#unit a3915

This city, like the others before it, lay silent and still.

Rin sped through the air, several meters above the splintered glass and crumbled masonry that decorated the cracking pavement. She was the only visible source of movement for kilometres, but made no more noise than the wind of her passage and a barely-audible hum.

Everywhere she looked, another fallen building, shattered highway, or rotting park. Fortunately, the fall had happened long enough ago that she was unlikely to find anything organic that wasn't plant matter; everything else had already dessicated or petrified. The world was coated in the dust of the dead now.

A sudden, unexpected ping in her sensor suite brought her up short, screeching to an abrupt halt. Well, 'screech' was a misnomer; EMA1 propulsion was frictionless, so save for the air shock she produced, there was nothing to make a noise. Her shortened hair bobbed in front of her vision as she did so, doing nothing to obscure the images in her mind; she'd cut it short again once she decided there was no point in keeping up appearances any longer. Long hair just wasn't practical for the apocalypse.

There... approximately seventeen kilometers to the northwest. An energy signature... an unrecognized one. She couldn't even comprehend the waveforms she was seeing, they were like nothing in her memory files. What on earth was that? Had the enemy come up with some sort of new weapon?

That thought, and not the possibility that it might be a survivor, was the reason she flew towards the signature, rather than away from it. At least, that's what she stubbornly told herself. Even a top-of-the-line android could have whims, after all.

The signal proved to be coming from a building which had only partially collapsed. It listed pretty badly to one side, however; Rin had to hover to avoid slipping on dusty, angled hallways. There was no telling who once owned this building, but walking through the darkened hallways, Rin found plenty of variety in the sort of things the people once did here. Perhaps this belonged to a particularly wealthy company, with interests in a lot of different things.

Her path took her deep underground, to a series of labs that surprised her. Cybernetics, robotics, and what would have once been massive supercomputers. A place like this could've easily worked on some of the predecessor technology to what made up Rin's current body.

Finally she reached the lowest level, and the cause of the building's tilt became clear. At some point, the earthquakes which had rocked Japan following the fall had destabilized the foundation here, and part of this level had collapsed, burying much of the equipment stored down here. Rin marvelled at how lucky she was to even get down here; only the fact that the rubble from the collapse served to support the rest of the building had saved it from becoming a complete ruin.

Deep within that rubble, though... something had powered on.

Rin looked around at the coffin-like crates near her. With a gesture, she turned her EMA onto the crate, cracking it open like an egg. A fine mist of dust particles and stale air hissed out, and she stared at the humanoid face inside, uncomprehending for a long moment.

This wasn't just a robot. It was an android. A female humanoid android. Like her. The face was unfamiliar, and there was no sign of any power source inside of it; it was as dead as its surroundings. But simply the fact that one of the machines down here was... like her... meant that there could be others.

She turned to face the rubble again. The signal came from inside that debris. Whatever it was, it was buried under there - unlikely to escape, unless Rin took a huge risk and pried it out of there. She thought for a moment about the chance of success of such an action; more than likely, she'd destabilize the building, and what was left would come crashing down around her. She's probably end up entombed here just like the other power source. Not a good idea.

She couldn't banish the idea, though, of that power signature having a face like the android in that crate. Silent. Sleeping. If it woke up... would it understand what had happened? Would it realized it was stuck there? Would it... go mad, isolated, buried alive?

... she had to try.

In the end, it was harder than she'd suspected... but somehow, she made it out in one piece, the badly-battered crate containing her prize lying on the ground behind her. An expanding cloud of dust and smoke mushroomed in the air behind her; she doubted it would draw much attention, as such things still happened at random in these parts.

That was too close, though. Four times she was nearly caught by falling debris; once she was, and it was only by dropping her prize briefly to twist herself free that she was able to avoid getting crushed in the collapse. Even so, she had a fair bit of body damage to tend to later... including two lost fingers. Those would be expensive to reconstruct, but...

Well, it wasn't like there was a good reason to conserve either energy or supplies any more, now was there?

Wearily, she walked over to the crate and gestured carefully. Her control was weakened from the near burnout she experienced escaping, but she was still able to open the crate without much difficulty. Cautiously, Rin peeled away the outer layers of the shell, revealing the occupant.

It was, as she had suspected, another android. Female. Taller than her, but then most people were. Blonde, short-haired... that seemed to be a popular choice, she thought self-consciously. There were signs that this was a farmore primitive model than herself, though; many of the joints looked obviously mechanical, especially the shoulders and hips, and her feet didn't even end in actual feet. Also, her weaponry wasn't even close to hidden, to judge from the hollow fingers and ammunition reservoirs in her wrists.

Her head was interesting, though. She wore a combination headband and ear mufflers that reminded her of a pair of headphones. Having once worn those constantly herself, it was kind of amusing to see. A thin membrane of cloth covered her neck, all the way to her chin, framing her face... yet the face itself seemed mature, and oddly real.

She still didn't understand how the android had come back to near-consciousness, but all things considered... Rin didn't really care about the hows right now. She was more interested in waking her up... and so she did so, gently, touching the female android's face.

"It's okay. You can wake now. You're safe."