Chapter Text
I buried my devotion, yet it sings from the grave.
It’s the tender souls who bear the brunt of the world’s sharpest edges, though they shine the brightest for enduring. From the clutter of reminiscences that could scarcely be called memories, that’s all she could recall about her.
The details still refused—frustratingly— to assemble into anything whole—impressions, at best. Mimicry: the mind filling in for what should be when silence becomes unbearable.
Although the keepsakes were present to a certain degree—glimpses of a bygone home or morbid horrors that she’d been allowed to keep—none of them held onto what she cherished most. It made sure of that.
Consciousness burned at the back of her mind, a familiar headache flaring upon awakening. The present returned in pieces: the low hum of a backup generator overpowering the faint, gentle sound of piano.
Music had been a habit carried down by a seemingly ancient version of herself. It had been far too long since she’d felt the grace of each digit dancing on the keys, her foot tapped lightly against the polished tile to maintain her desired tempo she couldn’t help but memorize.
In the back of J’s mind, the final notes of Bach’s Prelude in C Major resounded.
To be entirely truthful, she concluded it to be utterly pathetic—how she could remember how to play numerous euphonies in multiple scales, the arpeggios, practically seeing her fingers padding against the tiles and hearing the voice of a distant memory explaining as she went:
‘Typically, the right hand carries the melody, flowing from C up through the scale, while the left hand is used as an anchor to keep it steady.’
J’s hand lingered over an incorrect conception of an obsolete figure—one she knew had to be there, once. The right ghosting over its own, gently pressing down on a certain key to signify where to go. They followed.
‘Finish on the final C, and…hold it there, for a full measure.”
A few seconds had passed, and the melody faded as the concluding key’s breath ran out. The estimate of a girl allowed her fingers to stay on the piano, lifting them up and relieving the keys of their duty while she stole a glance towards J.
A toothy smile spread, at least, that’s what J could assume. Then it was gone, and no other melodies took its place.
She allowed the recollection to fade out on its own. The warm yellows, vibrant ambers, and navy-lidded shadows yielded to the darkness of the present. The backup generator had kicked on due to the severe lack of maintenance applied, causing the interior of the pod to be bathed in the harsh, humming white emergency lights that only sharpened her migraine.
The warmth of the memory clung stubbornly to the edges of her mind, a spinning record of the aforementioned song stuck in place towards the side of her internal HUD, waiting for the next time it’d be allowed to speak.
Which, based on the current circumstances, it would be likely that it would sing for her once more very soon. The past few weeks had been repetitive, an uncomfortably silent routine that she begrudgingly adjusted to. She slept longer than usual, which might’ve been a bonus if you didn’t count all the nightmares—which in turn severely limited the progress made on the pod.
She surrendered to the weight of her own head, letting it fall back against the wall of the pod with a muted thump. Her unfocused gaze lingered on the hastily opened panels that lined the interior of the pod, the hand scribbled notes of blueprints peppered the floor.
That was the first issue that had ceased to be resolved, her limited knowledge of the ship’s inner workings only carried her so far in fixing it from scratch. Due to Cyn’s attempts of ridding the planet of the landing pods, ensuring no one could leave, the pods were more or less in a state of utter disrepair. And because things hadn’t gone to plan, here she was: attempting to fix something that was never meant to be fixed in the first place.
At the very least, she could weld the collapsed panels back onto the sides, make it look presentable. It was a simple job, obscuring the nasty, charred metal and polishing it anew; it would be the wires and fried monitors that proved the ship’s uselessness. But everything was just…it was too much to deal with alone.
A small mercy, at the very least, was the backup generator that provided enough light and dull humming to keep her from sleeping forever.
The generator’s hum picked up, then dipped. J watched the lights flicker with a deadpan expression, mentally counting how long they stayed dead and just how long it took for her optics to readjust afterwards. She sighed, simply wishing there was an easy solution to it.
Just beautiful.
To be frank, the generators being there in the first place was a bit of a surprise for such a small vessel. Although, her optics taking ages to correct themselves wasn’t much of a surprise. The severe lack of available oil had taken its toll almost immediately. Either she was being toyed with by a higher power, or her body had managed to tug itself along for this long on sheer willpower alone.
She pushed herself up from the console she leaned against, vision growing spotty form the sudden movement, and steadied herself when her body lagged behind intent. That, and the silently blinking light in the corner of her HUD, told her everything she already knew: If she was, in fact, running on borrowed time, then that was the first thing she needed to resolve.
