Chapter Text
J was going to murder N. From the moment she found the gaping hole in the side of the factory, she knew something had gone wrong and that it had to do with him. The assembly floor was in total shambles, like a war had been fought there. The state of the landing pod was what did her in, though. A quick diagnostic revealed it was suffering from multiple severed wires and a missing stabilizer component. There was no way it would fly in this condition.
N's spiel about a "technician drone" poking around their ship while he had a friendly chat with them only incensed her further.
"It looks like we missed the party," V remarked at the mess before turning to N when he shuffled out of the pod. "What happened?"
"Apparently, synergistic liability here must have suffered a programming defect," J hissed. She advanced on N, hissing through her teeth, "So, where's the 'technician', bozo?"
N made his lips into a thin line. "She was right next to me. I looked away for a second, and then she was gone."
"V, search the perimeter," J ordered. "She couldn't have gone far."
"On it."
V snapped her wings and flew through the hole in the wall. Climbing to a higher altitude, she hovered in place and quickly scanned the immediate area. Her vision wasn't always the best, but even she couldn't miss the little worker booking it from the factory. She was in a full-on sprint, but her little legs could only carry her so far. There was no way she'd outrun a flying Murder Drone. V grinned at the thought of twisting her limbs into funny shapes until they broke.
She buzzed J on the comm. "Yo! We've got a worker out here, and I'm eager to practice some balloon shapes on her!"
J scowled. She knew there was no "technician", or the company would have informed her, not N. As inconceivable as it sounded, N must have been outwitted, taken by surprise, and knocked offline, allowing the worker to sabotage their landing pod. That was the more charitable interpretation, and J had none to give this idiot. The more likely scenario was that N screwed up again, and the worker took advantage of that. The red light on his head indicated something was on the fritz.
"You idiot!" She struck him across the face with the back of her hand. "I gave you the simplest task, and you still found a way to screw it up!"
N drew back a step as his red light was knocked back to orange. His system rebooted, recognizing the error had been corrected. His memory reconstructed itself, and the previous twenty minutes came flooding back with clarity. He remembered returning to the factory, chasing a worker, being taken by surprise, and finally losing his head to her fancy railgun, with the last thing he heard being, "Bite me!"
And he'd just spilled company secrets directly to her face.
"Oh," N said, recognizing the gravity of his error. He surveyed the damage around them as if he were seeing it for the first time. How he sat across from the worker, chatting it up while she sabotaged their pod in front of him. He grabbed the sides of his head like a suspect awaiting arrest. "Ohhh! I've got to fix this!"
He attempted to run past J, but she grabbed him by the collar and slammed him against the pod, with her forearm digging into his neck. "You've done quite enough. I swear, if the company allowed it, I would straight-up kill you myself for how often you've messed up!
"Th-Thank you," N rasped. "I'm very grateful...!"
"Shut up. I don't want to hear another word out of you for the rest of the night, do you understand me?"
N whimpered through pursed lips.
"I said, do you understand me?!" J snarled.
"But how can I answer? You said I couldn't say another word!"
J leveled her stinger at N's visor, the nanite acid boiling with rage.
N raised his arms and yelped, "Wait, company policy! I'm sorry!"
The comms rumbled again. "J, are we getting this worker or what?"
Exhaling sharply, J removed her stinger and released N, letting him drop to the floor. "Keep on top of her, V, but don't engage yet. I want to know where she's headed. I'll be with you momentarily." Resting her hands on her hips, she loomed over N with disdain. "Since I can't even trust you to do nothing, you're coming with me so I can keep an eye on you while V and I clean up your mess." N opened his mouth to protest, but she silenced him with her tail. "Another word and I'll clip your wings."
She knew they would just grow back, but didn't care. She would simply do it all over again. N finally got the hint, made a zipper motion across his mouth, and gave a thumbs up and nod. Satisfied, J turned and slapped him across the face with her tail before spreading her wings and taking off.
N followed close behind.
The wind picked up sleets of ice to pelt Khan and Thad as they trudged onward. Flash storms had become a common occurrence on Copper 9 since the core collapse. They were difficult to predict, but usually didn't last longer than a few minutes. Khan had no intention of waiting, however. With a Murder Drone in her vicinity, she wouldn't have a few minutes if it spotted her. Every step forward counted.
