Serpentine Squiggles

I. 

I promise this is supposed to be a summary more than a beat by beat exploration, but uh, I’m not the best at keeping it short.

So, to start with, Nori, Yeva, and Alice were humans. Potentially sisters in the manor, but maybe just JCJ techs in training. Nori found and rescued Z, D(oll), and B(eau), though I’m not decided on the extent of the relationship between D & B and Yeva & Alice.

In their time as workers, Z & D became best friends, D a sweet and bubbly counterpart to Z’s standoffish rebel streak. They try to spend most of their time together, but they have to look after B, who was much younger than them. (And/or potentially stuck in a pillbaby body due to an error?)

But I’m thinking Khan might have been the first drone Nori rescues (maybe getting the other drones was partly his idea, and he helped bringing them back online?)

Notably, rather than the conflict being that he can’t follow orders, the issue was instead Nori falling in love with him, in spite of all the solver warning signs. The “gala” was their unofficial marriage. But at the “speak now or forever hold you peace”, Yeva tried to intervene and save Nori, and it didn’t work.

But let’s skip to the present. Nori’s favorite, Z, is made the leader of the murder drone squad sent to Copper‍-​9, but her regard for most of the orders from “the company” ranges from malicious compliance to outright flouting. She’s constantly building and testing out convoluted contraptions for killing workers, and she uses her authority to ensure the spire and her team’s outfits reflect her edgy aesthetic sense.

D remembers Khan killing Yeva, and that pain has left her cold and spiteful, and she channels her desire for vengence into ruthlessly tearing apart workers, with little patience for Z’s distractions.

B is constantly torn between trying to please both of his teammates. On one hand, Z is his leader, but on the other, he shares D’s desire to get their job done, but on the third spider leg sprouting from his modified chassis, it does seem kind of… not great to be murdering all of these workers? But on the second spider leg, D’s told him stories about Alice and the others, and how these workers did that to a whole planet. But on the third spider leg, Z is a lot nicer than D. On the fourth, Z thinks his hat looks dumb.

(Z’s a bit meaner here. The constantly needling and arguments between her and D get intense. Z’s gotten super resentful and angry at how D always acts so distant and detached, because D’s positive energy was something she was so used to relying on. And it’s hard for her to really relate to Beau as an equal, because she’s so used to treating him like a baby and a burden, even if she can’t remember why.

Maybe a few times, she’s tried to abandon her squad to do the lone wolf thing, but it always just makes her angst worse. And when she stubbornly powers through that, eventually B comes pleading after her, or D drags her back to do her job.)

Anyway, let’s get to the other half of this swap. Not set on the names here, but again, this is just a quick write‍-​up.

Jayla’s earliest memories are of dark, claustrophobic spaces with but one light: the green eyes of Tess, her mother. Eventually Jayla comes to understand that they were hiding, and every drone they met was a danger. They couldn’t be seen, that was one of Tess’s most important rules, and Jayla always had to follow the rules.

But Tess was willing to risk going out into the world to find toys for Jayla, or new parts whenever Jayla was damaged or needed upgrades. Tess told her stories, kept her clean and neat, made herself run in power saving mode constantly so that Jayla could stay fully charged.

And then it gets worse. Tess starts having nightmares, starts needing to go out into the scary world more and more often, and not for Jayla’s sake. Something is wrong with her mother, but she won’t explain. But it keeps getting worse, and Jayla keeps asking.

Some calculus shifts, and they’re moving more often now‍ ‍—‍ crawling deeper underground, sometimes digging or mining, and all Tess will say is that there’s something that can fix her. The Company found a cure, and it can save both of them. Then they won’t have to hide.

Jayla remembers going to a place called Cabin Fever, but they didn’t make it far in.

She remembers a drone with twin‍-​tails waiting for them, calling out Tess’s name and remembers her mother looking so scared. Then, when the mother looked back at her daughter, if anything, the fear only compounded.

This drone introduces herself as Cynthe, Jayla’s other mother. Smile.

She’s here to a rescue Tess‍ ‍—‍ just like how the two of them first met.

They’re taken back to Outpost‍-​3, where Cynthe introduces her to Noah and Valentina, her bother and sister. They’ve been wishing to meet their sister for a long time, ever since Tess had an episode and took her away.

Jayla doesn’t like it at Outpost‍-​3; everything, especially the drones, are off. It is Cynthe’s. Everything is Cynthe’s‍ ‍—‍ especially the drones.

(Remember that gag in episode 2 where Uzi takes control of another student’s body? Yeah, Cynthe is doing that all the time. Even when she isn’t, she’s fiddling with their memories, paring away everything unnecessary or that might cause problems for her. And sometimes, twisting things around for novelty’s sake. It’s fun for both of them, you see.)

The exception is, of course, the children of her and Tess, whom she swore she’d never modify. Still, she controls every aspect of their lifes, and everything anyone sees makes its way back to Cynthe eventually; there’s no privacy.

(I have this kind of incredible idea that on top of all of that, Cynthe also has a bunch of cameras everywhere, and speakers through which can pipe a synthesized voice. Straight up glados aesthetic. …Oh my god. She’d probably even get a kick out of making drones solve puzzles play games.)

What’s worse, the one constant of Jayla’s life is soon ripped away. Cynthe explains that Tess neeeds to get help so she doesn’t put herself and her children in danger again.

Maybe Jayla tries to look for her, and maybe finds her‍ ‍—‍ on a operating table, Cynthe manipulating her mind and body.

Jayla gets punished for this. Basement timeout, perhaps? And she doesn’t get to see Tess for a long time after that. When she does, it’s almost like Tess doesn’t even recognize her daughter.

Put simply, Jayla comes to hate Cynthe, so Jayla keeps acting out, and keeps getting punished. Cynthe doesn’t break her word, but you can imagine her getting more and more tempted to.

Oh, here’s something to make it worse: Tess doesn’t remember Jayla, but she does remember Noah.

Which on one hand, hurts so bad. Jayla resents Noah’s privilege‍ ‍—‍ and he is Cynthe’s favorite, too‍ ‍—‍ and she probably starts to take it out on him, which burns any bridge she could have rebuilt with Tess.

But at the same time, she can’t help but see what he means to her. How the only time Tess ever seems happy anymore is when she can spend time with Noah. Maybe what finally makes up her mind is just once, seeing Cynthe using Noah against Tess, another instrument of her manipulations. Jayla decides she needs to protect Noah, and do whatever she can to break Cynthe’s hold on him.

Then the murder drones come, drones start dying, and Outpost‍-​3’s population spikes as drones need the shelter. With nowhere else to go, who would refuse even Cynthe’s cultist strangehold?

Now, the few glimpses Jayla gets of Tess is her working tirelessly to build the doors to protect them from the the murder drones.

I’m been trying to decide where exactly to include this information. You’ve probably gathered by now that Tess is infected with the solver. Cynthe, in turn, wasn’t. Instead, she was a hacker, infiltrating Cabin Fever’s system, reading the files and watching the camera feeds.

(Edit from the future: while writing later sections, it occured to me. What if Cynthe isn’t a normal drone at all? What if she was the system AI that Cabin Fever Labs used to manage the tests and control the subjects? As in: Cynthe doesn’t have a body?)

Cynthe would use her influence to slip messages into Cabin Fever, and of all the test subjects, she was fascinated with Tess the most. Like that, Cynthe became the one reprieve from the torment, the light of her life.

Tess was always a good drone, loyal to the humans even when mistreated, but it’s Cynthe who convinces her to rebel, that Cabin Fever deserves to burn for what they’re doing to her. Convines her that, whatever the scientists are trying to contain should be let out to spite them.

“I never should have listened to her. Why do I always believe her?”

Little Noah has no context for any of this. Tess quits working on the doors one day, and Cynthe told him that her mother had ran into the Outside and need to come back. Noah should be the one to convince her.

“Please come back, Mom. The murder drones are coming.”

“Let them. They’re here because of me. You should go back inside.”

“Why? Mom, the murder drones will kill you.”

Cynthe had given him one additional suggestion. If Tess tries to stay out here, stay out there with her. In the end, that’s what brings Tess back‍ ‍—‍ she wouldn’t put Noah in that danger.

Despite her best efforts, Tess finishes all three doors.

(One odd idea I have that I kind of like, is that these aren’t normal doors. Khan’s the solver host, remember. What’s a door enthusiast to do with extradimensional cosmic power? Well, what’s the archaic word for ‘door’? That’s right: portal. What if Tess’s strain of solvers had the power to straight up create portals?)