Her gaze shifted to a set of drawers tucked beneath the console before she could think properly. She knew all too well what lay untouched in there: diesel, intended for last resort situations. But she wasn’t quite there yet, and it wasn’t worth the additional headache from a predictable hangover, were she to indulge.
So, rather than risk her instincts getting the better of her, she let the drawer remain closed. It was probably locked, anyway, if her memory serves her right. And at this point in time, that key could be anywhere. Drinking was a lowly habit, desperation and weakness bound in one, seeping in through the smallest of wounds and doing nothing but consumption. It would cause more damage if anything. She survived this long without it, a little longer was nothing.
Against the obvious better choice of finding sustenance, she forced herself to move, aiming for the side of the pod that served as a lesser eyesore than the other. Operation manuals littered the floor she lowered herself to, legs folding awkwardly beneath her, her hand shifting into a welding torch.
The other dragged one manual closer, flipping through pages preserved for years from the harsh elements, if only slightly smudged at the corners. The black and white pictures—diagrams—were intact, however. Clean lines, numbered parts followed by footnotes with instructions written under the assumption the reader understood mechanics. She didn’t.
The image of a particularly familiar object caught her attention, and her hand spread the book wide, eyes searching for something she knew of to latch onto.
Regardless of her lack of knowledge in spaceship mechanics, she did her best to follow the near-microscopic text at the bottom of the page. Had the words been in English, she might have bothered attempting a proper repair instead of settling for cosmetics.
She aligned a stray panel to match the diagram as best she could, nudging the warped edges until they vaguely resembled the illustration. The welder sparked to life, the hearth flourishing as she sealed metal to metal, tracing the seam in hasty beads. Embers flew every which way, messing with her visual feed as the light only seemed to grow.
The result was…middling. Despite the uneven metal pearls found upon closer inspection proved its inadequate attention, the panel held its weight. The fix was merely cosmetic, J had hardly enough intention to mess with the mess of wires beneath. Her work matched the manual’s as far as she could see, not counting the inner mechanics, she did a decent job.
She moved on to another panel, its wiring spilling out from the open door. A half-hearted shove pressed it back into place, more erratic than precise. The same routine repeated: find the right diagram, hide the imperfections, weld the edges, ignore the untimely truth that if she ever wanted the pod to actually function again, she’d have to rip all of this off and actually try to do it properly—
Hah…She was getting ahead of herself.
Cosmetically, it looked fine. Each repair made the pod appear less tatty, more intact, even as the monitors remained stubbornly dark. She hadn’t touched them—of course they wouldn’t suddenly spring to life. Foolish hope was a luxury she couldn’t afford. It was distraction enough to keep her occupied.
The pod fell quiet again, and just as silence took root the backup generator kicked back on—enveloping the room in a bask of artificial light. The welder that occupied her right arm retracted, unfolding back into a set of metallic digits with a soft, compliant click. She rubbed at her temple, irritation taking form in another headache.
In the stark, artificial lighting the mistakes in her welds were annoyingly obvious. She wasn’t built for this type of work anyway—learning on the fly was risky, and the results showed. And it’s not like she was trying to learn how to weld on a whim, she just needed it to look like it would hold.
Which is exactly why she hadn’t even attempted to fix the inner mechanisms of the pod.
As if contemplating something in her head, her gaze shifted to the side, eyeing the busted communication relay occasionally emitting a small blinking light. It might be worth a try to fix, messing with wires couldn’t possibly be too difficult. The comms itself was capable of the minimum, short suggestions of a message that wouldn’t even make it past the planet, which was already wishful thinking.
But as she pushed off the wall and made her way over to the remains of a control system, the thought of why it would be useful dawned.
There was nothing left out there, anyway. And in the off chance there was? What could she do about it? Send short relays and pray that somewhere in the assimilated wasteland of a solar system there’s someone to receive them?
As far as she knew, Copper-9 was the last ‘living’ planet.
She stopped just short of the console, metal digits resting on the buttons, tracing them forlornly. And even if she managed to hotwire the system, being the only relay in the universe—at this point—would no doubt end in it being intercepted by those three.
Her expression soured.
That was, by far, the last thing she wanted at this moment.
It had been months since she last saw a trace of the terrible two, and the other one. They had come by the spire for salvageable parts for their own nonsense. N had tried to speak to her, civil as he always was, tripping over his own words—V had even tried backing him up. Something about excess ‘leftovers’—or something like that, she didn’t bother to entertain their shenanigans and responded by emptying a mag in their general direction.
