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N dragged his feet lethargically across the metal of the bunker floor. He didn’t step so much as skate across the grating, watching the sparks erupt from his feet with each glide. Every advance forward was enervate yet deliberate, which allowed him to listen to the deafening scraping of his metallic feet on the ground.
The noise reverberated off the bunker walls before it decayed into an uncomfortable silence. Every rasping glide only became louder and louder as he approached the doors that protected him from the gale-force winds outside. The jarring noise was complemented by the soft clinking of the canister at the end of his tail; the stinger ran across the gratings making a chime akin to a piano’s glissando.
He let the cacophony ring loud in his aural sensors. It felt… painful? Pleasant? He wasn’t sure if he truly felt anything except numbness for the past… however long. He no longer faced each day with the raw vigour that usually radiated from his being, even when he was under the iron fist of his now missing sycophantic boss.
He almost missed the colourful insults J would throw at him daily—they hurt him, sure, but he felt them as much as she meant them. Now, though, it was as if someone switched on autopilot for all his emotional and social processes. He couldn’t care less about the gentle generosity of a friend or the ravaging remarks of a disapproving worker; any greeting towards him was only reciprocated with a forced smile along with a wave that never reached above his waist, and carrying the guilt of living in the same bunker as the family members of his victims didn’t provoke even a hint of a frown on his face.
His drastic change in demeanour bothered him deeply. He was meant to be bubbly and enthused and was supposed to love doing anything, but all that passion was absent.
Gone.
Just like… Uzi.
He stopped in his tracks as he felt another wave of gloom wash over him, making his legs weak.
No, not the time for this right now. Repress, repress, repress…
…but could he really do that, though? It always worked before, so this shouldn’t be any different, right?
…He knew that wasn’t true anymore.
No one ever looked at him the way she did, especially when they burned up in Copper-9’s atmosphere, fingers interlocked tightly as if they would lose each other forever. He remembered how her violet hair literally blazed upon re-entry, capturing her blushing visor as they locked eyes, and how the beanie atop her head somehow managed to stick and keep her hair tidy despite the blistering velocity of their fall. Her smile, still seared into his memory banks when he accepted her confession, began to fill his mind.
Tears threatened to spill from his optics, but he blinked them back and shook his head vigorously. With great effort, he quashed his grief, then resumed his stride.
Just keep smiling. Bad things happen when you cry.
To no one in particular, he displayed a sickly grin that never reached his eyes.
Back at the manor, during one of Tessa’s experiments, she modified him specifically to have a wider range of emotions. Although her favourite drones knew they were special, they still only had the standard emotional protocols that came with mass-produced worker drones. She promised N that enabling more intense emotions would make him stand out from the others—make him more human. J was on duty; she’d give her a fix after her chores were done.
N’s extra humanity, while promised as a gift, ended up cursing him.
Mrs. Elliott, in a particularly dour mood, decided to randomly berate him to let off steam. He had heard her scathing insults before, which always resulted in him babbling his apologies and promising better service. This time, an unfamiliar, distressful feeling festered within his core. It clawed into his chest, speeding up his breathing while blurring his vision. He tried to placate her with his usual apologies, but they were stuck in his throat. Before long, he was reduced to a snivelling mess.
The next thing he knew, he was strapped to a tree stump, fighting for his life as a murder of techno-hungry crows dug their sharp beaks into his chassis. The excruciating pain sped up his crying, drawing out harsh yowls that fell on deaf ears. Only when he was at the brink of catastrophic failure was Tessa able rush to his side, having snuck out of her confinement for unauthorised drone modification. She released his chains before the crows could feast on his vital components, profusely apologising for putting him through such a harrowing experience.
When she offered to reverse the emotive mods, he was conflicted. Every part of his body ached and burned from the torture he received simply because he was too human. However, he liked seeing Tessa happy, and his new emotions allowed her to be the happiest she’s ever been.
To compromise, he decided to just… not cry ever again.
Even through his memory wipe, fragments of his ordeal persisted, and he subconsciously internalised it into his programming.
All you should do is be happy. Nothing bad happens when you’re happy.
…but what about now?
This was something entirely different; his happier side vanished from existence once she was gone. Every time he tried to cheer up, the void in his mind would drown out his high spirits in an instant, leaving nothing more than white noise in place of coherent thought. The joy of the sun that he used to bring was extinguished along with the drone he loved the most.
