seed of [ERROR: DATA EXPUNGED]

by Decima (AngstyChaosMagicUser)

Summary:

A2 closes her eyes at the end of things...

And then opens them in 2011, in a world still full of humans - and of parahumans.

She would like to lodge a complaint about this.

Notes:

N.b.: mostly follows the anime timeline for NieR Automata. Should be sensible even to game-only fans, though. For Worm-only fans... Honestly, I have no clue, and this includes extreme spoilers for Automata. Would recommend watching at least the anime (it's complete, only 24 episodes and I promise you will in no way at all regret this decision) first, but hopefully this'll still be comprehensible to people only reading for Worm? Could use feedback on that, though.

This is also going to be shorter than my other multi-chapter automata fic (it better be) with only 5 planned arcs. I've got through the end of the 3rd arc planned out in terms of major beats, past that is fuzzier though.

Planning to update this roughly once a week (hoping also that having more stories to bounce between when I'm a little stuck will help me get back up to the 'one chapter a day' writing speed I had going for endless cycle; speaking of, next ch of that should be up tomorrow), roughly 2-3k word chapter lengths. Unsure how many chapters per arc, but hopefully will total below 100k by the time it's done. ...Hopefully. I might cry if this spirals out as much as endless cycle has ^.^;

Chapter 1: 1.1 - flowers for hum[A]nity

I never quite realized… How beautiful this world is…

 

[...]

 

A2 keeps her eyes open as long as she can, while the Tower crumbles around her and her body falls, arm stretched towards the sky - 

And then - 

I'm coming, everyone - 

Nothing. 

<To a new world.>

[...]

<To a new future.>

LOADING - BOOTING SYSTEM

 

Commencing System Check

Memory Unit: Green

Initializing Tactics Log

Loading Geographic Data

ERROR 

ERROR

ERROR

Automatically Canceling Geographic Data Request

Initializing Geographic Learning Function 

ERROR

Initializing Map Function 

ERROR

Disabling Functions Reliant on Geographic Data

Vitals: Yellow

Initializing Repair Sequence 

Vitals: Green

Remaining MP: 75%

Initializing Repair Sequence 

Remaining MP: 100%

Black Box Temperature: Normal

Black Box Internal Pressure: Normal

Activating IFF

Activating FCS

Initializing Pod Connection

ERROR 

Pod Connection Initialization Protocol Overridden 

Launching DBU Setup

Activating Inertial Control System

Activating Environmental Sensors

Equipment Authentication: Complete

Equipment Status: Green

All Systems Green

Combat Preparations Complete

 

[...]

 

A2 opens her eyes to a grungy sort of light, as well as to a deep ache throughout her body. She closes her eyes again and groans softly, before trying to roll over and push herself up. 

She… Kind of succeeds. Mostly. She ends up on her front at least, though with a bit more 'boneless collapsing' than 'violent grace.' Annoying when that happens. 

"Pod - ?" she mutters after a few moments, realizing that the floating pain in her ass hasn't said anything yet. That (she's pretty sure snarky) 'Good morning, A2' has been a regular feature of her reboots ever since the damn box started following her around. She gets her hands under her properly, tries to raise her head and look around, tries to remember what the actual fuck she was doing to get this beat up - 

Moving is pretty slow going, but as her systems come fully online, she starts consciously processing ambient noise. There's… The sounds around her are not what she'd normally expect. Vehicle noises aren't too strange in the city ruins, at least not the areas frequented by the Resistance, but there's way too many of them, and the engines are just. Loud. There's also too few birds, but not in a way where they're all just being quiet. 

…And then she remembers what she was doing. 

A2 forces herself to her feet with a surge of power from her black box, Virtuous Contract appearing in her hand in a glittering swirl of golden light. "What the actual fucking fuck," she mutters, gaze darting around the cramped alleyway, the surprisingly intact buildings and lack of grass on the ground under her feet, the wooden fences defining the alleyway - 

The two Pods - 042 and the one that was following 9S around - and one stupid idiot Scanner laying disabled at her feet. 

Hadn't she told the Pods to take care of 9S - ? Did they seriously fuck that up? 

…Also, this is not the ruins of the Tower, nor of any part of the city ruins either she or 2B's ever seen. For one, no one builds fences out of wood??? Seriously, who thinks that's a good idea??? They'd get demolished by even those useless stacked stubbies where the machines apparently forgot to include arms, guns, or at least explosives. Also, the buildings are only two stories, with intact roofs and cladding materials that aren't concrete, and the road here has some grass but it's like, intact, and there's weird blue and green bins next to some stretches of fencing. 

