Hostile Takeover

“Um, J? J? What are you—”

J snapped out of sleep mode. Why was she in sleep mode? That didn’t matter. N was awake.

(Would N blame her for letting him overheat? Would N blame her for V’s malfunction? Should—)

J growled. “So you’re finally up. Took you long enough. When did you deign to rejoin the online?”

“Erm, just a minute ago. Last thing I remember I was err, murdering drones with you and V but now we’re outside and you’re…” N looked down, head cocked. “Um, what exactly are you doing?”

J looked down, the bright blue serial debugging cable still stretching between her and V. She flushed.

Oh, I was just treating my fellow disassembly drone as a mere oilcan. I’ve been promoted from predator to cannibal, you see. Ugh. J couldn’t do this, not with N watching‍ ‍—‍ but did she need to, now that N was awake? Recalculating…

Why was he staring at her? Oh right, he’d asked some dumb question.

“It’s not what it looks like, idiot. V crashed on the mission‍ ‍—‍ just like you‍ ‍—‍ and I’m trying to figure out what’s wrong with her. Entirely professional.”

N’s eyes widened. “Oh, oh dear. Will she be alright?” His hands went to clutch at his head. “I hope she doesn’t—”

“Not what you should be worrying about right now. Be quiet and let me work.”

N saluted. “Please help her.”

J muttered, “Oh, good idea. Here I was thinking it’d be better to sabotage the only other effective drone in the sector.”

First, J had to check her internal logs to figure out just what the heck happened. The last four minutes of her memory just got wiped. Last thing she remembered, she was about to‍ ‍—‍ attack V? Unexpected but frankly understandable‍ ‍—‍ but then what happened?

Had some background process triggered? Why?

Investors, I’m almost as bad as V.

Speaking of V and memories… Since J was connected to V’s system, she did have an opportunity here.

Ethically, it was questionable, but surely the captain had valid concerns for her squadmate’s safety and their overall mission.

Still, should she? V hadn’t answered her questions about what happened in the basement or what she was thinking. J could transfer a copy of V’s memories and get the answer for herself.

A full copy of V’s mind would be take up too many terabytes and require too many minutes transfer, but if J did a quick concept scan to pull up the relevant connectome—

She couldn’t.

J checked, and she hadn’t been locked out. adminj was logged in and had high level permissions. Including read access to V’s memory database.

But when J tried to pull up any memory, even innocuous ones, she only read garbage output.

Another anomaly: A disassembly drone’s memory database easily accumulates terabytes of data‍ ‍—‍ J’s was tens of terabytes‍ ‍—‍ but V’s had accumulated hundreds.

Did V suffer from some glitch preventing her from discarding redundant memories? Obviously, drones could generate petabytes or more if they kept audio‍-​video logs of every hour of their experience.

But again, J couldn’t check if this was the case because any attempt to read V’s memories gave output as incomprehensible as piping /dev/jrandom. As if V’s experience of the world was neverending TV static and radio noise. V was crazed, sure, but she did understand what was going on.

Was it an incompatible format? But that didn’t compute. J was executing commands on V’s operating system. She used the same programs that V would use to read her own memories.

Unless…

But that didn’t compute either.

Who encrypted their own memories?

“Um, captain?”

J snapped back to her visual feed. Eyes focusing on N, narrowing to a thin stare. “What.”

“I hate to sound like I’m questioning the mission‍ ‍—‍ I’m not! I promise!‍ ‍—‍ but I’m worried. Why… are we out here? It’s almost sunrise, and uh, that’s pretty bad, isn’t it?”

“Oh, really? With the constant danger of overheating, I never considered that staying out in the sunlight might be a problem for us, please tell me more.”

N shrunk back. “Yeah I regret saying that. Sorry!”

“Whatever shall we do? Naturally, we should fly back to the spire I built to protect us from the sun‍ ‍—‍ except someone let themselves overheat in the middle of a mission, and someone else crashed, and neither of you can fly in your sleep. Should I have let you die?”

“Could um, could you have… woken us up maybe?”

You were less trouble asleep.

“I tried that. You were healing.” J waved dismissively.

J jolted. “Oh, bankruptcy! We’ve got thirty minutes. Whatever. You’re awake now. I’m flying back to the spire. Carry V yourself. She’s in your hands now.” J turned away.

(It made her flinch, a guilty frown briefly lighting her face where none could see. Leaving V in N’s hands might be as good as decommissioning her, but they were running out of time. J didn’t want to die. If N failed to make it back to spire and baked in the sun, it was his fault. If N failed to carry V and baked in the sun, it was his fault.)

(…But who was in charge of this mission?)

J unplugged the debugging cable, and let V slump back in the snow.

“Poor V. Do you think… should we wait for her to wake up?”

“With how long you’ll be waiting, there’d be no return on your investment. We’d barely be able to make it back to the spire as it stands.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it back to the spire carrying her. I’m a little… low on oil, you know?”

