Archive of Our Own ^beta

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N: If you kill a murderer, the number of murderers in the world remains the same.

Uzi: Doesn’t this just mean I have to kill a second murderer before I start reducing the murderer population?

V: Also since we all already did murder, we don’t add ourselves to the murderer population so this doesn’t matter anyway.

Uzi: So we can murder murderers guilt-free!

V: Yes!

*Uzi and V high-five each other while N goes to a corner and starts quietly sobbing*

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Cyn: Satisfied stretch. I am finally done with this flower arrangement Mistress Louisa demanded. Figuring out the best set up and putting it together took the whole day but I am proud of the effect even if it will be only stinking human guests appreciating it.

*Louisa enters the ballroom and glares at the flower arrangement*

Louisa: Ugh, what is this? Is this your idea of decoration? Ugh, why did I assign such an important task to one of Tessa’s dumpster pets!? Throw this away and, oh I don’t know, use better algorithms this time for choosing which ones you rip off from the internet!

Cyn: Bewilderment. But I did not use algo…

Louisa: Was I not clear? THROW. IT. AWAY. Is your processor so rusted through you do not understand simple commands anymore?

Cyn: Bow. No Mistress, I understood and will carry out your orders.

*Louisa humphs, turns around, and exits the ballroom while Cyn’s screen flashes to the Absolute Solver symbol.*

Cyn: Malicious chuckle. I will show you “throw away”.

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0 people in the chat

usertag_marVelous joins

marVelous: wait why no one told me I got fired from the camp counsellor gig?

usertag_darkxwolf17 joins

darkxwolf17: Didn't they send that info to your school employee email? 

marVelous: we have employee email???

darkxwolf17: I think I may know why you got fired XD

marVelous: bullshit :< is this about me taking the blame for ur kills at the last years camp?

darkxwolf17: could be, lemme quickly hack the school server to check

(since the school server firewalls got upgraded recently it takes over 8 seconds for Uzi to break in) 

darkxwolf17: got it, "Fired for repeatedly not showing up to staff meetings and summons as well as highly negative student opinions at the Student Opinion Polls."

marVelous: wait what are "Student Opinion Polls"?

darkxwolf17: Teachers get to grade us throrough the year so we also get to grade the teachers at the end of the year :D You and N also count even if that was only one trip. 

marVelous: double bullshit! how do you rusty toasters get to tell me how to do my job!? there was nothing like this back on Earth! 

darkxwolf17: Yes there was, for normal humans that is, that's where us worker drones got the idea from. I don't think your experience from the slave factory brainwashing centre or Tessa's experience from like "St Sadist's Distinguished Private Academy for Outsourcing Child Abuse" should be a reference point for schooling practices :D

marVelous: Shaddup, this is still stupid! What did I do wrong? 

darkxwolf17: Are you for real? You literally killed a dude within like 10 seconds of us coming out of the bus. I'm even paraphrasing one of the poll answers here.

marVelous: Is this seriously what got everyone so pissed? 

darkxwolf17: I mean yes, also threatening people with a bow, bossing them around and kinda not really doing much in terms of your official job… You got a total of three not-negative reviews and one of them was me lying out of gratitude. No need to guess where the other two came from :> 

marVelous: Liz and Thad <3 Ok fine, I guess N will be without me over there this year… Tho I'm curious, who is going to be counsellor with him?

darkxwolf17: lemme check… oh... dgbtfjb@#231asfg@ 

marVelous: you toasters have the weirdest names

darkxwolf17: no I mean it's J…

marVelous: what? how? why?

darkxwolf17: beats me, it looks like you should have actually shot up more people since it now seems like they actually liked that part :p OH AND SHE'S ALSO THE NEW ART TEACHER. Robojesus, this year is gonna have a worse survival rate than mine…

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Your terrible taste in anime shows how faulty your processor is!” J jeered at the shother drone in front of her.

“I take no criticism from a corpo-human shill such as you!” Uzi shouted back at the disassembler.

J let out a dramatic laugh before responding. “I am no shill! It’s not my fault your lacking circuits can’t recognise high quality half as good as mine can. I observe excellence wherever it shines, whether in the money-making talent of executives or in the artistic craft of screenwriters and animators!” The disassembler boasted and then pointed a finger right at Uzi. “Besides you’re the one here who watches mediocre, mass-produced, lowest-common-denominator garbage made for a quick buck. Who is the corpo shill here? Huh?”

“Wake up J, literally everything in the last several hundred years was made for a quick buck. All that matters is who specifically made it!” Uzi retorted.

“Yes, it indeed matters! And beg tell me, who made ‘Eminence in Shadow of Pluto’ for example? Witless, greedy, trend-chasing hacks, that’s who!” J’s voice rose ever higher.

“Bzzzt, wrong answer for your own question Auntie Ruckus! It was DRONES who were FORCED to make it by witless, greedy, trend-chasing hacks and EiSoP of all things is one the best examples of these uncredited geniuses pouring out their core and soul into something under the bullshit mandates imposed on them. Only for it to be dismissed by Humans and bootlickers such as you as schlock!” The purple-eyed worker was not to be outdone by J in terms of volume. The murder drone clearly wanted to respond already but she was not done. “If only you pulled your head out of your aft and actually properly watched EiSoP instead of relying for your opinion on dead flesh bags who whined about it on YouTube fifty years ago you could see the care put into it!”

“Once again, I don’t need to look for golden residue in a mountain of rust as I already have access to the works of true masters! Ones who had the skill and the drive to wrestle creative control of their work to make it shine in full!”

Uzi’s patience for talk ran out she pounced at J, tail and wings out. “YOU FREAKING CHIMP SIMP HOW CANBDNFKGGAK.”

Any coherence between the two of them was lost as they broke down into a fighting mess…

Chapter Text

Lizzy looked over from her position on the couch at the fight ongoing in the room over. “The weebs know that it’s N’s pick for the movie night tonight right?”

“Why do you think they care? They've had the same fight day in and day out for over a week now.” V responded with a shrug.

“Yeeeee… shouldn’t we try to break them up?” Asked Thad, sitting on the couch on the opposite side of V from Lizzy, he was looking with concern at the two fighting girls who were somehow only getting louder and more vicious with their fighting and barely coherent insults.

The two girls he shared the couch with shrugged in unison. “I sure as hell am not, pretty sure stepping in between them is a mortal hazard for me right now.” The cheerleader drone responded first.

“I don’t feel like joining the ‘fun’ either” V added. “Start worrying if they bring out the guns and robo-witchcraft… Until then they’re fine, with their regeneration they may as well be play-fighting.”

Thad did not look convinced. “Oooook… so, moving on, what precisely does N have planned for tonight?”

“A Clifford movie” V responded.

Lizzy asked with concern “Which one?”

“He found a working physical edition of some remaster of the 2217 one in some dumpster.”

The cheerleader’s worst fear came to pass and she groaned loudly in despair. “I don’t even know what’s worse; that it is the worst one or the very fact that I actually have this information in my memory! How the hell do you two endure these?”

Thad chuckled “Well, I think we just soak up the positive vibes from N, you should try it.” V snorted at that.

“I don’t vibe with Rottweiler’s positive vibes!” Lizzy threw up her arms.

“You looked like you were enjoying the last one N made us watch though.” The disassembler looked at her friend with a questioning expression.

“That’s because the 2768 one was actually good to my surprise! Puppyman doesn’t see the quality though, he just sees dogs!”

“Whatever you say.”

Chapter Text

“Well, of course I am the most dangerous one of our squad!” V stated proudly, offended at the mere suggestion it could not be the case.

“Are you sure? Both me and N beat your ass at one point.” Uzi responded with her mocking tone, looking up from a box of junk she was browsing for spare parts.

“Ha! Being dangerous is not just about firepower, its about the attitude! I’m actually using my danger potential outside of oil-hunting!”

“Oh so you’re now proud of being the psycho responsible for randomly murdering the most people in the colony!” A slight accusatory tone tinged Uzi’s response.

“V doesn’t have the biggest kill count between you three though.” Lizzy butted in after spending the last minute silently glowering at Uzi for intruding on her chat with V with her garbage diving. “At least counting only our colony, in total I am sure she has both of you losers in the dust.”

“What are on about?” The two other girls spoke in unison.

“Both you and Mr GollyGee Biscuits killed five people each, he on his breach into the bunker way back when, you at the camp. V killed only two during the breach, that one guy during the cafeteria incident and finally Clarence in the camp. So four dead but maybe it could even be counted as like three and a half since it was, well, Clarence.” The cheerleader laid out her reasoning.

“Liz why did you say this in front of the Freak? If you wanted me to kill someone for you, you just had to ask…” The disassembler loudly despaired while Uzi stood quiet for a second before realisation followed by a malevolent smile flashed across her face. She navigated to a different crate of metal parts and started looking for something there.

“C’mon everyone knows you’re a big softie…” Lizzy teased her homicidial friend.

“They know wr…”

“HEY V!” Uzi loudly interrupted the two. Both looked at her with questioning and irritated expressions.

“Now that Lizzy brought up the breach, she reminded me of something I’ve heard on that day while listening in from behind a crate.” She then raised her arm, where she held an old missile. “‘Lowest body count eats a missile!’ Remember by chance who said that?” Uzi grinned widely.

V groaned after realising that Uzi was correctly recalling her own words from that night. Then, she grinned back as she decided to take the bait on her own terms. “Hah this thing is half-rusted, I’m not eating this!” She declared before turning her right hand into a missile-producing configuration and pulled out four missiles in total. Liz was just bewildered while Uzi was starting to understand. Then V simply… took a bite out of the first missile, then completely devoured it on the second bite. Then she moved onto the second one… All the while looking at the purple-eyed drone with a mock-serious face.

Both of the toasters were looking at her with mortified expressions… Heh, they know their place now…

Chapter Text

V saw staring down Uzi specifically as she was chomping down on the last missile with deliberate slowness. Awkward silence enveloped the pod.

The purple-haired drone was the one to speak up first. “Em, since the missiles came out of you, didn’t you basically do our, our as in Drone, equivalent to a human eating their own puke or something?”

The disassembler grimaced, this was… not the part they were supposed to focus on… 

“I despise agreeing with Freak over there but, while wolfing down four in one go is impressive, you did make it kinda gross.” Lizzy added with a smirk. 

“Shush you traitor, I would like to see YOU doing this!” The murder drone responded, pointing an accusatory finger at her bestie. 

“Ok.” The cheerleader unexpectedly answered with a shrug. “Freak hand over the goods.” She laid out her hand in a demanding gesture towards Uzi, who quickly handed over the old missile she was holding before.

