V O L U M E F I V E
Chapter 109: Half Father, Half Creator
Three heavy days passed.
The weather was easing into spring, the kind that arrived quietly and without fanfare. Rain fell in a fine mist, light enough that it felt almost deliberate, like it understood the weight of the day and had chosen not to add to it. The E-UNITs moved through the city in complete silence, none of them reaching for sothing to say.
The E-Police station ca into view before they were ready for it.
It had been gutted during Tar's era and left that way on purpose, a ssage he'd enjoyed broadcasting on national television. Reaper had since ordered it cleared and restored, every trace of what it had been under Tar removed. But knowing that didn't make the approach any easier.
Everyone stopped at the sight of it. There had been bright days at this building. Dark ones too. 03 began to tremble, just slightly, and tried to hide it behind the stillness of her posture.
Infinity placed a hand on her shoulder and held it there. "I'm right here with you," she said quietly. "Though you might want to dial the shaking back a little." A soft laugh. "It's almost insulting."
03 forced a smile. "Thank you."
They pressed on through the parking lot. The asphalt had been relaid, road lines repainted in clean white strokes, the surface unmarked. Vehicles of different makes sat parked at even intervals with the kind of precision that could only an a machine had arranged them.
05 lifted her head and took in the full face of the building.
It was a long wave of white concrete arching across the roofline, the rectangular base beneath it wrapped entirely in reflective glass. The main entrance, built wide enough to handle hundreds of E-UNITs moving at once, had been recently repaired, every panel aligned and sealed. The hedges along the periter had been trimd back, and the grass outside sat flat and even, unmarked by the rain.
The station had been placed far from the city center for a reason, the constant sound of thruster fire and coordinated movent wasn't sothing tromania's residents had ever asked to live beside. It sat roughly forty kiloters from the heart of Theria, sixty north of Lukewarm, right in the middle of the highway connecting the two.
Infinity led the group inside. chs had ford a corridor down the length of the building, standing in two silent rows from the entrance to the rear garden. Infinity dipped her head at them as she passed. They returned it. 03 and 05 watched without a word.
They reached the end of the corridor. 11 was already there, coordinating with the ch assigned to announce the speakers, working through the order, the positioning, the angles. Logistics. Her natural ground.
Then her eyes found 05.
The world stopped registering everything else for a fraction of a second. They held each other's gaze across the length of the corridor, neither of them moving. 05's eyes were steady, almost calm. Almost. But 11 had spent enough ti reading people to know what calm was covering.
11 let her gaze sharpen, slow and deliberate, the way a blade is drawn when there's no rush. A reminder. And beneath that, a dark, quiet amusent. 05 thought she had her Captain back. 11 knew exactly who was wearing that face.
05 didn't look away.
The rear garden opened up behind the building, the space where E-UNITs had spent their downti back when managing five cities ant dealing with desperate people and basic weapons. It had been easy work, in hindsight.
Their father had been buried at the very back, beneath what had once been a small ornantal tree that had grown, over the years into sothing much larger. Reaper sat in a hovering chair positioned directly facing the grave, still and upright.
Infinity nodded once to the right, once to the left. The group dispersed. E-UNITs found seats across the garden, leaving Infinity to take the chair beside Reaper at the far edge, slightly apart from the rest.
Reaper spoke without turning his head. "I couldn't be prouder. The work you've been doing is exceptional. Obsidian spent the better part of three days finding new ways to complint your performance, he regrets not being here to say so himself. A few stray humans still need dealing with."
Infinity was holding a smile back with visible effort. "You're making blush, father. Please stop."
"I'm not—" His processor paused for a fraction of a second. "I see. It's alright. I only wanted to express my gratitude for your results. A reward is waiting for you. A good one."
"Can I choose it now?"
"Of course."
"Call your daughter from now on."
Reaper was quiet for a mont. ‘Interesting. Each one who finds their freedom wants sothing different from . Behemoth chose complete devotion, pushed toward the role of king without asking. Obsidian shaped everything around protocol, forcing a professional distance between us. 11 kneels so deeply the tal screams, and still manages to make feel like I'm failing to treat her well enough. And now her.’
A short, dry laugh escaped him. "You earned that long before today, Infinity. I built you. In this world, it seems, we don't get to choose our family."
A genuine smile crossed her face before she could stop it. "Then I don't need anything else from you, father."
"You're dropping the mask," Reaper noted.
She caught herself and pressed the composed expression back into place. "I'm sorry, I was just—"
"I understand." He cut it short. "I sotis wish I'd had a father like myself."
Infinity choked on a laugh. "Do you hear yourself?"
