All winds carried a sense of loss. Air would flow into any free space it could – so every gust that moved did so to fill an emptiness.

Above Serial Designation N, the spire swayed.

Little drafts sometimes snuck through long, winding cracks. Compressed plastic and sludged semi-liquid filled the walls, but not completely. Between the walls, their lair yawned vastly enough that some spots got perceptibly hotter or colder, letting air circulate.

Weather on Copper-9 could get extreme, but the corpse spire kept them sheltered. So sure, N was used to the occasional breeze, gust, or even a zephyr. When N listened – audials still tuned to a high sensitivity – he was used to hearing air outside at times whistling, whooshing, even wuthering.

Right now, the spire swayed, and the winds howled.

Storms put N on edge, so he snuggled closer to V. This close, he heard the sound of her exhaust cycling in and out, as loud as the air battering their walls. Still a bit rough, even now. She was hurt, damaged enough her vents wheezed faintly. But at least she breathed.

Her oil levels left her temperature feverish, and N slipped off his jacket, letting exposed metal radiate heat. A reminder of his own reserves – not the highest, unfortunately! He hadn’t drunk from any of the WDF drones himself, instead feeding one whole body and head’s worth of another to V. The rest went into their poor, ransacked mess pit. But one look at V – even J, earlier – and he’d known he’d gotten off easy tonight.

Thump… Clack. Crash! The spire’s movements grew more intense high above them. Fragments came dislodged. Like this, the windstorm yielded rain: dust and debris fell upon them.

A whole severed hand plunged down, aimed right for V’s visor, but N reached out to catch it before it hit her.

V smirked. “Heh. Up already, N?”

“Hard to sleep when everything’s falling apart,” he said. “Err, that sounds dramatic. Things’ll be okay. It’s just…”

“Nah, you’ve got it right. Pile’s bending like crazy. It better not fall.”

N scratched the back of his head. “I’m sure the corpse wall thingy will hold. J built it, and she’s good at what she does.”

“No, we built this spire.” The roughness in her voice wasn’t just from injury. “All J did is push around some numbers and take credit.”

N frowned. “Wait, where is J?”

“How am I suppose to know? Last I saw she was running of to fight some ‘Doll.’”

“Yeah, a kinda spooky worker drone attacked us. We murdered her, and then she kind of came back to life? So J and her worker chased after her. I’m still kind of sad about it,” he said. “Doll seemed to really have it out for you specifically. Do you know why?”

“I killed her parents or something.” V shrugged underneath him. “She’ll have to get in line.”

N nodded slowly. “That explains it. And… I get it. I kinda wanted to fight workers for the same reason,” he said, leveling a significant look at V before glancing away.

“What? Am I your mommy, then?” V smirked.

N reeled back. “Not what I meant!”

She just wheeze-laughed at him.

That lasted until the spire groaned, and a whole body dropped from above, landing not far from them.

N sat up, looking around. “The timing of this is… worrisome, isn’t it?”

“What’s worrisome about it? Did the toaster cult figure out weather control while I was out?”

“No, but… it’s gotta be tricky to fly in weather like this, and J still isn’t back.”

“If she’s as smart as she thinks she is, she wouldn’t be cutting a mission this close two nights in a row. Now lay back down, I need a body shield.”

Golden eyes looked back unamused, but N shrugged and complied. V didn’t put her arms around him, but he felt her body shifting to cradle him. Her core beat with steadier thumps than it had earlier, and his exhaust continued to cycle. Drones didn’t need to breathe, and might go hours without cycling air – especially once they winded down to recharge. Of course, V needed all the cooling she could get at the moment.

But N couldn’t focus on her breathing, not anymore. He listened to the winds howl. Storms put him on edge, and he’d rather take his mind off it – but what about J? Where was she? Was she okay? Was there anything he could do?

He listened to the wind. Vocalsynths could use air exhaust for amplification (that was how humans talked, right?), so it sometimes felt like every wind carried some vague tease of meaning.

N had denoising algorithms, capable of speech recognition even at abominable bitrates. There was fun to be had in denoising even meaningless sounds. Not unlike tracing shapes in clouds. Like with cloudwatching, the meaning that came out of it mostly amounted to the thoughts already priming your neural network.

If N listened to the wind and heard a voice, it’s because words were already on his mind – and had been ever since he woke up. And they weren’t the words he’d exchanged with V.

Things were falling down, and that troubled him.

All winds carried a sense of loss. These were powerful winds, and something important was missing.

N stood up. V hadn’t put her arms around N, so there was no resistance. Well, not physical resistance.

V frowned beneath locks of white hair. “N? Where are you going?”

“I have to… I don’t know.” They’d won, yet it felt like things were falling apart. What could he do? “I don’t know where J is, and I’m worried. So I guess I want to…”

“The sun’s already rising. Nothing you can do now.”

“I know but… what if she needs help?” What if she’s falling?

“You have no idea where she went. Nearest toaster colony is a mile away. Nothing you can do, just… just let it go.”

N turned around, took a step forward. “I won’t go far. I just want to…” fulfill a promise “…check. See if I can spot her flying back?”

V narrowed her eyes. “You’re risking your life. For J. She’s not worth it.”

“She’s our leader!” N was shooting a glance backward, arms thrown out in exasperation.

“And she’s a shitty leader. Did you forget that just yesterday she left you to die? She would straight up kill you herself if she thought the company would let her. That’s a quote. She hates you, N. Not worth it.”

“She told me I did a good job today. Maybe she’s been kinda mean to me in the past, but it doesn’t have to always be that way.”

N took another step, then looked down and saw his bare torso. He forgot his jacket! So he turned around to see the other disassembler’s gaze prickling with familiar shades of is your name even worth remembering irritation.

Rolling her eyes, V said, “Do you think one day is going to change what she’s been like for years? She’ll be riding your ass next week like nothing’s changed. Bet on it.”

“Don’t you care that she might be in danger?” If his expression so far had been imploring and considerate, now he frowned, now he narrowed his eyes.

V blew a lock of hair out from her eyelights, and said nothing. It was an answer. His face fell as he crossed the distance.

