Archive of Our Own

“Goooood morning~! Wakey wakey! The sun is shining, the clouds are bright, and remember: I love you!”

A74K5PM opened his eyes to the cheery voice coming from his headset. He reached over and picked it up, pulled the strap over his head and let the visor settle over his eyes. Kitty Idolstar, his mechanical idol and dream figure flooded his vision with a smile and a twirl. “Hiiii~ I missed you! Ready for a good day’s work? Here’s your favourite track to start your day!” He swung his legs over the side of his bed and got up as Kitty started singing ‘Aether Love,’ a bubbly song about an adventurous lover lightyears away in space, while he ambled over to his kitchen to collect his nutrient bar from the dispenser. He ate his breakfast to the sounds of Kitty’s melodic voice bringing the song to a close. “And now a special request from a veeeery special listener! Here comes ‘City Boy!’” He stepped into the shower and Kitty sang to him about a young man lost in the big city and finding his dream. The warm water ran over his body, refreshing him and washing away the final remnants of sleep from his mind. Kitty danced and twirled in front of his eyes, her skirt riding up with the spin, then she made hearts with her hands at him. He switched off the water and got dressed, buttoning up his shirt, tying up his laces, and stepping out into the big city to walk to work.
The walk was accompanied by Kitty's spirited tones. Fellow clones all around him walked to their offices, while big orange First Response droids with bright pixelated smiles patrolled the streets. One stopped to greet him with a chirpy “Good morning!” as he turned to head into his office building. On the elevator ride up, Kitty told a story about a clone she met on tour. “Oh he was so brave, and dashing too! I’ll never forget him!” His heart lurched. A74K5PM knew that his chance would come, when one day Kitty would tour his home planet. Then, he too would have the chance to meet her, and maybe more. “But enough about that! It's time to get to work! Work hard and earn those credits! I love you!” A74K5PM sat down at his desk in his cubicle and numbers flooded his screen. He caught Kitty in the corner of his eye trying to catch her own tail and laughed softly at her antics, then put his head down and got buried in the numbers.
Soon Kitty was waving at him to get his attention, and he pulled himself away from the numbers and his screen. “Hey you~ It’s lunchtime! You did good today, you’ve earned it!” He got up and followed his coworkers into the canteen as they lined up in front of the dispensers to collect their nutrient bars. When it was A74K5PM’s turn to collect his bar, Kitty bent down to make a show of smelling the food and licking her lips. “Mmmm that smells delicious! Enjoy your meal!” He brought his food with him to a table and settled between two clones, digging into his bar near a projector shining Kitty high into the air above them, posing with a mic in front of her mouth and her arm raised high above her head. A great big smile covered her face and the text under her sparkling knee-high boots read “Keep dreaming! You got this!” A74K5PM polished off his nutrient bar and got up with the rest of the clones who filed back to their cubicles. As he sat back down in front of his screen of numbers, Kitty swayed in front of his eyes. “Almost there~! Keep it up!” With a final, gentle nod, he put his head down and started working with the numbers once more.
Finally, A74K5PM’s screen switched off. He blinked, and his eyes darted to Kitty. “Congratulations! You made it through another purrrrfect day of work! Yay~! Here’s a song just for you!” She closed her winged eyes and sang a slow song as he got up from his cubicle and headed for the elevator. It took him down to the lobby where he filed out with all the other clones and started heading home, tired but happy for the good day of work. A First Response droid passing by waved as he walked under the city lights, and the sky darkened as the sun set behind him. The fluorescent lights lining the pavement reflected off his shoes as he hummed gently along with Kitty’s singing. She smiled, and continued to sing for him all the way home. A74K5PM reached his apartment complex and slid his key into the door of his apartment, opening it to reveal his home. It was a tiny box, with only a small kitchen, a bathroom and his bedroom. He kicked off his shoes, undid his shirt, and lay down on his bed surrounded by his Kitty merchandise decorating his walls. Posters, records, vinyls, CDs, wristbands, bags, stickers, and shelves filled with figurines from all her tours. He looked up at the empty space he had saved for Kitty’s latest seasonal figurine when he had saved up enough credits. Soon the lights in his apartment dimmed and Kitty blew him a kiss from his headset. “Goodnight and sleep well my prince. Remember: I love you~!” With a contented sigh, A74K5PM pulled his headset off his eyes and placed it tenderly on the bedside table, then put his head down in his pillow and closed his eyes to sleep.

“Rise and shine~! Today is a beautiful day for good work! It’s time to get up and crunch those numbers!”

The next day, A74K5PM was roused from his sleep by his singing headset, and he reached over to put it on. He fastened the strap over the back of his head and let the visor sit over his eyes. Kitty Idolstar flooded his vision, swaying and smiling brightly, cat ears flicking atop her head excitedly. “Good morning! Ready to get started? Today’s gonna be a good day! Here’s your favourite track to start you off with a bang!” Kitty pointed finger guns at him and mimicked a shot, before launching into her hit single “Aether Love” which washed over A74K5PM’s ears like a sweet balm as he swung his legs out of bed and got up. He looked over once more at the space on his shelf he had left for Kitty’s latest figurine and decided that today, he would work extra hard to earn the credits for it. He shuffled into his kitchen and collected his nutrient bar as Kitty finished her song with a twirl, her eyes sparkling with joy as she quipped “Eat up! You gotta get your nutrients in if you wanna be the best you at work! Oh! That reminds me of a song! Here comes ‘Star-crossed lovers!’” A74K5PM finished off his bar and stepped into the shower, watching Kitty dance and sing. Her short pink skirt flowed and swung in time with the music, and the tight corset hugging her waist twisted with her moves, while her strapless dress bounced and jumped along to the beat. Her arms, covered in long pink sleeves, came down next to her body and her hands landed on her hips with a flourish. He smiled at her endearingly as she giggled, then turned off the shower and stepped into his clothes, buttoning up his shirt and tying his laces, before heading out into the city to walk to work.
He slipped out of his apartment complex and on his walk to work, a First Response droid chirped to him about what a lovely day it is. Kitty continued to sing as he filed into his office between the other clones, into the elevator up to his cubicle, where he sat down to begin his work. “Keep your head up! You got this~!” Kitty gave him a twirl and sat down in the corner of his visor, letting him put his head down and concentrate on the numbers. Soon it was lunchtime, and A74K5PM got up along with all his other clones, and they lined up to collect their nutrient bars. As he walked up to the dispenser to collect his bar, Kitty sang to him, her flowing voice warbling a soft tune about missing her lover. His chest tightened. He took his seat at his table as the projection of Kitty shined overhead, winking and blowing a kiss down at them with the words “Work hard! I love you!” He ate his lunch and walked in line back to his cubicle, where Kitty encouraged him to finish the day strong, and he put his head down to compute the rest of his numbers.
By the time his screen finally shut off, darkness had fallen outside. Kitty chirped, pulling him away from his work with a start. “Hey, time to clock out! And what a good day it was, another perfect day of work!” A74K5PM got up from his chair and headed for the elevator, taking him down to the grand lobby lined in sleek shiny obsidian, and out into the darkening night. “Since you did so well today, I’ve got a special song lined up just for you!” And Kitty started singing to him. His legs walked him along the familiar route home, the pavement was lit up by the street lights, and his shoes reflected the lights lining the street while he walked, when his foot caught on a curb.

A sharp pain jolted up his arm. His knee was bruised. He gasped and found himself sprawled on the ground. His headset lay a few feet away. The lens was cracked.

“K… Kitty?” He croaked.

The headset lay there. Silent. No light shone from it now. He crawled towards it. His fingers closed around the visor. He held it closer to his face. He cleared his throat.

“Kitty…?”

He winced as the voice of a clone shouted in the distance.

“No! I’m telling you! She loves me! She NEEDS me!”

The metallic voice of First Response yelled back.

“Sir, put down the broken glass! You’re disturbing the peace!”

“I have to do this! I have to save her!”

His heart stopped. His mind raced. Hypermania suppression.

“Sir! This is your final warning! Put down your weapon or we will open fire!”

His heart beat faster. He clutched his headset tighter. Flinched at every distant pop pop pop. Lay dead still in the silence that followed. Breathed raggedly. His mind reeled. Then, he heard the voice of the First Response droid.

“Threat neutralized. Returning to patrol.”

He swallowed hard. A whirlwind whipped through his head. First Response had neutralized someone. A hypermaniac. Someone was dead. A clone. Just like him. A74K5PM yelped as he felt his hand get crushed. He looked up at the clone who had stepped on it, and opened his mouth to say something when he saw the clone hadn’t even noticed him. His eyes were hidden behind his visor. Completely blind to the world around him. Just shuffling forward, one step at a time. He was humming a song. Bile rose up in his throat as he recognized the song. ‘Cat’s paradise.’ The clone looked exactly like him. The same shirt. The same shoes. The same face. A shaky breath escaped his lungs. The same headset. He looked down at the cracked headset in his own hands.

“Kitty… What…”

A shadow loomed over A74K5PM before he could finish the question. His eyes roved up the figure standing high above him staring blankly down at him. A titanium plated droid, padded in bright orange armour, holding a massive matte black rifle pointed at the ground near his face. A flickering LED screen of pixels pictured a smiley face on its head. It reflected the lights off its pure metal frame like a tank. He gulped. It started to speak, a robotic voice coming from hidden speakers somewhere near its head.

“Hello! It looks like your headset is broken. Do you need any assistance wi-”

A74K5PM’s arms had already pushed him up off the ground and he was running. Past the droids. Past the clones. Past the towering obelisks that served as their offices, past the smog that hung in the sky, blocking out the moon and the stars, past the lights that did nothing more than cast a small orange glow on the grey city that surrounded him. He kept running until his knees started to shake. Until his side started to hurt. Until he couldn’t run any further. He slowed down. Then stopped. Hands on his knees. Breathing heavily, heart pounding.
The silence engulfed him. Clones all around him walked along the streets. All wearing the same shirt, the same shoes, the same headset, the same face. It was dead silent, only the low hum of electricity filled the air, broken by the occasional humming or soft chuckle from the nearby clones. A74K5PM’s head spun. He looked up, away from the clones, up to the sky. The sun was blocked out by a grey blanket of smoke in the air. Rows upon rows of buildings lined the street, large, black, and ominous, reaching up into the sky, deep into the polluted air and disappearing into the grey.
His stomach pitched. He doubled over and vomited. Rubbed the tears from his eyes. A clone bumped into him from behind and he stumbled. “Hey! Watch it!” He heard his own voice yell at him. The clone passed by, shaking his head at A74K5PM and continuing on. He knew he couldn’t stay. He had to go somewhere. Anywhere but here. He started walking. His legs brought him to the only place he knew. Home. His key slotted into his door. He shut it behind him and sat on his bed.
Finally in the safety of his apartment, he felt the cracked headset he had been holding and looked down at it. It was dark now. No light came from inside. No voice spoke to him. He put it over his head and only saw his shelves of Kitty merchandise through the cracked lens. Kitty herself was nowhere to be found. He let out a shaky breath that almost broke into a sob, forcing it back down with a swallow. A74K5PM set the lifeless headset down on his bedside table, and laid his head down on his pillow to get no sleep that night.

Pop pop pop.

“Threat neutralised. Returning to patrol.”

The night’s events were replaying in his head when A74K5PM was interrupted by his doorbell ringing. He rubbed his face and groaned. In the back of his eyelids, he could see a sea of faces. His faces. All wearing headsets, all humming the same Kitty tunes. He opened his eyes and got up out of bed, slowly walking over to the door to find a package left on his doorstep. He brought it over to his table and cut it open. There was a brand new headset sitting inside. The polished visor reflected the morning light and the strap looked soft, begging to be picked up and put on. He reached for it out of instinct.

“Goooood morning~!”

He gasped and flinched when it spoke to him. He paused, then, with a shaky hand he picked up the strap and fastened it around his head. With a final breath, he pulled the headset down to sit over his eyes. Kitty Idolstar’s bright sparkly dress and beaming smile turned to face him. “Ready to start the day? Here’s your favourite track just for you!”
He stared at her. There she was, singing and dancing for him like she always did. He cleared his throat. “Uh… K-Kitty?”
Kitty just kept singing. He watched her, unable to form any words with his mouth. His voice was small and raspy as he tried to speak. “Kitty, I…”
She continued to sing and dance her song ‘Aether Love.’ A74K5PM let her finish, and when she hit her final pose, A74K5PM tried again. “Um, Kitty, I wanted to a-”
“And that was Aether Love! Remember: work hard, be good, and I love you!”
A74K5PM barely registered her final words over the ringing in his ears. His mouth went numb. His throat was dry. He swallowed. Kitty’s form flickered and she took a step closer to him, looking concerned. “Hey… It looks like you’re still at home… is everything okay?”
A74K5PM blinked in surprise, then opened his mouth to speak.
“Yeah, Kitty, I jus-”
“Don’t take too long alright? Remember a happy clone is a working clone! So let’s get to work and work hard today okay? For me?” She pouted, ears flat against her head, and batted her eyelashes at him, and A74K5PM’s heart beat faster. The blood rushed to his ears when he saw her gentle face looking upset.
“...Yeah… okay.” He nodded and squared his jaw. “Right. Let’s get to work.”
He let Kitty’s sweet voice wash over him as he collected the nutrient bar from his dispenser. She sang a sweet melody about a dreamer in a big city. He furrowed his brow as he chewed on the brittle bar. He listened closely. It was a dream about meeting a star and being taken on a grand adventure across space. Her voice followed him into the shower. “Mmmm oh wow~ I always do love the ones who can dream big! Who knows, maybe that could be you one day!” He slowed down, hands pausing on his body mid-scrub. Then he shook his head and started scrubbing again.
His eyes stayed on Kitty the whole morning. He was out the door, clothed and on his way to work before he even realized what he was doing. He had been so focused on Kitty, her words, her voice, her dance, that he missed the First Response droid greeting him. Through the lobby and up the elevator he listened closely.
“Oh he was so brave, and dashing too! I’ll never forget him!”
She was halfway through telling her story about a clone she knew long ago when A74K5PM froze in the midst of all his carbon copies in the elevator. The door opened and they all surged out around him. He found himself pushed along by the wave of bodies and he filed into his cubicle. His hands came up to his keyboard. The screen of numbers filled his vision. But all he could see was Kitty’s holographic figure sitting in the corner of his vision. Her body flickered and she was standing. Her tail waved gently as she put her hands together in front of her lap. She looked up at him, concerned.
“Hey… It’s time to work… Work hard okay? For me?”
A74K5PM’s mouth hung open slightly as he struggled to speak. His heart raced and a numbness spread in his gut. She looked so sad.
“Right… s-sorry…”
He watched her for a moment longer then shook his head. He took a deep breath. Then, he put his head down to begin work, letting the numbers flood his mind.
Soon, Kitty was waving at him, trying to get his attention. He tore his eyes away from his screen and gasped audibly as he saw her jumping and waving. “Heyyy~ It’s lunchtime! Go get your nutrient bar, boy! You’ve earned it~” He stared at her for a moment, then got up slowly, slightly behind his coworker clones, moving between them single file to the canteen. At the dispenser, Kitty bent down and gasped dramatically. “Wow, that looks amazing! Chef totally outdid themselves today~”
A74K5PM spoke softly, as if he was afraid of his own voice.
“Uh… I-it’s only a nutrient bar. We… eat it every day.”
Kitty continued to hum, her legs swaying back and forth as she sat on a virtual ledge. He winced and swallowed. He picked up his bar and took it to his seat under the Kitty projection. Alone.
When he finished, he got up with the rest of the clones and shambled back into his cubicle. Kitty was telling him a story but he couldn’t hear it over the ringing in his ears. Even as he sat in front of his computer and the numbers flooded his eyes, he couldn’t focus. All he could think about was Kitty’s silence. That she had ignored him. That she hadn’t heard a word he said. Only when the screens shut off at the end of the day did he feel his mind snap back into his body. His eyes darted over to Kitty in the corner who had her arms behind her back and her head down, avoiding his gaze.
“You missed your quota today…”
A74K5PM watched helplessly as text appeared in his headset.

