“-ubber flobber glibber gobbler-” A was cut off.

“I’m sorry, what?” The stranger tilted their head.

They were likely a man by their voice, but you could never really tell.

“What do you mean, ‘what?’?” A asked in kind.

“What kind of swear was that?” The newcomer sounded confused.

“Nevermind that, what even are YOU?” A got to his feet. “I’m fairly sure that any sane worker drone wouldn’t have come anywhere near us, and since K and X haven’t killed you, I would like to know.” A questioned.

“Well sir, I was just telling you-” K began.

“I’m the one talking right now, shut up.” A waved dismissively at K, who shrank down to a meager size.

“Uh, I’m me.” The stranger suggested.

“Yes, I can see that, but what ARE you, specifically.” A insisted.

“Uh, I’m somebody, or something, you never know.” The newcomer was dodging the question.

“Alright, I’m done.” A retracted his hand, a gun taking its place, before aiming it directly at the person’s face.

“Okay, alright!” The unknown person put up their hands. “Calm down. I’m a human.”

A didn’t lower his gun. “That's a lie.”

K intervened, stepping in between the stranger and A. “It's true sir. He was the origin of the distress signal.”

A fixed K with a withering stare, who bravely didn’t back down.

“Sir! You said it yourself that the possibility of a human being there was possible!” K exclaimed.

A scoffed. “Well I didn’t mean it! That was just to get both of you up and away from here.”

“Well sir, it appears that the mission has borne a rather precious fruit.” K gestured towards the person, who gave a little wave.

“As a certified me, I can certainly say that I’m me, which is also a human.” The apparent human stated.

A’s mind just fogged with confusion. “Uh, what?”

“You heard me.” The person didn’t elaborate.

“You know what? You must be a human, because you just said the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” A lowered his gun, shaking his head.

Suddenly, with a yelp of surprise, the human was pushed down to the floor, landing on shaky feet.

“Oh nice.” The human murmured.

X then leapt through the opening, nearly squashing K. “Wassup, I’m back. Who died?”

A shook his head again. “Idiots. I’m surrounded by idiots.”

“Not me!” The human spoke up.

A looked back at the human, remembering something.

“What's your name again?” A asked.

“Oh, I’m Jacob. I’m kinda the resident important person here.” Jacob’s hands strayed towards his chest, as if to adjust a tie, only to remember that he wasn’t wearing a tie, so they just folded themselves across his chest.

A let a moment of silence sound through the pod. “OK, why don’t you take off your helmet?”

Jacob shook his head. “Can’t take it off.”

“Why?” A inquired.

“Toxic atmosphere.” Jacob explained.

“Oh, yeah. Well, can you just make the visor clear?” A suggested.

“I don’t know how to do that, I just got this thing after all.” Jacob shrugged.

“You just got it? What were you doing here anyway?” A’s eyes narrowed in suspicion yet again.

K stepped in again to defuse the situation. “Listen, sir. We can all explain this, if you just give us time.”

A stared back at her, who shook slightly under the beam.

“Well then, get started.” A sat down. “We’ve got time.”

* * *

“Ugh, what's that scratching noise?”

A pair of drones walked along a mostly intact pathway covered in rubble and snow, lighting up the darkness with built-in lights.

“That would be ice building up in our armor, I think.” The second drone answered.

“Really? You know how to get rid of it?” The first drone asked.

The second drone shook her head. “Nah, we can’t. Trust me, I’ve tried before, and while I can get the surface level ice, the stuff that coalesces in between the chinks is too deep to get out.”

“Just use something sharp and thin then.” The first drone suggested.

“Where can I find something sharp and thin, Carl?” The second drone replied.

“I dunno, somewhere on the ground, I guess.” Carl looked around the floor, searching.

“You’d be surprised at how hard it is to find something thin enough to fit in between our armor plates around here, and rubble doesn’t really match specifications.” The second drone kicked a rock into a small crater.

“Nobodys got any knives or something?” Carl questioned.

“You think we have knives? Anything that isn’t a nanoblade will only be useful for cooking, and since we don’t even have kitchens, that's out of the question. And nanoblades are impractical, one minute you’re flipping the blade around in your hand, and the next your hand is on the ground, cut clean through.” The second drone explained. “That's why we don’t have them, they’ll slice anything off that isn’t an artificial experimental alloy.”

“I know that, but you would think somebody would have something. What about a pencil?” Carl stopped walking for a moment.

“Pencils will just break, and keep walking, we gotta hurry up.” The second drone motioned for Carl to resume movement.

“Alright, fine. But the moment we finish our shift, I’m going around to see if anybody has something, and we’ll see who has the last laugh, Damina.” Carl glared at Damina.

“Yeah, alright.” She replied.

The pair walked in silence for a few seconds.

“By the way, you ever hear about that Sterl guy?” Carl spoke up again.

“Who?” Damina asked.

“You know, Sterl. He’s one of the only people who survived one of those hunter drones attacking him.” Carl explained.

“So that's what we're calling them? Hunter drones?” Damina said in a dry tone.

“What else would we call them? Killer drones?” Carl stared pointedly at Damina.

“Well I guess the name fits, hunter drones. But I feel like it doesn’t really match their . . .” Damina trailed off.

“Their what?” Carl insisted.

“Their aura.” Damina finished.

“Their aura? THAT'S what you're going with?” Carl said.

“It's the best word I could use. ‘Hunter’ just feels really underwhelming I guess.” Damina shrugged.

“Well, what would you suggest? I’m open to them.” Carl inquired.

“Uh, you’re kinda putting me on the spot here.” Damina scratched her head.

“Take your time.” Carl replied.

“Uh, maybe, murder drones?” Damina suggested, not letting the credits roll just yet.

“Murder drones.” Carl deadpanned.

“Yes.” Damina confirmed.

“Murder drones?” Carl repeated.

“Uh, yes?” Damina sounded more unsure.

“You really think that's better?” Carl questioned.

“I dunno, you didn’t really give me a lot of time to come up with one.” Damina defended herself.

“Hunter drones are better, I’m saying it right now.” Carl crossed his arms.

“Okay, fine, it's better.” Damina relented. “But what about, uh, reaper drones?”

Carl tilted his head in thought, so Damina continued.

“You know, because they only strike from the shadows, and when they come, they only cause death.” Damina clarified.

Carl slowly nodded. “Alright, I’ll give you that, that is a much cooler sounding name, but it's too poetic.”

“TOO, poetic?” Damina asked.

“Yeah, too poetic.” Carl confirmed. “I mean, yeah, they are pretty deadly, but we can’t really be calling those things reapers, can we?”

Damina grunted. “Back then, they used to call early attack drones reapers.”

“What? They did? How do you even know that?” Carl said in a surprised tone.

Damina shrugged. “I must’ve heard it somewhere.”

“Is that even real? I mean, how long ago are we talking here? A few decades, or a few centuries? Attack drones have been around for a really long time, I need specifications.” Carl questioned.

“Like, a thousand years, I think.” Damina explained.

“A thousand years!” Carl exclaimed. “You’re trying to tell me that we got information out of the ancient dark ages!?”

Damina shrugged again. “Yeah, pretty much.”

Carl shook his head. “You’re crazy.”

Damina scoffed. “Whatever. Come on, we need to get moving.”

* * *

Silence filled the pod.

A sat in a chair, arms crossed, eyes staring in the general direction of Jacob, who was sitting directly across from him. K looked around nervously, while Jacob just seemed confused. X had left the pod at some point to go jump off a rooftop for something, doing whatever thing he did to pass the time.

A had listened to K, X, and Jacob explain their small adventure, with K doing most of the talking, because X just told straight up lies most of the time, like claiming that they had found a whole farm of enslaved tornados who were aptly named, “Whiggers” and that they had participated in the freeing of those tornados from enslavement, establishing a new state in the middle east for them afterwards. Jacob was forced out of the explanation because the majority of his speech consisted of, “Uh”, “Um”, “Like so”, “You see”, “Kinda”, and multiple backtracks because he had forgotten to say something important. So, it was only reasonable to just shut up before he embarrassed himself any further, the goddamn idiot.

Finally, K spoke up.

“So, what do you think sir?”

A glanced up at K. “What do I think?”

K squirmed under his gaze. “Er, yes sir.”

A sat up in his chair. “Well, I think that it's a miracle that the human is still somehow alive.”

“Some would say otherwise.” Jacob interjected.

“I feel halfway partial to just calling it all a lie and putting a bullet through this guy’s head.” A ignored the comment.

“I’m . . . not sure if that is the right course of action, sir.” K replied.

A scoffed. “It's a figure of speech, K, calm down.”

K blinked. “Oh, uh, sorry sir.”

“And stop saying sorry so much, it's annoying me.” A added.

“Yes sir, sorry sir.” K said quickly.

