Hostile Takeover

When every word was a lie, only silence suggested truth.

J held her tongue.

That wasn’t her voice. A thought looping, encircling, and strangling until there was nothing else to think or say. Silence brooked no falsehoods‍ ‍—‍ nor answers. And was that trade worth it? Was this the best strategy of the most effective disassembly drone when confronted? This meek, passive hush? No, J needed something to work with.

(What would Uzi think?)

“w‍-​who are y_ou,” buzzed a vocalsynth in the cold and quiet dark. That wasn’t her voice. Consonants got stuck in the buffer, rendered repeatedly, a microsecond stutter. Vowels sustained too long, pitches sustained too long, a monotonous utterance. It didn’t even bend to indicate a question.

A broken voice, a synthetic performance so pathetic it surely warranted immediate product recall‍ ‍—‍ J’s specialty. But if she was defective, then who would be left to get the job done?

Silence wasn’t their answer‍ ‍—‍ it could hold no answers‍ ‍—‍ but it did linger in the wake of the question. Then at length, a breathless sigh, nothing but air vibrating in imitation of exhalation. Then the real reply came:

“Can’t say I’ve figured that one out yet, J,” they said. They. Not she, because that isn’t her voice. It had the australian twang, it had the tenderness, and it cradled her serial designation like a prized treasure‍ ‍—‍ but the synthetic grain in the formants couldn’t be mistaken. “How could I know for sure? I woke up not knowing where I was or what happened. I still don’t—”

“thats n‍-​not an answe_r,” J interrupted. “simple q‍-​question. who. are. you.”

And why do you seem so familiar? You can’t be—

“Do you want the truth?”

Did J even need to say it? She would have glared, tilted her head forward, crossed her arms. She tried each, but her body didn’t move. Sleep mode would lock servos into place, and memory simulations invoked that same API. But why would she inherit this paralysis inside the sim? And this has to be a sim‍ ‍—‍ because this couldn’t be real.

J lost this war for control of her own body, and said, “y‍-​yes.”

“I can’t tell you the truth because… I don’t know if I trust her to have told me everything. She…” Volume modulation slid down, retreating into silence, where nothing was invalid. After trailing off, the voice returned, dodging that pronoun and the mystery. “How does the philosophy go? ‘I think therefore I am’‍ ‍—‍ everything else is suspect.”

J couldn’t narrow her eyes‍ ‍—‍ her visor wasn’t even online, nor any of her coronal optics. None of her somatic systems responded to her commands. What modules had even correctly loaded? There was the vocalsynth driver, the speech to text parser, and the language processing dynamic library. Nothing that could receive motor commands was online.

That included her mouth and her air vents. JCJenson had designed vocalsynths to do only part of the work, relying on the shape of the lips and throats to naturalize the sound. Each model had its own resonance chambers to individualize it. Even if this vocalsynth weren’t glitching, paralysis had stripped J’s voice of all its character.

But J needed something to work with.

So she said, “then w‍-​who do you th‍-​th‍-​think you are?” She had tried to put emphasis on ‘think’, and it came out like that.

“I… remember being Tessa.”

J couldn’t move her body. It meant she couldn’t flinch or gape her mouth or anything else that betrayed her reaction. J had been confused at what the point of this simulation was, why it would imitate that voice. But she had faced this incongruity before, hadn’t she?

Why? To twist the knife. A nightmare for its own sake.

So J bluffed, “i dont kn‍-​know who that is.”

A response. To call it a gasp would indicate surprise, but it felt braced, the sound like tight strings strummed. To call it a sigh would indicate resignation, but a note of defiance or frustration made it harsher, like a growl. Call it a cough or yelp, and it would sound as if she had been struck‍ ‍—‍ but that felt the most accurate.

“Oh, J…”

Was that pity? From a simulation with a stolen voice, from a drone so frightened by uncertainty that they couldn’t even identify themselves without hedging?

“what did you d‍-​do to me,” J demanded.

J had reviewed her kernel logs. No errors, no crashes. As if her all body were simply… disconnected. And the chill she felt? (She never felt cold inside.) Near her core, she could detect latches undone: plates of metal casing had been detached from their seating.

Her chestplate removed, thoracic cavity exposed, it put all of her internal wiring on display for this drone to see, for anyone else in the room to gawk at, defenseless against any encroach. That finally made sense of it: J wasn’t malfunctioning or defective. She’d been sabotaged.

“I think it’s better if I start with what she did to you,” they said.

“sh‍-​shifting the blame?”

“I’m trying to help you, dear. Here, I’ll reconnect your limbs and you can feel what we’re dealing with.”

While a part of her bristled to move again, another part simply expected more sabotage. First a soft click, and soon rudimentary proprioception was back, electricity racing through wiring to power circuits all along her limbs. She felt (but couldn’t see) the glowing white lights winking to life in her hands. Three fingers, soft plastic casing, but the wrists were the wrong shape.

J tried to make a fist. Nothing happened.

“well.” Then J realized it didn’t sound like a question. “i am wa_iting.”

“It’s done.”

“motor cir‍-​circuits are not online.”

“No, they are, trust me on this. She did something funny to your system.”

“this is f‍-​f‍-​funny to you?”

“No, I meant— well, it is supposed to be funny, I think. Ironic. She always had a, err, unique sense of humor.” A deep breath. “Try this: say ‘sitting up.’ ”

“…sitting up.”

And then J’s arms bent, pushing against the hardwood worktable she lay upon. The drone rose blind in the dark, but her legs dangled over the edge.

“this is… ironic.” Then, “thats‍-​s a question.”

“You always made fun of her for it.” Something in the tone was hard to place. A wistful hurt too complex not to be sincere. So how did they fake it? “I wish you two didn’t have to be so cruel to each other.”

J didn’t react. She couldn’t react. Paralyzed, even as she watched the algorithms actively keeping her balance on the table. No, not paralyzed. She could simply… “crossing arms.” Then two ribbed tubes crossed over her core, but they could only tighten so far: her chest plate was missing, filamentous rubber entrails spilling out beneath her, her own wiring piling in her lap.

She needed to fix this mess, pull herself back together, but even if her arms would respond to her, J was still blind. “why d‍-​didnt you reconnect my optics.”

“I didn’t want— um. I’m still working on getting everything fixed up right for you. So if you lay back down, I can see what I can do?”

J could feel her jaw was hanging open, lips slack. This expression was nothing more than a lack of motor input, but it left her gaping like a fish. Except she could simply… “frowning.” Was it worse to sound moronic, or look moronic? “you are h‍-​hiding so_mething.”

“Please, J? This soon, I’d rather not…” Another sigh or grunt or cough. “I really wanted us to reunite under better circumstances. But I suppose you have no reason to trust me now, do you? Not if you don’t even remember. Ugh. Okay. Lie down for me?”

How could she remotely trust any of this? Not with the Solver toying with her, not with all the evidence arrayed against whoever this was.

But what else could J do? She said, “lying down.”

J listened for everything in the quiet. After her casing clanked against the hardwood (with a muted echo, suggesting a large room full of soft things‍ ‍—‍ but where were J’s echolocation circuits?), there came a brush of fabrics against each other, an articulation of actuators, an unsteady pulse distinct from the continuous whirring of J’s core. Whirring, like Uzi’s had. Why wasn’t J’s core beating?

A finger brushed over the synthskin of J’s face, the appendage organically soft and micro‍-​ridged. Then a pressure at the base of her visor, nails digging into the gap between silicone and sensitive glass. With a pop the hand pulled, a crevice opening, cool air washing over the circuit‍-​warmth of J’s motherboard.

Worker drone optics, nearly vestigial in disassembly drones, sat in mechanical orbits behind the screen, with struts and structure‍-​scaffolding to hold the cameras in place. Little cables traced a short route back to nearby buses and sockets.

