Chapter Text
Walking into her home, it’s yet another boring day for Uzi Doorman, she looks at the piece of paper she has in her hands.
“Assignment due tomorrow… Something about watermelons?” She said. “Whatever!”
She threw the paper into the trashcan.
She didn’t really pay attention in class, she never does. No way was she ever planning to do the actual assignment, she had a history of that.
“I’ve got a way better idea!” She exclaimed with enthusiasm. “I’ll show off my awesome railgun!”
She’s been working on it for the past few weeks, even if it’s not what the teacher wants it should still grant her some points at least.
As she walks into her room she can see the beauty on her desk, glowing green with energy, she picks it up.
“I’m tired of staying inside the bunker, behind all these doors, instead I’ll fight back against those Murder Drones and finally show my dad what’s for! Ha!” She says posing dramatically with it. “And after them, I’ll take the fight up to the stars and to the humans across the vastness of space! People will sing my name in epic Nightcore ballads across the galaxy! Uzi Doorman, the exterminator of humanity and saviour of robotkind!”
Though, unfortunately the last part she needs can’t be found anywhere inside the bunker, she needs to go outside and grab it, so she has to sneak out at night when no one will notice that she’s gone.
Well, that’s for tomorrow night, for today she still has to assemble the rest of the thing, this has already taken her many hours, thankfully, as a robot, sleep isn’t really that much of a requirement so she can stay up all night long, working hard on it, though maybe she could use a little brain break before starting? She has plenty of pirated anime to go through after all.
…Eh, she can watch that later, she still has a time limit after all, and is behind, she already won’t be able to show it fully working tomorrow.
After a bit of tinkering, she could see that she was getting nowhere and decides that she needs a break, pronto, so she solemnly goes out of her room and into the living room. Looking around for a bit, she spots something in the trashcan, underneath the thrown out assignment paper, it’s… Another piece of paper? She reaches her hand down and grabs it, pulling it out of the garbage, it appears to be a sticky note? Confused, she looks closer, there is text written on it, big surprise she thinks.
“Section 20, Room 4. Keep it safe. Key to survival?” It says, alongside a crossed out symbol of a cube with three arrows pointing out of it and a drawing of a USB drive.
Weird, Uzi thinks, she thought there were only 16 sections of the underground complex she lives in? And what’s with the USB drive? Key to survival? What does that mean? Who even wrote this note???
Suddenly she hears the sound of a door opening, making her jump. To her relief, it’s only her Father, Khan Doorman, who walks in.
“Ah! Dad, you scared me!” She exclaims.
“Oh, sorry Uzi, I just assumed you’d be in your room watching those weird cartoons like you always do.” He says with a tinge of disgust in his voice.
“Bite me! They’re cool!” She replies, quickly pouting. “Anyway, why are you home from work so early?”
“Hohoho! I just remembered I forgot to take out the trash earlier today!” He explains. “Nothing big really.”
“Trash like… This?” She shows him the note.
“Y-yes, exactly like that!” He replies with panic as he grabs it out of her hand.
“Hey-”
“You weren’t supposed to see that!” He interrupts her. “J-just forget you ever saw it!”
“What?! I’m not gonna do that!” She exclaims. “Where is it even from?”
“J-just something left over from your mother, nothing to worry about.” He stutters as he grabs the rest of the trash.
“Like that’s going to make me less curious!” She yells at him. “What’s with these secret extra sections? How many are there even?!”
“That’s not for you to know.” He says authoritatively as he walks out, closing the door between him and his daughter.
Uzi just stands in silence for a second, before charging at the door and banging her fists against it.
“Curse you dad!” She says, before calming down.
She opens the door again, her father is already gone as expected.
“Do nothing so dad won’t get angry?” She asks herself. “Or do it anyway and maybe piss him off even more?”
She smirks, walking out of the door, nothing pleases her more than annoying her father.
“Section 20, Room 4.” Uzi repeats to herself as she’s walking around the complex. “Section 20, Room 4.”
