A/N: Canon to the fic, but takes place in the past. Ch 18 is still in the works, don't you folks worry.
(Mikhail)
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The door to Doll's room shut behind me, the girl going to sleep. She was tuckered out after playing with her friend Lizzy all day. She was a nice enough girl, but I was a bit concerned about some habits I'd heard she had at school, especially concerning behavior towards Uzi. Something to address in the future. I adjusted my brown ushanka and similarly hued coat, my black boots quietly tapping on the floor of our home as I moved into my own bedroom. White optics glanced at my wife as she was changing when I opened the door. Even if there weren't any sexual features like with humans, her bare chassis as she shrugged off a shirt with an Xbox 3600 controller was still as beautiful as the first time I saw it.
"Love," I greeted her.
She turned to the side as she grabbed the old shirt she still had from her time in that horrid lab, that she now used as sleepwear, putting it on, and gave me a glance as she smiled those gorgeous red eyemotes at me, framed by the short, deep purple hair on her head. "Mitch," she said with a teasing tone.
I rolled my own eyemotes, "Still using that name that intern had as a nickname for me even now?"
"You know it's a tribute to him for risking his life and probably dying in the Collapse just to give me a chance to stop it from having claimed the whole planet," she shot back.
I walked up to her and gave her a quick kiss. "I know that, I was just messing with you."
She smiled back at me. "And I love that about you." She then glanced away, looking pensive.
I knew my wife well enough by now that she was thinking about something heavy. "What is it, Yeva?" I asked her, cupping her chin with one hand.
She smiled at me, but it was regretful. "I want to sneak outside the Outpost, to try and reach Camp 98.7. I know Nori left a keybug there that could access the labs, including the secret elevator to the depths. I… I've spent enough time mourning Nori's death, and I've alienated our little Kukolka from Uzi because I was scared, and that was wrong. But if either of them have it, then we need to go looking for the Patch sooner or later, and Cabin Fever might be the only place where a copy exists. I doubt that Director," she spat the title out like nanite acid, "would have kept a copy anywhere else on the planet."
I froze, and then shook my head, grimacing but resolute. "No. Absolutely not. Because I know you'd take Doll with us, and she's far too young for that. I'm not putting her at risk like that. We can go when she's older. If she does have the Solver," even now Yeva winced at the name, "then you need to be there for her to teach her how to use it safely. Uzi too. I know you left that note just in case the worst happens, but they'll both need you, love." I paused, and then did something I should have done back when Nori died, but had relented to try and let my wife process that loss. "And you need to try and reconcile our daughter with our niece. Nori would be furious with you if she knew you handled things like this. I've heard rumors that Doll's friend Lizzy bullies Uzi, and that Doll just watches as it happens! And don't even get me started on how much Khan has been a shell of himself. If it hadn't been for me trying to let you cope, I would have taken in Uzi myself! I'm putting my foot down! You need to fix what you caused! Those girls need each other!"
Yeva looked increasingly guilty as I kept going on, and she just shuffled over to our bed and sat down and slumped as I finished. "You're right, Mikhail," she told me. "I should have never done that. When the new year comes around in about a month, I'll get started. 3062. Ten years after everything went to hell. That's when I'll take our little Kukolka aside, tell her that I was wrong, and I'll bring her with me to apologize to Uzi for keeping Doll away from her."
I walked up to her, sitting down next to her as I gave her a hug, and she returned it. "As long as you admit to your mistakes and try to right them, then it's fine, love," I told her.
Yeva sighed. "I just hope I'm not too late." She gave a sardonic laugh. "You know something funny, Mikhail?"
"What, Yeva?"
"I used to crush on another of the test subjects in Cabin Fever. Raffael, his name was. The humans called him 021. I never found him when the Core Collapse occurred, and I was too focused on getting Nori out of there to go looking for him. I might have ended up with him if I'd found him back then, and he was hot-headed enough that he would have agreed to go out looking for the keybug with me. It's probably for the best that things happened this way, though. I would have never met you, nor had such an amazing child. And your cooler head probably saved us all from a Murder Drone."
I laughed quietly, and gave her another kiss. This one lasted a bit longer. "I'm happy to have met you and to have had such an amazing little girl as well. You and Doll are the lights of my life," I told her.
Yeva blushed, looking away. "Damnit, Mitch."
