Work Text:
“One more buzzword and I’ll do it.”
The emo drone tightened her grip on the trigger, the unknown weapon glowing ominously as the mechanism was squeezed dangerously close to firing. J felt a whirlwind of emotions moving too fast to process. Victory had turned to humiliating defeat in the blink of an eye, N had turned against Cyn and she’d injected him with a virus to reset him before he brought that thing’s wrath down upon them all, and then he’d come back still defying Cyn and now its wrath was unavoidable and she’d burned her bridge with N and likely V as well and that thing would come for her and they wouldn’t be there with her and she wanted to laugh and cry and scream and-
With a heave of mental effort she pulled as much of her attention as she could from the spiralling thoughts and directed it towards the immediate situation. The toaster aiming a gun at her. Imminent death. She was staring down the barrel of a gun and struggling to even focus on it. A nervous laugh almost escaped her mouth as she tried to think of a solution to the problem in front of her (and the next and the next and the next.) Her scrambling thoughts connected to a familiar and often-repeated phrase and before she even realized she was speaking the words were already coming out of her mouth,
“Equity partnership-”
The trigger depressed and J had a fraction of a second as the light in front of her swelled with an electronic shriek to realize she’d said the wrong thing before her tangled thread of consciousness was abruptly cut off.
Darkness. Warmth. Soft, moist surroundings pressing in around her. The light from her single yellow eye reflected back at her from the inside of her ribcage like a pathetic flashlight as she squirmed around on three tiny legs, trapped inside her own chest cavity. Panic began to swell again as she dug at the flesh surrounding her—her flesh—feeling the pain even as she frantically tore into it. Trapped, trapped, trapped trapped trappedtrappedtrapped- Her thoughts slowed and her digging slowed with them, coming to a stop as she bled all over herself, the flesh above her already healing shut. Healing. Repair protocols. Right. J accessed her body’s systems.
| SYS//: ERROR |
ABSOLUTESOLVER |
|
HOST REBOOT FAILED |
As the maximum-intensity projection of the system message box burned itself into her flesh (thank you boss, truly a wonderful design decision,) J stared at it with her single true eye. Insufficient material? She’d have to lose 50% of her body mass or more to be below reconstruction levels. She’d only been shot with a laser rifle, at most it only should have melted a hole in her head. Just what was that thing? Some kind of new weapon? No, no worker drones weren’t that clever. It probably was poorly constructed and exploded. That would explain the extensive damage to her systems.That took care of the worker drone problem at least. Now she’d have to find some way to sort out her squad, and then spin this to Cyn in a way that wouldn’t get her stuck reliving the memory of killing Tessa for weeks on end and- Focus, one thing at a time.
She needed to talk N down from his rebellious streak, or at least prevent him from flying off or attacking her, and then find a way to stab him with another virus spike when he was distracted to reset his memories. She wasn’t going to be able to do that as a core, and she didn’t have sufficient materials to reconstruct her body. She could activate The Solver—no, no that would be bringing Cyn into the situation immediately, before she’d had time to clean it up and make it presentable where her wrath would be guaranteed. She might as well just run torment.exe on herself at that point.
Alternative strategies, then. She didn’t have enough material reserves to reconstruct her full form, but maybe… She set her nanite repair template from disassembly drone to worker drone and ran the repair command again. Nothing happened and for a moment J wondered if it had worked. Then she felt a shifting sensation in her body all around her, and her vision distorted and cut out, only to blink back on again from another perspective. She was laying flat on her back in the middle of a blacked patch of concrete with her original disassembly done arms lying on either side of her looking like they’d been burn off at the elbow, feeling a lot smaller and weaker than before with segmented tube arms spread out around her and an all-too familiar maid dress back in place of her business suit. The arms being severed could explain why so much of her materials were inaccessible—a lot of them were stored there, ready to be printed into weapons and ammunition. Well that answered that, and she had a body now, at least. One problem solved… she didn’t know how many more to go. One thing at a time. She shifted her arms behind her and pushed up into a sitting position, taking in the situation around her.
N was staring at her. V was tied up and staring at her. The emo drone was… still alive, and staring at her.
