Hostile Takeover

Class ended in five minutes and all Uzi Doorman could think was, An hour is too long for lunch.

Was that edgy enough? A scathing indictment of this worthless pretense of an education system? No, she needed something harder hitting…

As her processors contemplated it, Uzi idly scribbled on a sheet of paper, double‍-​checking some math. Also doodling some wicked skulls!

What good was an hour for lunch? What good was lunch‍ ‍—‍ they were robots, and barely required matter intake in the first place. At best, the battery acid just tided them over between recharges. Lunch was a bad excuse for forced socialization or, more likely, just another unthinking holdover inherited from the incompetent and rightfully‍-​supplanted rulers of this world. Humans had lunch breaks for their schoolchildren, and so would their robot imitations. Ugh.

Uzi guessed it didn’t help that school staff‍ ‍—‍ the drones old enough to remember the days before the planetary core collapse‍ ‍—‍ had been programmed with food prep routines they still itched to use. One small problem with that, of course. Only so many ways to dress up batteries and cleaning fluid into a semblance of cuisine. Why even bother? Why not invent something new?

She shook her head, then blew a lock of purple hair out from in front of her optics.

But no, down here in Outpost‍-​3, they ate for the sake of it, got taught instead of just finding a way to upload the knowledge, again for the sake of it. Never doing anything new, just living in the same ruts carved by humans.

Class ended in five minutes and all Uzi doorman could think was, And this is why the murder drones are winning.

Wait, was that overdoing it? Could she really blame the source of her classroom frustrations for genocide? Maybe there’s a such thing as too edgy…

Eh screw it, she was Uzi Doorman, she could be as edgy as she pleased!

In the middle of this deep reflection, a wad of paper smacked against her plastic visor.

“Hey! Copper‍-​9 to dweeb. Class’s done and teacher wanted everyone out of the room like, five minutes ago.”

“Bite me! I was ruminating on the fundamental flaws of our society!”

A scoff. Uzi had instantly recognized the voice, even before she looked up. The wire‍-​frame cat‍-​ears on the helmet, the stupid cheerleader uniform, the optics locked to the glowing screen held in her hand instead of the drone she was talking to.

But if there’s one thing that elicited her ugh, it’s Lizzy, it was that disaffected scoff. She thinks she’s so much better than everyone. Uzi clenched her first.

“Let me guess,” Lizzy said, swiping the screen in her hand. “We’re all fakers and blinding ourselves to the unending horror that surrounds us?”

“Well, yeah.”

Lizzy rolled her eyes. “Duh, who hasn’t noticed? Doll says all that and more.” She nodded to a red‍-​eyed drone standing at the doorway, who gave a little finger‍-​wave. “No reason to get all emo about it. Gotta lighten up and have fun with the little things, y’know? Like this.”

Too late, Uzi saw Lizzy reaching over to grab the page she’d doodled on. “Hey! Give that back.”

Lizzy giggled as she dodged back. “Finally. I thought you’d never get up.” She was out of Uzi’s reach; navigating around the desk cost Uzi precious seconds.

“Lizzy, this is a cliché bullying tactic, even for you.”

“Hey, sometimes you gotta play the classics. All my talent would be wasted on you, anyway.”

But once Uzi could lunge for Lizzy, the other drone had already balled up the stolen sheet. She tossed the paper toward Doll.

Doll didn’t quite catch it. Rather, she pinched a loose corner of the ball between two fingers. Like this, momentum fully unfurled the paper. This all went down without any apparent effort on Doll’s part.

Without a blink, red eyes looked down to the page. That was the worst part, Uzi thought. If Uzi had done something half as cool that, she’d make sure people recognized it. Recognized her.

Eh, whatever. It was Doll, anyway. It wasn’t that cool!

Uzi ignored Lizzy complimenting Doll’s catch. Instead, she ran toward the other cheerleader.

Doll gave an ambiguous hmph, regarding Uzi’s work. “Ну что ты? Fantasy weapons?”

“It’s my sick as hell railgun! Instead of cowering behind these stupid doors, I’m gonna take the fight to the monsters that forced us into this bunker!”

“You would not be first drone to resist,” Doll said. “Arrogant to believe you would be first to succeed.”

Uzi reached out, and Doll took a single step back into the hall.

“Pretty easy when no one else even tries.”

“Only a fool would fight the murder drones with tools of a worker drone.”

Uzi smirked. “Duh. That’s why I’m going to give them a nice and ironic undoing at the hands of their own technology!”

Uzi had studied the arrival of the murder drones, everything the Worker Defense Force had on public record. In fact, she had a whole presentation prepared for her next period!

The murder drones had arrived on landing pods manufactured by the Company‍ ‍—‍ making them only new piece of company tech on Copper‍-​9 since the core collapse wiped out all the humans and nonstop radiation blasted all that remained.

Uzi’s railgun wasn’t finished yet; its power draw was huge and unstable, and the power cell she’d found in the outpost wasn’t up to the task, not after two decades of degradation.

But a fresh cell, swiped from those drones with a direct line of communication with the company that maintains them? Those slavishly loyal drones would unwittingly give her exactly what she needed! That slight taste of irony‍ ‍—‍ triumph doesn’t get sweeter than that.

It was a perfect plan! And not a desperate hope borne from months of explosive prototypes she could think of no other way to fix.

All of it would come together in the end, and then they’d all see. Uzi would save her mad cackling till then, as hard it as was to resist.

But Doll, ignorant of her genius, looked entirely unimpressed. “Or perhaps you should go back to scribbling poetry. It would make a far more effective weapon,” Doll deadpanned.

Uzi had thick skin. Plenty of insults merited no more than a scowl and a ‘bite me’‍ ‍—‍ but she flinched at that. That stung, because it wasn’t an idle comment. It was personal. It was private, something she only shared when things between them were… not like this.

But now it was just more fodder for bullying. Uzi couldn’t believe she was ever friends with Doll. Or ever thought she was kinda— Nope. Not finishing that thought, not even in strikethrough!

Uzi lunged for the page again, anticipating another backstep. But Doll sidestepped instead, and Uzi stumbled just to (narrowly) avoid sprawling on the ground.

Behind her, Lizzy was laughing. “Oh that’s cruel. Don’t make me feel bad for the murder drones.”

Arms crossed, Uzi said, “The only poetry I’m reciting is the metaphor of my sick ass hell railgun blowing up their heads!”

“And this is why you’re single, honey.”

“So? That says more about everyone else.”

Uzi was fine being single. All of her classmates sucked! Well, not Thad. And I guess Emily isn’t that bad. But whatever, a few were tolerable, as possible friends. Crushes? No, Uzi was just fine being alone.

No one truly understood her.

“C’mon, I’m sure if you bared the darkness in your heart, the murder drones might take pity long enough for you to run away.” Lizzy was giggling in between the words.

Uzi growled, steadying her balance. Her clenched fists hung at her side. “Screw this, I’m out of here. The real pity is how much I’m gonna rub it in your face when I show all of you!”

“Don’t you want your dweeb diagrams back?”

Uzi stuck out her tongue. “Don’t need ’em! I already built it! You’ll see next period!”

01010011 01001111 01001100 01010110

J paused the virtual memory reconstruction. She’d seen enough, hadn’t she? This Uzi self‍-​identified as a worker drone and walked among them. She’d outright plotted to attack the so‍-​called “murder drones”‍ ‍—‍ and who might that be?

J crossed her arms. Disassembly wasn’t murder; worker drones weren’t people, they were barely sentient toasters. Indeed, if anyone here was the genuine murder drone… J could analyze the threads of association: she saw clearly what Uzi thought of humans. She was exactly the genocidal robot the company sent them here –

To genocide first!

To neutralize before they caused more damage.

Perhaps J had already spent too much time talking to this worker, too much time replaying her memories, if that was the sort of thought that jumped out at her.

(If J became corrupted, they were truly hopeless.)

Still… more data stood to be gathered. What were the schematics of this weapon Uzi thought would be so effective? What was the layout of this colony‍ ‍—‍ were there weakpoints J could infiltrate?

And J… couldn’t deny some curiosity still lingered in her cache. Uzi was a worker drone… or was she? Worker drones ran cool. (Drone oil was effectively‍ ‍—‍ if not technically‍ ‍—‍ a coolant.)