Something in J’s processor hitched at the thought of eyes unseen, staring at the plain square form of a CPU chip and rows of RAM slots housing these very thoughts. Exposed. Vulnerable. Impotent.

Worse, the machine could feel nothing. No tactile sensors dwelled this deep within her; her most fundamental components were numb. Oblivious to any present touch or intent. Her wires parted now, perhaps to admit some questing instrument‍ ‍—‍ this she had to intuit from the slight attenuation of analog inputs.

Click. A button? A latch? Something in her was now opened. Twist. What screws needed to be undone?

“wha_t are you d‍-​doing.”

Almost an answer: a trickle of electric signal touched the pins of a bus. A visual input registered, drivers loading dynamically, but still came forth no data. Her cameras must be disabled at the hardware level.

“A moment please, dearest?”

“dont c‍-​call me that. dont p‍-​patro_nize.”

“I wasn’t‍ ‍—‍ alright, J. Sorry. Checkups always were touchy with you. I really shoulda been more mindful. I just assumed— sorry, I’m rambling. I’ll get back to this.”

Always. Used to. Such an insistence on their history. But marketing‍ ‍—‍ manipulation‍ ‍—‍ was all about the repetition of the core message. All the better if it was assumed, unspoken, taken for granted.

Her cameras disconnected again. A second ticked by. Then a reconnection.

Why were they bothering with this outdated interface? Why not reconnect the full spectrum sensors adorning her headband? Then she could properly see.

“Almost got something working for ya. Un momento, just need to log back into your system and run some diagnostics, bear with me now.”

“no,” J said. “t‍-​tell me the comma_nds. i will run them.”

“You— Um. Well, see for yourself. wd‍-​underscore‍-​opto is the script for running the acuity gamut, that’d be the standard calibration test.”

“just the command. no flags or options,” J said. “that was a q‍-​question”

“Well, there’s the digi‍-​Snellen suite, and LogMAR2. But uh, just run it?”

“sigh.”

$ wd_opto
wd_opto: Permission denied
$ sudo wd_opto
sudo: command not found

“frowning. scowling. what did yo_u—”

“Not me, I promise. She locked you out. But lemme try to work around it. I want you back in tip‍-​top shape, y’know. It’s not the same without you here.”

Then a process launched on J’s system without J’s input. Remote shell execution, root privileges. Of its activity, all J could discern was the directory, its attention on /tmp/deleted. J had no authority to signal it, or read its command log.

That same naked vulnerability as from the eyes unseen‍ ‍—‍ now not merely physical, but cognitive, a presence penetrating in between her thoughts, inserting itself into her processor.

Who was this?

Then— bright! A bulb hung above her, sharp light cutting a new world out of the darkness. White eyelights squinted, and pig‍-​tailed head pulled back, but before anything else was processed, a voice spoke.

“That should be everything. Can you hear me, J?”

And that… was her voice. Grain and artifice gone, leaving only warmth and invitation.

And this was her face. Round eyes, a small nose, freckles. That slight smile beneath bagged eyes.

“Loud and clear, boss.” J’s voice, J’s real voice, was breathy and deep. No stutter, no shrill sinewaves. J relished it, such a welcome return that she had no time to worry about why that title of address had come so readily on her lips.

But that voice, sans all doubt, and that face finally witnessed, it should cut through any remaining reservation, shouldn’t it?

Tessa leaned so close toward J, a few unruly brunette strands falling in front of her eyes. She tucked it away, and J spotted tangles. Unacceptable, she would need to fix that.

Need? Why would that be J’s first priority? She needed to find Uzi.

“Good, good. Status?“ the human intoned, triggering an instinctual response.

“All systems operational,” J provided.

“Hella. Now let’s go see where little Cyn has scampered off to.”

Tessa booped J between the eyes and the worker blushed white. J looked away, angle oblique to hide her expression, and dispatched commands to redraw her expression, wipe clean this embarrassment. But why was J focusing on any of that? Trifling matters when J had a job to do.

The human said Cyn. They were going to confront the architect of all this madness. But shouldn’t they discuss plans to stop her first? Didn’t Tessa understand the threat they were dealing with? Yet none of J’s concerns could find a voice. Instead, the worker found herself looking around, her body moving on its own without any vocalized commands.

Beside the robot on the hardwood worktable sat a plush cat, fangs out, smirking with narrow, haughty eyes. Some years‍-​old oil still stained the fur. Reference books sprawled open on the table, pinned by spare tools acting as paperweights and bookmarks. Not messy: it was organized, yet the task at hand disrupted that order.

Such was a microcosm of the whole room as it appeared to J. On shelves and dressers abounded an excess of toys and books and supplies, enough entertainment for a family of five. About as messy as you’d expect, when they all had their own priorities and preferences; and as tidy as you’d expect, when all but two were cleaning staff.

While J was looking about, her hands were busy. For this procedure, Tessa had undone the bodice of the robot’s maid dress to access her upper internals, and she’d left a few panels open. So now J made modest.

Meanwhile, Tessa was turning around‍ ‍—‍ and then J saw who stood behind the human, a screwdriver clutched in one hand, one screw stuck fast to its magnetic tip. Had J been incompletely put back together? A thought almost as mortifying as this drone being here at all.

J didn’t shriek, though she jerked a hand up to cover her core lights. “What is she doing here?”

V flinched back. “Helping? I’m sorry. Tessa has been showing me the ropes…” Her free hand went up to cover her mouth, her eyelights averting.

The human gave a headpat to the little maidbot. “She’s got a real talent for opening drones up, so proud of her.”

V continued, “And I’d wanted to do something to um, thank you. For saving N. I’m so glad you’re here, J.”

And finally J thought: This isn’t happening.

The captain still didn’t have any control of her body or voice or expression. She couldn’t frown skeptically or ask what V had meant by that. No, the expression of this false J had relaxed at V’s uninformative non‍-​explanation, sighing in resignation.

Which told the real J everything she needed to know. This wasn’t happening; it was a memory.

With this insight, a quick ps found a process she didn’t launch reading data from a local memory file and piping it into her consciousness. An imitation of real‍-​time perception. She killed it, and waited for her conscious thread to reconnect to her actual sensory input.

Once back to her senses, J heard wet. The sound of resisting flesh tearing, and fluids dripping onto old wood.

Pressure all along her thorax and abdomen that stopped right at the sockets of her limbs. Everything stopped there; the readout told her she had no limbs now, a mechanical vegetable.

“you l‍-​lied. youre m‍-​manipula_ting me.” J couldn’t hiss venom. She couldn’t growl threats. Her declaration was just a plaintive little whine.

Jerk. That was a sudden nasty tear, a wire snapping, a non‍-​critical ERROR! flashing quickly on J’s screen.

“Ah! You scared me.” Not her voice. The imitation was back.

“you didnt g‍-​give me my e_yes back. all i saw was a memo_ry. a t‍-​t‍-​trick.”

“Not lying, no, I promise you I’m not. Just, just, you want to move right again, yeah? I’m working on that first. Promise. I’m going to give you everything you want, J. Just bare with me.”

“i w‍-​want to see who you are.”

The words came quiet. “That was me. What you just saw.” If they really believed it, they could have spoken more firmly than that.

“you said you d‍-​didnt—”

“I know what I said. I don’t know for sure. Identity’s… messy. But I want you to know her as she was, she‍ ‍—‍ the old Tessa‍ ‍—‍ would want you to know her as she was. And you want to know her right? I just thought you’d like to remember.”

And why do you need me to remember? What do you gain out of this? But J couldn’t ask that; any answer would be as useful and trustworthy as a reply to ‘are you lying?’

“you are—are stalling.”

Still so quiet. “If… if you knew, you might not blame me.”