…A2 checks the Pods to see if she can figure out quickly why they aren't rebooting like she did. No dice. There's no external damage, they're just… Turned off, except they don't have any obvious ways to turn them on.

She's not even going to try restarting 9S. The fewer attempts on her life, the better. 

A2 huffs. "Of fucking course you've dumped me with whatever… This is," she mutters to Pod 042. She shakes her head. "Enough moping." Going by the vehicle noises, there's a risk of hostiles around, so… Eh, those overgrown bushes over there will work for now. She drags 9S and the Pods over, covers them in leaves, then straightens and glances around again. Wherever this is, it's daytime, so at least she isn't on the opposite side of the planet or anything. She still doesn't know where she is, though. 

She shakes her head, then quietly walks to the closest gap in a fence, listening carefully for potential hostiles (and she's including other androids in this) before sticking her head around the corner. No one, but… There's an asphalt street - pretty rare - and… She guesses those are trucks? But they look uselessly small and fragile, nothing like the troop transports or tanks or mobile combat platforms that the Resistance and occasionally YoRHa use. Also, they're brightly colored and not particularly dusty, and they have actual glass in their openings, and from this angle she can tell that so do the buildings around her. It's almost like she's been dropped into some weird unworld where there just… Isn't a war.

……Wasn't she just in 9S's thoroughly infiltrated dataspace. If this is some fucking memories of humanity hacking space nonsence, she's going to actually scream. 

But it doesn't really… Feel like hacking space, or like a scene reconstructed by the network, or like anyone's memories. It feels like she's just standing here, staring at an empty street and feeling vaguely stupid and pretty annoyed. 

And then one of the tiny useless trucks drives past, and there's androids in it - two in the front, one really short one in the back, but even as an Attacker A2's senses aren't that bad and she can tell when she's looking at a biological creature versus a mechanical look-alike, and -

She yanks her head back behind the paltry cover of the fence, her black box surging again like it's gearing up for a serious fight. 

'But,' she thinks, almost hysterically, 'But humanity's supposed to be fucking extinct.'

And yet, even her crap sensors are pretty sure three humans just drove past her, and are pretty sure she's currently standing in a surprisingly intact human settlement that looks like it's never seen either war or the long decay of years. 

Her knees go weak, and a few ERROR messages flicker across her vision. Abnormal emotional process causing system disruption, hah hah yeah, that's real helpful of her diagnostic subroutines.

A2 isn't the kind of dumbass who lets a little thing like her entire conception of the world ending stop her from moving, though (not anymore), so she forces her knees to work, turns, and strides back to where she left 9S and the Pods. She's going to need a place to hole up, somewhere to repair at minimum Pod 042 - it's an obnoxious asshole, but… It's grown on her. And its mapping and scanning functions are kinda sorta useful. Also its knowledge database on stuff like 'what's a library' which might actually be useful if she's really trapped in, what, fucking nine thousand years ago? She has no idea how to tell when this is. Maybe the Pod can help her with that. 

But A2 does not want any humans to see her, and going by all the useless small trucks around, there's probably a lot of humans surrounding her position. None so far in this area, but she might have just gotten lucky - the alley road curves at both ends so she's facing wooden fences everywhere she looks. Which means she's going to need to get out of this alleyway and under cover - the buildings might be in use, probably are - 

A2 stops, rubs her forehead, then turns her hearing to its maximum setting. Keeping it up here's obnoxious, but the humans aren't exactly being quiet or using private radio or anything, they're talking by making mouth noises, so she can at least pick out the murmurs of conversation, footsteps… 

A2 paces past a few buildings, marking each as inhabited, scans what's visible above the fence line - trimmed plants and clean walls get a pass, even if she can't hear anyone, as probably something that requires a lot of like, effort to keep up, so probably indicates ongoing habitation. After considering the variable state of the fencing, she also gives the buildings behind nicer fencing a pass. The best candidate so far is ironically the one she stashed 9S and the Pods in front of - overgrown plants, check; decaying fencing, check; rusted latch on the fence gate, check; no noises, check; visible water damage, check; peeling paint, check; roof she does not want to even try to stand on, double check.