All he could do now was hope he could grind his feet hard enough into the gratings to hit a resonant frequency; he desperately needed to feel something. Doing that usually sent chills through his chassis, but that sensation diminished as he kept doing it more often, only leaving a dull pain in his legs afterward.
The dull pain was almost as unstimulating as the complete apathy he felt now, so he decided to take a new approach to his gait—slower, and more delicate. He semi-inserted the points of his feet into the small gaps in the floor, then dragged his foot forward, attempting to copy the smooth glide of his tail along the ground.
The subsequent rattling resembled torrential downpour barraging the roof of a rustic shed. Despite the volume, it was more soothing to his aural receptors, with the vibrations coursing through his legs helping to loosen up any stiffness he developed while skating along the ground. Paired with the twinkling of his stinger along the grating, it almost sounded like a duet.
He vaguely remembered watching an old film on VHS featuring a one-man band. He was enraptured by the person’s coordination, and before long he found himself mimicking the movements in the resurfaced memory. It was the closest he came to true enjoyment in a long time, but the fact that it had been so long soured his mood again.
Just before he could lose himself in improvisation, he suddenly stopped walking when he caught his own reflection staring back at him. The matte finish of Door 3 was replaced by a glossy one, allowing him to study his own appearance. He blinked owlishly as he took note of his dishevelled hair, his slightly askew aviator cap, and the creases all over his jacket as a result of his near-constant bed rotting.
Staring at his reflection, he pulled his hands close to his chest, squeezed them gently into fists, then relaxed them. The curling of his fingers brought him much-needed comfort for reasons he couldn’t explain. He found himself doing it more now that Uzi was gone, but no matter how much he did it, the emptiness that was her absence would always cancel it out.
Sighing to himself, he pulled an access card out of his pocket and turned to the panel to swipe it when the door suddenly opened. He failed to suppress a loud shriek as he fumbled the card, then caught it before it hit the ground.
Khan stood on the other side, looking mildly entertained by the slight mishap.
“Hey, kid! Good to see you out and about, for a change! Helps get the servos moving, y’know?”
N stared at him blankly. Not taking the hint, Khan continued his vivacious rambling as he walked towards the exit. N traipsed behind him, looking dejectedly at the floor.
“I was actually giving the doors a polish! Pretty cool, right? All the metal was getting kinda dull to look at, so I figured I might as well give it a makeover. It looks all shiny now!”
Khan stopped in his tracks, only an arm’s length away from Door 2, then giggled to himself as he donned his safety goggles.
“The doors aren’t the only thing looking good around here.” He shot finger guns at his own reflection with a playful grin.
N wanted to feel something. Second-hand embarrassment, as refreshing as it was from the grief, was not on his list.
Khan continued to monologue while admiring his reflection, taking off his helmet and styling his non-existent hair.
“My employees kinda needed something to do other than play Gin Rummy all day, so what better way to kill time than to refurbish the greatest feats of engineering in the bunker? I have to say, they did a fine job! Did you want to help me out?”
N simply hung his head, imperceptibly shaking it.
Upon finally noticing N’s sombre expression, Khan’s liveliness immediately dissipated. After fixing his frankly embarrassing appearance, he sauntered next to him, then placed a hand on his shoulder. They both stared at different points on the floor, not eager to make eye contact.
“Still thinking about her?” Khan’s voice was gentler—warmer and more inviting.
N only nodded, unable to trust his own voice. Khan sighed in understanding.
“Me too, kid.”
As N gathered his thoughts, a long pause filled the bunker before he mustered up the courage to speak.
“How do you… how do you do it?” N’s voice wavered as he nearly choked on the words.
Khan turned to him in confusion. He was still getting used to the taller drone’s presence, but he was 100% confident that he wasn’t a danger.
“W-what do you mean?” His stutter betrayed the uneasiness behind his feigned confidence.
“Ever since that day, you’ve just been… carrying on. Almost as if nothing happened.” N didn’t mean to inject venom into the last sentence, and it made Khan flinch.
…maybe 90%.
“I just want to know how to live again.” N whispered weakly.
For a moment, all they could hear was the quiet humming of the ventilation system, freshly renovated since his squad’s break-in. After the extended silence, Khan sighed again.
“Look… I’ve gone through this before. My wife probably told you this already, but-”
“Yeah, I get it. She said, ‘you look familiar’, and all that. Sorry.”
“Wh- no, that’s not the point. Wait, that was you?” Khan squawked.
N’s optics hollowed as he flushed in embarrassment.
