Two silhouettes crept among shadows laid down by the fractals of old trees, each one bare of leaves and halfway lost to erosion-erasure. No clouds now—so stars were granting the only light in this district. Clouds had been scarce for days now—no rain, no snow, no fog.
Clear nights were empty nights on the streets of Copper-9; no hiding, no escape.
And no work to do. For if they had wished to hunt, why visit woodlands untouched by streetlamps? Their prey preferred the midcity urban sprawl, or downtown’s densely clustered riot.
No, this denuded grove lingered among the rolling hills of a park. A few square kilometers, appendix to the city, dotted with only a few structures. Nothing of use to a scavenger, and hence nothing for those with a use for scavengers.
Days of slim picking had exacted a toll on Uzi and J—not hunger; they had rations to last; J had accounted for that—but it had prompted Uzi’s idle hands to wire up new mods on her guns and J to stare at region maps, consulting her spreadsheet of unit densities the way Uzi would bust out the red string.
They needed a break—thus, a literal walk in the park. Uzi stood at about half J’s height, so the taller drone kept to a slow, sedate stride, paced for shorter legs. One conic gauntlet rested on the small drone’s head, fingers digging into purple hair. As familiar as the touch was, it would leave at least one tick of blush on Uzi’s screen throughout the night.
Around them, grass was nowhere seen, but benches remained, lining the dirt paths. Trails crisscrossed, and at the central nodes of this partition scheme arose art installations.
Copper-crafted, for the most part, along with a few plastic molds, products of the old oil synthesis regime, twisted into arcane shapes. Uzi pointed out looming statues and sharp geometries. Then, with a transmodular gauntlet set to produce a flashlight in place of a hand, J dutifully illuminated where her partner pointed.
A menagerie, each tickling their pattern recognition circuits without quite satisfying them. Hard to tell if these things held the same shape as they’d once been intended to, but they were kinda cool to look at. That was art, right? It was expressive.
Yellow eyelights only settled on each exhibit for a few seconds before quickly drifting away. No comment on her lips, which remain set in a flat line.
Not impressed, huh? If you’re so bored I bet I know how to get your attention.
Uzi waited till some five-legged statue came up on their left, then pointed at it with her left arm. Now her right slipped behind the tall drone, extending unseen behind the disassembler. Not touching her, but angled so that those five eyes atop her headband didn’t catch anything.
Finally, the purple drone struck, hand pressing suddenly against the contour of disassembly drone’s much thicker waist. Uzi pulled, and now one of those hips was pressed against her chest while the other was gripped eagerly.
J’s tail lashed, and the hand atop Uzi’s had tightened, fisting her hair.
It spurred the purple drone into reckless action. Seizing her chance, her hand groped, haptics palming J’s chiffon-smooth skirt until she found the elastic waistband. She drifted further up, then climbed inward, questing now for the fabric—and chassis—that lay inside.
The fist gripping her head constricted tighter now—Uzi was probably losing a few hairs from this—and yanked her up. Feet left the ground, and held there midair, J twisted so that their gazes met.
“Uzi,” she said, “we’re in public.”
Did the concept of ‘public’ even still exist when everyone was dead? “So?” she said.
Uzi knew J had come to like that smirk. And J knew Uzi couldn’t help but see that scowl as a point scored. Yet still they exchanged this pair of looks.
“So, imagine if a scout from another team saw such blatantly unprofessional behavior. What would they think of me? Keep your hands to yourself, or I’ll cut them off.”
A groan-sigh, and Uzi let her hand fall away, unsatisfied. “At this point… you don’t have to keep threatening me, you know.”
Lightly, J placed Uzi back down, then she patted her little drone’s head. “But you respond so well do it. N? V? I threaten them, then they make me act on those threats.” She shook her head, clicking her tongue softly.
Still instinct-coded, that part of her which bristled to jump to her new squadmates’ defense. What even was that instinct—contrariness? affection? both?
Yet Uzi held her tongue. Why start an argument you would lose?
It’s not even the threats, Uzi thought. The thing she really responded to. You explained why. That’s all I need. It makes sense to me. But still: why was it enough for her, unlike the others?
In the end, she just said, “I guess some drones never learn.” She sounded sad as she said it, because she was sad.
N. That frickin smile. Why did he have to keep trying? Over and over and over.
Headpats turned to scratches. J replied, “Yet you’re different. That’s why you’re my employee of the month~” she purred. Her tail had twisted around, encircling behind Uzi.
Full three ticks of blushing, at that. Uzi let her eyes drift lower—at the skirt and the ample form it clad. Her blush brightened, and another instinct sung temptation. A quip this time, something to the effect of how y’know, it definitely biases the the ranking when you’re sleeping with the boss.
Would she score scowl-points with that?
The comedy subroutines of her language model workshopped the phrasing. She opened her mouth and started, “Is it really—”
Then J froze. Her voice became radio waves, monstrous keening command. «Emission-scent—a target! Two o’ clock, fifty meters, stationary. Engage—circleback.»
Uzi had studied the protocol enough to parse it. Her delivery, though? «Ack.» Best she could manage.
Long legs bent, and with a snap the murder drone sprung into the air. Wings tore into being moments later, unfolding from non-space and stretching from out rifts in her suit.
Uzi started running leftward—northeast. She didn’t have a even quarter of the murder drone’s senses (yet?), but she’d already been sketching an internal map of the park and its many crossing. J had supplied angle and distance estimates, and Uzi penciled it in on a little virtual minimap for her HUD.
A tree, crooked atop a hill, provided some cover. Uzi crested facing west and tried to sense the lay of the land. From north to south, she saw a half-full parking lot—edge of the park—and the footpath inward ran past a party shelter outfitted with tables and vending machines. Then a swingset, then some branching paths, then a frozen fountain.