A shook his head, before looking at Jacob. “And what are we going to do with you?”

Jacob shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

A leaned forward. “Don’t you humans have to eat regularly to stay alive?”

“I have to take my helmet off to eat, and I’m not really sure that’s a good idea.” Jacob explained.

“Hmm, I see.” A leaned back, deep in thought.

This proved to be a problem, since the survival of the human was paramount to A and his squad’s success. When the distress signal had come through, A had taken an arguably large gamble on it. He had sent the majority of his team out to investigate an unknown signal, when they could’ve spent those days and nights grinding for extra credit.

While some might think that a few days shouldn’t have made a difference, the reality was much harsher. With a whole planet full of competing teams, all vying for control, one had to remain constantly vigilant and active to stay up top. While most of the time in a standard squads lives were spent just cutting down the occasional worker drone that was foolish enough to go outside, which happened quite often, sometimes they would crack open a bunker, which was more than enough to boost them to the peak of the leaderboard.

One wouldn’t even have to tackle a whole bunker, if they so desired. They could just put in overtime hours, spending night after night slaughtering any drone who had stumbled into danger, rapidly clearing out a zone empty of all life, save for the ones that caused it. This could bear a great number of points if it was executed correctly, and while it was time and energy consuming, it was very effective.

So far, A’s team had been doing neither, just killing the stray worker drone that stumbled in their path every now and then, which is what most squads did, just to a higher extent. This was causing them to lag behind, as stated earlier. Also stated earlier, the recent destruction of the local worker drone bunker had boosted them up high into the rankings, but it wasn’t meant to last. And if their scores weren’t up to par, disassembly for themselves was an option.

But now, through some stroke of magnificent luck, A had been thrown a lifeline in the form of the adolescent human boy sitting across from him. If no other humans were hiding in some small nook or cranny around the planet, then that would make Jacob the last living human on the entire planet. Even an idiot could tell you that that arguably made him the most important thing for miles, which made Jacob’s earlier statement somewhat true. If A and his squad were able to somehow return Jacob to the company’s hands, then they would likely be rewarded a large amount of points for their innovative and smart behavior, shooting them up through the ranks until nothing could challenge them for a while.

And so, that made the consequences for failure even higher.

If Jacob were to die, or even suffer from some sort of severe injury, then the blame would lie at their feet. They would be blamed for any and all harm that came to the human, and would be punished accordingly. They likely wouldn’t even know they had been punished, as their memories probably would’ve been scrapped as well.

All in all, A was taking yet another big gamble. They had very high rewards, since if they could place Jacob back into company hands, they would be set. However, they had high risk as well, since they had to keep him in perfect condition along the way, like a small, delicate package that was prone to breaking. A was willing to take that risk, since frankly, he saw no other option. They were too deep in to back out, even if they wanted to. Abandoning Jacob to the elements would garner an even harsher punishment than if they had tried to protect him and failed.

And so, A now had to devise a way to keep Jacob perfectly well, and that began with a rather pressing issue.

“Hey, kid-” A began.

“Name’s Jacob.” Jacob interrupted.

“Uh, I know.” A continued. “Kid, listen, do you even have anything to eat at all?”

Jacob pulled out a shiny silvery package from an armored pocket. “Yep, this here.”

“Are you sure that's edible?” A didn’t relent.

“Uh, yeah. It says, ‘RATION’ on the side so it probably is.” Jacob replied.

“And it's not expired?” A inquired.

“No, it isn’t. I’m good, I have tons of food, it's fine man, calm down.” Jacob tilted his head to the side, before pocketing the ration bar.

A grunted. “What about water?”

Jacob froze. “Uh, I dunno.”

“You thought to take ‘tons of food’ but didn’t take any sort of form of hydration.” It wasn’t a question.

“Erm, yes.” Jacob fidgeted.

A facepalmed. “Do you know WHERE you can get any water?”

Jacob shrugged. “Snow? Ice?”

“The snow and ice on this planet likely contains copious amounts of toxic gasses.” A stated.

“Well what do you want me to say, that I just pulled a random depot of fresh water from nowhere?” Jacob complained.

“Well I don’t know, I figured that the ‘hyper-intelligent’ and ‘oh-so-smart’ human would’ve thought to bring some goddamn water.” A replied, annoyed.

“Well I didn’t think a few days ago that I would be trekking through a freezing wasteland!” Jacob cried out.

“Speaking of, what were you doing a few days ago? I doubt that you were ‘just chilling’ in a cryo pod that failed to break down when every other one did.” A’s eyes narrowed yet again.

“Well I just was! That's the truth of it, kind of . . .” Jacob trailed off.

A felt his opportunity. “Continue.”

“Besides, I’m pretty sure that you aren’t cleared for that information.” Jacob finished.

A inwardly cursed. Once Jacob had subtly implied that there was something more to the story than what he had let on, A had believed that he would be able to get some more out of him, maybe even deducing what made the kid so important. A wasn’t gonna believe for a second that Jacob had just happened to stumble upon a facility full of autonomous guards that had just somehow happened to decide to protect him with their lives, while finding the sole fully-operational cryo pod on the planet, and just so happened to survive for a good amount of time while everybody else died. And the fact that A had received the distress signal on a government transmitter that had just so happened to be placed in their ship made Jacob even more suspicious.

Multiple things weren’t adding up, which is why A had jumped at the chance to wring Jacob dry of any more information he could get. But, A hadn’t expected him to pull out the ‘Classified Information” card. While it did confirm that something bigger was going on behind the scenes, A was now effectively neutered in his future chances to learn, because since he now knew that the information he was searching for was behind higher clearance, continuing his search would be a clear breach of company protocol. Breaching company protocol, like many other things, leads to a rather bad chance of living.

A leaned back in his chair, contemplating his next course of action. He first had to find a breathable atmosphere for Jacob, as well as finding an uncontaminated source of water. Next, and perhaps the most difficult of all, A had to somehow get Jacob off planet. Some very high orders for his little squad.

“How long can humans go without needing food or water?” A questioned.

“Uh, I can’t remember exactly, but I think that if I don’t have any sort of water, then I’ll die within three days.” Jacob answered.

A cursed yet again. Three days wasn’t a time frame big enough to get a source of reliable water in this wasteland.

K coughed politely. “Uh, if I may, sir.”

A’s gaze shot to K. “What?”

“Well, we could scavenge.” K suggested.

“I’m fairly sure that I could’ve come up with that myself.” A replied.

“Oh, uh, sorry sir.” K backed down.

A, in fact, hadn’t come up with that himself, for some odd reason. It seemed like the only viable course of action, and yet he hadn’t even given it a modicum of thought. Strange, but not important.

A stood up. “Well, I guess that's settled. X,” X looked back up from his little thumb game. “You’re going with K.”

“To do what?” X asked, confused.

“Of course you weren’t listening. You’re going to try and find some water for the human.” A answered.

“What!? I don’t wanna do that, why can’t she do it by herself!?” X cried out, pointing at K.

“Because in your absence, I’ve found that I rather like having both of you away from me. And plus, the more the merrier.” A pointed at the exit. “And you’re going right now.”

The night was still hanging ever-present over the planet, a fact made clear by X’s careful inspection from his undesirable point of view.

X opened his mouth to protest further, but the act was cut off by A.

“And that's final.” A glared at X. “Understand?”

X scoffed. “Alright man, fine. No need to get all worked up.”

A turned to K. “Anything you want to say?”

K seemed caught off guard. “Oh, uh, no sir, I’m fine.”

A nodded. “Good. Now off you go.”

Jacob watched the pair leave the pod with a watchful gaze.

A turned towards Jacob.

“Now what do you want me to do?” Jacob asked.

“Now that's the big question.” A replied. “I’ve never really had a human with me.”

“Well, I’m not really gonna just sit here, doing nothing.” Jacob stated.

“You might have to deal with it.” A dryly replied.

The two stared at each other in silence for a moment.

“Listen man, how about we talk?” Jacob broke the silence.

A’s LED screen formed an eyebrow and raised it. “About what?”

Jacob was a bit unnerved by the display A’s face just did, but pressed on. “I dunno.”

“I’m not giving a suggestion.” A said.

Jacob thought for a moment. “Well, those guys that just left didn’t really tell me a lot about what’s really going on, so how about that?”

A pondered on the notion. He was tempted to turn it into an exchange of information, but that would still be a violation of policy, and he wasn’t sure if the human would even oblige. And plus, he didn’t really see that issue with giving out that kind of information, as it would even endear Jacob to A, which might pay off in the long run.

“Alright, I can do that.” A agreed.

“Oh nice.” Jacob replied.

“So, it all started with . . .”

* * *

The clacking of the keyboard.

