Chapter Text
V felt herself burning up from the inside out. Despite standing out in the open amidst a raging blizzard, the frigid weather couldn’t hope to compete with the boiling heat that built up within her core, worsening with every aching pulse it gave. Snowdrops sizzled as they pelted her, the water dripping down her segmented body to land in a puddle at her pointed feet.
She was starving. She was always starving, and each night, it became harder for her to keep up with her body’s demand, its animalistic desperation, for fresh oil to cool her body. She struggled to break even at the end of each hunt, trapped in a precarious balancing act between burnout from starvation and burnout from overexertion, each outcome equally as painful as the other.
An ever-present alert (Caution: Temperature Increase Detected) had been highlighted yellow in the corner of her HUD for several weeks, bringing with it an immutable beep… beep… beep that rang incessantly in her audio sensors. As dire as the situation may have become, though, she had long since accepted it as her new normal, and the herald of her eventual, inevitable end.
She couldn’t think straight. The high temperature interfered with the function of her processors, only worsened by the near madness that came with starvation. Her oil gauge pinged on her HUD, having nearly bottomed-out at five percent, which prompted a sheer mania to take hold, a survival-instinct protocol that had come as a feature of being a disassembly drone.
In the clutches of mania, she would lose time, unable to write new memory until coming to her senses in the aftermath of a hunt, having ingested enough oil to cool her processors to a functioning temperature.
It had begun some months prior with her noticing a minor increase in her core temperature. She’d thought it a fluke, or that perhaps something had slipped by her outdated antivirus and put extra strain on her systems, but although she tried, she never detected any trace of malicious software.
After the temperature increase came the hunger. V had always had a huge appetite in comparison to the others; she worked as hard as she played, and her immense energy output required an equally immense oil consumption. It had been subtle, at first; an extra light snack here and there, sometimes being left hungry after a hunt that would normally have sated her, but from there, she had spiralled deeper and deeper into a painfully slow starvation.
Was it simply degradation? Admittedly, V did over-exert herself far more often than the others; had she finally worn out her body beyond what was repairable by the nanites? Or was she the victim of some kind of planned obsolescence? Was there a new upgraded model of disassembly drone being sent to replace them? Was she experiencing the first stage of the company phasing out the stragglers of her already-dwindled generation?
…Stop thinking about it, dumbass. You know it doesn’t help.
What had once been a bustling city in years long gone by had since become a concrete graveyard, gradually being reduced to rubble around the surviving drone population. V stood at the intersection of two streets, surrounded by the shreds of rusted old car frames and crumpled traffic lights on buckled metal poles. Audible over the sound of wind was only the sharp hiss of snow sizzling against her searing hot armour plating.
One deep breath after another, she vented cool air through her internals and exhaled it as steam, bracing herself for another night of fighting for survival against her failing body.
V sprung her wings open, pointing the blades up to the sky first, then leaping into the air with the downthrust. As the boosters activated, she second-guessed her decision to fly, seeing her oil gauge tick down to a measly four percent. There was nothing for it, though; the chances of finding prey without the advantage of flight were abysmal, and she was on a time crunch.
The temperature alert in the corner of her eye upgraded to a threatening red (Warning! Temperature Exceeding Safe Operation Levels) as her wings began to burn up. It was as excruciating as it was necessary.
I can heal everything later. Everything will be fine once I just find some oil. Focus, damn it, focus!
But it was hard to concentrate through the maddening cloudiness invading her mind, her processing power taking a steep decline in the face of over-exertion. Even cloudier, though, was her vision; melted snow streaking across her visor and obscuring her view. She deactivated her visible-light spectrum eyes, opting to focus instead with her thermal vision.
I don’t need to see anything besides food, right now.
Any worker drone scavenging outside would light up, hot and bright against the backdrop of freezing snow. She was in the middle of a hot-spot, surrounded by three different bunkers. Diving in-between buildings, down alleyways, she searched every corner she came across until finally, mercifully, she found her mark. Two worker drones, caught out in the blizzard and huddling in the shadows against a crumbled wall, one taller than the other.
Prey.
Their outlines flashed yellow on her HUD, her targeting system being overridden by her survival-instinct protocols and automatically locking onto the larger target of the two. She had little control over herself as the mania of her starvation drove her forwards, the pain taking a backseat as the entirety of her processing power was directed towards securing the kill in a last-ditch effort to survive.
She laughed deliriously, only distantly registering the glitchy sound as coming from her own synthesiser as she swooped and came to land on all fours before her soon-to-be meal. Fangs bared, she lost herself in the sheer excitement of the hunt, her visor display flickering between her default eyes and the signature wide ‘X’ of a disassembly drone in hunting mode.
She hyperventilated, her cooling system desperate to displace as much of the scorching hot air from her delicate internals as possible, whilst the snow melted in a circle around her crouched form.
Her oil gauge pinged her: ‘1% of total reserves remaining. Enter stasis mode and activate distress signal? (Recommended).’
No. Cancel.
Briefly, she lost herself. Minutes of time went missing from her memory banks. When she momentarily came to, she had her teeth buried in the neck of the taller worker drone, piercing through the weak metal plating and freeing the hot oil from within.
‘Heat damage imminent’, the temperature alert pop-up insisted. Beep, beep, beep, the alarm added.
Ravenous, and running out of time, she gnashed at the neck until she broke cleanly through the metal, letting the head fall to the ground, then began to slurp at the oil that spurted from the body. Before she could even swallow, though, she felt something go wrong within her, followed by a hot, electrifying pain within her very core. The mania dissipated. Her guttural laughs silenced.
Wait, what? Am I..?
All at once, the alarms stopped.
.
.
.
YOUR J.C JENSON WORKER DISASSEMBLY DRONE ENCOUNTERED A PROBLEM…
.
.
…SHUTTING DOWN TO PREVENT FURTHER DAMAGE
.
.
