Vampire Valor - Chapter 1 - DeviantRaccoon (2024)

Chapter Text

“These are Worker Drones, autonomous robots created to mine exoplanets for the interstellar parent company JcJenson in SPAAAAACEE!!!! Their main function was to do all the work no one else wanted to do, and surprisingly they didn’t revolt or kill any humans over it… Probably because they managed to do that all by themselves. With Biological life wiped off the planet, the worker drones simply decided to pick up where the humans left off, living out their own lives, determining their own futures. Unfortunately for them, JcJenson has a strict policy against runaway AI…”

“Introducing the Murder Drones!” A youthful male sounding robot exclaims, giving his presentation to the class.

“Vampire-like creatures sent here by the enterprise to exterminate us once and for all; Grinding our bones and drinking the oil that runs through our very cooling systems! Already they have eaten thousands of us, making a mockery out of our very existence by building a spire out of our corpses!” He waves his arms around for dramatic effect, as the slideshow he made scrolls through different images to emphasize his points.

“And that is why me and many others have decided to join the Worker Drones’ Defense Force! Where we Defend our colony from those who wish to harm it, go on night raids to secure our borders, fight against the evil murder drones, all while developing the latest and greatest technology…”

The drone walks over to a cardboard box he had with him on the floor and pulls out the device with finesse.

“Like the SAH Railgun 9001!”

He shows off a profile side view of the railgun with a big toothy grin, much to the dismay of his classmates. Some of their screams ranged from:

“He’s got a gun!”

“Get down!”

“Save me mommy!”

“That’s so not the vibe!”

Realizing his mistake, he attempts to console his classmates.

“Oh no no. This one is an older model that’s been deactivated. It won’t shoot anything even if I tried… But I did manage to make it light up again with its old power source!”

The boy drone turns on the gun and it starts to light up and make noises, all he does is look at it with glee, as some of the students poke their heads out from their desks. The class teacher didn’t look amused.

“Nathan, your project was about researching the phenomenon of square watermelons.” She apathetically says with a southern drawl.

“Oh, right… Does inspiring our youth to defend their community count towards extra credit?” Said Nathan, trying to salvage the situation.

The teacher remains unphased, “Military propaganda was only worth two points on the rubric.” She looks down at Nathan’s prop, “and is your gun supposed to be smoking like that?”

Nathan realized his gun was making noises and started to smoke. It eventually blew up in his face, literally.

Walking out of the nurse’s office, Nathan holds an ice pack to his face, with a bandage over his right eye.

A couple of cheerleaders walked up to him giggling. It wasn’t because they liked him or anything, but because he was the loser who thought it was cool to bring a gun to school. The pigtailed alpha of the group decided to address him first.

“Hey look girls, it’s the school shooter who failed before he could even start!”

What a horrible thing to say! Nathan would never harm innocents like that! He wasn’t a Murder Drone. Maybe she wasn’t paying attention and just based her assumption off of second hand information.

“Oh no, it was nothing like that. I just made it light up again, and it blew up in my face.”

“Yeah, a negligent discharge on school grounds, legally counts as a school shooting. Therefore, a school shooter.”

She and her posse started running off before he could get another word in, giggling to themselves how they’re so bad. All except for one, who starts walking up to him and matches his pace.

“Don’t listen to them Nate, They’re just teasing you.” The glasses-wearing cheerleader said with a soft spoken voice.

“Eh, it’s alright Victoria, I’m kinda used to it at this point.” Nate said while looking at the ground.

“What she said was uncalled for! You’d think people would have more respect for the son of a head WDF member.”

“Yeah, I guess Nepotism doesn’t get you anywhere these days.”

“Well, I thought your presentation was pretty cool. It even ended with a bang!”

Nathan perked up at the pun, it was the little things in life that keep you going.

“Ha ha! Yeah, I guess it did!”

A bit of awkward silence, they didn’t know exactly what to talk about, so Victoria continued on with the current topic.

“So what’s it like in the WDF anyways? It must be pretty cool to be serving in our military.”

“Honestly, it gets kinda boring actually. I’m mostly on guard duty next to the outermost door. Sometimes we hear scratching, but nothing’s broken through yet. My coworkers mostly just sit around and play cards all day.”

“Oh, uh, at least you’re safe. I know there would be people here who would miss you, you know…”

Honestly, he wasn’t too sure that was true, but believed it for her sake.“I know, but I really just want to be useful for once! If we’re given the job of defending the colony, why not give it my all? I might even get some respect from the captain.”

Hearing that was somewhat concerning. Given his history, he might be motivated to do something rash or impulsive, potentially putting himself in danger. Victoria decides to approach this situation in the most subtle way possible.

“Yeah, but those doors are sturdy enough to keep us safe, right? I don’t think your mother would have wanted you to put yourself in that kind of situation-

“Oi! Don’t bring me mum inno this! Ye don’t know what yer talkin’ bout mate!”

Apparently she struck a nerve or something. He doesn’t often revert back to his old Australian accent. At this sudden break into character, the two stopped in their tracks with a range of emotions; Nathan with embarrassment, Victoria with confusion.

The four eyed drone tries to salvage this conversation. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

Nathan is already speed walking away from her, turning a corner and putting himself out of her sight… only for him to pop his head out of the same corner and apologize.

“Sorry. I uh, I’m not dealing with things very well at the moment.”

He gives a little thumbs up and a sorrowful look to show he was being genuine.

A sleeping Nathan wakes up to his built-in alarm that forces him to fall out of bed by the sound alone. He usually gets up one hour and 30 minutes before his shift, 30 minutes of it dedicated to watching Dog videos on his phone, before pushing himself off the floor. It only takes a couple of minutes to put on his uniform: a Black, wool-knit commando sweater, a gray and blue digital camo BDU top with the sleeves rolled back a couple folds, and a black construction worker’s hat. For breakfast, a power bank specifically made for worker drone consumption. Not at all a balanced breakfast, but it tides him over until his lunch break. Before walking out the door, he contemplates bringing his pocket-sized trivia book on dog breeds, written by legendary human scientist, Thomas Coolatta. He shakes his head out of his stupor and walks out the door… only to come back for it not even ten seconds later.

Coming in early to work had its benefits. For one, he was able to do a little bit of physical training around the forward operating base. It was still an underground bunker, but he made sure there were at least a mile and a half worth of steps in there. Another benefit would be going to the shooting range and firing a magazine or two worth of rounds down range before he started the day. While it may be the only time he shoots something, it’s always good to have your abilities up to snuff rather than be out of practice.

