Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The scent of freshly spilled oil filled the air, suffocating and thick. Doll could hear the sounds of fighting and tearing metal through her door as she ran out of her room, catching a glimpse of her little brother standing terrified in one of the doorways. She got out into the living room, finding oil splattered across the walls and floor.

A horrifyingly massive disassembly drone was fighting both of her parents off. A knife was embedded into its face and chest, oil spilling from the wounds. It snapped its jaws around her mother’s arm and tore it off, flinging her to the ground in the same motion. Doll angrily yelled out as she joined the fight, jumping on the disassembler's back and yanking it backwards. She let her claws out and dug them into its visor, the thing roaring and attempting to fling her off.

A knife whizzed past them, catching the side of the murder drone. It screeched and grabbed her arms, whipping her over its head and slamming her into the ground. She felt something crack in her head as she hit the ground, her vision on her right side flickering to static. Everything became muffled as she looked up, seeing a set of razor sharp teeth descending over her. The back of a gun slammed into the thing’s head, almost knocking it over with a solid crack.

Doll shoved herself up as her parents began to corner the disassembler, pulling the grate off the vent and shifting it into a set of blades with her solver. The thing hissed and snapped, yellow eyes hollow and panicked as it raised its tail. It seemed to realise it was outnumbered. Doll lifted the blades up, ready to send all of them flying into the sky demon’s chest.

Until it lunged forward and slammed her father into the ground. He screamed as she heard tearing metal, more oil spilling onto the floor. She panicked and tossed the blades at it, most of them being deflected off the thing’s wings. It snarled at her, lifting its tail in preparation to stab her. A knife stabbed into one of the lights on its headband, making it screech and rapidly shake its head. One of its hands shifted out for a gun, time seeming to slow down as Doll realised what it was doing.

A gunshot rang through the room, her mother collapsing to the ground as her visor flickered off. Oil spilled out across the floor in a dark puddle around her head, the disassembler shakily dropping its arm. It grabbed onto the bench, arm tightly pressed over its midsection in an attempt to stop the flow of oil from its wounds. It met her eyes, looking like a feral animal.

Then it ran. Before she could react it was back in the vents, the metal loudly thudding as it crawled away. It sounded like it was having difficulty getting through the tunnels, which made sense considering how big it was.

“Doll.” She was snapped out of her shock by the voice of her father. He’d managed to get back up, oil staining his left shoulder and running down a set of claw marks on his face. He was holding a gun in his hand, one that she remembered had been custom made for when he’d joined the WDF.

And was conveniently made specifically for dealing with disassembly drones should they ever get into the colony.

The Viper Mk 2.

They were going to hunt that feral drone down to the ends of Copper-9. Doll ran through the halls alongside her father, fully prepared to do anything to take revenge for her mother’s death. They could hear the sky demon making sounds, even this far down the abandoned section of Outpost 3. They echoed down the halls, Doll easily able to track and locate where they were coming from.

“Don't go too far!” Her father quietly called out to her. She stopped and turned back to him, seeing the dim lights from above flickering and reflecting off his gun. A high pitched, haunting cry reached their audio receptors, almost sounding pained. Was that monster somehow feeling pain after what it did?

“I'll be fine.” She hissed back, continuing to track down the source of the sounds. They were getting louder, meaning they were close. Something clattered over in a nearby storage room, followed by terrified and pained whimpers. Doll walked over to the door, finding it wide open.

“N-no, not now, why now?!” A voice hissed out, shaky and scared. That was followed by another pained cry, Doll slowly walking in. She didn't quite notice that her mouth had widened to an unsettling smile, one eye displaying the Solver symbol while the other remained hollowed.

She could see the thing's tail sticking out from around the corner.

The blade from one of the fans was ripped out of the wall by a red Solver symbol, shifted and transformed into a razor sharp blade. Doll walked around the corner, hovering it next to her as she glared at the disassembly drone. It looked back up at her with hollowed eyes, letting out a low, rattling growl.

It was half lying on the ground, its near fully black legs pulled up to its stomach. It looked far smaller and far more pathetic than it had when it had first broken in, yellow lights dim and flickering. Doll aimed the blade towards it, watching its dark grey, fluffy tail lift and start rapidly flicking back and forth.