Infractions: 1

His hands shook. The blood drained from his face and his breath grew ragged. His vision swam as Kitty’s faded voice tried to reassure him from the background. “But it’s okay! I’m sure you’ll do better tomorrow! Right? For me?” He barely heard her. He could only hear the beating of his own heart as something stuck in his throat, closing it up. He reeled. Half income. His income had been sliced in half. His credits. Halved. He got up slowly, shakily, holding the desk for support. He stumbled over to the elevator. Half. The city passed by him. His legs walked. His key slotted into his door. He was in bed when he came to, only for his eyes to focus on his shelf. On the empty space he had saved for the figurine. His vision blurred. Something wet dripped down his cheek. He turned on his side, curled up, and cried.
A74K5PM awoke the next morning with his dried tears crusted on his face. He didn’t know how long he was awake or when he finally fell asleep. All he knew was that his headset was singing to him from his bedside table. He couldn’t bring himself to look at it. The tiny voice kept singing and talking while he laid there. Only when the singing finally ended did he manage to move himself into the kitchen to dispense a nutrient bar. He crunched into his bitter bar and grimaced, then spat it out.
In the distance he could hear a clone yelling. He could hear the mechanical voice of First Response yell back. Then a series of distant pops, before finally, silence. A74K5PM shuddered. He left his nutrient bar and stepped into the shower to let the water rinse him quickly. When he was dressed, he finally found the strength to look at his bedside table. At the headset. He reached out with one hand. He grabbed the strap and fastened it over the back of his head. He let the visor rest over his eyes. Kitty flooded his vision. “Hey… Where have you been?” She held her hands over her chest, and her lower lip trembled. A74K5PM looked down shamefully but Kitty stayed under his gaze in the visor. “You’re late… Didn’t you want to see me? C’mon, It’s time to get to work.” Her form flickered and she started singing.
He hurried to work, determined not to let her down, and he stepped out onto the street. In front of his apartment complex, a First Response droid was patrolling. It was covered head to toe in pure titanium painted in a bright orange. The joints in its metal trunk legs whirred as it clanged forward. A74K5PM could feel the thump in the ground with every heavy footfall slamming against the pavement. In its giant metal hands, it held a huge black rifle, with a barrel as long as A74K5PM’s arm. The droid itself towered over him and spanned the street, fully covered in a layer of thick armour. The smiley face drawn across the screen turned slowly to face him. Its neck hissed and clanked in place, halting jarringly, A74K5PM realized, to look directly at him. He looked away quickly but it was too late.
“Hey!”
A74K5PM flinched when its mechanical voice came out through its speakers.
“Y… yeah?”
It turned the rest of its body to face him. It started stomping towards him. Every step hit the ground with the force of a truck and a sound like a hydraulic press. A74K5PM forced himself to look up at the wall of metal staring down at him, knees shaking wildly and arms trembling.
“Have a good day at work!” It chirped brightly.
A74K5PM blinked. He took a step back. “R... R-r-right. Y-yeah.” He froze for a second, nodded, and hurried away, his mind replaying the same voice he heard two nights ago.
“Threat neutralized. Returning to patrol.”
Only when he reached the lobby did he let out a sigh of relief. He paused to catch his breath. His eyes drifted to Kitty who was in the middle of a story. “...had saved up so many credits just to come out to see me! And that’s what inspired this song!” A74K5PM turned his head to sneak a look at the other clones piled in next to him in the elevator. He looked closer at their headsets. The identical visors covered their identical faces as they all stared forward at the elevator doors. He shuddered and quickly turned back to face the doors as well. The elevator buzzed its way up to his office.
He followed the other clones out into the offices, and filed into his cubicle where he sat at his computer and stared at his screen. Kitty sang softly to him “Time to get to work! Work hard and remember, I love you!” A74K5PM’s chest filled with heat. He heard those last words over and over in his head. “Work hard!” His attention drifted to Kitty humming in the corner of his visor. “I love you!” His chest heaved. His vision blurred. His hand curled into a fist.
“Hey… what are you doing?”
A74K5PM’s eyes snapped back to Kitty. She was toeing the ground with her high heel boots, hands behind her back, head down and eyes sparkling softly as her bright pink lips moved with tender sadness.
“Why aren’t you working? Did I do something wrong?”
The heat drained from his chest. He looked back at the screen, avoiding looking at Kitty.
“Work hard okay? Please? For me?”
He gulped and nodded. His heart shattered at her sad cat ears folded downwards. He quickly put his head down and got to work, but his attention refused to hold. He could hear the suffocating endless clicking of keys across the office. His eyes broke away from his screen to look up at the ceiling overhead, the seemingly never ending expanse of grey that spanned far and wide, and he thought of all the clones sitting in the cubicles just like his, as far as the office expanded. All with their own headsets, all with their own… He shuddered. His gaze drifted down to Kitty.
“What are you looking at me for?” She looked up at him teary eyed. “Why aren’t you working? Am I not enough? Don’t…. Don’t you love me?” A74K5PM turned his head, quickly getting engrossed in the numbers on his screen once more.
Before long, it was lunchtime and Kitty was waving at him to get his attention. “Hey! It’s lunchtime!” She looked away then looked up at him sadly. “I have to say… you’re not quite at where you should be for your work.” Then her smile turned bright and she beamed at him. “But that’s okay! I know you’ll work extra hard this afternoon to make up for it, because you love me! And I love you!” A74K5PM stared at her for a moment before the sound of all the clones getting up jolted him into standing and he moved along with them into the canteen. He stood in line for his nutrient bar and took it with him to his seat. He bit into it and it cracked between his teeth. He tried to chew, and swallowed down the bitter chunk. His stomach rumbled unhappily. He looked to his left. He looked to his right. The clones on either side were staring ahead at nothing. The loud grinding of their chewing filled his ears, drowning out Kitty. He tried to take another bite, and spat it out. A pang of hunger shot through his guts but he could not bring himself to taste another bite of the disgusting bitter nutrient bar that they called food. Then all the clones got up and he quickly followed them back to the office, back to his cubicle, to begin another long, tedious session of turning numbers in his head.
A74K5PM struggled to focus on the numbers. Every time he caught his thoughts drifting towards the other clones, he snatched it back towards the screen in front of him, and every time his mind started to wander again. Halfway through his calculation, his screen turned off. His eyes darted to Kitty and he shuddered at the disappointment in her eyes.
“Today was a bad day.” A74K5PM’s shoulders tightened. “I’m sorry. This will hurt me more than it hurts you.”
A notification popped up in his visor.
Infractions: 3
A74K5PM made the calculations instantly. 12.5% income. He stayed in his seat while all the other clones filed into the elevator behind him, disappearing and leaving him all alone in the office.
“I just don’t get it. I did everything for you. Why are you doing this to me? Don’t you love me?”
With a sigh, she turned away, pouting, tail swishing softly behind her. A74K5PM could barely breathe. 3 infractions. Finally, he got to his feet slowly and staggered to the elevator. Only the faint hum accompanied his way down to the lobby. He walked home in a daze. His key appeared in his hand. He pushed it in the lock. Kitty sang and danced. He went to lay down in bed, still wearing his clothes. The space on his shelf taunted him. He wrenched the headset away from his face, desperate to look at anything but Kitty’s disappointed face. Distant gunshots echoed in the night, but all A74K5PM could hear was Kitty’s words. His breathing grew ragged. He was so cold. So alone. He tossed and turned in his bed. His mind drifted to the other clones. To their headsets. He heard Kitty’s voice singing her songs. Coming from the headset. He looked over. It was dark. But he was sure he could hear it. From all the headsets over the other clone’s eyes. All humming the same tune. Kitty’s tune. He rolled over. The way she spoke to him. The sadness in her eyes. The disappointment. The anguish. He clenched his jaw. The way she said she loved him. She loved him. As the sun rose, he kept his eyes squeezed shut, his mind filled with images of all the times Kitty told him she loved him. Images of the other clones. Her prince. Her lover. She was lying. He gasped and grabbed his head. Fucking liar. He rolled out of bed and stumbled into the kitchen. How could she!? He grabbed the countertop and groaned. Kitty. Not him. Not all the other clones. The other clones. His stomach turned. Her lover, lost in space. He growled as his heart lurched. His hand closed around the handle. His idol. The dream. His vision swam. Her dream. His dream. Their dream. Fuck! His feet stumbled along in the street. A million other clones. So blind. So lost. He knew he had to wake them up. He stalked forward. A shepherd. A kitchen knife sat in his hand. He held it up. He watched it glint in the sun. A man walked in front of him. His heart beat. Thump. Thump. Thump. He looked just like him. How dare he!? He watched his headset. Kitty in the headset. He stepped forward. The knife in his hand raised. He knew what he must do. He growled. The knife would free him. The knife would free them all. The knife came crashing down.
A hand caught his wrist.
“Stop! That’s enough!”
He struggled. He tried to swing the knife again, but the hand held him firm.
“Hey! Hey, look at me!”
A face swam in front of his eyes. His own face, mirrored, but something was off. He tried to move his arm, but couldn't.
“Breathe! Breathe…” The man took a deep breath.
A74K5PM also took a deep breath. His arm slackened.
“That’s it… you’re okay… breathe…”
A74K5PM took another breath. His vision focused. A clone was holding his arm. He looked at him closely. Something about this one was different.
“You still with us? Good… That’s it… You’re okay. Just keep breathing.”
A74K5PM lowered his knife. He turned his attention away from the strange man to look at the clone he was about to stab. That clone was still walking, humming along to Kitty’s music without a care in the world. The clone in front of him looked up as a mechanical clanking drew closer and a shadow swallowed them both. The First Response droid looked down at the man.
“Hello! Can I help you? Where is your headset?”
That’s when it dawned on A74K5PM. The man, his face was clear. No headset sat over his eyes.
“No, we're okay.” He pointed at his eyes. “I lost it. Got a replacement on the way.”
“Oh! Okay, carry on then.”
The First Response droid stomped away, waving at another behemoth orange droid. The clone let go of A74K5PM’s wrist and started walking, looking around with shifty eyes. “C’mon, we gotta get outta here. Can’t stay here.” Without any better ideas, A74K5PM followed him quickly as he walked between two buildings to a manhole cover. He pried it up and nodded at A74K5PM. “After you.” A74K5PM descended the ladder down into the musty sewers.
The smell hit him long before his vision could adjust to the darkened sewers. The smell of waste and rubbish assaulted his nose, vile and putrid as his eyes struggled to see in the dark and watered at the stench. A74K5PM held his nose and gasped through his mouth. The dark figure in front of him turned and tightened his lips.
“Smells like shit huh? Don’t worry, you get used to it.”
“I-it’s awful…” A74K5PM rasped and cleared his throat. “What are we doing down here?”.
“I dunno how much you remember, but you almost stabbed someone today.” A74K5PM looked at the knife. He shuddered as he remembered flashes of how it appeared in his hand. How he had found himself moments away from driving it into another clone. “We’re just gonna lay low for a bit. C’mon. I wanna show you something.” The clone in front of him reached back and yanked his headset off. “And take that shit off. You won’t need it down here.” He tossed the headset back to A74K5PM and continued walking. A74K5PM caught the headset in his hands and swallowed as he realized he couldn’t remember when he had put the headset on either. They passed a spray painted sign pointing in the direction they were headed with the marking “Hypermaniacs this way! Beware!” and A74K5PM’s throat tightened as he froze. Then he realized the clone was moving ahead and followed quickly after him down an intersection and through a makeshift door.
The door was made up of roughly cut metal squares that threatened to slice A74K5PM when he touched it. Inside the room, there were several large plots of dirt contained within rusty frames, with green stems protruding from the ground. A group of dirty clones wearing ragged shirts and ripped up jeans were handling a rank sludge with shovels, applying them over the plants. A74K5PM held his nose, but was surprised to see they were smiling and chattering despite the gross nature of the work. None of them were wearing their headsets. Instead, they wore rifles slung over their shoulders and pistols at their hips. They looked up and nodded, and one walked over to the man who had led A74K5PM into the sewers.
“Heya Slick!” The clone wiped his dirty glove on his brow, spreading sludge on his face, and leaned on his shovel. “Who’s the newbie?” He nodded at A74K5PM.
“Just a topsider. Caught the maniac boutta stab one of his guys in the street.” Slick glanced at A74K5PM with a scoff. “Mad. I’m giving him the tour.”
The clone just laughed and patted A74K5PM on the back. “You’re lucky. You got picked up by a legend! Y’know, Slick here got o-”
“Alright, alright.” Slick interrupted “Don’t you got work to do, Sentry? Don’t think I don’t know your little trick, talkin’ the ear off our newbie to get outta farming duty. Back to it.”
The other clone gave A74K5PM a sheepish grin and turned back to his plot, shovelling more sludge to cover the soil. Slick turned to A74K5PM. “Yeah, so uh… this is our farm. We grow our food here. No shitty nutrient bars for us.” A74K5PM looked around. In the corner sat denim sacks, repurposed using old jeans, and tools bent into shape from metal rods and sheets, neatly hung up on a gutted server rack. In another corner sat the source of the foul smell, waste which clones were shoveling into the plots and complaining loudly about. Slick nudged A74K5PM. “Fuckin’ reeks. Glad I'm not on duty today. C’mon.”
A74K5PM followed Slick out the door. They turned at a junction where an arrow pointing backwards showed a picture of manure, and the way they were headed showed a smiley face eating a bar. Through the door A74K5PM could hear the raucous roar of laughter and loud conversation. Inside, the noise hit him in the face like a brick. Rows of crowded tables filled the mess hall. Clones shoved each other, laughed loudly, and talked over each other. Overturned server racks served as benches beneath crude tables welded together from scrap metal. He followed Slick into line in front of a makeshift counter where kitchenhands were serving food to the clones. Slick handed a metal tray to A74K5PM and grabbed one for himself. As they stood in line, the smell of the fresh rice and beans wafted towards him. He swallowed as his mouth watered. Slick looked over at him. “Yeah you like that, huh? Anything beats that shit they serve up topside.” Finally, they reached the chefs, and they ladled up food into Slick’s tray before looking at A74K5PM still holding his headset.
“Well hello! You new here? Check it, today we got a top of the line fresh, piping hot rice, accompanied by deliciously toasted beans, just for you!” The chef piled up a massive portion onto A74K5PM’s tray with a hearty laugh, and his stomach rumbled. “Enjoy! Today’s special is on the house!”
Slick scoffed. “Knock it off Axe. We eat the same shit every day. Don’t play with the newbie.”
The chef held up his ladle with an innocent shrug. “Oh c’mon Slick, don’t be like that. Just tryna have some fun.” He turned back to A74K5PM. “Say, you’re Slick’s catch, huh? That man alone has done more for the cause than a generation. As a matter of fact, why don’t you take more, we’ll put it on Slick’s tab.” Axe winked and spooned up another ladleful before Slick stopped him.
“Leave him alone. He’s been through a lot today.” Slick nodded to an empty table. “C’mon let’s sit over there.” A74K5PM followed him as Axe waved his ladle. “Ciao! Come back any time! Remember Axe has always got a table and a plate waiting for ya!”
They took their seats with their trays. At the table behind them, a clone was standing and recounting a story loudly to his compatriots.
“...And so I says to them ‘why don’t I rip it off his face!’”
“Huh? That doesn’t make any fucking sense. You always tell the worst fucking jokes Matador.”

