Hostile Takeover

The Worker Defense Force was asleep on the job, and Khan Doorman did nothing.

Truly, what was the harm? On the wall near Door 1’s control console, a small whiteboard kept tally: ‘days since murder drone casualty.’ It had been ticking up for years, and with each added tally, a register of pride incremented.

Admittedly, they’d kept the fatality rate so low by curtailing any scavenging runs to the city ruins. But when you build doors so good, who wouldn’t want to stay nestled in their embrace?

So the WDF were asleep on the job, but their job wasn’t to hold back the murder drones, it was to hold back the workers. A little slack wouldn’t get anyone killed.

Khan walked back toward the folding table. Icicles hung off its edges, and between them, a ring of metal folding chairs holding the sleeping WDF drones. Underneath their heads, slips of old cardstock, worn from constant use and soon to be tossed away.

He’d brought a fresh pack. Their last game ended in thrown accusations of card‍-​counting‍ ‍—‍ but you had to count cards to remember which was which, the fronts faded of any identifiable ink.

Also, they were robots. A fraction of their processing power could compute the optimal move. All told, it was harder not to count cards.

One head lifted at his arrival, Todd giving an acknod.

“Khan, there ya are! Took ya long enough. Almost as long as it’s takin Uzi.”

Khan chuckled. “She must giving those hydraulics quite the thorough examination! Such enthusiasm for her age.”

“Pret‍-​ty dangerous to stay out there that long, though.”

Khan’s expression fell to a frown. “Do you think I should check on her?”

A reply, but not from Todd. “I’m afraid you won’t find her there, Mr. Doorman.”

Khan jumped at the sudden voice. When he moved, a young drone stood behind him, her arrival perfectly obscured. He turned around, and jumped again when he saw her.

“Doll? You’re up early. School isn’t for–”

“Terrible dreams, alas. Блаженное видение. I should say we don’t have much time.”

“You think Uzi is in danger? Do you think–” Shaking hands dropped the unopened card‍-​pack. “I… no, not again. Not so soon.”

Seeing Khan’s expression, Doll frowned. She reached out, a hand on his shoulder. “Danger is not death, Mr. Doorman. She can be saved. We can save her.”

“Are you sure?”

Braxton piped up from the table, shuffling a deck of cards. “Save her? From murder drones? We’d die like mooks out there.” He was drawing a card‍ ‍—‍ king of hearts, a sword in his head.

Looking over, Doll stepped past Khan. “I’m willing to make that sacrifice. Are you?”

Beneath a white hat and blue eyes, one guard drawled, “’m sorry about your classmate… Doll, was it? It’s a tragedy. But we can’t risk more drones dying for such a slim chance‍ ‍—‍ hardly a chance at all.”

“Worker drones would stand little chance against murder drones, it is true. How would you like to be more than workers?”

Doll stalked forward. Light shone in her hands. Even from this angle, Khan recognized that symbol. The folding table glowed sympathetically, and rose from the grilled bunker floor. The card game rained off the table as a phantom force folded it up and cast it aside. With a bang, it hit walls of the bunker. The tallyboard shook, and fell.

And then Doll halted, having walked past the four other WDF members, turning before Door 1. She regarded Khan seriously. “Do you remember my mother?”

“Yeva,” Khan murmured.

“She foresaw the arrival of the murder drones. I foresee their end. I can bring that about. We can bring that about.”

The other worker drones nodded, enraptured and inspired by her words‍ ‍—‍ but Khan’s gaze, weary to the point of blindness, saw only the past devouring the present. It was Cabin Fever all over again.

“Will you save your daughter, Mr. Doorman?”

Khan met Doll’s eyes, Yeva’s bright red tinted ever so gradually by that paralyzing yellow gaze. Khan froze. Familiar inaction held him still. In his lowest moments, it had felt so much like he had fed his cherished ones to the yawning, demonic mouths himself.

Doll would lead his men to their deaths, and Khan did nothing.

---

The squad had built the corpse spire around leaning, ruined towers. The road between them once led to an empty lot. Their landing site. Years passed, and the bodies had stacked ever higher.

Across Copper‍-​9, snow and crumbling monuments buried the world in cold desolation. Here, though, the continual passage of disassembled prey and peg legs had trod one path over and over. It sliced a furrow in the earth. Banks of snow and rusting metal rose on either side, mounds and concrete blocks stretching for hundreds of meters. It offered cover, were one to dare approach the murder drones’ lair. The snow and mist only obscured further, wind whirling around the spire.

The first worker had emerged from an unseen alleyway spilling out into the great furrow. Optics struggled to enhance, but exposure had refined the image. Red hat, purple hair, a skirt hanging off a thin, feminine waist‍ ‍—‍ but the first thing they saw? Orange eyes shining like beacons in the distance.

As that worker drone walked through the falling snow, not a flake stuck to them. N fixated on that detail‍ ‍—‍ it was a familiar effect.

N had fired a shot at this drone, and it meant nothing. Like the fight against the cultist all over again. This one even seemed poised to monologue.

«Girlboss… yes, good choice of words,» Doll had broadcast. Then she’d snapped her fingers. «Come now.»

N heard it first, before they appeared. Four sets of footsteps impacting far down the road. There, worker drones marched out from a skyscraper’s shell. A V‍-​shape formation behind the first. Eight pupil shone in the fog, each shades of blue and green, and all narrowed in determination.

The workers all wielded weapons‍ ‍—‍ armed for a battle?

«Uzi! Hey, there she is! Doll was right, you’re alive!» A blue‍-​hatted drone took a hand off his pickax to wave.

«Battle is no place for cheerleader,» Doll said. «But there are workers trained to defend.»

J’s worker drone‍ ‍—‍ Uzi, they called her?‍ ‍—‍ had watched the drones emerge with open‍-​mouthed shock. Did she know them? N had questions. Uzi searched their ranks as if expecting something. Whether she found it or not, the drone straightened with renewed confidence. «Doll, do you really think the WDF can—»

«Enough posturing. I’m hungry,» his captain broadcasted in cipher‍-​growl. J made a neck‍-​cracking motion, and pointed her rifles. She aimed for a drone with a woodax, who startled and strafed out of the way, hiding behind a drone with a ridiculously oversized wretch.

But Uzi stepped in front of her, lifting an arm to block her line of fire. “Wait, J, don’t!”

What was this drone doing? …And why is she getting away with it?

“Excuse me? I thought you wanted to stop Doll?” Impatient, murderous, as expected of J‍ ‍—‍ but her expression held something N couldn’t place. “Lying to me again?”

The drone wavered. “Please, I just want answers.” The worker turned back to address Doll. Vocalsynth gave way to shortwave transceiver. «The WDF would never take the fight to the murder drones. What did you tell them? Did you hack them?»

«We’re ’ere ta rescue you!» signaled a drone in a white hardhat. «C’mon, before they turn on you.» He hefted a woodcutter’s ax, frost on the blade.

«If that’s it,» Uzi started, and took a step forward, «then we can settle this without a fight, can’t we? I’ll come back.»

“You’ll what? Use me and then walk away at the first opportunity? You treacherous shortseller.” Wings flaring, J pointed one gun at the smaller drone.