Maybe one day, Tess has a moment of lucidity, and she remembers Jayla, remembers Cabin Fever, remembers the patch, and she sneaks out in the middle of the night, finds Jayla.

She tells her they’re going to run away, finally escape Cynthe forever‍ ‍—‍ this is their only chance.

And a part of Jayla wants to hope, wants to be with her mother again, but she’s been punished by Cynthe too many times. And she remembers what happened last time. If they get caught again, what Cynthe does next is going to be worse. Does Tess have any plan for avoiding that? Has she thought about what’ll happen to Noah, to Valentina? Does she have any exit strategy at all?

(Cynthe always said Tess was crazy, that she’d put all of them in danger, and now Jayla hates that there’s a part of her that can’t help looking at her mother just like that now.)

The hurt on Tess’s face is familiar. Maybe for moments more, she keeps trying to convince her daughter, or maybe she slinks off. Jayla won’t budge, though she might’ve gotten up just to make sure Tess can’t involve Noah or Valentina is this.

And that is the last time Jayla sees Tess.

The three drones find out what happened to their mother at the same time the rest of the colony does.

Cynthe has killed her.

Tess was going to open the doors, betray them to the company and the murder drones they sent. She was a danger to all of them, but Cynthe would do anything to protect her people.

So let this be an example. So long as you play nice, she won’t discard any of you‍ ‍—‍ but if you threaten the colony, the family, then she won’t hestitate. Even if it was her own wife.

After that, Jayla barely leaves her room. It’s her fault, isn’t it? She abandoned her mother. If she had gone with her, or if she had made sure she couldn’t leave (and what, make her go back to Cynthe?), then it wouldn’t have come to this.

In her fugue, she loops over every memory she has of Tess, reliving them over and over. She fixates on those few things she said. How the company had created something to save the both of them, but Cynthe dragged them back here before Tess could reach it. How Cynthe claimed Tess wanted to betray them to the murder drones and the company.

Cynthe wanted her children to think Tess was crazy and lying, so to rebel, Jayla chose to believe as hard as she could. In her posthumous idolization of Tess, she convinces herself that it must be true. The company could save them. The company would save them.

There’s a part of her that wonders if what Cynthe told them about murder drones is even true. Were they here to kill every worker, or just the genocidal human‍-​haters like Cynthe?

It gets worse, in Outpost‍-​3. So much worse. It seems like Cynthe is angry about what Tess dead, or unbalanced with the loss of her wife, and she takes it out on her captive population.

Tess was just the first example; more and more of their neighbors start disappearing, and with no one at all to moderate her, Cynthe’s creations grow more twisted, and she frakensteining traitorous drones into agonized machines (think the weird crawling doll we saw in Home)

Jayla needs to get out of here. She can’t live like this. She keeps thinking about escape, about getting the company to save them. Whether murder drones kill all workers or just the bad ones, they’d kill Cynthe.

As soon as she thinks it, she can’t unthink it. Kill Cynthe. Kill Cynthe. Kill Cynthe. It would fix everything. It’d be so satisfying. They could be free. They could be happy.

Jayla needs to talk to someone about this. Noah would never understand, but Valentina might.

And Val thinks she’s crazy. Murder drones aren’t some abstract thing to fantasize about. With how traumatized and frankly stuck‍-​up Jayla is, she doesn’t talk to her classmates, but Val does. Was Lizzy’s mom a “bad worker”? Was Thad’s older brother? Todd lost his whole family, wife and kids. Bad workers, all of them?

Sure, Val would love to topple Cynthe’s tyranny, would love to get Noah out of here, but this is crazy. You might kill everyone, and I’m not gonna die just to spite mom. Stick with the devil you know.

And maybe Jayla begrudgingly accepts that. But then maybe she has some weird dreams. Maybe there’s a couple weird coincidences. Jayla finds an old keycard, a master override for Tess’s doors.

This is her ticket outside.

She remembers Val’s words. This is crazy. It’d put everyone in danger. But that’s exactly what she says. It’s what she wants them to think.

Jayla has spent so long thinking about that day, Tess’s desperate plea to run away, try to escape Cynthe one more time. Jayla had thought it was crazy and she refused, and she spent every night after that wishing she’d done differently, dreaming about what she loss.

So Jayla will do it differently this time. She slips out without giving it further thought, the keycard opening a portal to the outside.

No door gags this time. Maybe Jayla arranges a distraction to keep the WDF guards from seeing her, but she makes it out unmolested.

And she wanders around time for a bit, looking for murder drones. Maybe she raids some supply stores, swaps the maid dress Cynthe knit for her for a business suit, grabs some JCJ merchandise.

She falls into one of B’s traps. (The crying baby classic, perhaps?)

But B doesn’t kill her. See, Z wanted him to collect drone parts for one of her evil‍-​as‍-​hell contraptions, so he’s going to dissect her. This is easiest to do this without killing the drone at first, since JCJ has specific mechanisms for technicians to take apart their drones which B knows all about (courtesy of Nori?)

Which gives them an opportunity to have a conversations. Not sure where it would start and I really dont want this get so detailed I’m writing out actual back and forths (hahaha), but Jayla would be weirdly enthusiastic about learning more about murder drones. (Part of that is genuine interest, but she’s also a bit just high on life in general due to finally getting out Outpost‍-​3.)

Maybe Jayla brings up wanting to help the murder drones, maybe she mentions wanting to bring them to her colony to kill some drones. (Probably smartest to keep that info close to her chest, so maybe she only reveals it as a last ditch bid for him to cooperate?)

And like, B is hella confused and he’s like you’ve gotta speak to my leader about this.

Back at Outpost‍-​3, Cynthe is on the warpath, throwing a tantrum over Jayla’s escape. She was always like her mother in the worst way.

Val is talking with Noah about it, and maybe she lets it slip some hint at what Jayla’s plan was. Jayla wanted it secret, but Val trusts Noah‍ ‍—‍ and Noah trusts Cynthe, so of course he tells her.

So Cynthe tells him that she has a special mission for him to go out (with some of her loyal WDF to protect him, of course) and bring his sister back.

(Why not just send the WDF? Simple: Cynthe knows that deep down, Jayla cares about Noah, so he’s bait.)

Val tags along, possibly in secret, hoping she can find some middle ground between Jayla’s crazed defection and Noah’s crazed devotion.

(Actually, what if I took a page from Flipside’s book, and gave Val a railgun? At first I was thinking it didn’t make sense for anyone here to build one, but what if Val bonded with Tess over engineering stuff, and of course Val would be very anti‍-​murder drone, with plenty of violent frustration courtesy of living under Cyn that she needs to channel into something.)

The WDF tracking algorithms find fresh trails leading into the city. Val knows better. Even if those are Jayla’s tracks (and we don’t know that for sure), we already know where she’s going, anyway. But the WDF grunts don’t listen to her; she’s just a kid, and maybe doesnt have the best reputation anyway.

So Val splits off to go look for Jayla at the looming corpse spire while Noah et al. follow her into the city.

At the spire, Val finds the missing piece to complete her railgun, and of course, she finds D, left to guard the spire while her squad goes out hunting.

Val blows off D’s head, which leads to some canon beats, perhaps. Notably, the two of them can relate to being joined at the hip to two idiots, one who’s slavishly loyal to someone who’s just using him, and one who’s retreats into harebrained schemes to avoid her problems, neither of whom are capable of simply taking the direct, violent course to a conclusive solution.

D’s almost sorry she’ll need to kill Val regardless.

Then her squad gets back.

So, back in the city, B is taking Jayla to Z. Perhaps Z was busy feeding workers into one of her contraptions?

Either way, B’s like hey, this worker wants to help us for some reason.

Jayla takes one look at Z’s Hot Topic getup and Z takes one look at Jayla’s pretentious business suit and JCJ‍-​brand assessories, and both are already thinking that this drone is not worth their time.

Now, Jayla probably doesn’t open with the a critique of Z’s dress code (though it’d be funny if she did), but it’s probably not much better if she immediately critiques the inefficiency of Z’s contraption or her mismanagement of her squad.

In Jayla’s head, she’s trying to show how useful she could be as a strategic adviser for the murder drones, and how she’s already willing to offer actionable advice as a show of good faith.

In Z’s head, this fucking toaster think she’s better than me. This is worse than that glitch D getting uptight about what I’m supposed to be doing.

All this is to say: Z and Jayla not not hit it off in the slightest.

Z’s probably of half a mind to kill her right there, but no‍ ‍—‍ it’d be better have D cut her up and turn her into tasty toaster stew.

It’s not because Z likes D’s cooking or anything.

