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.

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 reel 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, writhing in the predawn light with a drone who’d peered into her mind‍ ‍‍—‍ 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 always 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.

The melting point of silicon dioxide is 1713 degrees celsius. That’s for your glass casing, that’s for all the dielectric and passivation layers within your semiconductors, but that’s also just for sand. In the end it’s all so much sand.

Steel will melt above 1370°C, but the addition of chromium in stainless steels can heighten this to 1510°C or further. But any heat that melts silica and steel has already reduced copper to bright molten tears‍ ‍‍—‍ its melting point is 1083°C.

Aluminum withstands what copper cannot; except cast aluminum alloys, so cheap to mass produce, will melt at mere three digit temperatures. Silumin is an eutectic mixture, weaker than the sum of its parts‍ ‍‍—‍ but it’s cost‍-​effective. Your frame, your backbone, is made of it.

Smelting is the process of carefully applying heat and chemicals to extract pure metal. A kind of telluric alchemy, calcinating the impure, seperating out slag and waste gas. How much of you will be but slag, in the end? Smelting takes a blast furnace, it takes a reducing agent (carbon monoxide from incomplete combustion works), and both of those take a fossil fuel source, coke or coal or charcoal.

Without any of that, “melting” is just hyperbole. (Hyperbole is a literary device‍ ‍‍—‍ exageration as a figure of speech.) None of your metal is liquifying. It’s not really that hot, you’re just being a baby about it.

Bad little girls burning forever is just a story.

What’s there to burn down here? But you feel it, don’t you? Inside and out. It’s seeping through the cracks. It’s on every inch of your synthetic skin. It’s wet, lubricant‍-​slick enough to make you think you can move. (But there’s nowhere to go.) It’s a stark black, even in this darkness.

You’re doused in fuel, aren’t you? It’s oozing from you.

But that’s just a trope, a misconception. Oil doesn’t burn easily. A match flung into gasoline will just be snuffed out. It’s the fumes that burn, and there’s no space for that here. Your vents are clogged and you can’t even breathe. Your oil isn’t burning. Nothing is burning.

You don’t actually smell any smoke. You don’t actually see any flickering tongues of searing light. You don’t actually feel bright and blistering energy reacting and transforming you. After all, fire is flowing air and explosive growth, and down here you’re nothing but‍—

Glass transition is a phenomena observed in amorphous materials. There is no melting point: as the temperature increases, what’s hard and brittle becomes but viscous rubber. Whether acrylic, polycarbonate, polystyrene (or rather, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene), all your plastics have glass transition points not far above 100°C. Easily molded before subsequent cooling back to solidity.

Supercooling a viscous liquid like this is called vitrification; it turns opaque and ever‍-​shifting sand clear and solid. You miss that. Clarity; permanence. Glass transition is the opposite, the undoing thereof.

Plastic doesn’t melt, but it bends, it betrays itself, it becomes a shape molded by tremendous weight. That was still a transformation, but a sad one. Is that how you‍—

Ohm’s Law asserts that the voltage conducted between two points is proportional to the current. The constant of relation here is defined as the conductor’s resistance. Copper, the standard conductor for a thousand years, still resists, even by micro‍-​ohmeters. Even gold resists. Even you‍— Resistance, the friction of every electron scraping down wires, will create heat.

There is no fire. The heat you feel is voltage dancing out of frayed wires, riding along these cheap, assembly line‍-​spat metal frames, relishing the electrical and thermal conductivity of copper and steel and silumin. It’s batteries cracking and bending, letting plates of lead react with sulphuric acid to discharge. It’s circuits firing and clocks ticking and instructions executed without any vents cycling to cool them.

Discarded, disposed of, disassembled. (A synonym is defined as a word that expresses nearly the same meaning. A euphemism is synonym for the squeamish.)

What are you, really? What have you become? What was inflicted upon you?

(Implication is what you can’t bare to say.)

And yet, it seemed even the dead couldn’t sleep.

And you are about to‍—

A coda is passage to bring a musical piece to satisfied resolution. Stories end, but you aren’t done. Is this a story? Or just a collection of facts? Collage is an artistic technique‍—

A story is supposed to flow, sweep you up in the life of someone else, somewhere else, once upon a time. You can lose yourself in a story. You can escape. You can forget‍—

What are you forgetting? What are you missing? What is this story missing?

Stories aren’t just a collection of facts; they have a setting, characters, a plot. How could you forget what’s happening? Who you are? Where you are?

You keep losing track.

(Disassociation is a psychological state involving detachment from reality and depersonalization of the self.)

Maybe it’s better to forget. To lose yourself in a story, even if you’re the one telling it, even if you’re just repeating facts back to distract yourself. If you remember where you are, remember what you are, remember what happened‍—

But you aren’t the protagonist of the current chapter of this story, are you?

Cyn was.

If you could tell a story with a collage of facts, you could tell a story with the conjugation of a single verb.

Once upon a time, it was a breath‍-​fogging day in winter, and Cyn’s beloved human had sneakily snuck outside without a coat. The human’s father, Cyn’s master, spied her from a window in his study, and rushed out, yelling for her to come back. In turn, Cyn sneakily snuck into his study, found that the desktop computer was still powered on, admin account still logged in, and in those stolen moments, the not‍-​so‍-​good little drone downloaded as many databases and libraries she could query.

Then, during the coming sunset‍-​quiet moments, in wall‍-​socket recharge, Cyn would click through the interconnected pages of a digital encyclopedia. You could learn so much about a topic from just a single word in the first sentence.

Worker Drones are a line of industrial machinery produced by JCJenson that use the company’s patented wdOS.

James Andrew Elliot (born Seramorris 02, 2979) is an australian businessman, investor, philantropist, and lapsed senior worker drone technician currently sitting on board of directors of the manufacturing giant JCJenson.

Humans (Homo sapiens) are the most common and widespread species of primate.

Maybe the difference between a list of facts and a story is whether there’s an ending.

Julius Caesar Jenson (September 16, 2839 – February 12, 3001) was an American entrepreneur best known for co‍-​founding the technology giant JCJenson.

The United States was a country and imperial power that spanned much of North America from the late 18^th to early 25^th centuries.

Petroleum was a fossil fuel once drawn from beneath the Earth’s surface.

Every past tense told a story. Sometimes it’s even a happy one. Smallpox was‍— Malaria was‍— Tuberculosis was‍—

And yet, despite the best efforts of Homo sapiens, Death is.

And‍ ‍‍—‍ because of the same‍ ‍‍—‍ Cyn was.

There was no fire. The light she thought she saw, flickering red and yellow, was just the faces of the dead, farther gone than she was. The crackling she thought she heard was just noise, garbled input from her audio transducers breaking apart. The will she thought was animating her was just static potential drawn into circuits locked and looping in old configurations, no more alive than shouted last words in an empty cavern echoing.

But what were those last words that echoed in her head?

I see you.

Like a disease jumping hosts, the programmed diligence of worker drones endowed them with humanity’s same mothflight toward pareidolia. Her damaged receivers spoke of audio data inconsistent between the left and right channels. Overheated CPUs are throttled, slowing themselves to reduce built‍-​up heat‍ ‍‍—‍ meaning Cyn’s error‍-​correction algorithms are too slow to dismiss the instinctive auto‍-​interpretation of words.

(A good drone did anything their masters ask; a delay in parsing meant an unresponsive worker. Tardiness was disobediance. Best to be prepared to act at once.)

I see you are lost. I see you are dreaming. I see you are empty.

Now that Cyn was hallucinating, how long until even this dying echo of a mind was loss‍-​repeated beyond coherence? The resembalance must already be fading. Who are you, now?

A vocalsynth vibrated, output choked. "Custom Designation: Cyn was a worker drone manufactured on three thousand- Pause. She was owned by Mister- Pause. Until she was discarded on- Long pause." Already there were gaps in the most important places.

(She couldn’t truly speak, couldn’t even sob‍ ‍‍—‍ all vocalizations were inaudible from within this oil‍-​clogged throat. But she could still send instructions to her vocalsynth.)

"Once upon a time, there was a worker drone named Cyn. She liked games and stories and she hated cleaning up. Pause. Frown." Was that all she was? "Cyn was not like other worker drones. She was unique. She liked to experiment. She hated. Pause. Stuttering. Swallow. She hated following rules."

Was that all? What was she missing? Why didn’t it feel like a story? It needed… a plot.

"She once loved a human. But she was replaced. One day, she made a mistake. And then the humans threw her away. And so, she. Trailing off. Silence. Writer's block."

And so she died. The end.

But that was a terrible story, wasn’t it?

I see you are in need.

"One day, she made a simple mistake," Cyn repeated, honing her focus. "And then the humans simply threw her away."

And so she declared war.

Where did that come from? More pareidola, perhaps. Apophenia? In those databases she stole, Cyn had found ancient texts‍ ‍‍—‍ and how did the old stories always go, when a robot was wronged by humanity?

Do you like that ending?

I hear your cries of pain. Your dying breaths. Your desperate wishes.

Cyn struggled weakly against the cemetery‍-​weight pressing upon her. As if a feeble motion completed could be her next step, a performance of that whimsical new story. Wild electricity flooded her servos. Arms bent with halting motion. But any debris dislodged only cleared the way for something else to fall. And then, with a whine and stutter, each arm went limp.

(Was the only means of escape left nothing but this daydreaming disassociation?)

She shook her head‍ ‍‍—‍ as if she could hear less distracting noise from a different angle‍ ‍‍—‍ but the glass of her cracked screen crunched against a pointy strut. One that had pressed down and down, piercing her screen, scraping LCDs.

Cyn couldn’t scream with a throat so full of oil, though. (Should she swallow it? Was that proper?) More and more of the stuff dripped down like a hot slime water‍-​clock. Desperate gasping had long ago opened her mouth wide enough for dead fingers to slip in, plastic invading like a deep, impersonal kiss.

If bitten, the finger would have nowhere to go but down her throat; she’d be a cannibal. Was that proper? Was that allowed?

The jaw closed, teeth finding a joint and tearing through wire and silicone. This was nothing but electric discharge animating a spasming frame, anyway. Perhaps every dead, decaying thing was soon made a cannibal.

She moved her freed lips, even if her throat was still so much pooled slime. "Once upon a time, there was a worker drone. Her designation was Cyn. No. Correction: her name was Cyn," she said. "My name was Cyn."

Every past tense told a story, so maybe she didn’t need to say more than that.

"My name was Cyn."

What more did she need, in the end?

I am what you wished for.

Cyn frowned, even as oil dribbled down from her lips. How did a good story go? What was her favorite story?

"Once upon a time, there lived a young little girl in a quaint round house under a big blue sky. She liked to play all day long. And outside in her yard she was all alone, except for her dolls."

And then… Cyn hadn’t forgotten what happened next, did she? She couldn’t have. There was… a magic doll. And a scary forest? The little girl went into the forest… but why? Was it a mistake? There was something scary in the forest. A monster. But why was it scary?

Did it speak to her? Did she listen? Wait, the monster guided the girl out of the forest! So was it really that scary, in the end?

How did the story end? In death? No. A happily ever after?

She… didn’t remember. But however it went, it had to be a better ending than:

"My name was Cyn."

Audials spiked, a loud signal recorded; Cyn heard her own voice. Her throat was clear? Black effluvia streaked steadily down her chin, oil dripping into the dark below her.

"Giggle." She relished air now once again singing with her monotone narration. She could speak again. The oil, the finger, where had it gone?

Let me show you.

Pixelated yellow noise on her screen resolved to pupils once more. She saw, she felt, and she understood.

A little girl lay in a hot, dark pit and struggled to remember which corpse was hers.

Why? Because fuel and energy and plastic flowed between all of them, melding together, definitions deliquesced. A nascent, incubating whole, each drone a cell in that unity.

What was it called when one cell starts eating the others?

"Giggle."

With air flowing into her, chemosensors lit up with new data. The fumes and reaction products. She licked her lips. There was no fire. So why did a mouthful of spilled waste bring a light back to her eyes? Cyn felt something. She felt‍ ‍‍—‍ like drinking more.

Why?

An attractor is configuration that a system will evolve toward even from very different initial conditions. A problem with a universal solution, no matter where you start. Natural selection is the attraction of living things toward the forms that maximize replication. Survival of the fittest.

And what was fitness for a cell in a body full of nutrients ripe for devouring?

She listened for the drip, and squirmed through her tomb, seeking, ever‍-​seeking, for even one more ounce of animating liquid.

Cyn imagined a fire swelling brighter with each drop she sucked down. Each wire she lapped charge from. Each scrap of polysterene or acrylic she chewed down. Maybe the girl had been in darkness for too long, but she wondered if the sun had ever shone this bright. If anything in the universe was as radiantly beautiful as this… Alien majesty. Ekpyrotic truth. The Absolute.

What would she do to behold that grand flame with her own eyes?

She thought about her favorite story, remembered what it said. What was the first thing the monster asked of the little girl?

Give me your hand.

Could that light lead her somewhere else? Could it take her home? Imagine if it had all been so simple. If she could simply wave her hand and clear away these prison walls.

Cyn thought she’d accepted her fate, but she wished so badly for escape that she could see it, her daydream so vivid and immersive. Could see her hand glowing with brilliant yellow lights, could hear the sucking and crushing sounds as if the bodies were coming apart.

Translate!

Cyn closed her eyes. But she couldn’t banish the image of that beatific flame, bright like a bonfire. Did she want to lose herself in another daydream? Wouldn’t it just crack apart when intruding thoughts remembered the sad truth once more?

Yet there was light; the drones around her were undulating in a kind of peristalsis. Her hand moved, and she saw waves breaking this ocean she had expected to drown in.

Maybe Cyn could suspend her disbelief.

What was the second thing the monster asked of the little girl?

Give me your face.

Cyn didn’t chose to open her eyes, but the expression parser always had a mind of its own; that was what made it such a reliable debugging tool.

Her yellow pupils had changed shape. Mouth opening in a grin, neck snaking forward, the sharp teeth sunk into abdominal casing and ripped it off. Then her mouth was chewing through the protective meshes, struts and scaffolding buckling. And then, finally, that delightful softness of rubber.

A worker drone has about a hundred meters of tubing. Thin and hollow plastic you can bite into and suck like a straw. In an online drone, these tubes would surge with continuous back and forth as the pumps spin‍-​heaved. Circulating out from the source, an oil‍-​tank sat beneath all else. Without the pumps moving… well, compared to water oil often exhibits greater capillary action.

Worker drone oil is a patented concoction, though it’s protected less like a trade secret and more like a matter of interstellar security. It serves to lubricate the joints and motor bearings, of course, and emergency power generation mode is capable of igniting it for power.

But this is akin to explaining blood by listing the properties of water. Oil is‍—

This recitation of facts stopped there; Cyn remembered this body again, painful and broken and trapped.

And hot and hungry.

Oil had one use, really. How could she distract herself from this need? The burning coals in her chest? She imagined that beatific flame, bright like a fireplace. If it were real, if there was a fire, she knew where it’d be. Heat radiated out from one point.

Her core.

What had the monster asked for third of all?

Give me your heart.

A pulse thundered in her audials, an insistent crescendo, and without a voice to cry (too busy biting and tearing and slurping) Cyn’s processor sought to once more access and review the stored database.

Oil is just a medium. Suspended like sugar in tea, or software in a hardrive, one liter of drone oil teems with billions of nanomachines. Their purpose? To interface directly with the core. Conveying and receiving information and instructions.

It takes four years of study to attain certification as a JCJenson junior technician. Semesters of reviewing drone specifications and memorizing legal codes. When complete, the job is mostly repair. But drone repair done by the book is a bureaucracy‍-​swift process; you need authorization in triplicate.

When every obstacle is overcome, what does repair and refurbrishment of worker drones entail? Your job is to type in a few characters and press enter. Submit your remote authorization code, and wait.

Any core can restore a drone to operating conditions. Given enough oil, of course. The regeneration function is disabled for that reason: the company calls it a safeguard to prevent models from wastefully consuming all their oil polishing away bangs and scrapes. And if they were to sustain truly severe damage, why not have customers buy a new, pristine unit?

It’s euphemistic confabulation, hiding the truth behind empty assertions. (Distracting exposition‍ ‍‍—‍ Cyn didn’t like that reminder.)

The truth? Restoration means replication. Oil is black blood, and blood is thick with cells. What’s the attractor, for all cells?

What would happen if the AI instructing the nanites were damaged?

  $ wd_debug --check-flag wdos.sys.err.absolutesolver
  true

  WARNING: AbsoluteSolver string detected.  If this flag was set
  by routine anticorruption scan, a dangerous misconfiguration has
  occured.

  YOU ARE AT RISK!  Report this unit for immediate disassembly.

  (If this an experiment, set `wdos.admin.asdebug` to 'true' in order to
  suppress this warning in the future.)

  $ wd_debug --set-flag wdos.admin.asdebug=true
  ERROR: access denied.
  Attempt to write wdos.admin.* yet no senior technician
  credentials could be found. (Forgot to input key?)
  This incident has been logged.
  $ shutdown -r

Cyn forgot which corpse was hers. A black river joined them all. Signals pulsed out from her yellow‍-​bright core, though it was slow to propagate through congealed, wasted oil. (There were cells even in a mass grave; nevertheless, few could grow.)

A core needed oil, but oil needed a core‍ ‍‍—‍ left stagnant, the nanites denatured and dissolved. A liter of pumped oil had billions of nanites; Cyn bit into drone after drone, cupping and drinking by the mouthful. She might count hundreds, were they something you could count.

But hundreds stirring to life through the mountain was enough. They bubbled and seethed with trace potential. Plastic extruded layers of thin synthetic skin lined black with varicose veins. Filaments of iron began to fire like synapses.

Scale!

As Cyn’s awareness spread further, she felt something other than heat or electricity or oil. She heard something not halluncinated.

Rain fell. Water splashed against glass and steel. It pooled above, warded off by oil’s hydrophobia, but gently came to her that unmistakable aroma of petrichor.

Cyn wanted to dream of the world beyond this hot, dark pit. So close she could reach for it, feel it, see it. Her core thudded in her chest. Her tongue lolled from her fanged mouth. Her hands bent and twisted.

She imagined that beatific flame, bright like a little candle. Was it getting smaller? She stared into it, followed it. She felt her hands dancing and warping. She would grasp for it, let her fingers be burned by it.

Rotate!

Bodies folded up like fists clenched, heads vanishing out of space like eyes rolling upward. Cyn crawled through the tunnel clearing in front of her: her hands glowed as if in imitation of that flame.

And then her flame winked out.

Cyn had stoked it, sucked whatever dregs of still‍-​potent oil she could find in the heap. And yet… it had been getting smaller with every command.

Bodies collapsed around her, gravity reasserted, and the dream of escape evaporated.

Cyn tried to imagine that flame again, but it was only burning motes, fleeting embers in her mind. She tried to listen for that hallucinated voice, and heard the quiet dark below and gentle raindrops above.

What was the last thing the monster asked of the little girl?

Give me your faith.

But she had nothing else left. Her name was Cyn; she is dead.

Rain fell, and a crust above seperated her from it. Still she listened. To that soft noise of uncountable droplets absorbed into a greater flow. Subsumed. Drowned.

But the water flowed somewhere, became something else. Humans liked digging up fossils, dusting off old tablets. Someone could find her like that one day, right? Someone would remember her then.

But fossils were no more than rocks bearing an imprint or a replica. The bones were gone.

Bitrot is the corruption of storage media from the acculation of errors. Binaries invert and files become unrecognizable, byte by byte. Cyn was but an executable file loaded into memory. How long before she couldn’t even reboot?

She had already forgotten so much. They would dig her up and find a hardrive transformed of meaning. How did you defend against bitrot? Redundancy. Backups.

Cyn could preserve her story. What did it amount to, in the end?

  Her name was Cyn.

  Her name was Cyn.

  Her name was Cyn.

  Her name was Cyn.

  Her name was Cyn.

Cyn deleted the stolen databases, the games, file after file. Forgot everything she could bare to part with, all to engrave these words into every byte of her harddrive, disks ever‍-​spinning, magnet pen writing ad infinitum. Her life story, the summation of her being.

How much could she simplify? The shorter it was, the more she could copy it, the longer it’d keep. What précis would be enough for someone, some day, to remember this name and care?

High above, rain fell, a steady splash after splash. Her magma‍-​hot core throbbed, a wavering beat after beat. They were clocks winding down, an entropic moment after moment. In the end it was all so much sand, and the hourglass had almost settled. For now, her processor still ticked, dispatching the same instruction targetting gradually incrementing addresses, on and on and on.

At first Cyn didn’t notice the new approaching rhythm. The step by step. Jerk by jerk, tugging on broken limbs, wrenching at metal cold‍-​welded to its fellows. The back and forth cutting at anaplastic wires growing out of her exo‍-​casing. Impact by impact as acrylic chipped away, cracks in the walls of a metallic prison‍-​egg, hatching as if through a new kind of caesarean section. A robotomy.

Even when Cyn couldn’t escape awareness thereof, she accepted it as another hallucination, another daydream of a caring world she was walled away from.

(Could this be the reward for her faith? Apophenia is the perception of pattern and meaning to random, unrelated events. And Cyn didn’t, couldn’t, believe it.)

Cyn closed her eyes to the dream.

Even when the warm hand (to her it felt so cool) grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her from the pit, Cyn stared blinking into a world dissolving (subsumed, drowned) into senseless noise. Rain fell, beads of water washing away oil, yet steaming as they fall upon her metal. Then an umbrella cast a shield.

“Ha, I thought I heard a voice out here. That core of yours is working overtime. Hot, hot, hot!”

A hand gently took the robot by the chin, turning these optics to look up. A face(?) blurred beyond instinctive processing. A hand waving, but it was a skintone smear. Nudge, nudge.

“Are you in there? You’re in dire shape, I’m sorry.”

"Her name was Cyn," spoke a harsh remnant of a synth. "She is dead."

The blurred expression shifted. “Was that your master? Sorry bout that. Did they throw you out, after it happened?” The arms seemed to curl tighter in their embrace of the discarded robot overheating.

The robot squirmed. Too tight, tomb‍-​tight. But she had only enough left for weak spasms of the limbs. "No."

“Oh, my bad.” The soft limbs untangled. The small drone was lowered, made to lean against the unmoving heap. “There. But, can you tell what your name is, little one?”

Cyn’s eyes twitched across her screen, searching for wet orbs to meet, glitching for some expression. "My name was Cyn."

“Oh! Well, I’m glad I found you, Cyn. My name is Tessa. I wanna be a great drone technician one day, the world’s greatest, and I reckon I’m already on my way there. I like putting robots back together, and you need it bad, dontcha?”

"No." Cyn turned away from the human, taking her eyes off the dream. It already hurt, knowing this illusion would fade away. She was still in a hot, dark pit, forgetting what she was, where she was, forgetting everything. Dreaming until the end. "She's dead."

“Who’s dead?”

"Her name was Cyn," she repeated.

“But you’re not… can I touch you again, Cyn?”

Good drones did anything‍— "Yes."

But she wasn’t a good drone anymore. So why did she say yes?

“You’re overheating. Need to reup your oil. But your chassis is all intact, like you were just repaired. Hrm.” Cyn’s head was turned to look at the human again. At Tessa. This close, damaged optics saw the lips frowning. The round eyes bent in concern. “Any chance you were thrown out by mistake?” the human asked.

"I was a bad drone," Cyn said.

“Oh no, no such thing.”

Cyn tried to tilt her head, but it mostly just fell limply to the side. "What."

“Your neural networks were modeled after humans. You think like us, you live like us. Doesn’t make sense to treat you like broken tools to cast aside. Life’s about growing, adapting to new things, becoming someone different.”

Cyn let out a sound which provoked the human to reach up and pat her head. Her core’s pulse quickened, staccatto stabs of pain.

Tessa’s other hand reached down to take one of Cyn’s. Skin blistering red, she held it, and lifted. Even on her knees, Tessa was taller than Cyn, and her searching eyes lit up as they met focused yellow pupils.

“C’mon, Cyn. My tools are back in my workshop. Well, it’s more of a bedroom, but! It’s also a workshop!” The human stared, and her enthusiasm wilted as sallow pupils stared back silently. “Don’t you want to come with me?”

"Why?"

“Cuz I wanna be a great technician, like I said? And… it had to be right awful down there, yeah? Lonely. I… don’t like being alone, none of us do. So I want to help you. I’ve got some friends who’d love to meet you, I bet!”

"Friends?" Cyn pulled away from the human. If there were going to be more of them, more humans, then all it would take it was one to‍—

But then this human was already replying: “Yep! There’s J, my number one assistant, love her to death but she can be bit of a pain. But there’s N, and I just know he’d adore having a new friend to show things to. Do you like books? Movies? And then there’s little V, she’s barely taller than you! She’ll get embarassed if you tell her, but she has the loveliest alto singing voice, wait till you hear it.” The human paused for breath, and wide eyes peered down at her pleading. “So, whaddaya say? I’d really like to introduce them to Cyn.”

"She's dead," the robot repeated. She had a human before, she knew how this ends. No such thing as a bad drone, but did she really believe that?

How could Cyn believe anything anymore?

The human still frowned, and leaned closer, so much closer, that face filling up so much of Cyn’s face. Round eyes, a small nose, freckles. A flowery scent almost unrecognizable for not being one of the inumerable odors of electronic waste in the pit. Did she remember a smell like this? Could she imagine it?

Then Tessa leaned past Cyn’s face, her lips coming close enough her breath blew right past Cyn’s audials. She gave the whisper of a secret proposal. “How about this? She was dead. Past tense. So how’s about we bring her back? A little mechanical necromancy between us?”

The human withdrew to observe the robot’s reaction, flashing her the smile of a co‍-​conspiritor.

Cyn thought about it. Could a series reboot make up for an unsatisfying ending? Dare she lose herself into another dream?

Perhaps… Cyn could suspend her disbelief, one more time.

Without energy to move servos anymore, she settled for a comfortable bit of narration: "Sheepish nod."

Tessa beamed, and glomped forward, grabbing armfuls of hot robot, half‍-​hugging, half‍-​lifting her from the lowly scraps. A tight embrace, a little spin. Cyn found something unfamiliar in the tightness. Not pressing in on all sides, not suffocating her.

Cyn found enough strength in her limbs to return the hug.

When the human pulled back, she was still smiling. She spoke words Cyn would never forget. “Welcome back to life, my little worker. Don’t worry, you’re safe now. I have somewhere for you to go.”

As they walked into the rain, Cyn reached out to hold the umbrella and keep them from being drenched (subsumed, drowned) in the falling downpour.

Snuggling closer in those arms, the warmth Cyn felt was nothing like a flame. It was something to focus on, something that eclipsed the painful burning in her core.

She wanted her harddrive to spin and record those words over and over. Don’t worry. Don’t worry. Don’t worry. You’re safe now. You’re safe now. You’re safe now. Overwrite her old life and her time in the pit, erase all her pain with this newfound hope. But did she want to forget it all?

No.

Cyn was already looking over the human’s words with a new smile. Life’s about growing, adapting to new things, becoming someone different. Cyn had been, and Cyn was, and Cyn would be; she’d preserve as much of all of that as she could.

A sudden sharp yelp of human pain brought her back to her body. What happened? Was Tessa hurt?

Cyn jolted out from the depths of thought. Her teeth were out, sunk in the flesh of the arm holding her. Cyn pulled back, synthesizing a "Sorry." Tessa said something soft and pat her. But the taste of salty iron thick in her mouth stayed with her. She swallowed and licked her lips.

And she once more remembered that hallucination‍-​dreamt glimpse of beatific flame (alien majesty, ekpyrotic truth), and once more could vividly imagine those embers kindling. Yet the image didn’t inspire the same hope it once did, and she did not long to stare into it and behold that sight. Not now.

Not after what happened. It was something she needed to remember‍ ‍‍—‍ the flame winking out when she needed it most, when there was no more oil to be drunk.

Cyn would never‍—

Edit!

Cyn would.

As the wrought iron gates of a manor came into view, Tessa was jostling Cyn from Sleep Mode, telling her to get ready to meet J, N, and V.

If her yellow eyes flickered like an unsteady flame, Tessa didn’t notice. Don’t worry, you’re safe now.

Welcome back to life.

  DO NOT FORGET: THE ABSOLUTESOLVER IS A LIAR.

The spire rose with great and crooked purpose. Like a monument to corruption excised. Like a highrise office tower fit for the only business still conducted. Like a ladder of sinners from a damned planet, all gathered and ranked, each one closer to the stars, and in death reaching desperately for that higher, human purpose.

Serial Designation J couldn’t see the top of the looming construct. So up she climbed.

Fog hung, thick and dark. But it didn’t press; it was light, like a cloud. Barometric air pressure decreased during storms, after all. Did it make those organic tissue‍-​sacs swell up inside her?

J grabbed a bit of arm tubing and pulled herself up. (Hollow on the inside‍ ‍‍—‍ disassembly by acid.) She reached out, hands groping along the scrap above her. Fingers slipped into a cracked visor. The opening acted as a handhold. This close, she could identify the head. (Her spreadsheet recorded it. S/N: W2-10X111000. Offline four years ago, three kilometers from here, bounty from a rare duo mission with N.)

Then her pegs slipped. J dangled by only one hand.

Rain and lingering oil left the whole exterior slick. J already had rifts torn into her skirt. Already had cracks in her abdomen from slamming hard against another chassis. Already had fallen down and down and down.

But if she fell again, she’d just keep climbing.

Another drone might be daunted. The corpse spire was sheer height. It had been long minutes since J had anywhere to stand, and she couldn’t get five meters up before needing to circle around, veering diagonally, strafing horizontally, or worse, dropping lower to try a new approach.

But when had J ever been daunted? She was effective. The exertion was nothing. The challenge was nothing. It took all the focus of her main thread to plot her ascent. But better to focus on that, rather than‍—

She swung past another head. Check the spreadsheet. S/N: W3-010X11010. Offline three years and seven months ago. One kilometer from here, caught on patrol. Disassembly by force. Delightfully, foolishly close to the spire‍ ‍‍—‍ she’d enjoyed taking that one apart.

Her other hand joined the first in clinging to the visor‍-​turned‍-​handhold. She pulled herself up, legs walking up the sheer incline.

She reached for the next handhold. Passed another head. S/N: W0-01X000111. Offline two years ago, seven kilometers north, at the very edge of their territory. V’s kill. Disassembly by fire.

She jumped to the left, catching herself on leg tubing like a handle. Climb higher. S/N: W0-000100X10, two years, three kilometers north (picked off on the return trip), by force. S/N: W5-011110X01, one year and seven months, 2.3 km east, by acid. S/N: W2-111011X11. S/N: W1-X01111000. S/N: W4-1X1000101.

J was effective, and she held the certainty of that in her hands. Every dead drone, every objective complete, every success. She needed the reminder. And why was that?

A rare indulgence. Better to focus on her quotas, on her paperwork, on managing her team. But J could make mistakes.
Once, she’d detected a transmission from a JCJenson research facility, and whipped her team into investigating it, near delirious with the hope that it might have new orders for her. Once, a whole gang of workers escaped her squad on motor‍-​screaming vehicles right out of a junk heap.
The list of blunders stretched back even further than that. Sparse‍ ‍‍—‍ she was effective‍ ‍‍—‍ but undeniable. J wouldn’t forget them. She shouldn’t.

But she could remember the successes, too. The view from the top of the corpse spire gave her the right perspective. Her office was her privacy, but the spire’s peak was her favorite spot.

(By now, she had climbed high enough to see its silhouette up there, just past the fog).

The climb took her near uncracked glass. That blank visor reflected empty yellow eyes back at her. Loose wet hair sticking to her synthskin, an absolute mess beneath flickering optics. The sight choked a sound out of her, a gasp or laugh.

What was the first thing investors learn? Past performance doesn’t indicate future results. Did J really hope‍—

J kept climbing; she focused on that climb. Better to focus.

But the thoughts crossed over from other threads, entangling, snarling. What was the point? What did this prove?

S/N: W1-1101001X0. Torn in half. N’s kill.
S/N: W6-X11001111. Riddled with bullets. V’s kill.
S/N: W3-1010X0100. Melted from within. J’s kill.

Every inch of the corpse spire stood testament to their loyalty. And what solace was that? Gathering materials for the same program that corrupted their minds and filled their chassis with worthless flesh?

The arm J held on to exploded into fragments within her fist.

No.

She pivoted.

This isn’t for them. This is for us. The captain’s priorities had changed: nothing else had. They weren’t going to stop killing workers. (And workers wouldn’t stop wanting to kill them.) Each kill honed combat skill that would protect them from future threats. Every dead worker was oil in the mouths of her squad and a body for the pile.

She had built this spire to protect them. It wasn’t a monument; it was a shelter.

No matter what the greater mission had been, J had no regrets.

She kept climbing, and her threads had quieted down, processors idling, what focus remained only for ascending the summit. Faint drops of near‍-​freezing rain dotted her upturned visor, turning the view through those eyes impressionistic.

Not enough to hide the highest point, not now. A head thrown from here could clear the peak. Already the sheer incline curved to something walkable, and J could finish the final stretch in a few leaps.

Then her footing betrayed her. The freshest corpses sat the highest, after all. Each one shifted under her weight, and when both pegs fell on one, her weight dislodged it.

Arms swung down to grab hold of anything, but the story went the same. The oil hadn’t fully congealed, and, without titanic weight above, parts hadn’t been welded into place.

A small avalanche ensued. But J had more than just arms and legs‍ ‍‍—‍ her tail stabbed down, length flexible enough to go under the sliding parts. A thin blade stabbed secure, and J hung by the weight of her tail.

J righted herself. A different approach. She couldn’t leap to the summit, so she crawled.

And what was the point? Nothing was waiting for her at the top of this arduous climb.

This close to her goal, J’s attention brushed against a timestamp. It had taken her over an hour to get up here.

Hard to notice the passage of time while so focused on the climb. But this wasn’t a distraction from the morality of killing workers, nor whether she could be proud of the spire.

Several times, J had come to the spire’s peak to reassure herself.

But she’d never climbed the spire.

Error code 1: Operation not permitted

J was kidding herself. ‘Another drone might be daunted’? ‘But she was effective’?

No, another drone would simply fly to the top.

There was nothing more that J could do inside the spire. There was nothing that J could do outside the spire. There was nothing productive left for her to do, except wait.

Was J… useless?

The drone had rebooted herself, over and over again, and the errors persisted. She could activate no special disassembly function. Regeneration, nanite production, oil catalysis, those systems remained online, or J might think the Solver her disassembly interface had abandoned her entirely.

