Chapter Text
When I took my prom dress off, I threw it into the snow. I imagined there was fire shrinking the fabric, and I looked at the fabric like my own optics could set it to flame. Maybe it was the extreme heat, because of course, the urge to destroy overheated me more than the sun did, enough to shed the meekness I built for myself. If I couldn’t do anything to fix whatever gave me this urge, what else was left for me?
V was still alive. I failed to eliminate her all because Uzi got in the way. That should’ve meant I wasn’t strong enough to kill V, but I wouldn’t believe that. I wouldn’t even admit to myself that I failed. So instead, I intensified my own anger, directed anger at the fact I couldn’t get what I wanted. I remembered how Uzi had activated her solver powers and I saw that of course, she inherited the Absolute Solver. Another thing to be angry about. Another thing: she’d have to experience an unusual type of pain, a lot of stress, maybe risk losing her sanity in the process, all the things I struggled with. I’d think about how Uzi would have to kill and drink Worker drone oil, how she would soon develop an uncanny desire to slaughter. It happened to me, so it would happen to her too, and I hated how unfair this all was and I should’ve been allowed to kill V and I should’ve been allowed to do so with no trouble and absolutely no one should have to go through what I’m going through.
I encountered a human and a Murder drone while I was wandering outside, no destination in mind, just to process unpleasant feelings that scattered. I saw a glimpse of the two outside the ship they used to land on Copper 9.
I recognized that drone—that pigtailed drone who was with V when they invaded Outpost 3 a while ago. I was sure her name was J, and already, just from looking at her, she seemed as pretentious as she was when she fought Uzi. A serious expression weighed on her face. Her body was so flawlessly structured it was probably built from the deadliest parts of a machine, carrying the sleekness of killing machines.
And then I was reminded that J was supposed to be dead, so why was she here? Uzi had blasted her head. She seemed dead at the time, but now I was seeing her fly with a human and no injuries or damages were in sight. Metallic wings spiked from behind her, loomed over the surface with precision. Eyes, headband, and tail glared yellow. Her colorless hair was smooth, shiny and matte, hazed by the overcast of warm lighting. Each shadow blended into her form, unable to muddle her in any way.
The human next to J wore an astronaut helmet. She dressed like a JC Jenson employee with her tight clothing and face hidden by a dark shield. A black bow at the back of her head, a few stickers on her helmet, a broadsword on her back. I had never seen a human before. I hadn’t known a drone that could come back after being killed, and this lack of understanding propelled me to approach them. Even if something bad happened, I would be fine because I approached them with the expectation that this drone and human were dangerous.
“What are you two doing here?” I demanded, solver activated in my hand, preparing for a potential attack.
J looked at me dubiously.
“Who are you?” The human asked.
“I’m not telling you.”
She tilted her head. “Hm, you don’t want to? Fine. But do put that hand down, why don’t you? We’re not going to hurt you.”
“No,” I said. “Tell me why you two are here.”
J rolled her eyes. I was close to shaking, but it was not nervousness, just my body sometimes doing things I didn’t want it to. I held my stance rigidly.
“Well then,” said the human, “if you’re going to be so intrusive, we’re here because Cyn’s planning to extract the resources of Copper 9, which will ultimately destroy the planet and everything living on it, so we’re here to stop her.”
She bent down to look at me face-to-face, hands on her knees, my reflection on the glass of her helmet. “You know who that is, right?”
The way she was speaking to me felt unnerving, and I really shouldn’t have let it scare it, but I couldn’t help it when she was close to my face, bent down as if I was a toddler and she was planning something horrible.
Still, I replied, “I do.”
She straightened up. “Good! So now you understand we’re on an important mission.”
“Mission?”
“Yes. Now if you’ll excuse us—”
“Um, wait,” I interrupted. I put down my hand and deactivated my solver. There was little time for me to process what the human had said. I heard “Cyn” and “destroy the planet” and “here to stop her”, all words that felt relevant and that I should be worrying about.
I told them I wanted to help them; I did so without thinking beforehand if it was even right to work with them, didn’t even consider if the human was telling the truth or not. J narrowed her eyes at me, her arms crossed over her dark blazer. I couldn’t tell what the human was feeling, and that only made her more frightening.
So I explained, “If you’re really here to stop Cyn, I want to help. I think the humans must have done something to give my mother a sickness I inherited, and I think Cyn was involved in the existence of that sickness.”
“Really?” The human said. “What exactly is this so-called sickness you inherited?”
I hesitated on answering, not knowing if I should even trust her with this information. “…I can’t tell you.”