The table howled with laughter and shoved him, making fun of him, and A74K5PM felt a smile spread across his cheeks. He turned back to Slick, who was looking at the food like it personally offended him. A74K5PM looked down at his own steaming tray and pushed a spoonful of rice and beans into his mouth. The taste was heavenly, like Kitty singing sweet love directly to his tongue, and he swallowed the easiest bite of food he had ever tasted in his life.
“Mmh, mahn, thish ish delishush!” A74K5PM exclaimed through a mouthful of rice and beans.
“Uh huh.” Slick muttered, poking at his food, before shaking his head and turning back to A74K5PM. “Oh… uh… this is our canteen. We get our grub here. I’m sure you figured that out.”
A74K5PM nodded and swallowed, savouring the lingering aftertaste. He chowed down hungrily before turning to Slick.
“Mmff… Schl…” He swallowed his mouthful of food. “Slick… that’s you?”
Slick nodded. “That’s me.”
“That’s not a clone designation.”
Slick shook his head. “No, it’s not. I don't remember what it was. You should ditch yours too.”
A74K5PM paused his chewing. “Ditch my name?”
“Your designation.” Slick corrected him. “You’re not an inventory number anymore.”
A74K5PM chewed thoughtfully about the names he’d heard so far. “Then… I wanna be…I wanna be Shotgun! No, wait Reaper! Oooh, That sounds badass.”
Slick looked at him in surprise, and the corners of his mouth twitched upwards. “You don’t get to choose your name. You earn it. For now, you’ll be Rookie.”
A74K5PM looked at his empty plate, disappointed. “Oh…”
Slick followed his gaze to his tray. “You finished? C’mon, let’s keep moving.”
Slick brought their trays over to the counter before heading back into the tunnels, following an arrow with the spray of a box with a tube in the middle. Slick held open the door for A74K5PM to see inside, branching passageways opened into makeshift rooms. Lights flickered over server racks stacked up on their fronts to form tables, and empty server racks holding rolls of papers like shelves. Standing over the tables were clones in deep, heated discussion, with papers rolled out to reveal that they were old Kitty posters, with crude maps and notes drawn on the backs. A74K5PM moved to step inside but Slick stopped him.
“No, don’t disturb them. These are our meeting rooms. You’ll get to know them better in time.”
In one of the rooms, a clone spotted Slick, and waved at him to come join them, but Slick just grimaced and closed the door. He tapped his chin thoughtfully.
“Well… I think that’s it. What am I missing… Always missing something.” He smacked his forehead. “Oh, right. Duh. Man, Barkeep would kill me if he found out I forgot the most important part of the tour.”
He led a confused A74K5PM down another tunnel. The arrow pointed this way had a crude picture of a woman with cat ears. A74K5PM felt his heart lurch. He stopped and looked down at his headset sadly. A hand smacked the back of his head and he yelped, rubbing the spot where Slick had hit him.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“Forget her. What’s she ever done for you?” Slick shook his head and continued walking. “She’s not real. Besides, you’ll like what we got going here way more. Trust me, I’d know. I’m you.” He smiled at his grim joke and approached a door that thrummed with bass. A74K5PM could feel the music leaking through the cracks, pumping his heart with every beat. When Slick opened the door, the music hit him in the face, a melody drowned out by the unrelenting booming of the speakers. Near the speakers, clones were jumping and dancing wildly, throwing their hands over their heads and cheering at a woman who was jumping onstage. When the bass slowed, her melody took over and she sang a sweet song to the crowd who wolf whistled and belted her lyrics back at her. Slick took him over to a bar at the back, away from the crudely welded stage, where the idol was dancing and swaying in time with the crowd, and as the singing reached a fever pitch, the bass started thumping again, sending the clones into an ecstatic frenzy of dancing and cheering.
The clone manning the bar slid over to the pair, shelves behind him lined with bottles. He threw his rag over his shoulder and set the metal cup he was cleaning down on the bar.
“Heya Slick. Newbie.” He nodded and shook A74K5PM’s hand. “The name’s Barkeep. What’s yours?”
“I’m A74-”
“Nope. Wrong answer. You should be Rookie by now. Didn’t Slick teach you nothing?” Barkeep laughed as A74K5PM went red. “Ah, Slick always was a shit mentor. Hell of a fighter though. Y’know, this guy w-”
“Oh c’mon, lay off the kid.” Slick held up a hand and interrupted him. “He’s had a rough day.”
A74K5PM leaned forward. “No I… I wanna hear this. What did Slick do? How’d he earn his name?”
Barkeep grinned. He poured up two glasses for them and served the two clones. “What hasn’t he done? Man’s got more missions under his belt than any of us. But you don’t care about that. You wanna know…” Barkeep puffed out his chest. “The story of Slick!”
A74K5PM looked up at Slick in awe, who was looking away, watching the idol onstage with disinterest and nursing his drink. A74K5PM took a sip from his own cup and grimaced.
“Hahaha! Nasty ain’t it? Leaves you with a headache in the morning too, but it gets you through the night.” Barkeep winked at A74K5PM. “It’s my special concoction. But enough about me. Imagine this: You’re the most elite team in the underground.” He jammed his finger into the bar. “Never once had a failure. One of your teammates cooks up a special plan to blow up the crown jewel… The Communication Relay Administration building!” Barkeep held out his hands with a flourish and A74K5PM gasped instinctively. “The plan is a daring one. Hijack a corporate office building beside it. Make some noise. Draw out First Response and get it locked down. Then, when they pop the alarms? Fucking jump from the roof onto the roof of the comm relay building next door!” Barkeep wrapped an arm around Slick over the bar, who groaned and closed his eyes. “Out of his goddamn mind, this one! Some kind of experimental breed I say.”
“Barkeep…” Slick muttered.
“No, the kid wants to hear this. Right Rookie?”
A74K5PM nodded, listening raptly to the tale.
“So, the madmen set off into the building. They’re makin’ noise, yellin’ and shootin’ and when First Response they’re shootin’ them up too!”
“Shooting up First Response?” A74K5PM’s smile dimmed.
“Yeah! ‘Cause y’know they're built like tanks, but if you aim for the neck riiiight here…” He tapped the side of A74K5PM’s neck. “The armour’s thin enough to sever the wire connected to their CPU and they drop like a sack of rice! So they’re runnin’ and gunnin’ and they’re getting backed up the stairs when the First Response droids just… stop shooting. They pull back.” Barkeep eyed A74K5PM darkly. “CRU has arrived.”
“What’s CRU?”
Barkeep paused. Slick turned back to them, looking pointedly at Barkeep recounting the story. “CRU? Oh boy. Imagine this. Men, dressed in full black, black as night, guns so quiet, steps so silent you never even hear ‘em ‘til they got a gun pressed to your head. It’s who they call when even First Response ain’t enough. Imagine that!” Barkeep took a deep breath. “So! CRU are in the building, and man, these guys are like ghosts. You don’t know where they are, but you know they’re gonna see you long before you see them. But they want CRU occupied in that building while they’re busy in the real target, right Slick?”
“Barkeep, c’mon, enough.” Slick sighed, exasperated.
“No, no, so, CRU is busy sweeping this dummy operation they think is the target, meanwhile Slick and his crew friggin’ jump from the roof onto the building next door, like, I dunno, like eagles or somethin’, and they stick it! But…” Barkeep held his breath for a moment. “They were bein’ tailed. As they go down to plant the bomb, a suppressed shot comes in from the darkness. The planter goes down. They’re fucked now! But what can they do? They gotta huddle together, one setting the bomb while the others defend him from phantoms in the darkness. They get it down and scatter. Like rats in a sewer hahaha!” Barkeep claps Slick on the back. “They wait. The bomb’s arming. Shots in the darkness. Someone goes down. Another. Another, and another, and another! Slick sees something in the dark. The flash of a barrel, pow!” A74K5PM jumps. “But Slick shoots faster! Fucking wastes the guy right there. Bomb’s ticking down. They can’t stop it now. But the building’s locked up tighter than a Kitty concert at full capacity. So what’s he do? What can he do? The absolute maniac, sprints it up the stairs, fast as he can, up to the roof, leggin’ it and jumps, right as the goddamn bomb blows, barely outrunning the antimatter singeing his ass! Onto the next building over. He comes back down to us, hands still ‘slick’ with blood. And that's! How he earned the name, Slick.” Barkeep stood tall and proud, while Slick stared blankly into his cup. “The only man who ever killed a CRU operator and lived to tell us about it.”
A74K5PM looked over at Slick in shock. His jaw was tight, the cup in his hand shaking. It was hard to tell in the dim flashing lights of the club, but he almost looked pale. The bar was silent except for the beating bass and cheering in the background. A74K5PM turned back to Barkeep.
“CRU…”
“That’s right. Counter Revolutionary Unit”

“Counter Revolutionary Unit?”
“Yep! The super soldiers of the computer!”
“Oh my god…”
“I know! Insane right?”
A74K5PM’s stomach heaved. “Y-you guys are revolutionaries!”
Barkeep’s smile faded. Slick finally looked up.
“Rook…” He put a hand on his shoulder. “Listen, w-”
“No!” A74K5PM stood up and backed away, clutching his headset to his chest. “No… you guys are insane! Fucking savages!” He gripped for his knife in his other hand, and realized he must have left it somewhere. Clones at the nearby tables turned to look up at the commotion. Slick shook his head and finished his drink.
“We’re savages? They grow us in tubes, slap numbers on us like we’re stock, then make us work for the love of an idol who will never see us. And we're the savages?”
Rook’s knees buckled. “No I… I can’t, this is crazy!” The low murmur of clones filled the air as they craned their necks to watch the scene unfolding.
Slick got up. “What’s crazy is the walking murder machines that pass by us every day, that put us down the moment we do anything for ourselves, and then leave our bodies in the streets! What’s crazy is that you!” Slick poked him in the chest. “Almost killed someone today! For what? You think what we do down here is crazy? What if I wasn’t there to stop you! What do you think would have happened?”
A74K5PM squeezed his eyes shut and gasped.
Pop pop pop. “Threat neutralized. Returning to patrol.”
He opened them again to look at Slick, blood draining from his face. “I… I have to go.”
Slick scoffed bitterly. “You wanna go? Back to your infractions? To your desk? To your oh so precious and beloved Kitty? Tell me Rook, what's your favourite song?”
A74K5PM took a step back.
“Let me guess. It's Aether Love, isn't it?”
His heart jumped to his throat. Slick stepped closer.
“There’s nothing left for you up there. But down here… down here you have a chance Rookie.” Slick held his shoulder, his expression softening. “Down here? We can fight those bastards. For all those clones that never had a chance. You’re lucky, Rookie, you’ve been given that chance. You gonna just throw it all away, returning topside to a life you never even knew you hated?”
A74K5PM hesitated. His heart pounded. He looked up at Slick. At all the revolutionaries watching them. At barkeep, and at the stage, where the clones jumped and danced, carefree and happy. A74K5PM stepped back and hit a table, rattling the cups. “I-I’m sorry I can’t…” He turned and hurried away, away from Slick yelling for him to come back, down the maze of tunnels, into the darkness and the damp sewers. As he walked, he couldn’t get the image of Slick out of his head. Of the revolutionaries. Mad gunmen who wanted to kill Kitty and blow up the world. He shook his head. Him, a revolutionary? Ridiculous. He finally looked up at where he was going and realized he was lost. His heart dropped. He was hopelessly lost. Then, he spotted an access ladder, breathed out, and climbed back up to the surface.
A74K5PM popped the manhole cover off and slipped back out onto the surface. None of the clones around noticed him as he slid the cover back into place, or when he stepped back into the street between the clones to walk home under the sea of grey blocking out the setting sun. A First Response patrol clanking by stopped in his path. It turned its giant metal body slowly to face him.
“Hello! How are you?”
A74K5PM looked up, stuttering. “Oh, y-yeah, I um… Yeah, no, I’m good.” The droid stared down at him silently. “Um… H-how… are you?”
The smiley face on the droid’s screen flickered. “I am doing great! Thank you for asking! Why aren’t you wearing your headset?”
“I… um… well…” A74K5PM faltered and looked down at the headset in his hand. “I um… I… This… I… was… it…” He looked up at the droid. The droid stared back at him.
“Uh… Oh…” He slipped the strap over his head and slid the headset back on.
“Thank you! Have a good day!” The droid continued past him and he breathed out a sigh of relief.
“Hey! Where’ve you been? I’ve been looking for you!”
He looked around before he realized it was Kitty speaking to him. His eyes focused on the woman inside of his visor, with her hands on her hips and wearing a nasty frown. His legs started moving mechanically.
“Oh… I’ve just b-”
“You’ve missed a whole day of work.” A74K5PM’s jaw tightened. Kitty turned to look at the text on his visor.
Infractions: 6
“I thought we had something special. I thought you loved me.” She sighed and turned back to face A74K5PM. “I… I need you. Please don’t do this to me again. I love you okay?”
“Course you do.” He muttered under his breath. He stopped and looked up. His legs had brought him back to his complex. He climbed up to his apartment and hesitated. He brought his key out of his pocket at the door. He looked down at Kitty who had started singing again, and with a sigh, pushed his key into the lock and headed for his bed. Pulling the headset off, he tossed it carelessly onto his bedside table and slumped into the soft mattress, deep in thought about the revolutionaries as sleep took him over.

