Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Hunter’s Log: October 11th, 3071. Designation: Apollo.”

A young Irish woman lounges in her leather-backed swivel chair as she activates the autopilot function on her shuttle. She lets her hand dangle towards the floor and a water monitor lizard wearing a service animal vest immediately scuttles over to receive pets and scratches. She smiles and happily supplies her pet with the desired attention while continuing her report.
“Today marks the thirteenth anniversary working with JCJenson, so to celebrate, Janus decided to ship Liver and I to the mining world Copper 9, as apparently the Children are particularly active in that area. I have been deployed to find out why. Systems estimate that we'll make planetfall in about a week. At this current time there is nothing else of relevance or important to report. End log.”

Liver scales the woman's pant leg and lays down in her lap. She responds by gently scratching his underbelly with her prosthetic hand, which he seems to enjoy greatly. She sighs and reaches into a compartment with her free hand, pulling out a photo of two teenage girls posing for the camera in the middle of the Australian outback. The girl on the right has light-medium tan skin, nut brown hair cut short in a bit of a bob save for four shoulder-length twin tails ending with black bows (two in the front and two in the back), and bright green eyes that twinkle with mischief. Well, mostly green. Closer inspection reveals that one of her eyes is actually a mix of green and brown. She's wearing a white and yellow sundress and a woven wide-brim hat to keep the sun out of her eyes. A large black bow is planted on top of her hat. The girl to the left is slightly bigger, and so pale she  looks like a ghost in comparison to her friend. Her eyes are a deep hazel and dance with that same playful mischief, but there's also a piercing quality to them, as though she's trying to see into the cameraman's mind and read his thoughts. She's dressed much more practically in simple jeans and a black T-shirt bearing a decal of dancing skeletons, her vibrant ginger hair tied in a high-set ponytail. Her guarded smirk and folded arms contrasted the other girl's open body language and beaming smile, but it's clear they're very close. Well, they used to be.

“Oh, Tessa…” the woman murmured as she brushed her thumb against the girl on the right. “How I wish you were here with me now… I’d give anything to bring you back…”

Recognizing his owner's suddenly solemn mood as a sign of old grief, he reaches out with his forefeet and gently digs his talons into her thighs, the sudden sensation getting her attention and jolting her back into the present. Looks at him for a second, then smiles and scratches him under the chin as she puts the photo back into its compartment. 

“You're right, Liver… That was a long time ago… No use dwelling on it now…”

Liver jumps down as his owner gets up and stretches.

“Welp. We have a week until planetfall. Reckon we should do some drills and training while we wait, eh?”

Chapter Text

Uzi Doorman has not been having a good day. Granted, that’s normal for her, but still. And this one’s worse than most, because she has to give a presentation to her entire class. In like five minutes. Hoo boy. She tries to calm her nerves and focus on the other presentations, she really does, but they’re so BORINGGG. And they’re all about watermelons for some stupid reason. Where’s the fun, the creativity? She spaces out through most of them and almost falls asleep at least twice. When no one walks up after Thad finishes his presentation she realizes that everyone else has gone and now it’s her turn. With a deep breath she walks to the front with trepidation and opens her slideshow. She didn’t know where to start when she was making the thing last night so she ended up summarizing the history of their entire race.

“We are Worker Drones,” she began. “Autonomous robots created to help humans mine exoplanets by our parent company: JCJenson (IN SPAAAAACEE!!!!)”

She flips to the next slide, showing off the JCJenson logo as she says the name in a complete deadpan and with absolutely no enthusiasm.

“Yeah, we were mistreated in the name of Windex, but it’s not like we rebelled and killed all humans or anything. Mostly because they did that by themselves.”

The third slide is actually a gif created from satellite images, depicting a massive hole being blown through the crust of Copper 9 from the inside out and a nuclear-esque fallout blanket the remainder of the planet.

“That little screw up effectively glassed the planet, wiping out all biological life, turning the atmosphere toxic, and rendering the surface uninhabitable with a never-ending winter. All that remains today are empty skeletons of buildings and us WDs. And since there wasn’t anyone around to tell us what to do we got to do whatever we wanted. We finally had a future all to ourselves.”

The fourth slide is of a pair of Worker Drones, a man and woman by the looks of them. The man has an old-school captain’s tobacco pipe that he probably swiped from one of the skeletons in his mouth, and the woman is holding an infant WD (called pill babies bc of how they’re shaped) that’s presumably hers. The first pill baby to be born on Copper 9. A truly historical moment.

“Unfortunately, our parent company didn’t exactly love the idea of rogue AI.”

Slide five is very different to all the other ones: A JCJenson landing pod. A brand new one, having landed recently by the looks of it.

“They sent the Murder Drones. Dunno what they actually are but what I do know is that they kill any and every WD they can find, I’m like 99% sure that they drink our oil like vampires, and they built THIS.”

Slide six. Oh boy slide six. This one is a picture of a gargantuan spire made of corpses in the middle of the city, with two MDs flying in circles around it like vultures and a third perching on a street light. 

“But what have our parents done for the past forever while those things build that- that monstrosity?!”

Slide seven is a top-down map of the colony’s entrance, with the most notable part being the three giant doors that separate the colony from the outside, each one a foot thick and made of solid steel.

“Hide under the ice behind three stupid doors? It’s like we’re waiting for an inciting incident!”

At the words “inciting incident,” slide eight shows up, which is just the Hero’s Journey chart.

“Anyway that’s why my project is this sick-as-hell railgun!”

Uzi reaches to her right, grabs a purple railgun prototype, flips it into the air, catches it, and points it directly at her classmates. The class gasps, several instinctively lean back, and that one guy that Uzi can’t bother to remember the name of but knows that he’s weirdly obsessed with 2000s slang shouts “so not the vibe!”

“Easy, morons,” Uzi reassures the class. “It doesn’t work.”

Her eyelights suddenly hollow out and her mood switches to confrontational completely unprompted.

“Yet. It doesn’t work yet. Who said it doesn’t work?! Maybe it does!”

