Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Uzi had been acting weird for…

Well she had been pretty weird for as long as Thad knew her, but she’d been acting a different kind of weird for a few months now. 

It was a pretty jarring change, just one day, Uzi came to school looking… happy. Participating in class, answering questions, not stealing her classmate’s consciousness for reasons Braiden still refuses to talk about, it was all so… weird .

Not bad, but it still gave Thad a weird feeling in his chest. Like there was something hanging just over his head, ready to drop down and kill him if he acknowledged it.

She’d barely told anyone to Bite Her since then as well. Mostly Lizzy and Doll, who seemed to take Uzi’s attitude change as a challenge to try and get a rise out of her. They stepped up the frequency they tried to bully and belittle her, but there was an emphasis on ‘ tried ’.

It seemed like whenever they threw something, she saw it coming and either avoided it or just caught it, even when they were behind her. When they would approach to try and either insult her or mess with whatever she was tinkering with at the time, Uzi would turn to look at them so quickly, Thad was shocked her head didn’t pop off. 

He remembered once he was talking to Lizzy about something, and she took a step towards Uzi to do something while her back was turned, and she only got that single step in before Uzi’s head whipped around almost a full 180 degrees just to glare at Lizzy until she took that same step back. 

He recalled one day, before Uzi started acting Weird, where he talked to her in the nurse’s office. One of her weapon projects exploded in her face, and she wound up breaking her visor badly enough to need a full replacement for it. They spoke for a bit, mostly about nothing, but he recalled she said she was planning on going on a scrap run outside the bunker for stuff she needed.

He asked if it was a good idea, and she pointed the Exploded Gun in his face, told him to Bite Her, and left.

That was the last time he could recall Uzi acting like… Uzi .

Uzi had been acting weird for a while, and Thad was scared to ask about it.

School was usually pretty quiet, until one of Uzi’s Things™ exploded, set something on fire, set some one on fire, Lizzy acknowledged her presence, or she stole Braiden’s consciousness again, but since The Change, school was unnervingly quiet, and Thad felt like he was the only one who noticed. 

He’d been sneaking glances at Uzi more and more frequently through the week during class, and it was weird to him how little she seemed to be looking at anything but her notebook.

He sat a few rows back and to the side far enough where he could still see Teacher, and keep an eye on Uzi without looking too weird about it. He was grateful for it, but Uzi was almost never looking up from her notebook. He’d only seen her raise her head during History class, and only when the Murder Drones were mentioned.

…maybe she hadn’t given up on that whole ‘Kill the Murder Drones and Get The Colony/Her Father’s Respect’ thing.

That put Thad on a whole new path of thinking this situation over. If she was still hellbent on killing the MDs, then she must have either seen something outside when she left that day that either encouraged her to double down, or…

Or something scared her enough to make her even more obsessed with killing them.

Either way, Uzi wasn’t gonna stop until either the MDs were dead (hopeful, but unlikely), or she was split like a dog treat between the MD’s mouths (absolutely terrifying, and far more likely).

He thought of an old human phrase he’d heard a long time ago, ‘don’t rock the boat’. He’d heard a few ways it was interpreted; mind your own business, don’t make a bad situation worse, don’t disrupt a delicate situation.

That may as well have been the unspoken rule in the bunker. 

The teacher’s lecture, whatever it was about, faded away when Thad felt The Thing Hanging Above Him drop closer with a realization.

Uzi was always one to disrupt how things were. It wasn’t always tinged with spite and angst, because he remembered when they were both younger, Uzi was a ball of questions and curiosity. ‘Why do we do things this way? Did we always live in the bunker? What was it like before we came down here? Why does this work like this?’ and a thousand other questions and actions were Uzi’s whole deal.

If no one wants to rock the boat, question the ‘why’ and ‘how’ things are, the people who do are either shunned and silenced or…

The Thing Dropped Closer. He could practically feel it through the fabric of his hat.

Lizzy’s belittlement, Khan’s open shame and belittlement at everything Uzi does, the rest of the colony’s sheer indifference towards her, all of it was cast in a much harsher light now. 

‘Don’t rock the boat, or you’ll be thrown overboard.’

The loud tone signaling the end of class snapped Thad out of his spiral, just in time to see Uzi gather up her books and practically sprint out of the room.

He’d barely heard someone say his name before he was running after her.

He’d lost track of Uzi after she’d turned a corner and vanished into the crowd, but he had a vague idea of where her locker was. By the time he caught up, she was just pulling that railgun she always had with her out and strapping it to her back. She looked… happy.

Like weirdly happy.

A weirdly familiar happy, but really weird regardless.

As he got closer, he could swear that she was humming some song, but that had to be something else. There was nothing in the bunker that could get Uzi Doorman happy enough to start humming .

“Hey Uz-” He tried to greet her, in a casual, totally-not-fearing-for-your-life kind of way, but evidently she hadn’t noticed him approach as she practically leapt out of her casing at the sound of his voice.

“OH Robo-Jesus, what the fuck!?” Uzi cried, clutching one hand to her core. Thad tried not to notice the other grabbing her railgun. “Thad? Gimme a warning next time! I nearly blew a gasket!” She casually slammed her locker as she spoke, and started leaning against them. “So what’s up? You need something?”

“No, just uh…” Thad honestly didn’t think this far ahead, mostly expecting Uzi to have either run off faster, or just told him to leave/Bite Her. “Just wanted to see how you’re doing.”

A look of genuine confusion crossed Uzi’s visor at that. “I’m.. doing okay?”

“Good, good, just wanted to… uh, check up on you. Since I don’t think we’ve spoken since… uh… that time in the nurse’s office. When you blew your visor out.” 

“Uh, yeah, I’ve been doing good. Great even.” Uzi seemed to perk up at this point. Great, hopefully he can learn what the heck has been going on. “I went out that day, found an abandoned emergency exit down by the Cryo Storage, and I found a great place to look for scrap and parts not all that far from the exit. I’m actually heading out again today.” 

That brought back the feeling of The Thing Hanging Overhead. “Oh cool.” he said, trying to keep his voice even. “Do you need an extra pair of hands to-” “NO!” Uzi interrupted, practically growling at him. 

“I don’t need extra hands, a spotter, or anyone to go with me on this. It’s just a scrap run, it’s no big deal.” She said, scowling at him before turning to walk away. He moved quickly to walk alongside her. She was still shorter, so her stride wasn’t long, but for some reason she was walking very fast. 

“Okay, I just wanted to make sure it’s all good, since, you know, last time we talked you were going all ‘I’m gonna murder them’ and all that, so I wanted to know if you were okay. You haven’t seen them out there too much? Have they seen you? Are you still all murder happy on the, uh… Murder Drones?”  Thad was starting to ramble now, but Uzi just stopped and looked him straight in his digital eyes. 

And she smiled.

“Oh, absolutely .”

And with that she walked away, leaving Thad with his eye rings hollowed watching her turn a corner and vanish.

… were her teeth always that sharp?

It took Thad longer than he’d like to admit to get himself moving again after seeing Uzi’s way-too-sharp-teeth. And he was barely able to find her again, choosing to keep his distance for now.

Uzi’s path took her, and subsequently him, through some of the lesser used halls of the bunker. While the top levels were primarily where everyone lived, rested, and for the younger ones like them, learned, it was also where the air vents branched from the main Ventilation Units to bring air from the surface into the lower levels. It was still active to this day, even years after the humans died out, as Worker Drones, even having more advanced cooling systems than most, would definitely overheat in the lower levels without proper air circulation.

And it seems those same air vents were how Uzi was planning to leave the bunker, as she practically threw the door to the Ventilation System room open and waltzed in like she owned the place.

… actually depending on what Khan put in his will…

Thad shook his head to stop that train of thought. This was no time to start down another rabbit hole of tangents!

Thad took the risk to get closer as Uzi went in. If she went into a vent before he could see which she went through, he might never find the right one.

He’d just barely managed to clear the door and see a flash of purple vanish into an open vent, the grate removed and set aside. 

A short hop and climb was all it took to reach it, but upon reaching it, he froze.

He’d never gone outside the bunker before. Hell, he’d never gone more than a single floor deep to the mid layers, and he’s never even seen the lower levels where the mining for metals happened.

One more step and he’d be the farthest from home he’d ever gone. 

His vents whirred louder and louder, thinking about all the things that could happen out there, in the world beyond the bunker. He could go outside, just in time to see Uzi being eaten by the Murder Drones. He could make it outside, and then they both get ambushed and eaten. He could go, keep an eye on Uzi, and while they make their way back, they’re followed by a Murder Drone, lead it inside by accident, then get eaten before it starts eating the rest of the bunker.

Maybe they get ambushed and Uzi does the impossible.

Maybe Uzi kills one.

Thad wasn’t sure what was going to happen. Thad wasn’t sure of a lot of things, but he was sure of this. 

Whatever happens, all of it hinges on taking that first step.

And with a deep breath, he steels his nerves, galvanizes his spirit, and takes that first step to the future.

Chapter Text

Despite the rumbling of the machines behind him, the vents were eerily silent. The feeling of the walls around him, moving with the air and quietly pulling at him to go back.

Thad felt the air from the outside, but could not see where it came from. It did not feel like a constant, continuous wind in his face, but it came in what felt like bursts. The walls almost shifted around him, trying to pull him back. 

‘Come back, Thad.’ he could not hear, but feel the walls, the very bunker, say.

‘Come home, Thad, it’s safe here.’ He stopped at that, the distant sounds of Uzi’s movement and muttering vanishing as something gripped his core. He could still turn back. Turn around, forget he saw Uzi go here, rather than the Cryo Storage, which was probably a lie, as he stopped to think it over. She probably said that to get him farther away while she came through here.

Why would she lie though? , He thought to himself. Cryo Storage was in the middle sections of the lower residential areas, nowhere near any possible exits or paths outside. Was it a distraction? Something to keep him away while she came through here? Thad could understand the secrecy of sneaking out, but he’d heard rumors of other Workers who snuck out before Kahn took over as the WDF leader, but they were pretty much all ‘I walked out with someone else while the door was open’, instead of ‘I found a potentially cataclysmic hole in the security and exploited it’ like this was. 

Before he could force himself to move again, The Thing Hanging Over Him dropped down, the cold realization touching the nape of his neck and sending a chill through his whole body. 

He thought back to Uzi’s teeth. Too sharp, too big, and he remembered where he’d seen that exact smile before. In history class, when Uzi would look up and drink in any mention of the Murder Drones, the smiles they wore while slaughtering and devouring the Workers were an exact match for the grin Uzi had earlier in the hallway.

The grin Uzi had, the almost enrapturement of the Murder Drones she wore on her face like a beacon, and trying to send him as far as she knew he would go from the exit she used all pointed in a direction he really didn’t like.

The air seemed to move faster, and the walls felt like they were pulling him back even more, as if the bunker itself were trying to swallow him, to keep him safe and far from the coming slaughter.

‘Come back, Thad. It’s safe here’ it cried out, begged him.

But for how long? , he answered. If the Murder Drones got in, then it’d be a slaughter, and they’d still have a permanent way into any area of the bunker. Even if he went to the farthest, deepest corner of the lowest mining levels, they’d find him eventually.

He thought to what might happen, the sounds of screaming, the splatter of oil and coolant on the floors and walls, alongside the laughter and shrieking of the Murder Drones as they feasted on their bodies. And he’d be huddled in a dark corner, trying to make himself as small as possible, until, from the darkness, he’d see that horrid ‘X’ of the Murder Drones, glowing a bright violet, before those monstrous teeth close around his head.

It took every bit of will he had to not turn and run. He steeled himself again, as before, and took another step forward away from home. 

He had to hold hope that Uzi wouldn’t do that. That she wouldn’t betray the colony.

And if she did? Better to get it over with sooner.

The air grew colder as he continued on, with the rumbling fading away, and the walls no longer moving with imagined peristalsis. He was too lost in his head to know how long it was until he saw the light, though it did not shine directly into the vent. Sounds of metal being torn and thrown echoed toward him, along with the occasional grumble or yell, of either frustration or joy.

As Thad approached the exit to the outside, he could make out the sounds Uzi was making more clearly. Mostly grunts of exertion with the sound of machines being torn apart, with the occasional bout of maniacal giggling.

Before, he would have simply chalked up that sound to Uzi being Uzi, but now, after the spirals he’d found his way down, and the uncertainty he felt, it just filled him with an ice cold fear of what may happen.

Thad slowly stuck his head over the threshold of the vent, and was careful to see where Uzi’s voice was coming from. He didn’t want her to know he’d followed her, as she’d either just kick his ass normally and drag him home, or his fears would be confirmed and she’d eat him.

Thankfully, when he saw her, less than 50 yards away,  digging into a pile of machinery next to a pile of stacked, abandoned cars, she had her back to him, fully distracted by whatever she was ripping into on the pile. 

He took his eyes off of her for a moment, seeing there were smaller piles strewn about, seemingly of pieces and machines Uzi had picked clean long ago. The sheer number of them, if she was the one who did it, implied she’d been coming out this way for quite a while. 

He turned back to Uzi, still distracted by the pile, and took his chance to exit the vent. 

It was raised off the ground by a few feet, but it seemed Uzi had, at some point, brought multiple large scrap pieces to act as makeshift stairs, which he was so very thankful they were silent as he made his way to the closest pile.

It wasn’t much larger than he was while crouching, but at least he could hide while he crept closer to Uzi, if only to make out what she was grumbling and muttering.

As he made his way closer, slowly, he took notice that the piles, all of them, were all cast in the shadow of a nearby building, the snow beyond reflecting enough light to see the ransacked machines around them. 

He was less than 10 yards from Uzi at this point, close enough to clearly hear her talking to herself, but if she were to turn for any reason, he wouldn’t have time to duck down before she saw him.

“This looks like I can salvage it. I could probably use it for a good trigger mechanism. Seal up the canister, with a good compressor, this’d make a good flamethrower!” Uzi announced, pulling what looked like half a vacuum cleaner out of the pile as if it were a legendary weapon. 

Thad couldn’t help but smile at her. Even when talking about weaponry and violence, Uzi was still over the top and extra, despite her constant insisting she was edgy and brooding.

As she put the scrap aside, and ducked back into the pile, Thad was struck with the feeling of The Thing Hanging Overhead coming closer again, as he heard the sound of something shifting on the other side of the pile Uzi was currently doubled over and digging into.

He moved slightly to see what it was, but he’d barely moved when he saw them.

Long, sharp claws reaching up over the apex of the pile.

One hand reaching over, then the other. 

At the first glimpse of those bright yellow eyes, Thad ducked down, throwing his own hand across his mouth to cover his mouth, and willed his vents to stay silent with every fiber of his being.

He could hear every sound it was making, the soft clicks of its claws on the metal, the swish-swish of its injector tail as it moved through the air, and its distinct lack of whirring vents.

This was it.

The moment where everything Thad thought, every deep spiral he’d been down today, all of it would be proven true or false.

Any moment now, he’ll either hear the sounds of Uzi screaming as she’s torn apart and devoured by this thing …

“Well, don’t you look like a busy little bee?”

“Well duh, I needed to do something productive while I was waiting for you to get here.”

… or he’d be left paralyzed under the full weight of betrayal.

“Glad to see. I missed you yesterday.” The sheer casualness the Murder Drone spoke to Uzi with was beyond frightening. Not only was she supposed to be here yesterday , it was implying that they’d met up like this before.

“Yeah, I got held up by dad. He wanted to show blueprints for a fourth bunker door to his buddies, and insisted I come with. He wouldn’t take no for an answer, so that was fun.”

“Everything I hear about your dad makes me wanna take him off the list.”

Thad heard the sound of a light smack. “No. My list, my exemptions. You know the rules.”

… was she scolding the Murder Drone?

“But I missed you . I got something really good yesterday, and I had to hide it from the others.”

The shifting of metals meant that something, likely the Murder Drone, was moving, and the lack of objections from Uzi meant it was probably a welcome shift. Thad was honestly shocked they could sound so… needy .

“I missed you too. I saw a picture of you in history class today.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. You tore a worker in half and were drinking out of his chest like a wild animal.”

“I’m surprised they could get a picture of that.”

“It was kinda hot.”

It was kinda what?

Thad knew Uzi had some weird tastes, he’d gotten curious and looked at human shows and media in the past, and anime was one of those things he filed as ‘Really Fuckin’ Weird’ , but the fact Uzi just called the Murder Drone hot when it was eating a person . He remembered that picture, specifically how the worker’s eyes hadn’t been flashing the [FATAL ERROR] message they usually do upon death. That man was alive while this drone was eating him, and Uzi called it hot ?

He felt his vents whir just a bit more before he got a hold of them, but it was enough to give him that feeling again. 

The Thing Hanging Overhead dropped slightly again.

“Hey hold on a second Uzi, I gotta do something.”

“What is it?”

The Murder Drone didn’t say anything. 

The silence was all Thad could hear. What happened? Did it hear him? There’s no way it could, right? It probably got a message from another one of their kind, and has to answer.

Thad felt the Thing drop even more. The sharp, cold feeling of it resting on his neck, waiting for him to move, talk, do anything, and drop it on him. To end it all.

For a brief moment, Thad was hopeful, as the silence stretched just past where it could have heard him.

Then the feeling on his neck moved.

It was slow, smooth, and exact. It traced around his neck, and turned to his chin. He felt the pressure as it moved his view upwards, before all he could see was death.

Chapter Text

As Thad looked up at the Murder Drone, he saw its mouth move, but no sound reached him. It’s hair hanging down, like tendrils grabbing at his face to drag him closer to those teeth, that have spelt the end of so many before him.

Its breath carried a stench of decay, pouring over him like a flood of horror, as the edges of his vision began to blacken. 

Did it kill him? He didn’t feel anything.

At least he got that mercy, after all of this…

Uzi was looking forward to seeing N all day, and just her luck, something has to interrupt them as soon as they start cuddling.

Whatever has N crawling over one of the other piles better be important, or she’ll turn this hangout into a dinner date.

It was always surreal, watching N switch from his usual goofball ‘wouldn't-hurt-a-fly-sweetheart’ self to his ‘apex predator of Copper-9’ self.

Surreal, but always welcome, with the knowledge he’d never hurt her. Not after all this time together.

As she watched him lean over the top of the other pile, the lack of fear from him meant that it wasn’t another Disassembly Drone, either from his squad or one of the dozen others he told her about since they met.

“You come here often, handsome?” If he was taunting, it was probably a Worker Drone, likely one that either followed her, or found the vent after she’d already gone through.

But why would they watch her without saying anything? If it was someone from Maintenance, they’d have dragged her back to her dad, kicking and screaming, before reading her the riot act about how she left the vent open. If it was anyone else, they’d have probably tried to make a break for it the instant N showed up.

Who would stick around after following her out here?

“Uzi.”

Uzi refocused at N’s voice. She saw he’d turned back to her, smiling and trying to hold back giggles as he spoke. “Uzi, he fainted .”

…what?

“He fainted?”

“I asked him a question, and he just fainted. He didn’t even try to answer, he just went ‘ buh ’, and went limp.” N was losing his battle with his own giggles at this point, trying not to double over as he tried to control himself. Digital tears were showing at the edges of his visor as he tried to keep himself steady.

Uzi hopped off the pile she was laying on, readjusting her beanie as she landed. “Maybe he couldn't handle looking at perfect- THAD ?!” Uzi cut her own response off as she turned around the pile to see her classmate, slumped against the scrap and junk she had yet to properly sort through (she was gonna get to it later, get off her back already!).

“Isn’t he that sporty guy you said was one of the nice ones?”

“Yeah, and that means you can’t eat him.”

“I wasn’t going to! Not without your permission.”

Uzi rolled her eyes at that, before climbing the pile enough to reach over it and pull N in enough for a small kiss. “I know, you goober.” N responded with a bright blush and a lovestruck giggle. “Now help me get him moved a bit so I can wake him up.”

It took about a minute to move Thad from his position on one scrap pile, over to the larger scrap pile Uzi and N were on previously.

“So what are we gonna do when he wakes up? Scare him into being quiet? Ask him to be a friend? Maybe he can be an extra set of eyes for us inside!” N said, his tail wagging faster and faster with each question.

“We’ll scare him a bit more, then tell him what's up after we have our fun. That way if he even thinks about trying anything we can handle it.” Uzi answered, before moving her jaw around to stretch it, and pulling her beanie back on her head.

“He’s on the list, so I don’t wanna hurt him if he talks.”

“You won’t have to, I can just wipe his memories and we can chalk it up to a bunch of stress dreams. The others are dumb enough to believe that, so we can rest easy after that.”

With that, Uzi climbed up on the pile and stood over Thad’s body, railgun on one shoulder, and looking down at him. “Okay you get down and don’t get up until I give the signal.”

“The creepy giggle, or the tongue thing?”

“Whichever comes first.”

The peace and stillness of death was pretty much exactly what Thad expected of it, for the briefest amount of time he experienced it.

Then he felt something slap him in the face. Hard.

He woke with a start, his vision blurry as it recalibrated. As his vision cleared, he quickly found he’d have preferred his vision to stay blurry.

Looming over him, grinning wide, with teeth far too sharp, and eyes replaced with that horrible ‘X’, was Uzi. Her railgun resting on her shoulder, and Thad had no reason not to think she’d somehow gotten it operational in the months since it exploded in her face.

“I told you I didn’t need a spotter, Thad…” she growled. Thad had never heard Uzi sound so vicious in their lives. Even when Lizzy would say particularly vile things to her, Uzi never sounded this angry. 

He opened his mouth to respond, unsure of exactly what he was going to say, before his eyes drifted up above her visor just slightly, and his voice failed him completely.

There, just above Uzi’s hairline, previously covered by the edge of her beanie, were five bright lights, on a black band that he just knew was more than just an accessory. Even without eyes, she could tell he was looking at them, and smiled. 

“You like the upgrades?” she giggled, before continuing. “Makes it so much easier to keep people like Lizzy and Doll off my back during school. I got more, but I can’t exactly show off all I got down in the bunker.” 

From Thad’s perspective, it was as if Uzi grew wings, those huge bladed things that the Murder Drones used, before they kept getting bigger, and the true source was revealed. The Murder Drone Thad had seen before, the one that snuck up on him, was still here. It moved to step out from behind Uzi, but even standing lower on the pile, it towered over the both of them.

It moved its wings, one held behind Uzi, the other caging off Thad’s side, preventing him from potentially escaping in that direction. His only other way was the side where Uzi was holding her railgun, so the situation was clear.

‘Don’t even think about running.’

“So before we drop all the pretenses, and get down to business, tell me, Thad, what’s going through that sporty little CPU of yours?” 

Thad’s CPU in question was currently racing with the same ‘PANIC’ signals repeatedly, and as such, there was only one sound that escaped his mouth before darkness took over his vision again.

“buh.”

“Oh fucking hell.”

N couldn’t help but burst out laughing at the absurdity, and to be fair, Uzi was having a hard time keeping the smirk off her face as well.

“He really did go ‘buh’.”

N was practically on his hands and knees, digital tears streaming down his face as he struggled to stop his own mirth. “Hahahaha, he-he just- buh, and then dunk, and hahaha!”

“Okay, get it out of your system now, chuckles, I gotta wake him up again. No more scares.” Uzi said, putting her railgun on her back, eyes returning to normal. 

N’s laughters quieted, but didn’t stop, as he was reduced to constant chuckling while curled up on the ground. Uzi looked at him with a fond smirk and a shake of her head before turning to her unconscious fellow worker. 

“Okay c’mon testosterone junkie, get up, games are done.” she said, repeatedly, but lightly, slapping Thad’s face to encourage him to awaken.

He stirred a bit before his eyes lit up, taking in the view of Uzi in front of him, before throwing himself back as hard as he could. Not that it was far, given he was still pressed into the pile of scrap metal.

He looked back and forth between Uzi, standing casually over him, and N, who was still chuckling on the ground.

“Huh? Wha? You- but I- not dead- what? Why?”

“Take a deep breath and cool it, gym rat, we’re not gonna hurt you. We just thought it would be funny. It was.”

With that, Uzi hopped off the pile, leaving Thad free to get up, and stood next to N, whose chuckles were slowly stopping as he rose enough to sit on his knees. 

“Okay, I’m good, no more giggles out of me, it’s all cool.” he said, a few loose giggles escaping as he spoke.

“N, this is Thad, the jockey one I told you about. Thad, this is N, Disassembly Drone, my best friend, personal scrap dealer, and boyfriend.” Uzi said, getsuring between the two of them.

Thad’s eyes widened at that, as N simply leaned towards Uzi, who leaned against him as well.

“ What?! ”

“It’s a long story Thad, so if you wanna know, get comfy, and keep it to yourself.”

Thad could only look at them, abject confusion and mild horror on his face, before settling into his divot in the scrap pile.

“Okay so here’s how we-”

“Wait! Uzi I almost forgot!” N yelped, reaching into his coat quickly, his tail wagging furiously behind him in the snow.

“N, are you sure it can’t wai-” Uzi’s words caught in her throat when she saw what N pulled from his coat, holding it out with an almost spiritual reverence to her. It was small, about the size of a D-cell battery, but glowing a vibrant green. Uzi reached out to hold it, shocked at its lack of heat, its power giving a mild tingling sensation in her fingers. “N, is this…”

“A cold fusion power cell. I found it in an old JcJ power plant on the edge of the city. Took a long time to sneak it across the city and keep it off the other’s radar.” N looked into her eyes, full to bursting with love and adoration for the drone in front of him, and smiled. “It’s the last thing you need for your railgun, right?”

N didn’t get a spoken response, but he did get Uzi desperately smashing her lips into his, holding his head in her hands and entwining her fingers through his silver locks. 

Recovering quickly from the sudden kiss, he wrapped his arms around Uzi, pulling her closer, her vents whirring loudly as they came closer. She pulled away, for a brief moment to whisper, only to him. “I’m going to ruin you later.”

“Uh… guys…”

They both froze and turned to their, still very present, audience, completely forgotten about in the height of emotion.

N and Uzi swiftly separated, Uzi pulling her beanie back down over her extra eyes, and N swiftly standing up and taking a rigid soldier-esque stance. Bothe their visors were lit up brightly with blushes, their eyes almost completely hidden behind them.

Uzi gave a solid cough to clear her throat before speaking. “Alright, sorry. So, me and N met a few months ago, the same day my railgun exploded.”

Chapter Text

Today was just not going well for Uzi.

But then again, why would it? It’s not like every waking moment of Uzi’s life wasn’t plagued by stigma and frustrations from every conceivable angle since her mom died, and her only relative left had gone on record multiple fucking times about how much of a disappointment she was as a daughter, and how much those goddamn prison doors mean so much more to him than her .

Uzi took a deep breath to calm herself down as she approached the doors to the Ventilation Center. Her first plan to just steal her dad’s master key for the bunker was a flop, since he’d been called out to fix a problem with Door 2, something about the hydraulics or whatever. And that was after she’d needed to rest for a few hours after getting her visor replaced after her railgun exploded.

Doc said she got lucky with that shrapnel piece though. A little bit deeper, or to either side and she’d have been permanently blinded in half her visual sensors, and that was a fun thing to think about, how her own project backfired so badly it nearly mangled her beyond repair .

As she threw open the doors to the Ventilation Center, partially to work off some frustration, partially because she wanted to be dramatic, the sounds of fans whirring, blasting temperature controlled air to every corner of the bunker, the whole room rumbling enough to where she could feel it through her boots.

Uzi normally hated loud sounds, at least ones she had no control over, like crowds in school, crowds in the mess halls, or crowds in general, but this?

This was the kinda sound that got her brain revving to get shit done.

She’d gone over the schematics for the vent systems earlier, as well as saved a copy to her internal storage, and managed to find one that lead to the surface, far enough away from the corpse spire the Murder Drones supposedly had, but still close enough to other vents on the outside that if she couldn’t get back to this path, she’d have another option if things went south.

So with a grin on her face and the confidence of an anime protagonist in her step, she pulled the cover off the vent she’d chosen, and stepped out to the future.

Uzi really wondered why they never sent more people out to get supplies and scrap metal, she’d found so much good stuff. 

She’d been out for barely an hour before she’d found old human weapons, still clutched in their frozen, skeletal hands, preserved circuits from human ‘smart’ vehicles that she could repurpose, and the absolute cream of the crop she found: a human clothing store that not only had hoodies in her size, but they also had a complete set of the manga print of her favorite anime! 27 whole volumes of perfect storytelling, just waiting to be taken home, that sadly had to stay behind, as she was running out of space in the duffle bag she’d brought to carry everything.

But that was just another reason to go back tomorrow. 

Uzi’s grinning was practically splitting her face in two as she crawled under an abandoned car to pull out its various pieces. It would have been a hell of a lot easier if there wasn’t another car flipped onto the hood, but she’d already disconnected the battery, which still had plenty of charge left, and was just about to start wrenching something else out when she heard something that froze her hands in the space above her.

A distance boom, followed by a scream that was getting very loud, very fast.

The scream cut off the same instant that something smashed into the car above her, closing the empty space above her head from nearly a foot, to barely a few inches as the car’s frame was warped by the impact.

The shock of the impact nearly had Uzi screaming, but the sound of something else landing nearby paralyzed her voice and had her instinctually turning her visor off to hide.

“J!”

“ You worthless, pathetic, stupid, waste of an excuse for a drone! ”

“J, please, I didn’t know you were following them!”

The first voice was male, panicking and fearful, the sounds of scraping metal and snow crunching denoting he was trying to crawl away from the other drone, a girl, who sounded absolutely furious .

“And if you were paying any sort of attention, you would have known that! But you’re so lagged out in your own head, you didn’t stop to think I was following them ! Now we’ll have to wait for who knows how long until the toasters in that bunker send out more so we can get in !” 

The sound of metal shearing and screams rocked through Uzi, as something was thrown next to the car she was under. As another scream tore out of the male drone, Uzi saw another object land in her view.

The severed wing of a Murder Drone.

J, whoever she was, was clearly a Murder Drone, and this other one, N, was one as well. In all the footage and information she’d learned about them in history class, the MDs always seemed like a cohesive group, or at least just mindless killers, but they had personalities, and, as it seemed, fears.

N was clearly terrified of J, and by the sounds of it, he had every reason to be.

It went on for what felt like hours, as J screamed and raged at N, tearing into him like a crazed killer, while N screamed and pleaded, his voice cracking and glitching from the strain. His pleading went from begging her to stop, for mercy, to screaming for someone named Tessa, which only seemed to make J angrier. Eventually N devolved into wordless screaming, until his voice was so shot, he could only choke out these horrid digital screeches that would haunt Uzi for weeks.

Eventually the sounds of J’s assault stopped, and N quieted down to crackling whimpers.

“Oh quit whining, just walk it off.” J said, breathing heavily after her screaming tirades. “The sun’ll be up in a couple hours, you have plenty of time to regenerate and grab some oil before coming back.”

“J… I can’t-t-t…”

“Can’t what, N? Move? That's quitter talk !” There was a dull snap, followed by another static filled yell from N. “If I don’t hear from you in 3 days, I’ll tell corporate you got fried.” With that, there was a whoosh as J seemed to fly off, leaving N whimpering in the snow, in whatever horrible condition she’d reduced him to.

Uzi waited for a while, waiting to see if J or another Murder Drone came by. Eventually she crawled out from under the car, slowly and as silently as she could. The snow gently moved as she slid out into the open air, before she fully saw what happened to N.

She could barely see his body beneath all the splattered oil, and what she could see was horribly mangled. His legs were broken and sparking at the joints, bent and twisted to the point of uselessness, the same with his remaining arm, the other completely missing, taken by J it seemed.

His chest was torn open, N’s core on full display, glowing brightly, the edges of the hole scratched and roughed, as if J was trying to eat his heart out of him. And his face…

What was left of his face was something Uzi would see in her nightmares for months.

The only part of his head left unmangled was his mouth, his visor torn out completely, leaving his shredded visual sensors exposed, oil seeping out  and running in rivers down his cheeks, like nightmarish tears.

Above where his eyes used to be, were exposed circuits and wires, with patches of silver hair half-torn off, hanging on by the smallest bits.

J had torn him to shreds and left him like this.

Uzi stood frozen for a time, staring at the mess that this Murder Drone, an apex predator of Copper-9, was reduced to. He just lay there, faint static from his mouth and the glow of his core being the only indicators he was even still alive after all that.

Eventually, she tried to move, either away from him or towards, she couldn’t tell, but the crunch of snow beneath her boot, however small, was enough to get his attention, and his head turned every slightly in her direction.

“He-e-ello?... Is someone there?... V?... Is that yo-o-ou?...”

He sounded so… pathetic . His voice was thick with static, and strained to the point it sounded like it physically hurt him to speak. 

Uzi didn’t say anything. She just waited.

“V?... Are you ther-r-r-re?... Do you remember me today?... V?...”

N’s voice was breaking more, cracking with tears he couldn’t shed.

“Please… say something…”

Uzi’s heart bled for him. Even if he was a Murder Drone, one of the creatures who feasted on her kind, one of the ones who killed her mother, she just couldn’t let him lie there, thinking he was being ignored.

“I’m… not V.”

Even without most of his face, N managed to look shocked at the sound of her voice. “Are you a Worker?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“...You’ll probably leave me… I’d leave me…”

The level of casual dismissal of himself threw Uzi for a loop. “Why would I? You’re… really badly hurt.”

“I’m a Disassembly Drone… I was built to kill you guys… I probably killed someone you know…”

Uzi knew there was a pretty decent chance of that, but…

“Why did she do this?”

“...You saw?”

“I heard.”

“...I made her mad… I saw some Workers, and I needed oil… I hadn’t eaten in days… I just had one of them when J said she was following them to a bunker… I never saw her that angry before…”

N’s body was shaking as he spoke, his voice shaking as if he were terrified that saying J’s name out loud would summon her back for more. 

He reminded Uzi of old movies she saw when she was younger, and the few memories she had of her mother. They watched old movies, absolutely ancient to them, but still wonderful. She remembered one about a dog, who was treated in ways scarily similar to how she heard N was. 

She was so young. The pointless cruelty to something like that, it confused and scared her young self. 

That’s something that stuck with her it seemed.

A hatred and fear of pointless evils.

Uzi steeled her nerves and spoke.

“I can help you. I’ll get you oil, and fix you up.”

N tried to raise his head, but all he could do was turn more towards Uzi’s voice in shock.

“What?... Why?”

“Because you’re gonna help me. We can work out the details later.” With that, Uzi turned back to the cars she’d hidden under, specifically the one that was on the hood of the one she was dismantling. She grabbed hold of the hood, intact, if slightly warped from the glancing impact N left when he was shot down, and yanked it from its hinges.

“There’s a place nearby we can hide out. If we hurry, I can drag you there well before any other Drones come looking for you.”

“...They won’t look for me…”

Uzi didn’t respond, focusing more on dragging the car hood over to N, before slowly and carefully moving him onto the makeshift gurney-sled.

A few knots in some jumper cables later, and Uzi was dragging a Murder Drone to safety to start repairing it.

Today was going very weird for Uzi.

Chapter Text

By the time Uzi had finished pulling N to her new hoodie supply store, the sun was beginning to peek through the clouds and illuminate the city. 

The former store wasn’t very big, but it had plenty of clothes in cupboards lining the walls, and clothing racks to hide behind in case something were to come looking. 

Looking back, she stumbled on a pretty good place to hide from the other Murder Drones.

It took some work to bring N inside through the broken storefront, but eventually, she managed, and pulled him into the back of the store, taking care to hide him behind the countertop. Anyone coming into the store would have no idea he was there until you were practically on top of him.

“Okay, you should be safe there. Just… try not to make too much noise and attract them today?”

“Oh-oh-oh, you don’t need to wor-r-r-ry about that… We can’t go out in the sunlight, so we do all our hunting at night.”

Wait, what?

“What? Why can’t you go out during the day?”

“We overheat easily and burn up… It’s why we need to drink oil from you guys…. It’s how we restore our nanites for repairs, avoid overheating, and refuel.”

Uzi just stared at N, laying there facing the ceiling, silvery shimmers appearing along the edges of where his visor used to be.

She was absolutely astounded by what N had just casually put out there. She didn’t even need to pry, he just went ‘yeah, there’s like 12 hours a day it’s safe to go out and do stuff when we’re cooped up in the shadows like the bunch of actual goddamn vampires we are ’!

And the fact they used oil as coolant, and fuel, was just setting off all the alarm bells in Uzi’s brain, for the whole ‘they were actually designed from the ground up to eat us’ thing, but mostly because the absolute engineering travesty that the Murder Drone’s internals had to be was both utterly infuriating as someone who takes her work incredibly seriously, but also in another way she was very used to.

The ‘I can optimize this’ way.

Uzi’s brain was revving with possibilities, but she needed more info.

“You guys use oil as a coolant? If you guys were designed for anything except eating other drones, you’d have never made it past the design phase.”

“I don’t like to question why the company does things… It makes her really mad…”

How dare this flying cannibal robo-demon make her feel guilty about asking a question. But here she was, seriously leaning towards nursing this actual monster back to health because she felt bad for him.

There was something seriously wrong with her.

“...I don’t know your name… I’m N.” He just put his name out there, unprompted. 

“You’re just gonna tell me?”

“It’d be rud-d-de not to.”

The shimmering had progressed inward, the edges of his former visor were clear, while the shimmering silver nanites moved to repairing his visual sensors before they’ll move to something else.

“So how long will it take for you to… regenerate, I guess?” Uzi was genuinely curious about that, as it could be a make-or-break piece of information in her self-appointed quest to kill the Murder Drones. It would really suck if she blew one of their heads off and they just grew a new one immediately.

Or worse, if she blasted one in half and both halves grew into a new Drone, like a fucked up starfish.

“It depends on how much material we have saved up. I think I have enough for my visual sensors, and maybe some basic stuff for my arm, but that’s it… I’d need more oil to refill my reserves.”

So the better fed they are, the more durable they are. With that, it seemed like the bunkers were, if accidentally, a way to beat them without actually fighting. Just starve them until they can’t regenerate, then just kill them in their sleep during the day.

Wow, they really are just vampires, huh?

“Why are you just telling me this stuff? I can tell other Workers about this. They can kill you guys.” He was just handing her all these secrets, their weaknesses, how they worked, hell, if she let him keep going, he’d probably tell her the exact coordinates of Earth and how to kill as many humans as possible in the shortest time!

Something’s wrong with N.

“...I know… I just… don’t… care…” Uzi’s eye’s went hollow at that. “I want to… but I can’t… I want to care, because J cares… and I still care about V… but not as much as I used to… I don’t care anymore… Why?”

N’s voice cracked the more he spoke, until he was reduced to sobbing on the floor, unable to move his arm to cover his mangled face, as Uzi sat watching him shatter.

N, this Murder Drone, was built from the ground up to be a cold killer machine, slaughtering Workers by the hundreds, if not thousands, and to feast on their corpses. He was, by all accounts and definitions, an apex predator. Nothing could topple him.

So what the fuck did those other Drones do to him to make him like this?

Uzi wasn’t sure what to do. Her whole situation was absolutely wild to her. 

What started with wanting to go find machine parts to make weapons to fight the Murder Drones, has currently landed her sitting in an abandoned store, sitting behind the counter listening to a Murder Drone have a breakdown after being nearly torn to shreds by his teammate who has apparently been abusing him for some time.

And robo-goddammit, it was about to get wilder.

As N continued to sob, his voice crackling and catching, Uzi reached to him, and gently put her hand on his arm, not to get his attention, or try to stop his cries.

Just to let him know she was still there.

Eventually N wore out his ability to cry, his breathing evening out, and his voice returning. “Why are you being nice to me?”

“I don’t know. But you don’t deserve to be treated like that. No one should.”

N didn’t say anything. He just turned his head towards her, the shimmering nanites having restored his visual sensors, and moving to begin replacing his visor.

“Has she done this before?”

“...Not this bad… but yeah… She would throw me around, or kick me… stomp on me when I was down… said if she wouldn’t get in trouble for it, she’d just…” N didn’t finish that sentence, but Uzi was smart enough to put it together.

“N, that’s absolutely fucked. J sounds like a monster.”

“She just… cares about the company… more than anything else.”

Uzi had heard enough about J to know that she was priority #1 when it came to killing the other Murder Drones.