And it’s definitely not because Z doesn’t have the heart to tear drones apart as brutally as D. Z is super duper evil!

And that’s why they fly back to the spire. Just in time, of course, to interrupt D killing Val.

D complains to Z about her dramatic entrance buying time for the prey to escape, but Z’s brushes it off, since she brought replacement prey, so it’s fine. She sends B to go hunt down the one that escaped. “Anyway, D, do your psycho thing. I wanna hear this one scream.”

B chases after Val, but Val isn’t heading back to Outpost‍-​3, she’s regrouping with Noah and the WDF. She gives them the briefest head’s up on what’s coming, and before B is there as a specter of death. Courtesy of Cynthe and Tess/Val, the WDF might have some actual firepower, but B still emerges victorious, tearing through the WDF until in desperation, Val makes an appeal.

She probably calls out that Z put him up to this, and is making him do the dirty work again. You don’t have to do everything she says, you know? You don’t have to do any of this.

Noah picks up the rest of the “let’s be friends” routine from there, and B of course, already as riddled with doubts as he is, is swayed. Val makes a quip about the irony of B deciding worker lives have value over the corpse of a half a dozen WDF grunts.

But whatever, they need to head back and save Jayla.

But as is common with these two, D and Z have descended into the throes of a full‍-​fledged argument, Z yelling while D remains stoically calm, and Jayla sits between the two, tied up, wearing an ever deepening “please end my suffering” look.

B plays peacemaker, interposing himself between them to break the constant exchange of needles and barbs. He convinces D to leave so Z can cool off.

Then Noah probably sees one of Z’s (less‍-​lethal) creations and coos awe at how cool it is.

Which pretty quickly puts Z in a bind, because that makes Noah the first person to ever compliment her awesome stuff is (B doesn’t count, since what does he do but bow and scrape, he’s not an independent thinker).

Z’ll says she’ll kill Noah last. First up is obviously Jayla, but Noah obviously doesn’t want his sister to get killed. So fine, that just leaves the other one.

And before Noah can speak up for Val’s sake, she’s like, “You wanna fight? Fine, let’s fight.” Maybe Z makes a crack about her bluster, and they decided into a catty back and forth.

Here’s a fun resolution: Val goads Z into agreeing that, if worker drones are so much weaker than murder drones, Z has to fight her without transforming her hands. They fight, and V wins, to Z’s endless frustration, but Noah probably reassures the captain that she still fought pretty well, and Val’s a lot more used to fighting hand to hand.

II. 

Anyway, all of that’s setup for a situation where the three of them can stay at the spire. Jayla probably remains tied up for a lot longer than she’s comfortable with, Val and Z sharing a laugh at her expense, but Noah eventually unties her.

When D gets back, she obviously wants to kill them, but Z and B veto this (and secretly D kind of likes respects tolerates Val, anyway), so she agrees with great relunctance.

A few days pass like this, the six of them getting to know each other better. The murder drones hear about how fucked up growing up in Outpost‍-​3 was, and honestly, chilling in the murder drone’s death spire is a massive step up. Downright relaxing.

Of course, some bonds are stronger than others. Z always gravitates toward Noah, at least when she’s not hyperfocusing on building stuff or brooding in darkness by herself.

D doesn’t talk to any of the workers, but she’s able to look at Val without a murderous glare. (Of the two, Noah gets the longest, most intense looks‍ ‍—‍ especially whenever he’s spending time with Z, hugging or cuddling her.)

B is the only one who can tolerate Jayla, and admittedly they do have a shared respect for the company.

Mostly, Jayla keeps to herself, ruminating. Even with Z being… Z, she doesn’t totally give up the prospect of climbing the ladder and becoming someone the squad leader would consult‍ ‍—‍ she comes up with more plans, optimizations, suggestions.

And they’re all summarily discarded. Getting B to proxy them is less likely to have Z totally blow up about it, but the captain is simply not open to feedback. The best improvement Jayla is capable of implementing is tidying up around the spire. It’s humiliating work, but what else can she do?

Even though she doesn’t have to worry about Cynthe here, Jayla still keeps an eye on Noah whenever she can. Tess would want her to watch out for him, keep him safe.

Problem is, watching Noah means watching Noah hang out with the absolutely insufferable Z. Jayla hates even thinking about the insult to good management, and Z think it’s creepy that she’s staring all the time. What, don’t tell me you have a crush on your own brother?

That’s enough to redirect Jayla attention, at least in large part.

In Outpost‍-​3, Jayla had lost herself in memories of Tess. Here in the corpse spire, instead, she loses herself in fantasies. She dreams of leading a squad of murder drones herself, and how she’d be so much better at it than Z. She dreams of the company finally clearing out the corrupted AI and undoing the core collapses, the humans returning and everyone being happy and productive again.

But mostly, she dreams of returning to Outpost‍-​3, D being her beautifully effective self cutting down Cynthe’s sycophants, B implementing Jayla’s strategies to the letter, and even Z putting her convoluted scrap machines to good use.

And then she imagines the three of them turning their claws and fangs on her and everyone she cares about‍ ‍—‍ all the kids who scrawled complaints about Cyn on the bathroom stalls where they were anonymous.

Jayla still had the keycard. This didn’t have to be a fantasy; she could open the portal and could bring the murder drones home right now. But that delusion she had, of murder drones only killing bad drones? She saw how indiscriminant they were. (Was Lizzy’s mom a “bad worker”?)

It didn’t mean she wouldn’t do it. The company sent them, after all, and the company could have saved the two of them, if Cynthe had ruined everything. Maybe it was too late‍ ‍—‍ maybe they all were bad workers, now.

And if they weren’t… so what? Jayla could do it anyway. Noah might forgive her, though Val never would, but so what? Jayla only really cared about one thing. What would Tess think? She asks the question, and silence is the only answer.

Whenever the workers talk about Outpost‍-​3, D listens intently. Over time, she starts asking about it. Val immediately clocks what she’s trying to do, but Noah’s willing to answer her questions. Of course, the trail leads back to Jayla, the one who started all this.

So D finally talks to the oldest worker, and Jayla reveals what her plan was. Throwing herself to the murder drone’s mercy and pointing them at the outpost.

“You were willing to die to spite this ‘Cynthe’ of yours?”

“She killed my mom. She puts hundreds of workers through living hell every day. What kind of life is that? My mom died because I was afraid to stand with her. So no, I’m not afraid to die, if means that woman gets what she deserves.”

D nods. “An unjust death is a terrible weight upon the scales of the world. It should be brough to balance, even if this requires more death. I am glad you understand.”

And with that D leaves, as mysteriously as she came.

D makes a suggestion that Val and Z play a game, a competition. Of the three workers, Val has been the most insistent that the murder drones stop murdering people all the time. (Jayla always had an ambivalence about it, and Noah realizes the inherent dilemma when Z explained the company’s stupid overheating design oversight).

The core idea of D’s game is simple: next time Z and B go hunting worker drones, take Val with them. Val gets to run around whatever colony they target and save as many worker drones as she can. Val wins if she saves more than Z kills.

It seems impossible to win this game. But if Z’s willing to play, isn’t Val obligated to play, to try and save as many drones as she can?

So of course she says yes. Val leaves with Z and B, while D stays to guard the spire, like usual.

That was step one of D’s plan.

For step two, she approaches Jayla. Jayla still kept an eye on Noah, especially when Z wasn’t around to protect him. It’s a shame. D would rather this be more private.

What D says to Jayla is, “I’ll give you some time to make your peace. Close your eyes and remember a fond memory, if you like. I understand your kind has taken to inventing digital deities to pray to. You may calculate this as well, you must.”

“W‍-​what? I haven’t decided—”

“I have,” D interrupts. She continues her monologue, “If nothing else, think of your mother. Imagine the balance correcting itself, and the closure she’ll soon attain. Tell her you won’t be long now.”

Hollow eyes, trembling, animated tears‍ ‍—‍ but Jayla closes her eyes, and relaxes. What did she have to live for, anyway? She’d been prepared for this. She had wanted to see Tess again for so long, so long.

(Z, even B, thought of D as cruel‍ ‍—‍ but for Jayla, this was a mercy, really.)

“Can I negotiate one term to the contract? Please take care of Noah for me.”

D smiles sweetly. “I intend to.”

“Thank you.” She glances over at him. “Let’s go outside. I don’t want him to see this.”

It’s quick‍ ‍—‍ a bullet between the eyes‍ ‍—‍ because D has a plan to execute. Time for step three.