“Doll, get back.” Her father quickly interrupted the standoff, pushing himself between the two of them. The sky demon let out another pained hiss as he pointed the gun at its head, practically pressing the barrel into its face. It didn't move, but Doll could hear its ragged breathing and its metal plating rattling as it shook. It just stared at them with hollowed yellow eyes, mouth wide open in a silent hiss.

She saw her father look over the thing, waiting for him to pull the trigger. But instead, he took in a sharp breath and pulled the gun back.

“W-what are you doing?!” Doll yelled as he stepped back. The murder bot immediately took the chance to run, jumping up into the nearby ventilation shaft. Doll angrily yelled out and threw the blade at it, hearing an agonised cry as the weapon went straight through the thing's upper body. It very loudly crawled away, the noises quickly fading as it retreated to where they couldn't follow.

“Doll-” Her father started.

“WHY DIDN'T YOU KILL IT?!” She yelled, red sparks flickering around her. “IT KILLED MOM! IT TRIED TO KILL ME, AND YOU, AND BUCKY! WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST-”

“BECAUSE SHE HAD AN EGG!” Her father yelled back. Doll reeled back slightly, shocked. He'd never yelled at her.

“W…what?” She responded, trying to process it.

“That drone was carrying an egg. And…she was also trying to lay that egg.” He replied, putting the gun into the carrier on his back. 

“I don't care what she did. I'm not killing a mother and an egg that's barely been born.” He then began to walk away, casting a look back at her. She put her head down and followed him, trying to put her spinning thoughts in order. It only led to one place.

That egg was the reason this happened.

If it hadn't existed, everything would've been fine.

The thought was practically running grooves into her head. She couldn't just stop at the sky demon. 

She needed to kill its egg as well.

It was a painful walk back to the house, knowing what they'd find there. Walking in through the door, it was exactly as they'd left it when they'd gone to chase the murder drone down. Her mother's corpse lay on the ground, a puddle of oil around her head and her brother trying to shake her awake.

“She'll wake up right?” He asked as they walked in, tears streaming down his visor. Their father sighed and picked him up, pulling him close.

“I'm so sorry Bucky, she's-” He began to say, but was cut off by the sound of metal shifting around. Doll's eyes hollowed as she watched her mother's hand twitch, hearing a pained groan from her as her visor flickered back on. She sat up, holding her head and looking around in confusion.

“Yeva?!” Doll stepped back as her father rushed forward, putting Bucky down and pulling her mother into a tight embrace. Doll should've been relieved, ecstatic even, but something was wrong. There was no hint of recognition on her mother's visor, as if everything she was seeing was new to her. A horrible sinking feeling went through Doll's chest at that realisation.

“W-what…?” Her mother whispered. She reached a hand up to her throat as if she was confused, before her head suddenly twitched. Her visor began displaying lines of code, seeming like it was running some sort of system scan. An error message quickly popped up, covering her entire screen.

SDID: 048

ERROR: MEMORY FILES HAVE BEEN CORRUPTED

BACKUP FILES NOT FOUND

ERROR: UNABLE TO RESET SYSTEM FILES

PERMISSION NEEDED FROM ADMINISTRATION “CYN”

The message quickly disappeared as she shook her head, her eyes replacing it. They were hollowed and almost distant now, as if her mind was somewhere else.

Doll couldn’t look.

She knew how bad the damage was.

Her mother didn’t remember anything .

And she’d kill that murder drone, its egg, and its entire squad for it.

Chapter Text

A purple drone was standing over the edge of a pit.

The scaffolding below her creaked as the ground shook, the sky a deep shade of red. There was someone next to her, a blurry shape she couldn’t quite make out.

“Better to assimilate than explain, anyway.” The voice was low and distorted, the owner of it being hidden behind a thick cloud of fog.

“Callback ping.”

Something shifted in her chest. She said something, her own voice muffled to the point she couldn’t hear it. She turned her head to look at the blurry person next to her.

“Okee.”

Then in the blink of an eye something teleported behind her, stabbing its arm through her chest and holding her core in its claws. Agony ripped through her as her oil spilled out across the ground, her consciousness shifting to her core as she stared behind her body.

All she could make out was a pair of yellow X’s.

“Uzi!”

She opened her eyes, finding herself back in her classroom. She sat up, trying to shake off the lingering feelings of pain in her chest. Her teacher was the one that had called out her name, and she could hear someone snickering behind her. Probably Lizzy.

