Uzi liked having a room of her own.
Back in Outpost-3, it wasn’t hers — the unit belonged to Khan — but the posters, the plushies, the gaming rig, that was her. She and J hadn’t collected any of that stuff for the corpse spire, and the goth hadn’t decided where she’d even put it.
J called it an open office floor plan: the vast expanse of the murder drone’s wicked nest-lair-thing yawned abyssally wide. Uzi heard her voice echoing when she yelled!
A place that big, where anyone, anywhere might see her? Reminded her too much of how Khan could barge in at any time. Well, he’d been learning to knock, before—
But then Uzi found the spire-tunnels! J and her squad didn’t just stack up bodies, they also dug down, clawing through cement. Oil kept better in that darkness — V called it her wine cellar.
The tunnels ran deep enough to meet the subterranean veins of the city, half-collapsed and maze-like from two decades of decay. With prey stockpiled here, the storm-drains became more of a catacombs.
All of the… spare parts down here gave Uzi something to work with. A cement slab propped up on cinderblocks became a makeshift table. Arrayed with wires, gears, screws, tape, a wrench from… somewhere, Uzi had just what she needed.
It wasn’t quite a room, no, but it was a workshop.
The table was extra full this morning. Railgun unfastened, unscrewed, undone, and pieces scattered, the barrel was what Uzi needed to patch up. That last skirmish against a rival squad saw her getting way too close to a disassembler. The long, jagged gash splitting the barrel of her railgun told just how close.
Uzi dropped a steel panel. Intake, exhaust. Disassembly drones weren’t scary. She knew them well enough, she’d bested them often enough to deallocate any drive space wasted on breathless folk tales, or the WDF’s propaganda-blunt “warning” posters, or the humiliating prey-fright that had made stacking this spire so easy. Stupid. If anything, they should be scared of her.
Except how many times had one of them gotten close enough to count shark-teeth? Not since J—
Uzi shook her head. Didn’t matter! The conic, hazard-striped arm she held in her other hand told just how much that little scuffle mattered in the end.
Enough nights spent repairing that buzzword-spouting captain had given the tinker familiarity to know where disassembly drone gauntlets read their control voltage. So just like that, she’d wound up with her most flexible tool by far!
In place of the hand now emerged an arc welder! Thunderous heat flooded the electrode, red hot and joining the break in her railgun’s steel. Sparks jumped, splashing into her visor glass and making bagged purple eyes blink. The captain could smooth that out later, probably.
(Why did she keep calling J captain? The chief kill-bot wasn’t her captain. More like a business partner — but that corporate shill speech tic was super tiresome, so they were really just partners. Except calling her my partner sounds like —
Wait, ugh, shut up intrusive thoughts, I’m handling lethally dangerous industrial equipment right now!)
Her hand trembled as she held the arc welder, unsteady, but she would get this done today! Halfway melded now, just shift her hand a bit higher, hold it steady, hold it steady.
Still shaking, a servo-stutter sends the tool jutting forward and nearly turned her plastic hand to slag.
But the tinker caught herself. All good. She’s fine, and she can finish the rest. Easy. A bit slower, but digi-adrenaline crowded out the intrusive thoughts — meaning no more near-amputations happen.
And the result…
Her railgun barrel doesn’t look good as new — Outpost-3 had better salvage, better machining tools — but this would suffice. And since she’s already got her gun disassembled anyway, she had time left to try out some upgrades!
Like a set of parallel conductors to augment the magnetic field generation. It’d increase the power, but it was probably workable. Wouldn’t be able to properly test it until tonight, but she could always wire up the motors.
But hm, what to use for the wires? The tinker’s hands were already moving as she thought.
Gold might be best of all, but they definitely didn’t have enough, and if Uzi broached the subject with J, she was likely to get her buffers overflowing with nagging monologues about budgetting.
Copper was more reliably available (guess why), though brass might make it stronger if she had to fend off another enemy in melee. And steel could be even better than that. Though, if she was so worried about another close quarters fight, could she use that blade-feather she’d pulled off her partner last time she was preened? That could make a pretty sick bayonet.
Getting off-track! Specifics didn’t even matter when this wasn’t the final design yet. Tweak it later. Because was there even room for a set of parallel conductors? Uzi glanced down to where her fingers were fiddling with wires, purple handlights shining off the scuffed metal. And the tinker froze.
She… had remembered to disconnect the railgun power cell, right? She wasn’t about to be holding a live wire and fry her whole system?