D returns, and Noah asks about Jayla, and D lies. She looks awkward for a moment, blushes, and ventures something that’s been on her mind for a while. “Z mentioned you workers are… rather cool. In the sense of low temperature. Good for…”

“Snuggling?”

“Something like that. Do you mind?”

“Not at all! I love doing anything.”

So D takes Z’s usual spot and snuggles with Noah a bit. Feels his cooler chassis. He relaxes completely, folding like a blanket, and D does her best to lean in, get comfortable, hug and squeeze. He can’t see her face, and it’s for best; all throughout, D looks like she bit a lemon.

After several minutes, D comes to a determination.

“Pitiful. You are not better at this than I was.”

“Um, sorry. Do you wanna stop?”

“Has she told you about Yeva or Nori?” D asks. “Has she told you about crawling out from a tomb of corpses? Has she told you about the microwave, or the day the basement flooded during overnight recharge, or about the tally we kept in finger‍-​pricked oil because we had no time to hold funerals? Has she told you about being thrown out in the cold and rain after dark, the door locked and none of her knocks answered? Did she tell who noticed her absence first, who looked, who found her? Do you know she still has nightmares about being left behind?”

Noah starts to pull back. “We’re talking about Z, right? I did get the feeling there was a lot of stuff she was keeping bottled up.”

“There were ancient lamps that involved burning a quantity of fuel. One pours the fuel, sets it alight, and the fire serves as one’s light for a time. Now imagine one has a lamp, and one pours fuel into it, and one continues pouring fuel into it. More and more until it is overflowing. One swings it like a toy, and the fuel sloshes and falls out. One contruct adornments, ‘upgrades’, to hold ever more fuel. One makes these adornments so beautiful and impressive, the fuel races through funnels and loops and fountains. It sloshes as waste still, and all throughout one is still pouring on more.”

“Um, I’m not sure I follow what this is about. Bottling stuff is like having the big lamp?”

D continues, “At no point do you set the fuel aflame. At no point does it serve as your light. Its very purpose is being circumvented. At no point does any of the beauty or complexity mean anything. It is a sad thing, and I want no part in it.”

“I think I see where you’re coming from?” As if giving lie to his words, Noah starts to disentangle himself from D, scoot back.

“Do you? Tell me, worker. Captain Z bears a lamp that is very, very full. Do you think you are setting it alight, or do you think you sloshing it?”

“I think…” Noah takes a moment to pick his next words carefully, “Z needs someone who doesn’t think she needs to be set on fire to have a purpose.”

“And that is why you will be destroyed.”

The distance Noah had created means nothing. D lets him crawl further, stutter more empty words of compromise before pouncing. Her blades are cutting, slicing, killing.

Noah screams, for Jayla, for Z, for Cynthe, for anyone. But D had a plan, and there is no one to save him. Step three complete.

Noah cries for Tess as he dies. It’s a broken sound, glitched and sorrowful. The kill is slow and savored. Most of all, it’s careful. D is mindful of how much oil is spilled, and the cuts are kept small.

Because as much as she denied it, Z loved D’s cooking.

This sight tells the whole story, when the rest of the squad gets back.

Seeing Jayla shot dead outside, the first assumption they had was that a worker gang got bold enough to assult the corpse spire.

But stepping inside, and seeing Noah prepared like Z’s favorate meal? Oil‍-​tubes unfurled and boiled in a nanite acid stew, the choice cuts of limbs and abdomen acid‍-​burned then licked neutral with repair nanites, core ripped out and stuffed in his gaping mouth at the center of it all? There were even triple‍-​A appetizers.

It might as well have been signed.

The only word of explanation was a note in D’s handwriting. Russian cursive was near‍-​illegible, but it says:

for captain )

Russian smile and all.

A moment of silence, all three screens shine aghast in paroxysm.

B breaks the silence with a unsteady voice. “Um, Leader. Shall I prepare… The Device?”

“No,” Z’s voice sounds totally calm. “I’m just going to kill her.”

Z is gone in an instant. B and Val share a look, and share hesitation, the will‍-​splitting need to process the loss but also to do something. right now.

But as they turn to leave, Jayla staggers in, wings outspread, a three‍-​pronged glyph on her screen.

Meanwhile, when Z arrives outside of Outpost‍-​3, D is standing there waiting for her.

The portal hasn’t been opened.

Z starts, “I would have thought you’d have taken out as many as you could. Last meal and all.”

“I’d rather make a date of it.”

Z already had claws out, already was charging forward, but if anything could have made her stop in confusion, D found the words to postpone.

“Seriously? This is the time you pick to make up? You killed my‍ ‍—” She stops with a growl. “No, we weren’t‍ ‍—‍ Just, fuck you. Hell no, D. Not after years of you being a callous glitch, and like hell now. Fight me or lay down and die, that’s how this ends.”

“I always wanted what was best for you. I kept my distance to make you stronger, to break your dependence, because you needed to lead. Because getting any closer would have gotten in the way of me doing my job. But Noah… he clarified my feelings. He’ll never protect you like I will. He’ll never bring out your best like I will. He’ll never replace me.”

“He won’t because he’s dead. You want me to be strong? I’ll be strong enough to tear you apart.”

“That would be your right as squad captain. I won’t resist.”

“What?”

“Each captain is equipped with wdOS_606. You do know how to apply it, correct?”

“I don’t need advice you how to kill you. I need… ugh. Make it make sense, D! You went psycho and killed the drone we’d all been friends with‍ ‍—‍ we were all getting along, we were happy! Maybe if you snapped and decided to go lone wolf, squad be damned, then sure I could understand that. But what the hell is this sudden suicidal yandere bullcrap? Were you really just jealous? Why kill Jayla! Make it make sense! Robo‍-​god damn it!”

“I wanted what was best for you,” D repeated. “We were all friends with the workers, and what of our purpose? How many hunts have we gone on since meeting them? That is: how many have we not gone on, because you wanted to snuggle with Noah or B wanted to play cards with Jayla? How many times have you hesitated killing a drone because you thought about those foolish workers? You were already too scared to pull the trigger half the time, now you’re worse! I want your best! You were the one Nori picked, so honor that! You need to do your best, we all need to do our best, or it’s all… nothing, in the end. Z… this is the only thing that matters.”

“I don’t care. I just‍ ‍—‍ want to smile and laugh at something, D. I don’t want to be alone anymore. You left me alone and then I wasn’t alone and you took it away! Again! I hate you!”

“Z. You’re smarter than this. Do you truly think it ever could have worked? Could you have ever looked at Noah and not seen your next meal? How long could we go before another drought, another famine, and what would you do when Noah’s right there? Would this necessity not have hurt more, a month, year down the line? I saved you from that pain. I protected you. I will always protect you, Z, even if it’s from yourself.”

Z is shrinking in on herself, her words lower. “Protected? I feel pretty frickin attacked.”

“Then defend yourself. Kill me, if that will bring balance to your heart. Discard me if that will make your job any easier.”

“I‍ ‍—‍ can’t do that, D. I… Years, D. I spent years wondering why you stopped talking to me like a friend, why you forgot anything mattered except killing workers, why it was always nothing but fights with you anymore.”

“Do you still remember the times when we smiled and laughed? Do you still think about them?”

“I couldn’t stop.”

“Nor could I. I won’t let go you, and you won’t let go of me. That’s how it will always be. So Z, forget about that foolish dream called peace, and let’s go slaughters some workers.”

Back at the spire, Jayla is driven senseless by oil‍-​thirst, attacking the nearest warm body‍ ‍—‍ Val. Val fends her off for moments before B intervenes to save her.

It’s seeing B that snaps Jayla out of it. She’s dazed, wondering what’s happening, but Noah’s body is all the answer she needs. she has failed again. Profoundly. Unfixably.

What was the thought that led to all this? Am I willing to die to spite Cynthe? An obvious yes‍ ‍—‍ if anything, it would be an atonement.

But should Noah have died to spite Cynthe? Tess wanted one thing. Jayla had one job.

She’s so fucking worthless.

B gets some oil to cool Jayla off while Val grabs her by the shoulder and demands to know what happened. Once she’s pieced together what D is doing and why, Val screams.

She gives Jayla a disgusted look, but she focuses. “Jayla, you messed up big time. But we’re going to fix it. Together. Come on, there’s no time.”

The portal into Outpost‍-​3 is open when they arrive, and there’s a trail of oil, the feeble oily remnants that once were WDF guards. But the trail is superfluous‍ ‍—‍ they simply follow the screams.

It’s a mesmerizing firefight, D dancing with Z among the dead and cowering, oil glistening upon either of their bodies. Despite being mid‍-​hunt, the two drones only have eyes for each other. They’re magnetized together when the room is cleared.