The human placed her hands on her hips. “Alright, let me make this clear.” She bent down again. “If you’re just going to be a coward and refuse to tell us information we ask from you, then you can forget about helping us.”
What the hell? I couldn’t respond with anything defensive, anything that could get her to stop treating me this way. I looked over at J. She was smirking. Did she find this funny? Did she find my cowardliness funny? I was not being a coward; I was being cautious. There was nothing but fury in my chest.
“Human,” I said.
“It’s Tessa,” she said.
“I just met you. For all I know, you could be lying to me and this ‘plan’ might be something else entirely, something worse. I’m not going to be careless and give away sensitive information just because you asked for it.”
“…Interesting. I guess you make a good point.”
I could breathe a sigh of relief at that response. I wouldn’t have to take any severe risks. I was gaining back my power after being intimidated.
“Well then, if you wanna help us out, I suppose we could use it.”
“Although,” I said, and pointed to J, “what’s she doing here? Why is she working with you?”
J flung back one of her ponytails and sneered. “Why? You think I want to be obliterated with the rest of you sentient toasters?”
I scoffed. “I didn’t think Murder drones were capable of caring about anything that wasn’t annihilating our kind.”
J shrugged. “I’m just following orders.”
I hated that response, probably because it felt stupid even though I expected it from someone like her. And maybe the stupidity came from a dishonesty in the response. Why? Why else would she be doing this? Was it just because she was asked to work alongside Tessa, or did she also want to preserve Copper 9, or did she not want anything at all? I wasn’t even sure what would make sense, if I wanted a Murder drone to be capable of sentimentality, of wanting good things. So bizarre because I couldn’t look past the idea that Murder drones were emotionless, detached killing machines.
I didn’t question J any further, and I turned my attention to Tessa. “Tell me what I can do.”
And then I learned that J had been cloned and that’s why she was alive. This should’ve been obvious, because how else could this have happened? But then I asked J if Murder drones usually get cloned, and she said they do if they needed it. What an awful thing to say. She didn’t know how devastating it was to hear, what this meant, what I would even do moving forward. It meant V was a Murder drone that could be cloned. It meant killing V was pointless, death was nonexistent, and she couldn’t get what she deserved. Very insulting to my mother and father; their deaths would never be avenged, and how could I handle this hatred for V if I couldn’t kill her? If I couldn’t kill this sadness, if I couldn’t eliminate the one who hurt my family, and me, and led to an overgrowing sickness, how could I get what I deserved? I told myself, I could get at least one thing, one thing that I wanted. It would be a cure and I know I will get it and somehow, I’ll become a more stronger version of myself.
I stayed in a shack I found in the woods because Uzi had stolen my house key, so for safety, I stayed there for shelter, also to avoid unnecessary confrontation. Definitely why I stayed in a shack instead of finding my key. It was for safety reasons, safer to hide and avoid Uzi, safer to live in a place that didn’t feel safe at all.
The shack was empty but did contain a bathroom with a toilet, sink, and mirror. No shower head or bathtub. A hole was cracked in one of the windows, so wind would shoot into the shack, sprinkle a few snowflakes on the floor, and leave traces of snow lodged into the plank openings. Cerulean light seeped into the shack. The shadows were dark, pitch black in the corners, sometimes expanded if the light from outdoors dimmed. Not a great place to stay in.
So here’s how I’d contribute to the plan of stopping Cyn: acquire a keybug meant to enter the Cabin Fever Labs, labs where my mother gained her solver abilities, when the humans experimented on the Absolute Solver. They wanted to put a stop to it, and they failed, because of course they did. The only useful thing they did was create a patch to remove the solver’s possession. This was something I wanted and must receive. Being a solver host meant becoming ill in the grossest way possible: feeling a need for oil, to murder psychotically and rip open the self and reveal the unconsented growth of flesh. It really did make me feel gross, but it wasn’t common for me to feel this way. I’d just say that these feelings were not mine and I did not ask for them, just a mutation in my code, feelings not real. And since these feelings weren’t mine and weren’t real, I had to get rid of them. One day, the solver could use my body, the way it used Uzi’s mom’s body as a weapon. I would soon remove this possibility from the fabric of reality and I would not have to worry about it.
I don’t think the solver is just an illness, not even just a potential weapon. It was unpredictable, could do anything it imagined, could fight me to death if it wanted to, maybe even give me an unwelcomed voice in my head that spoke to me. How insane, that this thing could prevent me from dying, give me abilities like telekinesis and regeneration, and it would torture me if it had the chance to. Another reason I must get rid of; it’s so dangerous and no one would ever make sense of it.
