Chapter Text
Copper-9 was beginning to bore Serial Designation V.
Sure, she supposed, she had everything a crazed and violent disassembly drone could ask for out in the lonely rim of the solar system: endless territory, never-ending snowstorms, and what felt like an infinite stream of worker drones to feast on. Predictable, painfully so, but still amusing in their own pathetic way. Like little wind-up toys she could rip apart on a whim.
That was about it, though.
Food, as stressed by her current boss, wasn't actually as infinite as she liked to think; she just had yet to feel the inconvenience, or consequences, of returning from a hunt on an empty tank.
Her coworker hadn't been so lucky as of late.
The reminder to maintain quota, yet still savor—as if that word existed in her vocabulary—still rang in her CPU, J's clipped voice from earlier that week:
"You can kill as many workers as you want, V, just stop doing it in the same exact locations. You'll choke the supply."
She'd rolled her eyesights at her then, flying away before a stray bullet wound itself lodged into her chassis, but now V couldn't help but get the idea that J was onto something about the food supply running out.
Her head shook in a firm side-to-side motion, her ivory hair sweeping over her shoulders with each pass, brushing away the thought she would refuse to entertain.
She scoffed, as if these little workers were stupid enough to not recognize simple patterns. Though, she presumed, they likely don't get the chance to tell others where to and not to go, being dead and all.
But the statistics didn't lie. Rather than intercepting groups nearing ten, the numbers were dwindling down considerably. It was almost as if the workers were aware the spire was completed, and their services were no longer necessary to the disassembly drones. V liked that thought—imagining them scurrying around like little ants without a queen.
She growled under her breath, claws extended and dragging lazy shapes into the powdery snow beneath her. The shapes didn't mean anything significant, just looping, jagged circles that loosely resembled a severed worker head. Just something to avoid replaying one of J's numerous spiels that almost always ended violently for the umpteenth time.
Her tail's needle tip punctured two uneven dots on either side of the circle and a crooked frown near the bottom. Her HUD managed to scrounge a brief recognition of the image before she did, and it was promptly lacerated under her claws into oblivion.
She went still, unmoving with her claws extended inches deep into the frozen earth. Through the gashes in the snow, slowly softened by drifting powder, the mangled frown of the worker still lingered. A desecrated little expression of nothing.
V exhaled sharply, retracting her claws back into place with a metallic shrink. Her gaze lingered on the convoluted surface, sickly yellow eyes darting across the surface. It was akin to staring at the clouds on a relatively clear sky, taking minutes to convince your own eyes that what you were seeing wasn’t just a ball of condensation, but a representation of something.
Next to her daunting sketch of a mutilated worker drone, or rather lack thereof, lines were etched into the untouched snow. V hadn’t drawn those, certainly not bothered to add a background to her artwork.
Her lip curled, eyes narrowing as her hand shot out and grazed the frozen surface as gently as her coding would allow. Her optics gathered more of the surface around her, revealing curved lines, round in some areas, and tapered to a soft peak behind a shallow semicircle.
Ah. A footprint, V realized.
She had been internally describing a footprint. In a considerable amount of detail.
The strange and foreign pattern suddenly made much more sense to V. Disassembly drones, with the loose exception of N, did not necessarily have ‘feet’. And V doubted there existed a scenario where N would keep a pair of boots long enough to leave a print before they were promptly shot off. If not directly from her, then J without a question.
This was unmistakably a worker’s footprint. One who had strayed very far from its little hole in the earth—or wherever they came from. And the real kicker? This worker had bolted out of the spire recently. The print was still crisp, with a string of identical impressions trailing straight out of the exit.
It was as if it wanted to be followed.
Simple-minded things, V reminded herself with a suppressed giggle.
Her internal schematics traced the print without question, highlighting it and the others that followed in a ring of neon yellow. The measurements were precise, compared with data she couldn’t begin to fathom the origin, but they were accurate nonetheless. The conclusions weren’t helpful, however, as she’d already figured the general direction—mainly due to the fact they were headed in a straight line directly out of the spire.