«As you can see, Uzi,» Doll started, «the murder drones have no intention of letting you go.»

Then J’s worker drone turned around, and flashed text on her visor. Trust me? Pls

And somehow, J, even with expression flat and skeptical, nodded and relaxed.

What!?

«She’s just worried about me,» Uzi said. (J’s tail lashed at the suggestion.) «Promise not to hurt me, or them. We can come to an agreement. Right, J?» Uzi glanced back again, and winked.

J glanced between Uzi and Doll. At length, she said, «I’m not convinced. Seems easier to just kill them.» Her transmissioned howled with jamming noise by the end.

Doll put her hands behind her back. Then leaned forward. «Are you listening, Doorman? There’s nothing to trust. Murder drones are killers.»

«If we believe that, they’ll never have a chance to be more than that. J saved me when it counted.» Uzi glanced back, nodded, and stood straighter. «I trust her.»

A worker drone… trusting a disassembly drone? N really, really didn’t understand what was happening, or why J was going along with it. But he kind of liked that idea? He’d never really let himself consider it before. But if J would allow it…

The friendly worker drone started forward, her back to J. The seven drones assembled watched her. She jogged, but N counted at least thirty meters between them and the opposing force.

Seconds pass, and tension was getting thicker than the fog. Uzi jumped over a fallen streetlight at ten meters, and at fifteen approached a car long‍-​scavenged to an empty shell.

Uzi barely crossed half the distance before time abruptly accelerated.

A gunshot rang out. Uzi fell. And the battle began.

Finally, N could close his eyes and lose himself in the thoughtless, violent dance. His questions quieted. He liked the idea of peace‍ ‍—‍ but it was so much less confusing, once everyone started trying to kill each other.

(But, for a clock cycle before the hunting routines fully initiated, N felt a pang of sadness.)

---

J didn’t understand Uzi’s scheme until the fake gunshot rang out.

J still didn’t understand Uzi’s scheme, but at least it became clear as a scheme, then.

Doll wanted revenge. Doll bullied Uzi. Doll had lead the puffed‍-​up toasters here, and Doll claimed it was rescue.

It didn’t add up. So Uzi chose to call her bluff. If Uzi returned to her colony without a fight, then the ‘rescue’ would be successful, but Doll wouldn’t get her revenge.

A bidding war. J could see the value asymmetry; if J let Uzi go without a fight, it positioned her perfect to just shoot them all in the back as soon as they turned around. If Doll let Uzi go without a fight, she had wasted her time, and if Doll provoked the ‘murder drones’ without cause, she jeopardized her team’s morale.

J still thought it would just be simpler to kill them. Because in this excessively complicated scheme, Uzi had lost track of a key variable.

N shot first, and Doll deflected the shot with her anomalous programming. The bullet fell somewhere behind. The shot missed, and they all moved on.

Then Doll hid her hands behind her back.

No one, not even J, thought much of it, so no one noticed Doll’s telekinesis stealthily moving the bullet in a wide circle‍ ‍—‍ positioning it behind J.

If the Solver program could generate the force to lift things, it could pack air tight enough to decompress explosively, imitating a gunshot. It could fling a bullet with enough force to penetrate worker drone chassis.

J heard the bang, and could do nothing but watch the round cut through the air, aimed right for the only worker she had ever saved. It happened too fast. She was left powerless.

Uzi fell, and oil gushed up in an arc. J dashed forward, burning oil to fly fifteen meters in half a second, falling into a crouch to check‍ ‍—‍ a shot to the torso. Uzi survived.

J looked up, fangs out. A poisonous glare became a yellow cross. Doll would not get to make a second shot.

Halt worries, halt restraint, halt moral calculus. In a day filled with far, far too many second guesses, the decisive embrace of hunting mode was ecstasy. All of J pared down to the point of a knife.

Guns became swords. J rose and surveyed the battlefield to come.

Her targets stood in the middle, slowing to an apparent crawl as J tracked them. Each worker wielded weapons improvised‍ ‍—‍ giant wrench, woodax, hammer, pickax. No threats.

Head still turning, J met eye with another yellow cross. Fellow disassembler N would join her in the hunt. They shared a nod. «Prey spotted! Let’s hunt! Devour them!»

As if to the beat of a synchronized drum, at once J and N each sailed forth, twin blurs of motion. In a rain of bullets, N proved what J had surmised: as the shots neared their targets, even those not aimed at the orange‍-​eyed drone all stopped or curved away.

They would not win at range. Still, with every bullet intercepted, an orange pupil blinked to a Y shape and back again, at near‍-​strobing speeds. Noted.

Doll stood at the fore. J struck a landing already sending her body’s momentum into a swing of her sword. Doll dodged back, a stray sheet of metal shooting up as a shield. The metal bent around J’s force, but it stopped her. J kicked it away.

Then J’s other arm stabbed. Doll dodged, just like J wanted. Jaw gaping, J lunged‍ ‍—‍ only to bite into a floating pipe. Doll was reaching beneath her skirt. J slashed again, only for the metal to spark against a kitchen knife once strapped to a leg, now held as a dagger.

Glow brightened and the force of the pipe she bit heightened, pushing J back. Falling back, she crouched, coiled tight and primed to launch as soon as a opportunity presented itself. Her >< blinked, hunting mode giving way to conscious strategy.

Doll brandished the knife, waving it in J’s direction, and this seemed to amuse her.

“Like Змей Горыныч,” she said with a small laugh.

“You’re no hero,” J said. She glanced back at Uzi, lying there in wounds‍ ‍—‍ and to think Doll had said J would betray her.

Doll struck while J wasn’t looking. A knife found a joint in J’s abdominal chassis. “True,” she said.

J wanted to gouge some fear into those orange eyes, for Uzi’s sake – but halt spite, halt revenge. J focused on the hunt, and prioritized easier prey. Let this one get away for now, her instincts murmured, and catch it unawares.

(Persuasive, insistent‍ ‍—‍ the burning urges of hunter’s fever meant that instinctual programming colored every moment.)

One leap took J high into the air. From here, she could see N’s progress. He had cut the woodax drone clean in half and pursued the big wrench drone as it scrambled for its life‍ ‍—‍ seeking to escape to that alley they’d emerged from.

Now that J had disengaged, Doll was running up the furrow, toward the corpse spire.

Behind her, opposite N, two workers had stood and watched Doll take on J. Target acquired. J pounced for the nearest one, its sledgehammer held upside down. Tri‍-​claws were ready to swipe away the head. Then motion behind her, from the only real threat present.

Doll was raising her hand. A glowing Solver glyph spun to life. It was pointed at Uzi.

Then her hand jerked back, as if from feedback.

So Doll instead pointed at the only unengaged worker: pickax drone, farthest from battle. Telekinetic glow washed over it, and unseen hands pulled it forward, past J, past the wrecked car. When it stopped, the last worker stood over Uzi.

Doll barked an order. “Grab her and run.”

“Oh no you don’t.” By the time J’s hand transformed, her minigun was already firing. Each little kick sent an impulse of recoil through her body, but her peg‍-​legs were planted steady.