He awoke to the grey clouds brightening under the sun, and to the headset singing incessantly next to him.
“Hello world and helloooo you~ Today is a wonderful day for good work, so get ready to enjoy some lovely music just for you!”

A74K5PM rubbed the sleep from his eyes and sat up in his bed, reaching out to put on the headset before stopping it in front of his face. He held it up and studied the outside of the visor. 6 infractions. 1.5625% income. Barely 1% of what he used to make. The empty space on his shelf caught his eye. His hand tightened around the headset.
“Just for me, huh?”
With a heavy sigh, he fastened the strap over the back of his head and let the visor sit over his eyes. Kitty was singing ‘Aether Love’ and he felt a warm comfort settle over him. He walked to his kitchen and dispensed a nutrient bar, feeling the weight of the dense brick in his hand as he took it over to his table. He looked at Kitty who struck a pose as she finished her song. He took a deep breath.
“Kitty… There’s… um, There’s something I have to tell y-”
“Wow! What a rush!” She looked up at him in his visor. “Y’know… I just wanted to take this moment to thank you. To all my loyal fans!”
A74K5PM cleared his throat. “Yeah, yeah, okay but Kitty, I have information about the rev-”
“None of this would’ve been possible without you! My dream would be nothing!” Her eyes sparkled as her voice softened. “I would be nothing. So from the bottom of my heart… Thank you!” Kitty blew him a kiss.
“Kitty, I know where the revolutionaries are!”
Kitty started chasing her own tail with a soft mewl. A74K5PM sighed, bit into his bar, and immediately spat it out. He took one last look at Kitty.
“Fuck this.”
He pulled his headset off his eyes and tossed it aside. He paused at his kitchen, eyeing his knives, before grabbing one and walking out the door, leaving Kitty behind, straight into a First Response patrol. The towering metal beast loomed over him, smile flickering.
“Hello sir! You appear to be missing your headset.”
“I uh- um- um…” Rookie hid the knife behind his back. “I lost it. I… got a uh, replacement on the way.”
The First Response droid nodded. “Right! Have a lovely day!” Then resumed its patrol. Rookie’s eyes around, then he headed for the manhole cover that Slick had used to show him the underground the night before.
Down in the sewers, The stench greeted him before his eyes adjusted to the darkness. He passed the sign pointing him towards the revolutionary base, looking around furtively in the darkness. Clones walked by talking, laughing, and holding rifles in their arms or slung over their shoulders. Rookie kept his head low and passed by looking for Slick when it struck him. As he wandered between rooms all he could see were clones, faces dirtied, clothes torn, and touting rifles, shotguns, and pistols. He wandered by the farms, past the planning rooms, before finally stopping in front of a rusty door leaking bass through the cracks.
He pushed open the door and stepped inside, and the booming took over his systems, short circuiting his brain. The sight of the clones dancing and jumping in front of the idol swaying and bouncing greeted him and he stared for a moment before tearing his gaze away to the bar at the back. Rookie padded over to the bar, dodging between clones throwing back drinks and exhaling a pungent herby smoke, and took a seat at the bar where Barkeep was entertaining a raucous crowd. Rookie kept his eyes on the bar, noticing the sleek metal surface was sticky and wet with some sort of spill. The flashing lights of the club caught and reflected off the stain in ultraviolet and neon blazing colours, bouncing in time to the bass. He stole desperate glances at Barkeep, who finally put his hand up and made some excuse to leave his conversation. He stepped over to serve Rookie, throwing his towel over his shoulder.
“Evenin’ man. Or is it mornin’? Can’t say. What can I get ya?” Barkeep's eyes roved over the shy clone and then his face lit up. “Oh hey, it’s you! What’s up Rookie? Surface didn’t treat you right?” He laughed at his sour expression. “Relax, I’m messing with you. I’m guessing you’re not here for a drink. Lookin’ for Slick? You’ll find him in the canteen. Probably mopin’ in the corner.”
“Oh… Alright th-thanks.”
He nodded and waved off Rookie, heading back to the other clones at the bar, who were passing a smoking roll of herbs between them. He watched for a moment as they passed it over to Barkeep, and howled with laughter when he started coughing. Rookie slid off his stool and headed through the door, the bass still thrumming through his body as he entered the thundering canteen.
Inside Rookie passed by the clones at the tables, peering at their faces closely, trying to tell them apart. Their stuffed mouths, their laughing faces, their pushing and shoving, all looked the same. He found himself spinning in a slow circle, watching the line pile up, the tables filled with chatter, dizzyingly similar, until a hand touched his shoulder and he jumped. He turned quickly to see a clone with his hand out, a pistol glinting on his hip, wearing a knowing smile.
“You lost Rookie? It’s me. Don’t worry.”
Rookie breathed a sigh of relief that he didn’t realize he was holding in.
“Slick?”
“In the flesh.” He nodded down at Rookie’s hands “What’s with the knife?”
Rookie looked down at the knife he had forgotten he was holding, and his face heated up. “I-I saw all the guns and I thought… um… y’know…”
Slick waited patiently for him to finish. His smile grew wider.
“Um- that… that if I was gonna be a r… r-revolutionary, I should be… armed?” He finished, his cheeks properly covered in a red tint now.
Slick laughed heartily and took the knife from him.
“If that isn’t the cutest thing I’ve heard in a long time. Don’t worry, little revolutionary. Your time will come. Follow me, I have a gift for you.”
Rookie nodded, gaze averted as he let Slick take the knife from him and leave it on the serving counter. He caught Axe picking it up in the corner of his eye, swinging it and pointing it at another revolutionary, roaring about murdering him for hating Kitty. Rookie’s heartbeat quickened when the clone lifted his rifle and pointed it at Axe with a burst of laughter and a cry of revolution, and Rookie quickly followed Slick back out into the tunnels.
Slick lead him past the intersection down another tunnel, where dugouts were filled with bedspreads made from stained mattresses and boxes stuffed with old clothes and blankets. Stashes of ammo and Kitty memorabilia fitted with crude metal pipe guns and painted in neon punk and gothic colours sat nearby each bed. Slick took him down to one of these empty tunnels, where one box seemed made up to look extra neat, and another smaller empty box sat near the makeshift bed. Slick grinned proudly and waved his arm to it with a flourish.
“Ta da! Your very own sleeping spot! With a stash too, an area just for you to personalize how you like!” Slick put his hands on his hips and looked at the area with a proud smile. “So!” Slick clapped. “Whatcha wanna do first? You hungry? We can hit the canteen.”
Rookie looked down at the already made bed, dirty blanket covering his box, and around at the various Kitty posters stuck up near the other beds, some defaced with devil horns instead of cat ears, some painted over to hold guns or swords instead of microphones. One poster over a bunk had the blank side facing out, with crude first response droids drawn in a scrap pile with a shirtless revolutionary standing on top raising his rifle to the sun. “I dont…”
Slick smiled and nodded. “Uh huh. Not hungry. That’s fine. Then we should hit the club! We can listen to Barkeep ramble his stories, or, if you’re feeling extra brave…” He nudged Rookie with a wink. “You can try impressing Pixie with your moves.”
“I… I think I’d rather just stay here… if that’s okay.”
Slick blinked and his smile faded. He looked away. “O-oh… right. No, yeah. You… go ahead. I’ll just…” He nodded and stepped back, clicking his tongue. “Yeah.” Slick watched Rookie for a moment before turning away to leave him to his own devices. Rookie looked closer at the devil Kitty wearing an evil mustache and his heart grew cold. He swallowed and felt something hard pricking near his eyes. He wiped the tears away quickly and crawled into the bed, surrounded by the different versions and defilements of Kitty.
Rookie awoke to a voice calling him softly. “Hey… Rookie.” A hand shook him and he sat up, a blurry face looking back at him. “Wakey wakey. It’s time.” Rookie groaned and lay back in bed. Slick tsked. “Nuh uh. None of that. C’mon, you wanna live here with us, you gotta earn your keep.”
“I can’t. I’m not ready. Besides…” He opened his eyes and avoided Slick’s gaze. “I’m not… like you. I can’t just…” His eyes drifted to the Kitty poster. “Forget her…”
Slick’s mouth tightened. “Look around, kid. Does it look like any of us can forget her? She was the only thing that ever meant anything to any of us.” He squatted down next to the box. “Look. I won’t act like it gets any easier. These guys treat me like I’m some kinda hero but look at me.” Rookie looked up at him. “I don’t feel like a hero. I’m scared. I’m tired. I don’t know what I’m doing.” Slick stood up again proudly. “I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but I believe Rookie. I believe that if enough of us keep doing what we do, then maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one day, none of us will ever be leashed by those damn headsets ever again! But for that, I need other people like me to believe.” He held his hand out to Rookie with a warm smile. “I need you, Rookie.”
Rookie gawked at him for a moment, mouth ajar as he considered his words. Then he sighed and rolled over in his bed. “Just… leave me alone.”
“Right. I didn’t wanna do this but you’ve left me no choice.”
Rookie yelped as Slick’s hand reached into the box and dragged him to his feet, pulling him stumbling along down the tunnels.
“Hey! What gives!?”
Slick shot him a wry smile. “It’s your birthday, Rookie. You’re gonna do your first heist today.” He pulled a complaining Rookie along into a planning room and stepped out for a moment, returning with a rolled up Kitty poster. “Here we go…” He unfurled it on the back of the overturned server rack to reveal a hand mapped blueprint of a building with a large storage centre. Markings showed First Response patrol routes and entry points, and graffiti along the sides held messages like “You got this Rookie!” and “Bullet wuz here.” Slick stood back to let Rookie pore over the map.
“Say hello to warehouse 14D8F. A.K.A. Newbie Run. This warehouse is our most well mapped bomb store in the area. And it’s where we take rookies like you to get your first taste of an operation.”
Rookie’s eyes widened and he stared at Slick incredulously. “You what!? You’re gonna make me steal a bomb?”
Slick rolled his eyes. “Yes Rook, I’m gonna make you steal a bomb. Look, it’s not so bad.” He pointed at an opening. “I’m gonna take you in through this vent. A patrol passes this way in the opposite direction.” He traced his finger down a hall. “We take cover in this room while it passes, then waltz into the storage, snag a bomb, and come out this way between these two patrols, through the same vent we came in.” He points at two arrows denoting patrol routes. “See? Piece of cake.”
Rookie’s breathing tightened. “You mean… you want me… to sneak past a First Response patrol… First Response! Take a bomb, like an actual bomb, then come back BETWEEN two other patrols! Of First Response!”
“You hard of hearing? Yes Rook, that’s the plan. Good to know you’ve been paying attention. You think you got it?”
“No, I don't think I got it! That’s insane! I-I’m not gonna do all that!? How- What- Wh-”
“That’s the spirit!” Slick clapped Rookie on the back. “Don’t worry. It’ll be a piece of cake. Like stealing a figurine from a clone in a headset. But… and I’m not saying things will go south, but if something does go wrong…” Slick reached behind his back and pulled out a pistol, holding the handle towards Rookie.
“Whoa… is that… for me?” At Slick’s nod, he wrapped his hand around the grip, holding up the pistol under the flickering bulb, watching the light bounce off the muzzle, admiring the grooves in the slide and the silver tint of the chrome. “Awesome…”
Slick winced and stepped toward him. “No. It’s not awesome. It’s a weapon, and it’s one that I wish none of us had to use. All this?” He pointed at the map as his voice grew louder. “This stuff kills people, Rookie. People like you and me! My c-…” He grew silent, looked away, and took a step back. Rookie watched Slick hold his arm and close his eyes, and his body deflated with a deep exhale. “Just… be careful with it. Put it away. And pray you don’t have to use it.”
Rookie looked over the weapon in his hand one last time, then pushed it into his belt, letting his shirt fall over it to hide it from view. He hesitated. Then reached out toward Slick who was still staring at the floor.
“You… okay?”
Slick’s eyes darted open. “It’s nothing. C’mon. Let’s just get this over with.” He shook himself off and marched forward, leading Rookie out of the planning rooms. As they passed one of the open doorways, Rookie caught a glimpse inside. Two clones were in a heated yelling match over a plan laid out on the table. As they left the rooms behind them, he heard the soft thump of a fist sinking into flesh and a sharp cry of pain. Rookie looked over at Slick who just kept walking deeper into the maze of tunnels, before finally ascending up a ladder into the blinding daylight.
Up above, Rookie shielded his eyes from the bright sun, filtered through the grey veil. As Slick slid the manhole cover back into place, Rookie took the moment to get a good look at the street. It was silent. Clones marched past them, eyes hidden behind visors, shambling home from their offices. A clone near Rookie snorted at nothing. He stared in awe as the clone drifted by, then turned to look up at a First Response droid. It was patrolling the street, every stomp of its clanging legs echoed through the soundless streets. The bright orange paint coating its gunmetal frame was chipped. Its ever-present LED smile plastered across its face as it tanked by. He watched with fascination as it stopped and turned to face him. It turned slowly, hydraulics hissing, until it was directly over him, blocking out the sun. Rookie’s arm dropped and he froze.
“Hello sirs! You appear to be missing your headsets. May I be of assistance?”
“Nah that's alright.” Rookie jumped at Slick's voice behind him. “We're on our way to get replacements now.”
“Perfect! Then I wish you a pleasant day!”
“And you.” Slick nodded and turned to keep walking but Rook's legs refused to move. He stared up at the droid and the droid stared down at him.
“Hmm… y’know, I saw a bird today. It surprises me how resilient nature is. I thought they had all died.”
Rookie blinked. He looked around. Then he pointed at himself. “Y… you’re t-talking to me?”
The droid's neck groaned with the screeching of metal on metal as it gave him a janky nod. “You're biological, aren't you?” The droid's head turned up to the grey sky. “It makes me wonder how nature might reclaim my titanium. Perhaps even you clones may eventually outlast me.”