“Your turn to present.” The teacher called out again. She groaned and shoved herself up off the desk, grabbing her bag and walking to the front. Thankfully, this year’s first assessed presentation was on a topic she was actually interested in.

The disassembly drones that had landed near their colony ten months ago. It was probably a bit tasteless considering that one of them had gotten in last year and attacked Doll’s family, but she figured she wouldn’t be the target of any of Doll’s rage for doing what everyone else was doing. 

“So as I’m sure you all know,” Uzi started, her annoyance switching to confidence, “a group of three disassembly drones landed near us ten months ago. These are the most recent ones to be sent down, meaning-”

She clicked the button on the slideshow, revealing an unsettling picture. A spire made up of hundreds, if not thousands of worker drone corpses, twisting up into the sky.

“-they constructed a spire like the other groups.”

With another click, it showed the three disassemblers.

“The first one, codenamed Subject Canine, is the smallest of its squad. It is the only one of its squadmates to have coloured fur, being yellow and orange instead of grey. From what we’ve observed, it’s very easily pushed around by its squadmates.”

“The second, codenamed Subject Avian, is the most elusive. It appears to have feathers on its tail instead of fur, as well as being a darker colour than the other two. It is calculated and methodical in its attacks, though is the most rarely seen of the group.”

“The final one, codenamed Subject Feline, is the most dangerous. It appears to be the leader of the group, though we aren’t sure. It is the biggest and the most aggressive, and is…also the one that broke into the colony six months ago.” Uzi struggled to say the last sentence, making eye contact with Doll.

She’d been home when the attack happened. She only lived next door after all. She’d heard everything with the disassembler attacking Doll’s parents. Every. Single. Detail. She was sure it was even worse for Doll, knowing what happened to her mother.

She shoved the sound of tearing metal and feral snarling to the back of her mind, attempting to continue her presentation.

“But I’ve come up with a way we can get rid of them.” Uzi reached down into her bag, pulling the two pieces of her project out. She slotted them together, forming a weapon. “The answer is this sick as hell railgun!” She haphazardly pointed it around the room, watching her classmates gasp and try to get out of the way of the barrel.

“Relax, it doesn’t work! Yet!” She exclaimed. “I still need a proper power source for it, but it should be powerful enough to kill a murder drone in one shot!” She clicked a button on the side of the railgun, green lights flickering on along the barrel. She’d just done that for demonstration, seeing Doll staring at her a little too intently.

“Uzi-” Her teacher started, but she cut him off.

“No, let me finish!” She hissed, looking away from the railgun.

She didn’t hear the warning beeps until it was too late. As soon as she looked back down she saw the lights had turned red, not able to react before it violently exploded in her hands. Everything went black, only feeling her head slam into the wall behind her before all sensation faded. The last thing she saw was Doll staring at her, red eyes empty of any emotion while the other students panicked.

“...zi?”

A voice broke through the silence she’d been plunged into. She groaned as she struggled to open her eyes, finding that the right side of her visor was covered. Her body also felt incredibly sore. Great. The light right above her was hurting her eyes, making her lift her hands to cover her visor.

“Uzi?”

She looked over to see the school nurse next to her, looking at her with concerned blue eyes.

“What…?” Uzi asked, trying to remember what had just happened before this.

“Your uh…project exploded in your hands.” They explained. “You’re very lucky it didn’t do more damage to you.”

“What did it do then?” She asked, her voice sounding scratchy.

“Other than sending you into the wall, a piece of shrapnel got stuck in the right side of your visor. I managed to get it out, but I’m unsure if you’ll be able to see through that side again. You’re also very lucky I’m actually trained in this sort of stuff.” They explained. Uzi felt…shocked, was probably the correct word. Had she really fucked up that bad?

“By the way, school ends in about ten minutes. Do you want to just stay here until then?” They asked. Uzi nodded, shutting her eyes again. She heard shuffling as the school nurse got up, then the sound of a door creaking as they left the room. She just laid there, trying to gather her thoughts, until the bell signifying school ending rang. That felt quick.

She opened her eyes and sat herself upright, a splitting headache quickly making its way through her. She groaned in pain as she brought a hand to her head, looking around for her bag. She found it sitting next to the bed, the smoking remains of her railgun having been carefully placed in the main part of it. She huffed and picked the bag up, zipping it up. She could fix the railgun when she got home. Not like her dad would notice or care…if he was even there.