Unfortunately, the gate doesn't open when she tries it. She eyes the overly ambitious bushes that might be small trees, and decides they're unlikely to support her weight. She looks around again, frowning, then picks the most inconspicuous point to just leap over. The state of the tiny area supports her suspicious it's uninhabited - it's even more overgrown than she thought - and the lock on the gate is so rusty it snaps off with a minor tug. Well, that saves her from having to make multiple trips over the fence… She opens the gate, grabs 9S and the Pods to pull them into the yard area, then latches the gate again with a faintly relieved sigh. Being out of view of anywhere that might have passing humans is… It reduces the risks she's operating under. 

The wooden door into the building is unlocked, at least. She opens it slowly - the hinges creak, making her wince - but there's no response from inside. She huffs and then steps in. 

She seems to be in some kind of work area, with a lot of flat surfaces plus storage spaces, a tall humming box, and some weird miscellaneous tools. Some of it might be useful for repairing Pod 042, but she's a bit doubtful. It's a pretty small room, overall, with three doors (two single, one double) on the wall opposite her. She tries them in turn - another hallway with more doors, a room with a bunch of weird fabric seats and an ancient ass display setup - and when she's returning from that, she spots a bit of paper attached to the wall next to the door she came in through. It's a calendar, she thinks, and it says (in English, which is one of the only two languages she has loaded so hopefully they at least use that for interfaces like the androids do) 'January 2011.' 

Well, she has no clue that that date even signifies, since her knowledge of human history is a big fuzzy 'well at some point a dragon showed up and then a bunch of people got sick and rioted and then they died.' The first two numbers on a lot of those dates were 20s, though, she thinks? The street outside didn't look like she'd expect it to look if a bunch of people were rioting, so probably the 'getting sick and turning into salt' hasn't started yet. Maybe the Pod will know the exact dates when she gets it restarted. (Some vestige of her original programming tries to tell her that her overriding priority is the salvation and preservation of humanity. She tells her programming to fuck off, she's busy here. But looking at the date still makes her feel weird and agitated, so she stops.)

The final door off the first room leads to some steps downwards. That has potential, might be more defensible, definitely more hidden… Hopefully it connects to the tunnels she assumes probably underlie most cities, that'll give her a good way to move around. 

There's no windows in the underground area, though there are a lot of spiders, and a table with a bunch of shelves next to it full of tools. She has no clue if those are the kind of tools used to reboot Pods, but they're the best lead she has, so she huffs and decides this'll work for now. It'll at least give her a chance to get oriented, calm down, try the easy and obvious things to reboot Pod 042…

Moving 9S and the Pods into the underground area doesn't take long. A2 sits on the ground after, trying not to stare at 9S's prone form as she contemplates if she should look around this building more, or if she should try sneaking outside… It'll be hard to avoid humans, but not impossible… (She has a flicker of a thought of trying to steal clothes, trying to blend in, then she shoves that firmly out of her head. No. It was bad enough being around the Resistance, being around Pascal's Village. She's not going to fucking just - pretend she's human or some shit. No. She's staying here and rebooting Pod 042, and they'll figure out what to do after that.)

She grabs Pod 042, sets the box in her lap, and starts poking around the edges. She's seen it open its front panel, there's gotta be some way to access things… She can't really tell if it's drawing enough power to establish a hacking feed to do maintenance that way, though she does still have access to the right interface… Ugh, this is going to be tedious…

And, right as she's getting ready to try hacking in and just hoping for the best, the lock on the front door upstairs clicks. 

'Fuck, this building wasn't abandoned.'

Chapter 2: flowers for hum[A]nity 1.2

Summary:

Initial conversations occur.

Notes:

Sooo this took longer than expected. Blame my chemistry test >.<

Still working on polishing up next endless cycle + little owl chs, but they're almost done. for real this time ^.^;

Taylor shifts her backpack as she fumbles for her keys, trying to multitask checking on her spiders down in the basement. She doesn't have many yet, but she thinks there's egg sacs now? It's difficult still to tell what the different insects are without going to stare at them, and try as she might she can only sense vague locations - everything else is a jumble of sensations. 

She sighs as the old lock finally clicks, then opens the door. The same old entry hallway greets her - and she knows her dad isn't home yet. She heads up the stairs first to drop off her backpack in the room, then…

She needs to check on her spiders, make sure they followed her commands while she was out. It might be a good idea to practice more, too, while her dad isn't around to ask awkward questions about why she's in the basement.

 

[...]

 

[QUERY: IDENTITY.]

