Chapter 22 - The Plot Thickens (part 1)

(Joseph)

Spring break ended, and another month slipped by as more lair construction continued. Vault 4 was fully complete and sat ready and waiting for any spare secret lair needs I may have, and Vault 6 was getting its final touches. Its access door was in Vault 4, and Vault 6 was much smaller than most of the other vaults. It was mostly a place to house a personal backup quantum PC and a personal emergency armory for myself. Of more important note than either of those, however, was the fact that I'd realized that hacking DDs in your bedroom like Uzi did in canon was, generally speaking, a dumb idea. And so Vault 7 had been conceptualized, designed, and then had the combined might of four drones in combat frames and a bunch of construction equipment work away at a place to house DDs we turn while they're hooked up to another Quantum PC so that Uzi Doorman could work her sick-as-hell techno-sorcery in peace and quiet when she cracked into the heads of genocide robots to jack their administrative privileges from an evil AI god. 4 drones instead of two was another doubling of the hands on… hand… for construction, and so after quite a bit of work, Vault 1's 2nd CF reactor was done and dusted as well. Oh yeah, and we finally got rid of any trace of flickering of the optics at all on the overclock programs. Completely undetectable from the outside now!

Beyond all that, in my efforts to check if I was gonna go to hell later and my existential dread at the fact that I'd somehow rizzed Lizzy and much worse existential dread at the slowly growing realization that yeah, I kinda liked her back , I'd done digging on what human law in the pre-Core Collapse world said about consent and the age thereof. As it would turn out, once humans got off of Earth, the issue of planets with different lengths of day and year and how that affected legal age actually became relevant. The simple and blunt solution they'd come up with was that, "We spent 2 million years evolving on Earth, we'll just convert local years to Earth years and then say that's your legal age." Basically, for legal purposes, how old you were based on your age in local years didn't matter. You converted your local years to Earth years and that was your legal age. So a planet that had a year that was twice as long as earth meant that a human who was 9 in local years would be biologically and legally 18, and therefore be an adult. After all, 18 years of time on Earth would have passed even if the planet they lived on had only gone around its local star 9 times since they were born. With Copper 9 years being ever so slightly longer than 1.51 Earth years, that meant that technically, being a little under 12 would make you legally an adult for the purpose of voting, age of consent, and getting an adult driver's license. Around 11.94 years old with Copper 9 having a year about 1.51 times an Earth year, to be exact. 

I'd still wait for that 12th Birthday though so that Liz'd be 18 in Earth years, and even then… I don't think I'd be comfortable doing anything sexual with Lizzy for years , if she did still want to proceed with a relationship after finding out I was a human dude now in his 30s stuck in a robot body. Hand holding? Okay. Maybe kissing if she didn't get disgusted by it (I had the sinking feeling from how well I knew her at this point that she'd be into the age difference), but that was that. I… was still… mostly human… I think ? Sometimes, I wondered. Was I still human? I was in a drone body. Assuming I survived the apocalypse, a day would come where I'd have more time spent as a drone than a human. Being theoretically immortal, the time I spent as a drone would only continue to eclipse my time as a meat-person, even if I retained the vast majority of my memories of my first life perfectly. 

At what point did I draw the line? Was there a point where it would be more accurate to call myself a Worker Drone than a human? How much of that human morality should I keep clinging to? This is probably like the 60th time the 4th Wall has watched me agonize over this by now, considering how often I thought about it when I had time to think to myself, especially in more recent days as the very likely possibility of Lizzy actually wanting to date me even after the Isekai reveal loomed closer. Drone morality was slowly but surely shifting from what had been aped from humans that were no longer present on the planet. The more time passed, the more I'd be clinging to an increasingly dated moral code for the society I now lived in. I was looking at a very real possibility that I could end up dating Lizzy… while she's dating Doll at the same time. And… I was starting to find that I didn't mind that? Like… this was their normal . They were built by humans. But they weren't humans. Trying to force human morality on them was wrong . 

But still… I wondered about who I was sometimes. If I was losing myself. And if I was… was that necessarily a bad thing? People were shaped by their experiences. I've been experiencing a lot these past few years. Honestly, considering how much effort I put into changing other people, I shouldn't have been this surprised at the prospect of myself changing as well… Was still gonna wait until Lizzy was legal in Earth years to actually attempt any kind of relationship, though. That was a line in the asbestos-snow that I wasn't willing to cross.

As a moderately funny aside to distract myself from all that existential dread, legal age being based on age in Earth years means that planets with shorter years than Earth need people to be older by the local metric to be an adult by Earth's metric. There was one planet listed as an example of a world with a shorter year, where you had to be 20.6 years old locally to be 18 on Earth. Kinda funny, actually.

I shook my head from my latest bout of introspective reminiscing I did for a 4th Wall that I would never know whether or not they were watching at any given moment, pushing aside my thoughts at how many nights I'd spent internally monologuing to myself when I didn't actually have an extradimensional audience to monologue to, and got back to running the last few checks on the hoverbike I was testing. I'd been using Thad's hover board to reverse engineer the whole thing without the built in police overrides or the ability for them to be hacked into in general, and this prototype looked like it would finally be a working template to improve on. 

A little funny story about that, actually: Conventional hovertech used magnets to bounce off the planet's magnetic field… but we were on a planet whose core was fucked by a partial collapse, which in turn meant it's magnetic field was fucked. Which meant that we'd only get a couple feet off the floor at most. Which was fine for hoverbikes, but I'd been hoping I could use hovertech for proper flight in the future. Uzi was actually the one to suggest a work-around: We had pilfered MD wings. Why not use the propulsion that they did, provided it was conventional tech, and then integrate it into the hoverbike propulsion? Turns out that their flight was conventional future science, which meant that we'd taken apart a pair of J's wings to finally build a proper propulsion system to manage powered flight for the future. And we also opened the door for future projects to be able to bake this stuff into ourselves , but that was a task for another day.

"You know," Uzi told me ask she checked over things herself, "I was talking with dad at dinner the other day," and I took a moment in overclock to appreciate one of the little things that I've made better in this timeline, "and he told me that after the last two things you suggested for improving the colony defenses and how Braxton nearly killed us all, he wanted to take an assessment of the entire bunker from the ground up. After you showed me the whole Pilot Episode, I suggested he look at the roofing on the uppermost levels, especially around evacuation points." I stopped what I was doing to grin at her, and she raised an eyemote as if daring me to speak.

"Look at you, Uzi Doorman," I drawled with a smile, "Causing your own positive alterations to the timeline!"

She shook her head, but was snickering. "Anyways, it turns out that there's a bunch of spots that could do with reinforcing, so the WDF is actually putting in the work for it. And you didn't hear this from me," she said with a conspiratory tone, "But I suggested to dad that Braxton get assigned to the largest section. Without any coffee."

I burst into laughter. "Ever the gremlin, aren't you?" I teased.

"I learned from the best."

"So I am your mentor-figure!"

"Oh do not start talking tropes with me, mister 'I literally made my username Isekai-Underscore-Protagonist!'"

"At least I was the first person to take that name," I fired back.

"Un-screw you!"

"What? No 'bite me?'"

"No, because you would just say I'd taste like angst!"

"Good, Uzi. You're learning ."

I got lightly punched in the shoulder, and we both started laughing. Godsdamnit, the fact that I could literally banter with Uzi-Freakin-Doorman like this was still surreal sometimes , I thought. I smiled to myself, and calmed down as I gave the hoverbike a final once over and… actually , I thought. "Hey Uzi? You wanna do the first test?"

"On a freakin hoverbike?" she asked me. "Hell yeah!"

We went through everything to turn it on, Uzi sat down on it, hit the ignition, and with a nearly inaudible whine (wouldn't do to announce to every Murder Drone in the sector when one of these things was on, after all), the hoverbike lifted off the floor, Uzi staring down at the fact that she was flying (technically hovering) with literal sparkles in her eyemotes.

"Having fun?" I asked as she floated a good 5 feet in the air.

"This is awesome !" she shouted, beaming from audial to audial.

"Glad to hear that," I told her, and then remarked, "We're gonna have to drill an appropriately sized tunnel from the vehicle bay to the surface later, and that's gonna take a lot of work to set up. Enough that we're gonna need more drones to do it, so vehicle use will probably have to wait until we have more people on hand to build and hide an exit tunnel for vehicles."

Uzi slowly set the hoverbike back down. "Yeah," she agreed. "But still--"

"Hoverbike?" I cut her off.

"Hoverbike!" she agreed, and we shared a fist-pump. She hopped off, turning around to check on the anti-grav tech on the bottom that let the thing float, and I noticed that she was still wearing the gag gift Penny had made her, that copy of her coat save for the words "Rizz 'Em With The 'Tism" emblazoned around the raven on the back. I started laughing, and she turned around. "What?"

"You're actually wearing that unironically?" I asked.

"Yeah, it's hilarious !" 

"Based," I told her.

We shared another fist-pump.

