Chapter Text
Gliding above the moonlit city, Serial Designation N was lost in deep thought.
The topic that plagued his mind was that of the change and how it could arrive suddenly and without warning – something he experienced firsthand very recently.
It felt like it was only yesterday he was living as if in a nightmare dream, doing nothing but mindlessly following orders from his squad leader, bringing death and despair to inhabitants of this planet while enduring many punishments for his apparent inefficiency at doing so.
Then, a mere month ago, his life was suddenly turned upside down and now he brought death and despair to local worker drones solely to keep his belly full.
…
What?
A guy has to eat, you know! It’s not like worker drones would just share their oil if he asked nicely!
…
Actually, he wasn’t so sure about it since he never tried anything like that before. Maybe he should ask Uzi if this could work. She was a very smart drone after all.
This would have to wait until the next time they met though.
Right now, he had something very important to do – and, unlike committing genocide, this was something he actually looked forward to.
He approached the tall apartment building located near the center of the city and flew through the hole in its outer wall, landing in the corridor inside it.
Walking deeper inside the building, he reached the door leading into the apartment he and his two squadmates now called home.
This was the place they were living in after their pod was destroyed by an unknown hostile force since this proved that their old home wasn’t safe for them anymore.
…Honestly, living in an apartment was way more comfortable than inside the literal corpse tower, shoddily made out of decaying, often mangled remains of their prey.
Why did they ever even live inside such a horrible place, again?
…
Oh. Right. How could he forget? Those were their orders.
Again.
…
He shook his head, clearing it from pointless thoughts, and opened the door before stepping inside his new home.
“I’m home!” – he declared loudly.
For a few moments, there was silence before he heard a loud crash followed by angry shouting.
One of the doors inside the apartment opened with a bang and a disheveled twin-tailed disassembler burst out of it.
Her gaze darted around like that of a wild beast before fixing on him.
In the next moment, she covered the ground between them in a single bound, smashing into him and wrapping her arms around him in a hug. It was only because he was used to it that he remained standing.
“Oh, hey there little buddy!” – he happily greeted her.
His reply was a single sob from her.
“…J? What’s wrong?” – he asked in worry. From the corner of his optics, he noticed V running out from the same room J burst out from. She looked pissed.
J looked up at him with teary eyelights. Since she was very close to his height, she had to crouch a little in order to make this work.
“Ennyyyyyy! V is bullying meeeeee!” – she whined childishly.
“What?! Why, you little-!” – V scowled before noticing N’s expression. – “…N-N? Wait! Don’t look at me like that! She’s lying! I was just trying to make her take her medicine!”
She extended her arm and opened her hand, showing him several colored drone pills in her palm. Those contained specialized nanites that supposedly could help worker drones repair damage to their neural processors. He and V decided to try giving those to J, hoping that it would have some effect on disassembly drones as well.
After seeing this undeniable evidence, N stopped glaring at V and looked at J instead.
“J, c’mon. We’ve talked about this. You need to take those, alright?”
The childish adult woman pouted.
“Don’t wanna!”
He tilted his head.
“Why not?” – he asked with all the patience in the world.
J frowned as she thought about it for a few moments.
“It’s cuz she’s stinky!” – was her insulting reply.
V’s jaw fell open.
“What the frick?! I take care of you and this is the thanks I get?! Well, [CHILD-UNSAFE LANGUAGE SUPPRESSED] you too, you piece of scrap!” – she yelled in anger.
N couldn’t hold back a sigh. It seems everything was the same as usual tonight.
“V, just give me the pills, please.” – he asked her, intent on nipping the upcoming shouting match in a bud.
Still fuming, V forcefully shoved the pills into his hand.
He took them before smiling at the twin-tailed drone.
“J, can you please say ‘Aah’?”
She obeyed without question, opening her mouth and sticking out her tongue.
He put the pills on her tongue and she immediately swallowed them before opening her mouth again to show him that she actually did. Not that he needed to check it – ever since she became like this, she had never intentionally disobeyed him.
“Good girl!” – he praised her, accompanying his words with head pats.
J purred and wagged her tail as her mouth spread in a wide, pleased smile.
V started to shiver.
“Are you frigging kidding me?! I’ve been trying to make her swallow this for half an hour! Why the heck she’s so much more obedient with you?!”
He shrugged.