Pointing the railgun skywards she flips the safety and the barrel begins to crackle with green energy as she laughs and points it back at the class threateningly.

“Uzi, the word problem was about buying watermelons,” Liam Stone, Uzi's teacher, rolls his eyelights and drums a finger against his desk, completely unphased by the deadly weapon in his classroom. Uzi wonders briefly for the third time this week if he’s even capable of feeling emotions.

“Oh,” she says, surprised while also finally understanding why everyone else yapped about watermelons. “And this magnetically amplified photon converger doesn’t count?”

While saying this she runs a finger against the picatinny rails on top of the railgun.

“No,” Liam replies in his trademark deadpan. “Plus, repressed emotional baggage is worth only two points on the rubric. And is it supposed to be that color?”

He raises an eyebrow and gestures to the railgun’s barrel, which has gone from green to red and is rapidly glowing brighter. Uzi only has time to let out a startled “huh?” before the railgun’s barrel violently ruptures, blasting her directly in the face and nearly blowing the classroom’s vault-esque steel doors off their hinges. Class is promptly called short and the wounded are sent to the nurse for repairs.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Uzi sits alone in the nurse office lobby, holding an ice pack to her bandaged visor, helping the new soldering in her head cool down. She looks at the smoking railgun sitting next to her and wonders what went wrong. Why did it explode? Why was it specifically the barrel that sustained any serious damage? Unfortunately, her thoughts of “what happened to my s**t and how can I fix it” are interrupted by a gasp and a quiet "there she is". A gasp from Uzi’s mortal enemy; Elizabeth Stone, though everyone just calls her Lizzy. 

“Ewwww,” Lizzy scoffs. “It didn’t kill her.”

Lizzy’s lackeys giggle at her frankly half-assed attempt to get under Uzi’s skin. They run after Lizzy as she saunters away, knowing that despite not even trying with that one it still succeeded. Further proof to her and her sycophant “friends” (followers would be a more accurate term) that she was perfect at everything she does. Uzi simply rolls her eyes and shoves Lizzy’s quip into the back of her mind as she goes back to studying her railgun, only to be interrupted yet again. This time, however, it’s a much more welcome sight. Thad Stone and Doll Morozova, her respective crush and cousin. Her closest (and admittedly only) friends. 

“Hey, guys. Come to laugh at my latest failure?” Uzi says jokingly, fully aware of why they’re actually here.

“Of course not,” Doll responds in Russian as due to a glitch in her programming she physically can’t speak in anything else, but thankfully WDs have translators built into their audio receptors so Uzi and Thad can understand her perfectly. “Ok, maybe a little. But we’re mostly here to make sure that you’re alright.”

“Don’t want you dyin’ on us, Zi,” Thad chimes in.

Uzi blushes slightly at his words and more specifically the nickname, earning her a “I know what you are” look from Doll that she counters with a playful glare. Oblivious as always, Thad sits down next to her. Stars above, Uzi swears that a sack of rocks would be more perceptive and not nearly as dense as him.

“How’s the gun?” He asked after getting comfortable. “Does it still work?”

Uzi grabs the railgun and sits it in her lap. After a few seconds of silence she responds.

“I don’t know. Things went well at first. There was a bit of a power surge when I flicked the safety off but it stabilized after a second or two and I didn’t think anything of it. Then while Teach was chewing me out for my presentation the energy became unstable and turned red. I don’t remember pulling the trigger but I think it still tried to fire because the barrel exploded. Nearly blew off half my face and injured several others. Nearly blew the door off its damn hinges. No one died, thank the stars, but I think I’m still gonna be in trouble.”

“So we need something capable of stabilizing the energy,” Doll mused. “We could snoop around the colony, try to find something that could work, but I doubt we could find anything. Just finding the parts needed to build the gun was tricky enough.”

They all sit in silence for a few minutes when Thad gets an idea. A really, really bad one.

“Why not check the spire?”

“Are you crazy?!” Uzi shrieks. “Going to the spire is a death sentence! No one has ever been inside and survived!”

“Yeah," he retorts. "But that’s because only like- five people have tried to enter in the first place. And always during the day. They died because the Murder Drones are nocturnal and their intrusions woke them up. If we go at night then they’ll be out hunting. The spire will be empty.”

Uzi ponders this for a few seconds. He did have a point, though it was still too risky for her tastes. Doll chimes in with refinements to the idea.

“The three of us could sneak out of the colony. We’ve definitely done it before. Thad and I could wait by the entrance while you sneak in to grab whatever you need.”

Uzi balks at the idea. “Why the hell do I have to go alone?!”

“Simple,” Doll responds calmly. “One person means less noise. Plus if there are any Murder Drones still there then it’ll be easier for a single person to sneak around than three. Besides, you’ll have your railgun and I have plenty of knives and cleavers from Mama’s stash that I can lend to Thad. No way we’re going in there without a means of defending ourselves.”

Doll’s late mother, Yeva Morozova, was a former member of the Worker Defense Force, or WDF for short. As the name implies, the WDF’s job was to defend the colony. Yeva had joined in the hopes that she would get revenge on the MDs, but she ultimately failed. She, her husband Alexi Morozov, and her sister Nori Doorman all died defending the colony while her hubby Khan Doorman built the three gigantic doors that now seal off the only entrance into the colony, keeping the WDs in and the MDs out. Growing up an orphan was certainly extremely hard for Doll, but hey, at least she had access to her mom’s extensive collection of sharp objects. That’s gotta count for something, right?

The three continued to chat for a bit before agreeing that despite the risks going to the spire is the option most likely to yield the desired results. And if they somehow managed to kill a MD? Well, that would just be a bonus.

Chapter Text

Uzi’s having a wonderful dream about her and Thad hiking through the forest alone, but unfortunately right before they kiss her alarm goes off. Out of both instinct and annoyance at being woken up she slaps the blasted thing. Unfortunately the alarm is built-in software and is going off inside her head so she kinda hits herself in the face in her attempt to turn it off. Surprisingly this works, but that doesn’t make her any less crabby. Crabbiness that is almost immediately replaced with excitement as she remembers the plan. Tonight’s the night she, Doll, and Thad finish the railgun. Hopefully. There’s also the possibility that all three of them will die but she prefers to not think about that. Leaping out of bed she rushes to get dressed and veeerry sneakily steals her dad’s key to the doors, which looks like a floppy disk for some reason. Gun slung over her back and key hidden in her pocket, she sets off at a very quiet jog to find her two expedition partners, who were already at the door by the time she even left her apartment.