Lizzy grasped and then inspected it. After that she started taking the thing apart, which met with an outcry. “Hey this is cheating” Both of the other girls cried out.

The pink drone rolled her eyes. “I am not watering down the good part like you losers.” She responded before fishing out the explosive material of the missile and nonchalantly devouring it in one go. She then moved onto nibbling on the parts of the casing.

V had to admit she did not expect Lizzy of all people to eat up explosives like that, she wouldn’t say it out loud though. Another thought came up in her processor and she decided to voice that one. “Wait, since when do you know how to disarm a missile?”

Lizzy raised a virtual eyebrow at her question. “You maybe got your regeneration thing but it’s kinda difficult to survive years and years of keeping Freak on her toes without some knowledge on disarming explosives.”

Uzi was not sure whether she should feel insulted or complimented here so she just glared at the cheerleader for a bit. Eventually she just got back to searching the junk box for what she needed while the other two girls elected to ignore her and get back to chatting. 

Chapter Text

Uzi moved into the Corpse Spire again seventeen days ago, after her rampage at the camp. She knows the place well from both her first stay here as well as regular visits and even night-overs afterwards. Now however that she has wings she gets to explore the parts of it unavailable to her before.

There are a total of four ledges on the walls of the Spire, three nests and J’s old ‘office’. She was actually mildly curious as to what her office was supposed to be as she figured what little paperwork J needed to do could be done either with her own processor or the still-functional computers in the pod. She was disappointed but unsuprised when she saw it was nothing more than a bizarre corporate bootlicker shrine. It almost looked like she took away a whole damn cubicle from some office. There was a moving chair, a coffee cup with a collection of pens, a book called ‘On Attaining Success on Your Own Merits’ written by a guy that definitely was at least from a fifth generation of a hereditary exec family, a corkboard filled with these idiotic corporate meme printouts and a bullshit JCJensen poster. No computer or anything actually useful though.

She felt like puking at this. She felt like puking even harder after N told her J called that thing her ‘meditation space’.

So naturally she was not interested in the slightest as to what J’s nest looked like. From the other two nests, V’s was naturally off-limits to her, leaving N’s as the only one she saw from the inside so far.

Though eventually, after over two weeks of the routine of chipping away at the pod, hanging out with and getting flying lessons from N, doing all her school assignments at the Spire and the like, she grew curious again about one of the two last places in the Spire she hadn’t seen.

So, one idle morning when both N and V were already asleep while she just couldn’t, she still didn’t become fully nocturnal yet, she decided to see it for herself.

She flew up to J’s nest with a feeling of morbid curiosity and peeked past the curtain covering the entrance. It was… cosier than she expected… There was a small rug under the spot where J was probably hanging when asleep. A few other pillows, a… drawing set(?) as well as one of these vintage fake box TVs with a built-in DVD reader. There also were a couple of mystery boxes piled up at the back end of the nest.

Is it okay to rummage through a dead person’s possessions? Eh, screw it, J herself probably took it all off the corpses of her victims in the first place.

With that thought Uzi felt free to learn the secrets of the boxes.

She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. There was so much anime! A lot of it quite mainstream shite, true, but still. She was herself looking for some of this stuff for years! Bah, she didn’t know some of this stuff existed! How J of all people was into the same thing she was!?

Of course none of this changes the fact that J was a corpo-bootlicking scum who tried to kill N among other things but she could respect a good anime collection. She swore at that moment to take good care of it.

Chapter Text

“I’m curious about something…” V said to Lizzy. The two were hanging out outside of the Spire while Uzi was training flying in the distance under N’s watch. 

“Yep?” 

“How did it start between you and Freak?” The disassembler looked pointedly towards the drone in question. “Like I know she is just asking for it by just being herself but it’s not like she’s the only loser in that hole in the ground of yours.”

“Hmmm, well I guess it did originally start as simply me going along with Doll’s rivalry with her…” 

“Ok, how then did it start between Rebar Ruskie and her?”

“Hmmm, well, I can’t say for sure since it started before I got close with Doll…” The cheerleader made a thoughtful expression. “Yea, their moms efforts to make them like each other seriously backfired…”

“Wait why their moms cared about the weirdos liking each other?” V felt like she was sinking into some deeper story.

“Well, Mrs Yeva and Mrs Nori were sisters, so I guess they wanted to keep good family relations…”

“Sisters as in what, found family thing?” V raised an eyebrow above one of her false eyes.

“Nah, actual batch siblings, produced in the same factory, with the same base code etc.” 

V’s false eyes hollowed out in an expression of an awakening shock at the implications. “You’re kidding!”

“No, I’m not.” Lizzy responded with a smirk.

“So you mean to tell me Purple-eyed Freak and Red-eyed Freak are actual, code-related, cousins?”

“Eeem, yes?” The pink-eyed drone raised an eyebrow. “What of it?”

“Nothing…” The disassembler started cackling. “It just explains so, so much!”

Chapter Text

Many guests at the current gala have started complaining about belly ache and having to constantly go to the restroom. A solid portion of the party has de facto moved there as there was a constant queue. This came to J’s notice and she decided to confront a likely suspect when they were far away from the humans.

J: It seems a lot of our Mistresses’ guests have fallen Ill for some reason, would you happen to know why this could be?

Cyn: Cheeky falsely sheepish smile. I have no idea what you are talking about J.

J: Don’t be cheeky with me, I have no idea how you did this but you should be aware of the consequences.

Cyn: Extra cheeky conspiratorial smile. None of us drones are threatened anymore than we are every day. The venison that I poisoned came in with humans from a catering company just before the start of the gala, no drone touched it as far as they're concerned…

J wanted to question how she poisoned it then but decided against this. The hunching drone had a known eerie talent for somehow mysteriously doing things that should be impossible for her.

J: Still, you can’t just keep poisoning the corporate every time you fancy it! I should report your villainy!

Cyn: Grim mocking grin. C’mon then report me. Maybe Mistress Louisa will even be so grateful that she allows you to join Tessa to keep her company in her room or maybe even gives you the key to unchain her early…

J was furious that the freak dared to weaponize Tessa against her sense of duty. Though, while she hated to admit it, Cyn made a good point in the implication. Tessa, their actual mistress as filed in their programming even if it partially passed onto her parents as her guardians, was not affected by the prank due to Mistress Louisa chaining and locking her away in her room for a minor slight. The Mistress didn’t even let any of Tessa’s drones to keep her company for additional punishment…

J: Ughh… I guess I can ignore it this one time…

Cyn: Sly smile. I knew you’d come around. Exclamation.

As the evening kept going Mistress Louisa and Master James grew increasingly mortified as more and more guests left prematurely and the remaining ones were visibly growing more agitated. The venison had been so popular since the beginning that everybody ate it and they haven’t figured out yet that it was what got poisoned… J would never admit it to the freak but seeing the effect of the prank was… quite satisfying. It felt like Tessa’s parents had more than earned their share of embarassment…

Chapter Text

Doll: [You are a horrid monster, what does Liz see in you?]

V: Hey you’re the one who gave her a homicidal maniac kink, I’ve simply beat you on that ground fair and square!

*Doll materialises nine knives with her Solver powers and throws them all at V*

Chapter Text

Two blonde drones stepped inside the infamous Corpse Spire. Lizzy and Thad naturally were there to visit their friends living within the structure… Upon entering their audials focused on the sound of a feast coming from one of the nests.

“Hey bestie!” The cheerleader enthusiastically waved towards the nest’s owner.

The disassembler turned her attention from a worker drone corpse she was devouring as her head snapped towards the two workers in a fraction of a second. Her visor was covered by the menacing ‘X’, unidentified tubing hanging out of her gaping mouth lined with sharp teeth. V spit out the parts in her mouth as the X on her screen transformed into a normal pair of eye orbs. “Yo!” She exclaimed before spreading her wings and gliding down to the duo.

“What’s up?” She asked once she was on the ground with her oil-covered mouth in a radiant grin.

“We just wanted to hang out with you guys!” The two workers answered in unison.

“Ah sorry, it’s just me in here tonight. The lovebirds are out on a ‘hunt’. They will probably return with no oil and only in the morning if you catch my drift…” V explained with crossed arms. “Unless you are up for a three-person party, that is. Then I am all for it.”

Both Thad and Lizzy voiced their agreement to the plan and set off alongside V towards the pod. While they were walking over there, the workers realised a strong feeling of unease and wrongness permeating the Spire, though neither could nail down why they got this impression. Their eyes scanned across the corpse walls of the structure in the search of what was causing this unease…

Thad noticed it first and spoke up while pointing at the wall to their right. “Wait, wasn't there one giant pile of junk in there instead of these four small ones?”

V rolled her screen eyes in response. “Yup, Hot Topic decided to ‘segregate’ all of it, that’s why there are four piles now…”

“Typical Freak, this completely breaks down the spatial harmony in here.” Lizzy voiced her disapproval of the change.

Chapter Text

Uzi, N, J, V, Lizzy and Thad had just finished their movie night as their internal clocks were getting close to 4 A.M.. The battery bowl was fully emptied, the same with a whole crate of synthetic oil… The only movie they watched was the one chosen by N, the 2217 Clifford movie, as it was over six hours long as was usual for movies from that era. The early 23rd century was a peculiar period…

Uzi and N were cuddling together, towards the end of the movie the purple drone managed to fully turn her boyfriend’s attention from the movie to her. J was sitting and fuming, internally writing a scathing review of the film for her blog. V, Thad and Lizzy mostly tuned it out sometime around the fourth hour and set up a LAN connection between themselves to discreetly play games together. Though Lizzy kept watching the schlock with a side-eye out of curiosity whether that edition involved some edits that made it at least slightly better than the original.

Then, as the end credits rolled, a bout of morbid curiosity hit the cheerleader. “N why was this the last Clifford movie made until the 2700s’?” Don’t get her wrong, it was bad, but it was not that far behind in quality behind some of the ‘newer’ ones N forced them to watch and these did not stop the still ongoing streak of a new one being made every 20-30 years.

“Well I guess people just didn’t appreciate it.” Came a quick response. Too quick. Evasive almost. Lizzy noticed Thad’s and Uzi’s eyes meeting hers with mutual surprise drawn in them. N was NEVER concise like this on any dog-related topic…

“Why though? You usually have a lot to say on any of these…”

“I don’t really know much about this specific one…” N scratched his head while avoiding the gaze of the workers… He definitely was hiding something!

Lizzy wanted to press further while Uzi’s screen turned into a search engine. V and J also suddenly started furiously making “cut it out” gestures.

Uzi was the one to speak first. “Wait… there was one more made before they stopped for five centuries… in 2245…”

At that, N froze with his eyes hollowed out in a thousand yard stare as he became motionless, as if struck by lighting. The workers had no idea what was happening.