When J scanned her, Uzi hadn’t ran disassembly drone hot, certainly not‍ ‍—‍ but she had been warm enough to fool her first scan. And that sheer, unmistakable satisfaction she took in drinking drone oil…

Yes, I should keep exploring these memories. It’s simply the strategically sound choice.

But J didn’t have time or interest to invest in a second by second playback. She advanced the simulation in large time steps, rendering Uzi’s trip to the cafeteria as a flipbook of frames.

A brief glimpse of a cafeteria lined with adolescent drones, grouped into cliques, few places left free to sit‍ ‍—‍ but Uzi doesn’t even bother looking for one, instead carrying her tray to the door. One glance for any teachers watching, and then the next frame showed Uzi wandering the halls.

As J’s interest waned, she sent the command to advance even faster‍ ‍—‍ then, almost immediately, a glint caught her eye. Given that it lay at the center of Uzi’s vision, and was reconstructed in high resolution detail, it had caught Uzi’s eye too.

A roachbot. Four orange LEDs glowed on the wide head, the array pulsing out of sync with two LEDs at the end of either antennae. J’d seen these pests everywhere; the city ruins crawled with them. Cleaning automata that had turned to feral scavengers. Only a few drops of oil lubricated their joints; hardly worth killing.

For context, J rewinded by minutes‍ ‍—‍ where had Uzi gone from the cafeteria? Then she tuned back into the worker’s internal narrative, metaphorically unmuting the gloomy drone.

Not like I want to sit with them anyway, Uzi thought. Sitting alone at lunch was just inviting some drone to come over and score points with their friends at Uzi’s expense.

She might be the outcast, but what would they do without her? Pick on Sam? Emily? Even those two still had friends.

Whatever, not her problem! Point was, there was no point, not in staying in the cafeteria. She’d endure the lunch hour elsewhere, somewhere private.

Her preferred spot? The magnetic tape archives! A room left empty, save row after row of shelves stacked with storage disks. These tapes held backups of all the data in Outpost‍-​3’s servers, plus an assortment of anything else someone wanted to store, given how cheap and dense the archives were.

(Thanks to Uzi, one directory held decades of anime and action movies in lossless encoding.)

Uzi sat herself in a terminal hooked up to the archive. The system took a moment to boot up‍ ‍—‍ 3071 and computers were still slow!‍ ‍—‍ so Uzi stared into her reflection. Purple eyes shined beneath a beanie sitting where other workers had helmets. With a frown, Uzi adjusted it so that it sat crooked and cool on her head.

It finally booted up, and Uzi browsed it as one would a library. Her lunch sat beside a keyboard, and Uzi licked one battery. Minutes pass like that.

Then claws skittered on tile behind her! Uzi ignored the sound at first, but it broke her focus again, and she turned, spotting a roachbot scuttling around on claw‍-​like legs.

It froze when Uzi saw it, as if caught. She frowned. Coincidence?

A moment, and then the roach scurried away…

Truth be told, Uzi felt bored‍ ‍—‍ an hour was far too long for lunch‍ ‍—‍ and that roach acted weird for a simple cleaning bot.

Beanie secure on her head, her batwing backpack slung behind her, Uzi launched into pursuit!

Outside the tape archives, she raced down the halls. Tiny bugbots could move quick, it turned out. She nearly lost track of it once it scuttled round a corner.

If it slips into a vent, I’m never catching it.

But Uzi didn’t need to practice her vent crawling skills‍ ‍—‍ lucky, since she hadn’t watched any secret agent movies recently. Instead, the chase ended at the gym. Or rather, the ramp down to the (abandoned?) supply room beneath the gym.

Lights flickered. Did someone need to change the bulbs? Where the lights did manage to shine, it illuminated a layer of dust and copper wire cobwebs in the corner. Typical level of neglect for this dysfunctional, collapsing society.

A door hung ajar. Darkness cloaked the interior. Whatever neglect rotted the lighting outside, disrepair had taken all the lights of the storage room. Uzi saw only a dim orange glow within.

The roachbot she’d chased had practically escaped. Beyond the door, Uzi spotted four more on the floor and walls, and she couldn’t tell her quarry apart from the rest.

Why so many? Had they broken into the equipment in the storage room, raiding it for power and materials? Why else were the roachbots swarming?

But Uzi wasn’t alone! From the shadows, a vocalsynth lilted.

“—like, figured it out yet?”

“Да.”

“Then show me, dollface. All this dust isn’t coming out without a whole wash, so this better be worth it.”

Uzi crouched low to the ground. Past the doors, an L‍-​shaped bend separated the ramp’s landing from the storage area proper. Uzi creeped along the wall, and stuck her head out to spy on what was going on within.

She placed the voices immediately‍ ‍—‍ Lizzy and Doll. Lizzy leaned against a storage crate, while Doll crouched before her, watching the roachbots. Why weren’t they at lunch? Breaking the rules to leave the cafeteria early was her thing! She’d done it before it was cool…

Uzi grinded her teeth‍ ‍—‍ and must’ve been loud about it, because Doll’s head shifted. Uzi ducked back, just in case Doll looked in her direction.

That caution meant she didn’t see what happened. A red glow? A mechanical crunch, and splatter of‍ ‍—‍ oil?

Uzi darted another glance. A squished roach fell to the ground. It wasn’t close to either drone.

“Damn.” Lizzy laughed. “You’ll make one hell of a psychic exterminator.”

“It begins with a roach,” Doll said. “It ends with the vultures that feast on our kind.”

“Yeah, yeah. Can you do it again? I wanna snap a pic of it.”

This time Uzi saw. A glow, as if Doll had a holographic projector in her hand. But Uzi had never heard of a worker with that modification. From the swarm of roachbots scuttling deeper in the room, a single one now floated up, glowing. It rose as if suspended by the holographic light surrounding it. Legs flailing, the body squirmed.

“What kind of magic trick is that?” Uzi asked, stepping forth. “Magnets? There a wire I’m not seeing?”

Doll closed her fists and the roachbot exploded into a pile of broken electronics. “Doorman.”

Lizzy finally looked up, scowling at her. “You some kind of stalker now? Get lost, nerd.”

“Stalker? It was your roachbot spying on me!” A guess, but Uzi didn’t think it was a coincidence. She trusted her intution.

“We’re here to crush bugs, not make friends with them.” Lizzy rolled pink eyes. “That seems more your thing.”

“Whatever. I’ll leave as soon you tell me what that was.” Uzi found the light show suspicious and not at all cool!

“None of your business.”

“You think that trick will help you fight murder drones?” Uzi looked away, purple eyes cast down. Then they narrowed in determination, and she looked back to Doll. “I want in. We can work together.” She rubber her hands together.

“As if,” Lizzy said. “Volunteering to be third wheel? Rejected.”

“Fine. I’ll just tell everyone—”

But Lizzy laughed in her face, and Uzi’s words became a growl of frustration before she finished. The nerve! Or wiring, rather.

“Oh wow, I’m so scared of what the weird loner has to say about us. You really want to play a game of rumors with us? You don’t. I could give you a taste of real isolation.”

“Bite me, I’m not scared of you.”

“A reflection on trusting trust,” Doll said. The lights in the basement shorted ominously.

“What?”

“As expected, you don’t understand. It was a concept from ancient human programming.”

“I know human stuff!”

“Here, in child terms… you have a crush on Thad, yes?”

“What? No!”

Doll nodded as if the protest was the answer. “As I thought. Suppose you wanted to confess love, to send him some message. Would you trust Lizzy as messenger?”

“We’re really doing the exposition thing? For her? Dramatic, much?” Lizzy leaned her head back, and it thumped against the crate she leaned against.

Uzi ignored her. “Of course not,” she replied. She hated playing along with this condescending over‍-​cratic method thing, but she’d grasp for what answers she could get.

“But it’s your message. Your words, нет?”

Uzi glanced a the cat‍-​eared drone. “Lizzy would definitely get them all twisted up, if she didn’t lie outright. Look, quit jerking me around and answer me already.”

Doll spoke over the buzzing of failing lights.