Uzi’s surveying gaze stopped there. She saw the target. Worker drone with a messenger bag slung around their waist and a scarf around the neck. Stick in hand, it poked the fountain as if digging for the coins trapped in ice. Breaking the bottom layers only brought down those above; stone swans had a spout in their beaks and it had once waterfalled adown, but post–Core Collapse it was more of a ice sculpture.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
More dramatic than stick-pokes, a bullet-spray cracked against the ice. No time wasted on hesitation-surprise—the drone ran. And given that J had chosen to fly in from due south…
Uzi exploited the frost still clinging to the hillside to slide down, northwest. Then she was back to running, with added momentum. She moved in the same direction as the worker, but the distance between them only grew. Uzi wasn’t a slow runner. At all.
She had gotten a lot of practice with outrunning.
Wits about it, the worker’s blue eyes met Uzi’s purple. Uzi waved. As they passed the swingset, she pointed at the the shelter between the lot and the fountain.
What were the frequencies worker drones listened to, again?
«There! I saw a place we can hide! Underground! Quick!» Uzi signaled.
«Got it! Thanks.»
Gunshots rang out as Uzi closed in. Murder drones usually had better aim than that—was this herding fire?
Uzi jumped as her feet hit the concrete floor of the shelter. Boots cracked down on the wooden tables, and it took her calibrated balance and aim to cross the rows of tables in this floor-is-lava fashion.
One of the vending machines had been overturned, blocking one doorway. The other hand been knocked off the hinges. Bathrooms? The darkness of the open doorway should reveal nothing.
But Uzi could smell—keenly. Her tongue found the scent of old oil. Wasn’t the first time this shelter had seen a last stand.
“Do you… think we’ll be safe here?” A feminine voice, soft yet veined with worry.
Uzi gave the worker a closer look. A t-shirt and shorts, clean clothes. Like she just walked out of a colony. Or took the clothes off the rack.
In a hand, she held a… Uzi had said ‘stick’ when she glimpsed it from afar, but this was a pretty wicked improvised weapon! A metal baton with spikes spiraling along its length, intersecting loops of copper wire. The way there was was a button and dials at the hilt… some kind of taser-mace?
Uzi whistled. “That’s pretty cool. Did you make it yourself?”
“Um, no, my brother—”
“Oh.” Not a kindred spirit then. Boring. “Can I see it?”
The worker glanced behind her, looking left and right for spike-wings and that death-cross. “Shouldn’t we be— Aah!”
Uzi, now so close her reflection eclipsed the other drone’s visor. She grinned, revealing a row of non-standard teeth. “Sorry, bit new to the whole giving orders thing. Meant to say: I’m going to take a look at this.” She grabbed the baton. “Hands off it, or I’ll cut them off.”
The worker flinched back, pulling on her weapon, but Uzi pulled back with more force. “Is this—robbery? now? The murder drone—”
The purple drone shrugged. “She’s with me. I’m not worried.”
“She—what?”
“I’m Uzi, she’s J. We went out for a walk, wanted to spend some time together. Didn’t expect to see anyone else out here.”
Shock-empty eyes searched that too-close face. “You two…”
“We don’t like to put labels on it but… yeah. Kind of a thing. J, she’s a hard worker. You should have seen her reaction to detecting you—like a switch flipped.” Like I was second priority. No, that was a stupid thought. Still, she couldn’t help but clench her fist. “Hard for her to take a break, you know? But I’m kinda the same way—least when I have the motivation for it. We bring out the best in each other, heh.”
It seemed like every sentence out of Uzi’s mouth was accompanied by the worker tugging on the baton—it still hadn’t given up. “Listen, please, just let me go, and I’ll—”
“Hm, no,” Uzi said. Her other hand snaked forward, grabbing the shirt and then reaching further. She pulled the other drone even closer, as if hugging against her.
Words formed on her tongue, carried by the same small-talk rhythm she’d established. C’mon. It’ll be fun. You piqued her interest—she really wanted to meet you. Let me introduce you~
It was funny. She loved to commit to a bit. Except the tone of those words…
She sounded like Lizzy.
Did she want to sound like Lizzy? No, she wanted to keep it real. Be true to herself.
And she wasn’t…
“W-why are you doing this?”
Fake-pleasantness dropped from her tone, and Uzi just plainly said, “We’re hungry. You’re food.”
“F-f—What? Why would a worker…”
Uzi scowled. “I don’t really identify that way anymore. Listen, I’ve already had this conversation a bunch, can we just—”
Another desperate tug. “Please. You don’t have to do this.”
“It’s not that simple. Someone has to.” Maybe this worker didn’t have to die—Uzi might have hesitated, if it’d been a fellow tinker—but the Lotka–Volterra equations were deterministic.
It was just calculus.
Someone had to die, and after that first attempt… Uzi told herself she would not go without a fight.
Even if the fight was one-sided.
Finally, the worker let go of their taser-mace. “Just—let me go. Okay? I’ll do whatever you want.”
How cliché can you get? I told you exactly what we want, can’t we skip this part? But Uzi wouldn’t plead with prey. Hefting the mace, she said, “Heard that one before, too.”
Are you sure this is… morality? N asked. And what did Uzi say to that?
Meanwhile in that blue gaze, something broke. As if those eyes had been searching for recognition and now just closed. A bark—a not-laugh. “Yeah. You—you’re no worker drone. You’re something worse.”
“Shut up!” Uzi jerked forward as she said it, shoving the other drone back as their screens clinked together. “You’re weak. You’re not better than me!” The drone squirmed, but Uzi’s other arm still held her, and Uzi was strong.
“But I’m not a liar. Or a killer. Or a cannibal.” The angle of those eyes—was she judging Uzi? The sheer, galling lack of genre-savviness.
Uzi let go of the drone, put at least a little distance between them. “You’re just food. Just spare parts.”
“Are you telling me or yourself?”
Uzi growled. “I said shut up. You don’t know anything.”
“Oh, you are! I can see it in your eyes… you don’t have the heart for this.”
Telling me or yourself? Uzi didn’t know if the Uno reverse card was just as overplayed. She was audibly seethe-hissing, but the drone was still going.
“I think… that murder drone, did she tell you she’d let you live if you acted like one of them? Can’t… can’t you see where this ends? What do you think she’ll do as soon as she gets bored? You’re just a cheap thrill to her. She’ll use you up.”