Still, her HUD breathed its muted deductions in soft gold, constellations of text forming at the corners of her vision.
‘Pointed south, approx. 10.1cm, adolescent worker drone model, yada-yada…’
Nothing she couldn’t have already assumed. Yet seeing the confirmation only sharpened the restless hunger curling in her chest. She had a plan, now: Find the little pest that wormed its way through her territory (and managed to survive the escape), and then deliver it back into the earth. Easy.
She rose, back arching as servos cracked and popped into place, stretching her spine until she reached her full height.
It was difficult to fathom, really:
A worker drone had stood where she currently resided—just hours earlier, in the tangle of corpses she called her home—and slipped away as though dared by its insignificant peers to peek inside. Not to mention avoiding the claws of the other two disassembly drones as well as herself.
J’s going to have a field day about this.
She could already picture her boss absolutely seething at this, no doubt taking the effort to disappear for a few days to make her displeasure emphatically known.
Her body moved on its own accord, a marionette to her own mind, as she stalked forward. One peg nearly obscured half of the neglected boot print, and V’s lips curved into a small, particularly sharp smirk. The faint trace beneath her weight was reason enough to chase it through the city; what reason did the worker have for trespassing in her domain?
Pegs met hardened snow with a muted crunch, the sound further swallowed by the wind howling against the spire’s exterior. Each step was measured carefully, as if the worker could’ve been hiding right beneath her, a single misstep would lead to its unlikely escape.
A golden path lit up near the upper corner of her HUD displaying the outlines of said traces that seemed to stretch for miles, curves and sharp turns creating a crude excuse of a path. V extended her feathered blades, each one snapping to full length with a ringing metallic clang. A shiver ran through her as cold air brushed across contrastingly warm servos.
Instincts guided the lone disassembly drone as she shot up into the night sky, internal schematics readjusting and recalculating to her whim. The harsh winds only slowed her down momentarily, pain blooming where stray gusts struck. Pop-ups flickered across her vision, insisting she fly lower. She hissed under her breath, after multiple close calls, she found herself despising weather like this.
The only indication of a storm swell was the obvious lack of stars, or the numerous moons orbiting around Copper-9. A bummer, V liked the stars.
The lengths I go…and for what?
She sighed. Still, begrudgingly, she descended to a more tolerable height—nestled between the thick smog of furious clouds and the skeletal remains of skyscrapers. Her internal programing silenced, satisfied with the adjustment. At the newfound altitude, it was considerably easier to scan the frostbitten floor beneath her.
Her gaze sharpened into a newfound focus, her HUD flickering as it stitched together faint traces: the occasional shifting metal rebar, the almost imperceptible drag of a boot edge, a scuffed corner around a demolished building—the little, debatably insignificant things were easily noticed. Regardless, it was still a fun trail to follow, keeping her guessing was clearly the work of something only as small and infuriating (and stupid) as a worker drone. Who’d leave behind such an obvious and careless path?
V clicked her tongue, impatience etching itself along every servo.
She dipped lower, weaving between skeletal beams as the wind screamed louder. The frames of neglected, old and forgotten rigs rattled loose metal around her, creating an arguably frightening groan. With the gusts coming sharper and colder between each gap in the metal poles, she was shoved from the side with enough force to make her wings twitch in protest.
As the preliminary winds of the storm picked up, so did the stress on her body. The wind tore at her feathers, doing everything in its power to tear her limb from limb. Forcing micro-adjustments she barely put any thought into, focus still entranced on following the trail.
Two pings, one almost directly after the other, were hardly discernible against the edge of the crying winds. She ignored the first two alerts that pulsed insistently at the corners of her vision, their soft chimes progressively growing more desperate. Her attention was elsewhere, absent-mindedly closing the notifications without flicking her gaze towards them. The trail was finally narrowing, the scribble of yellow lines was finally inching down to a single line headed straight for a large building.