"This cold is making my joints stiff!" Thad called out behind him.
"It'll pass," Khan replied. "We just need to weather it and keep moving."
"So, you do have a sense of humor!"
Khan didn't mean to tell a joke in their dire situation, but after thinking it over, he let out a scoff. "I suppose I do."
"We'll find her, Mr. Doorman," Thad assured.
Khan spotted a shape in the haze. Furrowing his brow, he noted it was growing in size and becoming more solid. It was coming the pair's way, and sprinting.
"Who's that?" Thad asked, squinting.
"Stay behind me." Khan drew his K1 stun pistol and brought it to bear against the shape. His finger hovered over the trigger, ready to fire the moment a hostile presented itself. "Stop right there!"
For a wonder, the shape actually complied, skidding to a halt in the snow. They were at an impasse, staring each other down. They tilted their heads, as if trying to make each other out in the storm.
"Step forward, slowly."
The figure obeyed again, raising their hands. The storm started to clear up, and Khan nearly dropped his weapon as he recognized the short stature of his daughter. Her purple LED eyes pierced the fading haze, widening in alarm alongside his.
"Uzi?"
"No way," Thad gasped in disbelief.
Fortune had to be smiling at Khan.
Misfortune had to be laughing at Uzi because, of course, the one time she saw her father outside the colony since her mother's death was the same time she was being tailed by Murder Drones. Just her rotten luck!
"Dad?!"
"Uzi!"
"Thad?!" Oh, yeah, misfortune was positively rolling at her expense. "What are you doing out here?!"
"Um, saving you?" Thad answered unsurely.
Khan approached Uzi, his face even. "Disobeying me, locking me in my own room, running outside by yourself, and worrying me sick! You have a lot to explain for yourself, Uzi!"
"Dad, I--!" Before Uzi could finish her protest, her father enveloped her in a hug. Her eyes widened, flabbergasted. Where did this come from?
"For now, I'm just glad you're okay," Khan said, drawing back but keeping hold of her shoulders.
Thad couldn't help smiling as he held up the repair kit. "I guess you didn't need this, after all."
"Guys, this really isn't a good time," Uzi said. "We need to go, now!"
"Absolutely," Khan said. "It's dangerous enough without—"
With the speed of a missile, a blurry shape slammed into the ground between the trio and threw everyone off their feet. Uzi cried out as she was hurled across the snow and landed roughly on her back. Khan and Thad had tumbled onto their stomach and sides, respectively, barred from Uzi by the figure that now loomed over them.
Khan lifted his head, following the black, stilted limb that supported a slender body in a frilled flight jacket. His eyes hollowed when he met the burning "X" paired with an open maw of fangs. Short strands of silver hair billowed around its face with murderous intent.
"Well, well, well," V said as saliva dripped from her fangs and onto the snow. "What have we here? A package deal!"
Thad was frozen in terror. He couldn't move. Despite his father's words screaming at him to run, that horrific gaze kept him in place. It was a Murder Drone. By Robo God, it was a Murder Drone!
Uzi checked her railgun.
Charge ready.
Jumping to her feet, she brought her railgun to bear and aimed it directly at the maniacal machine. This time, she wouldn't fire a grazing shot. "Hey!"
V turned her head to find herself at gunpoint. "How cute!" You're actually going to fight back." She was now facing Uzi completely, but didn't move away from Khan and Thad. "Go on, little worker. Shoot."
She remembered how easily the weapon sheared a Murder Drone's head almost clean off, but it continued to penetrate over quite a distance. If she fired, then she would take out her father and Thad alongside the Murder Drone, and the cursed thing knew it.
Uzi gritted her teeth. "Dad, Thad, move!"
Khan didn't hear her. He was physically present, but mentally, he was back at the entrance to Colony 31, watching the doors close on Nori as she made her final stand to protect her family. Those monsters took her from him, from Uzi. Why could he do nothing after crossing paths again? Just like he did nothing when Nori sacrificed herself.
What good was a father who couldn't protect his family?
Uzi was shouting, but no words reached his audio receptors.
"Dad!" Uzi yelled again.
"That's a nice toy you've got there," remarked a voice behind her.
