Uzi was working. Emphasis on the was. The detached scanner and jets of a printer were scattered over her table’s surface. J had demanded she drop everything — all of the actually cool projects she had to work on — to instead repair this parody of planned obsolescence and ridiculous office roleplay.
Except, remember: emphasis on the was. This waste of time has been put on hold for another, smugger waste. The shill herself had sauntered in and planted her oversized, overly anthropomorphic hips down on the table in front of her, smirking down at the worker who now couldn’t work.
Shaking her pig-tailed head slowly, silently, as if disappointed in something so obvious that the captain didn’t need to say a word for Uzi to understand how she screwed up.
She’s frickin tired of all these stupid games. She hates it here. Hates the constant supervision, hates the rules about who she’s allowed to talk to and where she’s allowed to sleep, hates that her grand escape from the chains of worker drone society has literally just turned into a cog in the corporate machine.
Except no, she didn’t hate it here. N was nice, and V could respect someone with bite. There was just one problem — the one with all the power.
She hates J. Hates that the only thing keeping her new friends from instinctively killing her is the captain’s gracious orders. Hates that if she ever needs help, information, or to just know whether she’s even doing something right, there’s only one robot she can go to. Hates that she sold out, sold herself, and there’s only one currency the murder drones recognize.
She hates the bite marks. Entry wounds all over her chassis. And the nanites infesting murder drone mouths reacted badly with the antivirus in her repair systems, and they never healed right, leaving every mark ringed with oil turned to congealed cicatrices, like flakes of black rust.
She hates that even when she has a moment to alone, away from it all, her fingers drift to those little reminders of J’s attention, and she remembers her predator, remembers that drone getting inside her, spit and fang and tongue — but the worst invasion of all was into her memory. Uzi couldn’t forget it, forget her. Even when she has a moment alone, it’s not her own moment. She can’t stop thinking of J, what she wants, when they’ll next meet.
She hates that those wounds never heal right, always leaking, even if it’s just dribbles of oil. She can’t keep herself inside, she’s been torn open and exposed.
Leaking feelings, too, because all this isn’t her internal monologue. Right now, she should be wearing her best customer service smile and politely asking J how she can best help her, but no, the goth slammed her hands on the table, craned herself as tall as her undersized frame’s tip-toes could reach, and she’s screaming into the captain’s face about how much she frickin hates her.
And J just. keeps. smirking.
“Oh? If you miss me so much, I’m sure I could find time in my schedule for a one on one. Though I should ask: is you interest professional, or personal?” J’s tail waved behind her, and it only seemed to quicken as Uzi’s expression twisted into knots of anger.
Uzi could leak more words — maybe “You momumental bitch” was a start, V rubbing off on her — but the voltage coursing through her wires couldn’t be satisfied with that.
No, her fist was already swinging through the air.
The worker only realized her mistake when the murder drone caught it. Uzi’s instant impulse met casual denial. Plastic cracks and haptic sensors screech errors up the limb — but at least this would be repaired.
J was. still. smirking. The captain at least has the courtesy for her lips to flatten a bit. That waning humor was dangerous, though.
Raising one eyebrow, not even looking at the fist. Again J says nothing. Her crushing grip tightens, and not even the jagged shards that once was Uzi’s hand scratch her.
That’s it. I’m going to die now. She’s going to kill me for this.
Uzi can’t make eye contact. She looks around, spots a sharp tool on the table. It was her best shot. If she aimed well—
J had watched her eyes, and with her other had she reaches over and flicks the tool off the table. “None of that futile resistance, little morsel. Enticing as it is, it’s a waste of your energy when you should be working.”
Uzi screams again. “Robo-god, would you shut up. I’m not your ‘little morsel’. You said we could work together! But you haven’t stopped talking about me like a tasty piece of metal from day one!”
“Maybe if you worked harder, you could earn my respect.” Finally, J lets her gaze drift to the hand she’s crushing. The worker has been tugging on her arm, for all that J doesn’t budge. “What am I to make of this, but the squirming of frightened prey? Tell me what this looks like to you.”
“I was… just filing a complaint? Yeah,” Uzi finds steadiness as she spoke. “Maybe you didn’t notice, too busy practicing your stupid smug grin.” The goth crossed her arms — tried to, with only one arm to throw across her chest. She held on to anger, but its banner was flapping in a storm of fear.
“Your feedback has been noted,” J replies with a sweet lilt. “Now, what do you think happens next?”
“Um… I’ll get a response in three to five business days?”
“No, I wouldn’t want to keep you waiting.” Something low, growl-like, is creeping into J’s tone. “You filed a complaint with your fists, so why I don’t respond in kind?”
Then J lunges off the table, showing what true instant impulse looked like. She yanks Uzi upward with the grip she already had on the hand, aligning the worker for J’s torso to collide with Uzi’s own. The murder drone pounces, and all of that weight falls on her. Little cracks across her chassis, and they travel familiar faultlines between all of the bitemarks.