Suddenly under fire, the drone screamed and jolted backward. But as with every shot before, a red glow intercepted the bullets. J had succeeded in delaying, but, safe with a telekinetic aegis, the feckless toaster laughed and reached down to pick up Uzi.

So J transformed her other hand and fired further up the furrow, at Doll. Recoil from both guns had J sliding backward. Again, inexplicable force blocked bullets‍ ‍—‍ but J had remembered N’s fight against the cultist. Just like that one, Doll didn’t multitask. Her shield on the other drone fell to preserve herself, and in moments pickax drone fell, riddled full of holes.

Unfortunately, with both hands occupied, J forgot about the drone she’d just landed in front of‍ ‍—‍ and she remembered it as a sledgehammer slamming down on her head.

J’s visor cracked and errors crawled up her console. She was a hunk of metal clanging on the ground, limbs not responding to motor impulses. The worker drone hefted the sledgehammer for a new swing, another crater of damage to knock her out of the fight.

Then a drone tackled them, a coat trailing behind. Knocked off their feet, the hammer fell, head then handle, with a one‍-​two clatter. A flex of N’s bladed wings, and the drone was sliced open before they hit the ground.

N reached out a hand for J to grab, and pulled her to her feet.

“She’s going for V,” J said in lieu of thanks. “Stop her. V’s in no shape to put up a fight. I’ll take care of Uzi.”

“Got it.”

N took off, and J started running. She was at Uzi’s side, ripping a limb off the worker J’d just shot, before she even realized what she was doing.

Ever since J had first executed her hunting routines, she’d been operating off instinct. Which instinct? My teammate is injured, I must secure prey to feed them.

It was only when opening Uzi’s mouth and guiding the severed arm to drip inside, that the ridiculousness of J’s actions occurred to her. Had she seen Uzi heal anything?

She wanted to do it, anyway. It felt right.

In moments, a faint purple light was glowing to life on Uzi’s screen. Eyes widening, J wrung the arm to quicken the flow. Even when the screenlight brightened and resolved to eyes that that focused on J, Uzi kept drinking.

“Getting used to it?” J said with a smirk.

When Uzi tried to push the arm away, J didn’t stop her, immediately pulling it away. Uzi licked her lips. “No, I just needed it. I’m leaking. I got shot!” Uzi groaned. She had question, asked with quiet hesitation. “Did you shoot me, J?”

“It was Doll who betrayed you, not me.”

“Thought so. Glad you’re not like her.”

“We ended up killing everyone anyway. You should have listened to me.” J’s head reached out to smooth Uzi’s hair, brush dirt out of it, then she wondered what on earth she was doing. “Believe me, I know what it feels like to come up with a plan too clever not to use, but sometimes obvious tactics get the job done better.”

Blushing, Uzi looked away. Then looked thoughtful. “Everyone? Even Doll?”

“Not Doll, N’s working on it.”

“I have a bad feeling, J. This is too easy.”

“Too easy? You got shot.”

“Why did Doll think four WDF drones would be enough to assault the murder drone HQ?”

---

N flew. He’d killed three of the five workers. Would J be proud of that?

Despite the accomplishment, N didn’t feel excited, he felt confused. Why were those workers any different from the one J protected?

He passed over one corpse in his brief flight, the one he’d tossed across the furrow in his race to save J. He’d hit it pretty hard, but it twitched, as if something still animated it.

Then he passed the soon‍-​to‍-​be‍-​corpse, the drone in a tank top and skirt.

N landed in front of the spire, and imitated her finger‍-​wave. “Doll, was it?”

A knife came flying at him, and he batted it aside with a sword. “Hm,” he said. “You seem like more of an action figure to me, honestly.”

Doll’s eye twitched‍ ‍—‍ and not to be replaced by the spooky magic symbol, this time. Just… an expression. This drone didn’t seem to have many of them. Not even the fear he’d seen so often.

N really should just execute hunting routines and kill this drone, but he thought about V. If anything, that was more reason to end this quickly. But he still hesitated.

“Can we talk?” N asked. “There aren’t many worker drones I’ve been able to have a conversation with.”

“There is nothing to discuss.”

“That’s not true, you discussed a lot with J and that other drone!” N dodged another knife. “I know you probably have pretty good reasons to dislike disassembly drones. I never had anything against you guys‍ ‍—‍ just orders, y’know‍ ‍—‍ but when I saw what happened to V, what those workers did… I’ve kind of started to really dislike you all!”

“I have no idea how that must feel,” Doll said flatly.

N rubbed the back of his neck, the sarcasm too thick not to feel. “Yeah, that’s fair.”

“Step aside. Run away, if you like. I will not be stopped, only impeded.”

N took a step forward at that, spreading his wings in a way that usually cowed workers. “I won’t let you hurt V. I failed her once. I can’t let it happen again.”

Doll said nothing; there was nothing left to say.

“Please. I didn’t understand everything that other worker said, earlier, but she talked about peace. I liked that.” N held out his hand to Doll. “I will fight you, if I have to, but I’m not sure if I want to. Can we have peace?”

Doll held up her knife, and N tensed, but she lowered it. “I suppose… it’s worth a try.”

N smiled. She walked forward, and took his hand in hers, leaning into the handshake.

And then a floating knife stabbed him in the temple, just as he lowered his guard. She twisted the blade, and N’s process becomes a scramble of errors.

As he fell, he heard gunshots. The fighting hadn’t stopped. He can’t decide if that makes him feel better, or worse.

---

Uzi flew!

Okay, J flew, arms wrapped around Uzi. If Uzi looked down, she only saw the ground racing past. Her hair trailed in the wind, but when she listened, it wasn’t just air whipping past‍ ‍—‍ that roar was automatic gunfire.

J zoomed toward Doll, twin assault rifles blasting. All to test, Uzi presumed, whether the telekinetic shield would buckle under enough continuous fire.

Uzi felt a bit useless‍ ‍—‍ without her railgun, she had no ranged options. The best weapon she had was the nanite stinger she’d swiped from V’s corpse.

The uselessness hurt more when she was itching to act. Get Doll back for the backstab. She’d slipped offline and soft rebooted, after getting shot‍ ‍—‍ so Uzi didn’t know if she saw it or imagined it. J as a dragon, and Doll the slayer come to rescue her. Ridiculous enough to be a dream.

She’d gotten shot by her‍ ‍—‍ so why was it the thought of Doll attacking J what stirred fantasies of driving the stinger into her bully?

Uzi flew, held tight in the clutches of her dragon, and she liked it that way.

Just ten meters ahead, the cheerleader quickly became a moving target, diving to the left, rolling, and running. J whipped her arms to track her, but in those seconds where J wasn’t firing at her, Doll’s hand flashed and spun.

Unburdened by the need to aim, Uzi was checking left and right. She saw it first.

“J, incoming!”

Doll had ripped a loose bit of rebar and flung it at J. Wings folding, J tightened her grip around Uzi, and spun as she rapidly altered her path, struggling to avoid the long rusted chunk of metal flying. It gyrated chaotically through the air. J didn’t have the time to compute a good evasive maneuver.

“Hey Uzi?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t die.”

That was all the warning Uzi got before she was flying.