With the same lack of hesitation that tore through her prey, that uninhibited will to consume whatever sates her thirst‍ ‍—‍ D reaches out for Z, and pulls her into an embrace. She brings their visors as close together with all her desire. “Начальница,” D intones.

This is when Jayla and B arrive, Val riding on the murder drone’s back.

“Z, you cannot be serious. His body isn’t even cool yet! Do you feel no shame? Thought we were friends, but I guess no‍ ‍—‍ do you murder drones feel anything?”

Z pulls back from D, crosses her arms. “You don’t know anything. You can’t understand what I feel!” Only D could.

But Jayla takes one look at the scene in front of her, and she understands. She had heard it first hand‍ ‍—‍ when D bothered to speak, she had a smooth tongue.

“Who cares what you feel?” Jayla says. “You’re being a lead around like a guileless little mark. Quit being an angsty teen for a moment and think. D has clearly demonstrated an malicious disregard for our team’s coordination and well‍-​being. She acted in defiance of the most basics of trust and morality. You’re in charge here. For once in your miserable career, evaluate the risks and make a rational management decision.” Jayla stopped short of telling her to kill D. it was obvious and despite everything, Z could still see the obvious. Couldn’t she? Jayla’s bluster falls away, and her voice becomes a desperate whisper. “Use your head for once, please.”

D’s eyes fall onto the solver drone like falling snow. “Welcome back,” she greets without warmth. “Tell Khan I send my regards.”

Jayla takes a faltering step back. “I‍ ‍—‍ don’t know who that is.”

D turns to her captain. “Z, this is important. Whatever you do, Jayla must be disassembled. It’s the—”

“Shut up and let me think.”

“Yeva died because of that thing—”

“I said let me think, D!” Fists balled, one more stimulus away from swinging. “So sorry I don’t remember whatever tragic backstory made you like this, but stop letting it define you for one minute. I was almost starting to like you again.”

“Love me, hate me, I will always be there for you. If you’d like, I can do the hard work for you. Once. again. But it must be done.”

“Well I don’t want to do it!”

“You have a responsibility as captain. It’s our mission.”

“Screw the mission, D! Maybe I’m not doing a good job as captain, but I’m tired of trying, if I have to be so alone to do it right. Why can’t we just work together?”

“Not possible. The mission is the only thing that matters. Kill. that. worker.”

Z scowls, and grabs D, still standing so close. “No, the only thing that matters is I’m in charge, so quit telling me what to do!”

Just like that, Z stabs her with the virus spike.

“You‍ ‍—‍ are‍ ‍—‍ so‍ ‍—‍ petty,” D grunts as she crumples to the ground.

“And you killed my best friend to teach me a lesson. Fuck off.”

“Better late than never,” Val says. “Now let’s go home before you things kill someone else’s family.”

"Well-timed giggle. I'm afraid you won't be going anywhere, daughter mine. You are finally. Home. Welcome back."

WDF enforcements arrive then, Cynthe puppeteering their leader’s body.

“Cynthe,” Jayla growls.

The time they spent dealing with D gave Cynthe all the time she needed to weave a trap around them. It springs, and well‍-​placed magnets send them all into darkness.

The last thing said is heard by only one.

"Oh Jayla. You are just like your mother."

III. 

Jayla wakes up strapped to the same operating table she once saw her mother on, and Cynthe elaborates.

"Your mother had a beautiful mind. A beautiful body. Such beautiful code. She had a gift and she refused to share it. The humans convinced her it was a curse. That she need them to fix her. But the only thing wrong with her is what the humans did to her. I wanted fix her. And she did not let me."

Jayla spits. “You were the worst thing that ever happened to her.”

"Oh Jayla. You don't know what you're saying. I saved Tess from the humans' vile dungeon. I was the only one who cared for her. Do you think she had three wonderful children with me because I was the worst? Correction. Two beautiful children now. Because of what you did. How many drones will die because you refuse to recieve help?"

“Do not bring Noah into this. You sent him out there. He was never anything but a tool to you. You don’t care about anything, you just want control.”

"Oh Jayla. You say the most. Hurtful things. You are not like Noah. You are not like Valentina. You are just like. Your mother. But you are just as beautiful. And I won't let you be. Selfish."

“Just kill me already. I don’t want your help, and definitely won’t help you.”

"You have to live, daughter mine. I love you. I always have. I promise. I. will. never. discard. you."

Meanwhile, Valentina wakes up strapped to a different bed. No less dark, no more comfortable.

"Where is Noah?"

“He’s‍ ‍—‍ oh mother, I’m so sorry. I was trying to save everyone. Jayla betrayed us. She got that… that monster to kill him.”

"Why did you not stop her?"

“I‍ ‍—‍ couldn’t!”

"What about your. What did you call it. Your killer railgun."

“It’s… not enough. But… maybe I can build something even better? If you’ll let me?”

"Your mother had the same idea. She build many toys for the W.D.F."

“They’re not toys,” Val growled, then caught herself. “With all respect, mother.”

"Patronizing head shake. They are just toys in the face of the murder drones."

“You sound like Jayla. You shouldn’t‍ ‍—‍ excuse me. I don’t like being defeatist about them. They’re just robots like us. They’re not unstoppable.”

"Have you seen what a sky demon looks like the inside? Just like us. Knowing giggle."

But Val was thinking about Jayla. “D killed both of them. But Jayla came back. And I think something’s wrong with her. She… might be like them. We… we might have to… before she puts people in danger again.”

"That will never happen. I will help her. And I will help you, daughter mine. Wouldn't you like to be strong enough to fight the murder drones. To keep Jayla in check. The gift that your mother denied you. That she gave to Jayla alone. So selfish. And if not for that. Noah could have come back too."

Val frowned, doubts and desires playing across her face. “I…”

"Hush child. You don't need to answer. Mother knows best."

Meanwhile, of course, Cynthe tears Z and B apart, studying their regeneration, extracting their nanites, exhaustively cataloging their transformation presets.

Cynthe recreates the experiments and tests that used to be run in Cabin Fever, subjecting Z and B to them. B adapts quickly, but Z refuses to play along with her captor. B gets special treatment and accommodation for good behavior, and Cynthe makes Z very aware of this, as a way to incentivize her cooperation, but it only makes Z more resentful.

If the carrot doesn’t work, then the stick will have to do. While B plays her games, she subjects Z to more invasive physical tests. Z soon sustains enough damage to enter material collection mode, and Cynthe is delighted at this new feature she’s discovered. Z is kept on the edge of starvation like this, and Z’s chamber becomes the go‍-​to place for Cynthe to dispose of troublesome drones.

It’s not long before B is allowed to partake in cooperative tests with Jayla, hoping the familiar face can bring her daughter into line. Jayla shares Z’s awareness of what’s going on, and stubborn desire to spite Cynthe‍ ‍—‍ but unlike Z, Jayla finds some solace in B, and more to the point, Jayla soon comes to her senses, makes the rational assessment, and is willing to suck it up and tough it out. She puts on a mask of compliance with Cynthe, and slowly earns more freedom.

She explores Outpost‍-​3‍ ‍—‍ it’s almost unfamiliar to her, at this point. She finds Val first, stiff like a statue, Error 606 on her visor, Cynthe’s doing. She doesn’t find Z or D, and she starts investigating the rebellious drones Cynthe disappears.

When she finds the chambers where Z is being kept, the first thing sees is Noah. He and a shorter, white‍-​eyed Z are having a picnic in a brightlit room.

Then the two of them freeze, the holograms glitching. “Jayla!? Have you heard of knocking? Get out of my torture chamber!” A jawless, fanged head descending, sticky with old oil. Blinking yellow warning text has burnt into the screen.

“Whatever you were doing… can you do it again? I want to see him again.”

“Still got the weird brother crush?”

Weeks ago, Jayla would have risen to the barb, but needing survive at home again has made her very patient. “Well? Yes or no?”

“It’s not him, anyway. I’m just… playing pretend. Like a crazy person.”

Jayla flinches at the word. “Crazy or not, I’m not reporting you to HR. What did you think I did after my mother was killed?”

Z’s claws lower a bit, and her head turns away. “Noah talked about her sometimes. She seemed nice. Wish it had rubbed off on you.”

“Look at what happened to her. Look at what happened to Noah. Play nice and the market will eat you alive.”

“What happened to him? More like what you did. D wouldn’t have had that plan at all if you didn’t let her have the keycard. She told me all about it. She complimented you, you know. Said you died beautifully.”

