Archive of Our Own ^beta

‘This day could not get any worse ,’ Uzi thought to herself as she walked through the rubble of whatever underground facility they had entered. In reality, Uzi didn’t know a lot about what was going on. Tessa had told her about Doll’s suspicions, which ended up being her suspicions as well. Who knew they thought so similarly? …Clearly not similar enough. Uzi shook her head. Doll can bite me.

She recognized the symbol on the wall that Tessa showed them from the field trip she’d taken not too long ago. Uzi tensed up at the reminder of that awful trip. That stupid trip cost her a friend. Two friends, if she really thought about it. She hadn’t seen Thad since that day, not even on the bus ride home. Had they left him at the campsite? Or did she… No, no, she couldn’t have. She remembered all of her kills, despite not being in control. Rabecca, Darren, Braiden, Sam, Emily… She shook her head, guilt slowly sinking back into her gut. She didn’t need to think about all of that again.

N’s voice cut through the tense air.

“Is the secret elevator… labeled…?” He said, shrugging his shoulders.

Suddenly, a loud CLANG and then a THUD followed immediately after, right where they had entered moments before. N, V, Uzi, and Tessa’s heads snapped over to the plume of dust and debris immediately, the drone’s eyelights hollow. V slowly came up and in front of N and Uzi, taking her swords out. 

Tessa backed up to them, breaking the tension. 
“Sooo… Who wants to go check it out? Not it!”

“Not it,” Uzi and V said in unison.

“Not– Aaw…” N whined, slumping forward with a frown. 
“I always lose at those.”

“Aw, it’s okay, N,” Tessa said sympathetically, patting his head.
“You’ll get it someday.”

“Hurry up!” V hissed.

“Okay, okay!” N huffed, taking out his guns and creeping forward. Anxiety rose in Uzi’s chest as N walked away. She didn’t want him to get hurt.

After a long moment of silence, N finally spoke up, “It’s safe!”

“Are you sure?” Uzi responded.

“Yup! As safe as safe can be!”

Uzi and V shared a glance, then went to N, along with Tessa. Uzi’s core sank when she saw what was there.

On the ground next to N lay Uzi’s classmate, Thad, the one she was just thinking about. He was out, but he wasn’t dead. Blinking, green text was on his screen that read [Sleep Mode.] That was a relief, though he was still in… questionable condition. Parts of his fingers and legs were covered in frost, probably from being lost in the forest. His visor was cracked, and his chest looked dented. Some of his hair was even sticking out from under his hat. He must’ve hit the pipe they’d all landed on the way down. Now it was one thing for Thad to suddenly appear after being gone for as long as he was, but it’s another for him to appear where they are.

Uzi went up next to Thad and N and knelt.

“Thad?” She muttered, moving some of his hair away from his face, “What is he doing here?”

N shrugged, “Didn’t we accidentally leave him at the campsite?”

“Yeah,” Uzi nodded, “How did he find this place specifically?” She wondered, “Thad’s never been the type to explore.”

“Why don’t we just interrogate him?” V suggested, approaching with a sick smile, “Or do an autopsy?” She kneeled next to her.

Uzi bapped her face away.
“Shush, V. You stabbed him once, I’m not letting you do it again.”

V huffed, “You’re no fun.”

Tessa came up behind the three, “Are any of you gonna tell me who this is?”

“Oh,” Uzi looked up at her, refusing to admit that she kind of forgot she was there.
“This is Thad, a classmate of mine. He’s, uh,” she felt her face heat up slightly, “on most of the sports teams.”

“Oh.”

Silence befell the group again as they thought about what to do next.

“...C’mon, we don’t got all day, kids! Wake ‘im up n’ let’s go!” Tessa swung her arm around as she spoke, turning on her heel.

“What? No!” Uzi protested, glancing at her before looking back at Thad, “He just fell from, like, really high up. We should let him rest.”

Just as Uzi finished her sentence, V suddenly jumped on top of Thad, grabbing him by the face with her claws. 

“Wake up, idiot!” She chirped.

“V!-” N shouted, going to grab her. He stopped as a groan escaped the sleeping drone’s throat.

Thad’s eyelights blinked onto his screen, the one underneath the crack on his display rapidly blinking and glitching in and out. He blinked in confusion at V, quickly realizing he wasn’t dreaming. He let out a panicked yelp and shoved her hands off of him, kicking her in the stomach. V gasped and jumped off of him, glowering down at him with an angry look on her face as she held an arm over her stomach area. He looked up at her in fear as he attempted to scramble away, something purple catching the corner of his eye. He glanced over, spotting Uzi and N beside him. He seemed to calm down immediately.

“U-Uzi? N? Where am I? Why was V on me?-” He sputtered, frantic.

Uzi and N shared a glance. That’s not good.

N held out his hands.
“Woah, Woah, calm down, Thad. V was just… trying to wake you up,” He carefully helped Thad sit up.

“In a horrible way!” Uzi added, glaring up at V.

V rolled her eyes and scoffed, “At least it worked. You’re welcome,” 

“How do you feel?” N continued.

“Uh.. Fine, I gue-” Thad stopped, wincing and putting a hand to his head, “ Ah– Ow, never mind. My head—”

N winced, “Oof, yeah. You fell pretty far.”

Thad looked up at the hole above him, his eyelights hollowing. 

“Woah… Did I fall in through that? No wonder why I feel half blind.”

“...Thad, I have a question,” Uzi suddenly spoke up, squinting at him.

He turned to her, a curious expression on his face.
“Yeah?”

She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him slightly.

“Where the frick have you been?! First, you disappeared during the field trip, no one can contact you through your phone, and now you’re here?! How did you even get here?”

Thad looked at her, surprised. Once she was done talking, he glanced away, rubbing the back of his neck. His voice stiffened, along with his body tensing as he spoke,  “Oh… Right. Uh, about that— I don’t… Remember.”

“...What?” N asked, leaning over from behind Uzi so Thad could see his confused face.

Thad nodded, “First, I’m in the cabin with everyone else, and the next thing I know, I’m in the middle of the forest. I think I heard screaming, but it’s… Fuzzy. My clearest memory before now is standing in the middle of a frozen lake holding… Uh…” He paused, looking away, “...I can’t remember.”
He looked back at Uzi and N, noticing their scared and worried faces.

“Well that’s not weird and concerning,” V chirped.

“Shut it, V!” Uzi ordered, quickly turning back to Thad and softening her voice, “You haven’t been… having any cravings lately, have you?”

“Other than craving some football action, no. Why?”

“Uh… no reason,” Uzi chuckled nervously, standing up. 
“Well, we’re definitely not turning back now. You should come with us, Thad.” 

“I would, but, uh, I can hardly see.”

“Oh, I got it!” N chirped, then licked his palm suddenly and slapped it on Thad’s face, causing him to flinch back slightly.

“Ew!” Uzi, V, and Tessa exclaimed.

When N pulled his hand away, Thad’s broken display was fixed. 

“What?! Healing spit!” N retorted, pointing at his wet palm.

Thad blinked in confusion and disgust, chuckling nervously, “Oh… Eheh… Th-thanks, N&M’s.”

“No problem, Thad!” N said jovially, grinning at him as V shook her head, walking away from the group. N helped Thad up, allowing the group to trek further into the strange underground facility. As they walked forward, Tessa decided to talk to the new Drone.

“So, Thad, Right?” She spoke, looking down at him.

Thad glanced up at her. 
“Yup. You are?”

“The name’s Tessa!” She cheerfully held out her hand for a handshake, to which he happily obliged.

“You’re a human, right?” Thad asked, looking at her astronaut outfit up and down.

She tipped her hat, “In the flesh and bone!” She chirped, laughing.

Thad smiled, “That’s cool. Well, it’s nice to meet you.”

“You too, Thad,” She nodded to him. After a long moment of silence between the two, Tessa spoke again, “So, Uzi… notice anything weird with her?”

She turned her head away from Thad, looking at the aforementioned drone.

Thad followed her gaze. 

“Uh… No, not really,” He turned his head to her as he spoke, staring at her for a moment, confused. 

A tail seemed to appear from Uzi’s back, reaching around and nibbling at N’s hat.

Thad’s eyelights went hollow for a moment as he mused, “Woah.”

“Yeah. That has to do with the solver thing we’re dealing with.”

“...Oh. Don’t worry, I’ve… had an encounter with it,” He winced slightly, rubbing his arm.

Tessa perked up at that, looking at Thad in confusion. 
“Really? You have?” She asked, almost too eagerly

“Yeah. It grabbed my ankle with a weird human hand and pulled me away. I… I think it was supposed to kill me…? But it didn’t. It tried to pretend to be me, but it failed and N and Uzi freed me from it, and it kinda… let me go,” He shrugged, “Which, I mean, thanks, I like being alive, but really?”
He looked back at Tessa for her reaction as he finished speaking.