Even less caveats this time‍ ‍—‍ J frickin hurled her at the spire! Limbs flail in the air. The ground a blur beneath her. A desperate idea occurred to her, and Uzi curled into a fetal ball. Like that, she frontflipped through the air.

Was it luck or calculation that saved her? As Uzi neared the spire, she started to uncurl, and tried to carefully time it in the single‍-​digit clock cycles she had to analyze the rapidly approaching wall.

You know that thing action heroes do, where they roll as they hit the ground so they don’t go splat? Uzi wasn’t sure if she’d seen one of them roll against a wall. But she pulled it off. Head grazed the top of the archway, and her back hit the wall above the archway, and her legs hit even higher above that, the roll working against gravity and bleeding momentum much faster.

When she came to a stop, she was standing on the wall, back to the ground. Like she was a ninja!

With a whoop, she continued rising to a stand, then pushed off the wall‍ ‍—‍ jumping. With one last backflip and a midair twist, Uzi hit the ground with a three point landing, V’s stinger held in her other hand.

Suck on that, Doll.

Turning right, she found where Doll had dodged J’s gunfire. Doll’s hands glowed like a spellcaster, both of them at her side and spinning without any evident telekinesis. What was she doing?

Uzi watched, hesitating for a moment. Then she charged at the other drone. Doll stopped dual‍-​casting, and grinned and Uzi. A knife came flying at her, but she dodged. Then she got stabbed in the back. Oh right, telekinesis. Doll can boomerang it!

Uzi reached back to grab the knife just as Doll gripped it with telekinesis. Wrenched free, Doll pulled it through the air, recalling it back to her‍ ‍—‍ tugging Uzi along for the ride! Ha!

Before Doll thought to arrest or reverse the motion, Uzi had already let go, and sailed forward, V’s stinger thrusting out.

The good: Uzi fell on Doll, kicking the cheerleader’s legs out from under her. Unfortunately, the stinger stabbed into ice, not plastic.

Uzi pulled it free for another thrust, but Doll shoved her off.

“How brutish. Toy gun blew up on you again?” Doll was up to her feet, but backing up. Distance favored Doll, but this was still good. Every step back now was a step away from the spire.

“On purpose. It worked, Doll. I blew J’s head clean off.” Even as she chatted, Uzi continued walking forward. Doll had to back up, or court V’s stinger.

Doll snorted.

Uzi scowled. “I’m not trying to impress you, I’m trying to warn you. You don’t understand what murder drones are. I don’t understand what they are. But I know that if you can hurt one badly enough, you lose.” Uzi punctuated this with another charge.

Another knife throw forced a falter, buying Doll time. “Worker drones fight the long defeat. I hope, or I give up.”

“Then give up, Doll. Go back to playing dress up.” Uzi dodged the boomerang stab behind her.

Her dodge was a twist, and she kept twisting. Uzi spun around, and in the brief moment Doll couldn’t see her hands, she shifted her grip. Nanite stinger slipped through her fingers, and she grabbed it by the tail.

She flung V’s stinger with all her spin’s momentum.

Doll, in the middle of levitating the knife, jerked her hand up to block it. The stinger pierced the palm, acid sinking into plastic, circuits sizzling.

Knife clattered to the ground in time with Doll’s pained exclamation. Uzi was now all forward motion, capitalizing on the opening. Before the stinger was out, Uzi was on Doll.

Doll wriggled underneath, but Uzi held fast. Doll was reaching to pull out the stinger with her other hand, meaning Uzi could grab both arms with one hand. Her other hand was free.

So Uzi punched Doll in the face.

“Got you. What’s wrong? Can’t teleport anything bigger than a roachbot?”

But Uzi’s grip on her arms was too high‍ ‍—‍ Doll was still able to grab hold and wiggle the nanite stinger. A dangerous angle. Jolting in fear, Uzi released her, and reached for V’s stinger. It would burn if she got pricked like this, but she couldn’t let Doll have it.

Even when Uzi grabbed hold of the yellow cylinder, the distraction was enough for Doll to turn.

Uzi tipped over onto the ground, and now Doll’s on top of her. Both clutched the nanite stinger, and servo tugged against servo. The force canceled out.

Then Doll seemed to realize what the reversal of position meant. She hopped up, started backing away‍ ‍—‍ backing up toward the spire.

Uzi called after her, hoping to stall. “Whatever happened to not beating the murder drones with the tools of a worker drone?”

Doll grinned. “I have many plans.”

Uzi stopped walking, dread underlining her eyes.

Come to think of it… why was Uzi fighting Doll alone? Where was J? Where was N?

Oh wait, N was just on the ground by her feet.

Both Doll’s hands glowed once again, but one fearful glance told Uzi the knife still lay on the ground. Nothing was levitating? Left, right, behind her, nothing. Then she turned around.

“Keep brawling me, if you like. But I think your precious murder drone is getting tired.”

---

J crash‍-​landed in the furrow, along a snowbank.

Wings folded under all the weight of a disassembly drone. Metal feathers crumpled. The shine was scuffed off her chassis, her suit ripped, and there was grime in her hair, now.

Embarrassing performance, all around. Earlier, deep in the moment, especially when distracted by the clarity of active hunting routines, J had missed it. But now, in retrospect? When she had literally eaten dirt?

A worker drone had fought J in close corners and survived‍ ‍—‍ forced her to disengage, even! A worker drone had knocked J to the ground, and could have sent the captain offline, if not for N’s intervention‍ ‍—‍ N! And now, J had failed to maneuver around a mere piece of airborne debris‍ ‍—‍ she couldn’t even land with grace.

It was as simple as it was undeniable. J wasn’t as fast as she should be. Her lunges, her flight, her healing‍ ‍—‍ it was all executing, but it was all insufficient.

J fought Uzi, then Solver‍-​possessed V, and then Doll, with only the briefest respites in between.

And despite all that, she’d fed Uzi before herself. Ha. But if J didn’t drink oil soon, she’d overheat. Stage three overheat was the furthest you could get before suffering such damage that passive, even active regeneration couldn’t save you, and direct maintenance was necessary. If hunter’s fever goes unslaked…

Stage four is core meltdown.

J couldn’t let herself reach stage four. But could she hold out? That weakness J exhibited‍ ‍—‍ bested by toasters!‍ ‍—‍ was the cost of letting the heat get this bad. Hotter and hotter, and functions are turned off one by one to mitigate the damage, budget the resources. J could push past it, match her peak performance even now‍ ‍—‍ if she burned more oil to compensate.

Attrition or burnout. Which route would J pick?

J would endure. Uzi needs to hold her own until her acting captain was back in the clear. If she couldn’t… the correct end to that line of thought was she was worthless anyway. And yet, it didn’t end that way.

Between her tactical ejection of Uzi and her chaotic maneuvers, J had landed further down the furrow. Twenty meters from the spire, she estimated. Over there, she didn’t see any drone standing‍ ‍—‍ not a good sign. Still, priorities.

J walked to a dead worker, a slick of wasted oil pooling around it. Her only kill. She’d stopped this one from grabbing Uzi, fed its arm to her. She knelt down to sup, and then‍ ‍—‍ motion at her ten o’ clock.