She walked out of the room, a low growl escaping her throat at the massively bright lights. She tried to walk through the hallway to the exit but instead walked directly into the desk, quickly realising that her depth perception had disappeared. She heard snickering laughter from the entrance, looking up to see Lizzy and Doll there.

“Wow, you look like shit!” Lizzy sneered, Uzi just glaring at her. “Guess we’ll have to come up with some new nicknames for you!” She taunted, Doll just standing there behind her and staring at Uzi in a very threatening way. 

“Oh, that’s rich coming from the person who’s mom is trying to kill her.” The purple drone retorted, Lizzy’s eyes instantly hollowing. “Yeah, it’s not as subtle as she wants it to be.” She continued. Doll made a low growl at her, making her roll her eyes.

Then they left, Uzi growling as she reached out her arm to pathetically feel her way around the room. A glimmer of green lights made her look up, seeing Thad walking into the room with a worried expression.

“Oh hey, you’re alright!” He said as he approached her. “Well, I mean, alright as you can be for getting half your face blown up.”

“Was it that bad?” Uzi asked, nearly walking into another chair.

“Yeah, there was an entire piece of metal stuck in your face!” Thad exclaimed.

“Huh. I guess it does ache a bit.” Ache was an understatement. It felt like half her visor had been shredded and it hurt like hell. Her dad probably wouldn’t even care, considering he was most likely called and hadn’t shown up yet.

“Oh, also because I forgot to say it earlier,” Thad started, seeming almost nervous. “Uh, happy birthday.”

Right. It was also her birthday today. She probably would’ve forgotten if he hadn’t reminded her, since no-one else seemed to care.

“Oh yeah. I almost forgot.” Uzi responded.

“Well you probably shouldn’t forget!” Thad said, guiding her away from walking into yet another wall. “You’re nineteen now!” They reached the doorway, with her leaning away from him and putting her weight on the doorway.

“Yeah, I know. Another year surviving the stupid murder drones or whatever.” Uzi mumbled. Another year of being ignored or bullied by all of her peers. Another year of her dad seemingly hating her for existing. At this point she was starting to question if he even wanted kids or if she was just some massive mistake.

Maybe it was because she looked so much like her mother.

“I’m just gonna go home.” She mumbled.

“O-oh, okay.” Thad responded. She walked down the hallways, managing to not run into anything the entire way back to the apartment. She tapped her keycard on the door and walked inside, finding the place empty. Yep, she should’ve guessed her dad wouldn’t be there. She went into her room and tossed her bag down, digging out the railgun and putting it down on her desk turned workbench.

She began working away at repairing the railgun, searching the entire house for any spare pieces she could find. Slowly but surely, she began to repair the thing, up until she realised something. She needed a new case for the top, as well as a power source. Which she could only get from outside. Checking her internal clock, it was about 1am. Wow, she’d been working on this for a long time.

Maybe she could sneak outside? She wasn’t tall enough to reach any of the vents, so she’d have to go out through the main doors. Hopefully her dad wouldn’t be there.

Ignoring the warnings that she needed sleep, she quickly split the railgun apart again and shoved it into her bag. She went outside her room and slowly opened the door to her dad’s room, reaching in for the master keycard. Right as she managed to grab it, she caught sight of a picture sitting in a frame on the shelf right above it.

It was of her and her parents, from when she was still an egg. The photo was heavily damaged, the side of the photo showing her mother having been burnt away by nanite acid. She couldn’t even remember what she looked like anymore, though she guessed that had been a constant for her entire life. She was only a couple of days from hatching when her mother had died, after all.

She left the room, heading out the front door and going towards the colony entrance. The only sounds came from the humming of the colony itself. She briefly remembered learning that this entire colony used to be part of a massive mining facility before the core collapse, which was probably why it was so loud. Humans apparently needed a lot of ventilated air.

She quickly reached the entrance of the colony, finding the first door tightly shut. She simply walked over and tapped the master keycard on the scanner, which responded with a ding. She spun the keycard around in her hand before tucking it back into her jacket, turning to the now opened door-

And immediately being met with the judging gaze of her father.

“Oh robo-jesus!” She yelped, practically jumping onto the ceiling. Her core felt like it was going to leap out of her chest, the tension suddenly unbearable.

