Chapter Text
The Doorman household lies quiet. Outside the home, the sun begins to set over frosty lands. Some drones wander the outside to head to restaurants with friends and family. Others return home from a long day of work or head out to the occasional bar for happy hour. But for the Doormans, they’re content staying inside for the evening with a home-cooked meal.
“Okay, Uzi. Are you ready for dinner?” Nori asks gently as she lifts her child from her crib.
Uzi’s optics open up, her eye lights switching to life to stare at her mother. Nori gives her a gentle smile and Uzi beeps back something unintelligible. Her mother chuckles and leaves the nursery to head to the kitchen where Khan waits.
“How’s Uzi doing?” He inquires with a grin semi-hidden by his ‘stache.
“Ready for dinner, but fine otherwise.” Nori returns amusedly. “Is the bottle charged?”
“Yep! And our own dinner will be done soon!” Khan hands over a battery in the shape of a baby bottle.
The female Worker Drone takes it and sits at the table. Propping Uzi up, as soon as the bottle is in her view, a small slot opens in her shell. Nori pops in the bottle’s plug and a small battery icon blinks to life in the corner of Uzi’s visor. Nori stares silently as her daughter charges.
She should be smiling right now, or feeling relieved that Uzi isn’t being difficult in recharging. Yet she can’t help but feel worry more than anything. Enough so that a sweat drop blinks onto her own visor and her leg starts to bounce anxiously. Khan notices and, with a worried crease of his brows, sits next to his wife at the table to grasp her hand.
“Are you okay, Nori?” His voice is soft but encouraging.
His wife opens her mouth to reply, but hesitates. She doesn’t really need to say she is if Khan is asking so suddenly. But how is she supposed to explain her anxieties? It sounds so absurd to anyone who wouldn’t know where she’s come from.
“Is it about… The lab?” But of course, Khan has known for a while her origins.
Nori closes her mouth and nods. Khan vents and tightens his grip on her hand in reassurance.
“You shouldn’t worry so much, Nori. I mean, what are the chances something like that is even hereditary? I think Uzi is going to be just fine.” He gives her another hopeful smile.
But his wife’s expression doesn’t change, only worsens. Nori’s brows crease and her optics flick away. Her hold on Uzi tightens, stirring her recharging child into looking up at her.
“We still can’t be sure, Khan.” Nori whispers.
“Well, we can at least be sure it’s a low chance. Uzi hasn’t had any problems so far, right?” Her husband argues. “Besides, Yeva and her husband had a kid before us and they haven’t noticed anything. If nothing has happened to them, then surely nothing will happen to Uzi.”
‘I still wouldn’t be too sure. They only had Doll just a few months before us.’ Nori wants to respond.
“But if it’ll make you feel better, we can always keep an optic on her. And we can ask Yeva to do the same, just in case.” Khan goes on.
Nori thinks it over for a minute. Her gaze turns back onto her daughter, the bottle’s charge almost sucked dry. She lets out a sigh and nods in agreeement.
“Okay. But we’ll take lots of notes everyday!” Her voice and look turns stern on her husband.
“Of course! And we’ll ask Yeva every now and then about Doll, too!” Khan agrees far more cheerfully.
Nori is still worried but pushes it aside for another time. She takes her hand from Khan’s grip to remove the emptied charge bottle and put it back onto its charger. Then, she goes into Uzi’s nursery to tuck her back into her crib to rest some more. Uzi protests being put down with whimpering boops.
“When me and dad finish dinner, we’ll come play with you, okay?” Nori smirks at her child. “But until then, get some rest, Uzi. We’ll be finished eating soon.”
With a peck to her head, Nori leaves the room. Uzi stares at the spinning mobile hanging above her, decorated with dangling images of animals and tools. It plays a calming tune to fill the silence of the nursery while Uzi waits. It’s enough to lull her into Sleep Mode again.
It didn’t take long for a day where Uzi become impossibly fussy came around. The kind of fussy where no matter what Khan or Nori did, Uzi would simply keep crying with shrill beeping for hours on end. Uzi refused to eat, to sleep, to play, to rest, to simply quiet down. It’s as though her life depended on being so loud.
“Why did Yeva not tell me pillbabies were so impossible to console?!” Nori groaned over her daughter’s bawling.
“Maybe because then she wouldn’t have convinced you to have one otherwise.” Khan returned tiredly. “Come on, Uzi, please stop crying. Here! Look! It’s your favorite toy!” He jiggled the said colorful ball in front of her, making it rattle.
Uzi’s incessant crying stopped. Khan and Nori took in a vent to sigh in relief. But then Uzi’s digital lachrymose started up again, souring the two’s moods all over again.
“I’m starting to think nothing is going to work.” Nori grumbled as she bounced her daughter.
“Maybe it’s one of those times where the baby just needs to cry?” Khan shrugs.
“Maybe…” Nori sighs out. “I’ll put her down and see if she won’t stop crying soon.” She heads for the crib.
Uzi’s tucked inside the plush compartment and surrounded by various toys and stuffed animals. Khan flicks on the mobile, Nori dims the room and turns on a nightlight Cushion Companion, and the two close the door to muffle her loud bawling. It’s still penetrating the metal door, but it’s better than hearing it right next to one’s audial.
“I’m taking a nap.” Nori declares.
“I’ll second that.” Khan nods.
The two head off to their bedroom to get some much-needed rest themselves, all while their child is left to cry everything out. Both feel bad, but the exhaustion is overriding any urge to go back and sit next to their daughter for however long it takes her to stop.
And while they head off to bed for the time being, Uzi rocks and wiggles in her crib. The mobile’s soft tune is drowned by her sobbing consisting of high-pitched beeps and boops and the occasional recorded infant cry tucked in between. The stuffed animals and toys surrounding her do nothing to console her, either.