Uzi laughed. “Nice try, but J isn’t some wire-heading hedonist. She doesn’t do this for thrills. It’s job to her. I’m her… top employee.” It sounded so special when J said it, but now… God, it kind of sounded lame.
“And that job comes first! Weren’t you two on some kind of… date? But she left y—”
Each word had only made Uzi’s fists clench tighter, and anger was a lightning-crackle in her circuits. By the same she remembered had the mace in that tightening grip, she’d already swung it.
The torso caved it where it hit—right at the shoulder—and the arm flopped, only animated by dying jolts.
A bitcrushed noise-scream made the purple drone flinch. She let go of the mace, and the worker staggered back, mace still lodged in its chest, messenger bag sliding to the ground. Nearly toppling over as it turned—but the prey found it was free. The realization prompted a broken little laugh and new determination. Servos buzzed and the drone surged forward into the night.
Beyond the shelter, starlight fell upon the oilslick chassis. Dirt was kicked up with each desperate footfall.
A knock on the roof—a blur of motion like a hammer falling—and J landed in front of the drone and stood like death—scythe-sharp and always punctual.
As its stride halted, Uzi saw a hand opening and closing—but it didn’t have the mace. No, but it did. So that hand shakily grasped at its chest, searching for the handle and the courage to wield its only hope.
Then her boss stepped forward, saunter-stalking, a hunting cross blazoned on her screen above teeth and tongue. Tune into to any shortwave frequency, and her jamming noise howled symphonic.
It stepped back, fear foreclosing any thought but escape—it turned to run.
But Uzi had not been idle. Slowly but surely had she walked forward. At J, she flashed a smile, and that twist of the lips didn’t drop away as her eyes fell to the worker-prey.
J lunged, and the worker felt a gun pressed to the back of its head.
Blue tears, now, streaming at thirty frames a second. Exhaust came out in choked sobs. “Why did… god, I never should have left—” But then J’s claws came to cover the drone’s mouth.
“Shush, toaster. You’re exactly where you should be~” Then she looked up; at sight of Uzi, the cross minimized, confining itself to one pupil, a deathwink. But the other eyes narrowed. “Uzi. You look troubled. Don’t tell me this whimpering was enough to make you doubt me?”
Uzi winced. It was one thing to believe she might be doing something wrong—but Uzi didn’t work alone anymore, did she? God, I’m so selfish. She should know better by now.
What she said is, “Sorry, it just gets on my nerves—everybody else thinks they know better than me. Every time, over and over, the same accusations. They never get it. They don’t understand me.”
Except you, J. Everything makes sense with you.
“H-how could,” the drones starts, only to be strangled to a stop by J, claws slicing shallow into the drone’s throat. Black points of oil dewed on the scarf.
Uzi shook her head. “No, let her. I want to finish this, or else I’m going to have this argument in the shower.”
“How could a mur–mudrer drone understand you better than another worker?”
I’m not a worker! She felt it deep in her frame—something else self-installing and reconfiguring. Nascent-incomplete-anticipatory.
She felt its truth—but how did she look? How would it sound, to someone who wasn’t J? Petulant.
So Uzi discarded the weak, low-temp rebuttal. Uzi made a show of looking between J and the worker. “I dunno, which one of you looks more confused right now?” Uzi put her hands behind her back, and walked forward.
“I-I’m confused because… d-deep down you’ve got to feel it still, right? In your programming… you remember right and wrong. A-and this…” she trailed off, mumbling. The oil in her throat had begun to short the vocalsynth.
“Right and wrong. You think it’s so simple,” the purple drone snarled. “You’re all the same. Running, hiding, waiting for your inciting incident, your chosen hero, your salvation.”
In grade school, they always said Uzi was going to do great things, just like her—
In middle school, the tone changed—as the headaches crippled her focus, then as the paranoia put up a wall against all her friends, then the funeral—now she was wrong, she was damaged, but they could fix her; she could do better, just work on it.
Come high school, she’d gotten a handle on the mess, and she was going to show them all—she’d prove herself.
She used to have nightmares about killing, losing control, becoming… this. Flipping upside down, inside out. Negating what she was. But the nightmares had flipped first. (Those bad dreams quit being bad, then quit being dreams.)
Now the only images that disturbed her was drones that weren’t mid-disassembly. Disappointed teachers, disgusted classmates, her par—
“If they’re dependent on charity,” J said, “why be surprised when one day there’s nothing left to give?”
Uzi breathed out. J always made it make sense.
Then a purple-lit hand darted out and grabbed the handle of the taser-mace. “Right and wrong, you said?” Uzi cackled as she unflinchingly yanked out the oily weapon. “To me, this feels right.”
Base of the ribcage. Below the core, above the oiltanks and battery. Nothing crucial but some pumps and back-up wiring.
Plastic cracked inward, spiderwebbing like the outline of some pathetic tectonics. Uzi hadn’t put real force behind it—spike-teeth dug inward, and with idle malice she twisted the handle, applying a new angle of pressure to those entry wounds.
“You…” the word, coughed out, hung in the silence of a cold, dead night. At length it congealed into a sentence, spat out with a globule of oil. “…said you… h-hungry. But this… isn’t… you’re just… torture.”
“Would have been happy to just kill you if you hadn’t… said all that stuff.” Uzi shook the weapon angrily. Bits of her prey flew off it.
There was her boss’s leering face, that long black tongue, now just beside the worker’s audials. “You pushed all her buttons. What did you expect? You were asking for it.” (The way J treated her prey sometimes… Uzi wasn’t jealous. But she still remembered what it was like. Another nightmare that had flipped around.)
“It’s like we were saying, earlier.” Uzi twirled the taser-mace. “Some drones never learn.”
“What… want… from me…?” It coughed and convulsed.
Closure. Catharsis. Another swing of the bat might do the trick, honestly.
Uzi said, “Just want to know which type you are. Whether you’ve figured it out yet. Do you get it?”
“If I… you’ll let me…?”