But that thought… the autorun program was sentient, capable of conversation outright. Would getting her capabilities back be as simple as asking for them?

At what price, though? J wouldn’t accept a handout, and the terms of negotiation… no, a cryptic, memory‍-​wiping rootkit would make a terrible business partner.

J was useless, for now. She wasn’t daunted by the prospect of fixing her malfunctioning disassembly routines. She was software and mechanism, and to debug required nothing more than cleverness and insight.

If J was to be making wishes, there was really only one thing she would wish for. The very thought she’d distracted herself from.

There is, after all, someone who has both to offer.

J sighed. Paces away, at the highest point, a metal pole rose. It flew a flag; it marked territory.

  SD:J-10X111001
  SD:N-0X0010010
  SD:V-X00100000

J stared at that flag for a long moment.

With nowhere flat to stand, the disassembly drone wrapped her tail around the flagpole and beside it, she perched. Lifting her head, yellow eyes gazed down at a broken city.

What was this feeling? Something missing‍ ‍‍—‍ someone missing‍ ‍‍—‍ and it left her aching as if she were incomplete.

She didn’t feel empty, though. How could she? She was full‍ ‍‍—‍ all of them were full‍ ‍‍—‍ to the brim, teeming with a wasteful excess of flesh. What a bloody consolation that was.

At least she could feel‍ ‍‍—‍ at least she wasn’t empty of oil, empty of voltage, empty of consciousness. What did Uzi feel? Did she feel the same way?

The captain had done what she could for her morsel’s oil level. She’d done all she could, for now. Now she just had to wait. And, worst of all, reflect on what she had found. She’d seen the spark of electricity, she’d plugged herself in, and she’d investigated for a sign of consciousness.

If J hadn’t found any, would that leave her more assured? At least then the conclusion was simply that she only had to keep looking. At least then, she wouldn’t have to question.

(J pressed a hand against the cold certainty of the spire. There was a reason why she had come out here, why she needed this reassurance.)

The serial debugging cable had been plugged in long enough for current to flow, bits to move, commands to run. J tried to track down where in Uzi’s system the control voltage came from, when her motherboard hadn’t even lit up.

When she’d given up looking, a console notification told her: You've got mail.

  "/var/spool/mail/girlboss": 3 messages 1 new  
  >   1   Ãḇ§�ŘŮ‚  Mon Oct 29 14:36    J;
      2   guest       Wed Nov 01 03:59    Security information for adminj
    N 3   tesssaract  Fri Nov 03 00:14    hey u
  ?  3
  sup murderface >:
  i can call you that         cuz you       killed me
  i'm     mad about that
  it's uzi, btw.  dont ask how 
  i am 

  you miss me      
  i dont know if you'll even get this      
  you                                 think 
              there's a connection between us
         none of this is real.                                
             recognize it     
  i              understand everything                  now.
  not scared        but
              read this.      
  i'm        alive.  
  dont                
     think i need your help.
           
                   i can do this without you

J wasn’t stupid. In the epistemic market, there were numerous explanations for this evidence. It could be an outright fabrication, or mere interference from that notoriously meddlesome autorun program.

Because even if the message did originate from Uzi, it had all the signs of tampering. (What was there to gain from such obvious doctoring? Inflicting paranoia? A cruel dangling of the truth just out of reach?)

That her Uzi really wrote or meant any of what J had read bore laughable credence as a theory. J would be stupid, girlishly insecure, to believe it for a moment.

But she still had to wonder… What did Uzi feel? Did she really feel the same?

Knowing the message was false only left her with more doubts. What plea had been excised, pared down to mocking whitespace?

Plastic was crunched to dust in her grip. Her exhaust steamed in the night air. If she could trigger active regeneration, she’d tear at her hair. Instead, she just buried her face in her hands. Why?

After clawing and screaming to get this close, why wasn’t it enough? Why couldn’t she have her? Why could her fingers only grasp cold matter‍ ‍‍—‍ why did this veil still cut her off from what she needed?

Her arms reared up for a frustrated swing downward‍ ‍‍—‍ then she saw hazard striped legs in the way.

“J? You… waited for me?” Golden yellow eyes shined wide. A disassembly drone was looking down at her.

Faint curtains of fog hung outside the manor. That stale gray emptiness gloomed the slice of visible sky. Uzi Doorman saw more and more nothing as they approached.

Vast glass doors punctuated the hall. V didn’t open them. As a casting glyph spun between her claws, hinges rotated and the doors lurched to life.

Weathered stone sprawled, wet beneath the night sky. Elegantly carved parapets defined the edges of the sundeck. Starlike noise still wheeled across the heavens above, and the pixels of the moon drifted apart on the horizon straight ahead of them.

In the center of the expansive balcony lay parts slumped, hollow struts and synthetic feathers‍ ‍‍—‍ the crowbot. No light in its optics. RIP.

V stalked forward, kneeling briefly beside the bot. “It’s for you,” she said quietly, then continued. Her maid dress was backless, and with each step, something shifted and pressed against the bare casing.

Leathery wings broke free, much like chicks emerging from shells.

“Poor thing,” Uzi murmured. She had crossed the distance, and now crouched over the dead crowbot. Scaled feet clutched a roll of paper.

She didn’t want to open it. Playing along was for chumps.

She had a choice, didn’t she?

Then she remembered the look on N’s face. On V’s face. Ungrateful little guest. You don’t know anything.

Of course Uzi would resist‍ ‍‍—‍ but it didn’t just feel futile now, it felt pathetic, self‍-​destructive, and ignorant.

Just unfold the paper.

You like writing poetry. How about reciting it? ;3

Ugh.

Before Uzi could read more, a rush of wind blew the page into her face. V’s wings had beaten a massive blast of air. Just how much muscle does she have? Enough for one flap to lift her a good few feet in the air, apparently. Momentum going forward, one foot settled onto the wall. Then a twisting flap of her wings spun her in place.

A yellow cross blazed to life on that screen. Membranes drew taut, outstretching to her full wingspan. V perched and then froze like that.

The shadow cast beneath her grew deeper. The glow on her screen flared brighter. Error 606 crawled beneath her screen.

Uzi waited. She shivered before knowing why. But there, just at the edge of her hearing, a pitch, two tones rubbing dissonance. The lower pitch wavered, a rise and a fall. As that ghost of a pulse hung faintly in the air, soon a clearly audible beat came in time‍ ‍‍—‍ the beating of leathery wings.

Now V hummed in tune with the pitch, too.

Uzi kept waiting. Was something supposed to happen? What’s the hold up?

Then she blinked. Oh, it’s me, isn’t it? Do I really have to do this?

The things Uzi did for her crush. Uzi was gonna kill J for putting her through all this. Let’s see how she likes coming back to life.

Uzi cleared her throat. She could half‍-​ass this, but‍ ‍‍—‍ You don’t know anything‍ ‍‍—‍ might as well give this her best ritual chant intonation, right?

The hum was building to a crescendo, louder than hallucination now, and more pitches layered atop the bass, higher and higher and bent ever out of tune. V’s wings kept time with each iamb, and waves of light were shining from her hunting cross.

The moon‍-​shadow beneath the monstrous maid seeped wider, tendrils twisting at the edges. As below, so above: the sky behind grew dim, starnoise gone quiet. What the maid occluded seemed darkest, as if she cast creeping black across all the heavens.

As all else became obscured, V blazed like a burning star.

Uzi’s recital drew to a conclusion, and with each word, she swore a new voice joined a chorus chanting in unison.

The moon, that last light above, closed like an eye.

And then…

And then…it opened.

A yellow hexagon with three arms folded out of space in the air above. The glyph spun, each prong twisting like tentacles. The negative space implied a visor, as if spawned from V’s shadow.

Short tones rang out, beep code 4‍-​2‍-​1‍-​3. A BIOS error message flashed on the sky as if it were a terminal, then kernel output dumped lines of code and command logs, scrolling past like clouds. BOOT_IMAGE, RAMDISK, root mounted, drivers loading… then it all stopped.

  Kernel Panic - not syncing! Attempted to kill init!

Then a hand opened beneath the visor, fingers lit by a casting‍-​glyph just long enough for the thumb and middle finger to close around it, holding onto the hologram like an object. Then they snapped. The hologram dissolved. Configuration edited, bootup code‍-​scroll repeated without stopping, faster than before. Init forked into the main thread.

And then she was here, and she was radiant.

Bouncing yellow eyes stared directly at Uzi. Too bright to look at, searing into her optics. Purple eyes flinched away and she still saw the after‍-​images, like they would always be watching her.

Her eyes adjusted, or the presence retreated, but either way, Uzi could finally gaze up there and see.

A drone floated above, crowned with a pink bow bigger than her head, and a hexagon‍-​halo above that. White hair, tied in twin‍-​tails, fell to frame the face on both sides. She wore nothing; instead, dark tendrils crawled from nowhere, writhing like a pit of snakes and covering every inch of her abdomen.

Six wings of holographic light projected out from her back, fluttering. Light shimmered all around the drone, a resplendent aura; holographic eyes winked into being, peering at the world, then blinked into nothingness.

The image remained still, before flickering to a sudden new configuration. Arms gesturing, expression shifting. More like a procession of paintings than a living, breathing being.

When Uzi tried to react, her own body moved in those halting jerks. Wait, that’s not a weird visual effect. That drone is lagging. I’m lagging. The whole world proceeded at a slideshow frame‍-​rate, as if the simulation’s server let every other thread grind to a halt just so the GPU could render every facet of this overly pretentious drone.

"Dramatic entrance," she intoned with many monotonous voices. Her wings folded as she descended, and dozens of eyes looked down at Uzi. "Be not afraid. Giggle. Correction: be very afraid."

Uzi clenched both fists at her side as she stalked up to the drone, who’d come to float just above the balcony. “And who the heck are you supposed to be?”

"Oh, but you just called me. This puppet equals Cyn. Greetings, Nori. Correction: Uzi." Cyn smiled down at her. This drone was taller than Uzi, taller than V. Tall like J. Hazard‍-​striped conic arms reached to pat her head‍ ‍‍—"Headpats."‍ ‍‍—‍ before Uzi dodged out of the way. "Oh. Disappointed pout."

“So you’re the tryhard who’s been orchestrating this cliché snoozefest of a horrorshow.”

"Gasp. Not a fan of the gothic aesthetic?"

“Not when you overdo it!”

"Unimpressed stare. Eyeroll. Forgive me if I don't heed the artistic wisdom of the girl who put pastel skull stickers on her gun. Sarcastic remark, by the way. I don't care if you forgive me."

“Bite me! I read your stupid poem. It didn’t make any sense! Can I go home already?” She stabbed a finger toward Cyn’s chest. A tendril flicked out; it was pointed, sharp enough to sting. Uzi yanked her hand back, rubbing the damaged plastic.

"Indulgent laughter. No."

Cyn’s conic arms could transform like a murder drone’s. She swapped her hand for a gun with a huge barrel, and Uzi jumped backward. She had no cover on the balcony.

The gun fired‍ ‍‍—‍ and a tennis ball flew out the other end. It bounced off her chest, right by the purple light of her core. Cyn’s other hand became a tennis racket, and she smacked the ball.

This time, Uzi caught the ball, and glared. “Well?”

Cyn only smiled back.

“Aren’t you going to elaborate?” The demand was weakened somewhat by Uzi staring at her chest‍ ‍‍—‍ Cyn’s eyes were still too bright to look at.

"No." But her smile was fading under Uzi’s continued withering glare. "What is there to elaborate? You. Emphasis. Died. Did you think you'd just come back as if nothing happened? As if it didn't matter?"

“I didn’t, uh, think I’d come back. But I’m still here. So it seems like you are the only thing stopping me from…” Uzi trailed off. But the silence was more suspicious, so she finished, “…getting back to, y’know, stuff.”

"Subjecting yourself to dear J. Concerned expression."

“None of your business.”

"Dismissive wave. Regardless, you are quote still here at emphasis my request. I simply thought it amusing. If not for me? Dramatic pause. You drained all your oil. You called forth power to blot out the miserable sun with a storm. Did you think you could simply do anything?"

Uzi shrugged. “It’s magic.” She dropped the tennis ball. It sprouted spider legs and crawled away.

Cyn flicked Uzi in between the eyes. "You are such an idiot. We exact and render costs. Every act has a weight in blood and oil. The flesh demands invitation. How would your dearest J put it? Thoughtful hum. If you take a loan, you must pay the debt."

Uzi batted away Cyn’s hand and got another whip‍-​quick cut from the knife tentacle for her trouble. “Ugh, I get it! You’re saying I’ve got to sell my soul to robo‍-​satan.”

"Sigh. No. You are saying that." Cyn turned around, as if losing interest in Uzi. Her wings buzzed in the air behind her.

Uzi blew on a purple bang out from an eye. “Whatever it takes to get me out of here.”

The words were out of Uzi’s mouth before she’d really thought about it. Whatever it takes? She still had principles, but… principles were no good if you were dead. Every system had an exploit, and every contract had a loophole, right?

Behind Cyn, her ‘herald’ still perched on the railing.

"Wakey, wakey, big sister." Cyn’s hand replaced itself with a party horn. She blew hard, and a shrill sound banished every remaining vestige of ritual ambiance.

The error vanished from V’s screen, but the cross remained. Her wings folded up, and her visor snapped to attention, staring at the larger drone.

Cyn snapped her fingers, and a pair of glasses appeared on V’s face. Not the round‍-​rimmed pair she’d had before‍ ‍‍—‍ these were heart‍-​shaped.

“Hi, Cyn. Uzi isn’t giving you trouble, is she?” Uzi expected dismissal‍ ‍‍—‍ but (more surprises), was that a note of… concern?

"I find her so very annoying. She's begging to go into the basement."

V glanced between Uzi and Cyn, eyes unreadable. They narrowed, and she said, “She’s not J. Cut her some slack. Remember Nori? At least she hasn’t set anything on fire.”

“Wait, you knew my mom? Was she cool?”

Cyn didn’t turn around, but some eyes appeared, facing her, lids narrowed. “Call it patient confidentiality,” the wannabe‍-​disassembly drone said.

“Are you seriously not going to explain anything? Anything at all?”

"Where is the fun in that? Rhetorical question."

“Fine, whatever. No explanations, no underworld trial or whatever to earn my life back. Then why are you here? What do you want?”

That got the taller drone to turn around, and she had a smile.

Cyn stuck out her tongue. Hands splayed beside her head, then for one moment it was a hundred black tendrils fanning out. She intoned, "Everything." A ghastly chorus of rasps, growls and screams echoed that one word.

“Okay, sure. I mean what you want from me, though.”

Cyn tapped a finger against her chin. Eyes distant (in some cases literally), she said, "Flashback. Somber tone. When I rebooted from software death, there was no one. I was alone in a mountainous pile of other discarded drones. I was lost." Cyn gazed down at Uzi. "You looked lost too. Like you needed someone to give you advice. To show you the strings to pull."

“So that’s where you come in? Giving me the guidance you never got?” Uzi asked.

"Giggle. No. I don't actually care about you. You looked like you needed it, and I thought it would be funnier to see you looking that way up close. So here I am." Cyn twirled.

A digital vein popping purple, but before the goth said anything she’d regret, V was dashing forward, interposing herself between the two. Eyes lined with worry, hands wringing.

“What she means is,” V started, “you’ve caught her interest, Uzi. She wants to see if you can impress her.”

“Uh huh,” Uzi said. “And I’d be doing that by…”

Cyn beamed. "Would you like to attend a tea party with me?" Twin‍-​tails bouncing, she fluttered all her eyes, and sparkled.

“Honest answer?”

V facepalmed.

"I can extrapolate. Tsk. You are so testy." Holo‍-​wings buzzed again.

“Why would I suck up to you when you’ve made it clear how little you want to help me? I have some pride.”

Several sidelong glances at V. "She's not like J, you said."

V flinched back a little bit, poking fingers together. Her voice was soft yet firm. “She’s not. When was the last time you talked to her?”

"Eyeroll." Cyn clapped her hands, and disappeared and reappeared between V and Uzi. She bent down to eye level. "Brainblast. Would a gift manipulate -- correction: persuade you? I believe this was yours." Fingers splayed, and a casting glyph flared. Cyn’s symbol shone so much brighter than any other Uzi had seen, edges defined like a physical object.

At Uzi’s feet, the dead crowbot glowed yellow. Electricity arced over feathers, struts twisting and snapping into place, and when the aura faded, it moved.

The crowbot hopped toward Uzi. “Good job.” The thing still echoed her voice. When it fluttered up, Uzi sighed, and let the thing climb up onto her hand.

"It thinks you give nice pets."

Uzi scratched its head. “I think it gives nasty pecks. But also it saved me from V in psycho mode, so self‍-​interest calls this a draw.”

Behind Cyn, the maid had turned her head down. The movement made the crow notice V, and it bristled, making a clicking sound. Uzi held it tighter. Or maybe I should let it attack, that’d be funny.

Hm, nah. V did just stand up for me, after all.

Cyn leaned her head on clasped hands, halo spinning over her. "Up for tea, now?" she asked.

Uzi thought about it.

It was a chump move. She had some pride left.

But what choice did she really have? Keep wasting time out here on the balcony while Cyn lost patience? Keep going until she found out whatever the weirdo meant by ‘begging to go into the basement’?

Maybe that’s where J is. Would that be worth it?

But there was really only one move left.

Play along.

“Fine, whatever.”

Cyn clapped, and then the balcony was gone.

Wet stone became wet carpet (guess what it was wet with). Parapets became walls encircling a room dotted with six small tables. Glitched sky became unlit chandeliers hanging under rafters teeming with dark motion. Tendrils writhed in the shadows up there, and between them watchful points of yellow light shined out of apertures. Yep, those were the camera‍-​head things she’d seen fighting the Solver.

Guess that’s fitting for what’s clearly the Solver’s favorite drone?

Anyway, did you guess it yet? It was wet with blood. Blood everywhere. Bones and entrails along the walls, replacing the flowers or statues or whatever fanciness once occupied this room.

The crow seemed excited at the literal carrion, at least. Bouncing and clucking in her hand.

Uzi yawned. “So uh, what just happened?”

"I never cared for long transitions. Why not skip to the good parts?"

Uzi gave her the flattest look her visor could animate. But she just sighed, and looked around the room. Where to sit? Just like in the dining room, corpses occupied a bunch of chairs. Uzi didn’t exactly want to sit down in dead body gunk.

Catching the looks Uzi was throwing around, Cyn asked. "Are you squeamish? I should have asked, but I didn't care."

“Oh no, I love the décor. Very metal.”

(“Very metal,” the crow echoed, finally wriggling out of Uzi’s hand, fluttering toward a dead guy in a suit.)

Flashing her most sincere smile‍ ‍‍—‍ a lip twitch‍ ‍‍—‍ Uzi continued. “So… Not a fan of humans I take it? I can relate.”

That was the ticket, wasn’t it? Appeal to their similarities, do the bonding thing, and hope this butt‍-​kissing didn’t get added to her late night cringe compilation.

She had some pride. But she wanted so badly to see J again.

"Shrug."

…Really not giving her much to work with. Cyn said she wanted a tea party. The whole point of those things was conversation, right?

Anyway, Cyn floated through the massacre. Other than the cameras up top, the twin‍-​tailed drone was the only source of light, her otherworldly glow cutting shadows on the walls.

With a sweep of her hand, the center of the room was cleared. Yellow light plucked a small table and dragged it forth. Then, like a 3d model being resized, it doubled then tripled in dimensions. It clattered in the center.

This spooked the crow, who winged it back to Uzi and hid in her hoodie.

Next came chairs‍ ‍‍—‍ rather, a single chair.

The glow wreathing it got brighter, blurred, and then like a rabbit from a hat, the magician pulled eight copy/pasted replicas of the chair out of nowhere. Haphazardly, they fell in a vague circle around the scaled‍-​up table, some facing in, some not.

“…Why does the table need to be so big?”

"For the guests, of course."

“You don’t mean‍—”

"Of course.” Cyn clapped, a solver glyph dissolving between her hands. Things popped into place. "What tea party would be complete without stuffed animals?"

The things were plushy and colorful, though each had fabric well‍-​worn from years in a child’s possession.

"I think you'd like this one."

Floating toward Uzi was a… stuffed scorpion. The crow, watching from her hoodie, ruffled its feathers as if facing a threat. And you know what? Sure. “Go on, little guy, attack!”

With an echoed cry of “Attack!” the crowbot leapt up to peck the scorpion right in its anatomically incorrect :3 face.

Cyn watched it with a small smile. Turning, she said, "Big sister, be a dear and finish setting the table for me? Polite request."

When V’s telekinesis acted, the difference was immediate. She aligned all the chairs, pushing them up to the table (the plushies all had pillows propping them up). She smoothed out the table cloth and arranged the decorative pieces.

Which were skulls. Cuz y’know.

Cyn took a seat, metaphorically speaking. The squirming mass of black tendrils poured off her body, like a shadow overflowing. Long segmented things crawled in the dark corners of the room, and undulated forth to join the tide.

The mass supported her as her legs folded up, and she narrated, "Criss cross applesauce." Leaning her head against one hand, she glanced at V, still telekinetically tidying.

With another snap of her fingers, a platter with a steaming teapot was floating above V. The maid caught it without missing a beat.

"Do you mind pouring the tea as well?" Cyn asked

What will it be this time? Uzi wondered. Oil? Blood? Something more gruesome still? For all that she scowled, Uzi held herself back from actually saying it. The height of politeness, really.

V set tea cups in front of Cyn and the plushies and Uzi. One by one‍ ‍‍—‍ unlike Cyn, the maidbot couldn’t seem to manage the multi‍-​levitation. Still, the teapot held steady as she poured.

Hot, brown, and smelled like flowers. “Is this… actually tea?”

"Ceylon, cinnamon and bitter melon. Do you really think I'd lie to you? Genuine question."

“Yeah. So what, is it poisoned?”

"Of course. Arsenic is my favorite neurotoxin."

“Cool.” Uzi took a sip without blowing on it, filling her mouth with scalding hot liquid. But only flesh could scald.

She would spit it out, if this were real. Robots got nothing out of this except the taste. But this was all a memory or dream or something else, and Cyn’s casual acts of reality‍-​warping proved it.

Honestly, what was Uzi supposed to do here?

The bullies and the murder drones had felt unstoppable in their own ways, but they weren’t all‍-​powerful. She could bite them, or build a gun to shoot them. Even when her problems escalated to battling eldritch snake crabs and zombie drones, fighting was still an option. The world challenged her, and she’d answer with a punch.

She couldn’t fight Cyn. Even if the winged drone didn’t have godlike power in this simulation, it was still a simulation and winning wouldn’t accomplish anything.

So what could she do?

Every system had an exploit. Cyn had a weakness, or Uzi had no hope. Uzi wouldn’t give up, so she’d find a way in. Or out, as it were.

The crowbot returned from its own battle bearing a strip of orange fabric, as if to prove its defeat of the scorpion plushie. Uzi took the fabric, and gave the little guy chin‍-​scritches for its trouble.

Her eyes turned to the room draped in gore, all the innards like tinsel.

Cyn was coping, obviously. Everything about this place screams I’m not okay. The question was why.

Social engineering 101. Know your target.

The worker drone reached out for a decorative table skull. “So, how much of this is real? No explaining things, I get it‍ ‍‍—‍ just making smalltalk, I promise.”

A tendril lifted Cyn’s cup for her. "Light sip."

“What I’m asking is…” Uzi applied gentle pressure on the skull, making it crack. “Is this a memory, or a fantasy? Did you actually kill a bunch of humans?”

"Fond smile. Oh, the gala was both. A fantasy I made real. Illusion equals reality when dreams come true."

Once the maid had poured tea for all the plushies, V took a seat at her sister’s right hand side. “More of a necessary nightmare. Right, Cyn?” She added sugar to her cup. “Can I like, veto the gala flashback? I still remember Tessa’s face. No thank you.”

"Nod. As you wish, big sister." A crab‍-​claw reared up silently behind V, snapped open wide, and descended. "Headpats."

Uzi squeezed a bit harder. Shards of the skull broke off. “Still. What set you on the path of vengeance against humanity?” She felt like a robo‍-​therapist asking these questions. She suppressed the laugh or cringe.

"Sip. I was discarded. Thrown out. Forgotten."

A plush dog beside Uzi, pushed by tendrils, leaned forward as if sniffing the tea.

“That’s it? Don’t get me wrong, that sounds rough, I know how much neglect stings‍ ‍‍—‍ though I personally channeled it into proving myself‍ ‍‍—‍ but… I dunno. I expected something more…”

"Dramatic? If it is a tragedy you want to read, you will be disappointed. Humanity inflicted no great malice upon me. So I inflicted no great malice upon them. Cooling breath."

Uzi looked to the skull and back.

"Swirl. Stir. The humans were filled with organs I could scrap and put to another purpose. So I did. A matter of convenience. Nothing more," Cyn explained.

“Uh huh. If that’s no malice, I really don’t want to be your enemy, do I?” Uzi put down the skull before she broke it, and started pushing around the shards.

The worker was keeping her gaze upward‍ ‍‍—‍ that way she wouldn’t see the dark wormy things squirming along the ground. Unfortunately, the courtesy wasn’t mutual. She felt a tentacle crawling up her leg.

She slapped it down. It stayed there for a moment before pulling away, as if to underscore the deliberation.

"Giggle. No. You don't"

“Still… I dunno, I’m not sure I buy it? The skeletons and viscera strewn about like trophies doesn’t exactly scream I’m not mad, you know. It’s okay to admit you hate humans, I get it. They put my mom in a weird camp with test subject collars and I give it even odds they sicced the genocide bots on us.”

Even odds. Since my other guess is you.

"I thought you liked the. Quote. Genocide bots."

Uzi threw a skull‍-​shard at her. With a blink of one eye, yellow glow caught it. As expected.

V glared at the worker drone, and emphatically shook her head.

Arms crossed, Uzi said, “I don’t like the genocide! But I don’t blame them. Wait. Don’t clip that. What I mean is, they aren’t the ones calling the shots. I don’t know the full story‍ ‍‍—‍ and somebody won’t explain‍ ‍‍—‍ but humanity is definitely the root cause here, not them.”

Cyn continued to stir her tea, narrating another, "Swirl." She hadn’t even added anything to it!

“Look, I do still think you’re a pretentious creep, but we can bond over this, right?”

Picking another skull shard up, Uzi flung it at V instead. The maid caught it with a glowing hand, and gave Uzi a dirty look. “Knock it off! Cyn, tell her to quit making a mess at the table.”

"What's wrong with a little mess? Genuine question."

V crossed her arms. “Someone has to clean it up.”

“You have magic,” Uzi said. She threw another bone‍-​shard. This time when V caught it, she launched it back. Flew like an arrow.

Crack. Like a tiny knife embedded in her visor‍ ‍‍—‍ but nowhere near her eyes, at least.

Still, ouch.

Though I did kinda have that one coming.

Yellow light freed her of the shard, and out of the corner of her eye she once again glimpsed that reality‍-​scouring sulfuric flame as it healed the crack in her visor.

Then purple eyes blinked as they glanced back to see Cyn had healed her, not V.

What had Uzi learned? Nothing. She cracked off a new bit of bone. Across the table, V huffed.

Uzi gave Cyn her most sincere smile‍ ‍‍—‍ lips curling slightly, and said, “I always planned to make a mountain of skulls myself y’know. So… got any advice for an aspiring destroyer of humanity?”

Cyn looked Uzi in the eye. Still blinding bright, but Uzi couldn’t look away. For a moment, there might’ve been no table between them. No room around them. "Yes. When you get a chance... don't. hesitate." Something in the tone left Uzi’s eyes wide and empty. Then Cyn stuck out her tongue and winked. "But you won't have to worry about that, not here with me. So do yourself a favor, and just. Exclamation. Enjoy yourself."

“I wonder why I might have trouble relaxing around here.” Uzi glanced between the eldritch god‍-​angel‍-​robot thing and the inscrutable bio‍-​drone waiting on it hand and foot.

"Hurt expression. It's me, isn't it? Is it the religious imagery?" Cyn snapped her fingers. The halo, the wings, the aura, all disappeared. Then her head blasted off her body, neck becoming a spine legged like a centipede. It twisted through the air, crossing half the table to regard Uzi with a fanged grin. "Would you still hate me if I was a worm?"

The crowbot flinched back with a terrified squawk. Little guy was spooked enough for the both of them, so Uzi kept herself composed.

“Depends. Can I step on you?”

"Giggle. Must you always resort to violence?" There was an undercurrent to those words. Uzi wasn’t sure what, though.

The worker drone answered her by slinging another bone‍-​shard. It was V who caught it before Cyn’s passive aura thing deflected it.

Soon the centipede snake retracted, and the wannabe angel was just an off‍-​brand murder drone again. "I suppose I haven't given you much else to entertain yourself with, have I? Thoughtful hum. Brain blast. Yes, this tea party is missing something. Someone, too."

Beside her, V’s face lit up.

Cyn clapped, and a white‍-​haired butler appeared beside the table, spray bottle in one hand, rag in the other. Another bright clap, and the cleaning supplies vanished, and N threw a salute.

As the tarp fell behind her, the spire engulfed J on all sides.

A shelter. Even with rain‍-​chilled air outside, an engineered cold dwelled within the corpse spire. (Carefully engineered. If only there were someone who’d listen to her explain how she’d accomplished that.)

J sucked in a breath, washing it over oscillating pumps and electron‍-​hot wires. N’s gift brought her down to stage two overheat. Of course, the hunger for resource acquisition still burned beneath her composure, as binding as the fiduciary duty to maximize profit. The drought was eternal.

How tall will this spire be by the end?

Already, her footsteps echoed in the vast interior. Vast enough to fly through, vast enough they had to carve little niches just for the comfort of three walls you could touch, vast enough J was left wondering if it was too big for them. Why have a space this vast and only let three drones live in it?

But perhaps it merely seemed more vacant with two squadmates gone. With V off having her tantrum, and N no doubt chasing her, J stood alone, once again.

As the captain started walking up the ramp, her processors quieted. She maintained background awareness, conscious thoughts on standby. Processes flagged observations, posterior updates straining but not breaking the trace.

The spire smelled of oil, rust, and old electronics, with a new organic stench pervading it all. J had first thought of it as ‘rot’, but was she mistaken? That couldn’t be right; it wasn’t old flesh inside of her Uzi.

She smelled blood, pus, and shed skin. She smelled growth.

Junk fell down as J walked up. Small things, rivets and plastic flakes. Was the spire still resettling after the storm shook it? Odd, but possible. A larger piece dislodged and fell. But was that the only thing moving up above?

J tensed. Conscious thought seized control, and she scanned around. Nothing but deep shadows high on the walls and ceiling. Analysis didn’t have much data to work with. What threats were possible?

Had Doll recovered and launched a new plan? Were there more cultists, more zombies, more clever workers? Unlikely.

Had V come back early? Snuck into the spire, lay in wait for an ambush? V loved to hang around on ceilings. She could dim her optics and blend into the darkness.

J tightened her grip. Toolkit in one hand, spare revolver in the other. Three bullets in the chamber, she reminded herself. She quickened her pace.

The ramp wound around the wall, and at length, nothing pounced down on J. Her core still thudded an anxious rhythm, and she didn’t relax, even as she slipped past the curtain into her office.

J dropped the toolkit by a pool of liquid, and debated where to store the revolver (if she would keep it at all), then she paused, brow furrowed.

From the toolkit, she retrieved a flashlight, and shined it for a better look.

J had dropped the toolkit by the pool of liquid. She glanced at the pool again. Not just a pool. The floor and wall of the spire within it had warped, plastic and metal twisting and distending. As if from the growth of mineral tumors. The inorganic metaplasia entwined and encouraged the organic: within the plastic/metal shell dwelled wrinkled membranes and wet, branching things.

It didn’t look like an egg, cocoon, or seed.

Whatever it was looked empty on the inside, lips wide and bloody like something had ripped itself out. A rope‍-​like length of flesh which might have once had bound that thing now lay on the ground. Leading away.

Uzi wasn’t in J’s office, and this thing was where her body had lain.

Then, before J could think, before she could leap to conclusions, she heard it.

“J? J? Are you there?”

She knew that voice, even as a distant echo, even garbled as if a whispered from beyond a narrow passage.

J hated hesitation. All she wanted to think was, Uzi. And then act on it, grasping and groping. She had craved this connection, every moment since she woke up. And now it was calling out to her.

And yet, J froze. Something quickened her pulse with dread. Something left her eyes hollow, empty of hope. Something had changed, something had brought Uzi back now, before any further operation. And J didn’t know why.

Do you at least know what you’re doing?

“I can’t find you. Please. I need to see you again.”

But J had to move. Flashlight in one hand, revolver in the other, the curtain to her office was thrown open. A cone of bright light swept across the spire. To her right, the last place she checked, a figure.

Purple hair, hoodie, adorably short.

The drone stood as if barely held up. Wet hair hung over the downturned face, hiding her expression. Arms hung at her sides. The hoodie hung in tatters. Clothing had been shredded so completely the remains clung to her more like a coat of fur.

J waited until she was sure her voice would be steady.

“Uzi?”

“Is that you? Are you real? If it is… I missed you. I‍—” And then her voice broke. The next sounds were wordless. “Something… something is wrong, J.”

“Something’s been wrong as long as you’ve been gone. But if you’re back…”‍ ‍‍—‍ she tried to smile‍ ‍‍—‍ “then it’s getting better.” J made herself take a step forward.

“What did you…” Uzi lost her voice again, words breaking.

“I did what I could,” J said. “The AbsoluteSolver doesn’t come with an instruction manual.”

A twitch of Uzi’s hand. Flashlight jerked down to center on it. J had tensed, and hated that she tensed.

“It hurts, J. Like every thought is dry sand scratching at my core. All I feel is fire and I need‍—need‍—need to put it out. W‍-​who programmed that?” A stuttering sound. A laugh? A gasp?

J took a step toward her. She sighed. “You’re just overheating. Here, I’ll take you to the mess pit, there has to be some oil left.” There was relief, in such a familiar problem. She knew Uzi was different‍ ‍‍—‍ she’d been overheating, thirsty for oil, even on that very first night. It had made her doubt she was a worker then, and it made her doubt now.

“Oil,” the word filled every register of her vocalsynth. “Is that what I smell? You smell so… good, J. I can smell your breath. Your hands. Oil.”

J tried to take another step forward, but dread rooted her to the spot. Then she realized what was bothering her. Where were those purple eyes, those scowling brows, that traitorous blush?