She seemed to just… stare at him. He wished he could see her expression. Suddenly, she wrapped her arms around his head like she was trying to hug him and cooed, “Aw, you poor drone…”

Thad tensed at the random hug, awkwardly patting her arm.

V’s voice rang from ahead, “Uh… Tessa? Get over here!”

“Oh! Coming, V!” She happily called, pulling away from Thad and sprinting over. Thad was quick to follow her. 

They walked into a room illuminated by a red light and oily claw marks on the window as they approached. Broken, clawed screens displaying warning signs lit up the dark room with a red hue, making things eerier. Thad squinted, trying to read the warnings. Something about a core collapse and anti-drone sentinels…? That can’t be good. Suddenly, he heard N gasp to his right. He turned his head over to him, his eyelights hollowing at the sight. All along the walls were the dead, mangled bodies of at least fourteen disassembly drones, if not more. V stepped forward, shining her built-in flashlight along the walls. They were covered in various claw marks and graffiti, the words “DON’T LOOK AT THE LIGHTS” plastered nearly everywhere, even on the floors. A purple light seemed to converge with V’s yellow, Thad assuming it was from Uzi.

“Riiiight…” Tessa started, “Miiiight be some security, specifically against…” She went over to the desk in front of the broken monitors, popping up behind the desk, and finished her sentence “You guys.” She did finger guns at the group of drones.

Uzi, N, and V went up next to Thad since he’d already stood before the desk. He glanced over at them, looking at V in particular. Somehow, she didn’t look too bothered by the dead Disassembly drones… He wondered if-

Suddenly, Tessa began to speak again, standing up on the desk, “HUMAN made security this HUMAN can control!” She announced, kicking a monitor off the desk, doing a front flip off the desk, and landing next to the printer with a nervous chuckle. She carefully plucked out a piece of paper, looking at it. Then, she silently put it back into the printer, pushing the paper down with her finger. 

“...Maybe.”

V flicked something out of her claws, sending it over to Thad and hitting him in the head. He winced slightly.
“Anything to screw Cyn’s plan,” V said nonchalantly, switching her claws out for her flashlight again and walking past Tessa.

“And for Mom backstory!” N chimed in, “Right, dude?” He asked Uzi with a smile.

“...Yeah,” Uzi responded, her voice soft as if she had something on her mind. Thad watched as she glanced back at the dead Disassembly drones, then turned and sprinted up, next to N.

Thad frowned, worried for her. He speed walked up next to her. 

“Yo, Zi,” He spoke.

She turned to him, slightly startled.

“Oh, Jeez. I already forgot you were here.”

Thad chuckled a little, “That’s fair. You good though? You look like you have something on your mind.”

“I’m fine, Thad,” Uzi responded dismissively, waving her hand slightly.

“...If you say so,” Thad shrugged.

They walked in silence the rest of the way until they came to a stop in front of an intersection. V shined her light above the doorway, a directory hanging off the wall. To the left was an Emergency Assembly Area, straight ahead was a Secret Elevator, while to the right was a Sentinel Reintegration Unit. Thad tilted his head to the side curiously at that. That’s the second mention of whatever these sentinels are…

“Ooh!” N exclaimed from beside him, pointing excitedly up at the directory. V’s eye twitched as N turned to Uzi, pointing at the directory again. Uzi nodded her head.

“Righty-ho,” Tessa said, “Sources say that wa-” 

She took a step, her leg suddenly being grabbed by something and pulling her to the left.

“Except I’m going this way, so save me if you get a chance, THANKS!” She yelled to them, waving from behind the desk before promptly disappearing. It had all happened so fast that Thad barely registered the fact they were now running. They heard a baby giggling and Thad felt himself get grabbed by the arm and tugged behind a wall.

N and Uzi peeked out from behind the wall at the baby on the ground, V hanging upside down. Thad turned his head toward them, refusing to look as well.

“...Shoot the baby immediately?-” Uzi suggested.

N quickly jumped out to the middle of the hallway.
“That’s not soon enough!” He cried, shooting his gun at the baby. Thad covered his audials at the sound of the gunfire. 

By the time his audials stopped ringing, Thad had finally noticed he was sitting alone. He slowly stood up, walking out from behind the wall.

“Uh… Guys…? Where’d you go?-” 

He froze as he looked forward, seeing two other drones hauling his friends away. One had orange eyes and LEDs with strange antlers made out of scrap metal on her helmet and a tail similar to a disassembly drone tail, except this time it had a knife at the end of it. She had Uzi in her arms, simply dragging her away. She had a baggy shirt on, showing her orange bodylight. Her hair was short and swept to the side, though Thad couldn’t make out what color her hair was. It was too dark to see.

The other drone was… A baby. Literally just a baby with blue eyes, a hat, weird, spider-like limbs, and one disassembly drone hand. It was gruesome, to say the least.

Suddenly, the baby drone’s disassembly drone hand swapped out for a gun, aiming at Thad.

Thad yelped and put his hands up, taking a step back.

The orange-eyed drone grinned, a sinister tone in her voice as she spoke, “Beau here won’t kill ya if ya come with us.”

Thad nodded frantically, walking toward them. He wasn’t sure if these two were the reason all those Disassembly Drones were dead, but he didn’t want to be the one to find out. Thad was ushered in front of them as they began to walk. They were mostly silent, aside from the scraping of metal against metal. Thad wrapped his arms around himself, unsure what to do with them.

“S-So, uh—” Before he could finish his sentence, an electric current shot through his body. He let out a glitchy scream before his systems shut down, causing him to fall forward. Everything went dark.

*  *  *

Thad stirred awake due to a heavy thud near him. His eyelights blinked into his visor as he glanced around, his audials ringing. When he turned his head, he saw Uzi next to him. She was completely out, as far as he could tell, her visor blinking idly. She had a magnet attached to her head, stuck right over her beanie. Thad glanced up at himself. It didn’t feel like he had a magnet on his head, but maybe you usually can’t feel it. He didn’t know. He’d never taken magnets before.

Another thud with some gentle clanking. He glanced over to the other side, his eyelights going hollow. 

The orange-eyed drone from earlier was standing over another worker drone who was seemingly frozen in time, a blue-green loading signal on her face. She looked like she was screaming, but nothing was coming out of her mouth. Thad wanted to say something, but he couldn’t find the courage to speak

The drone brandished an axe, the oil-covered edge of it glistening in the dim light. She swung the axe down over the boot-looped drone’s neck, but moments before it struck, Thad yanked his head away so he wouldn’t see, followed by a swift thunk of the axe hitting metal.

The drone seemed to notice Thad’s movements, as a heavy clang sounded off from behind him. He found himself face to face with the drone that had electrocuted him and possibly his friends.

“Well, g’mornin’ to you too!” She said, standing straight, “Yer lucky, I’m givin' ya special treatment.”

“...Special treatment?” Thad echoed.

“You ain’t got a magnet attached t’yer skull!” She chuckled, flicking his head a little, which caused him to wince. She turned away from him, picking up her axe and turning to him with a grin

“Uh… R-right. Thanks, uh…” He squinted at her, looking at the little tag she had hanging off of her antler.
“...Alice.”

“Oooh, observant!” She chuckled, “Well since ya know my name, might as well tell me yer name too!” She stepped closer to him as she spoke, holding her axe menacingly.

“Uh…” Thad hesitated, “I-I’m not sure I want to…?” His voice got higher as he spoke, something he often did when he was nervous.

“Aw, why not?” Alice pouted.

“I… Uh, I feel like if I do, you’re gonna do something to me. Like that old human folklore.”

“Oh, don’t worry!” Her pout suddenly turned to a sinister grin as she lolled her head to the right, her eyelights hollowing as insanity crept into her voice, “I’ll be killin’ ya all the same,”

His eyelights hollowed, stress lines showing underneath each eye, “O-oh. Um, okay. Th…Thad.”

“Thad, huh? Ya got a weird name, kid.”

“Says the drone with a friend named ‘Beau-’” Before he could finish his sentence, Thad gasped, tensing up and raising his head slightly as her axe swung down, stopping mere inches above his throat. She glared down at him.

“I’m the one who named 'im, ya son of a-”
The door slid open suddenly, the gentle tip tap of Beau’s spidery legs walking in. Alice looked up from Thad, smiling sweetly.
“Oh, hello, Beau! Whatcha need, buddy?”

The baby drone made a couple of hand gestures, which Alice seemed to understand.

“Sedatives are in a bucket under the cabinets, sweetheart.”

Beau made a few noises, then turned and left the room again.

Alice smiled at him, waving, then turned back to Thad, her demeanor changing completely. Her smile dropped as she stared at Thad with a strange gleam in her eyes.
“Now, where were we?”

“ I-I was just about to apologize for insulting Beau’s name…?”

“Go on then,” Alice threatened, brandishing her axe.

“I, uh,” Thad swallowed harshly, “S-sorry. Beau is a great name.”

Alice glared at him for a moment, then smiled and shrugged.
“Good enough fer me!” She chirped.

hopped back onto the bed beside him, returning to hacking at the bootlooped drone’s neck. Thad turned away again, disgusted. How could a Worker Drone ever do this to someone else?

