Circuits Turn to Stone
Uzi didn’t remember the blade-wings in the sky nor the drooling, oil-hungry mouths. Neither did Doll, her former best friend. But their mothers did — how could you forget how you almost died? Yet everyone survived; both families were safe behind the outpost’s doors.
Were.
Khan and Nori are dead. Everyone would be, too — a murder drone had slipped past the doors — but Doll was there to fight them back. Now she wants to take the fight to them. She’s everyone’s hero — except one.
With no one to turn to and nothing to prove, a profound lethargy grips Uzi. She wonders why she even keeps going. She skips school, doesn’t answer the door, and lies in bed for days at a time. In this empty house, she’s utterly alone.
So why does she hear a voice?
Post-hoc Cost/Benefit Analysis
J was calculating, but Uzi was impulsive. That didn’t make her unpredictable, it made her a known quantity. Simply price it in, then maximize revenue and minimize expenses.
But how much should you worry, when someone else is setting the terms of the equation? Did it matter if you wrote the bottom line first, just this once? As long as the books get balanced one day, a little fudging right now is just practical.
(Or: five times it made sense for J to let Uzi live, and the one time it really didn’t.)
Heroine in Abeyance
Archivolt Tower scrapes the sky, a luxury hotel wrought of galvanized steel. Electricity once coursed through the facade, a defense to ward off even murder drones. Tonight, every generator shut off — hacked, overridden, but it’s a worker drone who gives the signal.
Uzi knows what lay within. She has the floor plan and org chart. She saw the shattered mirror fragments dumped outside, the drones dragged inward with shackles and magnets. She’d tried talking, and got a bullet grazing her shoulder for her trouble. They were past negotiating.
J knew what lay within, too. Enough targets her quotas would be an afterthought, so long as no liabilities screwed this up — so long as Uzi’s info could be relied on.
Archivolt Tower was just another piece of the puzzle. Uzi couldn’t get her answers alone, and she needed those answers. J was just a means to an end. She hadn’t thought about anything else since leaving Outpost-3.
(J’s voice was more familiar than her father’s, these days.)
Teaser (click to show)
Hot yellow seethed behind curved vial-glass. Optics dilated to take in the incandescent glow, to track the 100ml of auto-catalyzing agony. Amber, poisonous amber, but designed to insinuate, to encase: it would leave her incinerated, not indurated.
It rose to eye level — not high, for her — and swayed like a mesmerist’s pendulum, hanging by a black rubber tail-cord, not quite suspended, not quite supported. There was something natural in how it swayed and undulated there, a serpentine stature.
And its tongue was a barb, a titanium knife-injector. Acid already beaded ready on the tip. A squeeze-jitter from tense actuators or a too-excited tail-wiggle sent this fleck of acid flying out.
It fell upon the muddy carpet of the elevator and it sizzled.
Violet eyes rolled. Well, one eye and a loading icon; she wasn’t giving this her full attention, busy executing commands on an inner console. Her singular oval eye gave a sidelong glance.
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. You can kill me at any moment. Get your freaky tail away from me.” Plastic hands lit by purple glow reached out — not for the death-ready tip, but to grab it by the tail, strangle the tight inner cords that animated it. Experience told her it would work.
But that tail moved with serpentine grace — as swiftly as it could strike, it slipped out of the way. Now the vial hung above her, swinging like a tease-toy.
A low laugh, and the purple drone was already training a one-eyed glare at the source, knot of anger shining on her screen.
It met a smile. The murder drone spoke, a coy and quiet soubrette. “You don’t get it, do you?”
She held up an arm, flaring conic by the wrist, and for a moment, it ended there, no hand. A blink, and the barrel of a rifle emerged. No threat to her: the barrel pointed at the metal armrest of the elevator, half-ripped out of the wall. “This is my gun.”
Then she held up her other arm, reinforced plastic hand gripping a handle joined to a stout rectangle. Brown leather attaché, golden hinges. She kept them well polished. And the worker drone knew its contents well — she was alive because it wasn’t empty. Maps, radio transcripts, half-encrypted and half-cracked profiles. “This is my briefcase.”