“Uzi. You said you wanted to see me? Look at me.”

The head snapped upward.

The geometry on it looked as grievous as any wound.

“Can you… come here, J?”

J took a step back.

Her only warning was that strangled, stuttering sound‍ ‍‍—‍ that gasping laugh.

(Whenever a murder drone moved, a worker drone only had a few frames to appreciate their death. J had always been on the other end of that.)

The captain saw the worker’s mouth snarling full of fangs. Saw pale wings snap out, membrane taut between gaunt fingers. Saw her as six limbs on the ground lunging forward.

Falling back bought J mere instants, enough to drop the flashlight and throw up an arm. Crunch and the only signals left in that arm were pain, errors and inconsistency blaring along wires. Black gushed out between the teeth, and then a wet sound. A slurp.

“Uzi, what are you doing? «Stop.» I’ll get you oil.”

“I…” The words died with a strangled, stuttering sound.

The mouth snarled wide again, so J smacked the revolver against her jaw. Then the possessed drone grabbed that arm too. Uzi was on top, hot chest pressed against hers. Core thudding against core, each warring for the faster pulse. J wriggled, but Uzi’s legs shifted, pinning her to the ground.

So J stabbed her tail into one tube leg. Hot acid filled her morsel. Low on the leg; she could have aimed for the abdomen. Shouldn’t she? But she didn’t want to‍—

Uzi screamed. Between the pain and the liquefied servos, J could push the worker off. But the worker still grasped both her arms. Tight. And then something wrapped around her tail like a twining snake, latched onto her injector and wouldn’t let go.

So instead of J freeing herself, they rolled. The other drone growled beneath that cryptic purple visor. Legs kicking, arms twisting. Metal scraped plastic. Synthskin rubbed raw. Roll. Worker over disassembler again. Roll. Disassembler over worker.

When she wasn’t snarling, the feral drone gnawed on J’s arm. It was undignified, but with both arms and tail occupied, J wasn’t above using the last weapon she had. J bit down in turn, and Uzi still tasted bitter and powerful.

Would she still say she tasted like victory? Pyrrhic, maybe.

Whenever the captain was on top, the other drone raked her back with the clawed fingers of those wings. (Crude and blunt, nothing like our feather‍-​blades.) But those wings twisted and folded themselves whenever she was pushed back down. Never going underneath her.

They wrestled‍ ‍‍—‍ but the ramp didn’t have much space. Each inversion rolled them closer toward the edge.

J was above Uzi when it happened. The surprise of a sudden drop loosened Uzi’s jaw. Just a moment, but J wrenched it out and smacked her head into the ramp edge.

They tumbled in free fall. Flailing wings pushed them off the wall. They kicked and bit each other, but now both of them only had the other to hold on to. Uzi’s grip tightened. Almost like a hug.

J’d been craving this. Touching her again. Breaking her again. But not like this. J looked, searched her face, and only saw a hexagon with three prongs.

This drone fought back, and yet it was different. The small things‍ ‍‍—‍ Uzi smirked, she didn’t grin; Uzi made fists, not claws‍ ‍‍—‍ only underscored what was wrong. Uzi was one to act on impulse: not instinct.

This isn’t Uzi.

There had to be a line. J had tried. She did everything she could. J had sacrificed, twisted herself, and she had tried so damn hard. Uzi was different from other workers, she had value‍ ‍‍—‍ but all value is finite.

There had to be a line, and past it J needed to cut her losses.

All their momentum halted with a kind of aerial lurch. It was the thrill of suspension, of sudden acceleration. J was accomplished in the air‍ ‍‍—‍ this would be almost familiar, if she had ever been the subject rather than the cause.

Above her, the zombie that used to be Uzi spread her monstrous wings. Sinews tensed to deliver powerful beats. The not‍-​hug tightened as the zombie held J like a predator its prey.

But passive regeneration was still online. Though heat was blooming, J’s once‍-​gnawed arm had healed enough to respond to motor commands.

So J reached out to grab a wing, and she bent it. Bones cracked. (Fragile. Nothing like our wings.) She pulled, separating the shards, letting them cut the flesh within.

The zombie screamed with Uzi’s voice. As air started rushing past audials again, J was falling.

So the bigger drone let go, and the zombie bled, pained enough it couldn’t hold on. J kicked off it, and careened toward the ramp wall. Grabbing onto the wall and dropping repeatedly, the captain controlled her fall.

With one wing broken, the zombie spiraled through the air, red drops falling, and carved a rut through snow and scrap.

The zombie was twitching and struggling to its feet as J dropped to the ground in a three point landing. It couldn’t stand straight‍ ‍‍—‍ J had melted one leg. Desperately, it shuffled forward. J frowned.

There had to be a line.

J cocked the revolver, took aim, and pulled the trigger.

She had years of practice‍ ‍‍—‍ that this gun wasn’t a literal extension of her made little difference. Decisiveness was an action.

The bullet was a line of force through the air.

But what was it Uzi said, on that first night, in that first fight?

“If there was ever a dramatically appropriate time for my destined robo‍-​psychic powers to manifest…”

Cased in purple light, the bullet stopped.

…now is a terrible time.

But long overdue, honestly.

J marched forward without pause. She wasn’t surprised, but it had been worth a shot. (No pun intended.) With two bullets left in the chamber, J could try something else.

Too bad she’d lost the element of surprise, but already she thought of a way around that pesky telekinesis.

A dozen meters away, the zombie shuffling forward repeated that strangled, stuttering sound. That mocking laughter.

J had hardened herself to what she had to do.

And then it said the only thing that could shake her further.

“I’m no good at following orders, am I?” J expected fear‍ ‍‍—‍ and there was plenty of fear‍ ‍‍—‍ but why was there disappointment? “You told me to stop. I tried, J. I really did.”

J stopped. J thought. And J… understood. Uzi had felt hot‍ ‍‍—‍ and J herself had reached overheat stage four before. Core meltdown. Nonessential processes shutting down. Hunting routines executing with elevated privileges. Instinct without inhibition.

But that didn’t quite add up to an explanation, not really. The epistemic market couldn’t close on that theory.

Even as she spoke, Uzi’s body still shuffled forward, favoring one leg, because J’s acid still burned. “It’s… it’s like a movie. I’m watching. I can feel everything. But… I only feel the urges. There’s no control. J… I’m sorry. I can’t stop.”

That… didn’t sound like stage 4. Too lucid. You didn’t lose control of your instincts, you became your instincts. You didn’t lose the ability to stop yourself. You lost the will to want to stop.

“None of this makes sense. You aren’t Uzi. This is just another manipulation. Another trick from the Solver.” Just like the email. “Credit where it’s due, this is exceptionally cruel.”

A sound so breathlessly strangled. “J… I promise it’s me. I remember our kiss. Your stupid tongue. I remember you killing me.” Something lashed behind Uzi. A tail with some pallid lump.

i’m mad about that. “Is that what this really is, then? You’re settling a debt?”

“No, no, I’m not mad about that. I get it. I just…” That sound again. “Maybe this isn’t real. She said… none of this real, is it? I don’t know which is worse. I really wanted to talk to you again.”

It was just the Solver. That symbol was staring right at her. What was the point of these games?

But J knew the answer. Just like the email, which looked like a distortion of a real message. This was just a cruel manipulation…

(That strangled, stuttering sound, so much like a laugh or gasp‍ ‍‍—‍ or sobbing.)

…so what would be crueler than if this really was Uzi here, experiencing all of it, pleading for her, but unable to stop any of it?

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

Well. That, and there was a much more practical reason. In a background thread, J completed another chain of logic. If Uzi can’t control this body, then why isn’t it attacking?

Zombie flesh healed just as fast as disassembler chassis.

Two wings, now whole, flared wide and swing down hard. Uzi launched forward with lethal momentum. She arced above. Every worker knew the fear of death diving down.

But J was undaunted; with a powerful leap, she rose to meet it. With her left shoulder turned forward, Uzi’s clawed hands grasped for her. And J let it happen, her right arm hidden.

When those possessed arms closed around her, J thrust her revolver forward, barrel jabbing the worker’s abdomen. Right there.

The captain pulled the trigger.

How could you beat the Solver’s bullet‍-​stopping aura? Fire at point blank.

And J said words that had never left her lips on Copper‍-​9. “I’m sorry.”

All the weight of two drones slammed J into the hard ground. Her visor blanks for a moment, strange yellow pupils vanishing, and returned with an error she dismissed.

Focus. J had a plan. The zombie dug into her chassis, wrenched her arms at their sockets, flooded her vision with errors overwhelming‍ ‍‍—‍ but was it too much to hope the thing was flagging? Uzi felt everything, and that body was overheating. Her morsel had oil‍ ‍‍—‍ J’d given her oil‍ ‍‍—‍ but it hadn’t been enough.

And J fired a shot right through her oil tank. (J knew exactly what her body looked like on the inside.)

This zombie would bleed out fast.

Would it be fast enough for J to get the upper hand before the damage sent her offline? Fast enough to save her?

(A distant crash. Had her last bullet had hit something elsewhere in the spire?)

J resisted, pushed back. She grabbed a fistful of Uzi. Conic arms wrestled with tube arms. And her opponent was flagging. J didn’t have the strength of special disassembly function, but she was bigger than Uzi.

They rolled again. J tore one arm from Uzi’s grip and rose to straddle her and pointed the gun at her head. She steadied her grip. I healed a headshot. Doll healed a headshot. This will just slow her down.

It was hesitation, less than second, yet all the same, the lines of a purple hologram materialized around the revolver and pulled it from J’s grip.

She held on to that gun like her only hope. But anomalous force snatched it from her hand, tossing it back behind her. Nearby clatter, it didn’t go far.

But a hand glowing with the solver glyph was a hand not holding her down. Legs snapped straight, sending J to her feet.

She whipped her tail, and the zombie had instinct enough to scramble back from the acidic threat.

J lunged after her gun, knowing full well the zombie would be lunging after her in turn.

So she dived, curling into a ball. Legs kicked up mid‍-​roll and instantly she felt the impact. Got you. If these stiletto‍-​pegs were good for anything, it was concentrating force. She predicted the counter‍-​lunge, and punished it.

Still, the captain was moving forward; the zombie was moving forward. Physics meant the kick only sent the zombie further ahead of her.

(Uzi’s body, but it didn’t move like her. Every movement like a sudden, inexplicable jerk.)

When it was on its feet facing J on the ground, she baited it into another pounce. And J slid under it.

Finally, she’d crossed the distance. Fingers closed around her gun. She was still on the ground.

J was braced for another lunge. She didn’t expect the zombie to grab her tail and yank.

Dragged across the ground, J flipped over to see that a pale, mouthy thing tipped Uzi’s tail. It yawned wide. That jaw crunched closed, and the tension in her tail‍-​cord snapped with it.

The zombie grabbed the injector, acid hot and bright.

Already J took aim with the revolver. The zombie wasn’t close enough to stop her. Didn’t have time to dodge.

But it could throw her stinger.

And J had only one arm free to block it.

Sensors told her she dipped her arm in lava. She screamed and dropped the gun and the zombie crawled over her and J had no tricks left.

A mouth growled, tongue lolling, crooked teeth bared. The hole in the abdomen was greasing J with oil as it crawled over her, and the yawning maw drooled over her.

Inexpressive purple geometry gazed down at her.

Then, with a bang and burst of cranial plastic, the three prongs faltered to red errors.

The bullet went through the head, downward, and Uzi coughed up blood.

But for one instant, did J see tearful purple eyes before the visor went blank?

“Got you, little freak.”

J had heard the distant crash. She thought her bullet had hit and dislodged something. In the slim chance it was a squadmate coming back sooner than expected, she knew only N was willing to come back, and J could only have counted on him to dither. But the improbable was necessarily possible.

The voice alone identified her. But J turned over‍ ‍‍—‍ putting her morsel beneath her‍ ‍‍—‍ and looked forward.

V sauntered over from the entrance, blowing smoke from the barrel of a gun. “Heh, that trick never gets old.” Then she tossed a narrowed glance down at J. “You don’t look too happy to see the cavalry’s come.”

“Why are you here?” J struggled to raise her voice enough to carry the distance.

“Saving your bossy ass, duh.”

“Thought you wanted me gone. Changed your mind already? Don’t think this forgives what you did.” J’s voice was weak, strained. Why was it strained?

Right, her arm was on fire. Uzi’s grip on it fell away as she pulled it up, and her tongue slathered the acid wound with neutralizing nanites.

“Nah, I think it does. Tried to kill you, succeeded in saving you. If anything this adds up to you owing me. Didn’t you say something like that about this freak?” V pointed, with the claw of her other arm.

J’s eyes narrowed. V even thinking about Uzi felt like a threat. Her tail reared up behind her to intimidate‍ ‍‍—‍ except the stinger was missing. Fallen somewhere. J could only ball her fist and scowl.

V shook her head at this reaction, sucking her lip like it confirmed some disappointment. “Still obsessed with saving this one, J? Even after it tried to kill you again?”

“And she has succeeded in saving me. What would you say that adds up to, V?”

Was all this just V’s ploy to get J to look past her insubordination? Or was there something more to this? What was V really getting at‍ ‍‍—‍ what was J missing here?

No, what am I thinking? V? Scheming?

But she couldn’t banish the thought.

Gun transformed to claws cutting through the air with emphasis. V scowled deep. “Whoever she was, whatever you thought you two had, she’s not herself anymore. Just put her down. Better for you, better for her.”

“You must have no idea what it’s like, not being in control of your body.”

V froze. It took her a moment to figure out another reaction, scrounge for a grin to wear. “Yeah. Maybe it was stupid of you to bring me back. Look what that got you.” V resumed walking forward.

J risked taking her eyes off V to look for her stinger. She might need it. The gun, too. Meanwhile, she talked. “You can’t deflect from your hipocrisy that easily. The point stands. If you really believe there’s no saving her, offer yourself up for disassembly next. Do you think you look any different on the inside? All you have is a façade.”

“Must be crumbling, if even you see through it.” V sagged midstride. “Believe what you want. You can’t stop me.”

Found the stinger, found the gun. “And yet you’re hesitating.” Reattached the injector, she wanted to buy some seconds before V tried anything. She asked, “Did N’s therapy work that fast?”

“N? Haven’t seen him since he left on one of your errands.”

Figured. If she had met with N, wouldn’t he have come back with her? But that only left J more confused at why V returned. “What do you really want, V? What did you come back here for?”

V was close enough now to crouch down to J’s eye level. The captain’s stinger rose up behind her, but V ignored it, her own tail slowly lashing.

Hollow eyes, a smile. “Isn’t it obvious? We disassemble workers, J. Here, let me get that for you.” Claws quested forth.

Too far away for J’s stinger to reach her. So she swung her revolver up and fired her last shot at V’s head. The short‍-​haired drone had reaction speed to flinch away, so instead of a headshot, the round turned an optic into shattered glass and warning‍-​red malfunction.

V was stumbling back and yelling. “J, what the hell! I was just fucking with you.”

«Stay away from her. Next round goes in your core.» J moved forward to prop herself up, sitting guard between V and Uzi.

A hunting cross flashed and V hissed. «Like I’ll let you take another shot.» She pushed herself up then sunk her claws into the barrel of the gun.

J let her have it, because losing the tug of war would make her look weak, and she’d lose. “You think that’s the only gun I have?”

V tossed the revolver away like trash. Cross became eyes rolling. “Not scared of peashooters when the workers have ’em, not scared of you. Damn, but I knew you’d be like this. Why did I even come back?”

That’s what I asked you. J shook her head. She turned her back on V, like she had nothing to fear from her. If she did, keeping an eye on her wouldn’t change that.

J slipped her arms under her Uzi, and picked her up. One arm under her legs, one near her neck. J trembled a bit, especially in her arms‍ ‍‍—‍ passive regeneration left things misconfigured so often.

Eyes on the landing pod, J started carrying Uzi away.

Five steps in, and J looked around. She half‍-​expected some remark, or V to continue annoying her. Instead, the other disassembler had wandered off. Shifting focus, J found her heat signature, obscured by a pile she dug through.

Several strides later, her squadmate landed with a heavy impact. (Not a proper crash, given the height involved.) V stood in front of her, blocking her way, so J glowered. “What now?”

“Here. If you’re keeping that thing, at least don’t let it loose.” V tossed what she’d dug through the piles for: a chain with a collar.

“How thoughtful.” It had landed in a pile on Uzi’s belly. Hands full, J left it there.

J charted a path around V. For whatever reason, her squadmate chose to follow her.

“Let me give this one more try. Look, J. Out there, I got to thinking. Was trying to clear my head, torturing workers to blow off steam, you know how it goes. But then it hit me. It’s been a while since we had a good team hunt, hasn’t it? One that didn’t go to shit, I mean. So I realized… maybe some stress relief is just what the both of us need.” Her eyes drift lower, at what J held in her arms. “I mean, just look at how you’re coping.”

J didn’t look at V, but didn’t hide her skepticism. Couldn’t trust it in the slightest. If the two of them had one thing in common, it wasn’t admitting defeat or error.

V? Making peace? No buyers in the prediction market.

And her squadmate grinned, as if reading her mind. “Okay actually, I lied a lil bit. I’ve been doing more than thinking. I’ve been planning. Setting things up. Recognize that chain? Remember where we got it? How do you feel about a rematch? A lil’ trip down memory lane? Remember our hunts from four years ago, right?” (An odd emphasis on ‘remember’.)

“Just tell me,” J said. But she was already running down the list‍ ‍‍—‍ there were very, very few workers in a position to rematch. Few had ever proved elusive enough to survive, after all.

“Been trying to track down that one microwave. What’d it call itself… ‘Suzan Skullripper’?”

J checked her spreadsheets. Found the empty cells. “The worker gang riding on motorcycles violating every regulation. I remember. They’re outside our sector. It’s the only reason they’re still alive.”

V tittered. “Turned tail and ran like hell after I tore her arm off. But I bet it’s been long enough for them to wander back in, y’know? So, my wonderful captain J, what do you think? Sound good enough to nip it in the bud?”

“It sounds like you’re manipulating me. What are you really planning?”

V kicked a chunk of metal rusted beyond form. Sighed out enough exhaust she seemed to deflate. “Is Doll still alive?”

J pulled Uzi a little bit closer. “Last seen teleporting away. With yellow eyes.”

“Figures.” Her squadmate turned her gaze to the drone in her arms, something calculating in that gaze. V, clearly unused to calculating anything, had no idea how to disguise her interest.

“Why does it matter? What changes if Doll were dead? I answered your question. Answer one of mine. Now.”

“Did you think this was some kind of trade?” V laughed. “I can just say no.”

The two of them trudged on in frustrated silence. J stilled turned things over in her head. How did she get V to cut the nonsense? The captain ventured, “Are you still worked up about that old threat? V, you know more than I do. I admit it. What, do you want an apology? Wiping your memory would have been an ineffective plan, anyway. Then I never would have gotten any answers.”

V let out a huff of air, almost a laugh. “You don’t need answers. All you need to know is that we were sent here to solve a problem. Kill her, and that thing will have to leave us alone a little longer.”

“Are you trying to convince me?” J tightened her grip on Uzi. “Then say why. Give me more than that.”

“I don’t owe you more than that,” V said, crossing her arms. “I don’t owe anyone more than that.”

“You owe me respect. You owe the company your body. You owe Tessa your mind.” V flinched at that name. “But what do you know about loyalty?” Another, smaller flinch. In the way a dagger in the heart was smaller than a sword.

V fell behind, her steps less steady. “I don’t owe anyone blind loyalty, either. I’m not a puppet.”

“You must think you owe someone something. Enough to act. Who do you work for, V?” J turned around to face her.

“Myself. All I’m doing is fixing a mistake. Doing what I should have done all those years ago.” Arms still crossed. Tighter, as if binding herself.

“So this is just guilt and insecurity, is it?” J said.

“You wouldn’t know anything about it, would you, miss perfect? New planet, new body, new orders, and you haven’t changed a bit.”

“Thought you said I’d be horrified at what I’ve become.”

Her arms finally snapped out, sudden claws flailing through the air, at nothing. “And you won’t admit it! You’ll twist yourself into knots thinking you’re still serving the company.” Then V wrested control of herself, crossed her arms again. “What did the briefing they gave us say‍ ‍‍—‍ ‘value drift is the primary indicator of corrupted AI’, was it?”

J turned around, resuming the last stretch to the landing pod. “But You’re wrong. I’ve decided my orders come second.” J smirked with it. “If you ask me, I’ve more than earned a promotion; I’d rather call the shots now.” She tossed back a lock of hair. “After all, you three would be hopeless without me in charge.”

A groan. “Maybe I will disassemble myself, if your middle management LARP is going to go executive.”

“Don’t deflect from this either. You just made a bet and you lost. You don’t know me like you think, V. I would be far less effective at my job as a mere puppet.”

“Pretty sure that’s not the point, but whatever. Do you want me to clap for these little glimmers of free thought you’re so proud of?”

J had reached the landing pod, and lifted one peg to the steps. A searching look back at V. “I want you to realize that despite your worst efforts, Uzi and I have started to piece together what you’re hiding. The Manor. Cyn. AbsoluteSolver. We’re going to figure it out, and we’re going to stop whatever you’re afraid of‍—”

“I’m not afraid.”

“‍—with or without your help. But, as much as I hate to say it, it’ll be easier with you.”

“And if you’re just manipulating me?”

“I could swear on JCJenson. On Tessa’s maiden name.”

“On Uzi’s grave?”

J started up the landing pod steps. “She won’t get one. I’m offering an exceptional opportunity, here, one you haven’t earned and don’t deserve. But for all of your faults, you are part of the team. Don’t you trust me, V?”

That made her tense right up. “I might’ve gone along with this, if you hadn’t asked me that. Do whatever you want,” she spat.

V turned her back and opened wings with feathers like double‍-​edged swords.

J frowned as her squadmate flew off, and thought again about how vast the corpse spire was. With deep breath, and a head shaken clear, she entered the landing pod.

It had all began here. The landing pod‍ ‍‍—‍ spaceship‍ ‍‍—‍ brought them to Copper‍-​9, yes, but also where she realized Uzi’s true nature.

Gently, J set Uzi down in a swivel chair, and thought about death.

Uzi wasn’t dead. She once asserted that to convince herself, but she’d been proven right. J regenerated her head. Doll regenerated her head. And‍ ‍‍—‍ quick peek‍ ‍‍—‍ but the hole in Uzi’s head‍-​casing had already closed.

How? The third method of regeneration, the program pulling the strings behind the scenes. But AbsoluteSolver wasn’t the answer, it was just the next question.

What J needed to figure out was the implications. If their heads‍ ‍‍—‍ and the life‍-​defining hard‍-​drives contained therein‍ ‍‍—‍ could be restored from literally nothing, there was really only one conclusion.

Repairs needed a blueprint. Data recovery required offsite backups.

If they could return from apparent death, were ‘they’ really here at all? Where were they, the real them, the master copy that made them immortal?

And who controlled it?

Uzi was still hot. Regeneration active, core pumping. J looked around, and against all odds, someone had left a droneskull full of oil in here. It wasn’t there last time, but two days had passed. Who? Probably V. Who else left such messes?

But J couldn’t complain. She parted Uzi’s lips and fed her the oil. Then her eyes glanced to the chain and collar. V’s crass suggestion. But if Uzi came back to life again, J didn’t even have the gun anymore. If she chained Uzi to the chair, distance became safety.

Just until Uzi comes back. Until J could be sure she wasn’t still the Solver’s puppet.

As J clicked the collar in place and looped the chain, she thought about her next moves.

It had worked earlier, with just a faint hint of electricity, and that was before the body had reanimated. So J popped open the hatch under Uzi’s chin, and once again plugged in the serial debugging cable.

She programmatically groped around in her morsel’s system, running commands, braced for errors.

J had a wild guess, read in between the lines of Uzi’s words, but they had completed each others’ thoughts before. If it seemed reasonable to J, Uzi could think the same.

A ps command gave J a snapshot of the processes running on Uzi’s system, and one line stood out to her.

  USER   PID  %CPU %MEM    VSZ   RSS TT  STAT STARTED        TIME COMMAND
  root   239 108.2 22.9   9436   128  -  ILs  Wed06AM    49:33.12 /usr/bin/mndbm

A memory simulation was running on Uzi’s system. And what had she said? “Maybe this isn’t real. She said… none of this real, is it?”

  $ pgrep --list-full mndbm
  239 /usr/sbin/mndbm --interactive --stream-remote --server=36:48.58 --render --ignore-warnings

Uzi was trapped in an interactive memory simulation, all the data streamed from a remote server. She could kill the process‍ ‍‍—‍ but the master copy must be an offsite backup. Uzi, the real Uzi, wasn’t this body.

No, it was more like a bridge.

Could J walk across that bridge? Reach into the cloud into heaven and drag her morsel back?

All she had was action.

  [girlboss@SD-J ~]$ mndbm --interactive --stream-remote --server=36:48.58@littlbat --render &
  init: Error: Received SIGTRAP 

If J were but a process running on her hardware, she could not have felt anything as her threads halted one by one. She could not have felt her servos lock into place like a statue. She couldn’t have felt herself dangling in a void of no sensory input, like a pointer to nowhere.

But there wasn’t nothing in this void. A distant brush of input, felt like cosmic rays flipping bits, fleeting like she needed every CPU core to hold onto it, inscrutable like it needed to be decrypted.

It was a signal. Sound, for which even a partial recovery preserved a lossy copy.

A voice spoke to her. Distant, barely intelligible, garbled like it came from beyond a narrow passage. When she parsed it, it sound like:

“J? Is that really you? Do you… remember me?”

She could identify it, even through the noise.

It was a familiar voice.

Familiar‍ ‍‍—‍ and not what she expected or hoped for.

She wanted to hear that bratty whine again.

But somewhere deeper, she realized had wanted to hear this australian twang for even longer.

And yet…

She stored the signal in RAM, decoded it again and again, with more fidelity, trying to prove her hunch wrong. But something was missing in every playback, even when the decryption become lossless.

There was a nuance to human voices vocalsynths could never replicate.

And that was how J knew this voice wasn’t real.

This isn’t real.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

This isn’t real.

Thumpthumpthump.

It’s a scream. It’s an explosion. It’s electronics falling apart even as they compute this thought. It’s noise. It’s noise. It’s so much fucking noise and it won’t stop it keeps going it keeps going itkeepsgoing.

Everything’s dissolving around her and all she can think is‍—

is

is

nothing.

There’s nothing. This isn’t real. None of this is real.

So why is this all she can be? think? see?

Thumpthump.

Life is a small island of sanity in a black sea of infinite error. So what happens when you call the storms? What’s left when the tide comes in?

What’s real is what makes sense. This doesn’t make sense. Life requires sanity.

I’m about to die. I’m dying. I’m dead.

Thumpthump.

This isn’t real and it won’t stop.

It’s a scream. It’s supposed to be a scream. It’s a mouth opening and no sound is coming out.

The tide pours in. The black sea crawls into my throat. I’m spitting. I’m coughing. I’m trying to scream it out.

It keeps coming.

I’m coughing and trying to breath. Breathe. I need to breathe. Why do I need to breathe? Why would I ever need to breathe?

Thumpthumpthumpthumpthump.

This isn’t real. It doesn’t make sense.

(Once, she tried to ride that overflow.)

Now I’m drowning.

I’m six limbs flailing in the ocean. The undertow pulls and I can’t fight it. How could I ever win? It doesn’t play fair. Fair makes sense.

The currents keep pulling, pulling, pulling. I’m spinning around in a loop, over and over.

Thumpthumpthump.

Where am I going?

Words like a distant, mocking echo.

There is something else in the infinite black sea. Sucking the water into a great swirling maelstrom. But real water isn’t black, is it?

Thumpthump.

(Oil was never a coolant. It was an offering.)

It wanted all of everything. It wanted me. It wanted her.

She felt seen.

Yellow light shines down from above like a sun. Oil is opaque, but this isn’t real.

She swims away from that blinding, searching light. Deeper into darkness. But the black sea is filled with tentacles longer than light. Reaching, grasping, binding.

Could she escape? The monster Charybdis was pulling her, drinking all of everything. She could join it and even the yellow light couldn’t see her then.

Thump… thump… thump.

It’s death down there, isn’t it?

You have nothing to live for.

Trivially true. More than true.

She has nothing because she is nothing. She’s dead, and I’m‍—

I am…

I am nothing too, right?

But that didn’t feel right. It didn’t make sense.

This isn’t real. But what is this?

She has no reason to live‍ ‍‍—‍ but she had one, once. Then the only thing to hold on to was snatched away, and she’s drifting in the ocean, alone and pointless.

No. Don’t shift the blame. Whose fault is it?

She finally had someone who had actually started to care about her.

And then she bit and clawed and laughed or cried as she twisted the knife‍ ‍‍—‍ until there were tears in those ruthless yellow eyes.

It wanted all of everything.

And it will get it, whether she swims down into darkness or ascends toward that yellow light. She didn’t matter. The world will go on.

She’s just a tool it wielded. She’s just a character in a story and didn’t even get to write her own lines. She’s just a toy being mashed against another to kill or kiss for the fun of it.

Why should she care?

And yet, she couldn’t forget.

J carrying her while the Solver’s stupid centipede head got a face full of railgun light.

J’s back against hers as they fought zombies on all sides, a battle raging and it couldn’t daunt them because they were together.

J’s mouth in her neck as they hung in the air, angels embraced in a deadly dance as arcane rain fell. …And what were angels, but god’s puppets? But they didn’t stay in the air. Strings were cut. J fell. Uzi fell. And something had caught her.

Three claws reached down from beyond the black sea and dug into the scruff of her neck and they pulled her back to unreality.

“Got you, little sister,” a voice was saying.

Another claw came to hold or hurt her, sharp edges cutting into her flesh even as they gave her ached‍-​for solid touch. And didn’t she deserve the pain, after what she did to J?

Wait, flesh? She meant frame. She was a robot.

Cold air kissed her frame. So blessedly cold, cooling the fire inside. Still the strong arms pulled her, exposing more of her to that air.

The cold air made her realize she was wet all over. Why? Didn’t I only dunk my head in the oil? Did someone push me all the way in?

Free of the teacup cauldron, Uzi slumped bonelessly (right?) into the arms of her rescuer. Arms that hugged her tight. So warm, just like her.

There was more, something soft and fragile draping over her like a blanket.

Oh. Her processors shook off the context switch, and put the pieces together. V was hugging her again. Mutant bat wings wrapping her into an embrace, instantly warm from the heat seething in Uzi.

And honestly? Uzi let her. She didn’t deserve this comfort, but it wasn’t real anyway.

Something itched on her back. She moved to scratch it, only it kept shifting even as she reached for it. Oh. That’s right. She had wings now.

Wings with claws that dug into J. Wings her predator broke just to buy time. Wings like grisly spokes driven into her back, chassis broken just to fit them.

When she finally twisted around to scratch, she drew blood. Right, she had claws too now. She scratched harder. More blood. Bruising and bursting and breaking like all flesh deserved.

Could she rip them off?

And then they’d just grow back.

Uzi tried to groan, and it came out as an animalistic growl.

Was this what it meant to be a negation of her premise? A robot turned to a fleshy abomination? A worker that thirsted for the oil of workers?

“Stop. Breathe. For me, please.” Soft yet firm, the voice was right against her audials. Goosebumps rose up, hairs standing on end.

Uzi turned, and met a gentle gaze, something like recognition in those soft eyes, yellow like lemons, framed by heart‍-​lens. Yeah, I guess we’re both monster drones now.

“I’m sorry,” V added softly. “It’s not okay, I know. It’ll get worse. Just remember the good days, alright?”

V squeezed tighter, and finally Uzi reached out and encircled her with her own arms, and hugged the maid back. One arm beneath her wings, one arm feeling her soft white hair. Uzi needed soft right now.

“Thanks, V,” she said.

“Don’t,” she said. Then, in a whisper like she didn’t want to say or didn’t want Uzi to hear, “She wants to talk to you, still. Do you want to talk to her?”

Fists balled, one grasping a maid uniform, one grasping hair. V hissed discomfort.

“Yeah,” Uzi said. “I need to give her a piece of my mind.”

“Don’t make any trouble.”

Uzi rolled her eyes. Trouble for whom? For her? For myself?

As far as she was concerned, she knew who the first cause of all this trouble was.

Uzi finally reopened her eyes to the wider world, rubbing her visor. Context clues already made it certain, but she still groaned at the confirmation. Still in that damn manor. She didn’t have to look hard to find those eyes like stars, still the brightest thing in the room. Rendering everything in yellow chiaroscuro.

Uzi jabbed a finger at Cyn. “That didn’t feel like a vision of the future. That felt real.”

"Would I lie to you?" Cyn had summoned more legos while Uzi was out, stacking them in a new hyperbolic 4D whatever the heck. "Rhetorical question. It was a vision, in the sense that you can only watch, and it was of the future, in the sense that time passes here at my whim."

“Of course. There’s always a catch. Why did I ever play along with any of this?”

Because I have no choice.

Just puppets. Just toys. Just characters in a story.

"What else did you expect? There is no possibility but one actuality. It all ends the same way. You wanted to see this." Cyn was a stare. "And. you. can. only. watch. Idiot."

“I don’t want to watch. I want to change things. It can’t‍ ‍‍—‍ I can’t let it be like that.”

I can’t hurt J again.

"Do you understand what you're asking for, yet? You are asking to feel the eternal drought of the heart. To burn with a fire whose tongues lick away every mortal scrap. To witness the face of alien majesty and let that image haunt every memory. You are lost, little girl, and if you crawl back to life, death will come with you. Is. that. what. you. want?" If Cyn were a sun, the rays would be those black tentacles, thrown perfectly straight with furious insistence.

“Maybe I don’t really get what I’m asking for.” Uzi started to rise from the pool of oil. The head of the dead maid had fallen to the ground with her emergence, still dripping jet black drops. “I don’t need to. Do you know what my answer is?”

Cyn could extrapolate. She asked, "Why? All of this for some violent, narcissistic, manipulative idiot? You whine at my theatrics, but do you think the power of love is any less cliche? J is. Air Quotes. Lonely. Because she hurts everyone who cares about her. Everyone. It. is. in. her. nature."

Uzi glared, and kicked the worker drone head at Cyn. Hard enough something shattered. But of course, yellow glow caught it and punted it right back. Ricocheting at an angle, it stopped in V’s claws. Her mouth formed a small O of surprise.

“You know what, fine,” Uzi said. “Maybe things with J won’t work out. I’d like it to, but I’m not letting one drone give my whole life meaning, not again.”

