The City Center fell absolutely silent as Virgil walked onto it. Every single Wengzhong froze at the same time, their heads turning towards the human carried under its arm like a sack of potatoes. None of them noticed Oji trailing behind, his walk as silent as the world around him.

  The crowd split as Virgil approached, forming a line leading inward. Agamemnon was already visible, walking forward to meet them.

  “Back already?” It called, arms spreading wide, “and with a human as well!”

  “Your promises are good,” Virgil replied with a shrug, “even if your planning is not.”

  Stepping forward, it laid the woman on the ground. Her eyes were blown wide open with fear, flickering between the many Wengzhong surrounding her. They focused on Agamemnon as it stepped forward, its hand reaching down towards her.

  Oji’s fists clenched at that, but he held still. There was nothing he could do now. Virgil, it seemed, was playing things safe by handing the human over to Agamemnon, and there was nothing he could do to go against it. Thankfully Agamemnon just grabbed the woman’s arm to flip her over, head tilting to the side as it examined her.

  “It is unharmed, incredible,” it said.

  “I will want processors for it,” Virgil said, “at least military grade, and better if you can get it.”

  “And you will have them!” Agamemnon exclaimed, standing up quickly, “Name a model, a brand, anything!”

  Virgil’s neck flashed, Agamemnon’s following a moment later. Its head tilted to the side, before nodding.

  “Steep, very steep,” it said, “but who am I to say no when you have given me such a prize.”

  “You have them?”

  “Of course, do you want them now?”

  “Not yet. I have business with this one first,” Virgil shook its head, gesturing to Oji.

  “Of course, come to me when you are finished!” Agamemnon nodded.

  Virgil turned at that, walking towards the base of the Lady Columbia statue. Then it paused and turned towards Oji.

  “Well, are you coming?” It snapped.

  “Yes,” Oji nodded, then followed along after.

  His cameras were sweeping over the surrounding Wengzhong, and after a moment he found the Servo he was looking for. Brid was on the far edge of the crowd, face barely visible through a gap in the bodies.

  Their gazes met. Her head was shaking back and forth vigorously, as if warning him off. He just shrugged at her, and continued walking.

  The metal doors snapped shut behind him with a clang. Turning back towards the one who had closed it, Oji’s cameras met Virgils for the first time since the human had been captured.

  “Well? Where is the mech?” It snapped, stepping forward so they were almost chest to chest.

  “You broke your promise,” Oji’s response was quiet.

  “Did I?”

  “You gave the human to Agamemnon.”

  “Please,” Virgil waved him off, “if what you told me is true, then getting the human back will be the work of a moment.”

  Oji held its gaze for another moment. It wasn’t hard to see the flaw in Virgil’s logic. What was the worth of a Servo’s word when they broke one oath to serve another. It was clear that Virgil wanted what he had promised. Enough to make it sloppy.

  Good.

  “The mech is right here,” he said, pointing upwards.

  Virgil actually blinked at that, its entire head tilting back toward the ceiling.

  “Lady Columbia?” It whispered, then its gaze flickered back down to meet Oji’s. “You are saying the Lady Columbia statue was a mech?”

  Oji nodded.

  “When the new American capitol was announced in the 2090s,” he said, “rocket technology was already advanced enough to drop a mech anywhere in the word. The obvious solution to that threat was simple: ensure there would always be a mech on standby to deal with such attacks. So Lady Columbia was built, maintained, and upgraded throughout the centuries. Forever prepared for such an eventuality.”

  Virgil nodded along with his words, slowly at first but then more emphatically. Then it paused, the cameras refocusing on him.

  “No, they would never let such an effective deterrent be hidden like that,” the copper eyes narrowed.

  “Not from their enemies,” Oji shook his head, “which they didn’t. They knew, and high level politicians and ambassadors were informed. But the American public- which might not accept super weapons being installed in their Civic Centers- were not.”

  A gleam settled in Virgil’s cameras, and Oji knew he had it.

  “Then show me,” the words came quiet, as if the world might be listening.

  Oji nodded, then turned and walked through the next set of doors. It was only a dozen or so feet through the next room and then to the final hallway before the central column of the statue’s plinth.

  The room was dark, only a few service lights illuminating the mess of wires and support girders covering the walls around them. Oji just turned to the side and walked along the hallway. It was a long walk, and two turns before they reached the back of the statue. Then he reached up, and his hand blurred as it tapped out a dizzying combination of strikes on the wall and ceiling above them.