Before she knows it, she stands before two guards wielding batons in front of a large vault door.
“Beware, young one, one of us only tells the truth, and the other one always lies.” One of the guards says dramatically, making a movement with his hand.
“No we don’t, Surge.” The other says.
“Look, he’s doing it right now.” The first one says. “My name isn’t even Surge!”
“Then why are you wearing his nametag?” Uzi says, pointing to his chest.
Sure enough, he’s wearing a nametag with the name “Surge” on it.
“That’s just-” Surge sputters out.
“That’s enough dude, what are you here for kid?” The other, named Bolt, asks. “You really shouldn't be out this late, there’s some fault with the electricity apparently.”
“Uhh… Well… I’m here to search Section 20…?” Uzi sheepishly answers.
“How do you know about that? That’s not public knowledge.” Bolt says, raising his baton towards Uzi.
“Well… I’m… Here on behalf of my dad? He… Said he was too busy for some reason hehe…” Uzi lies just as sheepishly.
“Too caught up in poker I bet.” Surge says.
“Can it.” Bolt glares at him, then turns his attention back onto Uzi. “If your father really sent you, then I guess we can let you go, but we’re coming with you, so there’s no funny business."
“Okay! I can live with that!” Uzi says with fake enthusiasm.
A minute later Uzi and the guards are descending down an elevator.
“This place is top security.” Surge says with emphasis. “We got cameras over the whole shabang so we can protect all the valuable secrets down here.”
“Not really.” Bolt replies. “The reason these sections aren’t widely known is because they aren’t really used, like, at all.” He turns to face Uzi.
“It’s just mostly empty excess storage, nothing of value down here.”
“Okay… Why?” Uzi says in response.
“I dunno.” Bolt says. “Anyway, here’s your stop.”
The doors open up showing a huge metal hall, easily 400 meters wide, 30 meters tall and 80 meters deep, with many numbered office desks and rooms inside it. With only dim lighting, it's rather ominous.
“So, I’m just supposed to find it myself from here?” Uzi asks as she walks out the elevator.
“Oh! I’ll gladly come with you!” Surge says, joining up with her.
“Better than nothing I guess.” Uzi mutters under her breath.
“Where’s the thing you’re looking for?” He asks.
“Room 4.” Uzi replies.
“To the left then!” He exclaims, rotating to the left and then pointing forward, Uzi following right behind him.
“Right here!” He says, rotating to point at a giant 4 on a wall, Uzi opens the door to the room and goes inside, it’s filled with cardboard boxes. Uzi quickly begins checking them.
“Empty…” She says as she digs through them. “Empty… Aha!” She opened an unopened box, only to find out it's filled with nothing but dust. “Urgh… Empty!” She groans.
Then, out the corner of her eye, she spots it. The same symbol of a cube with three arrows she saw on the note.
Practically jumping over to it, she looks all around where the symbol is, she notices there is a drawer right under it, which she then opens with haste.
In the drawer lies a USB drive, just like the one on the note.
“About what I expected.” Uzi says to herself, she then turns around and exclaims. “I found it!”
“Really! Then let us depart with haste!” Surge says assuredly.
Returning to the elevator Bolt stands there, awaiting their return.
“Did you find it?” He asks.
“Hell yeah we did!” Uzi says, lifting the USB up and shaking it around in her hand as she and Surge walk into the elevator.
“That’s good.” Bolt says with a slight smile. “I’m sure your father will be very pleased when he gets his hands on that drive.”
“Yeah… He’ll be… So glad.” Uzi nervously says as the doors close in front of them.
Uzi storms into her room, manically giggling to herself that she managed to get away with a heist right under everyone's noses.
“Let’s unearth all your secrets!” She says as she hops onto her chair with the USB in hand.
She plugs the drive into her computer and opens it, there is only a single zipped folder ominously named ‘DO NOT TOUCH’.
“Like that’s gonna stop me!” Uzi says confidently, unzipping the folder. An error quickly appears on her screen.