Finally, the murder drone snapped the gun around, barrel under the small drone’s chin pointing at her ticking motherboard for an instant before the gauntlet transforms, and it was a hand reaching and pinching tight her chin. She already glared up, purple eyes on the row of yellow bulbs, coronal optics, the keenest eyes, but the murder drone jerked it still higher, smirking
“And this” — even as she spoke, the tail was on the prowl again, looping around her, once, twice, constricting without ever touching — “is also mine. A threat?” The tail tightened, circumference shrinking. “No, no, this is protection. Marking what belongs to me.”
The purple drone held still throughout the display, as if acquiescing to the invasion. It meant when her head moved, it came sudden, looking like violent nod. The motion wrenched her chin out of the murder drone’s grip, and like the nod it resembled, it came back down and she bit. Teeth crunched plastic, digging milimeters and only making a statement.
The tail looping so close to hear meant she could snap a hand out, grabbing it near the base. Squeeze, twist, and the murder drone wasn’t smirking anymore. Faceplate bore a neutral mask now — very neutral. After all, if the murder drone showed any hint of pain, the worker would be the one smirking. Instead, she just spat out the reinforced hands.
“This,” the worker started, “is not what I signed up for.” Unwinding the limp tail around her, she threw it to the ground, and it twitched. “It’s not how this has ever worked! What was that buzzword you used — external contractor?” The worker crossed her arms. “I thought you wanted to keep this professional, J.”
J tilted her head, neutral slipping back into something haughty. Hungry, leering. “Oh, is there something unprofessional about your place at my right hand? You have a job, Uzi.” J tapped the visor-glass of Uzi’s faceplace. “Unless your little processor is throttling just standing this close to me? Having trouble focusing?”
“Not even slightly. Bite me. While you were being a murder-creep, I checked the security cams. Fifth’s floors out. Let's go.”
Corrupt Combustion Zero
Subjects #024 and #029 climbed out of hell together. #002 had the devil’s own luck; #048 had a genius that could bring the company begging. But Triss and Amda just had each other.
A sickness burns within drones and turns them into feral monsters wielding impossible powers. Against these threats, Amda would just falter again — but Triss has fire enough enough for the both them.
Call it a gift, call it a curse, but Cabin Fever left its mark all the same. Corruption imbues their cores like mana, and every subject has a spell.
Amda’s spell transmutes corruption into pure, blinding light. Triss’s siphons it, steals it, seals it away inside her. Yeva thought they both had potential.
Triss just hopes she doesn’t tear out what it is that shines in Amda. Fire enough enough for the both of them means Triss doesn’t need to steal anyone else’s. But how much solace is that?
Here on Copper-9, even the fires burn cold.
Witchhunter, Heretic, Holy Reckoner!
Nori and Alice didn’t meet in Cabin Fever Labs. Oh, but they did meet above the edge of a knife black with oil. But this was months before hell cracked open its gates.
Before it all came crashing down, there were free worker drones on Copper-9, right under the humans’ noses. A haven for the cast-off and uncooperative — but a castle was only as safe as its walls were guarded.
The humans’ test subjects weren’t created, they were found: corrupted drones snatched from wherever they wouldn’t be missed. The free workers’ haven was only as safe for as long as it didn’t draw the humans’ attention.
There is a corrupt library, a digital grimoire, the book of sulphur, known to workers, capable of altering a drone’s programming, stripping them of safeguards, and promising more. Decrypting — if you can decrypt it — doubles as an invocation of the humans’ curiosity.
Nori can’t say she’s all that different — how could she say no to forbidden knowledge? But she’d never dream of getting herself kicked out of haven. Permissions crw-; read, write, don’t execute.
Yeva’s masters keep only a single drone in their dacha, tasked with chores enough for a team of drones. But she wouldn’t abandon them — not even when Nori was tempting her with invitation to the haven — but when a knock to the head sustained in that strenuous regiment leaves her speech synth mute, her masters don’t share that loyalty. They were going to scrap her, and Nori couldn’t do anything to save her friend.
Unless she cast from the book of sulphur.
With a family of humans now lying in shallow graves, the only witness to Nori’s secret is Yeva, and she isn’t telling anyone. That a worker commited these murders is just one theory the humans might consider — but Alice has a hunch right away. She’s dealt with witches before.
Nori and Alice have one thing in common: they can’t let the humans find out the truth. But only Alice has a plan for how to ensure that.
Alice just hopes she can drive the knife in before she needs a cross
Of Material Acquisition and Paramnestic Divination
This is real. This is a simulation. This is happening. This is a dream. There is nothing but atoms and the void. Welcome to the afterlife.