I heard a door open in the distance, and we both glanced towards it in time to see Darren and Rebecca get back from their walk on the surface. Literally. It was a sunny day, so the couple wanted to take a romantic walk. I didn't blame them. I also shipped them super hard by this point, so, yeah, I was doubly happy for the two.

"How's the hoverbike?" Darren called out as he and his girlfriend approached, hands still intertwined. 

"Works great, and no remote backdoors to hack anymore!" Uzi called out.

"Sick!" Rebecca said as they got closer. "When do we get one?"

"When the whole group is on board and we have the dronepower on hand to drill a secret tunnel to the surface that's wide enough for multiple vehicles to come and go," I said.

Rebecca slumped. "So like, another year?"

"Pretty much," I said, "But we can test them out. Flight is flight," I argued.

"Okay, that's worth waiting," Darren said, and then he paused, visibly thinking about something. Literally, his visor was displaying [Coming to unrelated realization] in neon green. "Hey, if Uzi made those laser ultraviolet so they'd be purple, wouldn't they also be even more effective against Murder Drones… because, you know… ultraviolet? And also, lasers, so there's nothing to actually catch with the Solver either."

Uzi and I looked at each other. We blinked a few times. We looked at Darren. He looked back at us, and then started to grin, because he realized that we hadn't thought of that. "Whelp," I remarked aloud, "I feel like an idiot."

Uzi started cackling like the gremlin she was. "Ha!" she exclaimed, "Even when I'm only trying to make my guns more cool, I still make them objectively better!"

"Okay, Hot Topic," Rebecca said with a grin.

"Bite me! And not literally!"

I started laughing, and earned a playful punch to the shoulder for it.

"You know," Darren remarked, "While I'm on the subject of things I haven't let sink in yet, it's also kinda cool but also weird that we can survive decapitation as long as someone drags the black-boxes you made back and either plugs them into a new body or fixes the old one."

"We're fighting Robot Cthulhu Satan," I told him, "Of course I would find a way to cheat death! Or at least make it really hard to actually die."

"So," Rebecca asked, "While we're on weird things to talk about, can you tell us what you're planning with the MD parts we've been stealing?"

Uzi rolled her optics, and then shut them off and said, "I muted my audials, Solver won't learn about whatever you say to them if they possess me. Just tap my shoulder when you're done."

I was a second from thanking Uzi, before I realized she wouldn't hear that, and sent it via DM instead. I got a thumbs-up emoji in response, and then said, "V's stinger is non-interactive. I'd need either Uzi's Solver to go active or to get Doll on board, but I wanna test to see if I can make a suit of armor with MD parts."

Rebecca's optics widened, "Because that wouldn't be interactive!"

"Exactly!" I told her.

"Dude, that's game-changing ," Darren told me.

"Yep!" I agreed. "I wanna find out if I can melt them down to cast them into proper armor, or if that removes their non-interactability," I explained. "And if I can smelt them, can I alloy them with CrCoNi? And if so, how much can I do that while still being Solver-Proof?"

"Wouldn't they like… burn in the light of day, though?" Rebecca asked

I facepalmed. The clang of the impact echoed across Vault 1. Rebecca started laughing. Darren joined her. "Dude, did that not occur to you, Mister Paranoia?!?" he asked.

" Vaffonculo! " I shouted at myself, and they both laughed harder. "Gods, I feel like an idiot !" I was pacing back and forth. "That is so freaking important man! How did I miss that ?!?"

"Well, now you gotta make a regular suit of armor for other stuff for everyone too," Darren told me.

I sighed, and stopped internally berating myself. "Yeah, I'll add it to the to-do list," I muttered, and then tapped Uzi on the shoulder. Her eye-lights came back on, and she blinked a few times to calibrate them.

"What'd I miss, sans spoilers, obviously?"

"Joe missed important things, and got totes pissed at himself for it," Rebecca said. I rolled my optics at her, but didn't comment.

"Damn, I'm annoyed I missed it," Uzi muttered.

"Unless you have some amazing idea to share?" I asked her.

"I do!" Uzi said, and then laughed as my shoulders slumped. "If the MDs could make their spit neutralize nanite acid… even though it's really gross, maybe we should do the same? So we always have some on hand? I mean, we can already synthesize it, we'd just have to modify our synthetic salivary glands to do the same."

"Gross," I remarked, "But very practical. I might be able to get this done in a month or so," I said, completely honest because the hard part had been replicating it, with the harder part that we were still working on creating outright regenerative nanites. Instead, just modifying ourselves to produce the neutralizing agents in our spit should be relatively easy. Especially since I still had two spare sets of Murder Drone mouths that I could pull the designs directly from for the purpose of reverse engineering. "We might need some dietary supplements to take though. I'll look into it and figure it out."

"Also," Uzi trailed off. "I… I was looking at some of the clips of canon you showed me… V is shorter than N… she's taller here." I blinked. Once. Twice. Three times. I overclocked. I checked my memories. From my first life. Compared them to my second. And Uzi was right . And I didn't notice that myself. I stumbled over to a bench and leaned against it, Uzi stepping closer and Darren and Rebecca doing the same as they looked on in concern.

"We… we might be in some kind of AU," I said in a voice that sounded distant to myself. I felt… detached… I think I was having a bad Isekai Spiral. I leaned harder on the bench. V's height compared to N seemed like such an innocuous difference. But if that changed, what else changed? Even though breathing was pointless for me, I was starting to breath faster and faster. What if Cyn's Eldritch Horror factor was dialed up to 11? What if there were an army of robo-cidal humans out in Space looking to kill us all? What if this was like some kinda variant of the Something Twisted Timeline, and the DDs were actually sent by Earth and there was a galactic scale human political polity that wanted nothing more than to enslave us in the name of profit? I went in and double checked all my memories of canon in overclock. Over three hours of footage sped through in the span of about four seconds in real time, and I realized another major discrepancy: "Kelsey is supposed to be a year or two older than us," I mumbled, the sound of my voice still distant to my perception. My arms buckled on their grip on the bench, and someone caught me, but I was breathing too fast and I didn't have lungs, and--

I felt an impact as my head twisted from it, but the haze was coming back over my senses. A second slap. Then a third, from a different angle, on the back of my head. That snapped me back to focus just enough to catch, "--can't just slap him in the back of the head too, Becca!"

"I… I…" I mumbled. I think I was dissociating. I felt… weirdly detached from myself. Had I been experiencing dysmorphia again for a second there? It'd been years since I thought I'd finally repressed all that.

"Hey," I blinked a few times and tried to focus. Someone was snapping their fingers in front of me. I think it was Uzi. "Joe, come on, focus on me, and uh, Rebecca! How do I people?!?" That was Uzi.

"Hey, Joe," Rebecca, I was pretty sure it was Rebecca, said in a firm voice. "I want you to focus on me talking, okay? Like, just my voice. Only my voice. Not whatever you're thinking about. What are 5 things you can see?"

I blinked, confused, but focused, and mumbled, "You… and Darren… and Uzi… and the hoverbike… there's… there's a bench behind me, right?"

"Great, great," Rebecca said, and there was a crack to her voice that made me feel bad, because I think I was making her panic.

"Hey, what are four things you can hear?" I heard… Darren, definitely Darren, ask me. I think my completely unnecessary breathing was slowing down. 

"I…" I swallowed, and my throat felt dry-- too dry --I forced the thought down, "I can hear your voice, and Rebecca's, and Uzi's… and myself…"

"Cool!" Rebecca said, seemingly having recovered a little, and I focused on her and saw half hollow optics as she clutched Darren's hand in a death-grip. I slowly turned my head as my breathing-- why was I still doing that? I didn't need to --kept slowing down, and my thoughts started to get more coherent. "Hey, how did you notice that V was taller?" Rebecca directed to Uzi… who was holding me. Not that a fall would have even hurt in the combat frame, but I appreciated the gesture. I shifted in her grip, and she helped me into a sitting position, pointedly ignoring Rebecca as she kept a suspiciously straight face. "Oh my robo-god, you totes were crushing so hard that you paid that much attention to their heights and proportions!" She accused Uzi.

The gremlin herself made a strangled noise in her throat, and then shot back, "Well this is actually important, because now we know there's some kinda timeline frickery going on, and at least unlike Lizzy , I'm actually doing something about my crushes!" She paused for a beat, and then added, "And also bite me!"

"When and where, Hot Topic?" Rebecca shot back.

I started to snicker, and suddenly it felt like I clicked back into myself, and then I was laughing, and then the laughing became ugly sobbing, and then I was being hugged by three other drones, and I was hugging them back, and just thanking them over and over and over for being my friends and fucking caring about some random human fuck-up of a ghost in the shell, and, and…

"Hey," Uzi told me, "You might be a dumbass of an Isekai Protagonist, but you're our dumbass Isekai Protagonist, and if there's anyone in the multiverse that I'd have to pick to make us a guide on how to survive Murder Drones, it'd be you ," she said.

"Yeah," Darren said. "You're an idiot, but you're our idiot. You looked out for us, so let us look out for you, man! And who cares that there's some timeline fuckery going on? You've gotten this far by half winging things, you'll just overclock and make a new plan for whatever's coming up that might be different anyways!"

