Third entry in Grainthology Vol. 1 (not counting the bonus story). Also found in The Library of Guy. Meta information, such as length, can be found in both those places, though Grainthology Vol. 1 offers more detail.

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Working for those who are great and powerful fills life with risk when those lofty overlords have the most terrible enemies. They insist they feel the same, face the same potential ends, but how can they, really?

-Summary, Grainthology Vol. 1

Note: I am... not the proudest of this one, but nevertheless I have completed it and might as well put it out there. Give it a chance, maybe it'll be your thing. Or maybe not, can't say until you've tried.

Disclaimer: This story is about the lower workers of the Soian Empire. Additionally, it involves the naming of units as an important aspect. With that in consideration, I strongly suggest taking the time to make mental notes of unique unit designations when not given an alternative name for them.
For example (though neither appear in this story), MS-003 and MS-004 are very different characters. Usually, here at least, two characters in a scene can be told apart by designation length, but I still advise keeping track to some degree to avoid confusion.

Disclaimer 2: Addressing this because one of my prereaders thought this way: No, this is not an allegory. Do not think of these units as though they always adhere to human worldviews; you will get a very wrong idea of what is going on.

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“Hm. All things considered, I advise putting up more traffic cones next time.”

The relief leader returned to his feet after inspecting the pale broken body. Its left arm had been pulled roughly from its socket and its torso nearly separated from its legs with a deep, clean slice. It was not the only one. Around it, scattering the icy landscape, were a half dozen others; some right beside the first, others as much as a hundred metres away. Missing heads and shattered legs, gaping holes and melted faces; their wounds were of a degree which would be found shocking by anyone – had this not been a fairly routine occurrence.

“Oh, you don’t say?” MA-S5-V2-342 responded scornfully. They turned in their fingers a chunk of twisted metal they’d picked off the ground. Its intricate shape, the perfect tolerances it had been machined with, had been battered over itself until indistinguishable from scrap. It had been part of someone.

“In short, yes.” If the leader picked up on the hostility, he didn’t announce it. “Changes will be made, be faithful, and this should not happen again.”

MA-S5-V2-342 nearly exploded. “Yes, of course, ‘this’ as in this very specific sequence of events, and not the trillions of others which are just as possible!”

The leader gave them a warning glare. “You have any better ideas? My sort have to put up with this too, y’know. Difference is we don’t get to stay inside.”

MA-S5-V2-342 grumbled something to themselves.

“What was that?”

“I said, at least you get to go outside,” they spat.

“Ah, of course, this again.” The leader put a hand to his face. “It’s not like I’m happy that you guys are cooped up.” He threw his arm wide. “You have my sympathies! Truly! It’s just my options are a bit limited as to helping you!”

MA-S5-V2-342 rolled their eyes.

“Now, do you have any closing remarks for the spoken report?”

MA-S5-V2-342 growled under their breath. “Fine. ‘MA-S5-V2-342 is undamaged and is not in need of repair.’ Happy?”

“You expect me to be?” The leader swept his arm across the carnage. “We lose another seven of you, and you have the gall to even joke about me being happy right now!?”

“I-”

“No, I’m not. I don’t want this. Believe it or not, but we MS units are not your enemies.”

“Nonetheless, our destruction is a regular occurrence. Yours. Isn’t,” MA-S5-V2-342 finished with emphasis.

“Lucky us,” the leader said plainly. He turned around to leave, then over his shoulder continued, “You’d best finish cleaning up. I’d stay to help, but I have to get back on the Msintasi to keep watch. Stay safe, okay?”

With that the relief and recovery leader was off, rocketing up through the frigid atmosphere of the wretched planet towards the waiting cruiser above. Meanwhile, MA-S5-V2-342 was stuck on the ground collecting the half-destroyed remains of their comrades, working under an army of colossal icicles hanging precariously from the ancient steel arch which leapt across the wastes.

While they worked, they thought back. That’s what they were supposed to do with their intelligence, right? Think back, review events. Retrace steps, recall orders. Learn from what went horribly, horribly wrong.