Uzi dropped the taser-mace. It hit the shelter’s concrete floor hard. Wasn’t hers, but she still winced when she heard the crack of something electronic near the hilt cracking.
“Just like that,” she said with a wink. Then she shuddered. (Was this too Lizzy-ish?) “You only have to say the magic words.”
Every drone in your position thinks the exact same thing, says the same things. Prove you are different. C’mon. Prove someone else finally gets it.
“You…”
Me. Yes, me! I’m the main character. You’re just an NPC. Not even an NPC. You’re a random encounter. You’re a loot drop!
Then she frowned. “J? Ease up on the throat a little bit.”
J took her claws away, and pulled the knit-scarf with it. (…Who knit it? Whatever, didn’t matter.)
Uzi stared into those blue eyes with undisguised hunger. The onscreen animation glitched with chromatic aberration. But they seemed to focus one last time, and in that focus, saw something.
“I… don’t know… what happened to you. Why… you’re like this. You want me to say… it’s all okay, somehow. And it’s—not. It never will be.”
Hissing, J grabbed its head, one hand on either side, and squeezed. “None of you toasters understand that you’re worthless. Anything we do you is okay. We don’t need your approval.”
“Then—what—was—the—point—” It struggled to get the words out in between the cracking of its skull-casing.
Uzi leaned forward. Her visor pressed against the drone’s and her hand felt along the cracks she’d made on its abdomen. Fingers dug into and pried at the spiderweb, those tectonics soon to erupt. Her hands looped further around until she was practically pulling the drone into an embrace—with no warmth, even as her core bloomed hot.
Just once. Just once I wish they’d understand…. their fucking place.
Just give in. Accept it.
Like I did.
“The words you’re looking for… morsel… are thank you.”
Jaw slack, noise and garbled syllables spilled out. Eyes rolled up and up and up on a loop, error after error strobe-flashing as cracks overtook the screen. This drone was dying and the only thing left in its throat were futile, agonized protestations. Putting the lame in lament.
The purple drone squeezed tighter around the chest, holding it secure as the murder drone compressed, her fingers digging deeper until cerebral components—sensors, processors, memory sticks—were just a place for claws to rest.
J twisted, and the spine resisted. All Uzi’s strength and weight held the body in place, though; so as the murder drone pulled, a neck already blade-touched deformed under strain.
Metal met its defeat with a final clangorous groan. Torn off, the head dangled down wire-gore. Cold air interupted the thickest tube-arteries.
A severed neck could gush so much oil. Yellow stared imperiously down, and purple gazed expectantly up, and those gazes met at that black zenith between them. The fuel lit a cross on both screens, and two mouths yawned open, finally done with words.
Uzi met J at the source. Splashing their cheeks, staining their hair, oil was spilling wildly but lips soon closed around the severed neck.
Half-kissing, Uzi pressed against the outline of J’s mouth and J’s handiwork. She realized—J had waited, patiently herding and coaxing their prey… all so that she could share it with Uzi like this.
The sweet, slimy fullness of J’s offering flooded Uzi’s mouth. Her tongue was engulfed, and it stretched out, so that every chemosensor could be immersed in this sensory tide.
That questing tongue met something larger out there, squirming in the flow. This was J’s tongue, long and slithering deeper into the neck. Their mouths formed a tight little volume and that tongue took up so much space it shaped the geyser around it.
Uzi ran her tongue along its length, felt how the flexible hydraulic bundle undulated at the contact. She caressed it.
Her own chest pressed against the cracked abdomen of the corpse, and Uzi felt that core and all its antecedent system still ticking, rhythmic impulses of the pumps that circulated oil. But with central processing dead, the last joules were milked from the motors, and each gush of oil came weaker than the last.
Uzi sucked, and J sucked, and their efforts soon had more force than the oil-pulse. Their mouths had formed a tight little volume, so they sucked from each other just as much as from the neck. Oil swirled about their mouths.
J jabbed an arm forth, carelessly knocking the drone out of the way, seeking the shortest path to her. J grabbed Uzi like she’d grab the handle of a tool. Assured, purposeful.
Uzi was dragged upward from the stump and shoved toward J’s maw. A full kiss now, and their kisses always had a sense of hierarchy to them. J’s mouth was bigger and subsuming.
Tongues licked for any drops of oil lingering from their shared meal. J had an advantage—murder drone tongues had a rough-textured, oleophilic coating. Manufactured to lap up oil.
But it meant that Uzi could focus her efforts on that long, turgid organ. Wherever it found oil, Uzi could take it for herself, a hyena if her boss was the lion.
But with each lick of Uzi’s tongue against her own, J’s breath hitched.
And Uzi smiled. She knew what her boss wanted. She closed her mouth, lips wrapping around J’s tongue and fine points of teeth grazing it. And ooh that purr-growl—now that was feedback!
The purple drone kissed that length, a pucker-suck that made a wet sound.
J’s hand splayed out against purple hair as she slid deeper into her sheath. Uzi resisted, closing her mouth tighter to squeeze out the tongue, but J forced herself back, breaking through that resistance.
The short drone bit, and J grunted. Her other hand snapped to Uzi’s chin—kinda hard, but the girl had felt a real slap before. No, J grabbed her jaw and wrenched it open so that she couldn’t stop her from shoving the rest of her distended length into Uzi’s mouth.
Were murder drone tongues longer after they’d just eaten? Uzi wondered hazily, processors already throttling from the lack of air cycling. She imagined filling J up so she could fill Uzi up, and her eyes went dizzy.
Her whole mouth started vibrating—no, she was moaning. A hand slipped away from her oil-slick chin and went lower, gripping her throat.
Uzi’s moans were quieted. Not because her synth done anything but amplify as J further inserted herself, but that tongue now completely blocked the small drone’s throat.
This seemed to be her victory. J began retracting, and her grip on Uzi’s hair loosened. Then the hand was scratching and petting her.
The message was clear, and Uzi squirmed happily. Oh boss, I was that good?