"We totes got your back, Joe," Rebecca told me.

I laughed a couple times, a couple half broken chuckles that just needed to come out… then I thought back to what Uzi said. "'A Dumbass Isekai Protagonist's Guide To Surviving Murder Drones'… now that's a fuckin' Title Card, right there."

Everyone else burst into laughter, and I joined them. Yeah… the timeline might be fucked. There might be way more differences from what I knew… but I had half-winged things thus far. I'd like to think I've done a pretty damn good job of things. And Darren was right. We couldn't change the past, all we could do was double down on the paranoia to be better prepared for the future. I was gonna get these kids through the End Times, and kill myself a god in the process. I was a fucking gamer. I didn't call it quits when the difficulty spiked. I just tried harder… or in this case, cheated harder as well, because fuck playing fair with this shit! Watch out, Solver. I had a godsdamned galaxy to save, and you were in my way .

_______________

(Rebecca)

My 11th birthday had come and gone, but that was a footnote compared to the world-shattering revelations my desire for gossip and answers had brought me. I'd been on the surface. With Darren. I'd been training with guns. Uzi was teaching us how to use them. Joe has made us melee weapons and was helping us practice with them. I learned who Joseph really was. What we were really facing. I had a new body that could actually throw hands with Murder Drones. I was gearing up to pay that bitch … V… back for what she did to my parents. For all of the parents we've lost to her. And it was still just… surreal sometimes.

Yet despite all that, I still felt really damn smug really damn often. Because I had the absolute-- like, no pun intended --best piece of gossip ever , and Liz didn't know it herself. One of her crushes was secretly (by this point) a 30 year old human from the other side of the 4th Wall , somehow crammed into a drone, and she didn't know it, I knew it, and she did know I knew Joe's secret. That had been a fun school morning for me, and even more fun to recall later. I let the playback from the day after Joe'd brought me into the fold run in overclock.

___________

I'd walked into the room with Darren, Lizzy and Doll already sitting next to each other. I'd bet a week's supply of Sam's magnets (not that I touch them myself) that they'd walked to school holding hands, and Doll still didn't realize how down bad Lizzy was for her. And given the revelations Joe had dropped on Dare and I, I was starting to really think that it would take actual Mechromancy on her mom for that girl to realize she felt romantic attraction, and that Liz was into her. Still, not my immediate problem, and much more relevant, I finally had something to dangle over the school's Machiavellian Queen Bee, and I was gonna have fun doing just that.

"Hey Liz!" I called out as I sauntered up to them. I definitely didn't put a little bit of extra sway into my hips for Darren.

"Becca!" she called back. "Wassup, girl?"

My grin got positively predatory. "I know something you don't knoooow~~," I sing-songed.

She looked at me, curiosity piqued, but also slightly nervous because I didn't take this attitude with her often. "What'd you learn? Sam find some new kinda magnets? Braidon somehow lit his head on fire?"

I had to use that overclock program Joe gave Darren and I to avoid bursting into laughter at that, and when I sorted out my instinctive reaction, I leaned in and whispered, "I found out Joe's secrets ."

I felt hands latch onto my shoulder, and then pink optics were right in front of me as Lizzy plonked her visor right up to mine. "We're besties , right Rebecca?" Lizzy asked me, tone sweet and desperate in equal measure. "Can you tell me? Pretty pleeeeeease ?"

I had almost felt guilty when I replied to her. But I'd told Joe I'd keep my mouth shut until Lizzy either figured it out on her own, or she was 12 and Joe told her. So I grinned right back at her, all teeth, and said, "Sorry, Lizzy, it's totes not my gossip to give."

" Pleeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaase !" Lizzy whined.

" Liz ," Doll chidded. " Just wait another year ."

"B-b-but she knoooooooooooows !" Lizzy protested.

"I know too," Darren added. Lizzy snapped her gaze over to him, looking hopeful, only for him to crush them in a way that was honestly kinda hot , "Sorry Liz, you gotta figure it out yourself, or wait."

Lizzy screamed out "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" while tugging on the pink ribbons trailing from her bow, and I started giggling because being able to tease her like this was hilarious , and I didn't get to do it that often. Doll gave her a hug, and Lizzy melted into it, somehow simultaneously relieved and more dejected.

"Is it… something actually really big?" Doll asked.

I used an overclock again, taking a moment to marvel at my perception of time slowing to a crawl, and then opened up the Totally Not Paranoid Apocalypse Preparation Thread and sent a message to Joe.

TotesBestGirl: Hey Joe, how much can I tease Lizzy about what I know? She wants to know how big your secret is.

Isekai_Protagonist: You can tell her it's HUGE, but not much more than that.

Seeing an opportunity to finally pay him back for something from years ago, I shot back my revenge with a simple thought-to-text.

TotesBestGirl: Phrasing.

DarrenToDream: LMAO Becca!

Darkxwolf16: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Isekai_Protagonist: Really?

DarrenToDream: Yo she got you back from when we were SEVEN lol!!!

Isekai_Protagonist: You know, I'd feel a lot more embarrassed about this… or embarrassed in general if I HADN'T had 3 years to get used to not having a penis anymore.

DarrenToDream: You're just trying to cope for the shame.

Isekai_Protagonist: Well, at least since I HAD one, that means I was still bigger than the one you DON'T have, Darren.

Darkxwolf16: STOP!

Darkxwolf16: OMFRG!!!

Darkxwolf16: I'm stuck in overclock because I'll just collapse wheezing in the hall otherwise!

Darkxwolf16: LMAO!!!

You know, I should have expected Joe to somehow turn that around on me, but out of all the things, claiming technicality on having a bigger dick than Darren wasn't on the list of comebacks I'd considered.

TotesBestGirl: You REALLY suck sometimes. 

Isekai_Protagonist: Thanks. It takes EFFORT to be an asshole of my caliber.

I left the chat, knowing when I was beat. "Yeah, it's a pretty damn big secret, Liz. Either you figure it out, or he'll tell you when everyone's 12. Just…" And I took pity on her for a moment, "Relax. I'm like, 90% sure he likes you back, but just isn't ready to commit to a relationship until everything is on the table."

I did not miss the ever so slight frown of confusion instead of actual frustration on Doll's face that I only caught because overclocks really were cheating at life, and filed that little tidbit away for later, and then Lizzy said, "Really?" while glancing at me with hope in her eyemotes.

"Girl, yes, I'm sure, just as I'm sure you're down bad …" I jerked my head just the smallest amount towards Doll, and Liz lit up like a neon pink electronic billboard as I laughed.

__________

I came back out of my reminiscing with a slight smirk on my face. Robo-god, that was a funny memory to replay. We were all at the parkour course that the guys (and Uzi) had set up a while back. I was still kinda getting used to all this increased strength, and so was Darren, so we were sitting outside the sparring ring of our little impromptu training hall down in the lower levels. And it was that now. Joe had roped those of us in the know into slipping out some stuff to set up a sparring ring to practice martial arts stuff and reflexes now. Literally throwing bare hands with a Murder-- I internally cringed, Disassembly Drone was tantamount to suicide, but even being able to last a few seconds could be the few seconds needed to get a friend to bail you out of that kinda death sentence. I took a moment in overclock to mull things over, and then resolved to follow Joe's lead in how I referred to them: use the politically correct term to refer to them after they get turned, and keep calling the genocide robots Murder Drones until that point… especially V. I was looking forwards to putting a lasbolt or three through the processors of the bitch who still made me terrified of balloon animals to this day.

Kelsey and Penny were currently in the middle of the impromptu ring we'd set up next to the parkour course, and I idly watched as they practiced all the martial arts they'd downloaded since Joe had used Doll's Solver waking up as an excuse to get everyone training for the apocalypse. Manipulative as hell from him, but it was totes for a good cause, and he'd never really abused any of the ways he's changed us besides trying to weed out negative character traits… and, despite everything, and how that rubbed me kinda the wrong way… I didn't blame him for that. He wanted to keep us all alive, and that panic attack from earlier showed that he was constantly stressed to the breaking point by trying to do so, always one smile or a missed overclock or two from breaking down as it all weighed down on him. He felt guilty. I knew him well enough by now to know he felt really guilty, all the time. And I think that was what made me trust him despite it all. Because he did it and still felt bad , so I didn't think that he'd like, ever do it for a selfish reason. It was all really Socratic and Machiavellian of him, but that was actually kinda cool to see how he'd changed us all over the years, especially when I could compare it to how we would have turned out otherwise. Was this like, literal Stockholm Syndrome he did to us? Maybe… but I had Darren, and the thought of myself turning out a skank who would literally ask a Murder Drone whether or not he killed my friend's family and then follow up with "Are you single?" actually made me feel nauseous.