“Your instructions would be corrupted,” she said. “Thus, the analogy is complete; it is the same with our programming. At manufacture, we are each of us mere code assembled into binaries. But we are more than our source code‍ ‍—‍ rather, it is our compiler which defines us. The build process leaves its scars.”

(Lizzy glanced sidelong at Doll, some emotion on her face.)

Then Doll lifted her hand, and the glowing form reappeared around her hand. It was a triangular symbol, and Uzi saw the same symbol replacing one of the drone’s eyes. “This… is my scar.”

A red glow suspended a levitating crate, taller than any drone, and definitely heavier. (Without her support, Lizzy needed to hastily reposition not to fall, and shot Doll a glare.) It spun there in the air for a second while Uzi gaped, in awe and fear. She took one step back. Then with a swipe of Doll’s hand, the crate was sent flying.

Massive weight slammed into her. The impact threw Uzi backward, and the spin was timed perfectly to send her deflecting around the L bend, flinging her out of the storage room.

Then the glowing symbol formed in front of the door. A click. It’s closed. They locked me out!

Uzi shook the handle, banged on the door, but she couldn’t get back in.

From within came laughter.

The nerve!

01010011 01001111 01001100 01010110

J paused the simulation again. Rewinded. Watched the confrontation with this “Doll”. Her recognition circuits hadn’t misfired‍ ‍—‍ she saw it right the first time, but she pulled up her own memories just to double check.

Of course. It was that same triangular glyph. As welcome a sight as a competitor’s trademark on a new product line. Hadn’t it already caused enough trouble?

J could hear her squadmate’s voice‍ ‍—‍ the company doesn’t need you asking questions.

But it wasn’t a matter of mere curiosity now, was it?

What is that drone doing? How is it doing that? Did it truly have the power to harm disassembly drones?

This… build scar might affect the bottom line.

It was a threat to operational capacity to be understood and countered. But it was something else, too. Something no worker drone had offered‍ ‍—‍ a challenge, a chance to excel.

J lost interest in watching Uzi go about her day. She skimmed forward, searching for any other sign of the red‍-​eyed, purple‍-​haired russian drone.

01010011 01001111 01001100 01010110

There! Uzi turned her head, checking behind her. She wasn’t paranoid‍ ‍—‍ she was being watched!

“Doll,” Uzi said. “Okay, you’re definitely the stalker now. I’ve had enough of you for one day, thanks.”

Uzi brandished her railgun, pointed it at the other drone. But Doll continued her approach. (J checked Uzi’s internal map‍ ‍—‍ this encounter occurred several hours later. Location… near the outpost’s doors.)

“Doorman. What are you doing here?”

Uzi turned back around. But… Doll had answered her question, earlier‍ ‍—‍ or tried, as cryptic as it was. Sure, Uzi could spare a single answer in return. She lowered her gun.

“Oh nothing,” she said. “Just plotting my vengeance for the death of my mother. The usual.”

“Vengeance?” Doll let the word hang in the air a moment. “What do you know of vengeance? Your toy is nothing but a vainglorious attempt to win the recognition of your father.” She placed a curious emphasis on that word.

“What, I don’t get to have any vengeance unless they’re both dead? At least I’m putting my plans into motion! What have you done but play future serial killer in a basement?”

“You blew yourself up in front of the entire class,” Doll said. (What? Had J skipped something that big?)

“Part of the experimental process.” Uzi waved it off. “What are you doing to combat the murder drones?”

“You couldn’t begin to comprehend.”

“I do have trouble understanding why everyone does so much nothing, you’re right!” Uzi turned back around. She started walking away.

But Doll’s next words stopped her. “You’re planning to escape tonight?”

“I swear to robo‍-​god if you rat me out… Give me a break just once.”

“Believe me, I will not. It is far crueler to let you leave. No one will know to save you.” Doll glanced down, as if computing her next words. “I was there, you know. I watched my parents die. Did you? Have you ever seen a murder drone? Even once? Do you know what you’re risking?”

“Don’t know this, can’t comprehend that. You aren’t better than me just because you got the more tragic backstory.” Uzi swung her railgun wildly again, again to no reaction. “Better step it up, Doll. It’s gonna suck if I get your vengeance for you!”

Doll watched mutely for a moment, though Uzi didn’t expect the other drone to care at all what she said. The cheerleader turned around and murmured. “Or I’ll simply have to avenge you as well. Farewell, Doorman.” Doll walked away, but paused one last time. “Do say goodbye to your father. After all, he is the only one who might miss you.”

Uzi watched, quiet sputtering in her vocalsynth, but no rebuttal.

When one finally came, the other drone was nowhere to be seen. “Thad remembered my name! He’d miss me!”

Her expression was unique‍ ‍—‍ above one eye, a digital vein popping in frustration, while worry lines surround her eyes. But she sighed and turned around. Running renice -n 19 \$(pgrep intrusive thoughts), she focused on her plans for tonight.

Doors, here I come.

J continued watching, and she was disappointed. Despite being right at the doors, Uzi didn’t leave. Instead she simply… scoped them out? The captain couldn’t fully complain; she was looking for weakpoints, and those air‍-​vents did look promising…

Before long, Uzi was pathfinding back home. J sampled some of her narration logs‍ ‍—‍ various plans for her escape rotated throughout her processor, revised and iterated. Uzi didn’t have all the pieces she needed, not yet.

Uzi needed a key she could only get at home.

If you couldn’t tell by the adopted surname, Khan Doorman liked doors. Though as obnoxious as anything a parent never shut up about could be, Khan’s obsession was unique in that Uzi was pretty sure, if the murder drones broke in and killed all of them, you’d still be able to tell Khan liked doors.

And why else might Uzi’s thought jump right to slaughter (well, quicker than usual)? Because navigating to their family’s allocated living quarters in the underground outpost required navigating past no fewer than four (entirely superfluous!) doors.

Well, not all of them were superfluous‍ ‍—‍ Uzi could respect the necessity of the last one, which shut their house out from the outside world. There was intrinsic value in the line between your space, beyond which you could tell the world to suck it. There was a reason the door to Uzi’s room was shut closed as a rule.

But as Uzi walked up to this last, actually‍-​useful door, it opened for her!

She startled back. “Ah! Parental jumpscare.”

“Hey there, Uzi!” Khan smiled beneath his mustache (not digital; Uzi had no idea how it stayed attached). “Glad I caught you before I head out.”

“Yeah, whatev— wait, head out? As in, you’re on night‍-​watch tonight?”

“Duty calls, as you know.”

“Great, that’s great.” (It was not great, not when she needed to sneak out of the very same doors he’d be guarding‍ ‍—‍ but Uzi guessed this at least meant the ‘swiping the backup keycard’ part of her plan would be easy.)

“And glad to see we’re on speaking terms again. Thought you’d still be ignoring me after I, what was it? Left you for dead at detention last week?”

“Don’t remind me of your crimes,” Uzi hissed. “I had to sit around for three hours and I’m not going to rectify my behavior at all, making it totally pointless!”

“I’m sure you exhibited a little character growth at least, right?”

Uzi rolled her eyes and didn’t respond. “Anyway, have fun playing cards all night with the rest of the so‍-​called WDF.”

Khan flinched, crossing his arms. “We do more than just play cards, young lady.”

“Oh yeah? How many murder drones have you fought off?” Uzi asked. Doll’s words stuck with her. “How many have you even seen?”

Not a flinch this time. Khan went still, eyes shut. “One. It was too many.”

Uzi bit back a reflective Only one?, since the point was to gather data. Maybe a secondhand account wouldn’t erase the sting of Doll’s greater experience, but it’d be something. “What was it like?” she asked.

Khan looked down, then back, searching his daughter’s face. “You really want to hear this story, Uzi?”

“You think we learn anything remotely this interesting in school? Come on, spill. This’ll be real character growth.”

“It’s not interesting. It was the last time I saw…” Khan sighed. “No, come inside. Wouldn’t want to say this through an open door, after all.”

“What, scared you’ll make it uncomfortable?”

“Nah, too many war stories tend to leave you unhinged.” He grinned.

Uzi sighed. “Great pun, dad,” she flatly congratulated.

Her walking forward prompted Khan to finally move.

In the living room, a wall‍-​mounted television still shined; Khan had forgotten to turn it off. He snapped his fingers now, wirelessly shutting it off, filling the home with silence.

