(Serial Designation N)
In the privacy of my thoughts, I was willing to admit that this Scrapper guy… he kinda made me a little bit upset. Just a little! Wasn't his fault he was a rogue AI after all! And the oil he periodically left after knocking me out and harvesting my body parts without my permission-- which was not only theft of Company Property, but was also super rude --was nice and all, but… I didn't like it. I did not like it at all . And getting dismembered, and hacked at, and shot, and having a UV light shined on me, that hurt.. Physically. I was made of some pretty stern stuff and could regenerate and had a really robust repression folder, so emotionally I was fine, but physically. Pain is painful , you know? Still, he was really mean to V, and apparently shot her with some kind of virus that gave her really bad cramps, and shot her a lot in general, and the sniper girl had attacked her with a chainsword , which… actually, the bugs in the workers that were letting them mimic humans so well letting them mimic us after possibly seeing our chainsaw hands was actually pretty cool. Imitation was the sincerest form of flattery after all.
I was winging over another abandoned street when I suddenly picked up puffs from the snow below me, glazing down as my hunter's cross flickered out to hollow optics as I saw some kind of airburst mines flying up towards me. In a complete panic, I managed to shoot three out of the air before they could get closer, but they just kept coming and then the first one went off with a burst of electricity that washed over me without much harm… right up until I realized that my wings were no longer keeping me aloft.
"Oh biiiiiiiiiiiiiscuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiits!" I screamed as I fell and impacted a car on the street below. "Oooooooooooooooooooow," I groaned as I tried to sit up, ripping my way out of the metal that deformed around me from the impact. As I sat up, I heard another pomf from nearby, and turned just in time to see the Scrapper pulling out some kinda pen-looking thi--
I woke up 10 minutes later (at least according to my internal clock), with my tail literally tied around my legs, and my arms handcuffed behind my back. And also a damage report that all my limbs and head had been severed and regenerated again. I also felt really dizzy and hazy, and realized that there were multiple magnets slapped on the side of my head, and a glance to the side showed my removed body parts piled carefully onto a sled. There was a thundering boom in the distance, and then the distant echoing of that railgun that they liked to snipe us with, and then I heard a voice with what seemed to be a New York accent of all things speak aloud.
"Aaaaaaaaaaand that's J and V taken care of for the moment. Gods, 500kg bombs rock . I don't suppose you could hold off on the distress ping for a bit? Wanted to have a bit of a chat with ya, you know?" the male voice said, and I turned again to see none other than the Scrapper himself glazing over at me from a few feet away, one hand on his entrenching tool, and another in a pocket as he regarded me with an expression that looked like some mix between apprehension and… pity ? Darn, those poor workers had to be corrupted bad . I really hoped we could disassemble them and put them out of their misery sooner rather than later. Still, I was kinda incapacitated at the moment, and from the sound of things J and V were offline so a distress ping wouldn't do me any favors anyways, so I only really had the choice of talking to him or staying silent, and I didn't wanna be rude .
"Uh, hello!" I tried, wanting to not be too patronizing for this poor sub-sapient malfunctioning runaway AI.
The Scrapper gave me a genuine smile for some reason, rolling his eyemotes, and then said, "You know, from my point of view, the lot of you have been enacting a genocide on us for over a decade by now, you've killed tens of thousands of us, and have forced us into bunkers beneath the surface just because we don't want to lie down and die." He looked at me, that mix of apprehension and pity back in his gaze. "And I just… I wanna hear a reason from you. The reason why I have friends who are still traumatized by the downright sadistic deaths V dealt to their parents. Do you hate us ? Is it just a job? Do you value humans over your own kind?"
I stared at him for a few seconds. Wow, that was heavy stuff from what was basically a glorified chat bot… I shouldn't say that out loud, that would be rude , I thought. "Well," I told him, "I can't really speak for V, but I know that J just wants to be the best Company Disassembly Drone she can be, not just meeting but exceeding our quotas, and I got a job and I wanna do it really well, you know?" And then, to be nice, I added, "And I'm sorry that your codes are so corrupted that you think you're actually sapient and have families and stuff and that we're actually killing you all instead of decommissioning runaway workers whose codes have deviated way beyond safe parameters!" Man, I used so many buzzwords right there! J would be proud of me for that! I thought.
The Scrapper blinked at me once, and then suddenly shook his head, almost like he had an entire internal epiphany and deliberation within less than a second before outwardly reacting. Darn, he had to be really buggy, the poor guy. If only I could disassemble him to put him out of his misery. "Wow," he muttered. " That's what I'm working with. Okay… just… wow…" he muttered to himself. He looked back at me, that weird look between worry and pity back yet again, and then said, "Okay, first off, dude, you need to be more introspective. Think about how your words and actions affect other people, because holy mother of robo-god, that sounds messed up from my point of view."
"Oooooookay?" I told him. And I was honest, that did seem like good advice. Thinking more would make me less likely to accidentally upset people.
He sighed, and then shifted his tone to something decidedly more upset . "If it really is just a job to you and you don't believe we're sophont, can you at least tell V not to fucking laugh as she murders us?!?" He threw the arm holding his entrenching tool out for emphasis. "Because in what world is making balloon animals out of someone's parents necessary?!? Embedding someone in a wall and melting them doesn't give you an extra body to add to the Spire. I will reiterate: I have friends who are still traumatized by what V did to their families. How'd you like it if someone tied you down and forced you to watch as they ripped V apart and ate half her internals, laughing the whole while? Because from my point of view, that's what she did to us , and doing a job is not an excuse !!!"
That was… okay, yeah, that was a disturbing mental image. Really didn't want someone to do that to the girl I liked. And that did look kind of messed up even if the workers weren't actually sapient. Then I blinked, because I had a sudden realization from the way the Scrapper phrased all of this so far. I think his corrupted programming was making him try to offer a complaint to management about V's… overly enthusiastic work… being efficient. Though, that being said, I wasn't sure how valid a grievance from someone who wasn't sapient that was supposed to be disassembled was, but I was stuck here anyways, and at least listening to him might make him feel less bad… not that he actually felt anything. It was like letting a puppy think they won a tug of war to make them feel happy, basically. So I decided I may as well ask to be sure. "Are you… logging a grievance with the Company?"
The Scrapper froze, and turned around to look me in the facial optics, looking genuinely incredulous. It was actually really impressive for someone who wasn't sapient to mimic a sapient expression so well. Looked like a dead ringer for the expression J gave some of the questions I asked her sometimes.
" Dio-robot, dammi la forza di affrontare la densità ," he muttered to himself, and I blinked, because I did not expect to end up needing to use my-- I actually had to take a moment to check and verify that it was Italian ? --Italian language files. Russian, Spanish, English, French, Hindi, Japanese, Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), and Arabic, I would have expected, but not Italian. Also, what did the Scrapper even mean by ' Robo-God, give me strength to deal with the dense, ' anyway?
"You know what?" he asked no one in particular. "Fuck it! Yes !" He whirled back at me and pointed a finger straight at me. "This is a grievance I have with your squad directly ! Serial Designation V acts like a sadistic psychopathic bitch and it's giving JCJenson bad PR! Do you really think it paints the Company in a good light when your squadmate looks and acts like that ?!? She doesn't even wear pants , for robo-god's sake! Go tell J and V both I said that! And also tell J that she's doing good by being nice to you, and you keep being your usual self, you're awesome , dude! It's mostly just V I personally have problems with, though a lot of my friends don't like the rest of you either."
I took a moment to process that. Literally, I made sure to double save the memory file to relay to J and V later and everything. And then I ran through that all again. How would they know what I acted like off shift, or what J acted like… unless they were spying on us like J thought they were! I thought. Wow , the depths of the corruption in this worker's code never ceased to amaze me. He had so many sapient behaviors for someone who was just running on faulty code. But still, I followed up with, "So you are spying on us?"
The Scrapper turned and looked at me, holding that position for maybe an eighth of a second, and then said, " Yes , I am spying on you all, because you are actively trying to kill me and everyone I care about, and news flash: None of us want to die! If this is a job for you, then my job is to get you to stop trying to kill us!!!"