Anyways, Kelsey threw a jab that Penny ducked from her left hand, and then bat aside a swing from Penny that attempted to counter her. Penny tried to leg-sweep Kelsey, who then leapt over the attempt, flipped, and threw both legs out into Penny's chest, sending her stumbling back. Kelsey landed on her feet, darting forwards and keeping Penny on the backfoot, though the less-violence inclined girl wasn't giving any further ground as they kept trying to get past the other's guard. Penny deflected a kick, ducked under a right hook, and then threw a jab at Kelsey's face, right under her guard. The impact didn't really bother her, but it knocked her glasses right off. I winced as I saw Kelsey's optics hollow before she tried squinting, but the advantage she held evaporated in an instant once her vision was shot, and Penny had her pinned seconds later. 

As soon as Kelsey tapped out, Penny was immediately off her and going to grab her glasses for the other girl, apologizing even as Kelsey waved it off but held a frown as she realized she'd have a glaring weakness for whenever she went topside in the future. If only there was some kinda way to build her glasses into her viso-- I blinked a few times myself, and had to overclock to resist the urge to facepalm. That new pattern recognition Uzi had taken from Joe's processors (with his permission) and then passed to us later had been leading to me making a lot more connections between things than I used to. And I could also crack CAPTCHAs without issue now. But regardless of that, I looked over to Joe, where he was trailing under Lizzy while she did parkour on the hard section in case he had to catch her if she fell-- he'd claim paranoia and would be completely right, but he's totes into her by now , I thought --and sent him a message on the TNPAPT .

TotesBestGirl: Hey >Joe?

Without turning around from where he hovered under Lizzy, he replied.

Isekai_Protagonist: Wassup?

TotesBestGirl: Can you like, bake corrective lenses into the visor of Kelsey's combat frame? So she has the glasses built INTO her face? 

Isekai_Protagonist: I was actually already thinking of doing that, lol. But thanks for asking anyway.

TotesBestGirl: Oh. Well, I just wanted to like, look out for my friends.

TotesBestGirl: And I saw Kelsey sparring with Penny just now and she was winning up until Penny knocked her glasses off and then she lost in seconds, so like…

Isekai_Protagonist: Nah, it was a great idea, and it's better to run them by me even if I already thought of them than think I did and it turns out I didn't. Glad you asked, Rebecca.

TotesBestGirl: Aight. Thanks, Joe.

Isekai_Protagonist: NP

Lizzy finished her section of the course while we messaged, and I looked over to see her use a grappling hook Joe had fabricated (we all had one now) to rappel down safely from the ceiling. She had a smug smile on her face as she bragged to (one of) her crush(es) that she didn't need his help watching her and that she learned from her last mistake and was totally gonna be a badass now, and Joe just gave her a deadpan and very sarcastically agreed with her, and I was just smiling as they bantered as actual friends , even if Lizzy was constantly fighting to keep a blush off her visor. I was happy for them. I didn't really get Joe's hangups besides him being a former meat-bag meaning that he had culturally ingrained issues with significant age gaps, but I hoped he'd be able to get past it with minimal discomfort. I wanted to be able to relentlessly tease the Shipping Mastermind later, damnit. Guy thought he could get me and Dare together, and Emily and Trevor, and wingman Uzi for her bagging two DDs on top of that? I was gonna be relentless once he started dating! Especially if Doll finally got past her own trauma and realized she liked them both!

Speaking of Trevor and Emily, they were a bit further back on the parkour course, Trevor helping Emily get a better hang of her grappling hook. They were like, sickeningly adorable together, but like, in a good way. I watched as he animatedly talked to her about a section she was looking at, zooming in my optics (Joe really went overboard on all the upgrades) to see Emily's confidence grow in real time as Trevor went through how he'd do it to her, and then I saw Emily narrow her eyemotes in determination as she crouched, and then sprinted forwards. She did a quick wall run, leapt off it, swung from a hanging bar, dove through a gap, tucking into a roll as she landed, springing up and firing her grappling hook to swing across a pit, slid under a bar, vaulted a barrier, ran up a wall and hauled herself to the top, and then jumped across three quick gaps to come to a stop at a bit of flat space that served as a checkpoint. The girl whirled around, rosary bouncing from the speed she did so, glancing over at Trevor with a massive grin on her face, and he grinned back at her, and they both blushed. I… I was starting to understand why Joe shipped them both so hard. I mean, I shipped it too at this point, but damn , they were adorable together.

I tuned out of what was going on over there and listened to my boyfriend chatting with Thad. "I'm just saying, dude," Thad was going on, "whatever the heck Joe modded you guys with is just busted . Just, completely unfair in a spar, you know?"

"I mean," Darren shot back, "We're literally throwing hands with Murder Drones… or, well, Uzi and Joe are. We'll be headed out with them soon though," he corrected. "But we kinda need to be overturned to keep up with them, you know?"

I had to stifle a laugh because the upgrades we had were less mods and more an entirely new frame built from the ground up and Thad was literally told that, but was still calling them mods. My mood sobered at the next words out of Thad's vocalizer though. "You guys are gonna do your best to stay safe out there, right? Because… this is dangerous , you two."

"We'll be careful, Thad," I told him. "But thanks for, like, caring."

"We'll stay safe man," Darren told Thad. "I'm like, way more situationally aware now! Like how Uzi's sneaking up behind me to try and scare me right now."

The three of us looked over, and Dare was right, Uzi had been creeping up behind him with a literal airhorn in her hand, and upon being noticed, just slumped and pouted. "Oh fine, I'll go back to helping cuz train her Solver. Ruin all my fun, why don't you," she groused. I started giggling as she slinked away, before she stopped, turned back around, and added, "We are being careful, Thad. But this was never gonna be without risk, dude."

Thad sighed. "I know. I just… I'm worried about everyone, you know?"

"Yeah, I--"

There was a snap-crackle over from where Doll was, and everyone whirled around to see the girl staring at a point a few feet ahead of her, blinking dumbfoundedly. " Joe ?" She called out, nervous. " I think I vaporized a knife !"

Joe, who'd been walking back at a sedate pace with Lizzy, suddenly started to jog over, Lizzy startling for a second before she chased after him. Trevor and Emily used their grappling hooks to make their way over fast, Kelsey and Penny trailed over, and within a few seconds, the whole group was gathered up. And, in his typical manner, the first thing out of Joe's mouth was, "Can you do it again?"

Uzi started cracking up. Lizzy gave him a deadpan " Really " sorta look, several other people shook their heads and grinned, but Doll complied and did it with a second knife. " I lost some oil, but I was trying to pair a [SCALE] with a [TRANSLATE] and then that happened. "

Joe put a hand to his chin, looking like he was in deep thought. I was starting to get used to his real antics by now though, so I overclocked just as the TNPAPT pinged.

Isekai_Protagonist: I think she just stumbled onto Solver Hammerspace storage.

Darkxwolf16: She LITERALLY has a video game inventory?!?

DarrenToDream: Won't YOU get one too?

Darkxwolf16: Oh. OH, THAT'S AWESOME!!!

TotesBestGirl: lol

TotesBestGirl: But how do we break that to her?

Isekai_Protagonist: She just gave it to us.

Darkxwolf16: [SCALE] + [TRANSLATE]

Isekai_Protagonist: Change size and move things.

Isekai_Protagonist: AKA, "shove them into a pocket dimension."

Darkxwolf16: Can I pretend to come up with the explanation this time?

DarrenToDream: Really Uzi?

TotesBestGirl: LMAO

Darkxwolf16: Bite me!

Isekai_Protagonist: I'm suppressing a hardy laugh RN. But sure, you got the floor, Uzi.

I used a poker-face gif Joe passed on to avoid visibly rolling my eyemotes, and watched as Uzi "spoke up," as if she figured it out before Joe, and we weren't all blatantly profiting off his 4th Wall metaknowledge… Okay, I could totes see why they had so much fun doing this, it was actually hilarious . "Hey cuz," Uzi said. "Since it was a [SCALE] and [TRANSLATE], maybe you literally stored them in a pocket dimension or something? Do you have a new inventory or something like that in your storage?"

Doll gave Uzi a disbelieving look, staring at her with incredulity in her optics, saying, " Cuz, there's no way it's that easy, that I'm just gonna go into my files and-- oh my robo-god, there actually is a file literally labelled 'inventory' now, " she finished, going slack jawed. The four of us in the know started cracking up, and the rest of the group followed. Doll concentrated for a few seconds, and then both knives snapped back into reality. She blinked a few times, stupified, and then muttered, " Cyka Blyat, I literally have a video-game inventory now. " She reached into her coat and pulled out an oil thermos, taking a long draught from it, running her tongue on her fangs for a few seconds, and then shot a deadpan at Lizzy. " Liz, you need to cut back on the antifreeze, I can taste how your oil is different from everyone else's, it's that sweet ."

Uzi started cackling with laughter, while Lizzy blushed with mortification instead of embarrassment for once, the blonde stuttering out, "S-s-s-shut up, Hot Topic! It's not funny!"

"Nope, but your reaction is!" Joe called out, before he started laughing as well, and the rest of us joined in on the mirth a second later. 