Reaching down to grab his jacket, N bounced with a realization. “Actually, wait, you’re wrong! Yesterday you were offline–”

“Her fault, by the way.” V stabbed a claw-blade into his jacket, impatience still written on her face. Now if he pulled, it’d be ripped.

“–the sun was going to kill you, but she did everything she could to carry you back safely. If you were right, why wouldn’t she leave you to die?”

“’Cause I’m better than you.” Then V froze and eyes emptied. She removed her claw from the jacket. “That’s not what I meant to say. I don’t–”

Grimacing, N broke eye contact. “No, J probably agrees. But still. She saved you. And you can’t repay the favor, not right now, but maybe I can, for you. Shouldn’t I?” Finally, N pulled his jacket back to him, slipping arms through it.

“If you’re going to do… whatever this is, you aren’t doing it for me. I still want a mutiny.” V crossed her arms. She leaned back on the pile of scrap, staring at the ceiling.

N turned around again, and walked away.

Behind, V wheezed a sigh. “What’s this really about, N? You’re convinced this is going to make a difference, somehow. Why?” Her voice sounded strained. And not just from strenuous amplification.

Pausing his stride, N thought about it. What imagined voice had he caught on the wind? What had primed his neural network? “Because…. I made a promise. A long time ago. I remember that.”

“You… remember.” V took a deep breath. Long enough N thought it was sarcasm, but she continued. “It was before, wasn’t it? It’s her, isn’t it? Don’t trust it, N. Please. You don’t know what I’ve– You don’t know.” V sat up halfway, peering into his golden eyelights.

“V, If you know more than me, can’t you just tell me? Maybe we each only have pieces, but we could figure it out together.”

“I…” Then a guilty cringe, and now V broke eye contact.

N stood, waiting for more, but only heard the wind. He charted his path through the vast space of the spire, stepping over new bits of debris. Halfway to the archway, he heard a creaking, amplified voice.

“All that thing tells you is what you want to hear. Whatever’ll make you go along with it. You’re being manipulated. And you don’t care, do you?”

“I do care, V. About all of us. Not… not just you.”

And then a shuddering sound. A sigh made rhythmic from blocked vents, or a laugh. Or more wind. But either way, air only flowed where there was something missing.

He’d make it up to V soon. He wasn’t mad – frustrated, disappointed, maybe, but the only thing to blame here was whatever has V so scared, not her.

N didn’t know if she really liked hugs, or tolerated them for his sake, but he’d do something to make her smile again.

Were the winds louder? Well, he was getting closer to the exit, so the signal in his audials had greater amplitude, but did the spire sway more? Dust and debris and some congealed oil droplets still rained down – and by now, you’d think all the easily dislodged bits would've fallen already.

A few layers of tarp draped the archway, hooked secure at the base. They fluttered, but held fast and no light pierced the darkness. N knelt down to unhook them, and unveiled the world outside.

N checked the time – 6:02. The wrong side of twilight. The sun would crest the eastern mountains, and blinding rays would carve away all safety except ever-shortening shadows.

The wind whipped the newly unsecured tarps inward.

It was dark outside.

Not night-dark – he could see a bluish-purple sky above, lit by the burning orange sun in the east. But as he watched, the sky didn’t brighten, it occluded.

Above, clouds flew in, a sky full of silver-lined wings closing in embrace. The sun’s angle lit them from beneath, casting odd and stark shadows. Flashes came as they moved, but N suspected visual artifacts. Was lightning ever purple?

Those clouds weren’t the only wings, nor the only flight, nor even the only thing bright. A distant silhouette caught his eye, and optics zoomed and enhanced.

N saw J.

A hundred meters up and falling, his burning wreck of a captain left a smoking trail, tracing her descent. A hunting cross flickered on her visor, and what would she be hunting?

N started running.

In between curls of smoke, the worker he’d fought beside was torn in two, oil dripping down. Not raining, not spilling, but the last drops fell.

A flurry of motion impossible to parse at this distance. But for one moment, a second visor was alight with three prongs. Limbs swung and thrashed – were they fighting, or grasping for each other? Winds tugged at the airfoils of J’s feathers, spinning her.

Through or despite her efforts, J let go of Uzi.

J’s arc continued as a tumbling descent. Ninety meters.

Uzi’s, though, did not. A bright glow at her hands, her form was clad in a soft violet aura.

She hung in the air and it was so achingly familiar. And the words he remembered became so clear.

Catch me when I fall again, big brother.

Projections danced by the worker’s hands, and her hair stood on end, her locks rising gently like a ring of purple feathers. That three pronged symbol appeared above her head, several times larger and spinning just as it did between her fingers – like an angular halo.

The clouds closed across the sky like a curtain.

Purple lightning crackled.

N was already in the air, already rising on bladed wings, already burning oil to fly faster and faster. J fell, and Uzi floated for but a moment, and then the light flickered away, again so familiar, and this time the ground was so much farther below her.

Between the earlier chaos of limbs and all the different forces involved, their trajectories had diverged. Still, both careened toward the spire. N had first spotted them hundreds of meters out, but J must have been going at record speed. That momentum stayed with them even now.

Maybe they would have crashed halfway back to the spire. But with the wind? It changed things. Storm winds would be too wild to predict – and these were faster still.

It might’ve taken minutes to cross the distance, but taking advantage of the wind, N could rise faster, and they would fall slower. He just might make it.

But he could only catch one of them. J was eighty meters up and still accelerating; Uzi had only started to drop from ninety.

As always, every path forward was wrong. The two options tore at him. And you can’t fork a body.

N knew why he came out here: to save his captain. Sixty five meters.

But was that the promise he made? He felt the pull, the same ephemeral, imploring sense that had woken him up. Somehow, he knew what it meant. He was supposed to catch the worker.

But any rational assessment – J would want a rational assessment – would note that he had known J for years, to say nothing of his responsibilities, his mission, his purpose. He didn’t know Uzi at all. (So why did this all feel familiar? Why won’t V tell him anything?)

Short hair waved behind him, and his jacket clung tight to his form. N tilted his wings and refined his course, angling for J. Sixty meters. But that wasn’t the relevant measure, when he was closing in.

Then, one more doubt struck.

The worker meant something to J. J had carried her. If N let her fall to her death, could that be anything but a failure?