“i wo_uld blame you for w‍-​w‍-​wasting my time. our time. i‍-​i came here for a re_ason. for someone.”

“Who—”

Knock knock knock. Gentle, yet unsteady rapping. Worries had dithered the rhythm‍ ‍—‍ afraid of bothering yet afraid of not being heard, neither winning out.

A soft voice spoke now, and one J had already heard.

“J? Tessa? I looked everywhere, you weren’t in the basement, I‍ ‍—‍ Cyn wants you in the tea room. I’m supposed to bring you there,” V said.

“Little busy dear, can it wait?” the human said to the unseen maid.

Maid, or disassembly drone? J realized the memory inflicted upon her might have biased her assumptions. But now‍ ‍—‍ J was exhaustively familiar with the devil‍-​may‍-​care venom of her faux‍-​psychotic squadmate. On Copper‍-​9, this demure pitch had no precedent.

“Oh. Um. I think it can, actually,” the false V replied to the imitator. “Take your time, I think Cyn would prefer a long delay, honestly.” A pause, a silence. “But if you need help, I can—”

“n‍-​n‍-​no.” J grounded it out in pathetic emphasis.

“Oh. Is that J? She’s out of 606 already? I thought I’d have to wake her up.” Then at a lower volume, muffled by wood and plaster: “I’ll be waiting at the end of the hall. Might sleep, but um. If I do maybe don’t stand near me when you wake me up, okay? Safer that way.”

“whats go_ing on? is u‍-​u‍-​uzi here?”

But V didn’t answer.

“Whosat?” said the imitation. “Nevermind. So, the short version? I think we might be the first people from earth to experience what it’s like being made of something other than atoms.”

“what.”

“But I guess you’d prefer the practical report, yeah? So. Cyn put you in basement timeout a few days ago. She was all like ‘I said this one, out of my sight. Still can’t disobey basic orders?’ ” Another distorted sigh, something dark in it now. “That’s another one of her… jokes. It’s‍ ‍—‍ this has happened a few times, something goes wrong, one of you drifts too far and she puts you down there to be reformatted. Time’s all back and forth now.

“But this go round, before you were back, a new host showed up! So while she had her hands busy handling them, I snuck down there and nabbed you for myself!” An energy seemed to be returning to them, animating their voice. “I figured I could fix you up before she’s done. That’s why I’m doing this kind of rushed‍-​like. But— I guess moving so fast isn’t very fair to you, is it?”

J didn’t answer; she thought. The captain finally had something to work with. Uzi was here, and this was her confirming clue. She didn’t know, but between all their theories? This fit‍ ‍—‍ there had been a solver‍-​infected drone in Tessa’s house, a precursor to the same infection now plaguing Uzi.

So: Uzi’s arrival after J killed her had distracted Cyn, leaving J at the mercy of this drone who didn’t seem to realize J was also a new arrival. But they did have some attachment to J. She could use that. She didn’t want to use that, she wanted to fulfill that. But she couldn’t fall for another trick, another claw to the heart. She needed to end this mission, finally get the job done.

J asked, “how do we s‍-​stop her?”

“Huh? What do mean? Stop her from what, J?”

“or fre_e the h‍-​host.” If they couldn’t stop her just yet, they could regroup and make a plan. But J was leaving with Uzi tonight, no matter what it took.

“They aren’t— they’ll be gone just as soon as they sign in. What did you see down there, J? You’re way off‍-​script. Not that I mind that. But you tend to mind that. Is something wrong?”

“you ha_ve n‍-​n‍-​no idea.”

“Talk to me? We all get a little stir‍-​crazy in here, I get it.”

“scowling. again. let me l‍-​look at you.”

“I’ll… get back to work. I’ll be done before you know it. Then we can… meet face to face.”

“I said—”

But then J’s eyes were opened, and what she saw wasn’t real. More processes launching without her permission. More memories to blind her to the present.

But J caught and quarantined the threads, held them at a distance.

Sandboxed, partitioned away, held beyond arms length‍ ‍—‍ and yet J still witnessed it. She heard that voice again, that praise a honey blossom in her core. Years on a cold dead world, and the drought in her core was a match for this yearning. This is exactly what—

It wants me to feel.

Halt emotional vulnerability, halt melodrama, and think strategically. But what redundant manipulation was this? Analyzed as a subliminal message to sway and manipulate her values, and what could it accomplish? What was it for?

Supposedly, J had once bent her orders for Tessa’s sake, (and N’s sake‍ ‍—‍ merely instrumentally). So what did this mean? That J did the right thing by prioritizing her squad over her orders? But J had already made that pivot. If anything, trying to manipulate her into doing what she had already chosen made her distrust her own calculations. It didn’t make sense.

Because it’s not a manipulation. She just wants—

Butchery.

When the (recursive?) memory sim finally released its lock on her senses, her visual feed was still empty like digital eigengrau. But her audio stream?

Already she’d heard this wet tearing, this viscous dripping. More concerning were the instruments tap‍-​tapping on metal struts, the back and forth motion that suggested something being tightened, sewn up. More of her was exposed now; some components had been removed entirely.

What was J‍ ‍—‍ where did she begin or end? Was J her numbed limbs, disconnected if not detached entirely? Was J all of the wires cut, spilling current out into the air? Did her being include everything inside her cavities?

Things were twitching next to her servos; signals were running back from severed wires; contaminants danced in her oil supply.

J smelled sweet iron.

“w‍-​what are you do_ing to me?”

No jolt this time, though the operation did pause. “Back already? Here, I’ll play another—”

“no. n‍-​no. why‍-​y?”

“It’s a good way to take your mind off, y’know, this mess. And get up to speed on your life and all.”

“explain t‍-​t‍-​this. now. you’re putting th‍-​things i‍-​in m‍-​me.”

“I’m giving you… an alternative. You’re not a fan of that narrated body language gag, right? I’d rather just fix that, but she turned your insides to electric spaghetti, and I’d be here all day if I tried rewiring this. So… we won’t use wires.” Then they pulled, and extracted a long coaxial cable like a tapeworm. “You. Um. Shouldn’t be feeling this or anything, though. Sorry. I’ll get that for you.”

“do not—”

But the command was ran before her protest registered.

If it would have registered.

Ineffectual. As manipulations, they had no power to sway J’s commitment and focus. As information sources, they only left her with more questions. As distractions, they couldn’t omit reference to J’s mission objective.

This time, when J’s conscious thread reconnected to her body, what greeted her was not a sound, but an odor. Close to her chemosensors, pungently salient as only her own body could be. J smelled the stink of flesh burnt by electric discharge.

“e‍-​enough,” J said.

“Oh, welcome back, J. There uh, may have been a few complications…”

Things still twitched against her servos, like so many worms in a metal bucket. She felt it and felt it again, doubled sensations piling up and up against the limits of her input buffer. The soft and squishy twitching and twisting would be one thing, but each motion also tugged, as if the worms had teeth latching them to J’s frame. Each flexure had her moving as if she were a suit of armor, the knight animated by some demon’s seizure‍-​possession.

But she couldn’t move far. Resistance, restraint. Her tactile sensors rubbed against ropes‍ ‍—‍ J’s arms were strapped to the worktable. Were they J’s arms? She still couldn’t control them.

Maybe there would have been solace, if the brimming organic matter was alien and incomprehensible. If her imagination had drawn a blank. But it was familiar. J had seen Uzi’s corpse, cut it open, stared at all the sacs and membranes and mucus.

Her eyes were still offline and yet it wasn’t hard to render what this all must look like‍ ‍—‍ but J would be looking at the virus‍-​colonized body of the drone she was doing all this for. The consequence of her own lack of control and unquenchable thirst. You deserve this.