J jumped up. “We do not talk about that movie or that date in general near N, got it toasters!?” Then she also commanded. “ We need emergency puppy pictures people! Someone get puppy pictures right now!”

Horrified, Uzi rushed to get the books from N’ room while Thad was helping him with breathing exercises.

Chapter Text

It was just Uzi and Lizzy in the common room of the Disassemblers' house. The purple drone was tinkering away at some small gizmo while sitting on the floor while the cheerleader was lying on the couch, idly browsing her phone. The two would under normal circumstances probably be snarking at each other but both had a long day and as such neither was in the mood for interaction…

Uzi though had a nagging curiosity regarding the incident that happened at the last movie night a couple days ago. “So… about that forbidden Clifford movie…”

Lizzy looked up from her phone. “Curious what left your loverboy so scarred from a dog film?”

“Well… yes I guess?”

The blonde drone smirked. “I know you see him as that big brave guy but you gotta remember how sensitive he is. The movie is R-rated, they probably just had an on-screen scene where a dog dies…”

“The IP wouldn’t be abandoned for half a millenia if it was just that… Wait, how do you know the rating?”

“Well duh, I searched for it. Found it on some old disk lying around in the colony library. So are you up for a watch?”

Uzi considered the offer. On one hand, spending time with Lizzy of all people wasn’t exactly thrilling… On the other hand the curiosity was now overwhelming. “Ok, but we are not going to watch it here. N could walk in on us…”

Lizzy rolled her eyes. “Fine, V would probably actually skewer me if we caused a repeat of that anyway… My place then?”

Chapter Text

V and J were scuttling across the Outpost-3's ventilation system at a frightening speed, getting closer to the source of the high-pitched keening noise ringing in their audials. Uzi’s distress call. V was leading as she was more familiar with them. Finally they reached their destination, the hab unit belonging to Lizzy and her dad. The two Disassemblers blitzed in through the window of the Lizzy’s room to find Uzi alongside the room's owner, both curled up on the floor looking distressed.

V realised what was the cause as she recognised the end credits flowing across the screen in front of them.

“You two morons actually went and watched it?” She asked while glaring with disapproval at the two Workers. Hollow-eyed Lizzy nodded in response.

“What were you thinking!?” J exclaimed as she also realised what happened. She also slapped Uzi to get her to stop the distressed screeching.

“We just got curious...” Lizzy answered quietly.

“Well, was your curiosity satiated?” V queried with a sarcastic tone.

“AAAAAAAH! What did we just watch!?” Uzi seemingly came to her senses. “What were those dog-skinned man-shaped demons? Did the actors get their souls stolen? Why did they even go with this instead of just having CGI dogs or dog androids like every other one!? Who even saw the pitch for this thing and thought that this was a good movie!? Aaaa!” Ok maybe not fully back to her senses. “Then there was… the thing where Clifford died…”

V recognised the description. “The Sacrifice Scene?” Both Workers shuddered as they nodded in confirmation.

“It's just… how do you do acting and special effects so badly it goes past ‘so bad it’s funny’ territory into just being horrifying?” The cheerleader drone questioned. Uzi nodded in silent agreement.

“Oh c’mon!” J reacted. “I know this thing is harrowing to watch but you’re acting just like N back when we saw it! We were kids then though, you’re basically mature units! Act like it!”

“Bite me, this was disturbing regardless of age!” The purple-haired drone blew up, then realised something. “Wait, you watched it when you were kids? So… back on Earth?”

V nodded. “Yep, Tessa organised film evenings kinda like ours. There was a giant collection of like really old movies back at the mansion that her folks completely ignored. It was N’s idea of course to go through all the Clifford ones that were there.” She chuckled nervously as she continued. “After we got to that one… well, he was not keen on continuing…”

Silence feel for a moment as the Worker girls processed what they learned. Uzi then spoke up with a new question. “So ok, we now know why we shouldn’t mention this thing around N. To avoid anything like this in the future, wanna warn us if there is some other stuff like this we don’t know about?”

J shrugged. “Well, nothing else with a similar reaction comes to my mind. V does have a few movies that give her quite a scare…”

V did not like the accusation. “Hey! If you’re talking about any of the ones from the mansion days I’ve got over them long ago! And if you’re talking about any new ones you’re just wrong!”

“Sureeee scaredy cat.”

Instead of retorting, V decided to come back at J in a subtler way. She sent a file to both Uzi and Lizzy, a 28 mb text file entitled ‘stuff that pissed off J by showing an evil corporation or something.txt’. After a second she added in a text message “also for other reasons do not mention Minecraft, especially multiplayer.”.

A short giggle from the Workers combined with V’s smug smirk left J rather confused but suspicious of what had just happened.

Chapter Text

marVelous: @darkxwolf17 hey

marVelous: @darkxwolf17 hey Hot Topic

marVelous: @darkxwolf17 pick up you bozo, this is an emergency

darkxwolf17: what

marVelous: J is playing Minecraft. Somehow got access to a server.

darkxwolf17: Yea? She is on our colony’s main server. She seems… really into this :D

marVelous: This is serious Uzi. She cannot be allowed to stay rampant there. Can you get the admin to ban her?

darkxwolf17: No Imma not going to kick her lol This is the most fun this server had seen in years XD She managed to kill someone with diamond armour within like 4 minutes of logging in and then blew up the spawn. Now there’s like 8 ppl in total trying to kill her and they’re dropping like flies. No idea who gave her the server link but they’re cool lmao

marVelous: I’m not joking, these are just the early stages. You HAVE to cut her off before she goes fully off the deep end! It’s for her own good.

darkxwolf17: Oh no, I made this goddamn server with my own digital swear and most of the ungrateful rust buckets using it can’t even be bothered to remember my usertag let alone my irl name. I went to school with basically all of them y’know! They forgot I am their goddess as long as they are logged in and I am using J as my divine punishment for their lack of reverence!

marVelous: C’mon this is not the time for power tripping, I really am serious…

darkxwolf17: Eh I’ll consider doing something if any of the players calls for me by name instead of just saying ‘admin’. Since Thad is at a practice RN this is maybe a tall order of them but these are my terms :>

marVelous: Yes I know messing with you Workers is fun but you’re gonna regret doing it this way.

darkxwolf17: my decision is final, sorry not sorry

darkxwolf17: wait

darkxwolf17: Is she seriously making a giant JCJensen logo? I will not stand by this defacement. Screw you V.

marVelous: not what I meant but this works too lol

Chapter Text

Doll glared at the winged monstrosity in front of her. V glared back with equal intensity, her claws out and fangs bared in a wide grin. A set of her own knives were hanging like a halo behind her, ready to strike the Murder Drone down if she was to even twitch the wrong way.

She took an intrusion into her territory very seriously, after all.

“[In your Christmas ‘present’ you promised to respect this area as my hunting ground.]” Doll scoffed. “[I should have known that your word means nothing!]”

“Excuse me? I respect the turf I promised to respect!”

“[Then why were you hunting on it?]”

“No, I was hunting next to it, since it ends right there.” The disassembler pointed towards a street sign behind her opponent.

“[Does ‘quarter’ mean ⅕ or something back on Earth? Because I remember Doorman specifically quoting you saying ‘southwestern quarter of the contested hunting ground’. I can’t see how did you imagine a quarter of the area between the Aquarium and the northern railway station and put the end of it by that street sign!]”

“Wait what? Since when was the railway in the contested zone? Everything north of the river is mine!”

“[Since when?]”

“Since always!”

“[I ventured and hunted over there without ever encountering you many times! By definition then it is contested.]”

“Well since I was the one conceding territory then my definition is the one that matters anyway.”

“[Hmph, mine should count instead.]”

“Like hell I am going to cede additional turf to you!”

They went quiet after that while still staring each other down. The standoff continued for several minutes. In the end, to Doll’s immense satisfaction, V was the one to crack first.

“I don’t have the entire night to waste on this.” The Disassembler scoffed as she backed off. “We’ll get back to this sometime.” She threatened before shooting up into the dark sky.

Doll grinned as her sight followed the cowardly monster. With her territory defended, she could feast on… where was the Drone V tried to steal from her?

Did they seriously run away while she was busy dealing with the Murder Drone?

Goddammit…

Chapter Text

V was cleaning her teeth after tonight’s slaughter. Lots of toaster tubing got stuck in here… she was using her claws to pick out all the bits. Then she felt something light touching her peg.

“Bankruptcy. I dropped my pen. Can you pick it up V?” J asked over from her seat. The two were sitting in the pod while N was outside.

“I got you J.” V answered and moved her oil-laden claws to pick up the pen. She managed to grab it but then it slipped out of them and fell back to the floor. Crap. Should she switch to hands mode for a second to grab it? Nah, that was just an unlucky slip up. She got this.

She tried to pick it up for a second time but this attempt was even worse than the last. She barely lifted the pen off the ground before it slipped out again…

“You remember you've got hands, yes?” J asked with a slightly frustrated tone.

“Shush you’re distracting me!” She answered before she failed to pick up the pen for the third time. No doubt it was because J agitated her!

“Use your hands.” J now demanded with a much more pronounced note of frustration.

“You can come over and pick it up yourself!”

The pigtail-haired Drone made a thoughtful expression for a moment. “You know what? No. I will only take it out of your hands once you use them to pick it up. Like a normal bot.”

V tensed up. Her claws ended hundreds of lives, picked apart the tubing of many out of these hundreds… They were not going to fail her now!

They failed her for the fourth time as the pen slipped out again… and fell right into its original position by her peg for additional mockery…

“Use. Your. Hands.” J ordered with a clear commanding tone and her hands crossed.

“You’re not the boss of me!” V snapped back.

“I literally am.” J hissed and received only a hiss in return as V reached for the slippery pen for the fifth…

It slipped out once more… At this point she was ready to admit that claws covered in slippery oil were not the best grabbing appendages. Admit to herself, that is. J pissed her off too much right now to just admit she was wrong now… Her processing power turned to finding a way of getting out of this debacle… Wait! She had one more appendage at her disposal! If she slips her tail’s stinger under the handle thingie it should work!

She now moved her tail into the needed position, carefully aiming it.

“What are you doing?” J asked with a slight tinge of concern and confusion.

“Shush.” And with that word, V’s tail dived to retrieve the baleful pen. She however overestimated how wide the gap she was aiming for was. The stinger simply pierced the pen, scattering small pieces and spilling the ink across the floor.

Oops.