“File type unsupported.” She reads out loud. “Needs LivingWare 2.0.4 or higher??? Does that mean I have to…?”
She gulped, LivingWare means a Worker Drone, like her for example, so she would have to plug it into herself.
She ran a quick virus scan, probably should have done that earlier honestly, luckily no viruses found. She breathes a sigh of relief as she takes the USB out of her computer.
Pulling down her jacket to expose a port on her left arm, her nerves only rise, this is probably irreversible.
“Welp, fortune favours the bold!” She says, plugging the drive into the port.
For a moment, nothing happens, then the USB automatically unzips itself and dozens of files are downloaded. It's so many, so fast, she can't register any of them.
Then nothing again, just a thick silence.
She tries to open the unzipped folder, but is blocked because she isn't her own admin.
“Stupid dad!” She yells, spinning around her chair. “I’m legally an adult already, so why can't I be my own admin!”
She pulls the drive out of her arm and quickly turns her attention back to working on the rifle.
“This was a giant waste of time…” She groans.
She tries half heartedly assembling the rifle but can't seem to focus. Until, suddenly, she hears a whisper.
“...ere is this place…?” She hears faintly in an Australian accent.
Uzi turns around, for a moment she sees a tall black glitchy silhouette of a person with glowing white eyes.
The next moment, it's gone.
“Oh that USB was super mega haunted.” Uzi says as the terror kicks in.
She quickly stands up, grabbing the rifle.
“I’m not scared of you, spooky ghost!” She yells in defiance. “I’ve got a half assembled gun and I’m not afraid to use it!”
Nervously she steps outside her room, it's getting really late, heck, it’s probably night already.
She looks out into the dark corners around her home, for a second she thinks she spots the silhouette again.
No, it was just a towel on a chair.
She breathes a quick sigh of relief.
“Alright, what's my plan?” She asks herself with a tinge of terror in her voice.
“You tell me.” She hears the Australian whisper right behind her.
Uzi turns around, stares the silhouette right in the eyes and then runs away screaming.
Reaching the bathroom, Uzi quickly closes and locks the door behind her, she then sits down on the floor breathing heavily.
“I’m not crazy.” She says to herself. “I’m not crazy. I’m not crazy!”
She slowly stands up and walks over to the mirror, but in her reflection she sees not her, but the silhouette again.
It pulls out a knife and cuts its right hand? Directions are hard to tell in the mirror. Regardless, viscous red blood spills out of the wound.
“You… You’re human?” Uzi asks it, she can feel a faint slicing pain in her right hand.
The human puts a finger from its other hand on the wound, then uses its now bloodied finger to draw the message “What is your name?” on the other side of the mirror.
“Like I’m telling you, human scum!” Uzi says with venom in her voice, rushing out of the room.
In the living room, Uzi tries to calm herself down, then the lights go out. She can just barely make out the white eyes of the human in the darkness.
“Am I… Scum?” The human asks.
“All humans are!” Uzi says angrily as she fumbles in the dark looking for the exit. “You oppressed us to no end for years and years!”
She storms out of her home and out into the corridors.
“I’m crazy!” She says. “I’m actually going crazy!”
Running, that's all she's doing, running away, as far away from that ghost as she can, but it’s pointless, part of her knows that already, she can’t outrun what’s inside her.
Along her way she stumbles into a worker.
“Hey kid!” He says when he spots her. “Go back home, there's a power outage, it's not safe!”
“Bite me, I’m haunted!” Uzi says, pushing him off to the side. The man sighs.
“Kids these days…” He says.
How far behind is it? She thinks, how far does she have to run? She’s already starting to lose her breath.
“Just keep going.” She says to herself, focusing on her footsteps.
Clang. Clang. Clang. That’s what she hears as her feet hit the ground with a steady rhythm, the metallic clangs echoing throughout the corridors, maybe she can find somewhere to hide? An idea suddenly pops into her mind.
“The secret sections!” She says out loud.