J already had her wings spread, about to takeoff. She paused. “I’m not going to make it back with both of you. It’s you or V.” A moment later, J regretted giving him the choice. She’d take V any day of the week. Another moment, and J realized it was moot. N would never let V die.

“Wait… why do we have to go back to the spire?”

“Stay out here then, it’s your funeral.”

“No, I mean… we’re surrounded by human buildings. You were just talking about a basement in that church. Can’t we just take shelter in one?”

“In the burning church,” J repeated. “When our issue is overheating.”

“No, not that basement. Any basement! How hard would it be to find somewhere safe to sleep?”

J stared at N.

She didn’t tell him it was a good idea.

But she didn’t take off.

Flying over the suburban landscape, J almost felt peace. If she didn’t think about the glowing death in the east, she could lose herself in this sight.

Hundreds of houses in neat, orderly rows. The land flat and unadorned. The uniformity almost… robotic. Easy to see why humans built so many of these suburbs.

J and N landed in the yard of another house, exterior painted an ugly red, and ventured forth to investigate. N kicked up a little bit of frozen dirt, but J left long, deep tracks. She carried V now, since even her modest reserves exceeded N’s.

(A bridal carry. Just so V didn’t get in the way of J’s wings. J tried to ignore that V’s arms instinctively tightened around her. It was just background processes. N glanced at them sometimes, and she caught a blush tick or two on his screen. Is he jealous? J sighed and rolled her eyes. Not like J was enjoying this.)

N reached the door and touched it. The door immediately fell inward, crashing to the ground. He flinched. But he stepped in, snow trailing behind him.

J paused at the falling door, and knelt to pick up a “Notice of Violation”‍ ‍—‍ a citation from a “Homeowner’s Association” complaining of numerous code violations. She scanned the checked issues‍ ‍—‍ no digging pits wider than 1x1x0.5m in the yard, no unauthorized structures taller than 2m visible on the property, no local power sources or external generators…

The two had seen several of these notices in the dozens of homes they checked. J had grown to respect this “Homeowner’s Association”‍ ‍—‍ who else to thank for the nice, orderly appearance of the suburb?

N stopped and shook his head, turning back to J with a frown. “No good. This one has a hole in it too.”

J frowned.

If there was one thing she didn’t thank the humans for, it’s the shoddy construction that wasn’t even hardened enough to withstand the weathering of years of a persistent nuclear death storm.

The process went like this. Flying over the houses, J could scan their rooves, find the ones that hadn’t crumbled‍ ‍—‍ a filter most homes already couldn’t pass. Most remained pockmarked with holes, or imploded from internal collapse. A bad sign for structural integrity.

When a house looked promising, time after time a close inspection would reveal burst pipes, flood damage (…was it a flood, if it was ice?) that had invariably ruined the lower levels.

They needed a basement without holes the sun might shine in through. Brief exposure, especially from bounced reflections, wouldn’t be so bad‍ ‍—‍ but for an entire day?

And on top of that, insulation merited consideration. N proposed they pile up snow around whatever house they picked, if they had time. J thought it’d be a better idea to pick three nearby basements so the three of them didn’t overheat a confined space and die in their sleep. But N didn’t want V to wake up alone, with no idea what’s going on. J pointed out they could just leave her a message. The idiot still didn’t like that.

But really, that argument didn’t matter, not when they hadn’t found a single basement good enough to risk their life on.

(When they first arrived on Copper‍-​9, it had been easier to find shelter. Easier to find prey, too. J swore they built half a spire in a single night. The sudden pang of nostalgia stabbed unexpectedly close.)

J shook her head. She’d exited the ugly red house (that color simply had to be a code violation). She gave a sigh that was more of a growl, and her tail lashed behind her. Another dead end. She looked southwest, contemplated flying back to the spire anyway. Still, she waited outside the building, standing upon a wooden deck, boards bending under her weight.

When N walked outside, she kicked his legs out from under him and pointed her nanite stinger dangerously close to his face. She leaned in, scowling.

“I don’t know why I ever agreed to this worthless plan of yours. If I end up consigning myself to death following your harewired schemes I swear I will chain you to the ground and pluck your circuits out one by one before the burning sun destroys you.”

N stared back with hollow eyes, nodding shakily. But then confusion inflects his fearful expression. “Wow, that is an incredibly specific threat that feels… concerningly familiar.”

J stabbed her needle‍-​tail an inch closer, saw N flinch, then stood back up. She spread her wings and took off from the porch, leaving the wooden deck a collapsed mess.

They returned to the air. Below them, roads spiraled and sprawled. The hulls of cars rusting away lined the streets. J spied the reflective glint of a dead drone‍ ‍—‍ newly dead. They were doubling back over their previous path, now. Just to the south, J saw the charred ruin of the house she blew up.

Although their search pattern meandered here and there to scope out potential houses, it veered southwest, back toward the spire.

So J looked on skeptically when N turned left and flew north.