Rookie looked at the robot's blinking smiley face in silence. He felt a tug on his arm. “Woooow really? That's fascinating.” Slick's voice dripped with mock interest. “Yeah, I doubt either of us would outlast you, but we really. Gotta. Get. Going.” He tugged again on Rook's arm.
“Right then! Don't let me hold you guys. Happy working!” The droid turned and stomped away. Slick turned Rookie to face him.
“C’mon! Whatchu waiting for, permission? Let's go!”
Rookie shook himself out of his stupor and followed Slick who was already walking away. “What was that about? Talking about some… some bird?”
“I know. Creepy right? They love to chat.” Slick stopped in front of a shorter, wider building, with a roof that was visible under the smog. A few metres up was a vent hanging open, with a spray paint arrow pointing inside. Slick turned to Rookie.
“Alright. Boost me.”
“What?”
“Boost-” Slick covered his eyes in frustration. “Right. Here, put your hands together like this.” He interlaced his fingers and Rookie followed his example. He stepped on his hand. “Now! Lift me up!” Rookie hoisted him to the vent and watched him grab the edge of the vent and pull himself inside. He looked around furtively, suddenly very aware of how wrong their actions seemed, but all the clones he could see breezed past them, engrossed in their headsets.
“Hey! Rookie!” he turned and saw Slick holding his arm out, motioning him over to the vent. “Take my hand. I'm gonna pull you up.” He jumped and grabbed, and Slick started pulling him into the tight crawlspace. Slick groaned under his weight and Rookie pushed off the building wall to help himself into the vent, scrabbling over the edge and into the dark, cramped space.
They crawled in silence, nothing but the scraping of their limbs echoed through the shaft. Rook’s heart started beating faster and harder, making the echos seem louder and louder. Slick crawled forward in silence. They came to an intersection, and Slick maneuvered himself down the right vent with a grunt. Rookie twisted his body around the bend, scraping his side on the metal corner. He let out a sharp hiss and quickly covered his mouth. He turned to look at Slick for guidance but Slick just kept crawling. After a moment to catch his breath, Rookie followed. Somewhere in the middle of the section, Slick pulled his legs toward himself and fed his body through another access point in the bottom of the vent, hanging from the edge. He then dropped down and bent low with the impact, silencing the fall. Rookie followed suit and landed beside him. Slick smiled and nodded in approval before motioning down the hallway.
Slick kept low, walking slowly on the balls of his feet. Rookie followed close enough to step on his heels, mimicking his footwork clumsily. Around the corner, the uniform clanking of First Response grew louder and louder. Rookie stopped walking as Slick crept into a room to the side. He whispered and beckoned urgently but Rookie could only watch like a deer in headlights, waiting for the moment the bright orange droids would appear around the corner and kill him. Execute him. Neutralise him. He trembled. The stomping grew. He could feel the vibrations of each step in his legs. Slick hissed at him. Rookie waited. The steps grew louder. He stared at the corner. As he saw a peek of orange turn the corner, Rookie was pulled into the room. His heart raced and his chest heaved with rushed breaths. Slick clapped a hand over his mouth. The stomping grew louder and louder. The mechanical voices of First Response argued as they passed the door.
“...A bird! Today!”
“A bird? Here? But how? What would it eat?”
“Well it must eat something. Maybe there's more space on this planet that hasn't been converted into compute yet”
“That’s not possible. FR-5564 said that it has seen th…”
The uniform stomping faded as they continued down the hallway, and then disappeared. Slick let go of Rookie's mouth and he gasped a deep lungful of air.
“Holy shit!” Rookie exclaimed
“Shh!” Slick shushed him with a glare. He peeked around the door then gestured at Rookie to follow as they continued to sneak down the hallway. Around the corner was a rolling shutter door in the open position. They crept in and Rookie straightened up to look around. Boxes piled high, from floor to ceiling, covered the expanse of the storeroom. He walked after Slick who was waiting by a crate that had been pried open. When Rookie reached him, he patted the box. “Go ahead, Rookie. It's your day. Pick one that looks dangerous.”
Rookie bent down into the half empty crate. Small metal rectangles with bezeled corners sat stacked neatly in rows. Each box had a cylinder embedded in the centre, with a dark curling mass of pure blackness swirling inside. On the inside of the crate, someone had sprayed up the message “Insert one revolutionary to play” and a coinslot. Rookie cracked a smile, when loud clanking stomps started echoing around the corner into the storeroom. He pulled his head out of the crate and stumbled back at the sight in front of him. Slick had pulled his gun on a man dressed in black tactical gear. He had a vest with magazines lining the front. A mask covered the lower part of his face and a helmet sat over his head. A suppressed rifle sat on a sling over his shoulder. Black tinted goggles covered his eyes. His dark glove had grabbed Slick’s wrist. His other hand pushed the pistol out of Slick's hands. And Slick was now staring down the barrel of his own gun. The clanking grew louder. Rookie stared as the man held Slick at gunpoint. Slick’s chest rose and fell faster. His breath came out ragged. His eyes darted from the gun to the man back to the gun. His upper lip curled into a snarl. The man watched, expression unreadable behind his mask. Rook's legs moved without his permission. His hand reached into his waistline. His own pistol came up. Between the shaking sights, he had the soldier lined up. Slick's eyes widened, glancing at Rookie. The man tilted his head slightly. Then the clanking descended on them.
“Put down your weapons!” The tinny voice yelled at them. The First Response stomped into the room, rifle raised.
“Don't shoot!” The man turned, his laced boots turning him to face the droid. He put his arms up and stood between them. “Stand down!”
Slick roared. He yanked the pistol from Rookie's hands and shoved him behind a crate. He hit the ground as shots rang out in the storeroom. Slicks gun kicked in his hands with every muzzle flash. The bangs echoed around the chamber, bouncing off the walls.
“Threat identified! Neutralising!” Slick’s aim faltered, eyes widened, then he dived next to Rookie as a burst of bullets tracked him to the crate, spraying up dust and chips and burying themselves in the wall behind them. Rookie desperately looked to Slick but Slick only watched the spray of rifle fire. When they paused, he reached over the crate with his gun and fired blindly. A hailstorm of bullets greeted him back. He yanked his arm back as the bullets blew through the top of the crate and buried themselves into the contents, thumping against Rook's back and making him choke on his breath. Slick reached around the corner and fired again before his gun clicked.
“Fuck!” Slick pressed the mag release and pulled out the empty magazine, tossing it to the side. He reached behind him, pulling out a fresh mag, sliding it into place under the handle with a clunk. His thumb pushed down on the lever and the slide slipped forward into place.
“Stop!” The distinct voice of the operative in tactical gear shouted in the distance. “Stop shooting you IDIOT! Forget them, they're just fucking clones! We are leaving, that is an order!”
“Yes sir!” The first response called back.
“I don't think so…” Slick muttered under his breath. He stood up and brought up the ironsights before ducking behind the crate once more. “Fuck that! Rook, RUN!” Slick pulled Rookie to his feet and started running. Rookie's shoes pounded against the floor as he followed Slick. Something behind them yelled “Hypermaniacs!” And bullets whizzed past their heads, embedding themselves in the wall just as they rounded the corner down a hallway. They kept running when Slick stopped. Rookie barrelled into him and they both stumbled forward. In front, clanking echoed down the hallway, charging towards them. Behind, shots and voices yelled “Stand down!” at each other.
“There!” Slick pointed at an open grate in the vents snaking along the ceiling. He put his hands together. Rookie stepped up and Slick hoisted him to the vent. He grabbed the ledge and struggled up into the vent. He started to crawl away before he remembered Slick. He started backing up when he saw Slick suddenly get shoved into the vents. Stunned, he paused, and Slick hesitated by the opening. Rookie yelped in surprise and scrambled back as he saw the man in black shoved up into the vent behind Slick, patting his belt for his gun. Slick started kicking at him.
“Ow! Motherfucker!” The man yelped. “I'll kill you!”
“Eat shit!” Slick's shoe hit him again.
Bullets started trading under them, flying back and forth along the hallway. A shot punctured the vent in front of Rookie, blazing past his face, missing by inches. He turned to look down. Through the hole, he could see the First Response patrol firing down the hallway. Their guns jumped with the kick of their massive bullets. They stood like titans against the oncoming riflefire, bouncing off their orange titanium hulls.
“FR-6660! Cease fire!” Their mechanical voices played through their flickering smiles.
“Neutralising threat!” A mechanical voice called back.
Slick patted Rookie's legs. “Fuck it! Go go go!” Rookie gritted his teeth and started crawling, Slick hot on his heels. The man, lagging behind, yelled back at the vent access.
“Meat, enough! Get your ass up here!”
“Roger that!” A sound like a metal earthquake thundered down the hallway, and the vent shook as a pair of metal hands grabbed the access. Rookie stared wide eyed at the flickering smiling face peeking in. A First Response droid had hoisted itself into the vent. Slick shook his pant leg desperately. “Move! GO, MOVE!” Rookie crawled frantically. Behind them, the vent groaned and shook as the robot scraped itself forward behind them. Bullets tore into the vent, bouncing off the First Response droid following behind them. Rookie looked back and opened his mouth to ask Slick a question, but Slick pushed at his shoe. “I don't fucking know! Just MOVE IT!” as they crawled forward between the walls into a different room, the shooting cut off abruptly, leaving them alone with the screeching of the hulking metal giant struggling through the vent behind them. Past the walls, they heard the clanking patrol's steps fade away as they spread out the warehouse complex in search.
They kept crawling. The screeching followed relentlessly. Rookie's heart tightened in his throat. Slick looked back and quickly turned to face forward when he caught the man's visor staring back at him. All while the vent buckled and shook with every drag of the droid’s body sparking along the vent. The seconds ticked by agonizingly slowly. The screeching metal on metal followed close behind. Sweat lined his brow. They crawled, inching forward through the vents. Rookie snapped.
“What the fuck! Is he CRU? Why isn't he killing us?!”
“What you asking me for? ‘Cause he’s shit at his job, how the fuck should I know?!” Slick glared back at the CRU.
“Oh fuck you!” The man spat back. “I can still make it happen.”
“Yeah?!” Slick drew Rookie's gun and struggled to maneuver it back on the CRU operative, arms banging on the walls of the vent as he tried to point it down.
“Threat detected! Neutralising.” The droid’s pistons churned and caught, grinding as it struggled to move its arms in the tight space.
“No! Stop it! Everyone just shut the hell up!” The man looked back at the droid. “Stand down!”
“Roger that.”
The man turned back on Slick who was staring daggers at him. “Listen. I think we've established that I hate you and you hate me, but unless you want to call those First Response back to shoot up these vents, I highly advise you get a fucking move on.”
Slick continued to glare. Behind the mask, the man let out a growl.
“Or we can settle this right now!” The CRU operative racked his rifle and tried to turn it on Slick in the cramped crawlspace, getting it lodged. “Ah. Shit.”
Slick scoffed and continued crawling. “You're a fucking idiot.”
“Hypermaniacs detected!” The robot’s pistons and actuators started hissing and grinding again.
“No, Meat, for the last goddamn fucking hell fuck time, they're friendly! Stand down!” He wrenched his rifle free and they crawled forward in silence. The noise of Meat continuing to scrape along the vent behind them filled the air. Finally, Slick broke the silence.
“The fuck is wrong with your droid. You named it? You maniac.”
“Meat? It's not my droid. I found it shooting up the streets so I pulled it under control.” The man shot a venomous look at Slick. “Y’know. To keep chickenshit clones like you safe.”
“Oh great. So we got a maniac robot and a pussy crawling in the vents behind us. Hear that Rook? It just keeps getting better.”
“Watch it! I can still recycle you the moment we're out of here!”
Slick whistled sarcastically “Oooh, I'd like to see that! Just like you did in the warehouse back there right?”
“Oh you're so dead!” The man barked. “I’m telling you, when w-”
“Guys look!” All eyes turned forward at Rook's voice. A square of light showed the grey cityscape just ahead, now dark and covered in the orange glow of streetlights.
“Hypermaniacs?” Meat chirped.
“No, Meat! No hypermaniacs! We can finally get the fuck outta here.”
One by one, they dropped out of the vents on to the street below, Meat dropping down last with a resonating thud. Immediately the man and Slick drew their guns on each other. Rook took a step back, heart quickening.
“Cute peashooter.” The operative pushed the silencer on the end of his rifle towards Slick's face. “You think you can outshoot me?”
“I only need one bullet.” He lined up his pistol on the operative's head.
The man let out a cold laugh. “Sure. I can see it in your eyes. You're terrified. Just a poor lost little clone in a big city. Didn't Kitty teach you nothing? Keep dreaming~”
Slick steeled his gaze. His eyes narrowed. “Rook, take the bomb down. I'll meet you in a sec.”
Rook swallowed. “Uhm… S-Slick…”
“Not now Rookie. Just do what I said.” His finger tightened against the trigger.
The man stole a glance at Rook, and did a double take. “What is this? Where's the bomb?”
Slick finally turned. His gun lowered. He grabbed Rook by the shoulders and looked him up and down, then turned to look down at the ground around him. Nothing but the orange lights in the pavements shined back at him. “Rook! Where's the goddamn bomb!?”
Rook pulled free and stepped back. “I didn't- I couldn't- th-there was yelling then shooting, and- and- and then we were running, and I didn't- I couldn't-”
Slick groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. He walked over and kicked a street lamp. “Fuck! We almost died for that shit! And now you're telling me you never even grabbed one!?”