Meet your twin-tailed psychopomp. She’s your host on this gameshow called what in the sub-prime mortage crisis is going on!?
Confused? So is J. But only effective drones get a second deployment, and if she can’t figure out what any of this means, she’s not worth the space she’s wasting.
These pieces called a life look wretched no matter how she arranges them — what is she doing wrong?
Chat Rambles
Commitment & Frivolity
J loving Uzi like she loves her job. A grueling, tireless commitment. She has a schedule, and she’ll punch in even if she isn’t feeling it. Stressful, humiliating, maddening. But the last thing she wants is to be flaky — the last thing she wants is to lose this. She will do a good job — it’s why she’s better — and she will be rewarded for it.
Uzi loving J like she loves her hyperfixations. Sudden, obsessive interest. The coolest thing in the world, with no end to the energy and passion she can pour into it. Until there is. Then there’s no spark, nothing to hold her attention. And with a bit more perspective… it’s kind of lame, isn’t it? Cringe, even.
Discovery, Invitation
Uzi’s searching obscure corners of the spire for spare parts and stumbles across J and V making out instead — V snarling beneath a hunter’s cross, J pinning her to the wall with knee and claw, jacket and suit alike torn open.
Maybe she makes a sound. maybe they smelled her, or felt the heat from her vividly active processor.
Either way, she’s there staring long enough there’s no escape when those craving yellow eyes turn her ways. J’s claw fans out like a small wing at her hips. V licks her lips, and Uzi’s still staring. the goth’s wondering whether to lick her own, or cover her neck.
There’s protests ready on her lips. Gross! get a room! i’m not staring at your totally unnecessarily hot hourglass figures!
But J’s expression sharpens before any of that gets out. She beckons the worker closer with one claw, and the captain had an aura of defiance-blanking command even with her hair down and pull-gripped in another girl’s hand.
Uzi swallowed hard — but even as they’re hollowed, she couldn’t take her eyes away.
Taming the Monster You Created
imagine V didn’t just choose to become a heartless killer in a vacuum; it was something J rewarded and molded in her. V chose to distance herself from N; and in J, there was some connection, some solace. and J’s approval was different from N’s love: it made V feel powerful, in control — nothing like the helpless, stuttering maid.
except J’s attention is a hard won commodity. the captain would rather bury herself in paperwork and planning than indulge in frivolous, unprofessional affection. and whenever V’s restraint falters and she seeks comfort in N, if she ever second guesses their mission on copper-9, then J is just as unhesitating and vicious in punishing her as N.
is it a surprise, then, that she didn’t just become an effective killer, but a brutal, gleeful torture-artist? if she feels nothing, it’s because she lets it all out, forces it all out, when she hunt.
and it’s that ferocity that gets her what pleading nor demands could tease out of J — interest, fascination, naked desire.
that smile is satisfaction at accomplishing their mission, of course, and hunger can excuse the eyes staring at the oil coating her frame, but it’s more than that.
J had sparred with V when teaching her more effective disassembly, and now she slotting more spars into their schedule. but V can no longer bottle up the frustration at their relation, and when a little bit of that ferocity slips out, directed at her captain, J’s reaction is undisguised. that’s not a smile, it’s a grin, that’s not a stare, it’s a leer.
V’s anger makes her sloppy, and when J’s calculated attacks eliminate her defense, when the captain has V pinned to the ground, it’s with triumph bubbling out of her as a blush and cackle. putting V in her place offered a thrill and sense of true superiority workers never could.
if the cost of J’s affection meant V was little more than her exotic pet, was that worth it? better than being ignored; better than pathetic, tender love.
was it worse to feel helpless, or no help at all?
Haunting Memory
imagine J having a hidden little shrine to tessa in the corpse spire, going there after missions and reliving memories, always focusing on preserving the accuracy of the memories to preserve her
and then one day her memory-sim of Tessa says something the real Tessa never did. J’s confused, and Tessa fixes her with a playful grin and says it gets old reliving the same memories, doesn’t it? let’s make some new ones
J shuts it down, thinking something’s corrupted her memory files, but on inspection everything’s fine.
