0xE
Doll considered thresholds.
When did she become too far gone? Was it compiled to binary as soon as V killed her parents? When she chose popularity over authenticity? When she took her first life? When she stopped feeling anything? When she won?
Or did Doll come back from that threshold — could she call herself not just an avenger, but a hero, now? If she could be redeemed, when did that start? When she walked to the end of her path and saw a young, foolish mirror? When she hesitated over her next kill? When she saw the betrayal on Lizzy’s face? When she stopped feeling anything — driven onward by scrupulosity, not anger?
When did V become too far gone? Could it step back from that threshold? Doll had listened to it talk to Lizzy, pouring out her core in a disappointingly figurative sense. What could Lizzy have remade V into?
Uzi had more oil on her hands than Doll. She comported with murder drones. And yet, she was doing more to help. Or was she? Doll watched, listening unseen, as she showed one face to ‘N’ and another to ‘J’. Doll had manipulated and seen manipulations, and couldn’t tell which was the mask.
Who had Uzi laid this trap for?
“What’s on your mind, Dollface?” A blonde, pink-eyed drone smiled at her, leaning her head against clasped hands.
When Doll raised her hand, a butcher knife as already in it. She swung down, and it flew through the hologram. “Okay, miss testy, settle.”
“Spare me your illusions, demon. Or I’ll leave you to face Doorman alone.”
Then it was white hair and a maid uniform. The murder drone she’d killed, in the guise of a worker. “I miss her too, you know,” says ‘V’.
“You enjoyed more of her than I. I should avenge upon you for that, too.” Doll shook her head. “Why am I entertaining this? Do I even speak to V, or the Solver herself?”
Then a drone with twin-tails and a tongue stuck out. "Giggle. Peeking behind the curtain so soon?" There’s a certain fidelity missing from the holograms; the core remnant could summon only a single projector head.
“Tell me about Uzi,” Doll demanded.
“Which one?”
“The real one.”
"Which nesting doll is real? Rhetorical question," says the small drone. "One knows everything, one feels everything, and one still hopes, despite everything. Define the identity function for me, sister. Which one equals real?"
“A riddle? We don’t act on everything we feel, and hopes exist to be dashed. Only knowledge is power.”
"The Uzi you believe in would play dice and cards with you. She enjoys the. Quote. Miserable thrill."
From the other wall, a piercing blue glare bored into Doll. “So she brought a murder drone into her own home to just get her rocks off. I think that means she’s out and chosen, yeah? Let’s kill this glitch.”
“I saw her flinch from her mother’s judgment. She still gets to chose.”
“You’re giving her chance after chance when she’s already danced off the edge of the cliff.”
“Because I walked off that edge too, and you will soon.”
Beneath blue eyes, her face settled into a scowl.
Doll watched the crab scuttle as they wait.
A beep sequence and the massive sound of hydraulics moving a ton of steel. Then the door opened, putting them face to face with two murderous drones. Two pairs of legs bend into combat stances, a purple glyph in one hand, and a rifle’s barrel in another — but both had their other hands full carrying their victims.
“It’s been quite a while, Doorman. Enjoyed your descent into darkness?”
“Hey! That’s my line.” A vein popping over one eye.
“Yes, yes, you’re a vapid imitation of me. How would you put it?” Doll tapped her chin. “I did it before it was cool.”
Then there was a vein popping over the other. “Bite me! At least I didn’t let my girlfriend get eaten by a snake-crab monster thingy.”
“Only because your supposed girlfriend is the monster.”
J grinned, eyes lidding like this was high praise. “I am effective, aren’t I?”
But Uzi balled her free hand. “You’re a serial killer.”
“Repentant. You’re a mass murderer and proud.”
“When did I say I was proud?”
“If you aren’t, then we can end this.” Doll extended a hand and took a step forward.
Bang. J shot, and Doll’s program caught the bullet. Her eyes flattened. “Stay out of this, murder drone.”
“Don’t think I’ll tolerate you poaching talent. Uzi is mine.”
Purple flush lines. “Not in front of our enemies, dude.”
“’Zi, you’re smarter than this.” A new drone spoke up from the corner off the landing. Green eyes, a tattered football jersey. “This isn’t you. You could be a badass, fighting murder drones! Not their benchwarmer.”
“Nice try V. I’m not fallling for another hologram.”
Thad still sags, like he’s hurt. “Still though. You know I believed in you until the very end. Come on. She killed me!”
Uzi steps over, and looped her free arm around around J’s. She smirks and blushes.
He looked so hurt. “For real?”
“Why are we still bothering with this?” asks the one drone who hadn’t spoken.
Uzi turned to the drone living in the body she’d dug up. “You lived? What are you here for? To be another reminder of my greatest crimes and good deeds?”
“Nah, this is getback. It was never about doing good, was it? You were always using me.”
The cross faltered for a moment. “I liked that I was helping you. Even if I benefited too. You scavengers were all about trade.”
“Shit deal. Hope the murder drone tongue in your hole was worth it.”
“I didn’t do this for J.”
Doll tilted her head. “Why, then?”
