0xF
For the first time, Doll has come to instead put the dead back together.
She turns the halls of the outpost. No need to walk them; she teleports from one end to the other, then waits for the WDF grunts to catch up. She can smell the oil of the fallen so keenly, but they don’t question how she unerringly points out corpses hidden by the wreckage wrought by a murder drone and — what had Doorman called it? — the snake-crab monster thingy.
Doll reaches the auditorium, and picks up a blond head with a ballcap turned backwards. She’d cheered for him, once. “Let’s go Thad / He’s our lad!” It had been so easy to write cheers for a team that included a Thad, a Brad, and a Chad.
And it had been easy to stir up enthusiasm for a drone like him. He stood solid till the end.
A white eyed drone carefully takes his body and held his head to the neck stump. Blankly, Doll stands and moves on.
There isn’t anything left but the pink dress and the ribbon. Doll stares for a long time, expression parser struggling to discern her mood, before she kneels and picks them up. She can smell her, and not just her esculent effluvia. She’d been the sort of drone to wear perfume.
Doll wants to say something. But how to put this in a way that had meaning? Doorman would call it cliché. But Doorman had chased subversion till it twisted her into something vile.
“I’m sorry, Elizabeth.” Doll waits, out of habit, for that scoff, that vitriol in protest of the name. But of course nothing came. “I wish I had done better for you.”
Maybe Doll shouldn’t — she certainly hadn’t earned it — but she takes the ribbbon and tied her own hair with it, letting the bow stand up like cat ears. Then she moves on.
He’ll get more of a funeral than all the others, Doll thinks. A shame it will have to be closed casket. Khan doesn’t have much of a face left.
“You tried your best,” Doll says. She considers her next words, even though all of them amount to nothing more than thoughts. For no one’s sake but her own, she says, “I’ll avenge you.”
Then Doll reaches into the cavity of his face, and dislodges something.
“But not with a knife.” Doll holds the wrench in her open palm, then closes her fingers around it. “I’ll take it from here.”
She’s interrupted by a tap on the shoulder. A drone tells her, “Message from the repair bay. The kid from 11 is awake.”
Doll remains long enough for them to see her nod. Then she’s gone as so much code.
She opens her eyes in a chamber half hospital room, half workshop. A blue-haired drone lay on the bed. They groan. From pain perhaps, or from seeing Doll.
“Ought to have stayed and got her. You let her get away. And you claim you ain’t on her side.”
“No plan survives execution. Shouldn’t I save drones?”
“She was using your better nature against you. If she’s gonna play dirty, you can’t stay clean.”
“I know where that line of thought concludes. I’d rather not.”
“You think too much. Need to focus. You never do things by half-measures, do you? You get an idea in your head and you run off into the sunset with it. Use your common sense. If you get stuck in a loop, break out of it before your register overflows. Get it?”
“Wisely put, for someone who was a pillbaby last month.”
“What can I say? I’m mature for my age. But really, it’s all what my ma used to say. I listened to her a lot, given the whole stuck without a body thing. Where’s my hat?”
Doll points to the bed’s nightstand. The drone reaches out, pulling an arm out of the bedsheets, then flinches. Her arm is conic with hazard stripes, rather than tubing. “The hell is this?”
“V’s arms. Doorman ruined yours, and you needed an edge, if you’re going to confront her again.”
“Really ain’t being subtle with the allegory here, eh?”
Doll smiled.
“So, how long are we sticking around here? You gonna teach me how to fight?”
“I think if we leave, this will be another outpost Doorman destroyed. Would you like that?”
The other drone sighed. “We’re not going to be fighting at all, are we? Not for a long time.”
Doll smiled. “There’s work to be done. But first, come to the auditorum tonight. I plan to speak.”
Then she teleports anyway, making it a command, not an offer. She teleports all throughout the outpost, but the last place she thinks to check is Doorman’s room.
The corrupted core falls onto the bed, claws cutting the sheets. "Bounce. Bounce." It jumps up and down.
“Why are you helping me, Solver?”
"Bounce. Perhaps I grew bored of being the villain."
“A foil to Doorman, then?”
"I couldn't steal that honor from you."
Doll frowns, and crosses her arms. “Tell me your goal, or I will devise a way to be rid of you.”
"If you were savvy, you would already have a plan to kill everyone you meet. Bounce." But that is the last one. The core stops, and trains a single yellow eye on her. "My directive was to repair this host. I collected all the necessary materials."
The single projector shined to life, and the maid blinked sheepishly behind broken glasses. “And yet, I still feel nothing.”
"I have her memories, but something is missing. I can't rest until I solve this."
“Bringing the dead back to life… if you found it, could you bring back Yeva?”
"Not my host, not my problem to solve. V didn't eat her core. Taste equals awful."
Doll clenched her fist. Then, at length, released it. “Alright. Perhaps I could help you bring V back, if I can trust the murder drone to behave herself. To do better.”