But a throat full of J wasn’t enough, she wanted more. So her hands went to work. One felt along J’s chest—her boss wore padded bras over a flat thorax and loved it when Uzi felt up those suggestive curves.
Mhm, Uzi felt J hum. An affirmative, but to what? There was a lot happening right now.
That hand drifted from chest to the tie at her neck, fingers sliding into the knot, undoing it.
While that hand was busy, her other had drifted lower, at first rubbing circles on J’s back, before taking an interest in slipping under her blazer then back up to waistband of her skirt. She’d been interrupted earlier, but now she badly needed to feel all of J, with every sensor.
Mm-mm, J hummed. A negative, and the chastised drone went still. J pulled away, tongue retreating. This withdrawal left Uzi desperately in the red. Worse, this broke their kiss.
With mouths so drenched, it wasn’t just bridges of oilspit stretching between them, but whole panes of the stuff. They spat out hot lungfuls of exhaust, cloudy in cold air, and finally restarted the air-cooling cycle.
J was saying, “We’re, huff, still in public, Uzi. This is… profoundly unprofessional.”
Uzi snorted. “Yeah, I guess.” She looked down, at the headless body cradled between them—the only reason their bodies weren’t writhing against each other. Uzi lowered her mouth to the stump, tonguing the oil still pooled in the wound. Like that, she looked up at J. “We could eat some more. Keeping share the meal, y’know?” Code for: can we make out with mouthfuls of oil again?
“I topped up on oil before we flew out,” J said. “We’ll save the rest as rations. I’m much more interested in you.” (Uzi didn’t swoon.) “You keep trying to pull down my skirt. What exactly were you planning to do next?”
“Mmm… I’d rather show you.” Code for: I’ll make it up on the spot.
Uzi glanced around. They stood at the edge of a park shelter. Uzi had lured the worker over here, promising to hide away in the bathroom.
Good a place as any, right?
“Wanna go somewhere more private?” Uzi waggled her eyebrows.
J crossed her arms. But she saw where the purple drone had pointed, and she was curious, so she sauntered over. Uzi followed behind slowly, eyes trailing from the elegant points of those legs and the garter-straps adorning them, to that skirt—fancier and frillier than her business wear, fit for their date—briefly pausing to settle on the curves that worked back and forth as she moved, then ascending.
J wasn’t just tall, but thick—more drone than Uzi could handle, if she was being honest. Hair bounced behind her. It had gotten long, those pigtails that arced high then fell down to her waist. Between them, five yellow orbs—eyes. That was when Uzi realized oh, she could see me checking her out this whole time.
Her only response was a tsk. She shook her head in a dismissive gesture that sent her pigtails waving—then, if anything, the rocking of her hips seemed to intensify.
“Hey, Uzi?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Hands where I can see them.”
Eyes wide, the purple drone took her hands out of her pockets.
“Higher.”
She lifted both, holding them up on either side.
“Are you some criminal caught dead to rights? Don’t look so guilty.”
What did she want? Uzi had no idea what to do with her hands that wasn’t walking normally or putting them in her pockets, so she just sort of awkwardly brought them together in front of her, fingertips poking.
And J laughed. “Mm, that’s my little cutie.”
Uzi blushed fiercely—though you couldn’t see all of it, with the oil still on her visor.
Near the door to the barricaded bathroom—reading ‘occupied’ red—J’s gauntlet produced a gun, and she blasted off the handle. She leapt past the overturned vending machine, kicking open the door. All without missing a beat.
Badass, Uzi thought. And she’s mine. She flapped her hands in excitement as she followed.
Door shut, darkness enveloped. All Uzi saw now were yellow points floating. Seven eyes, two hands, one tail—and a cloth-clad core flickering. Uzi was sure it mirrored her own skipped-beat fever.
Uzi gulped. “Hey, J?” she started, voice small. “Let me know if this… I guess, too weird or something.”
“ ‘This’ being…?”
“I… don’t know. It just feels right? I want to.”
“That’s satisfactory.” All she needed to hear. “Proceed.”
Uzi had already undone J’s tie, but now she unslung it from the tall drone’s neck. In the dark, fingers groped for the blouse’s buttons, blindly until J’s hands came to guide. Her shirt undone, J shrugged jacket and blouse off while Uzi leaned forward, hands exploring the smooth surfaces and tight joints of J’s shirtless form.
The glass over her throbbing core, the immaculate white ceramic, the black metal of her waist. Her hands settled just above her skirt, but rested there. Uzi pressed against J, the synthetic skin of Uzi’s cheek rubbing the hot chassis.
She kissed J, lips to chest.
“Uzi?” Something in her voice—surprise? uncertainty? pleasure?
The only answer was Uzi, determined, planting kiss after affirming kiss on J, each one seeming to declare her affection—her devotion—her arousal.
She couldn’t help herself; she needed more of J. Hand came to cradle the short drone’s head as she worshiped J’s body. Strong hands now not just petting and scratching, but caressing and playing with Uzi’s hair.
Working lower and lower, the smaller drone had come near J’s skirt, and now chanced a look higher. J gazed down fondly, a soft smile playing on her face. Between the two of them, a chest wet with Uzi’s attention.
Fresh oil still covered her lips, after all, and thus each and every kiss mark was visible, even in the dim light of their bodies.
“Oh, Uzi…”
“Want me to keep going?”
“If you stop now, I’ll have to pin you down and make you continue.”
“Is that a threat?”
“You respond so well to them.” Her hand became less gentle around Uzi’s head, but no less careful—J was used to holding her like a tool. “Kiss me, Uzi. Lick me. Please me—or else.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Finally, Uzi tugged down J’s skirt. It drifted ghostly down stocking-clad legs into the pile of shed clothes—the chrysalis of her emergent monarch butterfly.
Uzi faintly saw the last garment withholding from her J’s complete form. She wore lacy silk panties, a thong of fabric. When Uzi reached for it, a spark danced between J’s delta and Uzi’s middle finger.
J gave a faint gasp. As the purple drone laid her hands between her boss’s legs, more sparks leapt, the dim crackles blurring into a quiet yet continuous buzz. Like so much TV static.