She hadn’t seen much of them since that encounter. And good riddance.
Regardless of what parts they needed, she needed the same ones to chalk up the pod to something that looked functional—if she was lucky, something that had working lights.
The humming was brought to her attention once more at the thought of fixing the pod’s generator. It was steady, but there was some obvious strain. It wouldn’t hurt to take a look—just to know if it was worth worrying about.
After some pondering, she allowed herself to pry back once of the floor panels and attempt to understand just what exactly she was looking at.
Wires intertwined with each other akin to a spiderweb, each one's color faded the closer they got to a heated element. Which happened to be the generator currently running. If not for the humming getting louder towards the specific corner, it would’ve surpassed her guess as to where it was located entirely.
It wasn’t anything grand, just a metal box tucked underneath the network of wires and pipes. J didn’t expect anything spectacular, the pods weren’t exactly meant to last as long as they did.
Her hands cleared the way slightly, just enough to peer into the darkened cavity and read the small, faded text on the generator’s front. A small indicator lay beside a fuel gauge, both remaining still and dark. She all but sighed, surely fuel wasn’t the only thing wrong with this tin can.
Nonetheless, she rose from the hole and twisted back towards the cabinet which held the sustenance necessary to resume power.
The bottle itself felt cool in her palm, cooled by the outside elements and lack of insulation in this hellish metal cylinder. It felt odd, being so desperate as to use a limited source for something that has an idea of actually working.
In spite of everything saying it was a waste of time, the bottle cap was unscrewed and tossed aside, clattering somewhere under the console. A lid was flipped beside the gauge, and the smell of old fuel smothered her olfactory sensors. Her expression faltered, and she couldn’t help but grimace as she poured a steady stream of diesel into the thirsty generator.
It soaked it right up, guzzling the whole bottle and showing its reemergence via the lights growing brighter and the gauge on the front slowly turning back on, showing it was more than halfway full now. The pod whirred stronger in reply.
Of course she’d overlooked the simplest possible solution. For this long, too.
Deciding to spare another bottle, she reached back into the cabinet and yanked it towards her, flipping the cap in the same general direction as the last. The previous, now empty bottle, was kicked away, leftover diesel pooling in a petite puddle. The generator continued to eat at the bottle’s contents, small glugs emitting with each ounce it consumed. As the bottle neared halfway, her methodical process was interrupted by a pop-up on her HUD, startling her in the process.
ERR: OIL_RESERVE LOW—8%
Yeah that was…Forgot about that.
She halted the bottle’s flow, titling it vertically and setting it down, watching as the oil gauge on the generator went up slightly. Without thinking, as if her body had decided to act for her CPU, the bottle was once again in her grasp, this time tilting towards her own mouth rather than the hungry generator’s.
The taste remained the same from the last time she indulged. Acrid and slightly burning, it hit her all at the same time. The smell was even stronger up close, and the fuzziness immediately set in, drowning out the sound of the generator humming as if she’d been plunged underwater.
The bottle was set down, and the back of her hand hastily wiped her mouth. It was low, but it was easy.
And so she continued the rhythm, filling the generator, and then snagging a sip in between flows until the generator had a green light. At least, she thought it had turned green. The pod emitted a stronger light, the humming quieting, signifying it was easier to run, and small occasional pings taking its place. She was certainly full, her oil reserves remaining at a subjectively neutral 40%.
Subjective, again, because those little apostates were probably sitting pretty in that metal bunker with full reserves. Anything less than halfway was probably taken care of immediately. That’s how it used to be, at least, and knowing how comfortable it is in the bunker, how it is now.
Besides, she would’ve gotten some kind of bullshit notification that they dipped below halfway if they were in fact in the same boat she was. She considered blocking the two ages ago, something about ‘squad leader protocol’ preventing her from carrying through with it.
Her expression darkened, eyeing the discarded bottles tipped over beside her. It had taken three bottles to fill the generator. Technically, she had given herself sustenance as well, so nothing went to waste.
The tip of her tail clinked rhythmically against the floor of the pod, an anchor holding her in the moment, keeping her from drifting with the newfound quiet. With the problem of the light and basic necessities for the pod in somewhat working order, and presentable to her standards, she could finally allow herself to stop, even if it was for a moment.