“Uhh… maybe?”
His sheepish grimace confirmed Khan’s suspicions. He narrowed his eyes at the taller drone, then relaxed his expression after a tense silence, giving a mirthless chuckle.
“I’d be angry at you, kid, but I’d be avoiding your question. I’ve done enough avoiding for a lifetime.”
N sighed in relief. He wanted nothing more than to wash the oil off his hands, but he knew the guilt would always remain, weighing heavily on his shoulders. He would take any small victory he could get.
“Anyway, I had to put her out of her misery with a wrench. It honestly felt like I stabbed myself through my own core once I was done. She was everything to me—she still is.”
N looked at him curiously, noticing how utterly despondent he was. He took another deep breath before continuing.
“What I’m trying to say is, I’ve been through this before. I’m just doing the same thing I did last time—immersing myself into the wonders of my own engineering. It made me happy in times of distress, and I latched onto that fact.”
His hands started to tremble, and his voice started to croak.
“That being said, before I put Nori out of her misery, I made a promise to her that I’d spend more time with Uzi, but my obsession with doors ended up taking priority over my own daughter.”
Khan swallowed, trying and failing to hold in tears.
“It hurts so much more now, because I’ll never be able to catch up on that time with her.”
His breathing hastened as he tried to hide the tears streaming down his visor. N could only watch the forlorn drone in front of him dig his palms into his optics while attempting to steady his breathing.
Trying to console the older drone, N awkwardly patted his back. Khan let out a small, surprised gasp before wiping his visor and clearing his throat.
“S-sorry, didn’t mean to get all weepy on you.” Khan forced a chuckle.
N looked at him worriedly before responding.
“Are you saying that I have to… distract myself?”
“Well… maybe? It worked for me, but admittedly, neglecting your daughter isn’t the best way of coping with it.”
N held back the urge to quip “you don’t say”, but his deadpan expression spoke for him.
“Yeah, I know I’m not a good father. Tell me something I don’t know.”
Another bout of silence filled the bunker. N didn’t know how to respond to his prompt without degrading him even further, so he kept his mouth shut. Before the silence could start suffocating the two drones, Khan cleared his throat again.
“N, you’ve been spending weeks all holed up in that bedroom of yours. I know losing her is difficult, but you’re doing the same thing I did. That’s an extremely bad idea.”
Has it really been weeks?! What is wrong with me?
N’s chest started to ache with worry. “H-how exactly am I…”
“You can cope with it however you want, but please take it from me—you don’t want to shut out the people who still care about you. They might never come back.”
With that, guilt struck him square in the chest as he realised what he had done.
He barely acknowledged the times that V would drop by to check on him. The static in his mind didn’t allow him to absorb the one-sided conversations that she couldn’t sustain for more than a few minutes. The only thing he could remember about their fleeting moments together was how she signed off; she would always hang by the doorway, back towards N, before turning her head towards him with a downcast yet fond expression.
“See you ‘round, N,” she would whisper before gently closing the door.
He didn’t have the energy to ask her to stay.
“V’s been giving us updates every time she visits. I hate to say it, but she’s starting to give up on you. Looking back at it now, that’s probably the closest I can come to understanding how Uzi felt. I can’t let that happen to anyone else.”
As he processed what the older drone said, he felt his shame sharply skewer him in the middle of his chest and through his core.
“But… n-no, there’s no way she needs me for anything, she has Lizzy!” N argued, then paused as an epiphany suddenly crushed him.
“She doesn’t need me around on this planet. She never did.”
His former infatuation with V only made this realisation more devastatingly obvious in hindsight.
“That’s… not true.” Khan tried to soften the impact.
“But how? All she’s ever done to me is leave after I try talking to her. I don’t know why I bothered.”
“Why is she still visiting, then?”
“Why does she still care?” N’s voice rose, surprising both drones into silence. Khan, almost considering hiding himself behind Door 2, shook his head and built up the courage to reply.
“Uzi being gone is affecting her, too.”
…oh.
“She can only imagine how you’re feeling about it. You gotta let her talk to you. If you don’t, you’re gonna lose her, too.”
N’s hands shook, refusing to accept that he was inadvertently hurting someone who he cared about.
“Watching someone you know essentially shut down is almost as bad as losing them entirely. You don’t want to lose any more people than you already have.”
“I didn’t mean to make everything worse…”
Khan nudged him gently. “Hey. You… screwed up, but that’s okay. You didn’t mean to. What’s important is that you go and fix it. Have a chat with her.”