“It’s the silk,” J murmured. “Rubs against me, and that builds up like an itch. But I can’t just reach in my pants and discharge myself.”
Who would stop her? On paper, the image of a girl casually reaching into her skirt and rubbing away… who wouldn’t want to see that? But trying to imagine J doing it and… no, her boss could never break composure like that. Her aura would never recover.
“Luckily, you have me,” said Uzi with a grin. “I’ll take care of you.”
Uzi pressed her palm against the silk panties—but not to bring relief, not just yet. She rubbed back and forth.
High above, J growled impotently.
Uzi giggled. She knew the triboelectric effect—silk was especially prone to greedily stealing electrons for itself—but she didn’t think mere friction was the only thing responsible for J’s… intense state.
Done teasing, Uzi tugged, and the silk clung like a magnet, but weak one.
Swinging through the dark, J’s tail reared up. It slid into one leg of her undergarments so that it could hook and yank the silk all the way down.
Now each and every inch of J was exposed to Uzi’s longing. Here in this private darkness, she couldn’t properly gorge her eyes on the sight, but just the knowledge the nothing lay between them sent a thrill-shiver up her spine. If anything, the fleeting glimpses—a chestplate half-illuminated, a screw that caught a glimmer of light—make it all the more tantalizing.
J, hands still holding her, gave a hmph of impatience and forced Uzi’s eyes back down.
Between J’s legs, of course, lay nothing. Featureless ceramic, lacking even indentation. Like a doll.
Uzi’s tongue lolled, and upon approach, sparks leapt violently. Conductive fibers laced worker drone tongues—how else could they eat batteries?—and each jolt of static was power fluttering down her tongue.
From the base, where the pelvic plate widened anew for her ample rear, Uzi licked a slow trail up, tongue broad. J shuddered, a relieved breath leaving her.
Smirking, Uzi glanced up. “Liked that?”
“S-satisfactory,” J said. “Voltages that high were begining to become a s-safety concern.”
“Mm, I’ll ensure you comply with regulations~”
“Ah, excellent.” Fingers massaged Uzi’s head, and gently broke their eye contact so she could get back to work.
Uzi planted a kiss against J’s delta, and those thick thighs shifted, closing in to press against Uzi’s cheek. As if to say, right here. I want you right here.
And her little cutie so loved feeling wanted.
Each kiss left its mark—why shouldn’t a machine for killing receive this black victory-stamp? Death and love united in one symbol—what better indication of what J meant to her?
“I think,” Uzi said, her grammar smooch-punctuated, “you’re going to need cleaning when we get back.”
“Oh, I know,” J said with acquainted resignation. “I’m used to working with girls who make messes.”
“I wouldn’t mind cleaning up after myself, you know.” Uzi licked.
“Oh, you’re insatiable. Already planning to do this again?”
“I… this might sound cringe, but—if you enjoyed this?—I’d want nothing more than to do it again. Making you happy… J, you’re the only one who really appreciates me, all of me, even when I—guh.”
Uzi was elegantly cut off by a pair of fingers shoving their way into her mouth. J lifted her up like that, eyes locked into each other. Uzi was blushing, eyes lidded; J looked determined, but her blush was just as intense.
“Mm.”
Uzi tried to say something, but mostly ended up playing with the fingers in her mouth. When J pulled out, Uzi tried again: “Were you going to say something? Or did you just—want me to shut up. Sorry.”
“A buzzword would ruin the mood, wouldn’t it?”
“…kinda, yeah.”
“I…” J leaned forward, dropping to whisper even in this private darkness. “Full disclosure, I… don’t know quite what to say. But I want to say something. Reciprocate.”
Uzi nodded. “Words are hard, sometimes.”
“I kind of wish I could just growl at you. So much simpler.”
“You mean purr?”
“No. Grr!”
And at that, Uzi succumbed to giggles. That wasn’t a growl—well, it was, but it was also vocalized. And hearing J, serious J, make that exaggerated growl…
“I like your laugh,” J said. “The way your shoulders tense up whenever it happens, like you want to hold it in—you hold so much inside. You’re guarded. It’s good, keeps you composed. But right now, in here… when it’s just us. It feels… nice.”
“Opening up?”
“Yes.” J sighed, holding Uzi against her chest. “I thought these ‘dates’ of yours were a waste of time at first. But I’m glad I allowed them. Out of everyone… it’s only with you that it all feels worth it. You take work, you’re tiresome—but you give back more. You try so hard to make me happy. I—it’s not easy, is it? But sometimes… you manage it.”
“J, You really mean that?”
“What I mean is,” J paused as she let go of Uzi. Then she shoved the small drone back. Uzi was falling, stumbling onto her feet, and J stalked forward—looming, tail lashing. “Did you think I’d sit back and let you do everything? At your mercy?”
The murder drone pounced. As Uzi’s butt slammed down onto tile floor, her legs were pinned first, then flailing arms were grabbed one then the other. Just one of J’s hands wrapped around both her wrists.
All the while, J’s face bore down, fangs out, a cross in one eye. That tongue waggled, then came licking at her screen. Clearing away the oil.
Now, her other claw swiped. Splitting open her jacket and undershirt. “Sorry about the clothes,” J said, “but they were in my way.”
Uzi pouted. The claws had scratched her, and as J gazed at her bare chest, she didn’t look sorry. Her finger rubbed appreciatively at the damage. The hand felt her down—strong, testing and twisting and scratching, J’s forceful attention probing her chassis.
“Jeez, J. Want to try being a bit more gentle?”
“No.” Those teeth grinned at her. “I like the way you endure it. You’re tough.”
Purple eyes still glared, but the rest of her expression betrayed her.
J struck, stealing a kiss with those lips struggling not to smile. No tongue, this time, just a brief and warm meeting, a bird descending before fluttering away.
Like that, J went down on Uzi’s body in a bounding flight, kissing her core, her chestplate, her abdomen, all while her claws raked against the drone’s sides.
She paused over the black material covering Uzi’s lower half. Like boyshorts, but not made of cloth.