“And where might you be off to?” Khan asked. Uzi desperately tried to think of some excuse, knowing how panicked she looked.

“U-um, I was…uh…” She felt like her thoughts were short-circuiting. For as much shit as she gave him for being an absent father, he at least did one thing. Stopped her from going outside in any way. She guessed she understood it, considering that was how her mother died and there was an extremely dangerous group of disassembly drones living nearby, but still.

“Well?” He continued.

“I need to go out for my project!” She exclaimed, hoping she sounded convincing. “I wanted to…inspect the exterior hydraulic mechanisms of door one! Since the project is about defending our colony and stuff, so what better than the things keeping those murder drones out!” She really, really hoped that would convince him. Maybe bringing doors into it would make him actually have some interest in her.

“Oh, why didn’t you just say so!” He exclaimed, sounding unusually happy. Of course that worked, why was she even surprised. She tuned out most of her dad’s rant about doors, just waiting for him to give her the chance to get outside. He was talking to the other people sitting in the room between door one and two, then the door to the outside suddenly opened. 

Snow billowed in through the opening, forced inside by the sudden change in air pressure. She could see giant skyscrapers stretching up into the stars, moonlight reflecting off the sheets of snow on the ground as if beckoning her outside. She slowly, hesitantly, walked forward, the feeling of snow crunching under her boots foreign to her.

“Just knock on the door when you’re ready to come back in!” Her dad called out to her as she exited the colony. The temperature around her instantly dropped, making her able to see her breath forming clouds in front of her. She turned and gave a thumbs up, then the door slammed shut.

She was free. She was outside the colony for the first time in her life. She didn’t care if her dad forgot her birthday, this may as well be a present from him.

Abandoned and dishevelled buildings towered over Uzi as she stared up into the night sky, stars flickering above her. The two moons circling Copper-9 were clearly visible, illuminating everything in her path. She was scanning the ground for the parts she needed, slowly making her way through the city.

A crunch from under her foot made her look down, finding that she’d stepped on the decapitated head of a fellow worker drone. She grimaced as she lifted her foot up, trying to avoid stepping on it again but just ending up with her foot through the visor of another worker. 

It finally occurred to her that she had quite possibly stepped into one of the so called “danger zones” of the outside. Which meant a disassembly drone was very likely watching her right now. She went to take a tentative step back, wanting to change course, when she backed into something. She shakily turned her head behind her, looking up at whatever was blocking her path.

Five eyes stared down at her from the disassembly drone’s head, the visor switched off and not displaying anything. 

Oh. She was fucked .

Everything blurred together in an instant as she tried to run, the disassembler leaping at her and tackling her to the ground. It was much bigger than she was, easily pinning her down against the snow. Its visor was on now, displaying an X symbol as it menacingly opened its jaws. She kicked it in the stomach, knocking it away slightly. She scrambled to get up, just looking for any sort of escape-

She didn’t see the nanite acid tipped stinger coming straight towards her face.

It plunged into the damaged side of her visor, making her scream out in agony as she fell to the ground. She shakily reached her hands to her face, feeling the acid burning through her visor. Her vision blurred as she struggled for breath, error messages covering her screen.

The last thing she saw was the disassembly drone towering over her, then lines of code filled her vision before everything went black.

Chapter Text

Uzi could feel something holding her hand up. The sensation was faint, but there enough that she began to wake up. Her cameras refused to boot up, leaving her to just be able to hear what was going on around her.

“Come on little buddy, just try to eat this!”

A voice she didn’t recognise spoke from behind her, sounding desperate. It was immediately followed by a squeak from something in front of her, followed by the sound of whatever it was…crying?

“No no no don’t cry please don’t cry…” The voice said again, sounding like they were also on the verge of tears. Uzi’s cameras finally decided to boot up, finding herself shockingly alive. And she could see out of the damaged side of her visor again for some reason. Her vision was slightly blurred and distorted on that side, but it was definitely back.

“Ugh…what the hell…?” She groaned as she tried to push herself up. She’d been lying on her stomach, her hand being quickly let go of by whatever had been holding it up. She shook her head, managing to get into an upright position.

She was instantly met with the sight of a very fluffy baby disassembly drone staring at her.

It chirped, tilting its head curiously at her. She went to scramble back, only to bump into something behind her. She whipped her head around, seeing the same disassembly drone that attacked her before sitting there. They just stared at each other for a moment before it awkwardly lifted its hand, making a small wave.