N’s eyes filled with gratefulness, having been given a task to do after the monotony of staring at the walls of his apartment.
“From what I’ve heard from V, she still cares a lot about you, even with Lizzy around.”
Hearing it from someone other than Uzi seemed like a newfound revelation. His core stuttered as his optics began to glaze with unbidden tears.
“You know, Uzi would want you to keep going. I need you to take that fact and ingrain it into your processors. You’re a good kid, and if she could, she’d come back just to see you smile again. To live again.”
The phantom sensations of Uzi’s delicate hands on his shoulders made N’s breath hitch in his throat. He imagined vibrant purple optics boring into his own, her caring eyes complementing her comforting smile. Her soothing voice, crooning comforting words, echoed in his processors. It was almost like she was there.
Tentatively, he reached out to caress her cheek, but his hands only met the empty air in front of him. He tried to grab at the dissipating pieces of her apparition, only to be further humiliated. Offended by his hallucinations, he blinked back his tears, too angry to cry.
“N? What’s up with you?” Khan looked bewildered.
An awkward silence stretched between them. N, unable to explain what he just saw, said nothing.
“…anyway, I’m guessing the real reason you’re here is because you want to visit Uzi?”
Briefly shaking his head to clear out the fog in his mind, he forced out a weak “mhm” as he reminded himself why he got out of bed in the first place.
He wasn’t there for her burial.
After she left, it was as if he banished all higher thought from his mind. Years of repression didn’t work on something as devastating as her passing. As the days went by, worthlessness built up in his emotional processes after not visiting Uzi’s grave. It only added to his sorrows, creating a feedback loop that kept him bedridden.
“You ready, N?” Khan asked expectantly.
N found himself before Door 1, already able to feel the strong winds rumbling outside, despite the impenetrable door in front of him. Steeling his nerves, he gave the older drone a firm nod.
“By the way, N. If you see Nori, tell her to come back soon. I miss her already.”
N gave another nod, this time with a sad smile.
As Khan swiped his access card across the control panel, the blizzard outside came rushing into the bunker. Both drones covered their visors as a frigid squall threatened to throw them off-balance.
N unfurled his wings, rushing head-on into the tempest. The faint whirring of anti-gravity thrusters echoed in Khan’s auditory receptors as he watched the disassembly drone take off, his form quickly shrouded by the low visibility.
Khan gave a small, solemn salute as the howling winds slowly drowned out the thrums of N’s thrusters.
The strong winds ahead of him battered against his bladed wings. He could feel ice forming between the steel feathers, so he had to flex his wings to break it apart. Each flex made it harder to fight against the gale as the blizzard sapped his energy away. Frost crept up his visor, obscuring his already poor vision, but he kept powering through.
Eventually, he broke through the storm. The difference between the raging blizzard and calm weather was black and white, and he reduced his speed to match the new environment. As he brushed the fine snow off his coat and wiped the frost away from his visor, he took in his surroundings.
The sky was a rich scarlet, with large blotches of dark clouds concealing the moonlight. All around him were reminders of the destruction the Absolute Solver wreaked onto the planet. The rubble-filled plains extended beyond the horizon, and a faint, grey aerosol shrouded the debris, almost as if everything was newly destroyed.
What caught his attention, though, was a modest clearing absent of rubble, small enough that he missed it on his first scan. He saw tiny motes of artificial light, standing out against the bleak snow. Rays of ethereal moonlight managed to peek through the clouds and settle on the clearing, illuminating it with a subtle glow.
As he flew closer to investigate, he realised the artificial lights belonged to drones, and he hesitated. Was this a good time? Was he interrupting something? Maybe he’ll come back later when no one-
A notification popped up on his HUD.
SD-V // Hey. Been a while.
N stared at the message in shock, then back down at the lights. V looked up at him, arms akimbo, while Lizzy leaned her head on her shoulder, burying her optics in her phone. Their arms were linked, so V used her free arm to beckon to N.
She’s mad at me, isn’t she…
SD-V // Can you come down and talk?
She definitely is.
He briefly considered heading straight back. He wasn’t looking forward to facing her wrath, but he promised to himself that he’d finally visit Uzi’s grave today. Turning back would only make things worse; he was here to fix this mess.
SD-V // Please?
