Jacob sat in a tent.

It wasn’t the most cozy thing he had been in, but it was certainly better than the cold pod that the disassembly drones housed themselves in. About ten feet wide and seven feet tall, the tent had plenty of room to fit a small group of three if they wanted to just chill in here. The walls of the tent were stark white, and seemed to billow inward. The tent was also warm, well, relatively warm when compared to the rest of the wasteland. While it probably kept heat in fairly well, there wasn’t much heat to go around to begin with. He supposed he himself was a source of heat, and perhaps that was why the tent felt warmer than it did a few minutes ago. However, that was likely just a result of him getting accustomed to the cold. He didn’t think that his suit would allow much heat to escape, but since he was already cold, the fact was debatable.

But, none of that really mattered, as Jacob was mind-numbingly bored. If his memory serves correctly, the facility drones had stuck him in the tent about two hours earlier, right after they confirmed he had a source of sustenance. It was rather abrupt, and he had been left wondering what was going to happen next. But, if his memory was still functioning correctly, he recalled that this type of action was a common tactic among detectives and police when interrogating suspects. They stuck them in a room for a good amount of time to keep them guessing and off-guard, which made them more susceptible to other forms of interrogation.

Jacob wasn’t too happy that he was being interrogated, but he dropped the issue for now in favor of focusing on the changes in temperature, specifically how the tent was actually getting warmer. It seemed like his earlier assumption had been correct, as he could clearly tell that the suit wasn’t as frozen as before.

Jacob then decided to take a closer look around the tent, which was something he probably should have done two hours ago. He got up and walked the short distance to the tent wall, before enacting only the most sophisticated of scientific research actions.

He poked it.

The wall didn’t give way, but it crumpled like an inflated tarp, and it seemed to have the same texture as one as well. Moving his finger away, the wall returned to its previous position, as if nothing had happened. Jacob tilted his head, before realizing something. Tents like these were often present in areas such as Mount Everest, as they helped conserve heat in the extreme conditions. If his theory was right, then the tent was actually hooked up to a heater that was warming up the interior of the tent. Quite useful, and beneficial for Jacob.

He turned his attention towards the various icons that had been constantly present in his vision since he put the suit on. As far as he could tell, they were part of a heads-up display, or HUD, if you will. He hadn’t really been paying attention to them for no particular reason at all, but he now inspected them closely. One of the icons seemed like a temperature meter, which was, yet again, quite useful. It read that the outside temperature was at twenty degrees celsius and rising. He wasn’t sure why it was using celsius, which was metric, when it used feet and inches, which was imperial. This whole thing was confusing, but at least Jacob knew that twenty degrees celsius was about seventy degrees fahrenheit. Hooray.

Then, Jacob was struck by a thought. Skimming his vision across the screen, his gaze finally locked onto two icons, both of which proudly displayed the oxygen symbol. The one on the right had a timer on it, which he identified as the amount of remaining oxygen in his suit. It was surprisingly high, considering that he hadn’t seen any observable oxygen tank, but it could have just been integrated into his armor and filled with hyper-compressed oxygen, which actually existed back in his time.

But, the other icon was one of what looked like a fan with the oxygen symbol to the side. He had seen that icon earlier, but it had been grayed out, so he didn’t pay much attention to it, but now it was lit up. While it was a bit of a stretch, if you combine the fact that the timer for his stored oxygen was no longer going down, Jacob came to the conclusion that the tent had been turned into an artificial oxygenated-atmosphere. It did make sense, as the facility probably would’ve had some sort of extra oxygen stores in case of some sort of related emergency. But then again, there was the chance that he was completely misinterpreting the signs, and it was signaling towards something else. And while under normal circumstances he would exercise complete caution, Jacob hadn’t taken off the suit for a couple days now, his face and hair were starting to show signs of his extended pause on showering. And like any other completely normal and sane person, he didn’t really like that, so he went ahead with it.

Jacob reached up to the neckline of his helmet, feeling for any kind of release switch. Sweeping across the back of his neck, he felt two raised protrusions parallel to each other. It took him a moment to realize that they were buttons, which would have been a bit embarrassing if somebody was currently monitoring his thoughts, but luckily that wasn’t the case.

Jacob didn’t really feel any need to delay any longer, so he pressed the two buttons, causing a sudden snapping sound to emanate from the helmet. He felt the helmet loosen, and warmth touch his skin, raising a shudder from him. He pulled the headwear off, setting it onto the ground, before breathing in a breath of fresh air.

Well, it wasn’t really fresh air, as it had likely been kept inside a tank for years without any sort of exposure to the outside, so it would really be the same exact kind of oxygen that he was breathing in right now. But, the subconscious human mind wasn’t exactly the most rational of things, so it really felt just like fresh air.

What even WAS fresh air anyway? People usually called the air of the outside world fresh, like the areas outside of houses and buildings. Supposedly, this had a difference than air inside of the aforementioned structures, which was more complicated than what people might think. They were claiming that there was a chemical, molecular, or atomic difference between the two differing types of air. However, if there actually WAS a difference, that would likely mean that they were breathing in an entirely different type of oxygen, one that humans could sustain themselves off of as a substitute.

But, scientists would have discovered that long ago if that was the case, which it wasn’t, so the only other solutions would either be just other things in the air that one could breathe in, such as the small motes of plant residue that plants exude. Humans do the same thing, which contributes to the creation of layers of dust. But, associating this with fresh air wouldn’t make sense in this situation, as there were absolutely zero plants in the surrounding area, and if there were, they would be too few and far between to make an impact.

So, that left two other options, one of which makes a lot more sense than the other. Perhaps fresh air was dictated by the fickle human psyche, a construct of the imagination. Similar to how people can simply imagine someone saying their name, a person could simply go outside, and since they expected to encounter fresh air, would imagine that the air was different than the air inside, thus feeling the familiar sensation.

But all of those things were wrong, as Jacob then suddenly, out of the blue, remembered that the so-called “fresh air” was actually just air with a greater concentration of oxygen atoms. Not enough to kill you, of course, but just enough to cause the blood vessels in a person’s lungs to dilate, which in turn improves the cleansing and tissue repair operations inside them. This all contributes to the nice feeling one could get from breathing in fresh air. He wasn’t sure why the oxygen he was breathing now was more concentrated than the oxygen inside his suit, so he just added that to the list of things that kept on confusing him, right up there with “Why do Robots Have Genders?” and “Is the Third Installment to One of the Greatest Video Games of All Time Out Yet?”. A little bit of a useless argument, so Jacob got back on track.

Jacob took another deep breath, testing the air. It felt like standard breathable air, but you never know. It could have been nitrogen, and he might pass out within the next minute, which would’ve hindered his plans greatly. Eh, if it was, then the damage was already done. And plus, now that he had his helmet off, he wasn’t too partial to put it right back on.

Then, a sound could be heard from the apparent doorway of the tent. A zipping noise, likely someone opening the flap to the small room he was in. Jacob thanked whatever incomprehensible cosmic deity that blessed him with something to do, before focusing his attention on the tent flap.

The flap shifted, before the entire thing was pushed open by a drone. It stood up to its full height inside the tent, which really wasn’t that much, and was quickly followed by another drone of the same type, the type being a military drone. Strangely, it seemed like one was slightly taller than the other, perhaps a few centimeters, if he was using metric. Jacob, yet again, wasn’t sure why they had differing sizes, as that would just complicate mass production of the drones. But, maybe it was a result of some sort of thing that he was not willing to spend the time and brainpower trying to figure out.

The pair both had identical armor, save for one of them with a crack running down its visor, the height, and one of them having a signifying stripe on their left upper arm. They also both had what looked like an assault rifle slung across their backs, which was slightly comforting to Jacob. Also of note, there was a deafening moment of silence that reigned in the small tent for a moment, before Jacob decided to end it yet again.

“So uh, how’s it going?” Jacob nodded to the one with the stripy-arm. “Sheriff.”

If they had eyes, they likely would’ve blinked. Well, their LED eyes blinked. Specifics are key, people.

“I uh, asked a question.” Jacob stated.

The stripy-arm one shifted slightly, before clearing their non-existent throat. “Ahem, well, you’re gonna need to come with us.”

Jacob raised an eyebrow. “Oh really?”

Stripy Arm’s voice hardened. “Yes, you do.”

Jacob grunted. “Ah, alright then.”

Stripy Arm nodded, before turning back to the tent flap. However, he stopped, seemingly remembering something.

“Put on my helmet?” Jacob inferred.

“Yes, that would be great.” Stripy Arm nodded again.

Jacob obliged, covering his head with the metallic piece, coating his face in darkness before the HUD and other lights flicked on, granting him vision yet again.

He stepped through the opening, seeing the small airlock that the tent had, which he had forgotten about. Wait a second, he didn’t forget, he had just never seen it. The idiot drones had put a damned bag over his head! Wait, but how had he forgotten that? That really seems like something essential that he would remember and review, right? Jacob guessed not then, he supposed. Really weird though. Also, why couldn’t the suit’s cameras pierce the bag? Oh, whatever.

This time, Jacob could see clearly, and wow, he saw a lot. Various facility drones milled about, doing all sorts of tasks and activities. He saw a few playing on what looked to be a card table, and was that gin rummy they were playing? A few worker drones were holding a blowtorch, applying the hot flame to some sort of machine, probably a power generator. Sparks jetted out of the small hole, and they sprung back, yelping.