The noise persisted, nonetheless, and she spared them a glance, for the sake of clearing all distractions:
SD:J: What in Company’s name are you doing out there, V? Surely you aren’t stupid enough to be out there before a storm
SD:J: Storm’s picking up, don’t make me send N out after you again.
V considered, finally taking her gaze away from her map and towards the churning sky. She rolled in the air, tilting onto her back with a fluid twist of her wings, letting the world invert as she stared up at the storm swelling in the near distance. A digital seat drop flickered down her visor as a streak of lightning lit up the horizon. It hadn’t been long since her last run-in with a thunderstorm of this size; the memory alone made her servos twitch. She’d rather not relive that particular humiliation.
She righted herself with a sharp beat of her wings, snapping forward into position. She didn’t bother responding—as she often did. Instead, she hovered there for a moment and weighed her options, letting another ping resonate pointedly at the edge of her HUD before she finally angled back toward the city below.
SD:N: V please come back, you know what happened last time!
A growl found itself lodged deep in her throat.
Ping!
SD:N: J’s yelling at me to go get you but I know we aren’t really on the best of terms is that okay??
Ugh! So she got struck down one time. Seriously, are they trying to call her a liability because of a miscalculation?
Irritation continued to rake through her limbs, buzzing faintly in the wiring beneath her plating. The gale shoved at her again, harder this time, threatening to send her spiraling into the metal scaffolds. She compensated without thinking, wings slicing the air in a series of tight and controlled corrections.
Her ivory hair shook violently to the side as to clear her mind. Now wasn’t the time to be getting worked up over what her boring coworkers thought of her, not when she was so close.
The trail below pulsed faintly on her HUD—a thin ribbon of neon yellow winding through the snow blurred landscape. Each new pin, acknowledging a potential location, that flickered to life tightened something warm and vicious in her core.
Her code was practically screaming to go faster, closer. Closer. Closer. Closer—
Another gust slammed into her side, internal popups relaying perturbing warnings. The storm clouds overhead pulsed with distant light, rumbling hard enough to shake the sky, a flicker of greenish static crawled along their underbellies. Her body shook involuntarily.
She swallowed the instinctive shudder. Her pride wouldn’t be wounded by a couple of clouds once more. It’s just weather. Stop being dramatic, you wuss.
Her visor recalibrated, shifting from the previous wide ranged view to a secluded area of the world beneath her, the trail sharpening to form a clear funnel leading directly into a single, jagged structure. A skyscraper, moreso what was left of one, loomed ahead, marked with a single pin on her little map.
Of course her prey would attempt to hide amidst the mess of rebar and shattered glass. A humorless grin tugged at the corner of her mouth. Simple, easy, predictable! Her coding all but yelled.
A feral giggle escaped as she flattened her wings to an angle and shot forward, slicing between crooked antennae and leaning towers.
With her wings angled down, the building loomed larger in her hazy vision, icy needles of dragging wind continuing to harass her exposed servos, creating drag with every careful adjustment.
Every meter of distance closed ignited the fire burning in her chassis, a mixture of anticipation and plain annoyance. The broken frame of the pinned skyscraper creaked under the assault of the storm, snowy winds whipping around the corners in visible arks. V’s optics traced every jutting beam and shattered window, plotting each step and landing as precisely as the circumstances would allow. She felt the air shift around her, the blows transitioning from a background nuisance to a tangible warning, each push and shove urging her to tread lightly.
The baying and roaring of the atmosphere around her receded once she perched on the frozen windowsill. Her claws twitched in anticipation as they latched onto the frozen sill.
Her audials, now not being assaulted by the constant howling winds, allowed her to pick up the slightest of sounds. Every optic and fiber of her being hyperfocused on the small tinkering directly across the room from her. At once, her mind thought of every possible way she’d tear this worker apart. The word ‘savor’ echoed in her mind once more, earning an immediate huff. With all the trouble she went through…it should have more thought put into it, for sure.