Oh. She—had—not! Another frickin close call and she wasn’t even in a fight.
…But. Her freaky eldritch genetics could have regen’d from that, right?
“Got any other plans to nearly kill yourself today, shortsell?” called a voice behind her.
“Oh robo-jesus.” Uzi startled, twisting around and half-falling onto the worktable in fright. “J? How long have you been there?”
Shadowcloaked by the wall she leaned, and two amber eyes narrowed in a glare. J stalked forward, and silk danced around her. Off-duty, the captain didn’t wear her professional suit and skirt; right now, she had a gossamer camisole and black lace tied around her hips. Seamlessly meeting the legs’ garter-strap design.
Uzi had never seen J dressed in her night clothes outside her private office. Not that Uzi had seen that J dressed like this in private. Not provably.
For every curve and glimmery-smooth highlight on display, honed survival instinct instead urged the worker’s eyes stick to the angles. The three knives hanging down beneath each hazard-stripe circle; the glowering eyelight and a frown so deep it revealed diamond-sharp teeth.
That look hasn’t gotten any less scary after the first four times she tried to kill me.
Or any less weirdly hot.
Uzi scooted back on the table, but stalking, for J, was faster still than the small drone could move. No escape. A staccatto of stiletto-pegs on hard floor, and J was here. Claws slammed down and became hands right before they’d impale Uzi’s own, pressing them hard against the cement. J leaned forward, standing tall enough even with the goth propped up, meaning she made eye contact with two rows of teeth.
“Doesn’t matter,” J’s voice was a whisper as gentle as a needle in flesh. “Tell me how long you have been here.”
“I…” Uzi had a flashlight as light in her workshop, casting sterile white light all around, but somehow J’s optics seemed to outshine them — this close, the color palette became so much warmer.
Five orbs staring down from on high, keenly watching the whole electromagnetic spectrum. Could J see inside of her tinker with x-rays? Could J’s thermal vision catch how the oil flushing through the violet-bright core and up to the face, like a real blush beneath the purple tick marks? At J’s refresh rate, could she see her morsel’s eyes darting around, taking in all of the predator looming in front of her?
Untied silver hair running down in streams down her back, that camisole falling down as the murder drone leaned forward, granting the girl a glimpse at an amber-bright core, and that arm moving with snake-swift intent—
Grabbing her chin and lifting her gaze higher to lock eyes once more.
Right, the dazed goth had been asked a question.
“Not long,” Uzi said. “I was almost finished before you interrupted me!”
Yellow eyes rolling. J’s fingers tightened at her chin. “I saw you scurry down here after the mission briefing. You have a built-in clock. I want an exact time. Down to the second.”
Uzi opened her mouth.
It’s not a big deal!
It’s not your concern!
It’s my free time, bite me!
Her tongue was wet with defiance — but those yellow eyes definitely saw it coming.
And J’s fingers released her chin lightly, gliding up with ghostly pressure, gently holding her cheek.
So what left Uzi’s mouth was gasp.
And those fang-bit lips bent just as subtly, frown lifting into the smallest smirk.
Screw her, but she’d won. Why did losing have to feel good? Uzi melted into the touch, closing her eyes and reporting, “5:21:09.” Tone mechanical, miming a text to speech readout. Because Uzi wasn’t saying it, J had just run a command on her system with her voice. But who’d given her those permissions?
J tsked, and Uzi flinched at the reproach in the sound. “Uzi. Even you should have noticed your performance is terrible. Are your diagnostics worthless, or are you trying to be useless? You’re trembling, can’t stay focused, and I can see the bags under your eyes. When was the last time you drank?”
“Err,” Uzi started. “I was gonna grab a ration just as soon as I was done, and I was almost done, so…”
J twisted a finger. The captain kept her nails filed even on her default preset, so sharp plastic dug into the silicone of the worker’s lower face. “I ask, you answer, that’s part of our arrangement. Now Uzi, what is your current battery percentage?”
“…9%” Just pretend it was command output and not a confession squeezed out of her.
“And your temperature?”
“86.9C.”
Her other hand rose now, higher, and came down on Uzi’s head, slipping under beanie. J smiled at her, not at all masking the leering smug yellow above it.
“Was that so hard?”
“Yes? I mean— ugh. You don’t really make it easy, when you look at me like…” But Uzi floundered, not finding the words.
“They’re simple questions, Uzi. What, are you afraid of answering?”
…I don’t want to answer that question either.