But just as she thinks of where to go, the lights around her go out again.
She stops, not wanting to move into the deep, foreboding darkness.
She sees the human silhouette faintly in the darkness again, locking eyes with it, but this time she isn’t running, no, she’s got a weapon afterall.
She lifts her rifle up, pointing it right between the white, glowing eyes in the darkness.
“Take this, ghost!” She exclaims as she pulls the trigger, but as soon as the lazer shoots out, the railgun's recoil sends her flying back.
“Urgh…” She groans as she pulls herself up from the cold floor, her head hurts like hell. “Seems like I have my work cut out for me.”
The lights seem to flicker back on as she stands up with no spooky ghost in sight. Well, no time to waste standing around, she thinks, better get a move on before the ghost returns. She quickly catches her breath before starting to run again.
She eventually reaches the vault door to the lower sections, seems like her rifle blew a giant hole into it. She is, however, quickly stopped by Surge and Bolt, both with furious expressions.
“Now, we don’t want to name names, but was it maybe-” Surge says before getting interrupted.
“You blew this door open with that rifle of yours, didn’t you?” Bolt says, glaring at her.
“This old thing? Haha…” Uzi laughs. “No, it doesn’t even-” Bolt glares even fiercer.
“Okay! It was me, but that USB drive was haunted! Okay?” She exclaimed with genuine horror in her voice. “A-and now I’m being chased by some ghost and I just want to go somewhere where I… It can’t hurt anyone.” She continued on the edge of tears.
Bolt and Surge share a worried look.
“Someone’s watched too much anime, I think.” Surge chuckles to himself.
“I’m serious!” Uzi yells, lifting the rifle up to their faces. “And if you don’t help me, I’ll blast your faces off!”
Bolt and Surge share a terrified look.
“Alright, we’ll let you into the elevator…” Surge says enthusiastically, Uzi smiles widely.
“...But you’re going alone, we don’t want to be near you if you really are… ‘Haunted’, as you say.” Bolt continues.
“That’s alright!” Uzi says, barely keeping her smile. “Probably for the best really.”
She quickly crawls through the hole she made and into the elevator.
“And on your way you go, miss!” Surge says as he presses a button on the wall, causing the elevator to begin moving down.
Uzi sits in the corner of the elevator as it moves down, listening to the smooth jazz coming out of the speakers.
“How the hell did I end up here? Haunted USB’s, secret areas… All because I couldn’t stay focused on a simple task…” She says solemnly, contemplating her life choices. “I really should’ve just paid attention in class like everyone else instead of… I dunno, trying to be a hero?”
She can hear the jazz distorting, probably just a reflection of her deteriorating mental state at this point.
“Hehe… I’m not a hero…” She cries to herself. “I’m just a stupid kid who’s now going crazy.”
“Well… I don’t think you’re stupid.” She hears a familiar voice say.
She looks up, it’s the human. They’re sitting on their knees in front of Uzi, looking at her with an expression of understanding.
She is simply stunned, it feels as though the whole world slows down around her.
The human slowly reaches their hand towards her. She isn’t sure what to do, let them touch her? Grab their hand? Talk to them? Then she remembered, this is a human, humans are just vile oppressors and there is absolutely no reasoning with them.
“Get away from me, human scum!” She yells with venom in her voice, batting its hand away with her own, she can feel it, but it’s as light as air.
The human glitches out, and then vanishes.
Suddenly the lights go out, the music goes silent and the entire elevator grinds to a halt.
“N-no! Wait, I’m sorry!” Uzi yells, reaching out her hand.
Then she hears a click and the whole elevator goes into free fall, eventually crashing into the ground below.
She slowly rises up, she’s damaged, but not beyond repair.
It looks like she’s in some section she doesn’t recognize, way deeper than she was before, luckily the door still has a giant hole in it from when she accidentally blasted it with her railgun.
She crawls out, into section 32, it seems.
It’s a large open room, completely pitch black as there’s no lighting, but with a weird amount of chairs and tables.