Uzi spun around, only for a clawed hand to seize her by the face. She barely clutched at it before being pelted across the floor, her railgun skittering across the snow.
The sight of his daughter in harm's way finally snapped Khan out of his stupor. "Uzi!" He drew his stun pistol and raised it to fire, but then saw a flash of silver, followed by a sharp pain in his shoulder. He lost his grip on the weapon, and it fell into the snow with a dull splat. A warm feeling oozed down his arm.
V had plunged her sword into his shoulder.
"Mr. Doorman...!" Thad gasped. His mind raced to the emergency kit, but the barrel of an MP5 from V's other arm kept him in place.
"Ah, ah. You two stay right where you are. Nice of you to join us, J!"
The squad leader craned her head toward V with a sneer. "I told you not to engage."
"They were getting all sappy, and it was boring me."
J rolled her eyes, an irritated vein popping on her visor. While V was more useful than N, she was hopelessly impatient. A reprimand would have to wait. She glanced up at N hovering in the sky, making sure he wasn't doing anything stupid before returning to her immediate concern.
Uzi lifted her head and reached for her railgun, but a stilted foot slammed onto her wrist, eliciting a cry of pain.
J bent down and picked up the railgun, inspecting it closely. "You made this? I take it you're one of the smarter workers, but that's not saying much."
Uzi spat at her, hitting her shoulder.
N's hands flew over his mouth to suppress a gasp. Oh, no!
V's jaw fell open in surprised humor. Ohhh, now you've done it!
J flared with indignant rage, and she kicked Uzi across the face, knocking her a few feet over. "You mongrel! The quarterly report is coming up, and this stain will cost me three points!"
Uzi cupped a hand over her mouth, feeling a thin line of oil drool past her lips to stain the snow under her. "Screw your stupid points..." She tried to push herself up on her hands and knees.
N shook his head. No, stop. Stay down!
J administered another kick to the side, which sent Uzi into a coughing fit. She curled into an agonized ball, favoring her abdomen.
"Stop it!" Khan yelled. "Do whatever you want with me, but leave her and Thad out of this!"
"V, shut him up."
A slight twist of the blade was all that was needed, drowning his protests in another painful cry.
Thad clenched the snow between his fingers. He felt so useless out here. He wanted to do something, anything, to get them out of this mess. The thought of throwing a snowball crossed his mind. He was confident he could nail them in the head with enough force to at least stun them for a second. But a single look from Khan silently convinced him otherwise. V would shoot him if he so much as twitched wrong.
J vigorously scrubbed her shoulder of the spit. Her dark uniform made the stain difficult to see, but she was going to have that in the back of her mind when she had her quarterly call. It would gnaw at her, and her perfect score was going up in smoke because of this stupid worker.
Fuming, she raised the railgun above her head and, in one swift motion, snapped the weapon in two.
Uzi watched in silent horror as her life's work, her hope for a future, and a tribute to her late mother was shattered into hundreds of pieces that now littered the snow around her. The studded green lights faded as their power ebbed. Within a second, a formidable weapon was reduced to scrap, destined for the recycling bin.
"No," Uzi murmured. Her hands desperately gathered the scraps into a pile, a desperate piece of her trying to bring her weapon back into being through sheer will. No amount of prayers could fix a broken gun or the dreams she staked on it. "No, no, no!"
J huffed as she watched Uzi break down in front of her. "This hardly makes us even."
Uzi snapped her head up, and everyone could see the virtual tears streaming down her visor. She bit her quivering lips, but it did little to stifle her whimpers.
"Really?" J bent down, allowing a grin to return. "Are you crying over a stupid gun?"
"RAAAH!" Uzi screamed as she lunged at J, driven by unfathomable anguish and outrage. Instead of clamping her hands around J's neck, however, they grasped only air. J had easily side-stepped her and tripped her face-first back into the snow.
J shot V a 'Can you believe this?' look.
Uzi started rising again, but J's heel stabbed into her back, pinning her down. After a brief struggle, Uzi screamed. It wasn't a curse or a plea, but a vent of every frustration she'd held in her life, protesting the unfairness of it all. "SCREW YOU! SCREW EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU! ALL YOU MURDER DRONES DO IS TAKE AND DESTROY EVERYTHING! YOU'RE THE REASON THE WORLD SUCKS!"