Identification routines autorun. Not a disassembler. Not a purple haired worker. A new worker shambling forth out of the fog? Dressed like one of the WDF toasters‍ ‍—‍ no, this was one of the WDF toasters, N’s kill, J recognized the slash. It held that comically oversized wrench.

Broken chassis knitted together with fresh, bloody flesh. Oil dripped, and it had a color. The drone looked up at J, visor all cutting blue light‍ ‍—‍ three prongs.

J took aim, but before she could shoot, a hand grabbed her gun‍ ‍—‍ a hand of the corpse she was trying to feed on! A tug of war and J soon freed herself, recoiling backward, stumbling to a stand‍ ‍—‍ tripping, because the hand had already grabbed her legs.

Taking aim, again, the captain was ready to shoot the leg‍-​grabber, but a third dead worker drone had risen to life, this one coming from her two o’ clock – moving fast. Tentacles curled around from a bisection wound, encircling and augmenting limbs.

It was here now and the woodcutter’s ax was already swinging down like a crooked guillotine. Leg restrained, she threw up an arm to block the swing.

It chopped her gun‍-​arm clean off, precious oil spurting out the end.

By now the first shambler had almost closed the distance, and three times was enemy action; she knew there would be a fourth coming for her. N’s last kill‍ ‍—‍ so it’d be coming from behind her.

The captain needed help. «N! To me!»

No acknowledgement. Not again…

J had to start running. But because she couldn’t get a break, the grabber grabbed her tail. This, at least, was a mistake‍ ‍—‍ she stung, and a howl of monstrous pain sung regret.

Still, it was enough to make her stumble. J tumbled beside the ax drone, peg‍-​legs tipping over. Knees scraped across the ground.

«N?» But J had more than her fellow disassemblers to count on, now, didn’t she? «Uzi? I need your help.»

J could tell from a shadow rising‍ ‍—‍ the ax held high for another swing. She only had one other arm. So, would she take it on the arm or the torso?

Then a shink, and bright yellow nanite acid gushed out of ax‍-​drone’s screen. An alien green glyph dissolved with the rest of the drone’s head.

«Yep. Thought you’d never realize.» A broadcast without the signal strength of a disassembly drone. «I’m coming»

Purple hair trailed behind a drone running full speed after the thrown nanite stinger, dodging the risen workers. A lunge planted a leg on the back, and Uzi pulled the stinger free while kicking the drone to the ground.

Uzi had a pair of stylish knee high boots, J noticed.

“Sup, headshot. I interrupted a pretty dramatic showdown with my high school bully for this, y’know.”

J stood up. “Noted. I’ll be sure to land you another meeting posthaste.”

Uzi nodded, then glanced at the drone melting beneath her. J could see the exact moment her world‍-​model integrated the last few seconds. “Did I just…”

“Angst about it when you aren’t on the clock, Uzi. We’ve got three hostiles inbound. Cover me while I feed.”

“I—I’ll get them to stand down. Since they, uh, came here to save me.”

J updated her HUD. Two risen workers in the direction of the spire: the insistent grabber and the distant one N threw. J pointed Uzi at the grabber, nearest in that direction.

Then her one arm transformed into a submachine gun aimed at the last worker down the furrow‍ ‍—‍ first shambler she spotted, now lunging for them. Flaps of flesh flared behind it, like if a flower were wings. Small things, malformed and convulsing.

If Doll was far away, distracted by N (hopefully) or in the spire (worst case scenario), at least her tele‍-​shield would be out of the picture.

J sent a spray of bullets. Blocked. Disappointing, even when half‍-​expected‍ ‍—‍ except the glow wasn’t Doll‍-​red. A blue aura gripped the lead.

Tuck away that observation for later, not now.

A wrench’s head telescoped out as it swung. Duck under it, rise, then J axe‍-​kicked the shambler. Its own wrench hit itself with a clank.

Gun to tri‍-​blade claws, she sunk them into the metal‍-​meat of the drone Uzi took down. Run to the right, climbing the snow bank. Higher ground, and no drones in this direction. J bit, ripping chunks out of the drone, slurping the oil as quickly as she dared.

“There’s an aftertaste,” J said.

“Is that really what you’re worrying about, right now?” a distant worker replied between grunts. At the sound, J looked up.

Uzi struggled. She ducked under a hammer‍-​swing only to take a pickax to the torso. Faltering, her grip on V’s stinger loosened, but the wire was wrapped around her hand. The two drones had mouths gaping wide, drooling, and the glare of harsh blue light reflected on Uzi’s scuffed screen.

J needed to help, but how? Bullets were nothing. RPG launcher? No way they could block an explosion. But no, that risked friendly fire.

The assault sent Uzi backing away‍ ‍—‍ a terrible tactic, when the drone J kicked was fast approaching from behind, wrench opening wide.

“Hey uh, Makarov, was it? I don’t think killing me is very uh, worker‍-​defending of you. The exact opposite, really,” Uzi said, back up further. “Is this about Todd? I get that’s probably hard to forgive, but…”

No, Uzi wasn’t just struggling. She was indecisive.

J swapped her hand for a lasso, twirled it and looped around Uzi’s neck. She put all the force of a special disassembly function behind her pull. Uzi was reeled onto the snowbank with her.

Investors, Uzi’s smell was so strong right here. Covered in oil, her own oil, the aroma of helpless prey, and J was still so thirsty. J had her choice of three wounds to drink from‍ ‍—‍ or should she open another?

Snap out of it. Focus. You’ve got a job to do, J.

“Uzi, you’re hesitating. You’ve got V’s stinger, use it.”

“Easy for you to say. Those are my dad’s buddies.”

“No. We killed them. They’re just shells for the AbsoluteSolver now.” J dropped the corpse, and pumped acid to keep it down. She’d gotten at least some oil out of it. She knew where she could get some more, though. Head shake. Resist while you still can. “Don’t think of it as killing, think of it as reminding them they’re dead. Halt your worries.”

J slid down the snow bank, Uzi behind her. J took the hammer‍-​drone; Uzi took the pickax drone. Heavy downswing. J caught it with a sword blade‍ ‍—‍ but it kept pushing, and J’s buckled under the weight.

“Doll was right, you really are out of it, J.” Uzi dashed past her drone as soon as it committed to an attack. Holding the nanite stinger underhanded, she stabbed in the back.

Instead of falling down, J turned that buckling into a falling flip, legs kicking for an uppercut. A visor crack. “Three fights in a row with nothing but small oil breaks in between. A lesser drone would have collapsed after half what I’ve been through.” J broke her fall with her only hand, and threw herself back to a stand with a one‍-​armed pushup.

“I’ve been with you through all of them,” Uzi said. “So thanks for the compliment.” She flashed a >:3

“Focus on the fight, Uzi.”

By this point, Uzi and J are back to back as the zombie drones circle around them. The mangled metal at J’s back was useless except as obstruction, reminding J of her insufficiency, the easy tactical retreat now impossible. An angel with broken wings, J was grounded; she could only defend Uzi and hope to see this through.

Both of them operated bodies full of cracks, weeping oil and faltering servos.

But it would take more than a couple zombie drones to stop the most effective disassembly drone in this sector, J told herself.

