Chapter Text
Chapter 01 DRAFT
Eren’s cold and echoey footsteps reverberated off the walls of the hallway he was walking down. The adolescent himself was too caught up in his own thoughts to pay attention to his surroundings, which were becoming more quiet and less occupied as he stormed along. It’s not like he would care anyway, he wanted to go anywhere away from the people he normally interacted with, sick of their opinions which burned as the stark antithesis of his own. Living in the arks and surviving the day just wasn’t enough for him. How could everyone really feel that complacent with their living conditions? Didn’t anyone want to see more than the same metal walls every day? Eren Jaeger was restless to explore and plagued with cabin fever, yet he didn’t even know what it was he wanted to see on Axiom.
After a while, if he wasn’t stewing, he’d notice that the passageways he was walking down had no pedestrian traffic whatsoever, not even one janitorial or maintenance droid could be seen, which were normally buzzing around everywhere. Hissing out of their pipes, steam that was perceived to be louder than normal thanks to the extraordinary quiet shook Eren out of his angsty stupor, yet the heavy cloud of worries that bothered him still pressed in the back of his mind. Where was he and how long had he been aimlessly walking? Eren didn’t have the slightest clue. He looked around for some indication of his location through a label on the sides of the halls, or possibly a deck number, but nothing of that sort could be seen. He was in a pedestrian hallway in the maintenance sector of Ark Rose, he knew that much about his whereabouts.
“Just great.” Eren sighed aloud, wiping over his face with his palm. He could easily just turn around and attempt to retrace his steps, but… Did he really want to go back and deal with Mikasa just yet? Knowing her, she’d be worried sick and give Eren more than a hard time when he found his way back. It wasn’t just her either, his superiors could also be steamed with him. Maybe getting himself further lost wasn’t a fantastic idea either, so Eren opted for a third option; sitting down to think. Wanting to be left alone, he didn’t allow the risk of being harassed by a janitor droid for sitting on the floor by quietly slipping into the closest unlocked door to his side. The door was labeled “Ark Rose Operations Center”, with no additional warnings about how only authorized personnel were allowed. The sort of label that told him if he was breaking the law was the only type Eren was looking for, so he didn’t notice the smaller additional one below that read “Warning: exercise caution when maintaining interaction archetype”.
When the door slid shut behind him, the first thing he noticed was the subtle but immediate drop in temperature compared to the outside. The room was also nearly dark, which was odd because rooms automatically illuminated themselves when a lifeform entered. The heavy and muffled cavalcade of computer coolant systems whirring away in the close distance was also out of the ordinary. Overall, his surroundings were all exaggerations of their normal levels. He put his back to a blank space in the wall and slid down to sit down at a snail’s pace, and sighed. He recognized that there was little he could do about his emotions, and that they were somewhat misdirected, yet the cliché angst that teenagers felt, that no one understood what they were going through, was more true in Eren’s case. It was one of those days that seemed that the weight of the world was on his shoulders, and all his worries about the situation deemed his daily life now were exemplified. Trying to block his own thoughts out, Eren buried his face into his arms and made a loud and frustrated grunting noise. In fact, the adolescent was so self absorbed that day that he failed to catch the soft blue glow that started to filter through his eyelids after a long moment of ringing silence.
“Hey, are you alright?” A familiar voice broke the quiet. Eren didn’t even bother looking up to respond because he knew who it was, and there wasn’t any reason to retort other than to dismiss it.
“Yeah, I’m alright A.R.M.I.N., can you leave this room be for a while?”
“Um-” The program protested. Now that was odd. He’s dismissed the program many times in the past, and it always gave the same automated dialogue. Never a protest in situations that didn’t involve his well being, especially one that sounded so unsure. It didn’t even address him by his name… Eren looked up to find the voice’s source speaker, but he perceived more than he anticipated.
It was a lone hologram of A.R.M.I.N. in the center of the room, displaying his avatar’s entire upper torso in a soft skyblue light. Eren had seen that shirtless avatar once before on a screen during his placement testing, but at the time little aesthetic details like the fact A.R.M.I.N. even had a “physical” representation didn’t make it to his memory thanks to the weight of the situation Eren was in when they “met”. However this version wasn’t as harsh on the eyes since the hologram wasn’t like the standard formats presented on most screens. Those presented him in 2D with harsh whites and piercing light blues, only as the visual of the soundwaves he created when he spoke.
“One moment, please.” The hologram stated, and then phased out for a few seconds, and then returned speaking in a more mechanical tone of voice for a split second. “Sorry, I needed to access my databases. Eren. You’re Eren Jaeger of the 104th training legion.” It was stated rather plainly with a tinge of curiosity, like he actually never interacted with him before. Eren blinked several times in response. Why didn’t he already know that? Why did he stop sounding as mechanical there? What even was this room’s purpose? It’s completely barren and only large enough to support this holo-hub, yet the walls are stacked to the ceiling with computers... Eren immediately picked up on all these subtle flaws, and deemed the whole situation to reek with suspicious circumstances.
>“Yeah. I thought you already knew everyone’s names.” Eren said with a dull exasperation. A.R.M.I.N. quickly picked up that he really wasn’t welcome, and his shoulders heaved with his own sigh before he spoke again.
“Is there anything you need my programs or features for?”
“No, A.R.M.I.N.” Eren strained and buried his face back in his arms, and waited for the soft blue glow to dissipate for several minutes, but the desired event never came. He looked up again ready to throw a fit, but the program was just watching him, expression mitigating and somehow conveying a gentle curiosity.