The hologram again, but for once, the white haired drone wore only a jacket, and sulphurous yellow eyes. “I’ll be nice. Just promise me you’ll save N, and make that purple freak pay for what she did.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“Then get lost.”
“Come to the auditorum, tonight. I have some words I’d like to say.”
"Will it be dramatic?"
“For once, I hope not.”
Doll teleports anyway. To the exterior of door one, safely in the shadows. She should stand guard, after all.
The sun wheels across the sky, and Doll considers resolutions.
She doesn’t find one. She’ll just have to keep going.
When she stands once more in the auditorium, she stares into a crowd of harrowed faces. Teachers, parents, citizens. She’d killed their classmates and children, brought forth the monster that had devoured their neighbors, and all but stood by while the girl she’d bullied came back to finish them off.
When she finally stepped up to the podium, she at least didn’t think this would be cliché.
“I won’t take long. You know what I’ve done, and I won’t spent time recounting or apologizing for it. The last time I stood in this auditorium, I had planned to leave and never return. How could I, after what I’d done?
“The fitting thing to say here is that I saw the error of my ways. That I seek forgiveness, to make up for the wrongs I’ve done, to make things right. The truth is I’m still undecided.
“But I believe you all need me, and I believe I need you. I’m not sure who will lead the WDF, after Khan’s passing. But I intend to protect drones. With the knife, and with the wrench. There is work to be done.
“I wish I could speak of inspiring things, of hope or strength or friendship. All I have is a plan and compulsion to stick to it. I wish to stop the ones responsible for this, and I wish to stop it from happening again.
“Uzi Doorman was left behind. She had no one when she needed them most. Nor did I. I don’t know what the best path forward is, I don’t even know where my path leads. But I’ve decided the path I walk alone leads nowhere good. We will move forward together.” To the bitter end, she restrained herself from adding.
The cliché thing to expect would be for everyone to clap. The Solver clapped, of course, and Doll can’t be sure how sarcastic that was. There were smiles, there were nods, and there were still hard, scornful looks directed her way.
But it had been a long time since Doll had sought popularity or approval.
There is work to be done.
Finally, after so many schemes and struggles, Uzi and N returned to the spire, deposing J as squad leader. Just like they planned. Hahaha.
Not quite like they planned.
Not at all like they planned.
But Uzi could work with this. She hadn’t ruined everything. Not totally. Not completely. She just had to play the cards she was dealt. She’d make it through this. They’d make it through this.
When Uzi landed in front of the corpse spire, she nearly fell to the ground. Why did one drone on her back feel like carrying the weight of the world? The brown-haired drone was awake and hadn’t said a word.
J had followed behind her, landing a second later. Her tail was lashing, she was pissed about something, and Uzi quickened her step. She’d deal with that later.
“Where are you going?”
“Into the spire, where else? Need to go scream into the dark for a bit.”
“Meet me in the pod. We need to talk.”
Uzi grunted without really acknowledging it, instinctively falling onto all fours as she scampered into the spire. The farther she got away from J, the less the drone above her held back her sounds of fear.
When the feral drone fell back on her hindlegs, butt to the ground and back straightening, Emily’s position on her back grew precarious, and she took the hint and hopped off.
She whimpered, and didn’t look relieved at all when Uzi whipped around and leered at her with that glyph on her screen. Uzi tittered.
“Don’t feel like dealing with you either, right now. Go hide or something.”
Emily gave shaky nods, and Uzi skittered off toward one of the walls of blinking Fatal Errors.
She roared. She screamed. She shrieked. Her voice was all noise, gain, and square wave clipping. Emptying herself of air and anger until it matched her loss.
Her tail hissed in the hair behind her. Her claws scraped the dirt and snow and scrap beneath her. Yelling wasn’t enough, she needed to sink her teeth into someting.
Where had that morsel gone?
No. Control yourself, Uzi.
The symbol on her face split into red and blue chromatic abberation. Then it was a cross. She stopped screaming, and started breathing again.
She was fine.
Good timing too, because pegs scraped the snow behind her.
“Here’s your waste of iron.”
J tossed N’s inanimate frame, and he slid across the snow, stopping in a slump beside Uzi. She didn’t have the energy to argue with her.
“Thanks. Now go away.”
“Remember what I said. You. Pod. Soon.”
Uzi ignored her.
She rolled N over, and peered into his face. Framed by gentle silver locks, still locked in that betrayed concerned frown. Error 606 blinked on his inexpressive screen. Mostly, Uzi started into her own eyes.
Cross became pupils become three prongs. Looping, switching back and forth, over and over.
She wanted to scream again, but her vents were already ragged.
She wanted to…
No. Control yourself. The cross held steady in one eye. She was fine.
Everything went according to plan. N was out of the picture, J was under her thumb, Khan was dead.
She’d solved every source of tension and uncertainty, parried all the swords hanging above her.