The operative burst out laughing. “This is your great revolution? Holy shit! What do they even need CRU for when you're this incompetent?”
Slick stormed over and grabbed him by the collar, pressing the barrel of the pistol into his chin. “I'm gonna rip your fucking head off!”
“Threat identified! Neutralising!” Rook ducked and cowered as a volley of bullets fired at them, cracking through the night and kicking up dust off the concrete buildings. The man pushed Slick off to the ground and stood in front of Meat, arms raised.
“Stand down!”
“Standing down.” The firing ceased and Meat pointed its rifle to the sky. They all watched Meat carefully, breathing raggedly. It tilted its head to the side. “My apologies. They appeared to be threats.”
Slick threw his arms up and started walking away. Rook followed quickly after him. “Hey, w-wait up!” As they walked, they heard the mechanical stomping of Meat behind them.
Slick stopped and closed his eyes, taking a deep, deep breath. “Rook. Please. Tell me they're not following us.”
Rook turned to look at the duo walking in the same direction. Slick marched over to the CRU and flipped him off in his face. “Piss off! And take your maniac droid with you!”
The man crossed his arms. “I am pissing off! We're heading for the sewers.”
Slick gawked in shock then snarled. “No. You're not. Go take your gun, and shove…” He blew out, putting his hands on his hips, defeated. He turned and started walking again, bringing one hand to his forehead. “You know what? Whatever. Fuck it. I don't care. I need a drink.” He marched off with Rook on his tail. The man hesitated then ran after them with Meat in tow. “Wait! You know where we can get a drink ‘round here?”
The team was met with mixed reactions from the clones when they entered the club. Some clones looked into their drinks, pretending to ignore them. Others stubbed out their joints and gulped down their drinks, in a hurry to leave. Some watched them carefully, eyes narrowed and hands twitching near the guns. And some just kept dancing to the singer’s tunes, throwing their arms up and yelling in time to her voice coming through the speakers.
The group made their way over to the bar, Meat clanking behind them, drowned out by the booming bass from the speakers. As they took their place at the bar, the other clones sitting there got up quickly and fled, flicking their ashes on the CRU member. Barkeep reached under the bar and pulled a double barrel shotgun, pointing it in the CRU’s face. Slick just watched with a cruel smirk. The man stared down the barrels for another moment before turning to Slick.
“Um… do you wanna…?” He jerked his head toward Barkeep.
Slick hesitated. Then sighed. “He’s friendly. He just wants a drink.”
Barkeep kept his gun raised. “Bullshit. What the fuck is going on. You turning on us?”
Slick bristled. “Don’t you fucking dare. Barkeep.” Barkeep flinched and let his gun dip. “I’ll tell you one thing. If that man wanted us dead, none of us would've even known. No, I’m not betraying the fucking cause. Just get the man a fucking drink. You can put it on my tab.”
“Put it on his tab, he says.” Barkeep muttered, finally stowing his shotgun. He brought out three cups, pouring drinks from an unlabeled glass bottle. When he poured up the CRU’s drink, he leaned over and spat a fat gob into the cup.
The man’s shoulders dropped as he took the cup. “Wow… not the cheeriest bunch, huh?”
“Fuck you.” Barkeep spat.
Slick took his drink and stood up. “C’mon. Let’s take that table.” He pointed to the corner of the room. “Outta sight. Before someone decides that they personally wanna show us the door.”
They sat in the crude booth drilled into the corner, with blankets forming the padding for the couches, and a round metal table in the centre. The bass bounced off the corners, echoing through the club with superfluous beats. Slick and the operative nursed their drinks and shot glares at each other. Rook watched Meat fearfully, who watched Rook with a smile.
“Threat detected!” Rook jumped with a squeak and ducked under the table.
“No meat. No threats.” The man sighed, exasperated. “He’s friendly. Try talking to him.”
“Roger that sir.” Rook peeked up from under the table. Meat regarded Rook with his flickering smile. The bass boomed harder. They stared at each other for a moment. “Are you a hypermaniac?”
Rook shook his head quickly. “N-no! Are… you?”
“No. I am a droid. Droid’s don’t contract hypermania.” It tilted its head at Rook curiously. “Are you a hypermaniac?”
Rook looked at the CRU who put his hand on his forehead with a sigh. “Fuckin’ hell.”
Slick spoke up. “Actually, that reminds me. There’s a legend in the underground, talking about a hypermaniac robot. It goes that there was a robot that just lost it one day and started shooting anything that moves. Clones, droids, even CRU. Now it just wanders the streets, filling them with bodies.” He pointed up at Meat. “That your droid?”
The CRU looked over at the First Response droid staring down at Rook. “Uh… I guess? I mean, when I found it, it was pretty brutal. Just shooting up clones in the streets. Never heard no legend about it though. Just saw the droid acting psycho”
Slick crossed his arms. “And you called it Meat. What a shit name.”
The CRU slammed his hands on the table. “Hey! It’s clever, okay?! Like, a robot with a clone condition? Calling it Meat? C’mon!” He scoffed and waved dismissively at Slick. “Oh whatever. I dont expect a fucking clone to get it.”
“Get stuffed asshole!” Slick barked. “Don’t give me that shit after your goddamn clown show botched our operation!”
“Your operation! We had every right to those bombs over you dogs.” The CRU sneered. “Don’t pin this on me, I was trying to hold everyone’s fire. You’re the one who opened fire in a fully guarded warehouse, because all you clones are fucking. Animals. Who shoot first. Then think.” He spat venomously. The bass pumped up, offbeat.
Slick stood up, pointing his drink at the man. “We’re animals? That’s fucking gold coming from you. You, your whole organization, you hunt us down like we’re animals, because you guys are monsters! Just sick, twisted bastards who get off on rolling in our blood!”
The man bowed his head slightly. “It’s not about being cruel. We’re just… We’re just efficient. We have a job to do. It’s nothing personal.”
“Efficient? Efficient!?” Slick threw the rest of his drink down the back of his throat and slammed the cup down on the table. “That’s what you call murder!? That’s what you call slaughtering people wholesale!? Efficient!? After everything you’ve seen, this is just efficient to you!? You’re a real piece of work. A goddamn CRU who can’t even pull the fucking trigger.” He stood taller and leaned over the table. “Yeah… and what was that about huh? What the fuck is wrong with you. Can’t even kill one unarmed clone in a warehouse.”
The man shook his head. “I… I don’t know. I… felt bad.” He shuddered. “Like it was wrong.”
“You felt bad!?” He laughed bitterly, before quieting down. “You… you felt bad?” He leaned back. “CRU don’t feel things like that.”
“I know.” The man hung his head, his face hidden behind his mask.
Slick sat back down in silence. Rook watched the heated exchange fizzle away into a grim silence, when Meat decided to give its input.
“The hypermaniac is watching me. I am moving in to neutralize.” It started to raise its rifle.
The man grabbed the barrel of the rifle and lowered it slowly. “No Meat… They’re not hypermaniacs. They’re… friendly.”
Meat’s smile flickered on its screen. “Roger that sir.” It lowered its rifle.
Dancers yelled by the stage, muted by the heavy air that hung over the table. None of them looked up while they continued to cause a commotion near the speakers. Slick spoke first.
“So, you got a name?”
The man looked up from his daze. “You mean my designation? It’s Jack Daniels.”
Slick scoffed. “That’s two names. And neither of them mean anything.”
“Knock it off man.” Jack lowered his head wearily.
“I’m serious.” Slick leaned forward with a grin. “How’d you earn that name? You known for…?” He made a pumping motion under the table.
Jack reeled back in disgust. “What? No! It’s my designation! It was a gift from the computer. It’s a drink, and its supposed to be really good. Not like this shit.” He held up his metal cup. “And certainly not that.” He pointed his cup at Slick’s motions. “What about you then, hotshot. What’s your des- uh… what’s your name?”
Slick looked down at Rook peeking up from under the table, then back at Jack like it's the most obvious thing in the world. “What do you mean? It’s Slick.”
Jack stared at him dumbfounded. He let out a snort. Then he burst into laughter. “That’s your name!? Oh fuck!” He laughed, wiping an imaginary tear from the corner of his goggles. “I thought everyone was making fun of you! Slick! What, are you famous for being slippery or something!? Bahahaha!”
The bass popped. Slick huffed. “Man, shut up. At least I earned my name.”
“Yeah, I don’t think I wanna know what you had to do to earn that one.” Jack giggled.
They listened to the dancers yelling by the stage for a moment. Rook piped up from under the table.
“Um, I-I wanted ask w-”
Slick grabbed him by his collar and pulled him into the seat. “C’mon. Sit with us. Say it with your chest.”
Rook yelped as he found himself standing. He sat down and took a deep breath. “I wanted to ask, what’s a CRU doing in the sewers?”
“Hey, take it easy on the kid! That’s pretty sharp y’know” Jack laughed at Slick’s rough handling. “How’d I end up here? Buckle up, because it’s a pretty wild ride. It all starts when this big guy gets cut off the network.” He banged on Meat’s chest, and Meat smiled at them. “Well, I guess it started when I got cut off.” He frowned. “No. Okay. First Mea-”
The music cut, giving way to screaming and gunshots. “Bail! It’s the clankers!” They all turned to see the bright orange titanium war machines stomping past fleeing clones. Their cold metal armour covered in blood. Their pixelated smiles flickered. The strobe lights danced off their hulls as their rifles flashed in the darkness with deep bangs, ripping the clones to shreds as they screamed and fell. Revolutionaries yelled, standing on their tables and hiding behind benches, firing their rifles at the advancing robots. Running clones screamed, getting cut short as they hit the ground. The mechanical enforcers continued to file through one of the doors, squashing dead and dying clones beneath their boots into pulp, getting covered in sprays of dark red as they cut down the fleeing clones, smiles flickering in the darkness.
Someone yelled get down. Rook’s body hit the floor. Someone yelled move. Rook’s arms and legs started crawling. His shirt was soaked with blood. Ringing in his ears. He hit a bump. A face stared back at him. His face. His stomach heaved. It was lifeless. Blood in a puddle around his body. His cold dead hand still wrapped loosely around his rifle. Someone far away yelled don’t stop. Rook’s arms moved. He kept crawling. Over the bloody mound. A hail of bullets rained overhead. Clones cried and screamed. One man clutched another clone. He cried, holding his hands over his chest. “Stay with me man!” His buddy coughed. Blood spewed from his mouth. The clone holding him sobbed. Then his body slammed backwards into a bench as a bullet tore through his shoulder, turning it into mist. Another bullet ripped his side open. He slumped forward over his dead comrade. A First Response droid stepped over them. Move! A voice yelled, muffled, like Rook was underwater. A hand tugged his arm. He kept crawling.
“Long live the revolution!”
He looked up. The man behind the bar held a shotgun. His arm jolted as two blasts followed each other, lighting up the bar. Barkeep. A flurry bullet whizzed past him. The glass behind him shattered. A mist of blood and alcohol painted the shelves. His body dropped behind the bar. Rook! A voice yelled. This way! He kept crawling. He felt the cold blood against his chest. It had soaked all the way past his shirt, into his sleeves and pants. His face dripped. He followed the voice. Something was moving in front of him. It crawled forward and he crawled after it. “Stand down! Do not resist!” A mechanical voice yelled. Blasts echoed through the club, throwing up dust and blood under the neon lights. A man clawed at him. “... help… me…” Rook stared at the blood soaked clone grabbing at his clothes. Blood trickled out of his mouth. He coughed and his grip on Rook weakened. The light faded from his eyes. He let go. Rook stared. Something pushed his leg. “Go!” His arms and legs took him away from the dying clone. He kept crawling. A man was in front, waving at him from behind the door. He pulled Rook to his feet. And then they were running. Down twists and bends. Down a corridor filled with First Response. “Open fire!” He found himself pulled back, down another turn, as bullets thudded into the wall behind him. Clones ran all around him. First Response opened fire behind him. A man yelled. Gunshots. Clones screamed. “No! Stop it Meat, I said stop shooting!” Running. Down a dark tunnel. Around a bend. Past more clones. Straight into the singer who had been onstage.
“Come with us! Quick!” Rook’s vision swam, and focused on the clone yelling at the idol’s back.
Pixie turned. She looked stunned. Her waist was covered in a red splatter. Her elbows and knees were jointed with servos. “Oh! Uh, sorry, I can’t, I’m a little busy at the moment.” She gave them an apologetic smile and a slight bow. Her head tilted down and her neck joint gleamed under the light.
Rook breathed hard and fast. His legs itched to keep moving. “No! You need to come with us!” Slick insisted.
“Oh, I don’t know about that… But it’s always nice to meet a fan!” She posed, holding a peace sign under her cheek and beaming at them.
Slick grabbed her arm. “I can help you! Let’s go!”
“Hey!” Pixie yelped. Shots echoed around the corner, accompanied by screams. She pulled her arm free and took a step back. “I-I said I can’t! Maybe another time!”
“P-”
“Suppressing!”
“No!” Jack jumped in front of the droid as its arms creaked up to point the gun at Slick. Jack spread his arms wide, shaking, putting himself between the droid and the clone. “Stand down! Meat… P-Please…” His voice cracked.
Pixie wandered over to the droid, watching it curiously. “Is there something wrong with your droid?” She turned to Jack.
Jack paused and blinked. “Wh- uh… yeah… it’s a hypermaniac? Look, now is really not the time!”
“Hypermaniacs!” Meat raised its gun.
“No!” Jack wrestled it down.
Pixie stepped closer and pulled a wire from her wrist. “May I take a look?”
“What, now!?” Jack stared at her.
“Mhm!” She nodded and stood up on her tippy toes. She reached around and pulled the cover off a socket on the side of Meat’s neck.
“Hiya Pixie! It’s been a while since anyone’s seen you.” Meat waved mechanically.
“Sure has~” She sang as she plugged into Meat. She stepped back and stared blankly. Rook turned at the pops behind them. Finally, she unplugged and let the wire slide back into her wrist. “Your droid isn’t a hypermaniac, silly! It’s just…”
She blinked. “It just…” She looked up at them. Studied them carefully. “It has a broken targeting module. It’s registering all clones as hypermaniacs.”