…REBOOTING IN SAFE MODE
SOME FUNCTIONALITIES DISABLED
CONTACT A J.C JENSON TECHNICIAN FOR FURTHER ASSISTANCE
V was normally one to spring into action upon waking up, taking only moments to become fully online, even from a deep sleep mode. This time, however, she felt sluggish, as though she had to fight just to get her most basic systems to load. She felt as though her consciousness was floating in pitch-black space whilst she waited for her sensors to start up.
It began with her audio sensors, which told her there was a steady whoooosh of wind close by, a rustling to her left, and the rattling of metal from somewhere a little farther in the distance.
Then came her tactile function. Touch. She felt the pull of gravity, and that she was lying on her back, limbs heavy on a cold floor. The downside of the tactile sensors coming online was that they booted up alongside her pain sensors, which alerted her to a burning ache throughout her torso and neck.
Her ‘real’ eyes atop her head remained stubbornly offline, but she was relieved when the back-up optics built into her visor became functional.
As functional as they get, at least…
She saw the world in a far lower resolution than usual, the edges blurring together as her optics struggled to render her surroundings clearly. It felt oddly nostalgic, but she hadn’t the time to linger on the feeling, focusing instead on the anxiety that came with waking up in an unfamiliar place.
She faced upwards at a crumbled concrete ceiling, with rusted rebar poking through in places. Somewhere in her periphery, sunlight filtered into the room, though she was safe from its burning touch, hidden in a shadowy corner of what seemed to have been an old garage, once.
The stark feeling of vulnerability was as foreign to her as it was distressing, and she didn’t quite know what to do with the unwelcome emotions. Disassembly drones were designed exclusively to be the scourges of the exoplanets; fear wasn’t in their vocabulary.
…If that were true, though, then perhaps V was malfunctioning, because she was definitely a little scared at the prospect of something having had power over her whilst she had been knocked offline. They had dragged her to safety, out of the blazing sunlight, and left her unharmed, aside for some scuffmarks across her white armour plating.
The longer she waited for the remainder of her systems to start up, the worse her anxiety grew when they failed to respond to even her manual prompts. Here and there, diagnostic processes flickered to life, performing systematic re-calibrations of her sensors, but most remained staunchly offline, unreachable with her low level of user access.
The rich flavour of sweet oil flooded her mouth once her taste receptors came online, right before over a dozen urgent pop-ups came, one after the other, each demanding immediate action. She grimaced and dismissed each one with a roll of her eyes.
I can deal with all that later. I probably just need to reboot again.
Resigned to the fact that she was as functional as she could be for the time being, she slowly turned her head towards the ominous rustling, only to see it was a vaguely familiar headless corpse, its clothes fluttering in the wind from the open doorway. Behind it, a metal sheet harmlessly clanked against a concrete wall.
See? Nothing scary. Just the wind.
V let out a breath of relief as she rose from the floor, then winced at the discomfort in her seizing joints. The nape of her neck stung, which struck her as an odd place to feel pain, but she shifted her attention to what was going to become her long-awaited breakfast.
Lying before her, the worker drone seemed to be mostly untouched, save for its missing head. There were drag marks on the dusty floor, leading from the doorway to the corpse, as well as a second set of tracks leading to where she had woken up. She felt a drop of oil trickle down the corner of her mouth and noticed her oil gauge reading eight percent.
Weird. Wasn’t I just running on empty, though? Stupid memory corruption…
She licked the oil from the corner of her mouth, not wanting to waste a single drop, then began to feast on the drone. Its oil had cooled and become gelatinous, making it difficult to suck through its oil lines, but she knew better than to be fussy in her grim circumstances.
It was the late afternoon, her system clock told her; only a couple of hours before she could safely return home without burning up in the radioactive sun. To her memory, she hadn’t ventured all too far from the corpse spire the night before, only about a quarter-hours flight to the north from their landing site. If she made haste, there was a chance that her teammates would be none-the-wiser to her little mishap. Whilst considering her course of action, she flinched at a notification to the right of her HUD. Her chat client program, used for communicating with the others, had finally loaded up, displaying a backlog of messages waiting for her.
SD:J: Tell me you didn’t just knock yourself offline.
SD:J: V. I’m not going to ask again.
SD:J: Dipshit. What the hell are you doing out there?
SD:J: V?
V rolled her eyes at the texts from her superior, though if she were being honest, she had been expecting far more venom in J’s choice of words. A few more curse words, or perhaps the threat of a disciplinary meeting, at the very least. V knew she would have a lot of explaining to do once she got back, and she groaned at the prospect.
Then, there were messages from her slightly-less-insufferable coworker, N.
SD:N: Hey, V. Did you get caught out in the sun again? Didn’t I tell you to be more careful? :( You’ve got us kinda worried, here.
SD:N: I’ll wait up for you, but no pressure. Just don’t do anything risky, ok?
SD:N: Oh, you’re offline…
SD:N: Just come back soon, alright? We won’t be mad. :(
The familiar guilt that came with the majority of interactions she had with N washed over V once more. The number of times he would wait up late for her, despite her protests, just to be sure that she would return home safe at the end of each night whilst she did little for him in return left her with a well-deserved pit of emptiness in her core. By the various times of day that his messages had been sent, he had likely kept himself from recharging out of concern for her. V chewed her lip, self-conscious and ashamed of herself for not having the words with which to reply.
Well, so much for them being ‘none-the-wiser.’ Damn it...
It was cruel, she knew, to ignore him; it was crystal clear to her how much he cared for their friendship, and yet she couldn’t even bring herself to send him a single message to reassure him that all was well. It was just…
Difficult. It’s difficult, with him. The less he knows, the safer it is for everyone.
It’s better to stay distant.
Perhaps it was presumptuous, but she knew it was for his own good. It was just the way things had to be. Her snarky comments, the ignored attempts he made to reach out to her, could all be rightfully excused because in the end, it kept him safe. It kept them all safe.
Whatever it takes to keep him from asking questions…
Her eyes hovered on his messages for a few more moments, her guilt-laden thoughts lingering, before she realised that there was another unread message pop-up.