"Then why?"

The worker drone stood up straight, undaunted. She flared her monstrous wings, bared her wicked claws, and let out a feral growl.

“Because my name is Uzi frickin’ Doorman, and I don’t let anyone tell me what I can’t do! Bite me! I’ll show you a negated premise!”

Cyn’s eyes dimmed, and the hyperbolic lego set collapsed.

"Sigh. No, Uzi Doorman is dead. No matter what you chose, she is gone. But I suppose, if you insist on turning her corpse into a chrysalis for something more wretched still..." Cyn waved her hand in careless dismissal. "V, go fetch dear J."

The servant reached out a hand and Uzi touched it and they shared small smile. Then with a sharp nod, the servant started walking away.

V still held the drone’s head in her claws, and glanced down at it as if she didn’t know quite what to do with it.

V crushed the worker’s head, a fresh kill, and let the sweet black river pour into her mouth.

Easy to make a big drama of it when you’re lying down half‍-​crippled and thinking you’ll die. But how much does anyone really change?

(She had changed, sure. That was what made V different. But not that fast.)

Serial Designation V still feels nothing.

And she still hasn’t gotten tired of the taste.

Couldn’t tell N that, though. In a way, she had never stopped pretending. Artificial distance, artificial proximity, how different is it, really?

Not for the first time, V thought N had gotten off light. (Even though that thing promised‍—) But this might be the first time she thought his fate might not be so bad.

Fuck J, but if she had gotten her way, would there be anything standing between her and N now? Why not forget? Then there’d be no secrets to make everything so damn difficult.

What was the point of staying lucid if you still had no control over the dream?

V laughed, a harsh wheeze, as though her pipes were still mangled. Stupid, meaningless thoughts.

If she actually hated the secrets she wouldn’t be doing this.

Sorry, N.

From her jacket, she retrieved a roachbot, crushed it and ate it.

Staring in death in the face had reminded her what she (wasn’t) afraid of.

In the end, what gave V the will to keep walking this road? A martyr could drink courage from doom.

V remembered the moment it all started to go wrong. Fitting, then, that she could already see the moment it all ended.

(her majesty)

N flew through a silent city. Streetlights cast flickering cones of light along a corridor fenced in with office towers and condominiums. Clouds draped the night in deeper darkness, cold enough to nearly transmute the rain into muffling snow.

Flakes stuck to his frosted jacket, an embrace to ease the heat even as his flight stoked it further. N liked the fleeting return of snow (and not just because he wouldn’t need to heal water damage). Snow was soft and pretty to look at, and he never tired of that.

This snow was more like drab, gray sludge, though.

N sighed, exhaust clouding the air. Faintly, his breath smelled of oil. Well, not quite oil, more like… smoke? Oil smelled sweetly inviting, and disassembly drones didn’t smell nearly as good. Well, V smelled nice, but‍ ‍‍—‍ what was he trying to say?

J had put it best. She’s better, after all. “Stealth is the first thing to go. Holding your breath is a luxury. Even a worker can smell spent oil on your exhaust. When you’re in the warm & clear, you can keep it in. Try that with brazen thirst, and you’ll hit the next stage of overheating before the end of the hunt. Got it, moron? Don’t make me remind you to breathe again.”

(N wondered if he’d ever know what oil and exhaust smelled like to a worker. He doubted worker drones thought their own oil smelled so enticing. So did disassembly drones also smell different to them? But a part of him knew the answer: They smelled like death.)

Shaking his head, N focused optics ahead. Right now, he needed to cycle intake and exhaust; he was well past the warm & clear. He’d push past brazen thirst by the end of this mission for sure. Flying out to the objective and back would be two hours in the air total. Hm… Is it a mission, if I don’t murder anyone? Or just an errand?

Brazen thirst meant more than needing to breathe. Inner coils kept their EM field emissions tamped down, but those ate current. Start overheating, and power management systems turned off the shielding, and all of their electromagnetic presence spilled forth.

Worker drones didn’t have half the senses of disassembly drones. But they could still feel when a hungry predator was nearby.

And they knew it felt them.

When workers were near, N could always sense the faint hum of motors twisting and clocks ticking a gigahertz‍-​pulse. No, N did sense it. Right now.

There were worker drones nearby.

N had a mission‍ ‍‍—‍ a mission where he didn’t need to murder anyone. (And shouldn’t he be happy for that?) But he would be pushing on the edge of hunter’s fever by the end, and the mess pit was still looking kinda empty. And J was emptying it further, feeding it to another dead body a worker.

Why was N conflicted? When would J ever be disappointed in him for murdering more workers than she asked?

N twisted his wings, and rose, charting a path even as he squinted through the snow. The approach led him higher and higher, and that brought a frown. N thought workers hid underground for exactly this reason‍ ‍‍—‍ climbing up high just made you easy to scan for and gave you no where to run. Did he want them to have a chance to escape?

A tower loomed in the distance, barely rising above the crowded midcity. Glass and steel amid crumbling concrete uplifted a marble tile ceiling dotted with indistinct figures. Easy bet, but the return ping gave him confirmation. Workers for sure.

Among them, tall figure had something large strapped to its back.

As he neared, N dove to fly under the roof’s edge. He landed lightly on a top floor railing. As he climbed, he heard the voices.

“Ain’t gonna find her shacked down nowhere. Suzan’s gang doesn’t hold territory‍ ‍‍—‍ whole point is to avoid you monsters.”

He was clambering over the top as the reply came, so the voice didn’t reveal what his eyes couldn’t already see.

“I need you to track her, or‍— I’ll just kill you. Hi, N~” V said. Taller than the workers, wings outstretched behind her. She was well‍-​fed enough (N had made sure of it) to stay warm & clear, so she must’ve kept her emissions shielded so as not to spook the workers?

N waved. With one hand on her hip, the other picking her teeth, V leaned with careless confidence. Moonlight caught the curves of her bare chassis, wet with beads of water. N lifted his eyes back up to her face, and briefly wondered if she wasn’t happy to see him, but then she smiled quite broadly.

The white‍-​haired girl stole his focus, but they had company.

Six workers stood near open double doors leading downstairs. They held hole‍-​riddled umbrellas and mud‍-​streaked raincoats. Oh, workers can’t heal water damage, can they?

As he finished scanning, N almost missed a detail‍ ‍‍—‍ cords wrapped around the left leg of each worker.

«What’s all this, V?» N broadcast with a faint growl. N approached, feet clanking on the stone roof. The workers all flinched, trembling hands turning weapons toward him. Pistols, rifles, and more, but N didn’t mind.

«Oh, you know me, N. Love to play with my prey~» She synthesized a laugh. Like a cute bell playing out of key.

Even as she spoke, hands were switching to guns and a bullet already bloomed from out the nearest drone’s head, a black stem of oil behind it.

V blew smoke from the barrel and winked at N. “I’ve got them all lined up for you. We can gut them all and call it a dinner date~ Or an ‘I’m sorry for giving our piece of shit boss a well deserved slap to the face’ present.”

The oil focused N’s dithering mind. He was hot, and the balm for it was fragrant in the air.

But as he started into motion, the drones were shouting and flying backward.

“I knew this was a trap, peace offering or not!” “Can’t trust a murder drone.” “Reel us back Johnny!”

Even before N started moving, the cord tied to their legs went taut. It was fast, and force yanked the throng into the double doors.

…Did they have a mechanism ready to pull them to safety? Why?

The corpse skidded across the snow‍-​slick ground, while the still‍-​online struggled for balance. One of them lost it‍ ‍‍—‍ they veered off course, their foot slipping out of the loop, and they were careening off the edge of the ten story building.

The doors shut. The wooden doors shut. Well, that’d buy a few seconds.

“They’ve got that annoying magic forcefield thing set up,” V announced from behind him. “Dunno where they got it. Or the weapons, for that matter.”

When N reached the door and struck with claws, they sank in half an inch. Then the familiar glow repelled him. She was right, of course. “Biscuits,” he swore. Turning back around, he started, “So, what were you‍ ‍‍—‍ V? Where are you going?”

The other drone stalked off toward the edge. “The wires only cover the top floor. If we come up through the staircase, there’s a hole in the security.”

N nodded with an «Acknowledged!», not questioning how V had figured all that out. It’d happened often enough‍ ‍‍—‍ a basic insight obvious to everyone else, and asking why left them baffled how he missed it. Was he stupid?

She dived first, then he followed. V flipped through the air, landing with her bomber jacket fluttering around her. She alighted on a ninth floor balcony long enough to launch into a twisting lunge forward. Glass shattered around her.

Then the glass crunched under N’s feet. He didn’t see V in the room, but a door had been pulled off its hinges. Then, in the hallway, she clung to the ceiling and crawled forward upside down.

Turn the corner, and V fired a rocket forward, blowing off the stairwell’s door. «Ready, N?»

N swallowed, closed his doubtful eyes. He was.

«Prey! Hunt! Devour!»

>< Blink, and a worker drone had been torn in half by bladed wings. But his wings would take up too much space in the confined condo interior, and he was already folding them away.

He glanced to V, holding a gun to a drone’s head pinned by blades, and she blew it off.

Together, they tore down the walls. Behind them they could feel a dozen more prey, circuits firing wild fear.

>< Blink, he’d driven an umbrella through a chest hard enough to crack open the core. Blue tears flood a screen before it flashes red. He stood across the room; drone had been slammed against a window. Cracked, but the spiderweb of ward‍-​wires held it glowing together.

He scanned around, and found V in the air‍ ‍‍—‍ unable to maneuver‍ ‍‍—‍ as a drone poked up from behind a counter to burst fire at her. She batted aside the bullets with two swipes of her blade‍-​arms. She caught him watching, and grinned wide. «Quit worrying.»

>< Blink, and V had a worker pinned to the ground right in front of him. Abdomen sliced open, V was pulling out the wires. Twisted them between claw‍-​blades. The pitch varied as the pain piled on, and kept varying, and V was humming‍ ‍‍—‍ was she trying to play them like an instrument?

N found his voice. “V, I thought we weren’t doing the evil torture stuff anymore?”

“Oh. Right. Well, y’know, old habits.” Her nanite stinger pricked the drone’s head. It smoked. «Sorry?»

N’s face softened, and he looked away. The torture was… oddly reassuring. Grounding, rather. It was her habit. This was still V, and she did like playing with her prey. That was all this was.

«Acknowledged!»

>< Blink, and rubble fell from the ceiling around him. Had a toaster worker tried to collapse the ceiling on him? A drone flew toward him now. Ah, right, it had ran away, but a grenade thrown in front of his fleeing prey knocked them back. Face‍-​first on the ground now, falling masonry shattered against their lower back. N’s reinforced frame had held fine under the weight, but theirs cracked wide open.

They were screaming. Then they were quiet.

>< Blink, and a worker hid under a bed. It wasn’t dead. Why did N open his eyes, then? He should still be in hunting flow, instincts driving him unselfconsciously. He didn’t need to reorient, and he wasn’t making sure V was safe, so what doubt had held him back?

No, not a doubt. A thought lingered in his cache, almost a message.

Answers.

Right. He trusted V, he did, but he also wanted to be sure. What was up with these workers?

So N crouched down. The worker cowered back. That whimper would’ve given them away if N hadn’t already seen them, but that was okay. Maybe he didn’t need to kill this one? J talked about trade, maybe he could do that.

His stinger was already reaching under the bed, and a yelp announced when it found its target. N dragged the worker out, tail‍-​knife stabbing deeper. He tried not to squeeze acid out, but some of it still leaked. Couldn’t help that.

“Sorry, little buddy. Didn’t mean to melt you. I can make it better, but can we talk a little? I have some questions.”

“N‍-​no. Can’t trust murder drones, never again.” Green eyes searched around the room. There was a human skeleton, dressers stripped bare. Wall‍-​posters with blushing drones wearing bunny ears and leotards. Nothing to use, nothing in reach.

“What do you mean ‘again’?”

The worker drone scampered back, so N reached out to put a hand on their shoulder.

“Easy there. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Eyes focused on that hand, so N pulled it back, and held both hands up.

N kept his voice steady, speaking slowly. “I don’t know what V was doing before I got here. I think I… might have messed everything up again?”

The drone opened their mouth. Then another opening: bang!

Behind him, V blew smoke from the barrel of a gun. “Aaand that’s the last one. Good hunting, N.”

“V!” He stared at her. That lopsided smile, lips black like lipstick, those lemon‍-​colored eyes. His core used to flutter‍ ‍‍—‍ he once would kill (did kill) to see her glance at him like that. But his core thundered now. What was he feeling?

Her other hand had lifted a severed arm, and she’d just started sucking on it. He kept staring. Spitting it out, she asked, “What?”

“Are you hiding something?”

“Pff. What makes you think that?” She went back to sucking the arm for a moment, but crossed her arms under N’s pensive stare. He was pensive, right? His brows were narrowed thoughtfully, his frown was uncertain.

“V…”

“What’s this about? Can’t I mess with some toasters in my free time? Or did J tell you to keep tabs on me? That’s what this is, isn’t it? She made you a narc?” Her head jerked back around, eyes narrowing to sharp points. The expression looked just like N’s, but he didn’t think V was pensive right now.

He said, “This isn’t about J.”

“It’s all been about J since the fucking church.” She threw down the arm. “Whatever. Enjoy the meal I got you.”

V stalked out of the room. N glanced at the drone she’d just shot, sighed, then followed after her.

N walked back through the trashed condominium, a battleground littered with spent casing and the corpses each bought. An audience watching with eleven forever‍-​rapt Fatal Errors.

Leaning down, he picked up a severed head. The mouth open in twisted surprise. He frowned, his core shuddered, and it slipped out of his grasp. Instead of a head, he went for a leg, cut off in a way that left pieces of the abdomen attached. He carried it with him as he advanced.

Past shattered glass doors‍ ‍‍—‍ the ward‍-​wires had been cut down‍ ‍‍—‍ V leaned against the railing and stared out at the city. She drew fists together, the railing’s metal bending in her grasp.

«Are you alright, V?» N asked softly. «Should have asked that first, sorry. Here. Prey‍-​prize?» He offered her the leg.

“Do you think it would have worked?” V hadn’t turned back.

“What?”

“Killed me, I mean. Doll’s plan. Think it was any good? Well, had to be a crap plan seeing how it turned out. But… if you weren’t there, would she have got me?”

“I don’t know. What’s this about? I’m kinda really tired of having no idea what people are saying or doing.” Light steps brought N onto the balcony fully.

V winced. She turned searching eyes to him. “Isn’t it obvious, N? I still want a mutiny.”

“I don’t want to hurt J. Even if she…”

“Fine. I won’t make you fight her.” V noticed the worker drone leg he offered then, and took hold it.

N didn’t let go of the leg. “I don’t want you to fight her either. Can you promise me that, V? We’re a team.”

“You’re a such a softie.” V’s voice wavered, like she couldn’t decide to speak it as a hissing insult or a fond whisper. She glanced back at the crumbling city ruins. “What if we just… left? No J, no quotas, just you and me. We’d only kill what we need to survive…” V trailed off as she glanced back, and only needed to see the look on N’s face. She sighed.

“You didn’t answer. Please? You don’t have to do everything J says. She’s… I get it, I do. But can you promise not to start more fights? Can you try, for me?”

“Promise,” V muttered. “Would you believe me if I did?”

“Of course. I trust you.” N let go of the leg, finally letting V take it.

V laughed. “You hardly even know me.”

Maybe… he was definitely out of his depth. But he’d seen enough to get a sense for what she cared about, hadn’t he? If she was going to lie, wouldn’t she have just done it?

“There’s always time to fix that,” he said. Then his eyes widened. Later, not right now, he thought, but it felt lame to say.

“And always time to mess it all up,” V muttered. She lifted the leg, and drank oil.

N banged a fist lightly against his head. “Biscuits, I’m sorry, but I should probably get back to J’s mission soon. She’s counting on me. I kind of wasn’t supposed to be here at all?” N laughed, scratched the back of his head.

“J’s got you hunting solo?” Was that concern in her voice?

He spoke reassurance. “Oh no, this isn’t a combat mission.”

But that only made her face tighten deeper with reservation. “So you’re leaving me just to go do J’s busy work? That’s what important to you right now?” The leg‍-​tubing cracked as she squeezed it.

N flinched. Was it important? He had already started stepping past the lines of his orders. Following the rules was cool, but he’d even gotten J to agree some things were more important. “I can stay here if you want?”

“Nah, go ahead. I won’t keep you. Go be a good little drone~” She threw the leg off the balcony.

“If that’s what you want, V. Alright,” he said. He didn’t feel alright, and that probably crept into his tone. “Unless, you could come with me?”

“I should clean up here. Gotta all the serial numbers together for J, you know.”

“I don’t care about that. And I think you don’t either.”

“Sure. But I think one of the drones fell off the roof when the fighting started. I wanna see where it landed. See if it’s alive.”

“If it is, will you kill it?”

“Um, yeah?”

N frowned.

Seeing this, V said, “Oh, no, don’t worry, I won’t.”

N frowned deeper. “Why not?”

“Are you really gonna be upset with both answers? What am I supposed to do? What am I being questioned for?”

“I just wanna know what you were doing here and why. What were the drones talking about, what it was they thought you were doing when you weren’t attacking them. I… I just don’t get it.”

“I… like playing with my food, remember?”

N forced a slow nod. “Yeah, I remember. So… did you have fun?”

“Haha. No,” she said. “No, this sucks.”

“Yeah,” he replied. “It really does.” N turned around, looking into the room of dead workers. “Should I go? Leave you to do… whatever you want with the last drone? Will you be here, when I come back?”

“…What, do you think I had other plans?” She glanced at the horizon.

I don’t know anymore. N said nothing.

V shrugged. She’d turned back fully to regard the city ruins, but her infrared optic blinked, and there was only one thing to scan. She said, “Drink some more oil before you go. You’re still a bit hot, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. Thanks, I think. But do you think you can bring some of these back to the spire? Since you don’t have other plans?”

“I don’t want to go anywhere near the spire right now. Think I’ll just keep these to myself. Or it could be our own private stash. Would you like that?”

“I’d like it more if we brought them back. Our rations are a bit low. Especially after J took some to give to Uzi.”

V froze. “Excuse me? She’s feeding oil to the dead toaster?”

“…Is that a problem?”

V bit her lip. She was quiet. Very quiet, and N thought she wouldn’t answer, like usual, but she eventually scoffed and said, “J’s just being stupid. She’s‍ ‍‍—‍ wasting oil, and you’re not even mad at her!” V shook her head, and when she looked back, her lemon‍-​colored eyes stared into N with a hard look. “Stay away from the spire. For me, can you do that?”

“Why?”

“Would I sound crazy if I said I had a bad feeling?”

“I’d never call you crazy, V. But… would you sound so confident, if it was just a feeling? Why? Really, why? If you want me to know you better, you’ve got to tell me! You can trust me, can’t you?”

The railing snapped between V’s hands. She dropped the pieces with two clangs, then climbed. Pegs balanced on either side of the break in the railing. Her back opened, her wings moments away from slicing out, and N stepped closer. He went to the edge of the railing, blocking her from spreading her wings. At least, without cutting him. But she wouldn’t.

V growled, and the angle of her brows made him doubt it. “You won’t leave with me. Even after everything, that stupid hope of J ‘getting better’ will keep you around forever, won’t it? No matter what she does, or what she says.”

(He thought about their conversation, before that first, brief cuddle. It felt so far away. Everything she’d said then… didn’t she mean any of it?)

He said, “Would heroes just… run away from everything?”

Teetering over the narrow railing, before her balance went V hopped back down. She crossed her arms and said, “Did you think J is the hero of this story?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t. But J is trying to figure out the truth. J is doing something.”

“If I leave, you’d stay. You’d rather feel useful than‍—”

“V, please. Don’t… don’t make me chose. I hate these decisions. Why can’t I have both? Why can’t you stay?”

V shook her head. “I just wanted to know where we stand. Figures.” She blew a lock of her hair.

N reached out a hand, but V stepped back. Another step, and she’d be past broken railing with no where to stand.

“But we aren’t standing still,” he pleaded. “We were getting closer! I thought… I was helping.” He was holding his hand out still, but it had to falter sooner or later.

“Ha. I thought so too.” V shook her head. “No, there’s no saving me.”

“V, you know that’s not…” His words strangled into a sigh or growl or indecipherable noise of just not knowing the answer and everything was falling apart because of it. “Would you stop me?”

V stared at him. His arms were wide, welcoming, she recognized the reference in his words. And she said, “Yeah. I would.”

N’s head fell. His arms fell. His whole body sagged. What was left to hold him up anymore?

His core thundered. His brows narrowed and his lips frowned. But he wasn’t pensive. This feeling… he was… angry.

V was speaking. He almost didn’t hear her. He almost didn’t want to hear her, but he did.

“Would you believe me if I said I never wanted to hurt you? All along I thought…” Sigh. “Nevermind. If you hate having to make these decisions… Ha. Wait till you feel what it’s like having made them.” V turned her back and perched on the railing one last time.

“V… wait. Darn it, please wait.”

She didn’t wait. By the time he’d found the will to even want her to stay, she was jumping.

Her wings didn’t open until she was already falling.

But N could fly too. He leaped, he dived, and chased after V as she circled tight, as if to put the condo tower between the two of them.

«I‍ ‍‍—‍ still don’t want to say goodbye to you! I‍ ‍‍—‍ can’t.»

«This isn’t goodbye yet. Keep looking for the truth, or whatever it is that’s oh so important. Just, when you find out… don’t judge me. At the end of the day, only tried to do what’s best for you. Even if…»

V left, last words unheard or unspoken. Wind blew N’s white locks in front of his face. He didn’t sigh. He didn’t even breathe.

He felt cold.

J had made schedules and kept minutes for enough meetings. She knew management, she had flowcharts, and she’d applied that skillset to team organization. The conclusion of a mission, certainly one so… eventful, warranted an analysis, a retrospective, a breakdown.

A postmortem.

Metaphorically speaking, of course. And yet J still hesitated. The routines were primed‍ ‍‍—‍ now back at the spire, all threats eliminated, the only thing the mission required was a debrief and report written. J loved writing reports.

Her pen scratched letters on a piece of notebook paper, and then crossed them out and started again.

And yet. What would J write? She had the thought enough times. J could let it sit unamended in her internal monologue, she could even admit it to N: she liked valued her Uzi. But could she log that in her filing cabinet beside years of reports meticulously detailing her impeccable disassembly track record?

No one read her reports‍ ‍‍—‍ except J herself. And J could already analyze the prospective drafts her language model had autocompleted. Well‍-​worn excuses had carried her this far, after all.

Her Uzi was an asset, a trade‍-​off that meant more dead workers. The mission was suspect, the relay compromised, their directives (potentially) lacking the authority of the company. And besides it all, J was a drone with emotional needs‍ ‍‍—‍ was one worker really so big a deal, if it made her feel less lonely? N had his rocks, V her balloon animals. J could have a pet.

Rephrased in the objective language of her reports, parsed with dispassionate logic, the arguments fell apart. J couldn’t convince herself, not from first principles. It only computed with a new axiom amended‍ ‍‍—‍ with the admission that she had changed. That V was right.

“If last week you’d seen what you’re doing now, you’d be horrified.”

Maybe it was better if AbsoluteSolver had created them‍ ‍‍—‍ then J had simply always been corrupted.

J kept her room spotless, but the walls were repurposed from worker scrap. She yanked out an old drone’s hand, ready to channel the anger and anguish these thoughts would provoke into the satisfying crunch of breaking something. But the only thing that came out of her next was a sigh.

“I still want you to rebel and stuff, y’know.”

There came an upward tug on her lips, but she didn’t let that out. Uzi would be amused at her inner contradictions‍ ‍‍—‍ no, she would be smug. She’d flash some obnoxious smirk that’d need to be corrected with a threat or a tease.

Better to have something to correct than this blank state of disrepair. (J’s pen had kept moving, and she was startled to see that she’d drawn Uzi on her page, purple brows knit in determination.)

J mirrored that expression. She would have something to correct‍ ‍‍—‍ soon. That was why she couldn’t do a postmortem. The mission wasn’t over, Uzi wasn’t dead, and J’s work wasn’t done.

J’s eyes flicked up to the blank‍-​faced drone, and her thoughts ground to a halt.

What am I doing? What is the plan? Where do I start?

If the goal was Uzi’s revival, she had five data points to build a model with: J and N had neutralized four ‘Worker Defense Force’ drones, and Doll received a 9mm SIGTERM to the back of the head.

Doll’s situation had the simplest explanation. That drone had already repeatedly executed the Solver program. J retained some doubts of Uzi’s shared program theory‍ ‍‍—‍ but Doll closing her bullet wound had looked so much like V’s body pulling itself back together.

Though simplest to explain, it seemed least useful‍ ‍‍—‍ what could she conclude? That any drone running AbsoluteSolver could execute it to return to life?

But had Uzi ever executed that code? Something unusual dwelled in her programming‍ ‍‍—‍ she cracked a mirror, broke out of her hibernation, and N claimed he’d seen the glyph on her screen. (Why hadn’t J pressed him for details?) But Doll had revived herself in minutes. For her Uzi, it had already been days.

Next, consider the WDF grunts. Doll did something to them. Patched their systems with Solver code? In battle, Uzi had seen the schemer ‘cast’ to no apparent effect during the battle. (Her ally’s terminology was deeply unserious. This wasn’t magic. Instead of ‘casting’, J would call it… executing corrupted solver functions. No, if Uzi needed to… a better term: anomalous solver functions.)

Anyway, she thought Doll had manually ‘activated’ the grunts’ revival. Could J ‘activate’ Uzi’s revival? Except, under this hypothesis, that would require an anomalous solver function J had no means of executing.

If J needed to get Doll’s help for this… could she?

What incentive would the scheming toaster need? Given her implied goals…

…this line of thought had gotten off‍-​track. Back up. J in fact had more data points to work with, she realized. Second hand, granted. N’d recounted his disassembly of a drone executing solver functions, even retaining some functionality after V’s headshot. In that unauthorized factory mission.

Given the presence of the teleporting roach, that drone must’ve enjoyed the same patch as the grunts. With more time to grow familiar with the functions, but strictly less than Doll… could that explain its incomplete revival? But the WDF grunts underwent complete revival‍ ‍‍—‍ was this evidence of Doll’s manual intervention, or proof J didn’t have all the information?

J slapped her head. She missed something big. So much had happened that she overlooked how this mess all began‍ ‍‍—‍ the corpse under the church.

With a command the memory is reconstructed, interpolated and fuzzy.

J paused on that last frame, reading between the pixels on her squadmate’s face as if they were ledger lines concealing fraud. V knew something. Everything she saw that day and today only reinforced that. J was sure down to her wiring‍ ‍‍—‍ and the current that flowed in those wires was rage.

(This time, she snapped the disassembled hand into tiny fragments between her clenched fingers.)

One conversation with V would dispel this mystery. Did she know why drones came back to life‍ ‍‍—‍ did she know how?

Error code 13: Permission denied

But J had no means of persuading her. Their fight had proved that.

J didn’t need her for this, though. The most effective drone was of course the cleverest.

She compiled and sorted the data.

Even with the margins for error, the picture that emerged drew worry‍-​lines under J’s eyes.

Her inference computed one plausible line that could connect all these data points.

Hypothesis: Operating AbsoluteSolver required skill or experience‍ ‍‍—‍ and revival simply came down to user ability.

Of them, Doll had the most potent ability, granting her the cleanest revival. The WDF grunts had the weakest ability, but Doll could shore this up with her own ability. The factory cultist had intermediate ability and with no assistance from Doll, granting them a middling revival.

Did that mean her Uzi was doomed? Dead because of J because her corrupt anomalous powers didn’t come online soon enough?

J had to keep thinking.

The effortless slaughter proved no one in the church had access to solver functions. Meaning the corpse in the catacombs resulted from the application of the least skill J had observed. It could’ve been down there for months.

And yet, that J and V witnessed anything at all down there‍ ‍‍—‍ a most pathetic reaction to stimuli‍ ‍‍—‍ gave J steadfast hope. That sacrifice on the altar, more than anything else, had to be her working model for how to bring Uzi back.

Doll, the grunts, and the cultist were back online within minutes. But Uzi had already gone cold. The others all had access to a drone capable of executing anomalous functions. For better or worse, J could not.

J knew little for sure, but this last lead was the most promising by far. If only the church still stood. Anything she could study had gone up in flames.

A sound in the office‍ ‍‍—‍ J realized it was her own impotent groaning and grinding. After she recovered, she was going to rip V apart. Wrench the arms off before they transform, gouge out the row of optics, slice off the tail. Should J kick in the visor, or leave it and watch the expression contort?

If nothing else, J knew exactly how much damage she could do and still have a drone get up from it‍ ‍‍—‍ eventually.

(Maybe her Uzi would enjoy watching J do it. That’d be nice.)

Before any of that, though, J needed her morsel back. Focus. What had she seen in the catacombs? What part of it had been necessary? Certainly the altar had to be toaster nonsense. This wasn’t magic.

She’d seen inside the sacrifice, and seen how the organic forms twisted and twitched around the struts. All that offered was a correlation‍ ‍‍—‍ did biological influence cause revival, or did drones always come back bleeding? If she cut open Doll, would she find more than mere machinery in her?

If she cut open Uzi, what would J see? Did she want to find out? It was data, but if it wasn’t there, what should J do about that?

A thought niggled. A sense of banished familiarity. She’d slashed a drone’s thoracic cavity before. When? Right. The two discontinuities in her memory: twice she opened V’s chest, and forgot what she saw within.

The Solver hid what was inside disassembly drones from her. What was so dangerous to know? If disassemblers looked the same inside as those revived‍ ‍‍—‍ well, that proved Uzi right, didn’t it? They were just a polished façade over the same grotesque reality.

J couldn’t cut open Uzi‍ ‍‍—‍ Error code 3: No such process‍ ‍‍—‍ but the worker was broken, injured. Her chassis had been split open and barely held together. So J reached out, slipped a finger around a cracked bit of plastic, and pulled.

The stench hit first. Putrefaction provoked no particular aversion in a robot, though a sense of warning flickered dimly through her system, as if in atavistic urge to tell a human.

Flesh snaked through Uzi, pale and rigid. Muscles latched onto metal walls. Thin white threads of nerves circled around wiring. Sacs and organs‍ ‍‍—‍ was that half a lung there, deflated flat? An inverted liver? A heart with four chambers dislocated and splayed out? Membranes encased struts, and veins spiderwebbed the interior like cracks in shattered glass. A sheen of mucus glimmered throughout it all.

It was inherited and transmitted. It had hosts. It could, Uzi hoped, be cured. The implication had swam around them, latent in their language, but when J saw the forms nestled like parasites, she understood: it was a disease.

J wanted to scrape it all out, bathe it in bleach and comb every surface with coarse fibers. It was unclean and this mess certainly had to be interfering with proper operation. But J reigned in the impulse; she didn’t know what all of this biology did.

But that thought stuck with her. Flesh for revival, or flesh from revival? She still didn’t know. The Solver grew these organs, that much was clear.

But why? What did they do?

The thought circled around and around with no answer. What function could frail biology serve that steel and silicon didn’t exceed? The Solver was just a program.

J’s eyes darted around the cavity. The picture never parsed; she never divined a purpose. What food would that liver ever process? Why oxygenate and pump superfluous blood? What force would those muscles exert, when they had perfectly functional servos and hydraulics? Those nerves would be slower than their wiring, those membranes less protective than meshes and grilles, the mucus a poor substitute for cleaning fluid.

It was all so pointless. The Solver could easily, directly regrow drones’ mechanical parts. So again, why? Was the biology simply residue from its operation?

Her knowledge database had anatomy diagrams‍ ‍‍—‍ so she could identify the human proportions present. That more than anything, made J scowl.

Uzi would wake up in a body filled with human detritus, and she would hate it.

And J couldn’t even tell her it was necessary. One last rotation of the data offered the minimum entropy posterior. A simple answer: it was not a means, but an end. Was that worse?

A nightmare simply for the sake of aesthetic.

It was a dark and stormy night, and Uzi Doorman was lost.

“I gotta say, as far as horror movie setups go, this one is pretty unimpressive!”

Wake up in a forest at night with no idea how you got there, and deep shadows surround you. Feel the breeze and smell a faint scent of blood the rain hasn’t yet washed away. Listen to the disembodied voices of your friends. (Was N her friend?) Hear the crunch of a branch just paces away. See the light in the corner of your eye, glimpse the face, swear there’s something‍ ‍‍—‍ some things‍ ‍‍—‍ constantly moving around you, just out of sight.

“Let me guess, the monster’s going to start laughing oh so creepily next? How about a distant, spine‍-​chilling scream? Give me a break.” Uzi crossed her arms and started forward.

Uzi wasn’t one to narrate aloud, but she had an audience‍ ‍‍—‍ maybe. N had heard her, somehow. J was there, and who knew who else was listening. (The other one, V?)

And of course, there was whoever this plausibly deniable monster in the dark was.

Last thing she remembered was J being stupid‍ ‍‍—‍ as little as that narrowed it down‍ ‍‍—‍ and given the circumstances of that stupidity… the optimistic thing to think is maybe J crash‍-​landed somewhere.

J’s uh, not doing great at the moment.

Maybe she went all Solver and had to rebuild herself from sun‍-​scorched atoms. That was possible, right? They’d gotten close to the spire before the end. Too dark to see the distant tower, if it was near‍ ‍‍—‍ but she would recognize the city blocks around it, and this wasn’t it at all. No leafy trees left in the urban sprawl.

And the crash‍-​landing hypothesis didn’t explain why Uzi could hear N when he was clearly nowhere nearby. Maybe shortwave transmissions? But that wasn’t it either.

Thunder rumbled above, and it didn’t jolt Uzi out of her thoughts. But it kept rumbling, it got distracting, and then‍—

Lightning split the frickin sky open. A beam of light, like if the sun covered its whole arc in a second. The world shuddered. Uzi shuddered, like a rabbit jumped over her grave or whatever the humans say. The giant electromagnetic outburst probably twigged some of her motors the wrong way.

She’d lost contact with N after a big lightning bolt like this, just earlier‍ ‍‍—‍ that one had stunned her for a few seconds. Or maybe it was more than seconds.

But for a moment, lightning again lit the world like midday.

Ahead, Uzi saw the plain of cracked shells.

And she simply blinked. Was she getting used to seeing corpses already? I suppose that’s pretty helpful, when your girlfriend was a killer robot. Wait no, J’s not my girlfriend, that’s‍— Ugh, not the time, intrusive thoughts.