Suddenly, Thad heard Uzi groan. He opened his optics again, grateful to see that Uzi was still alive.

Her hands moved slightly as she stirred, looking around. She sat up tiredly, a small pulse suddenly coming from the magnet. She exclaimed in a short, exasperated tone. 

There was another hack of Alice’s axe, cutting off what Thad was about to say, then a final hack. The axe hit the bed, a splash sounding off from behind him. He refused to look, knowing full well what happened without needing to turn his head.

Uzi panicked, struggling to pull her hands out of the straps that bonded her to the surgery bed.

“Sentinels picked at this one,” Alice spoke with her southern accent, carefully slicing a wire off of the drone’s severed neck. Thad finally decided to turn his head to look at her, cringing at the sight of the decapitated drone.
“I try not to damage good parts,” she said sinisterly, a toothy grin on her face as she flicked something on her weird antlers and turned some kind of light on. 

Uzi squinted at her, confused.

“Of course, some parts are more valuable than others, ain’t they?” 

Alice lunged off the bed and clambered across the floor to a certain, pulling them back and spinning the axe in her hand.

The curtain revealed V, strapped to a table with a magnet attached to her head. Her eyes were hollow with a large grin on her face.
“More valuable,” she echoed, almost as if she was bragging.

Alice climbed on top of her and raised her axe, causing Thad to turn his head away again. He couldn’t bear to watch.

“W-Woah, hey, cut that thing up and you’re gonna get a big creepy worm,” Uzi remarked, looking disgusted.

Thad simply nodded his head, then shivered slightly, remembering when he got pulled away by it.

Uzi looked at V and smiled.
“An improvement!” She said sarcastically.

Thad couldn’t see, but he knew V was rolling her eyes.

“Nah, he keeps them sluggish!” 

There were a few clangs like Alice was climbing around again, and Thad decided to look over.

Alice crouched over some type of oven, and wedged her knife tail between the handle and the door, prying it open. 
“Ain’t our first rodeo.” 

Inside the oven were jars of… Robo-christ, what even are those? They looked like weird, gross, fleshy… things with tentacles and a single eye . Thad’s face contorted with disgust. Alice closed the oven again.

He turned his head back to Uzi, who looked scared and disturbed. She shook her head and raised her hand.
“Okay, that’s enough of this.” 

That strange solver symbol he’d seen Doll use spun onto her hand and appeared on her face, yet nothing happened. Instead, her voice and visor glitched and stuttered. She stopped and clenched her fist, looking at her hand. She tried again, yet the same thing happened. She gasped in frustration.

Alice laughed as she jumped down from her perch, clawing over to Uzi’s bed and standing up, raising her knife. 

“Dealt with witches ‘fore too,” She said almost too excitedly, putting the flat end of the blade under Uzi’s choker and pulling on it as she giggled. She looked at the choker and leaned a little closer.
“Though, ain’t seen 02 since she left us to die.”

Thad turned his head to look at the ceiling, a sinking feeling tugging at his core. He felt like he recognized that, but he wasn’t sure why. And why did everything suddenly feel fuzzy at the mention of that too? He squinted at the ceiling, swearing to himself that he saw something in the fuzziness. He must’ve zoned out because the next thing he heard was shouting.

“Beau, we’ve got Nori’s kid here!” Alice shouted excitedly. 

Another strange sinking feeling tugged at Thad’s core, the name feeling even more familiar. His hand twitched. He hadn’t noticed it, but V was staring at him.

There was a crunching noise and Alice winced, reeling back, as Uzi cackled, “Need more sedatives, it’s bitey.”

“More?” Thad echoed under his breath, turning his head to look at Uzi. She had 2 extra magnets attached to her head, yet she was still sitting up and trying to fight back. Thad raised his eyebrows, slightly impressed.

Soon enough, Beau scuttled in with a magnet held between tongs that extruded out of his disassembly drone hand. He held it in front of Uzi’s head and let go, allowing it to magnetize to her head. In response, Uzi spat out the tip of a finger into Beau’s face.

“How’d you know my mom?! Was she cool?” Uzi asked eagerly.

Alice ignored her, presumably fixing her finger from Uzi’s bite. Thad had never personally been bitten by her, but judging by the fact she literally just spat out a finger joint, he could tell she had a strong one.

“She didn’t suck, did she?” Uzi added, her voice dropping.

Alice didn’t answer for some time. She picked up a pair of pliers and turned away from the desk she was at, crawling over to an office chair and perching on it. She grinned as she propelled herself over to Uzi on the rolling chair with her knife tail with a smile. She looked at Beau and flinched her knife tail toward him.
“Back to the others!” she ordered.

Beau flinched back, fear on his face. The moment she finished her sentence, he turned and scuttled away.

Thad felt bad for the little guy. He was obviously old enough to be upgraded out of the egg baby model, but he never got the chance to, probably due to everything there hitting the fan before he was of age. He seemed anxious about everything, and with the environment he was in, Thad couldn’t blame him. And it seemed like Alice was his mom. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have your parent threaten you like that… Thad frowned. For someone who seemed so proud of her son, she certainly had no problem threatening him with a knife. He didn’t even want to think about how Beau got his spider legs and disassembly drone hand attached to him. He cringed at the thought.

He snapped out of his thoughts when he heard Alice speak again.

“Yer a lot like her, I’ll say,” Alice’s voice suddenly deepened as she leaned forward, putting the pliers over Uzi’s finger joint, “Except the yellow eyes…~”

Uzi looked at the pliers with fear on her face. Her brows furrowed. 
“Easy, creep,” she spoke, hitting the pliers away, “You’ve got the wrong–” 

Suddenly, a knife stabbed through her hand. Uzi’s eyelights hollowed, three stress lines under each as she gasped in pain.

Alice pushed the knife in further.

“Nori, right?” Her voice was low, barely above a whisper, yet Thad could still hear everything. She twisted the knife, her voice sounding angry, “Sure thought imploding all them folks was pretty slick.”

She brought the pliers back to Uzi’s fingers

Thad’s core started pounding. But– why? He wasn’t moving, and sure it was tense, but that shouldn’t be enough to make his core beat so fast and so loudly in his audials. He felt a faint buzzing in his head, and for whatever reason, a protective feeling in his gut. He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away for some reason. Something wouldn’t let him. Was he really that compelled to watch his friend get tortured?

Alice started to squeeze down on the pliers, cracking the metal on Uzi’s fingers. Uzi’s breathing increased. She raised her other hand, the solver symbol appearing on her visor and in front of her hand again. She attempted to use it on the pliers, but nothing but glitching was happening.

“W-w-wait, st-stop–” her voice stuttered and glitched as the magnets interfered with her connection.
“S-Seriously, wha-a-at– wh-what are you ta-ta-talking ab-” Before she could finish her sentence, the pliers snapped shut, snapping the tip of her finger off. Uzi winced heavily, making a short grunt sound in pain. Thad whipped his head away and closed his optics tightly. He heard her finger clatter to the floor.

Suddenly, Beau entered the room again. Thad turned his head back to the door to see the baby drone scuttle across the floor and straight to the monitors stacked on the desk. Thad hadn’t even noticed them. Now that he did, he realized they were the feed from a few cameras around the office outside. Some were focused on the doors, while others focused on the cubicles outside. Beau glanced around at the monitors, obviously panicking. Panicking over what? 

Alice shoved Beau out of the way, taking over.

“They can’t leave the office, idjit!” She scolded, glancing around at the screens as well. She turned to the unconscious Uzi, a sly grin on her face. She chuckled, moving to the buttons behind her. Two were green, while one was red. 

Thad was starting to notice what was in the room, which only made him a little more unnerved than before.

“Can’t get back in our rooms neither,” She said slowly, pressing the buttons. The door to their room and the other room slammed shut, the light above it blinking from green to red. The two buttons she hit went from green to red as well. Then, Alice pressed the third button. A pair of doors on the monitors opened, a shadow emerging. It was dinosaur-like, the shadow showing a head in the shape of something Thad had never seen before. It made a roaring sound, and Thad’s core dropped to the floor. 

‘Is that what those anti-drone sentinels are? Is that the thing Alice mentioned? This… This can’t be good. Especially if N is out there– …oh no.’

“Wait– please–” Uzi squeaked, struggling against the magnets.

Thad glanced over at her, then back to Alice and Beau.
“You’re making a mistake!” He spoke up.

Alice turned to him, a bag of batteries in her hand, her head tilting eerily to the side.

“Oh, am I? If anything, I’m doin’ you worker drones a favor!” She boasted with a laugh, turning back to the monitor and munching down on the batteries as a sentinel ate one of the cameras. 

He heard Uzi gasping in fear and panic beside him and decided this was enough. Uzi was out and V seemed to have given in. He had to do something! 