Tessa told me the keybug might be found in Camp 98.7. She and J apparently had “important business to attend to” to which neither of them had elaborated on what exactly this “important business” they needed to attend to, so I had to find the keybug for them. Already, my distrust in them grew substantially, because how hard was it to give details beyond the bare minimum? Tessa had a problem with me withholding information, so why would she do the same?
Trust was something I had to be careful with. It’s useful, but I would be smart and make sure to use it correctly. I might’ve acted out of impulse when I asked to help with Tessa and J’s plan, but I believed it was a worthwhile risk. It was not carelessness. Risks are bound to occur when achieving a goal, and I was taking this risk because I knew how to be careful. My distrustfulness is a benefit, and I could use it to keep me safe, vary my own level of trust, and this is why despite my seeming recklessness, I was fully capable of taking this risk.
When I was beginning my journey of getting this keybug, I heard the driving and beeping of a school bus. And then I saw it: Uzi had suggested to go to Camp 98.7 and the whole class got roped into a field trip, all heading to the same location, and I think Uzi was holding my collar? N and V were there as well, and I was only thinking, hoping that my own vision was enough to slice their heads off. I really needed V dead in the ground. It hurt to not strike an attack, and there was no way I could be seen by Uzi or N or V. With what happened at prom, it’d be understandable that they hated me, even if their hatred was unreasonable and my actions were justified. I wouldn’t concern myself with what they thought of me personally. Still, this hatred would lead to unnecessary violence. They’d kill me in an instant, and I know this because my own hatred always manifested in wanting to kill others, often brutally. So for this reason, I had to hide my presence. I stalked Uzi while she entered the cabin next to the camp. I teleported inside and saw she found the keybug herself. It crawled on her arm, asked to be placed in the Cabin Fever Labs, glowed from its tail and antennas. Radiant, burned green against darkness, so snatchable in the possibilities it held.
This wasn’t creepy at all. It was just to avoid unnecessary violence. I only needed to know where the keybug was. I wouldn’t hurt Uzi. I didn’t even try to snatch the key from her at this moment even though it bothered me that she was in the way. And of course she was always in the way because she always found it in herself to enter and change my plans and ruin things and stop me from getting even a glimpse of V dead and killed. I needed to straggle Uzi, badly.
I left the camp briefly and when I returned, Uzi had sprouted bat wings and murdered most of our classmates. All there was left was a few heads and torn bodies sunk into the snow. Gust of wind whipped through pine trees, gyrating masses of fog over the corpses. Glistening oil stained the white of snow.
This was just Uzi’s ignorance. From then on, I would expect her to understand what happens when us solver hosts overheat and maybe she wouldn’t be traumatized by what she can do, what the solver can do to her. Somehow, thinking about this was depressing. I felt bad for her, because I remembered when I killed my first Worker drone. I didn’t sprout wings and I wasn’t a possessed maniac, rather, I was used to give into the solver’s desire for me to kill and drink and kill. The overheating mutated me in this way, made me reach for the blood of workers, for open wounds and to devour slaughter. I actually liked drinking worker oil, and that realization made me as monstrous as a Murder drone, with black splotching my hands and mouth, my throat hungry for its slick taste. I wish someone back then would tell me I wasn’t like a Murder drone. This thought and belief didn’t give me anything! All it did was make me feel guilt that I didn’t deserve, so it’s a relief I no longer feel this way and can remain calm and composed. It was easy; no one on Copper 9 cared about their dead loved ones, or if they did, the care was minuscule, so I never felt like I was ruining anyone’s lives.
But knowing this, I realize how much the murder of my parents revealed to me the true horror of death. No longer was I able to see death in such a neutral way like everyone else. In school, we were taught—as young as five years old—how to desensitize ourselves to death. The only thing this did was make Worker drones weak, their only way of fighting back being running away, and they can’t even bring themselves to mourn their best friend’s death because doing so would make them go crazy. I guess they were right in this aspect, but I’d rather be crazy if it meant my parents would still be valued despite being dead. How can anyone stoop this low? How could I do that to anyone that meant something to me?
“So have you got the key yet?” J asked me. We were in the woods and she approached me out of nowhere, startling me, just when I was heading to my temporary home.
“No,” I told her.
She glared. “Why not?”
“I haven’t found it.”
The lying helped to keep the distance between me and J secured, ensured that if she was smart, I wouldn’t need to hear her ask, “Why didn’t you just grab it?” after telling her that Uzi had it and she was right in front of me. Or, at least this is what I think was why I lied. It was sort of instinctual. I could already feel it: her seeing me as incompetence, being so dumb to not realize my actions were perfectly reasonable. I was not being a coward. I was not incompetent; it’s called waiting for the right moment, like a perfectly smart, cautious drone would do.