As he finishes off the second mag, he decides to refill it and go another round. Instead of using semi auto as he was trained to do, he decides to flick it to full auto to test his recoil control. It wasn’t really necessary to do this, nor was it very practical, but it’s always fun to test your limits from time to time.

While he was mag-dumping his service rifle, a much older looking drone walked into the indoor range, able to get a glimpse of his performance. Mostly center mass with a couple stragglers, not too shabby for a rookie.

“I hope you remember our policy for rapid fire on the range, right?”

Nathan turns around surprised, and salutes at attention looking straight ahead.

“Gyah! Captain James, Sir!”

“At ease.”

Nathan stands at shoulder width apart, hands behind back.

“And we also have a saying when it comes to the fun switch, never use it unless you have a damn good reason. But I must say, your aim is impeccable. Most men couldn’t even land all thirty shots on fully automatic. Heck, you’re probably a better shot than me. When I was your age I mean.”

“Thank you sir.” Nate checks the clock on the wall and decides it’s time to get to his post. “I-I gotta get going sir, I’ll be seeing you.”

The Private sets his rifle on the safety setting and slings it on his back, almost forgetting to pick up a fully loaded magazine before heading for the exit. However, since the Captain was in his presence, he decided to turn around to ask a few questions. What Victoria said yesterday was still buzzing around his mind. Surely a man like the Captain didn’t get his rank by hiding behind doors all day.

“Excuse me Captain,” he said with in his most respectable tone, “if you don’t mind me asking, how did you get to your current status? I mean, How did you get your rank as a Captain?”

The elder drone stroked the end of his chin as he spoke. “Well son, when the Murder Drones first landed, I was one of the few that survived, and people just started looking up to me for guidance. I showed them the way to survival, and they thanked me for it. Now, I didn’t know what to do all the time, so I listened to other people’s suggestions. One of the better ones being from your mother, specifically holing up in these bunkers and reinforcing the security systems. Robo God rest her soul.”

Nathan looked down at his boots holding his hands in front of him at the mention of his mother. It wasn’t 100 percent what he wanted to hear, but there was an interesting detail that he glossed over.

“So you’re saying you have fought the murder drones before!” His one track mind pressing his superior further on this topic.

“Well, yes, we did.”

“Which means we have the means to do so! With all due respect sir, why are we hiding down here instead of taking the fight to them?”

Captain James closed his eyes and shook his head a little. “Sometimes, it’s better that ten guilty persons escape than let one innocent person suffer. And besides, most of our weapons weren’t designed to penetrate murder drone armor, and the ones that do are scarce on ammo.”

Before Nathan could ask any further, his phone alarm went off indicating he had a couple minutes to get to his post.

“Ah biscuits, I gotta go, thank you Captain James.”

The Captain waved at him as he left. The old drone took another look at Nathan’s handy work on the target dummy. He then decided to try testing out his own pistol on the range, only to miss every shot and run empty. He growled to himself and muttered under his breath.

“Kids these days are too eager to commit violence. I don’t even use this thing anyways.”

Nathan hustles over to the main entrance area, consisting of three different doors that all share the same key card. Opening Door 3 gives him access to a local armory incase of emergencies, although it has been collecting dust for a while. He never really bothered checking what kind of stuff they have in there. Walking past that, he scans the scanner to open up Door 2, the room he’s most familiar with. There he sees three other WDF guards setting up a folding table and some chairs. They don’t seem all that excited to see him.

“Hey fellas! Yall about to play some Rummy?” Nathan greeted them. One of the guards roll his eyes at the comment

“I keep telling you Nathan, it’s called Gin Rummy.” The guy holding the cards responds with an unenthusiastic tone. “And no, we were actually about to start off with some Black Jack.”

“That’s cool,” he said with a genuine smile, “let me know when you do, I’ve been looking up tips and tricks.” He pulls out his little Dog book and starts reading to himself.

One of the other guards piped up as the other passed out the cards to the three of them. “Ya know Nate, you were two minutes late this morning, we were worried you wouldn’t show up today.”

“Oh what, really? Biscuits! I was at the range this morning and bumped into Captain James. Guess I got too preoccupied talking to him. I’m sorry guys.”

“Ah I don’t blame ya squirt,” the guard with red glasses stated, examining the deck he was just handed, “there’s nothing over here to shoot anyways.”

The four guards proceeded to do their usual routine of just sitting around doing nothing all day. Playing a variety of card games to make time go by faster.

“Did you know that Golden Retrievers are known to have gentle mouths when carrying stuff? So soft in fact they could carry an egg without damaging it? Ha ha, guess that’s why there’s a retriever in the name!”

And then there’s the part where Nate will spout out random trivia he finds in his book. Most of them dog related, but sometimes he looks things up on his phone. The most part, everyone else just ignores him; helps practice with the poker face.

“Over on this page, it says here they make top notch therapy dogs. Man I can really use one of those. This little dinghy over here states they’ll eat anything from the dinner in their bowl to toys, paper, and crayons. Ooh hoo hoo, Cynthia better watch out for that. Oh oh, it says here Golden Retrievers also need a lot of exercise, as they make terrible couch potatoes. Heh, guess they wouldn’t make for good guard dogs over here, am I right guys?” Nathan said while nudging the guy next to him. Some days he made it really hard for them to focus.

“If we were to hypothetically get a guard dog, maybe we should get something more our speed, like an english bulldog, or a maltese, or a-”

Before he knew it, the red glasses guard plucked the book from his fingertips, and chucked it at Door 2, making a soft thunk. Nathan was a bit shocked by the audacity of his coworker. He got up from his seat, walked towards his discarded book, carefully checked to see if it was damaged, decided it was not, pocketed it on his person, and walked back to his seat. Taking the hint, he didn’t pull it out again, and sat there like the good little boy he was.

Unable to read, he has to find other ways to entertain himself. Now, he could do the less intrusive actions like drawing a picture or writing a story, but Nathan wasn’t good at either of those things, so he went straight back to the best thing he’s good at.

“You know, Captain James mentioned there was a time where the WDF would regularly fight the Murder Drones? What changed?”

“Well, to put it simply, they’re more powerful than us, so we ran away.” the guard at the other end of the table said bluntly.

“Yeah, but he also said we have the weapons to fight back, with the only issue being we’re low on ammo for some weapons. Why not just make more?” Nate countered.

The guard next to him piped up. “I think the whole point of the not fighting thing is to stop people from dying.”

Nate still wasn’t satisfied with that answer, even with its utilitarian framing. “Well what about the people who want to fight, huh? Why not give me a stronger weapon and send me out there?”

Red glasses perked up at that statement, growing a devilish grin on his face.

“Yo Damien, go get one of the rail guns from the weapons locker and bring it here.”