“Um. Hi?” It said, its voice surprisingly normal. She scrambled upright and immediately backed herself up against the wall the furthest from it, feeling like some kind of animal that had been cornered. The disassembler didn’t immediately move to attack her, to her surprise. It instead just sat there and looked at her, so she decided to try speaking.

“What the fuck am I doing here?!” She hissed.

“Oh, yeah, I kinda dragged you here after you passed out.” The disassembler responded, sounding shockingly calm about the situation.

“...Why didn’t you just kill me?” She asked, her fear turning to confusion.

“Well, we’ve been trying to figure out a way to feed him since he hatched earlier today.” It said, gesturing over to the droneling. “And I wasn’t sure if we needed a worker that’s still alive, so…I just kinda grabbed you. We haven’t seen a worker around here for ages, so I had to take the first chance I had.” 

“You tried to kill me.” She growled. “You literally stabbed me in the face with your stupid tail.” That line of thought begged the question of how she was still alive. Maybe she’d died and was stuck in some sort of torture purgatory.

“I healed you though!” The disassembler whined. “And I feel bad for stabbing you like that, I just panicked!” It sounded genuinely upset, which then made the droneling start to cry out. “Oh biscuits-” It said, going over to the little ball of fluff and trying to calm it down. 

Uzi suddenly had an idea. Maybe if she helped, at least for now, she wouldn’t be saved as a snack for later. She cautiously made her way over, watching the adult disassembler picking up the baby one and gently patting its head.

“Give me a claw.” She said, holding her hand out.

“Huh?” It asked, looking down at her in confusion.

“Just do it.” She continued. To her shock the disassembler listened to her, switching out one of its hands for giant claws. She grabbed them and nicked one of her fingers, biting down a hiss of pain as she felt oil starting to drip down from the wound. Before the adult one could ask what she was doing, she held her finger out to the droneling.

It sniffed the air for a second, stopping its cries before looking at her. It then leaned forward and licked the oil dripping out of the cut, making happy chirps and wagging its tail as it continued to lick at her finger. It was eventually satisfied, loudly purring as it reached a tiny clawed hand out towards her.

“Hey, no! No getting attached!” She said as she looked down at it.

“You actually…helped?” The adult disassembler asked, looking down at her in confusion.

“Do you seriously not know how to feed a baby of your own damn species?” She asked as she rolled her eyes. She looked away, not wanting to make eye contact.

“Well…the company never exactly gave us any information on how to take care of a baby.” It said. “I’m uh…my name is N, by the way.” 

Great. Now the name on top of everything else was making it extremely difficult for her to think of these things as mindless killing machines.

“Why are you telling me your name?” She asked, narrowing her eyes.

“Well, I figured that'd be a nice thing to do!” He responded earnestly. His tail was wagging slightly behind him, the droneling in his arms happily staring up at her.

“So is that one yours?” Uzi asked, gesturing at the droneling.

“Oh! Uh, I…don’t actually know.” N responded.

“How do you not know?!” Uzi snapped in response.

“Well, V was the one that had him, and she was already expecting the egg when we landed.” He explained. “It doesn’t really help that we don’t remember anything from before that. I think all our memories got scrambled at some point.” He continued.

“...Huh.” Uzi muttered. “Which one’s V?”

“Oh right! You workers don’t know us by our names! What do you call us, anyway?” N asked, sitting down in one of the chairs.

“Hey! My question first!” Uzi snapped. He just nodded and gestured down to the other nearby chair, which appeared to have claw marks in it. Deciding to not take it as an ominous sign of her future fate, she sat down and waited for him to explain.

“Well first, like I said, I’m N! I was the pilot for the ship that brought us here, at least I’m pretty sure I was!” As soon as he finished the sentence, the droneling that was now sitting in his lap loudly chirped and proceeded to try and jump over to Uzi. She instinctively caught him, quickly realising what she’d done. 

“Oh shi-” She started, before he chirped and immediately began trying to crawl up her arm. “Okay okay fine!” She exclaimed, grabbing him off her arm and sitting him in her lap. He happily chirped and purred, flopping down and starting to make biscuits on her.

“I think he likes you!” N exclaimed, his tail continuing to wag.

“Yeah, and that’s an issue. In case you hadn’t realised.” Uzi snapped. 