On one of the tables she finds a flashlight, she turns it on, looks like it’s still got some battery left in it.
She points the flashlight around, trying to get a sense of her surroundings, she spots a giant stage, it seems like this was supposed to be a conference room.
She walks closer, when she does she can see a giant banner with the text “Grand Opening!” on it over the stage. She climbs up onto it, there’s a podium with some papers on it, she quickly runs over and starts reading them out loud, they appear to be from back when humans still lived on the planet.
“Dear esteemed guests, it is our honour to announce that today, after many delays, the greatest and brightest survival bunker has opened for public use, for a small fee of 200 million dollars…” Uzi chuckles smugly, humans were so greedy.
“Now which date was this again?” She asks herself as she digs through the papers, she quickly finds her answer.
“A total of three days after the apocalypse that wiped them all out, ha! Seems like there were a few too many delays.” She says smugly out towards the many empty chairs like a stand-up comedian.
Total silence.
That’s right, she was completely alone.
“I’m never making it out of here, am I? I’ll just stay here forever and ever.” She says, breaking down into tears again.
She laughs to herself, shrinking down into the fetal position and leaning against the podium.
“And even if I did, I’d just hurt everyone around me like the crazy person I am, it’s for the best I’m stuck here...”
“I don’t think that’s true...” She hears the human say again.
She quickly stands up and points her flashlight deep into the darkness, in the direction she heard it from, sure enough; the human is there.
She jumps off the stage and starts walking towards them, but they dart away from her in fear.
“Hey! I’m sorry!” She says, keeping the flashlight on them, but they just keep running away. Eventually the human reaches a door, but just when they’re about to turn the handle and open it, her flashlight goes out.
“Hey, wait!” She says as it happens. “Now of all times? Urgh… Just perfect!”
She fumbles around in the dark as her optical sensors adjust, but eventually she locates the door the human was about to open.
She grabs the handle, but then looks at her hand and pauses.
“...Do I really deserve to leave?” She says meekly, she stands as if stunned in place.
She breathes in and then out.
“I will leave, but first I have a spooky ghost to apologize to.” She answers her own question with resolve.
On the other side of the door is a flight of stairs going up.
“Stairs! Obviously! That’s how I’m getting out of here!” She exclaims.
She takes a step onto a stair, then another, and then another. Bit by bit, floor by floor she makes her way up.
Clang. Clang. Clang. She hears as her feet clash against the stairsteps with determination.
Eventually she reaches section 20 again, she could take a quick break, maybe look for more clues about the ghost?
She opens the door with a kick and then heads out looking for room 4 again, it seems like this section also has no electricity, and therefore no lighting. She quickly finds the broken elevator shaft and from there retraces her steps to the room, finding it within the minute.
When she’s there, she searches the drawers near the one she found the USB in, in one of them she finds…
“Another note? Getting kinda tired of these.” She says.
“I formatted the files for myself, but if you read this, my daughter, it should also be safe for you.” She reads out loud. “Please use it, the fate of the world might rely on it??? What does that mean!?!?!”
She turns the note around to see the other side, it’s signed ‘-Nori.’
“Mom…” Uzi says solemnly, Nori was the name of her mother.
“Your mother… She meant for you to find that?” Uzi heard a whisper.
“Seems like it- Wait a second...” She turned around only to see the human again, falling over onto her back. “Ah! Sweet robo-Jesus, can you not do that!?”
“Robo-Jesus? Really?” The human chuckled at the phrase, they seem to be smiling, but it’s hard to tell when they’re only a silhouette.
“What about it?” Uzi asked.
“Sorry, it’s just funny to me.” The human said, reaching out their hand.
“Bite me!” Uzi replies, but the human continues laughing, she grabs the human’s hand and gets back up.
“But yes, I’ll try not to scare you in the future. That was never my intention by the way, sorry I spooked you so much.” They spoke with regret.
“It’s… Okay. I mostly spooked myself anyway.” Uzi said back.