N couldn't help the phantom sting welting inside his chest. Was he pitying a worker? The company stated that workers were a danger. Rogue AI. To a degree, that was true. She blew off his head, after all, but she was driven by something other than the basic instinct to survive. There was a goal she wanted to see fulfilled, and J had scattered it across the snow. Her anger was raw and emotional, stemming from something that could only be described as a living thing. He thought back to their conversation in the pod and wondered if she had a point. Once all of the workers were dead, what would become of them? This worker was the only one who thought to pose the question aloud, and she would be cruelly executed once J finished toying with her.
Uzi dipped her head, her voice trembling with shaking, tired rage. "We only wanted to live. My mother only wanted to live! Why?! Why are you doing th--HMF!" Her rant was silenced when J jammed her foot into the back of Uzi's neck, force-feeding her a mouthful of snow.
"You're pretty mouthy for a barely sentient toaster. Enjoy the view down there." J changed her right hand into an MP5 and pressed the barrel directly against the back of Uzi's head. "It'll be the last one you see."
"UZI!" Khan cried out. "Kill me instead! Not my daughter, I'm begging you!" He couldn't do this again. If he had to watch his daughter die, it would break the last, tenuous reason he had to persist in this cold world.
"Do you ever shut up?" V was ready to twist her sword again, but when she glanced upon an ID card on the front breast of Khan's jacket, her eyebrows beetled. "Whoa, J, you're going to love this! We've got one of those WDF guys! Khan Doorman from Colony 31."
That caught J's attention. She didn't bother to learn the names of many workers, since they would all be disassembled in the end, but she made a point of learning the names of specific individuals. She'd heard of this Khan Doorman through idle chatter of WDF scout patrols, as well as chanced upon recruitment posters depicting him plastered around the city, enticing strays to flock to the protective confines of Colony 31.
"And get this," V continued, "that worker is this guy's daughter."
A wicked grin came to J's face. "We've struck gold!"
She removed her foot from Uzi's head, and the worker raised her face, flecks of snow falling from her cheeks.
"I really should thank you, Worker," J said. "Were it not for you, we wouldn't have gotten a hold of this colony's leader. We'll make the top squad of the quarter for sure, all because of you!" She emphasized those final words to twist the knife further.
This was a worse fate than if J had simply ventilated her CPU. With Khan, they had a way into the colony. As much as everyone else treated her like an outcast, she didn't wish death on any of them (except maybe Lizzy). Nori's sacrifice would be rendered meaningless, and it would be all her fault.
"No!" Uzi pleaded. "You can't!"
"I can and I will." J reveled in watching her squirm.
Uzi growled, her fury rising again. "I'll...!"
"What? Shoot me with that piece of junk you used to call a gun?"
Uzi's eyes burned with tears again, but she couldn't raise any words against J. She was right. She was just a worker, and her only weapon was a pile of worthless scrap. She was being made to watch her sole parent be carted to certain death all over again.
"Once we've wiped out all of your friends, I'll circle back and put you out of your misery as a final kindness." J patted Uzi's cheek to rub a little more salt in the wound. "Bozo! Get down here."
N lowered himself from the sky until he landed beside J. He lacked the exuberant energy Uzi saw in the pod; instead, he adopted a submissive, timid demeanor.
"Keep an eye on this one. V and I will take our esteemed guest to the colony. If he won't open the doors, we'll torture the other one over there and then start on the brat. Think you can handle a little babysitting? She won't blow your head off this time."
N said nothing, merely nodding.
"That's what I like to hear." J turned to V. "Take them both."
V yanked her sword out of Khan's shoulder, causing a mild spurt of oil.
"Mr. Doorman," Thad said, finding his voice for the first time since everything unfolded. "What are we going to do now?"
He prayed Khan had the answer. He always had an answer! There had to be something they could do that got them out of this predicament. But there was nothing. There was no miracle plan to save them all. Three Murder Drones against three injured, unarmed workers wasn't a contest they had any hope of surviving, let alone winning.
"I don't know," Khan murmured through gritted teeth.
V grabbed onto Khan's good arm, then seized Thad by his wrist. She spread her wings and showed a toothy grin. "Lowest body count eats a missile!"