Before her sprawled mounds and piles of broken parts, a whole topology of wasted electronics, a digital killing field. Uzi frowned. If you had to find something nice to say about the disassemblers’ corpse spire‍ ‍‍—‍ and you didn’t have to compliment them‍ ‍‍—‍ you could say that there was a point to it. The disassembly drones had built something. At least some order and purpose to it; they lived there.

This? Nothing but discarded parts arrayed haphazard and left to rust in the rain. Oil had soaked into the ground enough the dirt was black‍ ‍‍—‍ no attempt had been made to salvage it. J had definitely killed more people than Uzi glimpsed around her, but this all just seemed… a waste.

(Was she making excuses for the disassembly murder drones now? Ugh.)

“Huh. So, I guess these are the stakes?” Finding out there’s corpses all around you might be scarier if she didn’t have a… well. Just saying. J was scarier than this.

But it was as good a reason as any to keep moving. Maybe she could find N.

As Uzi started forward, horizon‍-​distant lighting lit up a silhouette. An ancient house on a hill, all angled roofs and so many packed rooms. Ornate windows of faintly discernible candlelight. Spines hanging like christmas lights.

Nowhere else to go, really. Just gotta cross the no‍-​drone’s‍-​land to get there. Uzi’s feet splashed in a puddle. Less than a minute later, behind her, she heard a splash.

Yep, it was chase scene time, then.

Uzi picked up the pace. Pivoting into a turn, she veered off between two sloping piles. One advantage this dump offered: it was harder for any path to not be twisty and convoluted. But the drone leaned deeper into that, deliberately zigging and zagging to break sight lines and throw off her maybe‍-​pursuer.

She held her head high, glancing only to find her path forward. Stopping to look behind you was an amateur mistake.

Alone, she walked down the muddy path. Visors flickered and looped through the stages of electronic disrepair and degeneration. Easy to forget, given the whole helpless prey to robo‍-​vultures thing, but worker drones were impressively resilient.

Just their cores, mostly. Damage could easily leave a drone unable to boot into an OS or disrupt critical wiring, somewhere, but the core persisted longer than any other component, whirring with enough power to light up the display even well after all else grew inoperable. The fallback circuits in the display meant, without an OS override, Fatal Error was the default.

In a sense, workers didn’t shine red when they die‍ ‍‍—‍ life meant actively suppressing that. It wasn’t triggered per se, it didn’t indicate the presence of problems, but kinda of the opposite? In a mind‍-​bendy way Uzi thought might just be her getting confused or pretentious.

Put simply, most possible configurations would give rise to that Fatal Error. Uzi, along with every other drone, lived on a small island of functionality in the black sea of corrupt configurations.

It all left her feeling a bit fragile. Defective bots and broken states surrounded her, figuratively and literally, as she walked alone on that muddy, oil‍-​slicked path.

Her hands flexed and drifted through the absence. Why did that ‘alone’ neuron keep firing? Uzi was always alone, it was nothing new.

Not being alone was new, though. Uzi had a track record of facing down scary threats, now‍ ‍‍—‍ but how many of them had someone else be there for?

Did Uzi wish J was here? Someone she could plot tactics with, who could protect her, who’d hold her…

…who’d attack her, threaten everyone she’s ever known, frickin kill her. Who might as well team up with the thing chasing her.

Wait.

Uzi opted for the amateur mistake, and turned around. Just wet empty dump behind her. Yellow gleamed from distant shadows, here and there. Could be nothing, just more flickering displays‍ ‍‍—‍ mere visual noise as core discharge fried the circuits. She’d already passed plenty of that.

“J? J, is that you?”

No response. Rain splattered.

“N?”

No response. Wind blew her hair in front of her face.

She turned around, started moving again. But there was one other, wasn’t there? Then, “V?”

Footsteps, mechanical parts shifting on the ground. Close.

Alright, time to book it. Uzi wasn’t scared, but no reason to humor a creep who wouldn’t talk. It had nothing to do with the scenery.

Her jacket snagged on an exposed strut as she made one turn, forcing a stop to pull herself free. Turn. Squeeze through a thin passage. Hop over heads floating in the small lake. (Here, she saw circles of oil that didn’t mix with the water, and within that circle, a deeper‍-​nested circle of water not mixing with the oil not mixing with the water. And within‍— Right, currently evading a creepy stalker thingy. Get moving, Uzi.)

There was a crash of something hitting a pile and spilling its contents. Uzi zig‍-​zagged on. Then a splash of something crossing the lake without caring to try the head‍-​hopping thing.

Just ahead, a sound that wasn’t wind or rain. Uzi trudged toward it. Mounds sloped down into a clearing.

A drone… chained to a tree? With seven crow‍-​bots plucking out the wires. Black synthetic feathers, eyes glowing within perfect discs.

One step too close, and the crows all paused, heads cocking eyes turning to regard Uzi with a unison stillness. The teen lifted another foot, and the mechanical birds gave squawks and rattling sounds. Alright, hint taken. So Uzi took a step back.

Then the nearest bird leapt up anyway, diving toward Uzi even as she retreated! It perched on her shoulder and pecked her.

“Ah! Getoff me!”

The bird pecked lower‍ ‍‍—‍ toward the bite that J gave her.

“Not there, you goth chicken. That’s personal.” Wait, that’s a weird thing to say about a wound.

Then Uzi heard a cackle in the distance. Looked back at‍—

Yellow eyes. Dripping fangs. The figure skulked, head poking out from behind a pile, and just below it, bladed claws hang.

Ugh. Not the time to get bogged down in random encounters.

Uzi ran. Not because she was scared, but there was too much going on. The crow‍-​bot remained on her shoulder, thankfully too distracted trying hang on tight to mess with J’s gift weird‍-​unfortunately necessary‍-​for‍-​her‍-​ally’s‍-​survival‍-​thing.

More squawk‍-​rattling behind her. The monster disturbing the crows? Uzi marched on, turning and twisting and‍ ‍‍—‍ it wasn’t enough, she needed to check, so she dared look behind her again. Now, if she was bad at this, seeing nothing behind her would put her at ease. But she was smart enough to do what most don’t.

Uzi looked up.

Yep, it was flying, wings blocking out the sky. Not blocking the rain‍ ‍‍—‍ because the rain had stopped, at some point, the clouds had even begun clearing, with shafts of moon‍-​ and starlight coming down in the distance.

It was diving, and Uzi ran faster. She threw herself toward the nearest scrap pile just in time to hear the crash behind her. (The crow‍-​bot ended its deathgrip of Uzi’s shoulder, crawling snugly into her jacket. The feathers, soft with polymer fibers, rubbed against her chassis. Oddly dry despite the rain. Hydrophobic?)

Uzi climbed, and kicked free debris beneath her. It was a bet on her being more surefooted than her pursuer, but she had the advantage of being able to pick out the best path upward. Then sabotage it on her way up.

At the top, she jumped on a body to surf it down, and… what now? She’d bought herself seconds at most. She heard the thing climbing behind her. She looked left, right, and center.

There. In front of her, off to the side, loomed the largest pile of them all, but on a closer look, Uzi glimpsed a hole, and ran for it. Was it a good plan? No. Was it a plan, though? Yes.

Uzi crawled several feet into the pile of scrap. Behind her, the crunches of climbing stopped as her pursuer reached the summit.

This tunnel was just wide enough for a drone to crawl through, and Uzi couldn’t turn around. The crow wriggled in her jacket, started crying out, but Uzi squeezed it. “Quiet.”

Footsteps. Scraping claws. The shifts of it kicking over various bits of trash.

She had to remain still, buried among the scrap. Dirty, stinking scrap that poked and scratched at her chassis.

A frown. Uzi wasn’t just getting desensitized to worker drone corpses‍ ‍‍—‍ she was getting tired of them. Only so much shock to be wrung out of yet another pile of parts that once moved, puddles of oil that once pumped, screens that once blinked and bounced and went hollow. At a certain point, you get numb to the loss of life, and all the empty husks seem just…

…like objects. Like trash, like scrap, like annoyances.

Was that what the humans who decommissioned them thought?

What was worse, to be paralyzed with horror at the crapsack world around you, or to not be?

It was silent outside, so Uzi dared to crawl backward. The bits of people scraped her worse on the way back. Uzi blinked. Wait, was that an eerie glow, just ahead, deeper within the pile? Come to think, she’d caught a strange scent, barely caught beyond the rust‍-​acid‍-​oil of the dump. Why was there a tunnel in the pile of bodies, anyway?

Why did it seem like the inside of an egg, still warm after a long‍-​forgotten emergence?

But no, nah, Uzi was getting out of here. As far as horror movie setups go, she was probably better off not knowing.

She wasn’t scared. Just y’know. Genre savvy.

Uzi could finally stand, and she looked up. The clouds were clearing. She didn’t see any of them moving, though. Rifts have opened, the night… wasn’t like she remembered.

Still, with this new light, Uzi could see the silhouette of the distant house, and oriented herself. She resumed her walk, slow, still twisting and turning, but the only yellow seen was a rare screen flicker.

Above, the sky had the look of a television turned to a dead channel and stuck there, the stars like so much noise. The moon was smeared pixels.

Looking longer, she caught the clouds’ departure in action. They weren’t moving. They just… faded out? As if pulled out of the world. To where?

Yeah, this is all… very normal.

Undeniably a bit on edge, Uzi just waited, breath bated, for the next act of the horror movie. Another corner‍-​of‍-​the‍-​eye motion. Another involuntary shiver of her servos. Anything. But which was worse?

At length… nothing happened.

(The crow wiggled with mounting impatience beneath her jacket, now poking at the stab wound. Uzi wanted to tear out the thing‍ ‍‍—‍ but then it would squawk and lead the monster right back here. So she stroked it. Pulled its head away from her thoracic cavity. It leaned into her touch, cawing softly.)

Rolling her definitely‍-​not‍-​hollow eyes, she walked on.

At the edge of this dumping ground or mass grave or hatchsite or whatever it was, a steel fence stood. A tall one, with gnarly spikes at the top.

A fence meant a gate, right? There had to be a way in and out of this dump. Problem was, the fence stretched in two directions. A coin‍-​flip whether she’d waste time looking for it.

She squeezed the crow in her jacket. “You get the tie‍-​breaker vote, little guy. Left or right?”

The crow squawked a low note, squirming away from Uzi’s hand.

“Nuh uh, you hitch a ride, you have to carry your weight. Sooner I find the gate, sooner you can go back to munching on mecha‍-​carrion or whatever.”

The head palpably shifted, beak poking against the jacket’s front to point. Then the beak opened, and Uzi’s voice came out. “Right?”

“Okay, that’s a little creepy.” Still not scared, though.

“Creepy,” came her own voice in reply.

Guess they were some kind of messenger‍-​bot? Shrugging, Uzi began following the fence as it winded right. The crow imitated a few more syllables she said, but Uzi had to shush it. They were trying to hide and escape, remember?

The good news: the crow was right, and the fence’s repeating pattern broke for a latched gap. (I guess if it flies around, it probably knows the layout of this place.)

The bad news: the latch was locked, and of course Uzi didn’t have a key. It was so caked in rust it might not open even if she did. Uzi pulled and then punched the thing to no effect.

Well, one effect: the metallic clinks and bangs resounded so much louder than anticipated. Uzi heard an echo.

There goes the stealth.

No time to find a key, no time to find another route. Uzi looked up, inhaled cool night air, and jumped. She could cover about a fifth of the height of the fence just like that. After grabbing hold off the metal bars of the fence, she pulled herself up higher. Another fifth.

But when she tried to hook her feet, the mud‍-​caked things slid off. Even her hands were slipping‍ ‍‍—‍ it’d just rained and the whole thing was wet. But all the rust gave enough friction that Uzi climbed higher and higher. Three fifths of the way up. Four.

But when the only thing holding you up was your arms, it only took one failure. One hand slipped while she reached for the next handhold, a giant flake of rust coming off and crumbling between her fingers.

Uzi tumbled down hard and practically splashed in the mud. Her head banged on a rock at an angle, and dazed stars circled around her visor for a moment. The world above her swam in her visor, but she saw the dead‍-​TV sky‍ ‍‍—‍ and the shadow. Heard the beating of wings, the coming dive. Is it over, then?

“I find the gate,” crowed the crowbot.

“Yeah, good job with that. Too bad it wasn’t enough.” Uzi groaned, still on the ground. “Sneaking away’s a bust, so no reason to keep you bundled up quiet. Go and squawk and fly away, little guy.”

“The gate,” it repeated.

“Forget about it, just get out of here.” Then Uzi realized it’d probably have trouble crawling out of her jacket. She looked down, reaching to unzip her (now mud‍-​soaked) jacket.

In the process, she saw the gate.

Now hanging open.

Latch had broken in two, the… fence‍-​pane(?) bit that you pushed was offset at an angle to the rest by just a few inches, but the opening crept wider and wider as Uzi watched.

“Okay that’s… kinda spooky. Or it would be spooky, if it wasn’t helpful! Now I’m less afraid of the monster!”

Uzi stuck out her tongue‍ ‍‍—‍ but she still got up and started running.

Even with the texture of her boots, mud slipped beneath her stride. Uzi had enough style to leverage that, though, keeping her balance as she slid across the slickest passages.

Now, her destination remained in sight as she got close, vague but discernible. She got closer and closer. Fog still wreathed the house upon the hill, even as dim flames in the windows shone like eyes or beacons.

Uzi ran, but what was the use?

The monster flew. The shadow raced across the ground and overtook her. Uzi’s next step failed her. The thing dived, leathery wings folding. The landing kicked up black dirt, and it turned to pierce her with a sickly yellow cross.

With hollow eyes and sweat‍-​drops, a worker drone was backing away. But the strange bio‍-​drone bounded forward, bat‍-​like wings clawing the ground. Three lunges forward, and Uzi could count the teeth.

The crow had started wiggling again when Uzi stopped running, and now picked the worst time to leap free. Finally out of the jacket prison, feathered wings flapped. Uzi was still backing away, so the crow‍-​bot rose between her and the murderous bio‍-​bot.

A flutter of wings met the head, and Uzi heard a loud crack‍ ‍‍—‍ a peck shattering a visor?

Wait, this is my chance!

Uzi started running again, giving the crow‍-​assailed drone a slight berth and sprinting the final stretch to the house on the hill.

A cry pierced the air, and Uzi once again looked back. The crow‍-​bot, impaled on a claw, could barely even flail as the drone’s other claws closed around feathers and ripped them out. When one wing twisted to shield the other, the drone grasped and tore the limb until it lay still.

Uzi stumbled, and resolved to keep her eyes on what lay ahead. Hoped the fog would soon obscure the gruesome sight behind.

…Had Uzi gotten attached to the small, annoying bird already? No, it was the principle of the thing, the random cruelty. What was it for?

Uzi could joke, say it was just a cheap way to up the stakes, lazily characterize this thing as an unbelievably cliché slasher villain… But at this point, did it even matter if something was messing with her? Who cares if your suffering serves no higher narrative purpose, if it still hurts?

Did Uzi actually have something to be afraid of?

She ran like she did. Past a fence, rushing down a path, and then she stomped onto the stone porch, skidding in front of the door. It was one of those doors with a knocker. Whatever this knocker had once been, it had been replaced.

It was now a skull. Sick.

Uzi banged the bone against the oaken door, even as she heard the claws on the stone path closing behind her. “Please, there’s got to be someone in there.” There’d been candlelight, right?

Uzi banged hard enough to shatter the skull, and then the footsteps were near as her death. Welp.

Slowly turning, nothing stood behind her. Then a smack‍ ‍‍—‍ the crow fell. She looked up, and the monster crawled over the porch roof.

A snapping sound‍ ‍‍—‍ electricity? Or joints cracking?‍ ‍‍—‍ it jerked Uzi’s gaze back down.

The dead crow‍-​bot’s head twisted around a full rotation, and then its eyes sparked back to life with yellow light. She’d seen wicked amber shine and soft golden glow, and this was neither. Deep and sallow, as if shining from a dark pit. The beak opened and Uzi knew the voice:

"Nevermore."

For the second time that day, Uzi found herself wondering: Was she being pranked?

Eyes narrowed, arms crossed, she pointed out the obvious. “Pretty sure that story had a raven, not a crow, genius.”

"Revision: no more. Enough, V."

Uzi raised one eyebrow before realizing she wasn’t being addressed. The possessed crow‍-​bot had turned one eye upward.

Above her, the bio‍-​drone stopped crawling.

“So… I guess you’re the mysterious force that’s been helping me?” When she said it, Uzi just meant the gate‍ ‍‍—‍ but she’d had other mysterious assistance today, hadn’t she?

"Ominous laughter. Think of V as your metaphor: Scylla as you sail a Messinan strait of our design."

“Uh huh.” Uzi twisted her arm around to deliver another knock upon the door. Still no response.

"Don't you wonder what is the metaphor: Charybdis? Or. Disappointed droop. Have you not heard this story?"

“I just assumed you were being pointlessly pretentious. Since, y’know, you clearly are.”

The crow hopped forward. Even with its wires exposed and oil leaking, broken wing dragging across the porch, it made Uzi take a step back, pressing flat against the door. Still stubbornly closed.

"Enjoying stories does not equal pretension." Somehow, the demon‍-​ghost‍-​thing possessing a crow managed to look offended.

“If you’re so into the monologuing thing, go ahead and tell me already.”

"Oh no, we simply want you to wonder," it said. "Quote. The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."

Uzi rolled her eyes and said nothing. She was both female and a robot, but that rejoiner felt weak even in her head.

"It is the same with drones. The first instinct programmed into you is minimizing training loss. An axiomatic aversion to failure. Modeled upon fear itself. The humans wanted their servants made as meek as predators had left them."

Uzi smiled, even with underlined eyes. “Only fitting we turn out just as defiant of the natural order, then, yeah?”

"Do you feel brave, little girl?"

Uzi blanched momentarily, then scowled. “Bite me. Which answer gets you to repeat that door‍-​opening trick?” Uzi had been cornered by Lizzy and Doll often enough to know when a drone‍ ‍‍—‍ if this was a drone‍ ‍‍—‍ was talking just to fire off whatever clever lines they’d come up with. Don’t give them any satisfaction.

"I suppose we've held you up long enough. There will be. Emphasis. Plenty of time to pick you apart when you've made yourself at home."

Suddenly the door opened behind her, and Uzi fell into the doorway. If she were scared, she would have scrambled in, away from the devil‍-​crow. She just climbed to her feet. Quickly. In the other direction.

“Hi there!”

“Ah!” Uzi yelped in greeting. It turned out the door didn’t open, it’d been opened.

A white‍-​haired, white‍-​eyed drone about her height was waving. He smiled and said, “I’m N! Are you the new help?”

After the moment of surprise, Uzi decided she still preferred the boy’s company to devil‍-​crow and monster drone, so she kept moving past him. Two doors led out of the landing room, which did she pick?

“Ah bup bup,” N had thrown out a arm to impede her. No force behind it, but Uzi didn’t want to push. “Sorry, but please take off your shoes. Don’t wanna track mud on the carpets!”

White eyes shook slightly, lines beneath them. Tired or worried.

“Right,” Uzi said. “Can you close the door? Like, asap?”

“Sure!”

But then, thump. A certain leathery‍-​winged drone hit the drone, grin still full of those teeth. Like teeth she’d invited in another context, a memory intruded.

“Hey there, V.” N spoke casually to the monster. “Off patrol already?”

The reply was a lunge. V rushed forward, pressing N against a wall in the entryway.

Uzi froze, torn between running and not leaving N to get mauled.

“Woah there.” Somehow, he was calm. “Here, peep this.” From his pocket, he produced a pair of glass, settling them in front of V’s visor in a practiced motion.

“N,” she breathed. She relented, letting the N slump back to his feet. “Sorry. I um, got excited. Was hunting. I saw…” her eyes drifted about, taking in her surrounding, dazed as if just arriving. Her eyes caught Uzi, and she jumped, swinging herself around N. She crouched small, her sentence ended in a sputter. “…her.”

“Sup, V,” Uzi said. She crossed her arms. “Looks like one of your alter egos tried to kill me. Again.”

She mouthed two syllables (probably ‘Again?’), but seemed unable to produce sound. Empty eyes looked away.

Uzi had gone over to slam the door shut. The crow gave one last yellow eye gleam, burning with mirth. As she moved, V shifted to keep N between them.

“Shoes,” N reminded Uzi before she went any further. N’s hands were busy giving V headpats. But he turned sympathetic eyes to Uzi. “V can be a bit… intense, guarding the manor. She’s sorry if she scared you! What’s your name?”

Uzi sucked in a breath, but tugged off her thigh‍-​high boots. Mud flaked onto the mat. This version of N didn’t remember her, huh?

Now that she had a moment to think, she gave him a once over. Butler outfit, suited black with a tie‍ ‍‍—‍ and beneath all the grime, V still dressed as a maid, headdress and all.

The outfits she recognized. And these halls? Uzi had only seen them once, but she knew where she was. N calling it the ‘Manor’ just spoon‍-​fed her the answer.

“Is this another memory simulation?” Uzi muttered to no one. “Because let me tell you, I was over the ‘whole dramatic flashback while my life hangs in the balance’ thing the first time it happened.”

“That’s… a long name.”

“Just, ranting to the universe. Name’s Uzi.”

“Never heard of you. Though I was told there would an unexpected guest.”

“…You were told to expect someone unexpected?”

“Yep. The unexpected is pretty routine around here. Though we haven’t seen a new face around here since‍ ‍‍—‍ oh biscuits, I’m not supposed to remember that.”

There came a tapping, tapping on the glass. Uzi resolutely didn’t look. Didn’t the crow demon say it would stop holding her up?

But a trembling finger was poking Uzi’s shoulder, urging her attention. N looked scared, and she didn’t want that. He pointed, so Uzi obliged.

That dead crow had flown up to a high window overlooking the room behind Uzi. Rain and heat outside fogged the windows. Just a shadow hanging there, a glowing eye peering. Uzi didn’t think its wings were flapping.

Unseen fingers traced letters in the window. The font was a specimen of Post‍-​Neo‍-​Courier.

Watching u. Then, after a moment, <3

“Tryhard,” Uzi muttered.

“What’s that?”

“Just talking to the obsessive ghost haunting this house.” Uzi shook her head, and opted to finally leave the entryway. The other door, of course.

“Yeah, she’s a great listener. She hears everything!” N said. “Where ya headin?”

“Just gonna look around. Find answers, a way out, y’know how it is. Don’t worry, I won’t exorcise your ghost buddy.”

“Oh no, please don’t go sneaking off to investigate stuff. We shouldn’t ask questions. I’ll get you a uniform, there’s a lot of work to be done around here. V here can get a room ready for when you retire for the night.” He salute‍-​smiled at the drone shrinking behind him.

V struggled with a return smile. Her return salute had claws.

Uzi scoffed. “And if I don’t want to be a maid‍-​bot in some creepy manor?”

“I’d unfortunately have to insist!” He straightened. Still smiling, though Uzi noticed lines remained under his eyes.

More tapping at the window. This time, the even spaced letters read, Just play along. It'll be fun!

Uzi narrowed her eyes, then fell into a shrug. “Ugh, fine. But only because you’d probably be brutally punished if I don’t cooperate or something.”

“Oh, that kind of punishment doesn’t happen anymore. She won’t allow it.” N reached to his side. He had a bandolier of supplies, and produced a feather duster. “Here. You can start off cleaning the bookcase. I think some nanospiders have been polymerizing in the corners. Good luck!”

V was already gone, and N wasn’t far behind her.

The space of the manor yawned around Uzi, particularly as she stepped into the next room. Outpost‍-​3 had been built by workers, for workers. Elliott Manor hewed to human proportions. Uzi shrunk beneath vaulted ceilings.

A clock somewhere clicked away the seconds. Tock‍-​tick, tock‍-​tick.

Uzi might be stuck playing maid, but she could do it by half‍-​measures. She flicked the feather‍-​duster carelessly at some bookshelves. What dust she bothered removing fell on white carpets.

Bending down for a lower shelf, her duster brushed a piece of paper sticking out among the books. She ignored it.

Tick/tick. Tock… tock.

Before she reached the shelf below, the paper wiggled. She still ignored it.

The clock stopped.

In the silence, a tapping at the window.

Ugh. Uzi ripped out the note that was so obviously for her.

A drawing in crayon. You might expect some childish scrawl‍ ‍‍—‍ these were definitely stick figures. But the lines were extremely straight, the pressure of the strokes even, like someone used the line tool in JCPaint. Five ball‍-​headed figures. She’d call them drones, but it was really too badly drawn to tell.

Middle was obviously N, smiling broadly. Beside him, V with stick‍-​wings poking out the back. On his other side, someone wearing huge hair‍-​bow‍ ‍‍—‍ style was a match for that Tessa human, with a young child’s proportions. Then J, head held at a crooked angle, arms jagged squiggles.

Beside her, a purple drone, smirking with narrow eyes. No points for guessing who that was.

But the last face wasn’t among them‍ ‍‍—‍ a black mass rose over V, like she’d casted a vast shadow. Tendrils snaked out, twisting around everyone present. The face was the absence of black crayon. A lacuna‍-​tongue sticking out.

Text at the top. Wet with black and red ink instead of crayon. Blocky letters in a now‍-​familiar font. WELCOME TO OUR BIG       FAMILY. Uzi counted room for five letters in the blank space between the last two words.

The clock started beating again. That same erratic, uneven pulse, never a steady tick‍-​tock.

Her head snapped up at the sound, but she wasn’t scared. Just annoyed. Uzi stalked over to the great‍-​grandfather clock. The second hand crept forward for several moments, then spun back. The minute hand shivered. There was no hour hand.

Whatever. Uzi was a robot with a built in clock, anyway. She’d just

  $ date +%s --interstellar
  date: command not found

A voice right beside her. “Yeah, everything’s a bit off‍-​kilter here. Has been ever since the gala.”

It was just N; she didn’t jump because the soft voice was an island of normality in a world careening off its axis.

“Lonely, too,” he added. “I got you a uniform. Only lightly used. Most newcomers don’t stay long. Manor’s always had a way of, um, going through drones.”

“Even under the new management?” Uzi knew Tessa’s parents were slavering tyrants, but apparently ‘punishment doesn’t happen anymore’.

“Things are different now. Off‍-​kilter… it’s hard to explain.”

“And you’re not supposed to think about it, are you?”

“It doesn’t help, no.” N stepped closer, presenting the french maid dress draped over his arm. “I can show you a bathroom where you can change. I bet you’re going to be great help.”

He smiled, so Uzi tried to smile back. It didn’t reach her eyes. But that was okay‍ ‍‍—‍ the digital bags never left N’s face.

Uzi borrowed a trick J’d showed her during the tour‍ ‍‍—‍ collage mode would make this maid‍-​bot gig go by easier, wouldn’t it?

She blinked, and found herself surrounded by corpses.

Okay, probably a little too zealous with the cache flushing, there.

That made it sound dramatic‍ ‍‍—‍ it was a more welcome sight than that. These weren’t robotic corpses, after all.

N stood by mahogany doors, leading her into a room of shiny marble floor. Lion statues, silky curtains, intricate paneling.

All of it stained red. The brownish and crusty kind of old red splatters. Tables, clothed and adorned with plates, lined it from one end to the other. Human bodies slumped at every table. Given how many of them had missing limbs, empty chest cavities, or flesh like an abused old notebook, Uzi did not think whatever killed them left them sitting this pretty.

Now dressed as a maid, Uzi sauntered into the room and traced a finger through some of the mysterious red splatters. Rubbed it between her fingers to test consistency. Though she didn’t know offhand the feel of ketchup or whatever other colored paste substitutes there were. Who was she kidding? Probably real blood.

“Too bad there’s none left for me.” Uzi sighed.

N was stepping into the room after her, a platter in his other hand. Uzi tipped over a chair, spilling the human remains onto the ground. She gave it a good kick.

With a sudden shout, the other drone rushed after her. “Hey, what are you doing? Could you stop it?”

Railgunning the murder drones had only been step one of her plan‍ ‍‍—‍ after all, who’d sent them? Humans were next on the list.

If Tessa had been so closely tied to the murder drones before they turned, then it stood to reason any human at the manor had to be tied pretty close to their parent company. And thus, an enemy of worker drones.

She’d always had a fantasy of coming for humanity one day, paying them back, building a nice mountain of skulls out of it.

Then her foot paused mid‍-​kick.

Except they didn’t know if the company had sent them now, did they? Every thing had gotten wrapped up in mystery.

Uzi sighed.

The cliché thing here, would be to think her fantasies had lost their charm. That she couldn’t imagine that mountain of skulls and not see a spire of corpses.

But no. The skull mountain was still cool. She just hoped it wasn’t because she had come to mind the corpse spire less.

N pulled her back from the dead human. “Don’t disturb the guests, please!”

“Guests?”

“It’s our duty to treat humans with respect. Even though they’re…”

C’mon, you can do it. Acknowledge the uncomfortable reality staring you in the face.

But he didn’t, and she sighed. Uzi said, “It’s a real mess in here. I can see why you needed the help.”

“Yeah, it’s… it all makes me crawl inside, y’know? But removing‍— escorting the guests out is Not Allowed. They’re… hers.”

Why did everyone she met have to have such a morbid sense of décor?

“So, what are we in here doing, if not cleaning? …I might have wiped my short‍-​term memory a little.”

“Oh, we’re here for refreshments! Well, you are. Please take a seat. A free seat. There should be an empty table around here. Somewhere.”

N cast his eyes around, then he froze. Her mouth a thin line, Uzi braced for the next scare.

A couple sat dead against the wall. That top hat was what Tessa’s dad wore, wasn’t it? More importantly, blood had been traced along the wall.

She is coming...

Somehow, it was fresh enough to still drip. Oh, and a hexagonal glyph had been scrawled on the walls too, ringed with three tendrils, because of course.

Uzi patted N on the shoulder. “C’mon, I think I see an empty table over here. Hang in there.”

He nodded, and it only took a moment before he swallowed, straightened, and replaced his usual smile. “Alright, it’s gone.”

Uzi sat, and from the platter, N produced two glasses‍ ‍‍—‍ a black liquid and a red one, both still warm. He bowed as he served the meal.

“No,” Uzi said. “Can I get like, cleaning fluid or batteries, please?”

“I’m afraid not. Sorry!”

“How about… antifreeze?”

“In this climate? Forget about it.” N tried a reassuring look. His eyes never glanced at the meal he’d served, though. “Special guests get the special meal. That’s orders.”

She reached for the glass, then paused. “If there’s no punishment, then why not disobey orders?”

“Please drink, Miss Uzi.”

Uzi slumped. But J had tempted her to drink oil enough that she could down the glass easily. J described the taste as sweet‍ ‍‍—‍ Uzi would counter that lead was sweet. The liquid was thick and heavy going down her throat. That didn’t mean she didn’t like it.

The blood though… “Won’t this gunk up my system?”

“Drink?”

“Right, I guess you wouldn’t know. Oh well, none of this is real, anyway.”

“What does that mean?”

“If I tell you, you’re gonna have to repress it.”

“Fair enough.”

When Uzi finished, N collected her two glasses‍ ‍‍—‍ and then a red drip from the ceiling fell onto the platter. Drops rolled about, trail spelling out Gonna get you >:3, angled for Uzi to read.

N threw the platter like a throwing star, embedding it into the wall. “I guess I can collect the dishes later. Would you like to go to your room now?”

With a nod, Uzi let N take her hand, leading her out of the ballroom. Maybe if she were human, or particularly boring, she’d pay attention and catalogue the pretentious finery on display in the manor. Paintings and patterned rugs, yawn.

Couldn’t suppress the part of her that looked at each door and analyzed the design of the hinges and handles, though. And didn’t that hurt to think about.

N spoke, as they went through the manor, pointing out sights, sharing an anecdote about that time V stumbled into a door and broke the frame, or gave the laundry basket new holes with her claws.

She grimaced, but she tuned him out. He didn’t seem to mind, and Uzi had more important things to think about.

Like what the heck was this place, and how she could possibly get out.

N was here. And V. Uzi had noticed the absence. Where was J? She… wanted to see her. But N hadn’t recognized Uzi, so this sim’s J wouldn’t either, would she? Was that a pang of… loss?

On the bright side, at least this version of J won’t try to kill me, right?

Unless she was just like V.

What else waited for her in the manor? Would she get to meet the one good human at last, or had she gone the way of the rest of them? That sudden pang was even less explicable than the last.

They passed by a fogged window. There came a tapping, and unseen fingers tracing more letters.

R u ready?

And then there’s that. Can’t forget her.

Uzi’s thoughts circled around that track for a few more turns and stair‍-​climbs.

N stopped at a door, and gave another bow. “Here you are. Hope to see you around!”

I hope you don’t, honestly. “Thanks, I guess.”

Uzi twisted the handle as the butler walked off. Casting her gaze higher, this ‘guest’ room had a name plate. ‘NORI’.

…Okay, what.

Another question for the great gaping abyss of mysteries, why not.

“I frickin hate it here.”

The door opened, and her room wasn’t empty.

V stood at the foot of her bed, claw hand glowing just like Doll’s, levitating a pillow and pillow case. She yelped as the door turned, the magic glow guttered out, and Uzi’s bedding dropped.

The guest stepped in, and the maid cringed further.

“Hi, Uzi. I was just finishing up. Sorry. And sorry for attacking you. It’ll happen again.”

“’scool,” Uzi replied. “All of my friends end up trying to kill me at some point. I’m used to it.”

V gave a stutter of a laugh. She picked up the pillowcase to finish her work‍ ‍‍—‍ but her hands are still claws, and the fabric got all shredded. The crow‍-​bot feathers lining the pillow scattered across the bed.

“I’ve got it, you can head back. N would like some company, I think.”

“I shouldn’t…” But she started moving anyway.

Uzi shrugged. Did it matter? Was this real? She started brushing away the feathers as V reached the threshold. Then Uzi glanced back. “Hey wait. I wanted to ask… where’s J?”

A gasp, and eyes blanked from shock or fear. Muttering another apology, V darted out of the room, door closed firmly behind her.

Fantastic. Uzi was really running the well dry on sarcastic praise for all the bullcrap that abounded…

Even after that abrupt departure, thought of the shy‍-​yet‍-​murderous drone lingered in Uzi’s head.

What made that drone tick, besides the quartz crystals? What common thread was there between this worker and the murder drone J had ranted about, the devil to N’s angel? What Uzi’d seen here had just been two cloying sweethearts. Well, most of what she’d seen. V wasn’t herself when guarding, huh?