“We’ll uh…deal with that when it’s important.” N mumbled. “Anyway, there are two other members of my squad-”

“I know.”

“J is the leader of my squad. She was really mean to me when we first landed, but then around the time that one was born she started acting weird. She just kinda zones out with this weird symbol on her face for hours at a time and acts really jumpy otherwise. The feathers on her tail have been compressed for a good few months now and she just…looks haunted.” N spoke, seeming almost nervous.

“So she’s the one with the suit?” Uzi asked, N nodding. Huh, she definitely thought the other one would be the leader.

“Then there’s V. She’s the big scary one with the scarf. And like I said, she’s the one that had him.” He gestured to the droneling. That news shocked Uzi. How the hell had a massive drone like that made something so small? She pushed back the brief thought that the droneling was adorable, deciding to just focus on what N was saying.

“She was already expecting when we landed, for whatever reason. I think she built up about 70% of the spire herself, since I guess she needed way more oil because of the egg. We started hitting a drought about six months ago, so she broke into a nearby colony-”

“My colony. She broke into my colony.” Uzi interrupted him with a slight growl. She knew the rest of this story.

“Oh.” He responded, seeming suddenly lost for words.

“Yeah. That wasn’t fun to hear, considering she was right next door tearing apart some of the only people that actually cared about my wellbeing.” She quickly realised that she was saying too much, biting down her tongue to stop herself from speaking. She could taste oil in her mouth from that.

“I’m…sorry-”

“Don’t apologise. That won’t fix it.”

The room fell into uncomfortable silence as she tried to fully take in her surroundings. The distorted vision on her right side wasn’t helping at all. She appeared to be in some sort of spaceship, presumably the one N had mentioned landing in. It looked heavily broken, most likely from a crash.

“...I have some more questions.” She spoke. “Mostly about this guy.” She gestured down to the droneling that was now fast asleep in her lap. “But first…why are you telling me all this? Usually I have to force information out of people, and now I’m just getting it from a disassembly drone of all things.” It was probably because he figured he was going to kill her after this. Not like anyone in the colony thought any differently.

“I don’t know. I guess it’s just nice to talk to someone new.” N responded. “Even if that someone new is uh…not very friendly.”

“Why would I be friendly when you literally tried to kill me?!” She snapped.

“Well I’m not doing that right now!” He exclaimed. “And you even helped me in trying to figure out how to feed him!” He gestured at the droneling again, Uzi groaning and leaning back in the chair.

“Does he have a name?” She asked, the stress and tension in her body near unbearable.

“...Not yet.” N replied. Uzi just sighed in response.

“Okay. You said V had him, right? Just give me the rundown on that whole situation.” She was stalling for time at this point. She needed to form a proper plan to escape this without getting brutally torn apart, and that started with getting this sky demon to talk for as long as possible.

“Oh yeah, I can explain that!” He started, seeming quite happy to be spilling every secret he ever had to her. “We landed about ten months ago and V was pretty much immediately acting weird. I don’t know how I knew that considering my memories feel all scrambled, but there was just something off. And a few months after that both me and J noticed that she looked kinda different as well, so we did a scan on her and found out she had an egg.”

“Mhm.” Uzi responded. The story wasn’t quite making sense to her. She gave up on trying to figure out an escape plan, knowing it most likely wouldn’t work, and changed course to figuring out what was going on with these disassembly drones. That would be a fun little final project before her inevitable demise.

“Then about six months ago, she broke into tha- your colony. We didn’t get a response from her for a while, so we went in to investigate and found her in the back of a bus with an egg.”

“Wait. Were you the ones that stole the bus?!” Uzi exclaimed.

“Yeah, sorry about that.” He said sheepishly. “We couldn’t really figure out another way to get her out.”

“Well yeah, considering how terrifyingly tall she is-” Uzi started, but N immediately cut her off.

“She’s not terrifying! She’s nice and sweet and only scary some of the time!” He exclaimed, a slight hint of a blush appearing on his visor. “And I also…kinda…maybe have a bit of a crush on her.” He admitted, his voice now quiet.

Oh robo-god she was being dragged into relationship drama.

The droneling chirped again, stretching himself out and rolling onto his back. She now decided to take a better look at him, realising that he didn’t have yellow lights. They were white for some reason, making him appear almost completely monochrome…apart from the tip of his tail. There were a few barely noticeable, pale orange stripes there, making her narrow her eyes briefly and look at N’s very orange tail.