That was a foreign word. And it tasted almost just as strange in her system as the diesel that coddled its way into her body. Nothing to do seemed strange, and while she could try and learn the mechanics of the pod and fix other things, she’d done enough for now.
She allowed herself to fall to her back, a soft thud echoing in the enclosed space. Her tail, as if acting on its own volition, slapped the panel over top of the pod’s mechanic cavity shut, knocking over another bottle of diesel in the process.
It all sounded so distant, she was sure it had happened, but her focus remained on the now spinning record image in the corner of her HUD. Something foreign flickers across her expression—disappointment or confusion wasn’t exactly new—dejection, perhaps.
She probably hit ‘resume’ on accident at some point. It was another familiar one, as were all the melodies saved from memory.
Chopin’s…Something in C Sharp Minor. No. 20—That she was confident about.
Chopin never meant for this one to be heard—posthumous. Dragged across centuries by hands unworthy of deciding what should and shouldn’t see the light again. Hypocrites.
But despite all, J was glad this one did get published.
The nocturne unfolded slowly, opening notes lingering for a while before giving way to the next. The melody circled itself, as if trying to stay within a certain tone. Whenever the piece did swell, it did so quietly and restrained.
She turned to her side, limbs feeling denser than earlier, and her arms found their way around herself. And she lay still, in a subjectively undignified heap on the ground. Her tail clicked rhythmically against the metal floor, arching back and forth with the flow of the sounds. A wasted mess listening to dead people’s music.
The piece calmed from another swell, and she could’ve swore she heard the familiar sound of a chime. Just once, but as the music swelled again, she could hear it repeatedly over the music. In response, she turned the volume higher, relishing in the way it cleared out the thought of interruption.
This particular piece was one she didn’t learn with Tessa. Though the exact name was unclear, the nocturne’s number remained clear. Chopin’s music within his lifetime only went to the 18th nocturne, so that’s what she learned with Tessa—tried to, at least. Although J was unsure if she even had a memory of playing the other several, she was sure it had happened at some point—Why else would she have all these if not to learn them?
Her metal digits rose to rub at her temples, while the diesel calmed her oil alerts and dimmed her headache, it was starting to show its effects. A bigger headache was soon to erupt, and she could barely think straight—who forgets the name of a piece like that? Certainly not her.
And even if she had memory of these songs for the purpose of learning them, why would she have the twentieth if she wasn’t planning on learning it? The thought dissipated as quickly as it came, suddenly focused on the finishing melody’s last notes.
When it silenced, as songs naturally did, she was able to hear the background noise more clearly. The calm gave way to a barrage of bangs—no, knocks?—on the side of the pod’s exterior wall.
An exaggerated groan fell almost immediately, and her hands dragged from her temples down to her visor, obscuring her vision momentarily. As if suddenly sobering up, the noise progressively grew louder, and J became aware of the backload of messages tucked away in the corner of her HUD.
This had to be the most amount of messages she’d ever gotten from V, of all drones. N had a few messages as well, but she’d look at his later. And, begrudgingly, she opened the chat under V’s name, blinking a few times to read the small text properly.
SD:V: Look at N’s messages.
Then, a few minutes later according to the timestamps:
SD:V: Don’t ignore me.
SD:V: And don’t start shooting at us again, either.
If J was expecting something more than that, she didn’t show it. She did however, close the chat client without typing a response, and opened N’s. It had almost twice the amount of messages, and she couldn’t help but grimace as she saw the last time they’d messaged each other. It was back when they were still co-workers, as she’d assumed by now they’d quit, and she hadn’t even bothered to reply then, either.
SD:N: Hey so remember when we stopped by a couple months ago and tried to talk to you about leftovers from the AS?
Ugh, that’s what this was about?
SD:N: Probably not, because you kind of didn’t let us finish, but we need to talk to you about it
SD:N: We’re stopping by in a couple minutes, Uzi’s busy so she’s not going to be there
SD:N: sorry for such short notice!!
Ah, so that’s what that sound was.
As if on cue, another barrage of bangs hit the side wall, and her expression soured further. She rolled over, gathering her spindly legs and attempting to stand up to full height, using the console as a support.
She gazed at her patch jobs that littered the internals of the pod, and sneered at the knocked over diesel bottles—something she swore to herself was a lowly habit. Still not quite thinking as clear as she’d like, she exited the pod, pausing the next song as she did so.
It wasn’t an important one, anyway.
The outside was just as mundane as she remembered. While the spire was holding without any maintenance done on it, there were a few gaps and holes towards the tip, and it groaned with every howl of the wind.