But that couldn’t be right; chat exchanges were disassembly-drone-specific, and the remaining two disassembly drones on all of Copper-9 had already been accounted for. Holding her breath, she opened the new chat window.
???: oh you actually woke up
???: im honestly surprised. like seriously wow
V frowned. According to the timestamps, the messages had been sent only minutes after she had woken up. The sender’s ID was only a string of numbers, though, unknown to her.
Okay, what the fuck.
Frozen in place and on even higher alert than she had already been, she listened closely for a sign, any indication at all that she wasn’t alone. Her blurry eyesight couldn’t be relied upon, and she panicked at the notion that she wouldn’t even be able to tell if there was somebody creeping silently behind her, their footsteps masked by the sound of the wind. She backed herself up against the wall and squinted at the only entryway to the room, tense.
Another message. Her core skipped a pulse.
SD:J: Either enable your location or send me your co-ordinates. I’ll come drag your useless ass home myself, if I have to.
She must know I’m back online too, I guess. Damn it. I need to fix my privacy settings.
Nervous, V instinctively flexed her hands to switch them into her blade-like claws, but to her surprise, nothing happened. Her hands remained as such, only harmless rounded fingers. She tried again, and then once more for good measure, before the anxiety started to pick up. Finally, she paid some attention to her system alerts.
DAMAGE SUSTAINED TO CRITICAL COMPONENTS
SOME FUNCTIONALITIES DISABLED FOR SAFETY
You have got to be shitting me.
As she skimmed through the pop-ups, V was dismayed to see that her most energy-intensive processes had been disabled, including the mechanisms that allowed her to switch her hands between weapons and, more worryingly, her wings.
Just to be sure, she attempted to deploy them, only to have the pop-ups proven right; her extra limbs were entirely inoperable, walled off behind the ‘safe mode’ limitations.
V would have been lying if she had said she hadn’t begun to panic, just a little. From what she could tell, all she had to defend herself with were her fangs and her tail (and thank the heavens she still had those, at least). If she were forced into a fight-or-flight scenario, she would have little choice but to fight, and she didn’t like her chances with her suddenly limited arsenal.
Her prospects for survival were grim, even against her own kind; J was certain to give her the formal write-up of a lifetime once she figured out that her only useful employee had become, for lack of a better term, worthless.
There had to be a way to sugarcoat it, surely. Sprinkle around some of those corporate buzzwords she loved so much, and perhaps J wouldn’t even realise the implications of what had happened.
…Not that V really knew what had happened, herself, beyond having overheated to the point of crashing, and rebooting into safe mode. Of course, the circumstances of her rebooting in an unknown place, with a stranger having her communications address were equally as alarming as her state of disrepair.
J’s actually going to kill me, this time. I’ve been compromised. It’s so over.
For some time, V sat back in the corner, waiting out the last vestiges of daylight with only her catastrophising thoughts for company. Her gaze cycled between every shadowy corner, paranoid as the darkness grew around her. She hadn’t the luxury of her night-vision, and the fear of unknowingly being stalked grew more tangible as time went on.
To distract herself from her paranoia, V scrolled through her long list of critical alerts, wincing at the extent of the heat damage. A number of her internal components had been reduced to a fraction of their usual functionality, and she struggled to think of a way to hide the evidence from J.
All she has to do is take one look at me and see that my optics are offline, then it’ll all come crashing down from there.
How do I even explain it? ‘Oops, sorry boss, I let my core get a little spicy and now I can’t contribute to the team, until I’m fixed. Good luck hitting the quota without me!’
…Can this even be fixed?
Oh. That was an uncomfortable thought. For a split-second, her pulse faltered at the prospect of what it would take to repair the damage that had clearly been beyond the capabilities of the repair nanites.
No, damn it, don’t think about-
Surgery. That means surgery, doesn’t it?
Nope, stop that. As quickly as the thoughts had come, she banished them before her memory banks could conjure up images from haunting old memories to retraumatise her.
Don’t think about it.
The peachy-red of the sunset filtered through the doorway, slowly fading out until V’s trusty weather alert system notified her that the solar radiation had returned to safe levels once more, and night had descended over the city. She received near-simultaneous messages from her colleagues.
SD:N: Hey, it’s safe to come back home, now. You alright?
SD:J: Give me your location and I won’t have to get corporate involved. Stop being a brat, V.
V snorted at J’s message, knowing that there absolutely would be harsh consequences no matter what she did, but for a moment, she really did consider complying. If there had somehow been a rogue disassembly drone stalking her, having J as back-up would certainly be reassuring. Ultimately, she decided against it, but at least had the decency to put together a reply to her.
SD:V: Nah. I’m good.
With that, she stepped outside and began the long trek back home, her tail dragging in the snow behind her. Her chest ached, feeling bruised on the inside, somehow, and she wasn’t sure whether or not to be thankful that the snow had stopped falling. On the one hand, she could see her surroundings better, but on the other, anybody else could see her just as clearly, and her reflexes had become dull with pain. She was the perfect target for an ambush.
It wasn’t long before the mystery contact sent her a new message, despite her having quite purposefully not graced them with a response the first time.
???: dont ignore me >:[
Did they get into my head while I was out? Were my firewalls down?
V’s step faltered for a moment when she remembered the sting at the nape of her neck, right where her access port was.
Oh. Yeah, that makes more sense.
No firewall could protect her from somebody simply plugging directly into her maintenance port whilst she was offline.
Was it pre-meditated? Were they following me, waiting for me to shut down, or did they just seize an opportunity?
???: yo, you got a name murderbot?
V growled a curse and trudged on, moonlight at her back, mentally brushing away the fingers of paranoia that were doing their best to drag her down. She wanted nothing more than to run to safety, but she had to keep her cool, and she needed to conserve her energy if she was going to make it back at all. Her battery hadn’t had a chance to recharge whilst she was offline, and the red icon pinged her from the corner of her HUD as a reminder.