Thad sat up on the bed and looked at the bindings around his wrists and ankles. He began to pull his arm away, tugging on the strap holding him down. He tugged and tugged, even leaning down slightly and straining his neck to attempt to bite the straps. He heard a rip from the straps, a rush of adrenaline shooting through him. He perked up and looked around, seeing that Alice and Beau were still distracted and completely missing the strange yellow glow coming from the buttons. He turned back to his bindings, barely catching the fact V was looking at him with a surprised yet intrigued expression.

He heard Alice cackle, but he wasn’t going to look. He needed to get free and do something. He heard another rip. Uzi’s panting seemed to worsen, a beeping that sounded like a warning sound in his audials. Suddenly, he heard the sound of glass shattering. His head shot up and he turned to Uzi, his eyelights hollowing.

She had the solver symbol in her hand again, as well as on her face. It was glitching though, the color rapidly flickering from purple to yellow. He looked toward Alice and Beau again, the image of a boot looped N on the monitor Alice was watching, oil splattered behind him as a Sentinel slowly encroached upon him. Then, he noticed the yellow text running over the buttons. Now he was utterly confused.

‘Is that… Coding? But how? That doesn’t make any sense! …And why does this almost feel familiar again?’
Thad shook his head.
'No! Focus! You need to get free and help!’

He leaned to the side again and continued biting at his binding, quickly freeing one of his hands. Then, he went on to start biting the binding on his other wrist.

Out of the corner of his vision, he noticed something floating. When he looked up, he found almost everything in the room was floating, even Beau, his eyelights hollow as he waved at Alice.

Alice looked surprised and scared, an expression she hadn’t used yet. She turned her head to Uzi, and Thad’s gaze followed.

Uzi had sat up on the bed, her head completely twisted backward. She seemed to be limply holding herself up on her arm. A strange, monotone, robotic voice unlike her own came from her throat as she sat up fully and snapped her head around to Alice with horrible cracking noises that almost made Thad feel queasy.

“Oh, don’t mind me-e-e” the voice stuttered. 

Uzi had a wide, toothy smile on her face, similar to the disassembly drones’. That same symbol appeared over her right eye, her LED’s yellow instead of purple. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t look away.

A heavy sense of dread and familiarity attacked Thad’s senses, almost as if he knew what was happening , but he didn’t. He had never seen this before and he was terrified, but something inside of him was trying to tell him that he knew what this was and what was happening to Uzi. 

Alice stepped back in fear as Uzi’s hand seemingly broke. It twisted around in ways their joints weren’t articulated to do, a yellow solver symbol appearing over her fingers. Her hand slammed down and into the bed, the word ‘NULL’ appearing over it in a box. A black hole appeared over the door controls and shrunk, exploding and sending the controls into oblivion. Thad winced at the sudden, bright yellow light and turned his head away, shielding his eyes with his free hand. When he looked back, Uzi had passed out, and Alice was slowly backing up in fear.

“What just?-“ Thad muttered, turning to V.

“You don’t want to know,” V responded quietly.

He looked toward the monitors again, just as Alice did. The red lights over the closed doors turned green, opening them. Fear flashed across Alice’s face.

Thad knew what this meant. The sentinels were coming. He fell back onto the bed and closed his eyes, trying to relax his body so it seemed like he was sleeping. Maybe the sentinels would think he was already dead and they wouldn’t bother him 

He heard creaking, the sound of metal scraping against metal, furious, struggling groans coming from Alice.

“BEAU! Help me with—“ her voice cut off suddenly. Then he heard a flashing noise, along with the cut-off, glitching scream of Alice’s voice. There was a thud, then a squelch. Thad already knew without needing to open his eyes. Alice was dead. A disgusting thought came through his head. 

‘She deserved it.’

The sentinel made a few screeching noises as it crept in. He couldn’t tell where it was. It was quiet for a few seconds, then there was a whirring. He didn’t know what was happening anymore.

The sound of a laser went off, and immediately after, a heavy, metallic thud and another squelching noise. Thad flinched at the sound, knowing that it was Beau that had just been squashed. The sounds of crunching and eating filled the air, along with the beams of sentinels flashing and screeching distantly. 

He heard a few grunts from V, the sound of her claws extruding from her hand, and crawling. She went right past his bed, presumably heading straight for Uzi. He wasn’t offended though. Uzi needed more help than he did.

A sentinel flashed its beam and V began to breathe heavily. She was obviously scared. Thad felt bad. He wanted to help, but he couldn’t do anything. He was useless. Maybe coming along wasn’t such a good idea.

Suddenly, something angrily screamed into his audial. He jumped and let out a breathless gasp, his eyes open and hollow. He whipped his head around to where he thought the scream came from, but nothing was there. Before he could even think about it, a strange warping sound came from his other side. He turned to look and instantly regretted it.

A hole had formed in the wall, red and fleshy and disgusting, branching out like veins, almost like it was infecting the metallic wall with some sort of organic disease. A miniature black hole had formed in the center of the hole, swirling with an eerie yellow with ominous yellow electricity zapping all around it. The sentinels were gone. Could they have been sucked into the black hole?

Thad was hit with another strange, yet stronger feeling of familiarity

The black hole in the middle blinked away, the ominous yellow glow disappearing with it. As soon as it was gone, the weird organic flesh along the wall turned grey and melted away, rotting as quickly as it had appeared.

He turned his head to V as she stood up and silently looked at Uzi. After a long moment of silence, Thad sat up. 
“...You okay, V?”

V seemed startled at him, quickly whipping her head around to look at him. Her hollowed eyes returned to normal as she deadpanned.
“Oh robo-Jesus, I forgot you were here.”

Thad chuckled nervously, rubbing the back of his head.
“Yeah, that’s fair.”

V rolled her eyelights and turned back to Uzi, using her claws to free her of her restraints. She then turned to Thad and simply stared, almost like she was contemplating something

Thad blinked at her, then nervously glanced around. He looked back at her.
“Uh… sure hope you’re not thinking about leaving me here, haha.”

“...Have your hand and body lights always been purple?” V asked, ignoring what he said.

“What?” 

Thad raised his free hand in front of his face, looking at the back of it. Lo and behold, his hand light wasn’t green anymore. It was purple. 

Thad’s brow furrowed in concern. 

“Uh… No. They’ve never turned purple before.”

“Oh, great,” V groaned as she walked over to him, “Now you’re even more of a mystery.”

“Whoops,” Thad muttered, feeling bad again. They had enough on their plates already, they shouldn’t have to worry about him as well

V awkwardly cut him free of his restraints as well. Once he was free, he sighed and slid his legs off the bed with a stretch.

“Hey, uh,” V spoke up as she walked over to Uzi and put the unconscious drone on her back, “Good job on getting your arm free, by the way. That was kinda cool.”

“Oh, uh… Thanks. I didn’t think I’d be able to bite through it.”

“Me neither. How did you do that anyway? Worker Drones don’t have sharp teeth,” V squinted at him slightly as she said that, realizing her suspicions.

Thad felt like he was being interrogated, his core sinking. 

“Uh… yeah, about that. I don’t know why, but– I have sharp teeth. I always have.” 

Blush lines appeared in the corners of his visor, embarrassed and feeling very insecure.

It seemed V’s interest was peaked as she looked more attentive.
“Really? Can I see?”

His blush lines grew as his embarrassment crept into his voice, “U-Uh…” He glanced at the unconscious Uzi, then sighed.
“Alright, alright.” 

Awkwardly, Thad opened his mouth as wide as he could and pointed at his sharp canines.

V looked amazed.

“Huh,” was all she said.

“Yeah,” Thad closed his mouth with a nervous chuckle, “I don’t like them much, so I don’t usually show them off. I don’t want to scare my friends away.”

V went to say something, but before she could, N and Tessa barged into the room.

“V!” He exclaimed, rushing toward them, “Is Uzi—“

“Hurt,” V responded as she turned to them, ignoring Thad and Tessa waving at each other. “We’re leaving.”

Tessa stepped forward. 
“I can take a squizz at-“ She started

V lunged toward her, letting go of one of Uzi’s arms and switching her hand out for a blade. She put her blade to Tessa’s face, causing the human to back up a little.
“You said you could control sentinels!” She shouted, causing Thad to flinch slightly. 

N gave him a worried look. He shrugged it off.

Tessa hesitated, clutching her wrist, “I… A-at least they can’t boot-loop me. But we’ll just have to-“

“Do whatever you want,” V snarled, turning her blade back to her hand and facing away from N and Tessa and back to Thad, looking at the floor. She glanced behind her again and spoke, “N?”

N looked conflicted, looking down at the ground with hollow eyelights and a stress line under each eye.

Tessa gently put her hand on N’s shoulder, speaking in a softer tone, “It’s okay, N. I haven’t been honest with V yet.”

V had turned her head to them, glaring. Then she fully turned around.
“What did she tell you?” She demanded in a low voice.

Before Thad could even express his concern, Uzi groaned, her display glitching. V looked up a her, along with N and Thad.