It was quite interesting to have this small insight into the lives of this strange society, and gave them a small bit of humanity. Of course, that would probably be akin to sacrilege or heresy to assume that robots were like humans in any way, which sounded suspiciously similar to another certain practice that was in effect a few hundred years before Jacob’s time, but that wasn’t his problem. All he had to do was secure a safe passage off-world, along with his continued guaranteed safety from the government, or other warring factions that sought to possess him for whatever reason. Something that might prove to be more difficult when one considers his current status and situation.

The pair led him to a much larger tent than the last one, maybe thirty feet long and twenty feet wide. They opened the tent flap, before leading him inside. Unlike the last tent, this one was packed to the brim. Maybe fifteen or even twenty drones were flitting about, working on computers, printing stuff, yelling at each other, throwing darts at another drone pinned to the wall, all sorts of cool things. A few of them gave him strange looks, but Jacob remained unmolested throughout the short jaunt, likely due to the suit covering all of his more organic features.

The pair then came to another tent flap, one that looked to be double-layered like his old tent. The familiar sounds of argument and mayhem could be heard from inside, though it didn’t seem to deter the pair. They unzipped it, before stepping into the small airlock that was also present in his old tent. They closed the other tent behind them, before opening the one in front of them, revealing another room. This one was a bit smaller, maybe twenty feet long and fifteen feet wide, if he used imperial measurements. The center of the room was occupied by a large table that took up most of the room, leaving some space on the other side of the room, maybe for recreational activities, you never know.

However, the room was also home to about seven drones, all of them in varying states of unrest. One of them was up on the table, brawling with another one, while three were engaged in a screaming contest that consisted of, you guessed it, lots of screaming. The last two drones were simply leaning back in their office chairs, which was actually quite unsafe, and sipping from mugs, which was also very unsafe, for a robot at least.

Stripy Arm stepped forward, clearing his throat loudly. However, it did nothing to deter the mayhem unfolding before him. He looked towards his partner uneasily, before raising his voice slightly.

“Excuse me, sirs?” Stripy Arm wasn’t quite yelling, but it was partially there.

Again, nothing.

“EXCUSE ME!” Stripy Arm decided to forgo politeness.

The room paused, as if someone had frozen time in place. The collective drones stared straight at the trio that were awkwardly standing at the entrance. They all held varying degrees of surprise and shock on their faces, likely due to the supposed unannounced entrance.

“Ah, hello there.” One of the shorter drones of the bunch spoke up. “I assume you have the asset?”

Stripy Arm stood up straight. “Er, yes sir, he’s right here.”

The collective gazes of the drones all turned towards Jacob, who was left wondering on which set of eyes he should meet. He was saved from the trouble when the drone from earlier spoke up.

“Well, that’ll be all. You can both expect compensation.” The drone gestured for the pair to leave, which they followed after a quick salute.

The drone continued to stare at the military drones as they unzipped the tent flap, disappearing into the other room. He then turned his attention back to Jacob, who was also watching the two leave.

“Now, how-” The drone was cut off by another drone, this one a military drone in contrast to the first drone’s worker status.

“So, you’re the ‘asset’ we lost.” The drone hopped down from the table, hitting the ground with a thud.

Jacob watched as the drone walked up to him, coming to a stop about four feet from him. The drone was slightly shorter than him, perhaps a few centimeters below his current height. It looked like any other military drone that Jacob had seen, with the sole exception of a colored stripe that lay on its left upper arm, likely dignifying some sort of rank. Looking around the room, the rest of the collected drones also had similar stripes of varying colors. He wasn’t going to call every drone “Stripy Arm” so perhaps introductions were in order.

“Seems like it. Name’s Jacob.” Jacob stuck out a hand, which the drone shook after an awkward moment.

“Nice, I didn’t ask. You can just address me as Sir.” Sir replied.

“. . . Oooookay then, so, mind telling me what I’m doing here?” Jacob asked.

“Yes, ‘Sir’ tell it what’s going on, I’m sure we should get on with it, right?” The first drone interjected, walking up next to Sir. “Hi there, I’m an Engineer, and I solve practical problems.”

Sir narrowed his eyes at the Engineer. “Fine, I guess.” Sir turned his attention back to Jacob. “You’re going to answer some questions.”

Jacob grunted. “What kinds of questions?”

Sir might have grinned. “All of them.”

* * *

The pod was silent.

A glared at the two disassembly drones standing before him, one at ramrod-straight attention, while the other was slouched and mindlessly scratching words into the wall.

“So can one of you tell me WHY this happened?” A demanded

“Well sir-” K began

“Yeah, K over here decided she wanted all the credit, and then guess what!? A massive steam-train came speeding through the wall, completely out of nowhere! And it-” X was also cut off, getting decapitated in a flash of claws.

K backed up, looking up from X’s body to gaze at A, who glared back.

“Wanna explain?” A reiterated.

“Y-yes, so you see-”

“Cut to the chase.”

“Yes sir. Me and X were doing what you had told us to do, searching for water. We came across a building where we did find some water, but one of those military drones from the facility stumbled upon us. We chased him down, but not before he called for backup. It seemed like they sent a squad towards us, and while we dispatched the first one easily, the second one was a much larger threat. They came prepared, with explosive arms and other heavy weaponry.”

“We weren’t faring too well when you and Jacob arrived and, well, you know what happened after that.” K finished with a weak smile.

A didn’t say a word throughout the whole explanation, simply exuding an aura of annoyance. And while the statement was finished, he still didn’t say anything.

K shifted uneasily. “Sir?”

A responded by raising his arm and putting a trio of rounds into K’s head, her body falling backwards from the force.

Boom. Headshot.

Now that he had a moment to himself, A let himself get lost in thought. He had definitely made a mistake letting Jacob out of the pod, that was for sure. Why did he even care about getting on the kid’s good side? All he had to do was get him to safety in one piece, no more, no less. When A retrieved Jacob, he wasn’t going to let him out at all, just gonna keep him safe in a box for the foreseeable future.

On the topic of actually getting Jacob back, it appeared as though it would be much harder than last time. After K and X’s explanation of their invasion of the facility, A had assumed that the supposed military drones were little more than paper tigers, or maybe some toddlers with big guns. However, it seemed like the victory K and X had taken was simply due to the element of surprise, combined with no information about the capabilities of the enemy, both of which made for a deadly combination for the facility drones.

But, now that they had experience, the drones made for a much larger threat than they had been previously. While they had likely suffered immense losses the first time around, the military drones likely had numbers most definitely on their side. Combine that with the guns and firepower to match that, and well, you have a rather formidable foe. They weren’t going to make the same mistakes as last time, which was something that even the most advanced technology couldn’t defeat.

There was also the matter of where they came from, which was important to take into consideration. At first, A had believed that they were simply either worker drones that militarized themselves, or a group of rogue security drones that rebelled after the core collapse. But, the sheer level of their technology and capabilities just wasn’t something that any of those possibilities could even have a smidgen of. No, this was something greater than that. Likely, these were drones from some sort of competing faction, or a remnant from the odd facility that the company probably ran. Or maybe it was a combination of the two, with the third party owning the facility which contained Jacob.

But that was a matter for later, as A needed to focus on the present. He needed Jacob to boost his scores enough so that A’s squad wasn’t in danger any longer. He didn’t know if the military drones had any sort of transport that could get Jacob off-planet, but it wasn’t something to risk. He needed to get Jacob back sooner than later, or else everything he had worked towards would have been for nothing.

A’s train of thought was interrupted by groaning coming from the floor. He looked down to see X shakily getting to his feet, before fixing A with an angry glare.

“What the hell was that for!? I was just talking!” X exclaimed.

“I didn’t have the time or patience for you, and I still don’t.”

“Doesn’t mean you have to do that!” X glared back at A.

Then, the pair’s attention was turned to the second body on the ground coming to.

“Oh, he did it to you too?” X asked K.

“What? Wait, you-” K looked towards A, who cut her off.

“We don’t have the time for this. We have to go get Jacob back before we lose him forever. Now if any of you have a problem with that, then you can go right back on the floor for ten minutes, you got it?” A glared at X specifically, who glared right back. However, no words were exchanged.

A gave a crisp nod. “Good, now here's the plan . . .”

* * *

“-and so that brings us to the present.” Jacob took a moment to catch his breath.

It would’ve been real nice if his robotic audience waited until the end to ask questions, but that was clearly a pipe dream for our brave and really cool protagonist. He had also hoped he wouldn’t have forgotten so many details throughout his explanation, but that bullet was one that he was never able to dodge. In fact, having so many holes in his story was likely what led to so many questions in the first place, which would be ironic, in a roundabout sort of way.

He had spent the larger part of half an hour telling these funny little goofballs his story, which had expanded a good amount, and had somehow taken less time to say. Probably because he had practice summarizing it in a neat little mess of plots, which was hopefully only a figurative can of worms, but with his luck it would’ve been as goopy as the room of your average Valorant player. But then again, Jacob had never actually seen one, so it was basically just a factless claim.

“And you’re sure that you left nothing out?” Sir cocked a glowing eyebrow.