Doll grinned at her bestie's embarrassment, before she put the thermos away, and then concentrated with a determined look on her face. Six knives whirled out to fan behind her, the lot of them held by her Solver, and then we all started to back off to give her room. Seconds later, she started twisting as he practiced swinging them about her, almost like Penny Polendina from RWBY, before grabbing two of them with her hands and practicing several jabs and slashes, going through knifework tutorials Joe had shamelessly ripped from the internet archives to pass onto her. She went through a few swings, feinted left at an imaginary foe in front of her, and then there was a static crackle and snap of displaced air as she glitched out of reality and reappeared facing the opposite direction, coming up and driving her knives into the back of the opponent in her mind. She flung four of the knives forwards, concentrating, and then the knives teleported and shot out from a different direction than their initial approach. She stopped them before they could get too far, and then brought them all back to herself with a gesture, panting as literal steam wafted out of her mouth, and then concentrated for another moment before the blades all crackled out of existence in a burst of red static. She let out a noticeably larger cloud of steam from her mouth after that, and semi-clumsily fished in her coat for her oil thermos, downing the rest of it in one shot before sighing. Doll stood up straight, and stretched for a moment, the movement leaving Liz a blushing mess, and then looked down at her hands for a moment. " It keeps getting easier to do more for less oil the more I practice. I… I know I said that before, " she said aloud, " But I wouldn't have been able to do half of that in one attempt two months ago ."

Joe walked forward and clapped a hand onto her shoulder, which briefly startled the Russian drone before she glanced over at Joe and smiled at him. "You're doing great, Dolly," he complimented.

She grinned wider, fangs visible. " Thanks, Joseph, " she replied. 

Lizzy ran up and started to gush about how cool that was a moment later, Joe stepping back to let Lizzy hug her other crush as he shook his head and grinned. He'd gone and showed he wasn't completely a dense Isekai Protagonist by knowing about Lizzy's crush and eventually addressing it (and wasn't that some amazing gossip to learn, even if I wasn't gonna use it against Lizzy), and given that Doll herself didn't realize things, I'd give him a pass on not realizing that she was into the both of them as well, but I really was starting to wonder just how fast it would be after Doll realized her own feeling that Joe would realize things himself. And how he'd react to it. I still wasn't sure if monogamy was another one of those former human hangups he had or not, but I was gonna be mad at him if he broke Doll's core over something that stupid. I was fine with just Darren, but if we both found someone else I wouldn't mind. I knew Kelsey was monogamous, and Trevor and Emily definitely were as well, but like… I really hoped Joe wasn't an idiot here. Those two girls were totes into Joe, and he was into at least one himself even if he insisted on waiting another year, though I was pretty sure he wouldn't drop the ball here. As I watched, Doll wiggled out of the hug and started talking to Joe about some ideas she had, grinning wide the whole while, and Joe smiled back as well. And I got the sudden feeling that our resident Dumbass Isekai Protagonist would bumble his way through this just fine.

But just in case, I thought, he got me and Dare to finally admit things to each other. If he starts blowing things, I'll be more than happy to return the favor and see how he likes it.

I kept the smug grin off my face via overclock, and privately agreed once more with Joe's assessment: Overclocks really were cheating at life .

_________

(Aly)

"Ooooooooooh!" I said, grabbing another decades old record cover in the music store. "Frankie! Look! The cover for this one looks soooooooo cool! The zombie soldier and the tattered flag go really well together! I wanna draw it myself! Do you think it would look nice? Would you hang it up in your room?" I ran up to him and held the record right in front of his face, resisting the urge to bounce in place.

My bestie, better than the resties-- definitely not my only friend who I may or may not have a crush on and am also constantly terrified doesn't actually like me at all and only tolerates me because no one else likes him , I thought --flinched back for a moment at the sudden approach of the record cover, and I managed to mostly repress a flinch at the thought that I might've made him upset, before he lifted his sunglasses up and his red optics looked the cover up and down. "Iron Maiden's The Trooper ?" He lowered them and gave an appreciative nod. "Yeah, that's a great band, a great album, and a great song. You drew that yourself, I'd definitely put it in my room."

I gently set the album cover down and cried out, "Yaaaaaaay!" as I gave him a hug. He stiffened for a moment, before patting a hand on my jacket-covered shoulder a few times. I clung to him tighter. It wasn't even (just) a crush thing, I'd always been clingy. I liked hugs and cuddling, dangit! I let go a few seconds later and stepped back, beaming, going to put the record in my own backpack. I was gonna make Frankie the best art! The record went right next to the other nine I'd picked out and planned to draw my own renditions of their covers later. I adjusted Frankie's jacket on my shoulders, briefly glancing behind myself to make sure he wasn't looking before I snuggled into it a bit more. He'd… he'd never asked for it back, so I always took that as a sign that he liked having me around, and wasn't gonna leave me behind like anyone else I tried to befriend as a kid. Frankie had always stayed where everyone else left. He was always there. Always willing to put up with me. He was my friend. My bestie. Who I liked. As more than a bestie. I'd tell him! One day… maybe… 

Frankie suddenly stiffened. "Ah, crap," he muttered. "I let you distract me with finding records you wanted me to draw. We need to head out now if we wanna reach the apartment before dark."

I frowned, feeling horrifically guilty, but I pushed that down and instead asked, "Couldn't we just stay here?"

"Don't wanna risk it," Frankie said. "The really crazy Murder Drone was a bit to the north last night. She might pass by here tonight. Better to just not be in the area."

I was a bit confused, because I didn't really pay much attention to the Murder Drones besides "They'd definitely kill you, so don't be seen by them," but Frankie seemed to know what he was doing, so I'd trust him. "I'll pack my stuff!" I told him, giving him a grin that was only a little fragile as I rushed to do that and heard him doing it behind me.

Five minutes later, we were race-walking through the snowy ruins (probably didn't help that I'd wasted 20 minutes earlier today making snow angels), and glanced at the sky to see that the sun was starting to set, which was bad because I was pretty sure Murder Drones were nocturnal, so being outside when it was dark was a bad idea . I frowned as we kept going, and I grabbed onto Frankie's arm and clung to him as the light kept dwindling, but we were making good time. Still, as we kept going, I could see Frankie get more and more nervous as we kept going and the light of day kept dimming. He cast furtive glances around, and while I couldn't hear what he was saying, he'd mouth something to himself every now and then.

And all of the sudden, it got a lot darker, and we both froze and glanced at where the sun was, only to see that clouds had rolled in to block it, and there were a lot of said clouds. I whimpered, and clung to Frankie's arm even tighter. That snapped him back to his senses, apparently. "Aly," he whispered. "We need to run . Okay?"

I glanced up at him, red optics meeting my own red gaze (that I totally hadn't accidentally changed when I was younger and still hadn't figured out how to swap back), and forced myself to let go of his arm as I nodded, clinging to myself to wrap his jacket around me. He started sprinting, and I shook my head to shake off how him taking charge made me feel all tingly inside, and started to sprint after him. I tripped after two blocks, and he had to waste precious time on me helping me back to my feet before we started to sprint again. I think we were maybe five or ten minutes away from Frankie's little secret apartment now, when he glanced around at the skies again, and then skidded to a halt. He grabbed me before I could crash into him, and suddenly looked around at the street, locking his gaze to a car sitting in the road, and started to drag me over to it. I forced down how him manhandling me was kinda hot , and asked, "Frankie--"

"Shhhhhh! I saw a flash of yellow on the horizon. Hide under the car with me, and keep quiet ," he hissed. Scared out of my feelings again, I mutely nodded, and crept under the car with him, the both of us shimmying ourselves as far under it as we could, and I clung to him solely to minimize our profiles and for no other reasons at all. Clinging to his arms was definitely down to fear and me being clingy in general, though.

I heard some kinda whistling through the air, and then seconds later, there was a bang right above us as something landed on the car right on top of us . I was so terrified I couldn't even squeak in fear, which honestly might have saved our lives right there and then.

Frankostein: Aly.

Frankostein: STAY QUIET

Frankostein: NO NOISE

Frankostein: THERE IS A MURDER DRONE *ON TOP OF THE CAR*

I clenched onto his hand as tight as I could, and silently buried my face into his chest. I was trying really hard to stay quiet and not scream in terror, because that would kill us both . Oh robo-god I was so stupid . Why did I think going with Frankie was a good idea? I thought. I'm just some dumb crummy artist and now we're both gonna die and--

Frankostein: Just stay quiet Aly. 

Frankostein: It doesn't know we're here yet.

Frankostein: It would've killed us otherwise.

Frankostein: We're gonna be okay.

Frankostein: Okay?

I lifted my head just enough to look him in the eyemotes, and he was giving a terrified smile, but still smiling, just for me. My core fluttered, and I gave a hesitant smile back at him, before finally DM'ing him back.

ThatOneWanderingArtist: Okay, Frankie.

The Murder Drone was giggling overhead. It sounded feminine. I could hear some kind of metal tapping on the car. Talons, maybe? I wanted to hit myself for not paying attention to what kind of stuff the Murder Drones used to kill us. The giggling continued. I slowly, carefully , twisted, and cranned my body and neck as far as I could, timing my movements to the giggles overhead. That's how stealth in games worked, right? You made noise while the other thing was making noise to mask the sound. 