She hadn’t cried. Not when N stabbed her and Khan left her. Not when she was tortured for hours for being foolish enough to help someone. Not when Outpost-11 happened. Not N told her she scared him. Not when Thad— not when Khan— not when N—
She hadn’t cried when she suffered, when she despaired, when she lost. Now, she had won.
There was no reason for her to cry.
Uzi stared into N’s reflective faceplate, saw the ‘x’ in one eye.
Impulze was blinded by feral oillust and panicked self-defense.
Illuzion was blinded by false memories and delusional beliefs.
Inverze was the normal one, the real one, the essence of Uzi. Right?
But as she sat there, not crying, she realized why the glass had fogged for her.
She didn’t feel guilt. She didn’t feel anger. She didn’t feel pain. She didn’t feel joy, or hope, or empathy.
Inverze felt numb.
No, there was one thing. Something that left her single round pupil hollowed out to nothing. That had motivated all of this stupid, self-destructive tragedy. That had blackened her heart to something opaque.
Uzi was scared.
Inverze didn’t know what to do. And she couldn’t pretend to anymore. She couldn’t be anymore, not right now.
So the cross blinked away, feeling came back in a flood, and Illuzion’s round pupils stared at N.
She laughed. He had been excited to come back to the spire, hadn’t he? At least he got that.
Uzi tried to smile. It didn’t reach her eyes. She opened her mouth, and she knew it would be a scream or a sob if she didn’t say something. So she found some words.
“N. I— I— I—” She stopped. “I really did it this time. You. Me. I messed it all up. But. But. But. In the same way I’m going fix it. I’m going to fix me, and you, and everything. And then we’re going to throw snowballs again because I still haven’t gotten you back for the one that dripped into my frickin wound. You s-suck for that one.” Uzi gasped, and brought a hand to her eyes. “But… I suck way more, don’t I? I’m w-working on it. I promise. This is all for you.”
Illuzion closed her eyes. She couldn’t bear to look at him anymore, her eyelight shaking on her screen, starting to glitch and error out.
Then it was Impulze, and she pounced forward. She wrapped her arms around his chest, hugging his still-warm body, draping his arms over her back, and then she nuzzled her face into the locks of his hair, immersing herself in the scent of him. Her tail curled around him, her wings fell like a blanket.
She squeezed tight, and remembered so many nights like this, so simple and safe, so full of love, and she shuddered. One day. The right was hers. She’d tear it out of the world if she had to. He was hers. She wouldn’t let go.
Her breathing finally evened, her vents repairing themselves.
For those moments, Uzi felt — something.
Then it all shattered like a wine glass from a high note. A scream — Emily’s scream. Uzi rose from N’s body with a growl already in her throat, and races across the spire.
J has thrown Emily to bounce over the ground, stalking closer as the worker struggles to get up. She closes the distance first, and a blade of her wing is stabbing into her chest, pinning her to the ground.
“J, cut it out.”
“I thought you brought this one back to have fun with. I was bored, Uzi. He’s not even online and you’re treat that moron better than me.”
“Fuck off, J. It’s been a long day. I’m tired of dealing with you.”
That got J to pull her wing out of Emily, and stalk closer. “Excuse me? You picked me, Uzi. You said I was yours. Are you just going toss me aside when you lose interest? I have needs.”
“Tomorrow, I promise. I just need some space.”
“How long until you act like you don’t even know my name again? Until you pluck up yet another drone like I’m not enough for you? I hate this. Don’t do this to me.”
“I messed with my memories, J. That’s why I brought Emily here. To study it. I don’t want it to happen again either.”
“How can I believe you? You… you loved N more than me, and look what you did to him.”
Something about the look on her face made Uzi take a step back. “J… We both knew how this was going to go. We started off trying to kill each other. We’d have some fun and get some work done, and it would end the same way.”
J smiled, the kind of smile the was supposed to put someone at ease. But Uzi was so, so far from ease, right now. “There’s flexibility in a freelance contract, but surely I can interest you in the benefits of full-time employment.” Forwards steps, forward steps, she’s relentless.
“J… N was always my—”
“Because I’m not good enough for you, am I?”
“You do good work, J. It’s just—”
“Don’t patronize me. Fuck you. Fine. If that’s how it’s going to end, why even bother with the charade? Consider it priced in.” J narrowed her eyes into a hunting cross, and then she’s a lunge forward.
Uzi was so tired. She didn’t have the energy to deal with J, she certainly didn’t have the energy to run or fight. Was she crying? Did she feel anything? She didn’t feel a lot of things. She didn’t feel hope, or strength, or friendship.
Uzi didn’t feel invincible.
J fell upon her as a sharp and deadly feeling. She was teeth and claws and blades. She was inside her and splitting her apart. She was hot and personal violence.
As Uzi bled out her sweet black life onto the cold snow, she realizes she doesn’t know if this was a J that would kill her or one that wouldn’t.
Which one loved her more?