“Ow,” Uzi muttered, holding her head, “My frickin’ hea-” She opened her eyes, her face metaphorically lighting up, “N?” 

N smiled a little bit and waved, but his eyes remained hollow. Uzi hopped off of V’s back and immediately ran to him, hugging him tightly. N tensed up, his eyebrows raised in surprise. He got down to one knee and hugged Uzi back, his brows furrowing again. He didn’t close his eyes. 

Something’s up.

Thad stepped forward and next to V, fidgeting with his fingers. He spared a concerned glance at V, silently telling her something was up. V glanced back and made eye contact, then nodded in agreement.

Then, Tessa walked up to V’s other side, standing there with her hand on her hip. V seemed surprised at this, turning to look at the human.

Tessa stared back.

Thad looked around the room, then at the hole in the wall, then back at Uzi. This had to do with that solver thing they encountered a while back, no doubt. That thing that grabbed him had the same weird, fleshy look to it, and it probably felt the same too. That human hand that grabbed him felt so weird and squishy, yet the claw that grabbed him after the hand was cut off felt metallic and strong. Not to mention the sliminess of the sac it put him in, the way his arms and legs would touch the squishy, gross, soft sides and immediately slip, forcing him into the disgusting slimy liquid inside. The way that weird, slimy, half-organic, half-metallic wire slipped about, trying to plug into his head as he fought back, only for his fighting to prove futile as it finally stuck into his head. He remembered his mind suddenly becoming fuzzy and his movements sluggish, a weird buzzing in his head. He was lucky the effects didn’t last long due to his being cut down by N and Uzi.

Thad shivered and hugged his arms at the memory, feeling slimy all over again.

Uzi smacked his arm, snapping him out of his thoughts as she shouted, “Jockface!” 

Thad raised his head quickly, eyelights hollow.
“Huh? What? Yeah?-” He sputtered, nearly tripping over his words.

“You okay, buddy?” N asked, standing behind Uzi, “You spaced out staring at that wall over there,” He pointed, not fully aware of what the hole in the wall meant.

Thad glanced over, “Oh, yeah. Sorry. I was just thinking about when that holo-spooky-snake-crab thing grabbed me and… well, y’know.”

N frowned.

“Well, we’re all exploring the office area before the sentinels come back. You wanna come with us?” Uzi asked, gesturing outside the door. There he saw Tessa in one of the cubicles, hunched over a computer, while V looked at a message written in oil on the wall.

He looked back at Uzi with a small, uneasy smile.
“Yeah, sure.”

The three shuffled out of the room, Thad splitting from the other two once they were out. He needed to collect his thoughts, considering how much just happened.

He wandered around the far side of the room, idly looking around at the walls as he thought. First of all, the elephant in the room.

What the hell did Tessa tell N? Why did he look so conflicted when hugging Uzi? What happened down here anyway? There are signs of drone and human activity, so what was the purpose of this place? Why is it so deep under the ruins of the city? And why did it say core collapse? Was this the site of the core of the planet collapsing? What even caused it to collapse? What have I missed?

Thad groaned and put his hands on his head, all of those questions hurting his head. he closed his eyes again and calmed his mind, listening to the faint music playing in the background. Within the silence of his mind, he felt something nagging at the back of his head. Something quiet, yet compelling. It felt familiar but strange all at the same time. He opened his eyes again and looked down at his purple handlights. 

That’s another thing. Why the purple body and hand lights? They’ve never been purple before. 

He paused for a moment.

‘Wait. When that thing stuck the cord into my head, my vision went purple, didn’t it? And the only other person I know with purple eyes is Uzi. What—’

Before he could finish his thought, something on the wall caught his eye. It was a pinboard, blueprints, papers, and documents pinned onto it, along with a couple of little notes. They were hard to read with all the oil splatters and claw marks that ravaged the wall, ripping papers and documents in half. The one legible note had one word on it;

Nori

Thad felt a sudden, sharp pain in the side of his head, causing him to jolt slightly and wince. He put his hand on the side of his head and hissed through his teeth.

“You good, Thad?” N asked, approaching the drone with V, Uzi, and Tessa behind him.

Thad glanced over at them, then looked back at the pinboard.

“Yeah, my head just hurts. I’m good, N & M’s.”

“What’re you looking at?” Uzi asked, going next to him. Her eyelights hollowed.

Confused, Thad looked at her and back at the board.

“What? What’s wrong?” He asked, concerned.

“Nori… That’s my mom's name,” she muttered, taking the note off the board and staring at it for a long moment.

Another sharp pain shot through Thad’s head, only much stronger, causing him to wince and flinch again, nearly losing his balance.

Uzi glanced at him, then looked back at the board with a gasp. 

“That’s her!” She exclaimed, pulling a picture off the wall. 

On it was a drone with similar, purple hair to Uzi, short and fluffy in the back with a small ponytail on the side of her face. She had purple LEDs and wore a big grin, her arm happily thrown around another drone. Whoever it was, they couldn’t see her face because of the massive oil stain on the picture. She had a grey, oversized T-shirt with a V-neck, revealing her chest light almost fully. She also had a lanyard around her neck with some sort of ID attached.

As soon as Thad looked at it, agonizing pain shot through his head, hitting him like a derailed freight train. An angry scream went off in his head, louder than the one earlier, his vision devolving into static as his mind buzzed, the long tone of a broken computer taking over his audials. His core immediately started to pound, threatening to explode out of his chest as an intense and heavy feeling of dread crashed over him like a tsunami. It felt as if his core fell into the floor and broke it. He staggered back in pain and opened his mouth to scream, yet he couldn’t hear. When he opened his eyes again, a flash of electricity flashed before him, nearly forcing his optics closed again. The four in front of him looked panicked, Uzi’s mouth moving as she tried to talk to him, holding her hands out.

Thad opened his mouth to say something back, but he couldn’t speak. The pain burrowed in his throat, making it feel as if he was being grabbed by the neck. He clawed at his shirt, struggling to fight back whatever this was. He felt a pair of hands on his shoulders and looked up to find N’s terrified face right in front of him. Uzi quickly shoved him away, shouting something at him.

His vision switched from green to purple rapidly, the nagging voice from earlier becoming louder and louder. Suddenly, the obnoxious beeping and buzzing of alarms started to blare in his audials, only putting his head in even more agony. He staggered to the side and leaned against the wall, fighting to keep himself from shutting down. He breathed heavily and he could feel the rasp to it. He looked up from the floor again to see Uzi and V arguing while N stood nearby Thad, worriedly glancing between the two. Tessa only seemed to watch, eerily standing there.

Thad felt his consciousness slipping away. He tried to focus on something – anything but the pain – when he saw it. Saw her.

Behind Uzi, right in front of him, was Nori, staring at him with a smile on her face. Not a welcoming smile - an eerie one. One that was not friendly .

“Uzi- Uzi!” He cried out, barely able to hear himself, more and more electricity shooting out from his head. He knew it. 

‘I’m about to shut down.’

Uzi turned to him, a surprised look on her face.

He pointed shakily at the ghostly figure before him. Nori slowly started closing in. 

“Th-Th-Ther-er’s a- a–” Thad started. Nori lunged at him. Thad’s screen shattered, sparks flying from the cracks, and smoke rising. He limply fell backward, his LEDs completely off.

Uzi, N, V, and Tessa looked on in horror.

“...What… just happened…” V spoke, her voice slightly shaking.

“Thad?” Uzi spoke, stepping closer to him ever so slightly.

“His… His hand and body lights aren’t even glowing anymore,” N observed, turning to Tessa.
“What does that mean?” He asked, concern etched in his voice.

Tessa looked back and shrugged.

Thad’s screen reformed, fixing itself just as Uzi’s did before.

Her core sunk. Three stress lines showed up under her and V’s eyelights.

Thad’s hand and body lights slowly turned back on, in sync with the sound of his internal fan coming to life, whirring quickly and strong, loud and obnoxious. His hands twitched slightly. 

Uzi took a step back to give him some space.

Just then, a loading signal popped up on his screen and spun for a moment. Then his eyelights blinked on his visor and why are they purple? Why aren’t they green?!

Slowly, Thad sat up. His purple eyes darted around the room, finally landing on Uzi. He smiled and spoke – but it wasn’t his voice.

“It worked!” 
His body stood up and stretched.  
“It’s been a while since I’ve had my own body.”

That isn’t Thad’s voice . This one was deeper and androgynous, but it wasn’t anything like the robotic, choppy speech that the solver had. And the purple LEDs…

“You’re… You’re not Thad,” Uzi muttered, confused, fighting back the theories in her head.

V took a stomping step forward, switching one of her hands out for a blade and pointing the end of it at ‘Thad.’ 
“Who are you and what did you do to him?!”

Uzi gave V a surprised look, while Thad’s possessor stuck her hands up.

“Woah, woah! No need to get stabby. You wouldn’t be hurting me anyway, you’d just kill this kid,” She stated, pushing V’s blade away with a finger.