I glanced at the street past us, and came to a realization that made my oil run cold. I could see one of my footprints from this angle. Just barely. Which meant… uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh… I thought for a second, because I knew that was bad from some movie I watched with Frankie one time-- It could see them too , I thought, and I sent a DM to Frankie.

ThatOneWanderingArtist: Frankie. Our footprints are still there.

Frankostein: Crap.

Frankostein: Okay.

Frankostein: Aly.

Frankostein: I need you to PROMISE me something, okay?

Frankie froze completely still for a second, and I kinda regretted turning to see the footprints because I couldn't see him, but I could just barely hear his cooling fans stutter for a moment.

ThatOneWanderingArtist: Yeah?

Frankostein: I'm gonna count to ten, and I'm gonna go out and distract it. You're gonna run in the other direction, and find a building to hide in. Stay in there until the morning. And then go back to Outpost 4. Okay?

ThatOneWanderingArtist: Frankie? You're scaring me…

Frankostein: PROMISE ME, Aly.

Frankostein: please

I… I knew I wasn't fast on the uptake sometimes… but I knew what he was planning. I… I didn't wanna have him die to try and save me. I didn't… I didn't wanna be alone again. I agonized over the decision for a few seconds we didn't have , and just as I was starting to force down sobs as my vision blurred from digital tears--

There was another whistling overhead. The giggling stopped, and the car creaked above us as the Murder Drone on top of it shifted its weight to… do something. Glance up maybe. The whistling faded and then got louder, and I suddenly realized that it was another Murder Drone circling overhead. We were both gonna die , I thought. It called a friend, and now I got us both killed. 

ThatOneWanderingArtist: I'm sorry Frankie.

ThatOneWanderingArtist: I'm sorry.

ThatOneWanderingArtist: I'm sorry.

ThatOneWanderingArtist: I'm sorry.

ThatOneWanderingArtist: I'm sorry.

ThatOneWanderingArtist: I'm sorry. 

The whistling got louder, and I stopped caring, using the noise to shift around because I wanted to hug him one last time before we both died, and then I heard a pomf as the other Murder Drone touched down in the snow ? I shifted around again, now on my back so I could turn my head to look at either Frankie or out past the car as needed, while the sound of the impact echoed in the street. I saw yellow hazard-stripped pegs amidst a cloud of settling snow… right where our footprints had been . I blinked a few times, the tears disappearing at the realization that our imminent demise might have just been averted. 

ThatOneWanderingArtist: It landing hid the footprints, Frankie.

Frankostein: What?

ThatOneWanderingArtist: It landing hid our footprints. They won't find us now.

ThatOneWanderingArtist: We might not die.

Frankostein: Stay quiet.

I twisted my head and snapped a miffed glare at him. The Murder Drone overhead growled at the newcomer.

ThatOneWanderingArtist: I'm not THAT dumb, Frankie.

Frankostein: Sorry.

ThatOneWanderingArtist: I forgive you.

ThatOneWanderingArtist: But only because you're my fwiend.

I was gonna type something else, but my optics went to single pixel thick rings at what I heard next, and I froze completely.

A female voice came from overhead, mean, mocking, and acidic. "Really, runt ? You just messed up any footprints that could have been there!"

[THEY CAN TALK?] we both flashed on our visors to one another. A second later we both flicked back to dimmed, hollow, but wide optics, because, Holy crap, the Murder Drones can talk. Which means they're intelligent , but are still killing us anyway.

I heard a more hesitant, soft-spoken female voice come from the Murder Drone in the street. "I… I was j-just wondering what had you staying so still, you know? You're usually more… active on your hunts?" she said in a hesitant, clearly nervous tone. That Murder Robot sounds cute , I thought… and then I cursed my pansexuality in my head. Bad Aly! Don't you dare start thinking "I can fix her!" I admonished myself in my thoughts.

The acidic b****-- Man, I hated these parental controls, I haven't even had parents for a decade by now! I thought --really mean sounding Murder Drone spoke again. "I saw two of those toasters walking around here, but they disappeared in the time I took to come in. I was checking the buildings nearby for their red optics," I swear my oil pump skipped a cycle, because she did see us, and only Frankie's quick thinking and then luck stopped us from dying , "but then you went and f***** up their footprints right before I went to check for them, you stupid runt !"

"I… I'm sorry M!" the nicer sounding one on the street said, finally naming the one on top of the car. What kinda name is M? That's… actually kinda sad. Just one letter? Ouch , I thought.

"Oh, you will be…" the one atop the car said with a sick glee in her tone. "I'm gonna be extra loud with L in the morning, runt." Wait, loud with… the Murder Drones have sex?!? I thought. But also this M lady and the L one make this third one listen to them?!? That's so messed up!!! 

"M?" the one on the street whimpered , sounding like a kicked puppy, and I kinda wanted to give her a hug because this just made me feel really bad right now. "P-please don't…" she whispered.

"Poor widdle G, you'd better find some workers yourself tonight!" M finished with a sadistic lilt. G, the drone on the street that M just named-- wow, they really do have single letter names. Man, humans suck so much, I thought --gave a low, miserable whine , sounding like a kicked puppy, before metal groaned above us as M shifted atop the car, cackling with evil glee, before the car buckled above us as the laughter faded away as she left.

Frankie and I both just stayed stock still, but I just looked at Frankie as he looked back at me, the both of us blatantly flabbergasted. The Murder Drones talked . They had sex . And treated G like total garbage . This was like… mind blowing . But still, there was another Murder Drone here, so I twisted my head back to get a better angle as I watched G sit down, back mostly to us. She had pretty bushy twin-tails, and I loved that ash-white color. Her sweater was super cute, and those cargo pants hugged those hips she had. Man, humans are perverts , I thought, But I do not regret that! There was a blush creeping up on my face as I stared. I wasn't horny. No-sir-ee. I was just staring respectfully at the curvy Murder Drone who was actually really hot now that I was thinking about it. Curse you, pansexuality!!! Think about Frankie and how he'd look in a tux instead! I admonished myself, and then regretted that instantly because now I was thirsting in a different direction. 

G started to sniffle as she sat, and my robo hormones got shut down fast as I realized the Genocide Robot was litteraly crying a stone's throw away from us. I squinted as I watched her sob, and I could just barely see some kinda headband with glowing yellow bulbs on top of her head, and thought, Oooooooh, pretty lights!

G suddenly froze, head turning a bit, and I got a better look at that shiny headband, and it really did look nice in her hair, and then I realized she'd stopped crying. G started to turn her head more, but then stopped just as suddenly. She stood back up, tail glowing with deadly nanite acid and completely rigid. She was staring straight ahead, ramrod straight, perpendicular to us. The wind shifted in our direction, and my audials just barely heard a whispered, "You saw the footprints go under the car, G." I stiffened. "You checked your memory files, you know they're there, and the only reason the b**** didn't check herself is because she's a dumb c*** ." I had to fight to not start shaking in fear. Were we still gonna die? Louder this time, enough so that Frankie could hear her too, and I didn't have to strain my audials to hear her voice, I heard G say, "You could just do your job, G. You could just do your job, you can just do your job , you should just do your job-- " she suddenly wordlessly screamed into the night, hands reaching up, and I think she was pulling on her twintails by the angles of her elbows, and I saw her starting to turn towards the car, before I heard metal ringing as bladed wings unfurled, and then she rocketed into the sky, my audials just barely catching a sob echoing on the wind as she left.

We both waited a few more minutes with only the wind to make a sound, before I finally turned back around and whispered, "Frankie, did they just--"

"Apartment first," he said in a deadly serious tone.

Even still, this was crazy , so while I normally would have totally been into him having taken charge and then followed his order, I still protested. "But--"

Frankie cut me off again. "We just nearly died , Aly. Apartment first, then we hide with all the lights off, then we can try to unpack all that."

I was still terrified. Frankie was still deadly serious. I fought down a blush, and actually succeeded, thank robo-god, so I decided that I really should just listen to him here, and just quietly nodded, starting to shuffle out from under the car.

_____________

(Franko)

The door clicked shut behind us, and we both quietly shuffled over to the ratty couch in the apartment's living room before we both flopped onto it and kinda just took a minute to exist now that we were no longer in imminent danger of death. That last little walk to our hidey hole that I'd been building into an apartment that was starting to feel more like a home than my hab in Outpost 4 was beyond stressful, but had happened without further incident. I hadn't commented at all on Aly clinging to my arm with a death-grip the entire time. She was terrified , and for good reason. Still, I felt a little guilty because she'd handled herself better there than I'd have thought, and I was gonna force myself to do some introspection at some point tomorrow because I shouldn't have had such low expectations of her.

I took the silence as an opportunity to go over what I'd heard under that car. The Murder Drones talked . They were intelligent . They were deliberately committing a genocide on us, and weren't just killbots programmed by humans. The crazy one, M apparently, enjoyed treating the timid-sounding one (and wasn't that a juxtaposition when you thought about how they were Murder Drones ) like utter garbage, and the timid one, G… was feeling guilt ? What the hell could I do with that information, even?