Damien, the drone to Nathan’s left, looked confused.

“What? Why?”

“Just do it man, you’ll see in due time.” He looks at the current deck of cards, noticing how faded they were. “And go ask the captain if he can grab us a fresh pack lying around while you're at it.”

“Oh come on Hank, that’s like two different trips”

“Eh we’re not doing anything important anyways. Think of it as earning your money.”

Damien rolled his eyes and ran off to complete his task, while Nathan and the other guard were looking confused.

Hank looked over at the younger drone with a used car salesman look. “So kid, you wanna murder murder drones huh? Well here’s what you have to do. You get the Railgun and just blast them away.”

“Wait, it’s that easy? What about the ammo?”

“I’m sure there’s a power cell lying around we could use. But yeah, you seem a little eager to fight those things, and I don’t see why not.”

Damien comes jogging back, with a railgun in hand.

“One Railgun. Right here.” He said with a pant

Hank looked at him puzzled. “That was fast. Where are the cards?”

“Boss man is looking, I’d give it some time.”

Hank rolls his LED eyes. The Captain always had a problem looking for the little things. Regardless, he walks over to the door scanner and hovers his key card to open the main entrance.

“You’ve handled these things before, just go out around the spire, and see if there’s something to shoot at!”

Nathan walks over to the Guard with his service rifle on his shoulder sling.

“Are you sure about this, isn’t there like a sign in process when leaving the bunker?”

“Nah, none of that, it’ll be a quick ten minute adventure, in and out, you'll be back before breakfast!”

He already had breakfast, but okay. He reaches out to the railgun, but looks back up at Hank with a worried look in his eye.

“Trust me, this is the best way to be useful to the colony.”

That statement was what made Nate yank the gun out of his hands with confidence.

“You’re right, it’s for the best!”

The younger drone starts marching toward the corpse spire, with the entrance door closing once again.

The one unnamed guard was just silently watching the whole time, not saying anything out of confusion or shock to what he was witnessing.

“That gun did have a functioning power core in it, right?” He asked the other two.

“I didn’t check, we don’t have any in stock anyways.” Damien admitted.

The guard turned towards Hank.

“You just sent a kid to get ripped to shreds out there!”

Hank gave out an apathetic shrug and adjusted his glasses. “He was annoying all of us, wasn’t he? Besides, the kid's a nepo baby, he doesn’t deserve to be here anyways. On top of it, we get a fresh pack of cards specially delivered by the captain himself.”

“And what’s the Captain gonna say when he sees us one man short?”

Hank’s mouth opened to say something, only for him to realize he didn’t have an answer to that particular problem. He shrugs it off anyways.

“Eh, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Anyways, Damien, wanna play a game of Rummy?”

“Gin Rummy Hank, there’s a Gin in there.”

Nathan looked out into the frozen tundra as the door behind him closed. He was really going to do this, he was really going to be useful for once! He takes a deep breath and lets out a long exhale (even though he doesn’t need to breathe), sets out towards his destination. Nathan pulls out his service rifle and loads in a fresh magazine, holding it at the low ready; those vampire creatures aren’t the only threats on this planet.

The scenery itself is nothing more than the remains of a concrete jungle, now covered in snow. Hundreds of thousands of people used to live here. Whether they were working their day job, loitering about, or just visiting for the weekend, it was definitely a city that could never sleep. Now it’s nothing more than a ghost town left to waste.

The sound of snow and metal plagued his every footstep as he observed his surroundings in case there were any hostiles hiding in the shadows. It wasn’t until he heard himself stepping on broken glass he actually stopped to see what he was walking on. There he saw the error screen of a deceased civilian worker drone, locked in a state of fear. A closer look would have shown there were hundreds of these guys buried in the snow, some looking like they were trying to comfort their younger children. Looking up and he realizes he was only 50 yards away from the corps spire; he had reached his destination. Nathan slung his service rifle onto his back and took out the railgun, now moving cover to cover as to reduce his chances of detection.

Peeking his head into the entrance of the lair was a sight to behold, what looked like three different platoons of WDF soldiers were scattered around the floor covered in snow. If Nathan could smell, he’d probably barf up the power bank he had for breakfast. He couldn’t stop now, he was determined to see this through.

Watching the ground he saw all of the weapons the fallen men were carrying, some of them were single barreled grenade launchers. Nathan rarely had any experience with these things, only got to handle one during an hour long training course. Something about needing to travel a certain distance away in order for them to explode. Taking a small detour he picked up and examined the weaponry, checking the chamber to find it was indeed loaded. He noticed the round didn’t have a firing pin imprint, meaning the poor bastard who was wielding this didn’t get the chance to use it.

Putting down the grenade launcher, he noticed something green and glowing under the surface of the snow. It was a power core, specifically the ones used in railguns, at least in some models. He didn’t really need it since his already had one, but pocketed it for safekeeping; They could always use more of these back at base.

There was a noise coming from outside and he immediately ran for cover. The entity had large angelic wings made of metal, white hair that went to its shoulders, a black headband with five red glowing bulbs on the front scalp, a black coat with fur at its ends that stopped around the midsection, and a gray and black striped beanie sitting atop its head. It was one of the murder drones flying and landing on top of what looks to be a landing pod in the center ground floor of the spire. It stopped to drink the last bit of oil from the head of the worker drone it had recently victimized.

This was the perfect moment! Nathan lined up the sights of the railgun, mounting the weapon on top of his cover to increase stability. With the target in his sights he pulled down onto the trigger… nothing. Nate got confused, he pulled it again. Still nothing. He started squeezing it in rapid succession, desperate to make it shoot. He then checked the loading chamber to see the power core was as dead as a doornail. A fluorescent bulb that had ended its course long ago.

Those guys sent him out here with an empty gun.

“Ah biscuits.” He said under his breath.

He looked back at his target… only to see it was looking right back at him, waving its claws at him! The Murder Drone jumps into the air, closing in on his location. He didn’t have time to stall; He quickly rips the old battery out of the gun and loads in the new one he just found off the ground. The enemy landed right in front of him, the force of the stomp was powerful enough to make him drop his weapon, managing to bounce all the way next to the landing pod. With his primary out of reach, he had to resort to his secondary. Reaching back and flicking off the safety into semi auto, slung a couple rounds down at the murder drone. The bullets weren’t enough to damage it, but there was still the kinetic force for it to deal with, allowing him to stall the thing and get to his more powerful weapon. He switched over to full auto to get some more firepower, making it stall a little bit more. He might have a chance to make it out of this alive!

