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Emily was trodding along an empty side corridor in the colony. A frustrated expression adorned her face as her pockets were ringing with historical coins inside. Dan, her friend and the only other member of the numismatic club, was walking right next to her. The male Drone was holding onto a stained display board meant for the club’s money collection. He never saw her this angry before.
“Sooo… sorry again?” Dan’s clumsiness was the reason for both their current situation and Emily’s mood. He spilled his can of synthetic oil on the board.
“Please stop apologising.” In spite of her agitated state, Emily was not raising her voice. “Can we just get this cleaned up so we can put the money back in? Carrying them in my pockets feels weird.”
Thankfully the whole collection was outside of the display board when the spill happened but it came at the very end of their allotted time for their club meeting. They had very little time to try to clean up and the classroom they were using was taken up by an anger management group therapy meeting right after them. They were told to ‘Take away your stupid garbage or we’re going to trash you.’(it was those guys' first meeting) so they couldn’t just leave the collection by itself. Emily stuffed it in her pockets out of the lack of other options…
Right now they were going towards an old public restroom to make use of its still functional water tap. Since all the Humans were long dead and the colony was entirely populated by robots there was very little use for them but they could be useful for impromptu cleaning such as this one.
The restrooms were also useful for Drones wishing for privacy.
Emily abruptly stopped in front of the restroom entrance as she heard two muffled voices coming from the inside.
Someone was there, two someones to be exact.
She and Dan nervously looked over each other. Who could it be? It would be rude, not to mention really awkward to step into a make-out. Dan took the initiative.
“Um, can we come in?” He asked loudly.
An answer came almost instantly. “Sure!” With the higher volume Emily could recognise Lizzy’s voice. What was she doing here?
The two reluctantly opened the door leading inside. The ‘whoosh’ of the old doors sliding open came a split second earlier than it should. They predictably saw Lizzy here, intently tapping away at her phone. Notably the owner of the second voice they had heard was nowhere to be seen.
“Who were you talking to Lizzy?” Emily decided to question the cheerleader. “Is Doll hiding around here?” She queried as she looked past the other girl to check if there were legs visible in the stalls. Lizzy’s bestie had a noted record of being able to move around weirdly quickly and quietly, almost as if she was teleporting.
“Nah, I was just talking on the phone with a loud speaker on.” The cheerleader answered nonchalantly as she honoured them by actually looking up at the two. “Don’t worry about little old me, I’m done so I’m just gonna leave you to… do your weird nerd date stuff.” She added with a distated glance at their board.
“We are not dating!” Both of the numismatic club members exclaimed in unison. The regular teasing they’ve got essentially just for having the same rare hobby was quite tiring. They hardly interacted outside of the club!
“Sure you aren’t.” Nonplussed Lizzy emoted an eye roll as she moved to exit past them.
Emily was staring her down intently as the cheerleader passed them by. Another point of frustration popped within her as she realised that Lizzy’s excuse to be there was beyond stupid. No Drone ever used their phone to actually call someone. Let alone on a loudspeaker. They all had much better hardware built into them to do this precise thing. Phones were basically just for social media, photos and films.
She wasn't going to question the cheerleader though. No way. Lizzy could be scary when you crossed her. This was her secret to keep.
“Ok then…” She turned towards Dan. Her intent was to ask him to put it on the sink but she stopped when she saw him. He was quietly trembling, barely holding onto the board, his screen displaying wide hollow ovals and his head turned upwards. His mouth was twisted into a silent scream of terror.
She followed his gaze with her own, looking up at the ceiling.
She saw what he did.
A Murder Drone.
The monstrosity was latched with its claws to the ceiling. Its visor glowed bright with the horrific golden ><, its tail was slithering behind it like a snake ready to strike and its mouth was open wide, revealing two rows of numerous life-ending sharp teeth.
And the worst part was that the monster was staring right back at them.
Emily was left just as speechless as Dan was. There was no escape for her from this. She knew this for certain and had no idea what she should be thinking or doing at this last moment beyond praying inside of her own mind. She should scream so at least Lizzy would know to run and yet, nothing could come out of her vocal synth.
So only had a miniscule moment for these thoughts as the monster quickly reacted to seeing both of its prey properly looking into the face of their incoming end. A maddened cackle, though notably with a girlish tone of voice, broke out of it as it pounced down at the two, knocking them down to the ground. Emily’s own vocalsynth finally came to life as she screamed with all the volume available in it. She turned off her optics, she didn't want to see her end.
In the blackness she could feel a few taps of the monster’s sharp instruments of butchery upon her chassis. She braced for the one that will end her.
It did not come. Instead something quite unexpected happened.
“Yo, V, we were clear about you not doing any murdering stuff anymore, right?” Lizzy’s voice, sounding a bit agitated but not anywhere enough to fit the situation, sounded out.
“Oh shush you killjoy, I was just greeting new friends here. Right, Glasses?” Emily was left utterly confused as to the input reaching her audials at this very moment. Was this the monster talking to her? Also what was Lizzy doing? “Hello I’m talking to you toaster.” The monster, ‘V’, spoke again with a note of impatience. A more forceful tap of her claws against the Worker girl’s chassis accentuated her repeated request.