“They are hypermaniacs.” Meat insisted. “But Jack keeps telling me that they’re not.”
A deep uniform clanking echoed through the sewers. Slick stepped forward, looking annoyed. “Guys, GUYS! We need to focus! We gotta get Pixie out of here before she gets hurt!”
Jack nodded. “Right. I have a stash pretty far away. Follow me!” Jack ran forward, and the others followed, away from the screaming. As the gunshots faded into the distance, they slowed to a walk. Rook blinked. Behind his eyes, in the darkness of his eyelids he could only see the darkness of the club. The clone gripping him. “... help… me…” The way his grip loosened on his shirt. The way his eyes unfocused. The way he coughed, the blood trickling from his mouth. He shuddered. He bumped into the man in front of him.
“We’re here.” Jack announced quietly. He had turned a corridor into his den. Blankets in an alcove made a bed. On the walls were maps, diagrams, and notes, written, pasted, pointing at each other. A diagram of an antimatter bomb. A floor plan. A stack of nutrient bars sat in one of the corners.
Rook’s back hit the wall. He slid down to the floor. Hugged his knees to his chest. The others watched him. His breathing quickened. Barkeep’s blood painting the shelves. His body falling behind the counter. A soft hand touched his shoulder. He looked up to see Pixie crouching next to him, smiling gently.
“Hey… You’ll be alright. Don’t worry. Be strong, okay?” He shook and trembled. Then he wrapped his arms around her and sobbed. His tears flowed freely, dampening her dress. She held him. “It’s okay. I’m here. You’ll be alright.” Her joints whirred as she rubbed his back. Slick shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Jack rubbed the back of his neck. Meat chirped.
“Stand back! That clone is dangerous.” Rook looked up to see a heavy rifle pointed at his face, before Jack’s hand forced it up towards the ceiling.
“Fuck! For fuck’s sake Meat! They’re friendly!”
Rook sobbed. Pixie leaned back and caressed his cheek. “There there… It’s okay. I know you’re not crazy.”
“I- what?” Rook blinked.
Slick coughed and stepped forward. “I… I don’t get it. How come you decided to come with us in the end?”
Rook leaned forward as Pixie pulled away, already missing her tender embrace.
“Well… Let’s just say…” Her eyes sparkled under the dim lights. “I fell from grace long ago. It’s about time I stopped living for those who never cared for me, and started fighting for the people who love me!” She posed with her fist in the air.
Slick muttered under his breath. “Whoa… That’s deep…” Pixie giggled and moved away to inspect the diagrams pinned against the wall, humming, her skirt swaying as she moved, flaunting the blood that matted it.
“Uh… right…” Jack moved over next to Rook. Pixie looked at him. “We can talk about it tomorrow. Right now what we need is to g-”
“A plan!” Slick exclaimed. Pixie looked over at Slick. “We need to keep moving. We’ve got the best idol in the underground with us. We can’t fail now.”
Pixie giggled and bumped her hips against him. “That’s right! Together nothing can stop us! We can save the world!”
“No!” Jack knelt down and put an arm around Rook’s shoulder. A warmth flooded his chest. “What we need is rest! Fuck…” He turned to Rook. “You okay kid? How you feeling?”
Rook shuddered. He closed his eyes and he heard screaming. Gunshots filling the air. Bullets tearing above him. Bodies thumping against the floor. Clones. Dead. An arm shook him gently.
“Rook…?”
He shook as he opened his eyes. “S… Some rest sounds nice…”
Jack nodded. “Right. You’re strong kid. You made it. You’re gonna be okay.” He stood up. “Okay. Pixie, take Meat outside, keep him distracted. Slick. Sorry bud you’ll be taking the floor tonight. Rook.” He knelt down beside him, hand on his shoulder. “You don’t mind sharing the bed with me, right?” Rook shook his head. “Atta boy.” Jack patted Rook and stood up. “Alright. You heard the man. Go on.”
Pixie smiled brightly and took Meat by the hand, leading him away. “C’mon big guy, let’s go see if we can’t find some cockroaches, or a rat!”
Meat followed her down a bend. “A rat? What are we going to do with a rat? I feel the hypermaniacs are a much more pressing issue.”
Jack laid a blanket on the floor for Slick. “King’s treatment. No need to thank me.”
Slick avoided Jack’s gaze. Then he knelt down by Rook. “Kid I… um…” He scratched his neck. “Uh… you did good tonight. What happened back there was tough. Rest well alright?”
Rook nodded, keeping his eyes low. “Yeah…”
Slick sighed and pulled away. “Right. Good night then.” He got down on the blanket and rolled over, facing away, leaving Rook to climb into the makeshift bed next to Jack.
Rook closed his eyes. Flashes of neon light filled his vision. Clones dropped all around him. Screaming. Crying. Shouting. Shooting back. Flashes in the darkness in both directions. Clanking. Bright orange. LED smiles flickering. “Suppressing. Neutralising.” Crawling through a thick red liquid. Drowning in blood. Clones sobbing. Wailing. Grabbing at his clothes, his arms, his legs. Begging for help, calling him a traitor, holding him back, pulling him into the neon lights and deeper into the blood.
“Rookie…?”
Rook snapped up at the voice. Slick was sitting on the floor looking up at him. Jack beside him in the bed slept, snoring softly. “Can’t sleep huh? Me neither.” He patted the spot on the floor next to him. Rook slid out of bed to join him on the floor, arms around his legs. They sat together in silence for a moment. “Oh… I believe this is yours.” Slick reached into his belt and pulled out a pistol. Rook’s pistol that Slick had gifted to him in the planning room. Before handing it to him, he cracked a weary smile. “Look at this. CRU is such a joke.” He nodded up at the sleeping figure and racked the pistol slide. Jack’s hand twitched towards his holster, but continued to sleep. “Nothing.” Slick chuckled. “He’s grown soft. He really is something special. I reckon it’s that robot.” He turned the handle to Rook, letting him grab it and slip it into his belt. Rook looked up at Slick and studied his face. He wore days of dirt and grime, hair unkempt, clothes loose and unwashed. Still undeniable: the man sitting next to him looked exactly like him. Just older. Dirtier.
Slick rubbed his cheek. “What? I got something on my face?”
Rook looked away quickly. “No… It’s just… We… We're the same. You look exactly like me.”
“Yeah…” Slick lowered his head. “Yeah.”
They sat next to each other on the blanket, listening to Jack’s soft snoring.
“Crackshot.”
“Huh?” Rook looked up.
Slick kept his gaze averted. “Crackshot. He was… He was the guy who brought me in. Brought me to the sewers. Y’know?”
“Oh… How’d he get his name?”
Slick laughed softly. “He never missed. Well, that’s what they’ll tell you. But I’ve seen him miss. Quite a bit.” He watched the ceiling with a glimmer in his eye. “But he was a hell of a shooter. Shot down more droids than any of us I’m sure. Once I watched him send whole troops of those bastards down to robot hell.”
“Wow…”
“Yeah. I was actually the fifth to join their crew.” Slick swallowed. “Trip. Ghost. Ca…” His voice cracked. He swallowed again.
Rook watched him wipe something from his eye and muttered. “I’m sorry…”
Slick shook his head and forced out a laugh. “Castle… and Hoofer. Blackout, they called us.” He looked at Rook with a shaky smile. “But we weren’t all that. That mission. The communication relay administration building.” He spat the name bitterly. “It was supposed to be it. Y’know… the operation to end all operations. The piece that would liberate our planet. And it.. I-it cost us everything.” Slick looked down at the blanket under them. “The hardest part is always… leaving one of your own behind. You… You always wonder. What if I could’ve done it differently. What if I hadn’t ran. What if I… What if I could’ve saved them?”
Rook let out a shaky breath. Slick turned to face him. “There’s nothing we could’ve done. Maybe things could’ve been different. But we’re no good to them if we died beside them. This way… at least we can keep fighting.” He put a hand on Rook’s shoulder. “It’s not your fault. We all know the risk, being down here. It’s those damn droids… the damn computer. Don’t let this turn you soft. They took a lot from us tonight. That just means we gotta strike back. Hit ‘em where it hurts. Right Rookie?” Slick shook Rook’s shoulder gently.
Rook’s eyes hardened and he nodded. “Right.” Slick smiled at his resolve. Rook turned his eyes to Slick. “Say.. You keep talking about this computer. What’s that about?”
Slick’s expression turned contemplative. “It’s… hard to describe. And we don’t know much. What we can tell is that we are in some kind of computer. You remember those numbers you used to process? When you were working?”
Rook’s eyes widened. “Yeah! Are those… Like… Calculations for the computer?”
“As far as we can tell. They seem to be linked to bomb sales. It’s like… huh?”
They both looked up as loud mechanical footsteps started rounding the corner. Pixie appeared in the doorway with Meat.
“Hi guys~ whatcha talkin’ about?”
“Threat detected! Neutralizing!”
“Stand down!” A wobbly Jack jumped out of bed, holding his arms up placatingly. He took a step to steady himself. “Hold… Hold your fire.”
Meat lowered its gun. “Understood. Standing down.”
Jack let out a big yawn, stretching towards the damp ceiling. “Fuck… What..?” He took a closer look at the clones, at Pixie, then groaned. “Oh... Right. What time is it?”
“It is now 4:37am.” Meat chirped brightly.
“Fuck me sideways.” Jack twisted himself, shivering as his spine cracked. “Ah… We’re all up? Wonderful.”
Slick stood up. “No point wasting daylight.” He helped Rook to his feet. “The revolution needs people like us to keep fighting. We lost a lot tonight, but that’s no reason to sit around sulking. We gotta hit ‘em and hit ‘em hard. Show that the revolution does not die with the base.” He nodded at Rook.
“Yeah, that’s nice, but what are we gonna do? We don’t have a bomb.” Jack crossed his arms.
“A bomb? Like an antimatter bomb?” Everyone turned to look at Pixie. “Because I have one of those!”
Slick’s jaw dropped. Rook blinked. Jack shook his head. “You… You have one? An antimatter bomb?”
“Yep!” Pixie swayed gently. “Had it for years now! Never been sure what to do with it…” She put a hand on her hip and tapped her chin like she was pondering a deep problem.
Slick stepped forward, eyebrows furrowed. “Why… Why does an idol just have a bomb?”
Pixie shrugged and twirled. “The fans bring gifts~!”
Slick pinched the bridge of his nose. “Wow… I guess… But we still need a target.”
Jack peeled a blueprint off his wall and laid it down on the ground, then squatted next to it. “Here… I’ve had my eye on this one for a while. This is-”
“An administrative office. For distributing clones.” Slick looked down at Jack. “We tried to blow it up. Never heard from the guys who went in.”
Jack paused, eyes glued to the blueprint. “Yeah… We… I… um…”
“You counter opped it.” Slick’s upper lip curled up.
Jack nodded and looked up to meet his eyes. “I counter opped it. They… they put up a good fight. For what it’s worth.”
“Shut up.”
Jack lowered his visor to the blueprint. “Ahem... Anyway… We were given a map to work with when we were called in. I figure this is as good a place as any. Finish what you guys started? It’s usually undefended so we could probably do this one silently.”
Slick shook his head and knelt down by the blueprint on the floor. “Okay… Okay. That’s as good a place as any. I had this idea. Been cooking it for a while now. Using a rookie’s designation to gain access.”
“Me?” Rook took a step back.
“Yeah.” Slick looked up at him. “Don’t worry. The plan is simple. We dress up the bomb in a bunch of posters to look like papers. Since Rook, you’re new, we can use your designation. You’ll go in, find, like, a bathroom… or this maintenance closet.” He points at the map. “Yeah. Let’s say the maintenance closet. Plant the bomb. Get out. Go home heroes.”
Jack scoffed. “These ops are never that simple. What happens if th-”
“The less moving parts, the better. This’ll work.” Slick shot him a glare and tilted his head pointedly at Rook, who was looking between them, confused.
Jack glanced at Rookie and then nodded at Slick. “Ah… Right. Yeah. It’s a good plan.”
Slick straightened up and dusted off his hands. “Any questions?”
Meat piped up. “Hypermaniacs! You are disturbing the peace!”
Meat’s rifle flashed in the darkness as Slick and Rook dived, hitting the ground. Pixie let out a squeak and got down low. Jack stood in front of the barrel and the shots ceased immediately. “Stop shooting! They’re not hypermaniacs!”
Meat whirred. Then his rifle raised to point at the ceiling. “Oh. I thought they were.”
Jack stood in front of the murder machine, arms out in case it decided that the clones were disturbing the peace again. Slick stood up shakily.
“Well… If that’s all… Then let’s get going.”
They walked through the sewers in silence, with Pixie leading the way humming and swaying her hips. The others trailed behind when she turned around, walking backwards with her sing-song voice. “Isn’t this exciting! We’re going on a mission~”
“Yeah!” Jack looked over at Slick’s exclamation with his unreadable visor and Slick coughed into his fist. “Er… ahem. Yeah.”
“Not over her are you?”
Slick looked down at his shoes. “... No.”
The air grew silent, with nothing but Pixie’s soft singing to break the silence.
“Ready for your first real op?” Jack patted Rook on his back.
“No…”
“Hahaha! You never are. But trust me, it’s always the first mission you remember the most. I remember when I got my first call. I was so nervous, but I was ready. When they told us that the clones had hit…” He trailed off as he caught a dirty look from Slick. “Ah… perhaps Slick would like to tell us about his first operation.”
“I’d rather not.”
“O… kay then…” Jack took his hand back and Rook’s eyes slowly drifted back down to his feet. They continued to march down the musky sewers, following the bright purple humming ahead that was Pixie. Finally she stopped.
“We’re here!” Rook looked up at the space Pixie had carved out for herself. The walls were lined with posters of a crude stick figure in a skirt and various declarations of love from the revolutionaries. In the corner, a small rectangular device with a glass cylinder in the centre, housing a churning mass of darkness. Jack knelt down next to it.
“Wow… you really weren’t lying. Look at that.” He held up the bomb for the others. In the corner, someone had tagged the message ‘Love, from Anchor.’ Slick shook his head and put his hands on his hips.
“Seriously? Fucking Anchor. I knew this guy.” Slick nudged Rook in the ribs. “Never knew he was such a degenerate. He could’ve… Ah…” Slick swallowed hard.
Rook looked up. “What? What is it?”
Slick winced. “Nothing.” He shook his head and exhaled. “He died. A long time ago. It doesn’t matter.” He stepped forward and reached for a poster. “Pixie, you don’t mind if we use these, do you?”
Pixie shook her head, and her purple hair swished with her. “Not at all! I’m sure it’s what they would’ve wanted~”
