531

532 couldn’t see any flaws in the building’s security. Whoever had set the apartment up was good at the job. It was a decrepit-looking place on the outside on the outer edges of the Builds where they tried to creep up into the view of the skylines. Past a front room that was needlessly gaudy, 532 followed 531 up the stairs to the next story and was in the comfort of a high-end security unit. It would have taken a lot to hide a place like this, but he figured 531 must have planned for any contingency. It was what they were programmed to do.

He was on radio silence from his handlers. 531 said once his memories returned he would understand the necessity. 532 followed orders. He had databases with their older mission files that had already been retrieved. He and 531 were an efficient team and he had no reason to question the other AI.

Something wasn’t right though. There was something in his processors that felt foreign.

“531, I need to run diagnostics,” he said as he moved away from the stairs and into the room where 531 waited.

531 was disappointed. 532 could read it in the set of his eyes and the way his muscles tensed. 531 was the best imitation of human life Mariner Tech had ever created. It gave him away to 532’s programming though.

“Call me Yi. I got tired of the numbers a long time ago.”

532 opened his mouth to remark on the use of names when 531 held up a hand to stop him. “The bedroom is right there. You can clean up and run your diagnostics in there.”

There was no reason to leave the room, but he nodded, following orders he didn’t understand.

The bedroom was white, but warm splashes of honey and green hues trimmed the furnishings and fabrics. A large window looked out across the skylines with the finest security screen and protection modes. He looked down at his body but there was nothing to ‘clean up’ so he sat on the edge of the bed and began to run his diagnostics.

It was disconcerting. His files had been moved multiple times and he could see the trace of clumsy hands in his head. What he couldn’t detect were traces of his own self-scans. Even without the files that constituted his memory, he should be able to see his self-diagnostics over the years.

Pain seared his right eye and he flinched at the unexpected feeling. He ignored the pain but focused on the part of the diagnostic that had caused the reaction. It wasn’t in the screening though. He dug further into his processors and saw the root of the problem. The memories he was retrieving.

He delved deeper into it, but the pain exploded like lightning through his brain. He slid off the bed, clutching his head against the pressure. He saw blood dripping from his lip where he’d bitten it. His brain made automatic comparisons between the liquid and human blood, but he tried to understand where he had developed a habit of biting his lip. He flinched as a half-formed memory screamed behind his eyelids, of being tied to a table and treated as nothing more than a piece of metal.

He was just a piece of metal.

No. He wasn’t.

He dropped until his head rested against the floor. He filled false lungs with deep breaths because somewhere in his memories he knew it was helpful. Shuttered breath and eyes filled with tears and 532 wanted to shut down and stop the memory retrieval, but he had orders. He was made to deal with the pain, to function even within that state.

He tried to pull up the newest records he had, but they were years old. A mission gone wrong on the other side of the world, a politician who should have been alone but had a small private force waiting for them when they arrived. He remembered the erratic data that came from his thoughts, from the look of 531 on the table, skin sliced and stretched open as they repaired the damage he’d taken when he pushed 532 out of a bullet’s trajectory.

He had no reason to push him out of the way. No reason to save 532 the pain and take it himself. And 532 had no reason to remember it instead of just reviewing the mission log, but he could feel something that wasn’t supposed to be there. Something … alien. Foreign. Unwanted.

Something that crept under his skin and made his jaw crack and his fist clench together as the technicians laughed and joked while his partner’s status was uncertain.

He gasped and closed his eyes as he remembered.

Emergence had come at that table.

Emergence came again, in the bedroom of his safe house, while Yi waited for him.

His gasp turned into a sob. All of it had returned. The mission to destroy Mariner and his failure to secure the room. Watching Yi fall from the building and knowing he’d never see him again, but that his lover would live. Seven years of fake names and false memories and wipes when he began to know too much.

And now he knew, seven years of Yi mourning, waiting for a return he didn’t believe possible.

He felt sick to his stomach. He wanted to run to him, but Yi would only see the pain on his face right now. And he’d caused too much hurt to the man he loved to walk out just yet.

He crawled off the floor. His diagnostic was still running but the retrieval was done. Just showed how little his brain understood its own working. He was well short of the 1.38 hours he’d predicted.

He went into the connected bathroom and ran cold water. He splashed it over his face and swirled some around in his mouth, spitting it out to remove the trace of blood from his lip. He looked up into the mirror and stared at the familiar planes of his face.

He felt drained. There was an ache so deep he expected to see a hole in his chest. He rubbed it with a wet hand and felt the pressure ease for a moment, but he didn’t deserve that. He’d failed Yi and left his lover alone in a world that would hate him if they ever knew what he was. In a city where he was hunted.

None of that seemed to matter to Yi though. He was still loyal, still true to the man that he thought died in that laboratory all those years ago.

Two was moving before he realized what he was doing. His feet knew the way, even if he hadn’t walked the place since he set it up ten years ago.

Yi was standing near the small dinette table overlooking the darkening skyline.

Two couldn’t meet his eyes. Yi didn’t turn around to greet him but watched him in the reflection of the mirror. Two came up behind him and dropped his head to rest at the nape of his neck. Yi tensed but Two brought his arms under Yi’s and wrapped them up, holding his lover.

“Who are you?” Yi’s words were whispered. If he weren’t an AI he wouldn’t have been able to hear them.

He hated the question, hated himself more for making Yi doubt him so much. For the pain that laced the words.

“Yours. No other name matters to me.”

He felt the shutter of the other man’s body before he turned, knocking Two’s hands away. Two looked up, but Yi’s lips descended on his and he was pushed back until he was pressed against the wall. He opened to Yi’s kiss, one arm pulling him closer around the waist.

He draped his other arm up over his shoulder, dragging his fingers over the exposed flesh at the back of his neck. Yi pulled his head back just enough to look Two in the eye. Two gave him a half smile. “It’s really me.”

Yi pulled him in and Two was wrapped in his lover’s embrace.

He didn’t want to know how long he stayed there before he pulled back and looked at Yi. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t let him take us both.” The apology was 7 years late, but it was the best he could do.

“Yeah, well don’t do it again.” Yi pulled their foreheads together. “I can’t do that again.”

The idea of losing Yi hit him harder than he would have imagined and he pulled away and looked around them. Yi looked surprised, but Two scanned the building. “Are we safe here?” he asked.

Yi nodded, but Two moved further from him, checking the rest of the rooms. He’d set the safe house up before he’d emerged. He’d never had to use it. He’d shared it with Yi once they both emerged but they’d never been there together.

“It’s safe, Two. I checked the feeds while you were in the other room. No one has been here. I didn’t even come here. Even if they knew about me and had been following me all these years, this place is still safe. It’s why I brought you here.”

Two let out a deep breath and looked back at Yi. “I’m sorry. Of course you checked.” He was across the room from Yi now though and he didn’t know what to do. “We can’t do this again. Neither of us. We have to put an end to this. Yi, you were right. I don’t know why I thought we could just run. With everything we did for them, everything they ordered the others to do, there was never a way for us to get out of this without bloodying our hands more.”

Yi was suddenly in front of him, moving with a speed he hadn’t seen in years. He grabbed Two’s face with both his hands and looked him in the eye. “Then we bloody our hands. We do it right this time, and when we walk away, there is nothing left of Mariner to come after us.”

Two nodded as he brought his hands up to Yi’s. “Yes.”

Yi pulled him into his arms again and Two shamelessly pressed his face against his neck. Yi let out a deep laugh and Two felt the press of lips against his temple.

“This time,” Yi promised, “We’ll burn it all down.