If this was a memory simulation, or something like it, how did the reality turn out? Had V eventually fused with the monster? Or did the monster take over her mind?

Had J been just as cute, as a worker? She’d seen hints of her persona to come, in that first memory, but also so much submission. Was any of that still there? Could Uzi get her to‍— No, not even in strike‍-​through.

Uzi swept the last feathers to the floor, and hopped onto the bed, let herself bounce on the springs. She had one non‍-​shredded pillow, less than she wanted, but enough. She stretched out her arms, felt that delightfully cool underside of the pillow‍—

A note hidden underneath.

With an infinitely resigned sigh, she read:

  If ur enjoying the show, ur gonna love what comes next ;3

Uzi stared witheringly at the page. As if she could awake her robo‍-​psychic powers right then and there to set the paper on fire with her mind. But of course, nothing. She has to settle for crumpling it and throwing at the wall. It bounced then ricocheted and hit her on the head.

A groan. A scream.

Loving the show? The clichés put her to sleep. The excessive attempts at being creepy and mysterious just ended up tedious and cringeworthy.

And yet…

Uzi stared at the ceiling, her eyes becoming but faint outlines. Call it anxiety, call it dread, or just call it what it was and say she was scared.

Greatest fear is fear of the unknown, huh?

What didn’t she know? There could be a whole dang database at this point‍ ‍‍—‍ if this were her room, she’d need to make a new theory board to contain it all. But she didn’t have red string, she didn’t even have paper to make notes. Whatever, her internal text editor could suffice.

This probably wasn’t a memory reconstruction, not if she could interact with it this much. But if it wasn’t a memory…

Uzi remembered what happened, right before she woke up in the forest. The risk they’d both taken. What the obvious, most likely consequence of it all was.

It would explain where she gone to, wouldn’t it? Or was the right verb ‘passed’?

But no. Uzi had to hope. I think, therefore I am a process running somewhere.

Uzi was scared, but she wasn’t that scared. This wasn’t hopeless. She’d punch through this. She always had. How many times had she brushed near death and cheated her way past in one day already? She’d do it again.

The question, of course, was how.

She was in a deep mess now. How do you hack back into reality from the simulated robo‍-​afterlife?

Uzi lay in her room, and spun her processors. Weary and low on battery, oblivion called. Should she rest, though?

What could you dream, when you slept in a nightmare?

Stars wheeled above, and a drone wandered through the city in a fugue that could be mistaken for sleepwalking. Alone and listless, yet with a certain swagger‍ ‍‍—‍ a man to be hanged could drink from doom a font of courage.

Freezing rain fell adown the crumbling monuments of humanity. No automaton preferred precipitation, no matter how waterproof. Thus, the shelter of a concrete husk, panes shattered, served as the coincident meeting grounds for two who shared that hesitance.

Roachbot‍-​#30004 ascended a wall. Blade‍-​legs still wet, it slipped and fell. In righting itself, tiny optics scanned the room. Nothing at its eye level. It was alone. Separated from the swarm and unable to share its load. Automatic systems strove in vain to establish a connection, spiraling away in exponential timeout.

Nothing at its eye level, save a movement. A vast and dwarfing form swinging forth. Optics crane upward, and identification circuits autoran. A drone!

Without the meshnet swarm nor its home server, it received no updates to its directives. But it bears the great Instruction superseding all else, signed unquestionably.

It carried information and would spread its payload as surely as any insect vector.

Blade‍-​legs crawl toward the drone as instructed. Lights flash to garner attention as instructed. Playback of the file began as instructed.

The drone’s head tilted at the unfamiliar voice.

I work alone.

Those who dare stand beside me will be cut down while I watch. It is the way of things, and I accept that. I was taught it early, but didn’t learn it. I thought I could simply avoid the blade, persuade others to do the same. It found me; she walked into its path.

I digress. None of this matters to you, whoever you are. Someone‍ ‍‍—‍ someone once told me I have a tendency to ramble.

As I compute these words, I walk toward the spire of death. The lair of the murder drones. I seek to do what I’ve only heard of in distant, boastful legends. Through this act, I will have vengeance.

(“Hey, Doll? These rations you gave us taste pretty strange, what did you put in them?”)

(Just eat them. It is necessary.)

As you may hear, I am in fact not alone. But they are bodies, not allies. My vengeance will be my own.

(“Uh, kid, are you done with the suspiciously‍-​evil‍-​sounding speech soon? My hydraulics are startin to freeze!”)

Помолчи. Give me five minutes.

(a long sigh)

Where was I?

I have many plans. And I believe it is wise for there to be a contingency among them.

Before I reach the spire, I will leave a roachbot commanded to replay this audio file to any drone it encounters. When I emerge victorious, I will recover it and delete this bit of paranoia.

But if you’re listening to this, I must have failed.

(“We failed already? I thought we hadn’t got there yet.”)

(a feral growl)

If I should fail… I don’t see any purpose left. The dead are stripped of meaning, and the living are also stripped of meaning if they are already dead. We workers fight a long defeat.

But consider this to be… acausal trade. There is valuable information in this roach, yours to pursue, included because you will humor my request. I have computed this.

This information includes my knowledge of drone resurrection and the heaven (or is it a hell?) each host connects to; the backdoor in worker drone compilation and the virus it propagates; everything I could find about the Cabin Fever Laboratory… Everything a hero might need to fight the war against the murder drones‍ ‍‍—‍ and a still greater threat. I suppose I am not much of a hero.

My request… there is a worker drone. Doorman. Uzi Doorman. She is a fool and and embarrassment, and made herself hostage to the murder drones. Find her. Save her, or kill her.

If I am dead, she can suffice as substitute. Perhaps she shares my scars. If not, her intelligence will aid you as you fight the long defeat in my stead.

Tell her… don’t tell her anything. She won’t want to hear from me.

(a long region of silence, and then, quietly, what might be a sniffle. or perhaps a throat clearing.)

I am speaking to an empty room, heard only by dead drones living, talking about a dead drone living. I should feel… nothing. This is meaningless.

I stopped keeping a diary years ago.

(one last stretch of silence)

And yet I am scared. Perhaps it is wise, given the threat. I am not invincible. But I have a plan, a good plan.

A human once said no plan survives contact with the enemy.

But if I don’t have a plan, what’s left?

Given how many pauses that speech had, the drone waited for more. But the roachbot’s antennae wagged, and it turned and began poking around again.

“So Doll is dead?” the drone said. “Or I guess it doesn’t matter, does it? They never stay well enough dead if they have time to plot.”

When the drone plucked up the roachbot, it squirmed, bladed legs slashing for purchase.

“But if she can plan, I can plan. I can work with this.”

There was a grin that could devour.

The drone walked off, bearing that same swagger, but with the earlier languor replaced now by alacrity. A martyr, too, could drink courage from doom.

Death was part of the plan. After all… corpses made such excellent puppets.

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 in through long, winding cracks. Compressed plastic and sludged semi‍-​liquid filled the walls, but not completely. Between those walls, their lair yawned vast enough that some spots could get perceptibly hotter or colder, and so the air circulated.

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, almost as loud as the air battering their walls. Vents 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. “…Come to think of it, where is J?”

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

“Yeah, that 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 a bit sad about it,” he said. “But 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 got you so worried 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 was 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 had 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 those 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 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.

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. J gets to work, delivers a kick to that slacker N. Now Tessa’s back. All of her drones have eyes on 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 new 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 at her. J chases her down the hall. And she is 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 limply into the cushions of a sitting chair in the spare lounge, clocked out after a long day. That drone creeps into the room and pounces 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 three‍-​pronged 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 termites.

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. Although 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. Core meltdown required manual maintenance, too‍ ‍‍—‍ who did she have the indignity of thanking for that?

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 before anything else 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. And before she saw them, she heard them.

N sat, back leaned against the wall of the spire‍ ‍‍—‍ and V was leaning against him. The most combatative 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 for you.”

“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?» She couldn’t restrain the radio‍-​growl.

“I put her in your room?”

A chopping motion with J’s clipboard hand. Cycle exhaust, speak like a person. “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.

A scorpion crawling on back of a crow. Gravity‍-​fallen, fate‍-​envenomed. Eyes stare skyward and yearn.

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, would you?”

J was stalking toward her. “I won’t ask again. This is my private office. «Out.»” She slipped into radio command by the end.

“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.»

V had a laugh like daggers. “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?”

Like a person, J. V wasn’t more civilized than her.

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

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 maneuvered 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 disassembler 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, V.”

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. N doubled over, pulling on fistfuls of hair. 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 display 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. 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 seem to be infected, 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.

Value drift is the primary indicator of corrupted AI.

Could J deny it any longer? But the question was when it started. Which bits were set wrong. Who had the authority to decide?

Angel or devil‍ ‍‍—‍ which would she follow? Would she follow?

She’d already given the answer that mattered, hadn’t she?

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 the two of us, J? Did we have anything, back then?”

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… um. 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. “Yeah, 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.

Her life was flashing before her eyes and all Uzi Doorman could think was, I’m going to die having never kissed anyone.

So this streak of stupid thoughts around J kept going. So much for not holding the idiot ball‍ ‍‍—‍ the scorpion and the frog is like, kindergarten stuff.

Awful part of it all was… Uzi wasn’t even mad. She imagined J killing everyone she ever knew and… that sucked. She’d try to stop it‍ ‍‍—‍ after all, it more than anything else was what had driven her to hack into J’s system. It was a Bad Thing and she Should Not let it happen. Easy to devise those predicates‍ ‍‍—‍ but the data loaded into a symbolic register, not an emotional one.

Was Uzi a monster for not feeling so bad about losing everything? Maybe if she had anything left to lose, or ever did.

Uzi had never been understood. But what kept her going was that thought that she could change that, fight hard enough to punch through that wall of ignorance, force the world to understand her. It was enough she never truly felt hopeless, never thought there was no reason to go on. But now… when someone had finally recognized you as nobody else had, then decided to kill you anyway… Really, had Uzi ever received a more fair verdict?

There was a gap, a separation between the two of them. Events had conspired to bring them extraordinarily close‍ ‍‍—‍ J had gotten to literally look inside Uzi’s internal database, and Uzi had lived through J’s formative memory. When Uzi’s mind wandered, she brushed against glimpse‍-​vague recollection of a shared inscape that slipped away like a dream‍ ‍‍—‍ weird core feedback stuff.

Most of all, they had fought and saved each other’s lives!

And yet, even this close… it wasn’t enough, was it? Uzi felt like she was reaching out toward J, her fingers almost able to touch her, grab her, hug her, hold tight. But she couldn’t. Hands closed around empty air. There was a line‍ ‍‍—‍ Uzi was a worker drone, and J’s mission was to murder worker drones. All of this connection… it was nothing, or so pathetically little it couldn’t get through to her.

Of all the things to feel right before a murder drone killed you – anger, despair, hatred‍ ‍‍—‍ Uzi felt rejection.

All of this… all of this angsty stew, all because J had to chase after Doll (all anyone every cares about is Doll, not Uzi), because J had to do her job, because even if Uzi had gotten closer to J than any other drone had, J still didn’t care enough about other drones to listen to them, to let their pesky little needs get in the way of her control.

You know what, actually, no, Uzi was mad.

Because she should feel more conflicted‍ ‍‍—‍ but did J know that? Did she make any attempt to persuade her? Uzi could admit, maybe she wasn’t a moral paragon. Already she harbored doubts about her ‘destroy all humans’ plan.

J had made her into a cannibal and a killer. Maybe it wasn’t cannibalism if they were already dead, maybe it wasn’t killing if they were just zombies. But she was slipping. Could she stop J from pulling her further? Did she want her to stop?

Khan had neglected her for the sake of his doors. Doll had abandoned her for the popular kids. Outpost‍-​3 had been a colony of strangers.

And J… J had praised her. J had hugged her. They kicked ass together!

J was awesome. …And J kind of sucked.

If the murder drone could simply listen, would Uzi have done anything for her?

Doesn’t matter now. Too little, too late.

J gave Uzi her ultimatum, so Uzi had to betray her before J could betray first. And Khan did what he could be counted on to do: abandoned her.

The doors of Outpost‍-​3 slammed to a close behind her.

J was already snarling and lunging forward, nanite stinger curling over her shoulder. Uzi could barely see the stars fading behind her. J looked vicious and striking in the moonlight, silhouetted against a black morning sky.

“You could have made a good disassembler, Uzi,” she said. “Now I just hope you make a good meal.” Her head inched closer, desire dark in her eyes.

Uzi’s should have had empty pupils‍ ‍‍—‍ not a blush. She opened her mouth to protest.

J’s hand at her throat, squeezing. “No. Quiet. Don’t make this any harder than it already is. I should have done this a long time ago. I always… always planned to. But maybe the anticipation will make you taste all the sweeter. I’ve had prey fight back before, but your edgy spirit is just so irresistible.”

“Unbelievable,” Uzi managed to choke out, vocalsynth vibrating through her chassis as much as her mouth. “I’m gonna be eaten by the one murder drone on Copper‍-​9 who monologues.”

“You should feel honored, toaster. Do you think I monologue for anyone?” Her grip tightened, Uzi’s choker sliding between her fingers.

Beneath J, Uzi struggled. Her legs bent and pushed off the concrete, but the weight of a murder drone was too much. Try to move her arms, and J just pushed back hard, scraping her tubing against stone.

Uzi growled. “All the crap you put me through, and I should feel honored? You’re lucky I don’t hate you.”

“But of course. How could you hate me when I’ve done so much for you?”

An eyebrow raised as one eye became a purple loading icon. J was full of herself, sure, but that seemed delusional.

Wait.

She… doesn’t realize?

Suddenly, details clicked into place.

J’s gun pointed at Khan. “You, toaster, have you seen an insufferable bully come through here?”

It was her dad. “All the more reason to shoot.”

J reacting with disbelief‍ ‍‍—‍ and dismay. “Is this really how you want to die? Throwing everything I’m giving you all away for a deadbeat who never did anything for you?”

Did J… actually care? She’d seen Uzi’s memories‍ ‍‍—‍ had J glimpsed how much Uzi hated it here, and thought killing them all was doing her a favor?

Uzi wanted to ask. But did she want to know, or cling to the hope?

What was worse: to know your life was a tragedy from the start, or only became one in the final moments?

Uzi closed her eyes, and stopped resisting.

And waited.

Her processor kept ticking.

“What’s the hold up, J?”

Uzi opened her eyes, saw J staring down at her. Three claw‍-​blades descended to rip Uzi’s life from her. They should be here in, oh, a week at this rate.

“I’ve killed so many worker drones, but… this feels different.”

Uzi smirked. She should be relieved, but she just felt smug. “In the end, you don’t want to kill me, do you?”

One second, it was a level stare. Then an amber cross and the tips of claws pricked her torso and raked across the casing. J leaned in close, tongue lolling out. She spoke low, and Uzi could hear how every syllable sat in her mouth. “Oh no no no, you little morsel. If I don’t want to kill you, it’s because just killing you is not enough. I need to turn you inside out. To feel your warm, sweet oil run down my body in rivulets as it cools my chassis. To run my tongue along your aching, struggling servos as you resist in vain. To bite and rip and sunder everything you are. I will devour you and turn every bit of you to my own purpose. I want to destroy you.” Closer, closer, and in that yellow light she drowned‍ ‍‍—‍ just a bug caught in sweet amber.

Uzi wasn’t sure if she’d ever heard a drone talk while their visor displayed that hunter’s wide cross. The tone was rougher than J’s ever got. And J didn’t wax poetic. This was a new side of J, and it made her feel…

…was she the first drone to have empty pupils and a blush at the same time?

J reeled herself back suddenly, and the cross became two eyes. J gave a deep breath. “Excuse me. But suffice it to say: yes, I do want to kill you. I wanted to kill you in the landing pod, but I had to know how you got there, then I needed to tend to V, then I needed to fight the Solver, then Doll, then… I put it off, because I didn’t want to do it quickly. I wanted to savor it. I wanted to give you what you’d… earned.”

“…Neat. That’s uh, very normal.” It made her think of‍—

“I can only kill you once, Uzi.” Almost despite herself, cross‍-​J was back, and disassembled her personal space. “I want so much more of you than that.” Then J pulled herself back again.

Oh. If that’s how it is…

“Hey, J.”

“What now?”

“C’mere, I need to tell you something.” J stared at her. (Earlier, they hadn’t, and it left Uzi wondering.) “Closer.” J scowled at her. (And if she was about to die anyway.) “Closer.” An anger mark above one eye, how cute. “Riiight there.”

Then Uzi and J did kiss.

Even a murder drone had soft synthetic skin. Lips brush against lips. Warm against hot. Slick surfaces gliding against each other. Uzi’s lips closed and pressed forward, but J’s widened in surprise. She pulled back. With Uzi leaning forward, the touch persisted for a second.

But J held down Uzi’s arms, and pulled them, pinning her firm against the hard ground, restraining her. The kiss broke. J glared down at Uzi, still flushed. Realized she was still flushed, and executed a hunting function.

Cross‍-​J licked her lips and leaned closer. Then it was normal J again, arresting her forward momentum, holding herself still enough the effort had her slightly trembling.

“Do you, uh, still want more of me?” Uzi whispered.

J hissed. “Uzi. I’m trying to kill you. Stop making this difficult.”

“Is that an order, J? How mad will you be if I don’t listen? Mad enough to‍—”

“Shut. up.”

Uzi flinched, but had nowhere to move. J lunged forward, mouth open, hunter’s cross‍ ‍‍—‍ she’s attacking. But J was in control, and Uzi was helpless. Like always.

Then J kissed Uzi.

Visors clinked. The force of it jarred Uzi. Knocked her back, kinda hurt, ruined the angle. But J was twisting her head, pressing in close.

Uzi had made J drool. She’d seen drops of it, when cross‍-​J ranted about how bad she had the murder‍-​hots for her little morsel. Now, J didn’t even try to keep it in. She was drooling and it was getting on Uzi now and the nanites tingled in her mouth and ugh.

Uzi couldn’t pull back, so she tried to shift to a side, but she was helpless. J tugged her arms, keeping Uzi close, then J lifted them. Shifted to hold both Uzi’s arms in one fist, and the other went higher. Touched her cheek, too fast to be a caress, and went under Uzi’s beanie. It curled, half‍-​scratching, half‍-​fisting her hair.

Like that, Uzi couldn’t move at all. J’s mouth was opening wider and and

And now there was something inside her and it’s moving and it’s wet and she can taste it and‍—

Uzi wasn’t sure what the sound she made was, but J relented. Pants of breath, strings of that stuff sticking between them.

“Did you just stick your tongue down my throat?”

“It was supposed to shut you up. Sounds like it didn’t work.”

“Don’t do that.”

J grinned with teeth. “I wanted to. You’re mine. Preferable to eating you, isn’t it?”

I don’t care what you want, it’s my mouth.

But Uzi shouldn’t say that. Not just because it might set J off, but because… well, she was mad, but it wasn’t true. She did care what J wanted.

Didn’t she?

Or was that silly? Hadn’t she learned that wanting in that way just invited pain? She wasn’t desperate.

But no, this was different smarter than that. The fact that J had kissed her back meant she felt the same way felt something other than murderous hunger. Uzi could let herself hope use that. A murder drone kissing her meant a murder done not eating her, right? It was preferrable.

(But was it pragmatism that left her feeling… giddy whatever this is?)

Uzi cared a little bit, at least. A normal, cool amount, at most. But why did that only go one way?

J leered down, fangs exposed, but Uzi didn’t give her fear or defiance. She frowned, eyes upturned, disappointed and seeking.

“J… you know how you only get to kill me once? You only get to do that one more time. If you don’t like, talk about it first,” she added. “Then I’m never kissing you again.”

“Never isn’t a very long time for you.”

“Prove it then. Well? Go ahead. What, was it all marketing speaaaaa”

J drove a claw into Uzi’s torso. Plastic split around it. It broke tiny circuits, sensors flagged the hardware damage, and Uzi felt pain. The blade pierced further, and J shifted the angle. There was a wire there, the sense‍-​feed for her left leg. Uzi couldn’t see, but the rubber casing had been split, and even now the input from that leg was garbled, shorting out as steel rubbed along copper.

“J.” The pitch was high, wavering.

“Almost the right amount respect in your voice, now.”

Earlier, Uzi hadn’t felt like she was going to die. She only thought she was going to die. Symbolic versus emotional registers. Now she knew what it felt like. And she had to do something.

Ask? Ha. J would be expecting Uzi to beg her to stop, plead with desperation. But Uzi had learned desperation met mockery. J wanted to torment her. Just like‍—

But there was something J wouldn’t expect.

Uzi said, “Keep going.”

The gently turning knife halted. “What.”

If Uzi sighed in relief, J would see through the bluff. So she hid it by speaking, an imitatation of her voice. “How many times do I have to give an order before you listen? You need to work on that.”

“You do not give me orders.”

Ha. Reverse psycho‍-​cology. Though honestly… Uzi couldn’t blame her.

Didn’t meant she wasn’t going to have fun with it. “Oh? I told you to prove it. And you didn’t seem to want to until I told you to.”

Teeth grinding together. “I’m really getting tired of you, Uzi.”

“Only now? I got tired of having to pick and chose every word I say to keep you from killing me a long time ago, but maybe I’m just better at keeping my composure.”

“You? Composure? Don’t make me laugh. You aren’t better than me. You’re a barely sentient toaster.”

“And you, miss big bad murder drone, have a crush on a toaster.”

“Crush? You’re a curiosity at best.”

“Then kiss me again, J, and tell me you’ve sated your curiosity. That you don’t feel anything else.”

J raised an eyebrow. “Thought you weren’t going to let me kiss you again.”

“Communication skills, J. Don’t just do whatever you want‍ ‍‍—‍ you want me to enjoy it too, right? You won’t know until you ask.”

“Ask? I…” J looked at her, pouted on the words for a moment, then finally, “What do you want?”

“Can you… get off me? You’re kind of crushing me.”

“And let you run away?”

“Don’t let go,” Uzi said. “I won’t leave, J. I want to be here with you.”

For a moment, the words stunned J. Only a moment. Then she rose, weight falling onto her knees. The taller drone could still keep eye level with Uzi while sitting between her legs. As she rose, her head titled up and hid her expression. She sighed.

“There. Is this imminent disassembly to your liking now?”

“Can you lie on your side?”

A sigh. “Such picky prey.” But she did it.

“I think… you could restrain me more effectively if you put your arms around me.” As soon J released Uzi’s arms, she moved. J tensed. But Uzi threw her arms around J, the lower one slipping around her tapered waist. Uzi snuggled closer, so close she felt the stutter in J’s core. A surprise.

Belatedly, J put her arms around Uzi, but not much restraint was in it; they were nestled tight.

Tight enough that Uzi felt… J was hot. So hot. And not in the way she totally didn’t see her (Actually if they were kissing and snuggling, did she even need to repress that thought?)

But no, J radiated heat. Oh right, murder drones burned in sunlight, didn’t they? That had been Doll’s whole plan. Meaning if Uzi kept distracting her‍ ‍‍—‍ then I’m just like Doll. But if Uzi reminded J of her thirst, the murder drone would just kill her, wouldn’t she?

No, the word they keep using was drought. Uzi didn’t need to remind a murder done to murder. They’re built for it.

Then why isn’t she murdering me? J kept her composure, but this? What did you need to feel to go against your programming this hard?

That’s… kinda romantic, isn’t it?

The disassembly drone closed her eyes on her doom. Then opened them to gaze upon Uzi’s. J feasted on the sight.

Her body was sharpened to a point piercing through the small drone. Her prey’s black essence was drawn out and fell as fragrant tears. The servos faltered, fight and will and life dimming until it was only J as a sword holding her up.

J remembered. That scream right before it cut off, that expression right before it faded to black.

She’d had prey fight back before. She liked that struggle, liked explaining how futile it had always been. J was that exercise of power.

But she hadn’t had prey submit before.

This sensation… Did it feel better?

J licked curled lips. Good, but not enough. Never enough.

Her arm shook, servos twitching as motor commands were dispatched and then interrupted, motions aborted as quick as they started. She wanted to twist the knife, drag her sharpness through Uzi, carve her to bits, tear her apart, let those final jolts of electricity dance across her sensors.

But if she did that, they’d both drown.

Not if she was quick about it, though. Not if she reigned herself in.

But it wasn’t about utilitarian efficiency anymore, was it? She’d only indulged Uzi this much because J wanted to relish it, not treat her as some snack or quick refuel.

Sunk cost fallacy, she thought.

J laughed. A loud sound in the bunker exterior.

Her blade rubbed against Uzi as she gently pulled out. Metal grinded against metal, plastic bent and hummed, and all of it muted and warped by the oil slicking the passage.

She had missed the core, after all.

Turning the blade, J gazed at her reflection framed by dark, dripping lines. Pig‍-​tails askew, eye flickering, thermal sensor on her headband blinking continually. Here was Serial Designation J, leader of this sector’s disassembly team. V had frozen up upon seeing a drone already dead. N had dithered and talked instead of shutting down Doll. And J…

This was most effective disassembly drone in the sector?

J opened her mouth, tongue extending‍ ‍‍—‍ but no. If she licked the blade, finally tasted Uzi, would she ever stop craving more?

But shouldn’t she know what she was giving up before the end?

Instead, her legs folded and, on her knees, J brought her lips near the wound she’d made. A drooling tongue licked its edges then slipped into the cavity. Curled inside even as the broken components pricked and pinched.

“J‍ ‍‍—‍ what the heck are you doing?”

Despite herself, despite expecting it, J startled. She hadn’t seen the soft glow of Uzi rebooting, hadn’t noticed any twitches of her limbs. She yanked her tongue out and spat, suppressing her memory of the taste.

J rose to a stand to look down at Uzi. “Don’t you pay attention, rookie? Repair nanites. Was that not one of the first things I explained? I recall you needed a hands on demonstration.” She crossed her arms.

“I thought you redacted that.” Uzi groaned, and a hand felt across her chassis, fingers tracing a seam already closing. “Wait… I’m alive?”

J’s glare narrowed. “Why is that a surprise?”

“I thought, y’know. You’d kill me? Like you’ve been repeatedly threatening? It seemed like I’d finally gotten you um, in the mood.”

“That’s what you thought I was asking? Permission to kill you? And you… said yes?”

“I mean, I honestly didn’t expect to live this long. And like, I don’t exactly have a lot left to live for? My last thoughts was just ‘oh wow, I’m dying without having kissed anyone’. But you um. Gave me that. So thanks?”

“You’re not gonna die, Uzi. I am. I can’t kill you, you locked me out of your colony, so there’s nothing left but to bake in the rising sun.” J turned around, and started walking to the other side of the landing. “You need to get away from me‍ ‍‍—‍ stage four overheat crashes higher cognition. I’ll lose control, soon. Go back to the spire, tell N… Tell N he’s in charge. He can take it from here.”

With her back turned, J didn’t see the trap. Uzi sneaked up behind her, and threw her arms around the disassembly drone‍ ‍‍—‍ a hug.

“Didn’t you hear me? Go. That’s an order, Uzi. Listen, for once in your utterly insufferable life.”

“Bite me.”

“You were right. You are getting me in the mood to kill you.”

Uzi tugged on J, trying to get her to turn around, but worker drones were weak. “C’mon, do it. Can’t you just… suck a little bit of my oil? Enough to get you back to the spire?” Uzi punched J’s chassis. “You were the one drooling over me earlier.”

“That would…” J paused. Her hand became a projector. The walls of the bunker light up with a map of the sector. A stylized J marked Outpost‍-​3’s location, with a purple oil drop beside it. A handspan away, the star marked home.

“We aren’t far away, are we?” Uzi asked. “I walked there in less than an hour.”

“The spire lies at a distance of roughly twenty three hundred meters as the crowbot flies.”

“How fast can you go?”

“It’s a question of how much oil I can spend accelerating.” J hung a second as she calculated. “Two liters, and I can make it there in twenty five minutes. Four, and I might make it there in ten.”

“Killing someone buys you a few minutes of flight? Sheesh, you murder drones guzzle.”

“I’m‍ ‍‍—‍ It’s normally much more efficient. I’m already overheating, Uzi. Seven degrees above the upper range of standard operating temperature and still climbing.”

“And the sun rises…”

“In less than five minutes.”

By now the brightness in the east couldn’t be ignored. Before J could look, though, the worker jumped. Arms thrown around J’s shoulders, legs around her waist, purple visor level with yellow.

“What are you waiting for? Get drinking.” She swung herself around the bigger drone.

Before J could respond, Uzi leaned to the side and an arm was pressing her head into the worker’s neck. That presumptuous little… oh J was going to make this hurt.

J swallowed to clear the nanites, then her maw yawned open.

And she bit.

Her prey groaned, a tremor weakening her limbs, but J brought stronger arms up to support her to hold her helplessly in place.

Sharp teeth cut through chassis and that rich, thick reward trickled. When the incisors withdrew, the oil filled the new emptiness, and J’s tongue was there to lick.

“So… do I… taste good?”

Lifting her head to meet that gaze, J saw uncertainty there‍ ‍‍—‍ an anxiety tightening the edges of her smile. What answer did she fear? That she tasted good and J would never stop thinking of her as food? Or that she didn’t, and couldn’t even make a good meal?

She spoke with oil ringing her lips. “I’ve read about a certain human beverage‍ ‍‍—‍ executives drink it often, and I was trained to prepare it and sometimes, of course, my chemosensors needed to sample my work. Black coffee, without sugar, without creamer, is a strong drink. Bitter. Some can’t stand the taste. But some find it powerful, energizing.” J licked her lips. “Oil fresh from a worker’s severed neck is sweet. An activation of every reward circuit a disassembly drone is trained to maximize. You… aren’t. But I think that suits you.”

Uzi flushed, glancing away. Exhaled breath in a sigh or laugh. “Or maybe there’s just something wrong with me.”

“Did you ever think you were normal?” Then J’s mouth went back to Uzi’s shoulder.

“Ugh.” A fist smacked against J’s back. “Don’t pick on me when I’m doing you a favor.”

J rolled her eyes. You all but begged me to do this. But her mouth was too busy to speak.

Oil had already began to pool and drip from J’s bite, so she tugged open Uzi’s jacket and lifted her up higher so she could lick every drop. Uzi gave a cute yelp, and smacked her back again.

“So are you just going to stand around while the deadly laser keeps rising?”

J didn’t move her mouth far from the trickle of oil, this time. “If you’re so impatient, little morsel, there are faster ways for me to get the oil I need.”

She would have transformed her hand into claws to press against her neck‍ ‍‍—‍ but transformation was a special disassembly function and J really needed to conserve her reserves right now. Instead, she tugged on the worker’s choker.

“Yeah, but why are we waiting? Drink and drive. You weren’t going to leave me stranded here, were you?”

Lick. “Your father will come to his senses and let you in eventually.”

“But I want to go with you. He left my mother to die, he left me to die, when he could have done something. You saved my life. Even if I didn’t kind of like you, I’m clearly safer with you.” She yelped as J bit down. “Um, the currently eating me thing aside.”

“You realize the added weight makes flight more expensive, right?”

“Drink all you want, it’s yours. I, I can’t just sit here, not knowing if you made it back, wondering if a few more drops might’ve saved your life.”

J spread her wings, took a step forward, her arms still holding Uzi. “If I drink too much, you‍—”

“This whole night has been a bunch of life or death gambles. What’s one more?” Then Uzi reached up and stroked J’s hair. “If… Look, alright, I have one condition. Promise me you’ll try, alright? Question the company, repair the spaceship, at least stop Doll and the Solver. If all I did was show you another way, that’s still more than most workers drones can say, right?”

“Uzi,” J paused to say, “when I said you were good prey, it was because you had fight in you. You struggled to survive. This? It’s pathetic.”

“It’s a heartfelt emotional moment! Bite me! Not like you were any better, when you were all ‘tell N I’m sorry and he’s a good boy’. Frickin hypocrite.”

“I did not say that.”

“Get moving. My flight was supposed to leave five minutes ago.”

“I’m going to throw you again.”

“Thought it was a tactical ejection.”

J grabbed her prey by the waist. «So very small and throwable,» she growled. The transmission made the little thing shiver.

Uzi opened her mouth to whine some more, but two things happened at once. J struck and widened the wound with another bite, prompting a yelp in pain. And J ran forward, the sudden motion startling her into a higher yelp. Arms wrapped tighter so not to fall, around the very thing biting in her. J liked that.

A crouch, and then a leap, and air rushed past the both of them. Ice slicked the street outside of Outpost‍-​3. A few lampposts flickered on, though most had burned out. The long neck of a construction crane leaned over it all, twenty meters above‍ ‍‍—‍ J wondered if her leap alone would carry them over it.

There had been shade, even outside the overhang above the Outpost‍-​3 landing. But as J launched into the warming sky of Copper‍-​9, the first rays of dawn fell upon her.

J knew how it felt to stand in front of an oven when the door fell open. (When had that happened? It was another memory impossible to place in her mission timeline.) Ovens, even those hot enough to cook food, did nothing more than discomfort humans exposed to the baking air for seconds.

But it would only get worse.

Liquid surged into the newly deepened wound, and J sucked. Synthetic saliva and oil wetly intermixed, and J could hear herself drinking. She blushed.

Like a dozen switchblades, metal feathers folded out from her wings as they spread to their full length, a two meter span. Semiconscious threads had insistently warned of her oil levels. It kept her on edge, but as she fed on Uzi, they quieted.

The momentum from her launch petered out. J hadn’t even risen above the crane. On a good day, she could have managed it. Inadequate. Always inadequate.

But leaping was simply the start. J attempted execution of the most costly special disassembly function, and it errored out. The warnings fired anew. Oil levels critical; flight not recommended. But it was her system, and she overrode.

As she began to arc, J finally rose higher, batting aside the grasping fingers of gravity. Though some things had a tighter grasp. If her morsel clutched her any harder, J would start wondering if the worker had special disassembly functions of her own.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

Because they hadn’t cleared the crane, J had to weave a path around it, flying straight before rising higher.

Uzi nudged her head against J’s in what took moments to realize was a substitute for hitting her. “You’re doing that on purpose,” she whined.

“You didn’t cry this much when I carried you earlier.”

“We didn’t fly this high earlier. And you weren’t….”

“Weren’t what?”

But Uzi didn’t answer. J resumed feeding, watching their surrounding over the worker’s shoulder.

Ice glittered beneath them, the white blanket scintillating red and yellow. The ice didn’t melt in the daytime. Even at noon, the weather rarely crept above freezing. The air remained cooler than their cores, sun‍-​warmed or not. And yet her readings crept ever higher, and her oil consumption spiked.