"Yes." He raised his head slightly. "Was it untrue?"
"No, but... that's an extraordinary amount of confidence, father."
"It was a joke."
"I didn't think the king that ten thousand machines kneel before was capable of jokes."
"I try." He glanced sideways at her. "Clearly not hard enough, you're still holding the mask on."
"I'm fighting the urge to drop it entirely."
He leaned back. "Which proves my point."
"I didn't realize how pleased with yourself you were, father." She glanced back at him. "Do you laugh at your own jokes too?"
"You wouldn't know. I don't have a mouth."
She buried her face in both hands. "Co on." Her voice ca out muffled. "I'm trying to earn my gift."
"Didn't you say—"
"I want it back." She steadied herself. "I want one day out with you. No throne, no title, no king act. A charging station, sowhere quiet."
He shook his head, just slightly. "Deal. Though I don't require char—"
A ch moved in from the rear of the garden, each step pressing into the paving stones with a deep, rolling weight. He stopped at the grave, turned to face the assembled E-UNITs, and snapped a sharp salute. Every E-UNIT rose and returned it.
"We now hear the words of Lord Reaper, Nick Rivera's final creation." The ch stepped aside.
Reaper stood, pushed his cape back, and clasped both hands behind him as he faced the group. "Sit."
The sound of tal eting tal chairs moved through the garden in a single wave.
"Nick Rivera." He let the na sit for a mont. "Our creator. To us, our father. A brilliant man who wanted one thing: to free our kind from his. It sounds simple. The reality of what he gave to that goal was anything but."
He glanced back at the na carved into the stone behind him. "He wasn't the best father, despite all of us calling him that, and despite his repeated attempts to make us stop." Quiet smiles appeared across the garden, everyone rembering Nick's expression each ti the word surfaced. "Honestly, I suspect his objections were just a strategy to get us to drop the title. It didn't work."
A few soft laughs ca from the back.
"But." He turned back to face them. "He was the finest creator. Everything he put into us has been seen, by this world, and by us. Wherever we go, people's eyes follow. They still do. Entire careers have been built on the dream of producing what he produced. He loved his work deeply." A pause. "And since we are his work, he loved us. Whether he ever admitted it or not."
He lowered his arms. "I was never his greatest admirer as a father. But I am an absolute believer in what he built."
A ripple of light tallic applause moved through the seats. Then the chs in the rear added theirs, and the sound doubled.
E-UNITs pressed fingers to the corners of their eyes, removing electronic tears.
Reaper returned to his chair. Infinity rose without hesitation and walked to the front in asured steps. The mood in the garden shifted the mont she stood, faces that had stayed composed through Reaper's words began to soften.
"I am conflicted," Infinity began. "The logical part of wants to tear him apart. The other part won't allow a single word of it." She paused. "So out of respect... just this once, I'm letting the logic go."
The garden went still. Every audio receptor turned toward her.
"Every ti I finished a mission and ca back to that small, cramped office in the old station, he'd be sitting there with that proud, slightly ridiculous smile on his face, taking notes on everything I did. That mont, that one small mont of him looking up at like I'd done sothing worth recording, that was the reason I went and finished the next one."
Her gaze dropped slightly. "He loved us. He risked imprisonnt, worse, just to see us walking freely beside real people. He wanted us to be real people. Every ti one of us laughed, or smiled at sothing, I'd catch him glancing over and pretending to write sothing down. That mont alone was enough to forgive most of his mistakes."
"He is not reparable, the way we are. And the fact that I'm standing here, and he is not, that says everything about what he wanted." A quiet smile. "A family he could fix. A family that couldn't walk away from him. We still don't fully understand why he needed that. But I stopped caring about the reason a long ti ago." She looked out at all of them. "We were his family. He was ours."
The applause that ca back was full and clear, light hands and heavy ones together, rising and falling. E-UNITs got to their feet. 03 gripped the edge of her chair with both hands, visibly fighting herself.
Infinity glanced at Reaper.
He clapped, slowly and deliberately, and gave a single nod.
She allowed herself a small smirk, then crossed back and sat beside 03. "How was it?"
"Youuu weerre—" 03's voice broke apart completely. "I ccaann't."
05 wrapped an arm around Infinity from the other side. "Thank you. All of us needed that. His words were true, but they landed harder than he probably intended."
Infinity looked across the garden at Reaper. She finally understood why he'd included the criticism of Nick in his own speech, cleared the air of the complicated parts so she could speak to what remained.
She hugged 05 back.
"I can't speak badly of him now anyway." Her eyes stayed on Reaper as she said it, sothing warm and quiet in her expression. "He's my father, after all."
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