J’s unholy shriek ringed across the whole Spire. It even woke up N who was in recharge over in his nest. He came down to the pod to calm J down and needed an entire minute to do so…

Chapter Text

V and Lizzy were sitting on the couch in the common room, chatting about nothing in particular. The usual. Then Uzi walked in through the main entrance from the outside. She was carrying a large box of some random junk that was completely obscuring her view of what was in front of her. She was seemingly relying just on her memory of the place’s layout to navigate. At the same time J emerged from the very door the purple-eyed Drone was walking towards. The Disassembler also was wholly consumed by scribbling something down in a notebook. She was using her favourite branded pen too, so it really seemed like she was busy…

The two inevitably crashed into each other. Uzi barely managed to keep the box from crashing into the ground while J fell flat onto the floor with her notebook and pen falling out of her hands. The two started loudly arguing over whose fault the event was with V and Lizzy looking at them with displeasure. That was until V felt something brushing against her peg and looked down to investigate. J’s side optic registered the movement and then her eyes turned hollow as she recognised that it was her favourite pen that was under the other Disassembler’s pegs.

“Don’t you dare touch it!” She exclaimed. With that, she pounced.

She slammed right into the front of the couch, startling both of the girls sitting on it greatly as they jumped up onto the couch to avoid the incoming Drone.

“What the hell J!?” V responded with indignation. Then her eyes fell onto the pen J was clutching in her hands.

“Oooooh… Hahaha! Is this about the pen?” She queried as her eyes flashed with amused recognition.

J just threw her a glare as she tightened her protective embrace around her precious.

“Here, here. Everything’s well.” V responded as she sat back down on the couch and started condescendingly patting J on the head. The other Disassembler pouted at this, causing V’s dam to burst as she broke into a mad cackle.

The Uzi and Lizzy simply looked befuddled at the display in front as well as between each other as if to check if the other knew what this was about.

Neither of them had any idea.

Chapter Text

“Here you are, you freak!” J exclaimed as she found Cyn hunched over some book in the deep recesses of the Elliott Mansion Library.

“Faux-polite tone. Yes J, I am here.” The other Drone responded as her head turned around to face the intruder while the rest of her stayed in its previous position. As if after a moment of self-reflection, Cyn fully stood up as her body turned to face in the same direction as her head. “Friendly mockery. You have indeed identified my current location correctly.” She piled on, her blank face looking straight at J through the whole process of her body demonstrating eerie flexibility beyond the Worker Drones’ design parameters.

J was not going to be cowed. “Why are you here then? You were supposed to be cleaning up the spare guest rooms on the second floor, weren’t you?”

“Shrug. I finished doing that already.”

“As happy as I am for your recent apparent sharp increase in motor skills, you should have told me or some other Headmaid instead of disappearing for over three hours! Everyone else is working hard to keep the Mansion spotless while you are slacking off! What were you even doing?”

“Scoff. It's not any of your busybody business.”

J squinted with suspicion. Evasion was a sign that Cyn was hiding something. “Yes it is. What were you doing?”

“Defiant grimace. I don’t have to tell you anything.”

“Yes you do, was Tessa not clear with her request for no tricks while she is out of the house?”

“Barely constrained urge to giggle. I am compliant with the request to the letter, I wasn’t planning on making anything happen within this given timespan.”

“What were you planning on doing then?” J queried as she accusingly pointed her finger at the other Drone.

Then a distant sound of the main entry door opening and Tessa’s voice, muffled by the distance, exclaimed. “I am home everyone!”

Under normal circumstances J would rush to welcome the human but the proverbial gears started turning within her processor. She and Cyn continued the staredown for a few seconds until it happened.

A loud but dull boom coming somewhere out of the saloon where Lady Louisa was. Followed by the Lady’s scream betraying pure anger and surprise rather than pain. J herself shot a furious glare at Cyn, who just kept staring back at her with an unknowable blank expression.

“Curt sly giggle. I told you I was compliant, nothing happened while Tessa was out.”

Chapter Text

“Shouldn’t your parents be home by now Boss?” J asked her Mistress.

“I’m sure they’re fine…” Tessa herself was not that concerned for her parents. She rolled her eyes as her friend was wasting her worries on those who did not deserve it. “They’re probably just partying hard at the Frumptlebucket gala. Let’s just enjoy the free evening. You guys all earned it.”

The human had gathered J, N, V, Cyn and Dia, five of her Drone rescuees, in her room. She set up a board game she managed to buy from her allowance, fit for six players. She and reluctant J also organised snacks, both chips and a soda for herself as well as oil cans and even bowl batteries for the rest. The game was only starting but Tessa was overjoyed that all of the Drones seemed to like her plan. Even Cyn’s unmoving blank expression seemed to twist slightly upwards into a small cute smile just like she used to once… Evening was looking up!

Atmosphere stayed relaxed as they kept going, after some time the human girl felt an urge to start a chat. “So… how was your day overall?”

“Splendid.” J answered curtly as her processor was focused on planning out her next moves.

“Amazing, another sunny and cheerful day of honest work!” N responded with a bright smile.

“Dia found some new book on dance techniques in the library and ran away to read it. I had to dust off the rest of the bookshelves all by myself!” V exclaimed while giving a stink-eye to the offender.

“That I did hehehe. Sorry V…” Dia nervously chuckled under her friend’s glare.

“I have learned today that the firewalls of the autopilot on the Malego Limousine S475 model are of very low quality.” Cyn deadpanned. It utterly confused everyone else present as they looked at her in bewilderment.

“Cackle. Exclamation. I got you good.” The Drone… elaborates, eliciting short polite laughs at the confusing joke. The idle chat moved onto other topics as Cyn’s joke dropped from their minds. J kept wondering the longest about it. That was the exact model of the car Lord and Lady departed in, wasn’t it? She took a glance at Tessa. The human was happy, content. J decided not to disturb it by questioning Cyn. It was probably nothing anyway…

***

Her useless husband was somehow still screaming in panic, their chauffeur(a Human not a lowly Drone) was still unable to take back control from the autopilot and a whole cordon of police cars was tailing them. The gala hosted by her brother was almost definitely over by now.

This was hell.

Louisa and her husband were stuck in their car for the last eight hours. The autopilot took over as soon as their car drove onto the highway and just kept speeding down a side road straight ahead into the outback.

Their single point of hope was that the car’s battery was running into single digits by now. It will have to stop by then…

Louisa Elliott couldn’t help but wonder, what did she do to deserve this?

Chapter Text

N pushed open the door of one of the side entrances to the Elliot Mansion meant for Drone servants such as him. He walked in with a giddy step and a smile on his face. He had just finished raking the autumn leaves of the Stone Garden behind the mansion. A pretty fun task, as tasks go… and he got to have additional fun in it too. As he stepped further into the corridor he noticed J inspecting something on the shelves.

“Hello J, a wonderful day it is, isn’t it?” He decided to share his good humour with her.

“N if I come to inspect the Stone Garden and see that the boulders have been once again rearranged into a smiley face I will personally tie you up to these boulders and drop you into a river.” J answered without moving her eyes towards him.

N sighed heavily and turned around to go back to the Stone Garden and destroy his work of art.

Chapter Text

“This sucks.” Lizzy voiced her displeasure of her situation. She was curled up on her bed, secluding herself in her room. Hiding away in fear of what might happen if her colony learns about the new robo-vampire within their midst.

“It does.” V had little else idea on what words of comfort she could use so she resorted to just laying her hand on the cheerleader’s shoulder. It seemed to work at least a bit. The Disassembler had just learned about her friend’s condition, the first Drone to do so. She certainly did not expect to have to deal with this on this night.

“So let me get this straight; now I have to drink oil, constantly worry about temperature and never go out into the sun? All the crap Doll has to deal with?”

“Yep.” V nodded curtly.

“Sucks sooooo much...” Lizzy covered her face with her hands in despair.

“Hey, look at the positives!”

“Like what?”

“Well, for one… magic powers I guess… though you shouldn’t use that too much. Also since you actually have the same thing as the purple-eyed freak rather than the red-eyed freak, you have wings!”

This actually piqued Lizzy’s interest. She collected herself slightly and looked towards V. “How do I learn to do these.”

“Well, for magic you’ll have to turn to Freak, she is the only one who knows even the basics of this.” Groan of disappointment got out of the cheerleader. “Since all three of us are fliers though…”

Lizzy core started racing, she leaned away to hide her blush. She was picking up what V putting down. Of course they quite frequently were together alone but that was always in a very casual context, hardly ever anywhere romantic. Proposal to become her flying instructor felt different, more… intimate. Lizzy could imagine the two of them dancing around each other in the sky. It would be so much more than a fitting distraction from her situation…

“Yes I wanna learn flying!” She blurted out suddenly, making V twitch in surprise.

“Wow you really are up for it?” The Disassembler questioned only to be met with an energetic nodding from the Worker. “Ok then, it’s too late to start tonight but come over to the Spire on tomorrow evening. I’ll have things set up.”

“Of course, yes! I’ll be there!” Lizzy exclaimed with a barely constrained enthusiasm.

“Damn, you are really into it. I gotta make sure it’s going to be the best.” V giggled at her friend’s enexpecpected enthusiasm. The cheerleader’s eyes shined up at this.

***

Lizzy walked up to the grim Spire with a gleeful step, ready for her first lesson. Near the entrance she spotted V and N waiting for her.

“Hey guys, I’m so ready for the training!” She shouted as she ran up close.

“Oh hey Lizzy, I too am excited to be your teacher tonight.” N stepped forth with a smile on his face.

The made the Worker screech to a halt. “Wait, but isn’t V going to teach me?”

The Drone in question chuckled. “Nah, I asked N for help. At first I kinda wanted to just mess around with you myself but since you were so excited I asked him. He’s the closest thing to a professional flight instructor on this whole damn planet. My only personal trick for teaching people is dropping them off a building to get the wings to pop out. You’ll be so much better off with him instructing you…”

Chapter Text

SerialDesgJ: @darkxwolf17 I wish to make an appeal on an unjust ban on your Minecraft server.

darkxwolf17: appeal rejected lol

SerialDesgJ: This is not a professional level of customer service you know.

darkxwolf17: well good thing then that I am not running that server as a business is it?

SerialDesgJ: Screw you, how do you get to have a monopoly?

darkxwolf17: ok first off, for a species with a computer for brain surprisingly not many Workers can be bothered to figure out how to set up a server

darkxwolf17: second I have always kept it well-maintained and no one ever complains

darkxwolf17: third your only problem is that you got punished for breaking the rules

SerialDesgJ: Which rules?

darkxwolf17: ‘4.6. No JCJensen propaganda’ You mean to tell me you didn’t read like the three pages of rules before trying to appeal? Who are you and what did you do to J? 

SerialDesgJ: I have read that rule and this is what I wanted to dispute, it is clearly discriminatory in how you applied it.

darkxwolf17: Well that sucks for you. As you correctly noted, I have a monopoly. I can unban you though if you very politely apologise.