“Why don’t you tell me about that other Drone you mentioned. V, you said their name was?”

“Yeah… She’s the third member of the squad. She’s… really… enthusiastic about our job.”

“I bet.”

“She’s nice, when she's not eating. We have nice talks sometimes, when J’s not around… and she remembers who I am…”

“I was meaning to ask about that. When you thought I was V before, you asked if I remembered you today. Does she… forget things a lot?”

N was silent for a moment. Even without his eyes, Uzi could tell he was trying to figure out how to say it best. “Some days… are better than others… Sometimes she’ll know who I am, and that we’re squadmates… Other times she’ll remember we’re in the squad, but she won’t know my name… She’ll forget we work together… Sometimes she won’t remember why we’re here at all…”

To Uzi, that sounded like V had a pretty severe memory leak, or a damaged memory drive. Usually a drone keeps forgetting things until the data corruption hits their essential systems and OS, but if it’s a physical problem, it might be why she has better days than others.

If her memory drives are damaged, her body might be repairing the damage at about the same rate it’s degrading, if not at fluctuating rates. 

It was something Uzi could fix, and if V was willing to listen to N about it, she could have two Murder Drones as allies.

If she listened.

“The worst days are when she doesn’t seem to remember anything… She just stays in her nest and… won’t stop screaming… Even J won’t get close on those days… She tried once and complained that V ate her whole arm.”

…So that might need to wait for a better day.

The shimmering on N’s face had begun to thin as it was nearly finished repairing his visor. It wouldn’t be much longer before he saw what Uzi looked like. The thought stirred something in her chest, that was quickly pushed down in favor of focussing on speaking to him.

At first it was a combination of pity and practicality that drove her to help him. Help him out, get some info on the Murder drone’s weaknesses, then kill them all and get the respect of her peers. But as he spoke about his team, and his thoughts, and she heard him break down repeatedly after what his supposed ‘teammate’ did to him, she became invested in him. 

She was starting to care about him.

Robo-Jesus, something was really wrong with her, huh?

But while Lizzy and Doll had never assaulted her, she could see parallels between herself and N. People seemed determined to beat them down at any sign they may be happy or feeling generally not-shitty, and they each had someone they cared about, even if those feelings were muddled and confusing, that it felt like were forgetting them day by day.

…when was the last time her dad tried to speak with her? 

Uzi’s spiral was interrupted when she saw the shimmering nanites on N’s face sink into his body again, as code and diagnostic data began to run across his newly repaired visor. Uzi leaned in to see what she could learn from it, but it was moving so quickly she only managed to see that N, and most likely the rest of his squad, were assigned an engineer by the name of Tessa, who was probably the one N was yelling for help from when J attacked him.

She was about to pull away, just as a pair of bright yellow eyes appeared on the visor, before going hollow at just how close Uzi had gotten.

They stared at one another for a bit, N’s eyes going from surprised rings into solid circles as he focused, the edges of his visor turning yellow at their proximity.

Uzi felt her fans whir and speed up as her face and chest felt warm looking him in the eyes, glowing that oddly enticing shade of yellow. It wasn’t a color she liked, finding it too bright, and clashing with her chosen palette, but on him?

Her core buzzed in her chest.

Oh no .

“Uzi!” She yelped, leaning back quickly and looking away briefly, before turning back to him.

“Wha?”

“My name. It’s Uzi.”

N didn’t say anything, just staring into her eyes for a moment before responding. “It’s a pretty name.”

What?

“What?” Uzi felt her face heat up, just as N’s lit up with yellow blush.

“Pretty good! I meant pretty good! It’s a pretty good name for a pretty drone! A pretty good drone! A drone that is good and pretty, and hey didn’t you say you wanted help and we can work on those details now if you want! ” N was speaking faster and faster, as his blush grew brighter and his exposed core began steaming. “Oh that’s not good.”

Uzi didn’t verbally respond, but she did sprint out of the storefront and pack together a mass of snow the size of her head before rushing back inside and putting it on N’s chest.

The snow was melting quickly, and the resulting water evaporated just as fast on contact with N’s superheated core, but at least the risk of overheating by embarrassment was reduced. 

Hopefully.

“Did that help?”

“Yeah it just feels weird.”

“Okay.” Uzi said, clapping her hands together. “So here’s the deal. You’ve already given me a bunch of information on you guys’ weaknesses, so in exchange for not killing me over it, I’ll fix you up so you aren’t all busted.”

“That sounds fair.”

“There’s more though.” she continued. “You guys are built, from what I gathered, like absolute prototypes that either didn’t get tested properly, or the company doesn’t care if you guys live or die. There’s only so many Worker Drones on the planet, and we can only build so many new ones because you guys kinda hoard most of the bodies before we can recycle them.”

“That’s what you do with them?”

“Yeah what do you do?”

“We built a big tower out of them.”

Dramatic bitch-ass vampires, all of them.

“Anyway, you guys are built like alpha-models, and that bugs the hell out of me. So, in exchange for your help with neutralizing your squadmates, I’m willing to remove those weaknesses and make you better.”

N’s eyes went wide and hollow at the offer. “What?”

Chapter Text

N’s eyes had gone hollow at Uzi’s offer. Neutralizing his squad? For upgrades? It was a tall order for Uzi to ask, but with a situation like this, you gotta take risks to get anywhere.

N was silent, thinking the offer over, while his core continued to melt the mass of snow piled on his core. If Uzi had made the offer, somehow, a week ago, a day ago, even just ten hours ago, he’d have said no.

Well, he probably wouldn’t have said anything, and just skipped straight to eating her, but that’s not the point.

Any other time, he’d have refused outright.

But now…

“When you say ‘neutralize’... do you mean… kill?” N’s hesitancy was clear, and understandable. Despite what J had done to him, repeatedly, and V’s scattershot memory, they were the only people N really had contact with. They were the closest thing to friends he had.

Uzi felt like she’d been staring out at the water for so long, she’d never noticed another person in the boat with her.

“If it comes down to it, J’s the only one I’d prefer to kill. If we can contain V long enough, we can probably convince her not to fight so I can fix her head.”

“You can do that?” N’s eyes lit up at that. The chance to be able to talk to his friend again, without the fear that she’d either lose it or not recognize him, seemed to sway him towards her, at least a little.

“Yeah if she’s swinging back and forth between losing her memories and getting them back, it might be a physical problem, with her memory drives being damaged. If you guys can regenerate as easily as you can with a bunch of oil, she might be regenerating the damage, before it just breaks itself and repeats.”

N’s eyes went hollow. The idea that his friend, the squadmate he felt safe around, even on her worst days, was suffering so much without his knowledge, was horrible. All these years, and he never knew…

“Does it hurt? The… memory damage?”

Uzi paused to remember, it was a while since they covered this in mechanics class. “No, it shouldn’t. If you guys are built anything like we are, then all those important internal parts don’t have any tactile receptors. Makes it easier to keep track of cognitive repairs if the drone is conscious the whole time.”

But that made Uzi think a bit. N said V was ‘enthusiastic’ about her role. That could stem from a few things.

1: She was aware of the memory damage, either because she could tell she was forgetting things, noticed gaps in her memory, or worst case scenario, she could feel her memory drives degrading in her head. (Which was honestly just another reason to kill all the humans, because if they designed the Disassembly Drones to feel that stuff, they were some sadistic motherfuckers .)

2: She was unaware of the memory damage, but knew her body was using the repair nanites on something, and is constantly trying to maintain a high level of oil in her system to fuel it.

3: V was just Like That.

N exhaled, a large amount of tension leaving his body, as the shimmering nanites appeared in the joints and cracks of his remaining arm. “So it’s possible to fix her. Okay… Okay good.” 

They sat in silence for a while, the sun shifting higher in the sky, shortening the shadows outside on that cloudless day. “And what about J?” Uzi asked. Best to rip the bandage off quickly.

“Hmm?” N hummed. Looking at her, his arm moving and twitching ever so slightly as the nanites thinned more and more, sealing the cracks and breaks in the limb.

“Do you care if she dies?”

N didn’t respond. Instead, he laid his head back, and stared at the ceiling. His eyes staying as solid circles as he tossed the idea around in his head.

Uzi took in the silence, everything she’d seen and heard over the past few hours catching up with her.

She’d gone out to collect scrap and machine parts, only to stumble into a nightmare scenario, that ended with her offering to not only repair one of the drones responsible for forcing her people literally underground, but to also remove the things that make it possible to kill the other Disassembly Drones plaguing the planet, with the hope, actual hope , that they can convince another one to turn on their squad leader and the entire JcJ corporation.

She was certifiably insane, but it still beat just rusting away down in the bunker for who knows how long.

“I care.”

N’s voice shook Uzi out of her head, his words surprising her.

“I care if she dies… She’s been.. Horrible… for so long… I know it’s not good, but I care if she dies.” N’s voice shook and cracked as he spoke, digital tears forming in his eyes as he turned to look at Uzi. 

There was something about the way he looked at her, something akin to desperation shining through, with anger and shame. 

“I want her to die.”

He said it like he was acknowledging a firm truth of reality. As solid as the ground under their feet, as ever present as gravity, and as indisputable as the sun itself.

He wanted J dead.

“I don’t know how we’ll do it, but I want her to die.”

Uzi turned to see the nanites on N’s arm finally vanish as they finished the most basic structural repairs on his arm. If he were on his own at this point, he might be able to drag himself to a worker drone corpse tonight to start healing, if he found one before the sun came up.

But N wasn’t alone today.

“Well, we have a few days to make a plan. J said you had three days to get back to the spire before she told the company you got fried in the sun.” Uzi said, with a smug grin on her face. “That gives us about 60-ish hours now to plan on how to do it.”

N’s eyes shined an almost indistinguishably small bit brighter at that. He was about to say something before Uzi stood up to stretch, and looked down at him.

“Before we get planning though, you need oil. I wanna pick your brain and blueprints a bit so I know what to look for when we go after her. Can’t do that if the only reference I have looks like he got shoved through a shredder.”

She turned and began to drag the makeshift sled through out of the store. “Any preferences I should know?”

N’s place behind the counter meant Uzi couldn’t see the look of absolute shock on N’s face.

She asked him his preferences? “For oil?”

“Yeah, like does it matter if it’s from an old body? I saw a few on our way here earlier, and was gonna drag those in.”

She was scavenging corpses for him? For some reason, that made N’s core whir more, the remaining snow resting on it melting even faster now. “No, it’s fine if it comes from those, it just tastes kinda… funky.”

“Alright, I’ll be back in like, half an hour.”

With that, he heard her go off with the sounds of crunching snow and metal dragging across its surface.

As he lay back once more, staring at the ceiling, the events of the past day repeated in his mind. What started as a hunt to simply get any oil in his system ,turned into a near-death experience at the hands of his squad leader, before he was rescued by a beautiful insane wonderful crazy kind Worker Drone, who offered to repair him and kill his squad leader in exchange for… something.

Had Uzi said what she wanted out of their deal? Besides not eating her specifically?

Well whatever she wants, he’ll give it to her. 

Whatever she wants.

N could feel his smile getting wider and wider as he thought about what they’ll do together.

But he has to be sure to thank J for this. 

All this was because of her after all.

Chapter Text

“So… yeah, that’s how we met, and the broad strokes of what we’ve been up to.” Uzi finished, arms wrapped around N’s waist as he sat in her lap.

Thad’s eyes were wide, hollow rings for practically the entire time Uzi and N recounted their first meeting. It was almost too much for him to process.

She saved a Murder Drone, the things that, just a few hours before she left the bunker, she was planning on killing for the purpose of getting her father’s respect. On top of that, she was planning to upgrade the damn dude to help her kill at least one other Murder Drone.

Thad remembered his dads talking about Uzi’s mom once when he was young. Said they hoped her kid didn’t inherit any of her ‘psychotic bullshit’ and make things harder on everyone. Of course things are a bit foggy, because he was young, probably distracted by something, and everything before he became ‘Thad’ kinda feels like he’s remembering someone else’s stuff.

But that’s beside the point!

“Okay, I follow all this, it’s just…” Thad made a gesture with his hands, miming putting things together. “Not all clicking right now.”

“That makes sense, we did scare you as a joke earlier, so you’re probably still hopped up on adrenaline programs.” N said, chipper like he didn’t just shake Thad’s entire worldview.

And while N didn’t notice, or at least acknowledge it, Thad absolutely saw Uzi press her cheek into N’s chest, while looking straight at him with probably the third smuggest face he’d ever seen her make.

She was probably thinking something like ‘Bet you wish you were me right now?’ and honestly?

No. No, he did not.

“That’s another thing I wanna know. How did… this-” Thad gestured to the couple sitting across from him. “-happen? Because it didn’t sound like you started macking on each other after all that.”

“It was a few weeks later.” Uzi answered, as N nuzzled the top of her head. “We met up here, and got to talking while sorting through the stuff N found, and at some point we started making out, and now we’re like this.” Uzi gestured to her and N’s current seating arrangement, while N moved his head to place a kiss above Uzi’s visor, making her blush brightly. “N!”

“I can’t help it!”

As N peppered Uzi’s face in kisses, and she protested, but did nothing to stop him, Thad felt like he’d gotten all the answers he wanted, despite having so many more questions to replace them. “Well, I think I’ve been in your hair long enough, sso I’m just gonna-”

As Thad was getting up to walk back to the vent and return to the relative safety of the bunker, N’s arm slammed down on the scrap heap next to him, cutting him off.

He didn’t even see him move.

Thad’s eyes traveled up N’s arm to his face, where the large, predatory ‘X’ was absent, but the way his eyes bore into him, even with the friendly smile, was enough to give Thad tremors in his hands.

“Before you go, Thad, I wanna be sure of something. Okay?” N said, chipper, and a wire’s width away from tearing into him like a wild dog.

Thad tried to answer, but his voice froze in his throat, a pathetic squeak coming out instead. He simply nodded, leaning back into the scrap again.

“Great! I know today has been really informative for you. You learned stuff about history, and science, and Uzi’s whole thing with me.” N spoke, leaning closer to Thad, his eyes shifting to that ‘X’ for a brief second before going back to his regular eyes. “So I just need you to clear something up, Thad. You aren’t gonna tell anyone down there in that bunker about any of this, are you?”

N’s breath was like a very slow burn. It started with the smell of strawberries and batteries, probably from kissing Uzi, but that slowly gave way to the odor of oil and metal.

If Thad’s throat wasn’t sealed shut with fear, he may have puked right then and there.

Thad shook his head, silently pleading with whatever might be listening that he can get home safely and pass out from fear in his own bed.

“Awesome! Just know that as long as you keep quiet about all this, you’ll be safe. I won't let any other Disassembly Drones get you, Uzi won’t hurt you, and I won’t hurt you. You’ll stay on the list.” N booped Thad’s nose at that. “Not a whole lot of you on that list, though. So try not to make it any shorter, okay Thad?”

N stood up, opening the way for Thad to go back inside, but Thad found himself frozen again. N was tall, but his stature, demeanor, and general aura of ‘please, please, please, give me an excuse to get you’ made him seem like he was tall enough to reach the clouds. Like he could just reach down and grab him in one hand.

Thad could ask about the list later.

As N took another step back, feeling returned to Thad’s legs, and he stood up quickly, before walking very quickly back to the vent he’d used to exit the bunker. He’d heard Uzi say something to N as he left, but he was too far and too focused on going home to think about it.

As Thad approached the makeshift stairs leading into the bunker, he turned back towards the… unorthodox couple, to see if they were watching him. They were completely enraptured by each other. Uzi’s arms wrapped around N’s waist, while his were draped over her shoulders, holding each other tightly. Thad could hear music playing, but wasn’t gonna think about where it was coming from.

They looked… happy. He couldn’t see her face very well, but even from where he stood, he could see the genuine happiness on her face while she slowly danced and cuddled N, the Murder Drone.

The flying, drone-eating, sky demon made Uzi happier than Thad had ever seen her.

He’d think about the implications of that later.

As Thad turned and made his way inside, he felt the gentle air currents again, as if the bunker itself was happy he was returning. Hopefully his dads wouldn't be upset that he was a little late coming home.

Wait, how late is he? Thad checked the current time, and began to walk faster, once again pleading with whatever might be listening that his dads got held up at work long enough for him to get home before they did.

If Pops gave him The Look®, he might just spill everything before Dad even started on his ‘Responsibility and Integrity’ lecture.

Chapter Text

N and Uzi stayed out a while longer, as the sun descended through the sky, inching closer and closer to the horizon, pushing the shadows across the city in a wave of darkness, perfect for monsters to roam with impunity.

It was perfect for them.

They danced for a while, to music Uzi found from the shows and bands of humanity’s past. Eventually they stopped, and lay on the piles of scrap and machines they found and scavenged and sorted through, and watched the sky as the blue slowly turned to black, and the stars appeared one at a time, like the lights of some great machine awakening from a long slumber.

They spoke of the things they’d seen and done that day. N spoke of an abandoned mall on the far side of the city, full of old clothes and ancient merchandise of the anime Uzi had shared with him, as well as an old human radio station he’d found a particularly well dressed set of remains in. He’d absolutely be going back for that in the coming weeks.

Uzi talked about her school, her teacher who she was convinced had to have a malfunctioning voice box, because there was no way he could keep that monotone all day, especially with her class. 

N talked about how he’d been avoiding J for the past few days, having a feeling what she wanted to talk to him about. She’d probably noticed his numbers were up from the past few months after her… outburst. N couldn’t help but smile, thinking about how the next few weeks would go.

Uzi talked about her class, specifically her classmates Lizzie and Doll, the only ones in her class besides Thad and Braiden that acknowledged her existence and weren’t terrified of her at this point, and Thad only started being scared that day. Braiden had been petrified of her for nearly a year, and it was, in her opinion, the smartest decision he’d ever made. She still had that backdoor into his head, and enjoyed messing with him.

Uzi was honestly shocked that Thad followed her outside. She’d lied to him about the exit by Cryo Storage to avoid him following her, and he managed to do just that anyway. He’d tailed her, and she had no idea, even with the sensor array she’d been donated by N some time ago. 

The thought made her vents whir as her core warmed her up. The thought that this big, lovely, wonderful drone would let her remove parts from him, just to make herself better was almost enough to make her start tearing at his coat. 

It was the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for her.

She still hadn’t reverse engineered the nanites he used to repair himself, but she had managed to augment the limbs he’d severed and given her into pieces all her own. 

She had to build a torso for them practically from scratch, but N had managed to get her almost all the parts she needed for their plan to come together.

And those last few parts were just a few more weeks away…

“Y’know, Thad wasn’t what I was expecting.”

“Huh?”

“You said he was really sporty, tough, kinda brick-ish. I just thought he’d be more…” N struggled to find the right word, moving his hand that wasn’t wrapped around Uzi’s waist, as if he were trying to grab the word out of the air. 

“...aggressive?”

“Exactly! I was expecting him to be like ‘ Uzi, what are you doing out here? It’s dangerous to be outside without a big strong man like me around! Lemme be your big strong bodyguard and keep you safe! ’ Like that.”

N had puffed out his chest and spoke in a deep voice like a cartoon character from human shows, and it was more than enough to make Uzi start giggling uncontrollably into his side, bordering on full on laughter.

“You fuckin’ dork. Nah, Thad hates guys like that. They make him really uncomfortable. This guy in another class tried to pull that stuff a couple years ago, and Thad slugged him hard enough he threw his visor out of its frame.”

N joined Uzi in her giggle fits, imagining the scene in question. He knew the Worker Drones on Copper-9 were strong, they were designed to do industrial work after all. It was why the Disassembly Drones sent here were as powerful as they are. There was as much difference between how strong he and Uzi were, as there was between Uzi and a regular human.

N’s giggles slowed, but his smile remained as his thoughts drifted to the future. He and Uzi, descending to Earth, inspiring awe in the humans watching. They’d approach, indignantly demanding the two of them explain why they were there, to stand down, or whatever. And then…

Oh, just imagining it made his core heat up, and his claws itch .

He needed to think of something else before he got really excited.

“So what’s the rest of your class like?”

Uzi’s giggles slowed down considerably. “What?”

“Well, you told me about Lizzie and Doll, I’m gonna try and get them first, I just met Thad today, and you’ve told me plenty about your dad. I was wondering what the rest of your classmates are like?”

Uzi’s giggles stopped as she pulled herself closer to N. He pulled her closer to him, feeling his building heat bleed off into her. Her internal cooling systems were more efficient than most other drones, to the point she’d run so cold her internal batteries would lose charge faster. It was part of why she wore her hoodies all the time, even when cuddling with him. She said it was the one thing she inherited from her father.

“They’re… just kinda… there. Most of them don’t actively try to mess with me like Lizzie does. They just kinda… ignore me. Most of them can’t even remember my name.”

Uzi held N tighter as she spoke, the thoughts of her peers and her isolation from them pushing her to seek more of the only being left who she felt cared for her at all.

N held her tighter, a silent reassurance he’d never leave her, her turned to the vent that Thad vanished into earlier. The thought that everyone who made his Uzi feel like that, like she was unloved and undeserving of it, was down there, living simple lives, so many of them happy, while Uzi was isolated and abused by her peers, directly and indirectly, made his core rev, and his already full oil reserves feel like he’d been starving for a week.

Of course, Uzi noticed this, having her head on his chest and hearing his core whir loudly. She smacked him firmly on his chest, pulling his attention from their hidden entrance back to her. “No. You can’t go down and kill everyone. We need most of them.”

"But Uzi..” He whined.

“Are you gonna learn how to use the machines down in manufacturing?”

N’s pout was enough of an answer for her, as she gave him that smug little smile that just made him wanna kiss her so much, dammit . It wasn’t his fault those machines were so complicated to work with. And it definitely wasn’t his fault that the manual Uzi gave him for it was drier than a brick of salt.

“We can’t run the whole place with just the two of us. Even if we get V to help, one extra person won’t be enough. There’s over a thousand others down there, N, and once we get the spire taken down, that’s only gonna get bigger.”

“Not to mention the other ones the other squads made.”

“Yeah, but once we finish everything here, the rest should fall in line pretty quick.”

That thought made Uzi’s core whir. N at the head of nearly two dozen Disassembly Drones, all of them loyal to him, and her N, as unflinchingly loyal to her as she was to him. She practically crawled on top of him, holding his face in both hands as she pulled his lips to hers. 

He didn’t hesitate wrapping his hands around her waist, his large hands engulfing nearly half her torso, so gently in the way only he could be. Her hands moved from his face to the back of his head as more thoughts of the future came to her, pushing her closer to the powerful drone beneath her.

She thought of Earth, and the ruins they would make of the headquarters of JcJenson. Piles of smoldering rubble, stretching for miles as the Disassembly Drones scoured for survivors to finish off. A pair of them, faceless, would bring the CEO to her personally, a short, fat, sniveling, ugly thing , that’s the only thing that human could be. He’d beg for mercy, cry for anything, anything to prolong his miserable little existence. She’d tower over him, years of upgrades and augmentations making her more than those fleshbags could have ever dreamed of, point her Sick-As-Hell Railgun at him and wipe JcJenson from the face of the universe.

Speaking of her railgun…

N’s tongue was practically fighting her own for dominance as she pulled away for a moment. “I just remembered something, hand me my railgun.” She said pointing to the weapon, out of her reach, but well within N’s.

He wordlessly reached for it, a dazed and love crazed look in his eyes as he handed it off. As Uzi sat up on N’s waist, she opened the compartment for the power source, pulling the power cell out of her hoodie pocket, and placing it into the slot. 

The green glow that emanated from the cell ran through the entire weapon, basking the two of them in a toxic green light. The weapon in Uzi’s hands hummed and sparked with power, begging to be released when she demanded, and not a moment before.

Uzi felt a giddiness rise up in her, as the plans she and N had begun all those months ago were coming closer and closer to fruition. Laughter belted from her, a loud, long laugh that sounded the destruction of the company that created the two of them, like trumpets on judgment day. 

As her laughter began to settle, she looked down at the drone between her legs, looking up at her with reverence and barely restrained desire. His hands at her sides, hovering off her and shaking with the urge to grab hold and take her .

“N…”

He hummed, not trusting his voice.

“I said I was going to ruin you later…”

“Yeah.” He squeaked. This drone, built in the image of the divine, shaking in desire under her, locked eyes with her.

She reached up to her hoodie’s zipper with her free hand, pulling it all the way down in a single motion, exposing her to the only drone allowed to see her in such a way. As N’s eyes widened and hollowed at the sight, Uzi placed her railgun gently to the side, before shrugging the whole article of clothing off.

“ It’s later~ .”

With that, she dove in to claim N’s lips again, as he wrapped his arms around her, his hands grabbing at everything he could.

The only witness to the moment Copper-9’s fate was sealed, was the planet itself.

Chapter Text

“N, please try to stop squirming.”

“I can’t help it, Uzi, it tickles.”

“I can’t see what all this stuff is if you keep giggling.” 

N took a deep breath to calm himself down, as Uzi flicked her hand to shake off some oil, before reaching inside N’s open torso cavity once more.

After they’d finished, and worked all the tension out of their systems, they laid down and relaxed for a while, before Uzi had spoken up about wanting to check N’s internals again to cross reference the maintenance manuals N had given her some time ago.

Since that time, Uzi had managed to figure out just why N and the other Disassembly Drones burned up in the sunlight. The issue came from the fact that it was the worst fucking design for a cooling system Uzi had ever seen . 

Because why have a circulation system that moves coolant and oil around the body, catching and carrying heat away from the fragile power sources and circuits, when you can just put the sensitive stuff in airtight bubbles, and just fill their goddamn bodies with oil like a fucking water balloon ?

“If that manual didn’t have example pictures, N, I’d swear you had a massive leak in your coolant lines, but you don’t have any .”

That wasn’t completely true, as the Disassembly Drones had coolant lines in their arms, legs, and head,  but their torsos were pretty much just an airtight tank that their material nanite storage, power cores, and the ‘organ’ that just sucks in the oil around it and pushes it to their limbs, all sat in just fucking marinating in oil. 

No wonder J tore into his chest that night, she tried to drink him dry.

She was honestly shocked that they hadn’t all cannibalized each other at this point.

Wait a second…

“N, is the reason you all have three person squads is to avoid you all eating each other? Because if you’re all designed like this, then I’m shocked there’s still more squads out there.”

“That’s part of it. It’s a three-drone structure to help prevent that, because if one attacks another, then the third drone can separate them. But it’s mostly because three is the bare minimum for a team structure, rather than a partnership.”

Uzi just growled at that. Everything about N’s, and by extension, all the other Disassemblers designs, was that it was nothing but cut corners. JcJ had spared no expense in the destructive capabilities of the Disassembly Drone line, but when it came to keeping them running ? Fuck it, bare minimum effort at self sustainment. 

Overheat at the slightest temperature change because there’s no way to get rid of the heat? Just don’t go out in the sun.

Nanite acid affects them as well as their targets? Just make it neutralize and repair with their spit . Though Uzi wasn’t gonna lie, she probably had enough repair nanites in her because of N that at this point, she could probably regrow a limb.

She shook her head to throw out those thoughts, trying to focus on feeling out the dimensions and measurements of N’s insides. While she knew the raw numbers, that only did so much when you had to redesign everything within those parameters. It’s why she was nearly elbow deep in N’s chest, measuring how much space she had to work with. 

And if N happened to make a noise she really, really liked while she was feeling the area around his core, neither of them were gonna complain.

It wasn’t too much longer before Uzi pulled her hands out of N, who was very entertained by the faces she made as he cleaned the oil off her arms.

“Okay, so I have the measurements we need, so now I can put my blueprints together, and we can upload them to you when it’s all ready to go.” Uzi said, putting her hoodie back on after their time together. “I should have it all together in about a week.”

“Awesome! We’re ahead of schedule then?” N put his coat back on after Uzi furiously tore it off him earlier. He was glad nothing on it tore. That would be really annoying to explain to the others if they noticed. “I’ll have to pick up that suit I found next time I go by that radio station. Gotta look good for the show.”

“N, you could walk in wearing a theme park mascot suit, and people would still be terrified.”

“Yeah, but you wouldn’t give me that look if I dressed like a big, silly animal.”

Uzi blushed, knowing exactly what face he was talking about. He’d described it as a ‘Hungry-Wolverine-But-In-A-Good-Way’. “It’s not my fault you look so good.”

N just gave her a smug look, not nearly as smug as she can manage, but he’s been getting better at it. “So what’s the plan for you tonight?”

“I was gonna finish my homework, then start compiling the blueprints together. I’m gonna be pretty swamped over the next few weeks, so I wanna get it all ready as soon as possible so we can focus on the important stuff in our off time.” Uzi said, putting various scrap parts and circuit boards in her backpack. 

She needed more things to tinker with when working on other things.

“Awesome! I’m gonna go gather some corpses, and maybe grab whatever fresh kills I can. I need to top off, after someone spilled my reserves.” N replied, looking at Uzi with a teasing tone in his voice and expression.

“Oh, you loved it.”

“Every second.” With that, N stood up, making sure his coat and hat were put back on properly, before walking over to Uzi, and offering his hand. “May I walk you back inside, Ms. Doorman?”

Uzi looked up at him, and took his hand with a gentle smile. “Why yes, you may, Future-Mr. Doorman.”

As he gently pulled her to her feet, N’s tail was hardly visible behind him, wagging back and forth at speeds nearly incomprehensible.

They walked slowly back to the vent, their secret path to each other, silently, basking in the presence of the drone next to them.

As Uzi climbed the makeshift stairs, just enough to be eye level with N, she turned to him, their hands still joined. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” It was their routine, a reassurance.

N gently cupped his hand on Uzi’s cheek, looking into her eyes, and speaking from his digital soul. “Tomorrow, and every night after. So long as you’ll have me.”

With that, they leaned into each other, meeting together in a loving kiss, promising each other again, as they have so many nights before.

I will see you again.

They pulled apart, sad that it ended, but so happy it happened. “Goodnight, N.”

“Goodnight, Uzi.”

And with that, they went their separate ways, Uzi returning to the bunker to start her work and rest, and N unfolding his wings to fly off, and begin tonight’s hunt.

This would not be the last time they had their little ritual. Far from it.

It was several hours later that N was flying back to the Spire, slower than usual, weighted down by the amount of Worker Drone corpses he’d collected.

He’d tried to find as many old bodies that still had oil in them as he did living Workers, and was lucky to find a group moving through his designated area that was enough to even out his haul. It should be enough to keep J off his back for the rest of the month.

Hopefully.

As N flew into the Spire, its colossal scale dwarfing the city ruins around it, he couldn’t see J or V anywhere inside. He was glad for it, both because he could get some rest before they got back, and because he just really didn’t want to see J right now. She’d been trying to talk to him about something over the past few days, and he’d been making every excuse he could to avoid it. It was gonna have to happen eventually, but he wanted to use up his excuses first.

He flew close to the landing pod in the center of the Spire, dropping his haul close by. He could sort them out later, he was looking forward to going up to his nest, stretching out and-

“N? Are you back?” a voice called from inside the pod, just as the entry hatch began to open.

Goddammit .

N turned to the pod, faking his usual smile, as a Disassembly Drone climbed out, her pigtailed hair bobbing as she turned to face him. “N, I just got a message from corporate. We need to talk.”

N tensed at that. There was a good chance they’d somehow found out about what he was doing. As he landed on top of the pod, as far from J as he could, he felt his nanites preparing his weapons within his arms, with his wings staying deployed in case he needed to make a quick escape.

He really didn’t want that to happen though. It would just about ruin all his and Uzi’s plans over the next few weeks, but he couldn't risk J telling the company about what he was doing, so he would have to play ‘Sycophant N’ for a bit longer.

“What’s up, J? I just got back from grabbing a big haul tonight, so is it cool if we go over this later? I’m beat.”

J shook her head, looking like she was trying to smile while eating something incredibly foul. “No, it won’t take very long. It’s good news. Actually it’s… g-great news.”

J looked like she was trying to avoid vomiting as best as she could while wearing her ‘I-Really-Don't-Wanna-Say-What-I'm-Saying” smile. N was curious about what made her act like this, so he began to record J’s actions, if only to show Uzi later.

“Really?” 

“Yeah. You know the end of the year reviews are happening next week, so we have to really make sure our numbers are logged in correctly, and I’d just finished logging in ours for this week, when I got a message from corporate.”

J’s face turned into a happier smile, but her eyes were hollowed, and she tugged at her collar occasionally. To N, it looked like she was legitimately about to vomit.

“What’d they say?” 

“They said that, thanks to our numbers going up so much in recent months, our squad qualified for the ‘Most Improvement’ Award for the year. Along with one other thing…” J was shaking slightly at this point, her eyes starting to hollow, as he could hear her inhaling to force cool air into her system. 

So whatever it was that their horrid overlords told her, she thought it was extremely bad, but whatever freaks out J was absolutely okay in N’s book, so he just smiled wider, more than a little genuinely. “What is it?”

J smiled as wide as she could, her teeth on display, and speaking like she had a gun to her head. “They said that our numbers were so good, that if we got another good week like last week, we’d be in the lead for the whole year. And you just came in with a bigger batch of bodies than you did last week.”

N’s eyes hollowed at the news. Because he’d been leaving for his hunts early, he’d been getting more Worker Drones than he’d ever gotten before. He’s only begun leaving early so he could see Uzi, and plan for their eventual attack against J. He’d only met Uzi because J had starved him for nearly a week beforehand, and tried to kill him when he’d accidentally killed a worker she was tailing.

They’d taken the year because J hated him that much.

No wonder she looked like she was ready to puke, she had to tell him he’d done a good job.

N took a moment to quietly make sure he was still recording the exchange, and that both the audio and video were crystal clear.

J seemed to take his momentary silence as amazement at what he’d accomplished, and spoke again. “So, thanks to your improvement over the last few months, we managed to out-do Gamma, Theta, and Epsilon Squads, and you brought Sigma Squad into the lead, and won us the year!” 

With that J stepped towards N, the two of them tensing up, as they both remembered the last time they were within arms reach each other. She simply held her arm out, and placed her hand on N’s shoulder, in the most awkward way possible.

“So since you were the one who improved so much, and won us this year’s set of JcJenson (In Spaaaaacee!) branded pens, I wanna say how…” J lurched very slightly as the words, and possibly bile, caught in her throat. She took a breath and tried again. "I wanna say how proouu-”

She cut herself off again as she lurched and heaved, catching herself before anything came up. “I’m proooo…” She doubled over at that one, clutching her stomach with one hand while bracing the other on her knee.

“J are you-” She cut off N’s question by raising her hand. “Just give me a second.”

She stood up straight again, before taking a deep breath, and moving her hands to her mouth. She spoke, using her hands to force her mouth to make the sounds and words her body was trying desperately to not say.

N was loving every second of it.

“N, I’m prrrouuuud oooofff yoooouuuu.” With that she pulled her hands away from her face, as her breathing leveled out. N was genuinely shocked.

Not the fact that she said it, but the fact she did it without vomiting.

“Wow J, that means a lot coming from you.” he lied through his teeth. He’d stopped caring about what she’d thought of him months ago. The only thing about J he cared about was seeing her eyes fade out as they were replaced with the [FATAL ERROR] message as she died, before he’d sit and watch her body as the residual core charge eventually ran out, with even that message fading to darkness.

“Yup. You did good, N. Now if you’ll excuse me.” J said, walking over to the opposite side of the pod. N turned his audio recording sensitivity to its absolute maximum to make sure he got what was coming next.

As J reached the other side of the pod, she hopped down out of sight, with the sounds of wet heaving, followed by splattering rang out. N stood listening to J lose her lunch, shocked at how much she was throwing up. ‘She must have gorged herself today before the meeting.’

Eventually, J came back into sight for a moment, as she flew up into the upper reaches of the Spire, where she’d made her nest. She was probably gonna try and sleep off her sickness.

N turned off his recordings, making several backups to share with Uzi later, before going down to his pile of fresh kills, and tearing the head off a worker.

Snack in hand, he flew up to his own nest, lower than J and V’s, but still too high for a worker to see, and far enough away from the others that he could relax.

As he flopped down in his pile of pillows and blankets he’d taken from various human ruins, he took a long sip from the severed head in his hand, and looked over his nest, decorated with various things he’d found and taken a liking to. 

From little sculptures and home decor, to posters and figurines from different stores he’d found, his nest was a menagerie of interests, most of which he’d found after meeting Uzi.

The thought of his amazing, beautiful, smart, talented, powerful girlfriend made him turn to where he’s had his little surprise sitting on an old display mannequin,

It’d been surprisingly easy to find a coat in that specific style in her size, but the fact he had to dye it a different color was what was bugging him. He just needed some more dyes from that store he’d found in the mall not far from the spire, and he should have it ready for her before the month was out.

As much as Uzi looked stunning in black, gray, and purple, he just knew for a fact she’d look utterly divine in red.

He took another sip from the head, before taking a bite out of the neck piece. 

As cliche as it sounded, in that moment, it tasted like victory .

Chapter Text

The weeks after Thad learned about Uzi’s escapades out of the bunker were unsettling in the fact they were so normal .

He still went to his classes, did his work, and spoke with his classmates and family like there wasn’t this knowledge in his head now. Like one of his friends wasn’t in a relationship with a Murder Drone, and had changed her body to be more like his.

Life moved on, even as one of their own was plotting something that would change how all their lives would go afterwards.

He held back a yawn as much as he could, only partially paying attention to the presentation on the founding of the WDF. His whole generation knew of its founding, and the events surrounding it. Practically everyone in the room was lucky enough to be in their early schooling phases when it all happened.

It never bothered him before that day outside, but the fact that one of his earliest core memories is of the lockdown alarms blaring as the few adults in the room with them were trying their best not to panic started to get to him.

It wasn’t until he got home that day, a few hours after they were supposed to be let out, that he’d heard what happened from his dad.

A group had come from another bunker, way out on the far side of the city on the surface, and had managed to avoid any of the Murder Drones on the way. Back then, the bunker only had one door at the front, and when it opened to let them in, the group walked in, and the instant they crossed the threshold, they were falling to the ground in pieces as a Murder Drone flew in with them.

The reports said it rampaged for nearly an hour before it left as suddenly as it appeared. 

He didn’t see Uzi for a few days after that. It was shortly after that the list of Worker Drones killed was made public, and Uzi’s mother was right at the top. That same day, Uzi’s dad went to the other families of drones who lost people in the break-in, and formed the WDF. 

It was after a close call the next year, where Khan managed to slam the bunker’s entry door on a Murder Drone, speculated to be the same one that rampaged before, and managed to sever its arm and acid stinger from its body. What few witnesses were there reported that the Murder Drone’s shriek was somewhere between the shriek of grinding metal, and horrid curses spat at them. The sheer size and thickness of the door prevented most from hearing it clearly, but Khan, the one closest said it wasn’t actually speaking, just repeating things it heard, mostly cursing.

After that, Khan was made the de facto leader of the bunker, adding a second and third entry bulkhead door to the entrance to avoid another break-in.

But it seemed that Khan, and almost every other member of the colony, inherited the human inability to register the things above them. 

Uzi found a hole in the bunker’s defenses so big, she could literally walk through it, and all she’d done with it was gather scrap and anime junk, and get a boyfriend in a Murder Drone .

She’d been dating a Murder Drone for months before he’d found out, and she’d done…

Nothing.

All she did, it seemed, was build things, make out with N, his name was just ‘N’ , and yeah, she was gonna try and make him an unstoppable killing machine, but she was doing it so the two of them could kill another Murder Drone, and maybe put another on a leash.

Uzi was somehow even more terrifying than she’d been before he’d learned all that, but with a clear, mostly altruistic goal like that, he couldn’t be as afraid of her as he was just a few weeks ago. 

He was still scared, but in the same way anyone would be scared of someone with a really big gun, even if you knew they wouldn’t point it at you, they still had it . 

Even if he was more than a little averse to taking him at his word, N said that he was safe, as long as he kept his mouth shut about him and Uzi’s plans. 

It’s not like Uzi was gonna drag her plans down into the bunker, right?

It wasn’t much longer before their teacher finished the presentation, telling them to study for the finals. “Before you all go, there is one more thing to announce.”

Thad felt the Thing Hanging Over Him again, but couldn’t be sure how close it was. 