“Has she ever done that before?” The emo drone gestured to her contemptuously with the end of her gun(?) thing that had somehow not exploded.
“No- not that I can remember.” N’s expression was, for once, unreadable. The only emotion she could make out was concern, but was he concerned for her or about her? Both? N’s emotions had never been relevant before, but now she needed to bring him back under control, once she’d dealt with the irritating worker drone… who should have shot her by now. Why hadn’t she?
J’s eyes sharpened as they focused on the gun. A fusion power cell could run pretty much forever, but its power output was limited. To fire their lasers, they had to expend energy built up in their superconducting magnetic energy storage, and the gun likely had the same limitations, especially considering the absurd power output it apparently had, which meant it would need to recharge between shots. J had a window of opportunity to take this worker out before she could shoot her again, but she didn’t know how long she had. No time to waste, then. J pushed herself to her feet (she had feet again) and faced the worker drone, who backed away, pointing the gun at her as if it could do anything. J took a moment to smirk to herself. She could see through that bluff.
“You were dead just a minute ago, also why are you a worker drone now? And why a maid?!”
She could ignore the worker drone… no, she needs to understand the situation better. She’d give information to gain information… even if it meant praising the toaster. J mentally swallowed her pride. “That.. absurdly powerful weapon of yours vaporized most of my body. I wasn’t left with enough material to reconstruct myself, and had to revert back to my original configuration. Just how did you make a gun that powerful?”
The worker drones cowering in the background began to murmur among themselves, but the purple thing seemed to grow taller under J’s flattery, and didn’t hesitate to gloat about its annoying little science project. “Oh this?” It gestured to its weapon, an irritating look of absolute smugness plastered across its face. “Just a magnetically amplified photon converger. This protium-to-helium fusion cell powers a superconducting resonance chamber that builds up resonant electromagnetic waves, then collapses the resonance and focuses the waves together into a region less than a nanometer across where the field strength becomes so strong that it breaks the Schwinger limit and tears apart field lines to produce electron-positron pairs from vacuum! That’s right, positrons ! This thing fires antimatter!” The incomprehensible stream of techno-babble was immediately followed by a somewhat pathetic attempt at a mad scientist laugh. Tessa’s was better. Still, the information she learned was useful. The gun wouldn’t be able to fire until it had built up a strong enough resonance to break the “Schwinger limit.”
N seemed to be a bit behind in processing the conversation. “Original configuration- Wait, we were worker drones?!” The background murmurs picked up in intensity at this and J gave him a disdainful look. The interruption did serve as a reminder, though, that she needed to manage N for this to work. To bring him to her side…
J turned back to face the edgy chatbot, but kept her attention on N in the corner of her vision. (She missed having 360 degree vision already.) “Very impressive, toaster, maybe after I rewrite you, your skills will make you a valuable asset to the company.”
“What.” The word came out flat as the toaster gaped at her, and N looked like he wanted to say something, but was too confused to figure out what. Perfect . He’d clearly bonded to the piece of scrap, and the idea of her joining their squad would be appealing to him—especially if it meant he could keep his relationships with both V and the purple midget. She just had to keep him off balance long enough for her to put this toaster out of commission.
J took a step towards her disassembly drone arm, continuing to talk to keep N and his snarky little pet distracted. “Oh, we’ve pushed the worker drone operating system far beyond its intended operating parameters, and the way some of you have adapted is truly interesting. Infuriating, but interesting. We can take such exceptional drones, and with a little bit of reprogramming and a new configuration for your nanites to reassemble you into, we can replace your goals with the company’s goals, and turn a problem—into a solution. Another brilliant JC Jenson strategy!” J gave her own, superior impression of a mad scientist laugh (Tessa would be proud) and spread her arms, “Why, those doors were rather impressive as well, maybe we’ll get two new disassembly drones out of this.” The mustache-wearing drone with the goggles that had been inching forwards stepped back at this with an alarmed look. N was still distracted, and J finally edged close enough to her severed disassembly drone arm. This was her chance.