“To figure out why all of this is happening. I need answers, and… I need to be strong enough to find them. Knowledge takes power.”
Thad was gone, and then it’s the purple hair and hospital gown. “You kept asking about me. Were you doing all this for my sake? That’s sad. Even I can’t love this.”
Uzi’s hand snaps open, railgun flying from her back to point at the crab. No threats, she just pulls the trigger.
Doll watches, and put a hand behind her back at the last second. Activates her program unseen, and flings a rock into the barrel, even as the cheerleader falls to the ground, and the beam of light misses everyone, light pouring out of Door One.
Purple glyph onscreen, Impulze takes charge, and Uzi starts forward — but her arm is still looped around J’s. She turns to pull herself free, but J tightens her grip. She looks down at her, and shakes her head. “You’re being manipulated.”
Doll says, “Quit taunting her.” Kneeling down to pick up the core by its meaty scruff.
Uzi cycled exhaust, blinked, and wore a cross in one eye. “Whatever. It’s not all about my mom, anyway. It’s bigger than her, now. The program, the labs—”
“The end,” Doll concluded.
“You know something. Tell me.”
“Knowledge grants power. What would you use it for?”
“I want to fix myself. I… want to love N again. But he can’t, see me like this.”
“And what will you do before you fix yourself?”
“Whatever it takes.” N was worth anything. Uzi took another step forward, bearing her fangs. “So. Are we gonna fight?”
Doll shared a look with the blue haired drone. The russian nodded to the kid, but those piercing blue eyes only stared. She kept that slight, slow nodding until the other drone understood, and nodded back — and couldn’t hide a smile.
When Doll looked back to Uzi, she said, “Here’s what I know: There was a patch. My mother had it. It can exorcise the Solver’s possession.” Doll stepped aside. “You can leave now. I won’t work with murder drones. But if I find it, I’ll help you too.”
Uzi let out a breath. “Thank you, Doll. Maybe one day, I’ll say I’m sorry.”
Doll held up a hand. “A nuance. Leave Emily here.”
Uzi glanced to the drone she carried like a sack of potatoes. She seemed like fun, but was she worth fighting for? No. “Fine.”
When Emily was placed on the ground, two round purple pupils watched her.
Then the symbol vanished, cyan eyes blinked, and Emily scrambled back, pale like she’d seen a ghost. moments of hyperventilating, eyes darting everywhere. A scream. Then, at length, her tremble of a voice: “Uzi? Illuzion? Inverze?”
“Yeah,” Uzi said. One eye winking to a cross again. “Had to cut our time together short.”
With the way clear, Uzi and J started forward. J’s gun was still out, waving through the air, between Doll and the blue-haired drone. But she was a good girl, and followed Uzi’s lead.
Uzi had made her decision, and Doll had made hers. Doll had a plan — always have a plan — and it was a good plan. Neither Uzi nor J had seen it coming. Doll placed her hands behind her back, and smiled.
It was risky, reusing tricks, but neither of them had been there.
Emily, though, had gone to prom.
When the brown-haired girl was getting her bearings, she’d looked around; she’d looked down beneath the grating and up to the vents.
She saw the rebar.
So she cries out and reaches out, grabbing for Uzi’s leg before the goth took that last step. “Hey! I-it’s a trap, don’t!”
Uzi flinched back just instants before rebar flew up from above and below. She still got stabbed through the leg, clipped in the shoulder, but it wasn’t the checkmate it shouldn’t been.
But Doll is already adapting. Her program levitates Uzi’s gun before the goth can think to grab it.
She didn’t reach for it, though. She threw an arm out, and grabbed the blue-haired drone. Levitated by the neck, one instruction away from crushing them.
“Thought you said we could leave, Doll.”
“You needed to be stopped before you could kill more drones.”
“That your priority? Then how about this.” Uzi executed the instruction — and ripped the arm off the blue-haired drone. Oil gushed from the wound, and they fell to the ground with a scream.
Doll glanced down at the armless drone with that curiously blank expression.
So Uzi rips the other arm off.
More oil leakage, errors on their screen. Uzi didn’t kill them. But if Doll was going to play hero — yep. She kneels down to grab them, then teleports away.
Uzi laughs, and wondered why the sound comes out brittle. She uses her program to remove the rebar, and her autorun got to work healing her. She helped J out, then rounded on Emily.
“For the record, that was the least motivated faceheel turn in history. Did you think we were the good guys?”
“Doll always l-laughed at me. She killed Kelsey. And you… you were like me. I thought of you when you disappeared. You said I was smart, you let me live. Thank you.”
Concern and empathy tugged so heavily enough on Uzi’s expression that the cross disappeared. With round eyes, Uzi said, “I don’t think you’ll be safe with me, Emily. You should stay.”
“Y-you said it’s only bodies left. I don’t want to be a-alone.”
J claps the goth on the back. “Come on, little predator. Thought you said she’d be fun.”
“I didn’t—” But the words stop in Uzi’s throat. A cross, and Uzi says, “We’re wasting time. She’ll be back soon. You made your mistake, Emily. Have fun~”
The night sky was violet with sunrise as two drones flew off toward the spire.