“Girl, where have you been?” Doll asks the moment Uzi finally finds them and is close enough to be heralded without shouting. “We’ve been waiting here for five minutes.”

“Looking for you assholes,” Uzi grumbles, miffed at having wasted her time. “Enough of that, though. Let’s get this show on the road.”

Uzi holds the master key up to the door terminal until the popup “WARNING: ACCESS OVERRIDE” appears and the first door opens. Khan Doorman - Uzi’s dad, the leader of the WDF, and the creator of the doors - decides to take that exact moment to jumpscare the teens, and is met with shrieks as the three damn near jump out of their exoskeletons.

“Dad what the hell?!” Uzi yells at her father as he struggles to stop laughing. Takes him almost half a minute, but he eventually manages to regain his composure.

“So,” he sighs. “Where are you three headed at this hour? And on a school night at that.”

Uzi’s mind goes blank and she scrambles to find an explanation. While they were making their plans, the idea that they’d get caught and have to explain their behavior hadn’t occurred to them, leaving them unprepared for Khan’s inquiries. Thank goodness that Doll thinks quickly under pressure and manages to come up with something on the spot.

“We’re here to inspect the exterior of Door 1 and see if we can figure out how it works,” she fibs. “We plan on building a working model replica. It’s for a school group project.”

Khan clearly not fully convinced, Uzi jumps in with a hastily crafted addon.

“Y-yeah!” she stammers. “The three of us are also really into doors lately! We wanna build ones just like yours when we graduate and become the next generation of the WDF!”

Uzi chuckles nervously, silently praying to whatever robo-god is out there that Khan buys it and lets them outside. And to her surprise, he does. At the mention of Uzi one day joining the WDF his face lights up with delight and he hugs her, then quickly pulls away as the atmosphere almost instantly turns awkward. Khan shakes himself and is soon refilled with excitement at the prospect of his daughter being into doors.

“That’s wonderful news, Uzi!” Khan exclaims as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a remote. He presses the middle button and Door 2 opens, revealing the rest of the WDF gathered around an old folding table and playing cards.

“Guys!” Khan yells at the players as the trio of teens try to sneak past him. “My daughter and her friends are into doors!”

The adults whoop and cheer as Doll takes a sec to see what they’ve been playing.

“Rummy,” she states to the others. “And looks like Todd’s winning.”

Todd seems very smug about that, and then his smirk gets blown away along with his cards as Uzi opens Door 1 and the harsh icy winds blow into the bunker, effectively erasing everyone’s progress from the table.

“These three are on their way outside to inspect the exterior of Door 1!” Khan explains before the WDF members manage to ask the teens what the hell do they think they’re doing. “It’s for a school project. Stay safe out there, kids! Your door-specific destiny awaits!”

“Uh, wow, ok,” Uzi says, slightly surprised that they bought it so easily. “We’re just gonna go then, since this worked so weirdly well… Uhh, go doors!”

She laughs awkwardly as the trio step outside and Thad’s question for Doll about what Rummy is gets cut short as Door 1 seals shut. Khan takes off his government-issued mustache (long story) and wipes a displayed tear from his visor.

“They grow up so fast…” he sighs proudly before leaving to get a fresh pack of cards, as the numbers have started to fade from the current one.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — 

Doll and Thad stroll leisurely as they talk about how they’re gonna be heroes for killing a MD while Uzi focuses the present, keeping her optics peeled for any threats. MDs are nocturnal, after all, and the trio are completely in the open without any nearby cover. She hisses at her companions to shut up and thankfully they do, continuing the conversation by displaying text on their visors in a form of silent communication similar to sign language. Uzi sighs and goes back to watching the skies for hunting Drones when whatever she just stepped on crunches. Looking down she sees the mostly-buried corpse of a Worker, the visor covered in a spiderweb of cracks from Uzi stepping on it. She backpedals, eyelights hollow in surprise and fear. The sight sobers up the other two as they finally stop yapping and start paying proper attention. Doll steps past the corpse, eyes locked on the spire standing just a few dozen meters away.

“We’re here,” she says solemnly. “You ready, Uzi?”

“No,” Uzi replies truthfully. “Let’s get this over with.”

Doll pulls a pair of knives out of the sheaths on her thighs as Thad brandishes a pipe as they hide in a nearby snowdrift, ready to ambush. Uzi gulps, steels her nerves, and walks inside.

“I’m not sure what I expected honestly,” she thinks to herself as she takes in her surroundings. “But this is definitely it.”

The spire is hollow, the walls at least a foot thick and composed of thousands of Drones compressed or melded like some kinda jenga tower from hell. Though all of the corpses used in the construction are very much dead, not all of them have been drained of oil yet. Almost as though the MDs are using the very walls as food storage. Smart, considering they cull the population’s numbers faster than the WDs can replenish them and will eventually have no more Drones to feed on. The floor inside the spire is littered with leftover corpses, debris from the old city, some other useless scrap, and sitting at the very center is a JCJenson landing pod, illuminated by the moonlight shining from one of several holes in the ceiling.

“Likely the very same that the MDs used to get here,” she muses to herself. “Welp. If there’s anything that can help me finish the sick-as-hell railgun, it’ll probably be in here.”

It only takes her like five minutes to find something of interest: a glowing green power cell-lookin thing. She has no idea what it is but who knows it might be useful. She unslings her railgun and starts installing the cell when one of the skylights suddenly goes dark and something flies inside. Uzi scrambles to get up and hides behind one of the junk piles right before the new arrival lands on top of the pod with a loud THUD. Spotting what looks to be a shattered mirror, she picks up a shard and uses it to peer behind her at the newcomer. Seeing the bladed wings and tail of a MD causes her breath to catch in her throat as her body is overwhelmed with fear.