J, with lethal eyes, lethal maw, lethal presence, is bearing down on her. Every word a spoken threat. “You told me you hate me.” Something like a laugh, or a growl. “Try giving orders every day, and every time getting questioned, getting argued with, getting ignored. Try considering your plans from every angle, then getting backtalk from a yapping brat acting like her moment of thought means anything next to your hours. Try to stay patient while listening to a meal giving you every reason to shut. them. up.”
J’s hand darts up, grabbing a fist full of purple hair, pulling and pulling till purple eyes stared into a yellow X. “Then, maybe, you’ll understand hate. I hate you Uzi. I hate that you think you’re too good to work for me. I hate that you act like I’m the worst of this squad because I’m the only one who wants you to do better.” J finally releases the mangled scrapes of hand she’d been holding, the purple lights still flickering. “I hate that you make me damage my own assets to make a point. I hate that I can’t just throw you in with the trash like you deserve.”
The anger in Uzi has finally been blown out like a guttering candle. In the dark that remained in her eyes, there’s only the fear of monsters.
J’s grasp of Uzi’s hair shift, not pulling, not stroking, but a rough scraping through the locks. “There’s so many pieces of worthless scrap in this spire. You could be one of them. I’ve been waiting for you to get adjusted, find your place and correct your behavioral issues.” J stares and as her mouth moves, her fangs never disappear. “Uzi, I will put you in your place. Your choice is where. Do you understand?”
Purple eyes wavering, lips quivering, stuttered words. “I think—”
J lifts Uzi’s head from the ground — J’s gripping hair again — and she slams Uzi down. A crack runs up her visor, bits of plastic tumbling to the ground. From on high J glares down at her work, at the errorlog crawling up Uzi’s screen, at the broken LCDs banding and artifacting.
Dollops of repair nanites already find themselves along that great crack, like tears.
“Do you understand? Yes or no.”
“Y-yes.”
J’s glare softens, the way a support might soften before it lets you fall. A smirk with an anticipatory gleam. “I don’t think you really understand. But I think I know how to make my point stick.” J’s tail waves behind her again, but the murder drone controls it, and curls it backwards so the stinger loom beside her head. “Remember this?”
“J, you don’t have to— I get it.”
“I’m going to inject some discipline into you. Your choice is where.” A bead of acid formed on the tip of the needle, dripping down to sizzle beside Uzi’s head. “So tell, how do I best make my point?”
Uzi’s lips move, but no answer comes to them.
J’s head inched a bit closer. She smiled, winked. “Think of it as a question of what you value least. Your legs, so you can’t run away? Your arms, so you can’t work against me? Your delicate internals? Or your adorable little scowl?”
“J… boss, please. I’m sorry! I messed up! I don’t want — anything. I’ll do anything.”
And J smiled wider. “Oh? Anything? So it’s your pride that you value least of all. Somehow I’m not surprised. Very well. But don’t think I’m little you wriggle out of this without paying in full.” J lets go of Uzi, hands pushing herself up. Onto her knees that unfold into a stand, and the captain stands over the worker.
Uzi’s eyes widen, and she starts to push herself up with her one good hand, but then J kicks out a stiletto-peg and stomps her back to the floor.
“Here’s your first order, morsel. Show me just how sorry you are.” Shifting her weight into the leg standing on Uzi, her other peg moves to push against Uzi’s cheek, pressing her head to the ground. But soon it lets up, hovering just over her mouth. “Kiss it. Lick it. Worship at my feet, and maybe I’ll be convinced you’ve learned your lesson.”
Uzi looked at the floating peg, then up at the glaring murder drone, then back down. At this angle, with this position, Uzi could see under J’s skirt.
“Eyes up here, morsel. Look me in the eyes, I want to see the expression on your face as you do it.” J smirks. Yellow tick-marks creep across the captain’s face as the worker brought her lips to the caution-taped metal. J doesn’t hide her blush — no, the worker getting to see that the captain was enjoying it only made her more smug. J licked her lips.
The trail of kisses on the pegs can only go so high, with J’s weight pinning Uzi to the ground, so J assists her, slowly moving her legs in accordance to Uzi’s desires.
J sighs softly, and it turns to a laugh in her throat. She hates Uzi, but she loves this. The submission she deserves, so long denied. The recognition of superiority that broke the goth, visible both in the cracked screen and the trembling eyes behind it. Oh, but this display needed only one thing more before J was satisfied.
Uzi’s only warning was the motion behind her captain, and the point of the knife seeking a joint beneath her jacket.
Then J stabs, and servo actuation depresses the plunger on the nanite cannister. Acid annihilation flows warmly into the worker. There’s a microsecond, faster than the lag of signal transmission and kernel interrupt handling, where you can see only surprise on Uzi’s face.
Then a scream rips through her vocalsynth the same way the acid tears into her. Uzi’s eyes aren’t rings, because they are ragged blocks of pixels breaking into noise. All thoughts shut down except the sensation of J inside of her. The agony cuts deeper into her than the feigned submission.
And J is still smirking.