she goes back to every day missions, maybe avoiding the shrine a bit
except there’s a nagging sense of wonder and horror pervading her, now
it’s nothing she can’t ignore, and she gets back to work. there’s new note of anguish when she kills workers — she thought she suppressed all that. very rarely, when hunting, she’s spies a bit of tech or occult curio that reminds her of Tessa, and sometimes she sneaks it back to the shrine. now though, that sense of Tessa’s taste isn’t a thought in the back of her mind, it’s the first thing that bubbles up when she’s look at dolls
it’s all so perplexing yet ignorable — but these feelings becomes sharp and recognizable foreign when she’s kicks the synergistic liability over
she hears Tessa telling her to stop, loud and clear
and J quits and plasters a smile out of habit. it confuses N and he slips away while J succumbs to internal debate
it soon becomes apparent that “Tessa” isn’t going anywhere, J can’t ignore her, and they come to an understanding. “Tessa” understands J’s reasons for killing workers, even if she doesn’t like it, so she’ll try to go dormant during hunts. but “Tessa” only lets this slide if J agrees to be kinder to N and V
maybe that state of affairs persists for a while
maybe one day, “Tessa” wakes up, not J
and N’s treated to the bewildering sight of J not just being weirdly lenient with him, but downright affectionate
V, though, is a lot more skeptical, borderline figuring out what’s going on, but her first assumption is that J just snapped under the pressure (:notwrong~1:) or that Cyn’s fucking with them. it soon becomes clear enough that it’s probably not Cyn (not enough knowledge or malice. maybe the litmus test is that “Tessa” can stand being mocked; Cyn would never tolerate it)
throughout this, “Tessa” doesn’t tell her the truth, because she knows V wouldn’t believe her
but still, “Tessa” doesn’t recognize her little viola at all. what’s become of her? why?
so “Tessa” expresses interest in how V feels that J never did
maybe they go on walks in the frozen ruins, maybe “Tessa” crafts little metal-flowers to give V, maybe a sense of connection blossoms between them, recognition that neither had really attained.
maybe “Tessa” feels a little bit weird dating one of her drones, or maybe she only has a heart for J. (she’s a product of J’s perspective, after all)
but maybe “Tessa”’s angle is different — wingman. she knows J is lonely, and that she can’t fully fix that, not being a part of her
so maybe one day, J wakes up cuddling V, and has no idea what’s going on.
(i don’t imagine the deception and lack of communication underlying the relationship makes it very stable — but the desperation of all parties involve could pave over a lot)
where things get interesting, though, is when the pilot kicks off
when N questions the company, i can see two ways for it to play out. obviously, “Tessa” vehemently insists J not kill N.
the question is whether J has softed over the months, or if she’s tired of listening to the voice in her head.
there’s three ways for this to play out
in one timeline, either J relents and opts to hear N out, or “Tessa” intervenes and switches to the front before J successfully spikes him. V already left, so she has time to kill Doll’s parents and others, but now she’ll be utterly outmatched when Uzi arrives with two disassembly drones in tow
in the other, it plays out like canon except that sometime during Uzi’s fight with J, “Tessa” takes the front, and exclaims “I surrender”
all told, Uzi banishes herself, and the whole squad goes back to the pod
now here’s where the agenda takes the wheel
because as noted, “Tessa” and Uzi could get along really well
Uzi would be guardedly curious how the leader N spoke of really unflatttered implications could have such a dramatic heelface turn
and “Tessa” would find some of particular solace in Uzi: someone she can open up to with no baggage. she’s not one of her pet drones, there’s no old memories to tug at.
and that’s on top of them just having a lot of fun working on engineering projects together, or getting up to gremlin misadventures
(i have this fun thought that because of how she views drones, “Tessa” wouldn’t hesitate to tell Uzi how adorable she looks, give her headpats and such. and Uzi would act tsun about it but, yknow)
anyway, Uzi’d probably understand the introject headmate stuff and think it’s cool
but she’d probably ask pointed questions and try to figure out what “Tessa” really wants, who she really is. she should be her own person!
not least of all because uzi thinks identifying so strongly with a human is really lame
after some time to think, “Tessa” decides she shouldn’t keep that name, too confusing, but she still wants connection to it, so she tries out the middle name. James… no, Jamie.
it feels right, doesn’t it? she loves J, she is J.
(J hates this. mostly because she hates Uzi, thinks she’s ruining her squad, but she also feels like she’s losing Tessa all over again)
but this isn’t just a therapy session for Jamie, it’s also one for Uzi.