“Wrong direction, moronbot. Don’t forget our backup plan is flying top speed back to the spire while we can.”

“Yes, but… Do you remember that group of worker drones V intercepted earlier? They were coming from this direction. I wonder why.”

This was hardly the time to get curious about worker drones. But instead of saying it, J sighed. How much did it matter that N’s plan would get them killed when J’s plan wasn’t any better?

“Whatever, N. Just carry V for a bit. I’m going to try to scout out some more houses. We can cover more if we split up.”

So they split.

When the timed reminder fired, J was in the middle of checking a house with a hole in the roof‍ ‍—‍ at this point she was desperate. Seeing the time, J can only think one thing: It’s too late.

Disassembly drones could burn more oil to go faster when flying. Truth be told, J didn’t know what her top speed was; oil was always the limiter. But J had enough data to model how fast she could go, if she spent a certain volume. She knew the distance to the spire.

05:49 didn’t spell instant death, only the beginning of the end. But fifteen minutes wouldn’t get her so close enough to the spire that she’d risk it.

She was overleveraged on N’s plan, then. Joy.

Moments later, her transciever caught a burst of shortwave. Noise that could be static, or the familiar growl‍-​distortion of disassembly transmission.

«He——pt——! I t—— f——meth——» Her demodulator struggled, it cut in and out.

Shortwave had a range that was, well, short, and the walls of buildings attenuated the signal.

J unfolded her wings and took off from inside the house, putting another hole in its roof.

«N? Repeat that.» J broadcasted, and hoped she wasn’t mistaken. A captain shouldn’t look so foolish.

But N was always eager to respond. «Hey captain! I think I found something!»

Airborne, J scanned. N was nowhere in the sky, but between all of J’s senses, it took her seconds to locate the two disassembly drones. Milliseconds later, she had an idea why he’d gotten her attention.

If anything of obvious interest existed in this suburb, J could have seen it from the distance. And she had seen this… or rather, she saw the snow covering it, and assumed it was merely a big pile.

The house‍ ‍—‍ painted the same unassuming beige as many others‍ ‍—‍ sat under a roof lined with radio dishes and solar panels (definitely code violations), with several cords leading behind it, and there a monolithic mass rose from the backyard, occupying almost all space.

N stood before it, brushing ice off its surface like an archeologist uncovering a fossil. Constructed of solid metal, layers of it, all reinforced. The same weather that had ruined swaths of houses had done nothing to this. It looked like a military installation, a whole chamber submerged in the earth.

«Coming!» J signaled.

«Acknowledged!»

As J dived closer, N was circling around the thing, as if searching for a entrance, before shrugging and with a leap, sailing clear over the house to meet J’s arrival. V was on the porch: N had gone to the trouble of placing her in a swinging chair.

N waved as J landed, watching her jog forward with an unsteady smile.

«Hi captain! Welcome back!» His shortwave tone was the lowest of them all, like a warm growl.

“No workers around and no distance between us. Talk like a person, N,” J said.

“Whoops, sorry.” He glanced away, eyes back to the structure behind them. “Um, I think we found some kind of old bunker? Do you think the humans built this before the planetary core collapse thingy? Looks completely intact! If it could survive that, it could definitely protect us from the sun, right?”

J looked surprised for a moment, before smoothed her face into professional skepticism. “We’ll see if it’s another dead end.”

“If uh, if we can find a way inside…”

The ‘bunker’ wasn’t even taller than they were, and a disassembly drone was roughly the height of a human. It was clearly an underground chamber.

“Did you… look in the house?”

“Oh, nope. Good idea. Let’s check together!”

J rolled her eyes. The door opened, rather than falling off its hinges, and reams of paper fluttered as the door moved. N glanced at the paper, and laughed.

“And to think, the HOA wanted this thing removed immediately!”

J gave him a flat look.

And into the house they went.

Metal pegs clicked against the tiled kitchen floor. Where other homes had trapdoors over staircases leading into the basement, here they found a metal door with a keypad instead of a handle. Hanging ajar already, the passage sloped down into a short corridor punctuated by another door. An airlock? In residential building?

A frozen human skeleton stood beside the first door. A phone in their hand, raised to their ear. They died mid‍-​word.

“Who were they calling, do you think?”

J didn’t answer.

“If the door was left open… do you think they were waiting on someone?”

J strode into the airlock, turning to wait for N to get done gawking at the human. The other drone closed the door behind him. A hiss, and around them the hums and thumps of unseen mechanism getting to work.

Impatient, J punched the door‍ ‍—‍ not at full strength, but its security was of no benefit to them. But her punch had no effect. Eyebrow raised, she threw another, harder punch. Still no effect.

Hand transformed into blades, and she can’t scratch the metal at all. Terribly familiar.

“Everything okay, J?”

“It’s warded.”

“I’m sure if we just wait—”

The door opened in the middle of N’s reply.