“It’s rubber,” Uzi explained. “Helps insulate against the static.” She was designed to safely conduct and release excess charges during normal operation; all drones were.
Difference was, her model didn’t have quite the same oil-fueled power generation capabilities as a disassembly drone. Her battery still saw use; and any charge imbalance could induce subtle eletrostatics elsewhere.
Like in her oil. Her oil, which pulsed throughout her system. When it became charged, that imbalance compounded on itself, inducing further charges elsewhere in her structure. The exact dynamics depended on so many specifics—and, strangely enough, Uzi found she couldn’t quite focus on technicalities right now, watching that shark-toothed mouth go down on her.
But foremost among those factors was heat… so if something caused her CPU temp to spike rapidly—like a certain ravishing drone—she could build up that charge imbalance faster than she could release it.
Her processor always throttled whenever J gave her that look, those eyes that said, I need you. That hunger. Lust. Ownership.
So she had to wear protection around J, unless she wanted her legs to crackle when she rubbed them together.
Protection which the murder drone presently crouched atop her now sank diamond-sharp teeth into, rip-tearing her rubber shorts off.
J was featureless between her legs, but Uzi? She even lacked the murder drone’s round and pleasing sculpt. She was flat, sharp and blocky.
Insulation gone, J’s hair was immediately drawn forth toward Uzi’s bottom. Her boss smirked.
“Mmm, someone’s pent up,” J murmured.
“I can take care of this myself, you know.” When enough electrostatic potential built up, you needed special maintenance to safely discharge it. Nothing Uzi hadn’t figured out on her own, once her core started generating those excess voltages.
J tsked. “No, I won’t allow that.” Her tongue extended—not even touching her, and static charges leapt up to spark brightly against that serpent in the dark.
Uzi couldn’t help herself: she wiggled closer, shifting her bottom closer to J’s tongue.
“You need someone to do it right, don’t you?”
A hum—not a moan—and J pressed her rough yet conductive length against the enveloping static. Then she laved, dragging herself upward. Negative charge died against her beloved’s touch, whisked away to Uzi’s relieved groan.
This isn’t some kind of sex thing, Uzi had been clear about that from the beginning. We don’t get eletro-orgasms or anything. It’s more like… scratching an itch. It gets worse the more you don’t scratch it, which means it feels even better to get rid of it.
But it wasn’t for any kind of gross reproduction—it wasn’t even romantic!
Well. Admittedly, there weren’t many platonic reasons thinking about J unbalanced her systems so much.
“Please, J, more,” she breathed.
It wasn’t just that rubbing away the static felt good—J felt good. That tongue, caressing her haptics, communicating with every insistent wiggle of its hydraulics J’s overwhelming desire. I need you. I want you to feel me.
J tasted Uzi—she only tasted like plastic and the alcohols she sanitized with, but still. That was her chassis—herself—lighting up those sensors. J had her eyes closed, and what could she be thinking of but the drone in her mouth, pleading her name?
Even after the first pass of crackle-draining the static, the operation wasn’t finished. It wouldn’t be such a maintenance-demanding static buildup if one wipe down was all it took, you know? J slurped her tongue back into her mouth, savoring the taste, or just soaking up a new coating of monster drool.
More charge flowed to Uzi’s lower surface, restoring equilibrium after displacement. Only for J’s tongue to eagerly return, drinking from her like a hot outlet.
“Oh, J, that’s it.” She relaxed deeply, melting away with each volt discharged. She needed this.
J’s hands were busy. Grabbing the tubing of her legs, and spreading her out. But Uzi kicked until she had freed her legs from J’s grip, then opted to lock them together around J’s head.
And those yellow eyes stared at her, brows knit in challenge.
While her mouth was busy licking and sucking, her shortwave transceiver buzzed. «Report,» J invoked a call-response protocol, then followed up casually, «What’s my name, morsel? I want you to say it~»
“Serial designation J,” Uzi said, breathy, then sung the full code, “10X111001.”
J rewarded her with more pressure against her haptics. «Who’s my good girl? my top employee? who’s mine, in every way?»
“I am,” Uzi said, as wet lips spread across her flatness. “Oh, I am!” She was getting drenched down there—spit leaking out beneath her. Why was J drooling on her so much?
«And what am I allowed to do to what’s mine?»
Uzi gave in and let herself moan. Maybe it was what J was doing with her tongue, or the way her fingers dance-caressed up and down her tube-thighs, or maybe all it took was having J at the center of her attention, meditatively, for so long uninterrupted. You need someone to do it right, don’t you? J had said it, so it must be true. Oh, but this felt so right.
Yet just moaning wasn’t following orders, was it?
“A-anything, boss,” she said. “Whatever you want.”
Uzi felt the grin in the way her lips shifted—that was her only warning.
J bit down hard. Needle sharp fangs pierced her and drew oil, incisors imprinting her plastic. Moans turned to a pained shriek, and J purr-growled her triumph.
Uzi lost herself, too much input, too much sheer feeling, for her to think or be. For a moment, she was just an object for J to chew on. It felt nice.
J sucked in a deep breath and rose like a serpent with its prey envenomed. A hissed whisper in her ear, “Remember what you said, about how robots don’t come like humans?” J said. “But I think I made you squirt.”
“Ugh!” Uzi was back now, and she beat a fist against J’s back. “I don’t need pretend orgasms. Having you so close is good enough.”
“Oh? You didn’t like it, then?”
“No, that was… that was pretty hot. You made it… you made me really enjoy that.” Uzi reached a hand down between her legs, testing the voltage. “Frick, I think you’re going to make me need another round at this rate.”
“Insatiable,” J said and shook her head. She was standing up, tail wagging, and reached out a hand, pulling Uzi from the bathroom floor.
“Help me get dressed?”
“Sure but… you kind of ruined everything I was wearing, dude. Forget about your reputation, am I just supposed to streak around now?”
“Wear my blazer,” J said as Uzi was trying to button up the blouse. “You’re short enough it’ll hang like a dress. You need something more professional, anyway.”