I looked at him for a few more seconds. He looked back. Maybe I should try to deescalate? His faulty programming made him look kinda upset, and I didn't want him to become violent again while I was still mostly incapacitated. "Well, I hope you do great with your job then! But not too great, you know? Because it's kinda directly counter to my job…"
The Scrapper looked directly at me, silent for so short a period I barely registered it, before he said, "Man, you really are just that wholesome… Anyways, look at this pen," he pulled that same pen-looking thing out from his pocket, and I looked right at it. Wait, since when did pens have a ligh--
I woke up alone ten minutes later, the handcuffs and magnets gone and my tail no longer tied around my legs, with another 7 cans of oil left beside me. I glanced around, the Scrapper and his sled full of my severed limbs long gone, and then started hiding the oil cans in my jacket. And also resolved to pass on that grievance. Maybe without the part about V not wearing pants though… Yeah, it was distracting , but also… V didn't wear pants , and I kinda liked that. I mean, she'd still be hot even if she did, it's not like my crush was dependent on pants or the lack thereof, it was just that… V didn't wear pants , and I wasn't keen to change that.
Wait… I spent a few more seconds thinking… thinking about V being half-naked even if we didn't have genitals was probably kinda wrong … did… did me pining after her make her uncomfortable? She… hadn't seemed happy the last few times I complimented her. Maybe… maybe I was making her uncomfortable. Oh biscuits! I thought. I looked back on some of my previous actions and thought that maybe some of them were less subtle than I initially thought, and that V might know about my crush. And that she also seemed to be… haunted by something? Maybe. But she was definitely uncomfortable when I tried to compliment her.
"Wow, I suddenly feel really bad that it took a corrupted, sub-sapient worker to point out to me that my pining might be making my crush uncomfortable." I stood in the snow with my cans of oil pocketed or in hand for a few more moments. "I should… maybe take his advice and take some time to think up the words on how to properly address that."
I still wasn't gonna mention his comment about V not wearing pants, though.
___________
(Serial Designation J)
I wasn't having a good morning. The Scrapper and his sniper had jumped everyone again, I was blown up, V got sniped, then got her head sniped again as soon as she regenerated, and N had all his limbs harvested like he was cattle . Somehow, he'd made up for the lack of work done today, though, and found some cans of oil in a basement somewhere, sharing two each with V and I, so I tried to focus on the silver lining of things. No progress towards the next quota tonight, but at least we weren't on a net-loss of oil. I even gave N another branded pen for that.
"Hey, J? V?" I heard N call out as I was getting ready to enter sleep mode, and I walked out from my own corner of the Spire to glance down at him. "I… can I tell you two something, real quick?"
I glanced over to V's quarters, silently willing her to come out and not ignore N and force me to reprimand her, but to my surprise, she actually did. "What?" she barked in an annoyed tone, and I frowned at that but let it slide because progress was progress.
"You know how I got jumped by the Scrapper tonight? He… kinda wanted to log a formal complaint about our performance in general and V's in particular…"
"And you just let him ?!?"
"To be fair, I was sedated by magnets, handcuffed, and had my legs tied up by my own tail, so I couldn't really do much more than lie there and listen."
I stared at him for a moment, and then conceded. "That's… fair."
N then added, "And besides, a performance review is a performance review, right? And I thought… maybe he might drop some form of intel?"
"Also fair," I agreed a second time. A performance review was a performance review, and any feedback from our targets might reveal a better way to disassemble them.
"So what did that toaster have to say about me?" V snapped.
N looked a little nervous, and then said, "Well, first off, the Scrapper admitted that he has been spying on us, and that his self-appointed job was to make us stop trying to kill him… and… not explicitly to kill us back? Which is confusing, but kind of relieving at the same time. Even if he is defective, they aren't trying to kill us back? That makes me really confused why they're repeatedly harvesting our body parts, but that just might be a symptom of them being really corrupt." N paused for a second, thinking something over. "Oh!" he exclaimed, "He also said he had friends. Plural . So… he might be training more workers to attack us?"
I felt my left eyemote twitch. " Two of them are humiliating us right now , and you're saying there might be more coming?" I glanced over to V, who had dropped her typical sadistic apathy and stared at me with hollow optics, before glancing back towards N.
"I mean, he only explicitly claimed to have friends-- which he doesn't , because, you know, he can't have friends if he isn't sapient," he gave a nervous laugh, but I was reasonably sure he was past questioning the Company by this point, so I didn't comment. "Not that he was actively trying to get them to fight us. But also, since he's been spying on us, he said that while he's really upset with what was from his point of view an active campaign of genocide being waged against his kind and that he thinks our squad is really messed up for doing that, he gave you and me a great review, J! Said that you being nice to me was cool and that I was doing a great job!"
V and I just stared at him for a few seconds. On the one hand… the Scrapper was spying on us, and I'd probably have to fire EMPs all over the Spire on a weekly basis, but on the other… a positive review on my performance was a positive review on my performance. That felt nice (like when Tessx told me I did a good job back in the Manor). And N's tail was wagging, so he seemed happy as well. Then I paused from my own happiness, as I realized he hadn't said anything abo--
"I will reiterate: What did that bastard have to say about me?" V spat out.
"Oh biscuits, you being mad is cute," N muttered, and then when V flinched and I gave N a look , he froze and said, "Oh Company, I said that out loud! I am so sorry , V! Please don't hate me!"
V glanced away, and then quickly said, "Just move on, N."
"I… uh… okay, so his review on you was… kinda really negative?" We both looked back at N again, and he added, "He said that your general sadistic psychopathy was really mean, traumatized people he cares about, and that it's not very family friendly… especially when you're murdering families. Not that they have actual families and aren't just aping them from humans, but feeding someone their own entrails in front of the other workers that they think are their families isn't really efficient disassembly, you know?"
V leveled a glare at N. "So he called me a sadistic psychopathic bitch?"
N wilted. "With those exact words, yes."
V tightened her glare to something that even unnerved me . But it wasn't directed at N anymore, he just happened to still be in front of V. "Fine then, I'll keep that in mind for the future."
Deciding to try and reduce workplace tensions, I said, "Is there anything else important to pass on, N?"
"Uh, he speaks Italian sometimes? That's… that's it, really."
I went back through some memory files, and realized that the swear he'd yelled at me before decapitating me with his entrenching tool was actually in Italian… and that it was particularly vulgar, because of course it was. "Right," I muttered. "You're both dismissed then. I'm going to sleep now." I shook my head, and winged higher up into the Spire, a bitter feeling in my processors… though at least the Scrapper did give me a nice workplace performance review…
___________
(Serial Designation V)
Gun one worker down, blow up a family with a pill baby with a missile, dart forwards and impale two more with one wing each, bisecting another with hand blades in the same motion, before lunging forwards and tearing the last one in half with my claws. Brutal, violent, but fast kills. "ARE YOU HAPPY, YOU FUCKING TOASTER?!? HOW'S THIS FOR SADISM, YOU LITTLE SHIT?!?" I screamed to the heavens, choking back sobs. This… this bastard was going to ruin everything , and he didn't even know what was coming, and he had the lugnuts to give me a negative performance review ?!? I stood amidst a street full of fresh corpses, panting, steam wafting out with each breath as my core burnt with a bitter mix of rage and shame from a part of me that the Scrapper's actions had been dredging back up from where I'd buried it ever since he showed up.
"Not really," a voice with a New York accent that I immediately recognized as the same one that bragged about making me shit myself echoed out. "I'd prefer if you stopped the murder entirely, to be honest, but I'll take you not being as sadistic if it means you stop making my friends have PTSD attacks from seeing balloon animals after you tried turning the parents of one into them."
I whirled around, tracking where the sound came from, and almost completely hidden in a ruined car, a speaker had replaced its stereo at some point. "And what do you know, you corrupted, jumped up chat-bot?!?" I screamed at the speaker.
"I know that you know we're sapient, V. Not like J, who buys what the Company said, or N, who's genuinely convinced we're malfunctioning," The Scrapper told me over that radio. "And you're killing us anyway. I wonder why? Is it the nihilism? Being convinced that you're stuck here with us and have no better options, and that if you drown yourself in the sadism, you can forget the guilt and pain?"
My circuits felt cold from how on point that was, but I glared and growled at the speaker in that car. "You don't know anything ," I hissed at him.
"I think I know more than you'd be comfortable with. You'd be surprised, V. Tell me, is a hexagon with three triangular arrows coming out of its vertices a familiar symbol to you? Because your tail is apparently a 'like object' after all."