V growled, putting the blade away and crossing her arms.

‘Thad’s attention turned back to Uzi. His mouth curved into a loving smile as he walked over, gently cupping her face in his hands.
“Oh, look at you! You’re all grown up, aren’t you!”

Uzi slapped his arms away, trying to hide her blush.
“Stop it and answer V’s question! Who are you and what have you done to Thad?!” She demanded.

“Yeah, this is getting a little weird,” Tessa admitted.

Thad’s possessor sighed, “Alright, alright. Fine,” 

Thad backed up and smiled again.

“I’m Nori, Uzi’s long-dead mom, and I’m… borrowing your friend’s body, to put it gently,” she explained.

Uzi’s eyelights went hollow, with three stress lines under each eye. N glanced from Nori, then to Uzi, surprised. V simply looked utterly confused, while Tessa, once again, just stared.

“Wh… What? But— but how? You’ve been dead for my entire life– his entire life! How…?” Uzi sputtered.

“Hm, how do I explain this simply…” Nori paused, looking down at the floor as she thought. She then shook her head. 
“Ah, screw it. I’m going to assume all of you here know about the solver. How it works is this; when the mind of one of the solver’s hosts gets taken over by it, the program extracts that drone’s consciousness, making it into one of its very own. That’s what happened to me.” 

She looked down at her host’s hands, flexing her fingers almost experimentally. 

“Solver took my body over. Still, I managed to break its hold on me before it took everything and replaced me with its coding.” 

She looked back up, rubbing the back of her neck.

“Until I died, that is. I became a full part of solver, and my god it’s loud in there. Loud and horrible. I almost forgot who I was.”

“That doesn’t explain how you’re doing this,” V snarled, glaring harder.

“Right, right. Sorry, almost went on a tangent. The short of it is, when your friend here got grabbed by the solver, I managed to implant my coding into his processor through an external cord.” 
She poked at the side of Thad’s head for emphasis.

Uzi’s core sunk. 

“You didn’t… completely remove him, did you…?” Uzi wondered worriedly, her voice shaking at the thought of Thad being gone. He was the only worker drone to ever show her genuine kindness. 

Nori’s eyelights hollowed.

“What?” She waved her hands around, “No, no, of course not! I just shut off his consciousness, that’s all. Put him on pause, so to speak.” 

She chuckled slightly at her joke, though it didn’t make anyone else laugh.

Before anyone else could say anything, the faint sounds of sentinel chirps and flashes closed in.

“I’d love to stand here all day n’ let mother and daughter catch up, but we really oughta get goin! The sentinels are coming back. V, remember the plan?” Tessa spoke, turning to V.

V nodded, her hand switching out for a gun.

“Good! Now, c’mon! Hup hup!” Tessa exclaimed, ushering them in a different direction. They ran through the office room, past a knocked-out sentinel, and out into the hallway where they first saw Beau. Nori vaguely remembered these places, both from her past and recent events, having watched everything go down through Thad’s eyes. She had to admit, it felt nice to move freely again, wrong body or not.

They ran past the way they entered, N sparing a glance at the pile of dead Disassembly Drones. They turned down the hall, heading straight to where the sign said “secret elevator.” They ducked into a room illuminated with red lights, glitching warning signs all across every screen in the room. Wings burst from Uzi’s back, her organic bat wings shimmering slightly in the red and yellow light. She flapped her wings, the force of them lifting her off the ground. She nearly slammed into the lights over a hanging storage unit, roughly landing on the lower portion. It shook from the tension and force of her slamming into it. Uzi winced and sat up, turning to face them.

“Ow…”

Nori snickered, remembering her first attempt at flying.

Suddenly, N threw his arms under Nori’s armpits and lifted off the ground. Nori yelped, severely underprepared to be lifted like that. N landed gently next to Uzi, placing Nori down. He sat down next to Uzi and brought his knees to his chest, staring at his hands as he rested them on his knees. His brows were furrowed, a stress line under either eye. Nori wondered what was going on in that little head of his.

She sat down beside N, bringing her knees to her chest as well. They didn’t exactly have a lot of room up there, so she tried to make herself as small as she could, which proved to be quite easy thanks to Thad’s short stature.

Tessa kneeled over a spot on the floor and dipped her fingers into a nearby oil splatter. Using the oil as ink, she wrote a message on the floor, then stood up, nodding at V. V nodded back, grabbed the human from under her armpits, and lifted off the ground. She soared up and around, gliding between the wires holding the platform up. As she flew over the platform, she roughly dropped Tessa onto it, then looped around and landed on it herself. Tessa had done a tuck and roll and was now sitting on the other side of where N, Uzi, and Nori were sitting. Meanwhile, V sat closer to the edge, glaring and aiming her gun down at the writing on the ground.

Nori leaned forward, a confused look on her face. After a moment of deciphering the upside-down message, she read that it said ‘Hold Still.’ She glanced over at Tessa, even more confused. However, before she could ask anything, the heavy, metallic footsteps of a sentinel began approaching. It made a calling noise after stopping for a moment, before quickly picking up the pace. She noticed V tensing up.

Soon enough, a sentinel with red eyes came around the corner, its claws dug into the wall. It lowered itself down and stared at the message. Then, it looked back up, and V got ready to shoot. It was mostly silent, except for the faint, echoed music in the background and the gentle beeps of the drones blinking. Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see N and Uzi using their visors to talk to each other. Despite how nosy she was, she decided not to pry.

Suddenly, down the hall, they heard a creaking sound akin to an opening metal door and a few sentinel calls. The door slammed shut, and the red-eyed sentinel turned around and left. The group peered over the ledge at it. V jumped down, then Uzi, while N simply dangled his legs over the edge. Nori scooted forward, then jumped down next to V.

She looked down the hall, then gasped.

There, at the end of the long hallway, lay her niece, Doll, stuck in a screaming position, her visor boot looping. In her hand was the key bug, glowing green, its blue text box open and next to it. The proximity reader blinked blue, ready to call the elevator.

N dropped down next to Uzi, looking where she was looking as well.

“That’s…” Uzi started, her, N, and V squinting at the same time, “…Convenient.”

“It’s a trap,” V said, stepping in front of Uzi and N with her blades out and eyelights hollow, ready to fight. Nori instinctually put her hands up. 

N looked spooked too, while Uzi simply pushed V using her tail. 

“Yeah, no—“ She exhaled, “Nevermind.”

Then, she raised her hand, activating her solver.

Nori panicked for a moment until N slapped Uzi’s hand down and yelled “Don’t!” at the same time V did. She glanced over as N and V leaned back, giving each other a surprised look. Uzi simply looked at them confused.

“Oi!” Tessa’s voice rang from down the hallway. 

“Bloody convenient, eh?” She boasted, standing with one hand on her hip and the other spinning the poor keybug on her finger.

“Hey!” Nori shouted, raising her hand. The solver symbol appeared in her hand and around the keybug. She flicked her wrist, pulling it over to her and catching it in her hands, “Be careful with him!” 

She looked down at the bug, an apologetic look on her face, “Are you okay, little guy?”

Uzi stared at her, eyelights hollow and jaw dropped. N and V shared a similar expression.

Nori glanced at them, then at her hand.

“…Oh, cool! Didn’t know I would be able to still use solver’s abilities in a different body.”

“Oi, you don’t even know what to do with that thing, do ya?” Tessa yelled from down the hall, a sassy tone in her voice.

Nori began walking down to her, “I was made and raised here, mind you! Don’t get sassy with me! I know exactly what the key bug does.”

“Oh yeah, what does it do then, if you’re so smart!”

Nori stopped next to Tessa, glaring up at her.

“Calls the secret elevator, duh. Along with other things, like gets you discounts and stuff.”

Tessa stared momentarily, then softly muttered, “Oh.”

V stopped and stood next to Tessa, to which Nori and Tessa turned to look at N and Uzi.

They walked down the hall, side by side, hand in hand, their eyelights hollow, blush in the corners of their screens, and beads of digital sweat rolling down their faces. All the while, they both had goofy smiles on their faces.

“Ew,” V remarked with a cringe.

“Don’t date my robot, please,” Tessa said flatly.

“Aw, I thought it was cute,” Nori muttered under her breath.

“He’s his own person!” Uzi yelled, storming up to Tessa and dragging N along for a moment before letting his hand go. She turned to V, pushing her gun down. 

“You, ew! You’re mean!” She said defensively. Then she turned to Nori. 

“And you! …Shut up!”

Nori snickered, though she wouldn’t be smiling for long. 

Suddenly, a red solver symbol enveloped the keybug in her hand, and began lifting it away, sweeping it behind the group. They all turned, and their eyelights hollowed.

Standing behind them, elevated on a desk, was Doll with a sick smile on her face. She tapped the side of her visor, the bootlooping signal disappearing from her face. It was a hoax. Uzi was right.