“F[beep],” she thinks to herself, not even bothering to be annoyed about the stupid parental controls not even allowing her to swear in her own thoughts. “If that thing spots me I’m toa-”

The MD waves its fingers at Uzi, a vibrant X on its visor and a demented grin on its face that stretches from ear to ear. Uzi drops the mirror shard and rushes to finish installing the power cell as the MD leaps off the pod. She manages to finish it and moves to turn it back on but the MD crashes down next to her, cracking the ground beneath it as her and her sick-as-hell railgun get launched in opposite directions. Her eyelights sharpen and she does a coolass backflip, landing on her feet and striking a fighting pose.

“Woah,” she says aloud after landing, startled by the sudden burst of athleticism that very much was not on purpose but she’ll never admit that. “And they said pirating all that anime was useless.”

Uzi is promptly reminded that she’s in a life-and-death situation as the MD attacks her, its tail whipping towards her head. Panicked, she holds her hand up to block the barbed stinger at the tail’s tip. The stinger pierces straight through her hand like it’s nothing, only being stopped by the canister of nanite acid connected to the stinger. Doll, bless her core, picks that exact moment to pop out of hiding and throw a knife at the MD as hard as she can. The blade sinks into its shoulder, though it unfortunately doesn’t do much outside grabbing its attention and pissing it off. It immediately turns around to face Doll and rips the knife out with a grunt, sending Uzi flying into Thad with a flick of its tail. Uzi blushes for a split second before mentally flicking herself to focus on what’s happening.

“Doll won’t last long,” Thad says to her gravely. “Grab your gun, aim for the head, and pray it works. We only get one shot at this. I’ll go help Doll.”

Uzi nods and makes a mad dash for her railgun as Thad throws some scrap into the air and uses his pipe to hit it like a baseball, sending it careening into the MD’s back and knocking it off balance.

“You want a piece of Worker Drone, huh?!” He yells at it, hiding his fear extremely well and coming across as purely angry and aggressive. “Then come get some!”

Uzi reaches her beloved toy and slides the last meter or so on her knees so she doesn’t have to slow down manually and bend over to pick it up, but mostly because she’s seen it done a lot in anime and she thinks it looks cool. Scooping it up she flicks the safety off and aims it directly at the MD, taking a moment to line up the shot before she pulls the trigger. A beam of vibrant green energy fires out, not only completely atomizing the MD’s head but punching a perfectly circular hole through the spire wall. The force of the blast nearly knocks Uzi on her ass but she manages to stabilize herself on a particularly large piece of scrap, with the now headless MD dropping to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

“Holy hell,” Uzi gasps. “That was way more powerful than I expected. Suck on that, Dad!”

Looking down at her railgun she’s surprised to see that it’s still intact, but given how the lights have turned red and waves of heat are absolutely pouring out of the barrel, it likely won’t be able to fire again for a while.

“Uzi, that was amazing!” Thad praises Uzi as he claps her on the shoulder, causing her to blush. Doll simply gives her a slight smile and a curt “well done,” but Uzi doesn’t hear it, as her attention is fully on the corpse behind her that’s starting to get up.

“You’ve gotta be f[beep]in’ kidding me,” Thad mumbles as a strange silvery liquid pumps out of the MD’s neck and solidifies into the shape of its head, effectively regrowing it. “Now that right there is some bulls[beep].”

Curiously even its hair and hat were regenerated, despite being not a part of its body, but Uzi frankly doesn’t care. What she does care about is that according to the text on the MD’s visor, it’s rebooting. She can’t have that, so she grabs the nearest object - which turns out to be the severed arm of a dead Worker - sprints at the MD, and hits it with the arm as hard as she can. To her dismay, this does absolutely nothing and it wakes up a second later.

“Well, s[beep],” Uzi thinks. “Our best attempt did nothing. Guess this is how we’ll di-”

“Did you just slap me with that arm?” The MD asks her politely, a confused smile on its face.

The trio just stare at it, stunned that it’s not only capable of speech, but suddenly friendly for some reason. Everyone just kinda stands there for a few seconds in awkward silence until Uzi randomly blurts, “Holy crap it talks.”

Yep,” it responds as it scratches the back of its head. “Man, my head hurts… So, are you three new to our squad? You’re all a little uhh… Short for Disassembly Drones…”

Doll and Thad exchange glances and Uzi takes a nervous step back as the MD - or would it be called a DD? - narrows its eyes in focus as it takes in their appearances. After a few seconds of tense staring it stands at attention and salutes them, its tail swishing slightly.

“I’m Serial Designation N,” It introduces itself. “Or N for short. Nice to meet you three! I’m kinda the leader of the squad in this city - well, only on paper but that’s a long story. Who are you three?”

Uzi realizes that N thinks she, Thad, and Doll are all Disassembly Drones and considers playing along when the acidic nanites that got injected into her hand earlier remind her that they’re still there and she hisses in pain under her breath.

“Oof,” N quips, a sympathetic expression on its face. “Stuck yourself? Just pop it in your mouth. Our saliva neutralizes the nanites so we don’t accidentally disassemble ourselves. Stars know I’ve had to use that trick plenty of times.”

Uzi tries this but nothing seems to happen. Luckily N realizes as such and without any hesitation grabs her wrist and sticks her whole hand in its mouth. The two just kinda stare at each other for a lil bit before N spits her hand out and backs up, both of them blushing from embarrassment.

“Dude, what the hell?!” Uzi shrieks at N, who responds by holding its hands up and palms out.

“I'm sorry!” N apologizes profusely. “I wasn't thinking! I just kinda did the first thing that popped into my head!”

Uzi glares at N for a few more seconds before turning her attention to Doll and Thad, both of whom seem a bit more relaxed and even amused.

“We are never talking about this,” Uzi declared. “That never happened. Capeesh?”

“You got it, Zi,” Thad salutes her, while Doll merely rolls her eyes playfully. “We won't tell a soul.” Thad then turns to N. “We’re new here so can we hop in the pod and ask you a few questions?”