The assault rifle ran out of bullets and needed a reload, but the beast had already stabbed him with its stinger tail right in his left elbow. Now at the murder drones mercy, he was flung right into the side of the landing pod, right next to his superior weapon.

It was do or die, and he chose do.

The slightly taller drone was scanning the area to find its prey, only to find it too late.

The smaller creature had fired his weapon, unleashing a gargantuous force of green energy, completely engulfing the top of the monster’s upper part of the body.

The blast of the larger gun was powerful enough to knock him back on his rear end. He had completely obliterated the creature’s head, leaving it’s lifeless body to limp on the floor.

It worked.

The railgun worked! Nathan has murdered a murder drone! He couldn’t help but let out a cacophony of laughter, for he had slain a beast that was thought to be on top of the robot food chain. Those jerks back at base thought they were throwing meat to the wolves, wait till they see this piece of meat bring back one of the wolf’s corpses as a trophy. Maybe the captain would congratulate him with a good old pat on the back!

Before he could celebrate too early, The creature’s body started to stand back upright, with liquid metal regenerating back the form of its head.

That’s not fair. That’s cheating!

The railgun was on a 30 minute cool down at the moment, so he needed to find another weapon. While his other gun was on the other side of the spire, the grenade launcher from earlier was only a couple feet away. He runs towards them and picks it up, aims, then fires the noob tube at the enemy, not even checking if he was far away enough for it to explode. The 40mm grenade flies through the air, not making enough turns to activate, so it just conks into the murder drone’s newly formed head. It didn’t have the same amount of kinetic force, but it was larger than the 5.56×45mm he was firing at it earlier.

The murder drone held its head in pain.

“OWWWW! What the heck dude, friendly fire!”

Nathan doesn’t know how to react. The creature just spoke words! And it sounds female for some reason. Taking a better look, it does seem to have an hourglass shape, with meaty thighs and peg legs that almost look like high heels.

“Man, now my freaking head hurts… What was I doing a couple minutes ago? I hope this memory loss thing isn’t permanent… Wait a minute! Are you new to our squad? You’re pretty short for a disassembly drone.”

Nathan is shocked to hear this. Was she confusing him for an ally? If he could see from her perspective, he would have found out she was seeing him as a blacked out entity. Maybe it has something to do with one of her headband bulbs going out. The female drone continues to examine Nathan while retracting one of her hands for a sword, as if she was going to chop his head off to see if it would grow back. He quickly had to take advantage of this situation.

“You’re calling me short? Look at you! You’re only half a head taller than me! If you were any shorter I could kick you like a football!”

Nathan doesn’t really talk back to anyone often, and when he does he apologizes right after. It felt pretty good, actually. This didn’t last very long when the recipient responded back.

“HEY! BITE ME! IT’S NOT MY FAULT I’M SHORTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE!” She turns away rubbing her arm. “I was just, bult different… AND I DON’T NEED A ROOKIE LIKE YOU REMINDING ME OF ANY OF THAT!”

She then sits down in the snow with her legs crossed, still looking away like the bratty little kid she was. Nathan was shocked, never in his life did he think he’d bully someone (talking down under with Victoria didn’t count), and his first victim was a serial murder of all people. He did the one thing his mother taught him to do when he wronged someone.

“I'm sorry. I didn’t mean to strike a nerve like that. I won’t do it again if it makes you feel better.”

The female drone never had anyone apologize to her before; not unless they were begging for their life after losing to her. A little bit confused, she accepted the “rookie’s” apology.

“Uhh, thanks I guess… You know what, don’t worry about it.” She gets up from her seat and looks at the shorter drone in the eyes. “You’re new here and we all make mistakes. Just don’t let L catch you making them.”

Nathan stared at the murder drone, co*cked eyes at that last statement. Was she referring to someone else? This curiosity was dissipated instantly when an acidic burning sensation started engulfing his left elbow. The nanite stinger tail from earlier was starting to spread its infection.

“Yikes, that’s a bad spot to stick yourself. Can’t really lick your elbows either… Hey, since you’ve apologized, I’ll uhhh, help you with that. We just need to go in that landing pod over there.” She looks around the corpse spire interior, as if to see if anyone else was watching them. “You know, for safety!”

“Sure, I love doing anything.”

Inside of that landing pod. The bipedal pegged leg drone is sucking on Nathan’s injury. She spits out his body part a couple of times to get the flavor out of her mouth. He does an awkward chuckle. “Suppose I’m open to new things I guess. Hehe”

“We are never talking about this.” She says with contempt.

“Talking about what? Consider it, repressed.” Nathan crosses his arms with peace gestures on both hands.

There’s an awkward pause as they said nothing. Since it seems she was the more anti-social of the two, Nathan decides to strike up a conversation.

“Soooo, I never got your name before.”

“Oh. Name’s Serial Designation Z. Just call me Z… what about you?”

Serial Designation Z huh. Just saying Nathan probably wouldn’t do. He had to think fast again.

“Uhh. I’m Serial Designation N! Nice to meet you!” For good measure, he got up from his seat and gave a formal salute. All the basic WDF training was really coming in handy today.

“He he, at ease soldier, I’m no higher rank than you. Although I have been here longer, that technically makes me the squad leader until the others get back.”

“Squad leader? Who are the other guys?”

“Oh, okay where do I start, uh. First there’s T”

A Disassembly Drone wearing a backwards snapback and black letterman jacket turns a worker drone into a donut by punching a hole through its chest with his claws, with an X on its visor, slasher smile across his face. By the sound of manic laughter, he seemed to be having a good time.

“No, no, please stop feasting on my entrails in front of my family!” The worker drone begged for its mercy, but there was none to give.

Z could only stand by as T was going ham on these fools. All she could hear was the cries of the other few worker drones who were next in line on the chopping block, and the definitive shouts of T saying “DIE! DIE! DIE!” as he was doing his thing as usual.

The murderer licked his chops after he finished off his prey and thought out loud, “You know, I’m still very hungry!” His left eye twitched a little too.

Z scratched the back of her head, thinking of ways to turn on the charm. “So T, little birdie says there’s a snow storm that’s especially inhospitable tonight, and I’ve been thinking we should-”

“Oh hey! More food!” T flies off to another worker drone family of four, most likely to eat the parents, let the kids watch, and feast on them for dessert.

“Yeah, name’s Z. It’s only one letter, but that’s probably a lot for you to remember! Blockhead…”

“He’s kinda a block head.” Z describes T honestly. “Even with that cute- weird, WEIRD SNAP BACK HE WEARS ALL THE TIME!”

“N” stares blankly at the disassembly drone, with the only response being a quick glance to the side.

“TELL HIM I SAID THAT AND YOU’RE DONE!” Z is pointing at him with hollow eyes.