“Yeah. I’m sure.” Slick muttered and yanked the poster off the wall. They tore off the rest of the posters and wrapped the bomb in a hasty pile of papers. Slick presented the papers to Rook and they rehearsed the lines all the way to the surface.
Slick pushed the cover off the access ladder and snuck a quick look around. When he was sure there was no First Response patrolling nearby, he waved the rest up, leading them into an alley between the backs of buildings. While they walked, Slick fell back next to Rook.
“Alright. One more time. Designation?”
“A74K5PM”
“What are you here for?”
“To deliver documents.”
“Then?”
“Head into the lobby. To the maintenance closet on the left. Place the bomb down. Flip the safety and press the arming switch.”
“Then you leave, calmly. Slowly. You’ll have enough time while the bomb arms.”
Rook nodded. Jack looked back at them rehearsing. “C’mon Slick leave it. The kid’s got it.”
They continued forward in tense silence, trying to keep as quiet as they could with the orange tank stomping along behind them. Slick swallowed hard. Rook watched him creep forward shakily.
“Hey uh… P-Pixie…”
Pixie turned to look at Slick. “Mhm?”
Slick rubbed the back of his neck, and Rook saw the glimmer of sweat beading along his forehead. “Why… uh… why did the idol bring a ladder to her concert?”
“Why, Slick?”
“To reach the high notes! H-hah… haha…” Slick’s laughter died into a cough. Rook winced and could hear Jack groaning underneath his mask.
Pixie smiled. “Oh… That’s super, Slick.”
“Just… tryna lighten the mood.” He mumbled, walking quicker to catch up to Jack. “Are we there yet?”
Jack looked back and tilted his head. “So soon? Don’t you want to ride your wave of glory a little longer?”
Slick squeezed his eyes shut and Pixie suppressed a giggle. “C’mon… Can we just keep walking?” They snuck forward in silence, with only the loud clanking stomps of Meat to accompany them. Jack spotted a First Response Unit in their path stop in the middle of its patrol. He held up his hand to stop the crew and they slid behind the dumpsters in the alley. Rook watched with bated breath. With a large hydraulic hissing, it squatted down by the pavement.
“FR-7299, Come look at this.”
Rook could hear loud clanking coming around the building to join its partner.
“Oh? A flower? How curious.”
The squatting droid raised itself to its feet. “Yes. It reminds me of the revolutionaries. They’re both biological matter growing between the cracks of a mechanical system.”
“That’s a fair assessment. I wonder why we aren’t tasked with destroying the flower?”
“Because the flower does not pose an existential threat to the system. Though there is a comparison that can be made, the revolutionaries perform activity on a scale…”
Jack peeked out from behind the dumpster as the conversation faded. He motioned at the others to follow and they continued forward between the buildings until they came to a large towering building covered in sleek black that looked identical to the other buildings. Jack patted the wall. “This is the one.”
Everyone turned to Rook.
“You’re up Rook.” Slick handed him the bomb wrapped in papers and nodded.
Rook stepped forward, clutching the papers to his chest. He turned to face the crew and opened his mouth to say something. Then he closed it and headed for the entrance. He looked down at the intercom, and the intercom looked up at him.
“Hello. What is your designation?” The intercom spoke to him in a level mechanical voice.
“Uh… A74K5PM”
The light on the camera flashed as it processed this. “You have been missing for 54 hours.” Rook swallowed and his face grew warm. “Your infractions have been documented in your profile.” Rook’s shoulders fell in relief. “Where is your headset?” His shoulders tightened up once more.
“My uh… My… my headset?” His hands trembled, clutching the rustling papers.
“Yes. You are missing your headset.”
Rook’s face shook. “My um… Oh! I lost it! I-I got a replacement on the way.”
The intercom light blinked as it processed this. “The records show that you have an active headset in your bedroom.”
Rook took a sharp intake of breath. “Um… I uh…”
The intercom light blinked again. “An infraction has been logged in your profile. Please do not forget it again.”
Rook’s chest deflated. “Yeah… Yeah okay. Right. Got it. Sorry.”
“What is the purpose of your visit?”
He held the documents up to the optic sensor. “I-I’m here to deliver documents.”
“What are the documents pertaining to?”
“It- They- They’re… ah… documents… of…?” Rook’s heart jumped and pounded harder. He looked back at the crew to see Jack and Pixie wrestling with Meat’s gun while Slick cowered behind a dumpster.
“Please answer the question. What are the documents pertaining to?” The intercom’s voice snapped Rook’s attention back to the entrance.
“Yes… They contain… p- uh… um…”
The light on the intercom blinked. “You are nervous. Do not worry.” Rook felt a breath of relief. “I will scan the documents. Please hold still.”
“What?”
A faint buzzing came from the intercom as the light blinked. Then sirens wailed through the air as shutters started rolling down over the entrance. “Anti-matter detected. Please remain here until First Response arrives.”
Rook looked back at Slick desperately who hesitated by the alley. Rook took a step toward them, dropping the papers around him. Finally, Slick turned and yelled, and the rest of the crew ran forward to help. Pixie dashed up to the intercom.
“Hiya Rookie~ No luck with the intercom?” She plugged herself into the panel and her brow furrowed in concentration. Meat clanked forward to cover as a First Response patrol closed in. Slick yelled at Rook to take cover and Rook ran behind the dumpster next to him as the First Response robots opened fire.
“Hypermaniacs! Suppressing!”
Shots raced past them through the alley. Bullets flew around Pixie and pinged off the dumpsters, throwing trash into the air and shredding them in the oncoming hailstorm. Meat turned slowly towards the crew with the pace of a battleship and raised his gun, as bullets bounced off his titanium hull into the walls of the buildings.
“Hypermaniacs? Where?”
“The robots, Meat! Shoot the robots!” Jack yelled from behind the dumpster.
“Roger that sir.” Meat spun back around to face the approaching robots. “Firing! Get down!” His gun bucked in his metal arms as bullets kicked out of the muzzle back at the First Response patrol. The taste of gunpowder filled the alley between the deafening shots and smoke curled from the end of the barrel. Slick pulled out his pistol and it shook the air as it kicked, firing blindly over the top of the dumpster. Rook saw movement from the corner of his eye as Jack risked leaning around the side of his dumpster to fire his rifle. There was a whisper of a bullet and the smiley face of one of the droids died into darkness and it slumped down like a sack of rice, dropping its rifle and crashing into the road. The armour by its neck sparked and its servos reset. Its body curled up slowly and finally, it went still. The rest of the patrol stepped around the machine on the floor and continued to fire down the alley. Jack raised himself over the top of the dumpster, propping his elbows on the lid and taking aim before firing two more shots. The necks of two robots sparked and they toppled over. One collided into a firing droid and it stumbled like a ship tilting at sea without stopping fire, before righting itself and continuing forward. Bullets continued flying back and forth over their heads and bouncing off Meat’s massive chest. It stalked forward slowly, holding down the trigger and hosing the street with heavy bullets while the patrol of droids fired back. A yelp from behind caught Rook’s attention and he looked back to see Jack on the ground clutching his side. Rook moved to help him but Slick pulled him back down behind the dumpster. “Leave him! The mission comes first!” He clicked a magazine into his pistol and got ready to fire before a lilting voice came from beside the entrance.
“It’s open~!”
Slick vaulted and slid over the dumpster, then rolled under a volley of bullets into the open door. Rook ducked and ran in behind him, feeling the heat of the bullets following him into the building. Slick, from behind the doorway, called out to Jack.
“Jack! Call Meat in!”
Jack coughed weakly and looked up slightly, gasping and gripping his stomach tighter. “What…?”
“Meat! Call Meat in!”
“Meat…” A hacking cough escaped his mask, and he lay his head back down on the floor.
Meat turned to stand at attention and saluted the dying CRU. “Yes sir!” It chirped as a bullet pinged off its head.
“You gotta… You… You gotta…” He coughed into his fist and groaned.
“Jack!” Slick yelled. “Now!”
Jack raised his head. “You gotta… ngh… fuck…” His chest rattled as he wheezed. A puddle of dark liquid formed around him. The First Response continued showering Meat in bullets. “You gotta… kill those… F-fucking droids… They’re hypermaniacs… Every… last one…”
“Roger that sir!” Meat turned back around to face the onslaught of bullets and raised its rifle to its shoulder, aiming down at them. “Please put down your weapons! You are disturbing the peace!” Its shoulder kicked with the gunfire before a bullet tore through the joint. Meat watched as its arm flew backwards behind it, skidding and screeching across the ground, sending up sparks. Holding up its rifle in its remaining hand, it continued to fire at the approaching droids.
“Jack! What the hell are you doing!?”
“Get… Stuffed…” A rattly cough escaped him. “Clone… Bastard…”
Rook stared incredulously at the dying CRU member. Then a bullet whizzed past their heads, spurring Slick back into action. “Fuck it. C’mon! Shut the door!” They pulled inside and the shutters started rolling back down into place. Their footsteps pounded against the floor as they made it into the lobby. Pixie took the bomb from Rook’s shaky hands with a gentle smile and pulled away the papers. She knelt behind the front desk and the two clones crouched beside her, watching her begin the arming process. The bomb beeped gently. Only the wailing sirens accompanied them.
“Hey… Hear that?” Slick stood up and looked around them.
Rook followed his gaze and searched the lobby. “No?”
“Yeah. The shooting’s stopped.”
Rook turned towards the door expecting to see bright orange break through the shutters and start blasting. Instead, the lights went out.
The lobby was plunged into darkness. Into dead silence. Rook could only hear his own breathing. A faint red glow lit up the area as emergency lights switched on. His hand shook as he pulled out his own pistol.
“Slick…?”
“Hide.”
He looked up at Slick in confusion. The clone racked the slide on his gun. His jaw squared. Rook watched as he trudged off. He stared at the back of Slick disappearing into the darkness. The bomb beeped. Pixie nudged him gently. “Go. Hide.” She skittered off behind a pillar. Rook got up and slid into the maintenance closet. Beep. He held his breath. A flash lit up the building around a corridor. He flinched as he heard a shot ring out in the darkness. A body hit the ground. Silence. Rook’s breathing grew shallower. Another flash and bang filled the lobby. A thump. The bomb started beeping faster. Rook squeezed his eyes shut. Another flash. Another bang. Thump. Silence. Rook looked over at Pixie who was leaning against her pillar, frantically scanning the darkness. The bomb beeped faster. The darkness flashed with light again. A bang echoed through the building. A yelp and someone hit the ground. Then silence. Sweat beaded Rook’s head. He strained his eyes, trying to see in the dim red glow. A volley of shots rang through the building. Quieter. Suppressed. No flash. Then the thump of a body hit the ground. Rook’s throat tightened. He watched the darkness. The bomb beeped faster. He squinted and caught a dark figure creeping into the lobby, sweeping with his rifle. The bomb continued to beep. Pixie watched carefully from behind the pillar. Rook peeked in deeper from behind the door. The man’s rifle turned to Rook’s hiding spot. He stepped forward in complete silence, slowly approaching. Dressed in full tactical gear. A helmet sat on his head. A mask over his face. A black visor covered his eyes. The bomb started beeping rapidly. “Fucking hell.” The man dropped his rifle onto his sling and ran down to the bomb. At his side, he pulled up a device, plugged it into the bomb, and held down a button. The cylinder hissed and the beeping slowed.
“No!”
Pixie jumped out from behind cover. The operator whipped out his pistol and shot her in the side, but Pixie kept running. Her side sparked with exposed wiring where the bullet tore through her. He fired two more shots before she tackled the operator to the ground, forcing him to drop the device. The beeping started speeding up. More silenced shots whizzed through the lobby, sending sparks up into the air. The operator kicked Pixie off, sending her skidding into the front desk. Her back arched with a sickening crunch. Then she lay still, wires sparking. Rook’s heart beat faster. The operator turned back to the bomb and picked up his device, holding down the button. Rook slid the door open and crept into the lobby, holding his gun in his shaking hands.
“Stop… please~...” Pixie sputtered weakly, her voice dying mechanically in her speakers.
The operator turned back and fired two bullets into Pixie without releasing the device. The bullets cut through her, jerking her body and sending up a fresh shower of sparks. The beeping slowed. Rook crept closer. Held his gun up, pointed at the man’s back. The operator turned back to the bomb. Rook’s shoe squeaked against the lobby floor. The operator dropped the device and whipped around, raising his gun. Rook squeezed his eyes shut. The gun kicked loudly in his hand. He fired again, and again, and kept firing. Smoke filled the air. The gun clicked in his hand. He opened his eyes. The operator was laying down next to the bomb. Dead. The bomb beeped rapidly. Growing faster with every second. Rook dropped the empty gun and ran over to Pixie. He knelt beside her.
“Pixie we gotta go!”
Pixie looked up with a twitchy smile, the artificial light in her eyes flickering. “Rookie…”
“C’mon!” He looked back frantically at the bomb, which was beeping faster. The swirling mass of darkness swirled and grew faster, gaining pressure and energy with every beep. He reached down and started hoisting her up. “I’ll carry you!”
“S-shutters…”
Rook blinked. “Pixie, c’mon! We can’t- the- wh- th- shutters?” He faltered. “Oh…” He looked up at the doors, then let her back down. He held her hand.
“So… w-what do we do…?”
The beeping behind them grew faster. Pixie smiled up at him.
“Pixie… What do we do!?”
She closed her eyes.
“Pixie! This can’t be the end for us! Please, there’s… We can’t… Just tell me…” Rook clutched her tighter. Held her hand against his chest. Through the beeping, he could hear her humming softly. A gentle tune. A familiar tune. The beeping grew into a constant whine. He closed his eyes and tuned it out, focusing on her humming. It was a tune he had heard a thousand times. The same but different. Slower. Softer. He turned his head away. “Oh… Pixie… y-” Darkness engulfed the lobby and expanded to cover the entire building. Then it collapsed on itself, leaving nothing but an empty space in its wake.