Florescent lights flickered on as they entered the bunker. Bright and sterile illumination revealed an abject mess. All manner of plastic and metal trash lined the floor, tools and scrap, the debris no doubt left by the passage of worker drone salvagers.

Beneath the layer of scrap, wires snaked across the floor beneath their legs. J stabbed one, and oil spurted out.

“Hm.” She integrated some data. “Looks like we know the toasters’s ‘ward’ idea was infringing. And here I was about to give them some credit.”

N stepped into the room after J. The bunker couldn’t all be seen from the entrance‍ ‍—‍ the floorplan had as much, if not more area than the house above it. A wall split the entrance room, with two doorways. N darted forward glancing in one door way‍ ‍—‍ and he froze.

Nonplussed, J started after him. As expected, it’s nothing‍ ‍—‍ an offline worker drone. A domestic model, dressed up in a butler’s suit.

N stared at it with an odd expression, but J moved on.

Splitting up, J opted to explore the right side of the bunker. J kept her coronal optics online‍ ‍—‍ thermal imaging, spatial audio, special disassembly scans‍ ‍—‍ but no threats emerged from within the strange human bunker. A couple other worker drones stood around (one bearing that familiar Error 606) but there’s no echo of the faux horrorshow beneath the church.

In one room, she found scraps of paper, some oilstained with that three‍-​pronged hexagonal symbol. J swept them all up and dissolved them in nanite acid‍ ‍—‍ might as well avoid re‍-​triggering whatever error made V bug out seeing things like this.

The next room held a few more offline drones, one posed in a maid outfit that caught J’s eye. A laptop sat on a table, battery dead, but J saw a debugging cable running from the laptop to a drone.

Beside the cable, an open box overflowed with cords, plugs, and hardware tools. J would recognize a JcJenson technician’s kit anywhere‍ ‍—‍ but this kit had black electrical tape stuck to the side, hiding the JcJenson (in SPAAAAACEE!!!!) logo.

J glanced over the contents. The captain already had her own debugging cable, and had no use for the others (Aux? DisplayPort? A Game Boy link cable!? Did drones even interface with that?) The box bore a few surprises, though‍ ‍—‍ magnets? The enfeebling, entracing effect they had on worker drones was well studied, but why would a tool of tampering lay among standard instruments?

But what left J’s eyes shock‍-​wide and dread‍-​hollow had already been retrieved, laid on the desk, perhaps even used, if the dewdrop of oil had no alibi. A hexagonal software upload spike‍ ‍—‍ a warning label declared it capable of uploading the wdOS_606 virus directly into a drone’s core, the seat of artificial cognition.

J had one of her own in subspace, of course (just in case the worst came and one of her squadmates proved corrupted), but she knew wdOS_606 was not software distributed lightly. An ordinary technician simply could not have access to this.

But that wasn’t the only spike present. Just beside it lay a second spike, wholly blank of identifying design. Old, dried tape held a handwritten note to its length.

According to that irregular humanscratch, the new spike served as a boot‍-​disk, its usage requiring a bypass procedure that sideloaded new software through the interface drivers for a drone’s core. After all, wdOS_606 didn’t take effect immediately‍ ‍—‍ and while the virus compromised the system, even the company’s patented, revolutionary security system would be overwhelmed.

A perfect opportunity to rewrite a drone’s otherwise encrypted OS strings.

Nothing like this existed among the disassembly drone’s equipment nor training. J contemplated it for a moment. The only label stuck to the boot‍-​disk wasn’t machine‍-​printed, but marker‍-​penned. And surely any officially sanctioned procedure wouldn’t be so roundabout, seeming so much like a hack, an exploit‍ ‍—‍ a corruption.

Could this tool at all further the goal of disassembly, or was it exactly the subversion of company design that had brought this planet to ruin? Well… safer in these hands than a toaster’s, she thought, and that decided it.

The company trusted J not to fall to corruption’s siren. If not her, then who?

She reunited with N in the rearmost room of the bunker. Several screens adorned the wall, powered off but wired into to a computer terminal taller than they are.

N squeaked‍ ‍—‍ a sound a disassembly drone should never make‍ ‍—‍ and ran up to the computer. He jumped in the office chair, spun around a bit, and started excitedly pushing keyboard buttons. (Around the keyboard, a mess of papers littered the desk.)

On her way over, J depressed a power‍-​on button and waved N off.

“Quit it, let me see if this thing boots up.”

The screen flashed on quicker than expected, and some of N’s random button presses get sent as input.

Incorrect password.
Warning: after 5 failed attempts, disk will be wiped.
4 attempts remaining.

“Look what you did. Leave this to me.”

J stared at the password prompt for a moment. Who could afford to install a top of the line security system capable of enduring the core collapse? Who would have access to not one, but several domestic worker drones? The Error 606, the innovative ward‍-​wires‍ ‍—‍ all of this suggested a deep familiarity with the inner principles of worker drones. It was a riddle, and J knew the answer.