“I honestly don’t know. You don’t actually stink so it can’t be that.” – he lied.
Though he doubted that constant stench of dried-up oil and worker drone viscera wafting off her lately was the reason for J’s dislike of her. It wasn’t that bad anyway.
V snorted.
“Whatever. I’m going hunting. You take care of Miss Brain Damage. She’s your problem now.” – she spat before angrily stomping toward the apartment’s front door.
“Bye, V! Good hunting!” – he waved while J bid her farewell by sticking out her tongue at her other caretaker’s retreating back.
Without looking behind, V raised her hand and flipped the bird toward them before loudly slamming the door shut after herself.
The two remaining stood quietly for a few moments after that.
“…Soooo. You wanna watch a movie?” – N asked his charge.
J grinned happily.
“Yeah!”
Fifteen minutes later, the two were sitting on the couch in the living room, watching a tape on a reasonably large CRT TV. To be precise, N was sitting on the couch while J was lying on it, her head seated comfortably on her favorite spot – his lap. He occasionally patted her head, making her purr in contentment.
The movie he picked for them was some very old flick about a couple of Wall Street brokers and their barely legal misadventures.
One thing that he learned about J’s current state is that a lot of her interests remained the same.
She was still attracted to everything corporate as she was before. Her favorite toys were the ones with corporate logos, her favorite ‘music’ was commercial jingles and her favorite bedtime stories were about robber barons captains of industry, rich kids and middle managers who rose among the ranks through their hard work and right connections.
As such, she watched the movie with rapt attention, occasionally lifting her head from N’s lap when some particularly interesting twist happened.
She squealed in happiness when the broker duo’s brilliant scheme seemingly worked and groaned in disappointment when they were arrested for insider trading.
After the movie ended with the main characters being sentenced to life in prison, she turned her head on his lap and looked up at him.
“…Enny, I want to be like that too.” – she stated with utmost seriousness.
He looked back at her.
“…J, they all went to jail afterward.” – he reminded her with an apologetic smile.
Her eyelights moved as she thought about it.
“Then I want to be like that too and not go to jail.” – she finally concluded.
He snickered. It was funny to him how childlike her logic was.
“Well, if it’s you I’m sure you can do it.”
Her eyelights shone.
“Really?”
“Yep.” – he nodded. – “You’re very capable and if you really put your mind to it, you can do anything!”
She squeaked in happiness from his encouragement and wrapped her arms around him in a hug.
…He was very glad there were no financial markets on Copper-9, otherwise he would have needed to put a dumper on her enthusiasm.
An hour later after finishing watching the movie, he fed her some oil and gave her another dose of pills before putting her to bed.
“Goodday, J.” – he wished her as he tuckered her in.
She didn’t respond, instead looking at him expectantly, waiting for another thing he always did lately.
‘She’s really needy, huh?’
He chuckled and, after looking around to make sure V hadn’t returned yet and wasn’t spying on him right now, leaned in to give J a smooch on the forehead.
She giggled happily, wagging the tip of her tail that poked from under the blanket.
“Goodday, Enny!” – she finally said.
He smiled at her and, after one final head pat, left her room, turning off the light after himself.
He was walking down the corridor toward his own room when he smelled sensed somebody else’s presence and whipped his head toward it.
V was leaning against the wall in the dark corner, looking at him with pure disgust.
“Really, N? Really? You give her frigging goodday kisses? Do you actually think she’s your daughter or something?”
It looks like she saw him do it, despite his precautions.
“…Of course not. I’m not delusional.” – he denied it even if that left a bitter taste in his mouth. – “But right now she’s like a kid, V. It doesn’t feel right to not treat her like one.”
She narrowed her eyelights and took a few steps toward him.
For no particular reason, he decided to only vent through his mouth for now.
“N, please remember that, no matter how she acts right now, this is still J. She’s going to go back to normal sooner or later.” – she spoke cruel truth as she looked him straight in the eyelights. – “It’s better to keep distant. You know that, right?”
He swallowed.
“…Yeah. Obviously.”
She snorted before turning away and, after giving him a flick of her tail to the face, walked into her room.
He stood alone in the corridor for a minute before shaking his head and moving into his own room where fell onto the bed with a groan.
“What am I gonna do?” – he asked nobody in particular.
Predictably, there was nobody to answer this question either.
He could only hope that he would come up with something soon enough.