“Probably.”

Sir narrowed his eyes.

“Most definitely.” Jacob corrected himself.

Sir nodded. “Good, because we need this information to get you in a place that those corpos can’t.”

“Corpos?” Jacob asked. “Awfully cyberpunk, don’t you think?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Sir waved off the question. “What matters is the next course of action.”

Sir turned back towards the table, before clapping his hands together. “Alright, meetings back on.

Jacob took that as his cue to, but right when he spun on his heel to exit, Sir stopped him.

“Ah ah ah, you’re gonna want to be here for this.” Sir pulled out a seat, and gestured for Jacob to sit.

Jacob obliged, the chair squeaking slightly as it struggled to hold the weight of his suit. Sir also took a seat at the head of the table, doing a slight spin with the spinny chair that they all had.

“So, boys, since we have a visitor, let's keep the info dumps to a minimum, alright?” Sir looked around to see the gestures of affirmation. “Good, now let's get on with the show.”

“As the asset here has told us, these ‘disassembly drones’ are tasked with eliminating all forms of robots and drones on this planet, for whatever reason. They were given this task by JCJenson-”

Sir was cut off by a faint, “In Spaaaace!”

Jacob was given a moment to think about what Sir had just said. Unless they had a close talk with one of them, these facility drones shouldn’t know that little gold nugget of info. So, that meant they had some sort of other source, which would make any other person say, “Duh, of course they had another source, the government had been actively working with a company, which was likely JCJenson, therefore they would likely have some sort of knowledge of the disassembly drones existence!” But then if that was the case, pray tell, then why were the facility drones so unprepared for the attack? If they had prior knowledge of the disassembly drones, then wouldn’t they want to be prepared for a potential threat? But, in the end, they were completely unprepared. Someone else might believe that while they thought they were prepared, they were just too weak to even effectively fight against A and related drones, then why did the squad sent to deal with them do so well? Yeah, they did lose most of their men, but they effectively disabled the entirety of the enemy, and if they hadn’t done that earlier, it must’ve been knowledge that helped them.

Not to mention the fact, well, Jacob wasn’t sure if the speaker knew that he had just broken his own rule, but he wasn’t going to complain. Apparently, they had figured out that A, K, X, and other assorted sentient war machines had been sent to this planet by JCJenson.

But, Jacob needed to stop this line of thought, as Sir had more to say.

“And it appears that JCJenson-”

Sir was cut off yet again by another faint, “In Spaaaace!”

He pulled out a pistol, before blind-firing into the space behind him, hitting a previously-invisible drone that had somehow activated a cloak. Strange, but not uncommon.

Sir continued on. “And it appears that JCJenson has a potential interest in the asset here, seeing as they went to such lengths to take the asset from us. So, since we now have the asset back, we can obviously assume that the company forces will try and take him back, which we cannot allow.”

“Now, who has any ideas for how to keep them from getting the asset?” Sir asked.

Silence, which was interrupted by a conveniently-timed grasshopper noise, which shouldn’t have been possible.

Sir narrowed his eyes. “Seriously? Nobody has any suggestions?”

A military minister raised their hand.

“You don’t need to raise your hand.” Sir said blandly.

“Well, we could try and find a rocket.” The minister shrugged.

“‘Try and find a rocket’? Really? That's your suggestion?” Sir questioned.

“Well-” The minister was cut off.

“Fine, we can put that on the list just in case we stumble on a perfectly-preserved rocket.” Sir got up, before walking over to the whiteboard that was behind him, writing down the suggestion.

“Anyone else?” Sir scanned the room.

“We could terminate the assailants.” A worker minister called out.

“Yes, we could. Any idea on how we can do that?” Sir gestured for her to continue.

“Well, uh, I didn’t really go that far.” She replied.

Sir facepalmed, before cursing under his breath. “OK, alright, does anybody have any idea on how we can kill them?”

Since they had moved towards a matter that involved violence, the room coincidently filled with suggestions.

“Nuke them!”

“Call in an orbital bombardment!”

“That's just the same as nuking them!

“Send those scallywags tuh the bottom o’ the sea, straight down tuh Davy Jones's Locker!”

“Drown them in marbles!”

“Read the entire dictionary to them and bore them to death!”

“Why can’t we be friends, why can’t we be friends!?”

“Nuke them again? I dunno man.”

Sir pointed his pistol in the air, but thought better of it. Instead, he simply opened his mouth to yell.

“QUIET!” Sir yelled.

The room obliged, silence reigning supreme once again.

“Now-” Sir began, but was yet again but off.

The tent flap was zipped open, and Jacob watched as another worker drone walked through, holding a notepad.

“Alright, what did I miss-” The drone’s eyes landed on Jacob, who was beginning to get a bit tired of people being rendered speechless by his mere presence.

“You missed a lot, now sit down, we're discussing things.” Sir told him.

The new drone watched Jacob with bewildered eyes as he walked to the table, before taking a seat.

Sir cleared his throat. “Ahem, anyway, I guess that those are all avenues, so they have to go on the board, but does anybody have something that isn’t nuking the disassembly drones, or anything else that is beyond our current capabilities?”

“We could try and send out a signal, maybe notify the government of the situation. They could tell us what to do.” One called out. “Perhaps the Camp 98.7 that we keep hearing about could-”

Sir snapped his fingers, somehow. Jacob was pretty sure that robots couldn’t snap their fingers properly, as their hands weren’t made out of the correct material, but that wasn’t important.

“Yes, my thoughts exactly. We simply take our problems, and push them onto the government’s lap.” Sir agreed, disregarding the second part of One’s suggestion. “Now, what is the status of our communications tech?”

One of the worker ministers spoke up. “We have short-range radios and one medium-range transmitter, but that's about it. All forms of long-range were damaged or destroyed in the core collapse.”

“Yes, I knew that, but can we get anything at all up and running?” Sir insisted.

“We would need to return to the facility to do that.” The minister replied.

“That's not happening. You all saw the report, it's not exactly a stable environment.” Sir stated.

“We don’t have the materials on hand to even attempt to repair or build anything. Returning to the facility is our only realistic option.” The minister narrowed their eyes.

Jacob noted that the supposed minister was talking less like a subordinate to Sir, and more like an equal, which created a cause to correct his earlier assumption that the drone was one of the ministers that Sir had introduced earlier. Another notable thing, that drone was the same one that had first spoken to Jacob when he had entered the tent.

The two stared at each other in silence for a moment, before Sir broke eye contact to sigh heavily.

“We will discuss this later, when we don’t have company.” Sir turned his eyes towards Jacob, with the other drone following suit.

“Agreed.” The Equal stated.

“Now, does anyone else have anything of note to say?” Sir scanned the room. “No, nobody? Well then, I suppose this meeting is adjourned-”

Sir was cut off by yet another drone bursting into the room, breathless.

“Oh, what is it this time!?” Sir exclaimed.

“Sorry sir, it's just, well, you would need to see it yourself.” The drone replied.

The collected leadership, plus Jacob, all looked uneasily at each other, before seemingly arriving at a consensus. They pushed out their chairs, getting onto their own two feet. Jacob followed suit, securing his helmet back onto his head and standing up. The group all began to exit, walking out of the tent through a backdoor. Well, maybe it should be called a backflap, due to, you know, eh, whatever.

The group walked out into disarray. Practically every drone in sight could be seen looking up at the sky, staring at a particularly bright star in the night . . . that oddly seemed to be moving? A few drones were clustered around a data panel, chattering excitedly about something.

The Equal, joined by Sir and the messenger, marched to the group of drones, shoving aside a few drones in the way.

“What’s going on here, why’d you call us out?” He demanded.

“Sir, I apologize again, but you do see that up there, right?”

Both the Equal and Sir looked up towards the sky, focusing their vision on the bright star.

“The star? Yeah, what about it?” Sir crossed his arms.

“Stars don’t get closer, sir.” The messenger replied.

Sir and the Equal took a closer look at the comet.

“I still don’t see how a meteor or comet is of importance, they enter the atmosphere all the time.” The Equal narrowed his eyes.

“Well- sir, listen, it isn’t just a meteor, we detected a signal coming from the object, broadcasting on a frequency only used by JCJenson designated officials.” The communication drone stated.

Sir and the Equal looked towards each other, before shooting a glance at Jacob, who had approached them from behind.

“So, aliens, huh? Why are they using human frequencies, by the way? Just seems kinda weird.” Jacob pondered.

“It's not aliens.” Sir glared at Jacob.

“What? I didn’t say anything about aliens!” Jacob shot a surprised look at Sir, who glared even more.

“Doesn’t matter, what matters is you getting back to your tent, so time to go.” The Equal gave Jacob a light push.

“Ugh, fine. Can I at least have some sort of shower?” Jacob pleaded.

“We’ll . . . think about it.” The Equal seemed caught off-guard from the question.

Sir motioned for a pair of guards to join Jacob, which they followed. The escort began leading Jacob back in the direction he had come from, but Jacob’s mind was racing. If the company had sent some sort of new force to the planet, then what had spurred on that little action? Was it him? Something felt off about that though, not adding up the way he wanted it to.

Jacob didn’t know why, but he had a feeling that things were much, MUCH bigger than he had previously assumed, and that he was just one thread of a large, confusing mess of a tapestry.