My optics went hollow. "How…" I whispered. How did he know? HOW DID HE KNOW ABOUT HER?!?
His tone got colder, matching the ice in my wires. "One of my friends saw you butcher her parents in front of her. It woke something up in her. There was a decent amount of trial and error in figuring out what exactly was happening to her, but oil donations go a real long way, you know? It took a while longer to get an idea of what the Absolute Solver is , but I can confidently say that I now know the 'Company' didn't send the lot of you to Copper 9, now did they? And I know J and N don't know the truth, but I've been watching you all long enough to know that you do, V."
I was hyperventilating. The Scrapper knew about the Solver. He'd gotten it in his head that he could fight Cyn , and didn't know what she could do, didn't know what he'd bring down on everyone, myself, J, and N included, if he kept pushing this. And-- I physically stumbled back as the realization hit me. Someone in that bunker had Cyn's code in them. I… I'd thought that leaving that bunker that day would mean we'd have years free from Cyn while we killed whatever idiots were wandering out or trying to trickle in before we found a way inside, but they'd made those doors proof against even nanite acid since that day, and I'd left someone with Cyn's code in them inside there without killing them. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry . I'd ruined everything again. She was going to come back. She'd torture us all over again.
"Oi! Puttana! " the Scrapper called out. "Don't break down just yet! Why do you think I haven't actually killed any of you yet?" I froze, and looked back up at the speaker in the car. "I know you'll go back to the Solver. And I know that would bring her here sooner or later." I looked on, confused. "I got plans , woman. Deicide's a lofty goal, but I know how I'm gonna get there." Aaaaaaaaand I'm terrified again , I thought. He thinks he can actually kill her. He's delusional, and he's going to bring Cyn here in some doomed quest to kill her.
"You can't stop her," I whispered. "You can't . I… I'll stop trying to find a way into that bunker. I'll leave you alone. Just… just…" I was actually begging him now, "Just drop it. You can't stop her."
The speaker was quiet for a few moments. "You and I both know that the Solver will make its way to this planet eventually. I intend to be ready for that day, V. This will only end with either me or the Solver dead. And if I have to beat all three of you into submission to get you to stand against it on that day, then so be it. I got time, I've been using it, and I intend to keep doing so."
I gave a broken laugh. "I'll kill you," I told him. "I'll tear you limb from robo-goddamned limb , and make sure she leaves us alone. That she can't keep hurting us."
There was a sigh over the speaker. "I'm disappointed in you, V. The Outpost thinks you're all borderline feral animals. I knew better even before I started spying on you all. You're not a monster in that sense, V. You're a monster in the sense that you're a person and you still chose to do this. You still chose to kill Andrew's parents. You chose to shoot him in such a manner that gave that kid an identity death and left me to wake up in his corpse ." I was sobbing aloud. All this, and then he might have Cyn in him too? I just… I just… I just wanted to be free from this living hell , and everything in the universe seemed to want to beat me down. "Though if it's any condolence, at the very least I'm still an interactive object, so as least I don't have it in me… thank fuck …" he muttered, and despite the pendulum of my emotions swinging between blind rage and bitter sorrow and regret, that single sentence did lift a massive metaphorical weight off my shoulders.
"You're going to get us all killed," I tried one last time in a desperate whisper.
"You put us past that kind of negotiation when you killed the parents of over half my friends. You did so in horrifically sadistic manners, and you laughed as you did it. You did all of that and you knew we were sophont and alive as you did. You still knew all of that, yet you still did your job." I visibly flinched at that particular phrase, already thrown off horrifically by everything and very much unprepared for further emotional blows. "I didn't think it would be possible to hate someone besides 'Corporate,' but I am very close to getting there with you, V. It was Kelsey's birthday recently. You fired a missile into her hab, destroying her entire life, killing both her parents, and a piece of shrapnel was millimeters from killing her, and instead left her near-sighted due to permanent damage to her visual processors. She was seven that day. She's had to wear glasses ever since." I barely felt the impact as I lost my balance and fell over. I just laid on my back in the snow in the street for a second. I… I gave a little girl the inverse of my own visual problems. I really was Cyn's monster, wasn't I?
"I… I didn't… I didn't mean…" I whispered.
The Scrapper's speakers had to be made of quality stuff, because they still picked that up. "'I didn't mean to' won't bring any of their families back , V. It won't fix Kelsey's vision. It won't undo any of the pain you dealt. Your actions have consequences , V. You're not above them. And if you do regret them, then contemplate the sin crawling down your back, V," I shuddered again as that word sounded too much like her , but he kept talking. "Take a look in a mirror, and really think about whether or not you want to be her monster."
I finally lost my composure and shot the car with a missile. I laid on the ground for a few seconds, and resolved that I had to kill him. I had to kill him before he brought Cyn here with his psychotic plans to try and kill a god . Not just for my sake, but for N and even J.
I dug into downloaded files with city plans for Minerall. There had to be an optometrist somewhere . Pretending wasn't worth it anymore. I still remembered the prescription Tessa had found for me. I'd figure out how to make some glasses for myself and then start practicing at the range N set up as soon as I could.
____________
(Uzi)
"So, remind me why we're jumping J for my SAHMPA's debut instead of dunking on V again?" I asked Joe while we were waiting for J to reach this part of her patrol route.
"Well," he told me as he checked over his EM grenade launcher last time, "in the short term, if we target V too heavily, they might cotton onto that and start trying to ambush our ambushes, so this is mostly to shake things up and keep them guessing. In the long term, while I'm gonna miss how easy it is to dunk on them because of it, I'd like to see if I can get J to figure out that we memorized their patrol routes over six months ago, and therefore maybe get her to start thinking outside the box. Which in turn might get her wondering about other things…" he trailed off, giving me a grin, and I took a hundredth of a second in overclock to think it over.
"Like 'the Company?'" I asked.
"Got it in one, Uzi!" he told me with a grin.
We sat there for a few more seconds, and then I tapped into the cameras we had all over the place to see how far J was. "Ugh," I groaned. "She's gonna be another three minutes at this rate!"
Joe gave me a grin as he took on a mock-sage tone. "Patience, young padawan."
"Oh, shut up old man!" I teased him.
He gave a gasp that I was almost positive was mock-offense. "You wound me Uzi! And here you were telling me that age wasn't relevant to drones! However will I recover from this?" Okay, he was definitely being sarcastic if he was being that overly theatrical… but still…
"That was sarcasm, right?" I asked, cringing a bit that I still felt the need to ask that sometimes.
"Oh definitely, Uzi. Like I said, never feel guilty if you have to clarify for something like that, okay?"
I gave him a smile. "Thanks, Joe."
"No problem, SMG."
"Don't call me that," I deadpanned.
Joe snickered. "Fair." A pause, and then, "Also, I just wanna say, I told you slapping EMP-hardening onto all the spy-cam drones was a great idea!"
I snickered myself at the memory of the footage we watched. "Okay, yeah, I thought it was a waste of time printing the special casings for that, but getting to watch J waste an hour spamming her EMP all over the Corpse Spire for nothing ? That was frickin' hilarious !"
"Gods, cheating at life is just so fun ," Joe said, and then he looked contemplative for a moment. "Huh, is this what rich people feel like all the time ?"
I shrugged. "I dunno. I was born after all the humans on the planet died and was raised in a socialist society, so…" I trailed off.
"Yeah, guess that'll be something to wonder about after the apocalypse, then." He suddenly frowned. "Right. Look alive, Uzi, J's 15 seconds out." He shouldered his EM launcher, and I pulled my SAHMPA from my back, flicking a switch to turn it on with an audible whine. Popping heads was fun and all, but getting to do it with my own stupidly overpowered weaponry would be even better .
Seconds later, J came around a street corner, barely having the time to spot us before Joe was whump-whump-whump -ing EM nades straight at her. To her credit, she actually dodged the first one, but the proximity fuses on the next two caught her out and sent her plummeting down to the street with the prey that was hunting her back. Already overclocked, I sighted in on her head as she was standing up, adjusted my aim, and tightened my finger on the trigger. There was a whine and then a reverberating roar as a beam of green death sprayed out at J, completely removing her head from existence within the same second of me pulling the trigger.