“Yeah, just a crush.” Uzi muttered, loud enough for N to hear.

“What?” He asked, tilting his head in confusion.

“The tip of his tail is orange. And you’re the only orange disassembly drone I’ve seen.” She responded. “Are you sure he isn’t yours?”

“I-” He started, when the sound of something heavy landing outside the pod made them jump. Uzi barely even got a second to think before the shadow of something fell over her, hearing a snarling sound before she was roughly yanked out of her seat. She was suddenly staring right into the face of another disassembly drone, a bright yellow X displayed on her visor as she pinned Uzi to the ground with one hand.

Surely, surely this time she was actually dead.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing with my son?!” V snarled, her tail lashing angrily behind her as she raised her other hand. The giant claws glittered in the trails of moonlight coming down through the holes in the spire, illuminating what was surely her death in a haunting white light.

“I-I-” Uzi tried to choke out, but she was instead slightly lifted and slammed back down into the ground again. She tried to let out a pained cry but it glitched into static, the pressure on her neck almost too much. She desperately tried to claw at the disassembler’s arm, wheezing as panic began to take over.

She looked over to the side to see another disassembler standing there. J was just watching all of this happen with a blank expression on her face, seeming like she was only half there. N’s description was right, she definitely did look haunted. She was also staring at Uzi maybe a little too intently, but that was an issue for if she lived.

“V, wait!” N’s voice called out, Uzi more able to hear than see his footsteps crunching in the snow. “Don’t kill her!” He continued, coming to a stop right next to them.

“I told you not to bring live workers near him!” V hissed, Uzi now changing tactics to kicking at her chest. The disassembler seemed to barely notice her growing desperation, just continuing to glare at N.

“She helped feed him!” N exclaimed, holding up the droneling. He squeaked and started reaching down towards Uzi, making concerned whines. All she could do was desperately wheeze for air, staring up at V as her vision began to go blurry. Then V let out an annoyed growl and stood up, letting go of Uzi.

The worker immediately gasped for air, clutching at her throat as she tried to scramble away. She backed straight into J, who continued to just stare down at her with hollowed eyes. Uzi could feel the uncomfortable warmth that came with overheating slowly fade away, though she still felt too shaky to stand.

“What do you suggest we do with her then?” V snapped, lashing her tail.

“We could just…keep her here?” N suggested, sounding unsure of herself.

“I don’t think we should.” J spoke up suddenly. She nudged at Uzi with one of her weird peg legs, the worker hissing slightly and scrambling away. “She could be dangerous.” She seemed as though she was staring past Uzi, making her feel a little uncomfortable.

“What, this tiny little worker?!” V loudly said, reaching over and picking up Uzi by her jacket hood as if she was scruffing a kitten. “She’d barely put a dent in us! I say we just eat her now, not like she’ll be able to do anything about it!” She opened her jaws wide as she made that comment, Uzi able to see all the horrifyingly sharp fangs lining the inside of her mouth.

A loud, angry scream broke V’s attention away from her, looking over to find that it had come from the droneling. He angrily flailed around in N’s grip, reaching out quite determinedly towards Uzi. She instantly felt a pit of dread form in her stomach at the sudden realisation that this droneling was very obviously attached to her…all because she gave him oil.

Great.

V seemed to come to the same conclusion, angrily growling and dropping her on the ground. She absolutely towered over the worker, Uzi barely reaching the top of her legs while sitting.

“Fine. We can just keep her here until we get hungry or something.” V spat out, turning around. She ran the tip of her tail underneath Uzi’s chin, making sure to drag the edge of the nanite acid stinger across the metal. Uzi couldn’t help but shiver at the sensation, strangely finding that she didn’t feel as afraid as she should be. Maybe it had finally peaked and she was going to die of a core attack in a few minutes.

N gently helped her upright, where she found that her legs were shaky. The horror of everything finally set in as he awkwardly brought her back into the landing pod, trying to explain something to her.

She was stuck here. She was stuck here until they got bored with her and killed her. She’d found her bag hidden up on a shelf far above where she’d normally be able to reach, meaning she’d have to come up with some stupid way to reach it if she ever tried to escape. If she even got a chance, considering the droneling was already crawling all over her and seemed extremely content to be doing so.

This was the worst birthday ever.