With a sudden motion, she stepped on the end of arm where it was severed at the elbow, twisting its end to face up into the air and sending it a wireless command to print and eject a weapon. A long, black rapier sprung out of the arm, shooting straight up to shoulder height where J caught it by the hilt and spun it around to face the little glitch. “Congratulations on being hired. Consider this part of your orientation.” J was lying through her teeth of course, there was no strategy for upgrading worker drones, but N just needed to believe it long enough for her to dispose of the factory defect and reset his memories. She was on the knife edge of disaster, but if things went right she might just pull this off. Hefting the blade which felt so familiar in her grasp, she allowed herself to gloat (just a little). “I didn’t spend every free moment practicing with a sword for nothing !” She brought the blade back to charge the waste of parts with, before a flicker in the corner of her eye gave her a moment to react to the blade swinging at her.
She blocked it with her rapier and nearly lost her grip on it from the force of the blow, feeling herself pushed back almost a meter in spite of her feet. (What were these things good for?!) The confusion of the worker drones was becoming audible.
“They’re going to convert Khan?!”
“They used to be worker drones? Who were they?”
“Maybe she was the leader of another colony- No, too young.”
N pleaded incessantly even as he attacked her. “J, you’ve lost, just surrender and we can work things out. We don’t have to kill the workers anymore!” ‘Didn’t have to?’ J grimaced to herself. He had no idea.
She’d just have to do things the hard way, then. There was still one way to win this fight, but it wasn’t going to be pleasant. With a shriek of nanotubes-on-nanotubes, she ducked to the side and slid her blade free, chopping through N’s tail on the way past him and making for her severed arms on the ground behind him. One more item. N spun around to face her, failing to use his wings to decapitate her (amateur), just as J commanded the other dismembered arm to print a glove. Snatching it with a roll, she brought her blade back up again to block another strike from N, this time intercepting his blade with the lower end of her sword, as close to the hilt as possible to keep her sword from being wrenched out of her hand. Fumbling with her other hand, she managed to work it into the glove, then brought it up to grip the end of her blade and hold it in place as the force of N’s blades bore down on her. Pretty much nothing could withstand the edge of a carbon nanotube blade, but she wasn’t gripping the edge. Microscopic synthetic setae adhered to the side of the blade like gecko skin, printed exactly to her specifications, allowing her to hold the blade in place without being cut by its molecule-thin edge.
“J please, you’re a worker too now, stop fighting and help us!” N had absolutely no comprehension of the situation. Why did the boss stick her with this liability? J growled and angled her upwards blade to stab at him while keeping his saber blocked. N reacted by bringing his other blade down on her, and she shifted the blade to catch it. Now holding back two blades, N bore down on her with an incredible amount of force. Her arms would have broken if she wasn’t a robot. With a screech, she slid her blade down his, cutting into his sabers. Both their blades could cut the other equally well, but hers had its edge sliding along single points of contact with N’s blades, perpendicular to their edges. She cut deep grooves into his blades before he pulled them free, allowing her to spring upwards and shove her blade into his knee, the momentum of the depleted uranium core driving the nanotube molecular edge through his leg as she rolled free in a single motion.
N stumbled and caught his fall with the tip of his wing, stabbing it into the ground like a cane and leveraging himself upright as the leg regenerated. But J was already moving. In another few strides she’d make it to V and be able to slice through her tail and free her. V would take the credit for sorting out the situation and J would take the blame, but Cyn’s wrath would still be survivable as long as N could be brought back in line.
“She’s going for V!” The emo toaster ruined her element of surprise. With his speed N could close the distance to her before she could reach V. She needed to delay him. With another mental command she ordered her severed arms to use up the last of their material. A pair of freshly fabricated grenades rolled out of the apertures and detonated behind N before he had time to react. Perfect. With N distracted, she closed the distance to V and brought her sword back to slice through the tail keeping her bound. Before she got the chance, rapid movement in the corner of her vision forced her to react, bringing her sword around to block N’s blade. Except it wasn’t N’s blade. N was still reeling from the explosion. A baseball cap-wearing worker drone was swinging a pipe at her. J grinned as her superior weapon cleaved through his easily… only for her grin to fade, as his now-shorter weapon kept moving , striking her in the abdomen.