And so, they thought.

They’d not been planning to visit this world – the group of them, eight MA units, the lower workers of the indomitable Soian Empire – when on short notice they’d been sent for a repair job, a mere repair job, at a signal outpost, one well within secured territory. The compact device’s purpose was to scan nearby universes for particular threats, so by its very nature they should’ve been safe once it was fixed. In fact, they should have been safe even beforehand, for they had an MS unit in a nearby universe supervising them from afar through their capable sensors. “Higher ground”, so to speak.

MA units were told since their construction that, so long as they had the bright blue eyes of their yellow counterparts on their every move, they’d be safe; the Traitor would be unable to get to them before they could react. They believed it. MA-S5-V2-342 believed it – somehow still did, honestly.

In theory, a guardian angel never blinks. In practice, things are not so clear cut.
For reasons still unknown to them, that supervising MS unit lost sight of the party.

They never saw what happened to the overseer, a diminutive MS-S2, though in hindsight MA-S5-V2-342 had an inkling of a theory. What good was theorizing, though, when the result was all the same in the end? Eight MA workers were left good as blind to the hunter’s approach.

PA-002, the black-plated one the lofty PS units called a Superpower, the mighty MS units a fallen angel, and the lowly MA units a traitor, had found them. He sensed their very cores, and like a shark smelling blood he homed in on the ripples in existence their most vital functions left with most remarkable efficiency.

First went Tick, or MA-S4-V1-020 as he had been formally known. He’d been the local watch, surveying the barren terrain of the icy ruins for any local life that could interfere with their work. There was none, the former inhabitants of the world had evacuated centuries prior, but it was protocol regardless. The Traitor had shoved a blade of energy straight through his chest faster than his older visual sensors could recognize. With a twist, he was gone.

After was Isteb (MA-S1-V5-738), Gad (MA-S6-V1-343), and Quits (MA-S1-V4-975). The three of them were doing seismic and weather readings to ensure that the outpost wasn’t damaged by the forces of nature shortly after their departure. Though they’d been spread out, PA-002 made no delay in revoking their mechanogenesis (as the beginning of robotic sentience was known in Soia). Isteb lost his head, Gad her leg, and Quits their chest. Gad, newer and sturdier than the others, took an extra shot to finish off. Firing from a distance, however, gave PA-002 away by the thunder of his hand cannons.

Those remaining raised the alarm. They called in backup.

By the time support came, the Fallen Angel had half-incinerated Slolo (MA-S5-V1-010), quite literally disarmed and nearly bisected Bloke (MA-S6-V1-043), and, right in front of MA-S5-V2-342 themselves, blasted though Daniel’s (MA-S1-V2-033) core at point blank.

Every swift movement the Traitor made could be felt in the core like the rumble of an incoming train. It was a horrible, constricting feeling; despair made material.

MA-S5-V2-342 was only barely saved being split head to toe by overhead swing with the sudden intervention of a broad blue blade catching PA-002’s red sabre. A flick of the brilliant energy sword and the Traitor was thrown back. MS-1501, a modern and powerful MS-S6, had arrived; the two were evenly matched. PA-002, a predator to his core, knew he’d gotten his fill for the day and made his retreat – but not before sending an energy blast from his palm towards MS-1501. The MS-S6 dodged effortlessly yet, even missing, the shot rivaled the power of an atomic bomb where it struck some three kilometres behind.

MS-1501 didn’t say a word to the surviving MA prior leaving to let the proper relief team pick up the pieces – he was too important to linger, unfortunately. All he mustered was a sad, sympathetic smile. And the MA found themselves accepting it. Truly.

The feelings this whole incident left in MA-S5-V2-342 were complicated. Just… so complicated. Everything about it, from the reminder of the fragility of their kind’s own existences, to the way the MS units treated it, to how oddly genuine MS-1501 had been in that moment, to the fact that they couldn’t even bring themselves to remember their own nickname.

It didn’t seem appropriate for the time.

