Chapter Text
One would think that living in a bunker with under a thousand others would force people to get along. And it did, on the surface. But underneath that thin layer of veneer, they would do whatever it took to come out on top…
A drone was on its way back to his apartment, looking forward to seeing the faces of his spiteful loving wife and son. It was a tiring job, allocating resources where they needed to be, but it was rewarding. No one would miss a few hundred extra credits finding their way into his pocket.
It was just a shame how long the commute was, made worse by the thousands of drones that cluttered the halls; ungrateful teens on their way to school, cowardly members of the WDF, and many other useless drones pretending to live human lives in a world that could never sustain organic life. But perhaps today was his lucky day, the hall known by many as the worst for crowding was completely empty. No competing foot traffic made the walk home much more relaxing. A shame there was no one to pickpocket or plant incriminating evidence on, a great way to keep prying eyes off of his crimes.
But the silence was becoming eerie, and the flickering lights hurt his optics. That, however, wasn’t the reason his pace increased as he turned the next corner. No, that would be the giggling, the sound of a young girl embracing mania. That sound had become the symbol of a shadow, something unseen that had claimed the lives of several other drones. What made it worse was what happened after the evidence of their crimes against the colony came to light. If he still wanted to be respected, he had to escape, to survive.
Turning the next corner, a loud slam echoed behind him. In panic, he turned to see the door closed, just as the one in front shut as well. Why were the doors closing? The lights flickered once more, and within the shadows, the form of a drone crept out. It was short, suggesting a younger model. Their hair and lights were a lavender purple, their bangs hiding a faint spider's web of cracks across their visor. Rust spots speckled the recesses of their joints, and their torso was covered by a large black hoodie with a dead battery design on the front.
“H-hey mister,” she said, speaker staticy and worn like an old radio, with an innocent smile. “My-y name is U-uzi. Ple-e-ease, can yo-ou spare some cre-edit-ts?”
He should have just given her the credits, gotten on his knees and begged for his life, but the problem with being an older model of drone was that he was stubborn. “I know of you. You were Doorman’s kid, right?” he asked with a confidence he shouldn’t have had if he were smart. “Surprised you’re still around. Would have expected you to have rusted away by now.” The words were a mistake, the bite he added to them was a mistake, and everything he had done up to this point was a mistake. “No way anyone would have taken in a runt like yo-”
A haunting giggle interrupted him, as the girl’s small smile grew into a manic grin, fang gleaming when bared against the cold, flickering fluorescent lights. Why did she have fangs? “I-I belie-ieve you. Drones like yo-ou that steal fro-om other-ers would never wa-ant someone like me-e around.” She started walking closer, hunching forward as her arms hung loosely. The sound of weighty tungsten feet landing on the steel grated floor echoed. “A-after a-all, someo-one like me…” Her next step was softer, quieter, as her feet shifted to become more digitigrade, rubber pads forming underneath the soles. Tube-like limbs stretched and swelled, her height quickly growing as her hunch shifted to walking on all fours like a beast. And to punctuate her point, the hollowed eye emotes flickered, replaced with a large purple cross. “Would-d eat you ali-ive!”
Knife-like claws protruded from her feet paws, and fingers, nearly doubling their length. “Wait! Don’t kill me! Please!” The drone panicked before being slammed into the door behind him. He screamed, the pain of several blades piercing through his arm and shoulder joints as oil trickled down the razors. “Take my credits! Take anything you want! Just please spare me!”
A cord with a conical structure at the end snaked its way around the girl monster, hanging above her shoulder like a serpent ready to strike. “I wa-ant your voice-ce!” she hissed out, a telescopic iris on the base of the opening up. A flat-head screwdriver jutted out of the snake’s head, before lunging for the frightened drone's neck, shattered shards of plastic dancing across the metal floor as he screeched in agony. With the neck’s casing ‘removed’, the devil gave another light giggle, allowing the cone to pull back and swap the screwdriver for a set of wire clippers.
A reckless fever took over as the clippers dove in, snipping away a path through artificial muscle fibres to the speaker, making it easier to navigate with every pained whimper and scream that the drone made. After removing a third of the metallic wires, the speaker was visible. The drone's head rolled over, unable to hold itself up with the amount of damage done to the neck struts. The clipper continued, cutting power to the speaker as the last few screams died in the drone’s processor. He still motioned the pain and agony, but not a single sound came out.