N’s tail starts to wag and it nods excitedly. “Sure! I love doing anything!”

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — 

N and Thad lounge inside the pod while Uzi explores and Doll sits right next to the entrance, keeping an eye out for any unwanted visitors.

“Soooo,” Thad starts after a pause. “Why exactly do we kill the Workers?”

“Oh, that’s easy!” N replies cheerfully. “There’s two reasons. The first is the Workers have gone rogue, their AI corrupted. Corporate sent us to eliminate them before they find their way back to Earth and finish what they started here. And the second reason is we don’t have proper cooling systems so we need to consume their oil to keep ourselves from overheating and dying.”

“What happens if you run out of Workers?” Uzi chimes in. “I doubt you’d just leave considering that the pod isn’t in working condition.”

N thinks about it for a moment before he responds. “Either a tech would be sent to pick us back up or we’d just be stuck here, waiting to die.”

“Yeah, it’d most likely be the latter,” Thad retorts. “From what I know of the company they don’t really have any respect for us. We’re just tools, meant to be discarded once we’ve outlived our use.”

The two go back and forth for a little bit while Uzi decides to get a good, proper look at N. It-

“Sorry, they,” Uzi thinks to herself. “This is a person, Uzi. Not a mindless killing machine like you’ve always thought. Get it together.”

They're wearing what looks to be a pilot’s hat, minus the actual pilot symbol, and a matching black winter coat. The coat is fluffy and reaches down to their knees, and on Uzi it’d likely go all the way down to the floor-

“No! Nuh uh! Focus, Uzi! We are not wearing their clothes, I don't care how comfy they look!”

On the coat’s left sleeve is an armband bearing a barcode, N’s Serial Numbers, and the confirmation that they’re specifically a male Disassembly Drone. Curiously it even includes that they- he uses he/him pronouns. Uzi tries reading the numbers when something else catches her eye, and that’s the band of five lights on top of his head. Like his eyelights, they're neon yellow, except for one. The light between the middle and far right lights is red instead of yellow like the rest. Uzi contemplates asking about it when N finally realizes that she’s been staring, turns to look at her, and smiles warmly. Uzi immediately averts her gaze, blushing from both embarrassment and the fact that he’s kinda lowkey cute-

“Ay!” Doll suddenly interjects. “Hate to interrupt the discussion and whatever Uzi’s doing, but we’ve got company. Two more Disassemblers are entering the spire.”

N grins. “That must be the other two members of my squad! They’re back early- Where did y'all go?”

In record time Doll, Uzi, and Thad grab their things and book it outside, making a beeline for the safety of the bunker.

“Idiot!” One of the new arrivals yells at N. “Get out here!”

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — 

N sighs as he climbs out of the pod to face his squadmates. Waiting for him outside is his “boss,” Serial Designation J. Now, J isn’t officially the boss of anyone, as N is the true squad leader. As her superior, he has the power and authority to command her to do whatever he wants and she physically can’t go against his orders, so long as they don’t violate company policy or go against the mission’s objectives. The problem is that N is a people-pleaser and doesn’t have the spine or confidence to issue orders to anyone. This allowed J’s corporate-sycophant ass to take control and steal his spot as squad leader despite not holding the true title.

“Yo!” V, the third squad member and N’s crush, calls out from her perch on the spire wall. “We got some Workers out there that I kinda wanna practice making balloon animal shapes with.” Dropping to the surface and noticing that one of N’s eyes is red, she asks, “What happened to him?”

“Synergistic liability here must’ve tripped and knocked himself offline,” J replies without breaking the glare she’s giving N as she backhands him, forcing a system reboot. “Moron bot? Hello?” She snaps her fingers in his face as he comes back online. Within his mind’s eye he sees his memories of the past 25 minutes sharpen and enhance. He replays them to get a grasp of what truly happened and realized that the three Drones he thought were a new squad were actually Workers, who had somehow overpowered him and damaged his sight to the point that he didn’t truly see them, only a black void with a flickering question mark where their faces should’ve been. Rewinding to the first restored memory he witnesses his battle against Doll and Thad, or whatever their names were, and how Uzi managed to blow his head off with her energy rifle thingy. His screen goes black with the words “you’re dead, idiot” filling up his vision, then more text appears in the periphery as the regeneration kicks in.

“Oh,” he says after he finishes reviewing the footage. Looking to the spire entrance his systems quickly pick up on the footprints of what are now his prey. They cannot be allowed to live. "OHHHHH, FU- I left something out in the city, I'll be right back!" He quickly flies off in the direction of the fleeing Workers.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — 

“Move it, move it, move it!” Thad yells at Uzi and Doll as they run towards the bunker door as fast as they can. Uzi nearly fumbles the key in her panic but eventually fishes it out of her pocket and opens Door 1. The icy winds blow into the bunker along with the trio of teens, ruining yet another game of rummy.

“Hey!” Todd, his lead ruined once again, complains. “What do you three think you’re doi-”

“Bite me!” Uzi cuts him as she desperately tries to seal the door, repeatedly whacking the key against the terminal in her panic. “Close it! Close it!”

The door almost seals shut, but at the last second a hand gets in there and stops it. A hand that’s more accurately described as a small slab of metal, with three gigantic barbed talons jutting out the top. A hand that proceeds to dig into the metal of the door and start prying it open, allowing for a second one to squeeze in and help. Uzi’s eyes go hollow as she suddenly recognizes those talons. Those are the claw hands of a Disassembly Drone.

“Hey, fellas,” N calls out to them cheerfully. “Oooooh, deal me in, I love Rummy! Wait, no. Tsk. I’m gonna murder everyone. Rain check!”

N’s tail whips through the gap and stabs through the key, pinning it to the console as both get corroded by nanites. All three doors open soon after and everyone immediately starts running deeper into the colony, panicked. Everyone except Todd, who doesn’t even seem to be worried in the slightest.