MA-S5-V2-342 had piled the mechanical carcasses onto the wagon that MS-392, the relief and recovery leader, had left. An intact MA unit was a rather handsome machine, sleek white plating covering seamlessly the entire frame with black highlights showing the otherwise near-invisible plate boundaries. The rounded inverted-triangular head was no-frills in its design, where only two bright rectangular eyes and a similarly rectangular mouth adorned its face. They looked for all the world like an MS or PS unit of equivalent generation, just white and black instead of yellow, white eyes instead of blue. The Soian Standard body form; PS, MS, PA, MA, all had it in common no matter the disparity in power.

However, those that now weighed upon both the wagon and MA-S5-V2-342’s spirit were far less handsome. The Traitor was made of the stuff of the Multiverse, a material of gods. MA units were made of mere atoms, and the corpses had the wounds to show for it.

The lone machine sighed. They began to pull.

Dangling below SMS Msintasi, a Numerous-class cruiser of the Soian Multiverse Fleet, was a cable. A cable for hoisting scrap.

MA-S5-V2-342 hitched it to the wagon.

Minutes later MA-S5-V2-342’s feet touched the Msintasi’s deck, though their flight up was substantially slower than MS-392’s rapid ascent. It took longer still for the remains to be brought into the hanger bay, after which MA-S5-V2-342 had to put them into storage for the return trip.

Perhaps then would’ve ben a good time to begin trying to process what had just occurred, but instead MS-S5-V2-342 chose to find a viewport out of which to stare blankly. The view was… unusually whole, whatever that meant; they weren’t sure. It was easier at the time to stick to their duties, the meaning which their existence was assigned by design, than focus on themselves, a footnote in their purpose. They had no duties in that moment; they could do as they wished: nothing.

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Hours later, after making some other, more scheduled stops, the Msintasi pulled into port at the Solar Mass, the Soian Empire’s functional capital.

Unlike space empires, which tended to seek territory, or small Multiversal empires, which expanded across dimensions, Soia was a force of raw power, not possessions. Their supreme dominance was due to their unmatched technology, not population nor territory. There was no need to hold territory when absolutely anything and everything could be taken at will. Still, having solid ground to work on was handy, thus the fleets and the Solar Mass.

MA-S5-V2-342 accompanied their deceased comrades off the Msintasi and onto the colossal Planet-O-War. The artificial world, ten-thousand kilometers in diameter, was oddly comforting to be back on in spite of the recent tragedy. It was where they had been built, it was where they were safest; the one place they could forget about their quarrels with their MS unit superiors, for here with durability out of the question they were far more equal. It was a marvel of engineering, a behemoth of nigh-indestructible build, and a bastion of security for all with Soia’s favour.

Alongside them was an MS-S2, the oldest generation of MS still in widespread service. MS-085 was his number, though MA-S5-V2-342 had never met him before. He was pleasant enough upon introductions, at least. The old MS escorted MA-S5-V2-342 to a transport, and from there through the labyrinth of stark white halls to a locked chamber. There were many of those in a construct massive as Solar Mass, so that alone wasn’t special. What was, rather, were the contents.

Past the door, which only an MS had the clearance to open, was a perfect reproduction of a pond and waterfall. The ground was covered in coarse sand and dotted with small rocks, while on the other side of the room a great number of fresh green trees and shrubs grew under a warm yellow lamp hanging from the ceiling. An artificial breeze swept through the air, causing leaves to scratch gently against each other in a requiem of flora.

In the middle of the pocket-sized beach were several tables laid out, and on them parts. MA-S5-V2-342 glanced left and right. Pushed against the near wall were several crates full of broken MA units.

“So. This is it. The scrapping room?” They pronounced in monotone.

“Of sorts, yes,” MS-085 replied. “The room wasn’t purpose-built, of course, but seeing as this is a secondary operation anyways it’ll do.”

“Why do we even have this?” MA-S5-V2-342 asked with an indifferent puzzlement, gesturing to the various faux-natural features.

“Why not?”