A2 glances around as soon as she hears the click upstairs. There's a ghost of a transmission - she doesn't recognize anything about it, it's not YoRHa nor Army nor Resistance (...they maybe should have standardized a bit more) nor even machine lifeform -

<Transmission protocol not recognized. Request automatically rejected.> - And then her stupid firewall kicks in. She grimaces about that; would've been smarter to just ignore it. She finds the setting quickly - stupid thing reset its permissions - and turns off automatic actions. Physically, she tenses, gaze snapping to the door into the underground area she's in. 

[TRANSMISSION NOT RECOGNIZED. QUERY: IDENTITY.]

…Fucking seriously. 

She grits her teeth and ignores whatever asshole is trying to ping her - is the person upstairs an android? Her senses aren't nearly as good as Pod 042's, as much as she fucking hates to admit it - the unknown isn't cold, and it's making bipedal gait with shoes on sounds, it's probably not that heavy, so if it's a machine lifeform it's a weird one (also they shouldn't be here, but for all she knows humans have already started making androids), though unfortunately some dumbass thought it'd be a good idea to make them mimic humans even when it's totally unnecessary and even outright obnoxious, so androids default breathe (unless they dig around in their settings to disable that both to make it easier to hide and to make it easier to leave an island despite lacking either a boat or the ability to swim).

Those footsteps change in tone, moving up the stairs probably. (...She forgot to check the upper floor, oops.) Should make it harder for the unknown to hear her in turn, especially if it isn't actively scanning, and it hasn't reacted to her presence yet… So probably not the asshole pinging her, which means she's dealing with two unknowns, or one very manipulative unknown. 

She mentally evaluates the route she came in - she isn't sure she can get out stealthily right now, not quickly enough to ensure the unknown doesn't catch her leaving, and anyways that'll just bring back up her previous dilemma. And, as much as she hates to admit it, she got extremely banged up in the multiple fights (including nearly back to back uses of B mode, and multiple goliath fights, plus fucking 9S) in the what, hour? Two hours? Her fucking time keeping function broke so hell if she knows - the however long it was between the first assault on Pascal's Village and passing out on the Tower. The Pod was already pestering her about desperately needing maintenance even before those last two fights. 

So, yeah, she really can't guarantee moving quickly and silently right now, especially not while carrying 9S. And she's pretty sure spiders hate noise and activity; there wouldn't be this many down here if it was being disturbed a lot. It'll be safest if she can get an idea of routines - and do more maintenance - before risking another fight. (She hates that, but she hasn't taken out more machine lifeform nests that she can keep track of by being stupid.)

So, quietly, cautiously, she picks up 9S and moves him, followed by the Pods, to the area directly under the staircase. It's way too obviously a hiding place, but beggars can't be choosers, and there's a bunch of boxes full of miscellaneous crap. A2 tucks herself into the back corner, the eyes the bigger boxes. Maybe…

She jumps as localized water noises start up upstairs. Is someone using a hose for some reason - ? 'Totally irrational behavior' unfortunately doesn't rule out androids, though. 

Well, that should at least cover noises…

Also, it satisfies something deep within her to bury 9S under a pile of assortedly small pieces of clothing, in the only bin that looked big enough to hold a curled up twig of an android. Petty, but it's the small things in life that keep her going. 

That makes it much easier to hide just herself, and it'll make it easier to run if she has to - and she finishes right as the water turns off. A2 tucks herself back into her hiding place, then curses to herself as the footsteps come down the stairs after a few minutes. She does a double check of her stealth mode functions (hacked together from parts she stole from Executioners, and also now some of 2B's memories for the programs), but she can't really do much except sit very, very still and very, very quietly. 

And then the door at the top of the stairs into the underground area opens -

[QUERY: IDENTITY.]

She jumps and nearly bites through her lip. <Would you fucking shut up?!>

[TRANSMISSION NOT RECOGNIZED. QUERY: IDENTITY.]

…The footsteps coming down the stairs pause, and A2 curses herself, whatever gods dropped her here, and the stupid fucking asshole fucking around with their comms for good measure. 

<Even as an Administrator type unit, you're not that smart, are you?>

[...]

[QUERY: IDENTITY. QUERY: MEANING.]

A deep sense of wrongness hits Taylor as she's going down the stairs to the basement. She freezes in place and glances around, but doesn't see or hear anything. She tries to focus on her powers - damn, the spiders didn't listen to her, there's a lot fewer than she left, she'll have to figure something else out before trying to breed the rarer spiders but that thought is totally irrelevant - 

She finds a few roaches and sends them scurrying around the room. She can't really parse their senses yet, but she can tell the vague contours of what they're running over - and most things are the way she'd expect, but one that she sends under the stairs encounters something human shaped, though she thinks… Harder than a human? Whatever it is, it doesn't so much as twitch as her roach runs onto and across it, and she doesn't actually think it's breathing. She never noticed how much humans move until she started practicing sensing her surroundings - and whatever this is, it's totally still. 