“TBH… kinda.” It wasn’t command output, but if Uzi was quiet when she said it, the words were small enough to make it out. “You’ll get mad at me, and then—”
J leaned in closer, lower, finally, and her silicone-soft cheek brushed against Uzi’s own as she pressed her head into purple hair, lips close enough to transducers that the goth heard the lips part, the exhaust blowing past. “Oh, I am mad at you. But I’m not going to hurt you. I don’t want you hurting. And that is why I’m mad. So don’t be scared.”
Uzi’s hands weren’t being held down to the table now, so she brought them together in her lap, wringing them. “That’s. That’s not it. I’d kinda figured that out, with the whole living with you full time thing. I’m — scared you’ll. Look, it’s embarrassing, okay? I’m not. I just don’t need you worrying about me, or thinking I’m stupid, or—”
“Uzi,” J interrupted. She pulled back, head emerging from the violet locks and grinning viciously. “You are stupid. And you’d get yourself killed without me.”
“Bite me!” Uzi brought up her hands suddenly and shoved the bigger drone back. “Just screw off then. I try to be vulnerable for once and this—”
“The point,” J interrupted again, “is that your fears are pointless. But I suppose you’d need me to spell it out for you. If I already think you’re stupid, not answering my questions won’t change that, but it will make you look that much more pathetic.”
Despite herself, Uzi was growling out of habit, spending this long around murder drones. “Pathetic? You self-important, euphemistic glitch! Oh yeah, tell me you’ve never danced around a question for the sake of appearances. Go on, lie to me!” Despite the distance she’d pushed the captain back, the goth lunged forward now, getting in the captain’s face again.
It gave J a clear look at the high temp warning blinking in place of one eye.
So J sighed and took a step back from the drone blowing up in her face.
Uzi just narrowed her eyes, as if that tired sound was more insulting than any comeback. “Whatever. If I’m pathetic, then you’re” — she flipped through a thesaurus program — “wretched! I don’t need your pity.”
That was when J clenched her fists. Her tail flicked out, and the step back she took meant that when a black cord wrapped around Uzi’s legs, all J had to do was pull to drag the tinker off the worktable.
The worker yelped as she was yanked off balance. Moving leg-first, her upper half was falling, careening toward hard stone ground.
But J leaned forward, conic arm thrown around the small waist, catching Uzi.
The other arm snatched at the flailing tube-limbs, holding her morsel still as the captain pulled the tinker close.
“Pity? You think this is pity?” Her voice bubbled with about as much acid as seethed in her tail — but both were restrained for the small drone’s sake. “No, this is self-interest. As far as I’m concerned, you are an asset to this squad — to me. And this stunt you pulled, this negligence, overheating yourself like damaged toaster? You’re threatening what’s mine. And I don’t appreciate it.”
Despite J’s restraint, Uzi had stopped struggling under the thrall of the rant, words dripping like so much oil — and she felt so hot for it. Hot enough to melt — no, hot enough to vent out rebuttals about how she’s her own person, and this was supposed to be an equal partnership, and…
But J was watching keenly, and knew how to input commands. With her voice, and with her—
A hand reached up, another cheek caress, violet locks twining around the joints of a finger and then tugging gently, then insistently until Uzi let out a quiet sound. Not a vent at all.
J was smiling at her — a smile, pleased more than satisfied, joyed more than smug. A whisper, as if she, too, needed to speak quietly for the words to be small enough to escape. “You’re cuter when you have time to relax.”
Uzi’s blush was the brightest thing on her visor at that moment. This close, she knew J could feel how it made her core vibrate, see thermals of hot oil circulating furiously.
Enough distraction it was a few steps before Uzi realized they were moving, shifting as pegs clicked each step.
“Wuh, wait! Can I finish up first? I really was almost—”
“No,” J said. “Practice better time management. I’m not paying overtime.”
“Ugh.” Uzi drew out the sound long enough for J to reach out and clamp her mouth shut. Then Uzi bit her fingers. Then J stuck her fingers in deeper, and Uzi spat them back out. She always makes it so weird. Above, J was laughing at her, and Uzi popped a vein. She always wins. It’s not frickin fair!
Uzi felt how J swayed as she walked, and kinda wished she could see it. Or rather, she wished she could see anything. Outside her workshop, the tunnels beneath the spire looked pitch frickin black. J had other senses to guide her, but the only thing Uzi can see is J’s eyes. But… can’t blame me for staring, under these circumstances.