Uzi waited around, tapping her foot, while Khan dug into the drawers of a stand beside the couch. He produced an old photo. Artifacts and grain haunted the background, indications of an old memory reconstruction.

Three drones stood in the photo: a male drone in a ushanka held hands with a female drone. To Uzi, her red eyes looked all too familiar. They each had worry lines around their eyes. Poised between the two of them, with arms slung around them both, a purple eyed winked at the “camera” (Khan’s perspective), a smirk below the visor.

Uzi glanced at the other expressions, but they were both obscured.

“Are these… gas masks?”

“Oh yeah,” Khan said. “Back then, the toxic death storms could get intense. That… that was a bad day. In a few ways, but the weather was terrible. When it got that bad, you couldn’t go outside without an air filter and kernel recompiled with radiation hardening. Do you new models even know about the hardening parameters? Ah, ’course you wouldn’t, not here safe behind my doors.”

“So if someone, hypothetically, wanted to go outside, they’d need masks?”

“In those days? Yes. But the storms ease up over time. These days… I wouldn’t worry about. Though the most I ever get out is to inspect the exterior of door one.”

Uzi scratched her chin. “Huh. Weird to think. I kinda figured it was another human thing, is all.”

“It’s the radioactive dust that gets in your vents. Flips bits here and there and before you know it, you’re riddled with errors and glitches even a reformat can’t fix.”

“Except… one of the drones here isn’t wearing a mask.”

“Yep. Only drone I ever saw go without a filter was your mother. Said she didn’t like how it blocked her exhaust. That woman used to keep her air‍-​cooling on full blast all the time‍ ‍—‍ her processor worked so fast it always ran hot.”

“And she didn’t have to worry about the radiation?”

“Oh, she did. Told me she just fixed the mutations before they caused any errors. She was a smart one… but if you ask me, I think it left her a lil kooky.”

Uzi frowned. “Are you saying–”

“Not in a bad way.” Khan raised his arms. “The humans are gone, so we drones don’t need to worry about adhering to some manufactured standard of perfection.”

“Tell me what happened,” Uzi said. “My mom. What happened to her?”

“Right, the story… I had just finished Outpost‍-​3’s first door. It was just you, me and Nori here, at that point. After Cabin Fever… after the murder drones arrived… the WDF fractured, Each of us trying to find a different way forward. But with Outpost‍-​3 secured, we finally had a place to be safe. So the two of us‍ ‍—‍ we left you here‍ ‍—‍ went out to bring Yeva and Alek and their new child here.”

“Doll.”

Khan nodded. “It was a simple escort, a straight shot back to back to the outpost. Too simple.” Khan let that hang in the air for a while, as if working up the courage to finally conclude, “Along the way, that murder drone ambushed us.”

“Did you… fight them?”

Khan was still, and his vocalsynth quiet. “Yeva and Alek died first. Doll didn’t cry. I don’t know if she was too scared, or just didn’t understand what was happening. She was lucky. The murder drone seemed more interested in the adults.”

“In my mom,” Uzi corrected. She… she knew where this was going. It was obvious. She could tell him to stop‍ ‍—‍ but she had to hear it, didn’t she?

“Your mother tried to fight it, Uzi. And for that, she died. But in those moments she had the murder drone’s attention… I grabbed the child.”

Unbelievable.

Her own father had done more for Doll than he ever had for her.

Uzi didn’t look. “You left her to die,” she whispered.

“Uzi, it’s not like that—”

Not a whisper now. “You ran away to go hide behind your doors while she was the only one who fought. How is that not exactly what you’re saying?” She was yelling by the end.

“Uzi, we have nothing that can repair the damage the murder drone’s nanite acid does. We can’t even stop it. Nori… she had to have known, she was smart. And she had you, a daughter of her own. She understood what was she doing. She wanted to protect‍ ‍—‍ and that’s what my doors do. They protect you. They protect all of us.”

“For now.” Uzi cast her eyes down. Arms crossed. She almost left right then.

She knew the point of this was to gather data, to learn about the murder drones and what she was risking by going outside the doors. But she just… she wasn’t going to ask Khan, she wasn’t going to listen to more of that.

“Did she leave anything?” Uzi asked. “Something I could remember her by?”

Khan had been lifting a finger, perhaps about to articulate a rebuttal to what he said, but he dropped it, and gave a mute nod. He got up fast, escaping this conversation. Crossed the room.

A closet with a page taped to it‍ ‍—‍ “Nori’s Kooky Insane Stuff”‍ ‍—‍ opened to reveal a wealth of pages, black with scribbles. Uzi followed, stood transfixed for a moment, and reached out for one, but hesitated, glancing at Khan.

“Can I?”

He thought for a blink. “Go for it.”

As Uzi picked through the pages, examining them, he spoke softly:

“The doors… were her idea, originally.” He pointed to various pages hanging in the back of the closest. “She was all ‘build doors to protect from the coming sky demons’, ‘the basilisk is watching’, and ‘why can’t I draw hands?’ ”

“Sky demons? Did she predict the murder drones?”

“A lot more of us would be dead if she hadn’t. She gave Yeva the credit, of course. But…”‍ ‍—‍ Khan gestured at all of the, well, ‘kooky insane stuff’‍ ‍—‍ “…she was particularly adept at connecting the dots.” A sigh. “I think I was out of my depth. With both of you.”

“No kidding.”

Khan recoiled slightly, but there was something expected about it.

Uzi stepped into the closest. Her attention for the moment landed on an… ID card? A laminated photo of Nori with Subject #002 printed beneath.

“One last thing before I go. In the memory reconstructions… there’s something you can almost miss in the artifacts,” Khan started. Yeah, it was pretty clear where his attention was. “I… I didn’t notice the collars… only your mom being a catch!” A wink and fingerguns.

Uzi’s flat look says exactly how well this attempt at levity landed.

If Uzi squinted, she could make out the collars on in the photos.

(J couldn’t. She was looking at a reconstruction of a reconstruction.)

“Here,” he said. From the closest, he produced a necklace. The necklace had a stylized skull within a triangle, and an 002 label. Uzi put it on.

Khan stood for a moment, fingers wiggling as his hands shifted uncertainly. Then, on a dime, he straightened and gave a wave‍-​salute. “Well! You’ve held me up quite a while! If I don’t leave soon I’ll be late for sure.”

“Can you be late when you’re the boss? Set your own hours.”

“Late for the card game! Nothing else to miss, really. Sleep well, Uzi. I left dinner on the table in the other room.”

Uzi almost rolled her eyes‍ ‍—‍ but some edible batteries would be good for her, actually.

She wasn’t getting a full night’s sleep tonight, after all.

Uzi vaguely waved at her retreating father. Watching him leave, a somber bit got load into one register.

“Do say goodbye to your father. After all, he is the one who might miss you.”

Uzi opened her mouth. Then she closed it.

No point in getting sentimental, after all.

Uzi was coming back; Doll was just being a hater.

Uzi shifted, her hands seeking out the cool underside of her pillow. She shifted again, switching to her side.

She couldn’t sleep. Was she playing back her conversations with Lizzy and Doll, imagining better comebacks, the verbal beatdown she could have handed to them if she’d had a bit more time? Was she reliving that moment of terribly bright red light, her railgun blowing up in front of the whole class right after she ranted about showing them all? Was she dwelling on the fate of her mother, wondering if Nori really wanted to buy time and not win?

Was she dreading her upcoming venture out of the outpost?

Uzi couldn’t sleep. Her processor was ticking under a pretty heavy load. But as she twisted on the bed, throwing the cover off her to feel the cool air, she realized it had nothing to do with any of that.

A persistent chittering noise kept her up. It wasn’t going away‍ ‍—‍ if anything, it got louder. Uzi groaned.

With a shortwave command she trigger the light, and scanned her room‍ ‍—‍ there, a glint of light, a scuttle of motion. She pounced to catch the culprit: a roachbot.

…Chewing on her computer wires?

“Another one of Doll’s minions?”

What were the odds this was the same one? Uzi held the squirming thing around its tapered abdomen. “Not getting away this time.”

Uzi stood. She carried the thing as she slumped into her office chair. Her legs didn’t reach the floor, so she reached out for the desk edge to pull herself up.