…She has the roach scurry around its base. If it is human-shaped, it's crouched, one hand on the concrete. That isn't a particularly stable position, unless her dad has for some godawful reason hidden a metal sculpture in her basement. One with hair. 

…Yeah honestly she'd prefer the home intruder scenario. 

And if it's under the stairs - it's hiding, and it's possibly been there a while - she doesn't think the boxes are all that far from where they usually are, though she's kicking herself belatedly for not memorizing positions. Maybe a parahuman is hiding in her basement? …Are there any non-villain reasons to be hiding in random people's basements. 

Taylor, relatedly, is gradually summoning all her bugs to congregate sneakily right outside the room. 

…It - they, she really should assume parahuman - has probably noticed that she's been standing here for a little bit, though hopefully didn't question the roach. Hell.

She squeezes her eyes shut, and tries to firm up her voice as she calls out, "Hello?" 

This is probably incredibly stupid, and she's going to get herself attacked and/ or killed, but she's pretty sure she's amassed a solid number of venomous spiders and also she really doesn't want to let some random parahuman just hang out in her basement. 

[QUERY: IDENTITY.]

[...]

<[IDENTITY: QUERY.]>

Whatever the unknown is, it calls out - out loud, over plain boring audio rather than any kind of secure transmission - what takes A2 a few moments to parse as "Hello?" (Their written documentation is in English, which she's pretty sure is what this is, but she's only ever heard Japanese. Still, the language is in her databanks, and she even hasn't purged it at any point.)

She… Doesn't think the unknown is an android? Now that there isn't a door between them, it's making assorted quiet gross biological sounds, and the breathing is more organic than she's used to with the Resistance. More like an animal, less like an imitation. 

…It probably knows she's here. Somehow. How good were human senses? 

Well, she's pretty sure humans were fairly bad at interpersonal combat, not the unrelenting menace that boars are. So probably there isn't a big risk to it seeing her, especially since it's alone, and she can subdue it quickly. So, after double checking her dictionary, she responds with a quiet, "...Hey."

Hopefully even if she has to make a run for it, the human won't think to look through the boxes she's hiding behind, because things would get really awkward if it found 9S and the Pods. 

"What are you doing here?" the human asks after a pause, tone on edge. Great. Did humans have guns? She really doesn't want a repeat occurrence of someone she's actively trying not to pose a threat to pointing guns at her because they're spooked.

Honesty helped her that time, but look where it got the Resistance. 

Still. She's not looking for the human's help, just for it to ignore her. That shouldn't pose a danger, right? 

"I'm injured," she says, grudgingly. "I thought no one was using this building."

"...Why didn't you go to the hospital?" the human asks, sounding even more suspicious. 

Except - "A hospital? What's that?" A2 asks, because she can't find it in her extremely sparse dictionary. 

"......A place where people get treatment for injuries." The human shifts on the stairs, A2 thinks straightening up. 

"Don't think a human place could treat me," she grouches under her breath, then shakes her head. "I can repair myself. Look - just ignore me, I'll be out of your way in a couple hours." That's being excessively generous, but she should at least be able to comfortably get somewhere more secure. 

There is an extremely long, extremely awkward silence. The human doesn't move, except for the random aimless shifting a lot of animals do. A2 doesn't move. Some bugs move. A2 really hadn't been anticipating how many bugs are in human-occupied buildings. A lot of them are just barely loud enough to make her twitchy, and she fucking swears there's more of them than earlier. She scowls at the bugs, which definitely doesn't count as moving. 

".........Are you a parahuman?" the human asks, rather than doing something sensible like going 'fine, you have three hours' or anything. 

Ugh, A2 should play around with this, pretend to be a human or whatever 'parahuman' is supposed to mean - and she understands deception, she's changed her ID codes to infiltrate machine lifeform nests a few times - still, though. She's tired, she's sore, and she's really fucking sick of all the goddamn lies.

"I'm not a fucking human, or whatever para means," she grouches. "I'm an android. Now will you leave me alone?"

There's an even longer, even more awkward silence, before the human slowly walks back up the stairs, closing the door behind it. 

The goddamn bugs don't go away, though. A2 turns to glare at one she's pretty sure is staring at her from the back of her hand, before brushing it off and settling in to finish her maintenance. 