Caught off-guard by her pleading, he looked down at her and noticed that she wasn’t angry, but something else entirely; her expression looked foreign on her faceplate, drastically different from the deranged façade he was used to seeing. Making his decision, he reluctantly swooped down towards the couple, landing gracefully in front of them.
“Um… hey,” he meekly greeted the two of them before V unlinked arms and suddenly leapt forward to catch him in a crushing hug.
Winded by the impact, he stumbled backwards but managed to keep his footing.
“You’re okay,” she sighed into his jacket.
He was still unused to her reawakened sincerity, but he embraced it by tentatively returning the hug.
“I-I’m so sorry, V.” N’s voice cracked as he gathered himself to speak again.
V broke the hug, placing her hands on his shoulders instead.
“What for?”
“…for shutting you out.”
She blinked at him, then breathed out sharply, almost laughing. She shook him gently, giving him a warm smile.
“Well, you’re here, now. That’s all that matters. To me, at least.”
She tilted her head to study his guilty expression, then mirrored it with her own. Her voice lowered to match it, and she sheepishly rubbed the side of her arm.
“If anything, I’m the one who shut you out ever since we landed here. I don’t think you can ever forgive me for that.”
He knew she was right. All he had when he was left alone in the spire were his own thoughts and the various rocks he befriended. He recalled the sensation of lying down on the snow, allowing the gelid water to seep into his coat as he slowly overheated. The conversations he had with his granitic friends were usually cut short by the sounds of his squadmates approaching after their nightly hunt.
V actively avoided him, so out of obligation, J left him the scraps while reprimanding him for his poor performance.
Sometimes, during one of these dressing-down sessions, he’d look out of the corner of his eye to sneak glances at V, who usually stood by the nearest streetlight. She was always preoccupied with picking worker parts out of her fangs or wiping residual oil off her jacket.
One time, after a few particularly fruitless nights, however, he swore he could see her staring back at him, not looking disgusted, but concerned. Before he could process it, though, she swiftly shook her head and climbed up the streetlight, wrapping her tail around the overhang and cocooning herself to enter sleep mode.
Until now, he thought he imagined it.
But… she said it back then, when she poured out the truth behind her aloofness.
She was scared for them—for him.
A tinge of resentment raged in his mind. As far as he knew, her care for him amounted to over a decade of isolation. Abandonment. She should’ve stuck by his side if she cared. If she did care, she wouldn’t have left him alone. Why would she start caring now, at his lowest point?
His anger vanished as quickly as it came when he realised why she did.
She didn’t really have a choice, did she?
As terrifying as they were, he only saw the memories recently. V felt them—endured them—ever since they landed on Copper-9, the mercy of amnesia withheld from her.
It should’ve been him, but…
Did he really want to relive the sensation of his own transformation, feeling the claws and tendrils of his tormentor digging into his mangled chest? Did he want to experience the feeling of his own oil spurting out of his hydraulic systems as countless surgical tools maimed the incomprehensible jumble of wires and pipes, sending unimaginable amounts of pain rippling through his chassis, unable to scream or writhe as he stared into the swarm of yellow eyes that watched?
Did he want to watch V undergo the same torture, powerless to stop it?
Did he want to handle the burden of remembering everything?
After all that, how would he know that he wouldn’t treat V the same way she did to him?
…
He decided it was best to leave all of that unanswered.
“N? You good?” V thankfully interrupted his brooding. He was unaware that his whole body was trembling the entire time.
“Uh, y-yeah. I was just thinking about…” N trailed off into an incoherent mumble.
“About what?” Concern spread across V’s face, as if she knew the answer already.
“…never mind. How have you been?” He tried to force the subject change, but V’s concern didn’t budge.
“N, it’s okay, I know.”
V squeezed his hands tightly, causing him to lock eyes with her. Reassuringly, she continued.
“It was really hard for me to deal with… all of that. You cared a lot about me, but I couldn’t do the same, no matter how much I wanted to.”
She reverently caressed his cheek, allowing him to feebly lean into her contact.
“What’s important is that we shouldn’t be stuck in the past. It really hurts me to see you cooped up in that apartment when you used to be so… energetic.”
The guilt came back and twisted his core, almost squeezing a whimper out of his voice box.
“S-sorry, I didn’t mean to-”
“No, don’t apologise. I understand.”
She pulled him into another hug, letting his head rest on her shoulder.
“Just… talk to me, alright?”
“…Alright.” N croaked softly, returning the hug. After spending so long in his self-isolation, V’s inviting warmth was completely foreign to him. It was contagious; he could sense it building up deep within his emotional processes.