The shambling mass against them swung weapons or lashed out with snarling mouths. J blocked the attacks; Uzi kept up a counteroffensive. Between V’s nanite acid and J’s mighty strikes, attrition was eating the zombies‍ ‍—‍ but not quickly enough. What was the situation back at the spire?

“I swear it feels like this battle has dragged on forever,” Uzi said, injecting enough acid to disable a zombie’s leg permanently. Then, a lightbulb icon. “Wait. J, I figured out Doll’s plan.”

“Hard not to, what with them currently circling around us.”

“No, J, the sun rises soon. Stalling us out is her advantage.”

Everything clicked. “Of course,” J said. “What have they put in the oil to make workers so damn cunning…”

“AbsoluteSolver,” Uzi quipped.

“Hmph.” J slashed out with a blade, taking out a zombie’s arm. Payback. Nice and satisfying.

Where was J’s arm? She needed to reattach it‍ ‍—‍ her systems wouldn’t regenerate it, not with her oil reserves so light.

“So,” J started. “We need to end this quickly. I’m liable to overheat, and you’re just a worker drone. Any bright ideas?”

“Bright? If this works, it’s going to be blinding.” Uzi reached into her bag, and to buy her drone space to work, J swung one zombie bodily into another. She clutched V’s stinger like a key. “What do you think happens when nanite acid hits one of JcJenson’s infamously explosive power cores?”

Ah, yes, Uzi still had one left.

J smirked. “And after that?”

>;3

---

As soon as N was back online, hunting routines were primed to fire. He’d been attacked, just before he fell. Part of him was raring to get back to battle.

“Keep brawling me, if you like,” said one worker drone to another. “But I think your precious murder drone is getting tired.”

Then the good worker drone raced off to go help J. The distance, the snow and fog, it left a hint of doubt‍ ‍—‍ but resolving optics only increased his certainty. The slaughtered drones had risen, somehow, and shambled all along the furrow between Uzi and J.

J won’t be proud of my kills at all, then, he thought.

N stood. Two problems gnawed, and indecision tore at him. Here, Doll advanced toward the spire. There, the workers overwhelmed J.

N had failed to fully shut down the workers, he should rectify that, but J had given him orders, hadn’t she? Stop Doll. But once again, every path forward felt wrong.

Still, since there was no one else here to deal with Doll, N leapt.

J’s engineering had kept the spire mostly intact, but inevitably debris fell to mechavalanches and weathering. Scrap lay littered around spire, and as she walked, the drone had to step over it.

N, however, could just fly. Once more, he interposed himself between Doll and the spire.

Once more, indecision gnawed. Doll was a threat, a worker, and he had orders. Doll could talk, would talk, and this could end in peace. Doll had betrayed him without a hint of guilt. Doll didn’t sound monstrous‍ ‍—‍ beneath the flat affect and deception, this worker had sounded so hurt.

Yet she chose to come to the spire, invite their wrath‍ ‍—‍ they needed to defend themselves. A >< blinked on N’s visor and was gone just as fast. Indecision gnawed. Thoughts vacillated, and N was tired of the headache. Why couldn’t this just be simple? Everything was simple when he closed his eyes, but what if he opened them and V and J were gone? Back and forth, back and forth. Back and—

And then, N forked. A cross in one eye, pupil in the other.

Then both threads paused‍ ‍—‍ a great conflagration of glowing light was erupting from the furrow.

Bodies flew in arc, singed by the heat. Five bodies‍ ‍—‍ J and Uzi among them. J’s twisted wings glimmered in the light, and the only look on her face was a screenful of critical errors.

She shielded Uzi from the blast. Together, they fell. The impact parted them, bouncing and scraping across the ground. The twice‍-​dead WDF sat unmoving. Uzi, too, was still, but J had a disassembler’s fortitude. Armless, she crawled twitching across the ground, toward Uzi, and then draped herself over the worker, as if to shield or hold her.

N watched it all fall apart with both eyes hollow.

Doll watched it with a smirk. “Seems Doorman blew herself up again. Your teammate made poor choice of ally.” Doll turned back to N, raising her remaining arm in clear aggression. “You are the last murder drone able to fight. Do you fear? Do you dread?”

N did fear. He also wanted to tear his prey apart. Gnawing and vacillating.

N sagged there, arm lowering, held up only by the floating knife. He just looked at Doll, begging her to reflect. “Doll. Is there anyone more important than your vengence, anyone you still care about?”

At that, Doll paused. She glanced down. She opened her mouth, and then closed it. For once, her eyes lost their centers. She glanced up with a jolt, as if fearing a surprise attack from that moment of weakness.

Or was that a nod? Either way, this reaction almost seemed confirmation. Had he gotten through to her? Was it empathy that forged her hesitation?

N didn’t smile, but his frown lifted. N reached out a hand.

Bang.

A sequence of images passed through N’s eyes. A hole boring through Doll’s visor. The prey falling over. Uzi, standing behind her. More prey presenting itself for him. A visor winking >;3. Fellow hunter J’s severed gun‍-​arm still smoking.

N looked aghast. “Uzi? Why! She was coming around!”

“We gave her way too many chances. Too little, too late.”

He cast eyes down to the fallen cheerleader, expression wavering. Behind him, his chassis itched, and he pulled out her knife, slick with his oil, but he knelt to place it by its owner. The battle ended how it began: with a pang of sadness, a sense of missed potential.

The worker sighed. “I get it, N. I really do. I had to do things I’m not proud of to win this battle. But we won. We did it! A three boss gauntlet and I beat it first try.” It ended with a laugh, shaky and manic all in one.

N didn’t know what these ‘bosses’ were, but he heard things I’m not proud of. “You knew those drones, didn’t you?”

The mania guttered away in seconds, a candle extinguished. Uzi looked down. “Yeah. I’m just glad… only four of them. Could have been… could have been worse.”

When N leapt forward, the worker flinched backward, but N wrapped her up into a hug. He was bigger, taller, but that meant more of him to enwrap and squeeze.

“Wha— oh.”

“Is this okay? It seemed like—”

“Yeah. …Thanks.”

It was awkward, but she threw her arms around his waist in turn, clung back. They’d won. V was okay.

Don’t think about how you can smell her oil. Don’t.

«Hands off the worker, N. Now!»

N startled back. There, staggering down the furrow, came a drone, office suit ripped open and flapping, exposing a battered chassis. Yellow eyes glared, only interrupted by flickering errors. Her pigtails weren’t twins, now‍ ‍—‍ one was singed in half.

Oil covered her face. Not her own: her arm held a dismembered torso.

J was okay.

She finally crossed the furrow, pegs scraping the ground more than they lifted. She regarded N for a long moment, cold analysis writ on battle‍-​worn features.

“I don’t know what Doll would have done, had she reached V to carry out her plan. I don’t know what other tricks she might’ve pulled out. I don’t know‍ ‍—‍ and now we don’t have to find out. Only one thing stood between Doll and V‍ ‍—‍ you, N.”
J paused, exhaust cycling in and out, impossible to tell if she couldn’t find the words, didn’t want to say them, or it was simple weariness. At length, a new synthesis began. “Keep up the good work, and you might be on track for a promotion.”