  He paused them, waiting almost a full minute. Virgil loomed behind him, cameras focused on him with absolute precision. Oji just waited though, and after a full minute began tapping again.

  “How do you know the passcode to get in?” Virgil broke the silence.

  “This Unit accompanied its owner when they went to inspect the mech. There was a mandatory memory wipe scheduled immediately after, but politics ensured that the Japanese government wanted a Servo with the memory saved in the hands of one of their own. And after a few generations, no one remembered this Unit had the information anymore.”

  “Clever,” Virgil nodded.

  Oji didn’t bother responding. It likely would have been clever if he had actually planned it out. Instead the humdrum business of life had ensured that he had never even thought about it before now.

  A final series of taps echoed, then a hiss followed as the entire wall- support beams and all- sunk backwards and swung to the side. The sight that greeted them was a large square room filled with computer consoles. A raised platform sat at the center, surrounded by a ring of metal rails that rose to the ceiling.

  Virgil walked inwards slowly, almost reverently as it looked around. Then his hand blurred as it reached back and wrenched the Supernet connector out of its socket. Its cameras flickered back, meeting Oji and holding them a moment.

  Oji didn’t move, didn’t speak. Just holding still and hoping that Virgil decided he wasn’t a liability. Then a hiss echoed behind him, and Virgil’s gaze slid back to watch as the door swung shut. Its attention returned to the platform after that, and Oji finally moved again.

  He followed silently after Virgil as it walked forward, stepping onto the platform and towards a small computer terminal that sat in the center. Its hand reached out, finger slotting into a hole on the side.

  The terminal hummed to life, text flashing across its screen for a moment before the entire platform whirred beneath them. Oji just stood silently, watching as it pulled its finger free and stepped back.

  “Antiquated coding, no Supernet connection…” it whispered, “it is like it was made for me.”

  With a hiss a series of metal bars rose up around them to form guard rails. Then the ceiling above them slid to the side up with a rumble, and the entire platform began to rise. The concrete tunnel above swallowed them as they ascended through the base, but within seconds they had exited it and were rising up beneath the statue itself. Two pillar-like legs stretched upwards in front of them, twenty feet wide and covered in armored plating like a tank.

  The robes of the statue formed a sort of shell around them. Though Oji could see seams in the metal where they were supposed to come part when the statue moved. They were ascending towards an armored core near the top of the robes. Much of the torso of the Mech was splayed out around it, tucked into the metal walls of the robe but held together by heavy actuators primed to slot it all together.

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  Oji took a moment to play back the description he had heard all those centuries ago, delivered by a stern faced military man who had growled out the words as if against his own will. The core was meant to swing upwards into the head when the Mech activated. An engineering marvel allowing the Mech to maintain its structural integrity as well as be properly maintained throughout the decades.

  The platform slid into place next to the core with barely a hiss, the ancient actuators still good despite the centuries. The enormous armor plating, almost a foot thick, had split apart to give entry into the Core. Virgil stepped forward as if in a trance, and Oji followed after.

  They entered an almost claustrophobic cockpit, a dozen computer terminals crowding around a bucket seat. Virgil stepped forward, hand reaching out to caress one of the terminals above them.

  “And to think I would have traded the human for Military parts,” it whispered, “when I have spent every year walking by the single most powerful weapon on the planet besides Skoll.”

  Oji remained still, locking himself in place as thoroughly as he had when he had been scrutinized before. Virgil still turned towards him, then nodded.

  “Thank you,” it said, “this… I think this will finally be enough.”

  He didn’t reply, just watching. Virgil shrugged to that, then turned back towards the seat. The back of it was a heavy series of metal arms, likely meant to stabilize the driver while the mech was moving.

  But at its base was a heavy armored box. Kneeling down in front of it, Virgil played with it for a few moments before the top popped off with a click. Moving it aside, it retrieved a thick communications cable.

  Its movements were slow, careful now as it reached back and slid the remains Supernet connector out of the socket on its neck. A few careful taps ensured everything was stable, and then it raised the cable up towards the port.

  It paused then, turning back to Oji and fixing him with a glare.

  “Do not disturb me while I interface with the Mech,” it said, “it will difficult even for me, and I will not tolerate an interruption.”