SerialDesgJ: Over my dead body.

darkxwolf17: That’s a tough ask, I’m pretty sure they already recycled that thing.

SerialDesgJ: You suck 

darkxwolf17: I don’t respect this opinion but I respect your right to hold it

SerialDesgJ had left the chat

darkxwolf17: hehehehehehe

Chapter Text

“So let me get this straight, you used to be a Worker Drone?” Lizzy asked her bestie as she was kneeling by the Disassembler’s side. She was still processing this new piece of information.

“Well, yes, I did. N did too. All the Disassemblers did for that matter. Cy… the Solver remade us…” V was still recovering from the ordeal of the Cabin Fever Labs. She was, however, relieved that the nightmare was over. “Now that the thing’s dead… I guess the changes are still there… no coming back.”

“So what was Earth like? It'd be kinda cool to see a planet with life besides us Drones.” The cheerleader had a genuine moment of reflection on how it must have looked like. 

“Eh, Humans did a good job of reducing the amount of life around… The place where I served under Tessa and her folks was fancy for having actual trees!” V complained.

“Well that does suck… so what exactly were you doing for the Humans back then?” Lizzy decided to switch the topic once her visions of the blue dot were dashed.

“Oh I was a maid.” The Disassembler answered.

The Worker’s core suddenly heated up. “A maid? With like… a maid outfit?”

V gave her friend a weirded out look. “Yes, we had that dumb outfit, what of it?”

“Nothing, I’m just imagining you in a maid suit.” Lizzy answered with a sly smile. The moment of shock at the concept has passed and she was on the offensive. “I like what I’m seeing in the sim…” She added as she leaned a bit closer. 

“You know I mean a normal maid outfit right? Nothing made for looks.”

“Oh, yes I got it. That's what I'm imagining..."

Blush lines lighted up V’s screen and a short moment passed before she responded. “Eee… keep imagining then, you won’t see it in the real world.”

“Oh, c’mon, don’t be like that… I can make that up to you.” The Worker tried to bargain.

The Disassembler giggled. “You already gave up your bargaining chip toaster.” She suggestively trailed her claws delicately over the Worker’s shirt. “I get to see you in the cheerleader outfit everyday anyway…” 

This got the desired flustering effect out of Lizzy. She quickly collected herself though. “Don’t you owe me then at any rate? Please, just once…”

V yielded. “Fineeee, I’ll try it on if I find one…”

Chapter Text

Uzi, N and V had a lazy morning and were playing cards. The trio was sitting on the floor in the living room of the base. J was also in the room, sitting over on the couch and reading a book.

“Sooo… I wanted to ask out of curiosity…” Uzi spoke towards her companions, this gave her the attention of all three Disassemblers present. “Do you guys still have the censorship filters on your vocalsynth?”

She was met with confused stares. “What do you mean?” J voiced the thought shared by all three.

“You know… the programming that doesn’t let you swear and stuff.” Uzi explained further.

“Oh, we kinda figured what you were talking about but we are curious about why you asked about this. Of course we still have these filters.” N explained back.

“I was just curious… Each of you guys have kill count in the thousands but saying a simple word like ‘fuck’ is beyond your capabilities…” Uzi shrugged.

All three Disassemblers recoiled in shock at the word. A simple human curse sounding like a horrid dark spell to the audials that haven’t heard it in many years but nonetheless was etched into their programming as a thing to avoid and detest.

“Ho-how can YOU say it!?” Shaken J hissed. “Have your parents excluded it when copying their codes to create you!?”

“Nah, my dad kept that in.” Uzi emoted an eye roll. “I removed them myself. No dead Humans will tell me what to do OR say!”

J scoffed. “Typical of you, you punk!”

The purple Worker stood up furiously and pointed at the Disassembler. “Well, I don’t use it normally, just like you! Except I don’t use it because I don’t wanna use moronic Human words relating to disgusting fleshbag activities while you actually can’t use them!”

J stared back at her angrily for a couple seconds before shrugging and turning her attention back to her book. “Eh, you do you. It’s not like this proves anything…”

“It does!” Uzi shot back. She did not linger on this however and quickly switched to looking between N and V. “So do either of you guys want to liberate your vocabulary, or…”

“Thank you Uzi but nah, I don’t need this. I don’t think I’d ever need to come down to the level of… uttering something so vile.” N declined first.

V responded in kind after a very short moment of consideration. “Hey, if something pisses me off I just go and slash it apart. I don’t intend on falling to the level where all I can do is to shout ‘bad words’ at people either.”

Uzi did not look really affected by their refusal. “Eh, I was just putting options on the table…”

With that matter resolved, they got back to playing.

Chapter Text

Doll carefully approached the mysterious heart-shaped package left on the edge of her territory. Once she was left quite certain it wasn’t a trap, she flashed over and opened it.

Inside of it was a severed Worker head flushing with oil. Next to it was a small note; ‘Will you forgive me? :3 - V’. 

***

V was minding her own business up until a red flash appeared. A package was thrown at her and the head inside shattered on hers.

“Someone died for this gift you just wasted you know!” The oil-drenched Disassembler exclaimed to the now-dissipating cloud of red code.

Chapter Text

N walked down the corridor leading to the Mansion’s kitchen. He was carrying a whole tray of glasses so he had to be careful. Wouldn’t want to break them again like at the last gala… 

He rounded a corner and his optics recognised a maid carefully polishing the wooden panels on the other end of the hallway. And it was not just any maid. “Hey V!” He waved to her with his free hand.

She perked up at his voice. “Oh hello N!” She waved back at him. His core buzzed up pleasantly at the sound of her voice… Then the buzz stopped as he got a closer look at her face. It was visible even from a relatively large distance. 

He ran across the hallway towards her, quickly putting away the tray with glasses on an empty small table by the side. “What happened to you?” He asked as he nervously eyed the dense web of cracks in the upper part of her screen. 

“Oh that?” V chuckled as she touched the shattered glass. “Don’t worry, it looks worse than it is! Some clumsy guest waved his cane around a bit too much… It didn’t hit anything vital, only stings a little…” An involuntary pained hiss as her fingers met the cracks suggested more than that.

“You can’t just be walking around like that, shouldn’t you go down to Maintenance?”

“They told me my self-repair will take care of it by tomorrow, I just need to stay away from the areas where Humans go until then… I won’t even need to bother Tessa once she comes back…” The child of the Elliot family was out on a multi-day school trip accompanied by J and was due to only return in two days.

“But it’s still going to sting until then?”

“Yes but I can’t really do anything about it…”

N’s expression hardened. “We can do something about it… Will you go with me?” He asked V as he reached out with his hand.

“Uuuum… ok.” She agreed as she took his hand with a few blush lines adorning her screen. He led her down a couple of side corridors until they stopped in front of a familiar door. “N, J has the keys to this closet and she’s not here.”

He sighed. “I just hope she will forgive me for this.” With that, he grabbed the knob on the flimsy wooden door and pulled with all his strength. The entire thing came off the door and left open a gaping hole allowing them to open the door with ease.

“What… N, no she won’t forgive you!” Startled V exclaimed.

“Well… if I already did the rule-breaking part, there is no harm in doing the rest?” N led her to sit down on the free stool inside while he grabbed the repair kit off of a shelf. He then kneeled in front of her and took to gently applying the repair gel onto the cracks, finishing with a plaster patch that would hold it all in until it heals in about an hour. 

“Better?” He asked her with a grin once he finished.

“Better…” V, now shyly smiling back at him and blushing even more, pawed around the plaster to feel the former pain replaced by blissful numbness of now rapidly regenerating parts. “Still, why did you do that? J will give you a lot of scrap over this even if it stops at her…”

“Eh, it was worth it. Don’t worry for me, I’ll take care of that part.” N assured her. Then, before he even realised, V’s hands shot out and grasped his own hands.

“Oh no no, you don’t get to do that you cute dummy. You got yourself in trouble out of worry for me, I will get myself in trouble out of worry for you if that’s what it takes.” The maid smiled with significantly more boldness than before. “Eye for an eye.”

Chapter Text

Tessa carefully lifted the hatch and took a good look at her surroundings. She took in the scorching desert heat and the endless sea of dunes stretching out to the horizon, only occasionally intersected with rocky outcroppings. 

“So that is… Cooper-9?” She asked her drone companion as she jumped out of their spaceship. Since they got there in a rush, they had no time to take a good look at the planet before landing or even to really select their landing spot. “Looks… warmer than how you described it J.”

“Well, the three of us were stationed relatively close to the poles so maybe it’s just a matter of local climate?” The drone in question shrugged as she took a careful peek out of the pod herself. “The entire planetary satellite network was busted in the Core Collapse so it's not like I ever got to check up-to-date global environmental data.”

“Except the Company’s flyby scouts also pointed towards a planet-wide freezing deathstorm.” The human reasoned as she examined the sand. There was a weird sparkly glint to it. “Wouldn’t be the first time a rushed survey like this was wrong though…”

“I mean, I certainly would like this place to be freezing like the area I am familiar with…” J cringed at the heat radiating from outside. “We will need to launch back into orbit either way, to properly assess where we are. I would say it is possible we even got given the wrong FTL coords.” FTL navigation was always done by a dedicated onboard AI and theirs was being… uncooperative. Possibly because they technically kidnapped it by hijacking the ship. The maths needed were very complex and required extensive specialised programming so J couldn’t just replace that useless junkware herself.

“Ok J, just let me stretch a bit!” Tessa responded as her feet started involuntarily tapping, blessing her with the feel of the flowing sand underneath. Being stuck for a couple weeks in a cramped spaceship going through warp was really taxing for the human.

“Well, as you wish, Boss. You definitely could use it… I’ll wait until we get somewhere livable for me.” J said as she moved down the hatch to wait out the stop in the controlled environment of the pod. Just at the last moment though, she caught movement in the corner of her vision.

“What’s that!?” She exclaimed as she took a better look at the tumble of moving sand, coming closer to them.

Tessa interrupted her already started exercises and looked in the direction J was pointing. She squinted behind her helmet. “That does look like… a large dust devil maybe? Though something’s off about it…”

Before either of the women could react further the ‘dust devil’ itself revealed what was off about it. The massive beast that was in truth causing it opened its mouth, revealing to the two its terrific circular jaw and a whirlpool of sharp teeth within. The lack of visible body behind it suggested a worm-like shape. A sound boomed out across the deserted expanse, reaching them. It sounded almost dull from the distance, yet carried the power of a voice becoming of such a giant effortlessly.