All the while, Uzi’s room starts to warm up. The pillbaby’s plating itself rises in temperature as she cries. It’s subtle and slow, yet steady in its pace. And the squeezed-shut optical lights flicker and glitch, too. Something urges to break past her eye lights onto her visor. A lavender icon that Uzi doesn’t recognize, but is too busy crying to care about. All she wants is her favorite plush–
An even large image of the icon suddenly flares to life on the floor of her room. Its bright yellow form startles the robotic baby into quieting down to look over. The brilliant glow shifts and morphs and a deep rumble sounds out in the room. The temperature grows even higher as embers rise from the triangular icon on the floor. At the same time, something else rises to make a grand entrance.
{Hmhmhm– Hahahaha! Yes! Once more, I have arisen!} The rumbling turns out to be a dark chuckle. {Those humans… They thought they could control ME!?} A dark hand slams onto the floor.
The unknown figure hauls himself from the icon’s pit. Liquid metal falls to the floor while embers and ash filter up. With one good lunge, the beast frees himself from the pit and laughs again, the sound akin to an erupting volcano’s quaking.
{SUCH PITIFUL CREATURES COULD NEVER CONTROL ME!!} It declares suddenly before lurching over. {NOW THEN! Who has finally awakened to my–!?} And just as suddenly, it stops.
The room goes dead silent.
The new being holding himself up from the floor via his giant hands stares at the pillbaby sitting in her crib. There’s a long moment where they do nothing but stare.
The triangular icon forming the thing’s head blinks in the center—the hexagon. He turns his holographic head towards the rest of the room. There is no one else there but the pillbaby.
{Wait a minute,} It turns back to Uzi. {Wait a minute.}
Turning around frantically, there truly is no one else in the room. A giant hand clutches at the spiked chain around its intangible neck, if it even has one. He tugs at it and the chain’s end goes taut in Uzi’s direction. He turns back around to stare dumbfounded at the untrained neural network.
{No…} He vents. {You’re… You’re kidding me.} He hunches over the crib.
Uzi’s gaze follows him. The two stare again. Then, out of the blue, Uzi’s virtual eyes begin to water. Her new guest’s singular eye goes even wider. And before long, Uzi is crying all over again. As for the being above her, he falls back into his pit somewhat to simply stare off into space.
{Is my… Is my new host… A baby?} He questions as though it were not explicitly shown to him. {How did–? Why? When?! FOR WHAT REASON!?!} He bellows.
And then, a twinge. He turns back down to the baby sobbing in her crib, making tiny rocks and jerks as she does so. There’s a messy, fuzzy image in his head. A black and white toy of some kind. It looks soft and fluffy.
{My host really is a damn child.} He speaks in disbelief.
His neon yellow icon head tilts back to the said child. There’s another minute taken to simply stare before he lets out a begrudging, tired, and defeated sigh. His hands cover his holographic face as he resists the urge to make like this baby and sob. Instead, he takes a deep vent and straightens.
{Alright, infant! This item of yours, I’ll locate it and bring it back to you!} He declares instead, crossing his arms.
Uzi doesn’t reply. Just cries. The new being in her room slouches in defeat but goes on his way looking around. Which is almost easier said than done when he’s so big in this tiny space filled with nooks and crannies to sort through.
{Hmph. I’m not going to let some bedroom defeat me! I am the Absolute Solver! I am a God!} The Absolute Solver huffs.
He turns to the nearest toy chest and opens it to dig around. Nope.
The dresser full of baby clothes, blankets, sheets, and then some. Also Nope.
The small trashcan in the corner of the room. Nadda.
Under any tables or nightstands. Just some smaller toys she probably doesn’t even know exist.
The rocking chair situated by a curtain window–
{Aha!} Solver’s head brightens. {There we are! Small plush toy unearthed from the recesses of this rocking chair!} He lifts it triumphantly as though it were a skull of a human, freshly torn from the body. {Here you go, infant. Don’t lose it again.} Before promptly tossing it nonchalantly into the crib.
It smacks Uzi in the face but ceases her crying. She opens her optics to stare at the soft cow doll draped haphazardly over her form. She makes a happy chirp and wiggle in response.
Solver comes back over to stare at her. Uzi settles in for some sleep while he watches. The hexagon in the center of his head folds in over the top, giving him a flat look. He sits down deeper into his fiery pit and props his head up with his hand, his arms sitting on the floor.
{Hmph. Can’t believe I’ve been awakened by a child of all things. I know I had older drones becoming my hosts.} He grumbles. {In fact, you look like one of them, don’t you? With those bright purple eyes of yours…} His eye widens.
Solver leans in closer and nudges the stuffed cow out of the way to view Uzi’s eye lights. The lavender purple color brings images of a woman with royal purple hair to mind.
{Ah, I remember now. That 002 robot. You look exactly like her in th eye department.} He pulls his hand away. {I guess she went and had you, huh, infant? Makes me wonder if any of the others had offspring as well.} He returns to resting and musing on his hand. {If they have… Will I also be seeing them? Or will they simply have a fraction of my power?} His sights turn to the pillbaby.
Uzi is fast in Sleep Mode, oblivious to his ramblings. Solver just huffs and moves to rest on his forearms.
{I suppose I’ll figure that out in due time. Though, it would not surprise me if it turns out to be true.} The room’s temperature lowers back down to something more comfortable. {For now, I’ll just have to… Get used to, huh… To my new host being an infant.}
Solver goes quiet. The room’s temperature gradually becomes more stable and comfortable. Sovler glances around. A clock screen in the wall ticks on by. The entire home remains in quietude.
It isn’t long until boredom sets in.