“Honestly, I don’t even know what I expected from you,” said J. “A barely sentient toaster who talks back to authority. Of course you wouldn’t be able to locate the keybug. We should’ve just rightsized your existence.”
I gritted my teeth, took in J’s words like she was insulting my existence, undermining, reducing me to a worthless traitor. I wanted to chop off J’s head, slice it, feel the relieving force, and I would’ve liked to rip those ponytails and bite her because it’s what she deserved for being so volatilely destructible.
“You know,” I said, withholding fury, releasing a voice able to be pleasurable to the audio receptor, “just because I haven’t found the key yet, doesn’t mean I won’t.”
“Are you sure about that?” J chuckled. “We don’t have all the time in the world to wait for you to locate the key. The fact that you haven’t found it yet already shows your unreliability.”
I kept it together, so much so she couldn’t tell how much I wanted to hurt her. “You think I’m unreliable because I didn’t find the key immediately even though you and Tessa never set a time limit for when I should find it?”
“I thought we made the time limit obvious.” J smirked. “Or were you just too stupid to comprehend it?”
At this point, the anger was so overwhelming it was starting to break through my composure. Immediately, I needed to quell this feeling, put a stop to the disrespect. I needed to be bigger than J was. I couldn’t let her do this to me.
“No. You should’ve made the task instructions as clear as possible. You’re just too stupid to realize that.”
Once the words left my mouth, J’s smirk shifted to a frown. “Excuse me?”
“You heard what I said.”
Her glare intensified, and seeing the way her eyes narrowed and how she clenched her arms felt satisfying, more satisfying than I expected. I was getting back at her in a different way, one that didn’t require physical violence and that felt good.
“Look, I don’t know who you think you are, but you are not going to act like you’re elevated enough to question me,” said J. “You’re a worthless Worker drone like all the other Worker drones—”
“Then why are you letting me help you and Tessa?”
“…You dare interrupt—”
“If I’m worthless like all the other Worker drones, why’d you have me locate the keybug? You thought I wouldn’t be able to do so, right? Why’d you let me try to find it anyway?”
The things I said—I thought they were everything. They were strong enough to tear apart J’s demeanor. Maybe she could see who she really was, even if it was just a small glimpse. That felt enough.
She wasn’t saying anything, so I continued, “I guess I should get the keybug and head to the labs myself.”
“Don’t.”
“I will if you’re going to disrespect me.”
J stayed frustrated and not once did I express fear and not once did she strike an attack. And then, her glare relaxed into a stoic expression.
“Well, you’re certainly bold.”
What was this? A compliment maybe? But I was worried J would bring back her pompousness and she wouldn’t accept defeat like it seemed like she had been. But maybe this thought wasn’t necessary, because she said, “I guess if you plan on going on your own, then you should do it. We’ll see if you can even make it far enough before you get bootlooped, or something worse.”
I assumed she said this because she thought I was capable, because I stood up for myself, because I could talk back to someone like her. That’s what I accepted as truth, so I ignored the fact that I didn’t understand what “bootlooped” meant or what worse things would happen to me if I went on my own. I ignored how J was undermining me. All I could feel was the way she must’ve been impressed by my ability to stand my ground. She must’ve been impressed, right? That’s why she told me to go find the keybug—on my own?
“If I feel I must head to the labs on my own, I will,” I told J. “I would prefer not to, so it’s a last resort.”
“Interesting,” said J. “Well you’ve certainly raised my expectations of you. I hope you make the right decision.”
From there, she sprouted her wings and flew away. Snow rose from the ground like dust when her feet pushed against it. The sky, clouded in deep blue, seemed to have surrounded her and made her a spark, made the tips of her wings bright enough to see.
It’s just simple amazement, nothing else.
Today was extra snowy. Tree branches seesawed and moved quicker when the sky blared its blizzards. My boots crunched the ground, the wind so loud it softened my steps.
My confidence has risen, my ego sharpening ever since J approached me unexpectedly. I truly believed she was impressed by me. Why? Why was this important? I figured J was irrelevant because she just was. She’s a Murder drone; how she thought and felt about me shouldn’t matter in the slightest. Maybe it’s not that she seemed impressed with me. Maybe it’s how she never attacked me. Did that mean my defense was immaculate, good enough that it didn’t require an attack? That J might’ve been scared or insulted?
Obviously it must’ve been for energy preservation. Attacking would’ve been a waste if I hadn’t posed a real threat to her. It’s not that she was impressed by me. She never was; her ego is too big to become fascinated by anything anyone would do. Why did I ever wish for that to happen?