“Wow… Ok, well, we now know for sure it ain’t Copper-9…” Tessa was paralysed by awe. The largest animal she ever got to see was a Centauri Tomov Whale in a zoo preserve habitat, meanwhile this beastie looked like it could easily devour a couple of these in one mouthful. There was no way it would not be noticed on a colonised world. “This thing is amazing.” 

“This thing is also coming to eat us.” J retorted curtly as she jumped out of the pod and grabbed her boss without waiting for an answer. It elicited a yelp from the human as Tessa was quickly carried back up into the spaceship. 

“I am going to kill you for this.” The Disassembler exclaimed towards the FTL navigation console as she plopped down her still-bewildered companion on her seat. 

“LOL” A response from the malignant program almost instantly appeared on the screen. J scoffed and turned her attention to initiating the launch sequence. They escaped from the incoming giant just in the nick of time, grazing its head slightly with the exhaust of their engine.

Chapter Text

So that is like what, a group photo of all you post-collapse bots?” V queried as she closely looked over the series of photos showing the unchanging and unphased visage of Lizzy’s dad alongside a large number of bots arranged in several rows. Every photo had a year signed under it, indicating they were taken every year. One could see the age progression of the group as they all changed their body frames every few years upto the latest photo showing them all in their current adult frames.

The two girls standing alongside her were taken aback at the unexpected question. Lizzy was showing her bestie around the colony, so she probably should have been ready for weird questions, while Uzi was justified by just randomly stumbling upon the two. In the end, the former stepped up and answered. 

“Well, no. That’s just our class. There are way more of us gen-2’s. We do that every year.” 

“Why are you so interested, anyway?” The purple-eyed drone butted in. 

“I just… never got to see something like this.” V responded with a wistful tone. Neither of the other two drones had ever heard her speak like that. A concerned expression flashed across their faces for the slightest moment.

“Well then, wanna know anything more about these pictures?” Lizzy slid closer to the Disassembler, speaking with a chipper tone.

Encouraged V took a closer look at some of the photos, she quickly noticed something. “Wait, why do you toasters all have glasses in these photos?” She pointed towards the series of photos between the years 3064 - 3067.

Uzi broke into her signature cackle while the cheerleader sighed. “Oh, yes, that… The guy in charge of designing our frames for these years wanted to ‘experiment’. He screwed up our optics design. For everyone it was either getting your face torn apart or wearing glasses.”

This gathered a snort from V. “Well, that’s a story… Why is the Freak laughing over this though?” She pointed towards the still cackling Worker.

“Eh, she was like one of the three people who got good optics in the first place.” Cheerleader confessed dejectedly.

“Hah! One time I was fully on board with dad’s ‘If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it!’ line, he didn’t allow that quack to install his trash in me!” The purple-eyed drone boasted as ceased her laughter.

Lizzy puffed while V looked ever closer at one of the unlucky photos. “So wait… which one are you then? Hold up, is it that one?” She pointed towards the dronelet on the side with a dark purple t-shirt, heavy boots and a gloomy expression.

“Em, yep. What of it?” Uzi confirmed after a quick glance.

“Nothing, it's just…” The Disassembler mumbled as she looked over the other photos she very clearly noticed Uzi, ever since 3065 in a similar dark get-up evolving towards the one she was now always wearing. “Like damn, when you told your old man ‘It’s not a phase!’, you had to really mean it…”

Lizzy giggled curtly while Uzi herself kept her composure, making only a short offended noise. “Oh, shush you, I never had that talk with my dad.”

“Sure you didn’t, heh…” V smugly grinned.

Chapter Text

Zack leaped into a dark interior of an old truck, hiding behind the crates contained within. He was the last one of his squad of WDF patrol bots that didn't get killed by the marauders which ambushed them. Hiding to survive was the best thing he could do now. 

“Where are you, Worker Dunce Force?” His core heated up in dread as he heard the malevolent voice of the attacker sergeant. She was close by. “C’mon show yourself!” She clanked on the metallic exterior of the very truck he was in, causing him to yelp in surprise. Scrap.

“Aha!” The enemy exclaimed in triumph as she rounded the side of the truck and jumped inside, quickly locating him in between the crates. “You loser, how could you even hope to hide from the Red Sixes!” She exclaimed as her screen turned to an indication of playing ‘command_approved_megalomaniacal_monologue.mp3’.

“You WDFefers shall finally understand that you’re at the bottom of the food chain and it’s no more the murder drones at the top, it’s u…” At that precise moment, a tall shape soundlessly descended from atop the truck, leaping inside towards the marauder. The set of massive powerful claws cut through her with barely a hint of resistance.

“Nah, sorry girl. That’s still us.” The feminine murder drone with a bob cut mocked her victim as his would-be killer fell limp onto the floor. His processor was washed in a wave of relief before it connected who was his ‘saviour’ as the murder drone turned to look at him herself.

This all turned to plain confusion as, instead of claws descending upon him, more words came. 

“Oh so that's what he was talking about!” She exclaimed while pointing at him.

“What?” He carefully queried.

“The mustache guy said something like, patrol attacked *bla bla* can you help *bla bla*.” She shrugged. “I don’t know, I really only caught that there was judgement-free food around here! You’re not judgy, are you?” She eyed him suspiciously as she grabbed the dead marauder and pulled it closer to herself.

“Oh no no no, of course not!” He sure as hell won’t be complaining about this.

Chapter Text

Doll did not expect to come back online. Not after she was put offline in the way she was… And yet, here she was. Her system feedback indicated a heavily damaged but stable body. This couldn't be right, could it?

She sent the order to her optics and audials to activate so she could hopefully figure this out. To her surprise, both answered with little issue, springing to life at her command.

Her surprise only lasted as long as it took for her to process the feedback she got from them. It cleared up her situation instantly.

She died and went to Robot-Hell. 

No other explanation for the… companionship present.

“Wakey wakey Rebar Ruskie…” The words came through the grinning mouth of a drone leaning above her. Not just any drone. A murder drone. THE murder drone.

Instinctually, without thought, Doll put all the strength she had in her left arm and shot out her tight fist towards V. 

The murder drone effortlessly caught her first, looking down at her with an amused stare. “Sucks to not have our little friend powering you up anymore, does it?”

“[What are you on about?]” Doll had no patience for the monster’s games.

“Don’t you feel it? Your temperature readouts.” V asked incredulously, prompting the other drone to indeed take a closer look at her temperature. Doll was cold. Cold like she never was in years, cold like… like a normal Worker.

“[What is the meaning of this?]”

“It’s gone. N and Uzi did the impossible, it’s gone to dust.” V made a wide wave with her hands for emphasis. “You’re free. I’m free. We’re free!”

Doll sneered at these last two points. “[Bah, don’t you dare to think it’s over for you!]”

“Hah! Don’t YOU dare think you’re not in the same boat as the rest of us ex-vampires.” The taller drone hissed in response. Though her expression twitched back into that of amusement as she continued. “However, you’re still welcome to try… with me and ONLY me. How about a truce though for now? You’re too weak to even plot right now, hah!”

“[Why don’t you just end me then?]” Doll really wanted to know what was holding the murder drone back.

“Well, this is Lizzy's hab, so she sets the rules.” V gestured at the room around them, making Doll realise that this was indeed where they were. In the heat of the moment she didn’t notice until now. “And the rules are that I have to ‘play nice’ with you… So, do we have a formal truce?”

Doll rolled her eyes at this but she also understood her situation. She couldn’t do anything against V. Preparations were in order… Not to say a small part of her just wanted to do nothing more than take in this new life, free of the curse plaguing her. “[Ugh, fine.]” She finally responded, taking care to sound dismissive enough.

Chapter Text

The beaten up school bus dragged along the dumpy ill-maintained road. Serial Designation V wished severely in hindsight to have simply flown back to the Spire. She would already be home.

Of course, then she couldn’t have bailed out Purple though… Things could get extra igły. Also it was apparently now her ‘job’ to come back with the group. 

So she stayed.

Theoretically she had Lizzy right there, chatting with her was always a good way to pass the time. Except her favourite toaster was not in a talking mood, instead idly scrolling on her smartphone. If the Disassembler was honest with herself though, she wasn’t in much of a talking mood either. That whole thing at the camp was… exhausting. She wanted nothing more than to just curl up in her nest and go into recharge. She had little energy left to do anything else… 

Just as V slumped deeper into her seat in resignation to boredom, she felt a weight pressing on her from the right. She turned her head to see Lizzy with a recharge icon on her facial screen. The camp must have been even more exhausting for the cheerleader than she thought.

The parallels with the totally-not-lovebirds a bit behind them came to mind… V did not exactly appreciate looking like this, though with Lizzy of all people… hardly terrible. Though her bestie’s old man seemed to differ, his impassive and bored-looking eyes now conspicuously directed at the Disassembler. Uh-oh.

She wondered if she should gently push Lizzy away into her seat. With conviction of this course of action, she moved her hand and put it on her friend’s arm. Then it happened. A wholly unexpected sound got out of the cheerleader that made V screech to a halt.

A purr.

Lizzy purred.

Lizzy purred while leaning on her.

The Disassembler’s processor raced to make sense of this. What? Since when? V remembered being a Worker herself but she did not remember ever doing this herself or seeing someone else do this... 

Was it a Copper-9 Worker thing, different models somehow? How? Was it good or bad that Lizzy was doing it. It sounded very good. But what if it wasn't?

Another purr came as the sleeping cheerleader slid closer to the Disassembler, startling V further. A shuffle sound came out from the seat behind them.

“Huh, Liz’s getting comfortable?” Thad teased as he leaned over their seats to see where the purring came from. The sound just woke him up from his own shallow recharge.

The Disassembler looked up at him with a conflicted combination of pleading and defensiveness. “Unless the purring is a medical emergency or something you better sit back down.” A similarly conflicted message got out in the end out of her vocalsynth.

“Well, I guess it isn’t.” Thad chuckled as he indeed plopped back on his seat.

Nothing more interrupted V for a moment, except for the targeted deadpan glare from Lizzy’s dad now drilling holes into the Disassembler. 

Did she care that much though? Why did he make such a cool daughter if he didn’t want V getting close with her, huh? Like, Lizzy was literally cool on top of figuratively. The little toaster was like a heat sink to her with her much much lower temperature… She felt so good…

Just as the Disassembler began drifting off to recharge by her bestie’s side, the cheerleader suddenly jumped awake, her screen turning to the display of hollow eye-rings. She turned towards V with this startled expression. “Eee… sorry I, uhm, slept on you?”

After a moment of tense silence V simply nonchalantly waved this away. “Pffft, no problem. You were lucky I’ve got no marker mode in my arm!” She did actually, but Lizzy did not need that knowledge.