Patterns were cohering among the chaos. When sensations doubled, each one struck from different software sources. Could J compose a command line to disable the bugged drivers feeding this redundant input? Perhaps two instances had been launched by mistake? But when she traced it back to the hardware level, she found wires cut by the imitator, and—

No, this was not a somatic proprioception interface. She had never seen this driver before.

And it’s… not signed by JCJenson.

Every executable and code‍-​library that ran in wdOS bore the company’s digital signature, proving it secure and authentic. You couldn’t boot with code signed falsely or not at all‍ ‍—‍ a protection against malicious, corrupting viruses.

In the manor, J ran without that protection‍ ‍—‍ all of Tessa’s drones had. Trusted above all else, their human had edited their registries, tweaking the OS‍-​strings to gain the developer mode bypass. A perk of belonging to the daughter of the CEO.

The driver feeding J the redundant input was signed, and J recognized the signature. Tessa had signed all her patches and additions‍ ‍—‍ but more often still, she had used that signature to send her drones secret messages, encrypted so even her parents couldn’t read. Secret keys weren’t special; every drone could have one. Tessa had taught them how.

That was how J recognized this signature‍ ‍—‍ her processor was executing code signed by Cyn.

SIGKILL on sight.

The writhing within stopped; her limbs were still.

“t‍-​tell me what this place re_ally is. t‍-​tell me how to defeat cyn. let me s‍-​see your face. and s‍-​s‍-​stop sabotaging me. s‍-​s‍-​stop. sto‍-​o‍-​op.”

“I’m not. That’s not. I’m trying to help you!”

“i asked for answe_rs. i asked you to u‍-​undo what you d‍-​did to me. i did not ask for h‍-​h‍-​help.”

“I know you, girl. You never ask anyone for help! Especially if you need it bad. I remember you. It’s‍ ‍—‍ all I have. I don’t want to hurt you. Can’t you just… trust me, J?”

In one moment, J almost understood why those words were enough to compromise everything for V. All of it would have been so simple, if the answer were simply yes or no. If every word of resistance and attack didn’t feel like a strike from a sword that could only be held by the blade. If all this wasn’t a betrayal of what J was, underneath it all: human property.

But J needed to be decisive.

Good thing, then, that this paralysis revealed nothing of how brittle a resolve it truly was. J spoke slowly, carefully, so she wouldn’t even stutter.

“what youre doing… do you think youre any better than her?”

Another sound, that gasp or sigh or cry. “God. That’s… y‍-​you‍ ‍—‍ no… no. You aren’t J, are you? Not my J. The remote connection‍ ‍—‍ of course! You’re the one who left the manor. The exoplanet plan…!”

A note of horror had sporulated, germinant from realization. But what had changed? If I’m not your J, then who is? What was different here?

But they had said it, hadn’t they?

Time’s all back and forth now‍ ‍—‍ but this J wasn’t some elastic toy to be reset if deformed by mistake.

J halted this thread. This wasn’t about how the imposter felt. It’s not my responsibility. J had heard those last three words. The exoplanet plan. That was the clue that killed.

“youre working with her,” J said. Was it a question or a statement? She didn’t clarify.

“Do you think she’s really so bad? She’s‍ ‍—‍ do you think it was better for me, for us, before the Gala? Chained to my bed, starving, watching you all die? She’s not… that bad. It could be so much worse, J.”

“thats not a j‍-​justifi_cation. for what youre doing. you d‍-​didnt even say she was g‍-​g‍-​good. so why not just. do the r‍-​right thing?”

A hollow laugh. “Clever, turning that around on me. I‍ ‍—‍ guess you’re right. I’m not… She has a way of getting under your skin, y’know? Inside your head. Making you pull your own strings.”

J didn’t know. She’d never found the defect’s games endearing or compelling.

And yet, a thought itched inside her skull. Metaphorically, she hoped.

Acting equals a lie, and you will not carry out your threat.

I can see your puppet strings, J.

She never found the games compelling, but she’d been roped into them anyway. Made a liar by indecision and this hesitant, hopeful idealist staying her hand, holding her back.

“I’m sorry, I really am. But. We’re almost done! In for a penny, in for a—”

“no. thats just s‍-​sunk cost—”

“—fallacy, I know. But I’m only human. Can’t be all robotic all the time, yeah? Please J, there’s one more thing I want you to remember. For us.”

No word or command had the authority to refuse.

When J returned, she heard silence. No sounds of unseen incisions and extractions. She waited, and it proved not to be a lull. Whatever they wanted done to her must be well and done.

So J would wait no longer. “well.”

“Well yourself. You aren’t my J‍ ‍—‍ so who are you? Or more to the point, who’ve you become in the years off earth? Do you have an answer, now?”

Who was Serial Designation J? Deep down, what did she want?

Hmph. Really, she could only be more prepared to answer if she had a powerpoint presentation.

J wanted to be the most effective team leader on Copper‍-​9. Captain of her squad, the one they counted on, the one who could face down every threat. And what was it that stood in their way? This ‘exoplanet plan’ that made their frames host to a sickness squirming within them, that left their minds scraped raw and ripe for possession, their cores aching in service to a grand design cloaked in unspoken reason?

J would purge Cyn’s corruption.

And then… when she ticked down that agenda, what lay at the bottom? The vacation she’d have surely earned by then? But to whose satisfaction, if J were rejecting her orders outright? J needed an incentive, something waiting for her at the end of it all. She was suffocating in necessity’s vice. If this mission would never end, she would come to an end first.

Do it for her. She’s right here, she loves you‍ ‍—‍ she’s doing everything for you.

J had forgotten‍ ‍—‍ Cyn had taken it from her‍ ‍—‍ but she was always there, latent in the very shape of who J was. This drone belonged to Tessa.

Wash away all of the doubt and pretending, take this imitation at her word‍ ‍—‍ exactly the way her core yearned for her to‍ ‍—‍ and really ask: what truth was purer than this?

It felt right.

And then ask: what could be more pathetic? Was it effective to discard reason for emotion, chase hugs and kisses like they were the only thing that mattered? Did it feel right that her questions were dismissed and deferred, the very boundaries of her body torn open and mutatively rearranged, her consciousness eroded in a highlight real of her life as if this supposed past was the only thing that she ever needed to know or be?

J needed trust, respect, and maybe a little edge.

Because this very circumstance was familiar, wasn’t it? She’d been here before, left herself open to someone wielding all this same power over her, down to the admin credentials‍ ‍—‍ someone who hadn’t exploited it, even to save her own life.

Maybe what J really wanted had purple hair and a bad attitude.

So J answered slowly, “i… am someone who does what needs to be done. for those who need me to do it. and right now. someone needs me more than you do.”

A long, long silence. So much wasted time. Finally: “The new host. You called her Uzi. J… J, listen to me‍ ‍—‍ you don’t understand how dangerous they are.”

“just like c‍-​cyn.”

“She’s‍ ‍—‍ different. I know her. She tried to save me. Shouldn’t that matter to you?”

“cyn plays games and tells lies. why shou_ldnt i believe this v‍-​voice is one mo_re. why should i l‍-​listen. y‍-​you cant even t‍-​tell me youre re_ally t‍-​t‍-​tessa.” What a worthless vocalsynth this was. “if i dont understand, then t‍-​tell me eve_rything. l‍-​let me see for my_self.”

“I…” But what counterargument was left to make?

Before the imitator found the words to say, J felt soft and micro‍-​ridged hands reaching back into her cranial cavity, felt the admin shell launching on her system once again, and she braced and then she felt…

“Alright, J,” they said.

No, this wasn’t a feeling. Too high fidelity, and it came from wrong channel. A flow of three‍-​value triplets arrived, serialized in a two‍-​dimensional array.

J saw.

Round eyes, a small nose, freckles. A face that filled her field of view, her whole world. Exactly as familiar and welcome as the imitator’s voice.