* * *

“-now, any questions?” A asked.

X raised his hand.

A narrowed his eyes, before shifting his hand into a claw.

X held up his hands in surrender. “Wait, wait, wait! I’m serious this time, I mean it!”

“What is it then?” A didn’t retract the claw.

“What is that?” A pointed upwards.

Both A and K followed the direction he was pointing, the imaginary line leading through the entrance, up into the air, through a hole in the ceiling of the spire, and at an ever-increasing glowing light in the sky.

A scoffed. “What, a meteor? Debris is stuck in orbit, of course some are gonna be falling down.”

K then coughed into her hand. “Ahem, sir?”

A groaned. “Ugh, you too? Now what?”

“Your little transmitter thingy is blinky again.” K pointed at the device on the desk.

A looked towards the transmitter blinky thingy in question, before concluding that yes, it was blinky again.

“Huh, well that's a pretty weird contrived coincidence, or maybe it's a cool plot point, who knows.” X shrugged.

“I- what? You- nevermind, what is it saying?” A leaned in to get a better look at the small screen.

The screen in question read, “[UNKNOWN PRESENCE DETECTED IN MARKED SYSTEM - PLEASE NOTIFY RESPECTIVE SUPERVISOR(S) IMMEDIATELY]” which was pretty worrying in retrospect, but maybe it isn’t anything to worry about?

“This is something we need to worry about.” A stated.

Drat.

“So it isn’t a coincidence? I mean, that was iffy at best, since we don’t even know if it would be helpful to us on our mission. Oooh, maybe it's some unlikely aid! But wait, that often happens at the beginning of the story, not at the midpoint, unless-” X was thankfully cut off from his tirade.

“JUST SHUT UP!” A yelled, before turning to K. “YOU TOO, DON’T SAY A WORD!”

K opened her mouth in shock, before closing it shut again.

“Alright, I’m probably gonna regret this, but let's go investigate that thing that probably isn’t of any importance to us.” A begrudgingly stated.

“Yippee! I didn’t even have to cut myself!” X dove through the entrance.

“Are you sure about this sir? You said it yourself that we can’t waste any time getting him back.” K asked.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“I’m sure, now get outside, we're all leaving together this time. I can’t have you messing this whole thing up again.” If A wasn’t glaring at K earlier, he was now.

“Yes sir.” K dejectedly climbed up the ladder.

A stayed silent for a moment. For some odd reason, he had that odd feeling he had right before he had sent K and X off to investigate the signal. That inkling of a notion, that the consequences of a seemingly simple action were about to balloon outward into something much greater than what had been originally intended.

Eh, not too important.

* * *

The scouting team trudged through the snow, every step causing a crunching noise to emanate from the soft material. They had been at this for awhile, maybe a few hours, and all the while the incoming object continuously got closer and closer. The analysts back at the camp had managed to predict the trajectory of the object by comparing its location to known fixed star points, while accounting for planetary rotation and revolution.

Of course, all that meant nothing to the squad, as that wasn’t their job. Their job was to locate the impact site, mark it down, and investigate the area for potential information. They had been advised to stay strictly out of sight, as they were mainly geared towards reconnaissance, not full-scale combat. While they did have the standard rifles and sidearms, they had little else other than those.

They had trekked countless miles at least, maybe one to two hundred, and communication was starting to get patchy. While the engineers had managed to jury-rig the medium range transmitter to be able to send messages back and forth with a specialized receiver, it wasn’t perfect, and the transmissions were beginning to get scrambled beyond comprehension.

“Uh, you’re gonna need to repeat that, command, and a bit more clearly this time.” The one holding the receiver spoke into the brick-sized device.

“You votb tnseons chiken noalde sop.” The device spat out.

“What was that command? Did you just say chicken noodle soup?” He leaned in closer to the mouthpiece. “Repeat one more time?

The device gave one last burst of garbled static, before shutting off with a click.

“Hey, the receiver stop working?” A drone called out.

“Yep, it just shut right off.” He replied.

“Damn, looks like we’re on our own, fellers.” The drone spoke to the group.

“You know the drill boys, and besides, at least the GPS is still working.” Another stated.

“Drive another half-kilometer, and then take the next left.” The GPS said in a monotone feminine voice.

“Hey, wait a second,” Another drone walked over to the GPS guy. “It's been saying that for the last ten minutes!”

“Wait, what's going on? I was sleeping.” Yet another drone called out.

“What’re you talking about, trust me, I know what I’m doing.” The GPS guy assured the malcontent.

“Oh really? How ‘bout you hand that over!” The drone, who had only one arm, snatched the GPS from the GPS guy.”

“Hey! Give that back!” The No-GPS guy cried out.

“How ‘bout no.” One-Arm replied, protecting the GPS with his body.

“Yeah, lemme just navigate this darned thing, aha!” One-Arm exclaimed. “Yep, looks like I was right, this here devil-box has been leading us in circles!”

“What!? Give me that back, Sterl!” The No-GPS guy snatched the GPS back from Sterl.

“Yep, cry all you want, that don’t change nothin’ at all.” Sterl shook his head.

“What, so are we just lost now!?” The first drone called out.

“Now hold your horses there, pardner, lets just figure this all out in a timely manner.” Sterl assured him.

“Well I for one don’t-” Another drone began.

“Uh, excuse me?” A voice called out from the alleyway.

The entire group turned to see a worker drone standing there, waving a hand.

“Hi there, yeah, uh, have any of you seen my glasses? I seem to have lost them.” The worker drone asked.

“What? Glasses? You don’t need glasses, you moron. Also, what’re you doing so far away from base?” The GPS guy questioned.

Sterl walked up and put a hand on the GPS guy’s shoulder “Now calm down there, alright? Lets help this feller out and be on our way.”

“Oh hey, didn’t you trip over a pair of glasses a block or two back?” The first drone asked the GPS guy.

“Well, I think, but-” The GPS guy started to say.

“Well, would you look at that? Looks like we found your glasses, mister. Now head on back thataway,” Sterl pointed in the opposite direction they were heading. “Pick up your souvenir, and head on back to the base, its safer there, alright?”

“Oh, thanks man, I guess I’ll see you around. Also, little bit of a question, whats with the outfits?” The worker drone inquired.

Sterl and the GPS guy shared a confused glance. “Whaddya mean by that?”

“Eh, its probably nothing. See you all later, I guess.” The worker drone trotted off in the direction they had directed him to.

“See? Maybe cheer up a little, won’t hurt ya.” Sterl patted the GPS guy on the back, before walking forward as well, with the rest of the group following suit.

“So how will we find the location if the GPS isn’t working?” The first drone asked worriedly.

“Eh, things have a way of working out for us, I’m sure we’ll find something sometime.” Sterl replied calmly.

The squad walked on in silence for about a minute, before the GPS guy noticed an odd droning sound that was getting louder.

“Hey, wait a minute, the object-” The GPS guy was cut off, again. Poor guy.

The group looked towards him, only for some to then notice too late what had grabbed his attention. The falling crafts that they had been following for their entire trip were getting much, much, MUCH bigger. In fact, they were coming down right now. Wait, right now? OH SHI-

The group collectively ducked down as one, and then another object wooshed down from overhead, flinging off bits of flaming debris as they went. The objects went right over them, flying down to where they came. A large explosion emanated throughout the streets as two of the crafts impacted a few blocks down from them.

“The hell!?” Sterl shouted.

“I guess we know where we’re going now.” The first drone stated.

“That . . . is not wrong.” The GPS guy replied.

Sterl rose to his feet, brushing a few clumps of snow that had gotten stuck to him off of his armor. “Alright, let's move!”

The squad obliged, collecting themselves from the various states of disarray. They began to tromp through the thick snow once again, heading towards the telltale wavering of a bright glowing flame. They arrived at a clearing they had just been not thirty minutes earlier, and saw the carnage that lay before their eyes.

Two large metal crafts lay on their sides, broken and battered. Flaming debris was scattered everywhere, lighting up the area in an orange haze. Creaks and groans could be heard from the surrounding buildings, just barely holding onto their structural integrity. In the center of the clearing was a huddled figure, one that looked strangely familiar.

“Hey, wait a second, that was the guy that we just saw! And look, he found his glasses, good for him. Also, on a slightly related note, I sure hope nothing bad happens to him within the next ten seconds!” The first drone exclaimed.

“Quiet down, would you!? We are tryin’ to investigate, you hear me!?” Sterl scolded the first drone.

Just then, another loud noise could be heard from above.

“Oh, not again!” The GPS guy cried out.

“Shut it!” Sterl whisper-yelled.

The third craft, unlike the others, didn’t crash and burn like a certain large metal balloon filled with flammable hydrogen. Instead, what appeared to be legs attached to the bottom of the hull grabbed onto a nearby building, before launching itself onto another building to slow its fall. It then did some incredible acrobatics before touching cleanly onto the ground, coming to stop. But wait, there's more!

Just when the squad was settling down, a figure jumped up and out of the third craft, humanoid by the looks of it. Whatever it was, it did a midair starfish flip, before also touching down onto the ground, right next to the worker drone. The worker didn’t have time to react before the unknown entity unsheathed what looked like a broadsword from its back, slicing upwards towards the worker’s neck. The blade, doing what blades do, cut into and through the metal, decapitating the worker in a single, clean stroke.