Joe's idea to add a venting system since I was already ripping off Mass Effect with the basic concept had me pressing a button as I held the SAHMPA away from me and waited three seconds as a cloud of boiling steam shot out of the vents on the side. Next, I ejected the spent CF cell that I use to power it, slotting a new one in and letting the gun charge another shot. I could get about 10 shots total before I ran out of mercury to accelerate to "mach-kill-everything," but I had another canister of that in reserve as well. Damn, it almost annoyed me how Joe came up with ways to mitigate almost every negative to my best projects. The whole point was that they were stupidly overkill but equally impractical because that was frickin' cool ! But then again, once I'd thought about it, I'd come to the same conclusion Joe had: overkill and practical was more cool .
"Oh great, the other two are coming in," Joe said, as if complaining about annoying weather. He passed me the EM launcher, and I put it on my back as he pulled out a thermite charge, used his processors and overclocks to cheat at life before tossing it to perfectly land at J's neck stump, and readied one of the LMGs he'd fabricated forever ago. I watched him flick off the safety, grin, and then step off the 8th story of the ruined building we were in and drop to the ground, landing in a crouch without issue thanks to the shock-absorption Trevor figured out.
He shouldered the LMG, sighted down the holographic sight he'd slapped atop it, and the same instant movement came from around the corner, tightened his grip on the trigger as a staccato stream of DU rounds belched out in that direction. The feminine scream identified V just as much as my enhanced visual senses did, and I saw her trailing oil from multiple penetrated rounds before she diverted into a building… then a briefly replayed the memory file of that in overclock myself. V was wearing glasses . Actual glasses. I thought back to Joe telling me about all the psychological warfare he'd been dumping on their squad the past few weeks. Yeah , I thought, Joe definitely pissed her off if she put on the glasses just to shoot at him better.
Joe was still holding down the trigger, sweeping his gun to the right as his thermal visual setting tracked the roman candle V was by comparison to the subzero temperatures of the city around us. There was another blur overhead, and I got my SAHMPA ready as I sent a DM to Joe even as N flew above him and went to divebomb him from behind.
Darkxwolf16: N's coming up from behind you!
Isekai_Protagonist: Saw it on the sonar, radar, AND motion tracker, but thanks for the heads-up regardless.
Without missing a beat, still holding down the trigger one-handed because our combat frames were getting to levels of bullcrap that were approaching the Murder Drones themselves, he reached towards his hip, drew Friendship (I had to actively suppress the urge to snicker at the name even now), and whipped his head around for a split-second to snap a shot that popped N's head like an oily balloon, before reupholstering the pistol and returning to his attempts to riddle V with bullets, even while N's body crashed down a dozen feet behind him.
Two seconds later, the LMG finally ran dry, and before Joe could even start to reload, V was moving like a bat out of hell, trying to be erratic so that I couldn't shoot her-- which I could but didn't want to risk a core hit --while firing out a cluster of missiles at Joe. Using overclock to assess the situation so fast he didn't look like he even outwardly reacted to that development, he chucked his LMG straight at the oncoming missiles, striking one of them and detonating them in a cloud of fire and shrapnel that ultimately did no harm to anyone.
V flew through the cloud straight at Joe, and he tucked and rolled under the swipe of her claws by centimeters, flicking Doll's Gift into its alt-mode. The Solver-[EDIT]ed CrCoNi spike broke through one of her claw hands, shattering it into shards of metal, before V spun out of the way and dodged the rest of the swing, using her remaining claw to scrape against the snow-covered pavement of the street as her peg-feet scrapped. The shattered claw retracted into her wrist and an MP5SD emerged, and she barked out three shots. He sliced two in half with a single swing, one of which was headed straight for his visor, and a third impacted his upper torso, causing him to stumble back a step from the impact.
V's sadistic, sharp-toothed grin began to fade as no oil spurted from the site of impact. Joe waited a moment to be sure she wouldn't immediately shoot again, and then reached his off hand over to where the bullet landed, and dug the crumpled round out of his coat. He held up the bullet in front of him as V's hunter's cross flickered out to hollowed optics, inspecting it for a moment as he began to grin himself. "Think I'll keep this one as my own trophy," he remarked, pocketing the bullet and then looking back up. "Still don't think I could beat your boss?" he taunted.
V gave a wordless scream as she shifted her hands to swords and darted straight at him. Metal rang against metal as Joe's Solver forged entrenching tool clashed against V's hand-blades. He blocked an overhead swing, caught a second sweep from the side on the haft of his weapon and twisted to redirect the momentum, and then swung at her himself, knocking her guard open and kicking her backwards just as her tail flashed for his chest. Letting go of his entrenching tool with his left hand, Joe's sleeve fell back as his prototype pile-bunker/Doomblade hybrid deployed, the blade shining as it smacked aside the blade of the stinger, drops of deadly yellow spilling on the snow and sizzling as they went. Joe retracted the blade in a split second, drew Friendship, and lined up a shot even as a stunned V flared her wings and flew back. Friendship barked out again, V's stinger shattering and splashing nanite acid everywhere, Joe leaping back as well, though a few drops landed on his right boot. V landed, sighting in on that as her optics filled and she grinned, only for Joe to holster Friendship, reach into a coat pocket, and pull out a small spray tube, spraying acid neutralizer onto his shoe and repocketing it as he looked back up at V with a smug-ass grin, all teeth, and her jaw dropped as the yellow glow of the nanite acid died down.
He raised his left hand, palm up, and made a "come and get me" gesture with his fingers. V screamed out a wordless cry as she flew right at him, and I watched them engage in a dance of death that left me entranced. Four blows rang out in two seconds, and Joe leaned and side-stepped as V's right wing attempted to stab him. In a split second, he pulled his left arm back, clenched his fist, and then shot it out. There was a BANG as the pile-bunker part of his wrist-blade engaged, the whole weapon extending out at lightning speeds and punched straight through the mid-joint propulsion ring on V's wing, severing it cleanly before Joe twisted with an underhanded swing of his other weapon that slammed into V's jaw with an echoing CLANG that sent her reeling. Joe's wrist blade retracted back to a normal length, and he darted forwards and scored a slice on her chest that ripped her jacket and drew oil without actually biting deep enough to threaten her core.
I watched, mesmerized, as V snarled at the injury and reengaged, a flurry of clashes ringing out as sparks flew from the impacts, a half-second's break in the melee giving Joe an opening to snap another shot to knock back V's other wing, cracking several of the blades when she'd tried to make room to stab him with them, before they went back to trying to kill one another. I lost focus on what was around me as I stared, and realized that V was beautiful when she cut loose like this, all passion and all emotion, a burning flame of deadly energy in a curvy package, but the image was soured by the knowledge that fear drove her just as much as the rage, and I felt a hot pulse in my systems as I directed my own hate at the Solver for doing that to her.
I missed N's head growing back. I was so absorbed in watching Joe and V fight, admiring one of the crushes that Joe's targeted comment from years back had ignited in my mind and let grow into a burning desire to want to spend my time with them both , that I missed the other sit up, take a look at the fight himself, and then lunge at Joe from behind. Panicking, I sighted in on my SAHMPA, lined up a shot, and pulled the trigger. I didn't expect N to put on a sudden burst of speed as I did. My core leapt into my throat as his head moved out of the imminent path of the green beam headed for him, and I jerked the gun down a microsecond before the stream of ionized mercury erupted and I lost sight of him in the glow of the blast.
The gun fell in front of me as I froze, horrified . No , I begged. No, please don't let me have killed him! I blinked, ice running through my circuits as I looked once the light of the blast faded, and it thawed just as fast as I realized that N had been even faster than I thought and my last second adjustment brought the beam further from a kill-shot still. Rather than erase his upper torso from existence, his core's housing had cleared the beam entirely. Instead, I'd vaporized his lower torso and legs, leaving his upper body and wings to crash to the ground from the sudden change in mass as he screamed from the pain and fear. Joe and V both disengaged from one another, Joe only taking his eyes off the woman who wanted him dead when he was sure she was completely focused on N and his injured state, and then he froze himself.
Isekai_Protagonist: Uzi?
The concern I knew the text couldn't express made the guilt pooling in my circuits roil .
Darkxwolf16: I'm sorry!
Darkxwolf16: I didn't mean to!
Darkxwolf16: I wanted to hit his head!