Nate just smiles and makes a zipper lip motion over his mouth.

Z continues on with describing the other squad member. “Yeah. And then we got our oh so glorious leader, L.”

A new Disassembly Drone wearing a suit, blouse, ponytail, and cat ear headband is pushing Z up against a wall with her arm, holding her neck in place. She didn’t seem to be happy with her.

“Z, you are, like, the laziest coworker ever! And If I didn’t promise my bosses I wouldn’t kill any of you guys, I would totally kill you first!”

“L is… Uhh… L is the worst. Not gonna sugar coat it.” The eye rolling drone said with contempt. “So yeah, that’s our squad, is there anything else you’d like to know?”

Nathan has been looking around the area and started noticing little details about the interior of the vehicle he was occupying. If this was only a landing pod, why was there a control panel and display monitor? Surely these vessels wouldn’t have any use for advanced navigation equipment, assuming it was only meant for crash landings.

Nathan spoke up on these concerns. ”You know this place is pretty big for a landing pod, it’s even got its own control panel. It’s almost like it’s also a-”

“A spaceship?” Z interrupts him, “Yeah, upper management never taught us how to land without breaking the damn thing. Kinda suspicious don’t you think?”

A Murder Drone throwing shade at JCJenson? Was he hearing this right?

“Suspicious? How so?”

The taller drone was about to unpack some very intrusive thoughts. These theories have been bubbling in her mind for a while, and she had no else to talk to. It was dangerous to even say these things out loud, but maybe she could convince this new coworker of her’s to her own line of thinking.

“Well, let’s Think about it. We need to drink oil to prevent us from overheating and dying, they have us crash land on a planet with our only means of leaving destroyed, and with no real memory of our past lives, and once we achieved our mission, then what? JCJenson coming down to save us for a job well done?”

Nathan never thought about it that way. He was impressed that Z was so insightful on her situation. It was kinda exciting to hear a murder drone talk like this. Regardless, he still needed to stay in character.

“Sounds like you don’t have a lot of faith in the company. Have you told your, I mean, our team about your theory?”

“You know, I’ve thought about it before. But I’m not too sure how they’ll react. L might even kill me on the spot for ‘insubordination.’”

Nathan saw an opportunity to extend an olive branch.

“What if they do agree with you? Heck! Maybe if we ask nicely, the Worker Drones could even help rebuild our ship!”

She gave out a sorrowful chuckle, laughing at his innocence.

“Wow, you sure are optimistic. It's kinda adorable actually.”

“Oh great. It’s them. Listen, about our conversation, let’s just keep it between you and…"

As she was about to finish her sentence, Z turned her head towards where Nathan was seated, only for it to be empty.

L could be heard from outside. “Get out here loser!” It was her usual disappointed tone.

Nathan was running for dear life while holding the SAH Railgun, panting in a panic. T could see him from afar, hunger written on his face.

“Hey guys, we got a straggler running about. Y’all won’t mind me taking pot shots at it or nothing, right?” He noticed L looked a little more upset than usual. “What’s going on?

T crawls down to the floor level with L and Z, with Z looking confused on why the so-called new guy was running away.

“Little Ms. Edgelord over here is dropping the ball again. That’s what’s going on.”

She gives Z a firm backhanded slap across the face.

“Yo poser? You in there?”

The slap seemed to fix Z’s broken headlight. Along with fixing her vision for the past few minutes. Specifically that blacked out short disassembly drone named N she was talking to reveals itself to be none other than a worker drone! She remembers him saying “Sounds like you don’t have a lot of faith in the company.” along with remembering him shooting her face off, causing her to have this episode in the first place.

“Oh.”

She then scans his foot prints and realizes he just took the dangerous rail gun with him. Probably plotting to use it again on her or her squad in the future. Sure she wouldn’t mind L getting humbled, but T?

“Oh, crap.”

She quickly starts sprinting out towards “N’s” general direction, looking at her teammates nonchalantly.

“Hey guys, I think I left my energy wea- ah ah energy drink outside.”

L and T could only look at her with confusion. T even switched a hand to a “Super Suspect, not gonna lie” flag to illustrate his confusion.

Nathan continued to run all the way to the bunker with a very feral looking Z trailing behind him. Meanwhile inside, the three guards from earlier are finishing up their game of Gin Rummy until Nate suddenly opens the front door, blowing their cards all over the place.

“Yo what? Nate? How are you still alive?” Hank was upset about the cards blowing everywhere, but more confused the nuisance survived somehow.

Nathan wasn’t hearing any of it. “No time! Close it! Close it!”

He scans his card to close the door but it was too late. The enemy had already got her claws through the crack, and started to slowly pry it open enough to see through.

“Morning boys. Hate to interrupt your game of Rummy, but it seems your door’s got a leak in it. Hope you don’t mind me doing a little… RAIN CHECK!"

She uses her stinger tail to stab both Nate’s key card and the scanner itself. Disabling not just the outermost door, but the other doors as well. (Technical oversight on the Worker Drones’ part).

Three out of the four door guards made a run for it, Damien, meanwhile, sat there pissed that for the third time today, someone called a specific card game the wrong title.

“Uugh, for the last time, it’s Gin Rummy!”

Z responded to this information by stabbing him in the chest against the wall, and slicing his head off. It’s been a minute since her last meal, so she takes some time to drink the oil from her victim's body.

The other three drones could only glance at what was happening as they ran away from the scene. Nathan checked his gun to see there were still a few seconds left on the cool down timer. Z must have noticed this, because she proceeded to fire one or two missiles in their general direction, causing Hank to get his legs blown off his knees. Another feast for the disassembly drone.

The second to last guy takes this chance to run a little faster to catch up with the private. “Hey Nathan, I just realized no one’s said my name aloud so far, so I just wanna let you know I’m Stanfo-”

He was rudely interrupted by Z, who shot a bisecting laser at him, cutting the poor guy in half.

Nathan looked down at his rifle and noticed the cool down timer was finally complete. This was his chance to fight back! He turned around to aim his rifle at his attacker, only to find she was no longer behind him.

Captain James finally arrives on scene to deliver the fresh pack of cards the now deceased guards so kindly asked for. He didn’t need to do this and they really shouldn’t have been playing games in the first place, but mornings tend to be slow and he had time to kill.

“I’m impressed they wore out those things; do we even have fingerprints? I should probably rotate…” The superior looked up to see three dead soldiers and one recruit holding a firearm in his hands. Out of context this looks really bad. “Wha-, what did you do?

Nathan’s eyes went hollow, he didn’t know how he could talk his way out of this one.