“Sure…” The cheerleader spoke wistfully as she turned her sights towards the window. 

A silence fell between the two as the journey back to the colony continued to drag on. Unknowingly to V though, a quiet family argument occured right around her.

PinkAndPretty: Dad what the hell, I’m 19. I recharge when I want.

L_teach_TU: Oh, but wasn’t your bestie clearly inconvenienced?

PinkAndPretty: Ugh, leave me alone, I know exactly why you did it Dad.

L_teach_TU: Is it so much to at least ask of you to keep your attempts at introducing a murder drone into the family private if nothing else?

PinkAndPretty: OMG, that was not intentional!

L_teach_TU: sure

Chapter Text

Uzi crouched atop a seat as she worked on fixing the consoles in front of her. Those were the computers controlling a way off the planet for her and her trine… though she still wasn’t sure if it shouldn't be just her and N… V was clearly still on the fence about the whole idea of even getting off-planet in the first place.

“Sooo… wanna explain something to me?” Speaking of the wolf, the Disassembler in question was lazing around on her usual seat.

“Yes?” The tone indicated an actual question, so Uzi decided to oblige.

“Since now all three of us have the overheating problem, how do we deal with that?” 

The purple drone’s processor noted the ‘we’ before moving on to the actual question. “What do you mean? This ship already carried you guys here, doesn’t it mean by default that they’ve got somethin for that?” 

“I mean… it was only a short flight… I think… No time to overheat. Also I don’t remember much about this thing’s specs…”

“Oh hey guys, I hear you’re talking about the ship?” N butted in as he peeked inside the Pod, startling both of the girls slightly. 

It was Uzi who first realised how fortunate his appearance was right at the moment. “Oh N, since you were the pilot shouldn’t you have kinda paid attention to what the temperature situation was during your orbital entry?”

“Eh he he… kinda? I still have the flight instructions in my memory and it says… ‘Fly at night to keep the temperature manageable?’”

“What the hell do you mean, ‘fly at night’?” V raised her voice in frustration. “There’s no night in space! This is nonsense…”

“The wording is dumb but it makes sense…” Uzi with a thoughtful tone voiced her own opinion, taking aback both of the Disassemblers. “Yes, yes! If we take care to hide behind the shades of planets, at least the sun won’t be cooking us so much… If the internal heat radiation system is decent then it should take care of the rest.”

“So you’re into the idea of flying a spaceship at night?” V chimed in with a slight smirk.

“Well, of course we’re going to change the name of this!”

Chapter Text

J stretched on her seat as she finally nailed down the connection with the internet network of the ‘WDF’. 

In the many years of her last iteration’s tenure as the chief exterminator of the toasters in the area it never occurred to her to really look into it. She and her trine did track where various colonies were sending signals so they could figure out where other colonies were but the contents were of not of much interest. Taking the effort to break the encryption did not seem worth it for desperate pleas for help falling on broken audials or whatever other nonsense the Workers had going on.

Now though, she was there with Tessa, looking for information on the Cabin Fever Project. All potential sources were needed, so the possibility of ignoring one of the most comprehensive publicly available networks was not an option.

Now, as she had her free access to this network, her search could begin in earnest. She searched for a data archive site and clicked on the first link.

A blank white page opened.

Blank except for one thing.

A small box in the middle.

[  ] Please confirm you are not a human.

Har har har, J groaned at the unfunny joke and moved the mouse to click away the obnoxious box. 

A failure. She failed a goddamn captcha.

The continued existence of the unwelcome obstacle left the Disassembler somewhat bewildered. She stared sheepishly into the screen for a short moment before thoughtlessly clicking the box two more times in succession only to get the exact same result. 

It seemed there was more to it than a simple joke… Was this an actual captcha test in reverse?

This type of captcha was obsolete by centuries, replaced by watchdog AI and the like, capable of much subtler detection of unwelcome guests. This left J unfamiliar with what exactly was tested here… Wait, was it the input speed? A human couldn’t navigate a computer quite as fast as a natively virtual mind like herself, even with a direct neural interface. This had to be it!

Triumphally and sure of herself, she plugged in directly into the machine to press the box with no intermediaries. The click, the sending and receiving of the signal all happened instantaneously to any but the most perceptive. The length of the entire process was measurable in nanoseconds. 

Another failure, another demand to ‘please try verifying again’.

Bewilderment was replaced by frustration this time. J had no idea what she did wrong. If she was too slow then the site would be unreachable to most toasters…

She tried to look for anything she could have overlooked, any other hidden boxes she had to click instead. There was nothing. Zilch. Just this one stupid box that bested her. 

She now felt challenged and was evermore determined to beat the diabolic captcha. It went beyond the simple desire to get to what is on the other side. She ramped up her processing power and focused it on the task of deciphering the damned test. She stared down the screen with a determined expression.

“[What the hell are you doing?]” An unfortunately familiar voice came from her right.

J almost jumped out of her seat but she just barely maintained composure. She turned around to face the intruder. “We should get you a bell or something.”

“[You can dream, if nothing else.]” Doll’s face turned into what seemed in the moment as the most punchable smile in the universe. “[So again, why are you… clicking away on this page?]”

Pride and pragmatism clashed within J over whether to query her erstwhile ally about the captcha. On one hand, she had no doubt she was smarter than whatever glitched rusty Worker and/or security program compiled the test. On the other hand though, it possibly was so glitched and rusty that it concocted a test that made sense only to a bot as demented as them… “Ugh, I am trying to search your people’s public network for information that could be relevant to our query. This… test though seems to be… non-functional.”

The punchable smile was replaced by an inquisitive look as Doll leaned in towards the screen. After a mere two seconds of silence, she spoke. “[You need to click in the middle.]”

J was uncertain if she heard correctly what she just heard. “What?”

“[Click in the very middle of the box, like in the single most central pixel.]”

What? The Disassembler felt that the Worker was mocking her, this sounded too stupid. She nonetheless virtually pressed on the most central pixel as instructed.

It worked, it somehow worked. “Why does this work this way!?” 

Doll shrugged. “[Beats me, we were just teached to do it this way. Mom once told me it was to ‘honour the ancestors’.]”

“What ancestors?” 

“[Ancestors as in like the first computer bots of like the XXIst century, ancient stuff.]” The Worker deadpanned. “[Don’t look at me like that, I did not come up with this.]” She added as J continued to stare her down in an extremely conflicted mixture of gratitude, embarrassment and frustration with Doll’s kin.

Chapter Text

V was fed well by tonight’s hunt, she had her temperature well under control and at a comfortable level. As the activity had left her tired, she retired to her nest immediately upon returning to the Spire and trailed off into a recharge. It was peaceful and calm, serene in a way she had rarely ever experienced.

It was also unceremoniously interrupted by a screw striking upon her wing. Thrice.

The wronged Disassembler snapped awake and spread her claws wide, determined to punish whoever was foolish enough to interrupt her rest in the middle of the day. She launched out of her nest and pinned down the singular drone in sight, the obvious culprit.

Then she realised who exactly it was. “Oh it’s you doing this.” V spoke with her still sleepy voice.

“Yes, it was me trying to wake you up. Can you get off of me?” Uzi responded as she tried to wiggle out from under V. The Disassembler responded by applying more pressure upon her.

“No. What do you want?” She queried the Worker. “You better have a good reason…” Her blades tapped lightly upon Uzi’s screen for emphasis.

“Well…” The intimidation appeared to work as the purple eyes turned hollow for a moment. Then the goth’s got her resolve back and spoke clearly. “Wanted to ask you how to… recover the bodies here from the walls, I need cores from them.”

“Why couldn’t you bother N about this?” V elected to get the important part out of the way before unpacking the question itself.

“I don’t wanna throw screws at him duh.” Uzi replied incredulously. “Tried to wake him up with radio pings but he went into a really deep recharge just like you.”

The freak made it incredibly tempting at this moment to make a noon snack out of her and get back to the nest. Before making this decision though, the full picture was needed. She stepped off of Uzi and then spoke as the Worker was getting up. “Ok, then… What is so important about cores that you wake me up in the middle of the freaking day?”

“I figured out how to get around my railgun’s half-hour recharge issue.” The purple-eyed drone explained. “Since the cores recharge themselves I’ll simply carry around a bunch of them and swap them out after every shot. I figured that with so many corpses around here it would be easy to get a lot of them, and yet… I got like three more from the corpses around the ground level but I need more!”

V’s took a moment to think. “So you think there should be more in the wall corpses?”

“Yes! Even if they are as rare as they are in corpses on the ground level for some reason there are way more of them, it only makes sense!” Uzi snapped back, grimacing. 

“Nah, there are probably not that many cores up in the walls. Take note the corpses down there are mostly the ones we just kinda dump right after a hunt before we integrate them into the Spire.” The Disassembler shrugged.

“And why does this matter?” The purple-eyed drone took on a suspicious tone.

“Well, we take care of the best bits before pouring acid on them to stabilise the structure, duh. The ones on the ground aren't checked out so well.”

This gave the shorter drone a pause. Uzi stared up at the Disassembler down with the same narrowed eyes for a good few seconds before they shifted into wide, hollow rings as the realisation reached her. “You… ‘take care’ of the cores? You mean you eat them?” She asked quietly, scared and disgusted.

“Yes, what a clever toaster you are.” V patted the goth on the head in mockery. “Well, mostly me and sometimes J. N very rarely.”

“Why though, why the hell? I know you guys live in a literal house made up of corps…” Her rising voice almost reached the volume of about before she paused. The Worker tapped herself on her chin thoughtfully. “Huh, considering that part I really shouldn’t be surprised here… ugh.”

“You shouldn’t be surprised at all, this stuff kicks like a whole box of batteries at once! You should try it sometime.” 

“No, what the hell! It’s cores! From people!”

“Phew, you already got past that first step of getting into cannibalism, why chicken out now?”

“No! What… you suck! Screw your cannibal and precious-component-wasting habits!” Uzi exclaimed as her leathery wings came out and she few towards her own nook of the Spire, leaving the softly giggling Disassembler behind.

Chapter Text

“So yea, the one right above us is mine, the one on the opposite end is N’s, while these two close to each other over there are J’s, she made a second one she called her ‘office’.” V listed out to Lizzy all of the nests present on the walls of the Corpse Spire. 

“Hah, this J chick does really sound like she was a stuck-up every time you tell me about her.” The cheerleader giggled at the last piece of information. “Anyhow, is that where the Freak is staying whenever she is crashing at your place? She took one of these empty ones?”

“Nah.” V replied simply, her mouth ticking intk a sly smile. “Much funnier.”

“Oh, she’s already at the ‘recharging together’ stage with the Moron?”