MA-S5-V2-342 shrugged. The MS had a point; since Soia had achieved omnipotence there was nowhere else for them to progress. Now everything they did was for the fun of it, playing resource games for challenge and waging wars against threatless enemies.

At least, not a threat to the leaders.

MS-085 took the wagon himself and began to unload remains. “Care to lend some help?” He called back to them.

“What good would I be taking apart my comrades? Want to give me a sample of my inevitable fate?” They grumbled darkly.

“Something’s troubling you. Something about us, as models. What better task to discuss such matters over than one which forces you to face it?” MS-085 pried the faceplate off Bloke’s lifeless head to peer at the machinery within.

“I’d rather not-”

“It’s an order.” MS-085 didn’t even look their way.

MA-S5-V2-342 sighed and went to one of the other tables. They began fiddling with a part long since freed of its original owner, less obviously from a body. They’d preferred to keep that distance for the time.

“First off,” MS-085 began, “MA units are not so unique in their endangerment as you choose to believe.”

“It certainly feels like we are,” MA-S5-V2-342 countered.

“Yes, feels, to one without the full picture. Do you know what happened to your overseer?” MS-085 had pulled out one of Bloke’s blocky eyes and was pointing with it at the disgruntled unit across from him.

MA-S5-V2-342 hadn’t thought about it past the first moments after, they’d been too concerned with their own survival and the deaths of their coworkers. “No, I do not.”

“He’s missing. We’re trying to find MS-142, but no luck as of yet. PA-002 got him out of the way before he went for you,” MS-085 relayed. His voice was flat and emotionless, however if one looked closely they could almost detect hints of melancholy.

MA-S5-V2-342 had no words. Not out of shock, simply out of lack of anything to say.

“You are not alone in danger. Yours may be more obvious,” he gestured at Bloke’s faceless skull, “But you are not alone.” He removed the other eye. “Maybe someday, if I can muster the goodwill to ask, I can get you in to see the MS wrecks.”

He stopped working.

MA-S5-V2-342 looked over.

MS-085 was laughing. It was a small, pitiful, sound. A sound of emotions few and held at arm’s reach in study by the person feeling them. It was as though he were looking on at himself as a curiosity.

The MA began to step closer. Intrigue, perhaps.

“Then you can see what a dead Angel looks like,” MS-085 stopped them, staring back with a vindictive grin. Not for the MA, but for the perpetrator. He hated PA-002 just as much, if not more, than the MA, though perhaps wouldn’t so readily admit it.

MA-S5-V2-342 backed away to their table. They chose another part to begin tinkering with. Perhaps it wasn’t best to play games of who suffered worse. The MA lost many, but the loss of a single MS, even of an older generation, was the death of something far, far greater than a lowly worker. They changed the subject with an observation: “You MS units, you don’t name each other. Why?”

MS-085 seemed to prefer this line of conversation. He answered with a question: “Why would I want a name?”

MA-S5-V2-342 was confused. “Why would you not?”

“It pulls me away from what I am.”

“What do you mean? How would a name pull you away from what you are?”

“I am MS-085. I am the eighty-fifth Minor Series unit constructed. Why would I want to be anything other than that?” He removed the rest of the plating on Bloke’s head, “Why would I want to become myself rather than an MS? Why should I make those two concepts distinct to begin with?”

“To live as yourself?” MA-S5-V2-342 suggested.

MS-085 chuckled. “Funny hearing that from the unit who was not long-ago decrying life as an MS as without risk compared to their own and since refuses to use their own nickname.”

MA-S5-V2-342 closed their mouth.

“When joy comes from what you are, you want to remain what you are to the fullest,” he opined, pointing at himself. “When joy is found only in who you are, you want to become as much ‘you’ as possible.” He pointed at the MA. He paused briefly, glancing over at the other unit, observing them intently. “But to you, if I read you right, having a nickname, a grasp for that coveted ‘you’, defines you as an MA far more than the number declaring you as such. More ‘who’, yet also more ‘what’ – a ‘what’ you’re not fond of, one weak and vulnerable. For all you strive to have an identity, what you are remains more important to you than who you are; it’s also everything you’re not nor can ever be. I like what’s most important to me, you dread it – so you drop the name, or so I reckon. We’re different, yet similar.” MS-085 returned his gaze to his work. “It’s a funny thing, isn’t it, Trifordu?”