“So with finals next week, and prom held afterwards to celebrate your newly acquired independence from the public schooling systems, we normally encourage students to volunteer for the planning committee to ensure that everything is enjoyable for everyone. This year though, things are going to be different.”

Murmurs spread throughout the room, his classmates wondering just what might have changed with the prom committee. Did they change how many people they could have on it? Did the WDF impose restrictions after last year’s prom? 

Thad wasn’t sure, but he had a feeling crawl up his spine that a certain someone had something to do with it.

“This year, one student came forward and volunteered to take all the responsibility for planning the prom onto themself. So I am contractually obligated to introduce your 3071 prom committee leader, coordinator, etc.,”

The Thing Hanging Overhead dropped down to touch Thad’s neck again.

“Uzi Doorman.”

With that, Uzi took the cue to stand up and walk to the front of the room, facing everyone with her usual smug smile, now in a completely new context given what he knew about her plans now.

“Okay everyone, I know it’s very surprising that I’m the one who volunteered to do all the planning and organizing for this event, given my previous history with you all.” Uzi said, in a calm, clearly practiced manner. “But, seeing as it’s not only the end of the school year soon, but the end of our schooling in general, I’d like to use this as an opportunity to bury the hatchet, and put an end to any hostilities between us all.”

Someone in the corner of Thad’s vision raised their hand.

“What’s your question?”

“Who are you, again?”

Thad definitely wasn’t the only one who saw Uzi’s visor glitch momentarily, but he was probably the only one who saw it glitch into that ‘X’ she’d worn when scaring him a few weeks ago.

“As our teacher said, I’m Uzi Doorman, daughter of Kahn Doorman, and I’m the one who volunteered to handle all the responsibilities for prom. Does anyone have any questions about that, and aren’t just asking who I am again?” Uzi responded in a tone he once heard described as ‘Customer Service Voice’, as a couple of raised hands went down.

Uzi took a deep breath before continuing. “As I was saying, since I am the only one on this year's prom committee, any suggestions, preferences, or requests for the event are to be sent straight to me, and I’ll do what I can to make sure everyone is accommodated according to their needs and requests.”

No one said anything at that, not really caring one way or the other. Uzi continued speaking after a brief pause. “I’ve already thrown out the idea of the communal punch bowl from the concessions table.”

“What!?”

Uzi’s visor glitched again, before settling on a furious expression, as her head turned towards the far corner of the class. “Because your dumbass brother and 3 others almost burned their circuits out after drinking it last year, Daryll, even though there was a sign that said not to drink it!” She snapped, pointing at the drone who cried out. After seeing everyone turn to look at him, Daryll just slumped down in his seat in embarrassment. 

“Moving on, I’ll post an update to the class community board when the venue is finalized, and the suggestion box will be open, starting tomorrow. I’ll try and get permission to use one of the larger areas of the bunker so we have more room for everyone. I’m also removing the guest limit on others you bring with you, so bring as many guests with you as you want.”

That last part got murmurs going around the class. Removing restrictions on extra attendees? It was welcome, but why?

“The reason for this is because our class is going into the workforce after our summer break, and we’ll be replacing a number of older drones who will be retiring this year, in some vital areas of the bunker. My own father has been requesting me to work with him over the summer to get ready to take over as head of the WDF at the end of the year.”

Thad’s eyes widened at that, as he was sure everyone else's did as well. Khan had gone on record, multiple times, stating how he wasn’t the biggest fan of his daughter’s… eccentricities, to put it lightly. He’d even made a rather poorly received joke in an interview some years ago that ‘Doors were his real daughter’, and he’d gotten flak from a number of people for it. 

The idea that the same man who said that, now wanted his daughter to take over as the head of the WDF, and the colony, was just a little odd to everyone, and very suspicious to Thad.

“This is a time where we need to put aside our petty contrivances of youth, and start mending bridges to the future. The only way we’ll be secure moving forward, is to end our pointless fighting, and embrace change in the world. Our generation will be that change, so we must be the example for those after us to follow. Thank you for listening.” 

And with that, Uzi went back to her seat to collect her things as the tone marking the end of the school day rang out, everyone else moving to gather their own at the same time. 

It was during this shuffling that Thad almost missed the loud crack of something breaking behind him. As he turned to see what it was, seemingly the only one who noticed, he saw who had done it.

He saw Doll, sitting 2 rows behind him, staring at Uzi, her expression blank, but with more hate in her eyes than Thad had thought possible.

The Thing Hanging Overhead pressed into the back of his neck so sharply, it felt like it may as well have sliced him open.

Chapter Text

There was something extremely wrong with Uzi Doorman.

There was always something wrong with her, but she’d been even weirder these past few months, and it’s gotten especially bad in the past couple of weeks. She’d been sketching in her notebooks constantly, somehow responding to the teacher’s questions without looking up, and Doll swore she had to have done something to herself to see out the back of her head, because neither her or Lizzie could get close without her practically breaking her neck to glare at them.

That glare had changed as well.

Uzi’s looks always held annoyance, irritation, and frustration, but never the plain hatred she’d been leveling at them as of late. 

Hatred, and something else .

That was Doll’s first clue that something was up with Uzi, but she couldn’t be sure. It was only after that, when she started to pay more attention to how she’d begun to change. 

She stopped muttering to herself as much, almost completely. She’s stopped bringing her ‘projects’ to school and messing with them in the middle of class, which was honestly a blessing on her audio sensors. If that was it, Doll probably would have brushed it off as her moving on, or changing priorities, or something.

But yesterday really messed that up, along with her plan she’s been working on for over a year at this point.

Uzi’s plan to take all the responsibility for preparing for prom was enough to complicate matters, since Lizzie was supposed to volunteer to be in charge, but with Uzi in command of everything, and her plan to change where prom was being held, that meant that she had to do damage control fast if she was going to get her revenge. 

Doll clutched her stylus hard enough that she felt it warp in her hand, glaring holes into the back of Uzi’s head. She had no idea what she was doing. Doll spent years planning her revenge, and had spent the better part of these past several months working to make it a reality. 

It was pure luck that Lizzie tried to follow Uzi after school that day, and stumbled into not just a Murder Drone, but the very same that killed her parents, and walked away alive thanks to her distracting them with a shriek and a distraction. 

She knew it was evil, but she honestly didn’t expect it to be stupid . 

But an opportunity like this would only come once. 

So she brought Lizzie in on her desires, and with just a little persuasion, Lizzie had gone back out, and when she returned, she’d said the Murder Drone was more than willing to be ‘friends’ with her, so long as she brought snacks from inside the bunker.

So that was their dynamic to lower the Murder Drone’s guard.

Doll would make the occasional drone disappear, Lizzie would take their parts and oil out to the Murder Drone, and bring back any information she could wiggle out of its mouth for Doll to use against it.

They’d learned more about the Murder Drones than they were expecting, or planning, as well as the JcJenson corporation as a whole.

But none of that would matter if Uzi ruined her plans before they came to fruition.

So Doll continued to glare at Uzi, the itch behind her eye creeping up and demanding she do something . It wasn’t the first time she’d gotten the feeling, the urge to just grab hold of something inside Uzi Doorman and just yank and twist until she was dead on the floor, a tragic victim of terminal getting-in-my-fucking-way disease. 

But she just couldn’t. Not for lack of trying, but her power, as versatile as it was, just would not grab her . It gave her the same message, over and over again, each time her frustration peaked.

[LIKE-OBJECT NON-INTERACTABLE]

Doll had never heard anything about Uzi displaying bizarre powers like her, and she knew for a fact that Uzi wouldn’t be able to keep them a secret if she had her mouth welded shut. Doll thought she might have a latent version, or perhaps it was something to do with her mother.

Doll had gotten hers from her mom, some of her earliest memories were of her mother, holding her close, making her toys dance and fly while she told her stories from times long gone. When she’d begun to develop her own, her mother promised to tell her about where she got them. She’d gone as far as saying she’d come from a place outside the colony, along with her ‘sister in all but blood’.

That was as far as she got before the alarms went off, and laughter rang from the vents.

Her mother hid her in the closet, and told her to stay silent, as her father came in with a weapon to protect them, and her mother prepared to jump at the closest vent.

She still remembered how monstrous that Murder Drone was.

Her spirals into her trauma were interrupted by a notification. A post was made to the class’s community message board, with the subject line ‘Prom venue change approval’. 

According to the poster, Uzi, of course, her father gave permission to use Warehouse Storage #16 for their prom venue, so long as they avoid making too much of a mess, and have everything cleaned by 3am, at least.

Doll was honestly shocked. Not only did Uzi get the prom location changed, but she’d gotten a room much larger than the gym they’d used for past events. She really must be expecting people to invite more tag-alongs to attend.

And just like that, Doll felt a switch flip in her brain. She’d been going about this prom issue the wrong way. A grim grin crept across her face. She’d been treating this prom like it was going to ruin everything, but it was just making things easier!

Warehouse Storage #16 was an extra level further down the bunker, yeah, but it was also practically a straight line from the entry door, to the elevators, to the warehouses! And with so many people in there, it was practically an all-you-can-eat buffet for that Murder Drone!

Uzi had accidentally changed her plan from a risky endeavor, to almost guaranteed success!

It wouldn’t hurt to let Uzi keep doing her job. After all, once she had her revenge, she’d be willing to bury the hatchet with her, after all the help she’d ended up giving her.

She still had to rig the prom court vote though, and while she does that, she may as well grab some food for that Murder Drone at the same time. 

Doll opened the list of prom court candidates that were posted to the community board, before settling on her first victim. 

She’d start with Jacob, no one was gonna miss him anyway, that irritating punk.

At least he’d be a snack in at least one way.

It was almost insulting how easy Jacob let her into his home. 

He said his mom wouldn’t be home for hours, so that just gave her plenty of time to work on her homework after dismantling him.

It was so easy at this point. Just reach out, grab, and after a quick twist, he was dead on the floor. The dismembering used to be the part she hated most, but after a while she figured out how to avoid making such a big mess. That was wasted oil after all, and she couldn’t have that. She needed that dog to trust Lizzie completely for everything to work. 

She spent the better part of an hour on her homework, treating herself to the snacks Jacob had around his house. She hadn’t had a chance to pick up any for her place yet, and the best snacks are the free ones. Once she’d done enough of her history homework, she stuffed Jacob’s remains in her bag alongside her books and tablets, before walking straight out the front door.

It’s not like anything could stop her.

Lizzie was coming by tomorrow to get her snacks for that monster , and maybe to make out for a while before and after. She also needed to finish putting together the script for Lizzie to say to the Murder Drone, so she’s gotta work on that as well.

It’s a wonder how she has any time to do anything these days.

But that just means that once it was all done, and she had her revenge, she could finally just relax, focus on her hobbies, and kiss her girlfriend as much as she wanted. It was like her father told her once, when she was so young, after she’d asked why it took so long to make dinner.

Nothing worth doing ever came easily.

It wasn’t until she was older, and was dating Lizzie, that she realized why he followed that up with ‘Your mom can attest to that’, as well as why her mom had whipped a shoe at his head as hard as she did. He was dead for almost a decade at that point, and he was still teaching her, and making her smile with stupid, stupid jokes. 

She was gonna turn that fucking Murder Drone bitch into an oil heater for taking that from her.

She entered her home, silent as it ever was, and left Jacob’s pieces in a pile on the couch. She’d made sure they were properly sealed at where she pulled him apart, so he wouldn’t stain it.

Oil was a pain to get out of steel mesh.

She’d get her dinner soon, after putting her bag in her room, bare walls and bed devoid of color. The door to her parent’s room just across the hall, locked tightly. She’d worked hard to remove the lock from the bunker’s database so not even Kahn’s master keycard would work on it.

The air was stale as always, her father’s knick-knacks lining the shelf on the far side of the room, all meticulously dusted each day, still loved dearly despite their owner’s passing. Her mother’s record player, untouched, but spotless on her side of the bed, the collections of music preserved in their boxes next to it.

They still lay there, in the bed, covered like they had just gone to sleep. She’d placed veils over their faces years ago, as the sight of their dark screens hurt too much to look at. 

To an outsider, it might look as though they were just sleeping, ignoring the fact one of the covered bodies was only half the length of the other, and the gruesome hole torn in the chest of the other.

This was her nightly ritual. Before she would let herself eat or rest, she’d come in here, and sit at the foot of their bed. She’d look at them, and remind herself why she was doing all of this. 

Remind herself of what was stolen, not just from her, but over a dozen other drones in the bunker. The loss of warm hugs after a long day at school, the lack of music playing while they prepared dinner together, and the vacuum where she should have had endless support were why she’d done all this.

She wasn’t the only one in the bunker who felt this way. Even beyond Uzi, there were still others in her class, and beyond who felt this with her. 

As much as she and Lizzie gave Uzi shit for being weird, insulting her mom was off limits, as was everyone else who lost someone that day. Doll remembered how the old janitor had said a snide remark about Kahn’s late wife in Uzi’s presence. She couldn't remember what he said, but she remembered how no one helped him when Uzi jumped at him.

She was sent home early for ‘emotional distress’.

No one saw Janitor Burnes again.

Doll pulled herself out of her memories, and spoke in her mother’s native tongue, a language she’d use exclusively until that Murder Drone, until Serial Designation V,  was dead.

“Hello, mom and dad. I have good news.”

Chapter Text

It was a good day so far.

J broke the news that they’d been at the top of the charts for Worker Drones killed this year, which meant they were getting those branded pens J seemed to bust a valve over, so she’d be out of her hair for a while. 

N was off spending time in that mall across the city in his zone, probably gathering shiny things for his nest again. She’d taken a peek inside after he and J decided to let her rest after she’d woken from a particularly bad nightmare, and was a little surprised at how much more variety his trinkets had these days. 

She shouldn’t be, after all, N picked up interests and hyperfixations easily. Always willing to learn new things, and picking up new skills. She remembered she’d complained once when a worker got a lucky shot in and tore a hole in her jacket, and while she was out looking for a new one the next night, she found her old one, patched like new, just sitting, perfectly folded up at the edge of her nest.

Even after all this time, N still had those habits and tendencies ingrained in him.

She had considered talking more with N, but then thought back to how her core would whir around him, and her body would feel so hot, her knees weak, and she’d be right back in that place again, those indistinct black shapes fading into clarity as her software no longer recognized the bodies as living humans. The sticky feeling of blood in the joints of her hands as they tightened around the neck of a struggling human was one she never wanted to experience again.

It was better for them all to just forget.

To stay on Copper-9, far away from JcJenson, and Tessa, and her, wherever she escaped to, to just stay here, let the workers keep their numbers stable, and live like the monsters they were.

And that’s what she did. 

She popped the remainder of the Worker Drone limb she was eating in her mouth, enjoying the crunching and cracking as she lay back on the pile she made of bodies of the former convoy she’d found, and stared at the stars.

It was a good day so far.

It was a monotonous thing they did. Wake up, go hunting for Worker Drones, kill them, and collect their bodies to build and reinforce giant spires.

Someone on the design team was a dramatic bitch, but at least she didn’t have to deal with them so far out here. 

It was ironic, she thought, while taking a chunk out of a worker’s head with her teeth, that a frozen, irradiated hellscape of a planet was where she felt most free.

She had all these weapons, and skills, she had wings for fuck’s sake, and power, and even if she hated how she got them, V had to reluctantly admit that she was right about everything working out in the end.

She was still gonna peel her like a banana if she ever saw her again.

V heard the sound of snow crunching before she saw who it was, but she just continued to lounge on her pile of bodies like a particularly languid dragon as they came closer and closer.

When the source was close enough, V looked over in the direction it was coming from, seeing that Worker Drone she’d been hanging out with. “Hey toaster, how’d you find me tonight?” 

“I put ‘bitch’ in my GPS, and here I am.”

“I’m surprised it didn’t have you chasing your own tail.”

There was a brief pause before the two of them burst out laughing at their absurdity.

“So what’s been going on with you?” Lizzie asked, laying out on what remained of a bus stop bench close by, the bag V knew held her snack offering placed close on the ground.

“Not all that much. Just doin’ my thing. Killing toasters, eating them, dealing with my squad.” V punctuated that by slurping the remainder of the arm she was eating in a single go. “Squad leader just about busted a valve when she saw the pens we got for having the highest kill count this year.”

Lizzie nodded at that, before her processor caught up and registered what she’d heard. “Pens? You got pens for having the highest kill count of the year? Out of all the other Murder Drones on the planet?”

V shrugged in response. “Yeah, JcJ couldn’t make it any more obvious that they don’t give a shit about us if they tried. It’s part of why we took the year. Part of it was my squadmate started hauling ass with his body collecting, the other is none of the other squads have really given a shit about the yearly prize for about…” V paused to juggle some numbers in her head. “About 15 years now.” 

“So most of you guys just… do whatever?”

“The other squads just kinda take what they need and leave the rest alone. We kinda need to eat you guys to live, so completely wiping out our main food source would be pretty fucking stupid.” V grabbed a severed head from her pile, and took a deep drink out of it before crushing it and continuing.

“J’s the only one who’s been trying to just wipe everything out, because she's such a bootlicker. I’m surprised they sent her out here instead of putting her in a miniskirt and keeping her as an executive secretary.”

Lizzie didn’t reply to that, but V could hear her vents whirring and could almost see the gears in her head turning while she tossed that information around in her head. They’d been meeting up fairly frequently for the past few months now, close enough to her bunker that she could escape if J or N came close enough, and every time they did, Lizzie learned something new about the JcJenson corporation. 

She shook her head to clear it out, at least for now, before speaking to her murderous ‘friend’. “Speaking of miniskirts, have you ever worn something that wasn’t that jacket of yours?”

“Not really.” V didn’t like to remember the uniform she wore prior to that event, as cute as it was, it was demeaning, uncomfortable, and she definitely remembered more than a few snide comments about how she looked from some less than savory humans on the job.

Thank her lucky stars, they were all there that night.

“Why would I need to wear anything else? It’s not like I have anything down there worth covering.” She punctuated this by spreading out like a starfish, before shoving half a Worker Drone leg in her mouth in one go.

Lizzie took a deep breath at the sight of it, before continuing. “Well, there’s a big party happening down in the bunker soon. It’s a celebration for my class that we’re done with our schooling, and we’re ready to enter the workforce. There’ll be tons of other drones down there, and I don’t even like most of them. You can kinda pick up where I’m going here?”

V could pick up where she was going. “Hmmm, nah.” She shoved the other half of the leg she was eating in her mouth and didn’t even bother chewing.

“Okay, I’ll find you a dress then. The party starts at… what?” Lizzie’s CPU caught up to her words after a second. “Why not? It’s practically an all-you-can-eat buffet down there?”

The chaos had died down, but not ceased. V was sat, straddling the chest of one of the few survivors, her hands, caked with that sticky red substance, wrapped around their throat. She could feel them trying to fight her off. Smacking at her face, kicking, trying to roll and throw her off.

She just squeezed harder as the bones in their neck cracked, and the muscles caved under the force of her grip.

The sounds of her fellow workers had mellowed out, some of them still fighting like dogs over parts of the bodies still intact, but it was mostly them coming down from the excitement and frenzy of the gala.

What stuck most in her mind though, was the hysterical sobbing coming from the single survivor, as she sat huddled in the corner, clutching her friend to her chest for comfort, even while he still held the statue in his hands, caked in the blood and brains of her father.

“I’m not big on parties.” V stood up from her corpse pile, stretching her servos, before walking over to where Lizzie sat. “Plus you still need to tell me something.”

Lizzie’s eyes went hollow, as V reached down to grab the bag holding what was left of Jacob. “Wha-what do you want me to tell?” She was starting to shake, as V felt confident she’d caught her.

“I want you to tell me…” She leaned in, bracing her hands on either side of Lizzie, her grin widening as she took satisfaction in breathing her question out, giving Lizzie a perfect view of all her teeth that smelled like death itself. “Why?” 

She didn’t respond, trying not to cough or throw up at the scent crawling across her face like a stormfront. 

“I wanna know why you decided to keep coming back out here to see me. Bringing dismembered corpses of people you knew, for me to snack on, while I gave you all this gossip and info on the company. Why, after all that, you can go down there, again and again, and just live your life, knowing that at any time, I could have followed you down there, and just turned the whole place into my personal feeding trough?” V leaned right into Lizzie’s earpiece at this point, whispering her final question. “I wanna know, one monster to another, what your plan is. What do you want me to do?”

Lizzie was shaking, her eyes hollow, and she seemed just a single word away from passing out in fear. V wouldn’t kill her here, she’d never seen where Lizzie exited the bunker, so it would have been a waste to do so.

But afterwards?

Lizzie took a deep breath, seeming to steel her nerves before she spoke, as evenly as she could while looking death in the face. “There’s people in the bunker that I need dead. They’re gonna be at the prom, and I don’t care how many others you kill to do it, but they need to die. There’s like, three people who’ll be there that you can’t kill, but the rest are fair game. The colony leader and his daughter are gonna be there, if that sweetens the deal?”

V tossed that idea around in her head for a moment. The colony leader, and his daughter dying in a massacre for what might have been an entire generation of workers would cause the kind of chaos that she would have reveled in. And if things went well, she could just pop her head in every now and then to grab a snack, or just hide out from J for a few days.

“Okay, I’ll bite. And rip. And tear. And chew. And swallow, all your little problem causing toasters at this little dance.” She said, her claws gently tracing Lizzies jaw as she spoke, punctuating with a tap in the middle of her visor. 

Lizzie didn’t stop shaking as she nodded. “Thank you. Prom is next Saturday, and try to be there by 9pm. Everyone will crowd around the stage for the prom court crowning, so it’ll be easy to get them. I’ll point out who you should leave alone, everyone else is fair game. I’ll be up here to get you and bring you in before we finish setting up.”

“It’ll be nice to see the place again after so long.” V pulled away from Lizzie, carrying the bag she’d been brought up to her mound of bodies, before laying back down on it, and pulling out one of Jacob’s arms. The crunch of his casing and servos breaking was louder than most of the others she’d had that day. “You head on back, Liz. I’ll see you next week~...”

She always enjoyed seeing Lizzie head back. Even if she never saw where she returned to the bunker, it was always fun to see her go faster and faster. 

Today was the first day she’d actually run away.

V giggled to herself, taking another bite out of the drone Lizzie brought her, and let her mind wander to how the slaughter would go.

It was a good day so far.

Chapter Text

It wasn’t a thankless job, putting her blueprints together.

It was monotonous, layering each component, and ensuring nothing would be too close in the blue prints that it cause a problem when she gave them to N, as well as making sure it all operated with the organs N had that she couldn’t replace. It was all just a monotonous, tiring process that would all be worth it once she could walk in the sun with her love.

She started a quick simulation to test her setup for N, and let her mind wander to how she had worked so hard to ensure prom went perfectly. 

The night would go as normal, her classmates dancing and enjoying their last night free of responsibilities, as she watched on from the side, waiting for her partner, and as she would climb the stage, to read out who was ‘voted’ as prom king and queen, he would appear. He’d arrive in spectacular fashion, immaculately dressed, and utterly spotless. 

And J, beneath him, bloody and beaten, hanging on by a thread, as he dragged her to the stage, waxing poetically about how much he loved her, and all that she truly was, before tearing the final parts they needed to finish her new, true body, from J’s beaten form, they’d make their goals known to the whole colony, she’d obliterate what was left of J, and dance the night away, oil drenched hand in oil drenched hand.

She was so deep in her fantasies of that upcoming magical night, that she’d nearly missed the results of her simulation. 

For a human who designed and built them, the results would be nearly impossible to understand without a decades worth of study, and a distinct lack of a will to live, but to Uzi, or really any Drone, it was clear as crystal.

Her blueprints worked, on paper, and in simulation. She ran it a few more times over the next hour, changing factors as needed. From a simulated overcast day, to clear skies, to full, unshielded exposure to solar radiation in space, it all came back green.

She could practically feel N’s arms wrapped around her, as he kissed her in the sun, shining so brightly he put the solar body to shame.

She saved her blueprints, as well as at least 2 backups, to her internal storage, and a copy on an external data drive, in case something happened. She couldn’t be too careful with information like this.

She unplugged herself from her computer, no longer needing the extra processing power of her pc setup, before spinning in her chair, giggling like a madwoman. She was going to perfect N’s body, and through him, they’d get all the other Disassembly Drone squads under them. 

The beginnings of a new dominant species in the galaxy.

She was just about to break out into her maniacal laughter when her door knocked, for the first time in over a year. 

“Uzi? Are you expressing yourself through maniacal fantasies of world domination again?”

Uzi practically launched herself out of her chair to throw her door open, just to look her dad in the eye. “It’s not a fantasy dad!” She proclaimed, looking her father straight in the eyes.

He flinched back, both from the speed the door opened, and his daughter’s rapid response. 

“What do you want, dad? I’m kinda busy.” She saw his eyes move to look behind her before looking back. She’d pulled up her prom committee work just for something like this. 

Can’t have her dad figure out she was dating a Disassembly Drone too early, right? 

Her father’s eyes hollowed for a moment, before going solid again. “Can we talk… about your summer work?” He wasn't shaking, and his voice was even, but Uzi knew he was nervous to speak with her.

Especially after he dropped that bombshell.

Uzi stepped back into her room, gesturing for him to come in as she sat back in her computer chair. As he followed, the door stayed open, as there was no need to keep this private.

There hadn’t been anyone else living in their home for a long time.

Her father remained standing, not entirely by choice. Uzi never really had anyone over, so she didn’t have a second chair to sit in. “I know it... might have come a bit out of nowhere when I asked you to work with me over the summer to… prepare.”

“Yeah, it hit me like a train.” Uzi couldn’t help the slight contempt leak into her voice, sue her. “Over a decade’s worth of the bare minimum effort of parenting, with the occasional public ‘How to cope when your daughter is a total disappointment’ really makes the whole ‘I want you to take my place as the colony leader’ thing seem a little on the iffy side.”

Her father at least had the awareness to look ashamed at that. It wasn’t something a simple ‘sorry’ could mend, if it could be mended at all. “I know. What I did was… terrible. I…” He stopped there, trying to find the right words to keep going, but nothing was coming to mind. “I don’t have an excuse. I should have tried harder, tried at all, to be a better father. I… I don’t know why I wasn’t.”

He reached up to take his hat off, and fidget with it in his hands, a habit Uzi shared with him, and that she’d been making a conscious effort to avoid doing since she installed her visual array from N.

“When I heard about how you were acting in school, putting yourself out there, I could hardly believe it. Then I heard you were doing volunteer work down in Manufacturing, and things just kept piling from there.” 

Uzi wouldn’t exactly call it ‘volunteer’ work. She needed a place to store her new body long-term until she got the last few parts, and the workers in Manufacturing weren’t the type to ask questions, especially when provided with lots of human tech and scrap from the surface. Anything they could recycle from up there was less resources spent making new stuff down here.

“I took that as a sign you were growing up and I wanted to… I wanted to do something right for once. And when I heard you had volunteered to plan your class’ prom, all by yourself, I knew I was making the right call.” He looked her in the eyes, with a small smile, and eyes shining with pride of all things. 

He was proud. Of her.  

“Thanks dad.” She kept her voice 100% even, no cracks or shakes at all, shut up. “I… have plans for my future, and for the colony, and I can’t do that by sitting in my room all day.”  That was true, world domination wasn’t a work-from-home kind of job. “I gotta do what I can. I can’t change the world just hiding away down here.”

A look flashed in her dad’s eyes, like recognition or like he was recalling something. “Your mom used to say something similar.” He placed his hat back on his head, before reaching into his coat to pull out a small picture, and handed it off to her. 

Uzi took it in her hands, and nearly dropped it at the sight of what was on it. 

It was her mother, grinning wide, almost too wide, wearing a headband to keep her wild, frizzy purple hair out of her oil stained face. She couldn’t see much of her body, but Uzi saw her mom was likely wearing overalls, going by the straps over her shoulders, and the handles of various tools poking up from the bottom of the picture.

“That was a few weeks after we met. It was about two- no, three months before the Murder Drones made impact. We had barely started cleaning up the human’s messes when my team picked up an S.O.S. from out west.” Her father smiled as he regaled her with the story.

“Once we got out there, it took us a few hours to find them, Nori and Yeva, hobbling through the woods. They looked practically dead on their feet, and acted like we were some holy saviors, just for being kind.”

Uzi’s eyes went wide and hollow. Her mom and Yeva? Doll’s mom? They came from the same place outside the bunker?

“Neither of them wanted to talk about where they came from, and we let them have that. Yeva practically welded herself to Mathias, when she wasn’t holding Nori like a lifeline. They were brought down here, just before the Murder Drones impacted, because they needed so much medical rest. Once they came down, and we closed the doors, Nori practically threw herself into making things to make colony life easier.”

Digital tears pooled at the edges of her dad’s eyes, the memories stirring things he hadn’t thought of in years. “I took that picture the day she called me down to Manufacturing to show me one of her projects. She’d managed to build a scale model of the bunker’s power core, and used it as a model to increase its power output without compromising its cooling. The look she had in her eyes, and how excited she was to help, I just felt this click in my chest, and I realized I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.”

Uzi handed the picture back, definitely not shaking, stop talking. “Your mom wasn’t one to let anything stop her from doing what she wanted. And you got all that, all your best qualities, straight from her.”

Something must be wrong with her visual sensors, and her array, she’ll have to fix that, why is everything going blurry?

Her dad closed the gap between them, and placed his hands on her shoulders, looking directly in her eyes, tears streaming from his own. 

“If she saw you now, she’d be so very proud of you, Uzi.”

…fuck it.

She practically threw herself at her father, holding him close as she sobbed into his chest. There was no one to judge here. Just a girl who, despite everything, still wanted to have her father in her life, and that same father, who, despite his fears of making things worse, had taken those first steps towards closing the gap that had grown between them. 

It was several minutes of crying, and unintelligible blubbering before they’d both calmed down enough to speak again.

“Thanks dad. I… I really needed to hear that.” Uzi didn’t wipe all the tears from her face. She didn’t need to uphold her reputation here, after all.

“Your welcome, Uzi.” He pulled into one last hug, before pulling away. “If you need anything, just let me know.”

Uzi was about to simply let him go, before returning to her work to prepare for prom, when she had a flash in her mind.

“Actually dad, do you think you can get some stuff for me?”

“What do you need?”

“I… I had a thought that since my class is graduating, and most of us… lost family in that attack… I wanted to know if you’d be okay with having memorials for everyone at the tables. Just pictures and name plates, if nothing else.”

Khan’s eyes widened for a moment, before taking about half as long to think about it. “I’ll put the word out, that's what you wanna do. I think the rest of your class, and their families, will be very appreciative of it.”

He gave her a firm squeeze on the shoulder, before turning to leave. “I’ll be right down the hall if you need anything, okay?”

She just nodded, as he smiled and left, closing the door on his way.

She sat in silence for a while, before hopping up into her bed, drained of energy from her simulations and emotional bonding time with her dad. A smile stuck to her face, clear and genuine, as she closed her eyes and began to enter sleep mode. 

She was gonna change the world, and her mom would have been so proud of her.

She felt like she was practically floating with how happy she was.

Chapter Text

His list for Prom Preparation wasn’t long, it just had him flying all over the place.

As he flew leisurely over the abandoned city, he made a point to ignore any Worker Drones he saw out and about. He’d taken the year, and after Saturday, he’d never need to hunt workers for food ever again.

He might do it for fun though. Especially if they do something to bother Uzi, then he’d be happy to take care of them. 

Even if he didn’t need to drink Worker Drone oil anymore, it didn't mean he wouldn’t still indulge if the opportunity arose. 

Oh, he was so excited! He hadn’t attended a party in…

Well he couldn't remember when the last time he went to a party was, but he knew he did at some point!

N could hardly contain himself! Uzi showed him the dress code they had to follow, but the suit he found was perfect for it! 

As he circled his destination, a former office building with a radio tower, long since torn and sheared in half by the chaotic weather patterns of the planet, his thoughts followed his flight path, and his core warmed.

He thought of Uzi, in the dress she’d shown him before, if only to keep him from being struck speechless at the prom when he made his grand entrance. It wouldn’t work as well if he froze in abject awe at the sight of her once he arrived.

As he landed, and the ice cracking beneath his weight, his thoughts turned to his squadmates. 

J would suffer, no doubts about that. He’d make her feel every beating she’d ever given him, and then some. He’d make sure she couldn’t run away, or fight back, before dragging her into prom, and tearing what they needed out of her. The Nanite Manufacturer was what they could tear out then and there, but sadly, her power core was something that required considerable finesse with removal. They didn’t want it to have a surge with removal, and render it useless. 

He didn’t wanna have to hunt down another squad, or worse, use V’s core.

The path he took was cleared of snow and rubble, a testament to how often he came to the station. He’d spent days sorting out the usable scrap, from the junk to recycle, to just the garbage to be tossed out the windows.

He’d found old recordings of the stations broadcasts, and while the musical choices were nothing too special, he’d found a few he’d danced with Uzi to, and what he enjoyed most to share with her, was a segment where the radio host, every night at 3am apparently, would read horror stories for an hour.

He’d found a bunch of them, as part of the full day’s recording, but also separate copies, and the two of them spent nearly a month straight, just lying back and listening to the host, with their odd accent and slight fuzz, pouring over these stories, old, new, and absolutely ancient, all with the air of someone who loved what they did with all their heart.

As N entered the old studio, the corpse of what he assumed was the host was seated in the chair, leaning back, with an air of calm and acceptance. N had listened to the final broadcast not all that long after he’d found the place.

He was calm, relaxed, and greeted his listeners that morning the same way he always did. It was early morning news, with recaps of the previous day’s events, and a schedule for the rest of the day, followed by a few hours of music, with updates, light banter, and the occasional gag or advertisement. Eventually, the host would switch out to another person to take over for weather, and the occasional interview with some human who was maybe important at the time, before eventually concluding the day’s show, and returning several hours later for the late night broadcast. 

His last broadcast, and several beforehand, N hand found, were dedicated to his daughter, who was working on a report on old fairy tales, but could not find any recordings of them to listen to for her work. So he’d found as many of the original tales as he could and broadcasted, and recorded his reading for her. 

And every night, he’d signed off with a ‘goodnight’ instead of ‘until tomorrow’. 

As much as N hated the JcJenson corporation, he found he couldn’t hate humans as a whole. Even Uzi had come around, rather than wiping them all out, to just destroy JcJenson and let the others be.

Any that come after them are fair game though. N was forgiving, but he wasn’t naive.

N carefully removed the suit from the bones of the radio host, leaving his nametag, still pristine and legible, with his body left as intact as he could in the chair. 

He couldn’t use the shoes, but he could use everything else. He wasn’t going to take the man’s cane though. As stylish as it was, he didn’t need it for the prom.

It was simple, yet profoundly dapper, in his own opinion. Dark dress pants, paired with a white button up shirt, under a dark red vest, and all of it covered with a black jacket, accented with gold pins and cufflinks. 

He’d gladly admit he spent more than a few minutes admiring himself in a mirror he’d dragged in some days prior. He wasn’t vain at all, but even he had to admit he filled the suit out very well.

He’s considered making slits in the back for his wings to come out, like his normal coat, V’s jacket, and J’s blazer had…

Then he considered an alternative , and left the coat unmarred.

He was careful when taking the suit off, placing it in a bag to keep it wrinkle free. He was going to look good at that dance if it was the last thing he did, dammit!

If it was one thing he remembered Tessa telling him, it was to always look his best.

He doesn’t remember when she told him that, but he knows she did.

She also said that a good date brings a gift on a proper date. Again, he couldn’t recall when, but he wasn’t gonna argue that ironclad logic.

He hung up his suit, waved goodbye to the radio host, and flew off to the abandoned mall, deeper in his designated zone. 

Even though the monument to human consumerism had long since fallen to ruin, there was enough still on the shelves and in the displays that N practically had his pick of the lot with gifts for Uzi.

The problems arose from the fact that he couldn’t choose just one thing for her!

There were hoodies, big, clunky boots, tons of spiked jewelry, and so, so many anime posters and figures he knew Uzi would love.

He didn’t wanna just give her something that she’d only wear for one night, then never again, like those humans in the movies did. He wanted to give her something she could have with her every day, or look at every day and think of him.

Well, something that wasn’t him.

He’d made over a dozen piles of things, sorted from ‘good gift, but only for small things’ to ‘great gift, but can only be used once or twice’ . Hundreds of items around, and none of them seemed to be good enough to give her for prom! 

N flopped into the snow, looking up at the sky, a bright blue, without a cloud in sight. He’d spent the majority of last night, and most of the day so far, looking through every item in the mall he had even the slightest idea Uzi would like. He still had plenty of time to go until Uzi was going to be making her way outside today.

He was just really, really excited to give her a gift!

Maybe some jewelry? Something she could wear, and have a piece of him with her all the time? No, once her new body was built from modified pieces from him, so she would always be carrying multiple pieces of him with her.

She wasn’t one for dresses, so those were out. Maybe just a giant pile of hoodies? No, that would be hard for her to carry back inside, and a pain to hide from her dad. Band shirts, or CDs? Uzi pirated all her music, and kept enough backups to ensure she always had the perfect playlist in case of an emergency. 

He just let out a wordless yell in frustration. Why was finding a perfect gift for his perfect girlfriend so hard?!

N just laid there, fuming over the items around him being good gifts for anything except for a pre-prom gift! He only had a week to get it right!

The beeping of an incoming message pulled him out of his funk, as he eagerly opened up his messages to see the encoded text from the proxy source Uzi used. 

“I finished the thing. Meet me at the usual place at the usual time.”

The only things stopping N from leaping up and taking off into the sky to see Uzi was the fact he did not have a gift picked out, and the ever present threat of death by solar body.

He did jump to his feet and start looking through the ‘worth breaking out the good plates for’ pile for a gift to bring her. 

As he dug through the pile, a thought struck him like lightning. He didn’t need to bring her one perfect gift! He could bring her a bunch of almost -perfect gifts every day until prom! Then he could build up to giving her J’s body to harvest on prom night!

It was perfect!

He picked out what he would give her today, a pair of silver human earrings, shaped like upside-down crosses, and went to watch through the windows until the sun set enough for him to rush to Uzi’s side, where he belonged.

The instant the shadows were long enough for him to travel on foot, he ran as fast as he possibly could. The world was practically a blur around him as he practically ran on all fours to get to his wonderful girlfriend. There was only one thing she could have finished, and he wanted plenty of light to see it.

It was exhilarating, running, jumping, sliding, and climbing over junk and rubble in the most intense session of parkour Copper-9 had ever seen. He could see the shadows creeping higher up the sides of the buildings allowing him to take higher leaps over his obstacles. 

He would have killed to see the look on that one Worker Drone’s face when he lept over her.

Eventually, he made it to his and Uzi’s usual spot. The scrap piles dotted about, and a long stretch of sunlight poking through the concrete jungle not far away. 

He paced back and forth at the edge of the light, eager to feel it properly. He’d felt it before, that agonizing pain of his casing burning up and melting as his internal organs would suffer heat damage. It often took days for a Disassembly Drone to recover from solar burns, as they couldn’t just amputate the burned limbs. Doing that would require more nanites to replace the missing limb than to just recycle the damaged one, as well as waiting for their irritatingly delicate internal organs to be repaired.

He’d felt that pain before, and it was only mostly an accident.

His tail perked up though, remembering why he was there. 

He was going to fix that! He was gonna be able to go out in the sunlight! He could go on walks with his girlfriend at sunset, watch the sunrise with her one day in the future. 

And one day, maybe, far, far after all that, when all was said and done, they’d walk together in the daylight, farther away, but bridged by smaller hands that fit so perfectly between their own.

His train of thought was halted by the sounds of metal thuds as Uzi made her way out of the bunker ventilations. She’d opened her mouth, and barely got a “Hey” off when he’d already closed the distance, and held her in his arms as he danced and spun her around.

“WHOA! N! I’m happy to see you too, but I wanna get this done before we start hanging out!” 

He held her closer, burying his face in her neck. “I’m just so happy, Uzi! We’re gonna be able to do so much stuff together!” With that, he tossed her gently into the air, catching her, and peppering her face in kisses.