Being careful around J and Tessa was the most obvious thing, yet nothing told me to stay away from J. There was nothing special about her and nothing that proved I should trust her. It has to be because of how intimidating Tessa is. How she spoke, acted, like she had the power to torture us if she wanted whenever she was reminded of how much she could step over us. She had more power over J, and maybe that was what made J less threatening; there was someone who could not just shut her up but also ensure she understood pain from the core.
But wasn’t this just making J more of a person? Had I forgotten who she was? I reminded myself that she was dangerous, but each time I imagined her, she always seemed less dangerous than Tessa or V. V carried the memory of what she did to my parents—in her presence, in the stain on the hallway floor. I always saw it and I remembered how I couldn’t stop her and why did she have to take my parents away from me? This was so infuriating. I should’ve killed V, even if she came back. It would’ve been nice to kill her, knowing she killed the very people who raised me. But J hadn’t killed them. She hadn’t killed any of my friends and family. Did that somehow make her better? Did that mean it was safe to see her as a person, even if she wasn’t?
How convenient: a Worker drone had been walking outside the woodlands—on his way to nowhere like me perhaps. He was a prey I could snatch. I imagined how his oil would taste, the way it’d numb my mind, stretch itself inside my mouth, coat it, then slither down my throat in the most lively manner. The image was riveting.
Standing behind a tree, I used my solver to displace his arms. Once they were pulled out, he screeched, oil surging, and I was reminded of when I murdered the prom queen contestants, how they cried, how they seemed so madly delectable in their leaking fluids.
I severed the worker’s neck. His head plummeted to the ground, and an error message appeared on his visor as his body collapsed. I picked up one of his arms and drank oil from the cut. The warmth that had previously flooded me quieted down, the tranquility soothing my body with coolness. It really tasted as good as I imagined. This was the one thing I understood about Murder drones. I understood their desire for oil, for murder, this sickly sweet substance, the sick feeling of having done something diabolical and not caring. It wasn’t my fault I didn’t care and wanted to indulge; the solver made me this way. I would never have done this if my code wasn’t so contorted and messed up, if it weren’t for the nonexistent bomb waiting to be set off but unable to. This should’ve been frightening, but why be scared? This was for survival—pure survival. Sometimes it meant you had to do things you didn’t want to do and yet was forced to yearn for. Sometimes, to survive, you have to forget your own morals and ethics; you have to silence the sane part of yourself just so you can live.
A sound that wasn’t my own sliced my audio receptors. I didn’t know what it was.
I flinched, turned and scanned for anyone, anything. A long pause of stilled ambiance. Nothing. No one came out. No one was here but me. That unexpected, unidentifiable sound did more than ruin the moment I was having. I expected someone to come out and I’d have to think about how wrong it was that I was devouring a Worker drone and I’d have to defend myself because they would probably say I was a monster or ask why I was doing this. But no one was here, so there was no reason to worry. I continued to drink Worker drone oil. I tried to ignore the anxiety I felt, focus solely on the sweet metallic taste on my tongue, because everything was fine and quiet and the wind and slurping sounds were fine and innocent.
When I returned to the shack, the solver symbol appeared on my visor and cracked a hole—right on my left eye. It was painful, a shooting sensation rippling inside. I shook with fear, pressed my hand against the wound, and blood dripped down in thick chunks. I had to stop this. The only way to stop it would require me to enter my untouchable home. So I did; I teleported home and searched for objects to patch the hole. I managed to find a red-buttoned eyepatch and I returned back to the shack, because though I missed my home, I needed safety, and my home wasn’t providing it.
I looked at the bathroom mirror, saw myself in the reflection and nothing shattered. Now my peripheral vision was limited. Scratches crosshatched on the mirror, with dust speckling the glass. Dark shadows hollowed my face, neck, torso, backdrop. I could stare at the stillness of my reflection, just because, just because it was something I could do. I wasn’t really thinking anything, no memories, nothing to interrupt me.
Then a bug crawled up my leg. I hadn’t seen it, didn’t know it existed or how it found me. I shook my leg till the bug flew out of my skin. It landed on the edge of the wall. Maybe I should’ve killed it, but I didn’t, and that must’ve been because of how exhausted I was. Of course—I experienced a lot today: invisible looming threats, the stress of speaking, the stress of knowing I was putting my trust into people who were obviously liars, J. But I needed to remain calm. I would get what I needed eventually, and then, once I was free, I would return to normality and be the quiet, popular student with a best friend I don’t even speak to.