After a few steps, she allowed herself to look somewhere other than all the work that would need to be done to ensure she doesn’t get crushed by a shit ton of dead bodies. She scoffed, hardly a chuckle; that’d be poetic, for sure. Would that be considered irony?
“Something funny?” That all-too-familiar voice grated against her audio receptors. V’s tone sounded irritated, and on instinct J flipped back to the chat client, checking just exactly when the two had started messaging her.
Just barely seven minutes ago.
She landed on the packed snow just in front of the pod with a near silent thump, a puff of snow going flying from the soft impact. Crossing her arms over her chest, an attempt at holding some semblance of mock authority, she met the eyes of V, who looked just as thrilled to see J as she could’ve already assumed.
V’s own arms rested on her hips, platinum hair flowing gently in the obstructed wind. She looked pretty much the same, other than the noticeable longer hair length—it was always cut short, practically to her neck, jagged ends from a half-hearted trimming job—but now it ghosted just above her sharp collarbones, the ends healthier than they’d ever been during her time at the spire.
It wasn’t until V raised a brow in confusion that J fumbled for a response. Of course she’d been expected to respond to the snarky jab—she mustered a meek head shake rather than attempting to formulate words.
V, predictably, scoffed and turned towards N, who was slightly behind her.
He looked different, too, but not anything cosmetically. Despite drones being unable to ‘age’, he looked older now, maturity finally setting in, maybe?
He, too, appeared to be grasping at words—surprised by the fact he hadn’t been shot at this time. So, rather than waste anymore time, he got straight into rambling, assaulting J’s audio processor with his barrage of nonsense.
It made zero sense—and V could see it too, her smug expression faltering before she raised a hand and waved it in front of his face.
“No one can understand you, talk normally.” Her expression was unreadable, something J had never witnessed between the two. In the past—well, in the past there’s a hare’s chance she’d even be standing beside him, but it’s clear the times have changed.
Getting the hint, N took a breath, and continued his ramble, albeit much slower the second time.
“You looked irritated, so I tried to talk fast but it’s clear that didn’t work so I’m talking slower now but Ifeellikeit’sprobablystilltoofast—”
Sensing this would take a while, and that any form of hostility likely wouldn’t be taken lightly this time, J took to the wall for support, leaning against it like an impatient child.
“Not at all, take your time.” Was the only thing she could bite out, and she hated how the diesel seemed to take the edge out of her attempted tone. It was more monotone than the desired sardonic shade.
His eyes lit up, of course they would’ve.
He nodded widely, clearly taken aback by the surface layer comment, clearly not attempting to look into the aimed bite within the comment. Clearing his throat, he started again:
“We think that the absolute solver is manifesting itself into other dead drones all over the place—we keep finding those weird—”
“Amalgamations.” V finished for him.
“Yeah! They keep appearing around the bunker, and that’s what we tried to tell you the first time about leftover code…but you emptied a mag in response so I don’t think you heard us.”
He finished out of breath, again, and shoved his hands deep into his coat pockets, looking eager to get a response.
That was…still a lot.
Her expression must’ve been all the clarification that he needed to continue. She’d unintentionally been hugging her arms closer to herself, her mouth slightly agape in confusion. She caught it, though, and closed it as N continued.
“Surprised you haven’t had any encounters with them yet—nasty little things, they keep trying to eat through the bunker doors…Mr. Uzi wasn’t happy about that.”
J had knowledge of what the two were talking about, but she’d never seen them on this planet. Only residing in the near worthless fragments in her CPU she labeled memories. Meaning, she was useless in this conversation.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
But of course, nothing could be easy in this god-forsaken place. And V, as if waiting for her to spit a stupid response like that, whipped back towards J, expression souring to match the others’.
“Bullshit. You know just as much about those things as I do, don’t pretend.”
J groaned, a long, dramatic and drawn out thing, before throwing her arms out to the side.
“Fine, I know what they are. On this planet, though? You lost me.”
“See, was that so hard?” V sneered.
N started talking again, but she wasn’t paying attention this time. The continuous mentions of her former employer being alive and—from what she could assume—trying to stir up any chaos she could, didn’t sound very enticing.
“So,” J drawled, “why am I needed in this conversation? Aren't you pals with shortstack? Doesn’t she like…control that stuff now?”
V sucked in a breath, as if being aware this is where the conversation was headed. N, too, visibly grew sheepish at the mention of the purple one.