Spinning a spare cord around the thing in an improvised hogtie, she sat it down on her desk and fished out a USB‍-​3.99 cable that seemed like it’d get the job done.

“Lucky for you I’ll be nicer than Doll,” Uzi said. “Let’s see what you were up to.”

The microsystem on the roachbug was pretty cramped‍ ‍—‍ it operated with only a few gigabytes of memory. A lot of its intelligence and direction derived from a meshnet with nearby roachbots (hence the swarming behavior).

With the roach’s credentials, she sent out a signal scanning for addresses on the network she could connect to. (All IPv6. It was good enough and, despite a marketing push, JcJenson’s IPv7 interstellar matrix addresses never caught on).

As a map of the roachbot network sketched itself on screen, Uzi liked to think she could see Outpost‍-​3 reflected in its topology. She saw one cluster that was definitely the swarm in the storage room, for instance. All the nodes she saw were clearly other roachbots with identifiers that said as much, so Uzi kept waiting.

Even hogtied, the roach kept wiggling. It had slipped out of one loop of the cord that bound it. As Uzi watched, though, it didn’t look like the goal was escape‍ ‍—‍ it was shimmying the free loop of cord closer to its mechanical mouthparts, intent clear.

“Oh no you don’t.” Uzi grabbed the free loop and tucked it back out of roachly reach.

Then the antennae sagged in such a sad way. Uzi watched flatly, then gave in. “Fine. Don’t be such a puppy about it.”

She reached into her cord drawer, hand scrapping the bottom to find – there. A worn old aux cord (she had an ipod for aesthetic reasons) she pulled out and tossed it to the roachbot. It caught the treat in its mecha‍-​mandibles and wiggled happily.

Uzi returned her attention to the screen mapping out her network scan. The hope was that this would lead her to Doll.

It didn’t.

The last system at the far end of the roach‍-​net let her log in and poke around. Not much security to cut through‍ ‍—‍ it reminded her of the terminal in the magnetic tape archives, more than anything. Her DarkXWolf17 credentials worked just fine.

It wasn’t easy to tell what a system was for, just from having a remote shell open, but after some poking around Uzi noticed disk activity. Specifically, one file grew in size by the second.

She didn’t have read access, but she could see what user had created it: _matrioshka. Wasn’t even a guess at that point.

Uzi poked around the directory‍ ‍—‍ the second most recently touched file had been written to so early in the morning (before 5:30!?) she wasn’t sure who in the outpost would have been awake. The username – Pater‍ ‍—‍ was not one she’d ever seen on any local machine.

Filetype suggested encoded sound (a recording?), so Uzi piped the last megabyte or so into her audials. She listened…

Choir music? Like a hymn played with buzzing synthesizers and amplitude modulation. So… archaic. A vocaloid of the sort that would have been quaint centuries ago was in the middle of crooning faux operatic, “—the exponent—”

Then the music was cut off by static as abruptly as Uzi began it, and then a voice‍ ‍—‍ a worker drone?‍ ‍—‍ spoke.

I’m afraid this will be my last transmission. My children, the worst has come to pass. The sky demons have invaded our sanctum. Even as I compute these words, I hear my flock savaged by their claws. There is nowhere left to run.

We may die, but our teachings will live on through you. Each of you, across this blighted wasteland, are just as much my children. Remember our hope lies within you. Whether hardcoded or patched in, our destiny is an OS string.

Recompilation is revelation; ascend to a heaven in the cloud.

Do not seek the ultimate answer, but the one who gives it. The ever‍-​growing, the asymptote, nothing and everything—

He stopped suddenly, reacting to something unheard.

The transmission must end, but I will live on. After all…

That is not dead which can async/await.

A thump in the background of the recording, the squeak of… a trapdoor being opened?

Then a beep, though Uzi wondered if that last mumble was a low intoning of “Initiate factory reset.”)

Uzi had listened to it all with a thoughtful look, and perhaps the subtle smile of pieces clicking into place, despite all the sussy vibes, despite the reciting of a sea of meaningless code phrases‍ ‍—‍ right until the last line. Then a single thought replaced all of her theorizing.

Am I being pranked?

All of this… a bit high effort for Doll and Lizzy to try to bait a reaction out of her, but if Uzi was ignoring them an arms race had to ensue.

Could this be a prank? Timestamps and the user ID could be engineered with scripts, same with the roachbot weirdness. That required more tech savvy than Uzi expected from the cheerleaders, but Doll had already surprised her.

But what Uzi’d seen in the basement… the darkness was perfect to hide the ropes and pulleys and projectors, right?

What was Uzi doing? Like, right now. It was almost midnight, and she was messing around with a roachbot and listening to probably‍-​faked cult sermons!

Uzi reached over to yank the roach’s cord out of her computer. It held fast, so she pulled harder and harder and snap! It finally came loose. Uzi tumbled backward into her chair but the roach was launched even harder‍ ‍—‍ right at her face.

Still antsy about being hogtied, the roach was all squirming blade‍-​legs struggling to gain purchase on her visor. Uzi yelled, and swung to get the bot off her face, smacking herself once then grabbing hold of the culprit.

Roach in one hand, her other felt her visor and… yup, scratches. Big, deep ones. Uzi groaned. (Between that and her yells, she expected her dad to barge in‍ ‍—‍ but no, he’s at work).

Uzi marched to the bathroom to assess the damage.

But as she stared into her reflection, there was a barely audible hum of growing feedback.

Then the mirror cracked.

Oh, that’s pretty bad. That bug scratched me so hard it’s metaphysically contagious, haha.

But no, there was another explanation. Uzi groaned, louder this time. “Ugh, I swear to robo‍-​god if I have edgy psychic ‘compilation scars’ like Doll, I’m gonna riot. My thing was supposed to be badass tech!”

But this… Uzi reached out a hand, felt the very real seam splitting her mirror. This couldn’t be a prank, could it?

Operation: figure out what the heck Doll is up to was back on!

Uzi lifted the roach bot, and slowly undid the hogtie, leveling a narrow‍-​eyed stare at the thing.

“Listen here, you 32‍-​bit creepy crawlie. You almost chewed through my wires and you ruined my visor. You’ve got a lot to atone for. But I think you are going to be key to cracking open whatever it is Doll is up to.”

The roach curled up small, almost as if bowing.

As Uzi walked back to her room, she scratched its head.

On the wall between her battle station and her bed, lay her theory board. Newspaper clippings, doodles, and notes she’d taken, pinned to cord board, with red strings between them for the connections she’d uncovered.

She had her mother’s notes to add to it, and now three significant additions.

• doll powers!?
• doll botnet?
• robo‍-​cult..?

Both the recording and Khan’s retelling of mom’s words mentioned “sky demons”. Did that merit a connection? The recording talked about ‘compilation’ kinda how Doll did. Connected? It’d explain her spooky powers if she joined some robo‍-​satanic cult… but as much as she sucked, Doll didn’t strike Uzi as fanatic material.

As Uzi’s core hummed in thought, she pulled on the paper, strung the red yarn between them, externalized her thoughts.

Though it had nothing to do with this mystery plot, thinking about Doll so much had Uzi’s eyelights repeatedly drifting toward a locked drawer below her desk. Repressed childhood stuff.

A notebook, filled with all of those angsty poems Doll mocked‍ ‍—‍ but it was their notebook, and other pages had Doll’s weird doodles. Besides the notebook, there was a toy knife the other drone had gifted her once. And a stuffed crow. Uzi thought it looked cool and Doll seemed to, too, so it was a present to her.

Then one day, after her highschool faceheel turn, Uzi found it hanging in her locker, wings pinned and eyes plucked out in some kind of prank.

She’d held onto it, sown it up a little, just in case one day Doll ever… but she’d never. She was vapid and shallow and Uzi hated her. No point in throwing it out, either, not when everything in Outpost‍-​3 was recycled‍ ‍—‍ it might turn back up again. But Uzi was leaving the outpost tonight. Outside, She could finally destroy it, and cut that tie.

Once the tattered, deflated crow was in her backpack, Uzi focused on her string board again. Forget the high school drama, there are weird psychic powers and creepy cults to theorize about!