A familiar sound to anyone living within the modern era, or anyone past the 1990s. Commonplace in areas such as work offices, accounting offices, home offices, government offices, probably a lot more offices, and gaming rooms that were only occupied with hunch-backed teenagers who were chronically online. Or maybe just avid fan fiction writers, you never know.

However, those that weren’t accustomed to the fast-paced rapid clicking of buttons would often find the sound annoying or unrestful, especially when the area was overly silent. In this case, a duo were inside a small tent, lit only by the glow of a computer screen, with a robot sat over the keyboard, typing away at the device with the surety of a slight breeze; soft, yet clearly ever-present. The second robot was currently sitting in another chair that was on the other side of the room, trying to fall asleep. But, it appeared as though that they weren’t a fan of the constant noise, deafening in the silence of the night.

Groaning, the second drone called out to the one at the computer.

“Ugh, man, keep it down.” He whispered.

“What do you expect me to do? Type slower? I wanna get this done as soon as possible.” The first drone replied, also whispering.

“Just be quieter, I’m tryna sleep here.” The second drone murmured.

“Why are you sleeping!? You’re supposed to be awake and watching, not dozing off!” The first drone whisper-yelled back.

“You’re awake right now, so it's fine.” The second drone waved his hand.

“No it’s not! I could be stabbed by one of those hunters when my back is turned and you’re asleep!” The first drone exclaimed quietly.

“Don’t care.” The second drone laid back in his chair.

“You know what, Frant!? Get up here, this’ll keep you awake.” The first drone called to Frant.

“No, lemme go to sleep.” Frant replied sleepily.

“Get up here, before I report you, and then you’ll be sleeping forever.” The first drone narrowed his eyes.

This proved to wake up Frant to the fullest extent, causing him to shoot upwards in his seat.

“Are you serious Carme!?” Frant spat between clenched teeth.

“Just come over here, it’ll keep you awake.” Carme ignored the question.

Frant obliged, stomping over to Carme, leaning over his shoulder to see the glowing screen.

“What are you even doing here?” Frant inquired.

“I’m reviewing our files to make sure nothing got lost in the transition.” Carme answered.

“What if something did get lost?” Frant continued.

“Then I notify the experts.” Carme simply replied.

“Uh, okay then.” Frant pulled his seat over, plopping down next to Carme. “Why’d they have to assign me to watch? Couldn’t they have just gotten a soldier to do it?”

Carme shrugged. “They’re spread too thin, the military’s having a hard enough time already trying to maintain a proper perimeter. Watching over the workers would be asking for numbers they don’t have.”

Frant nodded. “I guess that makes sense.” Frant then paused to think. “Hey, why do you know all this stuff anyway?”

“They sent it in a memo.” Carme handed a sheet of paper to Frant, who took it.

Frant skimmed over the paper, taking in all the essential bits.

“You get it now?” Carme looked over his shoulder at Frant.

Frant nodded again. “Yeah, but why didn’t I get this?”

Carme shrugged yet again. “You probably did.”

“Huh.” Frant scratched the back of his head, before squinting at a document on the computer. “Uh, what's that?”

Carme followed Frant’s gaze to the icon on the screen. The file in question was an innocuous little folder that simply read, “DO NOT OPEN WITHOUT PROPER AUTHORIZATION” which was a bit dramatic.

Carme and Frant looked at each other, before settling their focus back on the screen.

“. . . you wanna open it or something?” Frant suggested.

Carme thought for a moment, before shrugging for the hundredth time in a minute. “I’m down.”

Carme moved the cursor over to the icon, double clicking it. The page entered a loading phase, with nothing but a blank screen to greet them for a moment before it opened the file. Inside was a document that had several pages, with the first one having some rather disturbing text.

“‘DO NOT LET ROBOTS READ, THEY WILL NOT LIKE IT’? Why? What does that even mean?” Frant asked no one in particular.

“Probably to make sure robots don’t read it.” Carme answered.

“Yeah, I get it. Scroll down, I wanna see the rest.” Frant leaned in, completely disregarding the warning.

Carme obliged, scrolling down to the first page which had more large, bold text, which read, “NO SERIOUSLY, WE MEAN IT”.

Carme and Frant scrolled down to the next page, which also had more text, which said, “ALRIGHT THEN, JUST MAKING SURE THIS TIME”.

Scrolling down to what would hopefully be the last page with warnings on it, Carme and Frant gazed upon the holy scriptures, which now read, “YOU WOULD THINK THAT WE WOULD PUT A TEST IN HERE TO MAKE SURE YOU AREN’T A ROBOT, BUT THEY DIDN’T GIVE US ENOUGH BUDGET FOR THAT, STUPID CAPTCHA NONSENSE”

Frant groaned. “What is this guy’s deal? Just let us through.”

Carme scrolled past the warning, finally arriving at a page which had something other than a loud warning. A logo could be seen at the top, proclaiming whatever they were to the few that could read the document.

“What is, ‘JCJenson, IN SPAAAAACEE!!!!’?” Frant asked, squinting at the computer.

“I dunno.” Carme shrugged, goddamn man, stop shrugging.

“I thought you knew everything?” Frant looked at Carme.

“I just pay attention, nothing else, and nothing I’ve seen mentions that.” Carme gestured towards the screen.

“Whatever, keep scrolling.” Frant looked back at the display.

Carme and Frant looked on at the screen, scrolling slowly so that they could both see. As they read, their expressions went from curious, to confused, to disturbed, to confused again. The strange document was filled with strange labels and diagrams that just didn’t make sense to either of them, displaying graining images of what appeared to be a drone, with some . . . interesting . . . additions.

“What the hell is a zombie drone?” Carme asked, LED eyebrows furrowed.

* * *

Jacob pondered.

On what exactly? Oh fine, I’ll tell you.

Jacob had just received what was, hopefully, a relatively unfiltered version of the recent events and situation on the planet. After about an hour of explanation, A had finished on the arrival of the disassembly drones, and the subsequent widespread assault on the worker drones. When Jacob had asked for the specific story of A’s squad, A had skirted around it, only lightly touching upon the subject. It was slightly suspicious, but Jacob didn’t plan on doing anything about it.

However, if it was the truth, it only raised more questions than answers. The fact that a company was willing to exterminate the entirety of what was probably a massive investment was just baffling. Jacob could only come up with two explanations, one of which was rather worrying to think about. The first was that of changing times; perhaps the company was so rich, and technology so advanced, that the worker drones could be replaced with the ease of buying another shipload of tissues. If you threw away an entire box of tissues, it would be annoying to say the least, but it wouldn’t cost a lot to just get another one.

But, it just didn’t make sense to Jacob that that would be the case. The United States military in the time of Jacob had heaps, thousands of missiles, and could afford to replace them as they were used. But if they all disappeared at once? It would take lots of time, money, and effort to replace each and every single last one of the lost payloads, and not to mention the logistical nightmare it would be.

So, that led Jacob to his other solution, one that insinuated a scenario far more confusing and sinister. If the company decided to just annihilate every worker drone, which is a very radical and illogical decision by a galaxy-spanning megacorporation, then it would line up with certain other decisions made by other people in the past.

During the Second World War, the U.S. government was fearful of a potential Japanese invasion. They believed that, if they did land boots on American soil, that the Japanese-Americans would rise up, taking the side of the invaders. And so, Roosevelt made the Executive Order 9066, ordering over one hundred and twenty thousand Japanese-Americans to be interned in concentration camps, where they would remain until near the end of the war.

This was an apt example for how even the most level-headed of individuals could make bad decisions under the influence of fear. If Jacob assumed that the same was true for this day and age, then perhaps the administration at the company had sent machines to kill the entire worker drone populace due some or maybe even all of them being much more dangerous than what was being let on. It was a bit far-fetched, but was the one of the only viable solutions at the moment, aside from his theory that nothing was real and they were all figments of the imagination of a being so complex they were nothing but fiction to it, but the chances of that were little to none.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Right?

Jacob’s pondering was interrupted by someone waving their hand in front of his face.

“Ugh, hello?” A snapped his fingers twice. “You there?”

Jacob blinked, refocusing on his present company. “Uh yeah, just processing.”

A scoffed. “Processing what? I thought humans were superior or something?”

Jacob smacked A’s hand out of his face. “Me too.”

A raised an LED eyebrow.

“Doesn’t matter.” Jacob waved hand in a dismissive way. “What now?”

“I dunno. That's all I had.” A shrugged.

“Nothing else you’re hiding?” Jacob questioned.

“No. There isn’t.” A glared at Jacob. “Now drop it.”

Jacob held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, jeez man, calm down. I just don’t wanna be bored for however long I’m stuck here.”

“Yeah well, that's not really my problem.” A stated.

Jacob didn’t reply, only sighing, before standing and getting up out of his seat.

A startled. “Wait, where are you going?”