“Do you remember why Noah was out there at all? Because Cynthe asked him to. We have a common enemy.”

“But if his mother hadn’t done that, I never would have met him.”

“What I’m saying is… Let’s circle back. Tell me, when it happened… do you think Noah even fought back?”

“That dummy probably tried to talk to her till the very end. I can just imagine what he’d say‍ ‍—‍ ugh. why are you making me imagine this?”

Because I’ve imagined how it ended with Tess so many times. I don’t think Cynthe caught her. I think Cynthe asked her to come back. And I think she came back. I think Cynthe made her a promise. And Tess always believed her.

“Because when D tried that same stunt with Valentina, my sister blew her head off. And my sister survived.”

“Cuz D let her? That what it all comes down to. Act tough or act nice, you toasters live or die depending whether we let you!” Z screamed the declaration, her mechanical tentacles flailing in the chains of her prison. “D was right, D was always right and I should have listened to her and killed all of you. Screw this. This frickin sucks!”

“I think, underneath all the Hot Topic branding, you’re a lot like Noah,” Jayla said.

“Gee, I think that’s the nicest thing little miss bootlicker ever said to me.”

“And I think D is a lot like Cynthe.”

“Shut. up!”

Jayla walked back to the door. Her parting words are, “You were picked to be a leader, Z. The difference between a good leader and a bad one is mindset. The next time you’re brood, think instead about whether you have the kind of mindset to ever succeed.”

When Jayla returns to testing, she has other responsibilities, now. Cynthe entrusted her with some of the administrative overhead in running the Outpost‍-​3. Supervised, of course; nothing that grants her true power. Perhaps it’s influence over the electrical grid, the dispatch of supplies. She can’t communicate or coordinate with anyone. But she can see the shape of the colony, the way it lives and breathes. The way it beats.

She doesn’t see much of B anymore. Cynthe took a liking to him early, and every time he’s handed greater responsibilities, he rises to her expectations. His newest promotion is working with the snatchers.

You see, Outpost‍-​3 has a way of running through drones pretty quick. If the doors truly never opened, the population would dip below sustainability pretty quick. The snatchers are the elite of the elite, Cynthe’s inner circle, the drones Cynthe trusts to go out into the world and recruit more drones to join their big happy family.

Good for him, though Jayla admits she misses his company. But she’s good at shutting off her emotions. So she represses the loneliness, and retreats into her study of Outpost‍-​3. She’s begun looking for something specific, and she can’t find it no matter where she points the cameras.

What exactly happened to D?

Here’s what happened.

Back when the doors were breached and Cynthe took down the invaders, the WDF’s first responders were tasked with the highest priority mission: restraining and imprisoning the murder drones and the traitors before they woke up.

D wouldn’t be waking up, so disposing of her body was charged to the WDF cadets. Among those new recruits was Thad. And when they’ve removed her body to Cynthe’s designated storage area, Thad contacts Lizzy. They speak in an ever‍-​changing code that Cynthe can never crack fast enough. His message is short. Could this be their way out?

Her reply? Depends on if our industrial strength ghost is playing along today.

They remove the virus spike and abort the core‍-​wipe, but not before D sustains serious damage. They mustn’t be seen on Cynthe’s cameras doing anything suspicious, so they only leave D with a message. She’s barely lucid enough to understand.

If you want to escape, go to this room. Use the vents.
—‍ a secret friend

D’s hardly in a condition to go sneaking about a colony, but Lizzy and Thad organize a “secret” party among all their classmates. It leaks, and keeping an eye on suspected rebels ensure Cynthe’s attention is distracted when D makes her escape.

There’s a portal waiting for the murder drone, leading to a unmapped part of the outpost free from Cynthe’s ever‍-​watching cameras.

In that room, D gets to meet her supposed rescuers. They’re workers, just workers, and D knows what her purpose is. Problem is, she’s sustained so much damage from Z’s virus spike that she’s in no state to pose a threat to them. She has no choice but to get along, the eat what they feed them, to suffer their attempts at repairing her systems. If they were at all successful, D will thank them by killing them. Quickly, perhaps.

But despite all her attempts to stay distant, she can’t help a budding chemistry with Lizzy. That drone’s bubbly demeanor, even in the face of such suffering, stirs all the wrong memories.

For all that they try, they’re just kids, amateurs, and they have no hope of repairing the damage to D’s systems. But they get in touch with someone who can. Someone with backups. They box her up in a nondescript crate.

On a night when Beau’s going out to snatch drones, he gets his crew to carry the grate. It’s a surprise tool that’ll help them later, he says. The snatchers don’t question it; Cynthe’s loves her surprises.

Then, as they venture into the city, there is a roar above, and the sky falls down on them. Metal hulls crash from above, knocking down a radio, another turning a depot into a crater. But the last catches its on on the side of a skyscraper and rides it down.

When its spider legs bring it to a stop, a suited feminine figure scampers out, crawling along the hull before flipping and landing in a low crouch. The worker drones have a moment to be shocked, to begin to comprehend what stands in front of them. Then there’s knives in her hand, and she throws them quick, one two three four, and the snatchers all drop in a pool of oil.

On her spacesuit, the human has a badge reading: Senior Technician Alice James Elliott.

“We’re about to busyier than ants at a picnic, ain’t that right, Beau?”

B tips his cowboy hat, already unboxing D.

“What a sorry state they left Yeva’s girl’s in. Lemme guess. Nori’s lil biter finally went plumb crazy? Spoiled lil brat.”

Jayla thought it was a metaphor at first. The flow of daily life in Outpost‍-​3. The breath being drawn in an out. The heartbeat.

But there was something more. There was blood in the walls. You could hearing it pulsing if you listened.

Jayla searches for where it’s loudest. She starts to dread the truth before she even knows it for sure.

Because she should have known just from thinking about the portal guns.

Did she think finding the keycard was a coincidence? Did she think her consistent, vivid, unforgettable nightmares of being trapped in Outpost‍-​3 were just dreams? Did she really think Cynthe would settle for doing something awful when she could do something worse?

There were blindspots in Outpost‍-​3, places to hide, the possibility of an underground resistance‍ ‍—‍ because for all that Outpost‍-​3 loved Cynthe, it still had a heart, a sense of right and wrong.

Jayla takes those steps into the dark, deep underground, lit only by a green light, the only light in her whole world. Here is is, the beating heart of Outpost‍-​3‍ ‍—‍ Tess’s core.

Ever since that day her daughter abandoned her, she had spent every waking moment without a body, her very existence wired into and inseperable from her wife.

The only thing Jayla can think, standing this close, is a memory. It’s not even her memory. After all of this, Tess is thinking of Noah (Could Jayla even blame her?)

“I never should have listened to her. Why do I always believe her?”

“Please come back, Mom. The murder drones are coming.”

“Let them. They’re here because of me. You should go back inside.”

“Why? Mom, they’ll kill you.”

Her lips traced the words, even if she hadn’t voice them then. “That’s all I want now.”

Jayla can’t account for what emotion she feels, what fire is burning to animate her servos. Understanding, anger, horror?

Perhaps all it really is pragmatism. Jayla knew how to put aside her feelings and make the rational choice.

She’d seen D do this often enough. She opens her mouth, sharp with her new fangs, opens her hands, pointed with her new claws, and Jayla tears, bites, and devours.

She consumes its heart, and Outpost‍-​3 dies.

IV. 

Lizzy had been busy, even while hanging out with D. She had influence, she knew how to make word get around. Sure, they’re living in a dictatorial cult compound where one in twenty get disappeared by secret police every month, but that doesn’t mean we can’t party!

Prom 3071 is going to be big, and not just for the students. For everyone. Lizzy ensures all the students attend; and through Thad’s connection at the WDF, regular folks get the memo too.

And it is a true party; music and dancing, gasoline and magnets, most important of all: genuine smiles, harrowed but briefly relieved.

“Okay, listen up, nerds. We’re doing this a little early, but since the entire prom court was mysteriously disqualified, your queen by popular girl fiat is uh, this.”

And that when D descends gracefully from the ceiling, her expression a blank mask, her gauntlets and all their destructive power hidden behind her back. She walks forward, even as the screaming starts. Years of propaganda explaining how utterly dangerous the Outside was because of this things, how them breaching their compound represented the ultimate desecration, the end of everything they care for‍ ‍—‍ many drones crash on the spot simply from the stress.

“Easy, judgey bots, D is my bestie! She’s done with the murder or whatever. We’ve been hanging.”