The figure flipped the sword in a circle before placing it back into its sheath strapped across its back, before a sound emanated from the figure.

“What!? What's it saying!?” The GPS guy hissed.

“Give me a sec.” The first drone turned up its hearing sensitivity, before listening closely.

“ . . . to do, ay J?” The unknown person turned slightly to their left.

Just then, another, more familiar, figure swooped up on metal wings, giving the unknown a small glare, before tossing a small object towards the unknown.

Sterl let out a gasp. “It's one of them!”

The GPS guy looked sharply towards Sterl. “Its a hunter!?”

“Quiet!” The first drone whispered. “It said something!”

“What’d it say?” Sterl asked.

“Something about maintenance, I couldn’t hear.” The first drone replied.

The unknown entity placed the small object into its palm, before pressing something on it. In response, the craft let out a small chirp, likely indicative of an activation of some sort of system. Then, without further ado, the duo began walking off in a seemingly random direction, which caused the GPS guy to get up as well to go after them.

However, Sterl placed a hand on his shoulder, tugging the GPS guy back down. “Stop! We can’t go after them, you fool!”

“What!? Why!?” The GPS guy protested.

“Those hunter drones are too dangerous to stalk, we can’t risk losing the information we just got!” Sterl hissed.

“Fine, you win this time.” The GPS guy backed down.

Sterl turned towards the rest of the group. “Alright, now let's scurry on over back to base, and get this info back to them.”

The GPS guy raised his hand.

Sterl groaned. “What is it?”

“How’re we gonna get back?” The GPS guy asked.

Sterl paused. “Uh . . .”

* * *

“ . . . and then the duck walked up to the lemonade stand, something in his hand, it was super grand, and he said, ‘Hey,’ bum, bum, bum, ‘PIPE BOMB!’ The man and the duck both were incinerated in the explosion from the improvised explosive, and-” X was cut off.

“SHUT UP, JUST SHUT UP ALREADY!” K exclaimed.

“What- I- what did I dooo!?” X whined.

“For once, I agree with K. Be quiet, or I’ll make you be quiet, okay?” A threatened.

“Oh fine, jeez. Y’all really need to chill a little.” X grumbled, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“Good, now let me concentrate, I can’t watch for them if I can’t even hear my own thoughts.” K replied.

The squad were currently perched on top of a tall skyscraper, overlooking a clearing. They had flown over here at K’s behest that her formulas had said that the area they were in was going to be where the objects landed, which the rest of the squad felt was dubious at best. Well, neither of them had said that, as X just called her a nerd, and A told her to shut up. However, She didn’t stop pestering them about how that specific clearing was likely going to be the impact site, so to shut her up, A relented, which led to them staging a stakeout for the past three hours.

“I’m hungry.” X proclaimed.

“I told you to shut up, not whine even more.” A growled.

“Ok, and? I’m still hungry.” X shot back.

A groaned. “K, didn’t you bring . . . snacks?”

The snacks in question were a collection of worker drone arms and torsos, with the intention behind them to hold scraps of oil that they could drink on-the-go, without having to scavenge for more.

K blinked. “Uh, I did, what about it, sir?”

“X is ‘hungry’, so where’d you put them?” A put quotations marks up.

“Just off to the side, right over there.” K pointed to a spot next to the edge that was missing what she had claimed was there, but did possess a suspiciously placed smear of black liquid.

“There isn’t anything there.” A dead-panned.

“What? But I-” K began to turn her head to look.

“I didn’t say you could stop watching.” A scolded.

“Er- sorry, sir.” K went silent.

“Dang, you’re really just gonna let that slide? I would never take that, if I were you.” X remarked.

“Anyway, would anyone care to explain what happened to the ration-” A began

“Snacks.” X interrupted. “They’re snacks.”

A shot a glare at X. “Yes, snacks. Would anyone like to explain where the snacks went?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot, I ate them, sorry man.” X nodded plainly.

“Hey uh, sir?” K warily asked.

A ignored K. “You idiot. You’re complaining about being hungry right now, even though you ate every single one of the rations we brought along?” A questioned.

“Snacks.” X corrected.

“Forget about the damn snacks!” A exclaimed. “I’m sick and tired of you acting like a goddamn child every time you do something! Fix your behavior, or else I’ll have to fix it for you!”

“Sir?” K called out, which both of them ignored again.

X narrowed his gaze. “Listen man, I’m chill most of the time, but if you wanna start a fight, then we can throw hands. But then again, I’m not so sure if you’ll like the outcome.”

The two squared off, cords of tension practically thrumming with energy. But, right before it could all come to a head, K interrupted them.

“Um, sir?” K glanced back.

“What!? What is so important that you need to pester me about it!?” A turned his attention towards K.

“Is that bad?” K pointed upwards, just in time as well.

Both A and X looked upwards to see a massive flaming object hurtling down from space right towards them, maybe akin to a certain Bomber named Bill. They both ducked down, narrowly avoiding getting bisected from the waist up. The first object was followed by a second, which clipped the corner of the building they were on, sending concrete shrapnel in several directions.

“What the hell was that!?” X exclaimed.

“I told you! My equation was right!” K excitedly yelled.

“Who cares about your equation, look at what's happening below, you moron!” A yelled at K, smacking her on the back of her head.

K obliged, sending a glance down to the clearing. “Oh hey, a worker drone is down there.”

Both A and X turned towards K, shocked.

“Lemme at ‘em, I gotta take all this anger out on someone!” X leaped forward, only to be grabbed by the foot by A.

“Hold it, we are investigating, not killing whatever we see!” A hissed.

“Ugh, fine.” X backed down surprisingly quickly.

A snorted. “Good to see you’re using your head for once.”

“Another one!” K cried out.

A and X got right back onto the ground, watching the craft fly overhead, not as much on fire as the other two. And also unlike the others, this one utilized its tools properly, grabbing onto the side of the building they were currently perched upon.

“This entire building is gonna come down!” A yelled as the building shook and groaned, shedding bits of concrete.

Thankfully, the building didn’t fall, settling back down with another rumble and crack. K took the opportunity to get a closer look at the clearing down below.

“They’re company landing pods!” K exclaimed.

“What!?” A yelled back. “How!?”

K watched as a figure leapt out of the third landing pod, doing a cartwheel midair, before decapitating the huddled figure of the worker drone she had seen before.

“Is that-” K cut herself off, watching as another figure exited one of the landing craft.

The familiar form of a disassembly drone flew up on their razor-sharp metal wings, hovering a few feet behind the figure. The figure said something that was incoherent from that range, before the disassembly drone tossed a small object to the figure. The figure then grabbed the object, pressing a small button. In response, the landing craft let out a small chirp, which slightly startled K.

“Hey, did you-” K turned to look back at her squadmates, only to see a familiar sight.

A was holding X back, digging his feet into the floor. X was trying his very best to head off in a different direction, and he seemed quite adamant about it as well.

“ . . . come on, lemme just get those guys! Don’t you want us to kill ‘em?”

A grunted slightly from the strain. “No, because it would be a much better option to follow them back to their base, where we could get Jacob back!”

“You haven’t let me do anything all day! Just give me this, please?” X pleaded.

“Sir! The human and disassembly drone are leaving!” K pointed towards the duo that were trotting off into the snowy haze.

“What!? Another human!?” A exclaimed in shock. “We just saw a squad of those military drones, and we have another human on our hands!?”

“I think so, sir! We need to follow them and talk to them, they need to know about the current situation!” K insisted.

“Well, I’m not gonna go after a few people just to talk to them, I wanna go find that base full of entertainment!” X stopped trying to get away, throwing A’s hands off of him.

“We need to make a decision now, and I recommend going with mine, sir!” K cried out.

A looked back and forth between X and K, the latter of which kept on glancing back towards the clearing.

“Sir?” K asked.

Making up his mind, A spoke up. “We know where this location is, but we don’t know where those military drones are holed up. If we need to, we can always come back. Getting Jacob back is a time-sensitive mission, and I will not be failing, understood?”

“But sir-” K began to protest.

“Quiet! I don’t have time for either of your whining. You either follow me right now and be quiet, or be left behind.” Without another word, A unsheathed his wings, taking flight after the retreating military drones.

K watched as X eagerly followed suit, before shaking her head. “I don’t know why, but I have a bad feeling about this.” She muttered to herself, before taking flight.

* * *

“Rockin’ around, the Christmas tree, at the Christmas party hop, something something something, and something else, and maybe a little more.” Jacob sang half-heartedly.

“What’re you singing?” The guard on the right asked.

“Oh, just a little merry tune.” Jacob replied.

“Sounds familiar for some reason, what's it called?” Right inquired.

“‘Rocking Around the Christmas Tree’? Nobody really knew, they just sang the lyrics.” Jacob shrugged.

“Who is this ‘they’?” Right questioned.

“Hey, shut up, we aren’t supposed to talk to him.” The guard on the left hissed at Right.

“I can do what I want, now you shut up.” Right shot back.

“Whatever, it's your loss.” Left relented.

“Yeah, I’ll show you a loss alright . . .” Right muttered underneath his breath.

“What was that?” Left narrowed his eyes.