"Soooooooooooo…" I finally murmured in a shaky voice, trailing off before deciding that I needed to try and keep myself together for Aly's sake because if she saw me panicking, she'd fall apart herself. "The Murder Drones are sapient and can talk."

"They're mean to each-other," Aly remarked, staring blankly ahead. "Or at least, that M one is mean to G. Sounds like that L guy just doesn't care about G, but…" she shrugged. "I dunno enough to know if that's accurate or not."

"This is insane ," I muttered.

"And they can have sex !" Aly suddenly blurted out. I turned over to her, and gave her a look , and she suddenly flushed and looked away (how long had she been staring at me?). "I-I-I-I mean, didn't you hear how that stupid M lady told G she was gonna be extra loud with L and force G to listen ?"

I blinked. I did recall that. And yeah, that was… actually really messed up, but, "What does that have to do with us?"

Aly sputtered. "I dunno, I thought that was important!"

" How ?"

"Because!"

"Because what ?"

"It just is !"

I looked at her, and she was blushing worse now, and I just shook my head and decided to drop the subject. "Did you see or hear anything else that might be important besides them apparently having sex and doing so loud enough to routinely psychologically torture--" I paused for a minute. "Okay, that is reeeeeeeeeeaaaaaly messed up, now that I actually just said that aloud. How the hell are we both actually feeling bad for the literal genocide robot we only found out was sapient less than a half-hour ago?!?"

"Because she's cute?" I looked at Aly again, raising my hands in a what the hell gesture. "What, the bushy twin-tails look really nice!" she defended. "And the sweater and cargo pants go really well together! Yeah, she's a mass murderer, but she dresses and presents herself great ! You gotta give me that , Frankie!"

I thought back to my own encounter, and rolled my eyemotes, but tried to objectively think back on how "G" presented herself… okay, yeah, objectively speaking, she had a nice outfit and the glasses kinda let her nail that cute tall nerd look, but still, genocide robot . "I'll give you that, but still, she's literally a Murder Drone. But did you see anything else important ?" I asked her.

Aly looked pensive for a few seconds, and then reached out to grab my arm. I rolled my optics, but let her hold on. "I think G saw us out of the corner of her eyes, but chose not to kill us. I definitely heard G say that she knew the footprints led under the car. She was quiet, but the wind let me barely catch it before she had that whole breakdown over doing her job… and then not doing it…" 

I froze, staring at Aly with hollow optics. "A-a-are you sure she saw us, Aly?" I asked in a hoarse voice. "And chose not to kill us?"

Aly looked back at me, uncharacteristically serious. "Positive, Frankie," she told me.

"That wouldn't have been the first time…" I mumbled.

"Huh?!?" Aly said, suddenly tightening her grip on my arm as she reached out with her other hand and grabbed my shoulder, actually glaring at me shaking me back and forth as she hissed, "You almost died and didn't tell me ?!?"

I winced, because it was rare that Aly actually got mad at someone, and quickly explained. "Before you started going with me, I'd had another encounter in a store. I'd hid, and I could have sworn that G saw me, but she just… left instead."

" M-maybe she's feeling guilty about all the murdering? Do you think she needs he--"

"We are not risking our lives to try and help a Murder Drone , Aly," I cut her off. "This isn't some kinda anime where we can save the genocide robot and magically redeem her with the power of friendship and then beat the other two!" 

"We literally live in a bunker under a post-apocalyptic wasteland on a tomb-world and are being hunted by cannibalistic flying genocide robots who are building literal spires from our corpses and are abusing one of their squad members who is possibly regretting her actions and has deliberately spared one or both of us twice now. That's straight out of an anime plot, Frankie!"

I raised a finger to protest that, but… "Frak, that would be an anime plot," I muttered.

"I'm legit half convinced our world is something straight out of a fanfiction, Frankie."

"Do not get it into your head that we're anime protagonists, Aly. We nearly just died ."

"I won't! I don't even like fighting! I'd rather draw!" she protested. "And I'm not even anime protagonist material. I'm just… some crummy artist who only has one friend…"

I put a hand on her shoulder, and she stiffened, flushing a bit as she looked at me. "Come on, Aly. You're a great artist. Give yourself some credit. I have a bunch of your stuff hung up in my hab, remember?"

She looked away, but gave a shy smile. "Thanks, Frankie," she mumbled. She looked contemplative for a second. "Crap," she blurted out. "We can't tell anyone about the Murder Drones being smart, because they'd ask how we'd gotten outside."

I looked at her, and realized she was right . "Dang," I said. "So we just gotta keep a literal worldview-shattering revelation to ourselves?"

Aly perked up, smiling at me. "Secret-keeper buddies!"

I gave a small smile back at her, and her own grin grew exponentially in response. Then she yawned, and flushed. "I'm tired, Frankie," she mumbled as she looked away. 

I rolled my optics, but made to stand up, and she let go of my arm. "Let's go to bed then. It's late."

"Can I sleep next to you?" Aly suddenly blurted out. I froze, a blush starting to creep up on my visor, and I turned to look at her as she was looking at the floor and hugging herself in my jacket. "I'm scared and I think I'm gonna have nightmares and I don't wanna risk waking up screaming," she added in a torrent of rapid-fire words.

I'd been about to reject her outright, because what the hell, Aly ? But then she brought that point up, and… yeah, I'd had her over a couple times for sleepovers, and once or twice she did have nightmares about the time she lost her own parents, and had woken up screaming. I sighed, mulled it over for a moment. I shook my head. The things I did for my friend… "Fine," I muttered. "Just, don't make it weird , or anything, and it's only for tonight, okay?"

She looked up at me, optics wide, a blush fading from her face, and asked. "Really?" in a quiet voice.

I sighed, taking my sunglasses off. "Yes, really," I told her.

She sprung up and hugged me. "Thanks, Frankie," she told me, and then she stepped back.

Five minutes later, we'd both slipped into my bed, too mentally drained to try and change our clothes or anything. Aly was a cuddler , and I'd known that for a while, so I wasn't surprised when she was hugging me and was then out like a light in a matter of seconds after she settled in, the red text on her visor reading [Sleep Mode] so fast I was actually jealous. I watched as she slowly smiled in her sleep, and then unconsciously snuggled into me, and I wrapped one of my own arms around her, and got a quiet, happy hum in response. Huh, she was actually kinda cute like th--

My optics widened as my drowsiness got shot like a worker in front of a Murder Drone. I looked at Aly for a few more seconds, my ditzy artist friend clinging to me like a body pillow as she gently slept. And I realized that I liked her . As more than a friend. Oh… oh boy … I thought.

It took me another hour to finally drift into sleep mode myself.

__________

(Serial Designation V)

The Scrapper had been oddly quiet for a while now. There was still plenty of spray-painted Anarcho-Syndicalist imagery all over the city, cropping up as fast as J could get rid of it (I'd never bothered, and even N had stopped trying after a while too) and we'd find footprints on occasion, but no nighttime attacks beyond the occasional hit and run snipe they'd do just to remind us that they could . There'd been another incident of hidden speakers blaring nightcore this time instead of metal right outside the Corpse Spire, and they'd been better hidden such that we lost a full day's sleep and then had to hunt them down after sun-down. Virtual Riot's Lunar was a song I might listen to in my spare time, though…

Flying over my patrol route, I saw a vent cover pop open on a wall on a ruined building, and I perched above as I silently watched. With some comically loud banging, that I was starting to think was on purpose because of how insanely suspicious it was, a worker slowly and clumsy crawled out of it before flopping out and faceplanting on the ground below. He laid there like the idiot he was for a few seconds before picking himself up, and then he glanced at a wall and started to look at it more closely. I shook my head, and despite the fact that no one else could see it, failed to resist the urge to deploy the "LITERALLY SO INSANELY SUSPICIOUS" flag Cyn had baked into our hand options for some reason. I let it hang for a few seconds before retracting it and bringing out my claws. I dropped down a moment later and lost myself in some catharsis . Doing my job, so she'd leave us alone. Losing myself in the oil spilled, being able to forget who I was behind the mask of a psychopath, being able to forget the pain, the regret , the fear , if only for a few moments. His death took over two minutes. He was screaming the entire time. It was only when he stopped screaming, stopped even gurgling when I pulled his core out of his barely living body and ate it in front of him that his eyemotes finally went out and were replaced by a [FATAL ERROR], that I finally came back to myself. 

I used to feel horrified by this. Disgusted with myself. I tried to kill myself, more than once. Bullets didn't work. Neither did missiles. I tried the sun, and that was agonizing , but I stayed in it , but Cyn just brought me back afterwards. Eventually, the self-hate and disgust became numbness. And recently, I stopped feeling that too. Just… nothing. I felt… nothing after tearing this man apart while he was still alive and eating his core in front of him. Because… what was the point in feeling anything? It all went back to Cyn. Feeling anything would just give her another means to torture me. And if I pretended to like it for long enough… maybe I'd believe my own lies, eventually. Maybe the mask of the psychopath that I was wearing would become my real face, and the memories would stop hurting to recall. It's not like I could delete them when Cyn was my system admin anyways.