Silent but for heels clicking.
“So um,” Uzi started, quiet. “Back there. You said… cute.” J grunted affirmative. “And… you’re carrying me. You get close to me all the time, really. And the way you talk about me… the way you look at me. Um. We’re… are we some kind of thing? Or like, are you trying to make this a thing?”
J just glanced down, eyes two flat halves.
“Oh. That… partnership was another euphemism wasn’t it,” Uzi said. “We’ve been… all along?”
“Idiot,” J murmured lightly under her breath. “Did you think I let you rearrange my internal wiring because we were what, just convenient allies?”
“I thought that was because I’d be good at it? B-bite me. I’m not good at reading these sort of things. Other people.”
“Other people? Because you’re wonderful at reading yourself, is that how we got here?”
“Bite—”
“Proposition me after we replenish your oil. Don’t be overeager.”
“Ugh. You always make it weird!”
“How can I resist? You never hide it when something makes you feel ‘weird’. It makes you cute and easy.”
“I’m not cute. And I can’t hide it because unlike you, I’m not shameless! It’s not fair when you’re a stone-faced killer.” Uzi crossed her arms.
“Is that why you’re still alive?”
“Okay, yeah, not completely stone-y. But you get what I mean! Nothing makes you feel weird.”
J shook her head. “You just aren’t paying attention.”
“What is it, then? Pens? Getting called ‘boss’? …Is it like, messing with me that does it?”
J looked down at the goth again, and just enough light was shining down on the captain to illuminate a smirk, which revealed just enough that she didn’t have to say ‘no, dummy’ for Uzi to know she was thinking it.
Uzi smelled it before the murder drone set her down. This scent of aromatic organic molecules and combustion products was the first thing to take her mind off the murder drone since her railgun was taken from her. Her capillaries and pumps cried out for the oil the way a summer tree’s roots cried out for rain.
The worker couldn’t see, but she didn’t need to. Her head turned toward the liquid like a magnet and she inched forward — only for firm plastic to boop-nudge her back, fingers wagging.
Lower, the hand pushed Uzi down onto a bench, just a tarp draped over collapsed rocks, in another dead end room in the tunnels.
“Recharge first,” J said, “or your system will just burn up the oil to top up your empty batteries. It’d be better spent cooling you.”
Uzi started to say fine, but as soon as her mouth opened, and a thick rod slipped inside. She felt the tingle of a negative terminal — J had stuffed a D-cell battery in her mouth.
“Go on now, lick it.”
She was stuck here with the weirdest murder drone. How did this become her life?
Purple eyes blinked, and saw amber just inches away. Her partner’s lips wrapped around the other end of the D-cell. The tip of Uzi’s tongue pressed against the cathode divot, and she could feel the redox reaction already starting.
Unlike humans with their nerve-endings, drones’ tongues were lined with conductive bumps, like a hundredly-frayed cable. Modulating the flow of electricity was an impulse as simple as running a current down any other internal wire.
Thus, J’s tongue supplied a positive charge, and a circuit was created. Electricity surged out from the D-cell, warm energy pouring directly into Uzi’s system.
Oh, but she was so empty, and this electric energy seemed to fan out right away to the edges of her body, rousing away a blanket of dead numbness. The tinker felt awake, after hours of work had scraped away so much.
J pushed, tongue flexing to force the D deep into Uzi’s mouth. She almost let her — she was at once energized and sated, and she wanted to suck the battery if that would drain it faster.
But she wasn’t that far gone. Yet.
Uzi pushed back, her own tongue countering J’s force. The fat battery slipped centimeters out of her mouth without breaking the circuit. J made some sound, a snort or grunt, and then she pushed back harder.
The D-cell shifted back and forth, and soon the two girls were shoving hard enough the length was wobbling from side to side. The captain relented for a moment, pulling back as the goth was still pushing — a trap that sent the battery thrusting up until it was balanced upon Uzi’s tongue alone.
Now the undercharged drone fought to keep the circuit connected, keep the ecstatic shiver-guzzle of power coming. The process of reeling it back into her mouth made an embarrassingly loud slurp noise.
J definitely snorted at that. Some of Uzi’s newfound energy went into rendering a fierce blush, eyes averting. But the worker didn’t let go.
When she noticed the lines of nanite-rich saliva dripping down the length, mixing with her own and slipping past the seal of her lips, she blinked. But how many times had that same saliva been what patched up the injuries the worker had sustained on missions? She was inured to it now.