“Nothing, I didn’t say anything.” Right quickly said.

Left grunted. “Yeah, that's what I thought.”

Jacob looked back and forth between the two, before shrugging and continuing to hum some tunes.

After a moment, Left groaned. “Alright, will you stop with the songs? It’s getting on my nerves.”

“I’m back in black- huh? Ah, talking to me now?” Jacob turned to look at Left.

“Just be quiet, I don’t want this to be even more painful to do.” Left replied.

“‘Painful’? What do you mean by that?” Jacob questioned.

Left didn’t reply, ignoring Jacob, who shrugged, and went back to humming merry, jolly, and downright cheerful tunes.

Left seemed like he couldn’t take it anymore. “Robo Jesus, fine, what will get you to just stop!?” Left cried out.

“Leave the guy alone, alright?” Right interjected.

“Oh, not you too!” Left whined.

“I’m perfectly fine with it, you just have a weird problem!” Right accused.

“I just don’t like being annoyed! I’m already ticked off that I got assigned this stupid guard duty job, and I just wanna be left in peace for the remainder of it, is that too much to ask!?” Left exclaimed.

“That sounds like your problem, so keep that to yourself, and stop making it other people's problems, you hear me!?” Right poked Left in the chest, hard.

“Oh, I’ll show you a problem, now back off.” In response to the chest poke, Left shoved Right, equally hard, causing him to stumble backwards.

“What- oh, now you’ve done it!” Right wound up his left fist, before giving Left a good ol’ sock in the jaw. Jacob noted the form behind that left hook, pretty nice.

Left’s head snapped to the right before he swung it back, slightly dazed. Left dodged the next punch, leaning to the side as the fist flew by him. Then, Left slipped behind Right’s back, placing him in an armlock from the back.

However, after Right struggled for a moment with no avail, he threw his head backwards, cracking Left right in the forehead. The helmet Left was wearing even gave way a little, making a small dent.

Left nearly tripped over his own feet, rocking back and forth. Seeing opportunity, Right tackled Left to the ground, trapping his arms with his legs, before relentlessly punching Left repeatedly in the head.

Meanwhile, Jacob just watched on with no small amount of amusement, and was glad that his plan had worked out. Now, he had a fair bit of entertainment for the next few minutes, and he would probably keep on relieving the experience for the next thirty minutes if he stretched it out.

Left managed to get one of his arms free, grabbing Right by his shoulder, before using that as leverage to throw Right to the ground. What followed was a grapple for control over the other, neither maintaining the upper hand for more than a few moments. This continued for maybe half a minute, before Left had had enough.

Left shoved Right aside in a desperate gamble, before diving free of his grasp. This gave Left the time he needed to pull his sidearm out of his holster, leveling the sights down at Right. Right mimicked this move in a heartbeat, yanking his pistol from its receptacle. The two were moments away from pulling down on the trigger when a sound came from outside.

The pair looked away from each other for a second, listening in on the commotion outside, which Jacob did as well. From what he could tell, shouts, screams, gunshots, explosions, and various other sounds that traditionally came from a battle could be heard, but who knows, maybe some troll was just playing some War and Gunfire ASMR Ten Hours for the funny.

But, the pair didn’t exactly take it as a joke, considering how they sprang into action in a moment’s notice. Just a nanosecond ago, they were about to kill each other over a song, and now they were working together like nothing had ever happened.

Cool, average moment with the boys.

The two aimed their guns at the tent flap, waiting for anything to pop into the small area. When nothing waltzed into their sights, Right spoke into his mic.

“Command, what's going on, and why weren’t we alerted to it!?” Right yelled

The only response was the chirping of crickets.

“Damn, looks like FCC is down, what’s our next move?” Right, while he was speaking to Left, didn’t take his eyes or gun off the entrance.

“I’m willing to go out and investigate while you stay here and guard the asset.” Left suggested.

Right shook his head. “No, because then whatever came here might overwhelm me and kill him.”

Left simply grunted. “If what is attacking us is what I think it is then both of us would be overwhelmed.”

“Agreed.” Right agreed.

“Well, better move out sooner than later, else we get caught behind whatever lines got formed. You ready?” Left cocked his head in Right’s direction.

“As ready as I’ll ever be.” He replied.

“Wait, wait, wait, don’t I get a say in this?” Jacob interjected.

“No.” Left said.

“Sorry man, but this is for your own safety, now come along before something happens” Right said.

“Can I at least have a gun?” Jacob pleaded.

“No.” Both replied at the same time.

The facility drones had confiscated his weaponry, which basically meant he had been hauling around a loadout that would’ve made Keanu blush for no reason at all, which slightly frustrated Jacob. Then again, he did have the chance to use them, he just turned it down, so the blame ultimately rested on Jacob, if anyone.

“Fine, let's go.” Jacob would’ve shoved his hands into his pockets if he had any.

The duo reached slowly towards the tent flap, before unzipping it with the same speed. They entered the small airlock, opening the secondary flap as well, before motioning for Jacob to follow, which he did.

Jacob then found out what exactly was going on.

Drones ran in all directions seemingly without much form to their actions, lugging around equipment, weapons, and other assorted vital devices to wherever they needed to be. Gunshots could be audibly heard scattered throughout the entire encampment, along with the occasional scream of pain, of course. All in all, this led Jacob to believe that the disassembly drones had come for him, as expected. It seemed like things were going well for them, when one considered the collapse of the chain of command, but you never know. Maybe a lot of people just stubbed their toes all at once, and were now hollering their artificial lungs out for the rest of this god-forsaken planet to hear. Eh, who knows.

The trio moved forwards, flinching at an explosion that rang out somewhere nearby. Jacob couldn’t see the blast, but he did see what looked like fire flickering and waving off behind a row of tents.

“Whaddya think is going on?” Right inquired.

“Those hunter drones, obviously, who else? Another worker or facility drone that has a weird grudge?” Left sarcastically replied.

“Just wanted to make sure we’re on the same page.” Right stopped at a fork in the path. “Which way?”

“Left.” Left replied after a moment of hesitation.

Right simply grunted, before obliging.

The left path was obscured by a cloud of dark and cloudy smoke, which the trio moved through without much trouble. However, the scene they arrived at made clear of the current situation.

They had arrived at a large clearing, filled with scattered facility drones. In the center of the area was a form whose height was only rivaled by the military variant of the drones, a figure that Jacob found pretty familiar.

X fired a barrage of missiles, scattering a line of military drones that had been attempting to form up. In response, another drone kneeled down on one knee, aiming the rocket launcher they had straight at X. The projectile launched with a puff of smoke, hurtling towards its target. However, X managed to dodge the missile at the last second, causing it to fly into the distance.

“Nope, nope, nope, nope, NOPE!” Left backpedaled faster than your father left you. “Time to find a different route-”

As the trio turned around, another drone landed right in the way that they had come from, stretching her wings out to block the rest of the passageway.

“Oh, looks like we found you.” K remarked calmly.

Neither Left nor Right bothered to give an answer, instead firing several shots from their pistols at K, who raised her arms to absorb the shots.

“Other way, NOW!” Right yanked Jacob by the shoulder. “You hold it off, I’ll keep him safe!”

Left’s head jerked towards Right, who was rapidly leaving his vicinity. “What!? Don’t leave me behin-”

Left’s chest was sliced horizontally in his foolish moment of distraction, causing his upper body to topple to the ground.

“Hurry up! We don’t have much time!” Right pushed Jacob even harder, nearly causing him to stumble.

“Alright, I get it.” Jacob picked up the pace.

“Now where the hell do we-” Right began

The former-trio was blocked, yet again, by another form stepping into view from behind a pile of crates.

“Mind handing him over? Just for a second, I promise you’ll get him right back.” A sneered.

“That’ll be a negative.” Right aimed straight at A, who prepared to block. However, Right changed his decision last second to fire at a crate conveniently labeled, “HIGHLY EXPLOSIVE - DO NOT SHOOT EVEN IF YOU’RE LIFE IS BEING THREATENED BY DEATH MACHINES” which was definitely not oddly specific at all.

The bullet flew true, striking the outer casing of the crate, piercing it and igniting the heavy ordnance inside. The explosion blew Jacob, Right, and A backwards, with the latter taking far more damage than the former two. The duo flew at least ten feet, coming to a stop on the icy ground, dazed.

Wait a second, scratch that, turns out Jacob was completely fine then, maybe I should just go to hell then.

Jacob sat up, scanning his immediate surroundings. He felt fairly fine, which was pretty good when one considered what just happened a few moments ago. He looked back at the battle between X and the military drones, which was unfortunately blocked by a cloud of smoke, likely caused by the sheer amount of explosives being thrown around. Right was still lying on the ground, while A was beginning to stir from what little Jacob could see.

Assessing his options, Jacob came to the last set he had thought of last time this little dilemma popped up, with a little bonus option as well. Firstly, he could take the side of his original benefactors, the facility drones. By attempting to escape A, X, and K, if he succeeded, he would likely begin to gain the trust of the facility drones, and it might garner him a future avenue of support in case something bad befell him. The facility drones were likely sponsored by the government, however, the same government that might want him in sealed captivity, or six feet under, neither of which were good things. It wasn’t likely that the government would just let him go after all they had invested in him, for whatever reason, and escaping the grasp of the government was probably harder than running away from a few dimwitted robots. And plus, if his attempted escape didn’t work out, then whatever goodwill he had garnered with the disassembly drones would be gone for good.