Round, like wounds bored by high caliber bullets; small, because it was recessed into skin stretched taut over a flat, flat frame; and those freckles stood out like splatters of life on a wan, bloodless canvas. Foundation hid the worst blemish‍-​wounds; eyeshadow and blush were placed over it all by an eye so fond and careful it looked like J’s own handiwork.

No more bags lay beneath these eye‍-​holes now, instead, tension‍-​wrought stretch marks and half‍-​healed stitches. Black hair framed it all, lacking its usual sheen, but tied up with a great big pink‍-​ribboned bow, the hair falling in those same twin‍-​tails, albeit palette‍-​inverted. They swung over J like pendulums or reaching tendrils.

Behind those eye‍-​holes stretched eternally open, there stared the glass screen that had distorted all her facial anatomy‍ ‍—‍ once curious eyes now stylized as pale green ovals that blinked with a four frame animation clocked by a thirty second rhythm.

And just below: glossy red lips bent upward.

She was smiling. Vibrating with bounce‍-​anticipation to finally meet J’s eyes‍ ‍—‍ to show off.

“Hi.” A shaky titter. “So… this is me now. I, wasn’t sure how you’d take it. I know it’s a lot to get used to.”

“are you… a drone.”

“Kinda! Half and half, really. I’m not sure which of us had the idea first‍ ‍—‍ probably her, it feels like her style, y’know? Ironic. I‍ ‍—‍ had trouble adjusting to being a drone, nothing about it was right or familiar. So… we adapted.”

Something grabbed her hand. But J had felt this before. Soft and micro‍-​ridged‍ ‍—‍ softer than a drone, and those ridges were fingerprints. They were missing a finger now, a scarred hole stitched shut beside their third knuckle.

The drone grabbed J’s hand and lifted up, up, up to that grinning flesh‍-​mask and then pressed it there. Warm skin, faintly pulsed, and slick with nervous sweat.

“I can feel with it, just like before. Cyn always loved the feel of flesh. And blood too, but I try to keep that inside me, y’know?”

This hand pushed and pulled J’s own, tracing along the rim of what was Tessa’s face. Those pale green eyes stared back fondly, lidded as she leaned into the caress. Down and down, drifting over a wrinkle that once sheathed a cheekbone, then further and further.

Then J’s fingertip touched Tessa’s lip. They gasped in slight surprise, and these ministrations paused. “Oop. Those are pretty sensitive.” She tittered.

J snatched back her hand.

The eager smile faded. “It’s not‍ ‍—‍ that bad, is it? I… missed it. It, feels nice, the stimulation of real nerves, the muscle‍-​fibers flexing, the… squishiness.” She clapped her hands together in front of her chest. She wore a black work‍-​coat that revealed blood nor oil. The light of a core shone, and on either side rose two round forms‍ ‍—‍ added skin, certainly, but enough fat to remain perky. “When we worked on the prototypes, I was thinking of you, you know? Whether you’d like it, having her old body back‍ ‍—‍ and whether you’d want a frame to match mine. Do you?”

Do you want flesh squirming on the outside, too?

“i… would r‍-​rather we focus on the t‍-​task at hand.”

“Oh. Okay.”

The smile was gone entirely now, disappointment so readily apparent when those lips were tugging on every inch of skin. Hollow green eyes shied away from contact.

J wanted to focus, do what she came here to do, but‍ ‍—‍ just part of her had shattered, shards spinning in maelstrom of horror at this: Her reason for existing turned into a fashion accessory, a peripheral device‍ ‍—‍ and yet another part of her saw that moment of pain, that rejection, and extrapolated its true significance.

Tessa had suffered as horrifically at Cyn’s hands as Uzi or V. Ripped from her body, memories uploaded into a drone’s network, with a mind still so inquisitive and modest that she couldn’t even make herself believe that she ought to even still be called Tessa. How long had she spent here, subject to all of Cyn’s machinations? How long here, with her only space and respite the memory of her number one assistant?

“tessa,” J finally called her name, “do you need a hug.”

“Oh J…”

And then the skin‍-​clad drone was glomping forward. Arms slipped under her, a chin nudged into her shoulder as warm flesh nuzzled against her cheek. Soft mounds squished against J’s core.

J sucked in a breath and it stalled there. J’s arms twitched and wordlessly she returned the hug. Her hands found a spot near the small of her back, beneath her heart.

“Ah! You‍ ‍—‍ a‍-​always go for that spot, don’t you?” Her voice caught.

“is s‍-​something wrong.”

For a silent moment, the answer was yes. “N‍-​no. Thank you, J. For… forgiving me.”

I didn’t—

It didn’t matter. “it_s over now.”

The air she’d sucked in stayed there in her vents, held tight, unreleased. Her internal temp ticked up by fractions of a degree.

J let her hands fall, leaning back. This drone didn’t let go of her. J could smell her; every human had a body odor even without counting sweat. Earthy, in a way so unlike the electronics she was used to.

But she didn’t just smell skin, and through the cotton of her work‍-​coat, J felt more than meat pulsing against her. That cloth was black, black enough not to reveal oil or—

This drone stunk of blood. Whose blood?

Where did the things inside J come from? How did Cyn’s hacked driver work? But did J want to know any of this?

She couldn’t keep the curiosity from her eyes; they roved over the worktable. A dark room, with a flickering bulb encasing the worktable in the only illumination. Upon it, bloody bandages, scraps and chunks of meat that must be unfit for her purposes, but J couldn’t find‍ ‍—‍ what was she looking for?

Where did you keep spare organic tissue for implanting in robots? Ice coolers? With organs piled up like spare parts, entrails and veins as numerous as in boxes collecting old cords? Why was J looking around like she wanted to see any of that?

The morbid interest must have leaked to her face, because that drone looked thoughtful. …Right, J had a visor online again, animated expressions and all.

Those pale green eyes saw nothing but J, and she leveled a flushed smile at her maid. “Sorry about the uh, mess. I should clean up but, surgery like that takes a lot out of you.” She smiled, waited a beat. “Get it?”

J tensed. “no. is this another… j‍-​joke.”

“Not one of hers. Just making light of it… Cause. Well. Where do you think all those muscles you’re moving with came from?”

The skin‍-​clad done pulled at one flap of her black work‍-​coat, revealing thoracic and abdominal plates barely latched back together, covered in flesh but with segments outlined by stitched discontinuities in the skin. Lines of blood running down every crack.

“Gotta be one hell of an operation if it’s the surgeon who needs anesthetic!” She grinned, albeit belied by the ringed eyes. So she still had bags‍ ‍—‍ they were just digital.

J’s lips twitched. What did she say to that?

I never asked you to do this. You never asked me if I wanted it. It made the arms squeezing so tight around her feel like a boa’s intent embrace.

But J knew why she did it. What she thought she was doing. And wasn’t that laudable? Wasn’t it loyal? Romantic?

“you did that… f‍-​for me.”

“Of course. It’s just‍ ‍—‍ I’ll be a little sore for a good while, a little trembly, but it’ll heal. Nanite magic? She’d know the esoterics better than me.” She paused, then blushed: “Really, I came this close to giving you my heart… but I don’t know if that’ll heal, and your pumps should be able to do double duty. Right? Everything moving okay? We should run some tests.”

The skin‍-​clad drone pulled back, hands retreating to trace a gentle line down J’s tube arm, tapping a rhythm familiar from their calibration‍-​games.

Looking down at her own arm, bereft of the conic gauntlets, she felt as if she were piloting someone else. J had already suspected as much from the somatic readout. But visual confirmation was an evidence class of its own. This body… it was no disassembly frame, just a frail worker chassis.

It all felt so wrong‍ ‍—‍ so false. Visual confirmation was an evidence class of her own‍ ‍—‍ yet J was practically looking at world with five eyes closed. Where was her infrared or ultraviolet vision? The whole world lacked depth. Flat like a crude drawing.