She was still some distance from the spire when she heard the familiar sound of bladed wings cutting through air up above her. She briefly panicked, then breathed a sigh of relief when she recognised the lanky disassembly drone that had locked its sights on her. He seemed comically taken aback to have found her, pausing in mid-air before he made his swift descent.
???: youre getting these, right? i know this is your id
???: wait do you guys not know how to read
???: are you actually kidding me
Agitated, V minimised the chat, but it had distracted her from the incoming cannonball that was N. Before she had a chance to dodge, he had tackled her to the ground with even more force than she had anticipated.
“V! You’re okay!”
They both hit the snowy ground with a thud, which V took the brunt of. She took a moment to process their position before she shoved him to the side and rolled her eyes.
“You didn’t have to worry so much. I was just out for the day.”
N stood up and brushed the snow from his coat. When he saw that V was still sat in the snow, though, he hastily offered his hand to her with a bright smile. She refused his offer, though, and had to focus to keep herself from wobbling too noticeably as she rose back to her feet by herself.
“Why did you go offline, though? That’s really unlike you.”
His eyes lowered with concern as he looked her over. His silvery hair was still coated in a thin layer of snow, which he made no move to brush away, his focus entirely on V. He looked her up and down, and she hated how small it made her feel. She turned away, uncomfortable at being examined so blatantly.
“Y’know... V, you don’t look so good,” he remarked, prompting V to look herself over. “No offense, of course!” he added hastily, his carefree smile betrayed by a digital drop of sweat on his visor.
Admittedly, she did still have some scorch-marks and scratched plates which she hadn’t noticed before, given that she had had more pressing matters to pay attention to. Some seemed to be scrapes from when she had assumedly been dragged across the ground.
That was hours ago, they should have healed by now…
Shit. Healing is pretty energy-intensive, which means…
Panicked, she sorted through her console until she retrieved the status of her automatic healing processes.
REGENERATION PROTOCOLS
STATUS: DISABLED
ERROR CODE: UNAPPLICABLE
CONTACT SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR FOR ASSISTANCE
‘Administrator’? Ok, don’t panic, it’s still nothing that can’t be fixed, right?
“I’m fine, N,” she reassured him. She tried to keep her voice monotone, but there was a slight waver at the end.
V’s words were evidently not convincing enough, though. If anything, they only caused N’s frown to deepen for a moment before he swapped it for a forced smile.
“C’mon, let’s fly back and meet up with J. You can heal on the way there.”
Somehow, V doubted that things would be so simple. She sent a prompt to deploy her wings, but of course, they remained disabled.
“Nah, I’m gonna walk. You can go on ahead, though.”
Unsurprisingly, N chose to stay by her side, even slowing his pace to match hers. V knew that he suspected something. N was naïve and gullible, but not stupid, as much as J would probably disagree. Did he assume she was just trying to avoid their boss? Or did he think it was something more serious?
“Y’know, J isn’t actually mad at you, I think. She just seemed worried. Like, really worried, this time.”
V huffed. “Yeah, worried because I carry everyone’s quota. It doesn’t go that deep, N. We aren’t friends.”
He looked away to the side, and V felt ashamed of speaking to him so harshly. She knew how badly he wanted the trio to get along, but it wasn’t a realistic goal. J hated him, and V had to go along with the cruelty to keep him from asking questions.
He really doesn’t deserve it, but it’s for the best.
Out of the corner of her eye, V noticed a subtle brightening from N’s heat-signature eye, an indication that he had switched to thermal view. Odd, she thought. Her confusion swiftly turned to irritation when N met her gaze with an obvious frown, his eyes hollowing for a split-second when he looked down at V’s torso.
V gave him what she hoped was a threatening stare to silence him before he could voice his concerns, which worked, though she noticed he still stole glances at her as they walked. It seemed like his gaze lingered right where her plating covered her core.
That idiot has no concept of subtlety.
As if to add insult to injury, the all-too-familiar beeping of her temperature alarm invaded her ears again. ‘Caution: Temperature Increase Detected’, it said.
???: he’s cute, is he your boyfriend? Lol
V faltered, nearly tripping, which prompted a quizzical look from N.
“Haha, snow’s kinda slippery tonight, huh?”
“He’s not- ugh,” she stopped herself from finishing the statement out loud.
SD:V: He’s not my boyfriend.
SD:V: And he’s not cute.
Robo-god, I’m playing into their game now. Stop it, V. Then, she realised with a start that the interloper may not have been nearby after all, but instead watching her remotely through her visual sensors. V shook her head as if she could simply shake herself free of the parasite that seemed to have hijacked her system.
Soon enough, the corpse spire loomed before them, it’s pointed peak silhouetted against the bright planets and stars in the sky. It was colossal, more than ten years in the making, to V’s knowledge, and every piled-up corpse had at least one thing in common; a deep puncture wound directly through their chest.
Perched atop the spire, at its very peak, was a disassembly drone, her eyes scanning the scene as if she were a posted sentry.
J’s yellow eyes zeroed in on V and N, and within seconds, she had swooped down silently and alighted before them, kicking up some powdered snow with her metal feathers. Her brows were furrowed, and although she certainly looked irritated, V thought she detected some genuine concern in her steely gaze, which glanced up at V’s dim ‘headband’ of eyes.
“You idiot, we’ve just wasted half a night looking for you. And why are your optics offline?”
V placed a hand on her hip, trying to act aloof while avoiding as many questions as possible.
“You mean N wasted half a night looking for me. I didn’t see you out there.”
J took a step closer towards her. The breeze had twisted snowflakes into her long hair. It wasn’t often that V had a chance to study snowflakes before they melted, and she felt a tiny swell of jealousy that the others didn’t melt everything around them. I forgot what it was like to see snowflakes up close, let alone to touch them.
“Who do you think has been doing damage control? The company doesn’t take this kind of thing lightly.”
The way J emphasised the company wasn’t lost on V, and she knew to play along whilst N was within earshot.
“I got stuck outside for the day and something came unplugged. Pure coincidence.”