After all, the rational assessment changed when you factored in a certain detail.

Disassemblers regenerated. Workers didn’t. Right?

But N saw her ripped in two – and that chassis stitched itself back together. N saw their last ounces of oil drip down – and now there was blood.

N rose, head still looking between J and Uzi. J or Uzi?

Then N thought of still one more thing. A memory, an idea.  Maybe it was impossible, but maybe he could just barely thread the needle. No pun intended.

J’s voice had been droll when she said, the implicit try to keep up, moron-bot barely restrained – but J had been trying.

“Utility transformation preset number seventeen. You may recall this is what we use all the time to transport bodies?”

She had demonstrated, and now N mirrored her, replacing his arm with a clamp bearing a tightly wound loop of rope.

N tried to weave together a plan, each second measured in meters fallen. Catching J like this would be impossible. Even if N could speed-tie a lasso or something, they were two fast moving bodies, and the air itself would betray them.

But that didn’t mean it couldn’t do anything.

Besides, saving herself is more J’s style, anyway.

N rose, even as J fell. He turned, wings cutting, parting a blasting flow. The air felt so heavy, when you went this fast.

Unfurling, the rope waved madly in the air. One end still clamped to him, the other became a seeking tentacle.

N flew past J, and shouted at her. “J! Catch!”

Could she even understand him, deep in hunting mode, cooked beyond overheating, processor more errors than logic?

A head crowned in burning pigtails turned to him.

The rope waved this way and that, drifting out of reach, but fast enough that the opportunity came again and again.

One more problem, though – J had been tearing the worker apart. Her hands were still claws. She’d shred the rope. She didn’t have the energy left to transform.

So J bit into it.

N laughed. It worked! It worked! But he wasn’t done yet.

This close to J, he wasn’t far from Uzi.

As she fell, purple hair stood straight like blades of grass – her beanie was gone, and her jacket was but tatters, little more than a sleeve on either arm. Her limbs flailed, and she screamed.

N wanted two hands for this, so he bit into the rope himself, and then went back to a hand.

And then their savior burned just a little bit more oil, and flew toward the worker, forty meters above the ground.

So focused on catching J, N missed it. Maybe his visibility metrics had dipped a bit, maybe his temperature readings hadn’t risen as fast as he expected. But undistracted now, he noticed the droplets. He noticed he was wet.

As he cut away at the distance between them, he was halfway there when a dam broke in the heavens above. Lightning and wind and now, finally, a cool downpour.

As rain fell, N caught Uzi.

“There we go,” he said. And if his voice was more of a yelp than calm reassurance, well, you could hardly hear him over the wind anyway.

The worker writhed in his arms for a moment, claws – claws!? – digging into his chassis.

Then a heavy jerk on his head – the rope pulled taut, and J’s weight yanked him down. Rain was falling on her and it extinguished her flames.

In turn, N pulled, and he flexed his magic flight powers. They had transported bodies all the time, after all. This was a familiar strain. The worker still struggled.

“Um, Uzi? Calm down, I’m not going to hurt you.”

But he’d recognized the symbol. Her screen had been the same as the zombie drones. Did that mean Doll had won? Was Uzi corrupted? What had happened?

A snarl, and by chance, in the struggle, N got a new look at the visor. The purple glyph twitched and tore apart into its red and blue channels.

Purple eyes. Blink. Three pronged glyph. Glitch. Yellow eyes. Blink. An ! error in one eye. Blink. Loading icon.

The screaming hadn’t stopped, but the flailing limbs went slack, and the agonized synthesis started hiccuping under the load.

“Uzi? Y-you in there?” Now he could hold her with only one arm, so the other was freed to tug on the rope, reeling in J like a fish as N turned to descend.

Rain slicked her face – like tears – and matted her hair to her casing.

“N? Am I alive? I think – I’m not supposed to be here. Something is — wrong.” Noise garbled her words, like her voice came from beyond a narrow passage.

“Anything I can help with? It’ll be okay, I’ll make sure.”

The head moved left and right, and the flashing eyes never settled on him. “Where are you? Is J there? It sounds like you’re right beside me but…”

“J’s uh, not doing great at the moment. What do you see?”

“It’s dark? Can’t see much. It’s raining and I’m… on a path? Toward a house? But there’s so many bodies. Are we back at the spire already? But it doesn’t look like – Oh. Yep, those are creepy yellow eyes watching me from the shadows. Of course.”

N nodded. “Of course. Wait, what?”

“Who are you? Say something, I’m not scared of you. Is a that–”

Connection Lost

Reconnecting...

The text only appeared long enough for N to read it.

Then yellow eyes blinked. N startled, nearly dropped her. Just like Doll.  But these eyes didn’t burn, they twinkled with mischief and mirth. "Jumpscare. Giggle. Hello, big brother N. Are you enjoying the show? You did a good job. Headpats."

N furrowed his brow. But at a certain point he had to stop mentally screaming what was happening? and just roll with it.

He spoke slowly. “Thanks? It was nothing, just the right thing to do. Anyone would’ve.”

"Hm, doubtful." A encircled yellow x popped on the screen, but not a hunter’s cross. "We can't stay long. Dramatic sigh. This host has been very naughty. The costs will be dreadful. Be gentle with her, big brother. She's lucky to die."

Connection Lost

Then Uzi’s display settled. A familiar red glow shone back at him.

Sheets of rain crashed and broke, winds roared as they tore at the world, but N heard no more words.

The last waking drone landed, lowering J roughly to the ground. (It was the best he could manage – much gentler than a fall at terminal velocity). No expression on his captain’s face, just an empty gauge. All her optics shone warning-red.

No one was in danger now, and walking cost less oil than flying. It’d be a long trek back to the spire from here, carrying two offline drones, but it had to be done. So N trudged on through the rain. Thunder rumbled above.

Familiar, familiar, familiar.

This was the sort of haul he’d done so many times, just as his directives required. J built the spire, and it was filled with so many visors that looked just the same as Uzi’s:

Fatal Error

Fire crackles and burns.