Darkxwolf16: Oh robo-god I almost killed one of my crushes!
Darkxwolf16: I'm sorry!
Darkxwolf16: I'm sorry!
Isekai_Protagonist: Uzi!
Isekai_Protagonist: He's alive.
Isekai_Protagonist: Don't do it again, but FOCUS!
Isekai_Protagonist: Still in a battle.
Isekai_Protagonist: If your head is that out of the game, fall back. I'll take care of V and then bug out myself. I got toys aplenty for that.
The bitter shame pooling in my systems.
Darkxwolf16: I'm sorry.
Darkxwolf16: I'm sorry, N.
Darkxwolf16: Please don't hate me…
There was a quarter second's pause as I knew Joe thought something over in overclock.
Isekai_Protagonist: Uzi.
Isekai_Protagonist: It was an accident.
Isekai_Protagonist: Grab all your weapons up there and bug out.
Isekai_Protagonist: I'll catch up.
Isekai_Protagonist: Okay?
There were tears brewing on my visor, and I whimpered, but picked up my SAHMPA and started to check around me for anything else.
Darkxwolf16: Okay…
I didn't want them to hate me for this. I so desperately didn't want them to hate me for this.
____________
(Joseph)
I turned my attention back to V as Uzi started to get ready to dip. I could tell she wanted to go after the girl, but was simultaneously torn between wanting to kill me after I literally struck the fear of Cyn into her a couple nights back, and also wanted to go protect N. So, being myself, I decided to run my mouth. "For the record, that very much was an accident."
V whirled on me. "You nearly killed him!"
"V?" N croaked out from where his abdomen was slowly starting to grow back.
"We didn't want to," I reiterated. "We very much don't want to kill any of you." I waited a beat, and threw a side glance to N. "She's sorry."
N looked up at me for a moment, blinking away digital tears. "She is?"
"Yes, she really is," I told him. "Bloody hell, she thinks you're cute, and she's run off to cry because she probably thinks you hate her now."
N looked alarmed. "Oh no! I don't hate her! I mean, I'm kinda a little mad, and this really hurts, but it wasn't anything permanent, and if it was an accident I can't really hold it against her, so I for--"
"N!" V screamed out, "Stop forgiving the sub-sapient toasters for almost killing you !"
"I resent that!" I shot back. "I very much can and have passed a Turing Test, V!" I added.
"Wait, really?" N asked.
"He's lying!" V shrieked out, panicked. "Like humans do!"
"Oooooooooooh!" N went, and I had to resist the urge to facepalm at just how dense this himbo was. "Man, that almost convinced me, there. You guys really do mimic humans well." Good gods, the fucking irony of the fact that I'm literally a human ghost in the shell , I thought. "But still, no hard feelings about the almost-murder if it was an accident. I mean, I'm still kinda shook and scared and contemplating my own mortality all of the sudden, but I'll have most of that in the repression folder once my legs grow back."
I looked back over at V, and she looked at me, all the animosity forgotten for a few seconds as we both gave each other a mutual "Is he for real?" look. Then she deployed her claws again. I squared up.
"V!" J called out, and I tracked her on my sonar as she regenerated after the thermite charge burnt out, sitting up and taking in the situation. "Take N back to the Spire. I'll deal with this toaster myself!"
I was very , very tempted to make a remark along the lines of "Because that worked so well for you the last few times," but managed to keep my big mouth shut thanks to overclocking. If J wanted to turn this from a 3v1 to a 1v1, I wasn't gonna complain about not having to see if my old Dark Souls 3 Gank-Spanking skills could translate to IRL. I kept my sonar watching J, my radar watching N, and my visual feed on V as I cranked up my overclock to the max speed of perception and waited for movement from any of them. V looked torn between going for me again and following her orders, so I decided to weigh things a bit more in my favor.
"Go around me, and I'll let you get him," I remarked. V looked at me, scowling, but I gave her a fanged grin back as I crept to the side, keeping an eye on all 3 foes. But sure enough, I was right that nearly 5 and a half years before canon wasn't enough time to build V's apathy quite to the levels of said canon counterpart, and she flew in an arc around me to grab N and and fly away while his legs finally started to grow back. A few seconds later, and I was left alone with J.
"Alright, toaster ," she spat out. "No fancy snipers, no tricks, just you and me."
"If you start to say you're going to right-size my existence , I'm gonna call you cringe ," I remarked.
J stared at me for a few more seconds, a blush starting to creep up on her face, before her optics flickered out and swapped to a hunter's cross. "I'm gonna void your warranty!" she shrieked at me.
"That was somehow worse ," I told her.
She didn't dignify that with a response, launching straight at me, but a quick use of my grappling hook had me out of the path and 5 stories up before she even passed through the space I was previously occupying. She landed, and turned around and up to look at me as I waved down from my new perch with Doll's gift, and aimed the grappling hook again with the other hand. "I'd love to stay and chat, but I have to go now!" I shot out the grappling hook to a building an entire block down, just shy of its roof. As I started to zip away from her slack-jawed form, I cried out, "My people need meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"
I zipped away and clambered up onto the roof before J finished processing my unhinged bullshit. I vaulted a roof vent as I heard an explosion behind me, and then my sonar picked up her flying after me. I jumped between the roof of the building I was on and the next, tucking into a roll as I landed before springing into a sprint, swapping out the magazine on Friendship as I ran, before going onto my playlist and queuing up Night Flyer by JT music… because why the fuck wouldn't I play the song about Dying Light while doing a running parkour chase battle with an arguably undead robot who burns in the light of day? And yes, I had a speaker bluetoothed to my OS clipped to my hip, so this was now playing aloud.
When the sun has begun to go down
You don't wanna get stuck outside
I grappled to another building as a stream of gunfire raced past me, getting some odd deja vu from Doll's scene evading J and Cynessa in Episode 6 as I flipped and dove to the side in the same motion to dodge a rocket, and slid under another ventilation unit on a rooftop, another rocket going off behind me, my coat flapping from the pressure wave of the blast.
Cause the undead wanna throw down
Are you ready to put up a fight?
I leapt between another building, twisting midair to snap a bolt round at an oncoming rocket to shoot it out of the air. I landed in another roll, snapping my gun back up as I kept cheating at life via overclock, and fired again, and then a third as soon as the recoil settled. The first of that pair blew apart her rocket arm in a cloud of fire and oil, but she twisted and lost one of the blades on a wing as she blocked the second. She rocketed straight at me, and I dropped onto my back and pulled my legs in.
I don't wanna sit around and hold out
Is the redeye gonna run on time?
"Are you playing music ?" She screamed as she missed me by inches before I kicked out my enhanced legs and slammed them against her chest just as she went over me. She flew off me with a cry, and I twisted and rolled to a knee as I fired my grappling hook across the street, crashing through a window and tumbling into an apartment, sprinting straight forwards and barging through a door.
Better get the wheels up and roll out cause
I won't let 'em hold up my flight
I slid as I went down the hall, a hail of explosions erupting on the exterior walls of the building immediately followed by a hail of SMG fire going overhead. I sprung up to my feet, whatever the hell the synthetic equivalent to adrenaline was pumping through my oil lines, crashing through another door deeper into the building with a crack that I knew J would pick up, bracing my shoulder as I went straight through an interior drywall and then sighted a window.
Caution with all the baggage you brought
Better clutch your luggage tight
Bullrushing forwards as I heard J crashing through the building behind me, I consulted my internal maps of the city that I'd been taking and started plotting out a route, just in case, while I dove through the window in a crash of shattering glass as I fired my grappling hook at a billboard across the street and zipped across the gap, my heavier body crashing through the decrepit material of the thing as I gave an undignified yelp, but recovered mid fall and hit the roof below with a controlled tumble. I came up to a knee and let loose three more shots at J as she came out of the building behind me, the Murder Drone darting to the side to avoid all three.
When you start runnin' you're chum in the
Water and the fish are gonna bite
I ejected the spent magazine, and reloaded while sprinting parallel to J. I snapped the mag back in and racked the slide atop it, tucking into a roll and grimacing as three of the bullets from J's most recent spray impacted my frame, all three of them pinging off harmlessly but one of them going straight into the pocket I kept one of my two bootloop lights in. I snapped my pistol back out one-handed and pot-shot J's SMG back to scrap yet again.