Another step towards her, and J’s eyes narrowed. Then she paused, seemed to shift her focus to her HUD, then to N, and back to V once more.
“Your temperature is off.”
N you fucking narc, V silently cursed, her eyes burning daggers at him. He looked away sheepishly.
“It’s a warm night,” came her next excuse.
Shitty excuse, she chided herself.
J tilted her head in disbelief. “You know company policy is to run an audit of your diagnostics right now, right?”
Crap. That would lay her out like an open book, which was certain to be received poorly.
Silence festered between the trio, with V and J holding eachothers’ gaze with equally matched disdain. J’s eyes travelled over V, faint worry lines visible at either side of her face. V was well aware that she was being studied, her boss’ gaze particularly focused on the region around her core. J glanced back towards N, giving him a subtle nod.
What the hell are they saying to eachother?
It infuriated her to be the one kept out of a conversation, and with a pang, wondered if that was how N normally felt.
“I’m not doing that shit, it’s a waste of time,” she protested. In her mind, though, it was more of a plea. “I’ll catch up on the quota by tomorrow night.”
“Company. Policy.”
“Show me where it says that,” V taunted in an attempt to buy herself time to make up her next excuse.
J scoffed, exasperated, and focused on her HUD for a moment, before a screenshot appeared before V’s eyes.
Message from J:
“J.C Jenson Company Policy:
In the case of a suspected malfunctioning worker drone, submit a report of at least the past months’ worth of system diagnostics for review by a Certified J.C Jenson Technician. A full suite of diagnostics is required. Format the report according to the following guidelines….”
“I’m not reading all of that. Also, I’m not a worker drone.”
V almost snorted at the face that J made in reply. It took a few moments for her superior to find her voice again.
“I am so sick of being the only one to take this job seriously. Just get inside, so we can get this shit dealt with.”
J turned away towards the spire, her hands balled into fists as she walked away.
???: ‘V’? thats the dumbest name ive ever heard
“Shut up,” V blurted, drawing another questioning look from N. He took a step towards the spire, too.
“C’mon, it’s probably for the best that you get checked out,” he said, with an unconvincing smile that did nothing to encourage her. “You’ll feel better afterwards.”
Still, without her wings, it wasn’t as though she could flee, and there was nowhere else to go. Resigned to her fate, she sighed and followed after her coworkers, dragging her tapered feet through the snow.
V sat before J, with a cable connecting the port at the back of her neck to a portable console that J held. V had long since begun to associate J’s spaceship-turned-office with shouting and punishment, and she shivered. She almost wished that N could have been present, if only to split J’s attention between the two of them, rather than taking on the full force of it herself. Their ‘meeting,’ however, was strictly confidential, at J’s insistence.
V felt over-exposed, sitting prone in a reclining office chair as J’s eyes darted across the screen she held, her frown deepening by the second. It took several minutes for her to decipher the month’s worth of readings, but clearly, it wasn’t painting a pretty picture for V.
“Some sensors are still compiling data, but while they do that, let’s start with… oil reserves,” J sighed, “You’ve barely been keeping yourself above twenty-five percent capacity. Right now, shit, V, you’re barely at five percent. Explain.”
V deadpanned. “I use a lot, is that against the rules?”
J tapped a key and took a moment to read more. “No, that… checks out, I guess. Your intake is…” she paused.
“Is what?” V spat as she shifted in her seat, uncomfortable at having J’s full attention on her.
J glanced up at her past the screen. “More than both mine and N’s combined, V, what the hell?”
“Okay, so what? I carry more than half the quota, so that adds up, too, doesn’t it?” She crossed her arms.
“You carry nearly half the quota, sure, but you’re more efficient than us. You don’t travel nearly as far as N does, yet he only uses a fraction of the oil that you do. Plus, your usage has been trending upwards all month.”
“I don’t see why it matters how much oil I use, I get my job done, don’t I? You can’t say I haven’t hit every KPI this quarter so far.”
The pair had already begun to raise their voices at one another.
“Okay, fine, we can move on,” J seceded.
V smirked, smug at having proven her point.
“Next on the list… okay, system downtime levels are fine, so moving on- “
“What do you mean ‘downtime levels are fine’? I bust my ass and go without downtime just to keep us afloat, and you’re just going to brush over it so you can nitpick at all the negative shit?”
J met her eyes briefly. “Your sacrifices for the team are… noted.”
J had seemed genuinely uncomfortable at the outburst, and V was surprised at her lack of rebuttal. It was unlike her manager to leave any criticism unsaid, no matter how minor. Talking back was almost guaranteed to get her a write-up. Nevertheless, they moved on, though it was clear that J had been avoiding the elephant in the room.
“Your temperature- “
V flinched. “J, just drop it, already. You know what happened, we don’t need to do all of this,” V gestured broadly at the screen, and the cable connecting her to the device.
“No, V, I don’t know what happened. How the hell did you let yourself burn out?”
“It doesn’t matter how it happened. I’ll deal with the repairs myself. You’re wasting your time here.”
Her boss blinked. “Repairs?”
To V’s dismay, she watched the realisation dawn on J’s face. “You’re not healing.”
Shit, I should have kept my stupid mouth shut. Damn it, V.
“Okay, which components are damaged?”
V was frozen, staring at her hands, which trembled almost imperceptibly.
“V. Answer me.”
“…No,” she replied, quietly.
Before V could react, J was in her face, their visors only inches apart. V could see each pixel that made up her eye display. “Tell me or I will cut you open and find out for my damned self!” To emphasise her point, she held a pointed claw against V’s torso, threatening to tear through her jacket. Almost reflexively, V kicked at her chest, shoving her back by a metre, then tore the cable from the back of her neck.
“I don’t know, J! Everything’s fucked and I’ll save you the trouble of telling me there are no technicians left, because I already know.”
J’s eyes hollowed, her rage dissipating. “Okay.”