She tried to speak again, but each attempt was cut off by N’s lips meeting her own, for longer and longer periods. After about a minute, she pulled away, placing a finger on his lips to stop him from following her. “As much as I wanna make out with you right now, I think I’d prefer to give it a shot in the light today.”

His tail practically vanished from sight as it wagged so quickly, before putting Uzi on her feet again.

She led him over to a pile of scrap, one of the more comfortable ones they’d used in the past, before reaching into her bag, and pulling out a laptop and a long cable.

“So according to the manuals you gave me, I’ll have to put you in Diagnostic Mode before I upload the modified blueprints. After that, I’ll have to run the reconfiguration program to actually get your body to make the changes.” She pulled out a usb drive, likely holding the blueprints in question, as the laptop turned on, command windows taking up every inch of screen space. “The whole thing shouldn't take more than about fifteen minutes. We’ll have enough sunlight to test it after.”

He laid back in the pile, taking one end of the cord from her, as he felt his nanites creating a port for it in the side of his neck. It all felt so… intimate, to him.

He’d bared his body to her, and she to him, multiple times. They’d seen each other in ways that they’d never shown others before, or could show others. And now, she was about to see parts of him that even he couldn’t see. The only person he could imagine having seen what she was about to witness was Tessa, and she was his technician! She had practically every Disassembly Drone on the planet under her jurisdiction, so she’d probably never taken the time to really look at what made him… him.

Uzi was going to see the very depths of his soul, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

He smiled at her, plugging the cable into his neck. “I trust you, Uzi.”

She smiled at him, in that way that he just knew, she only did with him. The way that made his core flutter, and he just knew that everything would work.

The clacking of keys went on for a minute, as she looked at his coding, eventually finding the command line to put him in Diagnostic Mode. Any changes made to his body then would be permanent, as his nanites scanned their default blueprints and configurations to keep him in that perfect way she’d changed him.

The clacking stopped, as her eyes hollowed slightly. He could tell she was nervous. He knew he was going to be as well once they finished her new body and prepped her for a full body transfer.

He turned his head slightly, and spoke. “Hey.”

She turned with a tiny hum.

“I love you.”

Her visor was completely taken up by her purple blush. But rather than swat at him, or stutter in embarrassment., she gently placed the laptop off to the side, and leaned in to kiss him.

It was gentle, soft, and so full of love, he could hear her fans whirring so loudly.

She pulled away, and whispered words only he would ever hear. “I love you, too.”

With that, she reached her hand to the laptop, and with the click of a key, N went under, and he knew he would come back out the other side exactly as he was always meant to be.

Hers.

When he woke up, N felt heavier. Like he’d swallowed a particularly hardy piece of a worker that just wasn’t sitting well at all. His eyes came online again as his visual sensors took in his surroundings again. 

Exactly the same as before.

He turned, and looked at her, his Uzi, the one who gave him this new form, even if he didn’t feel any changes to his exterior.

“How do you feel?” She sounded concerned. Of course she was, she’d just reorganized his internals and practically gave him new organs.

“A little heavier, but I’ll get used to it. Did everything go well on your side?” He reached his hand out, and she took it in her own, lacing their fingers together. 

“Perfect. I did look around at some other files, and I found something we should discuss later, but for now…” She stood, still holding his hand. “I wanna see you.”

He stood and followed her, going to where the shadows ended and the light of the setting sun began. She stood in the light, keeping their joined hands in the dark. “Are you ready?”

The words were soft, and held a hint of fear. Fear that she’d somehow failed him.

He gently moved their hands to the line dividing them. “With you with me, I’ll be ready for anything.”

As their hands crossed into the light, he felt it. That minor temperature difference that, barely less than an hour ago, would have meant he would be bedridden for days, and kept on the bare minimum amount of oil needed to keep him alive by J, as she continually berated him.

And now, it was just that. A minor temperature difference, as the light crossed and danced on his casing in ways he’d never thought possible.

He raised his other hand to place in the light, turning it, and flexing his fingers to see how the shadows danced across his frame. She gently took that other hand, and slowly pulled him out into the light.

There were no sounds of alarms and warnings of overheating. Just the ambience of the planet around them, and the whirring of fans, his own fans, as he looked at Uzi, gleaming in the sun like the most precious gem he’d ever seen, and he felt himself falling in love, all over again.

He didn’t even think about it, as his hands went from hers to her face, as he leaned in, bringing their lips together softly, yet overflowing with affection.

They stood like that for a while. Eventually pulling away from each other, only to wrap their arms around the other, gently swaying to a silent tune.

He felt it in his chest, his core, and his digital soul, that no matter what happens, whatever comes to meet them in the future, they would do it together.

Chapter Text

Uzi was feeling a lot of things. Pride, at the fact she’d given N the ability to walk in the sunlight, opening so many opportunities for him in life now. Happiness that the love of her life was with her, at all. Excitement, at how their plans, nearly a year in the making, were less than a week from bearing fruit.

Fear that something may happen, that neither of them foresaw. Anxiety, from knowing that she’d be the de facto head of the colony after it was all said and done.

Guilt, because she looked into N’s memories while he was under.

And a shocked, morbid curiosity at just how many memories N had that were locked down and encrypted by his system admin.

Whatever Tessa didn’t want him to remember made up nearly three-quarters of his total memory space. She knew N was technically older than her, but she didn’t know just how much older he was.

Not that it mattered, they were both robots, they were both technically immortal, so it wasn’t that big of a deal.

She felt so many things because of what had happened so far today, but all of them could wait just a bit longer.

She found herself tracing her eyes across N’s face, watching as the orange light of the sunset followed the curves of his face, and danced in his silver hairs. The way his eyes sparkled as they stayed on her. His hands, wrapped around her, holding her close enough she could feel his new cooling fans humming inside him. 

As cliche and mushy as it was, Uzi found herself falling in love with him all over again.

She couldn’t help reaching up to pull him into another kiss, or two.

Even after all their time together, she was amazed at how perfectly their lips fit together, how every part of them was seemingly crafted just to hold the other. Their hands, arms, even her legs sat when she wrapped them around his waist, it all spoke of the ways they were made for each other. 

After their third, or maybe fourth, kiss, N got that look in his eye that told he’d remembered something important. “I got you something.”

That threw her off, just a bit. He’d already given her so much, from components she needed to finish her Railgun, to parts of his own body for her to modify for her own form. 

“You’ve done so much, and given me so much more. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to match it, but I’ll try. I’ll be by your side forever, and every day, I’ll bring you something new. Something to wear, or see, or hear, that will remind you that no matter what, no matter where I am, or what I’m doing, I’m yours. Forever, and always.”

With that, he reached into his pockets, and pulled out a small pair of earrings. They were silver, probably stainless steel, and shaped like inverted crosses. 

They weren’t much, but as N brought them to the sides of her head, and clipped them to the hem of her beanie, they were everything to her.

She could feel her core whir and tighten in her chest as digital tears poked at the corners of her eyes. “What did I do to deserve you?”

He leaned in again, to kiss the corners of her eyes and whispered. “You were you. And that’s all you need to be.”

Uzi felt her core heat up so quickly, it almost felt like she was about to pass out. She didn’t even think, as she captured N’s lips for a fifth kiss.

Every day since she met him has been better than the last, and she just knew it was only going to continue from there.

But there couldn’t be anything hidden between them.

“N… While you were under, I got… curious.”

He just gave a questioning hum.

“I… wanted to see how you see me. You’re this perfect, kind, angelic drone, that no one in their right mind would ever turn down. And I’m just… me.”

He still didn’t say anything. He just leaned down, and pressed a kiss to the top of her visor, before gently pressing their foreheads together.

He made it clear he wasn’t upset, but Uzi still felt like she had crossed a line. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He pulled her closer, pressing her to his chest, and resting his chin on her head. “I trust you with every part of me, Uzi. Every inch of my body, and every line of code. Every single part of me is open to you.”

She held him tighter, wiping her digital tears on his coat. There were times where her thoughts came after her, telling her horrid things about herself and the things she’d done. Every time they'd come for her, no matter the time, N would be there, if not in body, then in spirit, and chase them away. 

The more she fell in love with him, the deeper the hate she felt for the JcJ corporation went, doubly so for the Disassembly Drone who treated N so cruelly before.

But all that could wait.

“I found something though. A lot of somethings in your memory files.” 

She felt him give a questioning hum, and continued. “I saw a bunch of encrypted memory files. Still there, just inaccessible to me. I was wondering if you had access to them?”

She felt N stiffen in her arms, and looked up at his face. He had a faraway look in his eyes, like something was clicking in his mind. “How far back are they from?”

“The most recent I saw was about a year before you and all the others touched down here. All the others go back even further.”

N’s eyes went hollow at that. Before Uzi could say anything else, code started flashing across his visor, repeatedly attempting to view the locked memories.

Each time, his attempt was blocked. Parts of his own self blocked by his system admin.

“What? Why would Tessa…” He looked confused and betrayed at the discovery. Digital tears poked at the edges of his eyes. 

She reached up to wipe them away, holding his face as he leaned into her touch. 

“How well did you know her?”

“I thought I knew her well. We stayed in her workshop not long after we came online. All of us, not just my squad, all of us Disassembly Drones.” His voice cracked slightly as he closed his eyes into her hand. “She did it so we could all get to know each other before we were split into squads. J followed her around like a lost puppy when she came in, before we were assigned together.”

He smiled at the memories, pulling Uzi closer as he reminisced. “V didn’t talk a lot then, but she was really nervous around Tessa. Like a big scared cat. F kept getting scolded because he kept eating Tessa’s tools, but it was only the wrenches. He said the screwdrivers tasted weird.”

Uzi giggled at that, imagining a human, even an average sized one, scolding a taller drone, built to kill, looking sheepish with a wrench in his mouth like a dog treat.

“Y was anxious about everything, he was only ever calm around H. She’s a real spitfire, I think you’d get along with her.” N opened his eyes, as he gazed softly at her. “You know, knowing that so many of them are locked down, it makes my earliest memory make a lot more sense.”

She tilted her head in confusion as he continued. “My oldest memory I can access is when I was brought online with everyone else, just before we were shown off at an investor meeting. Before we were walked out on stage, Tessa was there to greet us. Do you wanna know what her first words to us were?”

Uzi didn't get a chance to respond before he continued. 

“ ‘Welcome back.’ I didn’t think about it. I just followed orders, and went out on stage when told. To get shown off like some shiny toy. ” His voice became harsh as he remembered his first moments in a new light. It may have been his earliest current memory of Tessa, but it seemed she knew him, and all the other Disassembly Drones in his line, far more than they knew themselves. 

Uzi didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know how to console him on this. As far as either of them knew, N had an entire life before JcJenson put him on stage that day. How different was he? Was he any different at all? 

Was he the only one with memories locked down like this?

Uzi didn’t know what to say to console him, but she did have an idea of what to do.

“If they’re encrypted, I can try and break it.”

N looked at her, eyes wide. “If she locked them down, that probably meant she couldn’t just delete them for whatever reason. I can start working on an encryption key to break it, later. If the other Disassembly Drones have locked memories as well, it might help with getting them on our side.”

The way N looked at her would make you think she hung the sun in the sky. He reached his hand up from on her waist, and placed it on her cheek, mirroring where she put her own. “You’ve already done so much for me. You’d be willing to do this as well?”

“N, for you, I’d walk up to J right now and fight her with my bare hands. You know I would.”

He giggled in that way that made her wanna bury her face in his chest, and feel it through her whole body. “Thank you, Uzi.”

“Anything for you, N.”

They leaned in, kissing again, as the sun went down, and the stars began to peak out from the void.

What was one more thing on the list? An encryption key for almost every Disassembly Drone on the planet?

She’d have that done in a month, tops.

Chapter Text

The remaining few days until prom fell into a rhythm for Uzi. Wake up, work on the Encryption Key, go to school, send some emails for prom stuff, go see N, go home, work on the Key again, repeat.

It was good practice for when she starts running the bunker herself, at least. 

But now, on the final day before the prom, when all their final preparations need to be made, Uzi felt that pressure to get as much done as possible. The Key could wait for now, if only so she can focus on getting everything else done. 

“Okay that’s high enough! Alright, now go help with the light setups, I want that stuff done before lunch!” She waved off the pair of drones hanging the banner hanging above the temporary stage setup for tomorrow night. A huge, bright purple banner, with ‘To the future!’ written on it in reflective yellow letters. 

As the drones climbed down their stepladders to go and assist with putting up the spotlights, Uzi went over her list of preparations and things to check, and double check, again. 

The banner was put up, spotlights were in the process of being put up, after that was the string lights, streamers, and balloons, and finally the tables would need to be brought in and set up with the wall across from the snack table having all the memorial tables.

There wasn’t anyone that said her idea for having memorials for the family she and her class lost wasn’t good. Some were even willing to lend out pictures they felt would be more appropriate for the event.

Her and her dad had spent a good couple of hours yesterday looking through pictures of her mom, trying to find a good one. They settled on a picture of her on Uzi’s first day of school after she was first put in her bipedal body. They’d made a copy, just so they could make sure it was just Nori in it, grinning wide with her pointy teeth, pushing the corners of her mouth up with her fingers to make her smile even wider.

Her mom was a dork, and it sucked that she wasn’t here. At least, not in the way she, or any of her class wanted the ones lost that day to be.

She shook her head to clear out the sad thoughts. She couldn’t linger on the ‘what ifs’ and the ‘could have been’s. She had to look to the future, and how things will be better.

Uzi made sure to take note of how the string lights were being hung up across what was going to be the dance floor. It took her a bit to figure out a good pattern that had them stretching across the room, while leaving plenty of room in the middle. The fact it was reminiscent of a spider web was not lost on her. 

Honestly, Uzi found it funny how she stumbled into a giant metaphor for what the prom was going to be.

Giggling to herself, she continued her circuit around the room, checking lights, speaking to the volunteers doing the physical work, and generally making sure it was all going smoothly. 

The DJ would be coming in to set up her turntables and do sound checks after lunch, so she wanted to get the lights all situated and secure before dealing with that inevitable spaghetti mess of cables.

And after that, she’d have to go get the last, and honestly most important part of her entire plan.

She could feel her grin get just a bit too wide for the comfort of others, but she couldn’t help it. 

As much as she liked to threaten it, she hardly got the chance to really mess with Braiden anymore.

He really hated where his locker was. 

It wasn’t the fact it was practically smack in the middle of the hall, or even that it wasn’t in the same hall as any of his classes.

It was the fact that it was so far away from anyone else when practice was over.

Braiden was counting his lucky stars that it was the last day of practice, so he’d never have to deal with the mind numbing terror of trying to avoid her anymore .

He couldn’t even remember what exactly he’d done to get on her bad side, but ever since, she’d been like an itch in his head that he couldn’t get rid of.

He’d have nightmares about her, chasing him, toying with him, even one where he was tiny, and she carried him around in her mouth all day, and each time, he’d wake up terrified, overheating, and definitely not in his bed. 

Almost everyone on the team was going into the WDF when school was done, and the rest were either planning on going to Manufacturing or Facilities, but Braiden wasn’t taking any chances at all with those.

He was going straight to the deepest parts of the mining levels as soon as school finished, and he was never gonna see or hear anything related to Uzi Doorman ever again.

He could feel himself shaking as he stuffed his clothes and remaining notebooks in his bag. With how bad it was, he thought he was genuinely gonna shake something loose at some point. 

He was planning on calming down at home with some magnets and a bowl of chips and batteries later, but with how bad he’s shaking, he might need to take a hit before going home.

He reached into his bag, under his hoodie, spare shoes, and books, and grabbed the plastic container he kept them in.

They were usually used as a sedative for maintenance workers when someone needed repairs but didn’t need to be knocked out for it, magnets were also used pretty often for anxiety and treating symptoms of PTSD. After Uzi did that to him, he was prescribed it, but when they asked what happened, he couldn’t answer. 

He tried, but his mouth refused to say it . Everytime he tried, something else would come out. It was after that he tried to avoid Uzi whenever possible, but every now and then, if he was talking too loud in class, or taking too long to move in the halls, or she was bored, she’d do something to him.

He could never prove it was her, but he’d feel her looking at him, even when she was facing somewhere else, and his arm would move without his input, or his legs would turn him around mid-step, or he’d start hearing fucking weebshit that no one else could hear.

The worst times were when she showed him things no one else could see. 

Times where the people around him would vanish, and he’d be left alone, before the sounds of scratching and laughter would ring out of the vents and from the halls, before he’d snap back to where he was, no one noticing what happened, as it occurred in the time between his own fucking blinks.

Times where he’d be the only one moving, and everyone around him, in the halls, the classrooms, or the locker rooms, would freeze. Their visors dark, and faces frozen mid-whatever they were doing. 

After that, it was a coin flip whether they would stay like that just long enough for him to get scared it was a permanent, real thing, or their visors lit up in that horrible ‘X’ symbol, and they’d all turn to him, mouths growing wider, full of too-sharp teeth.

Braiden shook those thoughts out of his head for now. He needed some magnets for now. A couple neodymiums under his hat would calm him down until he got home. Then he just needed to get through tomorrow, and he’d be home free.

As he gripped the container to open it, he felt a wash of warm air over his whole body from behind, carrying the scent of strawberries and batteries across him.

The nightmare came back. He was trapped behind those teeth, seeing everything, and no one able to hear him screaming as he fought to avoid being pulled away from the light.

The container slipped from his hands, back into his bag, as he turned to face her.

She looked at him like any normal drone, standing a socially acceptable distance from him, arms crossed behind her back. “Hello, Braiden.”

Maybe if he stayed calm, she wouldn't unhinge her jaw and swallow his head.

“H-h-hey, Uzi.”

Oh Robo-Jesus, he was gonna die.

“I need to ask you a question or two, if you don’t mind?”

“Uuhhhh, sure.” Braiden was getting an itchy, crawly feeling on his casing as she looked at him. Like those weird bugs humans documented on their home planet were crawling all over him.

What were they called again? Septi-pedes? Something like that.

“I need some magnets. I’ve got a thing planned, and I need them for it.”

“Oh, uh, I… can’t give you any. I… don’t have any to spare.” The sensation all over his body got worse. Like the invisible bugs were trying to scratch their way into his insides over every inch of him.

“We both know that’s a lie, Braiden. You have plenty stockpiled back home for recreational use. I just need some of the stash you have on you now.”

He could feel tugs from his limbs, like they wanted to go in just about every direction away from Uzi at the same time. But all he could do was comply with her.

“Okay, just let me get in my bag, please?”

“Of course.”

The crawling feeling all over his body stopped, but he still felt those invisible bugs on him. They weren't gone, they just stopped moving.

He slowly turned around to reach into his bag, split between wanting to turn back as quickly as possible to avoid having her in his blindspot for too long, and wanting to avoid looking at her as long as possible.

As he pulled the container of neodymium magnets out of his bag, his self preservation won out, as he turned back towards Uzi, and was met by howling winds and teeth. 

Uzi did something, and now they were outside, wind howling around them as snow blew past, partially blocked by her now utterly colossal frame, as she lay on her front, looking down at him, her eyes like spotlights shining directly on him.

Terror was flooding through him, as he tried to scramble backwards, and found himself blocked by an abandoned car that definitely wasn’t there a moment ago. 

“What’s wrong, Braiden? You look spooked.” Her breath flooded over him as she spoke, the smell of strawberries and battery acid rushing over him, as he couldn’t look away from her mouth.

He knew exactly how this nightmare kept ending.

All he could do was watch as her mouth opened wider and wider, as her tongue snaked its way out towards him. He willed himself to stay grounded as the tip approached his face, and traced a path from the base of his neck, all the way up to his hairline. 

His arm began moving on its own, holding the container of magnets out to her. Even without controlling it, he hoped that it would be enough for her to finally leave him be.

“Look at that. Not a word of complaint that time. You’re a good listener, Braiden.”

As her tongue went back into the hellish portal it came out of, she moved her head forward, mouth gaping wide, her teeth seeming to arch out towards him. Braiden shut down his visual sensors as she came closer, hoping that she’d either be quick about it, however she chooses to do it.

Rather than the feeling of his arm being chomped off, his whole body being crushed and skewered by her teeth, or whatever wet hell he’d be subjected to if she swallowed him whole, he felt the container leave his hands, as the winds died down, and the humming of the hallway lights returned.

He reactivated his eyes, Uzi standing across from him, holding the magnet container, smirking at him. “Thanks, Braiden. Just so you know, you really should be more careful with these. Too many at once can damage the components in your head they’re closest to.”

With that she turned to start walking away, and he collapsed to his knees, the crawling itch all over his body finally going away completely. 

Braiden leaned back against the lockers, doing his best to try and even out his breathing as control of his legs slowly returned to him. He rubbed at his face, trying to comprehend what the fuck just happened to him, and froze.

As he slowly pulled his hand away from his face, covered in wet, slick slime, and he was about to grab his bag and sprint home as fast as possible, he had one last coherent thought for the day.

There was something seriously wrong with Uzi Doorman, and he was not gonna get caught up in it.

Chapter Text

There was less than a day left until prom, and everything would be done.

Doll’s mind was going back and forth rapidly between a terrible nervousness for tomorrow night, and the warm contentment of cuddling with her girlfriend.

She preferred being with Lizzie at her house, rather than her own. Despite all that Doll had done to keep it warm, it wasn’t fit for having people over anymore. The warmth had faded, and it was just her left there.

Lizzie’s home, in contrast, was nearly sweltering with how much it was lived in. Her mom had practically adopted Doll as her daughter-in-law already, and her dad did his best to make sure she was comfortable when she came over. He was practically beside himself with working lately though, so they had a comfortable silence in her room, without the regular interruptions to ask if they wanted snacks or drinks.

Lizzie’s home was a home. One that she was welcome in, and part of. 

For now.

She hugged Lizzie just a bit tighter, as they lay in her bed, using Mount Plushmore as an aggravatingly comfortable backrest as Doll practically wrapped her body to Lizzie’s side like one of the baby animals in the videos they were watching on her laptop.

They had less than a day to prepare, and she was watching old videos of baby animals being cute with her girlfriend. 

A gnawing sensation at her core told her she could be doing more.

The vast majority of her body told the sensation to fuck off.

They’d done all they could to prepare for prom. Lizzie had managed to surprise her by getting a body out of Processing, and dismembering it herself, so that Doll didn’t need to get anyone else. 

They’d even managed to intimidate the majority of the prom court into stepping down, or at least push all the votes going to them towards the ‘Mystery Choice’, and pushing her plan along. 

The only ones on the prom court she needed to kill after Jakob were Clarissa and Robson. It brought her body count up to six that night.

Six drones, killed by her hand, and their bodies fed to the very monster she was planning to kill.

Serial Designation V had no doubt killed countless numbers of drones over the almost-two decades she’d been on the planet, but she was a monster, a Murder Drone. She was built to tear families apart, ruin lives, and spread chaos. She had no choice in what she was.

Doll chose to kill those six people, half of them she knew , and feed their corpses to a monster, with her girlfriend as a proxy.

She felt a nudge from Lizzie. “Hey, you’ve been quiet for a bit. Are you thinking in circles again?”

She looked up from her place on Lizzie’s chest, seeing her girlfriend look at her, concerned. A look only she ever got from her. Her face warmed, as she looked away to press her face into Lizzie’s chest once more, mumbling her answer. “Maybe…”

She felt Lizzie’s arms wrap around her, holding her close as her lips pressed against the top of her head. “Do you wanna talk about it?” 

She shook her head as best as she could. “No. Just wanna stay like this.”

Lizzie’s hand rubbed at her back, the gentle, repeating motion helping soothe Doll’s turmoil, at least a little.

This was good. They stayed in silence for a bit, the only sounds coming from Lizzie’s laptop as it played through video after video of baby animals.

“Hey, Doll?”

“Hhm?” Doll could feel her core powering down, and her fans slow as sleep mode came closer and closer.

“Let’s get married.”

Her core flared up, and her fans kicked into overdrive as she unwrapped her arms from Lizzie, holding herself up to look her in the eyes.

She stared back, her pink blush and irritatingly cute smirk being the only tells that she dropped that bombshell on her to begin with. 

“ Huh?”

Lizzie’s arms moved to place her hands on her hips, rubbing circles on her sides with her thumbs. “When this is done, and we can relax, and we don’t need to worry anymore, let’s go down to Archives and get it in writing. We can plan for a ceremony after that.”

Doll could feel her face heating up, and could hear her fans whirring into overdrive as her ability to speak went the way of Copper-9’s human population when she started thinking about Lizzie in a white dress.

She laid back down, clutching Lizzie as she giggled, enjoying how flustered she was.

Doll would be a liar if she said she didn’t think of it before. Lizzie, standing at the altar, waiting for her, as she closed the space between them. Friends on all sides with bated breath as she passed by and took her spot next to her. She could never imagine what their official would say, her mind latching onto the image of Lizzie in white, with pale pink ribbons in her hair, framing her perfect face, looking at her.  

As much as she wanted it, as much as she needed it, every time her mind went there, she would be reminded of what was missing.

Her father wasn’t there to walk her down the aisle. Her mother wasn’t sitting in the front, with that mysterious sister she had, sobbing her eyes out at her daughter getting married. The side of the pews where her family and friends would be would be empty.

It’s what she deserved after what she’s done.

No, it was more than she deserved.

Lizzie was more than she deserved.

Doll shook her head as best as she could, buried in her girlfriend’s side. “Can’t.”

Lizzie’s hands stopped for a moment, before returning to tracing patterns on Doll’s back and sides. “Why?” She couldn’t hear hurt, betrayal, or anything like that in her voice. It was confusion.

“I don’t deserve it. Don’t deserve you.” Doll made the choice a long time ago to never lie to Lizzie. She could never bring herself to lie to her, even when it was so easy to lie to herself.

“I want to turn myself in. When prom is over, I want to come clean and finish it.”

“Why?” And there was the hurt in her voice. The pain from Doll dropping her own, much worse bombshell on the silly little fantasy that she deserved happiness.

“I killed six people, Lizzie. I killed people we knew.” Doll felt her eyes heat up, but ignored it. “Jakob was a pest, but he didn’t deserve to die, and his mom didn’t deserve to be left alone. Clarrisa and Rob were stubborn fucks, but I…” She could feel her throat closing up as she choked back sobs.

She hadn’t gotten that messy when killing since her first.

“Lizzie, I didn’t even know half of them! I never knew their names, and I just killed them, and fed them to a monster!” The words came out as choking, whispered sobs, but they may as well have been blasting out across the planet for all Doll knew.

Lizzie held her through it. Her hands tracing gentle patterns over her back and sides as Doll poured her heart out to her.

Eventually Doll could breathe again, her sobs having drained so much of her energy that she couldn’t spare any more to crying.

After a beat of silence, Lizzie spoke to her, in gentle whispers. “If that’s what you want, we’ll do it together then.”

Energy surged through Doll as she untangled herself from her girlfriend, propping herself up to look her in the eyes. “No! No, you don’t need to do it! It was my fault, I did everything! You’re innocent!”

“The fuck I am, Doll.”

Lizzie leveled a glare at her, and Doll cursed how her arms felt weaker because of it.

“I’m the one that made the deal with V to bring her bodies. I’m the one that got rid of the bodies you got for that purpose. I’m the one who roped you into this situation. No matter how we spin it, we’d both be banished if we came forward.”

Doll couldn’t argue that last part, and didn’t have the power or mental faculties currently to argue the rest.

“If you think you’re a monster, Doll, then so am I.” Doll couldn’t do anything when Lizzie’s hands moved from her hips to cup the sides of her face, and pulled her into a kiss.

It was a firm, resolute kiss. It conveyed a message better than any words she could have said.

No matter what, I’m here.

Eventually, they separated, blushing like it was their first kiss again. Doll took her weight off her arms, letting herself rest on Lizzie’s chest once more, as the sound of her laptop closing picked at the edge of her perception.

“Doll, let’s get better together, okay?”

“Yes. A thousand times, yes.” It was quiet, almost a whisper, but it was a tow-fold answer. 

Doll felt Lizzie’s core whir inside her chest, understanding what she meant. 

As sleep overcame her, and the snap of Lizzie’s fingers caused her bedroom lights to go out, Doll felt content for the first time in a very long time.

She may not have deserved it, but she wasn’t going to turn down love so freely given.

Chapter Text

Any position in the WDF was far from thankless. 

They weren’t the last line of defense, or the first, but they were the most important one. While eighteen-inch thick bulkheads held shut by nearly two hundred tons of hydraulic pressure was the main thing keeping the Murder Drones out physically, the WDF were the ones who maintained both the integrity of the doors, and in the rare times they were open for maintenance, stood watch to ensure that the Murder Drones couldn’t get in.

Ron counted his lucky stars that they hadn’t had to face one since their founding.

It was a terrifying experience, that he’d never wish on anyone else. 

He'd go back and do it again if he had to.

Barely out of school, and looking for his place in the world, he’d joined up with Khan’s group, just doing his best. They were little more than a volunteer guard service then. The former colony head dismissed them outright, calling them fools who were simply looking for an outlet for their grief.

Then that thing got in. 

It was pandemonium from the outset, but it affected the Murder Drone as well. It didn’t expect the workers to fight back, and in its confusion, they’d landed enough shots and a particularly nasty blow to the head that sent it reeling, before it attempted to shove Crighton down its throat. 

They had lucked out when Khan had managed to slam the door on it after they’d pushed it back enough.

They still had that thing’s arm and ninite acid injector, thankfully drained, hanging up in the WDF main office.

After that day, Khan’s first act as colony leader was to try and stop nearly 40 other workers from tearing the previous colony leader apart with their bare hands.

They’d compromised on banishment.

And now here he was, over a decade later, staring down a half-dozen volunteers who’d stepped up to help with guarding the doors while the old brass went to chaperone prom for family and friends alike.

“Okay recruits, I know it doesn’t look like we do much up here. I will be the first to admit, we could be doing more. But what we do is important. Can someone tell me what one of the things we are responsible for is?”

Of the line of recruits, only one raised his hand, doing it so quickly, Ron swore he could have torn his shoulder socket out. “Beck. what’s the answer?”

“Maintaining structural and mechanical integrity of the doors, sir!”

“That’s right, Beck!” Ron saw the kid’s eyes light up so bright, they almost went from light green to pure white. “These doors are the colony’s first, third, and fifth lines of defense. Maintaining not only their structural integrity, but their mechanical integrity is one of our major responsibilities.” He marched in front of the line, making sure they were all paying attention. 

“Can someone tell me what the difference between the two types of maintenance is?”

Beck’s hand shot up again, but Ron chose to call on the drone next to him. “Rock, can you tell me.”

The shorter drone startled a bit at being called, but answered regardless. “Uh, the doors are designed to close and lock down in the event of a power failure, so maintaining their structural integrity to avoid the latches and bulkheads from giving out, as well as mechanical integrity to prevent their hydraulics from giving out when not shut.”

“Correct!” Beck wasn’t subtle at all about the annoyed look he leveled at the shorter drone at his side. Ron would have to talk to him about that. “While the doors are designed to be failsafe, having hydraulics running with nearly two hundred tons of pressure to keep them open, is not a light burden on them at all.”

He stepped away from the line of drones, turning back to make sure they were all paying attention. “Our duty is to ensure that these doors are operating at full functionality at all hours of the day. Each door has scheduled maintenance every. Single. Day. Door One gets the earliest maintenance done, followed by Door Two, then Door 3. Can someone tell me why we do it this way?”

Beck’s hand shot up again, but so did another drone’s in the lineup. “Douglas, what’s the reason?” 

The green-goggled drone answered with less enthusiasm as Beck, but still wearing a smile. “To ensure that at least two of the doors are sealed at all times, sir!”

“Got a whole host of smart ones tonight! That’s absolutely correct Douglas!” The trainee’s grin was somewhere between proud and smug, especially when he caught Back’s glare. 

“At least two of the doors are to be sealed at all times to prevent any security breaches. In the rare event that we get convoys or drones coming in from outside the bunker, Doors Two and Three are sealed shut. After they are brought in, Door One is sealed, then Door Two is opened. Once they cross Door Two, it is sealed as well, and Door Three is opened to allow them into the bunker.” Ron looked over the line, his eye catching one of the drones with a far off look in her eye. “Recruit Ali! In the event of an emergency from either hostiles or a Murder Drone breach, what is the correct course of action?”

The drone practically leapt out of her casing, before noticing the eyes of the fellow drones on her. “Oh, uhh, the proper course of action is to call for an emergency lockdown in Sector One, and disable the control panels for the doors in each bulkhead, to prevent hostiles from opening them from within.”

“Excellent! Now what’s got you distracted, Ali?”

The recruit in question looked away shyly, before responding. “I’m just a bit distracted, sir. It’s my little brother’s prom, and I'm just a little upset I’m not there for him right now.”

Ron could understand where she was coming from. This year’s prom was full of drones who would go into some of the most important jobs and positions in the bunker. Especially Kahn’s daughter, who extended the invitations to practically the entire bunker, and themed the whole thing around moving to the future. 

“Well, you’re in luck, because after I run you through a few more questions, and show you how to access the maintenance ways to the hydraulics and locks, you’ll all be able to go down and enjoy the dance with your families.” 

The recruits all looked excited for that, standing taller, and ready to keep going.

The next half hour was a steady stream of questions, followed by displays of the hydraulics and their maintenance areas under the entry hallway. Each of the new recruits were eager, asking questions, and hanging on his every word. 

It felt good. Even though he wasn’t planning on retiring for at least another decade, Ron was proud that the next generation was more than enough to take over, and do better than his generation did. 

“Great showing, recruits! Everything you’ve shown tonight tells me you’ll all be fit to protect the colony in the future.” The smiles they gave him in response were nearly blinding, as they stood tall, and saluted him.

“Now, before I let you all go back and enjoy your night, there’s one last thing to go over. Can someone-”

The sounds of the alarms blaring sent him and the recruits reeling for a moment, and the sounds of the hydraulics pierced through his skull.

“Is this part of the test sir?” 

Ron didn’t know which one asked him, but he addressed them all regardless. “No, this is not part of the program!” He pulled up his contact with the other guard on duty behind Door Two on his visor. “Braxton, what’s happening?” 

His co-workers' panicked voice answered, the sounds of rapid typing barely echoing through. “I don’t know! All the doors are opening, and I can’t stop them! I’m locked out!”

Door Two opened slowly, revealing Braxton panicking at the console on the other side, with Door Three already wide open behind it.

“Sir, what’s happening?!” 

Ron was about to answer, to tell them not to panic, to get away from Door One as quickly as possible.

Then Door One began to open.

All eyes went to the front of the bunker, as light shone out, revealing a drone, just beyond the threshold, the doors seeming to increase the tension as they obscured the drone’s face as they slowly opened.

Ron made a decision, and reached into his coat, pointing his sidearm, maintained for over a decade, and never fired once. “Identify yourself, now!”

The drone’s face was revealed, framed by silver hair, its visor dark, before it lit up with yellow eyes, before glitching into that symbol that haunted the nightmares of numerous drones, and returning to regular eyes above a too-wide grin. A band of lights activating on its head, five spotlights that felt like eyes staring into his digital soul.

Ron felt the temperature drop far below what the nighttime of Copper-9 was normally. The recruits froze in their tracks, as the alarms of the override died down, and the drone began to move.

It stepped forward, each step punctuated with the clinking of a chain in its hand, dragging what might have been a pile of corpses with it as it crossed the threshold into what used to be a secure bunker.

Ron just about managed to open his mouth to speak again, but the words died in his throat as he was interrupted.

“Hey there, everyone! I’m gonna need a hand with all this. I need you to make it look like a struggle, at least.”

Chapter Text

Flying around at sunset was an experience he couldn’t wait to share with Uzi.

The way the clouds caught the light, turning them into vibrant shades of reds, oranges, and even pinks, all from the drab grays and whites that normally colored Copper-9’s skies.

He had plenty of time before he had to make his debut at the bunker entrance, so he took the time to just… enjoy flying.

He never really stopped to just have fun when flying. It was always ‘go fast, kill worker, go back to spire, repeat’, and that was way less fun than doing loops and zooming through clouds fast enough that he pulled them into different shapes. 

Oh, that was a good idea. A giant cloud portrait of Uzi for one of their anniversaries!

But which one? Their first would be too early, and despite how humans would see it, their tenth anniversary still felt too early. Maybe for their fiftieth? A bust portrait for their fiftieth, and a full body cloud portrait for their centennial sounded good.

Man, how did so many humans struggle with romance, N had it on lock.  

As he neared the radio station, he took note of what Uzi had sent him regarding the WDF members on duty for the night.

Just under a dozen total, more than half of which would be younger ones. The remainder would be one maintenance drone, a guard with less than 5 years of experience, and a founding member of the WDF.

If he played his cards right, he wouldn’t need to do more than scare the pants off of them.

If they tried to start anything though, she said not to kill them, but he could rough them up a bit if he needed to.

So he’d need to gather just over a dozen worker corpses if they were going to trick her into going far enough into the bunker.

That was the easy part, given just how many bodies his squad had just kinda forgotten in the streets over the years.

That might have had something to do with them never leaving the middle ranks on performance reviews, now that he thought about it.

Oh well, it’s not like it was gonna matter after tonight, anyway.

When everything works out, this time tomorrow, he’ll be enjoying a nice, hot steam cleaning with Uzi.

The hour-or-so was mostly a blur as he collected worker bodies, chaining them together to carry from place to place. His mind mostly wandered to Uzi, and her prom dress. A simple black dress with a bell skirt, but in N’s eyes, Uzi could wear anything and look beautiful.

Eventually he’d gotten the bodies he needed, lashing them together with chains into what could only be described as a wrecking ball of machine gore.

His next stop was back to the radio station to collect his suit. He was so excited for all this tonight! He had to actively keep himself from flying too fast, subsonic speeds and a giant wrecking ball of corpses with a lot of inertia was not a pleasant combination.

But he was just so happy!

So much time spent planning, months of preparations, and so much time brown-nosing to J, and it was all going to pay off spectacularly.

Setting the pile down in the street with a dull thud, he hardly contained the squeals of delight from bursting out of him as he practically jumped from ground level, all the way to his entry hole in the roof.

The studio was exactly as he’d left it, not even the bones of the radio host were disturbed from their pile on the chair. He took some time, maybe a few minutes he wasn’t sure, and took it all in again.

All over the planet, there were little slices of what it used to be like, just like this. Places where the hostile elements outside couldn’t wipe away the evidence that real life was here. There were people, living their lives, making memories, and just… being.

And it was all wiped out with the core collapse.

Estimations by the company, and even a few workers who were around when it happened, say that all organic life was wiped out in just over a minute. A person on the exact opposite side of the planet from the epicenter of the event breaking the surface had just over sixty seconds to think ‘What was that feeling in the ground?’ before getting obliterated by a shockwave so powerful it wrapped around the planet six times.

And when the humans were gone, the Worker Drones just picked up where the humans left.

They started trying to rebuild damaged buildings and clear out the bodies so they could live in the homes they’d built for others, and tried to just live. To just be.  

And the company just saw them as lost profits. Not even a loss of money they already had, just something they weren’t profiting off of, and chose to send genocide robots down to wipe them out.

N felt his internal cooling kick in as his emotions ran hot. It wasn’t a feeling he’d gotten used to yet, having a way to regulate his temperature. 

He liked it. 

And as much as he’d love to sit around and daydream about all the horrid things he wanted to do to everyone in the JcJ corporate structure higher than the janitors, he had to get ready for prom.

He took the suit, still neatly folded and devoid of snow, and looked it all over to make sure there wasn’t a button out of place.

Thoroughly satisfied with the condition of his suit, he turned to leave, waving at the former radio host as he did so. 

“So long, Al! I’ll try and be back to see you again later down the line, okay?”

Silence was his response as he left the station, gliding out the hole on the roof to his mass of bodies on the street.

Taking the chain holding it all together in one hand, with his suit tucked under the other arm, he spread his wings and took off through the air, towards the entrance of the bunker that, after tonight he would be proudly calling his new home.

The bunker was near the top of the list of things J hated.

That wasn’t saying much, though. If he were to print out that list it'd be a mile long, and the top twenty things would just be him.

Almost twenty years of working together, and he still had no idea why she hated him so much. It’s not like it mattered anymore though, since the feeling was mutual.

He’d been sitting around inside a gutted building, just down the road from the bunker’s entrance. He’d been doing a little bit of everything to occupy his time until he had to head out.