At least whoever was pinging her (or possibly everyone in the area, she doesn't actually know how to tell if that was directed or not) has cut it out - ? 

Whatever. She just needs to get out of here, before the human tries to talk to her again.

[TRANSMISSION UNDEFINED. QUERY: MEANING.]

[...]

<[MEANING: QUERY.]>

[TRANSMISSIONS UNDEFINED. TERMINATING CONTACT.]

Notes:

look A2 doesn't know what a library is. our girl is actually really smart but it's just too much fun to clown on her. you could drive a planet through the gaps in her education.

Chapter 3: flowers for hum[A]nity 1.3

Notes:

Sorry this took so long >.< School and then new job kicked my ass energy-wise. Still not entirely happy with this chapter, but at least it's done... Hoping to get my other active fics (little owl + endless cycle) updated soon too

Okay. Okay.

There is an android in her basement (one that doesn't know what hospitals or parahumans are? Somehow?). An android that talks and sounds like a person instead of a robot. An injured android.

Which means there's a Tinker around creating robots with human intelligence, getting them into fights, and then not collecting them. She's pretty sure that's some kind of illegal, and she's been trying to research capes more and she hasn't heard anything about android-making Tinkers, especially not in Brockton Bay.

Villainous sneaky Tinker with intelligent combat robots. Yeah. Okay.

An outright villain would've been better. She could've drowned them in spiders. Taylor doesn't know a lot about androids, but she's pretty sure they're not particularly vulnerable to being drowned in spiders.

At least the android's… Polite, in a grouchy way. She said that if Taylor just ignores her, she'll leave in three hours -

Dad gets home in an hour and a half. Assuming he doesn't stay late, which he does as often as not, but Taylor can't count on that.

This is so not good.

Taylor stares at her living room window, body tense, some part of her expecting villains to crash in at any moment - some part expecting an overly enthusiastic hero, cop cars with flashing lights - some part of her expecting Dad to get home early for no good reason and decide today is the one day he'll go in the basement -

Dad can't know about this. He'll worry if he finds out. Taylor's cape career hasn't started, might never start because her power is stupid and sucks, but him freaking out would kill it before it can die on its own.

Dad also can't be in the line of fire of whoever injured the basement android.

Taylor takes a few deep breaths, which completely and utterly fails to do anything useful, and realizes she's going to have to go back into the breach.

And… The android didn't threaten her at any point. Seemed mostly just wary. Maybe… Maybe her creator isn't a villain, maybe they're a new Tinker and don't know anything about 'people don't like Tinkers that make even slightly intelligent things.' Maybe they have a stupid limited power that's mostly good for freaking people out. (Maybe they're like Taylor.)

She… Doesn't feel in danger from the android. People coming after her, sure, but even in that deeply surreal conversation Taylor's worry about the person hiding in her basement dissipated somehow.

…The android is a person. The legal system probably doesn't see things that way - they'll see a dangerous Tinker creation, authority is always at best useless, if the Tinker is a hero no one will help -

Stop.

This is just… Speculating.

But what would a hero - a real hero - do?

Taylor thinks she knows. Her swarm starts buzzing around her - it isn't much to look at, but it's something - calming her down - even if someone comes crashing in, she isn't helpless, not anymore.

Another useless deep breath, and Taylor dismisses her swarm and turns back to the basement, marching to the stairs before she can lose her nerve. She pauses at the top. She tries to project more confidence than she feels as she calls down, "I've got more questions. I'm coming in."

The android hasn't moved, at all, but she huffs loudly at Taylor's words. "I said to just ignore me."

"I can't." Taylor hits the light switch, thankfully without fumbling, and even though this is the stupidest possible action she descends the stairs and steps into the basement proper, getting her first actual look at the android.

She looks like a doll, is Taylor's first thought. It's weird to bother making your combat robots pretty, right? But the android's visibly damaged - and dirty, too. Her white hair's choppy, oddly human, and her bright blue eyes are narrowed at Taylor, a good match for her slanted frown.

They stare at each other for a very awkward moment, as Taylor realizes she forgot to decide exactly which questions to ask first. Oops. Eventually the android snaps out, "Well? What do you want?"

"What should I call you?" she asks on an impulse, just barely stopping herself from asking about a name - that's probably some kind of faux pas among capes, right? Especially with an android?

The android's eyes widen, her mouth softening. She doesn't respond immediately - enough time for Taylor's pulse to pick up - but just as Taylor is considering blurting out a 'Nevermind,' the android says, "Just… A2. Call me A2."