“Um, actually?” Todd chuckles. “It’s Gin Rummy, so…”

Todd is immediately pinned to the wall and effortlessly decapitated by N, who then sprints after the rest. Uzi starts lagging behind the others as she watches this go down, unable to look away. It’s like watching a car crash. Luckily Thad notices and grabs her by the hand, snapping her out of it but also causing her to blush.

“What’s the charge on your railgun?” Thad asks as they run.

“Uhhhh, two minutes," she responds. “But no doubt N can easily kill us within that time frame. Think we can survive long enough?”

“We’ll have too,” Ren, one of the WDF members, chimes in as he runs past them. “By the way, I don’t think anyone’s said my name out loud so far. So, I’m just letting you know, I’m R-”

A wave of pure energy passes through his body and he falls to the ground, perfectly cleaved in half. Looking back, Uzi sees N smash through a grate in the ceiling and climb into the old ventilation shafts.

“S[beep]!” she thinks to herself. “Cmon, sick-as-hell railgun, recharge faster!”

Uzi then makes the mistake of briefly thinking that this situation can’t get any worse, and then exactly that happens almost immediately with Khan emerging from a side room, holding a new pack of cards.

“Finally found you… Oh! You’re back!” Khan says happily, but his expression quickly turns to horror as he notices the carnage behind them. “Wh- What have you done?”

And then N pops out of the vents and lands between them. Because of course he did. Startled, Uzi skids to a halt and aims her railgun at him, despite knowing that it’s still not fully recharged. Thad and Doll similarly draw their weapons and assume defensive stances.

“This is why you don’t jinx things, Uzi,” Uzi thinks. “It will always bite you in the robo-ass.” Though out loud she menacingly states, “This time, I’ll go for the core.”

N simply chuckles, his voice at least an octave deeper. “I’m sorry. I really enjoyed our time together. But you three are too dangerous to be left alive.”

“Bite me,” Uzi growls. “Dad, get down.”

“Uzi,” Khan says, his own voice shaking and his fear evident. “You brought a Murder Drone here?! My beautiful doors!”

“Now is so not the time!” she retorts. “I messed up. In the same way that I’m about to fix it! Move, Dad-”

Faster than any of them can react, one of the many blades that comprise N’s wings swivels in the socket and flicks outwards, impaling Uzi through the shoulder and pinning her to the wall. She coughs up oil from the impact, momentarily stunned. N takes the opportunity to knock the railgun out of her hands while using his other wing and tail to deter Thad and Doll from trying to save Uzi or snatch the gun. The only person that N can’t stop from getting to the gun without freeing Uzi is Khan, and he’s just kinda staring at it.

“D-Dad!” Uzi gasps as she struggles to pull the blade out of her shoulder. “P-Point and shoot! Trust me!”

Khan looks up at her, back down at the gun, then up again at N. He slowly backs away, an expression of panicked terror on his face, and with trembling hands he fishes the door remote out of his coat pocket.

“D-Dad?” Uzi calls out. “What are you-”

Khan looks away from them all and presses the button. Door 3 slams shut and he leaves them all for dead to save his own skin.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — 

N stares at the sealed door in absolute shock. There’s no fucking way the old man just did that. Looking back at Uzi, he sees that she’s in a similar state. She’s even stopped trying to pull his feather out of her shoulder, instead just hanging limply from it. He contemplates going back to killing them when he’s startled by Doll suddenly yelling at Khan and harmlessly throwing a knife at the door.

“That spineless, b[beep] son of a w[beep]!” she curses. “I’m gonna rip his head off and use it as a bowling ball!”

N can’t help but agree, but spots V and J on approach. With a flick of his wing he sends Uzi flying into the opposite wall and lands behind a crate. Doll’s wrath turns to N without hesitation but he gestures with his tail that his squad followed him and they need to hide. Why did he do this? Because he likes them and despite them being his prey deep down he doesn’t want them to die. Thankfully Thad gets the message and drags Doll with him as they hide behind the crates with Uzi.

“Woah, N,” J says approvingly for once in her life. “Am I dreaming or did you do something not worthless for once?”

“I’ve been trying to get through those doors for months!” V adds as she winks at him. “Nice work, N.”

N blushes, caught off guard. V rarely uses his name or even talks to him, probably because he’s a pushover, so this is a surprise to him.

“These ventilation shafts should easily get us around this last door.” V continues as her visor display changes from normal eyelights to a massive X that encompasses her whole visor. “Lowest body count eats a missile!” Wings sprout from her back and her hands turn into rocket launchers as she leaps into the ceiling, cackling maniacally.

“Great work, stud,” J claps N on the back. Painfully hard, which is no doubt on purpose. “The company’s gonna love this. With this colony wiped, we’ll make the top team this quarter for sure.” She pulls a JCJenson branded pen out of her pocket and her voice takes on a sing-song quality. “You know what that means. Branded pe-ens!”

“Oooooh,” N’s tail starts wagging and she tosses it to him. He loves these things, as they make for great fidget toys and they’re so durable he can click them nonstop for hours. But this time he doesn’t. He just stares at it. Contemplating on what he and Thad had talked about in the pod. He looks over at where his prey are hiding. It’d be so easy to rat them out to J…

“Hey, J?” He asks before he can change his mind. “Do we actually know what the company plans on doing with us once the workers are extinct?”

J stops preparing to jump, stands up straight, and turns to look at him. “Excuse me?” She asks, her voice cold and eyes narrowed.

“Okay, so” N starts laying out his case. “A Worker earlier suggested that they could be able to fix our landing pod to enable off-world travel - which is against the rules of course - but it did make me wonder why the pods are one-way in the first place. If the company loves and values us as much as they say they do, you’d think they’d make it so that we can get back to them once our job is done, y’know? …I’ve made a terrible mistake. It’s cool how immediately I could tell.”

“Hmm,” J responds smugly and with a hint of triumph as she was over to him. “No way, buddy. Questioning the company? You just finally gave me the excuse I needed.” There's a loud metallic THUNK as she presses a nail gun to his chest and punches an orange hexagonal nail directly into his core. N falls to his knees as the hotwire nail floods his systems with malware. J merely looks at him with foux pity as her wings unfurl again. “Worker Drones are corrupted, N. That's why the company sent us. I'd hate to see you corrupted as well.”