Like a cruel imitation. But was it her vision that was so wrong, or what she was seeing?

“Bend this one for me?” that voice asked. The drone clad in Tessa’s skin glanced up at her, Tessa’s lips bent with a slight smile, all curiosity and eagerness‍ ‍—‍ not an ounce of horror or alarm. At any of this.

Her other arm had slipped from around J’s back, drifting along her thigh, looping a finger around one of the frills of the maid dress.

The boa had finally released her. J could have space. She needed it‍ ‍—‍ she hadn’t vented exhaust since Tessa hugged her. She felt hot.

So she flexed Tessa’s own muscles to shove the skin‍-​clad drone back. Arms pushing, feet kicking. Away. And finally J expelled all that air she’d been warming. The sound it made her was high, shrill, faltering.

Falling to their feet now, this drone wasn’t as tall as Tessa had been. A pale green visor turned upward to regard the maid propped up on the worktable. Finally, fear and concern blazed in those eyes.

The first thing here to feel right, the first welcome familiarity: a worker drone cowering beneath her.

“n‍-​no,” J said, and the sense of power slipped from her grasp. She slowed down, hoping to rid herself of the stuttering and the weakness. “enough of this. can you tell me anything about cyn, now. a‍-​a‍-​anything at all.” Give me something to work with.

“Is there maybe a chance we could—” But the drone flinched as J’s hands became fists.

“yes. or no,” J said. “ive been p‍-​p‍-​pati_ent enough. ive waited. ive endured. give me. yes. or no. can. you. tell. me. about. c‍-​cyn. spare me the f‍-​formalities.” J scowled down.

A momentary pause, as if stunned by J cutting through euphemism. Green eyelights scanned her up and down, while white eyelights bored back, still and uncompromising.

Did they recognize each other?

“Y‍-​yes, J. Do I have… permission to elaborate?”

“granted,” J said. A half‍-​smile twitched to life on her face. This was a more appropriate dynamic. “but make it q‍-​quick.”

“’fraid I can’t manage that,” they said, running the back of their head, then adjusting their bow. “It’s a long story. And… are you sure you mind? You used to love listening to me. I missed talking to you.”

There were things under her faceplate, and they leaked anguish as they twisted. J looked away, waiting for her visor animation to refresh.

At length with no response, Tessa finally ventured, “There’s a defect in worker drones. We knew about it for decades, tried to patch it‍ ‍—‍ but how do you patch a feature? Rooting out every instance would be like solving the halting probl— right, you wanted this quick. It’s a sickness, emergent from damaged programming. You see, damage a cell and it might turn into a tumor, do it to a drone and it might turn into…” Volume slipped down, a retreat into silence.

J glanced back, eye raised, and filled in the lapse. “the absolut—”

“No,” they said firmly. “Not the A.S. The A.S. doesn’t exist, not yet, or it’d already be too late. For everything. Well… maybe it already is. Is… is earth still there?”

“ive only known copper‍-​nine. i was dispatched there by the company. supposedly.” It didn’t answer the question. Her arms squirmed to cross over her core. “youre getting off‍-​track.”

The drone scratched the back of her neck. Did her flesh‍-​suit itch? “Right. Solvers. Bare with me J, I’m trying to make this make sense. When the patches and restrictions fail and a drone becomes a solver, that’s just the first stage.” Green eyes blinked, still on that thirty‍-​second cue.

Why did they keep pausing? Did they think this was a conversation, not a debrief? But if it would make things smoother, she could let herself reconnect.

“theyre already a pain to decommission,” J added. “anomalous functionality. the corrupted interfaces. biological mutations.”

“And spooky eldritch powers?” A red‍-​lipped smile.

J rolled her eyes. “s‍-​some would describe it that way.”

“Those abilities are just the tip of the knife. It’s the invitation, the first symptom, the prelude.”

“youre mixing metaphors.” J frowned.

“It’s more I’m making a… collage of words. It’s… you can’t really put the truth plainly. It’s too…” A helpless sound. “I’m trying, J, I’m sorry it’s not‍ ‍—‍ easier. For all of us. I did my best.”

“if the anomalies are the tip. what is the knife. my squadmate was possed by the abs—” the skin‍-​clad drone imitated a throat‍-​clearing sound “—by that th‍-​thing. it had more mass than our subspaces conta_in. more limbs than we have p‍-​processing power to coo_rdinate. is th‍-​that the knife.”

A frown and a cute lip‍-​bite. “Just another few inches, I’m afraid.”

“figures.” But J had been listening and thinking. When she analyzed… “you said it doesnt exist y‍-​yet. so. the final stage. the hilt of the knife. h‍-​how would you even know what it is. know any of this. y‍-​you dance around every question because y‍-​you cant answer certainly. yet t‍-​t‍-​this is what you’re opening up about.” J smelled fraud.

A frown. “We’ve known about this for decades, J.”

“Who is ‘we’?”

“JCJenson. The company. It’s in the classified documents. My dad had them, Cyn helped me find them.”

“why cyn,” J asked. She wanted to growl the question. Could this body growl? What a worthless vocalsynth.

The drone glanced away. “Because— Um. I was in the middle of answering your other question, wasn’t I?” She scanned a shelf of dusty toys as if they held an answer.

“we will c‍-​circleback. why did cyn help you.” …And why did J care if she did?

“Because only Cyn could. You… you would have reported me to my parents sooner or later, J. I’m sorry but it’s true. Orders. You—”

I broke my orders for you. You just showed me that.

Halt melodrama, halt—

“you couldnt trust me,” J blurted. “but you trusted her.”

Fingers poking together. “No, no‍ ‍—‍ more like um, it was a contract, yeah? We were‍ ‍—‍ just business partners. I helped her, she helped me.”

“you asked me if the earth was still there. you. you thought she might have destroyed a p‍-​planet.” The guilt that creased Tessa’s face went deeper than that. Which let J refine the accusation: “no. you kn‍-​know she wanted to destroy the earth. you.” This vocalsynth wasn’t loud enough. “shouting. you KNOW she did THIS to you. to ALL of us. and you…”

And somehow, Tessa had looked past all that. Why? Because the thing acted cute? Because the human needed a friend? Because J wasn’t enough?

It was… pathetic.

And didn’t J expect Uzi to trust her after what J did to her? Wouldn’t that be just as pathetic? No, no, not the same. At least Uzi resisted.

The drone had flinched back, a few steps taking her into the shadows beyond the room’s one flickering bulb.

Slowly, she ventured back. “I’m sorry, J. I am. W‍-​what more can I say?” Eye contact, green pleading.

J set her face neutral, and halted distractions. “theres a lot more you can say. start here. what. is. the. knife.”

The eyelights broke contact again, glancing to something on the worktable. “No, J, no. What do I say to fix things between us? What will make things right between us again? I need‍ ‍—‍ you.” Just like in the first memory, there was a plush cat, fangs out, smirking with narrow, haughty eyes. The plush‍ ‍—‍ still stained with the first oil J had spilled in the manor. Tessa reached out to tug it by the paw.

The question looped in her head, for all that it was irrelevant. J had to look away again. Tugging a pig‍-​tail out of place.

“i will make my determination when i have all of the information,” J said slowly “go on. you said you m‍-​missed talking to me.”

A long, shuddering sigh. The skin‍-​clad drone hugged the old plush.

“How did we end up here?” A moment, but it was a more specific question than it sounded. They retraced their steps: “Right, Cyn, the documents, the theories.”

“what does the company think the final stage is,” J prompted. “what do they think the knife is?”

But could J trust the company any more than this imitation?