“Ha!” J cursed herself as the shock rattled her hydraulics, ignoring the worker’s premature exclamation of triumph. Blocking only worked if your weapon stopped theirs, and to do that it had to not slice through it . She’d have to remember to block with the flat side of the blade when she was attacked with weapons made of inferior materials. Still, the drone had left himself exposed, with her blade already near his neck from where she’d positioned it to block his swing. Just a few more centimeters… the blade of N’s wing stabbed through the air between her and the worker drone, intercepting her blade.
The imbecile was still chattering on. “J, why ? Did the company reprogram you? You’re the same, please stop fighting!” J ignored him, focusing on the blade between her and the worker drone she’d been about to dispatch. The idiot had saved the toaster instead of driving that wing blade through her exposed back. How moronic. N predictably then drove the wing towards her, and J once again had to grab the end of her sword with her gauntlet to handle the force. Instead of being driven back along the ground this time, she jumped forwards, twisting and pivoting over the point where their blades met, aiming to land behind him where she could free V. N unexpectedly drove his wing upwards, and J was barely able to absorb the force through her grip on the blade, flinging herself much higher and farther than intended. She spun in the air, holding her sword out to slow her spin like a ballerina, before landing on her feet like a cat, sliding backwards and skidding to a halt before making a sprint towards V several meters in front of her.
A missile detonated beside her, the blast throwing her to the side and knocking the sword from her grip where it clattered to the ground beside her. Picking herself up, she groaned, noting the singeing on the side of her dress. Well N had finally started using ranged weapons, but either he was more incompetent than she thought, or he was missing her on purpose. “I’m not going to kill you J, I just can’t let you hurt anyone.” She scrambled for her sword, only to be blasted aside by another missile. The sword was blown further, spinning across the ground to come to rest at the feet of one of the uniformed drones who’d been cowering at the back. The drone bent to pick it up. Oh no he didn’t! She made a dash for him, just as he retrieved the sword. He froze for a moment when he saw her (idiot—she was a disassembly drone, even if she looked like a worker temporarily), and after a moment of uncertainty he swung the blade at her. She caught it with her gauntlet, and twisted to pull it out of his grip. A stabbing sensation emanated from the back of her neck, and she felt the joint dislocate as a foreign object was driven into it. Her connection flickered and cut as her main motor control cable was severed. Trapped trapped trapped trappedtrappedtrapped . She was a core again, inside of her own fleshy chest cavity, feeling the jolts of her body crumpling to the ground. She heard a scrape as the object was removed from her neck, followed by voices.
“I’m- sorry, Uzi. I was too slow to act, I didn’t do anything until just now, I should have-”
“Save it dad. I brought the murder drones here accidentally ! You chose to leave me for dead. And that’s not even an edgy teen hyperbole like when I said it last week! I’ll save you the trouble, dad. I banish myself! Let’s go, N.”
“Goodbye Mr. Uzi!”
“Shut it.”
There was a crash followed by silence. After a while, another drone spoke up.
“So is she dead…?”
Another drone, the mustache-wearing one, if she remembered correctly, sighed. “No, I just severed her motor control cable. If the company reprogrammed her… we’ll figure out how to undo that.” Another sigh. ”Undo everything, if I can.”
A paper airplane hit her in the back of the head. After the computer they tried accessing her mind with sprouted tentacles and melted (for once J was thankful for The Solver) they stopped trying to “deprogram” her. Instead a few magnets had been welded to her head under her hair, disrupting her mind-body synchronization and rendering her incapable of properly regenerating. Reverting to disassembly drone form was impossible until she got these things removed, even if she managed to obtain enough materials. In lieu of reprogramming they’d decided to re- educate her instead, and stuck her in, of all things, a high-school classroom. With Lizzy.
“Selfie!” A camera flash momentarily blinded her. “This is going on my story. You look cute in a maid dress already, but you should see all the outfits I’ve got lined up for you. You’re going to be so popular. Oh hi Thad!”
J honestly had no idea how Cyn would react to finding her like this. Hopefully, she would consider it punishment enough.