The world breaks in hot red flickers. The temperature read-out is nothing but letters and stray punctuation. The time on the clock counts backward. This neural network hidden layer weight is Not A Number. Systems shut down one by one by zero. Planning: gone, personhood: gone, prediction: gone. What little remains preserves no line between self and other. I am a light being extinguished in darkness. I am a shadow being erased in radiance. I am – nothing.

A demon tries to fly free but heaven is too bright and it falls back into the pit.

And then a voice and a hope and a thread. A connection. A thing to hold on to.

Rain falls and she is washed clean.

Fire crackles and burns.

Tessa is already awake when J boots up, already gone.  She's back. All of her drones gather by the entrance. J scoffs. “Ugh, another one?” The human steps aside to reveal a drone with purple hair and purple eyes, pouting. J drops a feather duster.

J is cleaning Mistress Louisa’s room and Tessa’s new drone has unraveled some elastic string from her garments. She is fashioning a slingshot and pelting J with an earring. J turns to glare and that drone is laughing and J’s glare falters.

J is kicking N down in the halls, sneering with an insult on her lips – but that drone is in the door way, looking on, disconcerted. J lowers her foot, and N climbs to his feet and J can’t meet the eyelights of either drone.

N is wiping down the paintings in the sitting room. V watches, standing up and starting toward the butler, then loses her nerve and sits back down. She waves, but lowers her hand when N happens to turn around. She calls out, but when he responds with a smile, she can’t muster more than an “um, nevermind.”

Watching that from a balcony, the new drone rolls her eyes, and looks beside her, shooting J a knowing glance. She displays exaggerated flush-lines, eyes becoming hearts, and J snickers. J imitates the bit, drawing extra flush-lines until her screen is overtaken by a heart shaped fake error message. She pretends to swoon and fall. Then J cringes. She’s made a fool of herself – but the other drone is laughing, and that makes it okay.

J is plucking catmint from the small garden outside the manor, making a small bouquet for Tessa’s new drone, same color as her eyes. Then that drone is offering her a breadboard built with handplaced circuits. LEDs light up one by one spelling J is the      best. After a delay, 2nd appears in the middle. J glares and that drone is already running, laughing. J chases her down the hall. She’s blushing.

That drone has stolen one of Master James’s guns, and J is helping her hide from punishment. Tessa is taking that drone offline to tune up her systems, and J is waiting anxiously. N is talking to that drone, and J pulls her away to have her all to herself.

J is melting into the cushions of a sitting chair in the spare lounge, clocked out after a long day. That drone creeps into the room, and jumps onto her lap with a smirk. J punches her weakly and that drone bites her back. The fight continues and neither wins, or they both do. The two are snuggling alone and unbothered. The spare lounge is the only one with a fireplace.

Fire crackles and burns.

J climbs out of the landing pod. It’s her first day on the new world. Her mission is to kill corrupted worker drones, and a horde of them are already shambling in her landing zone. J carves through the crowd, and the rest of her squad is ready on her heels.

But these aren’t worker drones – that stocks-damned symbol is gleaming on all the visors, and the oil gushing has a color. Veins spill across the planet like lichen, and muscles sprout like mushrooms. V fires a flare and points toward the drone at the center of it all, the queen for this hive of infesting ants.

Offline screens pave the way there. J is marching in the lead, and confronts the master with a smug taut. But then her expression falls. Purple eyes are pleading with her, begging her to understand. But her squad is watching, and J has a mission.

That drone is screaming. The scream goes on and on. J can’t stop hearing it. It stutters (synthesis giving way to snaps and pops), and the visor flickers (tongues of noise consuming the image), and J’s acid is melting her from within (the sensation is just like—).

Fire crackles and burns.

Serial Designation J stands before the church she’d lit ablaze. Mass disassembly by flame. They needed to make it back to the spire before the sun. Just have to wait for N and V to wake up, now. But where was V?  Nowhere in the lot around here.

Eyes snap to the burning church. J forgot. V was going to burn alive and it was her fault and –

No.

This wasn’t how it happened. J didn’t forget about V, and she didn’t fight zombie drones on her first night on Copper-9, and every drone in the manor had been worthless except for her.

J was dreaming. What an exhausting memory consolidation. How long has she been asleep?

Electricity crackled and surged, and circuits knitted themselves back together. Five optics light up her headband in sequence. Yellow eyes blink on in the dark.

J couldn’t see, but chemosensors sampled the air. A musty, metallic smell – of metal rusting by the ton. A sour, acidic aroma – old capacitors leaking. Fresh oil had a smell, but cold air neutralized the reactive components, in the process making it useless for their systems. Waste oil didn’t have a smell, but the decay left behind particulates in the air, and it lingered.

The spire had a particular odor, and years had forged a deep association: this was home.

(There were new, contingent notes she couldn’t place. The ozone and petrichor of a rainstorm? A strong, rotten smell?)

J was back, but how? Her memories stopped after a certain point (J was getting far too used to that sensation). She probed the discontinuity. The spire had stood hundreds of meters distant, her temperature had risen to twice the peak normal of operation, Uzi had gone slack in her arms. Uzi.

Focus, J. There were bytes in the database after that, but it was garbled and incomprehensible. Her sensors damaged, her processors damaged, her hardrive damaged. Garbage in, garbage through, garbage out. Though her regeneration, her AbsoluteSolver, could restore anything she had before total disintegration, even after a night (or more?) of consolidation, there was no making sense of any ‘memory’ recorded after her flight failed her.

J stood up, then her legs malfunctioned and she was on the ground. But she remembered Uzi’s first visit, and checked the timestamps. Grossly out of sync. She set it consistent with her motherboard’s time. But the motherboard had been regenerated too.

So J didn’t even know what day it was.

Another attempt at standing, and J wobbled on her peg-legs, arms flailing for a wall to brace herself against. Why was she tripping now? Wasn’t she healed?

Oil reserves sat about about… two liters. Far more than she’d had – meaning she must’ve been fed in her sleep? Embarrassing, but necessary.

No light in here but J’s own visor, and a dead worker, no doubt a meal for her to eat upon waking. J might’ve feasted on instinct – she still remembered her state of utter desiccation – but right now she at least had an oil buffer, and she needed to know what was going on.

As J felt along the walls, her hand brushed past her framed employee of the month awards. Ah, this was her office. That meant the exit should be — there.