With a single beat of her wings, V rocketed to the sky, taking Khan and Thad with her into the great white nothing.
"DAD!" Uzi screamed, reaching out her hand in a futile attempt to pull her father back. But the distance only grew until they faded from her sight, taking her last vestiges of hope with them. Her shaky breaths preceded choked, faint sobs. He was gone. Her father, and perhaps her only friend back home, was gone. They were going to die because of her. She caused all of this. Her hands limply fell to her sides as she remained on her knees, staring in the direction V had flown off. Her expression was despondent, the fight in her gone.
She failed.
Once again, N's chest twisted uncomfortably. The worker looked so pitiful in this state. Gone was the drone who outwitted and defeated him, the factory, or the free-thinking spirit from the pod, or even the defiance she exhibited against J. She was a broken, despairing shell, threatening to buckle under the relentless spray of hail.
J lapped up the sight. She felt much better now, taking that worker down a dozen pegs. She wondered if she would still be like this when she got back, or even worse. That prospect excited her nearly as much as wiping out the colony. She spread her wings and prepared to take off.
"J, what happens to us after all of this?" N asked abruptly.
She stopped, her visor flickering in irritation. Her gut instinct was to chew him out for failing to adhere to the simple order of shutting up, but the nature of his question brought out an inquisitive glare. "Excuse me?"
Swallowing his apprehension, N continued, "I mean, the mission has to end someday, right? If all the workers die, how are we going to get our oil? The pod won't leave the planet, either."
Uzi turned her head ever so slightly at the conversation unfolding, her face unchanged.
"I'm starting to get the feeling that the company doesn't like us all that much, and that maybe we aren't so different from these Worker Drones after all?"
J's brow furrowed, her glare icier than the cold air around them. N expected a backhand or for J to yell, but neither happened. Instead, the brewing anger melted away, replaced by a pleasant smile. That unnerved him even more. J never smiled at him.
"I'm beginning to realize you're the last person I should have said this to," he sputtered. "Can I go back to shutting up?"
"Oh, N," J said, putting a hand on his shoulder, still smiling sweetly. "I'm not upset at all. In fact, I'm elated."
N blinked uneasily. "You are?"
"Yeah!" She patted his back. "Questioning the company? You just gave me the excuse I needed to finally do this."
There was a flash of silver, and N felt a sharp pain rip into his lower abdomen. His LED eyes hollowed as they followed the pain to its source. He found only a sword on J's right arm. With a jerking motion, she carved a crude, horizontal gash across his torso and tore the blade out. Oil gushed from the wound, pooling around the snow at N's feet. He collapsed to his knees, coughing up mouthfuls of black fluid. His hands instinctively tried to keep what was left of his oil inside, but it merely seeped through his fingers, caking his palms in a slick, stygian layer.
"Deviant thinking like that is exactly what landed these workers on the disassembly line," J said smugly. "Your fraternizing with this worker has clearly corrupted you, and I'd hate for V to see you like that."
"Thanks, J," N gurgled. "You're always looking out for me. Could you tell V...?"
"She'll be too busy destroying the colony to think about you." J shoved him onto his back beside the broken Uzi. "Goodbye, N. I'd say I'll miss you, but that'd be a lie. Good riddance!"
J launched into the air, feeling more liberated than she ever had. He was gone. He was finally gone! Any points that would have been docked for losing a company asset would have been negated by the report of the total destruction of Colony 31, as well as her initiative in stopping a deviant drone. They would send a replacement, but she was perfectly fine completing this mission with only V.
"Where's N?" V asked when J caught up.
"He's staying with the worker to make sure she doesn't try anything," J lied. "Keep focused on the mission, and we'll double back to collect him once we're done."
She wasn't surprised V would inquire about N's whereabouts. For reasons she couldn't fathom, V looked after that idiot. Inevitably, she was going to find out what really happened, as J would put it: N was caught off guard and killed by the crafty worker, and then V would take her revenge.
There was a delicious irony to be tasted with that knowledge that none of this would have been possible if not for the worker who thought she could rise above her station. J and her squad had been unable to breach Colony 31's doors for months, but all it took was one ambitious drone hoping to free them that gave them the chance they needed to wipe the colony out. In a roundabout way, she owed her victory to that worker.
As thanks, J would save her for last.