J types in jcjenson.

Very incorrect password.
Corporate bootlicker detected.
0 attempts remaining.
You can't silence me.

“Why you libelous—”

“Hey J?”

“What?”

“I uh, think whoever was here before us already cracked the password.”

N pointed to one of the pieces of paper littering the desk. It bore the same mechanical handwriting that had penned the pages J dissolved.

J huffed and swiftly typed it in: 16DgLX2c0ke9qk0u‍ ‍—‍ and miraculously, the disk‍-​wipe was aborted.

While there might’ve been interesting files to peruse on the computer, J had one real goal. Computer‍-​controlled electronics filled the bunker. From this terminal, she could control the lights, open or lock any of the doors, send commands to the worker drones (none of whom were online).

But most importantly? J had access to the climate control. She could turn the thermostat low, to downright frigid temperatures.

The sun couldn’t reach them here. They were in absolutely no danger of overheating. There was even drone oil to spare!

From the beginning, J had held out, reserved judgment, nursed her doubts as best as she could. But now, she had to admit it.

“Am I dreaming? I never thought I’d say this, but…” J hung on her next words, hesitant to say it‍ ‍—‍ but she finished what she started, “Good job, N. You made a plan, carried it through to fruition in spite of everything. We… owe our lives to you. Or well, V does. I could have survived just fine.” J looked away. “Still… good job.”

N beamed at her. Literally beaming, his ^_^ face shining at its highest brightness as he bounced and squeaked.

“And that’s the sun rising. Let’s get to bed.”

V stands in the basement of a crumbling church. She’s pinned to the walls and can’t move. Dirt pours in from above, burying her, and there’s a word you realize was never processed but clicks in the negative space‍ ‍—‍ catacomb.

Blackness.

A high temp icon flashes on N’s visor, and he falls flat on his butt. V lunges for J, a hunter’s cross blazoned on her visor. J holds a sword‍ ‍—‍ not an arm transformed, hand replaced with weapon, but an genuine human‍-​forged sword, hilt and crossguard and half a meter of blade‍ ‍—‍ and she swings it at the winged, fanged beast lunging at her. J slashes and catches V with a brutal gash tearing open her chest. V falls to the ground, and J stands victorious. She looks into the other drone’s dark visor and there’s nothing there, only J’s reflection. J has no winning smile for this victory; she looks scared, shaken.

Blackness.

V stands, doused in oil. It runs in rivulets down her chassis. The oil coating her face looks like tear tracks. A cross on her visor, V sits on a mountain of worker drone corpses. Except the screens flicking on, one by one then two by two, showing static, glitching artifacts, error messages. Then in a wave overtaking the screens, a triangular glyph spreads. The crossed lines are gone from V’s visor, replaced now by a empty‍-​eyed look of fear. It’s familiar. If the screen was off, J could have been looking in a reflection.

She’s scared. They’re both scared. What’s going on? What does this mean? Why won’t you tell me anything—

V screamed.

Darkness.

But it wasn’t completely black, not the data‍-​void of optics offline. None of the lights were on, but there were dim lights that never went off in this bunker‍ ‍—‍ such as a drone’s visor.

J’s screen flickered from Sleep Mode to a clock ([12:06]) to eyes. She flushed some garbage experiential data from her RAM‍ ‍—‍ some temp files created by memory consolidation processes attempting to compress the day’s events into an abstracted, transformed representation, as well by prediction routines using those updated representation to extrapolate new scenarios. Key functions for an artificial intelligence capable of unsupervised learning.

(In other words: bad dreams, already forgotten.)

J hung upside down. She’d climbed to the ceiling, her tail digging into the plaster (not warded, thankfully), and the bottom of her legs had magnetized to the metal of an inactive light fixture.

Hanging upside down like this, oil could flow down to her central processor without needing to spend any energy pumping it. J wiggled a bit, getting some of her servos moving out of weird configurations they’d locked into while recharging.

Recharging… it was only noon. Why is J online already?

The sound of V’s scream had lingered in her memory despite the flushing, as if raw enough to pierce the memory‍-​fog of a dream. J looked around, and saw the female drone scrambling off the floor to a stand, the fearful look on her face oddly familiar. Was it not a dream?

“Where are we? When‍ ‍—‍ Why did she—”

“V?” It was N’s voice, and it was soft. “You feeling alright?”

V stiffened at his voice. J watched a mask of calm disinterest wrap itself around her expression. She shrugged. “I feel nothing. Who are you?”

(Why did N’s tone make J scowl? He never talked to his captain like that. And to be clear, she didn’t want him to start. But had anyone ever talked to J like that? If anyone had earned that affection, if anyone deserved it, she did. Confusingly, J couldn’t parse the feeling‍ ‍—‍ did she miss it, or long for it?)

“Doesn’t matter,” J growled. “The mission encountered market volatility and we had to adapt. We’re in a old human bunker. I’ll explain in the evening. So will you. Go to sleep, V. Tonight, we need to talk.”