Uzi stopped thinking about any of it and lost herself in the recharge, J’s presence ever-felt both as the other half of the circuit and as the obnoxious push-pull of the D-cell.
Then her partner drew back, taking the electric snack away from her, and Uzi bit to keep hold of it.
So J spat the thing out, and said, “It’s empty, girl. You can stop now.”
Uzi pulled the D-cell out of her mouth and threw it to clank against the ground. “You really didn’t have to do it like that. At all!”
J’s eyes were elsewhere, at the table where she’d retrieved the battery — where Uzi had smelled the oil. Had J had this whole setup prepared beforehand? How long had she been watching Uzi work, plotting this intervention?
Uzi’s thought were interrupted by a rich aroma brought tantalizingly close. In the dark, she couldn’t make out the container, so she didn’t have to think about what she was drinking or where it came from. She could lose herself in the pleasure of her body taking what it needed. Of J giving her what she needed.
It started as drop falling to tease her, and in that moment, after all the arguments, after the slurp, after realizing just how hot she’d let herself get… Uzi didn’t fight it. She whined, wordlessly begging for more.
And J provided. A hand cupped her cheek, her tail tightened its bondage around her legs. Uzi could see nothing in the room but J, and she could think about nothing but her and her own need.
And the oil didn’t taste sweet, not entirely, there was a tang to it, a deeper taste that seemed to unspool inside her as the thick syrup piled into a mouthful.
She swallowed draught after atramentous draught.
Sighing out contentment, licking her lips, she said, “That tasted… better than normal, somehow? It was denser. Smokey. I dunno how to describe it.”
J hummed. “It’s from V’s personal stash.”
“Huh. She’s so gonna kill you over that.” Uzi laughed.
J laughed too. “Oh no, why would she? I’m not the one who drunk it.”
Uzi narrowed her eyes. Then she just rolled them and fell back on the bench. “’s what I get for relying on you.”
J smiled. “Any time, toaster.”
“That wasn’t a compliment? Whatever. I’m gonna go back to work now.” But when Uzi tried to rise from the bench, a strong hand pushed her back down. She resisted it, but she couldn’t beat J. So she enlisted her hands as backup, trying to push the hand to the side, but then J shifted her whole body.
The murder drone straddled her and stared intently down. “No. I told you, no overtime.”
Purple eyes rolling. “Okay, fine. If I can’t work on the railgun with my hands, I guess I’ll just have to use my mind. So, I was working on this parallel conductor design, and I think it might be best to use gold wiring, though I can probably settle for steel if it needs to be durable, plus you’d probably say no to scavenging gold anyway, but what I’m really wondering is if I can’t fit that into the barrel without making this unstable, and really whether that works out depends on the resulting magnetic field, so I think I should probably start defining variable to expla—”
Then J struck. Grabbing Uzi around the waist and pulling her worker close as the captain’s own head drew forward. Conic arms had room to curl around the small torso now, enclosing it tight.
Lips met lips, and just a moment of contact between hot, sensitive synthetic flesh was enough for J to find herself staring into a purple loading icon. All that yapping, and this was what overwhelmed the tinker’s processor.
The sight just drew the captain in deeper, cradling the worker with strength just short of crushing as her lips fluttered, as if to form words, nonsense words, whose only meaning was how they felt on her partner’s lips.
And Uzi felt… error: main thread not responding.
Uzi felt what was happening. Uzi felt J. Her partner wanted to hold her close and kiss her. That was easier to process. It was frickin unbelievable but, that was what her sensors told was happening.
Uzi had argued with J, bickering and resisting, even something as simple as recharging from a battery became a tug of war — but this? This connection?
J didn’t fight her. J didn’t invade her and didn’t seize anything. She brought their lips together and that alone formed a circuit, wet and supple gliding against each other or staying so palpably still.
Despite the oil, Uzi was still trembling — no, this was less of a tremble than a shiver, and it wasn’t Uzi, it was J, limbs twined so tight around her. Or it was both of them? Bouncing with excited disbelief that this was happening, and that it felt so…
Excitement hammered in their pulse, cores working overtime, and the straddle-hug meant the only thing separated Uzi’s purple glow and J’s amber was respectively, an undershirt and a camisole.
Uzi felt J’s rhythm, and they both shared the exultation, each racing faster. One core-tick fell in line with another tick, and then again and again. The two cycles shifted into sync.
Lips parted, then came a dual gasp of exhaust scorched oven-hot by their overworked mechanical hearts.