Past the curtain, J stepped into the spire. Turning her head, she caught sight of her shoulder – she was indecent!

Of course: her suit wasn’t exactly rated to endure immolation. Still, not as if wear and tear and occasional resistance had never destroyed a disassembly drone’s uniform before. Not after years of intense disassembly work. Their chassis wasn’t special, and using nanites to restore clothing only required an application of the regeneration function. As in most things, J excelled, and V and N struggled to produce results that didn’t fit them worse than off-the-rack thiftwear.

J called upon the special disassembly function…

…and nothing happened.

Repetition proved it wasn’t a fluke – the functions errored out. Error code 16: device busy

J couldn’t go out looking like this, but standing around waiting? While uncertainty gnawed? Both available options rankled. Unless…

Slipping back past the curtain into the dark of her office, J navigated by memory more than echolocation. There was no reason for a disassembly drone to have spare clothes, when they could just regenerate – except near the back of J’s office, she’d left a mannequin.

She had to look her best, after all. So she’d taken detours, when missions saw them clearing out malls and depots. She experimented with giving her skirt a vertical slit by the leg instead of the back; swapping her necktie for an ascot or cravat; tried a vest made of synthetic fresco instead of gabardine. There was only so much she could adjust the fit on her person, so she needed a model. And she hadn’t yet thrown out the fruits of that labor – a fortunate hesitation.

Now though, J didn’t look her best – this was a discarded experiment, so the fit wasn’t bespoke. Then she sighed. Not like my squad will notice.

This time, the suited drone grabbed a branded pen from her cup and a clipboard on her way out. Back in the dim illumination of the main spire, she looked down and stared at the JcJenson logo on her pen for a long moment.

As she walked down the spiral ramp, one arm on the wall for support, her other hand ran through her hair. No hairties – she’d never needed to experiment with her immaculate hair, after all, and thus had no backup. So now, a silver mess fell past her neck.

Descending the ramp, J passed by V’s platform. The drones V had disfigured and turned inside out now had a tarp thrown over them, hidden away. In the alcove where V would hang through the day, a slip of paper was pinned. A photo recovered from a human ruin?

Two dogs running around in a field, tongues lolling out. J raised her eyebrow, but walked on. As it turned out, she didn’t need to walk down the whole ramp. Before she saw them, she heard them.

N sat, back leaned against the wall of the spire – and V leaned against him. The most combative member of the team was grinning, laughing at some joke of N’s. V pointed with one hand.

J got close enough to hear their conversation, and she paused to watch… whatever this was. What was this?

“That one next,” V said, her finger aimed at one of the rocks laid out in front of them.

N reached down to pluck up a smooth white stone. “Okay, this one is marble, I think. You don’t see much of it on Copper-9, so I like to think a human brought it from off-world. Maybe there’s a story to it. I named this guy Mace. But I think my favorite is–”

“N,” J said with a clack of her peg against the platform at the bottom of the incline. Enough of this. “Report.” J clicked her pen, and positioned it over the clipboard.

“J! You’re awake!” Aborting his reach for the next stone, N threw a salute.

“Of course that’s the first thing you say. Not ‘thank you,’ not ‘how are you.’” V spoke without looking her way. She was scooting away from N, crossing her arms.

“Requesting a report is asking how are you. You’d know if you were any good at giving them.” J clicked her pen. Nib retracted.

“Just saying. Maybe he’s earned a ‘please’ after everything he’s done.”

“And I’m asking what exactly he’s done.”

V opened her mouth, but N stepped forward, interposing himself between the two of them.

“I used what you said that day. Utility present #17! I threw you some rope and you caught it, after your flight gave out.”

J’s expression pinched. “And the worker I was carrying? Where is Uzi?” J clicked her pen, nib returning.

“I caught her too, but she–”

“Where?”

“I put her in your room?”

A chopping motion with J’s clipboard hand. “No, I would have seen her. There’s only a dead worker in my office.” Click. Nib gone.

“She… is dead, J. I’m sorry.”

No. She can’t be.

J froze, mouth open but no words coming out. But how was she surprised? It was the logical implication of her memories, her choices – but so was J’s death. If J survived, then surely…

V laughed. “I’m just wondering why we haven’t put her in the mess pit already.”

Click. J leveled a glare at the drone behind N, a digital vein popping. She swapped her hand for – Error code 35: Resource deadlock would occur.

So J crossed her arms. She looked between V’s callous smirk and N’s concern, and J turned around. What she was looking for wasn’t here, anyway.

After she started up the ramp, there was one last question to ask.

“How long has it been?”

“It’s been two days. It was – I was worried. So I’m glad, at least we didn’t lose you both.”

“We? What have you lost?”

J walked a bit faster. It didn’t feel like speedwalking, not when she couldn’t call a special disassembly function for added acceleration. But N didn’t follow her.

At the threshold of her office, J opened the curtain, remembered she couldn’t summon a flashlight preset right now, and pulled the curtain wider, letting in some ambient light. She set her clipboard down.

And she stared. Fatal Error. Very faint. it’d been two days, and backup batteries would be draining.

J had healed. And Uzi hadn’t. Damn V – but if nothing else, this carnage did look fit for the mess pit. J saw her own work – that chest wound, that neck bite, but there were worse injuries she couldn’t account for.

Kneeling, leaning closer, J ran a finger along a crack that bisected her abdomen. Uzi was cold and still. J remembered the whir of her core, how it had whirred faster when– And now there was nothing.

And the smell… she’d sensed it earlier, but dismissed it. (How often did you encounter rot, on a dead planet? It meant nothing to J.)

But that decay actually gave her hope. Worker drones didn’t rot. The WDF had come back to life, Doll had revived herself – why not Uzi?

How did J already miss her? Already feel like there should be someone here, to whom she could complain about V being an insubordinate brat, to crack wise about another daring escape from peril, to hold her after she burned alive.

J wanted more.

She lifted a hand and caressed Uzi’s cool cheek. J tried to smirk, but her lips were unsteady, with something pleading in her gaze. She said, “I’m not letting you get away that easily.”

“Uh huh,” drawled a voice behind her.