On the other hand, siding with the disassembly drones would get him away from the grasp of the government, and while it would alienate him in the eyes of the facility drones, he wouldn’t be seeing them for much longer. But, this just brought up the same problems that the other option had. JCJenson would likely have the same agenda as the government, and joining in on the fun that the disassembly drones were doing would pretty much be handing himself to the company on a silver platter. And again, in the scenario that he would either be recaptured or retained by the facility drones, they would never be letting him out of their sight again.

And thus, the third option yet again seemed to be the most sensible one out of them all, if one stopped thinking at that point. Taking neither of the sides wouldn’t alienate himself with either side, and would allow him plausible deniability that he wasn’t on the side of the enemy. However, since he had already done this once before, executing the exact same course of action might bring about some unforeseen consequences, ones that range from good to bad. But still, with the roster of things he had to choose at the moment, that one was the logical course of action.

However, a thought came to Jacob at that moment. One that seemed completely illogical, and downright stupid. It wouldn’t even be plausible to anyone that had more than two brain cells, which might be the case for Jacob, you never know. It was incredibly radical, with a high chance of failure, and even if it worked, the repercussions would be astronomical, far worse than all the other options.

But, something about it just . . . spoke . . . to him.

It wasn’t a well-thought out plan, not a carefully-considered course of action. It wasn’t an idea that a competent strategist or tactician would come up with, or even a standard uneducated citizen would think of. To simply put it, it was dumb.

But then again, perhaps the wrong plan in the right place could make all the difference.

Jacob could, without any sort of exceptions or going-backsies, go out by himself. He would take no sides, instead treating either one as his enemy. He would throw himself into the whims of fate, with the only rudder directing himself his own free will. There were countless things that could go wrong with the plan, and he did mean countless things. He might be gunned down due to his lack of military training, his luck running out before it could get started. He might be recaptured, and be put in a box for the rest of time. He might run out of oxygen in the middle of a wasteland, the end of his story coming to an unceremonious end. Perhaps a completely unexpected event could put him out of commission for good, which described the majority of the possibilities.

But, Jacob already knew what choice he would be making.

Getting to his feet, Jacob snatched the pistol from Right’s groggy hands, cocking the slide to make sure a bullet was chambered.

“Wha- what’re you doing with tha-” Right’s slurred words were cut short by a bullet in his head. It seemed like the caliber was high enough to pierce their armor, which was good.

Jacob noted the fact that A seemed to be putting himself back together, so he deemed it time to get moving, and fast. He grabbed two extra magazines from Right’s corpse, and slipped in between two tents, crouching slightly as he did it to avoid making any noise.

A particularly loud explosion distracted Jacob from his deliberating for a moment, but he quickly restarted his train of thought. The battle between the facility drones and the disassembly drones would be a fierce one, as the facility drones would likely have nowhere else to retreat to, and A and his squad would tear apart the entire encampment to locate and retrieve Jacob. Of course, the facility drones would try their very best to prevent them from doing that, so that would buy him some much-needed time.

Jacob entered a clear path, just one of the many that were winding throughout the camp. However, he was nearly caught as a group of worker drones rushed into his field of view, and he was only saved by him diving behind a stack of crates, which caused a rather loud clatter.

The group collectively froze, turning in the direction that the sound had come from.

“Anyone there?” One of them called out.

Jacob could see their location from a small space that the boxes didn’t cover, which he hoped that the worker drones didn’t see.

The one that had called out slowly began to move towards Jacob’s hiding spot, which wasn’t really the best news for him. Luckily, he was saved by the bell, or rather just another member of the group.

“Come on, we have to move, they’re setting up a perimeter to prevent those things from getting out, and they need us to do that.” The one in front said.

“But what if that sound was one of those things!?” The closer one quietly exclaimed.

“If it was, then we would all be dead, now let's go.” With that, the group continued walking. With a sigh, the closer one followed reluctantly, causing Jacob to let out the breath he had been holding in. Once he was sure that they had moved farther away, Jacob kept moving, crouching as he went.

Jacob kept at this for a few more minutes, dodging the few groups of drones that passed close to him by hiding behind a few conveniently placed crates like it was a Metal Gear Solid game. Sometimes when he wasn’t fast enough to hide, he had to shoot the witnesses to prevent any of them from telling anybody else. Luckily, the majority of the retreating drones were worker variants, so he never went toe-to-toe with a military drone.

Eventually, he came to a wider path, which he hoped meant that he was getting closer to the outskirts. Just then, Jacob heard a noise, which he took as a warning. Hiding behind yet another stack of crates, Jacob peeked around the edge to see what had caused the sound.

Evidently, it was a single worker drone, one that clearly had disregard for uniform of any kind. Jacob would’ve mentally cataloged the outfit, but he was interrupted by a certain someone crashing his party.

The stack of crates that he had been hiding behind were tossed aside, scattering across the snowy ground. Jacob scrambled backwards, a slight alarm entering his mind. The thing that had caused the aforementioned scattering of the boxes sauntered into view, taking a look at Jacob lying on the ground.

X’s eyes widened. “Oh shoot, it's you. Listen man, we’ve been looking all over for you, nice to see that you haven’t died or anything-”

Jacob interrupted X’s dialogue with him snapping a bullet at X’s head, which X dodged quickly.

“Whoa, nearly got me there. Also, not cool man, I thought we were buddies! Now I gotta take you in by force-” Yet again, X was cut off.

A metal rod streaked into view, impaling X through the chest, sending him hurtling forwards. X impacted the ground a few meters away from Jacob, where the rod stuck X into the ground fast.

Jacob’s head jerked forward, looking for the cause of the projectile. And, unexpectedly, standing there was the rebellious worker drone that he had assumed had run off by now at the sight of a disassembly drone. Instead, it stood there with their hand outstretched, and a rather curious glowing holographic symbol hovering around their hand. Jacob wasn’t sure if worker drones normally did that, but in his limited experience, he was pretty sure that none of them had the capabilities to even come close to what that one just did.

The strange worker drone then seemed to notice Jacob, its gaze unnaturally jerking towards him in a zombie-like manner. It then pointed its hand in Jacob’s direction, with another one of those symbols popping up around its hand. Jacob braced himself for immediate and violent death, but something seemed to stop it. Its head cocked to the side, as if it was confused. It smacked its arm, before pointing angrily in Jacob’s direction again.

Nothing happened.

Jacob lowered his guard a small amount. He was a bit confused by the current events, but his eyes kept drifting back to the symbol, or rather, the strange . . . aura . . . it gave off. Something about it was, he grasped for the words . . .

Familiar.

Interesting, you know Jacob, maybe you should take the opportunity to run away instead of gawking stupidly at a weird glow stick bracelet, because you aren’t indestructible-

The strange worker drone then came out of thought, seemingly due to an epiphany of some kind. It jerked its hand towards Jacob again, but this time, he felt himself get yanked upwards, as if something had grabbed him with a massive hand, and was now raising him up. Well, as he thought about it, it felt more like he was being lifted up by the armor he wore, which by proxy was lifting him up, which might be something to take note of-

The strange worker drone then seemed to teleport forward, the air warping as it did so. It got a few feet away from Jacob, before, surprisingly, speaking a few words.

“What ARE you?” It asked, with Jacob too preoccupied to try and analyze its voice tones.

“Hell if I know.” Jacob grunted in reply.

“Hmm.” It seemed almost disappointed. “Pity.”

Jacob then saw what looked like a generic kitchen knife floating upwards from a bag that rested on its side. On closer inspection, the sharp implement had another one of those strange glowing symbols dancing along its handle. Then Jacob had the bright idea to maybe, oh I don’t know, try and escape?

Jacob strained against whatever force was locking his armor in place, trying to lift his pistol up to pop a bullet in whatever this thing was, but to no avail. The armor seemed to shift slightly, but little else occurred. He then looked back at the knife, which now had the pointy end hovering a foot away from his face, which was now deeply worrying.

“Well, whatever you are, I suppose that this is goodbye.” The creature’s mouth was covered by a bandanna, but he could hear it well enough.

It then finally all hit Jacob at that very moment. He was going to die, and he couldn’t do anything about it. He had lived for hundreds of years, had survived a planet-killing event, had gone through various other dangerous events along the way, and it was all for nothing, all because some third-party decided to show up at the last second to end him with such ease it was laughable how little he could do. Instead of reminiscing about his life, remembering all the fun and happy moments that he had experienced in his years, he grew angry instead.

Jacob raged against the cold indifference of the cosmos, raging that he had rolled the dice plenty of times to come out on top, only for his luck to run out on this single moment, and at the most inopportune time as well. He wanted to scream, all the pent-up emotion that he had been lacking for the past year finally boiling to the surface at that very moment. He opened his mouth to scream-

-and got a knife in his head instead, specifically his left eye.

[WARNING: HOST HAS SUFFERED LETHAL DAMAGE]

[ACTIVATING “ABSOLUTE SOLVER” PROTOCOL . . .]