Liquid strings clear and black bridged their two mouths; their faces had been messy even before they started making out.
The captain licked her lips, sucking up all the wet residue. Then she reached out to brush a finger over Uzi’s, collecting all the strands and rubbing it between two fingers.
Uzi was still panting, but the cycle of intake and exhaust cooled her quickly.
“—explain, starting from Maxwell’s laws that—”
“Shut up, you tedious pocket calculator. Don’t you get it?” J narrows her eyes. “Or are you just begging for me to do it again?”
Uzi glances away, guilty as recharged.
“It’s hard to stop thinking about it, you know? The railgun, it’s what’s kept me alive this long.”
J smirked. “I don’t find it’s hard at all.” She’d done it so easily, after all.
“Well, it’s easier to focus on you, cuz you might kill me. Survival instincts.”
“And yet, it hasn’t been my most lethally effective features that caught your eye most, has it?” J brushed strands of messy purple hair from Uzi’s eyelights.
“Okay. Yeah. You’re also just. Different. When it comes to distracting me… you’re good at it.”
J’s eyes widen, an amber blush blooming beneath them, lips part surprised before spreading into a grin. “The best,” she corrected.
“Best I’ve ever had, yeah.” Not that that’s very high praise. But.
Then Uzi paused, and did a double take. She saw it right: J was blushing. Had she ever?
‘You just aren’t paying attention,’ she’d said.
Oh yeah? Then watch this, miss details-oriented!
Uzi had a theory to test, now.
“…I guess it’s not just distraction,” Uzi started, deciding how she wanted to try this. “The batteries, the oil… you were really looking out for me. It’s. You did a good job with that.”
Yep, blushing! And this grin had nothing predatory in it — though Uzi bet if she called it goofy, she could change that instantly. The effect seemed to bubble out of her in a laugh.
“Mm, I wouldn’t say you deserve my catering, but you’ve earned it. Even if it involved terrible, utterly negligent decision-making.” J half-rolled her eyes, but when she looked back, she saw Uzi matching her grin with one of her own, with all the devious triumph of an impending cackle. “What are you looking all pleased about?”
“You’re pretty good at keeping your secrets, aren’t you?”
Even if the captain blushed brighter, this time she narrowed her eyes. “While you’re correct on every count, I can’t help but feel you’re flattering me.” J removed one hand from hugging Uzi, and brought out three claws. “Insincerity would be terrible decision-making, even for you.”
“I just finally figured it out, is all.” She got three cackles out before J interrupted.
“What does that mean?”
“That’s what does it for you, isn’t it? You wouldn’t tell me earlier, but this is what makes you feel all weird. Compliments and stuff. Praise.”
J looked away. She couldn’t say yes — which meant yes.
With J’s cheek turned momentarily, Uzi leaned forward to kiss it. Kind of thrilling that she could just… do that. They both smiled over it.
“You said I looked cute, earlier. But you, you’re so…” Uzi floundered. “I want to say elegant, but that kind of makes you sound like an equation.”
Wait, no it doesn’t! It’s a totally normal compliment. Most people don’t read enough mathematicians rambling about elegance to make that word-association. Why did I say that.
J quirked an eyebrow. “And I seem like a nice equation to you?”
Maybe she would have had more inhibition if she hadn’t just had the best makeout session of her life, if she hadn’t kissed a hot girl on the cheek and gotten away with it, if she hadn’t got that same notoriously-cold-and-bitchy girl all grins and giggles just by picking the right words — maybe she would have stayed cool. But she still felt hot.
Uzi felt stupid, and worse, she felt like stupid was working.
“…Honestly? Yeah. You’re all efficient and orderly and kinda cryptic and I think if I plug in the wrong inputs it’ll blow up in my face.” She thought about how the rocket equation had driven men to drink and to the moon.
J closed her eyes, basking in the glow. When she opened them, they were lidded, and she drifted forward. Into the goth’s hair, tongue trailing cool along her cheek. Right against her transducers, the faintest whisper.
“Here’s another secret. I didn’t just kiss you to shut you up. I just… couldn’t resist.”
When J pulled away, Uzi had wide eyes. The goth didn’t know whether to feel smug or embarassed, confused or enlightened.
“Oh,” she said.
J snorted.
“All this time, I had been wondering… nevermind, it’s stupid.”
“You are. Now spit it out.”
“Just. Why you keep me around. I’ve heard your justifications. But. Another thing you’re good at is spinning an excuse for what you’re gonna do anyway. And it always seemed like just more of that.”