She did a spin and a flip, putting the keybug onto the proximity reader. It made a beeping sound, causing alarms to start blaring and the ground to begin rumbling beneath the five. They slowly backed up, confused and scared. Well, aside from Nori. She had seen this all before. Above where they were standing, an elevator began to descend. 

Doll glitched across the ground, disappearing and reappearing rapidly. She stopped and jumped in the air, her hand up with the rotate symbol in her hand. Her eyelights were hollow, her smile ever persistent. She turned her hand. Behind them, all ten doors that were once closed in that hallway swung open. 

Uzi and Nori both looked up at Doll, terrified. 

Doll simply gave them a sad look, soluting them. And with that Doll fell into the hole that was made for the elevator, disappearing into the darkness. Immediately after, the elevator came crashing down in front of them, with only one problem. 

The doors were on the other side.

The group backed up.

“Oh, great,” Nori muttered.

As if merely thinking it manifested their bad luck, they heard the telltale sign that a sentinel was nearby. Unfortunately for them, it wasn’t just one. Behind all ten doors was one sentinel. Their blue LEDs turned on at once, preemptively flashing their lights. They came in and out of their cells, crawling up and around the walls. Nori faced the sentinels just as one looked toward them, flashing its light. N and Uzi turned away and shielded their eyes, while Nori simply closed hers and flinched slightly.

Tessa slid in front of the four.

“Uh oh! Hope I don’t human everywhere!” She said in a sing-song voice, extending her arm forward and splattering blood out of a wound on her wrist that Nori hadn’t noticed before.

“You don’t seem very bothered by this, Mom,” Uzi remarked.

“I used to live and work down here hun,” Nori responded, “I got used to seeing and hearing their flashes of light.”

Suddenly, the sentinel with red eyes descended from the ceiling, clawing down the walls with red flashes of light instead of blue, strange electrical currents shooting out with every flash.

She’d never thought to wonder what the red eyes meant. Why was this one different? Could he be the leader? She had never known sentinels to need leaders… They’d only obey humans. This one, though… This one was hungry for human blood. In all of her time living with the sentinels, she never knew one could be so easily turned into a carnivore.

It roared at them, baring its teeth and showing the red blood splatter on its teeth and lips.

Tessa kicked her sword back up and spun it. around, holding it in preparation for a battle. V crawled quickly up the wall, and Nori followed her with her eyes for about two seconds, until she heard a buzz, and then a crack. She looked back down and found— Oh god no Uzi’s using her solver again!-

“Uzi, No!” N and Nori shouted at the same time, but it was too late.

Uzi’s solver symbol in her eye and hand turned yellow, her hand snapping and twisting with those same, horrific crackling sounds making it sound as if she was breaking her bones. She gasped in pain, agony rushing down her whole arm.

Nori wasn’t sure what to do. The solver never made her do this.

The back of the elevator warped and crackled, a NULL turning the middle of it to nothing, fleshy, red, slimy gunk forming around the edges of the hole it made, spreading across the floor like veins.

“Oops! All mitosis!” Tessa shouted from behind them, letting her blood splatter even more. 

The sentinel leaned down, picking up a severed Disassembly Drone arm in its mouth. It aimed it forward as the hand switched out for a gun and shot at Tessa.

Tessa flinched back, yet moments before the bullet hit her, V caught it in her claws. She quickly whipped around, throwing the still-spinning bullet right back to the sentinel. It hit the gun, knocking it clean off the arm. It looked back at the gun as it clattered to the ground, then faced V and Tessa again.

V daintily adjusted a pair of broken glasses on her face with her claws. 
“Did I get it?”

“You sure did!” Nori responded, grabbing the gun with her solver and dragging it over to her, holding it. She let out a sly chuckle as she ran her fingers over it.

Behind her, she heard Uzi coughing and glitching, her voice going between her own and Solver’s. She turned, her core sinking at the yellow hues glitching across Uzi’s face.

“Bugger, that’s bad,” Tessa spoke as she walked past N. She grabbed him by the collar and dragged him, along with Uzi, into the elevator. 
“C’mon, team!” 

As they stepped in, the elevator shook, the light above going out. Tessa exclaimed as she stumbled back, while N and Uzi fell to the floor.

Nori looked at them, then at V. She thought for a moment, then narrowed her eyes, turning her full body to face the sentinels. She wasn’t going to stand by and do nothing, not now. Not since she’s finally back. She may be working with the very drones who caused her death, but she could tell now that they were her daughter’s friends. And she needed them.

The elevator’s wires began to give, dropping the elevator down further. N poked his head up, screaming out of the hole Uzi had made.

“V, Nori, Come on!” He yelled, his eyelights hollowed.

V ignored him, pulling out her blades and dashing at the red-eyed sentinel. It pulled the blade out of the disassembly drone’s arm and spun around, clashing sword with sword.

Nori turned to him. 

“I don’t know about V, but I’m staying here. I have unfinished business.”

“Uzi needs you!” Tessa yelled out as well.

“As much as I wish that were true, it’s not,” She chuckled as she shook her head.

“Uzi’s come this far all by herself, and I’m proud of her. She hasn’t needed me her whole life, so why start now? Besides,” she fully turned to face N, giving him a soft, motherly smile, which probably looked weird considering whose body she was using, “She has you now, N.”

N’s eyebrows raised in surprise.

Nori got a determined look on her face as she turned back to the sentinels. 

“Keep her safe!”

Just as she turned around, the sentinel V was fighting came tumbling down the hallway, stopping at her feet.

The elevator fell a little further. 

V pointed the end of her laser at the Sentinel’s face, charging up a blast. Yet, moments before taking its head off, she stopped, hearing another sentinel on the other side of the elevator.

The sentinel stood on the desk, curiously approaching the proximity reader. It glanced over, tilting its head, then bit the reader, tearing it out of the ground.

“Not good, not good!” Nori announced and aimed the gun at it, only to find the gun didn’t have a trigger.

Uh oh.

The sentinel hopped off the counter and slowly approached the elevator as it began to rise. It flashed its light at N, causing him and V to flinch away, V’s glasses flying off at the quick head movement. A sentinel stepped on them, flashing its light at V again.

Nori threw her useless gun at it, hitting it in the head and causing it to yelp in pain and stumble back.

More sentinels began to descend from the walls around them, flashing their lights, the red one beginning to get up. Nori had to cover her eyes this time around, holding her hand up to grab one of the sentinels with her solver

“Hey, um-” V spoke, turning to the elevator.

“No, no no!” N cried, “V, we need you!”

Nori glanced up at V, a saddened look on her face.

Then, V put on a brave smile.

“Nah. Uzi?”

Uzi tiredly looked up, her eyelights glitching from purple to yellow.

“I trust you,” V said softly, the softest her voice had been the whole time they were down there.

V finished charging up her laser, slashing it across the elevator cords.

“V, PLEASE!” N cried again, his hands on his head. Nori had to hold back the urge to cry. These poor kids…

V smiled again, closing her eyes and saluting to them.

Nori threw one of the Sentinels away from her. She glanced back and into the elevator.

“Good luck.”

The cords snapped.

The elevator plummeted.

V whipped around and, in the blink of an eye, sliced a sentinel’s head off.

“Oh, good! I thought you were giving up on me!” Nori said cheerfully before blocking her eyes from a sentinel flash.

“Hah! As if. I’m not going down without a fight!” V exclaimed, dashing forward with her eyes closed as she began to fight, attacking a group of sentinels.

“That’s what I like to hear!” 

She soluted to the disassembly drone, then caught a sentinel by the tail as it tried to lunge for her. She swung it around a little, then tossed it into a group of three sentinels, laughing as they were all knocked back into one of the many rooms.

“Catch!” V called, throwing a sentinel her way.

Nori raised her hand and closed it into a fist, the head of the sentinel immediately exploding. Then, she took its body by the tail and swung it around as well, throwing it into a sentinel that was charging at V from behind.

The two fought in tandem like that, until–

“Nori, watch out!” V cried.

“Huh?” 

Nori turned and was immediately met face-to-face with a sentinel claw to her chest. It ripped through the body’s metal casing, large amounts of oil splattering out of the wound. Somehow, this felt somewhat familiar to her. 

Nori gasped in pain, stumbling and falling backward. She hissed in pain, pressing a hand over her chest. She opened her eyes to look at the damage, then looked up.

The very last thing she heard was V shouting “NO!” just before a flash of blinding white light enveloped her vision and everything went black…

*  *  *

[SYSTEM REBOOT… 10%]
[SYSTEM REBOOT… 50%]
[SYSTEM REBOOT… 99%]
[SYSTEM REBOOT… 100%]
[SYSTEM REBOOT COMPLETE]

Thad groaned. His head was pounding, audials ringing, and his entire body ached, especially his torso. What happened anyway? The last thing he remembered was… 

He gasped, his eyes shooting wide open, eyelights hollow. He sat up and instantly regretted it, wincing and leaning back against the wall he was propped up on, hearing the sound of oil splattering on metal. He lifted his head slightly and his eyelights hollowed once again. Around him were the bodies of sentinels, some decapitated, others missing limbs, and a few littered with bullet and stab wounds. 