“Out.” Jacob simply replied.

“Why?” A inquired.

Jacob shrugged. “Bored.”

A got to his feet as well. “Fine then. I guess I’m going as well.”

“You’re coming with?” Jacob asked incredulously.

“Yeah. I can’t have you running off and getting yourself killed.” A reasoned.

“They kept saying that too.” Jacob grumbled.

“Who said that?” A tilted his head.

“K and X.” Jacob answered. “Also, why don’t y’all have normal names? Why just letters?”

“I dunno.” A non-committedly replied.

“Huh.” Jacob took that as a cue to leave, turning to the ladder.

A followed closely behind, waiting until Jacob had gone through the small exit to ascend himself.

Jacob didn’t bother to use the ladder on the way down, buckling his knees and dropping the last few feet, hearing the snow crunch beneath him. He had been prepared to absorb the impact, but it seemed like whatever advanced mechanics his suit possessed had done the job all by itself, which was pretty nice. He made a mental note to test out the capabilities later on, just to get a general sense of the limits and what would be a danger to him.

Jacob heard a similar crunching noise behind him, causing him to look backwards, seeing A just awkwardly standing there.

“Just gonna follow me? Really?” Jacob was slightly annoyed.

“Yeah. I’ve gotta keep you safe until someone else takes you off my hands, or else I’ll-” A cut himself off.

Jacob took note of that, inferring what he might have been about to say. It only served to confirm his notion that he was sort of a VIP on the planet. He was to be protected at all costs, which was pretty nice for Jacob.

“So, you gonna do anything?” A asked.

* * *

The sound of snow crunching filled the empty room as the pair walked into it.

“Can we go back already?” X complained.

“No, and be quiet.” K scolded him. “It’s too echoey in this room, it’s annoying.”

X scoffed. “Pff, it’s fine. Nobody’s around for miles, we’re all good. Now when can we go back?”

K rolled her eyes. “We can go back when we find something, You heard what he said.”

“What who said?” X inquired.

“You idiot, our squad leader!? Our boss that we’ve spent who knows how long with!?” K cried out.

“Calm down, just messing around.” X leaned against the wall.

“Whatever, you know what A said. We can’t come back until we’ve found water.” K reminded X.

“Why do we even need it? I’m sure he’ll be fine.” X waved off the issue.

“He’ll die.” K deadpanned.

“He can walk it off.” X waved off the issue again.

“I don’t care, just get off the wall, we’ve gotta search every building.” K gestured for X to follow.

“How can we even find anything in here? Everywhere else we’ve checked has been empty.” X took his place next to K.

“You never know, now get to it.” K kicked over a rock, exposing a small marble.

X trotted over to a dented metal counter on one side of the room, peering underneath it.

“Nothing here, this is useless.” X whined.

“Shut up.” K called out.

X surprisingly obliged, kneeling down and searching the small cabinets that were connected to the counter. After finding nothing but a small skeleton huddled inside one of them, X sighed heavily, before making his way over to a large metal box. It might’ve been taller than him if it wasn’t tipped over on its side, with an assortment of power cords snaking out from an outlet on the back of it. Seeing a small handle on the front, X tugged on it, the slight rust giving way to superior strength.

However, X’s eyes went wide with shock, which changed to glee.

“Hey, look what I’ve found!” X called out to K.

K’s head whipped up, staring at the prize that X was brandishing. “You found- what is that?”

If the two had any idea what warm food was, they would’ve recognized the lumpy frozen good that X had in his hands as a perfectly preserved rotisserie chicken. If they had any sort of reheating device, and if they had proper taste buds, they might have been able to enjoy the sweet experience of a Thanksgiving dinner. However, they were ignorant robots who were about as smart as a middle schooler, so the only reaction that they, or at least one of them had, was confusion.

“I dunno, but it says chicken on the side!” X proudly exclaimed.

“What’s chicken?” K questioned.

“I’m . . . not sure . . . but I’m pretty sure it's food.” X’s LED eyebrows furrowed in thought.

“How do you know that?” K asked.

“Uh, I don't?” X seemed more confused than ecstatic now.

K shook her head. “Did you find anything useful?”

“Well I found this clear thing, but it only says something called ‘Dasani’ on the side.” X held up a clear plastic bottle, putting his finger in quotation marks when he said it.

“Give me that!” K dashed across the room, snatching the item out of X’s hands.

“Wha- hey!” X tried to grab at it, but K held it out of his reach.

“Back up!” K swatted X in the face, inciting a squawk of surprise.

“I found it first, give it back!” X shot back, tackling K, causing the bottle to roll across the ground.

The two began slugging at each other, scrabbling across the ground for dominance over a goddamn bottle, like a gang of the aforementioned middle schoolers. Nearly crushing the contested item multiple times, the two spent a good thirty seconds duking it out. And after K finally managed to curl into a ball around the bottle, X tried to no avail to recapture his former possession.

“You motherfu-” X was cut off by a noise from the door that led deeper into the building

The two highly professional disassembly drones shot to their feet, their gazes snapping to the origin of the sound. Standing there was a figure, about the same height as K and X, with familiar black plating and armor, kneeling down to grab a small blue marble that was on the floor. It appears as though the idiot had been trying to be sneaky to avoid capturing the attention of the killer robots, which clearly didn’t go as planned.

“Uh, hi.” The drone said after a moment of silence.

Even more silence.

The military drone took that as a cue to scoop up the marble, before dashing out of the room.

K and X instantly took chase, with K pocketing the small bottle for later. The military drone wasn’t quite fast, but it did make use of its head start well. The unnamed drone disappeared behind the corner, with the pair of disassembly drones right on his heels. However, when K turned around the edge, a bullet tore through the air, finding its home in her head. Completely unprepared, she fell to the ground.

X, contrary to what some might do, didn’t stop to assist her, instead just simply vaulting over her body, speeding onward. He was rapidly closing the distance between him and the military drone, when his prey suddenly whipped around with a pistol in its hand. X, unlike his comrade, was prepared for this inevitability, turning to the side and out of the path of the trio of bullets as they flew by him. X followed up on this by diving down onto the hapless drone, trying to skewer it on gleaming metal claws.

The drone didn’t have a chance to fight, but unknown to X, he did have time to press the small panic button on its jawline, or where the jawline would be if it was a human. If anyone on this planet was familiar with standard police or even military practice, they would recognize the small button as the useful yet annoying panic button.

For a bit of context, the panic button is usually represented as a small and easy-to-access device that, when activated, sends out an emergency distress signal that would notify the proper authorities of the panic button’s location and a dire situation. The panic button is common in the military, police personnel, elderly homes, schools, corporate buildings, apartment buildings, and basically everywhere else that isn’t a ghetto.

The drone, however, proved to be much smarter than his predecessors, much to the dismay of X. It dove to the side, dropping down and through a weakened rusty grate. As X’s claws scraped against the wall, the fleeing drone tossed a metal panel that was blocking the way out to his side, before dashing through the door. X jumped down to the lower floor, before continuing his chase.

A flurry of bullets ripped towards him, but X brought his arm up, letting his forearm absorb the projectiles that hit, and most missed. The drone ran down a comically long flight of stairs, taking three steps at a time. The stairs continued downward, eventually opening up to a basement with a gaping hole in the wall, which led straight into darkness. The drone nearly fell into the hole from the momentum of jumping down the stairs. But, it just managed to skid to a stop at the edge.

X landed at the foot of the stairs, crouching to absorb the impact. X’s gaze focused on the drone that was pointing the pistol at X, sights drawing a solid bead on his head. However, when it pulled the trigger, it was only met with a slight clicking sound. The drone gaze jerked down to the pistol, then straight back up to X, who was now diving towards it, claws outstretched.

The drone jumped backwards, losing his balance. Its foot slipped off the edge, and while the sudden space between it and X saved its life for the time being, it did have to contend with gravity, which was now pulling on the drone by a considerable amount.

X watched as the drone tumbled down the pit, hitting the sides. However, the sides of the pit were both sloped and slick with a thin sheet of ice, causing the drone to slide down to the bottom. The drone slammed against a large rusty metal pipe, which was a solid indicator of the pit’s identity as a sewer.

The drone scrambled to its feet, caving the skull in of a skeleton that appeared to have been a former inspector when one took into account the corpse’s clipboard and tattered clothes. X slammed down onto the large pipe, causing it to resonate like a gong. The drone snatched up a small length of rusty metal rebar that had impaled itself on the ground, the edge of the steel surprisingly sharp. The drone adopted a fighting stance, pointing the business end towards X.

The robotic predator didn’t care, however, just simply stabbing his prey with his own pointy stick, the sharp end of his nanite acid tail. The sharp tool stuck itself in the drone’s shoulder, causing it to drop the bar and curse. X took the opportunity to grip the drone by the head, while digging the claws of his other hand in its chest. X then looked into the opaque black visor of the military drone, before pulling in two opposite directions.