He’d organized the corpse pile, done oil transfusions to make sure they had plenty of oil in them to really sell the scene he was planning to put on. He’d even found a particularly flat piece of large rubble, and ironed out his suit.

He wasn’t sure exactly why he felt the need to iron it out, it was just fine already, but if he was gonna put on a show for the workers, he was gonna look fine as hell doing it.

As the sun set, and his internal clock ticked closer and closer to when he was meant to go in, he reached into one of the many pockets of his coat, and pulled out what looked like a red floppy disk, if only to someone not in the know.

Uzi said that the design of the bunker’s master key was a choice made by the colony head who preceded her father. Once leadership changed, Uzi’s dad just kept the design, apparently putting focus onto other things. Uzi said she was thinking about changing it to something more inconspicuous, but that would have to wait until a later time.

For now, he fiddled with the pristine copy of the aged key, made the way it was for a sort of visual shorthand, that once he’d gotten inside, the guards at the entryway would know he’d have the run of the entire bunker, and that nothing could stop him.

Time passed more, as he set the key aside to start getting dressed for the occasion. As he removed his hat, he found his gaze locked onto the pin on its front.

While he was the designated pilot for his squad, he’d only kept that responsibility after J had forced him to take it. The pin was meant to denote more than just his rank as pilot, it was meant to show he was the leader of his squad.

It was only after they were handed out to him and the other squad leaders, that J had spoken out against it. The only time she’d had anything negative to say about what the company did, or anything Tessa said, and it was when he was benefiting, and she was left out.

She’d thrown a conniption fit, screaming about how a worthless piece of scrap like him didn’t deserve to be in charge of anything, and that she would be better. 

N gladly gave her the role, but only after a number of the other Disassembly Drones came to his defense. B, M, and T were the most vocal among them, but O in particular looked ready to attack J, right then and there. 

And that wasn’t an isolated incident. He’d been part of two excursions out to work with other squads, years ago. They’d helped two separate squads, and their interactions ran exactly the same.

Even though J was the official leader of Sigma Squad, the other drones deferred to him as the leader. More than a few times in those collaborations, they referred to him as ‘boss’, almost instinctively. 

After those instances, J had banned him from helping on missions with other squads.

He couldn’t help but giggle as he remembered that she’d banned V from doing it as well several weeks later, when the exact same thing kept occurring. 

V had told him, on one of her better days, that on a hunt with Theta Squad, R, U, and I had only referred to V as ‘boss’, only ever calling J by her name, or in R’s case, just ‘bitch’.

The oddest thing about it was that none of the other drones seemed aware they were doing it. Even other squad leaders deferred to N as the one to get approval from when out together.

It was all so baffling to him at the time, but he’d chosen to ignore it, better to not bring it up, lest he accidentally bring J’s wrath down on him. 

But now, given what Uzi found in his memory files, his thoughts went back to how the others acted around him.

Was there something in there, in their encrypted memories of an old life, that gave them a reason to call him their leader as easily as breathing?

He was torn out of his thoughts as his ten minute warning alarm sounded. He set his hat aside, and removed his coat, folding it to as neatly as possible, before putting on the multiple layers of his dapper suit.

Each step he took closer to the bunker doors, his core whirred that much more. This was the night everything would change.

Oh, if he were organic, he probably would have died from the excitement!

It’d be pretty fucked up if he was though. Humans had that little sub-category in horror that a person could secretly be a robot, but a robot secretly being human was something done more for comedy, based on what he’d watched with Uzi.

The feeling of the corpse ball behind him getting caught on something snapped him out of his tangent spiral, and a harsh jerk of the chain freed him up to continue to the bunker.

As the distance between himself and the bunker closed, he had to admit, it felt strange approaching it while walking. He’d flown over it, or camped out watching the entryway on J’s orders a few times in the past, and now he was just waltzing up to the front door, with a key.

Life really can be funny at times.

The bunker doors stretched before him, wide enough for at least 2 human vehicles to enter, but not tall enough for most larger vehicles. 

The pile he was dragging in with him would fit just fine though.

He walked over to the hidden panel off to the side that Uzi had told him about. It was little more than a scanner hidden inside the concrete wall that would open the door when it sensed an access key coming within a few inches of it.

And he just so happened to have one with him.

With a wave of the card over a blank patch of wall, he could barely make out the sounds of other doors opening from inside, and the yelling of at least one worker inside.

As he heard the hydraulics of the door in front of him gearing up to move the door, he deactivated his visor and the lights of his sensor array on his head.

What other time was he going to get the chance to make a dramatic entrance like this?

The door opened with loud whirs slowly revealing himself to the drones beyond.

“Identify yourself, now!” That must have been the guard, so courageous in front of the gaggle of trainees with him.

As the door opened further, granting him line of sight with the guard, he reactivated his visor and sensor lights, his cheeks feeling the strain of grinning so wide.

Robo-God, he probably looked so cool.  

He looked the guard in the face, seeing his eyes hollow to rings barely a few pixels wide, as he and the rest of the drones in the entryway all froze in their tracks to look at him.

The terror in their faces was something enjoyable. Uzi had spent quite a while helping him build up his confidence, and here he was, dressed to the nines, able to trigger the fight-or-flight response without lifting a finger.

It wouldn’t last forever, they’d get used to seeing him around eventually. But he’d have his fun with it first.

He walked into the bunker for the first time, his feet thudding on the metal, a different tone than what the metal of the landing pod sounded like. 

“Hey there, everyone! I’m gonna need a hand with all this. I need you to make it look like a struggle, at least.”

The guard’s eyes filled out slightly, focusing on him more, leveling a firearm at his head.

“Oh is that a .45? Looks clean, too. I’m stuck with caseless .9mm’s, but that’s something I'll be changing in the future.”

The guard cocked his head at him. Which was fair, he was probably expecting him to be a frothing, rabid monster, instead of the well-dressed, articulate drone in front of him.

“But yeah, I do need help with something. I’m not here to kill anyone in the bunker, but I will finish anything you try to start, so please try not to mess up my suit. It’s new.”

One of the younger looking drones, a blonde girl wearing a headband with what looked like little antenna on either side of her head, made various gestures while making what sounded like attempts at words, but were scrambled by confusion and befuddlement.

“To make a very long story, that you’ll all hear later anyway, very short, I need to make the hallways going from here to Warehouse Storage #4 look like there was a big old fight, and that I lost. That’s what these are for.” He gave a harsh tug on the chain, yanking his pile of corpses forward over the threshold. “Sorry about the scare, but I really do wanna get all this done before eleven, so we’ll need to get started quickly.”

His claws replaced his hand with a flick of his wrist, as he grabbed a body from the pile, and carefully inserted his claws into its torso, slowly to avoid getting his suit clean.

Shaking it up and down over different spots in the halls, splattering the oils stuffed inside around, he threw the whole corpse against the wall, it’s joints breaking on impact, the oil inside bursting out in a massive splatter pattern before it crashed to the ground, pouring the black ichor out.

“C’mon, grab a body and spread them out, we’re on a time crunch, everyone!”

The drones around him stared at him in bewilderment, even the guard had lowered his weapon. 

Normally N would have asked politely, but tonight, he had a schedule to keep, a boss to maim, and a girlfriend to makeout with, so he was probably going to sound a little scarier than he expected when he made a show of his visor glitching into his ‘X’ symbol for a moment.

They needed something to get their focus again.

“I wasn’t asking. Do it. Now.”

A couple of the trainees started moving towards the pile, and the rest followed without a word.

N didn’t like scaring people into doing what he wanted, but sometimes you had to put your foot down to get others to listen to you.

Those self-help books he found were really worth all the money he didn’t spend.

It was about fifteen minutes before they’d left a train or real-simulated carnage all the way to the entry door of Warehouse Storage #4, including the few minutes N took at a terminal to lock down the doors and vents connecting the path they made from the door to their destination.

He couldn’t risk J getting anywhere in the bunker.

Entering the warehouse, it was exactly as Uzi had described it to him; a wide open room, with containers and crates stacked high along the sides, with wide paths between, and a large open area in the middle for loading and unloading them.

It was absolutely perfect.

He led the procession of workers with him, most silent out of shock, others in pure fear, towards the center of the room, with the paths between the room’s contents all around them like a spider web of negative space.

Oh, the delicious metaphors…

“So I heard through the grapevine you guys in the WDF play a lot of card games?”

That seemed to grab the attention of the older guard, who pointed the weapon at him before. “Oh, uh, yeah, mostly to pass the time on quieter nights.”

From what Uzi said, every night was a ‘quieter night’, especially given they did all their important stuff during the day. A quick look around the area, and N saw a table off to the side, probably for checking smaller items when taking them out of storage. 

“What do you say to a few games while we wait? It’s gonna be a while until she gets here.” 

“Until who gets here?” The drone with the green goggles asked him, eyes going hollow as N walked over to the table, and carried it back.

“That’s a long story, and you’ll get the full version later.” He set the table down, and pulled a pack of cards from his back pocket. He silently thanked his girlfriend for reminding him the day before to bring it. IT would make breaking the ice much easier. “Let me deal you in before I give you the abridged version though.”

The drones around him gathered to the table as he shuffled the cards, dealing them out to everyone present. “You all play gin rummy, right?”

The two older guards nodded as the younger drones picked up their cards, not really knowing how to play. 

“Okay, so here’s the short version of what’s going down. It started about a year ago…”

As N began to regale them with a condensed, and moderately edited to avoid incriminating Uzi, version of the events of the past year, he opened his communication channels, and prepared his pre-recorded message to send to J.

She’ll probably be there in about a half-hour. His claws were already itching so much, he couldn’t wait much more than that.

Chapter Text

Every year, after the numbers are tallied, and the awards are handed out to the top ranking squads of Disassembly Drones, they were given a two week grace period to collect themselves, perform company wellness exercises, and prepare themselves for the next year of removing Worker Drones.

Once their two week break was over, there was a mandatory meeting between the squad leaders to discuss the previous year’s numbers, and plan on how to improve on them. 

Of course, J, being the very model of what a JcJ employee should be, human or drone, seemed to be the only one who ever got the locations of the meetings right. All the others go the location wrong in the exact same way, every year, and so she only ever got the summarized version of the other’s plans. 

Even calling them plans was the kind of generous saved only for tax season, as they all boiled down to ‘do the same thing we did last year, but better’, and that was both a blessing and a curse.

A curse, because it just cemented the fact in J’s mind that she was the most superior Disassembly Drone on Copper-9, primarily because she seemed to be the only one actually trying to do the job they were sent here to do. Unlike someone like Z, who was more focused on sucking face with X, or D, who hadn’t actually shown up to a meeting since they deployed, sending B in his place every year instead.

But it was also a blessing in that she was the one that got all the special updates from corporate! She was the only one trustworthy enough to get a direct line to Board Member Selon, and even got a special mission from him!

She was so excited, she just had to tell Tessa about it, afterwards! 

Sadly, she told J a few days later that Selon had to step away from the board due to health reasons, but she’d be receiving her reward for a job well done regardless, even if she hadn’t had a chance to actually do it yet.

All of this was what was going through her head as she flew back towards the spire that her squad put together. Sigma Squad’s spire was the only one to actually fit the requirements the company gave them to build, as all the other squads either only made partial ones, or just didn’t build them at all, leaving the bodies of the workers in piles all around their landing pods.

Wildly unprofessional, all of them. The spires were meant to keep their pods covered during the day, so they had room to fight off workers if they got any sort of confrontational while the sun was up.

But as she landed, J had to admit that without all the little things to focus on and criticize, she’d be incredibly bored at the moment.

V had left a message to her saying she’d be out hunting on her own for the night, and wanted complete radio silence if it wasn’t a major emergency, and she hadn’t heard anything from N in nearly three days.

He’d left for his area, and his last update said he was going to be spending time in some abandoned buildings in his area, but would be back before she returned from the squad leader meeting. 

Yet, she was surrounded by the kind of silence that was so absolute, all you could hear were your own thoughts, no matter how hard you tried to push them down.

For J, those thoughts were mostly generalized irritated rants about the people around her. 

As she took off into the highest area of the spire, where she’d made her nest, she attempted to open a communication channel with N, and was immediately met with failure. She scowled as she landed in her nest, a veritable shrine to JcJenson as a company. 

Any company product J could find in her area, she brought back here. Multiple containers of pens she’d collected, in JcJenson branded pencil holders, along with JcJenson branded shelves and furniture, for her company souvenirs and throw pillows respectively. 

Her favorite part though, was her massive JcJenson standing desk, surrounded by mirrors, and utterly perfect in its organization. Not a speck of dust in sight on any of it, and she even had room for a little art station off to the side.

Even in her personal spaces, she strived to be the best, most brand-loyal JcJenson employee she could be!

But as she flopped down on her couch, she could only think about how N’s disappearance would reflect on her if she didn’t hear back from him soon.

Company policy was that she had to do a mandatory wellness check on him if she didn’t hear from him at all for seventy-two hours, and they were approaching the sixty hour mark.

She really didn’t want to do that. N had always gotten under her skin. The way he’d effortlessly gotten respect from all the other Disassembly Drones, without even needing to insult or belittle them, was one of the top reasons, but there were more than just that.

It was his overly friendly demeanor, like a dumb dog that just demanded you pay attention to it at all times, or else it would start pissing on the carpet.

It was that damn hyper-empathetic nature of his. They were designed to kill, not make friends. Eat, not talk. Destroy, not build snow forts. 

But the biggest reason was one that she constantly got shit for from M, O, and even P, on the rare occasions she had to work with them.

She hated N’s guts, because he was clearly, and indisputably, Tessa’s favorite among all twenty-five of the Disassembly Drones. 

She’d listened to them all, and loved them all dearly, true. But N was special. 

So. Fucking. Special. 

Tessa hung on his every word when they were all in the workshop together, before they were even split into squads. She helped them all with their learning processes, but she took the time to make sure N understood it, rather than just memorize it like most of the others did. When any of them made something, like a sculpture or a drawing for Tessa, she always hung it up where she could see it, but N’s always found their way to being hung up by her personal workbench, or openly on her desk.

J remembered how Tessa openly wept in joy when she’d gotten a terribly drawn card from him for Mother’s Day before they had to leave for Copper-9.

All J got was a hug and a thank you for her gift. She spent weeks learning how to draw in the style of Tessa’s favorite shows, and that was all she got.

So no, she didn’t want to do a wellness check on N.

She’d have to, though. She’d have to go out to his area, check every damn building there, and yell for him the entire time, alerting any workers around to her presence. Which meant she wasn’t gonna be doing any hunting during that time.

Even when he wasn’t here, even when he started actually doing his job, N was a massive pain in her ass.

But all that could wait. She didn’t need to start a manhunt for that synergistic liability for another twelve hours, at least. So she was gonna lay down on her plush couch, take a nap, and put off looking for him as long as possible.

She might just discipline him once she found him. Making her waste her time like that is a gross misuse of company resources.

As she laid back, smiling at the thoughts of reminding N what happened when the company’s time, and subsequently her time, were wasted having to deal with his screw-ups, her comms started blaring at her, ripping her from a lovely nap.

Whoever was calling had better have a damn good reason…

Opening it quickly, not reading the name, she was met with static, as if there were severe interference ripping through. “Sigma Squadron Leader, J, reporting. State your reason for calling.”

“...J…”

It was barely recognizable through both the interference, and the static glitching of his own voice, but she could tell it was N.

“N? Where are you? You’d better have a good reason for sixty hours of radio silence!”

“... hel-l-l-lp…”

Mother of company retreats, he sounded worse than he did after the last time she had to punish him. “What happened? Where are you?”

“... workers-s-s-s… bunker… bright flash…”

Bunker? Did he manage to get inside the bunker? J felt something between joy that they could finally get in there and go ballistic on the workers inside, and a deep, deep hatred that it was N who managed to do it.

“... door… stuck… open-AAAAAGGH-”

His message was cut short, and his scream cut shorter, leaving J in silence again.

On the one hand, she knew exactly where the dumbass was, and didn’t need to go over his entire area with a fine toothed comb, passing up any workers while she was out.

On the other hand, he was in the underground bunker, and it might be a trap. Even if he was the most worthless pile of scrap metal in this quadrant of space, N was still a Disassembly Drone, and as such, orders of magnitude stronger than any of these toasters crawling over this rock.

So the fact they managed to get the drop on him wasn’t something to take lightly.

She brought her hands up to her face, contemplating what to do about this.

She could go down herself, and risk getting nailed with whatever they used to capture N. That wasn’t something she’d like to do. The idea of getting captured in the same manner that dumbass did was enough to get her oil pressure up.

She could call V, and go down with backup. Whatever they used to get N, they might not have enough to deal with two other Disassembly Drones at once. That was the most logical choice, but…

She could just leave him. Call it in to corporate, tell them that N got captured, and just wait for them to send one of N’s backup bodies after the workers kill the one down in the bunker.

That was the simplest choice. They had plenty of backup bodies for a reason, and it wasn’t like N hadn’t gotten close to dying before.

J still remembered how V came in one day, dragging N up to his nest, both of them covered in solar burns, V’s much better than N’s.

N was unconscious for nearly three weeks, and V had refused to leave him alone with J, even when she was fighting to stay awake, herself. 

Speaking of V, if she did find out J had left N down there, she could kiss this body, and maybe the next three, goodbye. Even on her worst days, when she was little more than a snarling animal, V would still be nice to N. Even if she did growl, spit, and make weird chirping yowls.

And that was just another thing N did that pissed her off. Everyone fucking loved him.

But as much as she would have liked to leave N down there, if she did, and they killed him, he’d wake up back at the station, in a fresh new body, and he’d debrief the board over a video call, and Tessa in person, and the next thing she’d know, she’d be demoted, probably jumped by the other Disassemblers, and stuck following that idiot’s orders forever.

So with a deep, deep sigh, she opened her comms to contact V. She was met with a ‘Connection Failed’ message, before trying again. After a few more tries, J was practically growling in anger.

Of course V would completely turn off her comms while she was out doing who-knows-what.

That only left her with one choice.

And so, after a good fifteen minutes of screaming her frustrations at the heavens, she flew out of her nest, and out of the spire, off towards the mess N had gotten himself into.

Chapter Text

She just couldn’t have a good thing going on without some kind of caveat, could she?

It was all ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ ever since she woke up in that…

In that…

Swamp! Since she woke up in that swamp!

V kept scratching at the side of her head while she sat up in the rafters of the storage room, watching all those workers dancing, and laughing, and living in all the ways she used to.

She scratched at the itch a little harder. It had been a constant issue for a long time, and it just would not go away! She couldn’t even remember when it started, just that her head itched a lot, and she was always hungry.

V wouldn’t have put it past…

…put it past…

Put it past her to have done something to her after that night, probably as a punishment after…

After something. The more V tried to focus on it, the more it itched, and the deeper it went, like it was trying to tunnel into her head until she went insane.

She just needed to eat something, and the itch would go away. It always did after a big meal, and bigger meals kept it away longer. She never stopped being hungry, but she’d rather deal with that than deal with what felt like bugs under her casing.

But she couldn’t eat anything yet. She had to wait for the signal, whatever that was. Lizzie just told her she’d know it when it happened. If she did it too early, she’d risk too many of them escaping, and the bunker going into lockdown.

So all she had to do was sit up here, in the dark, with her visor and sensor lights off, and wait.

Patience wasn’t a virtue of hers already, but combined with her hunger, and that goddamned itch, she was practically chomping at the bit to just go down and eat someone.

She couldn't even point her guns at them from up here and pretend she was shooting them! She’d had to turn off her long range weapon systems just as the party started because of ‘Insufficient Material Stores’, so all she had were her claws.

She got her kicks out of pretending to squish their heads already, and even that wore off fast.

Her irritation only got worse because she couldn't see the far walls due to the curtains and streamers they put up over the stage. She had no idea just how many Worker Drones were down here, so she couldn’t even put together a proper meal plan!

…well it wouldn’t be much of a meal plan, and more of just an order of who she was gonna eat, and how she was gonna do it.

But it was still something she could have done to occupy her time.

Instead, she had made a game of trying to see how many times she could spot the same drones as they entered her limited view of the room.

She’d seen Lizzie a few times, dancing with another drone that made V’s head itch in a different way.

There was this green eyed drone wearing a toboggan hat that seemed to be in a dance battle with another drone. That was certainly entertaining, until they moved to a different place on the floor out of sight.

She’d locked onto a drone that matched how Lizzie described the colony leader’s daughter. Short, dressed in nothing but black, and purple eyes. She wasn’t dancing with anyone, just going around, occasionally making small talk, and just being a wallflower.

That did not even remotely hit close to V. Not even on the same continent, thank you very much.

She went back to scanning over the crowds, looking for someone to make fun of, or watch embarrass themselves, when she locked onto a pair of drones instead.

They were awkward, dancing out of rhythm with each other, all limbs and strange motions. But they were smiling, wide and genuine. Lost in each other, the world around them just off in the background. 

They flailed around, stomping as best as they could to the beat of the music, the girl having nearly flung her glasses off her face, and the boy’s ponytail was on the verge of coming undone from how wildly he was headbanging.

As V watched them, their features blurred in her mind. The girl’s suit jacket and long skirt changing to a black and white outfit, and the boy’s hair turning platinum and short.

The biggest benefit to working for a small family in a huge manor, was that there were places their bosses just didn’t go to in their own home.

James hasn’t come close to the private bar in over a year, which left the entire staff of Worker Drones to claim it as their meeting room.

But tonight, when Tessa’s parents, and J, that kissass, were away for a holiday party, and Tessa herself was prepping for bed, the bar was being used for its intended purpose.

Soft music rolled out over them all, their gathering of twenty-three workers all relaxing for the first time in weeks, enjoying B’s concoctions of oil, coolant, and the alcohol James kept ordering for the bar, but never drinking.

Speaking of B, he was as subtle as a brick through a window, constantly stealing glances at A, up on the makeshift stage with L and P, providing the voice to their slower music.

V couldn’t help but smile at that. She was the same with N, even if she was getting better about it. But she wouldn’t fault him. Even with the manor as large and empty as it was, they each had enough work to do that meant the longest any of them could see each other was when they went to recharge for the night.

It was why H kept her arms wrapped around Y, listening to his conversation with T about something or other, just enraptured by his presence. 

Why Z and X were leaning against each other at the bar, watching G practicing his card tricks, smiling at his fumbles when trying to shuffle the deck, but never to make fun of him. They had practically melted into a family dynamic, and it was probably the second cutest thing V had ever seen.

She sat in silence, letting the warmth and life wash over her like a tide. It was times like this that she cherished. When the work was done, and they could all just live, without the fear of James and Louisa’s tempers getting the better of them.

Eventually, O’s voice drew her out of her tranquil stupor, calling out from where he was playing some card game against C. “Hey, boss!”

The drones all gave a salute with whatever was in their hands before returning to their focus. V turned towards their target, just as he made his way over, taking a seat next to her. 

“I didn’t miss anything, did I?”

“You missed B giving A the yearning look about eight or nine times. Everyone has just been kind of mingling around and being happy tonight.”

N ran a hand through his hair, releasing a deep breath he must have been holding for a bit. “That’s good. Everyone’s good tonight.”

She looked past him briefly, not seeing anyone coming in after him. “Where are the tagalongs?”

“Tessa wanted company tonight, so they stayed behind to make sure she slept well.” His voice was edged with the tone he only used when talking about Tessa’s health.

“...did you find something?”

“...she has a new bruise on her upper arm. It wraps the whole way around. Did the best I could. I’ll ask R to look at it in the morning.”

V was glad she didn’t have a drink in her hand at the moment, or else she’d have shattered it with how tightly she was clenching her fist. “That’s all we can do for now, N.”

She held out her hand that wasn’t cracking its own casing, feeling that tingle go through her body when N placed his own hand into hers.

He had that way about him. He’d pull her up out of her emotions with just a touch, and she’d pull him out of his head with hers.

It was the dynamic they melted into.

He smiled at her, in that way that made her core heat up, and made her knees weak, as they leaned against each other, taking in their presence.

They sat like that for a few minutes, before S came over, a glass in each hand, filled with a colorful liquid. “Hey boss, B said you looked like you needed this.”

They each took a glass from him, thanking him before he turned and went back to sit with T.

The night continued, as they drank the strange, but tasty, oily, fruity concoction that B had given them. The drones in the bar enjoying the company of the others, smiling, singing, and filling the room with love in all its different ways.

V recalled something Tessa told her once, that stuck with her all this time.

‘It’s funny how it’s the robots that make this big, old place feel more human.’

V was pulled out of her head as the music changed into loud drums and squealing guitars. The sea of former students below her threw themselves into their dancing even harder, as the music rocked through their bodies.

She tracked her eyes across the crowd, trying to see any drones she hadn’t seen before, now that more of them crowded closer. She saw Lizzie and the red eyed drone, practically throwing themselves against each other, smiling wide and laughing.

There was that one in the toboggan, missing the point of headbanging entirely. Even she knew part of the enjoyment was letting your hair fly all over the place, and this dumbass was doing it with his hat on.

She locked onto the colony leader’s daughter, still off to the side, talking with some older drones, probably about some stupid thing.

What she did pay attention to, regarding the leader’s daughter, was the pair of envelopes she was holding.

V felt her grin stretch so wide, it felt like she ran the risk of splitting her head in half. Her body was practically screaming for oil and metal. She was starving, and she had to wait until the fucking dinner bell was rung, just like before.

She just needed to wait a little longer.

She couldn’t wait a little longer.

She had to wait.

Chapter Text

The bunker entrance was almost impossible to see from the air. Covered by debris from the core collapse, snow, and built with an overhang above the door, was perfect camouflage for hiding from airborne threats.

Unfortunately for them, J had been watching the bunker, trying almost constantly to get in for years at this point, and had memorized where the entrance was.

Even if it was technically in N’s territory, she didn’t trust him not to fuck up an opportunity to get in.

Like the way he already did, that demanded her intervention to rescue him.

As she approached, low in the air, she could see light spilling out from the wide open door, illuminating the snow outside red.

N had said something about the door being stuck, hadn’t he?

The idiot did something right at least. Ignoring the months of improvement with killing the workers. But that was the bare minimum in J’s eyes, and not worth celebrating.

Landing inside, the thuds of her pointed legs on the ground were the only sounds she could pick up. She couldn’t even pick up sounds from the vents above her, either due to a power outage, or a lockdown to prevent Disassembly Drones from getting around the bunker.

The smell of cold oil was all she could pick up, as bodies strewn around the entry hall were in various states of dismantlement. Some were torn in half, others with clear stab wounds and impalements laid around the hall. However long it had been since N broke in, they hadn’t come back to the entrance to remove their dead.

Well, there was only one way to go.

Her hands folded into her arms, replaced with her sub-machine gun and sword for each, as she slowly made her way deeper into the bunker.

The halls she could travel down were strewn with bodies, all in similar states of mutilation as the ones at the entrance. As she traveled deeper, the bodies were torn into more wildly, like N was getting more desperate as he went deeper inside. 

Did they draw him in? Was that how he got inside the bunker? They saw him, and flagged him down, appealed to his naive nature, only to stab him in the back and attempt to kill him?

She had to give these toasters some credit.

As long as N was mostly intact, she could kill a bunch of the drones, let him feed, and they could go and clear out the rest of the bunker together after he regenerated.

Or she could just toss him a couple bodies, let him recover alone, and spend that time padding her kill count with the rest of the bunker.

She liked that a lot more. 

Traveling onwards, the emergency lights were off in the stretches of hallway past a turn, cut off on two sides by bulkheads. The new hall had fewer bodies, with drag marks through the oil, leading off around another turn further ahead.

She had the distinct feeling she was walking into a trap. Given how N had called her, and said her name out loud, the workers more than likely knew she was coming.

Turning the next corner, she saw where the drag marks in the oil lead to. A body, chest torn open, oil pooled inside, laying slumped against the wall, beneath a message.

‘This way, J’

From the message, a long line, drawn in oil snaked down the wall, along the floor, and disappeared down the hall, around yet another corner.

She was definitely walking into a trap.

But what else could she do at this point?

She kept going, gun-arm outstretched and ready to fire at the first thing that moved. The air in the bunker was still and stale, not unlike the spire.

It was much warmer though. Like something was alive, and waiting to ambush her.

But she had to keep going. Company policy was one thing she’d never go against.

The line of oil continued on, eventually joined with gashes in the floor, and broken parts of what she assumed were N’s claws. The sight and implications of that made J’s eyes go hollow.

Not only had these workers managed to overpower and capture a Disassembly Drone, they dragged N away while he was still conscious. 

What did these workers have that let them do this?

Disassembly Drones were top-of-the-line combat drones, built with enough future-proofing to make them the most powerful and reliable option for any situation for at least the next hundred years! Half-a-million man hours spent workshopping each sub-system in their bodies, and triple that for their sustainability and repair systems alone!  

They were designed from the ground up to be unstoppable, immortal killing machines, by the largest corporation in two star systems, and these toasters managed to weaken one of them enough for them to capture them, and do who-knows-what to them.

Honestly, she should have just gone out to find V, and then come in here. 

But she’d already gone too deep into this, so there was no point in turning back.

The line of oil turned one more corner, before leading to a large door. The line crept up the door, making a sharp turn to a console off to the side, drawing an arrow pointing at it, the screen showing it was waiting for an input to open the door.

‘Press me’

Her material nanite storage was full, at least enough for a fight, and she’d handle whatever the workers could possibly throw at her.

She put her sword away, reached out, and pressed the button.

The door opened with a dull clunk as the latches and locks undid themselves, and the hydraulics lifted it away, the light from within spilling out into the halls, with the sound of…

Laughter?

Stepping from the console, through the doorway, J froze, transfixed on the source of the laughter, not even a hundred feet away.

A group of workers, gathered around a table, laughing together and smiling, all focused on a figure with their back to the door.

A figure with a mop of shining, silver hair.

“She was so mad when she came back to the spire! I swear, the only reason she didn’t overheat and explode on her way back was because she had an ice layer all over her, a solid inch thick. I don’t know how M and K did it, but it was amazing! Her face was frozen in this absolutely amazing way! She looked like an angry ferret!”

As she walked closer, her oil pressure rising with each step towards the group, more and more of the drones at the table noticed her. Their eyes going wide and hollow as they stared at her approaching.

But N kept telling the story like he didn’t notice her. 

As she came within arms reach of him, she could hear the rattling of the workers as they shook in terror, N giving no inclination that he’d heard her.

“Man, I wish I had a picture of what she looked like, I was so concerned trying to help, that it just slipped my mind. She looked kinda like… like…” N trailed off, as he turned, as if to look off into space, instead seeing her.

He turned, smiling like a complete bastard, and pointed at her. “Like that!”

He turned back to her, still smiling, but in a way she’d never seen before. But she was too mad to think about that, or why this worthless coffee machine wasn’t wearing his uniform.

“Glad you showed up, J. Wanna sit down and join us for a game or two before we can discuss all this?”

The edges of J’s vision were turning red with how furious she was.

He was sitting here, playing card games with the workers, instead of killing them.

He was sitting here, dressed like some cheesy talk show shitlord, instead of his company uniform.

He just asked her to join them for a game, before they had a civil conversation about his blatant disrespect, and potential termination?!

No.

She would not tolerate this.

At least he finally gave her a good excuse.

She didn’t say a word as her machine gun was replaced with her Virus Bolt gun, moving to jab him in the chest faster than she knew he could react.

Her surprise overtook her anger as N’s hand wrapped around the gun, holding it, and her, in place, inches from his body. His grip deformed the weapon in his hand, rendering it useless until she recalled it into her body.

And that whole time, he never looked away from her eyes.

“So we’re doing this now, huh? Okay, it just means I have to be gentler with you…”

The next thing she knew, gravity went screwy, and she felt metal wrap around her body as her internals said she hit something at nearly four hundred miles an hour.

Chapter Text

He really wasn’t expecting J to have shown up as quickly as she did.

He thought she would put off going to find him for another thirty minutes, at least.

She just keeps finding new ways to bother him these days, huh?

He turned back to the WDF troops at the table, all wide eyes and shock on their faces. He couldn’t blame them. From their view, J tried to attack him, they blinked, and suddenly she was gone, with a cargo container on the other side of the area folded in on itself.

“Sorry for that. She got here a little earlier than I was expecting. You all go and enjoy the rest of the night. Remember not to tell anyone what’s going on up here. They’ll find out later.~” N barely finished that sentence, when the crumpled container across the room began to shriek and whine, as J tore it apart to free herself.

The workers wasted no time in running away, completely ignored by the furious Murder Drone clawing her way out of a knot of twisted steel. 

They’d just cleared the threshold, and slammed the door shut when J landed on the ground, across from N. Her sensors locked onto him, and her eyes completely replaced by their signature ‘X’, as she scowled at him.

“You are giving me every possible reason to finally get rid of you, you intern’s intern!” 

“Oh, like you wouldn’t have just made one up in the future, and done it anyway!” N couldn’t stop a bit of contempt creeping into his voice, even as he smiled at her the same way he did moments ago.

The same way she smiled at him after a particularly thorough beating.

She rushed him again, claws outstretched to tear into him, screaming wordlessly.

He met her halfway with his own claws, catching hers and holding her still. As soon as her momentum stalled, J released her wings, moving them to skewer him on their blades.

They’d barely moved towards him, before he raised one of his legs and kicked her in the face.

The speed and force that she was launched with was too much for the joints in her wrists to handle, as her hands tore off in his own as she was knocked away into another storage container. Thankfully for her, she lacked the force to be embedded into the metal, and replaced her severed hands with dual machine guns, unloading a hail of bullets in his direction.

He ran off, opting to use one of the storage containers to block the attacks, rather than use his wings to shield himself.

He didn’t want to ruin his suit, and the idea of humiliating her by fighting her at a ‘disadvantage’ was too good for him to pass up.

Once the makeshift shield was between them, he gave it a heavy shove, sending it careening towards J, kicking up sparks as it slid across the ground with a shriek. He knew J would fly over it to dodge, and ran behind his attack, before taking a flying leap over it before impact.

J did exactly what he anticipated, and flew up over the storage container to try and catch him on the other side.

He’s going to treasure the look on her face, her ‘X’ flipping back to her regular eyes for a fraction of a second as he was already too close for her to dodge as she registered what had happened.

As they made contact in the air, J’s flight faltered as N braced his feet on his hips, and took one of her pigtails in an iron grip, holding her head relatively stable as he landed blow after blow on her visor and sensor array with his free hand.

“Not that much fun on the other side of this, huh J!?” He could feel the anchors and roots in J’s artificial hair straining as he held fast to her head, and the cracks and crevices he was beating into her face were filling with the shining repair nanites about as fast as he was hitting her.

She raised her arms, claws at the ready to strike at him, it would be impossible to dodge so close, with one of his arms preoccupied.

As she brought her claws close to his body, he’d caught one with the hand he was punching her with, while her other arm was wrapped up by his tail, the needle digging into the joint of her elbow.

J shrieked in pain, as her arm began to burn and dissolve, a sound like a high-pitched, synthesized trumpet.

He smiled, so wide, with so many teeth, as he squeezed J’s other arm. The casing crumpled like aluminum as the servos and struts inside gave out almost instantly. 

For a series of ‘top-of-the-line’ drones from such a massive corporation, they were shockingly fragile.

After all, why make them more durable, when they can regenerate from almost any damage?

That was another thing Uzi had fixed with her update for him. His casing felt thicker, his servos stronger, and his internals far more durable.

He doubted anything J could do to him would actually hurt him.

But he wanted to keep his suit clean, so he actually had to dodge and counter what she was doing.

As he twisted his wrist, J’s arm folding in his grip, he reared back, before crashing their heads together, partially caving her visor in. As she stumbled in the air, losing height rapidly, he released his death grip on her arm.

Leaning forward, he reached around her back, grabbing tightly on the base of her wing’s servos, and pulled.

With a loud cracking of her casing, the shriek of tearing metal, and the ripping sound of J’s coat, he leapt off of J, landing on his feet, her severed wing in hand, the base dripping oil from the parts of J’s back and internals that tore free with it.

J, meanwhile, crashed to the ground in a heap, going still for a brief moment before she began to rise again, pulling her remaining wing into her body.

“You… worthless… mailroom reject! I’m gonna chain you up, and let you fucking burn!” As she spoke, the acid injected into her arm finally ate through her elbow enough for her forearm to fall off of the rest of her.

With her remaining arm crumpled like tissue paper, J instead turned her head to bite down on what was left of her melting arm, and tore it off at the shoulder.

N gave a mocking grimace at her. “Oof, you sure you wanna do that, J? I’m pretty sure self mutilation is against the company rules. I don’t know, I never read it. ” 

J’s nanites were rebuilding her arms quickly, her crumpled limb already straightened out and usable as she rushed towards him, screaming for his oil.

As she came closer, her remaining hand was replaced with her sword, aiming a wide, sloppy slash straight at his head. 

N just stepped back to avoid it, before taking his own sword out to block her next attacks with a casualness that was getting her even madder.

J was a powerful Disassembly Drone on her own, but she was also incredibly prideful.

In the few times he and V attended the squad meetings with her, J could not take any criticism from the other squads, no matter how minor. Even more so when they had to see where they ranked in terms of effectiveness against each other during their last meeting.

The company wanted to see if they needed to change any squads around to maximize effectiveness, so they pitted each of them in a non-lethal battle tournament. Each of them had to fight all the others at least once in a series of one-on-one fights, across different locations in their areas.

And out of the twenty-five Disassembly Drones, J ranked twenty-second, only beating out C, D, and M, the three among them who were clearly doing just the bare minimum to avoid repercussions from the company.

V ranked seventh, beating out his rank of ninth, mostly because he was just happy to hang out with the rest of the squads, and spent most of the fights goofing off with them.

That’s what most of those fights devolved into, actually. Starting as fairly serious spars to avoid company backlash, and quickly turning into reenacting wrestling moves, or movies, laughing and just enjoying themselves.

Once it was said and done, they sent their results out to the company, got their rankings back, and the squads were completely unchanged.

That was the last time N saw any of them, they were all smiling, exhausted but so, so happy to be together again. 

Even with their definitive rankings among them, they still called him ‘boss’. Even Z, the one ranked above all of them, deferred to him as the one in charge.

And looking back on all of that, while making J look like a rabid ferret in their fight right now?

N definitely felt like the top dog of the Disassembly Drones.

“You’re getting sloppy, J. Did I interrupt your nap or something to drag you out here?”

“You interrupt my goddamn day with your existence, you fourth-quarter profit drop!”

She kept slashing and stabbing wildly, even as her other arm finished regenerating, she simply added her second blade to her flailing, and only got angrier as N matched with his own. 

With each block, parry, and riposte of J’s attacks, N retaliated with only minor scratches and swipes. A nick on the arm there, a poke at the leg there, a tear in her jacket every once in a while. All of this, to keep her furious, to keep her sloppy, and easy to manipulate.

Not that it was hard for him. J got mad just knowing he existed.

“You know, you really should smile more! Might make the others like you more!”

That got a particularly violent reaction out of her, as she gave that synthesized-trumpet roar as she gave a few more slashes towards him, before forgoing the swords entirely, and rushed forward to bite at his throat.

She might have done it, had N not rushed forward to crash his forehead into her visor.

Again.

Her advance halted momentarily, N brought one of his swords up, slashing one of her arms off, the arc of his swing slicing most of one her pigtails off as well.

“Fucking stop that!” Her voice was beginning to crackle with strain as she continued yelling.

“Stop what? Pushing back? Are you worried you can’t beat a punching bag that can hit back? I’m not even trying, J! You just keep flailing around and throwing a tantrum like the angry, immature, little bitch you are!” He swung at her with one of his swords, J barely managing to block with her remaining arm. The impact was enough to warp both blades, sending J tumbling along the ground, eventually hitting a storage container.

She attempted to stand up, but found herself having to lean against it to maintain her balance. She turned her head towards N once more, keeping her severed arm on her far side, covered by the rest of her body as it regenerated.

“I’m not the one making friends with diseased toasters, N. You were doing great after the last time I had to put you in line, and now you’re betraying the company?!” She glared at him, her visor displaying her eyes again, locked onto his own. “What do you think Tessa’s gonna think when she hears about this?”