“Okay?” V approached J, her hands trembling more noticeably. “Okay? What part of this is okay, J?” To add to V’s outrage, she noticed J’s thermal vision sensor flicker.
“Sit back down, V. You’re heating up.”
“Stop checking my temperature, it’s none of your damned business!” she spat back.
“It is my business when my only useful employee becomes dead weight all of a sudden.”
The temperature warning flashed in the corner of V’s vision, distracting her by upgrading from white to the more-urgent yellow. Normally, V would have ignored it, adding it to the pile of other dismissed system alerts, but this time the upgraded alert brought with it a searing pain in her core. She fell clumsily to her knees, squeezing her eyes shut and hissing through the pain as she clutched her chest. She tried to focus on breathing, venting cool air through her chest.
After a minute, which felt like an eternity, the alert had downgraded itself to white again, and the pain subsided. She was left both dazed and confused in equal measure. She didn’t normally associate the yellow ‘caution’ pop-up with such pain. Even red isn’t usually that bad, she thought. What happened?
She felt an unexpected hand on her shoulder.
“Go get some rest, V. I’ll have N bring you some leftovers later.”
With that, she was left alone in the office, listening to the sound of J’s footsteps in the snow fading into the distance.
If she had had her full spectrum of sensors available to her, she might have sooner noticed N peeking in through the doorway. As things were, though, she could only see directly in front of her face, and flinched when she heard his footsteps tapping on the metal floor.
“Hey, V… Sorry to sneak up on you, ha ha…”
V normally would have brushed him off, but her energy was well and truly spent from her not-so-confidential-after-all meeting.
“You heard all of that, didn’t you?”
He nodded, his expression the picture of concern.
“Yeah, sorry… You know, you could have told us if you were struggling.”
V sighed. She knew he meant well, but it wasn’t his place to involve himself in her problems.
Keeping my distance from him is for his own good.
Outside, the wind had picked up, bringing with it a flurry of fresh snow. The night neared its end, and with her lack of flight, she had already lost her chance to hunt.
Not that I had any hope of catching anything like this, anyway. She looked down at her harmless hands, the ache of regret bubbling up in her chest. I could have avoided all of this.
“Later, N,” she mumbled, leaving him to stand alone in the office as she left him behind. She needed sleep. Without her wings, she felt apprehensive about hanging up in the spires rafters from her tail to enter sleep mode as she normally would. If she fell, as she admittedly did on occasion, she had no way of catching herself, nor of healing any damage she would sustain from falling from such a distance. Even if she had found a safe height to hang from, she wouldn’t have been able to enshroud herself in her wings. The thought of being so exposed made her shiver.
Instead, V clambered up the wall, seeking out a suitable and safe place that she couldn’t easily fall from. She decided on a little concrete platform, high up and surrounded by rusty scaffolding. She wrapped her tail around a sturdy piece of wire framing and curled up on her side. It wasn’t nearly as comfortable as she was used to, but she felt secure enough to relax.
Sleep eluded her, though, despite her battery level being more than low enough to initiate sleep mode. No matter how many times she muted the system alerts, they came back one by one only minutes later, beeping and flashing, urging her to contact a technician, or worse, an administrator. The word sent a shiver down V’s metal spine, though she wasn’t entirely sure why.
With a groan, she once again swiped away each alert, only to see that at the bottom of the stack was a ‘new message’ notification.
???: you’re up late, murderbot
Just this parasite again, she thought.
SD:V: Ever heard of privacy?
For some reason, perhaps boredom, or sleep deprivation, she found herself watching the chat window with an eyebrow raised, waiting for a reply.
???: ever heard of not being a murderer?
???: loved watching your meeting btw. so funny
Does ‘confidential’ mean nothing to these people?
She struggled to find the energy to reply, her mind instead taking the time to replay the worst parts of the meeting and force her to relive the embarrassment, made worse by knowing that she had had an audience. She closed her eyes, anticipating another ding, which came soon after.
???: i would almost feel sorry for you if u weren’t a total monster
SD:V: Noted.
She rolled her eyes before realising the implications of their words. A disassembly drone wouldn’t have called me a monster. So…
SD:V: I’m flattered that a worker drone would stay up all night just to spy on me.
It took a good few minutes for them to reply, and V had momentarily forgotten her whole predicament. The mystery of what a barely-sentient calculator was doing in her head was nothing if not a good distraction from the pain and the real world.
???: bite me
SD:V: When are you going to get to the part where you threaten to detonate me or whatever your shitty plan is?
???: dude i dont think you need any help with that
???: considering you pretty much blew yourself up once already
The reminder agitated V, but she had the sense to hold back her temper and minimised the chat. The conversation was getting her nowhere, and she needed rest. Eventually, despite all the noise in her head, sleep mode mercifully took over.
It was nearly sunset when V woke. Once again, she had to give herself a considerable amount of time to boot up even her limited suite of functionalities. When her vision came online, she was startled to see N sitting beside her, dozing off atop the metallic debris with his head resting on his knee. Cradled in his elbow was a severed worker head, held upside-down with part of the neck still attached.
She didn’t want to disturb his peace just yet, and relaxed whilst she let her start-up programs load.
She had almost been expecting the message notification that dinged to be from her unwelcome stranger, but it was instead from J. V truthfully didn’t know whom she would have preferred.
SD:J: You’re hunting with me tonight. Don’t even try to argue.
She groaned, which woke N from his light slumber. His eyes lit up upon seeing V had woken up, as did his bright smile.
“Oh, you’re up! Here, I brought you this.”
N presented her with the decapitated head, oil dripping down through his claws. She hesitated, not eager to accept the gift lest he take it as a sign that their friendship was anything more than one-sided, but a glance at her HUD told her that her reserves had dipped below 5%.
“Thanks, whatever.”
V took the head, holding it by the neck which served as a convenient straw. The smell almost overpowered her, reminding her of her hunger and causing a dizzying effect in her sensors, but she focused and greedily slurped at the oil. She hated that N seemed so relieved to see her drink, his eyes fixated on her warmly. Once she had drained every last drop from the head, she tossed it behind her, listening to it clang as it ricocheted off the debris until it hit the ground below. Her reserves hit a more comfortable 10%, and she felt a weight lift from her shoulders as the temperature alarm soon silenced itself.