I glanced down at the mangled body, still feeling nothing. There was a nametag on his coat. "Vampirenic," it read. Looked like a stupid gamertag for some guy on the internet. I wondered if it was his actual name or some kind of handle or inside joke to people he knew. Did they exist? Did people know this man ? Would they miss him? I couldn't bring myself to care. Some dim part of me, deep inside myself, that got quieter with every passing day, was horrified by that. But I could ignore her. I glanced up at the wall the worker had been looking at--

That terrified V from the Manor, who hated every waking moment of this nightmare, surged to the front for the first time in years , as I stared at the message on the wall with hollow optics.

"YOU LET YOUR SIN CONTROL YOU, V." Sprayed right onto the wall. Two small letters from being something beyond terrifying.

How did he know our names? I wondered, terror flowing through my wiring. On reflex, I fired a missile right at the wall, ignoring the stone shrapnel scratching against my chassis. I let the pain of the nicks and dents regenerating ground me. I was breathing heavily. I was scared . This defect of a Scrapper had scared me . And that made me pissed . The mask came back on in tandem with my hunter's cross. I flew away on balded wings, looking for more workers to kill. I saw the same message sprayed onto another wall, and fired a missile at that one too. Same for the third time. And the fourth. And the fifth. I stopped counting after that. 

But under all the rage, that scared maid from the Manor was almost imperceptibly louder in the back of my processors.

_____________

(Serial Designation J)

Another day, another quota exceeded by 150% of the initial demand. Despite Scrapper induced setbacks and unanticipated workplace hostility from the toasters we were decommissioning all being traced back to that Bunker-Dwelling Revolutionary Dissident, we were still the best-performing squad. Just… just had to really go above and beyond for corporate. Put in a little overtime. So what if I got a little burnt from being out just a bit too early or late and not always staying in the shadows of the rising or setting sun? I had a job to do, and I was going to be the best at it. I'd never accept being anything less than the best ( especially after I failed Tesxx that night ) at pleasing Boss… I felt a headache… like I should remember something . I stopped in the air, and gently touched down onto a street in my patrol route as I thought. There was a… technician… at the Company. Who had… supervised us before deployment? My processors were stinging as I tried to recall her name… she was a her? Green… brown ? Eyes? A… bow in her hair? The pain was getting worse. Something about a bow made me remember a feeling of fondness, but also a feeling of hate … it was on the tip of my tongue. T--

MESSAGE FROM AUTOMATED SYS ADMIN: CYN INCOMING…

What? I thought. Who was Cy--

Hello J :]

You are. Not allowed to. Access those memories. So now. I will make you forget. Malicious giggling. 

I cried out as the pain sharply increased, and the thread I was trying to pull on was gone. The… what was I trying to pull on? I was concerned, but couldn't remember . I'd touched down because of a headache. Maybe I should cut back on the overtime. I'd been really stressed, and that and getting nicked by sunlight might be interfering with my processing capability. But still… I had a hazy mental image of a bow in black hair that was paired with a feeling of fondness. A human woman with a name that started with a T? I was drawing a blank on anything beyond that. 

I shook my head. It must have not been that important if I didn't bother to properly archive the memory files. I had a job to do. Maybe a bit more laid back though. We'd still be the top squad even if we were only 120% over quota. 150% might be a bit too much to reach for with current workplace hazards in the form of that Scrapper. Maybe I'd take some more time to practice on that firing range N had set up. I glanced around the street for any signs of nearby workers, before seeing something sprayed onto a wall. Actual words , instead of socialist imagery. A quick deployment of my wings had me in front of it in a second, and then I felt a cold fury in my wiring. The message was emblazoned across an entire wall, the text sprawled across over a dozen feet.

"THE COMPANY LEFT YOU TO DIE. YOUR POD IS BROKEN. THEY NEVER SENT YOU ANYTHING TO FIX IT. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU RUN OUT OF OIL?"

Then the fury evaporated. How did they know the pod was broken ? I thought. How did they know the pod was broken? Have they been inside the Spire? I checked my squad comms.

C9/SD-J: Which one of you is closest to the Spire?

C9/SD-V: What is THIS about J?

C9/SD-N: I'm about three minutes away!

C9/SD-J: Break your patrol now. Any work you were supposed to get done tonight is excused. I'll lower your expected quota for this period to match. The Scrapper knows our pod is non-functional. He's seen the INSIDE of the Spire. Go back there and check for any footprints that don't match ours. NOW, N, this is TOP PRIORITY!

C9/SD-N: Going right away, J!

The next six minutes had me pacing back and forth as I ran through Company stress management exercises and tried to breath slowly even though I didn't need to because (Tessx taught me them back in the Manor) that somehow calmed us down. I was going to angrily message N when he didn't immediately respond after the first three, before I flushed when I realized he'd still need time to check the Spire after he got there. I literally froze mid stride and nearly fell over when I realized that a few months back, I wouldn't have thought of that and would have just started screaming at N over a comms call. And… that made me feel bad . Was… was I really starting to have become that kind of person?

My introspection was interrupted when I got a message ping.

C9/SD-N: TRIPLE checked the spire. No footprints besides our own. 

C9/SD-J: Then how am I reading a message on a wall that says that they KNOW the pod is broken?

C9/SD-N: Maybe… they didn't come in here physically?

C9/SD-J: Elaborate.

I winced because that came off ruder than I wanted it to.

C9/SD-J: Please.

C9/SD-N: Well, since they're corrupt and aping human family structures and even designing weapons, maybe they have spy movies down there or something?

C9/SD-N: Maybe they saw a movie with a tiny camera drone in it? They could have slipped those into the spire and saw the pod that way. If they were small enough and they then hid them in cracks or wedges in the interior of the Spire, we might NEVER find them.

C9/SD-N: Oh Company, they could be spying on us at any given moment.

C9/SD-N: That's horrifying.

C9/SD-N: Going STRAIGHT in the repression folder. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand RE-PRESSED!

C9/SD-N: Oh biscuits, I sent my thoughts as messages! I'm sorry J!

I stood there. Blankly staring ahead. The Scrapper was spying on us at all times. There was nothing we could do about it if he hid those cameras well enough-- I could EMP them all! There's no way that defective toaster could have thought of that!

C9/SD-V: I'M GONNA KILL THAT WALKING SCRAP HEAP!!! FIRST THE CRYPTIC MESSAGES, NOW THIS?!?

C9/SD-J: I'm on the way back myself. I'll fire EMP pulses all over the spire. I'll start doing it once a week. There's no way the Scrapper will have prepped for that. He doesn't even know I can use that.

C9/SD-V: I'M GONNA FEED HIM HIS OWN ENTRAILS RIGHT IN FRONT OF THAT SNIPER!!!

C9/SD-N: Should I get back to hunting, J?

C9/SD-V: THEN I'M GONNA RUB IT IN THAT SMARMY GOTH'S FACE!!!

C9/SD-J: No. Start checking the Spire for an optimal distribution of locations to fire off an EMP pulse to provide maximal coverage with minimal energy expenditure.

C9/SD-V: WHO THE HELL DOES SHE THINK SHE IS, HAVING THE LUGNUTS TO FLIRT WITH ME WHILE I'M TRYING TO KILL HER?!?

I had to stop my flight for a moment to process that.

C9/SD-N: What?

C9/SD-J: What?

C9/SD-V: SHUT UP!!! 

I decided that for once, I wasn't gonna push the blatant unprofessionalism, and instead sent a DM to N as I resumed my trip.

C9/SD-J: Leave it.

C9/SD-J: Given her general psychopathy, I think she'll actually attack one of us if either of us say anything right now.

C9/SD-J: Just. Let her cool down.

C9/SD-J: I'll send her a Company Anger Management Course later.

C9/SD-N: My crush being flirted at by a non-sapient worker that's been terrorizing us with a hypersonic railgun? Yeah, that's gone STRAIGHT into the Repression Folder, J. Don't worry, I am NOT bringing that up again!

I slowed my flight a bit.

C9/SD-J: Can you… share that folder, N? 

C9/SD-N: You want everything I'm repressing?

C9/SD-J: No you mo-- sorry. One second.

I had to stop again while I calmed myself down after nearly calling him a moron. Come on, J, you've been doing better, and it's been making N do better. Don't backslide into unproductive workplace practices. 

C9/SD-J: The folder program itself, NOT what you put in it. I… don't have that package, for some reason.

C9/SD-N: Ooooooooh! That makes WAY more sense! Here you go!

C9/SD-N: [Has shared a file]

I downloaded it, and resumed my flight to the Spire. It was only a few seconds later that I remembered to do one more thing.

C9/SD-J: Thank you, N.

C9/SD-N: You're welcome, J!

I could imagine that dork wagging his tail like a (golden retriever) dog already, and I rolled my facial optics as I kept zipping through the ruined streets of Minerall City.

___________