The effects were made known quickly, with the head of the military drone migrating away from its home connected to the body. Oil splashed down onto X, who took the opportunity to feed. X dropped the head, letting it hit the ground with a clang, dropping the body as well.

X stood over the fallen corpse, claws gleaming with oil. K landed next to him, retracting her wings.

“So you got it?” K asked.

“No I didn’t, he got away. This body right here is just a random pigeon, and you’re just hallucinating.” X replied sarcastically. “Also, how the hell did you get here so fast?”

K rolled her eyes. “Oh, be quiet. I’m just making sure, because knowing you, you would probably let him go for the funny.” She ignored his latter question.

“Well now that you mention it . . .” X looked sorrowfully at the body.

K punched him in the arm. “Whatever, we gotta go. I seriously doubt that he was alone-”

She was cut off yet again by a loud crash that originated from the hole up on the wall. The duo whipped around, only to see several guns pointed straight at them.

“Sup.” X nodded at the intruders.

* * *

The sound of conversation could be audibly heard from the lit tent.

The tent had been designated as the de facto headquarters for the former facility personnel, with a smaller offshoot serving as a meeting room for the leadership. The offshoot tent in question was currently being used for its purpose, with an emergency meeting being called. Not because of the discovery of a dead body, but for a different matter entirely.

“Can anyone at least tell me how this happened?” The Lead Engineer leaned on the table.

One of the data officers stepped forward. “We believe that when we were evacuating the facility, an error occurred that declassified the file.” They answered.

“An error did this.” The General wasn’t convinced.

“Well, yes. The computers had been degrading for a while now, and we had noticed that several of our autonomous programs were misbehaving, or just outright not working at all.” The data officer replied.

“And we did nothing about this?” The General glared at the trio of data officers that had joined them.

“We actually were doing all we could, but we didn’t have the materials to make a complete fix.” The Lead Engineer interjected.

“Why didn’t you tell me then!?” The General exclaimed.

“I did. You probably just forgot again.” The Lead Engineer suggested.

“What? I have the best memory here.” The General puffed out his chest proudly.

“Alright then, what were we just talking about?” The Lead Engineer inquired.

The General frowned. “We were talking?”

The Lead Engineer facepalmed. “Goddamn idiot.”

One of the data officers stepped up. “Uh, sir? There is still the matter of the ones who discovered the information.”

“Oh yeah, uh, dump them off the eastern bridge.” The Lead Engineer waved off the issue.

With a simple nod, the data officers left, accompanied by a few guards as well. The Lead Engineer sat back in his chair, before steepling his fingers on the desk. He looked back and forth between the assembled leadership, before the General spoke up.

“So, are we gonna continue or what?” He crossed his arms.

“Yes, sorry.” The Lead Engineer motioned to one of his ministers. “You take the lead, Kane.”

Kane got up, walking to the front of the tent, dragging a projector on a cart with him. When he arrived, he pulled down the white screen, securing the hook on a latch on the bottom. He then adjusted the cart, facing the lens towards the screen. He then attached a laptop to the projector, pressing a few buttons and fiddling with a few switches, cursing once. Finally, the projector flickered to life, shining an image onto the screen.

Kane cleared his throat. “Ahem, so. What you are seeing here is the first page of the document in question. As you can see here, it appears to be warning against a drone viewing whatever the contents of this file is.” Kane flicked to the next slide. “It continues to vehemently express this multiple times, not really differing in its warning at all.”

One of the military ministers, Alicia, raised her hand. “Uh, question?”

Kane paused. “What is it?”

“Its warning against drones? She asked.

“Yes, it is. I’ll explain this later on, so save your questions for the end please.” Kane looked back to the projection, skipping through the slides until he landed on the first one without a warning.

“Ah, here we go. So, as you can see here, this appears to be a logo for JCJenson-'' Kane was interrupted by a faint, “In Spaaaaacee!” from an unknown source. “Uh, anyway, as all of you know, JCJenson was the company that owned this planet, and the one that provided the drones that the government were using in their facility, which was us.” Kane flicked to the next slide.

“Here we can see a title for a project, along with several bits of accompanying information, like locations, associates, page number, references, you get the picture.” Kane then produced a long ruler from what seemed like thin air, before pointing the end at one of the words. “Pay attention to this one here ‘AbsoSolv’ as it’ll come up several times later on.” Going to the next slide, Kane cleared his throat yet again.

“This page is more confusing, as it appears to be mentioning several unit serial numbers that don’t match up with standard format, which are mixed in with several other ones that are in different format, like this one here,” Kane pointed his stick at a random one from the line. “This one says, S-010011X01, which I believe has a main identifying letter instead of a string of numbers based on time of construction. The answer to this is likely that our government's way of identifying drones is different from JCJenson.”

“Additionally, while some of these feature the normal serial numbers that worker drones use, they have another identifier after it, separated by a dash.” Kane flipped to the next slide.

“This one is more straightforward, as it appears to be featuring a set of technical designs of a modified worker drone with the serial number and other associated information listed at the top. The notes on the side are observations on the modifications that can be seen in the designs. Some of the original worker drone parts can be seen, but a majority of the inner and outer mass seem to have been altered or replaced with a substance that is described as ‘fleshy’. You can see at the very bottom a signature of an unknown human administrator, and a notice that marks the drone for ‘disassembly’ as an addendum can be seen that marks whatever this is as a failure, and a recommendation to request more data from their source.”

Kane took a breath, before going to the next slide. “This is essentially the same as the last one, and this continues for a few slides. Nothing of note can be found in them, save for a few different serial numbers that were listed in one of the prior slides.”

Kane flicked to the next slide. “This one has two addendums, which I will say in a moment. The image is different as well, with noticeably less random mutations and more of a form taking place. This one was supposedly much more successful than the others, and while it was still marked as a failure, the first addendum said that the team working on the project should strip the data from the drone in as best a condition as they could. The second one simply noted they were naming the specific strain of code they were using to ‘Absolute Solver’. The addendum does not mention any reason or motive behind the name, only noting the fact that their shareholders would be pleased.”

“The next one is the first apparent success in the line of experiments that JCJenson seemed to be doing. A single growth can be seen protruding from the back of the spinal transmitter, and several other growths have sprouted inside. However, it is noted that the drone survived the process, and remained somewhat coherent for a period of time afterwards, which seems to be an outlier when considering the others. There isn’t an addendum on this one, only a request from the team for more extensive data from their source to compare to this experiment.”

“This trend continues for a good while, so I’ll just summarize the important bits for all of you.” Kane stated. “Each version continued to show more and more productive attributes and traits, as is par the standard course. Throughout the notes, requests, and addendums, whoever was typing up the document repeatedly noted some things that I will review later, such as Absolute Solver, the ‘source’, Camp 98.7, Cabin Fever Labs, and disassembly drones.”

Kane flicked to the final slide. “This is the final page, with some items to note. It appears to be a reiteration of the specifics of the agreement between the government and JCJenson, with a few additional key things. It includes the standard formalities and the usual junk that we all know, but something else as well. When mentioning the exchange of data that came from the asset-” Kane paused as the room underwent an uncomfortable shuffle in their seats. “They mention a clear correlation between this project that JCJenson is, or was, working on, and the asset. They also instructed the government contacts that any unauthorized personnel, which included government agents, were now barred from entering Camp 98.7 due to ‘hazardous environmental conditions’ and that this was nonnegotiable.”

Kane turned away from the projector, clasping his hands in front of himself. “And now to explain.”

“From what me and the team I assigned could gather, we deduced the meanings and purposes behind several items that were mentioned in this file. The first and most obvious, the ‘source’ that is mentioned. They are receiving data from this source, which seems to be essential to the development of what they were working on. Based on their words, we figured that the source is likely the asset, and yes, the same asset that we are all familiar with.” Kane paused, seemingly to let his words sink in.

“Continuing on, we began to dissect what Camp 98.7 was. It was very clearly a location of sorts, but where it was and what it was used for was more complicated. While we never arrived at a solid conclusion, we believed that the most likely avenue was that Camp 98.7 might have been an outpost of sorts, perhaps used in conjunction with these Cabin Fever Labs.”

“On the matter of the Cabin Fever Labs, we can clearly assume that research and development of this Absolute Solver was being conducted there, and perhaps Camp 98.7 was a sort of staging ground or other type of location related to the lab. We believe that the location of one or both of these sites are hidden within another file.”