With it safe to extract, the clippers swapped back to the screwdriver, loosening the screws around the speaker enough for it to be torn out with ease. The monster giggled as it tossed the part between its clawed hands. “I have what I need from you,” it cooed, giving the silenced drone a sliver of hope. Sure, he had been maimed and may never speak again, but his secrets were safe, and he could rally a mob to hunt down this-. “But I still need to bring back something for my sisters.” His eye emotes hollowed further as the wire cutters returned, delving back in to reach for the one cable that should never be cut, the connection between the processor and the core.
He tried to fight back, escape before the demon that pinned him down could do the unthinkable and take his li-
~snip~
Everything ended. No more pain. No more fear. No more anger or sorrow or joy. No more thinking. No more anything. Uzi let go of the drone, allowing his body to limply fall to the floor. Emotion had drained from his face, leaving a large red ERROR where his panicked eye emotes once were. The purple drone sneered at the remains. That drone didn't deserve whatever peace it now had, not after all the suffering he had caused. She hauled the body onto her back, taking it back home to join the others.
…
A knock on the door before it opened. Uzi stepped in, beelining for the kitchen to dump her cargo into storage. It was quiet. Guess the others aren't back yet. After leaving the body on the counter, she went straight to her workshop. Her eyes wandered around as she walked; this place still wasn't and could never be home, but it was all they had. With each step, her size returned to normal, her claws retracted, and her legs became simple tubes once more. She was indistinguishable from a regular worker drone by the time she reached her room.
The space was dimly lit by purple fairy lights, and where once there was a bed, the frame had been ripped apart and reassembled as a tool rack. A workbench sat next to it, spare tools and loose parts scattered across its surface. She placed her prize among the nest or wires on the side. From the tool rack, she grabbed a soldering iron and wire, flux and a set of wire cutters. Though she could always use the ones kept in her tail, they were never as precise as her own hands. At the workbench, she flipped a standing whiteboard around, revealing a cracked vanity mirror. She took a moment to stare; it had been a long time since she had seen her reflection. After a couple of seconds, the image of a tri-pronged hexagon overtook one of her hollow eye emotes, causing the cracks in the mirror to deepen. The suddenness of the shock snapped her out of her trance, allowing her to shake her head and continue.
She was more careful when removing the acrylic from her own neck than she was with her prey, unscrewing and prying it off gently with a flat-head screwdriver taken from the desk. Once removed, temporary zip ties were used to pull the metallic muscle fibres aside; her head kept up with a special frame built into a computer chair. With a clear path to her own speaker, she began carefully cutting the wires and unscrewing the device from its housing in her throat. After being removed, the old speaker was thrown to the other side of the room, while the ‘new’ one was carefully slotted into place. A few screws to lock it into place, and it was time to connect. Short sections of shrink wrap tube were slid over the fresher cables of the speaker, while exposed wires received a light coating of flux. The next part would be more painful, soldering the wires together, something she had been dreading as the work continued. A gag of oily rags was thrown into her mouth as she bit down tightly, bracing for the agony. The heated soldering iron and tin wire met with the cables in her open throat, sending burning hot waves of searing pain, but if she stopped now and left her work half finished, it would make the anguish unending, like the pain that lingered in her arms from years ago.
She pressed on, pushing past every instinct that made her want to flinch, to pull away and end the pain. It didn’t take long for the procedure to be done; the soldering iron was thrown to the back of the room, where it couldn’t hurt her for now. Sliding the shrink wrap over the exposed wires and applying some heat with an air gun finished the painful part of the operation, leaving only reassembly left, a task that took no time at all with how much practice she had with such exercises. Once everything was back in place, all that was left was their first test; she took a silent breath before speaking her next words. “Hello world.” No stutter or glitching, her voice was working perfectly fine now. A sigh of relief left her as she started packing away her tools.
Just as she was finishing up, grabbing the discarded soldering iron, a knock on the front door alerted her to the arrival of other drones as they walked in. “We're back,” a thick Russian voice announced to an empty room.
“Girl, you would not believe the day we've had,” another voice added, more akin to an American valley girl.
They were home. Just knowing that worked better than any magnets or painkiller program to ease her lingering aches. She rushed out to greet them, shifting to her bigger form to bury the two drones in a hug. In spite of the harsh exterior she had built for herself, sappy moments like this reminded her that the fear and pain were worth it, so long as she kept them in her life. After a beat, she let them fall back to the floor, landing on their feet. “I brought home dinner,” the purple drone announced, brimming with pride.
The smiles she was given were filled with playful warmth. “In that case, how about you and I prepare it while we share what happened?” The Russian drone asked. And so they walked into the kitchen, a butchers shop of drone parts, as the red and pink drones went about explaining how their day had gone.