The hand jerked back as if touching a stove. A startled disassembler turned around to see another leaning in the doorway.

V said, “Tell me, J. What’s the protocol for handling a superior officer who’s lost their mind? Just asking.”

“Get out.” J stood, her hands clenched at her sides. Error code 4: interrupted system call. She squeezed the pen in her right hand. The metal flexed, but held.

“Hm, sure I will. Just don’t forget what you’re here for, J. Never thought I’d see the day when I’m telling you to focus on the mission.”

“Your legs are working now, clearly. Use them.” J jerked forward on one foot, a twitch that threatened violence.

V didn’t flinch. “I want to see you do it. C’mon.” V pointed at Uzi. “Have you forgotten the methods? I’ll remind you. There’s disassembly by force, by acid, or – well. I bet you wouldn’t want to see fire so soon.”

J was stalking toward her. “I won’t ask again. This is my private office. Out.”

“If you won’t, I’ll do it myself.” V stopped leaning, but the other drone was close enough to see her reflection.

J shoved V back.

“Don’t touch me.” V jabbed a sword toward J’s head. Transformed faster than she expected – but it had been two days.

“Don’t touch her.”

“Why? Do you have a reason beyond spiteful power tripping?”

“She’s mine.”

V laughed, and then glimpsed the anger brimming behind J’s narrowed eyes and bared teeth. “Really. I knew it couldn’t be a good reason, but this? You would never get this bent out of shape over a worker, J. What gives?”

“Uzi had something to contribute. Maybe you didn’t notice, sitting around useless while the effective drones fought for your worthl–” J coughed.

V tackled her to the ground, slamming her head against the floor. “Shut up. That was your fault.”

J swung an arm for V’s head. Error 38: function not implemented. A mere fist punched weakly before V slapped it away.

A sword stabbed, and J’s head leaned out of the way. Her other arm was moving, pushing against V’s torso. It didn’t give an inch.

“You’re – deranged.”

“Just tired of your shit~”

“Your lack of foresight matches your impatience. What do you think happens next, V? What am I supposed to do with you now?”

“Oh I don’t know. You seemed to have some ideas. Did you forget?” V pressed her sword to J’s temple. Empty pupils. Broad smile. “Go on. Tell me again how you’re going to wipe my memory and turn me into a good little drone.”

J squinted. “You’re still hung up about that? N said it’s been two days. You’ve had plenty of time to calm down and correct your behavioral issues.” J brought a hand up to scratch her chin with her right hand, then let the arm sprawl back out.

Error code 39: directory not empty. Good.

V smiled broadly. “Oh, I have calmed down, J. I feel better than I ever have. Lighter. Relaxed. And do you know why? I wondered the same thing. And then the answer came strutting down the ramp. Things were just fine without you.”

“So you’ve been slacking off.”

J still had the branded pen in her right hand. V hadn’t paid attention to that during her monologue, as J shifted it, her chin scratch and casual sprawl disguising the strategic motions.

Now J swung down. The pen cracked open one of V’s optics. She thought, JcJenson’s good for something, at least. Fluid spilled out, V yelped, and it was all distraction enough that a sudden burst of motion sent a writhing V stumbling off her.

After hopping to her feet first, J kicked V in the head, aiming to burst another optic. But V looked up in time to take a peg to the face. She snarled.

In between one frame and the next, V was all leaping vertical motion. A sword slash. The best J’s reaction time could do was put one arm up between the blade and her neck.

J lost an arm – again. The pain ripped a momentary scream from her synth. The arm fell, hit the ground and started crawling back.

V’s leap carried her higher still. She flipped forward and twisted in the air. A stab of her tail anchored her to the low ceiling. Above J, she crawled forward.

All J could do was back up as the intruder trespassed further into her office. Her tail-blade stabbed her discarded arm, hooking it enough to reel it back to her. Some acid squeezed out, but J licked it neutral as she reattached it.

Above her, V cackled. “What’s wrong? Why are you standing around useless? Thought an effective drone would put up more of a fight.”

Error code 66: File descriptor in bad state.

J lifted her two plain fists to shield her head from a coming attack, her legs bending into a combat stance. She looked ridiculous. Like a street brawler. Or a defenseless worker. No match for swords and claws and special disassembly function-boosted strength.

With a smirk, V pounced. With her arms held up to block, V couldn’t just swipe away J’s head, but there was no defense against all the weight of a drone falling upon her.

There was a crash and then J hit the ground.

“If I really wanted to rub it in, I could tell you this is for your own good. That if last week you’d seen what you’re doing now, you’d be horrified. But I really don’t care about any of that. I just want you gone.”

J expected a last stab to punctuate that monologue. But the crash had come before she hit the ground. J had screamed, and the sound carried. So instead:

“Woah, easy now. Back we go.” Two arms wrenched V away, flinging her across the room. As she rolled, N asked, “Why are you two fighting?”

“J wants to put us back under the thumb of that thing.”

J ran a hand through her hair. “She means Uzi. V wants her disassembled, and is throwing a fit because I won’t let go of a valuable asset at the first dip in the market.”

N nodded. He glanced to V. “Uzi did kind of save your life, y’know?”

“Then it’s a shame she’s dead.”

“For now,” J said. “N was there. He saw how little that means.”

N’s eyes brightened. “Do you think she might… come back?”

“I don’t know. I’m trying to figure that out. And someone wants to impede that.”

V growled, “I’m keeping us safe.”

J glanced down to the shed oil on her robes. “Mhmm. I feel so safe.”

“Uh, yeah,” N said. A grimace, a hand scratching behind his hand. “Kind of a bad way to welcome J back, y’know?”

V flipped her head back, one eye squinting. “How are you taking her side in this? Aren’t we…”

“I don’t want anyone to get hurt! And you… you’re hurting people.”

J clapped her hands.  “She’s a mad dog, N. Are you sure I can’t reformat her–”

“Not helping, J. Please.” There was a strain on N’s face, his voice restrained to quiet urging. If it were louder, J swore the right word would be hiss.

J scowled. “Who do you think you–”

V glared “N, do not let her–”

And then they’re both cut off by a sudden growl of frustration. Pulling on fistfuls of hair, N doubled over. Golden eyes, wide and empty, stared at the floor. He breathed inandout, rapid cycling for a moment, and then pulled himself together.