Half out of fearful obedience and half out of curiosity, she turned her optics back on. The sight that welcomed her was as expectedly scary as it was bizarre. The Murder Drone apparently called V indeed was the one looming over her. Her wide grin was just as terrifying as before but her screen displayed perfectly normal ovals, much like any Worker’s. Lizzy indeed was also there, casually leaning against the doorframe as if she wasn’t standing just a couple metres from a genocide robot.
“What?” This was the only thing Emily could muster to vocalise at the moment.
V giggled softly. “Oh, this was the funniest scream of terror I’ve heard in a while. Thank you, Glasses.”
Lizzy chuckled in turn. “Are you seriously going with ‘Glasses’? C’mon, that’s one of the less lame nerds, she does deserve something slightly more creative.”
The Murder Drone scoffed. “Do I look like a nerd-namer to you? I like the ring of it. Do you like ‘Glasses’ too, Glasses?” She turned her head back towards Emily with this last query.
The girl in question had just been silently observing the exchange in front of her in utter paralysing befuddlement. She silently stared at V for a moment before curtly nodding. In truth she, if anything, agreed with Lizzy and preferred the cheerleader's own ‘Final Girl' much more. It drew attention to her interests, not to the manufacturing defect of her optics. She was not risking anything with V though.
“See, she likes it!” The Murder Drone exclaimed with a cherry trill to her voice. “Oh, my first nerd that I properly spooked without killing! We need to commemorate this! You got a camera? I want a picture of this, not just a recording.”
“Take my phone, honour goes to you!” Lizzy offered. She then moved closer to hand it over.
At the very same moment, Dan made a nondescript loud shout as he jumped up from the position where he was laying silently next to Emily. He proceeded to tackle Lizzy, almost making the phone fall out of her hands.
Almost.
V lunged forward too quickly to register. Prying the boy off of her companion in a blink and effortlessly throwing him like a ragdoll right across the whole room, just next to the toilet past an open cabin door.
Her and Lizzy broke into a short bout of laughter at Dan’s expense.
V took her friend’s phone and then also lifted up Emily upside down by her leg. The Worker did not resist nor protest the lifting, she didn’t dare. Meanwhile Lizzy ran up to Dan and showed his face into the toilet. Then the cheerleader shifted to pose with a smile next to him as if she was the one to down him.
As she was hanging upside down, Emily felt something slipping out of her pockets. She realised with a new bout of dread that it was the club’s money collection. She rushed to block the pockets with her hands but it was too late. Coins and banknotes from the last few centuries of Human history started falling down like leaves. It was not helped by the Murder Drone suddenly giving her a few shakes.
“Smile for the photo Glasses!” V joyfully exclaimed just as the eponymous glasses fell off Emily’s face.
She did not even process the request before the flash of the camera came. The expression on her reflection in the mirror looking back at her was more along the lines of confused shock than anything.
It did seem V was happy though. The grin of the Murder Drone did not falter as she took a look at the photo that came out. Quite the opposite.
“Hah it came out so good!” She squealed as she made a few steps towards Lizzy to show it to her, dropping Emily to the ground only half-way through as if she forgot about the Worker.
The cheerleader grabbed her phone and squealed just as loudly. “Yes it did!”
“Ye, ambushing nerds in the restroom turned out to be so much funnier than what it sounds like!” V giggled. “Now c’mon, I wanna see more of the colony!” The Murder Drone announced as she turned towards the exit.
“You got it, just a sec though!” Lizzy flashed another grin before she kneeled in front of Emily and gave the lying girl an order. “You and your boyfriend have seen nothing, capiche?”
Emily furiously nodded in affirmative without even considering doing otherwise or protesting the ‘boyfriend’ line. Lizzy has just officially graduated from ‘scary when crossed’ to ‘terrifying monster tamer’ in her books.
“Thank you!” The cheerleader said joyfully before she stood up and skipped over to her friend. “Ok, let’s go then!”
They proceeded to walk out of the restrooms. After a moment Emily faintly heard another exchange between the two girls.
“Who is Doll by the way?” She now recognised the voice of the Murder Drone.
“Just someone from my long list of friends, no one you should worry about.” She managed to make out Lizzy's answer.
Emily herself just kept lying prone on the restroom floor long after their steps quieted down to nothing, trying to process what had just happened. The nagging awareness that she should collect the money, her glasses or even the display board that slid just under the sinks was losing to the desire to just not move for a day.
What finally shook her up after a couple minutes was Dan stirring up, he lifted his head up from the toilet and fell on the floor himself. Emily rose up into a sitting position, put on her glasses and then crawled over to him.
“What were you thinking?” She questioned him as she helped him to prop himself up against a wall and kneeled by his side.
“I thought since they were distracted I could… I don’t know, do something?” Dan answered quietly.
“Lizzy seemed to have the Murder Drone under control though, you really shouldn't have tried attacking her.” She scorned him “It maybe is like that other Murder Drone that was tamed during the last breach by… what was her name again? The Captain Doorman’s kid.”
“I don’t know, I screwed up again.” He sulked in self-loathing.
“No, no, I can’t tell myself what the hell precisely happened. This was scary.” Emily rushed to reassure him. “In the end it’s fine; we’re alive, the sky demon is getting domesticated, everything’s fine… Speaking of which…”
With that last part, she looked back to check on their club’s collection. Nothing looked damaged at a first glance… “Let’s just pick things up, ok?”
“Ok, I just need a minute…”