V flinched in J’s direction. Then she crossed her arms. “Whatever you say, captain.”

J watched the other disassembly drone climb up to the ceiling to sleep properly. V didn’t meet her gaze the whole time.

While the other drones entered sleep mode, cores consuming oil to recharge their batteries, J sighed.

Shutting off her optics, sleep came, but J could still see V.

“N? W‍-​what are you wearing?”

“Oh! You remembered my name!”

“I‍ ‍—‍ Just a lucky guess. Now answer.”

V was (once again) loud enough to wake J up, but at least it wasn’t a scream, this time.

When J turned on her optics, she had to fire off a quick system command to check if she was still dreaming.

Because N stood in the middle of the room wearing a familiar suit and tie. (Why familiar?) On either hand, he balanced platters‍ ‍—‍ one bore plates of batteries and the other poured glasses of drone oil. He twirled the plates without spilling a drop.

J fell to the ground, still staring at N and finally placing the suit. “Why are you dressed like a worker drone?” Another day, J might have laced the words with venom, and made no secret of veiled attack on N’s competence. And yes, there wasn’t none of that (this was N, after all), but J held back, a little.

“Well, they weren’t using it and it seemed a bit… dapper? I thought it’d look nice.”

“And the plates?” J asked.

“Breakfast in bed?”

“It’s 19:17 in the evening and we sleep hanging from the ceiling.”

N frowned. Then a lightbulb. “Dinner while dangling, then?”

J facepalmed.

V fell to the ground quite a while after J, still regarding N with a strange expression. “Do you remember?” she asked.

“Remember what?”

“Nevermind. Don’t worry about it. Just… we’re disassembly drones, not worker drones. Keep dressing like one and I might get confused.” V flashed a hunter’s cross, making both N and J jolt (for different reasons).

“Don’t bother,” J said, waving a hand. “Disassembly drones taste awful.”

N turned to gawk at J. “How… how do you know that?”

J didn’t answer, just reached out for one of the glasses of oil N prepared, taking a sip. Not good, honestly‍ ‍—‍ the best oil was fresh, and this wasn’t. But it had been half a day since J shut anything down, and it was better than nothing. Certainly got the taste of V out of her mouth.

Both N and V were watching J with odd expressions, but she ignored it. “What’s with the batteries? We aren’t workers, we generate our own power.”

“Can still eat them! I thought they were kinda tasty.”

V downed a glass of oil, then tossed the glass to shatter against the hard floor behind her. “I’ll pass.”

“Hmph,” J hummed. She tossed a AA‍-​battery into her mouth.

The charged poles touched conductive wire‍-​tips like so many nerve endings, and tasted a smile‍-​sweet jolt. Watts of power trickled into her reserves, and when she chewed, the acid tickled in a way oil never did. Immediately, her head lifted a bit higher. The brief influx of energy lifted her mood like a mission completed.

J nodded. “Replenishing our charges from existing power sources means more oil available for other functions. That would be… efficient.” Another good idea from N? Did it take heat damage to make a useful disassembler out of this one?

V scoffed. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“Resource management is its own reward. Have you never optimized cash flow?”

“Have you?”

J lashed her tail and scowled. “Since you’re up and bantering, I take it you’re ready to deliver your after action report?”

With optics trained on V, it was easy to detect the subtle tension that stiffened in the drone at those words. Her tone remained casual, though.

“You’re still doing this? You realize even if there’s anyone on the other end of the relay, nobody’s reading your reports, right? It’s just a hobby, at this point. Don’t see why we have to participate.”

Why wouldn’t you want your operations organized and documented? J kept a detailed account of their shutdown quotas and patrol routes. Sure, none of that was required‍ ‍—‍ but no one ever got promoted by doing only what was required. She was sure the higher ups would appreciate her meticulous records.

What J said to V was: “The debrief is more than just an account of which drones were destroyed. It’s important to keep abreast of employee morale and potential group dysfunction. You can imagine exactly why I’d be particularly interested in your report, after last night‍ ‍—‍ right, V?”

N looked between the two of them, perplexed.

V started, “Nothing’s wrong with me. You don’t—”

J interrupted, seizing control. “Save it. Get your thoughts together, if you must. We won’t need to cover your episode immediately. There’s a process to this, I’m sure you’re familiar with by now.” J walked across the room to sit in the swiveled chair in front of the computer monitors.

V sighed. N stood at attention.

The male disassembly drone stayed at her right, while the other leaned against a spare table to the left of this main desk rather than standing straight. Instead of focusing on J, she switched her hands for three bladed claws, and licked the oil off them. Why didn’t the transformation function clean them for you? But J shook off the thought.

J gathered up some of the blank paper either the humans or the worker drones had left around. This would do just fine. She transformed her hand into a hand holding a sturdy JcJenson branded pen.