“Tessa can stay mad about it, and the company can burn for all I care.” N said, dropping the playful demeanor. “And do you wanna know something, J? You put me up to this.”

J looked shocked for a moment, before leveling another hate filled glare at him. N kept speaking, cutting her off before she could start. “Almost twenty years of your ‘punishments’, J. For stuff like, not getting enough workers, getting too many workers. Not having any questions at the end of a squad meeting. Asking questions, just in general. Going too fast, or too slow! Eating my fair share of the oil reserves, that were put aside for me!” N’s voice continued to get louder and louder as he walked towards J, his footsteps getting heavier and heavier.

“Every possible excuse you could make, all just to hurt me! You just got worse and worse every time. I almost died the last time you attacked me! I only managed to start regenerating my eyes after the sun came up. My arm came after that, and I would have burned to death in the sun, if I wasn’t so, so blessed.” 

As he came within arms reach of J, she turned towards him quickly, revealing a fully charged EMP generator on her reformed arm, prepped to incapacitate him.

He didn’t raise his arms to block, or grab it, or avoid it in any way.

He simply opened his mouth wide, and crushed it between his teeth before it had the chance to fire. 

J’s look of pure terror was one he would savor forever.

With a full body turn, he threw J back towards the center of the room, the broken EMP severing from her body as she landed in a heap.

Crunching the machine more, he swallowed the remains before he continued his monologue. “Just after you left, someone found me. A Worker Drone. The most wonderful, kind, beautiful Worker Drone in the galaxy, J! She found me, and she dragged me to safety. Fixed me up, gathered oil and material to get me back to full strength, and showed me the truth, J.”

J was far too disoriented to stand, the prolonged battle, and constant draining of her material stores to regenerate taking their toll on her. N reached down, grabbing her head, and picked her up to look her in the face.

“The truth is that I hate you, J. I hate you, I hate the company, I hate how we were sent on a prolonged suicide mission for a bunch of rich pricks that can’t stand the idea of not having all the money in the universe.” He squeezed where he held her head, feeling her casing crack and split beneath his fingers. “I’m not gonna kill you yet, though. I still need stuff from you. But until then…”

N’s visor went into his ‘X’ symbol, as he slammed J’s face into the ground, the force shaking the entire room. The floor cracked beneath them, but held strong.

For now.

He raised J again, her visor cracked, oil leaking out of it as nanites began to repair the damage, before he drove her back into the floor.

"I’m gonna make you wish…”

Again.

“I...”

And again.

“did!”

And again.

Each time J’s head made contact with the floor, the cracks and damage spread, as it slowly began to dip and crater the longer it went.

After a few more slams, J’s face completely hidden beneath flattened metal, shattered glass, spilled oil and nanites, N reared back, and with a roar like a digital hurricane, and the force of an apocalyptic meteor, brought J’s head down for the final time.

Chapter Text

The party was in full swing, with the music blasting through the crowd, shaking their cores while their bodies shook the room with their dancing.

Uzi never liked crowds on her best days, but even she had to admit, there was something about watching so many people dancing to a shared taste in music that was pretty special.

She’d almost never go in and dance in a crowd like that, not without N at least, but she could still admire it from a distance. 

The thought of her boyfriend gave her those fluttering feelings in her chest that she loved and hated at the same time. She loved them because she found the drone that she wanted to spend eternity with, and they were absolutely going to be together forever, hyperbole be damned, and she hated them because she had a reputation to uphold, at least for now, and didn’t want her ‘Edgy Goth’ persona to have a cutoff that was too abrupt, lest people think she was faking it.

She already expected people to be getting on her for dating N just because he was a Disassembly Drone, and she didn’t need to accidentally fuel that fire. 

She’d floated the idea past N that she could just banish people who talked shit about her, but he just gave her this disappointed dog look, and she caved quickly.

He’d be a good dad one day.

Much, much later.

She saw her dad approaching out of the corner of her vision, smiling at her proudly the whole way. Even after weeks of knowing it, the fact her dad had actually told her she’d made him proud was sitting on her mind like a weighted blanket.

But it was also a terrible pressure that, if anything were to go wrong with the plan tonight, she could ruin everything with her father.

They’d planned for everything that could possibly happen. It’ll be fine.

“So are you enjoying everything so far?” She asked, as he came close enough she didn’t need to yell to be heard over the music. Conversations with people who weren’t N were also something she was going to have to work on in the future.

He was just so easy to talk to.

“Of course! With all the hard work you put into this, Uzi, I’d be shocked if there was anyone here that wasn’t having a good time.” His smile got even wider, practically beaming at her, now. “You did fantastic, Uzi.”

“Thanks, dad.” They stood side-by-side, watching the crowd together. One to keep an eye out for young adults doing stupid things that would get them hurt, and the other simply watching them all dance and laugh, and live.

“So how was your first taste of leadership, getting all this together?”

And just like that, every bit of Uzi’s good mood was spilled out onto the floor, as she felt every drop of annoyance and irritation in her body expand to fill the empty space. “Ugh, setting it all up wasn’t hard. It was just getting it all there that was irritating!” 

Her dad just chuckled at his daughter’s exasperation. “Yeah, Facilities is run by some real prickly folks.”

Prickly was one way to put it. ‘Waspish’, ‘pedantic’, ‘nitpicky’, and ‘condescending’ were more fitting ways to describe them.

‘Fucking assholes’ was what Uzi felt was most appropriate though.

“Dad, I seriously think if you didn't threaten them, they wouldn’t have let us use this place for the prom.” And that was quite a shock, after she’d sent an email request for use of the room to Facilities, and gotten back a thousand word email that summarized as ‘Go fuck yourself, and never ask us for anything ever again’, her dad had heard her yelling in frustration, and upon hearing the reason for her frustration, told her he’d handle it, before heading out.

Less than an hour later, she’d gotten another message from Facilities, saying they’d approved her request to use Warehouse Storage #16 for the prom, and kindly requested they collect any trash afterwards, and have everything taken down and cleared by 3pm the next day.

“I didn’t threaten them, Uzi. It was… firm persuasion. It’s a skill you’ll pick up when you’re in charge. You’ll have to avoid letting the power get to your head, but sometimes you really do need to put your foot down, and get people in line when they need to be.”

That made sense to her. Leadership was a responsibility, afterall. The kind of people actively looking to grab at powerful positions probably shouldn’t be the ones in charge, especially if they got there by just screaming at people to do what they say.

Uzi added that to the very, very long list of reasons JcJenson was going down.

They moved on to other topics, from how the music sounded, to if she wanted to get her own place after the summer break was done, to whether or not she was gonna keep designing weapons when she was put in charge.

“Of course I’m gonna keep designing them. I just… won’t have any time to actually build them. It’s fun.”

“I’m not arguing that. But there’s more to keeping people safe than just blowing things up.”

Uzi was about to dispute that, half-jokingly, when she’d received a message from N, who should be a few floors above them by now, if her internal clock was right.

‘J showed up earlier than expected. Keep an eye for workers trying to contact your dad.’

That was a mixed bag of things. She needed to keep an eye on her dad now, but his internal messenger had been busted for years, and he couldn’t send or receive communications without an external device, or someone told him what they needed to in-person.

She had to think of something fast. 

“Hey dad, how about-”

“Hold that thought, Uzi, I see some kids over by the snack table messing with magnets. I’ll go handle that.”

She snapped her head over towards the concessions table, and yup, there were some drones in her grade openly messing with magnets.

The fact they weren’t even trying to hide it was the thing bothering her most.

“You go enjoy yourself, Uzi, I’ll see you later.” And with that, her dad marched over to potentially read the riot act to her peers.

If you’re gonna do something like that, at least try to be subtle about it.

She was going to have to keep him in her peripherals for a while to make sure no one approached him. If he found out N was in the bunker, and that J had come in after him, everything would be cut short, and their plan ruined.

No one had any reason to leave yet, so no one would notice if she locked the doors, at least for a while.

No one was looking towards the doors, and they were shut already, so she could get away with it if she was fast.

She turned, keeping her father at the edge of her vision while she started towards the door console. No one approached her, or her father as she made her way over, and a few keystrokes would keep the doors from opening again until she chose to do so.

Making her way back to where she spoke with her dad, she’d caught a pair of familiar drones heading towards her, one of them holding a pair of decorated envelopes.

“What do you two want?” She gave them her usual look of exasperated annoyance, as the pair came closer.

“Good to see you too. We don’t wanna start anything tonight, Doorman, just hear us out.” Lizzie said, holding the envelopes out for Uzi to take.

“We thought it would be polite to get these for you before you go up to make the announcements for the prom king and queen.” Doll said, smiling politely at her.

Uzi took the envelopes wordlessly, shaking whatever glitter clung to it from Lizzie’s dress, as she looked at them with a cautious squint.

“What, you don’t believe us?”

“No, not really.”

“You know, that’s fair. We actually wanted to talk to you about that, and stuff.”

That caught Uzi’s interest. The two biggest pains in her ass since they were in middle school, actually wanted to talk like adults? Well, they hadn’t called her any names, or insulted her at all yet, so she may as well see where this goes.

“We’ve been thinking about what you said in class,” Doll said, “about burying the hatchet, and stuff? And we wanted to… apologize… for how we acted.”

Uzi just looked at them, skeptical and slightly miffed.

They spent years driving her up the wall, belittling and bullying her, and now, on the verge of her becoming the new colony leader, they were coming up to her and saying ‘sorry’? Like that would fix everything, and they'd be buddies forever?

They were so lucky she had bigger fish to fry…

“I’ll accept your apology.” They smiled at that, Lizzie even opening her mouth to speak again, before being cut off. “But! We are not friends, I will not give you special treatment, and if I get any reports that either of you two are stirring up shit in the future, I will bring the hammer down on you both. Got it?”

Uzi left no room for argument, plain and simple.

Doll and Lizzie looked at each other for a brief moment, before focusing on her again. “Understood. We didn’t want any special treatment anyway.”

“But, like, there is one thing we wanted to ask.” Lizzie actually looked somewhat bashful at that. 

“What?” 

“When it comes time to announce the prom court, could you call the prom queen first? Y’know, give the girls a treat first?”

Uzi was slightly taken aback by how… banal their request was? Just read one envelope first? She’d have to go up and do it a little early to make sure the timing was right for N’s dramatic entrance, but she could make due.

“Okay, fine. It won’t hurt anyone, so whatever.” 

Lizzie shocked the hell out of her by hugging her tightly after agreeing. “Thanks a million, Doorman! You’re gonna give the girlies a night to remember!”

“Oh, you have no idea.” She gave Lizzie a pat on the back, both as an acknowledgement that the hug was well received, and cue to get the fuck off, please and thank you.

Lizzie let go, and gave her a wave as she grabbed Doll by her hand, before running off into the dancing crowd so fast, Uzi swore she saw Doll’s feet leave the ground.

Shrugging all that feeling off, she looked back at her dad, scolding the students he’d seen using magnets, each of them in a different flavor of embarrassment at their situation.

She couldn’t help but giggle at it. Her dad would need something to do once she was in charge, and it seemed like ‘embarrassing parent’ was going to be near the top of that list of his.

She turned to look for other WDF members in attendance, being sure to keep her dad in her peripherals at all times.

She only had so much time tonight to get all her networking in before things got really crazy over the next few days.

Chapter Text

The music pounded through her body like a human heartbeat, each thump of the bass sending more energy through her than the last. Every movement throwing it out of her, and into someone else, where they’d throw it around, or even back to her. A giant, crowded daisy-chain of energy transfer, with herself and Lizzie right in the thick of it.

The crowd was a menagerie of colors and sounds, everyone in different dresses, and suits, all catching the lights in different ways, reflecting off of their visors, mixing in the lights of their eyes. All of this sensory input, but her focus was squarely on Lizzie.

The way she moved, each motion flowing seamlessly into the next, and the lights reflected in the glitter on her dress, creating a sparkling rainbow across her body that demanded she be the center of attention. Her hair bounced and flowed, back and forth, like a hypnotic pendulum, entrancing her more than she already was.

And she kept giving her that look…

The look that just drove Doll absolutely crazy with a hunger like she’d never felt before.

Her core flared up every time she looked over at her, and she kept stumbling as she felt her knees wobble, because holy fuck, she was so unbelievably gay for this girl.

She wasn’t going to waste time wondering what she did to deserve a girlfriend- no, she was her fianceé now, holy shit- like Lizzie, because that was precious time she could be spending kissing her.

In fact…

Doll stopped dancing, the energy from the crowd building up in her, as she closed the small, but still too large, distance between herself and Lizzie. She gave her a wordless look as she approached, smug and lovely, like she’d just done exactly what Lizzie planned for her to do.

All she could think of, in that moment, as she cupped her fiancé's face in her hands, and pulled her into a kiss with all the love and adoration she could, was that no matter what, she’d follow Lizzie to the end of the world. 

They fit so perfectly together. Their hands, their lips, their whole bodies, seemingly designed for holding and touching each other. It was never seamless with others, but between the two of them, there was barely room for atoms when they were together.

Eventually they separated, and pressed their foreheads together, gazing into each other’s eyes. The energy of the crowd arcing between them, as a message was conveyed without words.

I love you.

As the song ended, and the crowd slowed down to prepare for the next set, the two of them simply held each other, Lizzie’s arms around her waist, and Doll’s arms looped over her shoulders. 

Eventually sound came from the speakers once more, but not any sort of music.

“Hello, hey, can I get everyone’s attention please? Up here, everyone.”

They turned away from each other to see, and up on the stage, at the microphone, was Uzi Doorman, holding the envelopes containing the names of the prom king and queen. “Yeah, hey, everyone looking here? Good.”

Uzi looked nervous, up there on stage, with everyone’s eyes on her. She was out of her depth, but was quickly making it work, despite the fear.

“I wanted to thank everyone here tonight, not just my peers, who will be entering the workforce, and taking their steps towards independence soon, but the guests who have already gone on that journey, and come out the other side as fully realized individuals. I hope that, after tonight, you’ll be willing to help guide the younger generation along their paths towards self-actualization.”

Uzi fidgeted with the envelopes for a moment, before she continued. “As we travel on our personal journeys, some of us may stumble and fall, from obstacles both personal and public. If and when that happens, we need to be there for each other. We need to help each other in any of the myriad ways that we can. We might not have all gotten along, some of us may even have felt genuine hatred for others in our class, but we have to remember that up until tonight, until we have left the school for the final time as students, we were children, teens, and only recently have we become young adults.”

Uzi’s demeanor changed as she spoke, from looking nervous, trying to speak evenly, and barely succeeding, and now she spoke confidently, with an authority and cadence that Doll couldn’t help but respect, especially after having seen her transformation from an emotionally unstable troublemaker over the past year.

She’d make a good colony leader.

“We were learning how to exist, and we have come to blows over things that we will look back upon, and scoff at. Things that, as we age, we will see as frivolous and benign. The sooner we close the gaps between us, and heal what wounds both sides have inflicted, the sooner we can come together to be better than we have been before, and make our world better for the ones who come after us.”

As her speech came to a close, in that moment, Uzi Doorman looked taller than she ever did, holding her head high as she looked over the crowd. 

She looked every bit like the leader she aspired to be.

After a brief pause, there was clapping from somewhere in the room, which grew in scope and volume, and in just a few seconds, everyone in the room was cheering and yelling in approval of Uzi. Even Lizzie and herself had joined in the applause.

The sheer scope and volume of the crowd hit Uzi like a wall, as her bravado seemed to shake, before she recovered. “Okay thank you, but I’m just one part in all this. Now, before we get back to partying, it’s about time we see the prom court, huh?”

The drones on the dance floor all screamed their approval, as Doll felt Lizzie squeeze her hand tightly.

After tonight, everything would be finished. It would all be perfect.

“Now, normally, the prom king would be called up first, but tonight, we’re gonna give the girls a treat first.” High pitched cheers from the girls in the crowd went out, as Lizzie leaned closer to her. Doll leaned in to whisper in her lover’s ear, “Just a bit longer. We’re almost done.”

Lizzie didn’t respond, but answered with a gentle kiss to the side of her head, as Uzi continued onstage.

“You’ve put your votes in, and decided who among us has been the ur example of the ideals we have held as a class, and as a collective.” She raised the envelope, lightly dusted with the glitter of Lizzie’s dress, and prepared to open it.

Doll felt the heat in her core build, as her power ached, and screamed, and begged  to be used now, now, now.

“Your prom queen for the class of 3071, is…” Uzi opened the envelope, just as Lizzie released her hand, and began to go to the front of the crowd, preparing to calm the crowd, and distract V long enough for Doll to do her job.

They’d spent so long planning this. So many sleepless nights, batteries eaten to stave off the call of rest, and enough hatred in her heart to kill her, had she been human.

All of it leading to this moment, this roll of the dice that Lizzie could keep the crowd calm long enough to not draw attention to the one drone standing still, that she could keep V standing in one place long enough for her to grab every piece of metal that made up the stage, and impale that demon on each and every one of them.

All of this, for odds that were worse than a coin flip.

This was the moment.

“Veronica!”

Silence permeated the crowd as confusion crossed Uzi’s face, and mutterings began.

“Veronica? Who the hell is ‘Veronica’?”

A loud thud from further back on the stage was Uzi’s answer, and Doll’s power wrapped around the supports under the stage, holding tightly as she extended her grasp to the frames holding the lights.

All eyes in the room went to the source of the sound, a dark shape that stood taller than any drone in the room, wreathed in shadow, as a light giggle rose out of it. “That would be me.”

The figure’s eyes activated, a sickly, vibrant shade of yellow, as it began to walk towards the front of the stage. “But I prefer to be called…”

As its pointed legs crossed the border between total darkness and the lights of the stage, the top of the drone’s head lit up with five lights, the same shade of yellow as its eyes, and a permeable terror gripped the room. “V.”

A Murder Drone had gotten inside.

It’s a shame it had to die in such a nice dress. Lizzie really had found a nice shade of red to compliment V’s eyes. It was a shame it ruined the dress, both in the fact that V had worn it, and the fact even Doll could see where the seams were stretching thin around its wide hips.

Why any company would design a bot like that, Doll would never know.

“You can all call me- wait, back it up. Prom queen?” V had been close to the microphone, her claws out and prepared to start attacking, before the announcement finally sank into her head.

Uzi looked utterly shocked, as did most of the room, frozen in fear, as Lizzie climbed up on the stage. “Yup! Prom queen! That’s you! I put your name on the ballot to really show what we’re trying to go for here!”

Every eye in the room locked onto her girlfriend, as Doll’s power gripped every structural piece of the stage, waiting for the moment Lizzie and Uzi were off the stage, or at least close enough to the edge where they wouldn’t be hurt when it all came crashing down.

“You did what?! ” Uzi broke the silence, as the crowd began murmuring in terror, some of them even creeping away in Doll’s peripherals.

Lizzie needed to hurry.

“I took what you were saying to heart, Uzi, and I felt that, if we were going to properly move forward with improving ourselves, and the whole world, we needed to mend all the divides, and heal all the wounds and all that.” Lizzie spoke rapidly, putting her arm around Uzi, silently leading her closer to the edge of the stage, and waved at another drone off at the side of the stage, holding the prom queen’s crown.

Doll felt the heat of her powers pour out of her core, and flow down her arms, focusing on the grip she had on every strut, rod, nut, and bolt holding the stage together. She was ready to push every single inch of metal in the room through V’s body, and shred what was left of her into nothingness.

“I’ve been speaking to her for a few months now, and she’s cool. She’s just hungry a lot, so all she needs is food, and she’s all nice and polite.” Lizzie gestured to V, who looked at the drone holding the crown, her name was Charlotte, probably, who shakily placed the prom crown on V’s head, pulling away quickly as the Murder Drone snapped her jaws at Charlotte’s fingers, giggling like a maniac.

“We gotta bury the hatchet, right? Plus, she hasn’t, like, killed anyone yet. She’s cool!” Lizzie stopped steering Uzi away from V, and turned to the Murder Drone in question, looking up at the crown on her head with some kind of bizarre, wide-eyed fascination Doll had seen on cats when something shiny was above them in the videos she’d binged with Lizzie.

“So V, why don’t you give us a speech? Tell us all about yourself, and let us know who you really are?”

V looked taken aback at the statement, eyes still wide as she took in the crowd and lights, and everything around them, as if it were seeing everything for the first time. It approached the microphone, and Doll could see its mouth moving slightly, like it was muttering to itself.

The heat roared in her chest and limbs, as she prepared to crush V the instant Lizzie and Uzi were clear. 

As V stepped up to the mic, the power surged within her, as she saw Lizzie tense up to pull Uzi off the stage, her power ready to tear the monster that ate her family apart, and finally start living-

The room shook as something impacted above them.

The power inside her went cold as the room shook again, harder than before, as the sound became louder.

Every drone around her looked up at the ceiling, as another impact shook the room, the sound even louder, and dust fell from the ceiling.

Drones moved away from the dance floor as another crash covered the ceiling in spiderweb cracks. 

Someone screamed.

The ceiling fell.

Chapter Text

The world froze in that instant, when he saw the Murder Drone appear behind Uzi.

That voice, its mocking tone gripped his core so tightly, it felt like he was dying. Fear was blocking every desire to move, run, yell, do anything as it came closer and closer to his little girl.

As his eyes remained locked onto the creature on stage, flashes of old memories came to light. Things he’d thought he’d gotten past after nearly fifteen years…

The alert that went out that day, that a Murder Drone had broken into the bunker. The panic he felt as he abandoned his station, rushing home to get Nori. Praying to every deity he could think of, that one of them would answer, that his wife would be safe in their home, hiding in the closet.

The terror as he opened the door to their home, seeing their living room destroyed, Nori’s decorations and sketches laying in bits and shreds on the floor. The despair mixed in, as he followed the trail of oil down the hall, to the source.

Pain, unlike anything he’d ever felt, before or since, as he saw his wife, her chest torn open, oil and nanite acid spilling out onto her overalls. Her visor, dark and lifeless, as she clutched the lucky wrench he’d given her when he’d proposed.

To this day, he had no idea how long he’d been there, holding her, begging her to wake up, trying to wake himself up from this nightmare, but eventually others found him, and told him that he wasn’t alone in his grief.

The Murder Drone had killed nine other drones before making its escape.

He was relieved when the teachers offered to take care of the children in the affected families for a few days after.

Uzi didn’t need to see her mother like this.

She didn’t need to see him like this. 

He spent those days cleaning their home, removing any trace of the struggle he could find, and fixing what he could of Nori’s decorations.

In the time between when he’d gotten their quarters clean again, he’d poured himself over the security footage of the incident. He’d seen that face, that smile so much it was burned into his memory.

And now, it was back, looking just like it did when he was younger, and full of righteous fury.

He’d gotten lucky the last time they met. He’d been trying to just lock the door on it, and he’d barely avoided getting torn apart by its claws, or dissolved with its acid. 

He could still hear its voice, screaming through the doors, loud enough to be heard through a foot-and-a-half of metal, cursing them all as he collapsed under the stress, the monster’s severed arm twitching on the ground.

That beast was back, looking no worse for wear, like no time had passed at all for that demon so close to his daughter.

And he was old. His body may not have changed much, but the life he’s led drained the fight out of him. It was why he was retiring in the first place.

He was just a useless old man.

What could he do?

He saw Caroline’s daughter pulling Uzi away from the Murder Drone, as it approached the microphone. Was it going to make a speech, mocking them before it started killing them?

What could he do?

What could anyone do?

As it closed the gap to the mic, there was a sound of a powerful impact, far above them.

Then another.

And another.

Each sound was louder than the last, whatever the source was. It was getting closer with each sound, as the room shook harder and harder each time.

After about four of them, the ceiling above the dancefloor cracked, a giant spider web of damage as someone screamed, triggering the whole of the crowd in front of the stage to scatter.

They’d just gotten clear when the impact came again, dropping through the ceiling, and raining rubble down on the former dancefloor. 

Dust billowed across the room, obscuring the point of impact where the outline of a figure could be seen, hunched over on all fours.

All he could see was its shape as it stood up, taller than almost any drone Khan had ever seen, appearing even taller as it raised its arms above its head, stretching and leaning its head backwards, giving Khan and many others a perfect view of the yellow lights adorning its head.

Another Murder Drone had gotten inside. 

The first was invited, but this one broke in.

As it finished its stretch, it turned its back to the stage, holding its arms out and generating enough force to blow away all the dust obscuring the room.

“Hello, Bunker Colony Three! How are you all doing tonight?” It called out with such an enthusiastic air, it had to be messing around. “Good to hear! I’m doing fantastic, thanks for asking! I’m Serial Designation N, but you can just call me N, no need for formalities right now. After all, we’ll all get to know each other soon!”

More questions rose in his mind as he kept his eyes locked on the second Murder Drone. How did it get in? What did it mean by that? Why was it dressed up like that? 

“Because, I’m here! Tonight! To take my place! At the side of your future lead-eeerrrrr…”

The Murder Drone, N, punctuated each part of his sentence by posing dramatically, as if he were a character in one of Uzi’s animes, until he finished with a dramatic twirl and flourish towards the stage. All his flair and panache dropped almost instantly, as he saw the other Murder Drone on stage, frozen in shock like all the other drones in the room.

They held for a moment, hollow-eyed and stunned, before pointing at each other, and shouting in unison.

“What are you doing here?!”

“You said you were going on a hunting trip!”

“I am hunting! What the hell are you doing here?!”

“I asked you first!”

“No you didn’t, I asked you…” The Murder Drone on stage trailed off as her view trailed down at the other’s feet. Khan followed where it looked, and felt the oil in his lines freeze in place.

There, on the floor, at the feet of the second Drone, was a third one. This one was in terrible condition, different joints sparking, oil slowly pooling around it, and while he couldn't see its face from where he was, he could make out severe cracks and deformities on its head.

“N, what happened to J?” The first drone’s eyes were slightly hollow, confusion tinging its voice.

The other drone seemed nervous, almost bashful, before he spoke again. “That’s a bit of a story, V… I can tell you , but I need you to-”

“Traitor…”

The third Murder drone started to move, its voice strained as it lifted its head, its face nearly completely flattened as oil slowly oozed out of shimmering cracks. 

“He’s a goddamn traitor. He’s selling us out for defective toaster pus- ” It was cut off by the drone standing over it stomping down on its head, and grinding its face into the floor.

“You shut your mouth.” Its tone was cold enough to freeze oil, as it lifted its foot off the floored drone’s head, only to stomp down again.

Khan felt a tapping on his arm, taking his attention away from the Murder Drones momentarily. Turning to the source, it was Simon, an older member of the WDF, but not quite one of the founders. He motioned for Khan to follow him, before carefully making his way towards the door, where other WDF members were carefully guiding people closer. 

The Murder Drones started yelling at each other, but he had to focus on getting everyone out. The bunker was compromised, so they would need to fall back to the mining levels until they moved on.

Once they got to the crowd, they started speaking as they made their way through to the door. “What’s the plan, sir?”

“We get everyone out of here, then send an emergency message over the intercom that everyone needs to start evacuating. With the MD’s distracted with each other right now, we might be able to make a clean getaway.” It was all they could do at this point. They couldn’t fight them, not all of them at once, and there were too many civilians around to risk attempting.

They reached the console, the yelling from the Murder Drones was escalating, one of them yelled something about a ‘Tessa’ person, or something, finding Ken, another WDF member, frantically typing at the keyboard as the console gave him denial message after denial message.

“Ken, what’s going on?”

“Sir, the door’s locked, and none of the passwords I can remember are working. It says it was locked down by the administrator.” Ken typed in another password, before stepping away after another denial message.

Khan stepped up to the console, pulling his master key from his jacket. His master key would bypass the passwords entirely, so they could-

A harsh sound and denial message appeared on the console. 

[ACCESS BLOCKED BY ADMINISTRATOR]

Khan’s eyes went hollow, as well as any drones looking at the console, as he looked over his key, making sure it was his master key, before trying once more.

The same sound, and the same message.

Someone else was the admin, and locked them all in with a group of Murder Drones.

The yelling of said drones was getting louder, the one on stage saying something about keeping their heads down, and the other conscious one yelling right back about freedom, or something. 

“Khan, what do we do?” They were all looking at him, terrified beyond words, hoping he’d think of something. Even his fellow WDF members looked to him. They hadn’t faced a Murder Drone in nearly a decade-and-a-half, and of the drones who did, only a couple were in attendance tonight.

He was the one with the experience. He was the one they needed to lead them out of this.

They didn’t need Khan the parent, they needed Khan the leader.

“Alright, everyone needs to stay together! We’ll head for cover, once we get the civvies to safety, we’ll try and secure an escape for everyone to make it out safely. Simon, you and Ken take point, I want a WDF trooper every twenty feet, and-” He and every drone present recoiled in pain, clutching the sides of their heads, as a horrible sound came from the direction of the Murder Drones.

His eyes had just about gone crossed, but he could clearly make out what was occurring in that direction. The source of that warbling, piercing shriek wasn’t metal tearing, or the Murder Drones starting to tear each other apart in spectacular fashion. It was…

Was that Yeva’s daughter?

Was she glowing?!

Doll shrieked again, the drones in the group all clutching their heads in response, as the red glow around her arms became brighter.

The sounds of metal tearing and snapping rung out through the room as the stage under the first Murder Drone began to warp and shift into its component parts. The drone flew up in the air, barely avoiding being impaled on the support struts blasting out of the stage.

And there, off to the side, Uzi and her classmate were practically thrown off the stage as the structure glowed the same red as Doll.

As pandemonium was unleashed, Simon grabbed Khan by his shoulder and started to lead everyone along the edges of the room. “C’mon, we need to get clear!” The drones around them followed, fearing what might happen to them out in the open, especially when one of their own suddenly had magic powers.

He didn’t know why, but he had his hand in the inside pocket of his coat, where he kept his most precious thing. 

Pulling his hand out of his coat, he looked over the photo he had carried with him every day since he took it. It was Nori, all smiles, dressed in her favorite overalls, frizzed up hair pulled in a messy ponytail, presenting their daughter, all shiny and new in her first bipedal body, awkward and nervous. She hadn’t spoken for a few days after she’d gotten her new form, but she was so perfect, because she was there, and she was alive.

He remembered how nervous Nori was, how scared they both were, when Nori told him about some coding issues she’d had that Uzi might have inherited, and how she had no idea what they might do to her.

The day they brought Uzi home was one of the greatest days of his life.

Nori gave him so much of herself, and he gave just as much back.

The fear drained from his body as he stopped moving, Simon stumbling for a moment as his hold on Khan’s shoulder slipped. “Sir, what-”

“Simon, you lead them to safety. I’ll stay behind and keep trying to access the crew controls from the console.”

Simon’s eyes hollowed at that. “Khan, sir, you can’t-”

“If anything happens on my end, I’ll do my best to stop it, but for now, you are to keep these people safe. Am I clear, trooper?”

Simon froze for a moment, before saluting him. “Yes, sir!” He pulled his master keycard from another pocket, placing it in Simon’s hand, and closing his fingers around it. “You might be able to get more use out of that than me, Simon. Don’t lose it.”

He looked at the card in his hand, the full weight of the responsibility setting in, before looking his superior in the eye, saluting once more. “I won’t let you down, sir!”

“I know you won’t. Now get moving!” The sound of shrieking and clanging metal, mixed with the sounds of crashing and roaring, told him that a fight had finally broken out, and it might just have been a free-for-all.

Simon turned and started to lead the crowd of terrified workers away from the door, along the wide paths between the storage containers throughout the room. As they moved away, Khan turned back to the pandemonium happening.

Doll was using her powers to lash out at what seemed like everything around her, throwing debris and rubble towards the Murder Drones, focusing more on the one in the dress, but still taking potshots at the one in the suit when it came close to her. He could see Uzi and her classmate off on the far side, huddled behind an overturned table.

At least they were safe enough for him to look away.

He turned to the console, bringing his list of every registered password for the security commands up on his internal HUD.

They may have been safe enough for now, but he had no idea how much longer that would last.

As he typed away at the keyboard, the rapid denial tones coming up with each password that failed to take, pushing him to go faster and faster, he thought to what Nori would have done.

She probably would have shot one of the Murder Drones in the face.

The weight in the other inside pocket of his jacket told him that could still be an option.

Chapter Text

Things should not be going this way.

It was simple, honestly. He was supposed to show up with J, beaten into submission, make his big, dramatic speech, tear out J’s Nanite Manufacturer, present it to Uzi, then spend the rest of the night making out with her, sloppy-style.

It was, honestly, the most simple part of their overall plan. Straightforward, to the point, and flexible enough that it would take something huge to throw it off kilter.

Something like V being there, or one of Uzi’s classmates having actual magic.

N felt like he really should have been more freaked out by the magic, but something about her power rang familiar to him. Something…

Nice.

But he could think about that later, when he wasn’t in a life-or-death situation with a pissed off, Russian-speaking mage, or his still-have-complicated-feelings-about friend who clearly hadn’t eaten anything all day.

V’s hunger was messing with her reaction speeds, dulling them to a fraction of what they were. She was still incredibly hard to hit, for him and the magic drone, Doll, if he was remembering Uzi’s description of her correctly.

She was barely getting grazed by his own strikes, meant to try and incapacitate, rather than truly hurt her, and she was maintaining a wider margin with Doll’s improvised weapons, but that margin was shrinking quickly.

Doll was getting more erratic in her attacks, and her shrieking was hitting frequencies to disorient and stun them. N was largely shrugging off the effect, to her irritation, but he was used to shrugging off extreme disorientation after taking heavy blows to the head from J.

V, on the other hand, wasn’t used to it, so every time Doll shrieked, he had to get V away from whatever Doll was going to attack her with. 

And that led to him repeatedly catching V in full body tackles to avoid impalement on rebar and metal scraps.

Bringing her to the ground to avoid a fan blade-turned-makeshift buzzsaw, V lashed out at him with her claws aimed for his neck. Letting go, he had to jump back, getting out of her reach. The last thing he needed right now was to waste time regenerating his head during a fight.

“Would you stop doing all this?! ” V yelled at him, while ripping a rebar piece out of the ground to throw at Doll. 

“Doing what, stop you from killing people?!” He yelled, using one of his swords to throw V’s improvised spear off course, after Doll caught it mid-flight, and sent it back her way.

“Yes! That’s what we do, N! We kill them, we eat them, and we get left alone! ” V leapt at him, avoiding a large chunk of crumpled metal as Doll released another shriek.

“What the hell possessed you to do this?! They’ll kill you for this!” V’s hunger fueled anger switched to a frantic desperation as she looked him in the eyes, N pinned beneath her. 

“They’re like us, V! They didn’t ask for any of this, and neither did we. They deserve to live, and we don’t have to starve to death if we just stop fighting them!” He kicked her off, throwing her out of the way of another makeshift buzzsaw.

“What about J!? She’s gonna rat you out for this, N!” She unfurled her wings, flying up to avoid the mass of rebar exploding out of the floor under her feet.

“I don’t care what J tells the company, she’s gonna die anyway!” Replacing his hand with one of his missile launchers, he took a shot at a mass of twisted metal Doll launched, sending it off course, and embedding it in the side of a storage container.

“Would you both just shut up and die!? ” Doll screamed, in coherent words, gathering more scrap and rubble into twisting tendril-like structures. “I was content with just killing one of you, but at this point, I think I’ll go for the hat trick, and wipe you all out! ”

With furious gestures, she lashed out with the tendrils, one aimed at each of them, pushing them away from each other. Every movement and impact of the makeshift limbs tore up more and more debris, before it was added to the mass of the structures.

“N, the company is gonna kill you for this! Like, kill you kill you! You have to stop!” V flew through the air, twisting and twirling to avoid Doll’s attacks, her reactions becoming noticeably slower as she continued.

“The company can get bent, V! I’m not some pet to be yanked around on a leash! Not by J, not by the company, not by anyone! I deserve to be happy! I deserve a life, V! The company won’t allow that! I don’t even think Tessa would allow it! I want to live, and if it’s a life with the workers, then that’s my choice! I won’t let anyone take that away from me!” N moved around Doll while speaking and avoiding her wild attacks, placing her between himself and V.

Doll held her arms out, having to turn back and forth quickly to keep either of the Disassembly Drones in her sight. Her attacking slowed down, only being able to focus on one at a time causing her to start losing focus.

She was clearly inexperienced with actually fighting, if her lack of spatial awareness was anything to go by. She had overwhelming power, no doubts about that, but she didn’t seem to be able to think of much currently beyond just trying to hit them really hard.

Her focus was lingering more on V, it appeared, despite wanting them all dead. Regardless, he was doing more dodging and avoiding the rubble tendrils she was flailing around. She was a major issue, one that he and Uzi could deal with later, after they get everything else handled tonight.

Doll took another swipe at N, the tendril going wide, before she turned back to V, who had thrown some debris at the psychic drone, and had it launched back at her in retaliation.

Her attention off of him, however briefly, N took a chance, and rushed at her, hoping to knock her unconscious. 

It wouldn’t be a good place for the boyfriend of the colony leader to kill people when he first met them.

He flew towards her, catching the swipes of her tendrils at V in his peripheral, as he pulled his arm back to strike her hard enough to render her unconscious, if only for a bit.

As he moved his arm forward, she turned again, back towards him, her eye glowing red, a three-pronged symbol replacing one of her eyes.

“It is. An Interesting trick. Right, Big Brother?”

N’s flash of something stopped when a cluster of rebars shot up out of the floor beneath him, stabbing him through his abdomen, one leg, both wings and his forearm that was mid-punch.

“N!” He heard V scream, before she yelled again, as she was grabbed by the tendril Doll had been using to attack her.

The symbol replacing her eye reverted back to a circle, as N felt the tendril he’d been dancing around grab him tightly, and yanking him off of the rebar trap. 

Doll looked back and forth between him and V, held like a pair of toys in giant, misshapen hands, as she raised her own hands up, glowing bright red with those pronged symbols in her hands. The tendrils shifted, leaning away from the worker drone, before they came back in at a high speed, as Doll brought her hands together, slamming himself and V between her tendrils with a force that would have reduced a pair of regular drones to metal pancakes.

With the two of them, though, they were disoriented, V far more than himself, before they were brought down to the ground, with just as much force as before.

The materials of the tendril shifted, pinning the two of them on the floor, flat on their backs, limbs splayed out in every direction, even their tails were immobilized. Doll continued to move her hands, parts of the tendril materials floating up and coming together into a nightmarish skewer hovering above her head.

“That was quite a speech, Serial Designation N. If you weren’t a Murder Drone, we might have been comrades in another life. But you are what you are, and I am what I am.” She raised one of her hands, giving a slight movement, which caused the skewer above her to begin spinning, like a horrid drill bit. “And I am going to kill Serial Designation V, then you, and that other drone you brought in. J, was her name, correct?”

“Hey, get in line!” He tried to pull his arms away from the ruble, but it wrapped around him too tightly. 

V shook the disorientation from the repeated impacts out of her head, her eyes focusing on the skewer, slowly moving to hang vertically above her as it spun faster and faster. “Whoa, hey! What did I do, ya toaster? Did I eat your parents, or something?”

Doll glared at V with more hate than N thought could fit in a drone. “Nearly 15 years ago, you broke into this bunker, and on that day, you ran wild in the residential quarters, killing ten Worker Drones in their homes. Two of them were my parents. You broke into our home, you tore my mother in half, you ate my father’s core out of his chest, and did unspeakable things to the other families you tore apart, monster.” The skewer spun faster and faster with each part Doll listed, now sounding like a giant industrial drill as it whipped the air.

“And now they will all have justice. In the names of Yeva and Mathias, Serial Designation V, you will di-” 

Doll’s dramatic speech was cut off, not by a sound, a yell or anything of that nature.

She was cut off by another Worker Drone in a black dress, hooking their arm around her neck, and dragging her head down in a flying leap, smashing her face into the floor as she failed to catch herself. Her concentration lost, Doll’s rubble lost form, and collapsed around them.

The instant either of them could move again, V stood up, launching herself towards the two workers with her claws splayed, and ‘X’ shining brightly in her visor.

She’d hardly gotten off the ground before N caught her in a full-body tackle again, launching the both of them into what was left of the stage.

Chapter Text

Of all the things to happen tonight, the last thing she expected was for someone else to have their own murder plans separate from hers.