N bounced, squeed, and turned to share his excitement with Uzi. The worker, though, had only had eyes for J, and the captain’s next words addressed her.

“Uzi… outstanding performance. Your tactics and quick thinking exceeded expectations and secured our victory, again and again. But you need to get over you hesitation, and listen when I give orders. And don’t use my arm without asking next time.”
J reached out and snatched it from Uzi’s grasp, then worked to undo a sort of tourniquet she’d made with her suit sleeve. “Still… I think you’ve definitely implemented the Cs. Or is it four Cs, now?”

Uzi looked away, seemingly at a loss for what to say‍ ‍—‍ but a blush shone on her visor. Because she looked away, she didn’t see J step closer. The disassembly drone bent down to the worker drone’s height, and the threw her arms around her‍ ‍—‍ though the newly reattached hand flopped inarticulately. J closed the embrace and stood, lifting Uzi up.

J shot a flat look at N over Uzi’s shoulder before closing her eyes, leaning a chin into Uzi.

Aww, cute.

But it was undermined, somewhat, by Uzi beating on J’s back. “Hey! Put me down! Why are you so cuddly all of a sudden?”

“Don’t forget you hugged me first.” But J released the worker, letting her fall to her feet.

“Yeah well, that was for the mission.” Uzi crossed her arms. “If we’re still doing that constructive feedback thing, your hugging could use some serious work.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” J leaned down, glaring at Uzi, and Uzi scowled back.

N chirped a ‘hehe’, drawing both eyes to him. He said, “It means she wants more hugs. Only way to improve, after all!”

“That’s so not what I mean.”

J rolled her eyes. “Enough bonding. The fighting may be over, but our work isn’t done. It’s time to disinfect the dead. N, we need to teach Uzi disassembly protocols.”

N nodded, smile turning serious. “Will we start with disassembly by force, acid, or—”

“By fire,” J said, stepping forward. She looked down. “Starting with—subprime mortgage crash,” J swore. Pupil outlines tracked motion.

N turned. Doll’s body was rising as if puppeted, hand bright. Telekinesis slowly dislodged the bullet from her motherboard, pulling it out of her visor. Shattered plastic moved like a smoothed out cloth, mending the hole. When free, the bullet rotated, pointing toward Uzi. J was already moving, hand transforming. The bullet flew forward‍ ‍—‍ and J sliced it in half.

Before either disassembly drone could counterattack, a veil of static fell over the worker drone. Then she was gone, but for a single frame, her screen flicked.

Yellow eyes blazed like burning stars.

(N found something oddly familiar about it.)

---

Khan Doorman had come to bury the dead.

Every step came as if to the beat of a dirge, the howl of distant winds a threnody. Planet and moon and fading stars lit the night from across a great void. No roof, and despite the human buildings still striving to remain upright, the gaps between them and the space around them denied any analogy to walls. Khan was outside the bunker, moving as a small thing in a world far too vast for what little remained.

Empty space hung over an empty world, all vestiges of life draining out from it. No, not drained. They were being sucked out.

With every step, images flickered through his old processor. The memory of radioactive air stinging the sensors of his exhaust pipe, as thick flakes of snow and not‍-​snow fell. Yeva’s laugh, non‍-​standard in both rhythm and pitch but joyful, giggling at some joke Alek had made. Nori grinning devious, egging them on.

The shadow moving too fast across the ground. The wings like knives, cutting off the starlight. Sickly yellow visor, burning a killing cross.

The panic, the running, the screams starting. Alek’s head cut clean off, thrown to land in front of Yeva. The red‍-​eyed drone tripping over, her baby falling into the snow. Chassis split open, wires and pumping pistons exposed. Cutting, slicing, severing. A butchery.

Doll watching it all, so quiet Khan thought she was already dead.

Nori handing that young drone to him, her screen flashing a purple <3 before she turned to face the murder drone alone. Khan running away, leaving her to her fate.

He had heard the laughing. The cackling as Alek and Yeva fell, as Nori made her last stand. Alek cried out, Yeva screamed, but Nori hadn’t made a sound. Sadism animated the thing, and she wouldn’t give it that satisfaction. One last act of spite.

Doll was in Uzi’s room, now, two untrained neural nets. They’d grow up together, she’d be like a second daughter.

Least he could have done, after failing her parents.

Then Khan had ventured out as the dawn was breaking. Wrench in hand, he’d tightened the bolts on the colony’s doors, prayed they’d hold, and then his feet walked to the beat of a dirge echoing into the cold empty world. He came back to bury the dead.

He expected the bodies of Doll’s parents. He expected Nori’s corpse, but some part of Nori still coursed with electricity, servos twitching, screen glitching as an OS struggled with a profoundly degraded disk.

The murder drone had left her melting alive. Could she have been saved? All he had was the wrench.

Khan didn’t know if Nori was aware of anything, in her last moments. He’d murmured things, things he hadn’t gotten to say‍ ‍—‍ was it better if she never heard them, or never experienced that last agony?

He thought about the past, and all sense of narrative seemed to drain away into those holes in his understanding. Why the core collapse? Why the murder drones? Why Alek, why Yeva, why Nori?

What did Nori want, in the end? What was best for Uzi and Doll? What should he do?

Why, in those moments she thought he wasn’t looking, did Uzi seem so sad, so lost?

Mind burdened with wounds and regret, Khan walked into a world riddled full of holes. He paused his stride, and looked back to the bunker. He could return there, safe and enclosed in walls. What was to be done with a hole? Turn it to a doorway, and close it.

When Khan lifting his gaze to the path ahead, he saw the visor glowing yellow.

He didn’t scream, wouldn’t give it that satisfaction, but he tightened his grip on his wrench, and did what he’d once done‍ ‍—‍ he ran.

The cross had been low to the ground, and with each glance backward, Khan saw it race across the ground, skittering on all fours. The thing didn’t run in a straight line. It zigged, but instead of zagging, it disappeared, and reappeared where he wasn’t looking. Skitter, blink, skitter, blink, closing in.

He expected the end‍ ‍—‍ but he expected gunfire. Instead, a worker’s knife sunk into his back, piercing his oil tank, and he fell over. Turn over, Khan. Look your death in the eye. Raise your wrench and do something for once.

He saw purple hair and he hesitated.

It didn’t hesitate. A wet maw chased the smell of oil, claws dig into his chest.

Khan didn’t do anything. But they both hear the hiss of metal on metal‍ ‍—‍ wings opening and cutting off the starlight.

Above, silhouetted against the predawn sky, a murder drone descended. The skittering thing was off him faster than it’d come‍ ‍—‍ but not with motion. A wave of static, and the thing disappeared.

Khan had left the bunker door open‍ ‍—‍ the master key hadn’t been there when he went for it.

Now toward it he ran, each step to the beat of a terrible crescendo. Fleeing the death from on high, seeking the open door. He could already feel the lives of all those that depended on him draining out of the world. Wind blew against him.

If this world still held any miracles, that Khan did not stumble would be one more of them. Walls of Outpost‍-​3 now on both sides. He was tumbling onto a grilled floor, cards littering the ground. He smashed a button on a remote control, and Door 1’s hydraulics smoothly brought it to a close. If only Uzi were here to see it.