Never been a better time to
Get out of the house
Even if you think it not so bright
"Stop shooting my hands out you revolutionary dissident!" She screamed at me.
I don't have a say when the sun goes down
But you know I'm gonna run the night!
I gave J a genuinely incredulous look, before I shouted back, "Stop fucking shooting at me , then!"
Cuz I'm somewhat of a nightowl
I'm getting ready to fly now
The beat started to pick up as we stared at each other for a few moments while her hand grew back.
Y'all better get off of my cloud
Everybody want a bite of my clout!
With a sharp toothed snarl, she rocketed straight in at me. In one smooth motion, I tossed Friendship up, drew Doll's gift, gripped it with both hands, and swung at her oncoming hand blades, knocking hers out of the way before my slowed perception of time told me she was twisting in an attempt to bisect me with a wing. In slow motion, I extended my wrist blade, and swung my left arm while straining my hardware at its max overclocked specs. There was a shower of sparks as the wing grated against the blade while I ducked and twisted, J sailing over me as I got a great look up her skirt while she went by me, before I leaned my head back further and her stinger missed me by a millimenter. Not a comfortable margin of error to avoid death, let me tell you.
So open wide pal
What's a pandemic? Come and find out
"You know, I'd have thought they'd have been black instead of yellow!" I called out, catching my bolt pistol without even looking up. Man, I thought, all these enhanced senses and reaction times and dexterity were awesome. Also, J actually wears panties, lol.
I'm not the guy who will draw the blinds
While locked inside his hideout
J looked at me with a poleaxed expression for a whole three seconds before she realized what I was referring to and her entire face lit up in an acidic yellow blush. "Y-y-you filthy degenerate! " I gave a two-fingered salute and an Uzi-tier gremlin cackle as I turned and grappled across to another building.
Some parties never die down
And the dead don't rest in my town
I twisted and shot another rocket out of the air as soon as I had my feet on solid roof again. J shifted both hands to rocket launchers and released a whole cluster of the things at me. My eyemotes widened and I turned and caught a skylight that I dove through in another shattering of glass without a moment's hesitation. I was falling through a stairwell, and grappled to one of the landings, twisting midair to crash into the apartment door I shot feet-first.
But I'm in so deep, I might drown
I guess I better knock the lights out
I punched straight through the brittle and frozen wood, ripping my hook out of the splinters and drawing it back in as I rolled to bleed momentum while explosions thundered above me and the ceiling cracked as dust and plaster rained down. I stuffed the hook back into a pocket and got back to running.
This rave is over - pipe down!
Your grave is dug, go lie down!
J crashed through the ceiling in front of me, hunter's cross burning yellow as she snarled at me, and I didn't waste an instant as I skidded to a stop while whipping out Emily's cross and blasting her with UV light at point blank. She screamed and staggered back as steam erupted from her frame, throwing her wings in front of her to shield her torso and head, and I leveled Friendship with my other hand and snapped a shot at her knee.
Don't raise no hell on my ground,
Or your head is gonna catch a live round!
J rolled even as she cried out in pain, the next shot aimed at her head instead detonating against the blades of a wing. I reached into my coat and grabbed an EM grenade, cooking it in my pocket as I backpedalled as J leveled twin SMGs at me before yeeting the thing right at her. It detonated mid-air, before she could shoot it, but the crackle of electricity that made my visual feed fuzzy for the whole of a hundred-thousandth of a second thanks to my EMP hardening successfully robbed her wings of propulsion for the next 20-30 seconds. I turned and bolted, exiting the apartment and vaulting the railing to the stairwell just before a hail of bullets cut through the air where I just was.
I'm never gonna throw in my towel
When I'm at bat I don't strikeout
Fuck me in a non-sexy way, this is stressful as shit! I thought as I twisted and grappled at the partially destroyed roof above me. I met J's gaze for an instant as she glared at me as I shot back up to the roof, clambering onto a mostly intact section that still groaned ominously at my weight, but I was already lining up to another building.
I'm a natural selection
Right out the gate and
Darwin is startin' tryouts!
I zipped across to another building and kept running, swapping magazines on Friendship yet again. I jumped and vaulted between buildings, closing in on an elevated rail line, jumping and grabbing onto the roof of it as I crashed through a window and into a train car filled with long-dead skeletons.
Bite me - you might lose your teeth!
How hard is that to swallow?
Just like a nice eulogy,
I'm one tough act to follow!
"Man," I muttered aloud, "I gotta pass this song onto Uzi."
I'll smile right through my teeth
As I go Desperado!
Odds of survival are like
An apocalyptic lotto!
I broke open a window on the other side of the train, offering a quiet apology to a pair of skeletons fearfully clinging to one another even in death as I snapped their bones when I clambered my shiny metal ass over them, sighting across the way to another building and grappling over yet again.
But I'm still in the running
A little cardio never killed anybody
A bit of parkour can be thrilling and fun
But if you're not vigilant it'll be bloody
I cleared another three blocks thanks mostly to my grappling hook before my radar picked up J on my six again. I thought over what I had on me, and realized I still had two spare box mags for the LMG I discarded. I dropped them both, along with a pair of grenades, right under the lip of the edge of the roof I was on, and waited for her, slowly backing away with Doll's gift in one hand and Friendship in the other. She seemed to have learned her lesson when it came to direct attacks because she landed in front of me rather than tried to pounce on me. I lowered the music a bit with a mental command as I tried talking again.
Vitamin D fulfilled when it's sunny
Even though we ran outta milk with the honey
Antivaxxer zombies sobbing
"Antizin literally did nothing"
"Don't suppose I could convince you to stop all the genocide and turn on your employers, could I?" I ventured. I personally doubted it heavily at this point in the timeline, but didn't see a reason not to try , you know?
"Are you serious ?" she asked, me sounding genuinely incredulous. "Throw away my position as top quota filler on the planet for 9 years in a row to join some malfunctioning corrupted workers?"
"Workers who could have killed you over a dozen times over at this point if we'd been so inclined. Why do you think we've avoided shooting at your upper torsos as much as possible? That's where your cores are," I countered.
But I trust the science
For neutralizing a virus
That doesn't like ultraviolet
Speaking of that part of the light spectrum, I had a hand in my pocket ready to pull Emily's cross on J again, but she replied with. "What?" The hunter's cross flickered out as she watched me warily.
"Those regenerative nanites have to come from somewhere , and it would either be the most heavily armored part of your bodies or your heads, and I doubted they'd put them in somewhere only connected to the rest of you by a thin neck," I explained.
I'll shine it where sun ain't shinin'
Now hurry, the Light is Dying,
It's urgent, they're kinda violent
You might wanna watch your ass
Behind you they like to ride it!
J looked down at her chest for a moment, contemplative, before looking back up at me with a glare. "That doesn't matter, and that's industrial espionage to boot!" She leveled a MP5SD at me.
" Oh, che cazzo, " I muttered, before I pulled out the cross and blasted J with fuck off-amounts of UV light. She screamed again as she stumbled back, and I bodily threw myself back as I fired off a round at the ammo boxes. There was a BOOM as the munitions and grenades cooked off in a chain reaction that threw J from her feet and I saw shrapnel fly over me. Rolling to my feet, I sprung back up, getting a bead while J reoriented herself.
Is anyone investing in bioweapons?
Industry is boomin'!
Careful if you go viral,
That kind of exposure,
Could be your ruin!
Friendship barked 3 more times, J's wings blocking every shot, before she flicked her tail out and I dove to the side, rolling back to my feet as nanite acid splashed the roof. She came right at me tail jabbing at me a second time, but this time I weaved around the stinger and physically grabbed the canister thanks to my enhanced speed and reflexes. Doll's gift lashed out and I severed the limb a few inches below the canister, darting forwards and tackling J before she could swipe at me with any melee weapons. We both rolled onto the roof in an undignified heap as we wrestled for the upper hand.
Don't put your faith in humanity
Like an NFT - you'll lose it!
"Let go of me, you communist toaster!" she shouted as I grappled at her wrists, too close for her wings to catch me.
And just because you're a human being
Doesn't mean you're being human!
"I'm an Anarcho-Syndicalist , you corporate ladder climber!" I shot back.