“And perhaps the most intriguing and complex matter of them all, Absolute Solver. We figured that it was likely that this Absolute Solver was instrumental in whatever experiments they were doing, or even being one of the subjects of the experiments themselves. From what we gather, Absolute Solver is something, maybe a piece of alien machinery, some sort of unknown lifeform, an experimental strain of cutting-edge code, one of those things, but whatever it is, it is not something that is ‘normal’. It appears to have a unique effect on those it hosts or comes into contact with, rapidly generating new organic material, with sometimes uncontrolled effects. While the file only shows the experiments that used drones, we don’t know if any humans or other organic lifeforms were included either. Likely not, considering the legality of the situation, but it's open to discussion.”

Kane took a large breath, before continuing.

“And finally, the disassembly drones. They seem simple, but my team believed it to be heavily related to our current situation. They aren’t mentioned very often, but they appear to be a direct result of their experiments or related to one. From what we could gather, they are meant to, well, disassemble. Drones on par with military-grade ones that are capable of a variety of things, like bullet fire, rocket launching, melee combat, flight, digital warfare, and regeneration.” Kane watched as his words dawned upon his audience, expressions filling with shock.

“Yes, those drones. The disassembly drones that we read about are likely some variant of the unknown assailants that attacked the facility, and stole the asset in the process.”

The General sputtered. “B-but that would be a severe political incident! If those drones were under the command of JCJenson, and they stole GOVERNMENT property, then they would be liable for retaliation!”

Kane tried to calm the room. “Now, hold on, I’m not done-”

The Lead Engineer also appeared to be shocked. “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier!?”

“You told me to wait for the meeting!” Kane exclaimed.

The room erupted into disarray.

“We need to mobilize, hunt down those damn traitors!”

“What's their last known location!?”

“Where is the nearest transmitter, send out a request for retaliatory action!”

Suddenly, a drone burst into the room, knocking over the projector cart in the process. Everyone turned to look at him, ceasing the chaos for a moment.

“Er, uh, sirs?” The drone asked.

“Yes?” The General and the Lead Engineer stood up at the same time.

“I, uh,” The drone looked back and forth between the two administrators. “Well, we received a panic signal from one of our scouts.”

The General scoffed. “Why would that be enough to warrant our intervention? He probably just tripped on a conveniently placed banana peel.”

The messenger fidgeted nervously. “Well, his partner reported moments before the signal came in that he heard gunshots.”

The administrative drones shared a collective uneasy look.

“What did you do?” The General asked slowly.

“The officers who received the signal first sent in two of the patrol squads that were nearby at the time.” The messenger answered.

The drones in assembly all either looked down in disappointment or facepalmed.

The General spoke up after a moment. “Send in a squad as fast as you can to their last known location. Only our very best, and outfit them with heavy weaponry and explosive ordnance.” The General paused, before adding an afterthought. “And give them some cutting equipment too.”

The messenger blinked in surprise. “Wait, sir, are you sure-”

“Just tell the officers already!” The General slammed his fist down onto the cheap plastic table, which formed a crack.

The messenger saluted quickly, before dashing out of the room.

The Lead Engineer took a cursory look at the assembled drones, before he sighed.

“We’re screwed.”

* * *

“Are you going back anytime soon?”

Jacob looked back at his unwanted companion.

“No.” He answered simply, before resuming his casual trot.

“We’re getting too far away from the spire, and the sun is coming up in an hour or two. I for one don’t want to get caught out.” A insisted.

“Well I don’t die from a bit of sunlight, so too bad.” Jacob stepped over a tire rim.

“I’m not sure that’s your choice.” A stated.

Jacob paused and looked backward. “Oh, so you’re bossing me around now?”

“Maybe, if you keep on making dumb decisions like this.” A stopped as well.

“Pff, I’ll be fine.” Jacob waved his hand in the air to emphasize his point.

“You won’t last ten minutes.” A dead-panned.

“Nah, I’ll speedrun this stuff, I’ll be off-planet in an hour.” Jacob proudly said.

A shook his head and sighed. “Whatever you say.”

Jacob didn’t answer.

Jacob then looked around. “Wait, where are we? I wasn’t keeping track.”

“And you said that you would- whatever, we’re like, three miles away from the base.” A replied.

“Huh, went that far?” Jacob asked.

A frowned. “Three miles isn’t that far-”

A was interrupted by a rather loud crack that resonated through the landscape.

Jacob blinked. “Uh, ok then-”

Jacob was also interrupted by a trio of cracks and bangs, sounding slightly familiar.

“Are those-” Jacob was, yet again, interrupted by even more bangs.

“-gunshots?” He finished.

“I wouldn’t worry, those idiots are probably either messing around, or they found a worker drone to kill.” A nonchalantly answered.

“Shouldn’t we go check it out though?” Jacob inquired.

“It isn’t a problem.” A said, annoyed.

“Well it would give me something to do.” Jacob insisted.

A checked the time, before looking at the horizon for signs of sunlight.

“Eh, fine. Wouldn’t hurt, I guess.” A shrugged.

“Nice.” Jacob grinned underneath his ballistic visor.

* * *

K sliced through the head of the last desperate drone, before spitting out a bullet.

“You done?” K called out to X.

“Yeah, I guess. By the way, do you still have my Dasani thing?” X looked at K hopefully.

“Yes, I do. And besides, it isn’t yours, it's for Jacob.” K answered.

“What? Why is he getting it? Why not me?” X exclaimed.

“Because it's water, idiot. An uncontaminated source, like A told us, remember?” K glared at X.

“I guess, but that's water?” X asked.

“Yes, it is. It matches the description.” K replied

“Description?” X questioned.

“Yeah, the description. You know what description means, right?” K seemed even more annoyed.

“I know what it means.” X snapped. “But how do you know what water looks like?”

K just shrugged, before turning towards the exit.

“Come on, we gotta get back soon.” She flew upwards, landing on the ledge.

X followed suit, tracing their steps back through the building. X looked back up at the rusty grate that the drone had fallen through, which he now identified as being part of a weirdly placed catwalk. Scanning the environment, X found that the only entrance to the small alcove would be the hole in the catwalk. The basement that the small room was connected to didn’t have an entrance either, only having the gaping hole in the side of the room, which likely wasn't intended. That would mean that a person would have to chop through the sewer wall to get into the basement and adjoining alcove, or jump off the catwalk. Both of those options didn’t make any sort of sense at all. In fact, the catwalk wasn’t even needed, someone could have just removed the entire basement-and-alcove plan entirely, which also removed the necessity for a catwalk. All in all, whoever designed the building was either high off of some crazy drugs, an idiot, or both.

But, none of these thoughts went through X’s head, as he was only thinking about the devastating loss of his cool plastic bottle.

K hefted herself up onto the rusty catwalk, with X following close behind. K went through the doorway, only for a rather eventful event to stop her momentarily.

A rocket screamed through the air, smacking K straight in the chest. The resulting explosion blew X backwards and K apart, with oil splashing onto the ground in the process. With a clatter, X hit the ground, slightly dazed. He looked to his left to see what looked like the arm of K, twitching slightly. X tried to get up, only to fall again, after he put his weight on a hand that wasn’t there.

X, seeing the failure of Operation: GTFU, adjusted his position so that he could get up with his other hand only, which was thankfully still there. Investigating his left arm, he could see that everything down from the elbow had been separated from himself in the blast. He didn’t have time to look for it or go get it, so he simply let the matter go.

Standing up, X stared through the smoke, before diving back down onto the ground when another rocket came streaking past him. It scratched his face, sending small sparks up, before heading down the other hallway. X pointed his own rocket launcher into the fog, before firing off a flurry of shots. He heard explosions, but wasn’t rewarded with screams or grunts of pain. Problematic, to say the least.

X took the opportunity to kick K’s assorted dismembered body parts down into the lower alcove, where she should eventually reassemble herself. She was really taking a beating recently, and she would probably be frustrated about that when X was all done, but that wasn’t his problem-

X nearly met the same fate as K when another rocket flew from the open doorway, the fog starting to clear up. X jumped up and over the RPG, letting it fly into the unexplored depths of the building. He couldn’t do this dance forever, so he made the executive decision to charge into the unknown.

* * *

The squad waited impatiently outside of the building.

They usually consisted of nine drones, all outfitted with their own personal preferred tools. They were experts of the trade, having fought in one of the two uprisings in the facility. They weren’t your typical squad, and were much more close knit than all the others. They also were unique in their own way, all kitted out for different operations. They were professionals, and for those who were alive during the uprisings, they would fear them as well.

Having many successful operations under their belt, the leadership considered them an apt choice for the euthanization of their opposition, or at least to delay them long enough for the cavalry to arrive. And while the leadership themselves weren’t willing to bet more than a few of their personal belongings on the fact, the squad in question felt otherwise.

“So, are we sure that this is the place?” One of them asked.

“Yes, and pay attention. You don’t want to fire that thing at the wrong time, right?” Another replied.