Clicking it for the inked tip, she began, “Captain’s log, October 29, 3071…”

As she spoke, jotting down half formed thoughts on the paper in front of her, she brought up a spreadsheet program on her internal window, and filled in the serial numbers for the drones she shutdown. The real work would be done digitally (it was 3071, after all), but J enjoyed the feel of the pen scratching. Any excuse to use the merchandise was a good one.

In the end, J had shutdown 17 drones tonight. She prompted the others for their shutdown totals. N offlined 11‍ ‍—‍ an improvement, admittedly.

V deflected‍ ‍—‍ “Do you really expect me to keep count?” and “Who keeps track of the serials? The thousands of dead all blend together after a while.”‍ ‍—‍ but once J cut through the banter, V too remembered the serial numbers. The query was part of the hunting routines. 28 total for her.

J combed over the spreadsheet, aligning the columns, adding notes. A curious pattern to last night’s drones‍ ‍—‍ many of the drones had similar serials. Related origins? (J knew the drones of Copper‍-​9 liked to pretend to be humans, roleplaying as family units‍ ‍—‍ inexplicable self‍-​anthropomorphization.)

What interested her more were the malformed serial numbers, as if the product of corrupted manufacture. A few of the ruined factories scattered throughout the world could be coaxed into operation, she knew. Although the population of worker drones trended downward, thanks to their work, new ones were still being created.

J couldn’t settle on an evaluation. Rampant self‍-​replicating artificial intelligence is exactly what they were sent here to stop (fortunately, it clearly wasn’t self‍-​improving, and even ‘intelligence’ might be a stretch). Still, more worker drones meant more drones to shutdown…

J didn’t know what their orders would be, after Copper‍-​9 was clear. A retrieval shuttle, and more planets to cleanse?

(…Was there something waiting for her back on earth? Why did it feel like there must be?)

“J?”

“What is it, N?”

“You spaced out a bit there?”

“I was organizing the spreadsheet.”

“Oh my bad, sorry.”

V muttered. “And here I thought I was the one procrastinating.” She stood up from leaning on the table, and walked toward the door. “If you’re just gonna fiddle with the books, this meeting is over, yeah?”

J kicked out her feet, sending her office chair sliding to the center of the room. She spread her wings, blocking V’s escape.

V laughed. J could interpret it as shaky, nervous, but only because she was primed to search for weakness‍ ‍—‍ because she knew V was hiding something.

“Come on, J. Instead of sitting here typing in numbers, why not go out and make the number go up?” V smiled and winked at her. Again, if J looked she could interpret the cracks in it.

“Tell me what happened under the church, V.”

V stared at the wing blocking her path for several silent ticks of the clock. “What’s there to tell? You were there. You saw everything I did.”

J’s expression remained flat. “Only one of us walked out of there online, and I want to know why.”

“I didn’t go offline, you forced me into sleep mode. And I checked the logs‍ ‍—‍ someone went fucking with my system while I was down. That was you, wasn’t it, adminj? Let me guess, you’re asking me because you couldn’t get the answers on your own. Stay out of my head and go back to LARPing as middle management.”

“Done?”

“That’s all I have to say. Move your wing or I’ll move it myself.” V switched her hand for her favored sword‍-​blade, and J simply raised an eyebrow.

N both looked both like he wanted to say something and like he wanted to be literally anywhere else. He looked helplessly between V and J.

“Are you threatening a superior, V?” J clicked her pen once, the inked tip disappearing. “I tolerate a lot of back talk from you, but there’s a line between a sharp personality and insubordination. I let you LARP as an aloof psycho who can’t even remember our names because you’re effective. But what I saw under the church? That wasn’t effective.”

“The drones were dead. The church was cleared. I got the job done. It doesn’t matter.”

“That’s not your call. You don’t get to decide what does and doesn’t matter when I’m the one planning and managing this squad.”

“You care about what’s effective, J? Our mission is to kill drones and pile them to the sky. That doesn’t take planning and it doesn’t take asking questions. Your mission isn’t to understand what’s going on, J. You’re a pawn for capturing pieces, not the player.”

J had to look up to V from her seat in the chair. “Don’t you want to understand what’s going on? I can figure out for us. I know you’re scared too—”

“No. I’ve made peace with what I am.”

It was a millisecond‍ ‍—‍ J had to scan frame by frame‍ ‍—‍ but V had glanced at N for an instant.

J clicked her pen, inked tip returning. She leaned in closer, and spoke between visible fangs. “You don’t get to say no to me, V. This isn’t a negotiation. Tell me what happened under the church. What did you see? That’s an order.”

V laughed. “And if I don’t answer? N told me how hard you tried to save me, when you could have left me for dead. Face it, either you realize you need me, or you don’t have what it takes to kill me. Either way, you’re just posturing. No.”

“Do you still remember our mission? Because it’s not to ‘kill drones’‍ ‍—‍ we’re cleansing this world of corrupted AI.” J clicked her pen, sheathing the tip. “You’re normally effective, V. But locking up over a dead drone isn’t normal. I’m beginning to think that you’ve been corrupted.”