Before things could get awkward, Z interrupted their would be conversation by ground pounding the floor between them. It took Nathan by surprise but he managed to regain his footing, aiming the SAH at his intended target. If it weren’t for Captain James standing right behind her he would have pulled the trigger already.

Nathan decides to stall for time. “Hey! It’s me you want!”

Z turned around with a genuine face, this part was really not going to be fun for her. “Ugh, I’m sorry dude, I really did enjoy talking with you, but I can’t risk you shooting T with that thing.”

She was fighting to protect a boy that doesn’t even care about her. Pathetic.

Nathan looked over to see the Captain still hasn’t moved. “Captain, get out of the way!”

The Captain was flabbergasted about the situation. What are you supposed to say when one of your men casually lets a hostile in the base. “Nathan, you led a murder drone to the bunker?! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?”

“You can court marshal me later! I messed up, in the same way I’m about to fix it, NOW MOVE!”

Z must have gotten bored of the conversation, she grabs Nathan with her wing and whips him around to the nearest wall, dropping his gun in the process. Conveniently, it fell right at the feet of Captain James. Nathan tries to push away the sharp metal appendages digging into his shoulder to no avail. His only hope at this point was the captain picking up the weapon and using it himself.

“Captain, point and shoot! Trust me!”

James was shaking in his boots. It’s been a while since he fired any weapon in a combat situation, let alone go toe to toe with a murder drone. He looked at the monster that stood before him and it stared back, showing off its fangs as if to say “go ahead, make my day.” For all of his life he’s made decisions that kept him and many others alive, now was the time to make one of those decisions. Without a word, he took a couple of steps back behind door 3, looking ashamed about what he was about to do. Nate was in disbelief.

“Cap?!”

James only gave him one pitiful glance before shutting the door. This was how he obtained his rank, by out living the others as they were eaten alive. Nate stopped fighting, his whole world view was shattered in an instant. He knew the captain wasn't the bravest of them all, but to straight up abandon one of his men in his time one need? He didn’t even try to help him. That was the worst part.

It was at this moment Z dropped her facade, this wasn’t what she was expecting at all. No fight? No resistance? No nothing? It was so pathetic, she no longer had it in her to finish what she started. She gave Nate an empathetic glance, almost as a non verbale way of saying “I’m sorry I put you in this situation. This wasn’t a part of the plan.”

“Wow Z.” L made her appearance known while her and T were crawling on the ceiling.

With the sudden entrance of her two colleagues taking her by surprise, she chucked Nate with her wing to the sidelines, as a way of sparing his life.

“Am I dreaming or did you actually put in some work for once.” L said with an approving nod.

“You just did what I was trying to do for months in under an hour! Pretty badass if I do say so myself.” T threw in his two cents as well.

Z blushes and scratches the back of her head from the compliment, but immediately tries to hide her amusem*nt. “Uh, I mean ew, I hate that you said that.”

The sole male disassembly drone walked over to one of the ventilation shafts as he spoke. “These vents should give us access to the rest of the facility. Last one in is a rotten egg!”

He flies into the vents while cackling like a mad lad. The Squad leader walks over to her subordinate to give her some more compliments.

“Good going Girlfriend, once we wipe this colony, we’ll totes make the top team this quarter. You know what that means?” She pulls out a relatively expensive ballpoint retractable pen with their company logo proudly displayed in full color. “Branded peeeeeeens!”

L tosses the pen towards Z, cupping in her palms. There reads the bane of her existence, JcJenson. She couldn’t help but remember the talk she had with Nathan back at the landing pod. No, the space ship. The one that could have been still fully functional if they were only taught how to land properly. She remembers him asking if she shared her suspicions about the company abandoning them, him saying she should tell the truth to her teammates, and her shooting down the idea immediately. She’s already ran through the hypothetical scenarios for years, and weighted the cause and effects in her mind over and over again. She knew the consequences, and quite frankly she no longer gave a damn.

“How do you think they’ll be delivering these branded pens to us anyways? Would they be handing them to us personally?” Z spoke as if she already knew the answer, but wanted to hear a second opinion.

Meanwhile, Nathan started to pick himself up off the floor from wherever Z had thrown him, which happened to be right inside the armory. He was a bit dazed until he heard the sound of a conversation taking place.

L was about to fly into the vent along with T until her inferior threw a curve ball of a question at her.

She turns around to confront whatever this was. “Excuse me?”

Z continues with her ‘questions.’ “I’ve been thinking for a while now, why didn’t anybody teach us how to land the pod. You know, if you haven’t noticed, it’s also a spaceship. Along with the fact we can only get food from a specific source. On top of it all, why are we hunting down these clearly sentient worker drones that aren’t even hurting anybody? All these factors have been making me think we were sent on a suicide mission to cover up some multinational corporation’s screw ups. You don’t even understand a word I’m saying, do you?”

L walks over to Z’s side, putting an arm around her shoulder. “Nah girl, I hear you. All these things you’re asking about? It totally gives me the perfect alibi!” Z didn’t realize it, but the bitch had placed her cone arm over her lower abdomen, shooting what looks to be a virus chip into her system.

As the angsty drone falls over on her back to proceed with her slow and agonizing death, L walks back under the vent to avoid being the rotten egg.

“I only want team players in my squad, Z. I can’t be having a crackpot conspiracy theorist bringing down morale. I know you understand.”

Z’s face screen is glitching out hard, her voice now has a robotic stutter to it. “Bite my ass, L. I never liked you anyways. You suck.”

Defiant till the end, how in character of her. L didn’t need to respond, she was already a dead drone thanks to that virus chip. With a dismissive grunt and a lazy salute, she spreads her wings and flies into the vent.

After that little scene happened, the reality of the situation was finally hitting Nathan. There were murder drones in Outpost 3! Someone’s gotta do something, and it definitely wasn’t going to be Captain James.

His standard issue service rifle didn’t do much but make them flinch a little, but the grenade launcher round he shot at Z the one time really bothered her. He didn’t need it to kill them, only something to buy him enough time to shoot them with the more powerful firearm. Maybe bring a smoke Grenade or two to keep them out of his line of sight.

After deciding his load out, he picks up the railgun next to the dying disassembler, and heads on over towards one of the other vents. Before he could attempt to hop up, something in his head told him to go talk to Z one last time.

“You know, you could have framed your question a little better. It almost sounded like you wanted her to kill you.” He started kneeling next to her face.

“That was me quitting. I hate this stupid job, and I hate myself even more for not giving up sooner. Thanks for giving me the courage to do it.” Even with her glitchy stutter, you could hear the frustration in her voice, like her actions were completely obvious. Though the last part had a slightly somber tone to it.

