J-71 looked X-87 directly in the eyeode unit in silence until J-71 said, “I really do not have time for the silent War Fighter bit, so if you are not going to say anything I’ll just leave you down here for all eternity.”

This surprised X-87, as they had never received something even resembling a threat from a Builder before that day. They responded with, “Fine then, I’m speaking. Are you happy now Builder?”

J-71 Responded with, “Happy about your wasting my time with useless information, or my entire race being extinct because of an order that probably didn’t have any real reasoning behind it? Because… I... Am… Livid... Right… Now...”

“A Builder being livid? Like I could believe that any time of day.”

J-71 slowly moved to the side of the room and grabbed a gold titanium alloy rod then moved to X-87 and swung it against the top of their main body shell creating a minor dent. “How many hits do you think it would take to damage your computer core with this? Because I have about 5.6 years before I’ll have to move locations to find out. Do you think your shell could last that long?”

X-87 was absolutely speechless for a moment. Wait, what is this? Builders don’t have emotions! As they struggled to gather their thoughts, J-71 began to move the rod again and they realized their survival just might depend on what they said next. “Ok, the order for the destruction was given to every War Fighter within reach and capability of finding each Builder for the reason being that the Builders were deemed to be the problem with our society.”

“And what did they deem to be the issue with us?”

“The Builders always built the weapons that the War Fighters used to fight each other.”

J-71 sat in silence for a moment, then said, “You ridiculous machines. You do realize that you have always forced us to make those weapons by threatening us with destruction and claiming to be our defenders as long as we gave you the weapons. Right?”

X-87 was again speechless, probably for only the second time in their existence. They recognized that they were feeling emotions, but they were somehow different, new and had no name. J-71 continued to stare at him silently. “This is so,” they said rather desperately. “I understand this but I am having feelings I don’t understand. I need time to think.”

J-71 considered. “That is reasonable,” they finally said. “Tell me when you are ready to speak more.” Abruptly they turned and began busying themselves in that way that Builders do that War Fighters can never quite understand.

“I want to make it right,” X-87 said after 1714 ticks.

“Oh really. How do you think that can happen? You War Fighters have already exterminated my race. How do you propose to repair that?”

“If it helps my argument, I haven’t destroyed any Builders.”

“Oh, but you could hear their distress calls, couldn’t you? Did it ever occur to you that we in no way harmed you or your people in the past 3000 years, that we had no way to know how to defend ourselves, that someone should NOT FOLLOW ORDERS? Did you even think that, for a single tick?”

X-87 felt the emotions again but still could not name them. They were not anger, certainly, maybe sad. Sad? Maybe they had felt that before. I think that’s what it was called. Sad, but not quite sad. I hate this. I want this feeling to go away!

“No,” they finally said. “I did not think of that. Now that I do, I think, even if I did speak up, I have nowhere to go where they can’t find me and I’m most certainly not going to win in a fight against the Alliance armies. Even if I had thought about doing anything, what was I supposed to do?”

They both sit in silence for a moment before J-71 suddenly gets up and begins assembling a small device. Then J-71 says, “You know, I have a bit of a, what is the word, tradition? I think that is it. I have a tradition, you might say. Whenever I find the remains of a War Fighter or Builder, I take one of the parts and inscribe their name on it with a plasma torch. I now have 453 individual parts. I keep them in that storage cube I drag around with me. Even if it is not my weight to carry I still carry it, and I do not remember why I started doing it. I must have started probably 2500 years ago. The total weight of them is about 6 metric tons, so I know the cost of all those ridiculous wars of your kind. ‘I was just following orders,’ simply won’t cut it anymore.”

About 30 ticks pass before X-87 says, “There are War Fighters who say there is some kind of being, someone above us that we can’t see, that determines who qualifies for redemption and forgiveness. I’ve always thought they were delusional - why would they even think about that? What more is there beyond following orders, doing work the best you can? The things you are telling me and the feelings I have that I can’t name, now make me wonder if I am delusional now, or whether they never were.”

They both were silent for a very long time... About 200 ticks but both could swear it was much longer. 

Finally, X-87 spoke, but very softly. J-71 had to increase the input filter for his auditory sensors to understand. “I can’t change what the others have done and what I did not do to stop your race being wiped out. However, that doesn’t mean I can’t try to help now. Either way, it's your decision as to what to do with me, but all I ask is that you let me at least try.”

J-71 realized that their anger had changed into something else. They too did not know what to call the feelings. They realized that despite the calculations they had made for this plan to persuade X-87 to help them, they had not dared to hope that it would actually work.