Then he looked down at himself, stress lines forming under his eyelights. His chest was ripped open, oil leaking out of his wound. Wires poked out, sparking and threatening to light the oil aflame. The green glow of his core peaked out of the thrashed metal casing, threatening to slide out and clatter to the floor. The light from it pulsed softly, though it was beating quite hard. He could see every beat, and he had to keep himself from hurling.

“Oh, you’re awake,” Said a voice next to him.

He turned his head and saw V, lying next to him limply. He certainly wasn’t used to seeing her like this. Usually, she was energetic and manic, ready to pounce and kill at any moment. But now, she looked exhausted, her voice quiet and groggy.

Her body was littered with injuries. Claw marks lined her sides, one placed carefully on her cheek. Several bite marks lined her arms and legs, one so deep that her lower arm threatened to fall off. He hadn’t noticed it, but even her tail had been severed, the vile directly across from them.

“What… What happened?” Thad spoke softly, his voice weak.

V turned her head to him slightly, letting him see the tiredness in her eyes.
“Oh, Thad. It’s you.”

That only confused him even more. 

“What? Of course, it’s me. Why wouldn’t it—“ he stopped, putting two and two together. 

Those memories of this place that didn’t belong to him, the strangely familiar feeling he had time and time again, that staggering pain that hit him every single time he heard that name, the purple LEDs, his vision switching from green to purple— those were all signs of possession. But— Who? Why? How?

V seemed to be able to read his expression. She sighed.

“It was Nori, Uzi’s mom, apparently. She got into your head when you got grabbed. She didn’t say why though.”

“…Oh.” 

Thad looked down again, raising his hands and looking at his LEDs. They were still purple. He furrowed his eyebrows.

“So, uh… What happened here? Where are the others?”

V’s eye twitched as she turned her head again, looking back up at the ceiling. 

“Listen, Thad. It’s a long story and I don’t have the energy to retell it, okay? The others are gone. They’re on the floors beneath us, and we can’t follow them because that stupid key bug got eaten. We’re stuck here,” she huffed.

Thad stared at her for a moment, then turned away. He carefully took his hat off his head and leaned back against the wall. 

After a moment of silence, he spoke again.

“…What now?” he said somberly.

V took a moment to respond. But when she did, it wasn’t what Thad wanted to hear.

“We die here.”

He lifted his head quickly, turning his head to her with hollowed eyes.

“What?-“

“Face it, it’s over. I don’t have enough oil to regenerate and I got a high temperature warning thirty minutes ago. And don’t forget you’re bleeding out too.”

Thad looked down at his chest again.

“I don’t have the energy to go find any oil either. I’ve tried everything, Thad. It’s no use.”

He looked up at her again, a devastated look on his face. He leaned forward slightly, despite the oil gushing from his wound, and looked at her face.

She didn’t want to die. Her expression said it all. She wanted to live long enough to find out if N and Uzi survived. She wanted to see her friends again.

A rush of determination ran through Thad’s wires. He furrowed his brows and sat up, putting one hand on the wall.

“No—“ 

He put his hat back on, pressed his hand to his chest, and applied pressure. Slowly, he began to stand, fighting through the pain. Oil squirted out of his clawed-open chest and rushed through his fingers, splatting to the ground. He closed his eyes tightly and hissed through his teeth, grunting. Once he finally stood up, he leaned against the wall, breathing quite heavily. 

Looking back down, he saw V looking up at him in amazement.

“I’m not giving up on you,” he spoke between breaths, beads of digital sweat rushing down his visor. All he did was stand, and he was already starting to get exhausted, “just like you didn’t give up fighting the sentinels. You saved my life. This is the least I can do for you.”

V didn’t say anything.

Thad shakily took his hand off the wall.

“I’m gonna find you something to eat. I swear on it.” 

With that, he limped away and down the hall, exiting the secret elevator area.

He looked around, recognizing the entrance immediately. That made things much easier. Despite more and more oil gushing out of his chest with every step, he pushed on, limping faster. He stopped for a moment and leaned against a wall to catch his breath, only to start violently coughing. Suddenly, he fell to his knees, gallons of oil regurgitating up through his throat and splattering to the ground. He sat there heaving for a moment, his throat hoarse. His whole body trembled, the pain he felt at first doubling tenfold. But still, he pressed on.

With one hand on his chest and the other on the wall, he stood up again, fighting through the pain and reminding himself of why he was doing this. 

Soon enough, he found himself standing in front of the door into the room where he, Uzi, and V were being held. He glanced around, then down at the ground, seeing Alice’s dead, headless body. He cringed at the sight, bits of metal and glass scattered around her neck area. 

He inhaled deeply and leaned forward, grabbing her body by the leg. He began to drag it away slowly, needing to stop every step just to breathe. It was becoming harder and harder to move his body, but he had to keep going. More and more oil was expelled from his chest and he began to wonder when it would be too much.

After what felt like forever, he was finally back to V. He managed to drag Alice’s body in front of the disassembly drone before he collapsed, falling forward.

V shot up, “Thad?!-“ she exclaimed, genuinely worried.

“Don’t worry,” he muttered, his speech slurred, “I’m alive… barely.”

V sighed and scooted forward with a grunt.

“Is this… Alice’s body?” she asked.

Thad nodded slightly.

“Good. I’m gonna enjoy ripping her to shreds,” Thad heard the sound of metal being sliced, and oil splattering, followed by a crunch. 

‘Good,’ Thad thought, ‘ She’s eating.’

Slowly, his eyes began to close. He wanted nothing more than to sleep. He was exhausted. But if he did, he might not wake up again. That was a terrifying thought.

Suddenly, he felt something get caught in his throat. His eyelights shot open again as he gasped for air. He shoved himself into a sitting position and started to violently cough again, oil spurting from his open chest and mouth with every cough. 

V perked up immediately, freezing and staring at him, not sure what to do.

After a moment of gasping for air and coughing, another gallon of oil poured from his mouth and out of his body, splashing to the floor and staining his clothes even further. Thad groaned, flopping backward, nearly fainting.

V clambered over to him, patting his face. 

“Hey, stay with me!” She ordered.

“Sorry.“ Thad mumbled, coughing a little. Oil dripped down his face. He opened his eyes again, though not all the way. Tired lines formed under his eyelights.

“I-I’m so tired.”

V sighed, sitting back again.

“I know,” She took another bite out of the arm and continued, “But you can’t sleep. You’ll die. Probably.”

Thad stopped to think.

“I— …I feel like I’m going to die anyway.” His fists clenched, his voice shaking as tears welled in his eyelights.

“Don’t make me give you the whole speech you gave me earlier.”

“No— I’m—“ He coughed, “I’m serious. I’ve lost too much oil, I think.”

V didn’t respond, thinking. 

“How do you Worker Drones repair yourselves?”

“…We didn’t. Not major damages at least. Not until the day you three got in and I had to be repaired.” 

He coughed again, “which the ‘doctors’ didn’t do the best at either.”

He paused for a moment to breathe, then spoke again, “All they did was weld me shut, and that was it. Ever since then, I’ve been coughing up oil on occasion.” 

Thad sighed. 

“The point is, they wouldn’t even know how to fix me. I’m beyond repair.”

V frowned, but she didn’t argue. She took another bite out of Alice’s arm.

Suddenly, she gasped.

“What? What is it?” Thad asked. He meant to sound more frantic, but his exhaustion didn’t let him.

He heard a clatter, as if V had just dropped the arm she was eating, and then a lick. Before he could ask further questions, he felt pressure over his wound, along with a cold, wet feeling. A shiver went up his spine.

He looked up at V, who was now hovering over him. 

“What was—“

“Heading spit,” she interrupted as a soft, white glow illuminated under her palm and from Thad’s chest.

“It’s not enough to heal the whole wound, but it’ll at least stop the bleeding. Internal and external.”

“…Oh. Thank you.” 

An intense feeling of hope rushed through him.

“It’s the least I can do,” V responded, intentionally trying to sound like Thad. She sat back again and continued eating her meal.

“…So what’s the plan from here?” Thad asked after a moment of silence between the two.

“We wait for them to come back. Trust me, if we could follow them, I’d already be there. But we can’t. So we’ll wait here for them.” V said with no hesitation.

Thad smiled, “I like that idea.”

With that, a comfortable quietness befell the two of them, only mildly interrupted by the sounds of V eating. Hope had returned to both of them, despite the fact it could be misplaced hope. They both decided not to think or talk about it. They had to keep their spirits up, for the sake of their own sanities.

In his head, he could tell someone was active- someone other than himself. Though this time, he knew who it was.

Nori? …Can you hear me?

Of course, I can. Hello, brain buddy!

Awesome. Can you do me a favor?

Sure. What’s up, kiddo?

What happened while I was, uh… Not in control.

Absolutely I can. Get comfortable. This is a wild one.