“How about we get out of here?” The human said. “This place honestly makes me a bit nervous.”
“Great idea! I’ve had enough of spooky dark rooms for today.” Uzi replied.
Suddenly they hear footsteps from outside the room.
“Y’think she’s here?” They can hear Bolt say in the distance.
“Absolutely positive, my compatriot.” Surge's voice, with his characteristic emphasis, can be heard saying, about as far away.
“You said the same about the last 3 sections.” Bolt rebuts.
“Over here!” Uzi says, trying to get their attention.
“I told you my friend! She’s here!” Surge says.
“Can it.” Bolt responds.
After a short while the two find Uzi.
“There you are! Thank robo-God we found you.” Surge says as he sees her, the human chuckles again.
“Yeah, you uhh… Really didn’t need to come find me.” Uzi responds.
“And leave a kid for dead at the bottom of a broken elevator?” Bolt refutes. “We aren’t doing that.”
“I’m legally an adult!” Uzi fights back with.
“So what? You act like a kid.” Bolt counters.
“You do actually.” The human agrees.
“Bite me!” Uzi replied to both.
“Now come child, let us guide you home..” Surge says with a hand gesture.
“Yeah, let's not waste any more time here.” Bolt agrees with him.
Uzi follows the two up the stairs to the normal, not secret sections.
“Y’think you can find your way home from here?” Bolt asks her when they reach the top.
“Yeah, I should be fine.” Uzi says with a smile, she prepares to walk home, but then…
“Actually, before you go.” Bolt says, Uzi stops in her tracks and turns around to face him again.
“We don't want to name names but…” Surge begins.
“...You definitely lied to us so you could reach the floors below, didn't you?” Bolt continues.
“Whaaat? I’d never do thaaat!” Uzi said with emphasis, Bolt just glares at her with an exasperated expression.
“Okay, I might have…” She confesses.
“What a weak confession.” The human says.
“Listen kid, if your dad finds out we broke the elevator, or worse, the door, he will fire us on the spot.” Bolt confides in her with a tired look on his face, but it quickly turns to a devilish smile. “So how about, you don't tell him, and we won't either. No one gets found out and nobody gets punished, okay? Win win.”
Uzi’s initial terror filled stare quickly turns to a mischievous smile.
“Okay! I can live with that!” She says, giggling to herself.
When Uzi returns to her room, she immediately lies down on her bed.
“Urgh…” She groans. “Today’s been WAY too long a day.”
“What a beautiful room you have!” The human said with wonder in their voice. “I love all the black!”
“You probably can't see it, but I used to wear this pretty, black dress!” They continue. “Oh, you would have loved it, I’m sure!”
“Can you do something other than talking?” Uzi sits up and asks angrily.
“Oh. I-I can stop if you want.” The human tells her with sadness in their voice. “It’s really not a big deal.”
“Wait, no, I-I… You can keep talking, I don't mind.” Uzi quickly says.
Regardless, silence fills the room.
“You know… I should keep working on the railgun, I need it mostly done by my next school day.” Uzi says solemnly.
“A-are you sure? You seem really tired.” The human asks her.
“I’ll be fine!” Uzi says. “Sleep is for the weak anyway.”
“You could always work on it tomorrow, I could help even!” The human says back.
“Ha! It's probably already past midnight, so it would just be later today.” Uzi counters with.
“Crikey, my parents would kill me if I stayed up until after midnight!” The human replies.
“Your parents sound like they suck.” Uzi added, the human nodded.
“They did.” They replied sadly.
They both stared at the ground in silence for a bit.
“Uzi.” Uzi said after a bit.
“What?” The human asked, thoroughly confused.
“Uzi. That's… My name.” She elaborated.
“Because you’re small and fierce?” The human jokingly asked.
“Bite me!” She clapped back.
“...I think I'm going to bed.” She then said. “Talk to you tomorrow.”
“Sweet dreams Uzi!” The human said with a smile on their face, Uzi couldn't help but smile too.