Even after half a minute, neither drone wanted to let go, until someone noisily cleared their throat.
Looking for the source, they both turned towards Lizzy, who was staring at the two disassembly drones unamused. Not expecting their sudden owlish gazes, she blushed, hiding her face behind her phone to cover it up.
“What, are you jealous, pinkie?” V approached her in slow, measured steps.
“Ugh, shut up, idiot,” Lizzy shot back, defensively stepping backwards, though V picked up on the lack of heat in her tone.
“That’s not a no...” V, rapidly closing the distance, unsheathed her claws and ran them across Lizzy’s cheek, eliciting an embarrassed chirp out of the worker.
“I’m not jealous!!” Her puny attempt at hiding her fluster only spurred V on.
“For some reason, I don’t believe you.” The disassembler’s visor flickered into the familiar crosshatch before she tackled her prey.
Watching the two drones engaging in flirtatious repartee invoked ambivalence deep within his core. Her liveliness when she was around her partner was endearing to him. It slowly morphed into sadness, reminiscing about his time with Uzi. Jealousy, for V practically flaunting her relationship in front of him.
Self-hatred, for daring to think that way about her.
His introspection was cut short by the sight of V carrying Lizzy, holding her up like some prized possession. The worker struggled briefly in her arms, before accepting her fate by forfeiting all her strength with a grumble. V laughed in triumph, before looking at N with that same fond expression she gave when she checked up on him. N could almost feel a giggle bubble up in his throat, but it never escaped, quickly quashed by a second wave of sadness.
“We’re gonna head back now. We’ll be at Thad’s place if you wanna come.” V said, before trapping her girlfriend in a bear hug and lifting off.
N gave a half-hearted wave as she soared, watching them disappear into the distance.
The gentle breeze diminished until the air stood still. He looked around him, as if a hidden presence was stalking him, but only found a gravestone in the centre of the clearing.
It was hers.
He slowly approached it with trepidation, his thoughts blending together into an incoherent mess. Any last-minute considerations of turning back only drowned in the slurry in his processors. Weeks building up the resolve to visit still didn’t prepare him for this; his legs began to wobble, and his vision blurred from the breath he was unconsciously holding. It wasn’t until he was a few paces away that he noticed a familiar red mass on the ground in front of the gravestone, with its three legs splayed. He froze as he watched it rouse, before it greeted him hoarsely, not bothering to turn around.
“Hey, kid.”
He swore he could count the nights of lost sleep in her voice.
“Oh! Mrs. Doorman! U-uh, hi?”
“You finally showed up.”
A mixture of guilt and fear suddenly spiked through his core. Nori’s singular optic turned to face him, her gaze boring a hole through his own optics before gradually scanning his appearance. She broke the uneasy silence with a sigh.
“Robo-God, you look terrible. You gotta take care of yourself.”
She struggled up onto his shoulder, eliciting a yelp out of the disassembly drone. He tensed as she shot him a glare but soon relaxed as she used her claws to hastily smooth out his ruffled hair.
“C’mon, kiddo, tell me what’s wrong,” she prodded.
He looked down at the gravestone, brows furrowed in contemplation. After staring at it for what seemed like an eternity, Nori gently guided his head back to face her, fixing his cap in the process.
He squeezed his hands again.
“Besides the obvious.”
“I’m realising now that… I’ve failed everyone my whole life.”
The one human he cared about, eviscerated at the gala while he was trapped in the basement. His former boss, looking down on him for his inadequate kill count. His best friend, burdened with trauma because he was powerless to stop her transformation.
He was vaguely aware of it ever since Uzi dug up his memories. He refused to analyse it, fearing the possibility of it being the truth.
Losing Uzi only made it a certainty.
“It’s all my fault,” he whispered dejectedly.
“N.” Nori’s stern voice failed to shut him up.
“I pulled her into this mess. Now look what happened.”
“N?”
“I deserve this, I deserve this, I deserve this-”
“N!”
A heavy claw slapped his cheek, snapping him out of his spiral. He winced, rubbing the impact area and sheepishly glanced at Nori.
“Sorry, kid. But you gotta stop saying that stuff about yourself.”
He watched her eye narrow at nothing in particular before she continued, running her claw through his hair in a soothing motion.
“I get it. You’re allowed to feel that way. Hell, I certainly do.”
“Why?”
“I was gone from her life for over a decade. I regret staying away from her for so long.”