Nathan looked at her, stared off into space, looked at the vent, then looked back at her. He can’t fight those things alone, and she’s made her motives to him loud and clear. Nate rushed over back into the armory and picked up a crowbar, and started to pry off the device that was slowly killing her.

“What do you think you’re doing?” She could muster a finger lift with her response.

“Saving your life.” Nate continued to pry at the bug.“Being rebellious is a lot harder than it looks, and I need all the help I can get.” And he needs someone who can fly him through the vents, but he didn’t mention that part.

“Nuh uh, no redemption arc! I just killed a bunch of people, idiot.”

“Yeah? That’s super fair. We’ve both screwed up.” He manages to pop the virus off of her and she immediately sits in the upright position.

Z blinks and rolls her eyes at Nate with a groan. “Ugh. In the same way we’re about to fix it?”

Nathan reaches out a hand to Z, helping her off the floor. They both shake the same hand like they had just made an agreement.

“Yep, and I love doing anything.”

The WDF is there as well, with the useful ones freshly dead, and the useless ones cowering behind all the shipping containers like everyone else. Luckily for them, their bold and brave captain had an ingenious plan to save their nonexistent skin!

“So they found our evacuation spot, but that’s okay. If we all just split up and hide…”

Victoria picks herself up and looks angrily at her so-called protectors. “Are you serious right now? You’re the defense force right? Defend!”

The “defenders” continued to cower. She didn’t have anything to say, too shocked to realize these weaklings were supposedly responsible for keeping everyone safe.

A snapback wearing monster drops from the ceiling to toss her around some more, with a ponytail wearing one coming in to steal his kill. Everyone else bolted to save themselves from a similar fate.

So this was it. This was how her and everyone else would die. Too afraid to fend for themselves, lying on their backs with bellies exposed. Too weak to maintain their place on the bottom of the food chain.

This was natural selection at its finest.

“Hey L!” A feminine shout is heard from across the room.

From the blasted door, an incredibly unusual sight could be seen. It was a determined looking WDF soldier armed with a Multiple Grenade Launcher and a railgun slung on his back. Along to his right was, what’s this? Another Murder Drone? Standing right beside him?

“It’s gonna take you a little more effort to get rid of me that easily!” The slightly taller drone is pointing at her comrades. Was she working against them now?

Meanwhile the other guy was just standing with his weapon at the low ready. She nudges him slightly, reminding him to say something cool.

“Hu? Oh, right. Eh hem. And put that conventionally attractive female down.” He says with conviction, also pointing a finger at their enemies.

The tall one gives him a fist bump. “Nice.”

Victoria couldn’t believe her LED eyes. It was Nathan! And he was teaming up with a Murder Drone to save the colony!

Before Victoria could say anything, The pony tail murderer threw her to the sidelines to respond to this act of rebellion.

She growls at the resilience of these co*ckroaches, having been blocked from a feast to deal with a more pressing issue at hand. “Great, now that you’re a full blown traitor, I can finally turn you into a robot pretzel!”

Z quickly whispers towards Nate. “Alright here’s the plan, I’ll take on T and you go after L.”

Nathan shakes his head. “What! Why do I get L?”

“You’ll find out later. Good luck!”

Z gives Nate a fighting chance by Throwing the JcJenson branded pen towards L’s general direction. With her enhanced strength, she was able to stick it in one of her former boss’s eyebands, much to her dismay. Satisfied with her petty revenge, she flies off to fight the only other male Disassembly Drone, who also looked ready to throw hands with her.

Nathan was just shocked that Z had basically rolled a 20 on her first try. At this rate he doesn’t even need the grenade launcher! He slings the MGL to his back and exchanges it for the Railgun, running to a better angle for the best possible shot. He didn’t account for his opponent blind firing with a submachine gun. Nine millimeter bullets were slung down his general direction, somehow none of the bullets having landed on any vital body parts, except for one knocking his construction helmet clean off his dome.

Yeah, no. Back to plan A.

L pulls the writing utensil out from her head band socket, having just enough time to complain a little. “Who throws a pen as a weapon? I’m going to have a dent there now!”

She’s going to have more problems than a dent as a volley of 40mm impact grenades come raining down on her, with smoke bombs emitting their contents all around her. Unlike last time, these grenades have reached their proper arming distance, blowing up in her face on impact.

Nate unstrapped the MGL from his person and tossed it to the side. With the target dazed and confused, he can now go back to using the railgun. But not before dodging a stray laser from the other skirmish nearby.

Z was somehow getting kicked around by her fellow contestant, who was making liberal use of his laser beam arm cannon. Having just been knocked into a pile of boxes, she tries to fire one of her own forms of missiles at the boy… only to shoot out holograms of pink cartoon hearts instead.

“Ack! My mind’s in a weird place! Don’t read into this!” She hid her heart cannon arm in frustrated embarrassment.

Judging by T firing an actual missile right next to her, he hasn’t read into it.

Back to the previous confrontation, The Disassembly Drone squad leader had just received at least six explosions to the face, and she couldn’t see sh*t with all these smoke bombs obscuring her vision. Not being able to find the rat bastard who did this to her, she decides to pull out a trump card in the form of an electromagnetic pulse attack from her left arm.

Such a shame, the said rat bastard had the perfect shot on her too, but now all his systems were shutting down, causing his face screen to black out and limb to lose all its functions. Nate was now at his contender’s mercy, and it doesn’t really seem she has a lot of it.

His ally still isn’t faring too well either, as her fight with T has devolved into parrying each other's blows in the air with hand swords, eventually coming into the dual wielding equivalent of a Tsuba Zeriai. She looked at the other disassembler’s eyes with struggle, the giant X on his visor and the fang filled grin said to her that he was at the cusp of winning this battle. She takes the opportunity to glance over at N’s direction, to see the worst case scenario of him lying limp on the floor as L walks towards his knocked out body.

“NATHAN!” This was never only about her, someone else’s life was on the line. She needed to win this fight, she needed to win for his sake!

Lucky for her, this was no ordinary sparring match, this was life or death combat. Which means she can use any underhanded trick to her disposal. There were many things she could have done at the moment, but in the fury of battle, her instincts pigeon holed her into one specific solution, and she didn’t like it.

“I’m so, so sorry about this, please don’t think less of me.” Z proceeds to halk up a loogie and spit on T’s face visor.

“Ew, what the Hell?!” He was a hardened disassembly drone but even he had hygiene standards he wanted to uphold.

This break of stoicism would be his downfall, as it gave his foe enough time to wind up an aerial kick and slam dunk him onto the hard reinforced concrete floor, putting him out of commission.