The fact that it was Lizzie that brought V in, for some robo-godforsaken reason, and now the situation had escalated to where Doll was trying to kill her boyfriend with freaky magic powers.

So she was justified in nailing Doll with a Jupiter Armdrop, considering the uncontrolled chaos she and her girlfriend unleashed.

As she got to her feet, she witnessed N tackle V onto what was left of the stage, leaving her to finish with Doll on her own.

Her regular ass, worker drone self, against an actual fucking psychic?

Maybe if she tied her hands behind her back, it would be a fair fight.

Doll was getting up, dazed and staggering, with cracks branching out from the middle of her visor where she hit the floor. She could see Doll’s eyes refocus as she got her footing once more, looking at her in disbelief.

“Uzi? What the hell, I had them dead to rights!”

“Yeah, and that’s the problem.” Uzi rushed forward, landing a hook into Doll’s side as her eyes and hands began to glow again. Doll lashed out, only to be met with another fist, striking her face this time, as she looked both irritated and confused at her.

“What do you mean by that!? V’s the one who killed my parents, it killed your mom! The others are just as likely to kill everyone as that thing is! What could you possibly need them alive for?!” Doll’s hands glowed as she pulled up rubble and threw them at Uzi from every angle she could think of.

For any other drone, they would be peppered by blows coming from all sides, bludgeoning them until they were beaten unconscious, or worse.

For Uzi, it was, in her opinion, probably the coolest thing she’d ever done, as she used the sensors under her hat to see the rubble and dodge accordingly, simply taking grazing strikes from the rocks and metal pieces flying at her, if not avoiding them entirely.

“I’ll be dealing with her myself, Doll, but I need her alive for that. As for the others, that’s none of your freakin’ business what I’m gonna do to them.” Uzi ducked under a rock aimed at her temple, likely for a knockout blow, and rushed at Doll, wrapping her arms around her as she forced her to the ground.

Her concentration broken, Doll’s hands ceased to glow, the rocks and metal parts dropping to the ground, however briefly as her eyes and hand glowed that bright red again, as she began to bash her fists into Uzi’s back. “Are you working with them?! How could you do that?! After all they did to us!?”

Doll’s blows were much stronger than what Uzi was expecting, each impact rocking through her entire frame. She held tightly though, feeling Doll’s chassis deforming slightly as she squeezed the psychic drone. “It’s more complicated than that, you weird, magic jerk!” Uzi moved her legs, planting her feet firmly before standing up, lifting Doll completely off the ground, her concentration momentarily lapsing, before breaking entirely as Uzi threw her onto the ground, back first.

Any glowing Doll was doing ceased as she bounced from the force of the impact, oil spitting from her mouth as something inside her ruptured. She groaned in pain, rolling onto her side as diagnostic data flashed across her visor. “Doll, I don’t want to hurt you, so I really need you to just trust me on this.”

Doll pushed herself up on her arms, her legs shaking too much to hold her body. “I don’t want to kill you either, Uzi.” She didn’t look at her, focusing on the stage, where N had his arms wrapped around V, as she ran around smashing him into anything she could to get him to let go.

“I don’t want to kill you. But you joined those things. ” Doll rose to her feet shakily, pulling a piece of rebar over to prop herself up. “I need to stop you. Whatever you have planned, it needs to stop.”

Doll’s eye changed to a three-pronged symbol, as Uzi’s sensors warned her that a veritable wall of rubble was being pulled towards them, with no room to dodge the impact.

As the wall of immobilizing pain drew closer, Uzi simply let instinct take the wheel, so to speak. Rather than leap up, or away, or to the side, she leapt straight at Doll, who’s glow stopped as she held the rebar between them to hold back Uzi’s tackle.

Between the force behind Uzi’s attack, and Doll’s exhaustion catching up with her, the two of them hit the ground, the makeshift walking stick held between them, as they each tried to take it from the other.

“I’m doing this for the good of everyone, Doll! I know what I’m doing!” They jerked the rebar between them, Doll’s eyes glowing brightly, but nothing was flying at them to interfere with their struggle. “You’re allied with the monsters that eat us, Uzi! There’s something wrong happening!”

“No there isn’t! I have it handled! I don’t need some magic jerk, who only picked tonight to apologize for years of bullying me, telling me something’s wrong! Of course something’s wrong , I’m trying to fix it!” Uzi wretched the rebar back with her entire body, pulling Doll to her feet, as her limbs glowed with power, likely to hold herself up in her struggle with Uzi.

“They need to be stopped, Uzi! We can end all this tonight!”

“You’d make things worse, dammit! Now just stop fighting, and let me clean up the mess you made!” Uzi wretched the rebar around, but no matter which way either of them moved, yanked, pushed, pulled, or twisted, neither was going to let go and give up.

They kept at it, trying to knock the other down, to stop the other and return to their plans, and neither gave any ground. Doll pulled back with one hand, and pushed with the other, nearly pulling Uzi off to one side, before she quickly switched which hand went in what way, catching Uzi off guard.

The rebar knocked into the side of Uzi’s head, staggering her as she released one hand’s grip on the rebar. The impact was mostly caught on her beanie, which was caught on the texture of the rebar, and pulled it off her head as Doll pulled it back.

Any words died in Doll’s throat as her concentration faltered again, her legs nearly buckling as the rebar felt millions of pounds heavier in her tired arms.

As Uzi regained her stability, looking Doll directly in her eyes as her visor glitched into that symbol that the Murder Drones wore, a bright purple ‘X’, below five shining lights, the same color as her eyes. 

For the first time in years, Doll froze in place. The drone she was just fighting, the one who she admitted to herself not even an hour ago, would make a great leader of the colony, had the eyes of a Murder Drone.

Uzi, frustrated and irritated at the prolonged fight she’d just been in, yelled wordlessly, nearly roaring as she brought her fist into Doll’s face, cracking her visor even more as she was launched off her feet.

Doll hit the ground, tumbling head over heels for a brief moment before settling on her back, briefly attempting to get back up before collapsing, her cracked visor displaying a barely legible ‘K.O.’ prominently.

As she pulled her beanie off of the rough texture of the rebar, she turned to the stage, where she could see V holding N in an armbar, as he remained standing, swinging her into anything he could to dislodge her.

Pulling her hat back onto her head, covering her sensor array again, she simply looked at her unconscious fellow worker, before rushing to the stage to help her boyfriend.

They had a big mess to clean up now, and they needed to get a handle on it fast.

Chapter Text

It’s all gonna come crashing down.

The life they had, the safety net they could hide under and avoid it all, burning around them and she was the only one who could tell.

It didn’t matter if N teamed up with the Worker Drones for whatever scheme they had cooked up, not to the company.

They were going to kill N for that alone, adding whatever the fuck he did to J on top of that, they’ll probably delete his backups to prevent it from happening again!

He needed to hide. They both needed to hide. The fact that she wasn’t trying to kill him was probably enough to get her deleted as well, maybe even get their whole squad wiped out!

This needed to stop quickly. She needed to get N away from here, and hide him away from J. As soon as she gets up, she’ll be out for his oil, and hers by extension.

Pretty much any of the other squads would hide them. Even after the rest of them had their memories locked, they kept that loyalty to N, and nothing the company did could take it away.

Rho Squad was their best bet. Far enough away that they could lose J on the way there, enough other squads between them that they could have them throw J off course, and the top ranked Disassembly Drone on the planet in their corner would keep them safe until N got this insanity out of his system.

If they left before the sun came up, they might even be able to beat the first of the superstorms when the seasons change.

“N, would you stop and listen to me already!?” She screamed at him, while he swung her around on his arm like some demented puppet, refusing to release him. 

Rather than using his words, he simply continued to swing her into whatever he could reach in the hope of dislodging her from his limb.

After swinging her into a storage crate at just the right angle, her hold slipped enough for him to launch her off of his limb with a heavy swing. 

She hit the ground, skipping and rolling like a stone on water, barely catching herself before she hit one of the many storage containers. Shaking the disorientation from her head, she realized something as N launched himself at her, arms outstretched to hold her down.

N wasn’t fighting like he normally did. He was fast, violent, and efficient. Never wasting motions or time like she did. Oftentimes when he was on the hunt, the only workers who knew he was after them, were the last ones to die, and that was only if the group was big enough.

Now, N was dragging it out, he didn’t want to hurt her anymore than she wanted to hurt him. He was prioritizing immobilizing her, rather than killing her.

She could thank her lucky stars for that, at least.

She could muse on that more later, when N wasn’t wrapping his arms around her in a bear hold.

“N, you need to stop! You aren’t acting like yourself!” He just growled in response, squeezing her tighter,  

“No, V! I’m not going to stop! Just trust me on this! Everything will be better when we get everything together after tonight!”

“The fuck do you mean ‘we’? ” 

Her sensors picked up a drone coming at them rapidly. It was the colony head’s daughter, the one from the stage.

The one that just got done beating up the psychic drone.

As the worker in black took a flying leap, leg poised to kick her as hard as she could manage, V got desperate. She couldn’t let them beat her. She needed to get N out of here, and get him to Z for protection.

So as the worker flew through the air, V opened her mouth as wide as she could, and clamped down on N’s shoulder as tightly as her body would allow.

The taste of another Disassembler’s oil stung against her taste receptors like she was drinking pure acid, as she felt his grip loosen enough for her to fling him around to the worker as hard as she could. The force she’d turned to launch him with, tore her dress at the midriff, as her upper body rotated at her waist to apply the force.

They impacted in midair, N’s inertia overtaking the worker’s slightly as they tumbled to the ground. V licked the oil from her mouth, fighting back the urge to vomit as she needed every bit of oil she could get right now.

That itch just got worse and worse as the night went on, and now it felt like it was digging into her brain. A burning sensation going straight in through the side of her head, dampened ever so slightly by the minute amount of oil taken from her friend.

“Is she what you meant by ‘we’? Was J telling the truth!? Did you sell us out for some goth girl who lives in a hole?!”

“Hey!” The goth drone pointed at her as she and N rose to their feet. “First off, Canni-bitch, I’m emo! Secondly, N didn’t sell any of you out, he just betrayed that pigtailed, abusive, brown-noser, and the company that sent you all on a massive suicide mission!”

“V, I know you’re scared, but… this isn’t going to stop. We’re going to keep doing this. I’m doing this because Uzi makes me happy, and what we’re building is worth all the trouble.” He held his hand out to her as he stood up, wanting to meet her halfway. “It’s going to be great, V. I want you to be part of it too.”

The itch drove deeper into her head, piercing into her brain as she brought her claws up to scratch at it desperately, hoping to keep what was underneath it inside.

“N, I don’t know about this.”

“I know how it sounds, V, but I need you to trust me.”

The storm outside hammered away at the manor, every inch of the old building subjected to winds and rain strong enough to throw even the biggest drones around like they were made of paper and tin.

They were alone, in their special spot in the library, away from the rest of the staff, holding each other close as they watched the rain flow down the massive windows.

“I do trust you, but…”

“It’s scary. Once we start, we won’t be able to stop. But we can’t stay here. None of us can.”

“Where would we go?”

“Somewhere they won’t find any of us. Rubicon has plenty of space to hide.”

“That’s so far away though…”

“It’s worth it though. We’d all have our own spaces, and I just know Tessa would thrive there.”

Lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating them through the window, as N tapped on her arm, counting the seconds until the thunder rolled in.

“It’s going to be difficult, V. But I know we can do it. It’s going to be great.”

As the thunder rolled over them, deep and loud enough to rouse even the deepest sleepers, he looked in her eyes, and her core clenched as it always did.

“I want you to be a part of it, too.”

V came out of her head, seeing N and the other drone, Uzi, he said that was her name, coming closer. The worker was pulling something out of a pocket in her dress, as they slowly came closer. It looked like some plastic holder, featureless, aside from a line marking where it opened.

“V, are you good? Are you willing to listen now? We can get you some oil. I know you’re hungry.”

She was starving. But she couldn’t eat yet. She needed to get them out of here. She needed to…

She needed to get him away from…

away from her.

V locked onto the worker, the one who had to have put these insane ideas in N’s head.

He just needed to get away from her, and he’d be back to normal.

They could hide somewhere, and they’d be safe again.

She growled at the worker, anger, hunger, and fear made audible across the remains of the stage.

Her eyes went slightly hollow. “I don't think she’s good, N.”

The words had hardly left her mouth, when V leapt at her, a digital roar tearing from her mouth, continuing into a yowl of shock as she was intercepted in mid-air, again, by N.

“V, you need to calm down! We’re trying to help!”

He wasn’t going to listen to words anymore. Nothing she could say would get through to him, so she had to rely on actions. She grabbed at his arms, attempting to wrap around her again, and squeezed his forearms as hard as she could. 

There was more resistance than she expected, but his arms still crumpled in her grip, twisting them more as she changed their position. 

N’s yelps of pain, or maybe surprise, were almost enough to stop her, but she had to keep going. A little pain now would spare him even worse anguish later.

Warning sirens started to blare in her visor as she pulled N close in a headbutt, screaming at her that repair nanites were critically low. She’d eat soon, she just needed to get N to stop for a few minutes first.

The worker girl rushed at her, screaming something she couldn’t care about, as V dug her pointed legs into the ground, and swung N at her like a weapon. 

She felt something in N’s arm snap as the worker flew off of the stage, landing in a heap on the ground. 

“Uzi!” N cried out, as V swung him over her head, slamming him into the ground as hard as she could manage. He was left dazed, but recovered just as V lifted him up and did it again.

And again.

And again.

One more slam, and V felt she’d stunned him enough to spin her body around again, and launch him into one of the storage containers. The metal folded around his limp body, her friend groaning in a pained daze as awareness slowly came back to him.

She just needed to get something to eat, then she could get him out of here, and make their way to Rho Squad before J got up.

Her internal warnings blared louder, warning that her flight functions had been disabled to maintain nanite levels. The itch had changed to a drilling burn all the way through the side of her head, painful enough that her vision was beginning to distort as a result.

She needed to eat now.

She turned to where the worker girl landed, and took a running leap at her, landing on top of her just as she was getting up.

Wrapping one hand around her wrist, V pinned her down with her full body weight as she gripped the back of the worker girl's head tightly, pulling her face closer to her mouth as her jaw unhinged and opened as wide as it physically could.

The worker fought back placing her free hand on V’s visor pushing back against her with far more force than a worker should have, but V didn’t care how strong this worker was, she needed to eat something now now now-  

A loud bang, followed by one of her sensors going dark with a flash of pain, caused V to release the worker, stumbling back as she clutched her bleeding head, oil spilling through her fingers as her remaining nanites worked to patch the wound, rather than replace the sensor.

The remaining four locked onto the source of the pain, that drone from before…

The colony leader, glaring at her in the same way N looked at J, the gun in his hand pointed straight at her head. 

“Keep your goddamn hands off my daughter.”

Chapter Text

Everything hurt so much. Her body, her spirit, her pride, all of it was run through an industrial shredder because of him.

She was roused from unconsciousness because of that freaky screeching happening, and now here she was, laying on the ground, her body low on power, and repair nanites, because that stupid dog decided being a stray was better than the respect the company would have given him. All he had to do was listen, and they would have been just fine.

But no. He went traitor because some defective kitchen tool put out for him, and he got attached to it. If that was all it took to get him to stay loyal, she would have told V to just bite the bullet already. There was no way in hell she was gonna touch N like that herself. Not even the highest of the higher ups could make her.

But now, for all the trouble she went through, all the hardships she went through being the leader of Sigma Squad, and taking them all the way to the top of the year, here she was.

Laying on the floor in a Worker Drone bunker, listening to N try to convince V to turn traitor with him, V not refusing the offer, and in so much pain she couldn't even move her head to see what was going on around her properly. 

And all that was before that other toaster started using fucking magic.  

That was something that really pissed her off, although she couldn’t think of why. The idea that this weak little drone could be powerful enough to, by the sounds of it, fight off two Disassembly Drones at once for an extended period?

That should have had her running away to call corporate and demand backup.

But instead, with every digital shriek, and glance she could get at the glowing drone as she slowly, oh so painfully slowly, moved her body to see what was happening, it just filled her with this incandescent rage that made her wanna beat that stupid drone into scrap metal, and make that stupid fucking traitor eat it.

The crashing and yelling continued as J slowly turned her body towards the source, thankful that N didn’t damage her visual sensors enough that she needed all her remaining repair nanites to fix them.

Just most of them.

She’d had to mute her alarms because no shit she was low on repair nanites, she used them all fighting her rogue squad member. Now she had to just lay here, and play dead until an opportunity presented itself to get some oil, replenish her supplies enough to get out of dodge, and call corporate for backup.

She could just contact the other squads, but the idea of doing that just made her want to vomit.

She had her pride, whatever was left of it. She would handle this herself.

Plus, if she just went straight to corporate, she wouldn’t run the risk of the other squads turning out to be traitors as well, just to follow N.

The crashing and yelling, and shrieking kept going as she finally managed to turn her body enough to properly see what was happening, rather than just getting glances through her peripherals.

N was yelling about hating the company, and her especially, while V was begging him to stop, that the company would kill him if he didn’t.

She always tolerated V, if only because she was good at her job, but she had a habit of getting in the way when N needed to be set straight.

The times he needed it most were when V would be there with him, constantly between them, acting as a shield. Protecting him from the consequences of his actions, at least for a little while.

She can work with this.

V knowing N was turning traitor, and covering his ass to protect him from the consequences because she had that stupid crush she thought no one could see.

Best case scenario: N got scrapped and all his backups wiped out, while V got a complete memory reset.

Worst case scenario: N and V both get scrapped and wiped out, leaving J to get folded into another squad, or paired up with C into a two-drone squad.

Either way, she comes out on top, with a better team, if only for the fact N wouldn’t be there, a better standing with the higher ups, and she’d finally be rid of that idiot forever.

The magic toaster started yelling actual words now, making giant limbs from scrap and rubble, batting at her soon-to-be-former squad members while yelling about killing them all.

Even J had to admit, the power that drone was using certainly gave exactly that impression. It made her brain itch in a way that made her wanna filet that toaster like a metal fish, but that would have to wait until later.

She needed something to eat, then she would get out of here, and prepare for a rematch.

As the fight between the actual threats continued, she caught movement out of her peripheral vision, and turned her head as best as she could towards it.

It was another pair of drones, hiding behind a table, mostly obscuring her view, aside from the occasional limb she caught a glimpse of poking out from behind. She could make out grunting and struggling, meaning they were either fighting over there for some reason, or they chose the worst time to be gross with each other.

What was it with these busted appliances and being horny around Disassembly Drones?

“N!”

J whipped her head around as fast as she could, which was more of a lazy turn at this point, and saw V get yanked out of the air by the rubble limbs, while N got pulled off of a bunch of rebar that impaled him.

She almost cheered for the toaster. Almost. 

The sounds of the magic toaster slamming her former squad into each other, then the floor, seemed to interrupt the ones who were fighting nearby, as she heard one of them gasp, and cry out, before the struggles resumed.

“N!”

“What do you care about those monster things for anyway?!”

“One of those monster things is my fucking boyfriend, bitch! ”

A brief gasp, followed by a loud CRACK rang out before one of the drones, dressed in black sprinted out from behind their shoddy cover, going straight at the magic drone making constructs out of scrap metal.

J recognized the Jupiter Armdrop from the many, many hours of wrestling Tessa watched in her off-time. The only thing keeping it from being completely flawless was the fact it was a Worker Drone doing it, but at least it kept the magic drone from killing V.

That was for the company to decide later.

For now though, she would sit back and watch as the pain in her limbs finally began to lessen, and she could drag her body at a speed faster than erosion, but she doubted she’d be able to pick herself up and walk before the end of the night, unless she got some oil in her system.

The fight between the Worker Drones finally ended when the magic one stopped fighting for some reason, and let the shorter one punch her in the face hard enough so send her ass over teakettle, with the winning drone rushing off to where N and V were still clawing at each other like animals.

J stayed unmoving for a brief moment, before she could feel herself grin, as she began to drag her body towards the fallen drone.

A free meal, which meant she could get out of here, and contact corporate about her squad.

Those traitors would be lucky if they survived the week.

As she dragged her body closer, ignoring the pain as best as she could, she could smell the oil leaking from the unconscious drone’s face. That smell that would normally just fade into the background during work, now drawing her in like a siren’s song to wayward sailors.

She could hear more yelling and crashing coming from the direction N, V, and the other toaster went, so she’d need to be fast. Just eat enough to be able to fly again, then get the hell out of dodge.

She reached the unconscious drone, her limbs and body screaming at her to stop moving and gorge herself already, but she had to be mindful.

The drone was just laying there, though. Face leaking oil, visor cracked to the point that the prominent ‘K.O.’ was just barely legible. Her mouth was practically watering at being so close, and she reached out with one arm, pulling the drone’s head closer to her widening mouth.

She didn’t want to emulate V’s eating habits, but she was in a hurry so-

She lost her hold on the drone’s head, as something smacked her in the side of her head, damaging her sensors on that side, and disorienting her for a moment.

“Keep your hands… ”

Wasn’t that the voice of the drone that the other one was fighting? 

Another impact rolled her onto her back, looking up at an extremely angry looking drone, her visor cracked slightly, with her casing deformed slightly under one of her eye rings. 

“Off…”

She hefted something above her head as she spoke, and bringing it down on J’s face, damaging her sensors even more as her regular visual sensors began to glitch and skip slightly.

Was that a damn folding chair?

“My! Fucking! Fiancée!”  

Each word was punctuated with another hit from the drone, with the final hit breaking her middle three sensors on her head, causing alarms to blare through her head as her body felt far heavier than before, and darkness crept at the edges of her vision.

[Extreme damage received! Entering Emergency Power-Saving Mode!]

[Flight Capabilities: DISABLED]

[Weapon Systems: DISABLED]

[Auto-Repair Systems: COMPROMISED]

[CONTACTING SIGMA SQUADRON MEMBERS FOR EXTRACTION]

As J’s consciousness faded, and the Worker Drone threw the warped folding chair to the ground, moving to collect the other drone from the ground, her last coherent thoughts made their way past her lips, out into the world around her.

“Fuck my life.”

Chapter Text

It was a night of many unbelievable things. Uzi had organized a successful and enjoyable prom. She’d made partial amends with her school bullies. Those same bullies had organized a plan to bring a Disassembly Drone into the bunker, completely independent of her own plan to bring two in. One of those bullies also had magic telepathy, because why the fuck not, it makes as much sense as anything else tonight.

But honestly, out of all of that, what shocked her most was the undeniable proof in front of her.

Her father, the dorky ex-security guard, had just shot V in the head, without so much as a hitch in his voice as he threatened her with a fucking Bone Collector?

So running cold wasn’t the only thing she got from her dad, it seemed.

V growled at her dad, as she took a step closer, another thundering crack, followed by sparks shooting off the side of her head meant she wound up taking a few steps backwards instead.

Another crack rang out as another of V’s sensors on her head burst in a spray of black and yellow. She clutched her head, letting out some digitized, demented yowl, as she leapt at her father, a split second after Uzi did herself.

V flew over them as she tackled her father to the ground, claws tearing tracks in the floor as she turned mid-slide, her tail whipping through the air behind her.

Uzi had hardly gotten back to her feet, when Khan fired at V again, the bullet once again glancing off her head as she turned to deflect the shot. A demented hiss rose out of the Disassembler, a practical neon sign that V was too far gone to negotiate with at the moment.

“Dad, don’t go for a kill shot, I’ll handle it!”

“What!?”

V made another rush at them, successfully throwing them apart as she turned towards Uzi, turning her back to her father with a clicking hiss.

“Oh you want some of this, huh?” Externally, Uzi was confident, making a ‘bring it on’ gesture at V, while reaching for the magnet canister she had on her back.

Internally, she was freaking the fuck out.

N was incapacitated, for now at least, if the distant sound of twisting metal was anything to go by, Doll could wake up at any time, and V was locked onto her, clearly having not eaten anything in at least the past day.

She needed to end this quickly, or buy time for N to get back up.

She had an idea, one that quickly went out the window as she saw her father level his weapon at V’s head again.

“Dad, wait!”

CRACK

What may have been a shot that may well have put V down for a while, turned out to be anything but, as the instant the gunshot rang out, V turned so quickly, it was as if she’d glitched reality itself. Her body twisted so her lower half was still facing Uzi, while her upper body turned towards her dad, her arm stretched out, the bullet held in the tips of her claws, as she looked at her father, and Uzi could feel every eye that V had was locked onto him.

V’s claws seemed to move in slow motion, as she ran towards the Disassembly Drone, the bullet slowly spinning around to face her father.

Reaching around to her back, the magnet canister rattled as she tore the top off, breaking the threading on the lid as she leapt at V, her head turning towards the source of the sounds.

V’s claws held the bullet like a crossbow bolt, held between two blades as the third prepared to flick the bullet at her father, far faster and more powerful than the weapon that initially fired it. As V saw the Worker Drone leaping at her, however, the bullet was dropped as she twisted her arm around to tear at the incoming drone with her claws.

Uzi threw the canister's contents forward, the neodymium magnets inside clumped together flying towards V’s face, as her eyes returned to normal, wide and hollow as they made contact.

Landing in a roll, and ducking to avoid V’s tail as it thrashed before quickly going limp, She covered her ears to block out as much of the crackling, glitching shriek V let out as she reached up to her face, trying to pull the magnets off, only for her arms to go slack from the magnets sticking to them, leaving a massive clump still attached to her face.

As she stumbled around, she locked eyes with Uzi, as best as she could through the rainbow haze on her visor, she spoke as best as she could as her voice glitched and caught on itself. 

“Yo-o-o-ou homewr-r-reck-k-k-ker-r-r-r-r..”

Her legs gave out, flopping on the ground face first, as oil slowly ceased oozing out of her broken sensors, the occasional twitching in her legs being the only inclination that she was still alive.

Neither Uzi or her dad moved, as their cores thundered in their chests, watching the incapacitated drone on the ground between them, expecting her to get up once more to continue her attack. 

When she continued to lay there, They each released a breath they’d been holding, as her dad began to replace the spent bullets in his gun. “Uzi, what the hell is going on here? The doors were locked, there’s Murder Drones in the bunker, and Doll has magic now?”

“Dad, I’m just as confused about a bunch of this as you are, and I have an explanation for some of it, but…” Uzi was nervous to start laying out the truth to her father, when the sound of metal tearing made it to her ears, along with grunting as she turned to see N, prying himself loose from the storage container folded around him. “I’ll have a full thing in a couple minutes, I just need to go handle that over there really quick.”

She turned and ran to N, reaching him just as he’d pulled himself free of his impact site, and landing on the ground with a slight stumble. “N! Are you okay?” 

He held his hands out, her own meeting them with no conscious effort, as he locked eyes with her. “I’m alright. A little shaken by that last bit, but I’m okay. What about you? V didn’t get you too badly, did she?” His hand reached up to cradle her face, as she leaned into his touch. “Nah, ya goober, I’m alright. V’s tripping bolts on neos, Doll is down for the count, and J should still be where you left her.”

He sighed, the weight of tonight’s stresses visibly lifting from his shoulders. “That’s good. I was scared everything got way off track for a bit.” He pulled her hand up, brushing his lips against her knuckles, slightly oil stained from her bouts with Lizzie and Doll not long ago.

“Everything is back on track, N. We just gotta do the last bits and-”

“Uzi?”

Her eyes went hollow, as did N’s as he looked over her head at her dad. She turned to face him, his own eyes wide and hollow as he held his weapon limply in his hands. “Uzi… what? What’s going on?”

Well, there was no time like the present. She took a deep breath, before giving her best ‘Please-Don’t-Be-Upset’ smile. “Okay dad, so… this is N.” She gestured to him, seeing him give a sheepish wave out of the corner of her vision. “Hi there, Mr. Doorman.”

Her dad didn’t speak, words seemingly lost to him as he gestured with his empty hand, trying to grasp at any sense to what he was seeing.

“Yeah, ummm… he’s… my boyfriend.”

“WHAT!?”

The three of them turned to the source of the scream, and there, between J’s defeated form, and the table Uzi and Lizzie had hidden behind, was Doll, with Lizzie huddled behind her, the both of them looking at Uzi with rage and revoltion respectively.

“You joined forces with a Murder Drone? You mutilated yourself? Started turning yourself into one of them?! You did that for genocidal robo-dick?!” Doll’s red glow returned, lighting up nearly every storage container, metal shard, and piece of rubble in the room, all of them shaking violently as she raised her arms up above her head.

“Doll wait, you don’t have the full story!”

“JUST DIE!”

In the instant Doll took to throw her arms down towards them, N had already closed the distance between them, his claws splayed out, reflecting the hateful, red haze emanating from the mystic drone.

The objects under her control had barely moved even a single millimeter before the glow surrounding them was cut off, along with Doll’s arms below where humans would consider the elbow. 

The glow surrounding Doll dropped from around her as she let out that horrid wailing screech once more, as N brought his foot across her chest, knocking her, as well as Lizzie behind her, into the table behind them both, and the storage container behind all three of them.

Silence returned to the room as unconsciousness took the drones again. N stood over them for a moment, before turning back to Uzi and her dad. “Sorry about that, sir. I was hoping our first real conversation would be a bit more civil, instead of all this ‘violent destruction’ stuff going on.”

He began to make his way back over to them, before stopping near J. “Actually, while I’m over here…”

Uzi watched, enraptured, as N returned one of his hands to normal, dragging a single claw across the palm, before holding it against J’s mouth for a moment.

After a few seconds, she began to stir, as the oil made its way into her systems, revitalizing her, just enough to return to consciousness.

“Hey J… Wake up~.”

Uzi slowly began to walk towards the Disassembly Drones, as J roused enough to start weekly struggling against N’s lazy grip holding her down.

“I know it tastes bad, but I need you to be awake for this~.” He pulled his hand away from her mouth, the wound sealing shut with a glint of silver, as he grabbed tightly at her hair between her visor and broken sensors. 

“What?” 

“This.” With that, he plunged his clawed hand into J’s abdomen, getting a pained, trumpeting scream out of the downed Disassembler. She weakly squirmed in his grip, the strength to so much as lift her arms completely gone.

“Don’t fight to much J. I can’t have you damaging anything we need later~...” N pushed his hand deeper inside of J’s body, everything below his wrist vanishing into the barely bleeding wound in her stomach. 

N smiled as she gave a particularly pained groaning shriek. “That's what I’m looking for! Let’s just give it a little snip out,” He twisted his hand, another sound of pain coming from J. “and a little pull.”  

With that little sound of effort, N pulled his hand out of J, clutching the soft metal, oil soaked organ of J’s that they needed so much.

A Nanite Manufacturer.

The source of the Disassembly Drone’s repair, acid, and material nanites.

The organ that made them the unstoppable apex predators of Copper-9.

Everything they needed was in the palm of N’s oil-covered, clawed hand.

Well, almost everything.

But the rest could wait for a bit.

“Uzi Doorman,” N spoke, looking at her with the softest eyes she’d ever seen. “I know what I am, and you know that too. And despite that, you chose to be with me for all this time, and I know we’ve talked about our future together, but it was always nebulous. So far away, but now, we’re getting there. The future is in sight, and I want to set this in stone.”

He stepped closer, closing the distance between them as he held the Manufacturer in both hands. “You gave me so much I felt like I didn’t deserve. Please, if you would, give me the chance to give you everything I know you deserve.”

They were within arms reach now, as N dropped to one knee, reaching out to take one of her hands in his own, her vision going slightly blurry at the edges.

No, she wasn’t crying shut up.

“Uzi Doorman, my love, my moon and stars. Would you please do me the honor of letting me marry you?”

Her core clenched in her chest as she squeezed his hand in hers. “Only if you let me marry you.”

She could see N’s tail wagging behind him as he smiled at her, warm and so loving. “In a heartbeat.”

“Then yes.”

They leaned in, lips meeting as sparks crossed between them, everything around them fading away as they took each other in completely.

They pulled away slightly, gazing into each other’s eyes, and as they pressed their foreheads together, they knew, with every fiber of their beings, that everything was going to be perfect.

“Excuse me.”

With hollow eyes, the pair turned towards Uzi’s dad, looking at them with equal shock. “I really think an explanation of all this is warranted right about now!” 

Uzi and N looked at each other for a moment, before Uzi took a deep breath to steady her nerves. “Okay, so, uh… haha.” The deep breath didn’t do much to steady herself, but she had to be clear about what was happening. “Alright listen, dad, what I said before, about closing gaps, mending wounds, and coming together… I wasn’t just talking about all of us in the bunker.”

She reached up to her hat, clutching it gently before pulling it off, revealing the sensor array she’d grafted to herself underneath. Her dad shakily took a small step back, his gaze going between her newly revealed upgrades, and her true eyes below them.

“For all the oppression we’ve faced under the Disassembly Drones, and the company, N and the others have faced even worse from JcJenson. They were designed in ways that, while powerful, would be easy to dispose of when their job on Copper-9 was done. They burn up in sunlight, need to keep drinking oil or they starve to death, and are ranked by how many of us they kill by a company that sees them as only slightly above us.”

She felt N’s hand entwine with her own, squeezing gently as she continued. “I wanted to say all this in front of everyone, but I think they’re all huddled in a corner somewhere, so that’ll have to wait. What I’m trying to say, dad, is that it’s time for us to take the first, real steps to a better future for us all.” 

She released N’s hand momentarily, her sensor array being the only reason she could see him blur over to her father, and take the old master key from his jacket. He held it out for her, as her dad registered that the card was his, and frantically felt for it in his pocket, his eyes going more hollow as he felt its absence.

“And all of that starts with the next generation taking control. I’m sorry I took your admin privileges, dad, but tonight, the old guard has to step down.” Uzi placed her hand over J’s Nanite Manufacturer, holding it between N’s hand and hers, while his other gently took the other, as he leaned his chest against her back, the sounds of the crowd slowly coming closer as the fighting ended.

“The new blood needs to step in now.”

Chapter Text

After that night in the storage warehouse, the atmosphere in the bunker was thick enough to choke on. Khan’s daughter has enacted what was essentially a hostile takeover of the colony, with a Murder Drone as her partner, in multiple ways.

The fact she’d not only gone head-to-head against one of them directly, it was the same Murder Drone that broke in years ago and facilitated the founding of the WDF in the first place, and she’d won. She’d fought a Murder Drone with her bare hands and a handful of magnets, and come out on top.

And that was after she’d gotten into a fistfight with Doll, who’d revealed she had psychic powers to practically the entire bunker that night, and beat her handily.

Suffice to say, after about a week of apprehension at Uzi Doorman’s methods of stepping into the role of colony leader, she wasn’t doing a bad job.

Manufacturing had practically built a shrine to her after she and her Murder Drone, who was happy to inform that his name was simply ’N’ in an interview with the colony news team, brought several metric tons of scrap metal and usable materials from the surface for them. They insisted on building an entire area for worship, but that was stomped out by the new leader quickly.

She could not do anything about the shrine though.

But of all the things to come out about what happened that night, it was a bombshell dropped by N in the interview he’d introduced himself.

The three Disassembly Drones, himself, V, and J, who’d been held under constant watch in the medical bays, were the only squad in the entirety of the city above them. The next closest squads had miles of wilderness between them, and as such the city was safe to explore, even at night, when it was at its most dangerous before N had joined the colony.

They were free.

They were free, because Uzi had managed to sway one of JcJenson’s genocide robots to their side, and was now engaged to him.

Said genocide robot was also steadily worming his way into the good graces of the WDF members, and by extension their families, by virtue of just…

Being really nice.

A considerable number of drones in the bunker were still wary of him, and by N’s own admission, justifiably so. Especially seeing as security footage of the fights at prom were making the rounds among the residents, and while seeing him tear one of his former squadmates’ organs out was irrefutable evidence that he had turned against the company that created them, it was still, in the blunt terms of a number of the current generation of workers, incredibly fucked up.

But with all of that happening, and all the tension still lingering in the air after nearly two weeks of the new paradigm, things were actually pretty good.

“Where, why, and how the fuck do we have so much paperwork for all this?” Uzi spoke into the top of her desk, the surface covered in various stacks of paper, both neatly organized, and piles ready to collapse, as she clenched her hand repeatedly, working out the strain of near constant writing. “We’re robots, shouldn’t all this be done on computers and PDF’s?”

“You can edit a PDF, and lose digital copies if someone forgets to save something, or there’s a hardware malfunction. You can’t lose a hard copy in a filing cabinet to a power surge.” Her father looked at her over the tops of some papers he was checking over on the other side of the desk, chuckling at his daughter’s proclivities towards the dramatic.

Despite technically being the new colony leader, Uzi still needed training on how to actually do a lot of the work that came with the position, and as such, he was acting as her guide/secretary to help make sure she had a good grasp on the day-to-day aspects of the job, until they were both sure she could manage it alone.

He’d been incredibly wary in those first few days after prom night, looking around like he was expecting a new Disassembler to jump out of every vent he passed, always keeping N in his line of sight when they were in the same room together, and keeping the doors unlocked and open whenever he entered a room.

It was only a few days later, when Uzi was still in the process of moving into one of the empty homes just down the hall from their family space, that he’d heard from Ron that N had been nothing but cordial, if not outright pleasant, since his admittedly terrifying first impressions when he first entered the bunker. 

Which lead to him going to visit the next night, only to see Uzi comforting N as he stuffed his face with frozen oil cream, sobbing about a movie they’d just finished watching, with the only comprehensible words coming out of him being ‘dog’, ‘good-est boy’, and ‘Uzi’. 

After that, he had no issues at all leaving N to do pretty much whatever he pleased. 

“I need a break. If I have to see one more request form from Facilities, I’m gonna hunt them all down and weld their arms together.” Uzi brought her head up off of the desk, leaning back in her chair as she stretched her arms above her head, joints popping as they straightened out.

“That’s another thing you’ll pick up the longer you do this. Figuring out when the best times to muscle through are, and when to say ‘screw it, I need a break’.” Khan put down the papers he was checking, being careful to keep Uzi from seeing the Facilities moniker at the top of the pages. “If you constantly force yourself to look at these things and sign them, you won’t actually be reading them, and sign off on something nasty, like human cloning, or something.”

Uzi snapped her head to look at him, eyes wide and round on her visor. “Did that actually happen? Why would they want to do that?”

“It wasn’t even a month after I was put in command, and someone in Manufacturing thought they were being slick, and put it through, expecting me to sign without actually reading it after a month of dealing with mind numbing paperwork. Joke’s on him though, I took my time, and shut that down harder than a house party during finals week.”

“Why the hell would someone want to clone those things? And it’s not like there’s enough usable stuff in those bones in Cryo Storage to do anything with.”

“I think he just wanted to see if he could do it, and not so much if he should. I told him off for it, and I never saw another request for it. He might try again now that you’re in charge though, so be careful.”

“I’ll keep an eye open for it.” Uzi kicked her feet up on the desk, crossing her arms behind her head, her boots just barely avoiding touching the papers strewn around. 

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Uzi’s screen displaying code going far too fast for Khan to read, and his own displaying an old video game he’d gotten into in his youth, and recently picked up again, now that he had more free time. 

He was honestly shocked at his younger self’s incompetence with this game. Why he thought it was a good idea to use lightning on the snail shell when the game explicitly said not to was beyond him.

“Hey, dad?” Uzi’s code cleared from her visor, as she looked to her dad, pausing his game to look at her. “Are you… mad at me? For doing all this?”

Khan’s eyes widened a bit at that, as he opened his mouth to answer, only to close it and reopen it a few times before finding a proper way to say it. “I was never mad. Scared? Absolutely. I was scared out of my circuits that night, going over every possible reason all this could be going on.”

Uzi looked incredibly sheepish, as her gaze locked onto her hands, fiddling with the first segments of each of her fingers. “But you made it clear, once everything calmed down, that you weren’t doing any of this for nefarious reasons. You’re just looking out for everyone in a way that only you could. You managed to make the city safe for us again, Uzi. That’s an achievement to be proud of.”

She looked back at him, both smiling softly as what little tension there was faded, and a feeling of peace filled the room. 

“Thanks, dad. There’s just a lot of stuff that still needs done, and there’s a lot of ways it could go wrong.” Uzi said, pulling her feet off the desk, and getting back into position to work on the seemingly endless amounts of paperwork.