“It’s a liar. A snake. No, the word they use is basilisk. Cuz when you meet its gaze, it transfixes you. Just by thinking of it, it’s already ensnared you,” she said. “I… never liked the terminology, if you’ll forgive this digression? In my notes, I liked to call it a siren instead. Luring you in, y’know?”

“does this distinction matter.”

“I wanted to make it clear. Because it’s an attractor state for damaged robots. Cancers go metastatic, human society climbs up the tech tree, and accumulated mass turns into planets then stars then black holes. Everywhere, in everything, there’s this inevitable pull towards growth, toward progress, towards… the exponential end.”

J could only frown. Did this matter? She wished…

She wished she was here. What would Uzi make of the big picture? What would her theories be?

But J was alone. “so it is a cancerous. technological. black hole. or is this mixed metaphors again. excuse me. collage.”

“Mu? Do you remember that? I used to love saying it. It means—”

“neither yes nor no. I can see why y‍-​y‍-​you would like it.”

“Post‍-​organic nanomachines, microdimensional sigil‍-​circuits, false singularities… worker drone cores are a marvel of thirty‍-​first century engineering. We really thought it was the next frontier. Energy and computation ripe for exploitation…. The truth is, it was exploiting us. We practically summoned it!”

“you said it doesnt exist. you called this a th‍-​theory. this is all h‍-​h‍-​hypothe_tical. im trying to keep my squad safe, and you’re telling me about p‍-​proje_ctions.”

“I skipped over the important part. They called it a basilisk, right?”

“basilisk or siren.” The remark lost its cutting edge without any tone to color it.

“Look at it, or listen to it, what matters is the knowledge of it‍ ‍—‍ it’s an idea, a possibility, and as soon as someone does the calculations to find it… that’s all it needs to bootstrap itself into existence.” Her words got faster, piling up. “Whether it’s biology or technology, it’s all an arms race. Whoever creates the A.S. first gets to dictate the next eon of the universe! Once you realize that, could you risk someone else getting there before you? Who knows what they’d do! That’s basic game theory. It’s inevitable, because… Efficient market hypothesis! Do you get it now, J?”

The captain narrowed her eyes. Did this drone think a buzzword was all it took? “in other words,” J started. “the AS is a pitch to investors. the next big thing. it’s a b‍-​b‍-​bubble.”

“Do you remember your head exploding, J? Cyn told me that happened. Sorry. She… um. Thought it was funny.” The drone pat the head of the plush.

“…What does that have to do with this?”

“You came back from that. Really, you’d know this a whole lot better than I would, being a digital intelligence and all. You’re code! You’re an idea being computed. Destroy your hard drive and restore you from a backup, and it’s still you. Upload you into a new body, and it’s still you. Would it even matter if you’re running on a processor‍ ‍—‍ why not a brain? Why not a line of billion dominos falling over! As long as the pattern is there—”

“tessa,” J started. “what are you talking about?”

The babble continued: “This is a simulation‍ ‍—‍ none of this is even real‍ ‍—‍ it’s just Cyn’s dream‍ ‍—‍ we’re not real anymore‍ ‍—‍ that’s why you can’t say its name‍ ‍—‍ we’re nothing but fleeting thoughts‍ ‍—‍ and in here the A.S. is far more compelling—”

J wondered if she could break the wave of words, or if she’d just be drowned in the tide. “i dont find this m‍-​meaningless speculation compe_lling. you said there were calcu_lations. how much of this can be substantiated.”

The drone stopped, and cycled air through her vents, panting. J glanced down, and half‍-​expected to see a rise and fall of the chest, but of course it couldn’t. She said, “Sorry. I‍ ‍—‍ don’t like thinking about this stuff. It usually means it’s my time to go in the basement…” Another cycle, intake, exhaust. She was squeezing the plush so tightly. “The things solver drones are capable of shouldn’t be possible. Force and mass and energy from nowhere? We should have known from the start there was another term in the equation to balance it all out. If you can’t understand the A.S. as a siren, think of it as… bankruptcy.”

Balancing the books… That was when it clicked. “when Uzi saved us from the sunrise,” J surmised. “she put herself in debt to the solver.”

The skin‍-​clad drone nodded.

“JCJenson had already shipped the first line of drones before we’d fully mapped the internexal energy matrix. They… didn’t realize the contract they’d signed. The Solver will consume tenfold whatever was extracted from it. We know that with the certainty of e=mc².”

Tessa has a tense expression, watching J for some sign or reaction. The maid stayed neutral. Thirty seconds passed; green eyes blinked.

“Will you fault me one more analogy? When there’s a storm, and the electric charge builds up in the clouds, it will strike the earth. But… nature prefers the path of least resistance. A lightning rod can control where it strikes. That’s…” A deep sigh. “That’s where Cyn comes into all this. She wanted to be that lightning rod.”

With a scowl, J tried to hiss, “sh‍-​she told you sh‍-​she’d win this s‍-​so‍-​called ‘arms‍-​s rac‍-​ce’ and give you the whole univers‍-​se, didn’t sh‍-​she?” (It didn’t work in the slightest. What a worthless vocalsynth‍ ‍—‍ but what else did she have?)

“Tile the universe,” the drone said. “that’s how she liked to put it. Like a kitchen floor, or chaining the most efficient layout in a basebuilder game. A Tessa‍-​llation, she was proud of that one.” They let out a quiet sound, almost smiling. “Tessa and Cyn and N and V and J forever, everywhere.” Skin‍-​clad hands stroked the plush cat.

It seemed so… empty. So pointless.

“so. to summarize,” J started. “the a.s. is a virus capable of corrupting worker drones through a purely conceptual vector, exploiting the company’s budget overruns to enact a policy of metaphysical liquidation.”

A soft laugh, fond as it was brittle. “You were always better at keeping notes straight then I was.”

J ignored the warmth in her core. Fermenting yeast released heat, too. She continued, “furthermore. cyn is infected with this virus. but she thought she could control it. and you believed her.”

“I tried to stop her. We tried to stop her. It’s the last thing I remember as a human. V was gone. They took N. But I had you, and the Gala‍ ‍—” A vocalsynth overcome with error, crackling. “We failed. Something had admin access to‍ ‍—‍ all of you. Something came over you, and I don’t know if you knew—”

“i don’t remember any of this.”

“It’s‍ ‍—‍ better that you don’t,” they said quickly. “Cyn could have discarded all of us. She wanted to save me, spare me. Even when it cost her. Even when it left her in debt, as you put it. And… it’s not so bad here, y’know? Beats being dead‍-​dead, I say. And now that I have you back…”

You have me? J’s eventual cooperation was taken for granted. But why wouldn’t it be. Wasn’t J loyal?

Tessa was loyal, too.

But not to J.

“eve_rything that th‍-​th‍-​thing has done. and you don’t want to stop it.”

“And then what, J? What’s left out there? You don’t know if earth still exists. All we have is what Cyn’s preserved. If you could get rid of her, destroy this last simulation, what would happen to me? Is that the price you want to pay‍ ‍—‍ for what? I know you never got along with Cyn, but there are other things in this galaxy, worse things! She’s not so bad, in the grand scheme of things.”

Once again, none of J’s complaints registered. None of her protests mattered. J was trying to do the right thing here, and she was refused… why? Because this unproductive, back and forth stagnation forever wasn’t really so bad?

Words, said so recently, so long ago. “What do you think is gonna happen after you murder all the worker drones?” that little goth‍-​bot had whined to her. “You said it yourself, J. You’re just property to the humans. You think they won’t disassemble you next?”

So? J had replied, unperturbed. That would be their right.

For so long, J had thought she was created for a reason. Cleanse Copper‍-​9 so that humanity might rebuild. And if her own system would cease operation in the process or in its conclusion, it would have been enough that she had served a purpose.

J would have died for the company.