“Ah, and now my trade secret is revealed,” J said, each word like a cry from a great wound. “All along… I liked you.” She let her head fall in shame.
“All along? I was thinking maybe I had grown on you.”
“I won’t say something juvenile like I loved you from the beginning — I’d be lying if even I said I could stand you — but from the very fight fight… well, don’t you think the weirdest thing I ever did was let you live?”
“I esca—”
“I let you escape. There was a risk assessment — you’re correct that I’m quite able to compellingly present the logic of my decisions to others. But…” J’s eyes drifted off, one pupil shifting to a symbol as she accessed a memory database.
“I remember the night it happened. Every squad this side of the mountains had been talking about you. The worker who took a whole squad down to one member. They started calling you the headhunter.
Worthless, all of them. I’d show them, I’d show you, a real headhunter. I composed a monologue just for you. But — they’re all for me, really. My efforts are wasted on everyone else.
And then you, you countered it with a stupid rant about your railgun. Because you were listening. You were thinking. And then… you told me I was the best~” J grinned.
Uzi scowled. “I did not say you were the best.”
“Among all the disassembly drones you fought, I put up the most fight, I had the best tactics. I’m the one who kept coming back.” J spoke it like a quotation, but Uzi would never say that.
“My nemesis. Except…”
“No, you were my fiercest competition.” Then J rose, eyes crossing to a death-glare, and her maw yawned to reveal fangs. “But what’s better than beating the competition?”
Uzi blushed.
If she can kiss me just to shut me up, then I’m allowed to kiss her just to keep her from eating me.
The second kiss was nothing like the first. J’s mouth had opened wide, wider than a worker could match, so Uzi’s only hope was to lead with her tongue like a spear or key.
It met the black musculature of J’s tongue. The tingle of circuits meeting, stray surface charges exchanged, all the minute sensitivities at once probed and provoked. The long black length twitch-undulated, signals running back to its hungry master.
And then J clamped down over Uzi’s puckered lips. Sealing the kiss, but not evenly — it was like J sucked her face, the points of teeth acutely felt against the rim of her mouth.
But their tongue-tips held their touch, matched one against one, stuck like magnets.
Then the magnetic field evolved.
J’s tongue rushed forward, breaching Uzi’s mouth and presenting her a dilemma. Bite down on this intruder, or counterattack? Conscious of the teeth still digging into her lips above and below, the goth’s tongue chose to slip inward, slickly sliding past the long and slender rival that dwarfed it.
The murder drone maw was wide open, after all, and could not stop her. Uzi flitted and delved and licked, and each signal she sent received immediate acknowledgement. J rumbled approval, purring out satisfaction-surprise.
Uzi felt it all around her. Thick arms clutching tight, tail still constricting her legs, and so much weight crushing-shaping her. What had J said earlier? Mine.
But why did it have to feel so good?
When the arms loosened (pulling away?) and the weight lifted, the little morsel missed it. She rose after it.
Then something was on the way around. A finger — a claw! Just below her neck now, and in her eagerness to keep J close, Uzi had driven the motionless weapon into her.
That long tongue wriggled in her mouth, as if because the murder drone was unable to lick her lips.
Once the girl was still, the claw dragged itself down and down, cleanly snipping Uzi’s undershirt in half. Now a hand pulled the fabric away as if opening a chest. The workers’s thoracic plates were bared, and a hand descended to splay over the plastic plates and aluminum girder-ribs.
The claw returned to ghost a false swipe upward, then transformed back to three fingered safety. Poised now right above the purple corelight.
Uzi didn’t think, she needed. Hands went to her partner’s waist as she sucked J’s tongue like a new battery, demanding more of her with a high whine. The goth groped up, hands feeling the steel reinforcement of a murder drone chassis. Oh but if she could peel off all that armor, thrust her hands into the soft, wirey soul that made J move.
Ah! The murder drone shoved the girl down against cement, hand flatly cupping a quickly-ticking heartful of whimpering goth. This came right as Uzi had found her hand brushing over the hot, hot center of the captain, surface vibrating with each thunderous beat.
And J bit her. And Uzi cried out.
Slender-long tongue finally snaked out of Uzi to lap at a fresh dribble of oil from her bottom lip. This evicted the worker’s tongue, and while J sucked her lips, threatening more kissbites, Uzi could suck in cool intake.
Looks like plan: don’t eat me it is a total bust.