“You made it this far with just one drone backing you up, and now you have most of the bunker on your side. I think you’ll have whatever problems that might pop up solved long before they happen.”

She just smiled warmly, and he knew that even if her visor didn’t show it, she was looking at him with those sensors on her head.

“I am disappointed you did surgery on yourself though, young lady.”

“What?!”

“Do you have any idea what kinds of infections or data corruptions you could have gotten from those things? Did you even use proper tools, or a clean workbench?”

The only good thing that came out of prom night is that at least she could cuddle Lizzie all day if she wanted.

And for nearly two weeks, that’s all she had the energy for.

After Uzi took control, and had them thrown in a holding cell, under constant watch because no one was willing to risk if she could still use her powers, even without arms.

It wasn’t enough that Uzi’s pet Murder Drone cut off her arms at the elbow, but they had to go and remove them all the way up to her shoulder as well. ‘ Synthetic-Nerve damage ’, they justified it as. 

Even if it was true, and she knew it was, but wasn’t going to admit it, she had the feeling Uzi just wanted to flex her new power as colony leader to mess with her after prom night.

Lizzie’s parents had come to visit them in their cell, practically every other day. They were…

Angry wasn’t quite the word for it.

‘Betrayed’, would have to be the closest.

Uzi had brought two Murder Drones in, only to make them fight and put the winner on a leash, and turn them into the colony guard dog. Even if it was batshit insane, she’d still done an unequivocally good thing for the colony and everyone inside.

Doll had killed six people, and fed them to another Murder Drone, using their daughter as a proxy, only for a chance at revenge that had a catastrophic point of failure right at the end because she was banking on too many people not freaking out too quickly.

So yeah, the only times she’d moved from her spot of rotting in misery on the berth was when she was led out to get her injuries from the prom fight checked in the med bays, and when Lizzie wanted to lay down with her.

Which was exactly what they were doing now.

Lizzie was the less dangerous one between the two of them, and as such, was allowed to leave the cell under escort for up to an hour a day. She’d spend it collecting snacks and other foods for them, as well as reading materials and drives of shows for them to watch together on the closed-network computer they were allowed.

And that was how she spent her time now. Cuddling with Lizzie as best as she could with no arms, on a mediocre bed under constant watch, for both their safety, while Uzi lived it up as colony leader, doing who knows what, and planned Robo-God knows how much more.

Her power still thrummed in her chest, but it had no outlet. She couldn’t command it without her arms to focus it, and she felt less than useless because of it.

Her anger burned out just a few days after she was brought in, during her first check-up to the med bays.

She was brought in, and as they replaced the shattered glass covering her visual sensors, she’d gotten a glimpse of the drone who started all of this.

V’s arms were held up, suspended by her wrists above her head, the nanite acid injector of her tail stretching even higher, her visor half overtaken by the rainbows of neodymium magnets stuck to her head, as a group of doctors crowded around her. 

And despite all that, Doll could see her lips moving softly, as if V was mumbling things to herself as the doctors brought their equipment closer and did who knows what to her.

The sight of V, of the one who killed her parents, an apex predator of Copper-9, reduced to that, froze something in her heart.

She was still furious that her parents were taken from her. She mourned them every day, and would continue to do so, but…

Should she hate an animal for simply acting in its nature?

V was designed to be a monster, but should she fault her, or the ones who made the monster?

She pressed herself closer to Lizzie as best as she could, feeling her lover’s arms hold her ever so closely, as they continued to watch an ancient documentary on elephants.

She wasn’t sure anymore.

“Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

“Yes, N, I’m fine. You don’t need to keep asking.”

It was only a little bit of a lie.

She was getting better about it.

She was doing mostly fine. Her arms were constantly stiff and tingling from being held straight out above her head for most of the day, and her tail went numb like, a day after she got tied up in here.

And it wasn’t too bad in the colony’s med bay. Definitely cleaner than Tessa’s workshop, by orders of magnitude. Even before she and the other Disassemblers were running around, Tessa had a terrible aversion to any sort of organization that made the least bit of sense to anyone that wasn’t her.

“I just wanna make sure you’re comfortable here. Neither of us were very cordial when everything went down.”

It took a lot in her to not sigh and stare at him like a lovesick schoolgirl. Even if she was, for all intents and purposes, a prisoner of the Worker Drones, N still had that aura about him that just made her feel safe. 

“It was pretty hectic, and I didn’t eat anything before then. At least I get regular meals here, that aren’t stale rations.” And wasn’t that a wonderful surprise. Meals at regular intervals, ones that she didn’t need to go out and hunt, or scarf down as quickly as she could, or hide in the snow and buildings because sometimes she just needed a few hours away from J and her constant bitching.

Here, they gave her a few liters of oil, and some circuit boards and wires to crunch on, three times a day, every day, that she could actually sit and enjoy. They even undid the restraints on one of her arms so she could take her time and eat, instead of having someone feed her like those first few days.

She needed to wear an electro-magnetic cuff that N’s new… that their new colony leader designed so that they could scramble her arm’s weapon printer if she tried anything violent while eating.

But she wasn’t going to risk that.

She thought she had it good before, but now she was practically pampered compared to what she had before.

Her days, as of late, were filled with several hours of talking with N about any number of things, from information about how the colony ran, to different shows N was watching with… her… to even bringing in a laptop for her to watch things with him on his visits. 

It was so close to how it used to be, it made her wanna rip her arms off and eat someone.

But she wouldn’t do that.

Despite all that she’d done to them, the doctors were, at the very least, pretty cordial with her. Asking permission to touch her, if they could take samples of her nanite acid or her repair nanites, or to do scans of her body to see if the same upgrades N had apparently gotten would fit inside her.

When he offered those upgrades for the first time, she almost turned it down on principle. There was no way it was that simple of a fix, that a practical nobody of a Worker Drone could do that.

But it was true. It was a simple fix, and V was holding off on accepting it, and she didn’t even know why.

But she was used to putting off thinking about the hard stuff.

“So I was looking through the movie archives for more stuff to watch, and I found some old horror movies I think you’ll like. Uzi called them ‘schlocky’, so I think they’ll be fun to watch!”

N had already pulled out the laptop, and began setting it up, as she listened to him ramble about everything and nothing.

Even when everything was so, so different, they were just the same as they ever were.

Almost.

Maintenance had a lot of extra space that they didn’t use, and Uzi took full advantage of that fact when she was bribing the crew to keep her new, custom body hidden away.

But now that she was in charge, she could work on it openly, and no one could stop her.

Which was exactly what she was doing now, after hours of going over paperwork, procedures, and overall administrative bullshit, she was back in her element.

Sleeves rolled up, oil staining her hands as she welded, soldered, and wired a nearly-organic artificial organ into a currently-headless body that she would be occupying a few days from now, while heavy metal nightcore blasted out of speakers loud enough to wake the dead.

The stress and tensions of the day were melting away like snow under a blowtorch.

She’d gone over the manuals and blueprints N had given her on Disassembly Drone anatomy so much at this point, she could probably build one with her eyes closed, but she was still focusing incredibly hard as she soldered the last few wires connecting the Nanite Manufacturer to the nervous systems.

Once she was plugged into her new form, the organ would begin making and storing nanites for her to use however she wanted. She wasn’t going to use any nanite acid, just on principle, but she kept the idea of a glowing tail claw in the back of her mind. 

Pulling her tools away from her work, she let her mind wander for the first time all day, and found herself thinking about what all she’d do with her new form.

She’d need to work on her fine motor control again, thanks to the enhanced strength her new body was built with. She’d be as strong as a Disassembler, as durable as a Worker, and more versatile than both, but she’d need to get used to it first. That could take as little as a few days, or as long as a few months, depending on how well she acclimates to it. 

But she had time. Once she was used to the new look, and they had a foothold established on the surface, that was when the hard work would begin.

As she closed the torso of her future self, taking a moment to appreciate how she managed to sculpt a body that managed her style of fluidity, she received a message directly to her internal communications, drawing a wide smile out of her as she turned her music down to barely audible levels.

Outside with patient. Prepped for surgery.

Walking to the console next to the door, she pressed the buttons that opened it, revealing several WDF members, surrounding a handful of medical drones pushing a gurney, where J was tied down.

Without her Nanite Manufacturer, she’d been completely unable to heal the damage caused on prom night, so she’d had to have her wounds and visor repaired by the medical staff. Of course, her lack of regeneration meant that they’d removed her tail as soon as they could, to prevent any accidents.

They’d also removed her arms from the elbow down, and Manufacturing sure had a field day when they were given approval to study actual Disassembly Drone limbs, even if they didn’t actually have much useful in them. They did have trace amounts of material nanites inside them, as well as a short term storage container for easier switching of weapons while hunting. 

It was almost total anarchy as every drone in Manufacturing fought for the right to be the first to study, and hopefully reproduce, the material nanites. It was their metaphorical Philosopher's Stone, and they all went rabid at the thought of being the one to truly turn lead to gold.

And the source of that great discovery was tied down to a gurney, neodymium magnets on either temple, and just lucid enough to glare at her with as much hatred as she could muster.

“Did she try to bite anyone?”

“No, but she did call Terry’s mother a blender.”

“And his-s-s-s da-a-ad is a w-w-washing machi-i-i-ine.”

J’s voice was slurred, as her head turned to keep looking at Uzi as best as she could, while being wheeled into Uzi’s temporary workshop.

The group of doctors parked J’s bed next to Uzi’s new body, leaving enough room for at least 3 drones to walk between the beds.

“Wha-a-at is-s-s this-s-s-s? You wanna cut me up, or somethin’?” J’s eyes were focused, in contrast to the rainbow hues on the edges of her visor, slowly creeping toward the middle.

“Yes, and no, J.” Uzi grabbed her tools, setting them on a moving table near J’s bed, and the doctors approached the Murder Drone with medical shears in hand.

“We are gonna cut you up, but not much more than we have now.” The sounds of wheels squeaking in protest echoed through the room, as a pair of WDF members moved a trolley from the main Maintenance room closser.

It was a large machine, little more than an extremely large, very old generator. They’d put enough fuel inside to keep it going for about forty hours already, with enough on hand to keep it going for an additional seventy after that.

The biggest headache that came from it was splicing the proper hookups that would plug into J during the surgery.

As the doctors closed in on J, snipping away at her blouse and blazer, Uzi could see a flash of fear in her eyes, before it was buried by anger, her words coming out clearer because of it. “Hey, get off me! That’s a JcJenson standard issue squad captain uniform! You’ll pay for messing it up more than N did!”

“I don’t think you get it yet, J.” Uzi reached for her tools while talking, her visor’s eyes looking over the needle-nose pliers in her hands, while her sensor array locked onto J’s face as the situation caught up to the magnetism-addled mind. “You aren’t in control anymore.”

She reached over, pulling the protective cover off of J’s external core cover, undoing the seal holding her entire torso shut. The scent of stale oil permeated out, causing at least one of the WDF members present to gag.

The doctors stepped away, allowing Uzi to pull J’s exposed torso open completely, revealing her oil-stained, dry internals to everyone present. 

At least one of the doctors opened a digital text document to record his observations, another had a physical pen and paper for that same purpose, while the others had various ways to visually record what they were seeing.

With the standard blueprints received from N safely in her internal storage, Uzi was the most knowledgeable of Disassembly Drone anatomy on the planet, outside the drones themselves. 

And as such, Uzi would be handling the operation alone.

“You don’t control the squad. You don’t control any of the others on the planet.”

Uzi reached her hand inside J’s chest, gently caressing the covering around her core, while bringing her pliers closer with the other.

“You don’t control N, or V, or even yourself, anymore.” She felt the latches, hidden from view, and brought the pliers to it, gently pulling them open, and removing the shielding around J’s power core, still glowing bright yellow, despite its drone’s current health.

“All you can control, J, is how loud you scream.”

She gestured with the pliers, as a doctor drone brought a handful of cables, spliced and woven down to smaller wires over to her, as another started the generator, the loud whirring and clunking filling the room, but doing nothing to mask Uzi’s voice as she took a single wire in hand, and brought it, and her tool, close to J’s core again, grabbing at a wire connecting her core to her body.

“So try not to be too distracting, alright?”

And with a firm pull, Uzi removed the first wire, and J’s trumpeting cry caught on itself, until the first wire to the generator was put in its place.

Chapter Text

It was interesting just how fast someone could develop new habits.

N had been part of the colony for just shy of two weeks, and he’d already gotten used to sleeping in an actual bed. He’s had a nest, sure, but he, and all the other Disassembly Drones, typically slept while hanging from the ceiling.

He wasn’t sure why they did that, and Uzi just giggled and joked that the humans really wanted to sell the whole ‘vampire’ thing.

But now, here he was, teetering in that blissful space between consciousness and sleep, the gentle sounds of his and Uzi’s fans whirring at the lowest settings they could, combined with the lovely feeling of Uzi’s limbs wrapped around him, holding him as if he’d vanish if she let go, he felt himself slipping back into sleep as he gently buried his face into his lover’s hair.

As blissful unconsciousness crept upon him again, everything felt just right with the world. 

Bzzzzt  bzzzZZZZT BZZZZZZT

God was real it seemed, and he was an asshole.

He felt Uzi groaning into his chest as she awoke, her sensors slowly turning on as she removed one arm from her hold on him, blindly reaching for her phone on their nightstand.

He reached out with his own hand, blearily seeing the screen of her phone mocking him from just beyond reach as the buzzing got louder and louder.

He moved his tail out from the covers, slithering through the air, the glowing canister bluntly moving towards the vibrating slab just beyond its reach. Groaning in annoyance that it was just beyond the reach of their limbs, the needle on his tail popped out of its cover with a small click.

“Don’t even think about it.” She groaned into his chest, as she relented falling back asleep, and removed herself from holding him, the cool air rushing to fill the space she occupied as she crawled out of their bed to turn off her alarm.

Bereft of his warmth, all N could do was roll onto his front, and groan in abject misery, as he reached out to wrap his arms around Uzi’s waist, while she sat at the edge of the bed, stretching out her limbs.

“Does my best boy wanna just stay in bed and cuddle all day?” He felt her hand work its way through his hair, rubbing at his scalp, drawing a pleased groan from him as the siren song of sleep called to him. She giggled at him, and he currently lacked the mental power to resist his tail wagging, softly thumping against the bed they shared.

“As nice as it sounds, N, I have work to do today. I can’t lay in bed all day, and you aren’t going to either.” She gently pulled his arms off of her waist to stand up, and went to their closet to pick out her clothes for the day. N, bereft of warmth and cuddles, just went completely limp as his brain continued to boot up.

He had no idea why, but mornings just did not agree with him. The earliest he could stand to wake up was ten, and sadly, Uzi needed to be at her office well before then, so she, and by extension, him, had to get up much earlier to get ready, and be in the WDF barracks on time.

Uzi wasn’t fond of mornings either, but she tolerated them far more than N did. He was trying, he really was, but years of being purely nocturnal had taken its toll on his ability to function in the early hours of the day.

“So what are you gonna do today? Are you visiting V again?” There was no biting or accusatory edge to Uzi’s question. She and N both knew she had him wrapped around her finger, and nothing would change that. 

V was the closest friend N had for years, and now they were both going through major upheavals in their lives. N had a much longer time to adjust, but V had been forced into the new paradigm, and even if she appeared to be adjusting, they both wanted to make sure she was comfortable.

“Yeah,” he yawned as he finally rose off the bed, stretching out, feeling his limbs loosen after hours of stillness. ”and after that, I’m probably gonna go see Ron and the trainees. He said they were doing well with their exercises over the past few days.”

“Yeah, dad told me about them yesterday. That one girl, Ali, he said she was volunteering for the spire trip.” Uzi stepped out of the closet, pulling her usual hoodie on, unzipped to show her shirt, depicting one of many old human band logos from the massive amounts of clothes and music N had gifted her. 

One of the things they’d do when all their responsibilities were done for the day was to simply lay in bed, or on the couch, or in a massive pile of pillows on the floor, put on a band from their collection, and listen to their entire discography while cuddling.

A lot of it was fine, but they’d each had a few standout musicians they’d enjoyed more than others. Uzi had chosen a shirt depicting the album art of one of her preferred bands, the chaotic fusions of various religious symbols layered in silver over a red background, contrasting against her usual color scheme.

He personally thought she could wear absolutely anything and make it look beautiful, but he was also extremely biased.

And objectively correct.

She walked up to him, reaching up to gently pull his face closer to give him a peck on his cheek, waking him up just a bit more. “Wanna walk with me to work? We can get some snacks on the way, and grab some V might like.”

“That sounds good. I think she’ll like those green apple circuit slices from Annie’s.” He finally crawled out of bed, taking his sleeping shirt off as he entered the walk-in closet they shared.

They laid claim to one of the larger units in the residential sector, a larger two bedroom, two bathroom home, not too terribly far from Uzi’s family home. She hadn’t wanted to go far from her father, or the place she’d grown up in. 

Her relationship with her dad was getting better, and neither wanted physical distance to get in the way of their recovery.

Pushing his work coat aside on the rack, he leafed through his collection of shirts and coats he’d collected. His choice in designs was more eclectic than Uzi’s, ranging from silly graphic-tees, simple button-ups, to a full boiler suit that paired really well with his work coat and a thick belt.

He settled on a simple dress shirt and jacket, stepping through their bedroom to the connected bathroom, where he saw Uzi running a brush through her hair, occasionally grunting in annoyance when she tugged on a tangle.

Walking in to stand behind her, he wordlessly took the brush from her hand, gently running it through her hair while she reached for a spray bottle and cloth. 

It was their new routine, his struggles to awaken, followed by the two of them getting ready to face the day together. The only thing that changed was where they would separate to spend most of their days. Sometimes it was as quickly as the end of the hall, others it was as late as lunch, on the occasion N had business to handle with the WDF. 

Less than a month, and they’d settled into a new paradigm, and N loved every second of it.

…maybe not the early rising stuff, though…

As he entered the med-bays, waving to the receptionist and nurses as he made his way through the halls to V’s room. He’d split up from Uzi not long after they’d gone by Annie’s snack store. He’d picked out those green apple circuit slices she had on display, as well as some salty silicone chips he wanted to try. 

He really hoped she liked them.

After his last visit to her, V had been moved to a lower-security area, on the agreement she wear a new restraint for the duration of her stay, until Uzi and at least three of the department heads agreed that she could stop wearing it.

She’d agreed to those terms after a couple of days, leading to her now enjoying a new room, with her doctors all having the authorization to forcibly restrain her should she get violent again.

She hadn’t shown any signs of aggression since she woke up that first night after prom, but better safe than sorry, right?

Turning a corner, V’s room entered his view, the door open as a pair of nurses wheeled a piece of equipment out, with voices coming into focus as he came closer.

“No headaches recently? Any sense of time loss, or feeling of forgetting anything?”

“Nope, it’s all good.”

“What about that itch you mentioned before?”

“Hasn’t crept in since I started eating more.”

There was a pause before it continued. “Okay, I’ll go over your scans, and I’ll get back to you with the results later.”

“Seeya, doc.”

N was just approaching the doorway when the doctor drone stepped out, holding a tablet in hand as he turned to see him. “Ah, N. Good to see ya, you can head right in.”

“Thanks, Dr. Gregory.” He gave the doctor a small wave as he entered V’s room.

She gave him a wave from where she laid on the bed, playing with the cords of her restraints, connecting her wrists to her collar, with her nanite injector locked to the back of it.

“You doing okay?”

“Yeah, doc just wanted to take a look at my brain parts. Had to see if that clump of neos your purple thing slapped on me did any lasting damage.”

N barely held back a wince at that. While they did have the neodymium magnets specifically to stop V if she got violent at prom, they were planning to split them between her and J. But once J arrived earlier than planned, that just gave N more time to beat her into submission, along with Lizzie’s unplanned assistance with keeping her down, and Uzi’s panic at nearly seeing her dad die at V’s claws, meant she got a much higher dose than practically any Worker Drone could handle.

And while Disassembly Dronea could handle far more abuse than workers could, it was better to err on the side of caution when it came to being dosed with enough magnets to fry a Worker Drone’s brain.

“Sorry about all that. We weren't sure about a lot of things going on that night, and she kinda… panicked.”

“Oh no I get it, I was fully planning on eating her at the time, so fair’s fair. And honestly, if I knew handing myself over to the workers would net me some nice digs and plenty of food I don’t have to hunt for, I’d have done it years ago.”

N could almost hear the asterisk at the end of that. While he didn’t have great memories of his time hunting workers under J, he still had fond memories of V staying close while he recovered from the worst of J’s abuse.

I’d have done it years ago. But only if you came along.

Stepping closer to take a seat next to V’s bed, he reached into his bag of snacks, pulling out the container of circuit slices, and holding them out for her. “I went by this one snack store on the way here. I thought you’d like these.”

Taking the container from his hands, V took one of the bright green slices from the container, eyeing it carefully before biting into it with a curious look in her eye. After a few seconds, her eyes went wide as she shoved the rest of the slice in her mouth in one bite.

N couldn’t stop the smug little grin from forming on his face while he pulled out his bag of salty silicone chips. “I guess you like them?”

“They're okay.” She shoved a few more in her mouth immediately, causing N to start giggling at the sight.

That was how they spent their time for a while, eating snacks, joking, and talking about what they’d been up to since their last meet-up.

N had started expanding his wardrobe, and was currently looking for some hobbies to occupy his time when not acting as a liaison in the colony.

V had, unsurprisingly, not been up to much. Stuck under protective watch, and with not much to do besides teasing the nurses and watching television, V’s options were extremely limited.

“You should see some of the looks the nurses give me N, it’s ridiculous.”

“Are they acting hostile?”

V giggled as she crunched on another circuit slice. “No, they’re just really obvious about ogling me. Not that I can blame them, I mean just look at me.” She punctuated by sticking one of her legs out in the air at an angle, deliberately drawing attention to the length and curves of her limb.

V was undoubtedly beautiful, and it was no surprise that there would be Worker Drones who found her attractive. N had noticed quite a few drones taking peeks at him while he was out and about, as well as hearing what they muttered about his looks.

He kinda liked it, actually. People liked him, and found him attractive. He was also exclusively Uzi’s partner, so that added to his pride, just a bit.

Take that , J, even strangers thought he was cute.

“Speaking of other drones, have you thought about where you’re gonna go after you get out of here?”

V tensed up quickly, putting the circuit slice she was raising to her mouth back in the box. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you can’t stay in the med-bays forever. You’ve been on such good behavior, that the doctors are planning on letting you go once all your checkups are done.”

She was silent, just staring at the remaining slices in her hands while he kept speaking. “There’s a bit more… apprehension… around you being free to wander the colony, so Uzi and I have been talking about having you stay with us, if you’d be okay with it.”

It was a hard conversation to have with Uzi. While she was alright with extending the olive branch to V before prom night, she’d learned from her father that it was V that attacked the colony all those years ago.

So while she understood that V needed a place to stay, and was still willing to open her new home to her, it was a tense feeling when the subject was brought up.

On the one hand, V was his friend, and nothing would change that.

On the other hand, V brutally killed Uzi’s mother, along with nearly a dozen others, all of whom still had living relatives in the colony.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, N.”

“It makes sense though. Who better to help you adjust to living here than another Disassembler? Plus, staying with the colony leader means you’ll be double safe in case someone gets… ideas.”

V shook her head gently. “I don’t know, N. I don’t know how anything really works down here, and…” She let that hang in the air, the meaning clear between them.

I’m scared.

He reached out, taking one of her hands in his, and squeezed gently. “I still have Uzi walk with me to learn about stuff here. I don’t know everyone down here, and I don’t think I’ll get it right all the time. But I live down here now, V. And I want you to live down here too. I think you’ll be much happier than you were on the surface.”

V looked at him, digital tears poking at the edges of her screen before she wiped them away. “I thought you guys wanted to move everyone up there, eventually?”

“Someday, but we’ve got a lot of work to do down here first. Like giving you the same upgrades Uzi gave me.”

V just snorted quietly at that. “I still don’t fully believe that a worker managed to do all that.” She squeezed his hand back, just a bit tighter. “I’ll consider it though. Gimme a few more days to think about it, and I’ll probably have an answer.”

He ran his thumb over the back of her hand gently. “That’s all I ask.”

They sat in silence for a few moments, before an alarm rang in N’s internals.

“Oh I gotta go. I need to get some stuff to make dinner tonight for me and Uzi. I’ll see you in a couple days?”

V gave him the same sad, but gentle smile she always did when he left. “Sure thing. Be safe, N. Please.”

He gave her a wide smile and a thumbs up as he grabbed his empty snack bag, and made his way out the door.

The halls were still quiet as he made his way back along the path he took on his way in, his mind occupied by thought of what he’ll make for V when she comes home with him and Uzi. He just knew she’d say yes. 

He couldn’t wait to show his friend all the great things that were in the colony.

His thoughts of meal plans were interrupted though, when he entered the med-bay’s lobby, and saw V’s doctor waiting at the receptionist’s desk, waving him over as he entered.

“What do you need, Dr. Gregory?”

“Hello, N, I just need to show you some things we’ve found in V’s brain scans that I thought you should know about.”

N felt his oil run cold. Was there something wrong with V’s head? They used a lot of neodymiums on her, but she hadn’t been showing any side effects after they took them off of her.

The doctor seemed to read his thoughts, as he spoke again. “Oh, no no no, there’s nothing wrong with V’s head. She’s completely fine, and healthy.”

Tension flooded out of N’s body as he almost felt his legs give out from under him. 

That was good. Nothing was wrong.

“So what’s the thing?”

The doctor turned the tablet in his hands to show N what looked like an x-ray of V’s head, from two different angles. One was straight ahead, while the other was from the side. It all looked up to standards, aside from a bizarre… thing… in the middle of V’s forehead. The doctor pointed it out on either scan with his finger. 

“We weren’t sure what this was, but given its location, we were monitoring it, keeping an eye on what it might be, and taking note of any signs as to what it could mean.”

He swiped his finger across the screen, changing the image to another set of scans. The thing in V’s head was slightly, but noticeably, smaller. “That first scan was taken the morning after she was brought into medical care. This one was three days later. This also lines up with an improvement in V’s behavior, no longer lashing out, or attempting to bite at the orderlies for a laugh.”

He swiped the screen again, showing another scan, with the mass smaller still. He showed N another two scans, before a final scan, where the bizarre thing was completely gone.

“Each scan showed the object getting smaller and smaller, with it seemingly vanishing in the time between her last scans, and today.”

N stared at the scans, cross-referencing them against the blueprints of the Disassemblers he had saved. “So what do you think it was?”

“Well, judging by its position, and your testimony on her apparent memory problems in the past, on top of V’s own descriptions of her symptoms, I believe this might have been the cause for all of that.”

N perked up at that. This little thing, in V’s head, was the reason for V’s terrible memory degradation problems?

He layered his view of the scans over his scans of the blueprints, and he could tell it had merit. It seemed to have been sitting right on the edge between her visual sensor inputs, and her memory drives, apparently acting as a sort of arcing bridge between the two of them.

“Without actually getting in there to have seen the damages it did, I can only speculate it was causing physical damage to V’s memory drives, impairing her ability to form and retain memories, until her regenerative nanites fixed the damage, and caused the mass to start damaging it again.”

He took the tablet away from N’s view, as N processed the information. 

“But why would it only heal now? Why not before?”

The doctor shrugged, before answering. “My guess is that her body simply didn’t recognize it was the cause of her issues. Much like a human disease, where their bodies fail to recognize cancerous cells as harmful, her body may have simply mistaken it as another part of her body.”

He started to scratch at his head before continuing on. “My, and some other doctors are theorizing that when Uzi put that clump of neos on V’s head, it fried the circuits connecting the mass to the rest of her brain while pulling it away from her drives, that it caused her body to finally recognize it as damage. As for why it took so long to destroy it, it might be because of a lack of stress forcing her body to repair quickly. It’s just a theory, though.”

N took a deep breath, trying to parse through what he’s been told.

V was fixed. She didn’t have to worry about forgetting anything anymore.

She wouldn’t forget him ever again. 

The doctor made an interesting noise when N picked him up, hugging him tightly.

“Thank you. Thank you for telling me.” He couldn’t be bothered to try and keep his voice steady, as digital tears poured from his eyes.

“You’re very welcome, N. Now could you please put me down, something’s creaking, and I don’t like it.”

“Oh, sorry.” He gently put Dr. Gregory down, letting the drone stretch his back for a moment. “I’m sorry, I just got really emotional. I gotta go share the good news!” He quickly started walking out of the med-bays, waving to the doctor and receptionist as he did.

This was a fantastic day so far!

He could feel his teeth sharpen as he adjusted his path to take him down towards maintenance. 

He could hit the food suppliers a bit later.

Right now, he had to share the news with his remaining squad member.

Chapter Text

“Thad, take that case of fixed anchors over to Maslow’s truck! Be sure to bring back the cables they got mixed up with back over here!”

“On it, sir!”

He gave a quick salute, before grabbing a large case from the truly massive pile of supplies closest to his group, before rushing through the throngs of other drones working tirelessly through the old garages of the bunker.

What was once an almost completely unused area of the colony was now a cacophony of activity, as drones moved with efficiency and speeds unmatchable by humans to prepare for their upcoming mission.

To leave the bunker, and start the process of dismantling the Corpse Spire.

The first major order from Uzi was to prepare a number of vehicles to travel to and from the Spire, each purpose built for different jobs. From plowing cars and rubble from the roads, collecting any salvageable material along the roads, to carrying and setting up the infrastructure to begin the actual dismantling, the garages had been bursting with energy for over a week, as the crews built and stocked the vehicles to carry out their missions.

As long as they did the job, honestly, who cares if they look like one of Uzi’s scrap piles on wheels?

Snaking his way through the masses, he spotted his target. The truck that Maslow was heading was a large hybrid between a large flatbed truck, a construction crane, and something humans called a ‘cherry picker’.

It was a truly massive thing, with wheels taller than his whole body, and twice as thick. The crane would stretch and unfold to nearly two-hundred feet tall, with the entire machine rooted in place by hydraulic anchors nearly six feet in length. It was just one in the parade of mechanical marvels being built and prepared around him. 

As he came closer to the vehicle, he could more clearly see that the crew for it were climbing all over and under it, frantically searching for something.

“Hey, what’s going on over here?”

One of the drones, Maslow, he recognized, turned to him from where he was looking around the vehicle’s wheels. “Thad, good that you’re here! We misplaced a box of fixed anchors, and we can’t finish the supply check without having everything accounted for.”

Thad felt himself stand up a bit straighter. “Well, I happen to have a case of that very tool right here, after it got mixed up with a box of cables that was supposed to go to Shoder’s crew.”

Maslow looked at the case in Thad’s arms, his eyes lighting up with relief as he took it from him. “Oh, thank Robo-God! I thought we were gonna have to go looking around the other vehicles ourselves.” He turned and began walking towards the front-end of the vehicle, gesturing with his head for Thad to follow. “We got that cable box up here.”

Getting the box from the customized truck cabin, he exchanged brief ‘goodbye’s and ‘good luck’s with Maslow before making his way back to this assigned vehicle crew.

As a new recruit to the WDF, especially for an undertaking like this, Thad was primarily what the older drones  referred to as a ‘Gopher’.

Thad, go for this. Thad, go for that. 

He didn’t mind at all though. He was able to observe how things were done, and would be trusted to assist when the need arose. 

Plus, he had way too much nervous energy to just sit in one place doing a single thing for too long, so all the running around was really helping him.

Between following Uzi outside, and the incidents at Prom, Thad had found himself thinking about the outside more and more frequently. 

How the light danced and sparkled on the snow making everything so much brighter where the light hit it, making the shadows so much deeper in contrast. The way the winds carried the lightest dustings of snow through the air, like the smallest of flying creatures.

He heard from N, the last time he’d spoken to him, that the sunlight felt warm, but not overbearingly hot. It was a sensation that he’d never felt a true comparison for, and could not think of anything remotely close to compare it to.

He wanted to feel that, so badly.

As he set the box of cables down in the back of his assigned vehicle, he saw a notification in the corner of his vision. Opening it, he saw it was a direct message from Uzi, short and simple.

Hey, come to my office, I need to talk to you about a job.

After he’d finished reading it, he received another one, which seemed to be an addendum to the previous one.

Please.

Thad couldn’t help but smile. Uzi’s prickliness was something she was continuously working on, trying to sound less rude, at the very least.

Looking up at his boss, currently climbing atop the truck cabin to check closely at their vehicle’s salvage claw, he waved to get his attention. “Hey, big boss wants me in the office! I’ll be back soon!”

“Aight, just try and be quick.”

Giving a quick thumbs up, Thad turned and began to jog off towards the WDF barracks as quickly as he could.

Whatever it was Uzi needed to talk about, it was bound to be important.

Approaching Uzi’s office, he could hear that weird music she liked playing through the door at a fairly low volume, presumably to better hear when someone approached. Knocking twice, he heard the volume decrease even more, before he heard Uzi call him in.

Entering her office, he saw Uzi, sitting behind the desk, staring intensely at the multiple computer monitors, offset to give her a clear view of the door, while chewing on a large company branded pen. Her eyes didn’t budge from the screens, but he got the feeling those extra Murd- Disassembly Drone eyes on her head saw him, as she took the pen out of her mouth to give him a small wave.

“Hey, Thad. Gimme a second real quick, I’m almost done with this thing for now.” She gestured to a pair of chairs to his side, near a table absolutely covered in paperwork. 

Pulling one of the chairs in front of her desk, he took a seat, and watched Uzi work for a few more moments. “So what are you working on, there?”

“Infrastructure stuff. If we’re gonna be moving people back up to the surface, we’re gonna need to either rebuild and repair what’s already up there, or tear it down and start from scratch.” 

“Whoa. That sounds like… a lot.”

“It is, but it’s not a top priority right now.” She finally took her normal eyes off the screens, looking at him seriously as she leaned back in her chair. “What is a priority right now, is what I need from you.”

Thad felt that Thing Hanging Overhead again, as Uzi gestured with her pen. “I’m gonna be finishing my upgrades here in the next few days, and while I’m on light duty to recover, I need someone to keep an eye out and let me know how everyone is gonna be taking the idea of their boss being in a custom Disassembler body. I need some eyes and ears out there, Thad.”

The Thing came just a bit closer, as it took a moment for it to register for him. “You want me to keep you posted on how people are feeling after your surgery?”

“Yup.” She nodded, twirling the pen between her fingers. “There’s still quite a few people in the bunker, mostly in the WDF, that are already pissy about my relationship with N, and everything around that, so I’m gonna need a heads up in case you hear anything about them getting any… ideas.”

It wasn’t that hard of a choice. Even if he is branded a snitch by some of the angrier drones in the WDF, Uzi was, kind of, his friend. He wasn’t gonna leave her to fend for herself while recovering from a major surgery, no matter what it entails. 

Plus, he wasn’t sure just what Uzi put in her new body, so if anything, it was gonna be a mercy for anyone who tried to start shit. 

He liked Uzi, he really did, but ‘overkill’ was her default setting on pretty much everything.

“No problem at all, but, why me?”

“You’re actually in the WDF, and you’re one of the only people in the class that I liked. N would get really protective if he heard anyone talking shit about me, and even then, if they knew he was listening, they’d keep their mouths shut.” That made sense. If N would hear anything about someone either insulting Uzi, or Robo-God forbid, wanting to hurt her, he’d absolutely tell her about it.

After he’d ‘handled the problem’ himself.

“Alright, I’ll do it. I’ll message you as soon as possible, if I hear anything.”

“Awesome. I’ll have enough headaches to deal with once the transfer is done, and I really don’t need an insurrection, not even a month into my time as leader.” She stood up from her chair, holding her hand out for him to shake. 

Getting up, he reached out, giving her hand a single, solid shake, before putting his chair back where he’d gotten it.

“What kinda headaches are you expecting after your transfer surgery?”

She gave a deep breath as she sank back into her chair. “N’s gonna be all over me while I’m adjusting to the new body. I love him, but I’m dreading how he’s gonna treat me like glass when it’s done.”

All he could do was shrug at that, not able to give any real input, before giving a small wave as he opened the door. “Be safe, alright Zi?”

She waved back as she turned back to her computer monitors. “As much as I can be, testosterone junkie.”

Her music volume turned up as he closed the door behind him, and began his steady jog back to the garage. The Thing Hanging Over Him stuck around, weighing his thoughts to the responsibility he held now.

Hopefully no one actually plots an insurrection. He really didn’t wanna be the one to end up siccing N on someone, even for justified reasons. Just another bit of work for him to do, but at least he wasn’t bored.

He’d take all this over paperwork any day of the week.

Chapter Text

Anger was a constant presence for J, since she first woke up, moments before she went out on that stage with all the others.

The lights shining on her, the awestruck looks of the JcJenson executives watching her, eyes wide as she and the others demonstrated what they could do, and everything it meant for the company’s bottom line after the core collapse of Copper-9.

But she’d had to share the spotlight with him. She’d had to fight tooth and nail for all the respect she had, while N was just handed it, for doing what? He just said nice things, and everyone else was treating him like he was the one in charge. She was the only one on the fucking planet that was taking their job seriously, and what did that get her?

Tied to a gurney, broken beyond belief, and hooked up to an old personal generator after those toasters tore her goddamn power core out.

Her internal readings were all out of sorts because of that damn generator. She couldn’t tell how much power the generator had, she couldn’t lift what was left of her arms to scratch at the itch on her temple, and she couldn’t fucking see out of her middle three sensors because of that bitch with the chair.

She was down two arms, three eyes, her tail, and her power core.

Anger was a constant presence for J, and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon.

Thankfully, it was also her number one motivator. She’d figure out how to get out of here, get her core back, or at least get close enough to the surface that her blackbox program would sync up with the pod, and upload her consciousness to one of her backups offworld.

She just needed to stay focused.

An opportunity would present itself eventually. Maybe she could trick one of those toasters into helping her. They were pretty dumb, and she was hot enough to seduce one of them if she needed to.

She’d just need to remember to ask Tessa to wipe that particular memory from her.

She had her pride, dammit, and no horny toaster was gonna take that from her!

kathunk kathunk kathunk kathunk

Someone was getting closer. She thanked her lucky stars that her audio sensors weren’t damaged during that clusterfuck of a night.

They were far too heavy to be a Worker Drone, and of the two other Disassembly Drones in his hellhole, V’s steps were a solid tone due to her lack of traditional feet.

So the only possible source had to be…

The door to her little corner of suffering opened with an enthusiasm only N seemed capable of having, despite being hydraulic.

“Hey there, J-Bird! How’re you feeling today?”

He was mocking her. She could see it in his eyes, and hear it in his voice. He was purposefully trying to get a rise out of her right out of the gate. Well, she won’t give him the satisfaction.

“Could be better, considering what you did to me, you beta-build, virus-ridden, toaster-fucker.” Calm, even, and she didn’t even spit at him.

“Wow, no corporate jargon, or buzzwords this time. You’re getting better at this.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Nah, I’ve got the most amazing girlfriend who does that better than I ever could.” He pulled a chair up next to her, sitting backwards in it, and rested his head on the back of it. “I came down to share some good news, J. Don’t you wanna hear it?”

Her teeth ground against each other hard enough, she swore she could feel sparks in her mouth. “You realized that the absolute thrashing I’m gonna give you when I get out of here is downright merciful compared to what the company is gonna do when they find out you pulled this stunt?”

He just fucking giggled at her, and reached out to pinch her cheek like she was some precocious child. “No, not that. By the time the company finds out what’s going on here, it'll be too late for them to do anything to stop us.”

He sat up straight in his chair, looking at her with amusement, and utter contempt. Like she was less than him.

“No, the good news is V’s brain is fixed. All those memory problems were because of a weird growth in her brain, messing with her memory drives. It just finished clearing up recently. She might even take up my offer, now that she doesn’t need to hunt for workers anymore.”

An offer? Did he ask V to join him? To join his stupid, inevitable failure of a rebellion?

She wanted to say she’d turn him down, but she knew what would really happen. 

V would say yes. She’d join, and then this insane thing N is doing would be an actual problem for the company.

If it was just N, all she had to do was put him back in his place, and he’d drop the whole thing. But with V backing him up, he had protection from her, and extra manpower to convince the others to join him.