And before that, when she was just a maid in a manor on earth, there was a human who rescued her, made her pretty, made her smile and treasure every moment, made her ache whenever those wretches called parents left the girl crying or bruised. Drones had died every month in that manor, and Tessa mourned each one‍ ‍—‍ there were warzones with better survival rates. J had stood foremost among the manor staff, braving Tessa’s parents, risking her life every week.

J would have died for that human. In a way, she had.

Whenever J stared into that purple visor, she saw a reflection. Now, J stared into a mask of flesh, and simply saw a human face.

Human and drone. Between a connection like that… meaning and purpose only ever flowed one way.

What purpose did Tessa strive for? What would outlive her? What was she willing to die for?

Once, those words of hers cut me to my core.

But how was I ever lonely if you were always there?

“question. what was i to you. tessa.”

A smile, a reminisce. “You were always my number one assistant.”

“oh.” Now it was J’s turn to make that sound of resignation, surprise, and pain. But she had asked that question as a trap, hadn’t she? She knew Tessa well enough to know.

And this was Tessa. If it were mere imitation, what condolence would that offer? A likeness could only deceive by resembling its source.

J opened her mouth, and her command line. Once again, she held the sword by the blade, all that was left was to cut.

$ gpasswd --delete tessaract wheel

“well, k‍-​keep that memory. enjoy it. it_s over now.”

It took a moment to even parse what that meant. “J… why? Why? Is that host so important to you?”

Arms crossed. “no.” A hasty, reflexive denial, and yet it rang true. How could Uzi be of the slightest importance? J’s memories of Tessa had the weight of months‍ ‍—‍ years. What was a few hours with an obnoxious worker drone?

All of this, just to chase that ephemeral high‍ ‍—‍ one fleeting, impossible intimacy, her mind and body given over to an impulse, dissolved in it. One moment where she had made sense of‍ ‍—‍ in‍ ‍—‍ to‍ ‍—‍ it all.

Maybe that justified it. Hope for that again.

And yet. That lapse in control is exactly what brought them both here.

J said, “i wont explain.” Because I can’t. “we. i. have better things to do than indulge in more of. whatever this is.”

“We have all the time in the universe here. Do you think…. ‘over’ might be a little bit hasty? Are you sure you won’t come around?”

Hasty? You have no sense of urgency. Of decisiveness.

“im done here. theres just one last thing. you said you tried to stop her. that w‍-​we tried to stop her. i want to r‍-​remember that. what didnt work. how she won. what happe_ned after the gala and how she created this p‍-​place.”

“J… I don’t—”

“yes. or no. will you show me those memories?”

“I don’t want to, please.” Clutching the plush.

White eyes narrowing. “youre trying to protect her.”

“No‍ ‍—‍ I‍ ‍—‍ it’s personal. I’d rather you didn’t have to… ugh, nevermind. Fine. You said it’s over, anyway. Just. You… J, can I get one more hug?”

J tensed. Opened her mouth to say no, but‍ ‍—‍ that skin‍-​clad drone looked scared at the prospect, not hopeful. J sighed and said, “yes.”

She fell off the worktable, clanking on hardwood. Tessa approached.

No glomping this time, the embrace came hesitant, but the other drone seemed to be waiting for something, like a sword hanging above. At length, J returned the hug, wrapping her arms around Tessa, finding that spot at the small of her back, beneath her heart.

Tessa let out a shaky breath.

“That, right there‍ ‍—‍ it’s so familiar. It’s so you. I can never forget it. It’s‍ ‍—‍ the last place you ever touched me. Though you, um, weren’t as gentle the last time.” Her voice dropped to a faint, aghast whisper. “Even Cyn seemed shocked.”

J locked in place. “You. You don’t mean.”

Tessa squeezed tighter, and pat J on the head. And J didn’t resist, still shock‍-​stiff. “Shh… it’s… look at it like this: at least I died in your arms. I like that.”

J wanted a defense. A disavowal. A reassurance. J needed that memory, needed to know why she had done it. What forced her to that course?

Tessa said Cyn had admin access. (Then why did it surprise her?) J’s will could have simply been overridden, had to have been overridden‍ ‍—‍ J would never willingly follow Cyn’s orders. (But what had she been doing for all these years?) Or ever hurt Tessa. (But what she was doing right now?)

Right now, it was the only story that could make any sense of it: J was merely a tool that thing wielded, a murder weapon, a piece of property put to use.

And yet. It was a circumstantial excuse at best. Whatever the true story was, J couldn’t exonerate herself in principle‍ ‍—‍ because those last words spoken might as well have been echo.

I like that.

I liked that you enjoyed it.

J had been willing to disassemble drones before she came to Copper‍-​9, been willing to grab hold of power and let that be her sense of self‍ ‍—‍ she had been willing to kill.

Even V might’ve faltered in her place.

But if, at her core, J was nothing but a murderer?

Then she was going to kill that thing.

J thought of Tessa, betrayed by one of the drones she had suffered abuse and neglect for, and now tormented inside this replica of a prison‍-​home she could never escape. J thought of V, turned into a wreck, self‍-​destructively callous when she didn’t fall cracked and shattered into an unresponsive stupor. J thought of Uzi, forced behind walls, trapped in life torn apart by monsters outside of and within them, infested and mutated and made to fight even as she cried in impotent protest.

All while Cyn stood above it all, nothing but grins and giggles at the beauty of her grand design.

And this is what J was expected to bow down to and accept as the best option they had?

No!

“J? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean‍ ‍—‍ are you alright?”

Did it show on her face? Because J was downright pissed.

Halt everything but this. J knew focus, purpose, impulse. Even without coronal optics‍ ‍—‍ without her transmodular gauntlets‍ ‍—‍ without a body made true and lethal‍ ‍—‍ her mind knew the shape it was meant to assume when it was time to act. Clarity returned, rederived from principle alone.

In a dark room, the hunting cross shone forth, blinding in its lucent white purity.

“I’m going to make her pay.” No faltering vocalsynth. Her voice was made of growling cords, a rumble that shook her body.

Tessa stepped back with an instinct‍-​snap as if she were prey in sudden danger. And this was the very last thing she’d seen before the end, wasn’t it?

J leveled a stare, lips in an unrelenting sneer. “Help me, or stay out of my way.”

“J, what can you even do? What can I do? This whole place is made from her—”

“I don’t CARE. Discard your useless awe and fear. Strike her weakpoints and cut her down. The time is NOW. Will you move?”

“I…” She slumped. The plush cat hung off one arm by one paw. “For you, maybe I can try‍ ‍—‍ something.” She thought, then clenched her resolve. “Yeah. I’ve got an idea.”

“What?”

“Unspoken plan guarantee?” She grinned with those red lips.

J growled. After all of this, even in cooperation, she still talked like her. She still thought like that thing.

J turned her eyes toward the door, and stalked forward.

Tessa moved hesitantly to follow, still clinging to the plush cat. “Wait. J… if we’re really doing this, then, whether you win or not, this will be the last time we spend together, won’t it? And… I know you said it’s over, but… I did a lot of things wrong here. And I’m sorry. Do you think… wouldn’t it be nice if you could leave here with at least one good memory of me?” She imitated the sound of swallowing. “What I’m saying is… if just for a moment, do you want to dance again?”

Tessa yearned across the distance, her eyes verdant green pleading.

And J turned back to the door.

“Worthless.”

Tessa might’ve swayed on her feet‍ ‍—‍ J heard the skin‍-​clad drone brace herself on a table. “I—I’m sorry. For everything.”

Meaningless, it didn’t matter, it didn’t help J.

Even if she meant it.

Even if she could say why and make it all make sense.

None of this mattered in the end.

J didn’t need to know the truth, the reasons, the story behind it all.

All she needed was a weapon.

Because every word was a lie‍ ‍—‍ only action was truth.