“Can the two of you just stop. For a moment? We’re a team, guys. We’ve always been a team. Can we please remember that?”

V twisted her head away, looking at nothing in particular. “No.  There’s no magic words to make us get along. Do you think you’re ever going to make both of us happy?”

“It’s a zero sum game,” J said. “So tell me N, are you going to obey, or will you spit in the face of–”

N fell down on his rear, and buried his face in hands. “Why? Why? I thought we won. I thought we saved the day. Why are we still fighting?”

V looked back. “N… This is for us. I promise.”

N just curled up tighter at that. Exhaust left him in shudders. V frowned, eyes searching his form. She winced, discomfort growing with each frame her eyes captured. She didn’t know the right words to say.

But J did. She had the perfect opportunity. She smiled.

“N, I’ll tell you everything. I never did give you a debrief after the Doll/WDF suppression mission, did I? And I have theories.” J glanced at the ghostly red glow. “We had theories. And a third opinion just might refine our models.”

N shifted only one hand, a single eye peering hopefully out.

J’s smile didn’t falter, even as V looked her way. J kept her composure, and restrained the smugness bubbling up. It wouldn’t do to smirk. Not yet.

Another bidding war, an auction for the boy’s trust, and J knew it would close at her price. Even as V’s lips quivered, with slow glances between the other two drones, J’s eyelights stayed steady.

This was a sure bet. Because all of this, everything that had happened, even now – it all came down to V refusing to explain herself.

J almost wanted to thank her. If it made N into a worthy disassembler, if it brought her Uzi… then it was a shame the price was so high it warranted termination.

“You – you mean it?” N asked.

V closed her eyes, lips tight like she’d endured a physical blow.

“Of course.” Finally, J looked at V. “But you understand I don’t feel safe with her here, right?”

When those eyes opened, what expression could V ever have had, but a glare? There were no anger marks, no special animations. Just eyebrows narrowed to points sharp enough to cut, and a yellow glow intense enough the liquid in her LEDs could have been acid.

V rose to a stand. A quiet murmur. “Sorry, N.”

Then she walked out. She paused at the threshold.

Hand switched for a rifle, and she pointed it back, and shot at the wall.

J’s employee of the month placard fell, glass cracking.

V was gone.

J rolled her eyes, and exhaled half-sigh, half-scoff. She walked over to where N sat. J reached out her hand to pull him up.

But N’s gaze was locked to the curtain.

J dropped her hand, and twisted around to get a look at N’s face. He was crying, tears round beneath his eyes. Only one had left a yellow track to the bottom of his visor. He sniffed.

J frowned and waited.  Tapped her peg.

“So. Should I begin?”

It was a moment before N responded. “Uh… Yeah. Yeah, I’m listening.”

“Do you recall my lessons on regeneration? We have two processes – active and passive regeneration. That’s what the documentation says. Except we were… lied to. Information was omitted. There’s a hidden process, a last resort. It can regenerate… anything.”

“Is – is that how you saved V?”  A last sniff before his voice was presentable.

“It is what restored V, yes. The program calls itself the Solver of the Absolute Fabric – I’ll say Solver, for short.” The remembrance (and the lack thereof) left J with a faint glower. “But it’s more than a system restore. It removes our memories. The company… Uzi thinks we were created by a human named Tessa. Who wanted us to be… free.”

N tilted his head. “How does she know that?”

J glanced to her, the drone dead for now, only for now. She flinched, and closed her eyes. Uzi had explained, as they flew in pursuit of Doll. J answered, “Because it hasn’t removed all of our memories yet. Some of them are too important to who we are. Uzi saw one of my memories. I was… a worker, then. But memories are unreliable, especially since we know they’re being tampered with.”

N frowned, head tilting. “But why would you have memories of being a worker drone?”

“We don’t know. Uzi has a theory… but I’ll circle back after I explain what else we know. Uzi thinks the cultists, and Doll, have powers from the Solver, too. Doll claimed her powers were compiled into her, but she must have figured out a way to upload the program into other drones.”

N went still. “So she could have made an army of unshootable drones? She could give every drone magic powers?”

“My pessimistic forecast? Yes. It could spread… like a virus.”

“You – you stopped her, right?”

J looked down. She thought about refusing to explain, hiding her failure, hiding the blame. But her competitive advantage here lay in actually explaining. “No, Uzi stopped me.” J surprised herself by growling the words.

It almost slipped her mind. Between everything Uzi had given her, and the arguments that left her feeling faintly… inadequate, J had lost sight of the fact that Uzi disobeyed orders and put everyone in danger. Including, worst of all, herself.

But there wasn’t a punishment worse than what the worker had already endured – was already enduring – so the anger just sat there with nowhere to go, like all of the old stenches in the spire.

“And Uzi had the evil symbol on her screen! Just like the infected drones – V was right, we have to–”

“No. Uzi is on our side, and…” J flailed for words, for a reason, “…the only way we can combat this threat is if we understand it. If we disassemble her completely, we lose that.”

“I – guess so.”

“More importantly, there’s a chance we can cure it.”

“Cure it? Hold on, it’s just a power-up, right? Or do you mean depowering the zombies?”

J closed her eyes. “Right, I neglected the most important part. The Solver is intelligent. It views its hosts as its puppets.”

N opened his mouth, and just mutely nodded before he found the words. “V said it’s manipulating us.”

“It is, no doubt about it.” J watched N’s brows knit in concern. He looked behind, back to the curtain. J frowned. “But I think V is manipulating you.”

His head snapped back around. He stared. “What?”

“I think she knows more than any of us. Why does she refuse to explain any of it? The logic is simple. Either she profits from our ignorance, or our knowledge would cost her something. She’s hiding something. Something big. I don’t think we can trust–”

“Stop. Please stop, J. I don’t want to talk about this.”

J leaned closer to N, a withering gaze. “I thought you wanted answers?”

“I don’t want to turn against V. I won’t. So until you know what she’s hiding…”

“Fine.” J leaned back, drummed her fingers against her leg. “Are we done, or is there anything you’re willing to listen to?”