The first drone was currently holding a large heavy-duty rocket launcher on his shoulder, with the business end drooping towards the ground.

“Pffff, it's fine, I can react quick enough.” The RPG drone took one of his hands off the barrel to wave his hand in the air, blowing off the issue.

“Quiet down, they could come through any second.” A third drone interjected. “And yes, keep that aimed at the door.”

The chatter dropped down to silence, and the only thing that could be heard was the creaking of strained metal and the howling of icy wind.

“So uh, what happened to the patrol that was sent here before us?” A fourth drone inquired.

“Hell if I know. They’re probably dead.” RPG drone helpfully suggested.

“Really? Come on man, be optimistic. With a defeatist attitude like that we’ll drop within a few seconds of engagement.” A fifth drone replied.

“I mean, he has a point. Considering how all the others fared when they came face to face with these things, his assumption is probably correct.” A seventh drone interjected.

“Oh, so now we're ALL talking, huh? Yeah, just ignore your leader.” The third drone, now identified as the leader, said.

“They can’t hear us anyway, we’re talking on comms, so what's the problem?” RPG drone questioned.

“You’re gonna be distracted when they come through that door, so just be quiet now.” The leading drone scolded.

“Yeah, I know, doesn’t mean I have to like it though.” RPG drone grumbled.

“Pff, whatever, so-” The fourth drone began.

The group was interrupted by the familiar screaming of a fast-moving rocket-propelled explosive projectile shooting through the air, flying towards the doorway. The building shuddered, and dust rained down on their heads as the rocket met its target and exploded.

“What the heck man!?” The second drone exclaimed.

“They’re right there, idiot! Shoot, another one!” The RPG drone loaded a second rocket into the launcher, before firing a second time.

The other drone wielding an RPG sighted down the barrel. “It's full of smoke, I can’t see!”

“Blind fire, the hallway is too narrow to effectively dodge!” The leader shouted.

RPG drone Two obliged, sending a little gift on its merry way to deliver explosive joy all around. The team listened as the rocket shook the building a third time, a moment before a flurry of projectiles came hurtling out of the clearing smoke.

“Hit the deck!” The leader shouted, the team dropping to the ground even before he gave the order.

The rockets passed harmlessly into what looked like a load-bearing wall, sending more dust and rocks from the ceiling.

“Fire another!” The leader ordered his men.

RPG drone One, like a good soldier, followed orders, slamming another rocket into its receptacle before practically hip-firing it into the hallway.

The leader could barely make out a figure ducking down to avoid the rocket, before shooting back up to its feet and running forward.

“Guns ready!” He cried out, right before all hell broke loose.

* * *

“Anyway, what do you think they’ll be doing there?” Jacob inquired.

“Eh, probably tearing each other apart over something stupid.” A replied with a roll of his eyes.

“I take it that they do that often?” Jacob dryly asked.

“Always, they never stop. They’re like children, honestly. All X wants to do is find the next exciting thing that’ll satisfy him for a few minutes. He hardly ever follows orders, and he has no concept of patience. K is the complete opposite, a stickler for rules and the hierarchy. If there was a handbook, she would be able to recite the thing front to back” A scoffed. “Meek as well. She just says, ‘Yes sir’ and, ‘Sorry sir’ it's so goddamn annoying.”

Jacob nodded along, having tuned out his small rant about three words in.

A sighed. “Sometimes I feel like I got what was at the very bottom of the barrel, the things that nobody wanted. One would think that having me around to balance out the two extremes of their personalities would work out well, but that's the thing. K and X are TOO extreme. They’re solar opposites, and unlike with white and black, they don’t compliment each other. They constantly clash, and it's like trying to prevent two industrial electromagnets from connecting with each other; it's a losing battle.”

Jacob opened up his mouth to acknowledge his statement, but reiterate that no one had even asked for his take on it, right when a massive boom resonated from below them.

The pair’s heads shot down to look at the nondescript building that the sound had emanated from.

“Oh great. They started bombing each other. Hold on.” A didn’t wait for a reply before he took a sudden nosedive.

Jacob let out a small grunt of surprise, before clinging on for dear life as the air wooshed past him. A dove faster than an honor-bound Imperial pilot after they ran out of ammo and had seen an undefended carrier just ripe for the picking. If Jacob had any sort of device that could play songs, he would be playing a certain track made by a certain aerial smith that played when a certain godslayer leapt from the cliffs. But, he didn’t have anything of the sort, so Jacob could only dream on.

They hit the ground with a thud, with A bracing his legs for the impact. They had landed right outside of a building, one that looked just like all the others, with the sole exception of the familiar scuffles of battle emanating from inside, with the occasional burst of light that accompanied a series of pops and cracks.

Jacob jumped down, landing on unsteady feet. Luckily, the suit appeared to keep his sleeping legs from buckling, so to the outside eye, he would be no more shaky than a sheet of ice on Pluto. Jacob wondered if Pluto was now considered a planet. The experts kept changing their minds on its classification, and he had just never kept up with the current one, as it wasn’t really that important to him.

Actually, Jacob wondered what the solar system looked like. Not the one he was currently in, but the one that Earth occupied, the . . . well, he didn’t know what it was called, really. Everyone just called it ‘The Solar System’ as if it was the only one in existence. That would be like calling New York ‘The City’ and that would be the official designation. It didn’t make any sense. He was pretty sure that their home sun was called Sol, but everybody back in his time just called it the Sun. It just spoke of laziness. After all, they called the solar system that was closest to them Alpha Centauri, so why didn’t the more important one, the one they all occupied, have a name? Damn humans, there was a reason why they should’ve all died years ago. In fact, perhaps he could assist that goal. Come on, you know you want to-

Jacob supposed that they could have called it the Sol System, but that just sounded like the original but even more simplified. It would be like those big corporations that always liked to simplify their logo when it was fine the way it was before. The whole debacle was just a big confusing mess that nobody really liked, but was too miniscule to do anything about it. Humans tended to do that, dumbing things down to such an extent where someone had to be practically be fed content just to keep their attention on something. Damn tikking tok.

Jacob looked towards the small opening in the structure's wall, where movement could be seen. However, it was too dark inside to be able to make out any specific figures or forms. He looked towards A, who was staring at him impatiently.

“You really have a problem with getting lost in thought. Get moving.” A did a half revolution, already walking towards the opening.

Jacob joined A, speed walking to his side. “Lost in thought? Hell do you mean by that?”

“You just stood there for ten seconds, not doing anything. From what I’ve heard, that tends to mean you’re thinking about something.” A crossed his arms.

“And where did you hear that?” Jacob probed.

“Around.” A noncommittally answered.

Jacob opened his mouth to reply, but they then crossed the threshold, entering the building.

Jacob earlier, going off of A’s statement, had assumed that X and K had likely gotten into an argument, which evolved into a full-blown battle. Supposedly, this happened often, though Jacob hadn’t really observed that rivalry, it being limited to small-scale bickering. However, while the scene before was a fight and did include one of the aforementioned drones, it wasn’t a fight between K and X.

A group of maybe ten of those drones from the facility were scattered throughout the rubble-strewn room, all moving around a surrounded X. They peppered him with bullets from all sides, causing him to basically turn into a mechanical turtle, using his wings as shields to protect him from the hellfire. They staggered their shots as well, instead of unloading on him, all synchronized. This made it so that the rain of lead never stopped. Are bullets still made out of lead? Jacob would have to check later. They didn’t just press down on the trigger and let business take care of itself either, as that would expend the magazine far too quickly. It seemed like they were taking more focused shots, firing one shot per second instead of a billion per second. And, one of them was even aiming what looked to be some version of a rocket launcher at X.

Jacob looked to his foot to see a stray bullet kick up a pile of dust at his feet, with a pebble pinging off of his armor. With all the violence currently going on, he did the only rational thing that anyone else in their sane mind would do.

“Sup.” Jacob called out.

As if a switch was flipped, everything froze. The collected facility drones all shot to the origin of his voice, which was obviously him. Even X peeked out from his little cocoon to look at Jacob. A glared down at Jacob in shock and rage, likely due to the potential element of surprise being ruined. However, Jacob did note that something odd was happening. As A opened his mouth to yell at him, it went in slow-motion. He had heard of people seeing the world slow down while they were experiencing something dangerous or life-threatening, but Jacob didn’t really feel any of that. While his heart was pumping fast and he felt the telltale light-headedness of a burst of adrenaline, nothing was really threatening him. Yes, bullets were flying and one nearly hit him, but he never felt in danger. If anything, he only felt curious, and maybe slightly surprised. How interesting. He even took the opportunity to count the exact number of the facility drones that were currently staring straight at him, which turned out to be nine.

But then, as soon as he moved his arm, time resumed to its normal pace, and one of the facility drones pointed a metallic finger straight at him, which Jacob found rather rude.