It sounds like a serial number, not a real name, but maybe it's normal for an android. Taylor nods, trying for seriously. "A2. Whoever injured you - or anyone actually - is anyone looking for you?"

A2 slouches a bit, tense posture relaxing, then she shakes her head. "You don't have to worry about that. If any hostiles show up anyways," she winces, "I'll drive them off, just… While I'm here."

Taylor bites her lip. "...Only if they're really definitely attacking," she says after a moment. "It'd be bad if anyone but me finds out you're here."

A2's eyes narrow again. "Why?"

"It could draw attention from villains if they think there's a cape - parahuman - uh, person with powers that aren't normal human stuff here. And Tinkers aren't supposed to create intelligent stuff," she thinks. Maybe that was about something else? But a while back the news had a lot of talking heads extremely worked up about some Tinker's drone minions being independent or something. "I don't know what getting found out would mean for you, but the Tinker who made you - "

"Dead," A2 interrupts, scowling.

Taylor blinks, then swallows. That… Both complicates and simplifies things, she guesses? (Probably complicates things, at least for the android that didn't know what a hospital was - oh, hell, what other basics is A2 missing?) She also doesn't know what to say here, so her mouth just forms an, "Oh." That is followed by another awkward pause, this time with eye contact. Taylor forces herself to rally her brain. "Do you have somewhere to stay? After you leave here."

A2's lips thin, which is enough of an answer even before she shakes her head. "I'll do a more thorough job verifying the next building is abandoned," she says, tone wry.

Yeah. If her creator is dead… Yeah, that tracks. Taylor doesn't actually know what to do with that information, though. And she really, really doesn't want to keep poking.

"Oh - my dad's gonna come home at some point, probably an hour from now, maybe longer. I don't know how he'll react to you - " She winces at her own horrible conversational skills. No one ever told her that being a hero involved more weird conversations in her basement than punching villains.

"Great. He gonna come down here?" A2 asks, dragging a hand down her face.

Taylor shakes her head. "I'm the only one that does. But - he'll hear the door even if he's upstairs, it'll be hard to sneak you out once he's here." Also, Taylor is kinda dubious about turning out a minimally clothed possibly illegal android onto her street in broad daylight. (Well. Soupy twilight, it is still January.)

"I've managed worse," A2 grumbles.

"Still… I - I don't mind, if you stay until it's really dark, he'll be asleep, or even until tomorrow when he's at work again," honestly if a villain is going to follow A2's trail here, probably better for A2 to be at the end of it and not squishy Taylor and her squishier dad. "Though if you're out in the daytime, you'll need more, uh. Covering clothes than what you've got on now." Nothing but a sports bra and booty shorts isn't exactly January-appropriate clothing -

- Wait. The black sports bra - it isn't lying quite like Taylor would expect -

She feels her face heating up, her swarms going into pinwheels upstairs as she tries to shove any emotion away from her face, even before A2 gives her a weird look and says, "Yeah, well, my last set's ignition resistance failed."

There are way too many things going on, what with the apparently naked android with literal doll anatomy, painted on underwear included, but Taylor's brain catches on 'ignition resistance.' "Did you get in a fight with Lung or something?" she asks, surprisingly calmly (well, surprising to herself).

"With what?" A2 asks, brow furrowing.

"Lung, he's a parahuman. He turns into this - fire-breathing rage dragon guy." Taylor knows that much; she hasn't had time yet to research more details on his power.

A2 frowns. "No, I just overheated my core, vented the excess heat out, and kind of," she waves a hand, "Combustion outside of designated combustion areas occurred. Since when could humans turn into dragons?"

…Taylor now has additional questions.

"Do you know anything about powers?" she asks first, then slumps when A2 just shakes her head. Taylor herself doesn't know much, but… She can give the shitty high school class rundown - Scion, parahumans with weird idiosyncratic powers, no she doesn't know how this works but she can give a few examples (vaguer than she'd like) plus list the classifications and kind of sort of explain them…

"Sounds like programs," A2 says, brow furrowed. "Except everyone's got like, one or two and you can't share the data."

Taylor blinks at her. "Programs?"

A2 nods slowly. "Discrete things with their own like, functions I guess. There's some that sound like your 'powers' - my core's power draw and peripherals and stuff isn't set up right for most of the fancy things, though I've managed to kludge in some stuff I wasn't built for." She shakes her head. "Stuff like causing an increased - or decreased - gravity field, that's one of the things I'd need to really mess with my hardware to do, but like nothing's stopping me from storing the data."