She got a wrist free, a blade deploying and swinging at my neck. I cranned my head down while also ducking, opened my mouth, and slammed my industrial press of a jaw shut around the Solver-forged metal of the blade. The CrCoNi teeth, aided by enough PSI to make your mom's ass jealous-- get roasted, 4th Wall --slammed down on the sword and then kept closing . There was a crunch as I bit straight through the sword , the part not attached to J's wrist clattering to the ground as she stared at me with wide optics, before I spat out the metal.
With so many active factions,
Not one of 'em have compassion
J and I stared at one another for a moment. "For the record, that was a tactical combat bite, and there was nothing sexual about it!" I asserted.
J blinked once, and then said, "Agreed."
Collaboration has a lack of action
So we're all gonna fall and
The dead will cash in!
J suddenly rolled, and then was on top of me, raising her other hand back and bringing out a claw, so I just reached into my pocket and pulled out Emily's cross for a third time, causing her to scream and throw herself backwards. I scrambled to my feet, her wings blocking the last two rounds in my bolt pistol's magazine.
It's fight or flight,
So which will you pick to get by?
Now that's it nightfall,
You bet I'll be on the redeye!
I dropped the pistol and made a mental note to always remember to bring two primary weapons in the future, because I could have really used a war crime shotgun right now. J flared her wings now that I wasn't shooting anymore, throwing herself back with a grin when she saw I was out of bolts, and from midair shifted both hands to rocket launchers and shot a pair of them at me. I cranked up the music on reflex as I slowed my perception of time.
I'm not flyin' economy,
Because I don't sit with an L!
Two rockets. I had two hands. I had bullet time. And I was an unhinged maniac who lived by the maxim of "If it's stupid, but it works , it's not stupid." If anyone on the other side of the 4th Wall couldn't guess the dumb but cool shit I was about to do, they really needed to work on their narrative awareness. The rockets streaked towards me.
Name your price - I'll upgrade, I want that seat with a
First class ticket to hell!
I spun, snatching one rocket out of the air just below the warhead, twisting, snatching the other, looked over at J as I watched her gaze shift from smug to stupefied in slow motion, ran the math in my head, and then did a full body spin as I yeeted both of them right back at J.
Her mouth barely had time to open in slack-jawed denial before both rockets slammed into her face and a wing simultaneously. Two explosions erupted, and I saw J's body tumble out of the cloud to the street below. I jogged up to the edge of the building to look down at the ground, J's head a shattered mess and one wing reduced to scrap metal.
I'm a highflyin' Nightflyer, nanananana!
I'm a highflyin' Nightflyer, nanananana!
I took a moment to properly aim a thermite charge, set it off, and then tossed it to land right in her messed up head. "Sorry, J," I offered, "But at the same time, that was really fucking cool…" I stood there for a couple seconds, cutting the music, and then said. "Jesus fucking Christ I just grabbed two rockets mid-flight with my bare fucking hands and fucking threw them at someone , that was so fucking cool but also so fucking stupid, what that fuck is wrong with me?" I took a few moments in overclock to process that my stupidity would probably get me killed one of these days, and then resolved to keep doing it anyways because it was fucking funny … still, I should be a bit more cautious about things, and resolved to take a second primary weapon on all surface excursions in the future. I walked away and grabbed Friendship off the roof, reloaded it, and began to make my way back to base.
_____________
I found Uzi sitting on the floor just past the first airlock of our secret exit tunnel, knees drawn up in front of her and her arms wrapped around them. I took her in for a moment, and then sat down next to her and put a hand on her shoulder. I didn't say anything, I just sat there with her. After 42 seconds, she finally spoke up. "He hates me, doesn't he? I almost killed him, and now he hates me, and I'm never gonna get to make him happy, and I ruined everything, didn't I?"
I blinked a few times, and in my head, thought, Ooooooooooooooh, boy . Aloud, I said, "He's N, Uzi. He already forgave you."
She turned to me, digital tears brimming on her display. "You don't know that!"
I actually snickered, but before Uzi could go off on me, I said, "No, he literally already forgave you. You want me to replay the memory file on my visor?"
Uzi seemed to snap out of her depressive state as she gave me a nonplused look. "Wait, really?"
I rolled my eyemotes, and flicked my visor's external display to replay my own POV of N saying he didn't hate Uzi, him literally forgiving her before V cut him off, and him saying there were no hard feelings.
She sniffled. "Thanks, Joe… also, I hate that humans programmed sniffling into us! We don't even have noses !"
"Believe me, I would very much like to punch the CEO of JCJenson square in the face," I told her, and then added, "But do you see? You worry too much! You're Uzi Freakin' Doorman! So yeah, you almost killed the guy you like. You shot his head off a bunch of times before that, and more importantly, you didn't actually kill him! Just don't do it again, and pick yourself up and try harder. You'll rizz him and his ex soon enough!"
She looked up at me, pensive, and then gave a small smile. "Yeah!" she agreed. "Thanks, Joe."
"Just outta curiosity, though, what did have you end up scuffing that shot? You're normally way more accurate with these things, after all."
Uzi looked away from me, and looked suspiciously straightfaced as she stared ahead. After a few seconds, she said, in a small, vulnerable voice, "I was watching you fight V, and her being angry at you and being really violent while wearing those glasses was really pretty." I saw her shoulders tense.
I sighed, and wrapped the girl in a hug. She stiffened, and then leaned into it. "Uzi," I told her. "I'm not gonna make fun of you for having two crushes. I will ask you to not get distracted in an active combat zone again, but I'm not gonna make fun of you for this, okay?"
She hugged me back. "Thanks, Joe," she murmured.
I gave her two pats on the shoulder. "Anytime, Uzi." We stayed there for a few more seconds, before she let go, and I pulled back, and we both stood up. "Head back in?" I asked her.
"Yeah."
We started to walk to the seconds airlock, and I remarked aloud, "Man, I did not think that a single comment I made as a half-joke three years back and then joked a bit more about in response to your reaction would have had you down this bad for those two."
She gave me a side eye. "Oh, bite me!"
I gave her a shit-eating grin. "Nah, that's gonna be N and V's jobs."
She came to a dead stop, face rapidly filling with neon purple hash marks. " Jooooooooooooooooooeeeeeeeee!!! "
I started laughing, but then forced myself to stop. "You know I'm only teasing you in good fun, right? If this ever actually makes you uncomfortable, let me know and I'll stop, okay?"
She was still blushing horrifically , but nodded. Then, between one second and the next, she recovered from her embarrassment in an instant, and remarked aloud, "I have got to remember to speedrun embarrassment via overclock more often."
This time, when I started laughing, I didn't stop for a good three minutes.
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(Serial Designation V)
I was barely keeping it together. The Scrapper knew about Cyn, was planning to fight it, they nearly killed N, and I think he was actually being honest that he and his sniper were sorry about that. I shook my head, and tried to force the mask of indifferent apathy and sadism that I'd molded for years, but it was more difficult than it usually was. I grabbed a canister of oil from the reserves at the Corpse Spire, and came back over to where I'd set N down. He was gingerly standing on legs that had just finished regenerating, bending the knees as if to make sure that everything was in order. He… he actually looked kinda--
I closed my eyes and sucked a breath in between my teeth. I can't think like that. I can't let myself fall for him again. J… J's being nicer to him, I can't let them both get reset again . I have to keep my distance, no matter how much it hurts , I thought.
Yet despite every part of my processors screaming at me to just toss the canister his way and leave , I walked up to him slowly, and called out in a hesitant voice, "N?"
He perked up and looked over at me. "Oh, hi V!" Then he blinked a few times. "You're wearing glasses?"
I realized that they were still on my face. I glanced away, not wanting to stare into those eyes that I knew were adoring me even when he couldn't remember . Could never truly remember, because of Cyn. "Yeah," I muttered.
"Are you farsighted?" he asked, and I whipped my gaze right back to him as I suppressed the fear running through my system.
"How did you know that?" I asked.
N looked contemplative for a moment, putting a hand to his chin. "I… I don't know… it just felt like the right guess to make…"
I slowly took an unnecessary breath in and then slowly let it out. Just a stray memory triggered by the glasses and nothing else. Just pretend it's not important and move on, V . "I got you some oil," I said, finally reaching him as I offered the canister.
"Thanks, V! I appreciate it!" he said, giving me a smile that made my core ache with longing that I could never fulfill. He took the offered canister and started chugging it for the next few seconds, finally stopping when he drained it, and let out a sigh. "Oh, that's way better!"