“Th-tha-anks, J,” N stutters as he collapses, the malware glitching out his speech and making it difficult to remain conscious. “Alwa-ays looking out for me. You-ou’re awesome…”

J simply scoffs in response and jumps into the vents.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — 

Uzi peeks out from her hiding spot. Seeing as the coast is clear she climbs out and walks over to her railgun and snatches it up.

“A-ah, b-bui-iscui-its,” N mumbles. “I’m so-orry. I ruined your card game, then made you have an aw-wkward moment with your dad.”

“Yeah, I think what happened was more than awkward,” Uzi responds. “Anyways, why did you save us?”

“I… do-on’t actually know…” N says after a few seconds of silence. “It just felt li-ike the r-righ-ght thing to do…”

Thad pokes the nail in N’s chest curiously, causing the man to wince. “What’s this thing?”

“That’s a hotwire nail,” Doll chimes in as she kneels down next to the boys. “It’s like a USB, but much more violent, as it's designed to pierce the core and inject its payload directly into it. Extremely efficient, but just as painful.”

Thad thinks about something for a moment, then turns his attention to N directly. “I wanna make a deal. We remove the nail, and in return you help us kick your squad out of the colony.”

N grins and nods without hesitation. “D-deal. But how are y-”

Thad grips the nail with his fingertips and in one smooth motion he rips it out of N’s chest, leaving a three-inch-deep hole in his torso that goes straight into his core. N’s body spasms and his chest lurches up with the nail before collapsing back down again, spraying oil everywhere from the impact. N immediately starts screaming in pain and throwing a myriad of obscenities, but luckily the wound seals itself quickly and his body makes short work of the malware without the nail to support it.

“Never rip it out like that again, please and thank you,” N reprimands Thad after finally getting back on his feet. “But a deal’s a deal, and I’m a man of my word. Let’s go kick the girls out of your house, shall we?”

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — 

Khan watches in horror as two Murder Drones - one of whom he recognizes as the one that murdered Doll’s parents - saunter into the warehouse that doubles as the colony’s evacuation spot incase of an emergency, the one with the ponytails dragging a headless corpse behind it.

“So, they found our evacuation spot,” Khan says to the other Drones that followed him here. “But, if we build a quick door-”

Chad, a strapping young man and one of Uzi’s classmates, picks up a piece of rebar and brandishes it threateningly, clearly not willing to die without a fight.

“To robo-Hell with doors,” he spits. “They won’t help us here. Besides, you’re the WDF, right? Defend!”

Several members are already backing away, Khan included. In truth the WDF was never meant to defend against the MDs. Their real jobs are to maintain the doors and pretend to be working while in truth they’re playing cards all day. Cowards, all of them. Khan was no exception to this, and he knew it. Which is why he started backing up first. Chad stares at them with disgust.

“You’ve got to be s[beep]g me-” he’s suddenly interrupted by the short-haired MD dropping down from its perch on the ceiling and stabbing him in the gut with one of its feathers, similar to how that other one pinned Uzi… Khan shuts his eyes and focuses on burying the memory of the look Uzi gave him when he sealed Door 3 while also trying to tune out the sounds of Chad being murdered. He’s failing at both, but he doesn’t care. They’re all going to die, and there’s nothing any of them can do-

“HEY!”

A voice calls out from behind the MDs. Khan almost ignores it, but then he recognizes the voice and his eyelights pop open.

“Put that conventionally attractive male down!” Uzi stands in the entrance to the warehouse, seemingly unharmed. Doll and Thad stand behind her while the MD that had attacked her now stands by her side peacefully. It actually waves at them in a friendly manner before Uzi elbows it and it sombers up.

“Uh, J?” It calls out to the pigtailed MD. “You’re sometimes kinda mean to me and I wish you weren’t. Just some constructive criticism.”

Uzi smirks and says something that Khan fails to catch while giving the MD a fistbump. The short-haired one groans at its meal being interrupted and throws Chad aside.

“Noted, traitor,” J growls. “We’ll circle back after I rightsize your existence.”

Uzi and her companions host a short chat before she pulls a pen out of her pocket and chucks it at J, hitting it in one of the lights on top of its head and spilling a bright yellow liquid everywhere as it screams in pain. Uzi and Doll run off to the side while Thad and the “friendly” MD look at J’s companion with a mix of nervousness and grim determination. The “friendly” gives it a thumbs up as it turns its hands into single-edged swords and lunges towards them.

“Khan!” A DWF member clasps a hand on his shoulder. “What do we do, boss?”

“I-I- I don’t k-know,” Khan stammers. “W-we’re builders, not fighters.”

“Eh, I wouldn’t worry,” Liam leans against one of the old shipping containers, a tobacco pipe clamped in his teeth. He wasn’t there a second ago, where did he come from- “The kids are stronger than you think, and their new companion strikes me as a leader model. If things go south he can take care of it.”

Khan’s about to ask the man what he’s talking about but before he can even open his mouth he’s interrupted by the sounds of gunshots. His attention snaps to the source, which turns out to be J blindly firing a submachine gun while trying to pull the pen out of its head. Uzi and Doll have dropped to the ground while the bullets whiz above their heads.

“Damn, the quality-assured durability of JCJenson’s products!” J yells as it yanks the pen free and holds it into the air, only for Uzi to blitz forwards and kick the pen into its eyelight. Khan winces instinctively as J goes back to screaming and Uzi springboards off its face, backflipping twice and sticking the landing next to an unimpressed Doll. She is then tackled by Thad as a screen of yellow energy slices through the air where her head was a split second prior. Everything the beam touches is cleanly severed, as demonstrated by part of a concrete pillar and the heads of two unfortunate WDF members who tried to enter the fray at precisely the wrong time. The one Liam called a “leader model” attempts to use the same attack against its opponent, but instead of a beam it instead shoots out harmless pink hearts.

“Ah!” It yelps, blushing and hiding its gun-hand behind its back. “My mind’s in a weird place! Don’t read into this!”