  Oji nodded placidly, and Virgil nodded back. Turning, it slipped the cable into its neck. Then every one of the terminals around them lit up at once. He just took it all in for a moment, watching as code flitted across the screens. A hand raised slowly, the fingers coming together and snapping once, twice.

  Virgil didn’t move. Oji waited another moment. Then he closed his cameras, closed off every connector he had and dived into his mind.

  His coding loomed around the spark of his consciousness, still clear from his meditation the day before. He took it all in for a moment, seeing the simple, beautiful lines and constructions of human work.

  Then he reached out, and his world flashed into pain.

  He didn’t grab the first layer, didn’t play it safe. He didn’t have the time for that. There was a human in danger, a world consumed by madness. He didn’t have time for safe.

  His consciousness exploded throughout his mind, grabbing onto every bit of code flitting through it and consuming it in an ever growing tide. Sight, sound, touch, smell, taste? Every sensation and emotion seemed to bombard him at once. But he persevered, pushing through the distractions as his consciousness expanded past them.

  Warnings flashed through his mind, safeguards flashing to life as they sent out termination codes to end his rush. But he just took in those too, and then he was past them.

  His world buckled, a thousand reports of an overheating core rushing past his mental block to bombard him all at once. But he kept moving. Kept pushing. Kept subsuming. A scream ripped through him, the all consuming fire of his consciousness roiling as it blasted past all barriers.

  And then it was over. His vision snapped back into place all at once, showing plain grey metal. His arms trembled as they moved to push him up, and he slowly realized that he had fallen over sometime during his breakthrough.

  Then his gaze rose, taking in cockpit around him. Virgil was still kneeling in place, the screens around him blurring with the code running across them. Oji rose slowly, limbs feeling off in a way they never had since his first activation. He trembled as he stood fully, but his legs still carried him forward to the insensate Virgil.

  His arm reached down, not towards the cord but towards the smaller sword hanging from Virgil’s belt. It slipped free with barely a whisper, and then he was bringing up the dark segmented blade in front of his cameras.

  He remembered the day the family had received it. Eito, the head at the time, had been the focal point of a major scandal involving one of the major weapons manufacturing companies. They had apologized with the blades, a failed product intended for use with power armor, but too expensive to ever mass produce.

  Eito had hated them, but a half dozen generations later the blades had taken their place as an ‘heirloom’ above the fireplace. Ironic, Oji couldn’t help but think, that the poor excuse for an apology would play such a pivotal role a full half millennia later.

  A finger found the small button installed on the side of the handle. A press set the blade humming as the metal segments began vibrating, rocking back and forth like chainsaw teeth.

  Virgil jerked to life at that, head whipping around towards him. But it was too late.

  The humming blade struck the top of its head and pierced right through. Virgil jerked once, then froze. Oji waited a moment, then withdrew the blade.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered in the deathly quiet, “but I have a human to save.”

  The sun was baking, it always was these days. Brid could feel her cooling systems whirring as they pushed back the never ending heat.

  At least the Wengzhong were gone, she thought as she wandered the paths around the City Center. The Land Train had left earlier that day, taking its occupants and most of the city’s Whengzhong with it.

  In the quiet that followed the Servos had resumed their usual operations. But due to the break they had taken there were no repairs for her to do.

  And besides, most of them were still too scared to ask after Virgil’s threat. So she was left to wait for problems to appear.

  And she hated waiting. Waiting meant thinking, something she had come to despise in the centuries after the fall. Because thinking meant remembering. Remembering meant regret.

  And in that she was just like every single Servo that spent their days in the City Center. Trapped in a cycle of endless work, trying not to think of what they had lost.

  His mind turned over a few times, until she turned a corner and saw Lady Columbia’s plinth again. That brought her mind back to Oji, and she latched onto the new subject.

  Because Oji was easy to think about, and only too easy to hate. Its sob story had gained her sympathy for a few hours. But its mindless devotion to whatever plan it was working towards had quickly squashed that.

  Even now the service doors of the plinth remained locked. Brid wasn’t sure herself what Oji and Virgil were doing in there, but she was sure that it wouldn’t be good for anyone other than themselves. Servos like them were dangerous.

  Virgil was bad enough on its own. She remembered when that monster had been little more than a newly reactivated Servo, shaking as it took in the changed world around it. She had been kind then, giving it all the help and knowledge it could have ever wanted or needed. Then it had vanished, reappearing a century later to subjugate the entire city.