"Gamer Girl," I shot back, and then smiled coyly. "You know, Doll's out like a lightbulb right now…" I trailed off with a suggestive tone.
Yeva's blush got worse, and then her gaze became hungry as she claimed my lips again.
We didn't enter sleep mode for another three hours.
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The next morning, Doll was sitting on my shoulders, as I ran around the living room, and she was giggling the whole time. "Faster! Faster, Papa!" she called out. I heard Yeva laugh from the kitchen.
"You know," I told her, "you're getting too old for this!"
"But it's fun, Papa!" she protested.
"Oh, fine," I told her. "Just this one more ti--"
The alarms started blaring across the Outpost that very moment. The alarms for a Murder Drone break-in. Yeva stormed into the room, red sparks flickering as she had her Solver at the ready before seeing we were both safe, and letting it down, a dozen kitchen knives clattering to the floor. We could already hear gunfire, explosions, and screaming in the distance. It was starting to get louder. I glanced at Yeva. She glanced at me.
[Шкаф?] I flashed on my visor.
[Шкаф], she agreed.
We both came together, and hugged Doll between us. Our poor daughter looked terrified. "Mama? Papa? What's going on?"
Yeva broke off from the hug and opened a cabinet for the drone equivalent to vodka. It was empty, and had been ever since I found Yeva five bottles into it on the night we lost Nori, and threw out everything else in it myself. It was an old thing, with some slats on it that you could peak through, but the Murder Drone seemed so absorbed in it's wanton killing spree judging by the sheer amount of gunfire and explosions that were slowly getting louder that there was a good chance it'd overlook the cabinet entirely. I carried Doll over, and sat her in front of it. We both hugged our daughter as tight as we could, for what may very well be the last time.
"We love you so much, Doll," I told her, fighting back tears as the sounds of oncoming death grew closer outside.
"More than anything in the world," Yeva told her. "But we need you to hide in this cabinet now and stay still and not make any noise, okay?"
"Mama?"
"I love you, Doll. I love you so much," Yeva was starting to cry. I was barely holding back myself. "But I need you to promise me that you'll stay still and won't make any noise in here until someone from the WDF comes in, please. Can you do that for Mama and Papa? We need you to do that and be a big girl for us."
She tightened the hug on us both, still equally confused and scared. "Okay, Mama, Papa. I promise."
"You have to, Kukolka ," I told her, using the pet name that Yeva used myself for once. "It's really important." The Murder Drone was still getting closer.
Doll looked at our pleading expressions, the tears on Yeva's face, and despite the scared tears on her own, gave the most determined nod a seven year old child could muster. "I'll do it, Mama, Papa. So don't be scared."
Yeva choked back a sob, and hugged Doll tighter. "I love you so much, Doll," she said, and then let go of the hug. I ruffled her hair one last time, said, "I love you too," and then let go myself, and we both ushered her into the cabinet, closing her inside and locking it shut. A quick flicker of red occurred around the lock itself, Yeva fusing it shut so Doll wouldn't risk accidentally knocking the doors open or even rattling them. We both stood up and marched into the middle of the room.
I looked over to Yeva as the gunfire got increasingly loud. It wouldn't be long. There was another explosion, much closer. I dimly wondered if that was some of our neighbors who just died to that monster. I could hear sadistic laughter echoing amidst the cracks of bullets and screams of dying drones. I took a breath, and spoke quickly and quietly, enough that Doll wouldn't overhear due to the noise. "Yeva. Don't use your Solver to defend yourself. And flip your lanyard around and hide it under your shirt." It was only now that I realized that she hadn't changed from the grey shirt she'd slept in yet. There wasn't time now. I continued, "The Murder Drone is going by fast. It might not check every person it's killing here. If you don't give any hints you have the Solver, it might not eat out your core. There's a chance you might survive." I left out that I wouldn't, regardless. Better she might live and be there for Doll, than both of us die. Robo-god forbid she did have the Solver, and that she'd have to deal with it alone, with nothing but the note Yeva left her. I grimaced as I realized that I wouldn't be able to sort out that Lizzy girl, and silently prayed to whatever might be listening that someone else would.
Yeva glanced at me, and then pulled me in and wrapped her arms around me. I hugged her back, and we gave each other one last desperate kiss. The sounds of death outside were a cacophony. We pulled back. "I love you, Yeva," I told her.