Perhaps it should star as the topper on the spire, a twisted effigy. Though knowing workers, they’d probably mistake it for a memorial. Eugh.
Her tail lashed behind her, still caught in the frozen environment.
Or, she could resort to her usual method and vaporize every atom of its being—
Crack!
As if her mind had been suddenly snapped to attention, her head whipped towards the source of the noise.
Lo and behold, a worker stood hunched over, arms full with glass and metals alike. Its pink optics were hollowed out, staring directly into V’s. It took a step backward, covering its optics with the contents held in its hands, earning an equally as backward giggle from V.
No way these workers are taught that if they can’t see us, we can’t see them, right?
Regardless of what lessons the worker had been taught, all vectors converge. She lowered further, her wings spread in a threatening display, oval eyes gone and replaced with a feral X. As if on queue, the worker halted and ducked down to the floor, more glass falling out of its hands and onto the concrete floor.
Her head tilted to the side in confusion. This was clearly not the worker who had lived to tell the tale of going straight into disassembly drone territory.
A deep and guttural growl reverberated against the metal of the building, earning a panicked cry from the worker. All this trouble, and it wasn’t even the right worker. With a newfound disappointment, her wings lowered, tail drooping down and clacking against the concrete exterior walls.
Was the kill even worth it at this point? Maybe getting back before she was stuck would be the better option—
“HEY!”
Oh?
Her head thrashed towards the voice on impulse, servos cracking like a doll.
A worker, the correct one this time, with messy, vibrant purple hair and matching violet optics stood between her and the other worker. She stood tall, which wasn’t threatening at all, but her expression was dire, serious. It was the one, the cause of pursuit, interest, what have you, and it was right at her fingertips.
So this…edge-fest, was the reason she went on this wild chase?
V could practically taste the worker already, jaw cracked open in a mock smile.
“No one touches my accomplices but me.”
A contrastingly neon green rifle was leveled straight at V’s head. The barrel was already smoking, the light charging up with sequential beeps.
Huh…This was cute.
V knew well enough from previous encounters that blowing her head clean off would do nothing other than scatter her memory of prior events. As if this worker would even know about this fact, or manage to hit her to begin with, was unlikely.
She let her claws click together, as if taunting the worker.
“Not like I wanted to. Neither of you looked filling, anyway.”
Liar. Her code screamed.
She tapped a claw to her core, right where the zipper split below her collarbone. The faint symbol of a skull pulsed in mock heartbeat.
“C’mon, hit me where it hurts.”
Her smile never faded, not when the worker’s optics widened, not when the rifle locked into place. She even leaned forward slightly, as if offering the shot.
“You gonna pull the trigger or just pose with it?” She deadpanned.
For a split second, V’s mind leapt into motion, talons flexing, wings angling, reading to strike before the shot even left the barrel.
“Bite me.”
A river of neon green exploded. And for a moment, V felt true panic.
The sound never came, vibrant light effectively blinding V before her instincts could fully react. The rifle’s discharge was precise and instantaneous, she felt the impact before she even registered the movement. Core, wing, head, all jolted violently in one sickening pulse.
Pure and immediate fear clawed its way up her spine.
The blast struck far larger than expected, hammering her upper left region. Which systems were damaged exactly? She couldn’t tell. Judging by the flood of popups and error messages, as well as the concerning lack of information, overloading her HUD, it had definitely grazed her core. Maybe her head, too. Definitely her wings, though. With all audials and imaging offline, she was nothing more than a flightless bird.
That worker must be getting a kick out of this. Was the last coherent thought she had that night.
The world, the snow and wind itself, as she knew it went silent for the final time. No motions or thoughts crossed her mind at all.
Scariest thing is, she hadn’t realized she was falling, never mind the moment she hit the ground. It was all null.
> sys_core.rebootAttempt(…error…error…)