of. He’s weird. Alright, he’s cute but in a crusader knight way. “On my honour, m’lady”.’
V2 laughs. V1 rolls onto its side to face her.
‘I don’t—can’t love him. Not like you love Mirage.’
V2 seems shocked. V1 has the strangest sense that it is six or seven years younger again, thrumming with energy and aching for a purpose that was stripped from it. ‘I am built for war.’
‘So am I.’ She goes to tug at the wires near her neck but stops herself at the last moment. ‘You can change, too.’
‘Only because you’re a failure of a war machine.’
It expects V2 to pounce and readies itself, gathering potential energy in its legs. Instead the other machine sighs and lies back down. ‘Now that’s just sad.’
‘Throw a rock at me then.’
‘You haven’t changed at all. I don’t mean that as a compliment.’
V1 lifts itself onto its haunches but V2 is turning away, curling up to sleep. ‘Night.’
It listens to the sound of rain, the soft rustling of V2’s wings as she twitches in her sleep, and the sound of its own beating heart reverberating through the same old metal shell.
~~~
Machine ID: V1
Day 2, 0749
Rain stopped. Helped V2 pack. She’s not talking to me but that might be because she’s found a new batch of mushrooms on a tree.
Apparently mycelia make sounds because Mirage held a mic next to the caps for a good ten minutes.
She’s recording the frogs singing now.
Gabriel looks tired. We offered to turn back right here but he wouldn’t hear any of it. Mirage was telling him about the transmission tower last night, apparently, and he doesn’t know as much about human technology as he would like.
This reminds me, how old is he? I try to ask him but he pretends to not see me.
We continue moving.
Day 2, 1023
Transmission tower visible. We’ve picked up the pace. The mud is annoying but we deal with it.
Day 2, 1101
Tower.
~~~
Mirage is the first to climb over the chain-link fence around the tower, landing on the other side with her mic outstretched.
‘I think it’s safe,’ she says. ‘The landmines are just a rumour.’
‘Did you have to test that?’ says V2, climbing to join her. V1 bends its legs, storing energy, before unleashing it all at once and landing right next to Mirage.
Gabriel is the only one on the other side now. V1 tilts its head at him.
‘Come on. No landmines.’
He unfurls his wings, lifting himself over the fence. When he lands he looks winded, bent over at the waist, panting.
‘We’re close.’
Gabriel nods and follows the others.
He hasn’t spoken a word since this morning.
Mirage makes a mad dash for the bottom of the transmission tower. A metal behemoth, four thin legs folded under its weight, the long neck extending from its body keeled over. A six-eyed head is mounted atop the neck, moss and vines climbing up to its eyes, a carpet of green draped over its back. Veins of green threading through its rusted, exposed mechanism, a net keeping its metal insides in place. Trees grow on its back, a whole second forest, large enough to contain a small town.
A familiar feeling stirs within V1. It should know what this is, but the segment of data it reaches for turns up blank.
V2 seems to share the same feelings. ‘Hey, Mirage,’ she says, raising her voice to be heard above the rising wind. ‘I don’t think this is a transmission tower.’
Mirage points at the antenna connected to the head of the great machine. ‘That’s the only part you can see when you’re on campus.’
‘It’s an Earthmover.’
Gabriel’s voice is cracked from lack of use. V2 jumps, turning to him, wings spread out like a startled insect.
‘A defunct war machine.’ He is looking at V1. ‘Due to their sheer size, most of them could not be properly maintained with our current resources. Most chose to shut themselves down.’
‘It’s still humming.’
Mirage lifts her mic, walking closer to the behemoth. V2 follows close behind, hurtling noisily through the long grass.
V1 stands and listens.
It feels, rather than hears the noise. A low drone, travelling from the enormous machine to the ground before reaching its own legs. V1 kneels down, resting a hand palm-down on the grass.
It hears a thump to its left and sees Gabriel doing the same. His head is bowed, hands braced against the ground, whispering to himself.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Yet Gabriel is praying now, hands clasped, whispering to this machine who, after death, still cries for its creators. Do other machines pray to God, to a creator, to anyone that might listen? Maybe this one does, reaching out in vain for an answer that will never come.
Gabriel finishes his prayer, rising unsteadily to his knees. V1 rushes forward, grabbing him by the shoulder to steady him.
‘I haven’t prayed since I came here,’ he says, staring off into the distance. Is he talking to V1?
It doesn’t move, too scared to break the spell.
‘I knew then, as I know now, that I would receive no answer. Why would anything change? He has not spoken to me in years.
‘What have I done to make Him abandon me? Has my faith faltered? Does the Council…’
He inhales sharply. V1 runs a hand down his back, following the ridges of his spine.
‘Oh, God.’
He rests his weight on his knees, head tilting back to meet the six-eyed gaze of the Earthmover.
‘This path… is it mine to tread now? Alone?’
V1 does not—cannot answer him. Gabriel’s breathing is unsteady, sounding as if he is about to cry. V1 takes him into its arms, realising for the first time the softness of his flesh, the warmth of his skin.
It wants to tear him open, tear out anything that hurts him—but it knows nothing is ever that simple.
‘V1, you missed out,’ says V2, practically skipping across the grass to get to them. She stops dead in her tracks when she sees the two of them, neither of them sure where one starts and the other begins.
Mirage follows soon after, tucking her mic back into V2’s wings.
‘Ran out of disk space,’ she says. ‘Let’s go.’
She sounds kinder than she usually does.
‘Just… a moment, please.’ Gabriel isn’t moving, still holding onto V1 as tightly as he can.
‘Sure.’ Mirage looks up at the Earthmover. ‘We’ve got all the time in the world.’
just when you think my music taste can't get shittier... i am introducing to you to pulse demon by merzbow. go on. listen to it. it won't hurt you :3
also this chapter title's reference is a bit more obscure but it's from godspeed you! black emperor's 'like antennas to heaven' (haha ultrakill reference 7-4 earthmover). part V of that song is called "She Dreamt She Was a Bulldozer, She Dreamt She Was Alone in an Empty Field". i figured it'd fit the imagery here without directly referencing like antennas to heaven like the actual game.
also also. technically this fic is now entirely finished in the google doc. now i just have to edit some parts and continue this twice a week posting schedule until all 26 parts are out.
peace out!