“Can you tell me what’s wrong at least?” It was a strange question, but why not? It’s not like anyone else enjoyed his passionate rants when he did release them from their compressed mental containers, and the program had to listen. Sure it’s not like it was going to agree with him either, but he also felt the increasing need to breathe.
“I... have a dream. To eliminate the Titans, leave the narrow confines of these hulls, and make the trip safely so I can roam Axiom freely. But civilians don’t seem concerned about what they’ve done to our ships so far and what a danger they are! We’ve had a major hull breach recently, but it’s never taken seriously by anyone but those in my corp. The last time a detrimental breach happened, we lost an entire Ark and thousands of lives!" The boy was starting to fume.
“Eren, I would be careful… Your records say you have a brain aneurysm, and that amount of stress could exacerbate it.” A.R.M.I.N. interrupted, but Eren just waved him off and kept talking.
“I feel that I’m the only one that’s bothered about that no one even talks about where we’re trying to go. We left Earth nearly nine hundred and ninety eight years ago so no one my age or even anyone’s parents remember what solid ground is like! ‘Be happy with what you have.’ Don’t they understand there’s something better and completely unexperienced out there?... Hell, even if we never leave the arks, we can stay alive as long as we eat and sleep. But that's just... living like livestock, isn't it?” Eren’s voice cracked and faded out, gripping the sleeves of his hoodie. The hologram expressed extreme interest when Eren looked back at his “face” again. It slowly faded to a gentle and tiny smile, and it’s voice was tinged with energy the next time it spoke.
“... Did you know, there’s a body of saline water that covers over seventy four percent of Axiom's surface? Fascinatingly enough, It hosts millions of ecosystems with creatures uglier than the Titans to, what I think anyway, creatures more beautiful than the nebula when solar flares ionize them.” The A.I. stated out of the blue with a clearly wistful tone to it. Jaeger just stared at him, eyes dilating in a way that betrayed his lack of trust for the program. That wasn’t the same constantly cheery demeanor it usually presented. It didn’t flash away to pull up information that time, which was far more occult than his name.
“No way. ...You knew that, but had to go and look up my name again?” Eren was surprised to find his voice betrayed his upset seconds earlier as well. The hologram gestured tapping his head.
“On-hand memory, er, R.A.M. data banks. The important stuff.”
“You don’t ever have to look stuff up. You’re everywhere, and you know everything, so what’s with the buggy delayed responses?” The question sounded more bitter than Eren intended. He couldn’t scare him off now, he had it’s undivided attention, and it was more than willing to be more informative about the new world than anyone on the whole ark.
“Eren I promise you these aren’t technical errors. You’re speaking to me with the explicit directive of not requiring my tools, programs, or utilities, so you’re talking to the “A.R.” part of “A.R.M.I.N.”, that’s all.”
“Couldn’t you go back online to the rest of, um, yourself?”
“I could, but that would demean the purpose of this technological hub room.” Reading Eren’s questioning sound, A.R.M.I.N. explained further before he could even ask.
“You’re in my designated A.R.O.C., or Ark Rose Operations Center room. It’s basically where the programmers can maintain the Interface Networks individually without shutting the entire system off.”
“Oh… So this is like a maintenance room.” Eren sighed with a sudden feeling of uneasiness creeping over him. He knew he could stay for hours and talk to “A.R. of A.R.M.I.N.” or whatever he said, about the ocean and all about it’s creatures alone, but the risk of getting caught trespassing or accidentally messing the A.R.M.I.N. up was too prevalent on his mind. He just made it into the Corp of his dreams. He couldn’t piss off his superiors by wrecking the one thing that projected Titans appearing and keeping humanity safe. “I- I should go…” He said dejectedly, and quickly stretched outward to then get up onto his feet at a reluctant pace, watching the hologram start to bite his lip in thought.
“If you feel that you must…” It began, disappointment more than apparent. Jaeger nodded in reply and started to turn around to leave. “-But if it’s any condolence, I know where you’re coming from.” A.R.M.I.N. blurted. Eren, who in that second had too many thoughts which crashed into each other at once, halted in his tracks and turned back around. What?
“How so?” He demanded, tone eager, more eager than he wanted to sound yet he also didn’t care at the same time.
“Part of my job for the past near millennium has been to observe humanity and record the notions and morals of the human race. Logically, I can conclude on my own that a good chunk of the populace believes in the oblivious and detrimental ideas you mentioned earlier. However, I’ve been programmed to tell civilians essentially what they want to hear in order to be politically correct.” It was apparently the computer’s turn to sound extraordinarily frustrated. Jaeger, even though it looked dumb as hell, stood there staring with his jaw slightly agape. Yes it was strange hearing this from an A.I. The list of “Yesses” flew by at rapid pace in Eren’s mind. Someone that shared the same opinions, wasn’t afraid to express them (because he actually could to him), and knew about Axiom in details that he couldn’t even imagine.
“If I came back as soon as I could… Would you tell me more about Axiom?” The words were hesitant at first but hummed with excitement.
“Absolutely. I find the subject tremendously fascinating, and I haven't found many people willing to learn about their race’s objective, of all things.” A.R.M.I.N. chirped. With that, something in Eren’s brain and in his chest soared, despite that he wasn’t very aware of it in the moment.
“Great!” I’ll talk to you soon, A.R.M.I.N.!” He even took the time told make a haphazard wave with his elbow as he his hands back into his hoodie pockets. Turning on his heels, he started to head out.
“Good bye, Eren.”
Eren was walking back and retracing his rout with a slight spring in his step. That might just have been what he needed to remedy the hopelessness he felt earlier. A million questions shot through his mind, but one thing was certain whether he’d say it aloud or not: he made a second actual friend today.