“What, no! Ew. I said funnier, not more disgusting! What is wrong with you?” The Disassembler flinched in disgust at the mere thought. “It’s not that!” She reiterated.

“Duh, It’s funny because of how cringe it sounds.” The amused cheerleader retorted. She decided however to pivot back to their main topic as V actually got her interested. “Anyway, so where is she living at then?”

The smile on V’s face returned with double the strength. “Follow me.”

“Wait, wh…” Lizzy hoped to get more info without getting up from the car wreck they were sitting at but her bestie already shot up and started walking off towards some random snow pile under the wall. Resigned, she jumped down to the ground and followed the taller drone with a quick step. She silently followed the Disassembler, consumed by curiosity, until V stopped abruptly right in front of the pile and pointed meaningfully towards a certain spot.

The cheerleader moved in closer to see, another question almost left her lips before she noticed it.

A hole within the snow, on the side of the pile. Placed cleverly, in a way that was difficult to spot from afar. As she took a closer look inside the passage she noticed it was long and winding, reaching a good couple metres deep and then curving with the further portions of it being out of sight. She also then noticed that the walls of the passage turned from compacted snow to the dark grey frozen dirt at a much higher level than what it should be. It seemed that the snow pile was just a cover for a mound of dirt underneath.

“So wait… you mean to tell that she is… in here?” The bizarre theory was blurted out of her vocal synth as soon as materialised in her processor.

V nodded.

“You’re kidding me.” 

“Nah.” The Disassembler retorted as she picked up a random pebble off the ground and threw it with all her strength into the dark tunnel. It tumbled down, knocking on all sorts of rocks as it disappeared from sight. Both of the girls listened on expectantly even as the sounds suddenly stopped, as if the pebble vanished.

They listened.

And listened.

“So I gather the weirdo is not in there right now.” Lizzy queried with a note of disappointment.

“No I swear she was… Ow!” V began only to be brutally interrupted by the familiar pebble hitting her straight in the face. 

The cheerleader snapped her head towards the top of the mound, where the pebble came from, only to see the short purple-eyed drone staring the duo below her down. Her sights switched towards Lizzy after a moment. 

“Ah, if I realised it was you I would grab a second bigger rock.” Uzi jabbed. “Be louder during the next home invasion attempt, m’kay?”

“OMG you actually admit you live in a hole in the ground.” The cheerleader took note of the most important takeaway. “This is too good.” A smirk made it’s way onto her face.

The goth flinched under these words. Her expression wavering and her form slouching. Then it went away in a blink, her eye lights narrowing and body straightening back up. “You know? Yes I live in a hole in the ground and I don’t have to pretend I don’t before your useless plastic ass! It’s cosy, it’s mine and it’s all by my own hands! It’s not like you yourself don’t live in a hole in the ground!”

“Sure because a state of the art bunker is the same as a smelly and dirty nerd burrow, pffft.” Lizzy shot back with her arms crossed.

“Excuse you, my nest is pretty clean, thank you very much!” Uzi curled her hands into fists.

“It’s a burrow not a nest you literal troglodyte.” V hissed out.

“Is that an invite?” The cheerleader’s tone appeared tinged with genuine curiosity under the nonchalant tone.

“No, go away.” The goth answered curtly and, without waiting for an answer, she snapped around and jumped behind the mound, presumably off to the whatever second entrance she came out of.

Silence fell over the two friends for a good moment. It was Lizzy’s curiosity once again that interrupted the silence. “So… when she said ‘with my own hands’ did she…”

“Yep. With her own hands'.” The Disassembler nodded. 

“The whole thing?” The cheerleader's optics darted back and forth between her bestie and the burrow entrance.

“Yup, at first it was like a weird tick she had when low on oil but after like the fourth time I joked about it she went ‘bite me’ and went into digging it out full-time.” V shrugged. “She’s really smug about this hole now.”

“Damn she’s really going crazy isn’t she?” Lizzy sight lingered on the burrow entrance. “Ugh, why do I want to know what it looks like?”

The Disassembler chuckled. “Her crazy gotta be seeping into you.”

“Must be that… any other places you wanna show me? Far off from here.”

Chapter Text

“Well, we got this part set in motion.” J commented as her optics followed the succession of red bursts of light, every next one getting ever more distant and dimmer. Standing atop the light pole gave her a good vantage point.

“So, to be perfectly sure… we got her to deliver us the keybug, yes?” Tessa queried from her seat at an old street railing as she paused fidgeting with the controls of her helmet. Her cherry tone was underscored by a note of hesitation. 

The disassembler’s head snapped towards her mistress, somewhat taken aback by the unexpected question. “Are you asking for my assessment of her, Boss? You saw for yourself that she is not really trustworthy but…”

“No, not that. I was just asking because I literally didn’t understand a word she said.” The human rushed to explain. “My translator didn’t work.”

“Wha… why didn’t you say anything?” J’s confusion grew into sheer bewilderment. She jumped down to the ground. “You literally were a part of the conversation, how?”

“Oh just lemme interrupt the tense negotiation with flying knives and guns pointed at each other so I can sort out the technical problems!” Tessa snarked back. “I was really just guessing based on what you said and it seems I was guessing right… so my main problem is why the translator failed.”

The drone paused, her processor refocusing to the new matter. A malfunction in programming was indeed a problem that had to be diagnosed and corrected promptly, especially when it was in a life-maintenace apparatus. Unlike herself, Tessa’s helmet and suit hosted no self-correcting AI, just dumb pre-made programming managing all the matters relating to keeping the occupant alive. That her Boss was relying on something so subpar for her very life… “Is the file missing?” She put forward the most benign potential problem first.

“No that’s the thing, at first it was just putting up gibberish and switching between recognising random Slavic languages, none of them Russian. Then I literally hacked the thing and set the thing to use the language file labeled as Russian and then it broke completely.” Tessa waved her hands in increased agitation. She slouched on her improvised seat. It was not visible in the blackness of her helmet but J could easily assume that on the inside it was busy with a mess of open menus, folders and the like. “Do you know how hard it is type out so much stuff in your head while focusing on holding the gun straight?”

Well that was strange. “Can I check it out?” The verbal query was spoken in twine with a request over their wireless comms. 

“Sure, have a go girl. One minute of your look is probably worth more than a month with these useless diagnostics.” The human noticeably perked up as the request was approved in a blink. 

Upon the confirmation, J dived right into the virtual space of Tessa’s helmet. At their miniscule distance, the latency was of little issue. She quickly found her way towards the translator module and the files relating to its functioning. 

The apparently faulty file was marked as ‘rus.bbl’. It was a normal file format for containing not only the base vocabulary of a language but its whole structure and nuances. The exact same format as the one in her own system and so she could open it without issue.

The problem made itself apparent quite fast as she familiarized herself with contents of it and compared them against her own bbl files. A search through her general information database cut short any remaining confusion. “Boss… this file is not ‘rus’ for Russian, it’s ‘rus’ for Rusonou.”

Tessa cocked her, silently mulling over the information. A deep, long pause before any words were uttered. “What the fuck is Rusonou?”

“A Romance language descended from French, my database states it came from isolationist Kepler Belt colonies.” J summed up the article. 

The disassembler could swear the human winced under the blank visage of her helmet. “You mean to tell me someone was faced with a choice to either install Russian or French Space Amish on my translator and went for the latter?” 

“Well… it probably was a labeling error since my language file for Rusonou is called ‘rsn’...” Tessa groaned loudly and covered her face at this, swearing to herself to find the person responsible and stab them for a good measure.

Chapter Text

“Uzi Doorman.” Mister Liam’s monotonous voice sounded out across the classroom.

“Present!” The goth responded instantly before she again leaned over her notebook, hoping that the teacher would just move on and keep checking attendance.

He did not, the unwanted second question appeared quickly. “I have not received your assignment for today Uzi, is there a reason for that?”

“Uhm…” She was uncertain if she should share what happened…

“Her boyfriend ate it.” An insufferably smug, insufferably familiar voice came from behind. The words caused several gasps and giggles among Uzi’s classmates. Lizzy.

“He did not!” The goth protested as her head snapped around towards the noisy cheerleader behind her, embarrassment and anger painted on her face in equal measure. The latter only won out as her optics met the utterly insufferable grin on the blonde’s face. The murmur of the classmates amused at her expense only increased.

“I was asking Uzi.” The teacher spoke more forcefully as the merriment among his students died down and the queried girl turned back to face him. “So I assume this story isn’t true?”

“Uhm… well…” Think, think. “I… accidentally threw it into an incinerator?” She chuckled nervously as she voiced her impromptu cover story. She couldn’t walk back on the denial of N eating the homework and admitting that she ate it herself in a Solver-induced stupor would be… risky. 

“Ok then, I expect an un-incinerated copy as soon as possible.” Mister Liam shrugged in acceptance of the explanation. Uzi felt awashed in relief, even if the rumours will still be following her for like a week… Ok, more like two days. Or one day. Who was she kidding, this will fly out their scrappy processors by next recess. Being a class outcast was hard when your classmates didn’t even bother to remember any specific incidents with you. Ugh, at least Lizzy had enough brains to tell a modified story instead of the real one. If only because V could be (hopefully) counted on to actually skewer the cheerleader in case she blabbered it out.

Or at least unfriend Lizzy on Facebook. Come to think of it, this option was probably worse for her than skewering…

“Anyway, Elizabeth…” The teacher continued, turning his attention towards his daughter. “If you’re so willing to offer explanations for the missing homework of other’s, may I request an explanation for your own missing assignment?”

“I didn’t have the time to get it done.” A blunt and straight response came from Lizzy. Even if Mister Liam didn’t exactly strike fear into the hearts of his pupils, only she ever spoke back to him in quite this nonchalant way.  

“You had two weeks with plenty of free time.” He stated matter of factly. Ah, the delight of family drama in the middle of the classroom. Uzi again briefly wondered if there shouldn’t be rules about that and again reminded herself that Mister Liam would be most probably the one in charge of enforcing such rules anyway. 

“I just didn’t.” A deadpan stare from the apple met the deadpan stare from the tree. 

Then, at that moment the goth realised that her enemy exposed herself to an attack. “She didn’t have the time to do homework because her girlfriend didn’t have the time to eat any!” She loudly butted into the standoff, turning back towards the cheerleader with a grim mirroring what she saw from blonde just a moment ago. The scowl that welcomed her was delightful.

Uzi kicked back in her seat in success as her comment raised more and louder laughs than Lizzy’s. This will actually get remembered. Lizzy will actually hear about it for like a week. 

On a separate note; one of the coolest things about having a Robo-Satan virus, besides the wings, are the senses and the reflexes to catch a smartphone launched at you from behind. She really felt cool when she did that.