J stood from her swivel chair, finally at eye level with V. She advanced a step.

“You’re right that I don’t want to kill you, V. I still remember what you’re capable of. But if you won’t answer me…” J transformed her hand, and produced the modified software spike.

V tried to sound unperturbed. “A virus spike? Gonna stake me through the heart and melt my brain?” J knew she’d crossed a line. So why was the look on V’s face not shock nor horror, but recognition?

“Not quite. A boot disk‍ ‍—‍ this can rewrite your OS. Perhaps you’ll be more cooperative with a clean install.”

V blew out exhaust. “Whatever.”

For a moment, J hoped that was assent, concession. The captain almost relaxed. But she could tell a millisecond later it had gone wrong.

V’s main thread executed her hunting routines. Yellow eyes disappeared from her visor. Wings spread, slicing the wood of the table behind her. Legs bent into a fighting stance.

And J wasn’t on guard. V would act first. J didn’t even have a weapon out, just her hands.

“Woah woah woah, stop stop stop!”

Then there was a silver‍-​haired boy between the two of them, one hand pointed at either them. V lost the wide, lethal ‘X’ as soon as she saw N.

“We don’t have to kill each other, and we don’t have to wipe anyone’s OS! Please!”

“N,” J said sweetly. “You’ve done well, so I’ll charitably assume you didn’t mean to push me. But this is a private disciplinary matter between me and V. See yourself out~”

J didn’t mention that V would have caught her off‍-​guard. Loath as she was to admit it, V greatly exceeded J in terms of practice inflicting damage to drones. Even equal footing didn’t feel balanced.

J should have just hit her with the spike without talking. True, she loved it when workers understood just how pointless their struggle was before she killed them. V wasn’t a worker drone, though. Yet she’s corrupted like one. This proved it.

“N,” V said. “If J is going to fuck with my configuration, do you really think you’re safe with her?”

N frowned, but then he said, “I trust her, V. She’s our captain! She just wants what’s best for the squad. Maybe she doesn’t know everything you do, but please. We don’t need to kill each other over it!”

“Does it hurt to know that N is on track to outperform you, V? If I were you, I’d welcome having my software corrected.”

“That—that won’t be necessary!”

J cocked her head at N.

“I’ll talk to her. We’re, uh, AI that can learn, right? You said I’m might outperform V… then maybe I could teach her! Please, J. Let me talk to her before… before you do anything drastic.”

J stared at N and scrutinized. V watched N with an expression of surprise but also… recognition?

“I’m putting a lot of faith in you, N. But… that investment returned dividends, last time.” J sighed. She folded her wings, and turned to the doorway. “Fine. Consider this meeting adjourned. She’s your responsibility, N. But if she has another episode…”
J turned around, and between two fingers held up the rewrite spike. “She’s mine. And I think I’ll start by reformatting that bloated memory file of hers.”

J left, and V’s hateful eyes bored into her retreating form.

The captain needed fresh air.

Not literally‍ ‍—‍ her intake and exhaust vents were for passive cooling and expelling semi‍-​combusted drone oil byproducts. But figuratively? J needed out of this bunker.

The airlock hissed around J.

She smoothed her hair. Her gauntlet transformed into another utility preset‍ ‍—‍ a (literal) handmirror‍ ‍—‍ and she checked her reflection. Her hair wasn’t smooth. She swore running her fingers through it only pulled it further out of place.

But even her squad falling apart and her dreams of making top team turning to ash was no excuse not to look her best.

She climbed the slope and stepped into the blessedly cold night air.

J pulled at and combed her hair as she walked, but the evidence of her mirror didn’t change. It was a mess. She’d messed it up.

J sighed. She transformed the mirror into a sword, and her other hand as well. Carefully, she lifted them, crossed the blades, and scissored off her two pigtails.

Then she concentrated, executing a special disassembly function to regenerate from the damage.

Sword turned to handmirror. Check the reflection.

The captain looked fine. Proper and composed. She was fine.

J was the most effective disassembly drone in this sector of Copper‍-​9, and she was stuck with the worst squad holding her back. N had risen in her estimation, and V had fallen, and the result was simply that they were both just short of worthless. She could barely depend on them.

Synergistic liabilities.

Once more, she clicked her pen, an inked glimmer ready to write the next word.

J would never get her own branded pen, would she?

No, why was she doubting herself? The captain was the most effective disassembly drone. J’s squad held her back‍ ‍—‍ but that only meant that without them, she could reach her full potential.

Those two knew their way back home, and now a whole night, cool and dark, had fallen over the city. J didn’t need to worry about them, not now.

No, J would go hunting. Alone. With her tactics, with her organization, she could bet on shutting down just as many drones on her own. Maybe even more.

(How would V feel about that?)

J spread her wings, and took off into the lonely night air.

First, she would fly back to the spire.