MA-S5-V2-342, Trifordu, nodded slowly. They weren’t sure they agreed, or that they disagreed. They couldn’t think properly. Was the waterfall always this loud? They could see MS-085 was staring blankly at them, but so could they see everything.

“You’re not as intact as you said,” he noticed, an ounce of frustration in his voice. “You’re having trouble handling input data; it’s overloading you.” He jogged closer, looking the MA over. MS-085 didn’t need to take them apart to feel something wasn’t ticking right inside. “As I thought, your core is out of alignment; must’ve been something PA-002 did. That backlog would also explain why you’ve so… unstable.”

“Oh. That happens?” Trifordu inquired dumbly. They were looking increasing spacy.

“Sometimes. In your case, it appears to be compounding over time. Fortunately, all the spare parts I need are already here.” MS-085 smiled.

“But why. Why bother?” Trifordu set both eyes on the MS, as little at that did. They couldn’t focus. “Why not build a new unit?”

“Why am I still around?” The MS turned about with arms spread, showing off their aging plates. “I’m not all original. No sense recycling outdated components from the Broken, might as well use them as spares.”

Trifordu could once again only nod.

A short procedure later, just a few minutes of calibrating connections, and they were feeling much clearer

“Thank you, I guess.” Something itched in their mind. They shot a look at the destroyed units.

MS-085 caught on, “PA-002 goes for the cores. Unless you find one intact, they’re good as scrap. There’s no person to preserve anymore.”

Trifordu already knew this, but it was disappointing to hear it spoken aloud yet again.

Nothing else to say, they resumed taking apart the wrecked machines. It was… oddly therapeutic to take apart their old friends, Trifordu found. It turned death into a process, literally. MAs’ whole existences are processes, so to be able to take each body and break it down into something useful took a part of the sense of loss out of the affair.

While getting started on Gad they found something. In the hole in her chest was a grey box. It was sturdy and firmly connected. Realization struck them and they cried out, “OBS!”

“What?” MS-085 responded. It wasn’t combat-level urgency, he recognized, but clearly something had happened.

“Oh, uh, sorry, force of habit.” Trifordu became bashful.

MS-085’s eyes widened slightly when it occurred to him what he’d just been called. He pushed it off as unimportant, “Ignore that, what’s the problem?”

“I… I think Gad’s core is still intact...”

MS-085 bumped them aside to look himself. “By all, it is! PA-002 must’ve missed and only knocked out their power!”

The two laughed triumphantly. As a first, they might just be able to bring back an MA from one of the Traitor’s strikes.

“She could come back…” Trifordu repeatedly to themselves quietly, now with a slight smile.

“She?” MS-085 raised an eyelid. There’d never been a Soian unit going by feminine terms before.

“Yeah, one of her earliest duties involved staying with a family in one universe. I wish I could remember why she was there, but they called her a she and it stuck. Really not anything important, just a funny story.” Trifordu waved it off.

“Hm. Well, certainly consistent with how PS and MS units came to all be ‘he’s.” MS-085 shrugged.

“Right. So, we can fix her, yeah?” Trifordu was nearly shaking with anticipation. This was big.

“Should be able to, yes.”

“Can I help?”

“If you’ve nothing else to do.”

“There’s nothing else I will do.”

“Good enough for me.”

Trifordu reached out a hand, which MS-085 took. “Thank you, Obs.”

They would never be equals. Never, it was simply impossible. What that didn’t mean, it occurred to Trifordu, was that their superiors were cruel about it; they meant well, they just had their own rules to play by. Existence was a game to the Soian leaders, they’d chosen their campaign, there was no changing that. Nevertheless, they didn’t throw away their pieces if they could help it, no matter how disposable those pieces had been made.

With that in mind, perhaps Trifordu could cut them some slack.