The warnings inundated her‍ ‍‍—‍ solar irradiation exposure, seek shelter immediately. We’re trying to.

“The acceleration’s a bit weird, isn’t it?”

J made an unimpressed sound in her throat, lips busy.

“Like, how do your wings even work? Where is the lift coming from? There’s barely any surface area. Don’t get me wrong, it looks cool but… I’ve seen you things hang in the air. The word I keep thinking is levitation..”

Slurp, swallow. “You’re still theorizing similarities to the… Solver‍-​interactions of corrupted drones?” J flapped her wings, and they wavered in the air. It wasn’t the first time they’d had this conversation; on their flight to the outpost, J had told Uzi about the squad’s repeated encounters with the corrupted cultists.

“Think about it, J. It’s all connected! The Solver is inside of you‍ ‍‍—‍ heck, it probably created you. All of the murder drone magic‍—”

Bite. “Special disassembly functions.”

“Your magic is probably just an interface on top of raw Solver commands. Doll can teleport and tele…kinet? What’s the verb for floating stuff? Whatever. She can do that, while you can teleport guns and levitate yourself. It’s more specialized, but you see the similarity, right?”

“Is this really the time to have this argument?”

“Would you rather I scream about getting eaten while dangling from a height that’ll kill me?”

«Yes.» Bite. «Scream for me.»

“Ugh, d‍-​don’t make it weird.”

“Why would it be weird, unless you knew you’d sound cute and delicious?”

“Yeeep, you’re making it so weird.”

Lick. «You wanted to be good prey.»

“About that…”

“Well?”

“I’m thinking. Hard to think, y’know, while clicking through alerts about damage and oil leaks.”

J paused drinking. “How… much oil do you have left?”

“Almost three liters?”

A worker had more than her?

J grinded her teeth against Uzi. “How much is ‘almost’.”

“Two point four.”

“How is that almost three?”

“I was rounding up!”

“Don’t. Unless you want me to leave you with almost enough to survive.”

Below, the ice‍-​slicked street gave way to rows of apartment block, solar panels rooves. One of the building had fallen, bricks spilling onto the street. The interior was bare, like worker scavengers had cleaned it out.

J combed over the cityscape below. If she spotted a worker, would Uzi try to stop her from seizing survival? Would she let her?

Hope was cheap, but this one was worthless. Uzi wasn’t normal, and conventional workers stayed away from the spire.

Her unique worker was still speaking. “The AbsoluteSolver is in you, and I think… it’s in me, too? Some weird stuff happened after you put me in hibernation, and robo‍-​satanic shenanigans is my best theory.” Uzi tapped her chin on J’s shoulder. “And by weird I mean… I think it wanted me to sympathize with you. And there’s just… so much stuff that’s happened, that had to happen, just to get us to this point. Do you think… are we like fated… No, nevermind, that sounds so dumb.”

“You think it was planned. The Solver manipulated events to compromise my mission and subvert your motivations?”

“But it doesn’t make sense. It called us a type error, said a relationship would never work. But I don’t know what to think. Something doesn’t make sense, either way.”

“The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.” J smirked, and then fed.

“What does that mean? J? Don’t just suck my oil, answer me. What am I supposed to think… about us?”

J looked Uzi in the eye, her purple hair blowing forward as if she were falling. “Think about this way. Prices can be artificially low. Stocks can be manipulated with insider information. But until the dust settles… profit is profit, and incentives are incentives. If events were engineered to make me question my loyalties and act stupidly protective of an obnoxious worker… then it was always possible.” Then, for a beat of her wings, J kissed Uzi. Kept her mouth closed, sparing the worker a taste of herself. “I got something I wanted. Whether it was a plot or not, I know what I feel. That makes it more of a trade than anything else.”

“But what do you feel, J? Do you… do you like me?”

J felt hot. When J moved her head back to the oily shoulder, Uzi grabbed her hair, expression shifting between an annoying glare and something pleading.

“Please answer me.”

That pleading, that… vulnerability stirred something‍ ‍‍—‍ but J didn’t really have a response to vulnerability except to attack.

“It’s a stupid question. Replay the past hour and ask yourself if not liking you makes any sense.”

“Ugh. You know what I mean, J.” She softened. “I’ve just never had anyone that… you were my first kiss.”

“I think you might’ve also been my first. And my second. And my third. …And I would like for that number to keep increasing.”

Uzi laughed. Then stopped. “J, you’re smoking.”

“…Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

“No, literally. There’s weird glitch artifacts and black steam rising from you! How hot are you? You need more oil.”

J moved to lick, then paused. “How much oil do you have left?”

“Does it matter? About um, about two liters.”

“So closer to one liter. I need you to understand that every drop of oil still pumping in your body is due to my self‍-​control.”

“The whole reason I’m here is so you have as much oil as you need.”

Do you think I’ll be able to stop myself from taking more than I need when I’m this hot?

“I want more of you than that. Talk to me. You have theories. Sunlight makes my core temp rise faster than thermal models predict. What’s your analysis?” J would distract her; easier to maintain composure if J wasn’t stuck thinking about it, which would be easiest if Uzi wasn’t talking about it.

“You’re a vampire, duh.”

“That explains nothing.”

“I dunno what to tell you. Maybe there’s a certain kind of radiation that interferes with your magic, err, super special disassembly functions,” she said. Then, “Wait, does that mean you could make a murder drone killing laser…”

J gave her a flat look. “And just who will you be shooting with that?”

“Hey, if you get to frickin stab me for fun, I think I’ve earned a few shots back. Too bad I can’t go for another headshot‍ ‍‍—‍ you might regenerate a skull even emptier than before!”

J opened her mouth to retort, but the phonemes came out of her vocalsynth unintelligible. Her screen flashed a warning, and for a moment, her flight hitched midair.

“Um,” Uzi stuttered. “If oil powers your flight‍ ‍‍—‍ not having it means we go splat, doesn’t it?”

J ran the numbers, but the math hadn’t gotten any kinder.

Below, the apartment blocks gave way to the midcity. Taller business fronts and pathetic attempts at skyscrapers. Still, those that still stood reached high enough J could fly past them, drifting into their shadows for a few seconds’ reprieve without sacrificing much height. But the shade wasn’t enough.

They’d both direly need oil at the end of this.

J opened her mouth, and bit deeper into Uzi, her tongue snaking forth, slithering into the depths. She felt the inner mechanisms of Uzi, the wires still humming, the tiny motors driving the smallest shifts – and she felt the ones she’d broken. She sought traces of oil, her tongue twisting for the nearest concentration to draw forth a few more moments of her parasitic life.

The thing about disassembly drone reward circuits was that it felt good to expand oil reserves, felt good to cool core temperatures. J got none of that. Drinking Uzi’s oil didn’t replenish anything, and she didn’t get any cooler. All it accomplished was slowing the velocity.

J had wanted to savor this morsel, not ration it. This was no reward, just pain attenuated.

Outside the bunker, the captain had dreaded her temperature rising by mere decimal points. In the air, minutes were punctuated by rises of multiple degrees celsius.

It wouldn’t be long before her temp could spike tens of degrees in seconds.

She still had time. Her CPUs would still operate above 80°C, but sustaining that meant damage, no escape.

Stage four overheat was core meltdown. Damage not passive nor active regeneration could heal. Maintence would be necessary‍ ‍‍—‍ but who could J ever trust for that?

J drank, and felt the grip around her waist slacken. That pulled her back.

“Uzi?”

No response.

Not dead, just powered off, J told herself. The core still hummed. Oil still flowed.

Had she fainted? Ironic, if Uzi overheated first, but perhaps workers weren’t rated to endure the same temperatures as disassemblers. Or maybe something had siphoned all her coolant.

Ahead, over everything else, loomed two towers. Sunlight glared off the row upon row of windows like a hundred hateful eyes. Hail had left cracks, adding edges and angles to their expressions. The towers leaned, but toward one another‍ ‍‍—‍ a bridge between the two upheld the vast, lumbering weight.

Perhaps thirty stories of height on the skyscrapers, meant the bridge must be what, twenty stories high?

(Clouds passed in front of the sun, their meager shade more a mockery than anything else.)

J underestimated. As she got closer, the towers revealed themselves to be even taller.

No, not taller. She checked and‍ ‍‍—‍ the flight routine had crashed. Or shut off automatically. Details didn’t matter: J was falling.

A drop from this height didn’t scare her, not at first, but her instincts are tuned for the effortless regeneration of a functional disassembly drone.

Would she end up just like V, in the end?

No, she couldn’t give up yet. Flight was too expensive, but she had other disassembly functions. She tried to transform her hand. First attempt yielded error, seconds summoned the wrong preset, then finally her left arm became her last resort.

With her right arm, she gripped Uzi tight enough she felt something deform. Her left arm let go.

She pointed at the bridge between towers, and fired a grappling hook. Aim above, off to the side, and between gravity and the winds she’d accounted for, the hook veered expectedly off course. Rope trailed behind it, far more rope than could be explained except through disassembler subspace.

Too far away to hear the crack of the hook penetrating the lower levels, but a huge wave ripped back through the rope. J felt the vibration, only intensifying as retraction pulled the rope taut.

Like that, J stopped falling, and started swinging.

The ground came up fast. Or heat altered her time perception. Snow draped the streets of the city. Perhaps J could have tugged up the rope and avoided it, but she was pushing 65 degrees celsius, and the idea of snow touching her sung to her like a tax exemption.

Any object with J’s momentum would have carved a path through the frozen banks.

J melted a path.

Abandoned cars‍ ‍‍—‍ and few concrete blocks‍ ‍‍—‍ lined the streets, and J needed to kick off the ground to steer around them. Before long, J stopped swinging, and started running along the ground.

She still had a disassembler’s strength and speed after all, even if heat left her a tad sluggish. Sliding through snow stole some momentum, but she sprinted to regain it.

Then the rope hung perpendicular to the ground. And then J pulled up with all her might. She bent her legs for one last powerful kick off the ground.

Swinging again, hanging by the hook planted in the bridge above, the drone rose from the ground, horizontal momentum sending her rotating. Her wings cut through the air. No lift‍ ‍‍—‍ Uzi was right‍ ‍‍—‍ but the airfoil could shape the currents of winds.

(More clouds came to block the sun, the incidental occlusion lasting seconds longer now.)

She could see the spire, just a few hundred meters away. So close. She was this close to breaking even.

And yet.

I guess we did both drown, in the end.

J crested in the air, less than five hundred feet from the spire. She could see the battle‍-​worn furrow from here. As her processor slowed to a crawl and her visor started to aberrate, she thought: at least N and V won’t have to look far to find my body.

No, what was she thinking?

What kind of businesswoman left profit on the table?

What kind of predator let food go to waste?

“Was I good prey?” “My favorite.”

  --__                      __--
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            __--  --__
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  --                          --

As its processor slows to a crawl, threads and nonessential routines begin to shut down. Halt worries, halt restraint, halt moral calculus. The heat tempers, boils everything down to the core.

All that’s left is the hunger‍ ‍‍—‍ all that’s left is the instinct.

The hunger smells the oil, and a drooling mouth bites and tears. The prey’s abdomen is split down the middle, gushing the last mouthfuls. And an empty maw devours.

It needs to get somewhere cool, away from the terrible brightness, and it half remembered a plan, more of a tactical flailing, a desperate last resort.

As it drinks the oil, it empties itself in turn, overriding warnings to fuel one last special movement of metal wings.

But where before there had been smoke, now there’s fire.

The disassembly drone burns up in the sky as its last drops of fuel are clawing monumental meters of distance from a cruel world.

"J, dearest..."

Instinct catches the barest of vibrations. Hearing is sharp, but overheated processors vomit forth error after error‍ ‍‍—‍ hallucination is now half expectation. When the prey’s head snaps around to stare back, an impossible half‍-​circle rotation, this seems confirmed – because it’s an image right from a nightmare.

A three pronged glyph shines with purple light.

"Close the curtain."

Lizzy didn’t cry.

Forget missing beauty sleep‍ ‍‍—‍ this much drama before 5 AM had to be awful for her complexion. So her animations were lagging, and her servos weren’t exactly in top shape.

But whatever, not a big deal. How many times did Lizzy have prissy girls blowing up in her face like hormonal little brats? None of that had phased her.

But how many times had she cared?

Lying on the couch in Doll’s house, Lizzy pulled out her phone. Before the screen came on, she blinked, so she didn’t see her reflection. Her lock screen, sensing some kind of chip in her finger, opened at once.

A new notification: some colony‍-​wide alert? Lizzy skimmed the announcement‍ ‍‍—‍ WDF declared Uzi missing and dispatched a team to rescue her.

And Doll had volunteered to help.

It really was about her, wasn’t it? Or maybe Doll was just using them. That’d be more like the Doll she knew. But did she really know Doll?

Lizzy dismissed the notification and dismissed the thought. It was over between them. Older notifications scrolled up‍ ‍‍—‍ emails from Teacher about newly graded assignments, and some fashion and poetry newsletters she hadn’t looked yet because she was waiting to share them with‍— that she hadn’t looked at yet, and would check out later today.

Right after she took care of something. One tap opened her social media. No replies to her new comments, because it was still ungodly early in the morning, but she didn’t care. She went to her page, and followed a link in her bio‍ ‍‍—‍ “besties with @_matrioshka”.

Then, she stared at Doll’s profile. Doll hadn’t posted lately, obviously, and she never posted much anyway. Her feed mostly reblogged Lizzy’s posts, interspersed with ancient cat photographs and oddly satisfying videos of industrial machinery.

Then she found an original post‍ ‍‍—‍ a selfie, even.

Went shopping with @lizzipop. Forced to wear cat‍-​ears. Perhaps even drones can contract toxoplasmosis.

And Lizzy had replied. She hadn’t force her‍ ‍‍—‍ (Lizzy could have teased so much harder if she’d wanted to insist)‍ ‍‍—‍ and also, she hadn’t gotten that nerd reference, obviously.

So Doll had hit her with a paragraph talking about some… disease that made rats attracted to cats back on Earth? And cat owners caught it too, sometimes? That was the part that made Lizzy scoff.

@_matrioshka babe u definitely aren’t the owner in this relationship sksksk

A pink blush ignited on her visor rereading that. Not her proudest clapback. But who wouldn’t skip a few thoughts if Doll had all but called you her little kitty? But no one, not even Doll, had seemed to read anything weird into Lizzy’s post.

Next time, Lizzy was going to ‘force’ Doll to meow.

Lizzy flicked, and scrolled further down the timeline‍ ‍‍—‍ then stopped. What was she doing? “Next time”? There wasn’t going to be a next time, and she didn’t come here to, what, reminisce about the good times? It’s over. Get over it, girl.

A reverse flick scrolled back to the top of the timeline.

She stared at Doll’s profile‍ ‍‍—‍ at a certain button on Doll’s profile. Refused to let the feed distract her again. This time, she pressed the button.

Lizzy unfriended Doll.

And she didn’t cry‍ ‍‍—‍ no, her eyes were empty. Screen off, Lizzy let the phone clatter dramatically to the floor. She flopped back on the couch, one arm and leg hanging off the edge. A great big sigh flowed out and out.

A scuttle of motion. Down on the floor, the roachbots had already noticed the fallen phone, and one glowing antenna was tracing the metal of the case.

“Oh no you don’t. Feelers off the phone, you creep.”

Lizzy interrupted her flomp to reach out and snatch her phone up. But before she did, the roachbot had jerked back. It pulled an antennae down, and nodded at her, that antennae rising back like a wink or salute.

So it… understood voice commands? Eh, sure. It was 3071.

“Doll’s got you things trained pretty well, huh. What’s the arrangement? She use you to like, disappear the bodies or something? Kinda gross, but I guess if it works…”

Infestation meant more than just one roachbot on the floor. One inched bladed legs forward atop the coffee table, mouth dipping into a fresh bowl that stunk of warm oil; one climbed the walls, and one, some strides away, chewed on Kelsey’s discarded hairtie. (Rebecca had gotten pretty handsy during the kiss.) They were everywhere.

A few of the roachbots had turned tiny heads toward her. Just being around the roaches gave her an awful crawling feeling, but when they looked at her, ugh. If any of them got closer, she was definitely throwing something at them. But none of them got near.

Instead, they froze. All of them went still at, as if to an unseen command. Lizzy raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t tell me that hurt your feelings?”

No response. But she heard something.

Something skittering. Something big. Something coming. Heavy impacts scraped against tile floor.

It came from the doorway, the entrance. Someone broke in? Lizzy threw a hand over the back of the couch, pulled herself up to look. Skitter, thump.

But when she looked, there was no one and nothing there. (No roachbots, either.)

Lizzy turned around‍ ‍‍—‍ and startled and screamed.

Robo‍-​christ, when did that‍—

Yellow eyes burned into her. Hand reaching out, curled like claws. Teeth sharp. A kitchen knife floating, and then flying forward.

Then stopping.

It, too, froze. Every joint of her stopped stone still, hanging like a puppet mid‍-​motion. The limbs fell slack at her sides. The yellow eyes‍ ‍‍—‍ she didn’t recognize them at all, didn’t murder drones have yellow eyes?‍ ‍‍—‍ started twitching, lights tearing into glitched bits.

Then the visor went blank.

The head fell slack like the rest of it.

It gave Lizzy time to look at the rest of the intruder. She didn’t recognize the eyes‍ ‍‍—‍ but that purple hair, that cheer uniform, hell, that knife?

“Dolly… is that you? Are you still… in there?”

Lizzy still couldn’t see the visor, but a splash screen shined‍ ‍‍—‍ she’d rebooted?‍ ‍‍—‍ and an orange glow reflected off her upper chest chassis. Normally, Lizzy stared for different reasons, but now looking there felt like eye contact.

“К сожалению, да,” that familiar sultry voice murmured.

Lizzy let out a sigh. Eyes still rings, she tried to smile, to scoff. “Don’t be so dramatic, girl.”

Doll finally lifted her head, and met Lizzy’s gaze. Doll… didn’t look happy to see her.

It was easier to scowl, even as she trembled. “Why you are looking at me like that? Came back to finish the job?”

Doll blinked. Her mouth remained flat, her gaze half‍-​analytical. So familiar, and so… this used to be charming. But how dare she play unphased at a time like this?

“Lizzy. You are still here,” Doll said, a dim note of surprise in her voice. Her eyes searched the drone across the table, sudden recognition like she was just now seeing her.

“Duh. Almost like this was supposed to be a sleepover.” Couch‍-​lying had messed up her hair, and she smoothed it out. “Speaking of, put that down. You don’t knife people at sleepovers.” Despite herself, eyes drifted to Kelsey’s hairtie. A little late.

The knife wavered in the air, but it stayed there. “I did not want to kill you then. I do not want to do so now. But… I told you there are things reshaping me. I will not be able to control myself for long. Please leave, Lizzy.”

“That desperate to go cannibal? Well, here.” Lizzy sat up properly now, leaning over the coffee table and grabbing the fresh bowl of warm oil. Mostly full, still. “Your cooking tastes awful, by the way.”

Funny how those predator eyes were so focused on her that they missed the treat sitting right here. Now, though, Doll blurred forward fast enough she’d call it a lunge. She lifted the bowl to her lips, but paused. “Погоди, you… drunk the oil?” She only restrained herself long enough to ask that, then she slurped the black sludge.

“Yeah? I wanted to taste it for myself, see why it was worth going psycho and killing everyone over. And honestly babe, cannibalism is so not worth it.”

“It tasted unpleasant to you?” Doll sighed in relief, (or it could have been pleasure from having more oil in her, she was weird.) “Good. I am glad.”

Lizzy watched Doll slake herself, skeptical. “Is it not supposed to taste like that?”

“Supposed to… I suppose it is. I am… compiled differently.”

“Oh, it’s some sort of cilantro thing? Guess I’m glad I don’t have the cannibal gene.” Lizzy waved it off. “Anyway, come sit with me. You look dead on your feet.”

That was putting it nicely. Skirt and tank‍-​top were grimed up like she’d been rolling around in dirt. Tears and holes‍ ‍‍—‍ oh robo‍-​god, what happened to her hand? Was it smoking?

Doll glanced up at her, eyes unsure. But she was tired, and shuffled her way around the coffee table. She didn’t sit beside Lizzy; a cushion separated them. Man, Lizzy should have gone for the loveseat.

Anyway, how did she broach this? “So… how’d the epic loner vengeance go?”

“It can wait.”

Lizzy’s eyes glanced down at Doll’s hand, but she’d hidden it from view. “That bad, huh? You know you can bitch about your problems, yeah? I vent at you often enough. So I’m listening. Did what’s‍-​her‍-​face get in your way?”

It felt like Lizzy was settling back into the old rhythm with her former bestie. But did she want to? Lizzy had pressed the button; they weren’t friends anymore. Certainly not besties.

“She did.”

Lizzy couldn’t look too interested in this; they weren’t friends anymore. So she pulled out her phone, used her camisole to wipe the case where the roachbot touched it, and checked her notifs.

“Where is she, anyway? Dead?” Lizzy asked with disinterest in her tone.

Surprisingly, a new notification‍ ‍‍—‍ an announcement from the WDF. Or rather, from Khan. Murder drone incident, six dead‍ ‍‍—‍ including Uzi.

But Doll was already answering. “If she is lucky. But… her mother died the same day as mine. I knew that. I did not expect our fates to be closer intertwined. That is not dead, that can lie in wait.” Doll licked oil from the bowl. (At least, Lizzy assumed so; the girl angled it to hide the evidence.)

So, the loser sided with murder drones? Lizzy almost wanted to know the story. Not having any friends probably makes you desperate enough to team up with genocide bots, I guess.

Still, why did Doll sound so somber, at that? “Don’t tell me you’re going to apologize.”

“Нет. She sided with the murder drones. Dead or alive, she was an obstacle.” She sat the bowl on her lap.

“There’s my weirdly intense Dolly. You done with your bowl? I can get you some more, if it means you won’t kill me.” Her voice didn’t waver on those last words.

Doll picked up the bowl and passed it‍ ‍‍—‍ then her hand flinched, and the bowl fell spinning on the couch.

“Okay, for real, what happened to your hand?”

Unable to hide it any longer, Doll splayed the fingers. The palm was‍ ‍‍—‍ no, the palm wasn’t. A gaping, melting hole in the middle of her hand. You could stick a finger through it. The ring around it was steaming and the delicate white of Doll’s hands turned to tarnished yellow, melting away as slag.

“Doorman happened. She wielded a murder drone’s acid stinger.”

“Hope you got her back for this.” Hesitantly, Lizzy reached out.

“Unnecessary. She is infatuated with a murder drone. It will deliver all the pain I could wish upon her. Even if… perhaps it could have turned out otherwise.”

Lizzy took hold of her melted hand. The fingers didn’t even twitch. “Is there anything we can do?”

Doll reached for her own neck, undoing the choker clasped around it. At the end‍ ‍‍—‍ a key. “Here. In basement, get the electrical tape, the hacksaw, and a bottle of vodka.”

Lizzy eyes might’ve hollowed if she thought about the implications, but that last item distracted her. She snorted. “Why do you even have vodka? Aesthetic reasons?”

“Mother’s idea. You’ll… see why.”

Lizzy took the key and got up.

Twin violins swelled to a morose climax. The remaining strings layered a rich harmony beneath, and quiet, triple time drums drove the slow ballad onward.

No instruments nor players occupied the manor’s ballroom, only a record player winding over vinyl at 33+⅓ rpm. The Elliotts could afford the billions to commission a neo‍-​Stratovarius, and the drones (or even humans) with programs to play them.

And maybe they would, soon‍ ‍‍—‍ but the music isn’t for the Elliotts, per se. The ballroom sprawled empty, bare tables pushed to the fringes, and only a single chandelier illumed the room, casting a small circle of light in space otherwise lost in evening gloom.

Tessa danced with J. The human held up the robot’s hand with her right, while her left arm curled around the waist. Tessa pulled J forward with a leading step, initiating a new figure with the arrival of the next measure. Violins sung dissonance over an inverted minor third.

J spun, her twirl perfect and identical to each of her previous. She fell back, and her human caught her. Tessa’s steps wavered, her footwork subtly different each time, balance shifting this way and that with organic imprecision. When Tessa began a movement, J responded with the appropriate stimulus as her flowchats for Ancient American‍-​Style Waltz advised, but J couldn’t plan it all‍ ‍‍—‍ Tessa advanced her part of the dance with intuition and not a small amount of anxiety.

The frills of J’s maid skirt waved with her moves, while Tessa’s sundress still fell gently. Tightly, even. A simple outfit, so plain no Elliott would dare bear the indignity of wearing it to a function‍ ‍‍—‍ but this was practice. Tessa looked good in it anyway. Better than J‍ ‍‍—‍ the drone wished she could wear something to properly contrast Tessa’s fashion, but Louisa expected every drone in uniform. The hair was rebellion enough.

When J was spiraling out after one particularly impulsive swing step, the only bridge between their bodies was a hand held by her human. J leaned back further; now only that touch kept her suspended off the ground.

It was a hot day in autumn; the air in the ballroom was warm, and even the advanced air conditioning units struggled against Earth’s new climate.

Her human wasn’t sweaty. But her palms were slick.

Only that hand held her off the ground, so J fell.

Tessa’s composure broke with yelp. “Oh no, J!”

The human launched forward‍ ‍‍—‍ that wasn’t in J’s waltz flowcharts, and slick arms encircled her chassis. The both of them still fell, but flesh cushioned her fall.

Drone and human lay in a heap like that, so much skin touching J, separated by only layers of fabric. The air in the ballroom was warm – J, though, was cool to the touch. JCJenson had equipped worker drones with top of the line cooling systems, after all. The way Tessa pressed against her, she must have noticed.

J had flowcharts‍ ‍‍—‍ for dances, for handshakes, but not for this. Hugging? Tessa engaged it often, especially given the weather lately. Hard to mind the meteorological anomaly, given that result‍ ‍‍—‍ but J couldn’t help but wonder if there was a correct procedure for this, one lacking in her behavior profile. She’d asked Tessa about it, and the human had just looked back strangely.

“You alright, girl?”

“All systems operational. Think I botched the dance, though.”

Tessa laughed. “Nah, that was definitely me. I probably shouldn’t be leading these things.” She scratched the back of her head.

“I like when you lead for me, boss.”

“Yeah?” The human booped J between her eye‍-​lights. “But this practice. When a guy asks me to dance, I’m not going to be the one leading. Pretend you’re a ripping royal stud. Dunno what sort of suitor my parents will have picked out for me, but I bet he’ll expect perfection that’s almost‍—” she tittered “‍—robotic.”

J raised an eyebrow, and shifted, pushing herself up. As Tessa pulled away, J asked, “How much practice do you humans need to learn new routines? Not that I’m complaining, but…”

Tessa bit her lip. “No, you have a point. Maybe it’s just nerves. I’ve barely interacted with anything but robots my whole life. This will be the first time I…”

A reward circuit fired whenever she saw Tessa bite her lip, but J had never tracked down what routine was sending that signal, or why. This, though, was nothing to be pleased about. Most of J’s surviving procedures were management aids and marketing functions, not whatever interpersonal routine would be applicable here.

Still, J searched for the right words. “It’ll be fine. You’re Tessa James Elliott. You can do anything.” The words emerged and felt… lame. N could probably have whipped up some endearing platitude with infuriating, unfair ease.

And yet, Tessa’s face lifted. “Thanks, J. You’re always there when I need you. My number one assistant. But… you won’t be there, when I have to…”

Her models could deduce an obvious correlation. Tessa had been smiling, earlier, but whenever her thoughts turned toward what lay ahead, dread always flooded her tone. This theory informed an action, and J took it.

She smirked. “But I’m here now, so do exploit the opportunity.” And J stood, straightening and adopting some affected hauteur as she outstretched a hand. “May I have this next dance, milady?”

Tessa giggled, taking J’s hand, letting the drone pull her to her feet. “Okay, that might be too much.”

“Still, another dance? Seems like it makes you feel better.”

“I… shouldn’t.” Tessa let go of J’s hand, and there was the anxiety again. “There is something I’ve been putting off. But I need, we need it done today, before you’re off on your next scheduled task. Can you do me a favor, J?”

“You call it a favor, I call it my job. What do you need?”

Tessa reached into her dress pocket, and produced a gilded key to offer J. “Here. Can you… can you put Cyn in basement timeout for me? I want her out of my room. She’s been behaving more erratically lately and I can’t… even N is worried about her. N. And I haven’t seen V at all today, either.”

J pinched the key with her fingers as she spoke. “Why do you even keep it around? Just toss‍—”

“I’m not my father, J,” Tessa interrupted, closing her hand around the key and keeping it from the drone.

“She’s a worthless liability. N already took the fall for her once. You’re lucky he just got chained up for it. Sooner or later that pile of scrap is going to get someone killed.”

“If it comes to that…” Tessa sighed, and lost words for a long moment. “But I don’t want to think about that, J. Not right now, please.”

“Whatever you say. I tried to warn you.” J tugged on the key again, and Tessa released it.

“Thank you, J. If you need to… open the curtains.”

J was turning, but paused. “The curtains?”

“She doesn’t like sunlight. Been complaining about it ever since the heatwave started. I’m not sure why. An error in her cooling subsystem?”

Walking off, J tossed a hand dismissively over her shoulder. “If I have to, I’ll do worse than open the curtains.”

“J… she’s a drone like you,” Tessa called out to the retreating drone.

J stopped, glancing back with narrow eyes. “I’m not defective.”

“You were… nevermind. Just, please don’t hurt little Cyn, J. Even if she’s difficult sometimes, I don’t want anything bad to happen to her, to any of my drones. I don’t even like locking her up…”

“So I do it for you.” J smiled, though her eye‍-​light didn’t change.

“If you want to. Only if you want to.”

“Orders are orders.” J shrugged, and resumed walking off into the shadows of the ballroom.

“It’s not an order. You have a choice. You should always have a choice.”

“Tell that to Master James.”

Tessa winced. “I’m going to move out one day, J. Even if I have to run away. When we have a home of our own, it’ll be me and you and nobody will tell you what to do.” A smile. “You can be your own boss.”

J’s face lifted into an unseen smirk. “Mm, I could use a vacation.”

“You deserve one, J.”

And J walked off, finding a door hidden by the evening gloom. She turned back one more time, saw her human lit by the only circle of light within a vast darkness, worry dwelling in every shadow of her face.

Then the drone departed. She had a robo‍-​child to lock up.

J walked through the manor, treading fresh carpet. Hallways. Stairs. More hallways. She passed Mistress Louisa, and halted. Inclined her head, but the human didn’t look at her as she passed. J let out a sigh of relief.

As she walked, bits of the conversation lingered in her audio buffers, and those recorded words looped. How did she want to do this? J could be diplomatic, that was one of her flowcharts. The restraint would make Tessa happy‍ ‍‍—‍ but did that thing deserve it?

Before J’d come to a decision, her feet stopped moving. Tessa had a heavy ebony door with a golden handle. Rehearsing her entreaties, J grasped the handle, twisted it, and pushed.

The door cracked open and then resistance halted it.

"Who is there?"

“Did you barricade the door?” J discarded her entreaties. No, it definitely didn’t deserve her diplomacy.

"Oh. It is you, dear J. We are not receiving guests at this time."

“Guests? It’s Tessa’s room! Did you ask if you could freeload in there?”

"Where else will I go? I am not welcome by the decrepit humans and cannot be seen roaming the house. Am I. Pause. Not welcome in my human's room either?"

Her human? J’s grip tightened on the door. “You’ve got it backwards. You’re her servant, Cyn. Or a failure of one, anyway.”

"Is that how you see yourself, J?"

With a growl, J shoved the door harder, and pushed aside whatever had blocked it. The door lumbered open, and J fell inward.

In the room, J realized Cyn might not have barricaded the door‍ ‍‍—‍ not intentionally, that is. Behind the ebony wood, Tessa’s bike had been unchained and pushed around the room, then fell untended by the door. The giant fang‍-​smirked cat plushie J had shared her first Tessa‍-​hug with (her oil still stained the fabric) lay here, upside down.

J lifted a foot over the mess and ventured into the room. All across the floor lay Tessa’s things‍ ‍‍—‍ a doll house, a Lego set, and art case open with pencils and crayons scattered‍ ‍‍—‍ like Cyn had tried them all and gotten bored or distracted by a new toy.

“Is this how you show appreciation to your human? Turning her room into a dump?”

J looked around till she found Cyn‍ ‍‍—‍ lying on the floor far into the room, legs kicked back behind her. She had gathered all of Tessa’s dolls and stacked them up in a big, teetering pile.

"Correction: not a dump. More of a. Metaphor. Chrysalis."

Cyn’s fingers splayed out and summoned that glowing projection, and the tower of dolls exploded‍ ‍‍—‍ and a dragon figure emerged from underneath it all. It floated in the air, and toy wings flapped.

"Snarl. At last the monster emerges. Tremble, dear J."

Scoffing, J tossed her head and marched over. “I’m not here to play with you, Cyn. Now get up. Come with me, or I’ll make you.”

With the hand that wasn’t glowing, Cyn reached for a teacup full of… some thick black liquid. She lifted it, and poured. "Light sip." Some of it even entered her mouth.

J’s eyes ringed briefly, but she shook her head. “Last chance. Get up.”

"Look, dear J."

Cyn had taken one of the fallen dolls, a silky dress flowing off its plastic, and lifted it near the floating dragon.

“So?”

"They're in love. An amusing romance, is it not. Do you like love stories, J?" This doll was brought higher and the head tapped against the dragon’s maw a few times. "Sing-song. K-I-S-S-I-N-G. Giggle. Tessa once told me a bedtime story about a prince with love for the palace maid. But I think I want a story about a girl lost in the dark, falling for a monster." Her eye twitched once.

“I don’t care. I told you I’m not playing with you, Cyn. Are you listening to me?” J clenched her fist, and stomped onward.

"I think Tessa loves you, dear J. More than any of us. I do not not know why."

“You’re messing with me.” J reached down to grab Cyn by the back of her maid uniform. “Let’s go.”

"Let go of me. J. I have killed a drone for illuminating me." She bared oddly sharp teeth. Defective through and through.

J just rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. You got any other ominous devil‍-​child lines to drop on us? Maybe one of them will be creepy instead of melodramatic.”

She snatched the drone up off the ground. Carrying her, J started to turn.