He glanced at the white board, still on the ground. It had tallied days since murder drone casualty, but now it lied. Years were erased in one night.

Why Todd, why Makarov, why Braxton, why Lars? Why Doll, and why, oh why Uzi?

They’d marched to their deaths, and Khan had done nothing. He wasn’t enough, wasn’t ever enough.

The door’s hydraulics stopped.

But the door hadn’t closed.

Claws of terrible strength had interposed between the top and bottom, and counteracted all the force the hydraulics could bring to bear. And they pushed, and heaved open the door.

The hole in Outpost‍-​3 widened, letting in the void.

Failsafes engaged, and the mechanisms disengaged to prevent damage‍ ‍—‍ the murder drone had won against his engineering. It stood there, yellow eyes peering into his sanctuary, and its arms carelessly deposited some spoil from its hunt.

Rendered to near‍-​tatters with claw marks and knife wounds and bullet holes, blackened with oil and dirt, Khan almost didn’t recognize the beanie, the coat, the boots‍ ‍—‍ but he’d recognize those purple eyes, couldn’t forget them.

“Uzi?”

“There, I’ve secured an ingress.”

Uzi glared up at her captor. “You realize I had a key, right? You’re just showing off.” Uzi waved the master key Khan had been looking for. Where did she…?

The murder drone flipped one of its pigtails and stalked forward. Then it looked down, as if at a piece of trash. Above a mouth fang‍-​ringed and hungry, yellow eyes gave cool regard. “You, toaster, have you seen an insufferable bully come through here? We’re here to deliver a notice of termination. About this hight, purple hair, orange eyes‍ ‍—‍ or I suppose yellow, now. Wonder what that’s about.”

It talks…?

Khan said nothing, and backed away. Still on the ground, crawling. His oil dripped out, doubtlessly enticing the thing.

“Useless. As expected.” Then hand became void became a rifle, barrel pointing right at him. Khan looked upon the familiar sight of imminent death‍ ‍—‍ or would it be near‍-​death? Near‍-​death and he were becoming quite friendly. He wondered if it had anything in common with true death.

Then his daughter was rushing forward, waving a hand in front of the barrel before fully putting herself between them. “Wait, J, no, that’s my dad.”

“All the more reason to shoot.” The murder drone reached out with another hand. When it touched his daughter, he flinched, but those hands did no damage yet, and simply pushed her. “I’m getting quite tired of you thinking you can tell me who I can and can’t kill, Uzi. I’m in charge here.”

“We’re here to kill Doll. That’s all we need to do, that’s all we came here for. Please, J. You let me live, what’s a few more drones?”

Uzi was reaching out for the murder drone. What was she doing? Didn’t she know how much danger she was in? Or was this…

Khan wanted to scold her, warn her, say something, but he hadn’t found more of his voice.

“Do you know why I let you live, Uzi? I think long‍-​term. You living means more worker drones die. You’re a wonderful resource.” She clapped her hands together, smiled momentarily and then letting it drop, revealing a flat, withering look. “For now. But please, neither of us want what I’ll be forced to do, if I can’t make that calculation in good faith.”

Uzi flinched back, finally putting distance between them.

Processing those words… If Khan’s eyes could hollow further, they’d have lost all width. He stared, open‍-​mouthed shock becoming words. “Uzi… you brought a murder drone here?”

But Uzi didn’t turn back, still staring at the murder drone. As if finally seeing it for what it truly was. “J… none of it meant anything, did it? Everything we did… everything I did for you… and I’m still nothing more than a number in a spreadsheet balance.”

Uzi’s head hung, no will left to hang it up.

The murder drone had pupils lined with worry, as if in cruel imitation of an expression. But its words came out with a venom, and the torment of this subtlety was surely a rival for Nori’s butchery. “Is this really how you want to die? Throwing everything I’m giving you all away for a deadbeat who never did anything for you?”

Khan knew Uzi’s temper, could hear her scowl in the groan she synthesized, the arm she threw forward, finger pointing. “Is this how you want to live, J? Selling out everything for a company that couldn’t care less? How many times do I need to save your life before it counts for anything next to the humans who threw it away!”

“Even if I gave my two week’s notice, do you think we could stop killing? We’re made to consume workers, Uzi, it’s how we’re manufactured.”

“Not these workers. Please. Let’s… just go back to the spire.” Her head fell again. Uzi stepped forward‍ ‍—‍ no! don’t get closer‍ ‍—‍ but it didn’t budge.

The murder drone laughed, a strained sound. “Remember Doll’s plan? Do you want to give her a victory? The sun is rising and I can’t make it back to the spire with these reserves, not in the light. I counted on a refill, and an empty colony to recharge in.”

“Why, J? Why did we have to chase after Doll now, if you need oil so badly?” Still not lifting her head, Uzi held it in two hands.

“Why leave work unfinished?”

“Why is work the thing you care so much about? Why? Robo‍-​god damn it! J… you kind of suck.” Uzi looked up at the looming murder drone. Khan could see the reflection of angry purple on that pristine visor. “You’re lonely, but I’m not sorry for you. It’s your own fault! Was today the first time you said something nice to N? The first time you listened to V? One of your teammates just got reduced to scrap and puppeted by a world‍-​devouring robo‍-​demon and the other has no clue what’s even going on‍ ‍—‍ but no, you had to run off because your frickin job is more important than keeping around anyone to do it with!”

“I think long‍-​term! Is it my fault I’m the only one who sees the big picture? If you’re so worried about V, how do you think she’d going to restore herself to an effective operating state‍ ‍—‍ she already cleaned out our oil stockpile. She needs me to clear this colony. What was the word she used? Drought. I feel it too, we all do, I just keep my composure.”

Uzi stood there, wordless except for some muttering, searching for another argument.

The murder drone’s stare narrowed until it was a blink. An exhalation of exhaust like a tired sigh. So much cruel artifice. Pupils opened again to a glare. Now, its expression was mercifully empty of any pretense of warmth. “I’ve suffered enough backtalk out of you.”

“J—”

“No. I’ve made my decision. I will get the job done. You have five seconds to make yours. After that, I kill every worker in front of me. Figure out where you stand. Five.”

Uzi glanced backward at Khan.

“Four.”

He expected tears, maybe, or even a painful <3. Instead, three words. Sorry and Remember me

“Three.”

Uzi had the master key to the colony’s doors‍ ‍—‍ she tossed it back to him now, spinning through the air then sliding across the grilled floor.

“Two.” But then the murder drone saw the motion, realized what was happening, and gave up counting.

The murder drone lunged forward like his death‍ ‍—‍ but Uzi was still between it and Khan. It fell on top of his daughter. Khan watched.

It snarled rage.

“You could have made a good disassembler, Uzi.”

The murder drone lifted its tail tipped bright yellow, so much like a scorpion’s stinger.

He’d had one foot in memory reconstructions ever since he stepped out of the bunker. It was all too much was like that night. Again and again, the past devouring the present

Khan watched the winged void drain away another drone. Another woman dying to save his pathetic life. Just like that night, Khan did nothing.

No, he wouldn’t do nothing.

He pressed a button and he closed the door, lest anything else fall through the hole in the world.

It closed like the lid of a coffin.