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The air was thick with grime, the way it was on Mondays like this, when the actuators all failed at once in their "unplanned" spasmodic symphonies. Rose Lalonde always kept a sword on hand, hoping to never need to use it, but on days like this there was always an air of inevitability.
Mondays, huh?
It went like this: First, she woke up, the way she usually does, letting herself drift off her sleeping pillow and onto the rest of the smooth, tile floor. She brushed sleep out of her eyes, affixed a little clamp to her head that made sure her magic never got too out of hand, limiting it to only small trash fires and uncomfortable moments of unplanned soulscanning. Then, out the door. A small, person-sized drone stomped by her on the sidewalk. She gave it a wide berth, always unable to resist a shudder from those distressing anti-noises that rocked the inside of her head like the opposite of a binaural beat, creating silence where there once was thought and shunting it to her eardrums, to emerge out of the ear canal with wet, painless substance.
Groceries, of course, needed to be collected. The line to the dispensary was long, nothing unusual for this time of day in this locale, but the presence of drones was more intense than normal. Immediately, Rose was on edge, and not the least of which being that she could feel all those radiant scans reverberating through her bones, all the people around her radiating fear in oozing, curdling waves, almost visible, the way it congealed and collected on the floor. This wasn't fear Rose was used to, the subtle, simmering screams that sat inside everyone, strongly avoiding those slightest of urges to release themselves. This was something stronger.
Rose kept her hand on her sword, peering around while she got in line. The simple, narrow blade had never tasted chitin or oil yet, but it was only a matter of time before something terrible happened and her training proved itself necessary. Just the wrong day when the drones went wild on her, and she wouldn't resist, even though she would know that would mean her life as she knew it was over.
Some days, she wanted to start the fight. It would be so exciting, to throw her life into complete disarray, but there were people that relied on her. Her handheld buzzed in her pocket - she pulled it out, flicked it open, snapped it magnetically to her ear through her headclamp. "Rose Lalonde speaking. To whom do I owe the call?"
"Rose! Rosie. Rose Rose Rosie Rose Rose. Rose." Came the familiar drawling of her sister, ever sluiced on various medications. Headclamps didn't work on her illusion magic, she just kept breaking them in half whenever a new category got fitted onto her, so eventually the Estate just assigned her a shrink with appropriate clearances to give her the stuff that would keep her magic at sustainable levels. Rose looked up at the skyscraper above her, watching it pitch through the clouds, tinted windows glaring back down at her.
"Yes, Roxy, dearest? How may I assist you?" Rose asked, the static feeling in the air getting stronger with the moment. For a second, Rose thought she could hear the wind, and then, realized that was a very odd thing to think - there was no wind on Monday. "I'm in line to get our food now. Is it urgent?"
"Yes! Of CORPSE it's urgent. Would I ever. Would I ever ring you for something unurgent?" Roxy replied, and Rose could feel her rolling voice, her leaning on her prized beanbag, her upside-down reclining in her tone.
"You have, several times. But do go on, I'm certain this one is urgent." Rose responded, ration-dry. She looked down at the line of the dispensary, squeezing the hilt of her blade a little bit harder. No, she wasn't hallucinating or hearing some malformed soul. That was absolutely the wind. "What seems to be the matter, Roxy? Earthquake? Unscheduled--"
"Rose! Look UP!" Roxy yelled through the handheld so loud that a couple of drones turned towards the public nuisance.
Then, a window shattered. Someone jumped through, a long, whiplike braid trailing behind them like a stealth freighter's tail in the storm clouds, carrying two heavy looking bags with them. "WOO-HOO!" She screamed, throwing both bags into the air, where they promptly burst into their component meal boxes, raining down upon the line. The drones didn't have time to pay attention to Rose (who had, wisely, drawn her sword), too focused on the clampless public nuisance landing horizontally on the window of the building across the street (a bank? Or was it a movie theatre?).
Turning around towards the ground, standing in stark defiance of gravity, the youth stuck a tongue out and pulled an eyelid down with her middle finger, blowing raspberries at the drones digging their claws into the soft concrete to begin scaling the walls. "All you can eat, ladies and germs! Have a holly jolly Monday!" She yelled, pointing down towards one of the advancing figures. A bolt of lightning seemed to just explode out of the air, blasting it apart, and Rose, thinking about grabbing the meal boxes and running, suddenly had a different idea.
Wedging the tip of her sword underneath her clamp, she grunted, gave a little twist, and popped it off of her ears. Immediately, a drone turned towards her.