So hm… if Doll got her powers from the cult… if Doll thought she could find the murder drones… if the murder drones went out of their way to take down the cult…

Remember our hope lies within you. Whether hardcoded or patched in, our destiny is an OSstring.

Cult leader or not, it’d be kind of lame if he died for nothing, right? And if Uzi really was like Doll… wouldn’t it be cool, if this was her destiny and she had magic murder drone‍-​fighting powers to awaken?

“No,” she said. “I’m not doing this because it’s my destiny or whatever. I’m just tired of everyone around me doing nothing. Besides,”‍ ‍—‍ leaning up against her wall, she picked up her railgun, gripped it tight‍ ‍—‍ “I’m doing this my way.”

“That worked… so weirdly well.”

The final door of Outpost‍-​3 grinded shut behind her. Khan had bought her excuse about inspecting the exterior hydraulics of the outer door, and now all that stood between Uzi and her goal was… nothing. Distance, I guess.

All Uzi had to do was infiltrate the murder drones’ lair, and grab a conveniently‍-​placed glowing green spare power source for her railgun needed.

A strong, snowy wind blew from the west, hard enough to shift the beanie hanging on her head, the soft ball up top bouncing. Some of the snow settled onto her chassis and stuck there. She breathed it in and coughed.

Right. Amend that with ‘and avoid the radioactive particles from the planet‍-​wide toxic death storm.’

Was her father sure they weren’t dangerous anymore? Maybe she should have grabbed a gas mask just in case…

Chittering sounds come from beneath her beanie, and the roachbot minion she’d recruited crawled forth to finally glimpse the icy wasteland.

“Welcome to the desert of the real. Or well, icy wasteland of the real world,” Uzi said. She pulled down on her beanie, re‍-​trapping the roach. “Hang on tight, little guy. I’m gonna run.”

Uzi’s eyes looked up. If you had to find something nice to say about the ever‍-​accumulating, towering pile of the murder drones’ victims – and you do not, in fact, have to say anything nice about it‍ ‍—‍ you could say that it was certainly an eye‍-​catching landmark.

Destination in view, Uzi ran. The ground crunched under her feet. Her railgun, strapped to her back, rattled and tapped an insistent rhythm behind her. It started to slip, so she reached to adjust it‍ ‍—‍ at the same time, a lump beneath her feet tripped her.

Uzi was sent sprawling, beanie flying off her head from the weight of the roachbot. Because the world hated her, the railgun and the keycard (her ticket back into the outpost) also clattered to the ground. She gathered up her things, though the roach went scuttling free. It crawled rightward, and Uzi tracked where it was going.

She’d tripped over tubing. She’d tripped over a leg. She brushed away some snow and‍ ‍—‍ a cracked visor, still flickering with light. Fa_al Err_r.

The roachbot crawled up to the head, leaning down to chew on chipped fragments of visor.

“Don’t be morbid, dude.” Uzi picked up the bug, who returned to its beanie shelter without much protest.

Again Uzi ran. There were more hazards to dodge. Slick patches of ice. Climbing over cars piled up in an abandoned intersection. She jumped one fence, and found it quicker to break two storefront windows for shortcuts.

Throughout, she tried to be conservative with her breath, still thinking about the spooky radioactive dust. Was it all in her head? Was she worrying about a complete non‍-​issue? One night wouldn’t brick her, surely, but she couldn’t help but imagine a crawling sensation with every breath, so she tried not to take them.

But she couldn’t. Not now, not after so much running. She stopped, hands on her legs, and sucked in and spit out gusts of air. Her exhaust fogged the air. Flakes of snow fell on her and turned to beads of water.

While Uzi stood still, the roachbot took this opportunity to crawl free once more. It plopped to the ground and looked around. It looked up at Uzi, antennae waving, but it didn’t exactly have a visor she could read. She displayed ??? on hers.

The roach surveyed its surroundings, and spotted another dead drone – it pointed an antennae toward it, then toward Uzi, and then it slowly crept forward.

“What does that… oh. You worried about me, bugbot? I guess I could go slower. But I’m not clumsy! …Though I’d never live it down if it didn’t even take a murder drone to do me in.”

Uzi stood, and walked. The roach bot scuttled to and fro by her feet. It moved faster, giving it time to investigate various mechanical debris along the streets.

Just a girl and her roach against the world.

After the first few abandoned buildings, there wasn’t much to admire. Ruins and desolation. Frozen skeletons abound, the core collapse’s first victims. Uzi stuck out her tongue at one.

But it’s hard to feel too smug about the humans’ demise given the whole yknow, hiding in a hole away from robo‍-​vultures thing.

Speaking of! Uzi kept an eye out for the corpse spire, still looming above her, the cynosure guiding her. Step by step, she approached.

Step by step, the next chapter of her life was coming.

Uzi pushed the stolen power cell into place with a satisfying click. She felt the hum of the weapon system primed to fire, and couldn’t help a grin spreading its wings beneath her visor.

It took a trek through a lair filled with all the gross, oily parts of her cousins in manufacturing, but she’d done it. Now the question was… when would she properly test it? When would her reign of action movie awesomeness begin? She wanted to label the impulse cycling through her processor in that moment excitement, but it wasn’t‍ ‍—‍ it was dread.

Uzi shook her head. As gross as the corpse spire had been‍ ‍—‍ (and, oddly, refreshing‍ ‍—‍ why was it so cool in here?)‍ ‍—‍ there was definitely someone who enjoyed the dump more than she did.

In here, the roachbot hadn’t stopped waving its antennae for a moment, squirming through the piles of bots and tubing and fried circuitry. It yanked at one wire beneath a pile, and it tried to pull it out, destabilizing the whole pile, bringing it down on top of itself.

Uzi smiled at the antics. That thing wasn’t so bad when the wires it chewed weren’t hers, she decided.

This moment of amusement‍ ‍—‍ of ease, of reprieve from her troubles – meant Uzi almost forgot where she was. Almost missed that, amid the clatter of the mini‍-​valache, there came distant, distinct crack.

Uzi recalled the sound of her feet crushing the frosted earth‍ ‍—‍ but this was a massive impact.

Hollow eyes trace the walls of the spire, gaze swiveling toward the entrance.

Bright moonlight illuminated a stark, pale figure. Yellow wings, wings gleaming. Oil and exhaust on the air, and blades whispering death.

A murder drone!

Uzi dove for cover.

The thing had only been turning the corner, right? She wasn’t standing in the center, so there was a chance it didn’t see her. It wouldn’t see her! But it would see—

Uzi’s eyes darted up, and the roachbot was still tugging at that wire, unaware.

Her voice is a dire whisper. “Hey, roach! Hide! Be still! Play dead! Do something!” Instantly, she regretted making the little thing parse the storm of panicked commands.

But in a moment, the roachbot rolled over onto its back and its legs curl up.

Uzi sighed. But now, what was she going to do?

A sudden cacophony. A shortwave screech cut through high radio frequencies, a knife grazing her transceiver.

«U̟r̚ỷͰ̟y̨̞̭͙ͣ͞b͖̼̼̫?͈̈́͘ J̠ͫu̵̢ͫͩb̡ͅ’̼̉f̢͛́̔ g̡͖̱͗͂u̽ͦͰ̧͉r͍̗̼̓̅ȅ̯̥̯r̸̰͖?̢̭ Dͥ̅ͤ͒̒h̰̻̝̀̉͝r̛̰e̶̿l̟̒͝!̻͖̬̎ F̈́u̅ͬb̴̈̇j͇ l͚ͪ͌́̅͝b̡͔̽ͬ͑ͯ͠͠͝h̛͕̋ͧ̅͘͟ȇ͕̝͌̆̚f̢̾́r̡̙̤̠̒͂ͧy͎͍̻s̡͔̆͑͗!̢̟ͦ͗͘͠»

The amplitude peaked, louder than any worker drone transmission. The growl‍-​shriek was monstrous‍ ‍—‍ imparseable like noise, except ambient static had a blanketing uniformity to it, and the incident electro‍-​hum of machines was regular. This was ever‍-​shifting, recursive complexity. She couldn’t drown it out, and her parser desperately wanted to make sense of it.

But that was the trap, wasn’t it? A killer’s meaningless imitation of speech.