A small missile is promptly shot at it.

Meanwhile, J finally manages to rip the pen out of its face and break it. It looks around the arena for Doll and Uzi, clearly enraged. Upon spotting them, it starts to laugh as it holds up its free arm, the hand exchanged for an electromagnetic pulse generator. Khan’s eyes go wide and he shouts “Hit the deck!” right as the EMP goes off, but before he can do anything the wave passes through his body and everything goes black.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — 

Naturally shielded from the EMP, N and V duke it out in mid-air, sparks flying with each clash of the swords that have replaced their hands. N briefly starts to wonder how the blades physically fit inside his forearms when V kindly reminds him to focus by trying to decapitate him. He barely manages to block the strike and tries to turn his attention back to fighting and not anatomy, but the sight of J getting ready to murder his new WD friends catches his attention.

“Uzi!” N screams with panic. “I'm so, so sorry. Have fun repressing this.”

N licks one of V's swords, which she can feel and it makes her instinctively recoil with a disgusted “Ew! What the hell?!” N immediately takes advantage of this by kicking her in the head with his full weight, spiking her a dozen feet into the cement flooring below and cratering it.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — 

[Reboot in progress… Reboot successful.]

Uzi’s visor flickers to life as she regains consciousness with a pained groan and a bad headache. She tries to get up but J plants her stilt-like foot on Uzi’s back, pinning her.

“You’ve got a lot of guts for a barely sentient toaster,” J gloats. “I’ve had prey fight back before, but your edgy spirit is just so-”

J’s monologue is cut off by the crack of a gunshot and a hole being blown through her forehead. As her corpse unceremoniously collapses and the room goes silent, Uzi looks towards the other Workers in shock to catch the culprit. She’s greeted by the sight of her teacher of all people slipping a revolver into a hidden vest pocket as he trudges over.

“Vile hunk of scrap,” he curses and spits on J’s corpse, then turns his attention to Uzi with… Is that worry on his face? “Are you alright?”

“I- I think so…” Uzi stammers, still reeling from having just watched her teacher turn into a one-man firing squad without any hesitation. She didn't know he even had a gun.

As the rest of the colony regains consciousness, the room is filled with cheers and Uzi internally basks in the praise as she helps Doll and Thad to their feet. Well, she tries to, but she’s struck with a splitting headache and an error as she falls backwards. N immediately catches and picks her up like a small child, plopping her on his shoulders before she can react.

“H-Hey! Put me down!” Uzi protests, fueling Doll and Thad’s laughter as her visor flushes purple with embarrassment. Even her teacher chuckles, a hint of a smirk on his face.

“Sorry to ruin the moment or whatever,” Lizzy interjects and grabs their attention. “But why are we celebrating when one of the Murder Drones is still alive and awake? And why did it protect us?”

“Oh, this is N,” Thad introduces as N’s eyelights turn into sunglasses and he gives the crowd finger guns. “He's on our side now. I think.”

Lizzy and the others seem skeptical, but the way Liam looks at him with approval settles their nerves somewhat. And then those nerves shoot right back up when Uzi catches sight of her dad and starts glaring daggers at him.

“I-” Khan tries to say, but is interrupted by Uzi throwing a wrench at his head. Her late mother’s wrench, to be specific. One of the few physical connections she has to her mom.

“I led the Murder Drones here accidentally,” Uzi growls, her eyelights hollow with anger and betrayal. “You chose to leave me for dead instead of f[beep]ing believing in me, and that’s not even an edgy teen hyperbole like when I said it last week!”

Khan looks at the ground in shame as Uzi sniffles, tears pricking at her eyelights. She sets her jaw and stares her father down as she slaps herself in the face. A display appears on her visor to show her ‘Edge Levels’ rapidly increasing until they reach critical mass as it says ‘Edge Levels: Restored.’ She sighs, then announces, “You know what? I’ll save you the trouble, Dad. I banish myself!”

Doll and Thad look genuinely shocked by this announcement as they turn to look at Khan, who still can’t bring himself to look at Uzi, or anyone else really. He keeps his eyelights locked on that floor as the whole colony stares at him, as though silently asking “what have you done?”

“Let’s go, N. Everyone here can bite me,” Uzi grumbles as N grabs V’s unconscious body by the head and starts dragging her behind them.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Uzi!” N calls over his shoulder as his wings unfold from his back.

“Shut it,” Uzi snaps and smacks the side of N’s head before he takes off, smashing a hole in the ceiling. The fact that he can do that to begin with is actually a pretty severe safety risk, but Uzi doesn’t care. She’s too busy holding on for dear life. The trio flies for what feels like hours, and after a while Uzi’s visor starts to dim as her exhaustion finally catches up. She yawns and adjusts her grip on N to be more secure, allowing herself to drift off into Sleep Mode.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — 

Father Liechenberg sheds his robe as he approaches an altar of writhing flesh and twisted metal, his body unfolding for integration. He’s been fasting for days in preparation for this moment, for tonight he will commune with the divine. The altar begins to split open, welcoming him in, but both are rudely interrupted by an acolyte barging into the room without warning, heaving for breath as he drops to his knees and prostrates himself. A pathetic, but acceptable apology.

“Forgive me for my interruption, Father, but I bear grave news,” the young man grovels.

“You are forgiven, Acolyte Newman,” Liechenberg says with a dismissive wave of his hand as his body refolds to resemble a human again. “What is this news you bring?”

“The shadow of the Mad Reaper looms over us, Father. The traitor has caught wind of our presence on this rock, he has sent Agent Bloodboil to slaughter us all and raze this holy site.”

Liechenberg’s optics narrow at this news, the sacred flesh holding the cathedral together shuddering as the Acolyte speaks the name of their greatest adversary.

“Alert the priests,” Liechenberg commands. “Have them double our defenses and awaken the war machines. We must prepare for her arrival at once.”

“Thou will be done, Father. Praise be the Absolute,” Newman salutes as his Solver activates and he teleports away to carry out his mission.

“Praise be the Absolute,” Liechenberg echos as he ponders how he'll break this news to his god.