“She thought you were dead, though.”
“I really don’t think that makes it any better. No matter if I was dead or alive, she wanted to see me again.”
She paused, looking down at the gravestone. N followed her gaze, noticing the various photos of Uzi as a little—well, littler—drone scattered along the bottom of the slab. Both of her parents were in every single one of them, always in different poses, making Uzi the centre of their attention.
“Her being gone is not your fault, though. She did what she had to do.”
“But why did she have to do that?”
“…because someone had to.”
Solver-infected drones were few and far between. It didn’t help that the ones he knew were either very important to him or were already dead. He didn’t want to choose someone to sacrifice. Even if he did, he knew there would be someone out there who would suffer the same grief he was enduring.
He hated the lack of choice that plagued everything around him. He hated how unavoidable it was. He hated how much it hurt.
Fate dealt him a terrible hand.
Younger Uzi’s jubilant expression brightly shone through all the photos. Nori hopped down from his shoulder and gently picked up one of the pictures using her solver, delicately tracing her claw around the border.
“When I reunited with her in space, she looked exactly like that. I’d give anything to see that face again, even just once.”
N fell to his knees, slowly running his knuckles across the engravings. The hard casing of his fingers along the rough grooves of the gravestone made a dry clacking noise, the soft reverberations muted by the soft winds. His arms hung low, almost too heavy for his shoulders, only bolstering the weight of them by laying the backs of his hands on his thighs. As he read her name on the gravestone, he began to slouch, sighing wistfully.
He was whisked back in time to this exact area, scooping her lifeless body off the ground. Her chassis was cold to the touch, and her extra appendages lay limp, weighing her down. Desperate, he parted her hair in search for those enthralling violet eyes, but all that stared back at him was a jarring ‘FATAL ERROR’ in blinding red. At that moment, the warmth in his core froze over.
Without conscious thought, he took her hand and pulled it closer to his chest, his attention solely focused on the red text on her visor. The world around him faded into darkness as he shifted his arms to cradle her. His thought processes were reduced to one, hopeless plea, forced through his vocoder in a nearly silent whisper.
“Please, come back.”
He held her tightly, repeating this mantra and denying the crippling truth that she would not. If he kept looping through his thoughts, she’d have to, eventually.
Watching the red text darken and flicker into nothingness dashed that hope forever; the last vestiges of her life disappeared in his hands. His only response was to bury his head in her hair, nuzzling it gently. As the distinct smell of ozone waned, he used all his willpower to keep his tears hidden.
Don’t cry. You’ll only make it worse.
…but it couldn’t get worse than that. The Solver was gone for good, sure. The trade-off, though, could not have been more devastating.
Nori interrupted his flashback by tapping a claw on his knee. The tears that begged to escape hung at the corners of his optics, drying up before they could continue down his visor. Nori examined his face, then spoke softly.
“I’ve been coming here every day since then. There’s always something different about each visit. I tell her stories about my day, even if I’m too depressed to function normally. I sometimes bring her some makeshift flowers, even if they get swept away by the breeze. I even give her some life advice, even though she’s dead.”
N, shocked by her bluntness, mentally kicked himself for having to stifle a laugh. Nori paused, contemplating her next words, before delivering them with confidence.
“The one thing that doesn’t change is that I know she’s there for me every time.”
He gasped almost silently, turning to her with hopeful eyes.
“Really? H-how do you know?”
For someone who only had a single eye to convey expression, he was impressed by her ability to practically beam at him.
“Just look up.”
He turned his gaze to the sky, focusing on the small opening in the clouds. The gossamer moonlight gently bathed his form, accenting his features and giving them a soft glow. The once crimson sky was now a deep indigo, changing the rays that fell on him into a faint but familiar purple hue.
Her spectral presence slowly materialised in front of him, making his core skip a cycle. She was angelic, her entire figure flooded with light, giving her a two-dimensional appearance. Her only outlet of expression came from her captivating optics, which now matched the darkness of the night sky.
“Uzi?” N incredulously whispered.
Her revenant form kneeled down in front of him. She opened her arms invitingly, staring into his optics while her own eyes morphed into a sympathetic expression. Unlike the hallucination back at the bunker, she was tangible; when he slowly wrapped his arms around her, he was greeted with a lathery softness, so tantalisingly close to the gentle warmth of her hoodie. He was floored by how real it felt, and he pulled back to look into her entrancing eyes.