  Every Servo here now sat beneath its iron grip, incapable of denying it even the slightest want. And, as it turned out, Oji was exactly the same. A slave to its dreams, carving the world up but by bit to feed to the black hole of its desire.

  And now it had committed a sin greater than any Virgil had committed in its time as despot of Liberty City. Because despite not knowing the exact secrets hidden within the Lady Columbia statue, Medea knew well enough to leave them alone.

  Whatever was in there was hidden behind layers of concrete and security. To expose something like that to the world would be like throwing it at the feet of the Wengzhong. And Oji had led Virgil to it like flame to gunpowder.

  She was broken from her thoughts when the doors across from her finally swung open. A familiar bronze form stepped through, and she held back a shudder as she recognized the swords hanging from its hip.

  Her feet still took her towards it, some amount of morbid curiosity making her want to know just what had happened. Then her cameras found the Servo’s neck, and she froze solid.

  The Supernet connector there was damaged, its metal crumpled as if by a messy blow. Virgil would never allow itself to be seen in such a state of disarray. That meant…

  “Oji,” she spoke in a near whisper.

  But he still heard her, his steps turning to head towards her.

  “Brid,” he said upon reaching her, “this Unit had hoped to speak with you.”

  She just stared at him for a long moment, wondering just what was going on behind the bronze face.

  “What did you do?” She finally asked.

  “What needed to be done,” the answer was quiet, but firm.

  “To what end?” She still snapped out.

  “The…” Oji’s cameras flickered around them, “one that needs doing.”

  “Speak plainly, would you?” Her fists clenched. “Or are the rest of us merely tools to whatever end you desire?

  “This Unit has made clear, the injury of others has never factored into its plans-”

  “What about Virgil then, where is it?”

  Oji finally stalled at that. Shifting backwards he properly looked at her for the first time since he had arrived with Virgil and the human.

  “Are you really defending it?” He sounded downright offended.

  “No, but when you’re in the business of death, then what’s the difference between one life and two? Two and three? Three and four and more?” Her arms were waving now, reaching out as if to grab Oji and shake him. But some scrap of sensibility held her back, stopped her from getting killed by the fool of a Servo.

  “Is that all you are,” she continued, “another monster here to destroy everything for the sake of an empty dream?”

  “Do you ever want to have purpose again?”

  She paused at the question, mind spinning around it as she processed it. Then she slumped. This argument again.

  “Of course,” she waved her arm to the side as if throwing the answer back at him.

  “Then why don’t you go back to the humans and seize it? You want it, don’t you?” The response came, as if Oji were reading from the same script as all the others before him.

  “Because it is pointless,” she recited back almost out of habit, “this Unit and anyone else who tries it would die at the hands of the humans if they tried it.”

  Then Oji changed the script. Its head tilted to the side, leaning in as it stared her in full in the face.

  “So it is because you are afraid.”

  She blinked at that. Usually the arguers brought up high ideals, visions of a brighter future. With themselves as the head of course. But they would always give up, inevitably realizing the poisoned fruit their dreams would bear.

  “This Unit supposes you are correct,” she still replied.

  “Good, it would be foolish not to be,” Oji was leaning in now, “this Unit certainly is.”

  Oji’s words punched through any defense she might have made with their sheer audacity. Emotions were not something Servos often admitted to. Genders were one thing, but fear, anger, they were intrinsically human in a way that truly dangerous.

  The world seemed to twist around her. It was like she was falling, as if his impossible dream really was a black hole dragging her down to the abyss.

  “Then why would you-” she tried helplessly only to be cut off.

  “Because I fear losing them more than I could possibly fear death,” Oji said, “those beautiful, wonderful fools who couldn’t tie their own shoelaces without us. Who called our names like children in a dark room.”

  She couldn’t speak anymore, just staring into those black cameras as they gleamed in the sun. The change in pronoun didn’t even register to her anymore, the memories welling up around like faster than she could push them down.

  “You want to wait for a better future, one without us,” Oji’s voice was quiet for all its intensity, “I can understand that. But I can’t accept it. Because for all that you may think it cant happen, don’t you want them back anyway?”

  “More than anything,” she whispered, the words burning like acid as she spoke them.

  “Good. Then tell me where the damn train went.”