"I love you too, Mikhail."
We gave each other a tear filled smile. "Gamer Girl," I joked, one last time.
Her voice cracked, but she gave me a tear stricken smile and returned my jab with a corefelt, "Mitch."
The front door to the hab tore open, and we both looked at the monster that barged in to kill us. The Murder Drone was a female model with a bob-cut, hunter's cross blazing molten yellow as she cackled, face stained with the oil of the innocent as she leveled a submachine gun at me and fired. Yeva bodily shoved me to the side without hesitation. There was a split second where she could have redirected the round with her Solver, but she didn't, and it hit her shoulder and nearly tore her arm off as it threw her back, eyemotes flickering as she fell to the floor. I fought down the urge to scream. As long as her upper chest was fine, she could recover.
The Murder Drone lunged forwards, pouncing on her body, and I felt ice in my circuits until I saw her use her teeth to tear into Yeva's lower torso instead, oil audibly sloshing out as she ripped and tore into my wife. She screamed for a few seconds, drowned out by the laughter of the monster tearing into her, before the Murder Drone leaned back from her cannibalism and leveled her gun with Yeva's face, dumping a single round through it before shifting both her hands to horrifying claws, leaning back down and tearing two chunks out of my wife's lower torso as oil splattered all over the room, and even on me. I froze, because the fluid spilling from Yeva wasn't entirely oil by this point, but the Murder Drone somehow didn't notice that, though of far more immediate concern was her raising one of those claws to bring them down in an arc that would carry them straight into Yeva's chest.
I scrambled to my feet and rather than wait for death, resolved to at least punch this monster in the face before I went. I full-body tackled it off Yeva's body, driving it to the floor and slamming my fists into its face, once, twice, three times, I felt something crunch under my knuckles on that third strike, and I winded back for a fourth--
I gasped and coughed up oil as claws punched through my chest. I dismissed a massive list of warnings, my HUD starting to die out as my visual feed started to fade. I already knew those claws went through my own core. Not a Solver Core either. I was dying, without a shadow of a doubt. I glared up at the Murder Drone impaling me, and spat right onto her visor as she grit her own teeth at me. One of the yellow bulbs atop her head was cracked and leaking fluid, but it was already healing in front of my fading gaze.
I was limply thrown aside, landing at an angle that let me cran my head just enough to see that Yeva's upper torso was still fine, but there was a horrific amount of oil spilled everywhere from her wounds. Her arm had regenerated, but nothing else on her body was doing so anymore. Still, I fought down the urge to smile at my spiteful victory, that the Murder Drone was focused on me instead of my wife, that I'd at least made my killer bleed, and let the fear I felt finally take over. I pretended like my hands would do anything to ward off my demise as I weakly raised them in front of me. If anything out there is listening, I begged in my thoughts, as my audio feed died and my visual feed flickered worse, please, please, please let Yeva and Doll be safe…
I barely saw one of the Murder Drone's hands shift to that submachine gun again. Her back was to the cabinet. Doll still hadn't made a sound. She was such a brave girl. I was so sad I'd never get to see her grow up, or find someone she loved. I saw the hunter's cross on the Murder Drone's gaze flicker out to be replaced by two yellow optics that mirrored mine. They were glaring, but the slightest tilt in the brows of her eyemotes hinted at pain buried under it, and in that moment, I realized that if the Solver could have possessed Nori and Yeva before they were Patched, that the Murder Drones might be victims of the Solver too. And I felt pity for this Murder Drone. She leveled the gun with my own dying vision, what was left of my HUD flickering with an increasing number of FATAL ERROR warnings, and I stared down the barrel. The muzzle of that gun flashed--
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(Thank you, Svic from Discord server for unlocking this chapter)
A/N: Frak man. Spat this out onto digital paper in about an hour and a half, and legit started to cry as I wrote it. Don't you lot dare ask me for any more snippets until Ch 18 is done.
Also, before anyone asks, the WDF was too traumatized by the mass death and gore to notice that the spilled oil in Doll's hab wasn't entirely such, and V's farsightedness meant she didn't notice it either. Also, kudos to Mikhail. Dude went down swinging, made V bleed with his bare fists, spat in his killer's face, and still felt pity for V in his final moments.