With more oil in her body, she could expend more energy without heating up as badly. She figured that that was the root of the temperature problem. I just don’t know why I burn through the oil so fast, or why it takes so much more to fill my reserves.
Either way, she couldn’t rely on her coworkers to feed her. She had to re-learn to hunt within the confines of her new, far lower, heat tolerance. And without my claws.
She eyed N’s clawed hand jealously. Unless…
“Actually, N, I had a favour to ask.”
It had taken V nearly an hour to manually swap out her right hand for the set of claws which N had generously donated to her, made especially difficult given that she had to do the procedure one-handed. She was deeply uncomfortable with doing the manual swap, but she would need a weapon if she was going to hunt.
N had severed his hand off at the wrist for her without question, and she felt a pang of guilt that she had taken advantage of his generosity, knowing that he would never say no to her. I’m supposed to be keeping my distance, but… desperate times, I guess.
She flexed her three new claws, calibrating them one at a time. By the time she was done, she heard her name called from the archway of the spire.
“Time to go, V.”
J glared up at her from below, clawed hands on her hips. V, satisfied that her new hand would hold up, nimbly descended the wall to meet her superior at the ground level. Though she was eager to hunt, she was apprehensive at having J supervising her. She had hunted solo for the past month for good reason, not wanting to draw attention to her ailment.
“You’re in luck today. There’s a big group of scavengers nearby. I’ll herd them to you; you do the rest. I’ll keep watch”
V nodded curtly. She hoped that 10% oil capacity would be enough to stave away the heat that fighting brought. A part of her, infuriated as it was, was glad that J would be nearby in case things turned bad.
If she’s letting me hunt today, that must mean she has some faith in me, right?
A rare gap in the clouds allowed moonlight to filter through, illuminating the ruined cityscape. V was uncharacteristically thankful for the extra light, as her night-vision remained offline, and the visible-light spectrum optics built into her visor could only auto-adjust for darkness to a certain point.
J had taken to the air in search of the promised worker drones, soaring up above whilst V found herself gazing at her boss’ wings with a hint of envy.
As the first of the worker drones appeared from behind a mound of rubble, V glanced at the empty inbox icon on her HUD. Wonder if they’re watching tonight.
I’d better put on a good show, just in case.
She leapt into action, making no noise as she kept to the shadows, stalking the worker. Its pace had slowed as it took puffed breaths, exhaling hot steam. Idiot must have broken off from the group, V thought as her eyes flashed to an ‘X’ and she brought up her clawed hand.
She cleaved the head straight off the drone, lamenting that she didn’t have to time to play with it, first. Wasting no time, she snatched the body and hunched over it, fangs boring into the neck as she guzzled as much oil as she possibly could. She heard herself laughing, hysterical as she gurgled through the hot black liquid.
15%, her oil reserve meter told her, once she had sucked the corpse dry. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she remembered a time when she would have been more than half filled from such a meal. She needed more.
The internal battle was well under way once more, and feral instincts began to gain the upper hand. With her claws, she tore the already-empty body in half, flaying it and grabbing its internal components with her teeth, crushing them in search of just one more drop. She easily gnashed through wires, and split apart metal, cackling as she chewed. From her mouth down to her chest, she was smeared in oil.
Soon enough, a trio of worker drones rounded a corner in the distance, with J at their heels. V bared her fangs in glee as they approached. When they noticed her crouched before them only some metres away, they stopped in their tracks, but with J guarding the exit, they were cornered between the disassembly drones and the collapsed buildings.
V lunged at the closest worker drone, fangs first, and gripped its neck in her teeth as she raked her claws down its midsection before tearing off the head. Oil spilled forth and bubbled out of its mouth, smattering V in more of the hot liquid. She buried her face in the gaping wound and drank, whilst J shepherded the other workers, keeping them occupied, but not daring to take any kills away from V.
Whilst V loved to play with her prey, she remained ruthlessly efficient. It was rare for a worker to escape her once she had her sights locked in on them. She tore through the remainder of the group, goring them and drinking their oil until she was utterly drenched. She was left panting as she crouched over the remains of the final body, laughter rattling deep in her voice synthesiser.
When she noticed J standing beside her, she came back to her senses, for the most part. Her eyes returned to their normal state as she looked up at her boss, expectantly.
“Well, you’re still running hot, but it's an improvement on yesterday. How’s your oil?”
V rose to her feet, trembling with artificial adrenaline. “30%.”
J raised an eyebrow. “After all of that?” She gestured at the grisly aftermath.
V nodded. “Like I said, I use a lot.”
“Okay, well it’s still early. Your… efficiency remains above expectations. There were some stragglers, go have fun with them. Turn your location on and I’ll keep an eye on you from the monitors, ‘kay?”
“Sure.”
With that, J left her in the snow, though V couldn’t have been happier to be left alone. Even without her full-spectrum vision, she was in her element. She felt reliable, again. Stable. Before she continued her pursuit, however, she took a moment to send a message.
SD:V: Hope you’re enjoying the show.
With that, she silently snuck through the nearby buildings, deep in focus. The wind whistled past her, ruffling her hair and stirring up whirlwinds of snow. Shafts of moonlight reflected off the parts of her white plating that weren’t already smeared black. When she caught sight of three more workers, huddled together and clutching one another in fear, she felt her core skip a beat.
Mine.
When V made it back to the spire sometime later, oil was still dripping from her claws, hair, and chin. She revelled in the smell and feel of it, licking her lips periodically. There had been at least ten worker drones that fell victim to her claws over the course of the night, more than enough to cover her share of the daily quota. She had dragged what remained of each one back, adding them to the ever-growing graveyard.