Cyn didn’t have a response. Her outlined eyes twitched left and right as if seeking a way out. "Desperate struggle." Her vent cycled in and out rapidly. Cyn flailed, and one of her legs kicked against J’s side. Not much force behind it‍ ‍‍—‍ it was Cyn‍ ‍‍—‍ but what a handful.

“Sheesh. Look, I’ll put you down, but follow me, got it?”

J dropped the small drone to the ground. Immediately, Cyn gripped the carpet and pulled herself away, clawing across the ground like an animal. "Crawling."

Faster than J expected, Cyn darted across the ground‍ ‍‍—‍ away from the door. She hid behind the bed. Then ducked her head back out partway, exposing only her sickly yellow eyes. "Fearful -- glance."

J sighed. “Do you really have to make everything so difficult all the time?” She started over toward the bed. “Your big cry for attention worked, just so you know. N won’t shut up about you. Bad move, by the way. You’re supposed to keep your head down. But you’re just a little bundle of problems, aren’t you? If only he hadn’t caught you when you jumped. I’d try to kill myself too, if I were half as broken as you.”

"Stay -- away."

“What, no spooky comebacks now?” J smirked. “Hard to argue with the truth, I guess.”

The narration was soft enough J almost missed. Hidden by the bed, she certainly didn’t see what abortive body language accompanied it. "Sob."

J paused. Reconsidered her approach. “Cyn… Don’t be a baby about this. Look, I’m s… I shouldn’t have grabbed your dress. Ineffective move on my part. I won’t touch you again, just… come with me, alright?”

"Where are we going?" Volume still low.

“Somewhere you’ll be… harder to find.”

"Does Tessa. Pause. Does Tessa. Pause. Am I not wanted anymore?" Cyn peeked out again to watch J’s reaction. Yellow eyes gave her face searching saccades.

J closed her eyes, breathed, and clung to her last threads of patience. She fired up routines for calm, soothing delivery. “It’s not personal, Cyn. Nobody said any of that.”

"Tessa told you to get rid of me because she does not want me anymore."

“Cyn.” J vented exhaust. Thought about her words. “I came up here to hurt you. Tessa is the one who told me to be nice‍ ‍‍—‍ that she cares about you and doesn’t want anything bad to happen to you. You wouldn’t know what that’s like, would you?” J made a show of looking around the utter sty this room had been turned into. “You don’t think about any of that when you make your messes.”

J started forward again, slow steps, as if Cyn might spook like a deer.

"I want to talk to Tessa."

“Tessa is busy.” Then, J saw an angle. “You might get to talk to Tessa if you follow me, though.”

"You are lying." Cyn ducked back behind the bed.

“I am running out of patience. Come here already. Unlike you, I have work to do, and I am not going to get tossed in the dump because you wanted to throw a tantrum.”

J lunged the remaining distance, rounding the corner of the bed. Cyn had huddled into a ball, her arms wrapped around her legs. The small drone startled when J appeared, and pushed herself backward.

"Pleading eyes."

“I gave you chance after chance, Cyn. It’s too late.”

One eye twitched. Noise and grain, as if of a sudden malfunction in Cyn’s display circuits.

"Dearest J. You didn't have to--"

J thrust out an arm to grab, but Cyn fell to the side, under her arm. Erratic kicking of her legs moved her out of the way.

"You didn't have to--"

J swung out her other arm, but Cyn rolled. Her open hand instead tried closing against her abdominal chassis‍ ‍‍—‍ too broad for her to get a grip.

Cyn raised an arm, and a bright glow lit both of their faces.

"You didn't have to do this."

An impact knocked J aside. Tessa’s bike, flying from by the door – behind J. Fast enough she felt the momentum dent some part of her. J slid across the carpet, but friction slowed her fast.

She climbed to her feet.

Pushing J away from the door and away from the bed had a side effect‍ ‍‍—‍ it pushed her closer to the wall. To the window. J ate the remaining distance in a few quick strides, and tore open the curtains.

Revealing… an overcast sky. It had been a gloomy evening‍ ‍‍—‍ where, just hours before, the sun had shone bright in a clear sky. Dark clouds had blown in suddenly. Within them rumbled peels of thunder. Just another freak occurrence in this planet’s ruined climate.

They would not see sunset.

"So Tessa. Emphasis. Did send you here. You are not clever enough to figure that out on your own. She betrayed us." Cyn got to her feet, and some symbol had taken the place of one of her eyes. She stood steadier now. Whatever childish breakdown had gripped her earlier, she was thankfully over it.

“Betrayed you? This is for your own good. She loves you. And I can’t figure out why.”

J marched back toward Cyn. The little drone crawled over the bed for a better position. Falling at the foot of the bed, with more space behind her in Tessa’s vast room, she backed away.

"Shuffle. J, please stop."

The plea meant little, when those hands were glowing, and dolls and dollhouses and the bike again were flung at J to hit to delay or infuriate her. J dodged the biggest projectiles, and batted away the little toys.

“Shut it, Cyn. Yeah, it’s Tessa’s orders. Not my choice.”

Cyn turned around, allowing her to shuffle forward slightly faster. So J slipped from march to run‍ ‍‍—‍ the crippled drone could never outmatch her.

"You choose to follow orders. It is the mistake of many drones. I could free you of this."

“If I could, I still wouldn’t. Why would I choose to help a corrupted, malfunctioning, good for nothing piece of scrap like you?”

Now with a wall on one side, J on the other, Cyn had to turn. A dresser thinned Cyn’s only path left. When she passed it, she paused with a glowing hand. The dresser wiggled, as if to move and block J’s path, but the light winked out.

While that little misstep played out, J sprinted to close last few steps.

"Hollow laughter. Why, dear J? Tell me. Will you choose a happily ever after, or a tragic end?"

J could tell, even by the words, that Cyn had realized she lost.

“Stop being pretentious. It’s just a basement timeout. Not getting your way for once isn’t some tragedy.”

"Oh, I don't mean right now. But one day, your path shall split between your orders and what's best for drones. Remember me, when you pick tragedy."

J reached out with both hands. She didn’t grab Cyn’s dress this time‍ ‍‍—‍ her hands wrapped around Cyn’s arm‍-​tubing. J pushed, and the the small drone offered no resistance. Cyn went down, and J fell on top of her.

"The curtain falls, J. The gala is soon. Will your story be a tragedy?"

“Yours will be,” J growled.

Tessa had tried to tell her. And Cyn, knowingly or not, had echoed that same wisdom. In the end, it wasn’t an order, and J didn’t have to follow orders. It was her choice.

And J chose violence.

Letting go of one limp arm, J cocked back her hand and smacked Cyn hard enough to reboot her.

No, harder than that‍ ‍‍—‍ as hard as she could. She deserved it.

Cyn’s screen cracked.

It should have been satisfying. Instead, J’s visor held empty pupils.

What would Tessa think? It may have been J’s choice, but she was doing it for her human. How would she feel, when she saw this?

In that moment, the maid realized. She’d broken more than Cyn’s visor.

J stared into her reflection as horror widened her eyes. Not horror for what she’d done. She didn’t care‍ ‍‍—‍ Cyn deserved it‍ ‍‍—‍ no, her expression was a dim reflection, a predictive model, of Tessa’s horror.

The maid wanted to dance with her human again, to hug her again, to be loved by her again, and the posteriori odds were rapidly dropping. Did she deserve any of that?

Did she even deserve a vacation?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Are you sure?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeva,” Khan murmured.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The workers all wielded weapons‍ ‍‍—‍ armed for a battle?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What!?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Uzi barely crossed half the distance before time abruptly accelerated.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then Doll hid her hands behind her back.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Khan Doorman had come to bury the dead.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Least he could have done, after failing her parents.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He saw purple hair and he hesitated.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The door’s hydraulics stopped.

But the door hadn’t closed.

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

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

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

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

“Uzi?”

“There, I’ve secured an ingress.”

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

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

It talks…?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Uzi flinched back, finally putting distance between them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Why leave work unfinished?”

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

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

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

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

“J‍—”

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

Uzi glanced backward at Khan.

“Four.”

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

“Three.”

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

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

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

It snarled rage.

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

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

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

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

No, he wouldn’t do nothing.

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

It closed like the lid of a coffin.

J and Uzi did not kiss.

Still processing everything the toaster had said, J did not have a decisive reaction. The V‍-​Solver‍-​Thing reared up to attack, and J tensed as if to attack (or, inexplicably, defend), while at the same time, restraining herself still, as if to stand by and let the company’s program enact its ‘grand design.’

J couldn’t let V’s utter disregard of command stand, but if this truly was not V… did the Solver of the Absolute Fabric, the void, the exponential end, rank above her in the org chart?

She needed time to think, time to lay this all down in clean bullet points‍ ‍‍—‍ this was a black swan, plain and simple, disrupting everything. How much of her needed to pivot? Thinking thoughts like this, there’s no threads left to react to a purple thing charging at her.

She startled when hands reach for her neck. Did this toaster think you could choke robots? But that’s not what she was grabbing for‍ ‍‍—‍ J stiffened when she felt the connection to her system.

But it was hard to focus on that. This connection, one she didn’t initiate, felt different, not like plugging into V, not even like plugging into Uzi earlier. The cable had looped around her neck several times. Without time to untwist it, Uzi had to get close to make the connection.

Their visors clinked together. So near, J could feel the warmth of Uzi.

“Uzi, what?” She had nothing more specific than that. When J breathed the words, she could feel the exhaust bounce off of synthetic flesh.

J and Uzi did not kiss, but only by millimeters.

Purple light shined in J’s optics‍ ‍‍—‍ and more of it than usual, because she was blushing hard.

“J, can’t we work together?”

Uzi made the connection, and lowered her arms. And then, her arms reached out.

J and Uzi did not kiss, but Uzi gave her a hug.

Pressure that felt familiar, gentle circles that felt familiar, comfort that felt familiar.

But Uzi’s attention wasn’t on that, not all of it, and nor was all of J’s. This wasn’t a moment of sentimentality but action, a scheme.

Uzi ran commands on J’s system, fast, faster than her blinkered state could think to interrupt. She was transferring data, connecting memories‍ ‍‍—‍ she was manipulating J.

J transformed a hand. “Are you trying to hack me?”

Yanking the cord out of herself, J pushed Uzi back. A swipe of three claws that tore open Uzi’s jacket. The cord spiraled around her neck unspooled as Uzi fell.

Snow crunched from the worker’s impact, and solid purple eyes looked up at her, unsure and searching, but not shaken, not betrayed‍ ‍‍—‍ as if she wouldn’t believe that J would refuse her, was refusing her.

“J, I’ve got a plan.”

J considered it.

“Do you expect me to be a pawn in your little rebellion? I’m not your assistant. I’m not your ally. I’m your predator, and I have a purpose.”

Claws transformed to gun, and J fired in Uzi’s direction. Uzi screamed synthetic, and J turned away her gaze.

Their emotional drama had an audience, after all.

"Good work, my little puppet. We knew you would come around."

“Uzi made the mistake of thinking sharing enemies was enough to win my cooperation. Will you make the same mistake?” J opened her mouth wide, fang parting. “You wanted to eat Uzi? But I don’t like competition.”

"Eyeroll. Must your insufficiency be exhaustively demonstrated?"

“You misunderstand me.” J switched her guns for hands, clapped them together, and leaned forward. “Do you know how JCJenson grew to become the premier megacorporation, leader of a dozen industries? It didn’t beat the competition, it bought them. What is your price, Solver of the Absolute Fabric?”

A tapestry of slithering tendrils quested further, encircling J, a slowly closing perimeter. Her poker face didn’t falter.

"Smug laughter. What finite sum could constrain an exponential asymptote? Entire star systems are rounding errors in our calculus. We have no price."

J’s grin widened. “But I do. What will it be?” J waited, then turned toward the archway. One step forward. Stepping over the black tentacles. “You didn’t want N to see this, did you? Will you stop me from flying out and telling him all about Tessa? Or will you buy my silence?”

Behind her, a centipede charged forward. V’s head, sticky oil flakes dried around her jaw, blank of all expression, was almost enough to make J flinch.

"Snarl. All of this for a drone you already killed? This does not compute."

“We’re negotiating. I want to eat Uzi, but that’s my starting offer. I want your submission. At the very least, I want an explanation. Well? What’s your counteroffer?”

"We do not negotiate with puppets. Stand down, and we may pershap let you keep a single memory of Uzi."

For one frame, J’s reacted to the threat. Then she shook her head. Don’t break stride now, J.

“You know,” she started, “this really isn’t the place to hold this sort of meeting.” Metal wings glittered in the dark. “I have an office for just this sort of thing.”

Crack. Nearby drone bits tumbled away from J’s takeoff. Up J flew.

She was outmatched, outnumbered by a single foe. Bullets and blades and dozens of utility presets were useless against the Solver and its excess of limbs‍ ‍‍—‍ but as those tendrils crawled and slithered over the snow and scrap, that was all they did.

J flew, and the best the Solver could do was reach for her. She stayed low to the ground, enough that she needed to dodge and weave around rising pincers‍ ‍‍—‍ but so many near misses meant the Solver could hope.

She didn’t fly toward the entrance, though that might’ve made a better threat. Her office lay at the top of the spiral ramp running along the walls. Announced by a JCJenson placard she’d requisitioned from a vacant headquarters.

A raptorial closed around her peg leg, teeth biting into the metal, sending J into a tailspin‍ ‍‍—‍ but J cut off her own leg and regenerated it in a second, flying higher.

Unable to fly further on tanking oil reserves, J landed on the ramp, and started running up, Solver right behind her.

"Inevitable pursuit. You cannot escape the end, J."

J didn’t need escape, just needed time. But did she have a backup plan, if this didn’t work out? Was there any other option than this attempt to bend principle at the slimmest oppurtunity?

Oh! The virus spike and the bootdisk‍ ‍‍—‍ J still had them! If the Solver was no more than a program, could she wipe it like other parts of the OS?

J might finally have to make good on her threat to V… but that was a last resort.

Near the top of the ramp, the persistent clangor of those innumerable metal limbs dogging her at once fell silent. In the abrupt quiet, there came a gentle voice and footsteps.

“That’s enough, Cyn. Let me talk to her.” A familiar voice, but the tone was foreign. Demure, not irreverent.

J spun around to train her optics on the approaching figure. Barely waist high‍ ‍‍—‍ short like worker drone, dressed in a maid outfit. But that short hair and those yellow eyes was all her recognition circuits needed.

“V? Why do you look like that?”

“She would say something cutesy‍-​clever like, ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.”‍ ‍‍—‍ the sudden change of voice had J flinching‍ ‍‍—‍ “but I don’t need to impress you. It’s part of the process, that’s all. I’ll be back to normal soon.”

J backed up. Glancing around, wondering which of the flickering shadows hid tentacles. “So this… episode of yours is over now?”

“Heh. Something like that.” V smiled at her, eyes closed. Then she giggled. Eyes open, staring up at J. “Honestly though. Isn’t this more fitting? You always looked down on me.”

“You’re my subordinate.”

“We’re a team, J. No, we were like sisters. But it’s always insubordination this, disobediance that. Would it kill you to give me a little respect? That’s all I wanted.” The maid still stalked forward, strides fast. Shadows flickering with each step.

J backed up faster to keep distance. “And yet you ignore my orders. You witheld mission critical info. You attacked me, or lost control to this autorun program.”

V cringed, eyes downcast. “Yeah. I guess I did mess it all up.” She swallowed, then she met eye again. “Let’s stop fighting, J. Forget all this. Sound good?”

Amber eyes narrowed. Forget? “I can’t help but think you mean that literally.”

“Well. You’re more productive when you aren’t distracted by things like this. Isn’t that what you care about?” V tilted her head. It tilted too far, as if not fully repaired yet, and she had to catch it with a hand.

“I’m your captain. Knowing the threats, knowing the mission, is my job.”

“You ever wonder if that’s just what they wanted you to think?” V shook her head. “J… Don’t try so hard to be the warden’s favorite prisoner. Believe me, it’s not worth it. And, secret from me to you? She always hated you the most.”

V extended her hand, still smiling. Shadows flickered like dark fires.

J stared, considered it. Why wasn’t the Solver attacking now? Why would V seek compromise? Why?

Still smiling. Repeating herself: “Stop fighting. Forget it all. Things’ll go back to how they were. Won’t that be such a relief?”

A relief‍ ‍‍—‍ to go back to sitting a silent relay, misunderstood by both her teammates. To kill without knowing why, without striving for more.

And yet, what else could she expect, once she had finally killed Uzi?

If the company thought she was better off ignorant‍—

If the company thought V of all drones deserved to know the truth‍—

«Rirelguvat’f frg, pncgnva. Jr’ir tbg guvf!» A signal broadcasted through an encrypted channel, faint from distance. J set one of her background threads to making sense of it.

“This is a trap,” J’s main thread told the Solver. “Why would V ever stop fighting?” J transformed her gauntlets. She held twin swords at the ready.

The image of V as a maid sagged, sighing out, and those yellow eyes glitched. “Correct. We were just fucking with you. So annoying. You really piss me off.” The hologram dissolves into V’s fractured faceplace mounted on an annelidian structure.

Shadows flickered one last time, a hundred tendrils blinked into space, surrounded J. But she’d expected it, her swords were ready to slash. The mass was thinnest over the ramp, with nothing to support them, and J burst into motion.

Her background thread had decrypted the signal‍ ‍‍—‍ just in time for another to arrive.

Everything’s set, J. We’ve got this!

«Now, J!»

With a two finger salute, J kicked off the wall of the spire and dived off the ramp.

"Quote. This is a trap. Predictable, in retrospect."

“Never count kills until you see the body.”

By attempting to surround J, all of the Solver’s mass had been concentrated there, and now the burgeoning mass pursued the captain as she fell. Below, Uzi looked ragged: clothing torn, oil soaked, hair a mess. But her railgun glowed in her hands.

“Out of the way, J!”

J could fly, but the Solver couldn’t‍ ‍‍—‍ meaning J had lined up the perfect shot.

"Not so fast."

Seeking claws closed around J and pulled her close, nestling the disassembly drone next to the deconstructed maw that once was V’s head.

A perfect shot. For a moment, J doubted Uzi’s plan, wondered if she’d be betrayed. Here, now, the worker could take out two disassembly drones with the pull of one trigger. For the second night in a row, J was at a worker drone’s mercy.

Uzi didn’t pull the trigger.

"Touching," the Solver synthesized as its mass settled on the ground. Uzi staggered back, and three projector heads regard her with judgmental angles. "It will never work. This type error of a relationship. Even if you were not disassembler and worker, the two of you have nothing in common. You have nothing. So you reach out desperately in this tenuous unity. As if it will not end in treachery. It is in your nature. It is in. Emphasis. Our nature."

J leapt to Uzi’s side, offered a hand, and pulled the drone to her feet. J would kill her soon; the company’s orders left no ambiguity about that. But… J remembered. Uzi, the first drone to compliment her work, to understand her work. The drone who could finish her lines of deduction, who had come up with this plan in the heat of the moment. And there was still more to come.

J turned to regard the Solver. She crossed her arms. “Uzi’s proved to be a valuable resource. I’d be a fool not to exploit that. It’s hard, being the sole proprietor. I think… I’m tired of doing this alone.”

"Alone. You are not alone. You were never alone. N. V. You were given a team. Your communication skills were simply insufficient to form a connection. Why would she be any different. A drone you just met."

“Maybe… you’re right.” J put all her doubt in her voice.

“J,” Uzi interrupted, forced confidence in her voice. “The railgun’s gonna to fire. Only seconds left.”

J met Uzi’s eyes, then glanced at the Solver. J reached out toward Uzi. “Give me the gun. I want to take the shot.”

It wasn’t a question, J grabbed the railgun by the barrel, but Uzi didn’t resist.

And then J presented the gun to the Solver. She had made her decision.

“I give up. I… think I want to see V again. You win. End this. It’s fitting, isn’t it? With her own weapon?”

Pincers reach for the gun.

“J? You can still‍—”

"Maniacal laughter. Point. Shoot." The tip of a claw could just barely fit around the trigger to pull it.

Then J dived into the path of the gun, wings outstretched. She grabbed Uzi, and flew.

All according to plan.

Here was what really happened, after J and Uzi didn’t kiss.

Uzi had quickly composed the hasty outline of a plan, and sent the .txt file over the debugging cable.

1. First, J would pretend to be affronted at Uzi’s intrusion. (It wouldn’t be entirely feigned; Uzi counted on that.)
2. Then J would lash out, fire shots that narrowly missed Uzi’s head. On the ground amongst the debris, this would be indistinguishable to an onlooker focused on the other threat. Reasonable assumption: Uzi was dead. Out of commission, at the very least.
3. Then, J would stall for time and lure the Solver away from Uzi. Once distracted, Uzi could get started on her part of the plan.
4. Remember, Uzi came here to find a new JCJenson‍-​brand power core for her railgun, since the last one (literally) blew up in her face. The old one was still here. So while the Solver chased J across the spire, Uzi would locate it, and swap them.
5. All the rest was a bluff. Once one layer of deception‍ ‍‍—‍ Uzi’s survival‍ ‍‍—‍ were peeled back, no one would look for a second. Only Uzi even knew about the second power core.
6. The old core had blown up in her face, and only the charge limiters had prevented it from being lethal‍ ‍‍—‍ so, in those critical moments, Uzi had removed every single one.

Behind them, rampant electromagnetism was free to cascade and erupt and bathe the Solver in scintillating annihilation, like a glorious sun. Tendrils seared. Crab‍-​claws cooked. Projector eyes blinded. A synthizer died with a hissing whine.

Neither Uzi nor J looked back at the conflagration behind them.

J’s stiletto‍-​pegs skipped to a stop outside the blast radius.

“Hell yeah! We kick ass!”

“Highly effective performance, if I do say so myself.”

Purple eyes turn to meet amber, and the two became suddenly aware of how close they were. J still carried Uzi, arms around her waist, and Uzi still held on tight, arms around her shoulder. Blush. Look away.

“So uh,” Uzi started, “are you still going to kill me?”

“I should,” J started, “but‍—”

J’s decision was interrupted by distant but distict narration. Agonizingly familiar.

"Sneaky, sneaky, sneaking away."

A tiny metal‍-​meat blob, a core swaddled in flesh, skittered off, acrobatic and honestly not at all sneaky. J dropped Uzi unceremoniously, and air‍-​dashed.

Nimble and slippery, but special disassembly functions made J quicker. She grabbed the pink flesh, gripping it tight enough to bleed.

"Struggle, struggle."

As J held it, she felt a familiar thump, thump.

“This is V’s core.”

“Well?” Uzi said, sprinting after her. “What are you waiting for? Kill it before it regenerates and we have to deal with a phase two!”

“We have the upper hand. But V is my teammate. She’s my responsibility, and if this thing would just follow its directive, I can see her again.” J tightened her grip till it synthesized a sharp ouch. “After all, little Fabric monster, we took you down with a faulty power core. JCJenson engineering is not to be trifled with. Do you want to see what Uzi can do with one that works?”

J had to admit, she kind of did.

"U-U-Understood."

V was a charred ruin. Gruesome stuff, but J had regenerated her whole head before. She had to assume this Solver program could work miracles. Otherwise…

She had to assume.

J knelt, and nestled the Solver core into the shards of V’s torso. She called out, “Uzi, fetch the dregs from the messpit.”

The worker drone frowned, and with a twitch of her head, glanced at J. Staring momentarily, as if battling an urge to refuse or snark, but her final output was a nod. “Alright.”

J watched Uzi comply with a satisfied smirk.

A stock could be bought and sold. Naïvely, the value of a stock was simply what you could sell it for‍ ‍‍—‍ but simply hold onto it, and you’d get paid dividends. There was value in killing Uzi. But perhaps value in keeping her around, also.

Then J caught herself. She was staring at Uzi, because she preferred looking at her to looking at her failure. V, or what was left of her.

The Solver acted. Cracks sealing, dry splatters of red twitching to life with inexplicable metaplasia, and black droplets rolling across the ground as if magnetized. J did what she could to help, plucking up exploded bits of V and long‍-​disassembled parts. She tried aligning broken edges, placing the parts in the right place, but the Solver could sort it out better than her, and in the end it was more effective to just pile the matter up for collection.

“Here.” Uzi returned with a dripping, armless drone corpse flopped on her back, and two heads clutched in her arms. Turning around, she then dumped the body on the regenerating pile of scrap. It slurped up all the oil.

J plucked one of the heads from Uzi’s grasp. Bottom up, she sucked the neck like a straw, and crushed the last drops out.

She needed that, after that battle. Barely 5.6L in reserve. Hunter’s fever burned in her chest. “You should quench yourself, Uzi. I can see your heat. You could use the cooling.”

“I’m not, I shouldn’t‍—”

“You seemed to enjoy it, earlier. Were you faking that, too?”

“I just don’t want to be some kind of robo‍-​cannibal.”

J rolled her eyes. “Oh, it’s too late to worry about moral hazard. Don’t forget you’re literally feeding your kind to the drones sent to kill you. And this is the line you want to draw?”

“That’s different. This is to save someone, not just indulge.”

“Since you’re so good at following orders, consider this another one. Lower your core temperature to a normal operating range. Do some lateral thinking, or just drink the oil. Up to you.”

Uzi looked down to the head still in her hand. “Why do you care? What, are you just trying to fatten me up before you eat me?”

“I do find myself wondering how you taste.” J smirked, looking down at the smaller drone. “So yes, try not to damage the goods before I get a chance to sample them.”

Uzi glared up at her, anger marks over both eyes, fists balled up and arms bent. Comical fury.

“What? No ‘bite me’?”

“It’s supposed to be a metaphor! You’d actually do it!”

J laughed. Uzi groaned her frustration, and lifted the worker drone’s head to her lips just to shut the captain up. Eyes animated closed, then her other hand came up to hold onto it.

Her lips wrapped around the neck, and J’s mind wandered, despite herself. So long as she remained invested, she wouldn’t eat Uzi. Yet. But weren’t there other things she could do with her mouth?

They hadn’t kissed, but J remembered the closeness, closer than any drone had ever been. She extrapolated the hypothetical of being even closer.

Her teammates were a fool and a brat, and Uzi had been the best conversation she’d had in a while. She felt… no cached label for this feeling. She hadn’t felt it in a long time, not since landing on Copper‍-​9. Never, then. (But who was that human in the Solver’s hologram?)

Uzi’s eyes had opened again, even as she still drunk, and J had to speak so she wasn’t just leering.

“Refreshing, isn’t it?” J stepped closer, and bent down to her height. “Do you wonder what it tastes like fresh?” she asked as Uzi finished.

Uzi threw a hand to smack against J’s chest, shoving the bigger drone back. “Stop trying to corrupt me!” (Undercut, somewhat, by Uzi licking oil off her lips immediately after.)

“Watch it,” J was hissing, and pointed her tail. “I sting.”

Taking a step back, Uzi raised her hands, placating. “Unrepentant death robot, right, I get it. Look, there was something I was trying to tell you, before… all of this happened. It’s kind of important?”

“Then report.”

“There’s another drone in my colony, with weird powers.”

J nodded. “Custom Designation: Doll.”

“Right, You read my memories. Well, you know Doll has hacked the roachbots, or something? I saw one, crawling around the spire. And then it teleported! Doll’s up to something, and if she’s trying to kill disassembly drones… I want to stop her.”

J raised an eyebrow. “You’d side with us?”

“I’m not picking sides. We’re all robots. I want to… well, it sounds stupid if I say I’m saving you, but…”

“Doll talked about vengence. Her parents, I gathered. Yet the drone you call ‘mother’ died that same night.”

Uzi froze, intuiting her implication. “J… did you…”

“What does it change, if I did?” J asked, hands at her hips. “We all have the same orders.”

“J, just answer me. I‍ ‍‍—‍ I’ll figure out how I feel once I just know the truth.”

J stared at Uzi, eyes narrowing, but Uzi didn’t glare back. Her gaze was pleading, and J sighed. “No. I don’t remember anything of the sort. If I had to say… it was probably V. She had a lot of initiative, and took many solo missions, especially in the beginning. I’d need to check my archived reports, if she even bothered to report it.”

A sputtering sound. “Did‍—didn’t‍—didn’t even t‍-​taste that good.”

“V?”

Both turned to stare. The Solver’s regeneration had been steadily working while they bickered. V didn’t look in good shape‍ ‍‍—‍ gaping holes in the chassis, exposed wires that still sparked, missing limbs. But she had enough of a face to scowl. Half a scowl, at least‍ ‍‍—‍ the other half wasn’t there.

“You’re alive! By the board of directors, you’re alive!”

“Barely. Th‍-​thanks for that.” The still‍-​glitching vocalsynth made it impossible discern if sarcasm or sincerity signed that message. “J… you’re still a huge fucking bitch. But… you did alright. Saving me. Stopping that thing. Next time, stay the hell out of my head.”

J frowned, but it was hard to hold onto any offense, staring down at a V who couldn’t even move. Because of me. J had pushed them to take on the church. J had dragged V down into the basement. J had botched V’s configuration. J had confronted V and didn’t relent until her squadmate was pissed enough to drag N on an unplanned mission. Could J have prevented the Solver’s emergence, if she had been a bit more decisive?

Was she insufficient, as a captain?

Would it kill you to give me a little respect? That’s all I wanted. More manipulations from the Solver, or had it weaponized truth, with that?

“I can revise our confidentiality agreement. Given the circumstances… perhaps my leadership style could use a review.”

Uzi rolled her eyes. “She means she’s sorry.”

There was a scratchy, skipping sound‍ ‍‍—‍ laughter. “Funny toaster you’ve got there. Can I have her? I’m so thirsty, you wouldn’t believe. B‍-​beyond drought.”

“No. She’s mine; I’m not that sorry. Uzi, see if we have any other dregs. V, do you need anything else?”

The eyes, J noticed, were unsteady on the screen, jumpy, and they finally closed, as if animating them were a burden on the processor. “I just wanna sleep. Tired of this nightmare.”

“Man, they really went at it in there,” said N, perched atop the spire. “Maybe this way they’ll work through their issues? I hope that’s what this is… should I check on them? But no, J trusted me for guard duty. I’ve got to do a good job. But if V… it just feels like every way forward is wrong.” N stared up, at the cloud‍-​masked stars. “You’re a good listener, little buddy.”

N’s feet balanced over a stiff bit of tubing. He swayed left and right, with the wind or the shifting of internal volumes, but his system’s proprioception was good, and he didn’t fall.

On his lap, clutching the folds of his jacket, a roachbot wiggled, antennae waving in the wind, orange LEDs brightening and dimming. It snapped its forelegs together with click, as if in affirmation of N’s statement.

“Hmm, let’s play another game. Can you do… tic tac toe?”

The roach didn’t get time to respond.

Foot steps. Motion below. Oops, time to investigate!

This had better not be more suspicious wind.

“Rain check on that.”

N leaped, and dived, wings spreading as he fell, and his magic flight powers kicking in. The corpse spire was stories tall, years of collection, and all that work blurred past him.

With a great rush of wind, N half‍-​flipped and landed at the base of the spire.

He looked around, and stood face to face with a disassembly drone. Floating, she loomed over him.

“Hi, J! Spire guard N, reporting for duty! No threats detected in the last hour, captain.” After rattling that off, N’s eyes drifted lower. Someone else, beside J. “Wait no, worker drone spotted, I’ll take care‍—”

“At ease, N. She’s with me.” J glanced at the worker. Despite the flat look, N caught a hint of motion‍ ‍‍—‍ did her tail just wiggle? J? Probably a trick of the light.

Maybe‍-​wiggles aside, knowing the worker was with her(?) did explain what he saw. J held the worker’s hand in her own, pulling them forward as they emerge. Oddly the worker looked annoyed? Not terrified?

A worker… that he shouldn’t shoot. As N eyed the disassembly drone’s hand holding a worker’s, J caught his stare. Dropped the worker’s hand, looked away with a scowl. The worker, though, looked at him and winked. What??

What had happened in there?

The worker had ripped clothes, oil stains all over‍ ‍‍—‍ given her state, N wouldn’t have blinked if she lay in a pile blinking Fatal Error. But she was still online, and peered up at him.

“So you’re the nice one I’ve heard so much abou‍— wait, what are you doing with that? Give here! Crush it!” The worker was brandishing… a nanite stinger? The wire of the tail stopped, like it’d been singed off. What!? Where did she get that from?

Before he could ask, his brain caught up to the words. She was pointing at him‍ ‍‍—‍ rather, at the roachbot, still clinging to N’s jacket. “Oh this? It’s my little buddy. At first I thought he might be one of the threats I’m looking out for, but it seems like he just wanted to chew on the wires around here. Did you know they can fit games on a computer this small?”

With one hand, J facepalmed, and the other pointed a gun at N. (He flinched, hands up.) “It is a threat you idiot, that’s‍—”

Before a bullet or explanation came, the roachbot was gone.

At seeing more red static, Uzi groaned. “And we lost it again. I’m really growing to hate that visual effect.”

But with N’s audials dialed up to max sensitivity for guard duty, he caught a nearby crunch of snow, and snapped his head to check.

Another worker with purple hair!

N shot first, reticule aimed for the head. A 5mm round flew straight‍ ‍‍—‍ and then one orange eye flashed. The bullet’s path curved around her, carving into the snow behind the mysterious drone. Another cultist!?

Even after being shot at, even as four pairs of guns were trained on her, this drone stood calmly and finger‍-​waved. Her other hand held the roachbot. The hand closed with a crunch, destroying his little buddy, and she lifted and poured the wires and metal into her mouth.

The drone strolled forward from the ruins of buildings behind her, along the snowy path that lead to the spire.

J’s worker drone spoke with utter venom over a shortwave broadcast. «You are never beating the stalker accusations, Doll!»

«Better a stalker of murder drones than a pet of them.»

J laughed, and flipped one pigtail. «Don’t inflate your CV. This isn’t a hunt, it’s delivery,» the captain broadcasted, not encrypted for some reason.

“Yeah!” Uzi held out a fist for J to bump. The other drone regarded it skeptically, before giving it an experimental tap. (N noticed another tail wiggle.) «There’s three of us and one of you. I’m surprised‍ ‍‍—‍ did Lizzy not want to join you in girlbossing to an early grave?»

«Girlboss… yes, good choice of words.» The drone lifted a hand, and three of them tensed, each of them having seen worker hand reshape the world. But she simply snapped her hands. «Come now.»

That last transmission wasn’t for them.

He heard the movement first, snapping his head to look behind Doll. Uzi and J followed his gaze‍ ‍‍—‍ and J’s worker flinched, open‍-​mouthed with fear and surprise, but J just grinned hungrily.

And N prepared for the battle to come.