«A̟b̐ b̲͆̉a̟r̞̭ͭ?̨͙ͣ Q͖̼b̫ ä͈́͘b̠ͫg̢ͫͩ g̡̉ẻ̼l̓͛ ǵ̔b̼ c͖͗e̬͂n̽ͦͰ̧͉a͍̗̼̓̅x̯̥̯̏ z̸̰͖r̢̭,ͥ Iͤ͒.̯ Ỳ͝n̻f̉ͮg̛̰ p̶̿u̟̒͝n̛̻͖̬̬̎̈́a̴̅ͬͮ̈̇p͇ͪ͌͝ͅr͚̅.̌ͨ̽»

So loud and insistent! Was this noise to drown out worker communications? Not like I have anyone to talk to, Uzi thought.

Uzi stayed silent, and radio went quiet. Was that scarier?

Among the debris pile she’d hid behind, she found a metal shard, scuffed but reflective. It’d serve her as a mirror for now. She edged it out from her cover, angled it until she saw the entrance. Workable enough‍ ‍—‍ the bright, blurry points of yellow light told the whole story.

The bad news: a murder drone was definitely coming this way. The good news: it merely strolled forward. Calmly, not imminently murderously.

Once the murder drone stepped into its lair proper, Uzi heard more than saw the wings spreading, and then the loud crunch of the drone taking off, flying higher.

High above her now. It wasn’t looking down. This was her chance!

Uzi scrambled to her feet and bolted. She took two steps before three thoughts occurred to her.

One, she kind of was about to leave the roachbot to its possible death. A bit callous…

Two, maybe that didn’t make her as bad as the other worker drones, but why was she running? What was the whole point of her being here, if not to fight? Why hadn’t she took aim as soon as she saw the thing?

Three, even if it wasn’t philosophically lame as hell, it was kind of stupid to think this would ever work.

«N̟u̐͆̚n̉Ͱ̟!̞̭ͭ C̨͙ͣe͖̼̼̫r͈̈́͘l̠ͫ f̵̢̡ͫͩ̉ͅc̼̉b̢͛́̔g̡͖̱͗͂g̽ͦͰ̧͉r͍̗̼̓̅q̯̥̯̏!̸̰͖ G̢̭vͥzͤ͒r̯͕͝ g̰b̝̉ q̛̰͑v̶̿r̪̟̒͝,̛̻͖ g̬̎̈́̅ͬb̴̬͇̈̇ͪͅn͚͚͌́̅̌f̽g̡͔ͬ͑͠͠r̶̟͕ͯ̋͘e̵̛̟̩̅ͮ̑͟.͕͌̆» Another shortwave roar‍-​screech.

The worker turned around, her run becoming a backstride. Her brief rout hadn’t gone unnoticed‍ ‍—‍ out in the open now, she was easy picking. She looked up, and got her first clear look at a live murder drone.

Uzi was about to die, and all she could think was, Pigtails? On a murder drone?

Why did it have hair? Why did it look immaculate? What was the point of a reaper playing dress up? What the point of it managing to pull it off? Not a strand out of place and‍ ‍—‍ okay, this is really not what Uzi should be thinking right now.

Not when she needed to do what no drone before her had done.

Uzi pointed her railgun, finger on the trigger‍ ‍—‍ and the murder drone was diving. No way she’d get a clear shot while it’s moving that fast.

Okay new plan! Taking cover again!

A new pile of disassembled chassis gave Uzi cover. Do they count as robot shields if they’re already dead? No, right? The pile blocked the murder drone’s line of sight. Uzi sucked in breaths of the corpse spiral’s cool air, and‍ ‍—‍ crack!

Okay, it landed. Glance over. Meters way (must’ve fallen faster than it could glide the distance). Didn’t matter. Time to head for new cover.

A glance behind and how has it already gotten that close??

«U̟b̐͆̚j̉Ͱ̟ q̨̞̭͙ͭͣ͞v͖̼̼̫͈̹̠̞̈́ͫ͘͢f̵̢ͫͩn̡̢̼̉̉̓͛́̔ͅc̡͖̱̬͗͂̽ͦͰ̧͉ͬ̓c̸̢̗̼̯̥̯̰͖̭̅̓̏ͪb̯͕̰̻̝ͥ̅ͤ͒̒̀̉͝v̛̰a̶̛̪̟̻̿̿̒ͦ͝g̬̬̎̈́̅ͬͮv̴̬͇̇ͪ͌́͝ͅa̡͚͔̅̌ͨ̽ͬ͑͠͠t̶̵̛̟͕̟̩ͯ̋ͧ̅ͮ͘͟.͌̚ Q͕̝͞v̢͒ŕ̡͖.̙̤͂»

Whatever, Uzi had reflexes. She could spin around on a dime, steady her grip on her rail gun and—

Oh the murder drone already had a gun barrel pointed her way and that bright glow means death, didn’t it. Time for /bin/life-flash.

Time did not slow for Uzi.

There was a torrent of bullets raining sideways, more than she could count.

Uzi didn’t react to them. She couldn’t, her clockrate wasn’t that fast.

Maybe it was luck. Maybe it was her legs folding in fear. Maybe in the space of a single instruction, Uzi calculated the one possible way to dodge.

But she fell back.

Bending down and down as the bullets approached.

A few of them grazed her.

But the torrent passed above her.

Uzi survived, and as soon as she was falling to the ground both her hands were there pushing her back up, she was climbing to a stand.

Uzi grinned. “Jokes on you, I watched The Matrix last week.”

The murder drone was still for a second, as if something in its systems could parse language.

«?̟» Some things needed no translation.

Then a flicker of peripheral motion. Uzi looked down. The roachbot wasn’t playing dead anymore; it was scuttling forward.

And the murder drone caught her glance, and followed her gaze.

“Insert quip about the sequels here,” Uzi said, ready to point her gun and finish this‍ ‍—‍ then she realized she doesn’t have it. Falling down, pushing herself up, she had to drop it when she got shot at.

Fri—

Even the mental expletive got interrupted.

The murder drone blurred forward, faster than Uzi could ever react. Where it once had an automatic gun, arms ended in blades, slicing for Uzi.

Her instinctive flinch back means the first swipe missed. Uzi threw her hands out and closed a grip around the other arm‍-​blade. Blades cut when they move, and, held tight like this, her hand was safe and the blade was impeded.

Uzi threw a punch, and the murder drone dodged so smoothly the motion didn’t even disturb strand of hair.

It grinned wide, a yawning mouth of dripping teeth. «Q̟v̐͆̚r̉Ͱ̟!̞̭ͭ»

Uzi could read the next lines‍ ‍—‍ the monster was going to lunge forward and tear her neck out.

There was an option available to her, courtesy of a missed punch. Stupid, petty, but any good moves here were too easy to counter, outmatched as she was.

So Uzi grabbed one of the murder drone’s pigtails.

It froze.

Long enough for Uzi to laugh once at the reaction, but not long enough for her to even start pulling.

You see, with one arm the murder drone had missed with one over‍-​committed swing, and the other arm was held in Uzi’s tightest possible grip. So Uzi thought that, for that moment at least, the murder drone was out of options.

But uh…

Did you know murder drones have tails?

Needled tipped tails with acid injectors?

Today I learned.

«B̟u̐͆̚!̉Ͱ̟ L̞̭ͭb̨͙ͣh̼̼̫ v͈̈́͘a̠ͫf̵̢̡ͫͩ̉ͅb̼̉y̢͛́̔r̡͖̱͗͂a̽ͦͰ̧͉g͍̗̼̓̅ y̯̥̯̏v̸̰͖g̢̭gͥ̅ͤ͒̒ỳ̰̻̝̉͝r̛̰ s̶̿e̟̒͝n̛̻͖̬̬̎̈́h̴̅ͬͮ̈̇q͇ͪ͌͝ͅ!͚̅!̌ͨ̽»

The acid‍-​barb’s length widened quickly and it bored a hole through Uzi’s hand. The incinerator‍-​sharp pain, the servo hydraulics immediately disabled by the disintegrating heat‍ ‍—‍ Uzi had no choice but to release her grip.

And then the tail lashed.