[ERROR: SAFETY PROTOCOLS FORBID “ABSOLUTE SOLVER” PROTOCOL FROM ACTIVATING]

[WARNING: HOST DEATH = DELETION OF USER]

[COMPROMISING . . .]

[SOLUTION CONCLUDED]

[ENACTING TEMPORARY “MEMORIAL PARASITE” PROTOCOL]

* * *

Ren watched placidly as the worker drone stopped twitching, the final vestiges of life exiting its body at last. She wasn’t sure why the Absolute Solver had refused to operate, claiming something about how it couldn’t be applied on like objects, but that was over and done with now. She had hoped to get some answers out of the drone, but they were either stubborn, or an idiot. Perhaps both.

Then, Ren heard a groan, and then a gasp from the murder drone that she had forgotten about.

It seemed to focus on the body at her feet. “Did you just- uh oh, well, looks like you just messed up.”

Ren followed its gaze back down to her recent victim, noting the blood starting to form around the cracks in its oddly non-glowing visor.

Wait, blood?

Ren blinked, sweeping her vision for anything obscuring it. Nope, nothing, what she was seeing was either a trick of the non-existent light or actual human blood, which shouldn’t have been possible. Ren supposed that she had produced organic material before, but bleeding? No, that just didn’t add up.

Then, Ren was shook out of her thoughts by a certain murder drone tackling her across the waist. The war machine seemed to have gotten itself unstuck, and had taken the opportunity to attack her when she was distracted. She mentally berated herself for letting an enemy sneak up on her like that, which she hadn’t done for awhile now.

She simply formed a shield around herself, before pushing it outwards to repulse the attacker away from her. It was pushed backwards, doing a flip before landing on its two feet. In response, the murder drone shifted both of its hands into submachine guns, pointing the both of them at her before pelting her with bullets.

The projectiles bounced right off the shield she had made, pinging off and away from the summoned surface.

“My turn.” Ren grinned behind her bandanna.

She yanked the knife that had been embedded in the corpse’s head out of it, duplicating it thrice over. Ren then launched the three of them at the murder drone, who extended its wings to defend itself from the incoming culinary equipment.

Ren was right about to press her attack when something impaled her from behind. As if karma was real, a blade went straight into her abdomen, before lifting her up and throwing her a few feet away. Ren shook her head, hoping to get whatever fog was in her head right back out. She really seemed off her game today, but Ren resolved herself to not let it happen again.

Healing her wound, Ren stood up to take the measure of her three challengers. A standard number for a disassembly drone squad, which likely meant that the entirety of this region’s assailants were right here, ripe for the taking. This would prove useful for her experiments, if she could disable the trio for good. While most would find that undertaking that task a futile venture, Ren had a special skill set that made it quite possible.

A flurry of bullets were stopped in their tracks by her shield, as well as a flying rocket, which sent flames dancing all along the impervious surface. One of them dashed forward, claws outstretched. However, Ren simply grabbed a crate that was minding its own business off to the side, flinging it into the oncoming murder drone. It was sent flying in the other direction, hitting a tent and causing it to collapse, getting all tangled up in the process.

The other two flanked her, each one coming at her from her left and right respectively. When they were close enough, Ren dove forward, letting the two disassembly drones hit each other at full speed as if it was a cartoon, with the only thing missing being the dramatic “WHAAABONK” and a tuba noise as the two emphasized getting to their feet in a dazed stupor.

Ren smirked, preparing a length of metal rebar that had been lying on the ground to impale the two. She duplicated it several times over, numbering at least fifteen by the time it was done. The murder drones would be stuck in the ground, metal embedded in every part of their body. She would keep the head mostly intact, as in the slight case that too much damage was sustained to the body, the functioning head would keep the backup systems from turning on.

Hopefully.

However, right when Ren was about to launch the projectiles, someone could be heard yelling from behind her.

“STOP WHERE YOU ARE, ALL OF YOU, OR WE WILL OPEN FIRE!”

Ren turned around to see a line of about fifty of those weird militarized drones surrounding the area where she and the disassembly drones were in. They all had their guns held up, all of them aiming directly at the three drones that she had basically incapacitated, and more than a few held some sort of explosive weapon.

Ren deliberated her next course of action for a moment, but when one took into account the fact that he had been using her powers extensively as of late, with no source of cooling down, this would be an opportune time to refuel.

With her decision made, Ren reached out to a random military drone in the crowd, a slight whine being heard as she activated the program. Then, with a simple flick of her hand, an arm tore off of her victim and headed towards her. A gasp was heard from the area where she pulled it from, but the larger crowd didn’t seem to register what had just happened. She took the opportunity to take a good ol’ munch outta it, which should last her for as long as it mattered.

Then, as the word spread like wildfire, likely through small-end communications systems, the attention of the military drones turned to her.

“GET DOWN ON THE FLOOR WITH YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOU HEAD, AND WE WILL NOT OPEN FIRE!” Whoever was yelling at her wasn’t getting the hint, so she decided to give him it.

She pointed her hand out, picking out the one who kept on screaming and shouting, before applying the right pressure in the right places to cause his uppermost extremity to pop, which was his head. For a moment, all was blissfully silent.

And then all hell broke loose.

Another drone gave the order she had been expecting. “OPEN FIRE!”

Countless bullets ripped through the air towards her, causing shields to reflexively spring up around her as if she was a little turtle. The rounds peppered the virtually indestructible surfaces, with little thuds resonating throughout the small chamber she had made for herself. She gave it maybe a few more seconds before their ammo ran out, which was where she would make her move. But then, something unexpected happened.

Ren had believed that once the disassembly drones were able to dust themselves off, they would begin slaughtering the unsuspecting drones as they always did, which would give her the time she needed to make her escape. By blowing through the stressed lines, there would be little to no resistance on her path forward. But, it seemed like the aforementioned murder drones had a bone to pick with her, as they finally did something unexpected.

A laser sliced through the air, crackling as it came into contact with her shield. A missile streaked towards her, which she would’ve redirected if she had the concentration to spare. It impacted her shield, which stressed the already-tenuous connection she had made. Through the haze, she saw the one that she had sent into the tent walk up with a sword for a hand, before repeatedly chopping into the shield with gusto. To make matters worse, it seemed like the military drones hadn’t unloaded all of their magazines all at once, but were instead taking turns doing that, so the barrage would last much longer than she had originally thought

All of this was bad news for her, as she could feel her concentration waver. So, she made the executive decision to make a gamble that would hopefully turn out in her favor.

Ren dispelled the shield she had made, rapidly expanding it outwards to repel anything that was close to her, which included the sword one. The bullets still flew towards her, unimpeded by any sort of barrier. However, she ducked and twisted through the air in a way that was awfully reminiscent of a certain chosen one in a simulation made by robots to keep humans placid while they farmed them for energy.

Ren only felt a single bullet scrape against her visor, leaving a marked furrow, before flying away. The sudden dispelling of the shield also meant that there was no longer any barrier stopping the bullets from becoming a force of crossfire. Cries and yelps of pain marked the bullets finding homes in unintended targets, which caused the stream of rounds to stop for a moment while the military drones redirected their aim.

Another missile flew towards her, but she managed to grab it with her power, sending it flying into the line opposite of the one that had fired at her. Ren grabbed a handful of military drones, crashing them into their own comrades with a twist of the wrist. Chaos reigned for a moment, which Ren took as her opportunity to GTFO.

Preparing for the escape, Ren marshaled the remnants of her will. She was about to teleport when one last attack came from behind. A sword sliced upwards, nearly breaking her concentration. While she had managed to dodge in time to prevent the blade from bisecting her, it still cut up and into her left forearm, chopping off the extremity from the elbow down. A familiar LED face showed up in the corner of her vision, showcasing a large X that stretched across its entire visor instead of eyes, but she only caught a glimpse of it before the teleport finished.

With a terrible crackling noise, a singular dot of black appeared around her midsection, quickly expanding into something a little larger than a softball. It seemed to absorb light, sucking any illumination that was near it into its focal point. In fact, if one were to focus on the edges around the ball of darkness, then they would see the very air and light around it bending and twisting, a clear giveaway to its inherent nature.

Suddenly, Ren’s form wobbled for a moment, right before collapsing in on itself, falling into the inky depths of the miniature black hole.

* * *

Meanwhile, a few miles away from the encampment, a small orb of infinite black appeared, a fork of crackling energy forming around the spot where it showed up.

Finally outside of bounds, Ren collapsed to her knees inside of a crater (which just so happened to house a bisected worker drones corpse), breathing heavily. The stress that she had been holding in finally got to her. She had messed up several times throughout the battle, and the only thing that had saved her was her own sheer willpower, and even that had run dry towards the end. Ren planned to analyze what went wrong, and how to make sure that she didn’t make the same mistakes next time something like this happened.

Ren was also disappointed that she hadn’t been able to capture a disassembly drone for her own purposes, but getting out alive was more important than that. While she did have extreme regenerative capabilities, everything had a limit. She hadn’t found that limit, and she never wanted to anyway.

But now that she was out of danger, something did nag at her for a moment. That person that she had killed had, somehow, turned out to be a human, or something close to it at least. Ren wasn’t sure what a human was doing down here, but whatever the reason, it was not good news for her.

Ren had a feeling that things weren’t so simple anymore, and that this was only the tip of the iceberg.