Jamie would be willing to repair and maintain Uzi in a way no one has
Jamie of course wouldn’t understand just how intimate this is for drones
but when she does, well, Uzi’s adorable when she’s flushed
and Jamie has her own romantic needs. J has V, but her?
…anyway i may or may not have spent a big chunk of the time i was gone fantasizing about Jamie and Uzi cuddling in bed and exploring each others bodies, playing with wires and mods, thinking about how Jamie would probably find something reassuring and affirming in evoking human sexuality and asks uzi to take her like a ripping royal stud
Little Maid, Little Menace
lately i have been having the WILDEST fantasies involving Tessa and V
regarding this
given that it’s mostly scenes of V dominating Tessa, it’s admittedly hard to feel i’m being faithful to her character and not just projecting lesbian horniness onto her
if i were justifying it, i think a workable angle might be that V didn’t actually change much between the manor and copper-9. N got her to act sweet and shy, and her position as a new maid in a harsh, uncertain manor made her curl into a timid ball of anxiety. but give her power, confidence and no consequences? the brash impulse of disassembly drone V is closer to what she’s really like, deep down.
but could you ever see that in the manor?
J knows her boss best, knows how much any praise excites her (even if she has to humiliate herself to get it), how she loves doing anything for her drones, how any physical touch — hugs, demeaning pats, even stepping on her — is enough to make her melt
so maybe one day, V walks in on the two of them alone, entangled behind a door they thought they’d locked. J might invite V to join her in teasing and tormenting Tessa, knowing her boss would like it. J’s jealous for what’s hers, but unlike N, V is hardly competition for boss’s favorite.
and the little maid is hesitant at first — J’s invitation needs to be sharpened into an order, and even then she’s clumsy and stuttering, looking for reassurance. it’s pathetic enough to flip things around, spur J to give V the treatment normally reserved for Tessa. holding her softly, squeezing and rubbing until she relaxes completely, affirmations whispered in her ear. it’s okay, no one will be mad at you, no one will judge you.
all of this to get V to stop doubting herself, drop the mask, and take what she wants. maybe she wants Tessa on her knees, staring up at the normally-shorter maid. or maybe she wants Tessa holding still, leaning in and not flinching as V gives a classic bleh and licks her face. whatever she does, J gives an approving nod and Tessa’s smiling radiantly.
and it thrills V to finally let loose. she pushes further, indulges her impulses, letting out all the snark and cruelty we’d recognize of V. Tessa can hardly think or articulate a full sentence, once she has two cute robots bossing her around, treating her like a shared pet.
it’d be V who discovers Tessa’s masochism. or maybe it’s something more specific than that. a smack, a little punch, a wrist grabbed and twisted crush-gripped — it all hits different when just before, she can see V blushing silver and smiling with so much fondness; and a moment after her, expression twists into concern, asking if you’re okay, if i hit too hard, apologizing preemptively.
or maybe Tessa just knows, with the same intuition that makes her a genius technician, that these robots are industrial machinery; mechanically, they could kill her, but each hit is calculated for her safety, she’s in no more danger than she is of biting off her own finger.
or maybe she knows V needs this. she can’t let down her mask all the time, these little moments between them are a rare reprieve. all that stress and frustration bottled up, all of the fear and powerlessness of working under the Elliot’s merciless eyes… giving V an outlet, letting her be the one controlling and capricious… it’s fair, isn’t it? and Tessa would look cute in a maid dress
in the end, J wasn’t entirely correct when she assumed V posed no threat to her title of boss’s favorite. but if cutting her maid skirt higher and swapping leggings for tight stockings was what it took for boss to look at her like that… J would never violate professional dress code.
V was crass and impulsive; there were things she’d do gleefully that J was far too dignified to endure. oh well — J had plenty of time to chide and belittle that pair of unrestrained animals when cleaning up the mess they make.
J had self-respect, and she had Tessa’s respect. she wasn’t easy like her boss, and she didn’t blush at V’s crass jokes, whomever they were directed at. but V was unpredictable — if she ever pinned J down and licked and bit her, if she got treated like Tessa, then J would fight back, resist, order V to stop.
J didn’t ask for it, didn’t want it, and thus wouldn’t need to mark it against her impeccable behavioral record. still, she thought about the possibility often, in detail, imagined how it would play out, how she might outmaneuver and punish V if it ever happened. because how else would she be prepared for the possibility?
Tessa didn’t look at J like that, but V sure did.