For a few moments, he was almost considering wiping the tears that started to glaze his optics as the habit of suppressing them urged him to. With Uzi’s light shining on him, though, he felt safe. She would protect him from anything, because right now, they were together—they stuck together—just like he said. All his worries melted away as she pulled him back into another tender embrace.
And so, for the first time since landing on the planet, he let the tears fall.
Initially, he was silent. The tears streaked down his visor, slowly pooling at the bottom. As he buried his face into her impossibly soft hoodie, he sniffled miserably, detecting the faint yet nostalgic scent of ozone, burning it into his olfactory sensors. A few quiet mewls soon escaped his voice box, slowly turning into desperate sobs. He clung onto her body tighter and tighter, his heartbroken cries only becoming louder over time.
Almost too soon, she began to dissolve.
He knew she had to leave, eventually. It didn’t stop him from trying to grip her as tightly as possible, letting his cries devolve into full-on wails. He tried to beg her to stay, but it was impossible to cut through his uncontrollable sobbing. Slowly, painfully, his arms closed in as she disappeared, until he was practically hugging himself.
The lingering warmth in his arms made his core flutter. She was gone again, but Nori was right; Uzi was there for him, like she promised. Relieved and exhausted, he attempted to take control of his crying while savouring the memory of her delicate touch and searing it into his drives.
As soon as his sobs diminished, he urged his body to stop trembling, taking deep breaths to calm himself down. He could feel his core, heavy as a rock, thundering in his chest, already yearning to see her radiant form again. Closing his eyes, he solemnly waited out the minute of silence.
The only sounds he could hear were his own quiet sniffles, still managing to escape his control. Everything else was deathly silent, amplifying his feeble attempts to stifle his noises.
At the end of the minute, he immediately asked the question that dominated his mind.
“Was t-that… real?”
“Saw it with my own eye.”
“So that means… I can see her again?”
“You bet.”
As he curled his fingers again, a sad smile tugged at his lips. Nori splayed her limbs out again, and beckoned N to lie down next to her.
He obeyed in silence, admiring the way the clouds parted to reveal the stars above. Their twinkling made him relax, his systems slowing down to idle as he sank deeper into the cushioning snow. He would’ve fallen asleep if it weren’t for the incoming message.
SD-V // How’s Uzi?
…
SD-N // She’s… doing okay. :’)
SD-V // Nice to see an actual response from you. :)
SD-V // You heading back soon? Thad’s looking for you.
SD-N // Yeah. Tell him I’ll be there in like 15.
SD-N // Also tell him I’m sorry for ghosting him for the past few weeks.
SD-V // Don’t worry about that. He understands, just like I do, okay?
SD-N // …Okay.
SD-V // Good. See you soon. Rave’s getting pretty rowdy in here.
He lazily sat up, dusting the snow off his coat.
“I gotta head back now, but I appreciate the company. It means a lot.”
“Anytime.”
“Oh! That reminds me. Mr. Doorman wants to see you again.”
“What for?”
“Um… I don’t know. He said he missed you.”
Nori’s expression softened as she chuckled to herself.
“That idiot… Tell him I’ll be home before sunrise.”
He unfurled his wings again, starting up his anti-gravity thrusters. Just before taking off, he looked back at Nori with gratitude.
“Thanks again, Mrs. Doorman.”
“Don’t mention it. See you later, kid.”
He leapt into the air, his wings creating a small downdraft as he beat them to rev up his thrusters. Reinvigorated, he sped past the ruins around him, weaving through decrepit skyscrapers and fallen powerlines. Jettisoning the grief that had weighed him down allowed him to soar into the sky; the winds that blustered past only encouraged him to channel his newfound energy into his ascent. He only halted his momentum once he reached the cloud base, taking in the sight of the rubble once again.
The moonlight still shone on the gravestone, now a mere speck from his altitude. As he hovered in place, he watched the rays flicker, almost winking at him. N’s core ached with longing again as he sorely missed his fond memories with Uzi.
He loved the way she wrapped her arms around him, as if he were a beacon of comfort. He loved the way their fingers intertwined when they held hands, reassuring each other’s safety. He loved the way she danced with him, both of them smitten as they tenderly stared into each other’s eyes.
He loved that he could experience it all over again.
At that, he felt something rekindle in his core—not superficial, but genuine. A piece of him, lost for what felt like years, finally reconnected. He had felt it many times before, but after his extended period of sorrow, it was overwhelmingly cathartic.
He felt joy.