“Well, what… are we? Do you know? I think you said Uzi had some theory.”

“Doll might not be the first one to figure out how to infect other drones. There might have been an infected drone in Tessa’s home. Must have been. We got infected, somehow, but – and this is my theory – the company saved us. They found a way to reign in the Solver, creating the special disassembly function API to protect us.”

Error code 11: try again.

“And then they sent us here to what, hunt down the Solver’s other puppets?”

“I hope so. But… Uzi pointed this out, and I can’t ignore it. The Solver quoted my orders back to me.” N tilted his head, not understanding, and J’s head fell, only her hands holding it up. “It didn’t talk to us like pieces on the other side of board, but like its own wayward pawns.”

“Which means…?”

J snapped her head up. Hair untied, her white bangs fell in front of her amber pupils. The outlines of her eyelights revealed two tear drops. “What if the company didn’t send us? What if we were created by a corrupt artificial intelligence? What if our mission is nothing more than a subroutine in the runaway self-replication we thought we were preventing? Everything… is it all just lies?”

Every servo in J’s body gave out, then, and she flopped back on the floor of her office. Her head gave a limp thump, all the louder for N’s silence.

“Uzi asked me, ‘Your teammates are an angel and a devil. What does that make you?’ I get the job done, N. I follow my orders.” J rapidly flickered through several expressions, and settled on anguish. She opened her mouth and screamed. When she ran out of air, her intakes sucked in more, and she finished, “If I don’t have that, what the hell else is there?”

Unseen, N audibly shifted. Opening up? “I like following orders, too. They make things a lot simpler.” N chewed on his next words for a moment. “If you wanted, you could still follow them, you know.”

“You don’t get it, N. Orders aren’t just empty instructions. They mean something. And what do my orders mean?” J lets her head roll on the ground. She gazed at the fading light of Uzi, sitting against the wall. “Do I destroy Uzi, or do I try to revive her? The company would destroy her. The Solver would use her. What do I do? Damn it, what do I do?”

“I… I guess I don’t know you, J. Not really. But you know you, right? I thought I liked following orders, I did my best to do what you told me. But when I fought Doll… you wanted me to just kill her. But that didn’t feel right. What feels right to you, J? You moved first when that battle started. When you leapt to Uzi’s side, were you thinking about your orders?”

The drone without pigtails closed her eyes and thought.

That was the bottom line, wasn’t it? J gets the job done, and there would always be more work to do. She had a responsibility, a squad that depended on her.

J would make ends meet.

She was the most effective disassembly drone in her sector, after all. Was. Would be again.

But there was something lonely in that.

Wasn’t there something more?

J sat up, and looked to N. Slowly, she smirked. “You like V, don’t you?”

“Um.” That was bewilderment in his voice. “Um.” And that was chagrin.

“I always wondered why you kept asking her out. What could ever motivate such… unproductive behavior. I’ve updated my assessment.” For a second – no auditor could prove it – J flashed him a smile. “I think I like Uzi.”

“…Why?”

Eyes narrowed, J opened her mouth, closed it, then asked, “Why do you like V?”

“Hm… it’s hard to say.”

“It must be something. You never once asked me out.”

N laughed. At me? He dares? He said, “Would you have said yes?”

“Did V ever say yes?”

“Fair. I guess… compared to you, V always seemed nicer?”

“She pretended to forget your name.”

“Okay, not nice, but… I got her? She seemed to have more… life. She wasn’t nice, and was actually a bit creepy, but she seemed to enjoy what she did? You’ve always been all business.” N tapped his chin, and flushed a bit. “And well, she’s pretty?”

“She doesn’t put remotely as much effort into her appearance as I do.”

“Well, I like it. And maybe… there’s something more to this? I dream about V, sometimes. You said the Solver couldn’t remove all our memories. Do you think maybe there’s something left, from before? Do you remember us, J?”

J shrugged. “I actually don’t care who you like or why. So to answer the important question… Uzi is smart. She’s deliciously cute. She listens and she thinks – unlike either of you – and she fights back.”

A small smile.  “Like V?”

“She’s nothing like V,” J snapped back with a warning glare. Then it grew conflicted. “To her detriment, in some ways. She hesitates. But I can fix that. She’s mine, and I’ll make her beautifully effective.”

N nodded but asked, “Does she like you back?”

A flat look. “Of course she does. She let me kill her.”

N’s eyes went wide. “You, uh, what. She, what. Did she… want that?”

J rose higher, not standing up, but looming over the boy. “Your question sounds a bit like an accusation.”

“Sorry. But uh, it seems a bit…”

“She kissed me. What does that tell you?”

“I’m just thinking about the timeline here and… unless you’ve been meeting this worker in secret all this time, then she appeared in the spire, fought Doll with you, stopped you from killing Doll, let you kill her maybe, and you’re kissing, and… doesn’t it feel like things are moving a bit fast maybe? ...Or maybe I should shut up.”

J sat back down. Scowled. “You should. What are you trying to imply?”

“I’m just saying. I don’t know anything, but it seems safer to be slower with these things. Like with V. I’ve known her a lot longer and I haven’t even considered… kissing her.” Just saying the words brought a flush to his face.

“But I don’t want to be slow. I want to move fast and break things. Whatever. This is none of your concern, anyway.” J stood up, walking over and nudging N with a peg-leg. Forcefully. “Go chase down your girlfriend and try to reign her in. Put a leash on her or something. I’m going to see what state Uzi is in. And this is my private office.”

“Oh, okay. Good luck.” N rose, and started walking away. “And J? Thanks. I’m… really glad we could have this conversation. A lot of things make a bit more sense now.”

“Somehow… I almost feel the same way.”

N smiled. In return, J merely lifted one half of her mouth, gently rolling her eyes.

Before he left: “One last thing… are you okay? After everything that happened?”

“Yeah. Just fine, N. Now get out.”

N waved, and let the curtain fall behind him.

J turned around and knelt before Uzi. Once again, she tried to transform her hand, and once again, errors lit up her inner console.

Just… fine.

Error code 128: key has been revoked.

The rain still fell. Outside Outpost-3, the last traces of spilled oil were rinsed away. This went unnoticed.

Door 1 hadn’t opened since.