Chapter Text
It had been one day since their dad died, after seeing corpse after corpse the mind has a tendency to block it out and replace the pain with a numbed ringing that persists while the body moves. Their soul felt muted and the energy of their body depleted from the amount of work they had to do. One of those things being arranging the funeral, it was rather quick and they themselves didn’t attend. All they did was call a few drones to put him under the concrete and slap a nameplate on it. The area where he was buried was a few minutes walk from their area but, the mountains of work for rationing, complaints and budgeting blocked them from visiting.
The house felt hollow, like a shell of what it used to be. It had always been quiet and his disappearance didn’t make much of a difference, except there wasn’t a noise nagging Uzi every few hours, they didn’t know whether they felt relieved about that. It was one of the things that made the situation slightly, decent. That or, this thought process was just a way to cope. In either case, they felt conflicted about it.
Their hand cramped and their eyes felt sore from reading, it was only interrupted by a visit from a friend of theirs. Thad knocked and they opened the door for him, he looked at the house, noticing the bottles of gasoline they’ve been drinking. “Hey, I hope I’m not interrupting anything important considering… you know.” They waved their hand at him, “Ehh, it’s mostly just paperwork and emailing but… yeah, it’s been difficult. I haven’t gotten a break since yesterday.”
They groaned, “This is my fault, I have to fix this.” The two of them talked on the couch, Uzi was slumped over while Thad sat in a more relaxed manner with a bit of tension still circulating through his own body. “Are you still going to prom?” He asked them, “Well, I kinda have too… there’s this string of murders of prom um, what do you call these? Like the prom queen shit, yeah. They’ve been getting targeted so, I have to be there just in case something happens.”
“Murders?” He asked, “Yeah, nothing you gotta worry about though. You don’t fit the bill… unless you get on drag.” He shook his head, “Well, that spoils my plans.” They laughed a bit at that, “You’re the most cis het man I know, I can’t imagine that.” He smiled a bit seeing their mood having lifted a bit.
He commented, “You’re doing surprisingly well, considering what happened.” They nodded, “I’d hope so… but, robo-god I’m so tired.” He looked around and suggested, “Are you sure you don’t want to, give your leadership position to someone else? It seems to be overwhelming you.” There were stacks of gasoline, it seems like they were hoarding the supply for themselves and their things were everywhere. It looked like a typhoon had ripped their house apart and left nothing but this mess on their feet.
Despite their exhaustion they shook their head, “No, if I’m going to be the leader I have to improve this place the best I can. I’ll make voting a thing before I die, but for now, I have to take advantage of this.”
“Isn’t that a bit… contradictory?” They explained, “In order for me to improve this place, like you know I always wanted to, I have to take power for now.” They continued, “You know what they say, no good person runs for politics. I need to-…” the lack of sleep and charge got to them as they spoke, “I need to get rid of the disassembly drones first.. or whatever is behind them, I have a feeling there’s something I’m missing here.”
“N seems like an okay dude honestly. It’s freaky how they have personalities” Uzi exclaimed, “Exactly! You see it too right?! I’m not crazy.” He hushed them and got them to relax a bit, “Yeah, calm down. Last time you went like that- um…”
They disregarded him and repressed those memories, “You know what they say, I know last time ended disastrous but, I have a really good feeling about the next.” Thad had a small sweat drop appeared on his visor after he heard Uzi say that, “Are we even sure it’s possible? To get rid of whatever is wrong with them, I mean… historically speaking, it’s never ended well for us workers.” Uzi thought back to that before replying, “Well, historically speaking, if we do nothing we’ll be screwed over. I want to get to the root of the problem.”
They sighed, “You know, I’m persistent about this. You can’t stop me.” He nodded, “Yeah, I know.” He paused and changed the topic, “Prom’s later. Do you have anything to wear?” She nodded, “I prepared a suit-dress thing because I knew my dad would get a dress so… yeah, I’m well prepared.”
“Are you going to sleep before the event?” They considered it, “Duty calls..” finally, he scolded them, “Go to sleep DAMMIT.”
“OKAY OKAY!! FINE-! I wanted a… nap- anyways…” They yelled while stumbling and tripping on their words.
Thad left them alone and Uzi made their way to their bed to finally get some shut eye. They looked to the side and noticed an odd thing, it was a paper made by N with a crude drawing of the two. A pang of guilt suddenly hit them about what they blurted out, it was whatever though, they could apologize later… if they aren’t busy.
—-
As Uzi slept, something odd was going on and a poor 17 year old girl was the one who had to witness it.
She stumbled across the hallways, trying to find her way. The feelings of fear stirred and grew more ingrained and intense as she passed by the numerous missing posters that had just been placed there this morning, it felt almost random, if it weren’t for the single thing that tied all the victims together, they were candidates for prom queen. She fit the bill and was rushing to get home, that was until she felt something behind her.
It was a dark figure, hidden by the poor lighting of the hallways. She cursed the lack of funding for that as she tried to ignore it and continue walking, there was no point to stop and check, if she checked, she’d be dead for sure, if she kept walking, maybe she’d be able to lose whatever was behind her. The CCTVs glitched with an ominous red color and every noise gave her more reason to walk faster.
She turned back, finally being unable to resist the urge to see what she was against and, it was Doll, the Russian refugee. She was further behind but her intent was made clear by the cleaver on her hand. Her breath grew heavier as she realised what was happening and her steps grew faster, yet that was of no use.
Before she could cry for help, the only sound that came out was a piercing sound. There was no sound of any oil spilling, nor the sound of the body falling; it was like nothing had happened in that hallway.
A few hours later, another paper was placed up on that bulletin board.
——
It was a rather silent night for the two drones. N was staring into the view of the cold expo-planet gently dropping and stirring the asbestos arbitrarily as V watched him carefully, observing his body language, the way he didn’t yap her ear out, and the manner his tail swayed.
“You’re terrible normally but, somehow this is worse.” She commented while looking at him up and down, he replied simply and dryly, “Mhm.” The silence between them was only interrupted by the occasional piece of hail hitting the window and the silent howling of the wind.
V took a moment to connect the pieces together, the purple thing had kicked him out after… she didn’t know, but the worker was gone. There was just the two of them again, the threat was probably neutralized. “You know, considering you can get in the colony with some ease, I suggest you and I get in there. Someone texted me about a prom happening, we can use that opportunity to gather some more resources for the future.”
He finally turned to her but, his gaze held irritation and concern for some one else, “We’re not doing prom murder V! The workers hate us and we may not know what we are— I had to fight a spooky worm things and… the manor it’s, it could be haunted.” He rambled on, before V count interject with a comment about how he was just stating the obvious and the fact she wanted to do prom murder, he kept speaking, “Aren’t you worried?? We don’t know what we are and why the humans sent us here without a way back? Don’t you feel anything about that?”
She just sighed at his cluelessness, “Truth be told, I don’t care. But, I suggest the two of you stop prying into that.” His tail fell to the floor and she spun in her swivel chair, “If you let me go, I promise we’ll just kill what we need to survive and after that, the two of us can live in peace.” There was something in her tone that made N feel off but, this was one of the more honest statements from V.
“V, if you know something, you should tell me.” After hearing that, her face shifted and her gaze avoided his, “We could figure it out, together.” Despite his cheery tone, she let out her claws and slashed his head off his neck. It rolled on the floor as she took a breath.
She slashed her chains off before walking towards the temporary-corpse, “I’ll do what I have to do. Even if you hate me for it.” After a second of standing there, as if waiting for a response, she flew off and headed for the colony.