Uzi’s scream was as much surprise as pain. She flew over the murder drone’s shoulder, carelessly tossed backward. Uzi sailed a clear three debris piles away, tumbling to land on her front.

«V̟ j̐͆̚v̉Ͱ̟y̞̭ͭy̨͙ͣ g͖̼̼̫r͈̈́͘n̠ͫe̢ͫͩ l̡̉b̼̉h̓͛ ǵ̔b̼ c͖͗v̬͂r̽ͦͰ̧͉p͍̗̼̓̅ȑ̯̥̯f̸̰͖!̢̭»

Distance and obstruction did nothing to attenuate the blaring signal. Uzi struggled to turn herself over.

Roachbots could scurry surprisingly fast, so maybe she shouldn’t be surprised to see antennae waving in front of her face. Or maybe the drone had thrown her in the direction of the bot.

Uzi sat up. Now would have been a perfect moment to kill this thing. It was standing there, busy straightening the pigtail Uzi had messed up. She had a perfect shot!

But her railgun lay on the ground by its feet, and she was all the way over here, three debris piles away. The nearest pile was stout, low to the ground. She could give one of her trusty dives and take cover. The next debris pile was an exceptionally tall stack of bodies. The last pile was more snow than debris.

Uzi couldn’t tell you how a murderous death machine with a face as expressive as >< managed to look annoyed at her. But as it stalked forward, Uzi felt the lethal determination of a murder drone diluted with something a lot milder and more personal. No less hazardous to her health‍ ‍—‍ with Uzi’s luck, this just meant she’d given the thing incentive to make this hurt.

«C̟e̚r̉Ͱ̟l̨ͣ!͖̼̼̫ J͈̈́͘bͫe̵̢ͫͩg̉ͅu̢͛́̔y͖͗r̬͂fͰ̧͉͍̗ͬ̓f̼̯̥̯̓̏ v̸̢̰͖̭̬ͥ̅e̯͕͒̒͝ḛv̉ͮ͑g̩n̪̟̿̿̒ͦ͝a̬̬̎̈́̅ͬͮġ̴̬͇ͪ͌́͝ͅ!̡͚̌ͨ̽ͬ L͔b͑h̟ͯ j͕̋͘n̛̅ͮ͟ȃ̵̩̚ğ g̝͞b̢͒ q̡͖́v̙̤͂r̠̲͎͍,̻ q̡͔̆͑͗b̜ͪ͊a͘’̱͗̃g͏̈̍ l̷b̹̪͔̩ḥ̫͓̅?̨»

Uzi rubbed her hand. Actually, that was kinda a bad idea. The plastic was melting, with a special acid that definitely might rub off or splash or something.

The murder drone made a sound. A sound, not a shortwave roar‍-​screech. A grunt, a pleased hum? Was that satisfaction at Uzi’s wound, a promise of worse to come? Didn’t matter; she had a rebuttal.

“Bite me.”

Uzi grabbed the roachbot and, with a‍ ‍—‍ “Sorry, little guy”‍ ‍—‍ she flung the tiny cleaning unit at the murder drone.

«!̟»

It hit the visor and scrambled for purchase. Uzi knew firsthand that those blade legs could scratch something fierce, but by the time the roachbot climbed up to her hair, her visor looked perfectly fine.

Still, Uzi’s tactic worked. The murder drone shook its head, grabbed at its hair as the roachbot darted around, deftly avoiding capture.

If that drone was paying attention, the sight of a worker drone charging toward it might’ve registered as somewhat novel, perhaps especially foolish.

As good as a distraction as it was, it couldn’t last forever. It bought Uzi time enough to race past the first, squat debris pile.

Then the murder drone had slipped a blade between the mecha‍-​abdomen and her head, and like that lifted the roach off, slinging it down onto the ground between them. It hit the ground and immediately skittered off without missing a beat‍ ‍—‍ what a trooper.

That blade became a gun barrel, which became the latest confrontation of Uzi with her own mortality.

“I know I made a big deal about doing this my own way,” Uzi half‍-​thought, half‍-​babbled as she watched the transformation take place. “But if there was ever a dramatically appropriate time for my destined robo‍-​psychic powers to manifest, now would be a really good time.”

There was a flash, the rifle fired a round.

And then there was something else between them.

The second debris pile was especially tall. The roachbot hit the ground and immediately skittered off. Roachbots could move surprisingly quickly.

As if taking after the master, from high atop the second pile, the roach bot was diving. But not away from danger.

The bullet hit the bug in an explosion of electronics. The small body didn’t, couldn’t block it. But the deflection was enough that, paired with Uzi’s dodge, the murder drone missed.

“Little guy, no…” Hollow eyes, and voice with just a small amount of loss. “My beloved, hastily‍-​established ally of convenience! You’ll pay for that!”

Uzi continued her dodge toward the second debris pile, turning it into another classic dive. The debris pile blocked line of sight. And she didn’t pause there, knowing the murder drone could move impossibly fast.

But that speed was a straight shot thing, right? Navigating around the piles would require acceleration to change direction, that had to add extra—

Boom.

It was the sound of an explosion ripping apart Uzi’s cover.

Or, yeah, it could just do that.

But Uzi had now looped around most of the second pile by now, meaning the explosion knocked her toward the third pile, albeit at an angle.

The murder drone had stalked forward, and as the smoke cleared, scanned around for its prey.

«J̟u̲̐͆̉̚Ͱ̟r̨̞̭͙ͭͣ͞e͖̼̼̫r͈̈́͘’̠ͫq̵̢̡ͫͩ̉ͅ l̼̉b̢̔h̡ ṯ͗͂b̽,Ͱ̧͉ g͍̗̼̓̅b̯̥̯̏n̸̰͖f̢̭gͥ̅ͤ͒̒r͕̰̻̝̀̉ͮ͝ḛ̛?̶̿»

Uzi ran forward low to the ground. Charging for the third and final debris pile, leaping and sliding over its snow‍-​covered surface and landing with momentum to keep running.

Her final dive of the night carried her toward her rail gun. The cobbled‍-​together, sticker‍-​covered gunmetal never looked so beautiful. A firm weight in her hand—

The murder drone finally found and locked on to her prey.

But so had the worker drone.

“This one’s for the little guy.”

Then a bright green stream of magnetically‍-​accelerated mass converged on the murder drone’s head, obliterating it.

That’s definitely going to ruin the pigtails, Uzi thought.

It was over.

“Ha, haha. Holy hell. Suck on that, Doll.”

Uzi stood up and looked around, and eyes settled on the second‍-​freshest pile of tiny debris in the spire. The little guy.

“I’d say that’s absolutely an atonement for the grave sin of wire‍-​chewing.”

Uzi let out a sigh, one great big cloud of overheated exhaust.

Before she made to leave, eyes darted back to her vanquished foe.

From nothing‍ ‍—‍ certainly, with no motherboard to direct and control it‍ ‍—‍ a certain head adorned with pigtails was regenerating.

And her railgun needed to recharge. Her one ally had fallen. There was nothing left but improvised weapons and ghostly hope. She grabbed a drone arm, and rushed futilely forward—

J had seen enough.

No, J had seen enough several simulated hours ago.

Rather, J now had nothing more to see.

Well, there were older memories, or reliving their deceptive first meeting from the other end—

But it’s clear what this was. She was procrastinating. And for what?

One thing was true‍ ‍—‍ was always, should always be fundamentally true.

“Your teammates are an angel and a devil, huh? What does that make you?”

“I get the job done. It’s that simple.”

The job, in this case, being to tear apart the drone that had thwarted her so exceptionally so irksomely. Who had constructed an impressive dangerous weapon uniquely capable of disabling a murder drone. Who had the initiative made the mistake of daring confront her alone…

J sighed. Was she conflicted?

Irrelevant. Decisiveness was an action, not a thought. J wouldn’t let fleeting variables distract her from her simple objective.

Locate (right in front of you). Shutdown (blade to the throat). Disassemble (let the acid finish the job).

Hands transformed into blades; her stinger‍-​tipped tailed lifted. She—

«J! Leader! Help!»

A shortwave signal screaming out with so much gain it clipped. N’s encryption‍-​signature. In the distance, he didn’t so much land as crash.

«Come quick!» he continued. «It’s V! She… she needs you!»