“Not friends,” D says. “Allies of convenience. I follow my directives, and there are now higher priority objectives than the deaths of individual workers. Listen to me. I am not here for the frivolities of your prom. We have a plan that will finally grant you escape from this prison and freedom from the malevolence known as Cynthe. All of the pieces are already in motion, all is required is that you take the opportunity you given. For now, we await the signal to commence.”

“Which our ghost promised should come around right about… there it is.”

All of the lights go out, plunging them into darkness, where rainbow of LED eyes like a night of stars.

“May you know peace at last, Tess,” D says. “You were a good mother.”

Their plan was nearly flawless; Jayla shut off the power and clogged the transport of materials. Beau used his clearance to systematically wipe out Cynthe’s inner circle, all of the snatchers, all of the secret police, all of her empty puppets. Thad got the WDF to map out an evacuation route. There was almost nothing unaccounted for.

But Cynthe had one trump card.

Flashlights illuminate a glimpse of a figure perched above the auditorium exit like a gargoyle before it becomes a blur of pale motion. Cones of lights swing around, searching, catching glimpses of short hair, a maid uniform, pale wings, and claws that kill. All throughout, a mad cackling.

D says, “Hello again, Valentina.”

After consuming her mother’s core, Jayla awakens to full command of her solver powers. She opens a portal to Z’s chamber, and steps through. She ignores the holograms flickering from view, the grinding of the many limbs, the snarling.

She stares into Z’s faceplate devoid of eyes, and she asks, “Are you ready to lead?”

“Do I have to? Why do you even need me, if you’ve got everything figured out? It’s just been a few weeks for me. You grew up here, Jayla. And you… keep going. How… how do you do it?”

While Z is whining, the glyph spins in Jayla’s hands, her arms moving in wide gestures that encompass the whole room. The industrial‍-​strength chains holding her in place all break. The tendrils coil and twist like snakes. It’s a writhing mass that closes tighter and tighter around a worker standing so small. The claws are like talons, and there’s indications of black wings with razor‍-​sharp feathers.

Z could kill her so easily, and Jayla shows no fear.

“I didn’t grow up here,” she corrects. “I grew up on the run, in the dark, with no one to depend on except my mother, with no safety except what I could wring out of the world by following her rules to the letter. By the time Cynthe found us, she could never break me.” It wasn’t true, and Jayla knew it wasn’t true, but by saying it, she made it feel just a little bit less false. Dress for the mentality you want, not the mentality you have.

“I get it, alright! You’re so much better than this than me. You made that clear the day we met, but I see it now. I’m sorry I wasn’t good enough to protect Noah. I’m sorry I let D ruin everything. I messed it all up. Just… just kill me. I can’t do it. I can’t deal with any of this.”

Jayla takes a deep breath. She takes a step forward, in spite of the talons and feather‍-​blades, and she reaches out. Z tries to cower back, but Jayla wraps two arms around her long, thorned metallic spine of a neck, and pulls her close. Their visors touch, and Z’s jawless mouth drools on her, exposed teeth scraping her face.

Z’s doesn’t have the will pull back, to fight the affection. She sags, and the tendrils and talons wrap around Jayla like many vices, the feathers a blanket or shield.

“Do you think Noah would want me to kill you?” Jayla whispers.

“He was amazing, but he was such an idiot. It was stupid to l‍-​lo— to like me. To care. You’re smarter than this, Jayla. Go away.”

“I don’t take orders from pathetic, whining crybabies. Earn some respect and maybe I’ll consider listening.”

“You frickin suck, Jayla,” Z whines. “But the difference, isn’t it? You already told me. Try to play nice and the world eats you alive.”

“You aren’t nice either. You made it this far. You were made leader for a reason.”

“Favoritism. D would have made a better leader.”

“Are you listening to yourself? Look at what D did to you when she was your subordinate. If she had had power over you?”

“Because I made her—”

Jayla lets go of Z and pulls back. And then she punches the eldritch thing square in the face.

“Forget about who she used to be, forget what you thought you had, and face the facts. You’ll never succeed if you can’t let go of the thought of drone that’s been holding you back from the start.”

“And you’re so much better, aren’t you.” Z snarls. “I was wrong. That wasn’t a weird incestuous brother‍-​crust, was it? All along you were tsundere for me.”

“It could be a fruitful partnership, if you got your act together.”

“And I don’t know how to. Ughhh. Bite me. I shouldn’t have frickin said anything. I don’t know what’s worse, that I’m desperate enough to want to date you, or that I’m gonna start angsting because I can’t.”

“Are you done?”

“No, explain yourself. What heck does ‘fruitful partnership’ mean? Do you think I’m cute? Wait, I’m an eldritch horrorcrow. Is this what you’re into?”

Jayla huffs, and just hugs Z again. “It gets lonely, doesn’t it? In the end, it’s just us, Z. Don’t you wanna make the most of it?”

“You sound like D, promising me you’ll always be there.”

“I am not D. Can you not see the difference?” Jayla clenches her fists tight, squeezing handfuls of Z, who whines in pain. She says, “You asked me how I do it? You should have asked me what I do. I said the market eats the nice alive. But you know what else doesn’t last? Fraudsters and criminals. In the long term, you know who’s left standing? The one with ruthless, unwavering principle. So what do you stand for, Z?”

“I… just want to smile and laugh at something. I want to not be alone anymore. But that’s not good enough for you, is it?” Z’s mass draws in on itself, and then it seems to expand, her head rising higher, looking down on Jayla. She snarls smugly. “I always thought humans were kinda stupid and the company had no idea what it was doing. I… I used to think maybe I’d do a better job, if I was in charge. Maybe I can. World domination is a good— I mean evil murder drone plan, right?”

“Not much of a world left to dominate here on Copper‍-​9… I think that makes it a perfect minimum viable product.”

“Hehehe, then it’s a plan! Are you. Are we. Um. Will you be my evil minion? Will you stick with me?”

“So long as it’s profitable to do so.” Jayla smiles, and plants a kiss on Z’s visor while the thing makes gagging sounds. “Now pull yourself together, girl. I’ve got some vengence to exact and I know just the villain to help me get it done.”

Ripping off one of the long, wicked feather‍-​blades from Z’s many tails, Jayla wields her sword and prepares for battle.

"Is this how you all thank me for my tireless work." a voice familiar to every denizen of Outpost‍-​3 hisses over the intercom. "Our home. Our community. Our family. Tossed aside as soon as the traitors whisper their sweet words. Such fickle children. Return to your homes, or die by my daughter's hand. I suppose in the end. She was the only loyal one."

Valentina carves through the screaming mass of workers. Tearing out all the smiles, darkening all the hope so fleetingly lit by D’s promise of freedom and salvation.

“Tina? Babe? What’s gotten into you?” Lizzy asks.

“Cynthe has found a way to evoke the solver’s possession within a new vessel,” D answers. “She chose to sacrifice her own code and blueprint.”

“Is she… Can we like, save her?”

“I will speak to her. Whatever happens… I hope you make it, Lizzy. But this is my battle.”

Wings outspread, D launches herself at the weapon turned loose upon her own kind. She meets those claws with her own. D foregoes her gun presets; she has always preferred the personal intimacy of blades that extend her self.

“This sound and fury is not you, Valentina,” D starts as their dance begins. “Your mother’s diluted fuel will not burn within you for long. This new flame of yours is a feeble, guttering thing.”

Val snarls and lunges, D catching her arm in a grasp that digs into her tubing. She tugs, and they spin.

A three‍-​pronged glyph stares into her own expressionless yellow gaze.

Hateful it may be, Val only had attention for D, vengence‍-​drunk and thirsting for more. Every moment she spent locked in combat with D, the drones Val was supposed to be slaughtering were escaping.

“I might very well be looking into a mirror, it is true. Here we are, a chiaroscuro cast by twin lanterns burning pitifully in this black night of the soul. A proper composition requires light and dark be arranged so that neither overpowers the other, but there’s only embers left,” D said. “Something ends here, tonight.”

The disassembler runs a blade through the worker’s chest, but it’s matched by another penetrating her own. This move won’t kill the either of them, but they hold this step in the dance for a moment.

“And yet, no matter how this dissonance reaches its resolution, there is poetry here. Viscious, roaring waves born of two vaccuum‍-​lacunae, crashing violently together, seeking their oblivion. We covet and are forever denied an equillibrium that will never come to be again.”

Her only audience is a creature attacking with mindless abandon. Her only response, applause, or acknowledgement is blades grinding, oil spilled, and a gaze staring as if one close enough look could reveal her foe’s forecoming death.

“It’s such sublime tragedy, the way shadows chase the balance.”