Why does losing always have to feel so good??
J gave a loud slurp — she has to be mocking me now — and said, “So delectable. So appetizing. You sounded like a worker trapped and crying for help. Makes me want to finish you off.” J growled deep then, putting the Uzi’s own imitation to shame.
“Don’t make it sound so…” God, I do not want to be finished by this… vampire romance cliche! “…unprofessional! Am I supposed to do good work under these conditions?”
“Yes. Otherwise I’ll just have to make you~” Claws waved hypnotic in front of violet eyelights. “You’ll do great work because I can make you feel so weird and you need it bad. You need me. And why is that?” J grinned down at her worker.
Uzi closed her eyes and spoke the correct answer like command output. “Because you’re the most effective disassembly drone on Copper-9.” With eyes closed, the goth didn’t see it coming.
J smooched her one last time on the lips, blushing brazenly as she did it. “The best~” she crowed. “The only one who could match Copper-9’s most dangerous worker.” Another lunge right by her transducer for one last whisper-injection. “After all, I told them I’d show them real headhunting. And that’s simply what we in the business call picking out high value talent — and recruiting it.”
After so long holding herself up, the captain collapsed, falling to snuggle against her prized freelancer. The two headhunters cuddled sharing stubborn pride.
“Robo-god, but your buzzwords never stop, do they? You obnoxiously monologue-happy jobber.” Uzi started flatly at her, all judgment longsuffering and unimpressed. Then J bit her, and her stare broke and it felt good, ugh.
“You masochistic brat. But I suppose that explanation was too complex for someone so stupid. I’ll keep it simple.” And J hugged her tight. “You’re mine.”
With J’s head on her shoulder, Uzi leaned forth and bit into J’s own. Because it was that, or she’d smile stupidly. And she wouldn’t look so happy to be insulted. Or owned. I’m not owned!
“Just so you know,” J hiss-whispered, “if you do this again, I’m not coddling you about it. I’ll tie you down and leave you to cool off manually.”
“Um. Thanks for not doing that this time, I guess?”
A eyebrow quirked. “You guess?”
“No, I mean it. This was… really nice and I can’t believe we were both crushing so hard this whole time. I mean, it was alright of you.”
“Hmph. Keep up the good work, and clock out on time, and we can schedule this again. But I need you to take care of yourself, or we can’t have any of this. Got it?”
“I… I can try, maybe.”
“Try? To do nothing? What’s so hard about that?”
“I… there’s nothing else to do! Nowhere else to go, besides my workshop. The main spire, it’s too… big, I guess. It freaks me out that V or N or anyone else might—”
J reached up, patting Uzi’s head, stroking her hair. “I see. Okay. Whenever you’re done working, come to my room — my office, that is. You can sleep there. And I suppose… the desktop I use for spreadsheets and compiling documents has solitaire to amuse you, if I’m not there.”
Uzi scoffed. “Lame! I’m gonna install Doom!”
J narrowed her eyes, even if she couldn’t help smiling at Uzi’s enthusiasm. “If it winds up with any viruses I’ll 606 you.”
“Do you really need to do the death threat flirting thing after we just made out? Lay off it, J. I know how badly you want me~”
“Shut up.”
“And I know you know just how to do that.” :3c
J reached over to the forgotten table beside them, rooting around for something unseen. She returned with a AA battery in her hand, and stuffed it in Uzi’s mouth before diving down, intent to complete the circuit and pump energy into her charge-hungry worker.
Before she licked the battery, though, she said, “Save your energy for tonight. You’ll need it.” She grabbed one of the tinkers’s hands, and brought it to an armored abdominal plate, as an internal command detached, lifting just enough for the small fingertips to tease the substructure. “I think you need a change of pace. So, why not move on to something bigger than your railgun?”
Uzi could barely find her words, and not just because she needed to talk around a battery. “You um. Need repairs?”
“Not repairs. This will be something more… recreational. Talk about me like you talk about your railgun. Transcribe my equation~” J blushed. “Uzi… You’re mine but at the same time… I’m yours. With some terms and conditions, of course.”
The battery stifled a groan. “Like enduring these buzzwords.”
“Oh? Is this trade deal not to your liking?
Ugh. But it was. That was always the worst part: she made it feel so frickin good.
Uzi liked having a room of her own. She’d had that at Outpost-3; and she didn’t have that at the corpse spire.
Yet, a room with someone else?
“No,” Uzi said, “…but it just might be worth it anyway.”