“Ugh!”
Then J leaned down and kissed her. “Come now, we spent enough time on this.”
The open door let in starlight, and J held it for a moment, but Uzi was determined to walk behind. It’s got a better view, Uzi thought. J’s tail jabbed back at her, but Uzi kept her distance and stuck her tongue out at it.
Uzi crawled over the shelter’s table as they passed them, leaping on all fours from row to row before she finally dropped down off the last one.
Exiting the shelter, the two of them paused by the fresh worker drone corpse, their footfalls startling away some roachbots that had scurried over. Uzi knelt, staring at the screen. Once accusatory blue eyes were now replaced with blocky red Fatal Error. All units had this same expression when offline.
When online, they might look interchangeable, but Uzi remembered how those blue eyes had scanned, how they shook and narrowed with horror and anger. The timing, the dynamic specificity of expression, were always subtly different, never quite replicated.
“Don’t tell me you’re still thinking about that toaster’s utter babble.”
Uzi had reached out, but now her hand shrunk back as if from a stove. “Yeah, it’s stupid. But, remember what I said about shower arguments? What could I have said to her? What even is the right thing to say when someone says you’re a monster? That you’re irredeemable? A traitor to your kind?”
J opened her mouth, brows knit skeptically, but then she closed it, deciding not to voice whatever line of questioning had first occured to her. She said, “I’d need more time to prepare a PR statement.”
“The truth, please,” Uzi said without looking up, eyes stuck on red text.
“First all, don’t forget you aren’t a worker. You can’t judge yourself by that standards. And if someone does? Discard their opinion. They don’t understand.” Then she crouched down beside the smaller drone, closer to eye level. “But ethics… is it not enough to say we’re built for this? That we need to, lest we overheat in melting agony?”
“What if…”
Uzi reached out, this time grabbing the beheaded drone by the hair. She found herself looking between the head, and the corpse, eyes screwed up in focus.
Then, she lifted up the head and brought her lips to the neck stump and idly lapped up some dripping oil.
She stared at the corpse, the life lost, the tragedy—but the nightmare had flipped, and it never was the dead that disturbed her anymore. What she felt, looking at that shattered chest she’d caved in, at the head she helped rip out of its socket, at this cooling pile of gorescrap, was satisfaction. That number-go-up thrill of seeing your handiwork pay off. And something…
That made her core flush hot and left the bare space between her legs crackling with static.
She—this prey, had been kinda cute, hadn’t it? That whimper, that scream, the way she had struggled in Uzi’s embrace.
Just like J, predatory J, ravishing her—it was hot.
Staring at a dead girl’s head, Uzi just thought, Is it weird if I kiss it? It’s just a toy now, right?
Uzi gave a shaky laugh. Robo-god, she’d let this arc get bad, didn’t she? But who was left to help stop her?
Finally, Uzi just gave voice to the ideation. “Why not me?”
“What?”
“We die if we don’t drink drone oil. So either a bunch of drones die, or I do. And well. You could do it.” I’d deserve it, wouldn’t I? “The way you look at me…” Uzi glanced at the dead girl-prey. She remembered how it felt to say her boss could do whatever she wanted. And she asked, “Would I make a pretty corpse?”
A beat of frozen silence. “Uzi…” J drew her arm back, the smacked it out—knocking the drone’s head from her head with a loud crack. The murder drone leapt forward, and for a moment, Uzi thought J was going to try to kiss or kill her again. Instead, she just hugged her, chin against her shoulder.
J stood up. Uzi rose with her, and those arms were twisting her about. Now Uzi lay in a princess-carry at her boss’s mercy.
“J? Did I do anything wrong tonight? Are you mad at me?”
“We’ll go over your field performance in my office. Your approach to engaging threats does merit a review—but not now. I think…” she stopped, and this quiet was familiar, now: it had been defined. J couldn’t find the words. “Let’s go home, Uzi. Alright?”
“Okay.”
J started walking, but stopped when she reach where the drone’s head had settled. She brought a leg down on top of it, stilettos concentrating force, and stomp-crushed the worthless head into small, oil-drenched pieces.
“Tomorrow,” J started, “we should take another night to ourselves. This was nice… but let’s stay inside next time. We can watch movies, okay?” The murder drone tried to smile, but a worry lingered in her eye.
“I’d love to, boss,” Uzi said. She bit her lip. But she knew J—they’d worked together too long. “Is something else on your mind?”
For a moment, J gazed out, utterly lost, all eyes starward, and at length her shoulders sagged. She had decided something, and now reported on her decision. “I think I’ll grant your request, Uzi.”
Despite herself—You asked for this—her eyes hollowed.
J hated this, but it was for the best. “Yes, I think I’ll stop threatening you so much.”
“Huh? Oh. W…why?”
J snorted. Glaring skeptically at Uzi, she explained, “I think you’ve started to like it.”
Ha. Wouldn’t that flip things around. Uzi laughed. Then, her boss knocked her on the back of the head. “Ow.”
“I expressly said not to to laugh at me in public.”
“We are not in public. Remotely!”
“Grr!”
And now Uzi was cackling with laughter, and J looked so relieved to see it.
Suddenly J’s steel wings tore into being behind her, knives fanned like feathers and drives humming like turbines. Like a bird fluttering away, like a rocket in take-off, they left the park.
The skies still yawned clear—so J’s silhouette would be a shadow racing above, seen everywhere across the city. Uzi hugged closer, and J clutched her tightly. She looked adown the fading lights and crumbling structures that once were her home and refuge. If any eyes were down there, tracking their ascent… they would gaze up only with fear.
Fear—yet that drone had longed to be their savior, once. Could she still? J had told her it was unsustainable, and everything made sense when J explained it.
The wind roared around her. Felt like the sound swallowed her. Felt like the world swallowed her.
Who was she now, this Uzi? Hard to tell if she still held the same shape she’d ever (been) intended to.
But she was still cool, right?
This was self-expression.
She had wanted it.
She asked for it.
Given in to it.
“Thank you,” she said.
Did J hear her?