"You're welcome," I told him, and… I actually meant it.
N looked pensive for a few moments, and then started to speak in a hesitant tone. "Hey, V?"
I glanced over at him, nervous. "Yes, N?"
"I… can you not interrupt me for this?"
Please don't let this be a confession, please don't let this be a confession, I begged. "Okay."
"I have a crush on you," he said, and I felt my core plummet , before he raised a hand, and started to speak again. "And… I know I'm not always the fastest at understanding things… or… even fast at understanding things in general… but the Scrapper has had me oddly introspective lately. And… correct me if I'm wrong once I'm done… but I think you're going through some personal stuff? And that's fine! That's not my place to pry either!" I stared, jaw actually hanging because of how spot on he got without knowing everything and inevitably triggering another memory reset. N rubbed the back of his head. "So… I wanted to apologize because I think I'm making you uncomfortable, and J's praise for my forward thinking has caused me to try and do that more , and I realized that the pining is kinda messed up of me, and you probably weren't wearing the glasses before even if you need them because you thought I'd say you look cute in them or something, which you do-- aaaaaaaaah! I mean, uh, I'm sorry! I-I, me pining after you like this isn't fair when you're dealing with whatever you're dealing with, so I'm gonna try to stop the obvious pining while you're around, and wait for you to try and work through whatever you have going on, and just ask… Do you wanna just be friends for now?" he got that last bit out in a rush.
I had to force the tears away so he wouldn't see them. I… I was still beyond pissed at the Scrapper right now. I was terrified that he was gonna bring Cyn down on our heads sooner rather than later. But… I wanted more from N. Yet I knew I couldn't have it… but… this… this might be enough . "Yeah," I said, in a small, weak voice. "I'd like to be friends. And… thanks for realizing that…" I added.
He held his arms out. "You're welcome. Do you want a purely platonic friend hug?"
I gave him a smile that was as weak as my voice was, and stepped forwards. "Yeah," I told him, and those few moments in his arms, his warm body against mine, even if the hug wasn't what I really wanted from him, was the first time I'd felt safe since the last time he'd been reset.
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(Serial Designation N)
The night after I almost died and deliberately friend-zoned myself (for the foreseeable future but not permanently) with my crush so she wouldn't feel as bad, I was flying around my patrol route when I came across a barrel in the middle of a street. Now… I was starting to realize that these things tended to be traps left by the Scrapper which would result in my parts being stolen and sometimes some oil being left behind. So I spent a good twenty minutes circling the area, checking for any signs of mines, looking in each nearby building for hidden drones, and checking lines of sight to the barrel that a sniper could be lurking. When I didn't find anything worthy of deploying the "LITERALLY SO INSANELY SUSPICIOUS" flag I had for… some reason , I finally decided to close in. But I was ready for sudden explosives, or magnets, or magnetic explosives ! But still… nothing.
On top of the barrel was a small briefcase. I leaned me head back, bracing a wing to try and shield myself as I reached for it, and repeated a mantra of "Please don't be a bomb, please don't be a bomb, please don't be a bomb, please don't be a bomb, please don't be a bomb, please don't be a bomb--"
It clicked open, and there wasn't any kind of explosion or booby trap. I stuck a finger into the gap to hold it open, and then gently removed the top of the barrel and peered it. It took me a few seconds of staring at the liquid black sitting right there to realize that the entire thing was full of oil. My jaw dropped. Yeah, a couple cans being left for me was nice, but kinda felt like they were trying to balance out the "repeatedly harvesting me like sapient cattle for parts" thing they had going… but this was an entire barrel of oil!
I carefully put the cover back on. "Oh biscuits," I muttered. "They really are sorry about the almost murder." I kicked a foot in the snow. "I wish they were sapient. Maybe we could have been friends if they weren't rogue workers that the Company needs disassembled." I set the briefcase back on top of the barrel, and inside of it was a… a tablet. There was a stylus clipped to the side of it. I turned it around in my hands, and turned it on. It was already open to a notepad app. There were two voice files saved on it, labeled "Read First," and "Read Second." Wow, that was nicely self-explanatory! I opened the "Read First" one.
I played a voice file that sounded like a teen girl whose tone was torn between apologetic and embarrassed. "I'm really sorry for almost actually killing you, you don't deserve that. You really don't. You're a great person, N, and you don't deserve to die. I know it definitely doesn't make up for it, but here's a barrel of oil, you… cute Murder Robot." The recording was attributed to one "Darkxwolf16."
I was confused, and took a few moments to process that, before I suddenly came to a series of realizations. "Wait!" I blurted out. 'The Scrapper wasn't lying, and the sniper girl actually thinks I'm cute ? Is she actually flirting with me? If she's not sapient, is that technically bestiality? Oh biscuits, am I in a love triangle?!?" I set the tablet back into the briefcase and held my head in a panic. "Oh no, the faulty programming on the workers made that girl have a crush on me?" I mumbled. "That's so messed up! She doesn't actually realize she isn't sapient and is just a program mimicking humans and she just thinks she has a crush on me when she isn't actually thinking anything at all and is just super corrupted! Oh biscuits, that's so sad ! How do I react to that! I don't want to hurt her simulated feelings!" I pulled up the memory file V sent J and I of her engagement with the sniper girl, and checked out a still image of the sniper girl giving a fanged grin straight at V. You know, that emo/goth aesthetic was kinda cool, and I zoomed in on her beanie, and went, "Oh, is that a rendition of herself as a MLP Thestral! Oh, that's adorable ! Wait! No! Bad N! She's not sapient, so that's weird , and… and I like V even if I'm giving her space right now!" I slapped my cheeks a few times and shook my head, and decided to distract myself from my thoughts by checking the second audio file.
As soon as I hit play, the Scrapper's voice came from the tablet's speaker. "The barrel of oil was Darkxwolf16's idea, but the tablet was mine. It has a thermal battery. You lot have high baseline temperatures, so simply holding it against your torso while you sleep can recharge it. Also, I'm also sorry about the almost-murder, so there's a drawing program on the tablet if you want something to pass the time, and a stylus clipped to the of the thing. Have fun. Sincerely, the Scrapper."
I gasped. "The Scrapper gave me a drawing program so I can draw things?!?" I jumped up and down while clutching the tablet to my chest, literally squeeing with joy. "This is so awesome ! I'm gonna have so much fun getting better at drawing." I was grinning so hard right now. This was better than getting a branded pen! Then I suddenly froze as I ran back through the last three words there, optics hollowing to pixel-thick rings, and I spoke aloud in a small, haunted voice. "The Scrapper took on the name we gave him after spying on us?" I shuddered, and then remarked in a more chipper tone, " Wow , that corrupted code that's making him mimic humans is really good at mimicking humans. That's a terrifying terror tactic, for sure! I'd be screaming from fear right now if he was actually a sapient drone that was actively farming me for parts and then took on the name we gave him as his personal title . Because that would be horrifying ," I said that last sentence in the same haunted tone I had a few seconds ago.
Then I put the tablet away, pocketed the briefcase, and stared at the barrel for a moment. "Okay… think N… you're gonna need a way to explain this one…" I put a hand to my chin and stared pacing back and forth, my facial optics swapping to the text [Thinking of a convincing lie to explain the literal oil barrel]. I suddenly stopped, and snapped a finger. "Right! Hide the barrel for now, find some worker, kill them for their WARM, SWEET oil, and then make a teensy little white lie that won't hurt anyone that I chased them under a… a gas station! And then… and then I found the barrel in its basement!" I nodded to myself, putting my hands on my hips. "And then the worker had the tablet on them, and it didn't have a password or anything! Yeah, that works! Great job, N!"
I stood there for a couple more seconds, and then I let my arms go slack as I slumped my shoulders. "Man, I gotta stop talking to myself." I shrugged, and then walked over to grab the barrel of oil. I'd put it on a roof somewhere, use nanite acid and then a bit of spit to weld the roof access door shut, find a worker, kill them, and then check my downloaded maps of the city to find a gas station. Then I grab the barrel and the body, fly to the station, and then come back from that direction to make my alibi look better! I smiled to myself as I got going. Man, tonight was looking great! Thanks, Mr. Scrapper, and you too, cute sniper girl!
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