Meanwhile, the WDF soldier was able to shake off the effects of the EMP blast and return to his regular motor functions. In fact, his ultimate weapon was just within arms reach of his grasp. Unfortunately he didn’t have the strength to reach fast enough, and L was faster at kicking it away from him.

“You got a lot of guts for a barely sentient toaster.” The Murder Drone saw fit to monologue about her OpFor’s defeat, relaxing her stinger tail near the floor too.

“I’ve had prey fight back before, but your determination is totes very… Painful.” She felt a sudden stinging feeling in one of her lower extremities, with it soon turning into an acidic burn.

The cheeky bastard had grabbed her tail end and stabbed it into her right peg leg. As the saying goes, ‘never interrupt your enemy while they’re making a mistake.’

L instinctually grabbed her injured foot, while hopping on one leg to cope with the pain. She could only shout out a couple of random valley girl quotes before landing on a stray piece of rubble that would cause her to fall on her ass. All while this was happening, Nathan was able to grab his Sick as Hell Railgun 9001, and properly aim at her center mass.

This time he won’t miss.

L took the opportunity to say her last words. “Clever boy.”

Nate wasn’t one for one liners, unlike Z. He just squeezed the trigger and let the firearm do the talking. A second gargantuan energy beam was fired that day. Any living creature, AI or otherwise, would be completely vaporized by being engulfed with such a power force. L was no exception.

All that remained was her lower half of her body, and a smoldering charcoal remains that used to be her upper half.

As the sound of battle died down, the evacuees started coming out of hiding to see what had happened, surprised to see that one rebeling Murder Drone carrying around one of her own, tied up and gagged by his own tail. What was even more surprising was a WDF soldier standing triumphantly over the corpse of one of their oppressors. Cheers could be heard over this well fought victory they barely had the chance to witness.

Now this was a first in Nathan’s life. Never did he think he would get an applause from an audience, let alone get one for defeating an enemy! He was just glad the fight was over.

The side effects of the EMP blast started to kick up again, causing him to stumble over and drop his gun. Luckily Z was there to catch his fall, giving him an extra limb to stand on.

Victoria was one of the first to properly address him. “My goodness Nate, that was amazing! And you too, Miss…”

“Huh? Oh! Name’s Z.” The drone tries to play it cool, as to not ruin the moment. “Yeah, this is just another day in the office for me.”

“Private Elliot! Front and center!” A loud and stern voice could be heard emerging behind the shipping containers.

Captain Coward made himself known along with all the other WDF cowards who were completely useless the whole time. As a force of habit, Nathan made haste towards the sound of his voice and stood at attention.

The superior officer looks at the younger ranking drone. While grateful for his heroism, the private still needed to answer for his actions that initiated this whole conflict in the first place.

“Where to even begin. Abandoning your post. Allowing enemy forces to enter our walls-”

“Now wait just a robo goddamn second!” Z suddenly butts in, reminding everyone who she is.

The Murder Drone walks up to the Captain up to his face, having to lean forward a little to meet him at eye level. She wasn’t as tall as her ex coworkers, but she might as well be a giant at this very moment.

“He may have led me and my squad here accidentally, but YOU chose to leave him for dead instead of just FREAKING BELIEVING IN HIM! And that’s not even some edgy teen hyperbole! You had the perfect chance to stop me before the bodycount could get any higher, yet you rather run away to hide like the coward you truly are!”

She was defending his honor on his behalf, but Nathan knew what needed to be done already.

“Z, it’s okay, I got this.” He grabs his friend’s attention who was starting to get flustered. She takes a step back so he could address the Captain himself.

“I’ll save you the trouble sir. I hereby resign from the Worker Drones’ Defense Force and banish myself to the corps spire.”

Everybody looked at Nathan with shock. He was a hero, and yet he’s decided to leave. He exchanged a glance with Z, who nods as a sign saying she’ll support him on this decision.

He took off his outer camo jacket and handed it to the nearest WDF member. He would have given them his construction helmet too if it hadn’t been shot off of him earlier. Z motioned him to climb on her back, with T in her hands, still tied and gagged.

“Let’s go N. Everyone here can bite me.”

Once the small drone climbs on her shoulders, they all fly through the busted down door they entered through. She wanted to make a dramatic exit by busting through the ceiling, but these people have had enough security breaches for one day.

The worker drones were still standing there in stunned silence, not too sure on what they should do or what even just happened. Captain James, while still shaking in his boots, makes the decision to take a swig out of his hydro flask that says world’s best captain. At that moment, he knew one thing for certain: He should really replace this flask.

Nathan is chilling on top of a car, letting the morning sun shine its rays on him. For some reason it felt really cold, which is weird since he was a robot, and he couldn’t get warm even while standing in the sun. If he had a mirror right now, he would have seen his eyes change colors while a peculiar string of text flashed on his screen.

“Yo N, you good over there? I would join you but, you know, I would literally die if I bathed in sunlight.” Z shouted towards her newly acquired roommate from the entrance of the spire.

“Yeah, it’s all good. I’m just a little cold for some reason.” Nathan tries to assure his new best friend everything is alright. Truth be told he could use some help. “Got anything else to wear?”

“Ooh! I got the perfect thing for you!”

Z quickly goes out of view to get something. Nate walks over to the entrance to see what she’s doing. The Taller drone comes back into view to present him with a dark, green trench coat with fur interior.

“Try it on, see how it fits.”

He puts on the coat over his sweater. The dead animal skin surprisingly works on him, the cold having dissipated from his system.

“It’s perfect, thanks Z.”

“Eh, it’s nothing. You’re an angsty rebellious worker drone now!”

N lets out a chuckle. “Yep, you’re darn right I am, he he…”

It looks like he got what he wanted in the end. No more hiding under the ice behind three stupid doors, waiting for an inciting incident to happen. He was now incharge of his own destiny. He could finally make a difference in this world! He could finally be useful to all his friends and family!

Originally he believed joining the WDF would accomplish this goal, only to be disenfranchised by the organization's complacency with the status quo. But with Z by his side, this fire in him has been reinvigorated once again!

But What would this change look like? He’d have to ask.

“So what’s next on our agenda? After fixing the ship I mean.”

Z looks at him with a devious smile. “Just planning to murder all humans; classic robot stuff. I hope they’re sitting pretty there on Earth, cause we’re coming for them!”

Z delves into a mischievous laughter, slowly getting louder with each cackle.

It was almost like the whole world could hear her laughing…

… including the several other landing pods approaching copper 9.

>>subject “Nathan K. Elliot” updatelog

>>10/8/3054

>absoluteSolverstring=FALSE

>>10/29/3071

>absoluteSolverstring=TRUE