Whilst not using her power-intensive processes, she had managed to conserve oil far better than she was accustomed to, although her oil gauge never reached higher than 35%. It was as though she was purposefully limited from exceeding that amount. It was enough to stave off the temperature alerts, though, which brought her enough relief to avoid complaining. She didn’t quite feel satisfied, but it was a vast improvement. Still, she had sustained some new scratches that she would have to get accustomed to, as well as a broken middle claw.
The thought crossed her mind that the stranger had been quiet that night. Busy? Asleep? Did they miss her brutal display?
She frowned. Why do I feel… disappointed?
V shook her head, shaking free the intrusive thoughts when, coincidentally, she did receive a message. For a brief moment, she worried that they might have been reading her mind.
???: hey murderbot. you finally done?
She smirked and delved into the deeper parts of the spire. Over the years, as the structure had grown and been developed, she had dug tunnels and made rooms in hidden corners. The spire had become a labyrinth, which she knew like the back of her hand. In some rooms, she collected spare parts, resources, or just curiosities. Other rooms had more specific purposes.
SD:V: Yeah, unless you’re asking for an encore.
She reached a hidden area which she called a ‘laundry.’ There was a salvaged old office chair, a tall but mostly-shattered mirror leaning against the far wall, and a rusty pail of soapy water beside it, ready for use. She dunked her (thankfully waterproof) hand into the bucket and fished out a once-white, now-grey rag, and wrung it out, which was unsurprisingly difficult to do with one clawed hand.
Cleaning herself up afforded her a moment of respite in-between the endless cycle of hunting, fighting, eating, and so on. Normally, she took the time to be alone with her thoughts, winding down from the thrill of the hunt before entering sleep mode and getting ready to do it all over again.
Wiping the grime and oil from her visor was an easy enough task, but her clothing was another story.
???: no thanks. just wanted to talk
V arched a brow, sceptical as she unzipped her soiled jacket and slipped her arms out of the sleeves. It joined the rags in the soapy water, quickly turning the mixture black.
With her torso bare, she hesitantly looked down at the scorch-marks that still marred her body. She hadn’t yet inspected her plating up close since burning out, and a part of her wished it would have stayed a mystery. It was harder to see the damage around her black midsection, but the melted edges of her white chest-plate were hard to miss, particularly around the black diamond of her core cover, emblazoned with the disassembly drone insignia. She ran her fingers over the bubbly textures, silently wincing at the self-inflicted damage. At least it doesn’t hurt much right now.
With a despondent sigh, V turned her attention her jacket and began the arduous task of scrubbing it clean. She had even more trouble than usual co-ordinating the cleaning effort with one normal hand and nothing but two giant claws on the other.
???: god, give a girl some warning before you decide to strip
SD:V: We’re robots, you moron.
???: whatever
???: got a question for you
V’s arms were peppered with minor scratches, which exposed silver metal beneath the white plating. Some of them stung when the soapy water splashed up and hit them. So, the parasite’s a girl.
???: whats your endgame
SD:V: My endgame?
She wished that the stranger would speak plainly. Even the lack of consistent punctualisation got on her nerves. Don’t they even have, like, worker drone schools? Did I get hacked by an illiterate worker, of all things? God, that’s embarrassing.
???: once you guys kill all the workers i mean
In the past, when V had still believed in the company, she was blindly loyal. Questioning such a thing would have been grounds for reprogramming. Things had changed since those days, though. She did her job just as well, perhaps even better, but her motivations had changed drastically as she learnt more about J.C Jenson, and by extension, Earth. Things aren’t as they seem.
SD:V: Who cares. Not like I’m going to live to see that happen anyway.
SD:V: Literally not my problem.
She wrung the water out of her jacket and slipped her arms back through it, struggling again with her claws. She trusted that her body heat would dry the fabric in no time whilst she absentmindedly polished her shiny black legs, sitting down and leaning back in her office chair.
???: are you not gonna get repaired?
A dry laugh died in V’s artificial throat. Her shiny-again claws showed her face in their reflection, and her eyes frowned back at her, obvious worry lines etched in below them.
SD:V: Not unless I can find a ‘Certified Technician’ on Copper-9, I’m not.
Typing the words felt like confronting the grim reality head-on. She may not have had the whole picture, but she knew for damned sure that there was no company, or at least, not in the way that J had tried to convince her of. V had second thoughts about speaking so candidly to an enemy. I should probably keep this stuff to myself…
???: oh.
???: so youre saying all we have to do to kill a murder drone is let it starve it for a couple of days?
SD:V: No, that would only work against me. Did you even listen to the meeting?
Once she was satisfied that her exterior was shiny enough once more, V tossed the cloth back into the water and rested her head on her knees, her ‘feet’ perched up on the seat of the chair. It was getting late (early?) and the battery icon on her HUD had begun to flash in the corner of her eye.
???: so after i went through hell digging through your head and forcefeeding you oil before you either woke up or died, youre just gonna drop dead any day now?
SD:V: Karma’s a bitch, I guess.
So she was the other drone there when I burnt out. That’s what I get for letting one get away, huh? Karma indeed…
SD:V: I’ve got a question for you.
SD:V: How many of my sensors do you have access to?
Part of her doubted that the worker would reply truthfully, but V was genuinely curious, as well as considerably anxious about what diagnostic data of hers was being spied upon. She had to at least ask. It feels like I’m being studied. She’s probably trying to find my weak spots so she can use them to take the rest of us out.
???: everything that’s online
SD:V: So, not much, then.
???: more than you think
???: my turn for another question
SD:V: One more, I’m tired.
V rubbed at her visor as if it would wipe away the sleepiness. Whilst she waited for the promised question, she headed back to her sleeping spot, taking her time to climb carefully up the rebar and concrete platforms before settling down on her side in the same place as the morning before, her head propped up on her arm. She fought to stay awake, waiting several minutes for the worker to choose one last question for the night. When the message came through, though, she wished she hadn’t given them a chance to ask.
???: why are there only 3 of you left?
Somewhere else on Copper-9, a purple-haired worker drone was left on read.