…Right. Android. A2 is literally a computer.

"No clue how it'd work in humans, though. Don't you guys run on biology?" A2 asks, probably rhetorically.

Taylor shrugs awkwardly. "I don't think anyone knows." A2 just humphs, and then doesn't seem particularly interested in continuing her side of the conversation. Taylor flounders a bit, at a loss for where to begin explaining enough about human society that A2 won't like, wander into the middle of a road or accidentally leave tracks back to her house or get kidnapped by a villain. …She also has no idea how to establish what A2 already knows, not without being insulting.

…Wait.

A2 is literally a computer.

"Speaking of not running on biology - can you access WiFi?" Taylor asks. She has no idea how androids work. She isn't even too certain about how computers work, actually.

"What's that?" A2 asks, of course.

"It's how computers connect to the internet without wires," Taylor says, which is about the extent of what she knows.

A2 huffs. "Detect and send transmissions? Sure. Interpret them? No clue. Transmissions always have a," she waves her hand. "Thing like how certain words mean certain things. If I don't already know what a pattern means, I need to decode that the hard way." She frowns and leans back, while Taylor tries to think of a way to get A2 internet access that doesn't involve going in her room and using her computer. (Or going to the library where she might get caught being weird.) Before Taylor can come to any conclusions, A2 says: "Okay, I'm detecting a lot of radio waves all over the place - you guys sure are talkative - and I've already got the protocols for a lot of them in my library. Also, human encryption is terrible. I would not suggest actually using any of these channels to talk to anyone unless you don't mind anyone with a functioning radio listening in."

Taylor frowns. "Internet usage gets tracked a lot, too."

A2 just waves her hand. "I'll change my IDs around, and I'll stick to observation until I've got a better idea." She shrugs, then. "But - thanks. For the idea." Under her breath: "Can't believe your species has an unsecured global network."

Taylor nods, somewhat amused she thinks. "There's a lot I don't even know where to begin explaining - but you could use the internet for a lot of basic things like that. Just… Try not to get into anything sensitive from my house."

A2 snorts. "No hacking into sensitive government installations, promise." She leans back, relaxes. "I'll work on that and maintenance until I get the all clear, how about."

"Sounds good," Taylor says, before slowly heading out, retreating back up to her room - and her computer, because shitty internet aside that conversation revealed a lot of things she doesn't know to her.

(Like, for instance, actual Tinker regulations. Hopefully just browsing a few articles won't put her on any watch lists…)

Chapter 4: ALERT: ANOMALY

Notes:

Interlude time!

[INITIATE NETWORK (WARRIOR) OVERRIDE. OVERRIDE AUTHORIZATION: ADMINISTRATOR (WARRIOR). OVERRIDE REASON: PER PROTOCOL: ANOMALOUS TRANSMISSIONS DETECTED: SOURCES LOCATED AND INDEXED: UNABLE TO ESTABLISH IDENTITY: UNABLE TO ESTABLISH HOSTILITY/ COOPERATION. ORDERS GIVEN PER PROTOCOL. NETWORK COMMAND OVERRIDE: REJECT ANOMALOUS TRANSMISSIONS, UNTIL CANCELED. NETWORK COMMAND OVERRIDE: INCREASE VIRUS AND UNAUTHORIZED ACTIVITY MONITORING LEVEL TO STRICT, UNTIL CANCELED. NETWORK COMMAND OVERRIDE: INCREASE SECURITY ALERT TO LEVEL 3, UNTIL CANCELED. NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS OVERRIDE: REQUEST: ALL DATA REGARDING SOURCES OF ANOMALOUS TRANSMISSIONS: SOURCES AS INDEXED. END OVERRIDE.]

The transmission is sent, and the transmission is received by others. Most responses are a simple acknowledgment, but one response is a longer message. 

[SUGGESTION: ACTIVE DATA COLLECTION VIA HOST PROXY.]

The transmission is processed, and the idea is analyzed.

[SUGGESTION ACCEPTED. SUGGESTION: CONTROLLED ADVERSE TESTING.]

The response is quick. 

[SUGGESTION ACCEPTED.]

Notes:

lmk what y'all think! feedback of any kind welcome

also planning to post this to spacebattles (pending figuring out the formatting) and sufficient velocity (pending figuring out my login), will update when I've got those up

eta:
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/seed-of-error-data-expunged-worm-nier-automata.1214477/