“She’s…Busy. Trying to interrogate Cyn but it’s—”
“Not working, so we came to you. You were the closest with her, right?”
Either she’s completely gone insane,, or her two ex-coworkers were at her doorstep asking for her help in interrogating her former tormenter.
“Tough luck, I’ve got shit to do.” An attempt was made to slip back into the pod, the arguably inviting atmosphere dense against her back as the door slid open, just to be immediately quelled by an accusing shout.
“Like getting wasted?” V spat, the venom on her tongue finally seeping through after being contained during the entire previous conversation.
That got J's attention.
V whipped around, placing her arms right back over her chest.
“Don’t think I didn’t notice the smell, you reek of diesel.” V’s eyes were narrow, accusing and practically gaiting for a fight.
“Ugh, no—It was just—Never mind, you wouldn’t get it.”
Despite all the thoughts racing through her mind, searching for an equitable response to bite back, they all dispersed. And she chose to retreat.
“What could I possibly not get? We’ve tried being short and sweet with you, but if you want me to call out all the things wrong with this right now? You’ve got it.”
J’s defense was crumbling, and she hated how obvious it must’ve looked.
“Yeah? Like what. I’m fine.”
Petty responses, no explanations—she was good at that. V was getting irritated, too, combing her fingers through her fringe before throwing them out to the side to emphasize her point.
“Look at yourself! you’re not fine.”
The three stood in silence for a moment. V, sensing the obvious lack of response, took initiative and continued, backing down from offensiveness to a more defensive approach.
“J, we just wanted to give you a chance—tell us what you know, doesn’t even have to be a lot, just,, something?” She sighed the response, arms falling limply to her side.
“We can talk about…stuff, later—but we need your help right now. And you clearly need ours, too.”
J was unsure at what moment she started tuning out the almost-sob–story V, of all drones, had provided. Each step back toward the interior of the pod inflicted another step forward by V.
“V, stop, please.” If she kept going, she might’ve said something she shouldn’t.
Upon realization of her own rambling, V’s mouth clamped shut, face just inches from J’s. Her gaze flicked to the interior of the pod, eyeing the work she’s done, as well as the bottles knocked onto the ground. J realized, too, what she was looking at, and made a half-hearted attempt to shove V out of the doorway, not missing the obvious darkness that clouded V’s expression. It certainly would look bad, from an outsider's perspective, which is why she needed V out of her business.
“I’ll,, I’ll let you know, later.” A sheepish response was all she could muster. And at the moment, she wasn’t planning on giving it any more thought. Especially after witnessing the most heartfelt mantra she’d ever witnessed come out of V’s mouth.
This was all…weird.
“Just let us know by tomorrow, ‘kay? I know it’s soon, but if you had listened months ago we would’ve been able to give you more time.” N followed up, a sing–song tone mocking her with the last sentence.
The reminder quipped at the back of her mind, and as she finally stepped inside the pod and allowed the door to close, a short nod slipped out. She never missed the twitch in V’s posture, how she looked upset, by the response. Or maybe her own.
The silence set in once more, and she could hear faint murmuring from behind the metal barrier fade into nothing. Then, they were gone.
So, she pressed against the adjacent wall with a thump, sliding down until her legs lay splayed on the ground in front of her. The conversation had passed, only key information remaining. Like the current issue at hand.
Her head pressed against the connecting joint acting as her knees, arms wrapping around. Her tail followed suit, coiling around a single peg and emitting a small glow.
It was all so tiring, having to deal with Cyn, again. And J wanted nothing more than to do absolutely nothing about it. A sigh left her vocoder as she opened the chat client once more, something she knew she shouldn’t be doing, but did anyway.
SD:J: If I had declined, what would you have done?
She closed it, not bothering to look like she was waiting for a response. But fate seemed to mock her action, and not even a minute later, V responded. She couldn’t help the embarrassment flood her face as she immediately fumbled to look at what she had to say.
SD:V: Get some rest, you’re thinking too deeply about this.
Unease rose in her circuits as she fidgeted unconsciously with her digits. She could’ve swore V was listening, or knew how J would feel about the comment, so another message was sent shortly after.
SD:V: Also, you wouldn't decline something like this. Don’t act like I don’t know you at all.
J could hardly even guess what the message said, numbers blurring against the symphony of sleep capturing her attention. The pod’s lights remained on, but the neon crown atop her head of silver hair dimmed.