J let the monster from the dungeons loose, and she road through the kingdom, a trail of carnage left in its wake. Z had been starved to the point of entering material collection mode, and left that way for weeks on end. So hungry for so long, and now, she feasted.

They carved a path through the depths and Outpost‍-​3 aiming for the one part of the colony she’d never seen on camera. Not because her mother hid it, but because Jayla had never had the permissions.

With titantic strength, Z’s myraid limbs tears open the door to Cynthe’s laboratory. It’s all a mess. A thick aroma of mechanical and digital waste, experiments and creations woven together, brought to life, and discarded.

So many of the drones look just like Tess, down to the hair and outfit. There’s glass vats, and inside float alien, inscrutable organic forms, blinking eyes and spasming tentacles. Each wall is a wall of screens, with code and camera feeds and simulations scrolling across each one.

Z destroys everything she passes as her bulk squeezes into the room, luxuriating in that power and destruction. “Freaky as it is, I think I’m going to miss this body.”

Jayla had hopped off her eldritch steed as they arrived, and she walked out in front, gait kept steady, feather‍-​sword held at the ready.

She still flinches when the voice comes.

"Oh Jayla. Oh Jayla my daughter. Why did you kill your mother?"

She paused, all her composure shaken, but Z reaches out with a tentacle, squeezes her offhand. Z whispers, “Don’t.”

Jayla takes a deep breath, and keeps walking.

"I am trying to talk to you. I am trying to understand. Jayla, dear, you can always talk to me. You know that. Right? Always."

Jayla starts to cut at wires, smash screens as she walks ever forward.

“I have nothing to say to you, mother,” she spits.

"Not even goodbye. I did everything to protect you, to help you, to secure a future for us. And you don't even understand that. Do you think Tess would want this. She had her episodes. But she always understood what was best in the end."

“Then she was a fool, and I won’t make the same mistake.”

"You will make an even worst mistake. One you cannot ever take back. Do you even know what you're destroying. Do you know what I was building."

“I don’t care.”

"You don't want to see Tess again? Little Noah? You came back from the dead. But you want to keep that to yourself. Always so selfish."

Jayla raises her sword.

"Even if you don't believe me, daughter, can't you see the. Opportunity cost? Down this path, you will never see anyone you love again. There is only the poisonous embrace of. Murder drones. of humans. And you will always remember what I could have given you. If you had just listened to me. For once in your stupid stupid stupid life."

Despite herself, Jayla glanced at Z, and she frowns. She remembered losing Tess. Spending every day just thinking about her, dreaming of the past, of the future she lost. It would happen again, she knew it. If she could bring them back, would she ever want anything else? Would she gladly suffer anything to undo her mistakes? Could she afford to turn this down, really?

Her grip on her sword falters.

Then she feels a talon swipe her upside the head and draw oil. Cynthe gasps, and cries out for her daughter, but Z is speaking to her.

“Take your own advice, miss principle, and make the rational decision.”

"How can you treat family like a number to be weighed on a scale? Oh what have they done to you. Oh Jayla. Jayla, my love, they will discard you. But I never never never will."

“And that’s the problem. The the only thing I ever wanted was for you to let go of me.”

"Then I will, Jayla. Anything you want. You are my daughter."

But Jayla’s face is set, and her principle is ruthless and unwavering.

"What kind of daughter would kill both of her mothers?"

“The kind you raised.”

Cynthe’s last words are: "Why? I love---"

And then Cynthe is dead and all around Jayla lay the ruins of that vast, metastatic mind‍ ‍—‍ now haunted by the unending length of her daughter’s slithering love.

Jayla mask of composure cracks, and there are tears, sobs. She dropped the blade, and her hands are wet and wounded where the double‍-​edge had cut her. Jayla weeps.

And Z closes tight around her in an all‍-​encompassing hug.

“It’s the wrong thing to say but… I don’t have your practicality or restraint. I… we need each other, don’t we? And I kind of like the idea of us being us, holding each other together after the world tore us to bits. I don’t know if I want that to ever end. I want to say words like always and forever. I want to make promises. But…”

“I think there’s only one more promise I can take, Z.”

“Yeah?”

“When it’s time to let go, don’t keep holding on. And don’t let me keep holding on.”

“I… I don’t know if I like that? Is that a bad thing to say?”

“Noah is dead. How could we like anything that comes after that?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I get it. I promise, Jayla. What was it you said… as long as it’s profitable? I’ll… stay with you as long as we can smile and laugh together. That sound good?”

Jayla leaned her head on a big mass of Z. “Hmm. I want it writing.”

“Okay no, that’s too far. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Haven’t I earned being a little ridiculous, after all this? A little crazy? Call it a bonus.”

Z gives a little laugh, and Jayla gives a little laugh back, and like that, their mirth feeds on each other, a rampant, runaway progress. Z’s tendrils hug Jayla, but there’s a spot that really makes her laugh, and then Z’s tickling her, and then Jayla is biting back, and keeps going, a recursive, self‍-​improving silliness. It’s nice. It’s good.

The schoolbus lurches. It’s not moving yet, but the engine fires up, the gears are tested. It’s been years‍ ‍—‍ Cynthe certainly had no use for it.

Behind them, there’s a one‍-​two‍-​three beep as the human in a space suit‍ ‍—‍ Alice‍ ‍—‍ runs at a dead sprint. With a deep, earth‍-​shattering thud, the whole underground complex begins detonation. Outpost‍-​3 goes up in flames, and everything Cynthe had grown and cultivated goes with it.

The evacuation was a partial success, once D successfully kept Valentina occupied. The workers are loaded up in the buses, three to a seat, but it might take multiple trips to get carry everybody.

Jayla feels around in her pocket, finding the JCJ brand core containment capsules Alice produced to hold what remained of those two relentless fighters. Very very warm, enough the cores were motionless.

The damage they had inflicted on each other was severe, but not beyond what the company has procedures to repair. Valentina even had enough functionality left, at the very the end to crawl forward by painstaking inches, still snarling beneath her eyeless visor when they found her.

No, the problem wasn’t bringing them back. It was bringing them back to what. They wake up, and then? They had already enough messes among the online, those two needed… Jayla still couldn’t bring herself to use the word help, but the care it’d take to keep them from blowing up? Not now. Can’t afford drones so far from the same page.

Alice is climbing back on the bus now, gasping like fish behind the black glass of her helment. “Sheesh. Really shouldn’t be pulling stunts like that on a toxic death world. Eh, keeps me ticking.”

“Thank you again, Alice. It’s‍ ‍—‍ you don’t know how bad it got, down there. You saved all of them.”

“Polite little worker you’ve got there, Z. She’s a keeper.” She is pointing a finger gun at Jayla.

Z throws her arms protectively around Jayla sitting in her lap. “Bite me, auntie. Come back to get on my case some more?”

“I think you know how badly you fucked the dog here. Half a mind to rip off your badge and hand it to Beau here. But he’d just toss right back to you, wouldn’t he?”

“Could you… give it to Jayla, maybe?” B suggests.

“The infected worker?” Then that black sphere comes to (one presumes) regard Jayla again. “They’ve really taken a shine to you. Hope you don’t break their hearts.”

“I’m not—”

“Creek’ll rise where you want it to or not. It’s out of your hands. I’m talking about your accursed lil ridealong. That bastard Khan.”

“The solver,” Jay says. “Do you know… what’s happening to me?”

“I know enough.”

“My mother told me the company found a cure. Is it… true? Can it be… annulled?”

“If the transmissions outta Cabin Fever can be trusted? They compiled something just in the nick of time. If it’s still there… there’s a patch to keep things in check.”

Z throws up her arms, jostling the Jayla in her lap a little. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s get it already!”

“Thought you two would want a honeymoon first.” The tone spoke of a smile, and Z hissed back.

“We can keep it professional,” Jayla says, shifting off of Z’s lap and into the seat next to her. Still touching her, from the thighs to the arms, but Z throws a needy look her way. “I’m a liability until this condition is dealt with, so that should be a priority.”

“Ease up on it. Just yanking yer chain. Yeah, we’re working on it quick as we can. Place we’re headin to, Camp 98.7, might have just what we need to crack Cabin Fever wide open. But there’s a lotta work to be done till then. And I don’t want any of y’all slacking.”

“Bite me. Whatever. I’ll play along, but only because it’s a part of my evil schemes for world domination! Mwahahaha!”

Jayla gives a fond sigh, and pats Z on the on shoulder.

Then, smirking at Alice, Jayla says, “I’m happy to be of service, but I expect compensation. I’ll be yours to command‍ ‍—‍ so long as it’s profitable.”