“IT'S THE ASSET!” They yelled.

And then all hell broke loose. Again.

The rocket launcher fired its shot, but the momentary distraction was all X needed to get out of the path of the destructive projectile. It flew past him, just barely missing his head in the process. It impacted against the opposite wall, which vaporized a drone along with it. Since Jacob had counted the number of the facility drone earlier, that should have brought the count down to eight.

X unfurled his wings, launching himself across the room to impale his claws on the RPG drone. While they tried to move, they were no match for the disassembly drone. The rocket launcher clattered to the ground as the drone’s screen flickered off, displaying a “Fatal Error” screen of death. Some of the facility drones aimed their collective weapons at X, and some at A, but none of them were prepared for the second surprise.

K burst through the doorway, guns blazing. Not literally of course, as the lower caliber of the bullets on their submachine-guns were too low to pierce the armor. What she did do was decapitate one while tossing another aside, bringing the total count down to six. In just two seconds, a third of the squad’s numbers were lost. Not a very good ratio for them, if you were to ask anyone except for Stalin.

A decided to join in on the fun as well it seemed, aiming one of the aforementioned SMGs at one of their opponents, before sending a flurry of wasted bullets that pinged off the armor of the facility drones.

Jacob, meanwhile, was contemplating his next course of action. While one might think the proper avenue would be to just do what everyone else was doing and unleash his relatively measly firepower on the facility drones, it was more complicated than that. From what he could tell, the facility drones were technically on his side, with them probably being government property just like him, and they seemed to want to protect him. They clearly tried their best to keep him from being captured by an enemy that just blitzed through their entire force of soldiers, so he had to give them credit for that at least.

However, the disassembly drones seemed to want the same things, since they had gone the extra mile to capture him from the previously mentioned oh-so-loyal facility drones. And so, it came down to everyone's favorite game, pros and cons.

The first positive note was one that both sides possessed; a desire to keep him safe. While the fact could be debated on the side of the disassembly drones, Jacob believed that the case was settled until information could be presented that discredited this pro. Safety was more difficult, as while the facility personnel likely had numerous guards to safeguard him, but K, X, and A seemed to be even better than the facility in terms of combative roles, a fact that was proven by the near-complete annihilation of the facility forces.

However, a shady company with unknown intentions and what they might do to Jacob if they ever got their hands on him isn’t really ideal. He already knew what the government wanted, which was to get all kinds of data from a not-a-tumor that was growing increasingly suspicious, and while the possibility of death was possible, Jacob would prefer to be with the devil he knew than the devil he didn’t. But then again, he might be willing to take a gamble with JCJenson to avoid the uncertain possibility of death with another.

All things considered, he didn’t know what to choose. The pros and cons could change, and their weight wasn’t certain either. He was torn between the government or the company, as they really held both the same pros and cons.

So, with little more to do, Jacob made the other only rational decision that anyone in their sane mind would make when faced with the same scenario. He stood back and watched the world- well, more like the building, burn.

The drones had lost yet another man, nearly cutting the squad down to half. They didn’t have any men left that held a rocket launcher, and were being backed up into a corner on the left-hand side of the room. The battle had most definitely turned in the favor of the disassembly drones, and it seemed like the battle was sure to be won. Speaking of the battle, it had only been going on for about ten seconds, which spoke of how quick real battles really went in reality. But then, they did something unexpected.

The facility drones, or rather, the military drones as he should call these ones, all unclipped some sort of device that was hanging from their waist. Jacob had assumed it to be some sort of sidearm or another random gizmo, but it instead turned out to be nothing of the sort.

They held the devices out by their handles, pressing small triggers on the handle. This caused a large, triangular, glowing beam of plasma to shoot up from the emitter. The blade was about two-thirds of a foot wide, and a foot-and-a-half long. The mere presence of the blade caused the very air around it to vaporize and sizzle, making it seem like the sabers of light from Jacob’s time of media.

He wondered for a moment why they had the plasma cutters, but then realized that the facility drones must have realized that bullets would be largely ineffective, with exceptions to headshots, due to their rapid regeneration. So, whoever was in charge must have concluded that either annihilating a large portion of their mass in a single shot or dismembering them would’ve been the best route to go. Jacob didn’t agree or disagree with this notion, as he had yet to see the disassembly drones full combative abilities. While he could theorize based on what he had heard, he didn’t make any assumptions just yet. But, it seemed like now was a great time to gather data.

X made the mistake of continuing onward despite the danger, opening his guard to slash at the drone on the far right. X’s potential victim saw it coming, however, leaning to the side and bringing his blade down on X’s exposed arm. The plasma blade went down and through X’s left arm, slicing the appendage off at the elbow. X reeled backward, clutching the stump, before glaring at the one who gave him the wound.

However, there was a simple fix to this. A rolled his eyes, before aiming a missile launcher straight at the center of the group. He didn’t squeeze the trigger, probably because the missile launcher was part of his arm and it had no trigger. Nonetheless, the launcher coughed up its payload, sending it hurtling into the wall that the military drones were backing up to. Seeing this, they dodged, tackling each other to the ground in an effort to escape the blast.

While they did manage to evade the brunt of the explosion, one didn’t fare too well afterward. K and X went for the same guy, double-teaming him in a way that would’ve made the man quit the match, and Call of Duty forever. The drone didn’t stand a chance, being quadrisected twice over. Would that mean he was octosected? Is that even a word? No, I just checked, it isn’t, but why? You have bisected, trisected, quadrisected, and hemisected, which is basically just bisected, so why not octosected? It makes sense, at least in my opinion. Wait, now I gotta know, how many of these are there? Alright, so it seems to stop at quadrisect, and there isn’t a quintisect, so I guess that would be it.

Man, that's annoying.

Anyway, the drone was cut into eight pieces, which would satisfy even Gordon Ramsay with the knifework, or rather sword work, so maybe it would be Raiden instead. However, the two didn’t account for the other going after the same target, so the pair ended up tangling themselves in a heap of metal limbs. A tirade of cursing could be heard from the heap, but violence didn’t stop for anyone.

Cursing himself, A leapt into the fray to stop the retreating remnants of the squad, leaping over K and X, which looked like the game's code had decided to just not work, clipping the two objects together. A was cut short by one of the military drones turning on their heel, before diving straight onto A’s outstretched claws. Surprising him, A didn’t notice the trio grenades that were in the military drone’s hands, and the fact that all the pins were pulled.

With a resonating blast, A’s entire left arm was turned into something akin to shredded paper, with his head perforated with holes that would likely close in a few moments. The drone had died, but had completed its objective, that being to delay the squad long enough to escape. With all three disassembly drones incapacitated for a short amount of time, the squad turned their attention towards the only one left standing.

Jacob blinked as the three remaining military drones dashed up to him, before one of them pointed the business end of their large plasma cutter towards him. Jacob didn’t even have time to contemplate his life choices before they spoke.

“Come with us if you want to live.” He threatened.

Jacob simply nodded, before being grabbed by the arm and pulled along. He didn’t resist, as he figured that the drone wasn’t lying. While the government would prefer to have him alive, they would probably think him better off dead than in enemy hands, and these drones were practically extensions of the government, by his assumptions.

Jacob gave one last look towards the squad, baffled at the outcome. K and X were still arguing and trying to get themselves untangled, which was just so comical it couldn’t be real. How could these robots, being that were supposed to be so much more intelligent than humans, be so idiotic at the same time? A was taking longer to regenerate than Jacob had thought he would, which was something to keep in mind for the next time he needed this information. All in all, it seemed like Jacob was going to be continuously fought over like a Capture the Flag game, and he was the only flag they had. Sooner or later, whether it was intentional or not, Jacob would be killed, probably in the crossfire considering the intelligence of these machines.

Jacob needed to get off this god-forsaken planet.

* * *

The halls were silent.

Corpses littered the ground, with oil coating every conceivable surface like it was a Steven King novel, or just a machinist shop. The telltale red warning lights of an emergency flashed above, warning absolutely nobody due to the fact that nobody was left alive to be warned of.

Well, except for two.

A groan could be heard from one of the previously thought-dead corpses, proving that it wasn’t just a corpse. A hand reached out, gripping a ledge to support themselves. They got to their feet, looking quite worse for wear. Their left arm was hanging loosely, while their right hand was missing a few fingers. A large crack ran down their facial screen, blotting out one of their silver LED eyes. They appeared to be wearing . . . something . . . but it was torn and dirtied to the point that it was pretty much just rags at this point.

They looked to their left and right, seeing all the carnage left in the wake of some sort of unknown horror. They began limping in one direction, before starting a stumbling jog. They made it about twenty steps before they were stopped right in their tracks.

They strained against the strange force, but it was no use, they were trapped. Suddenly, they were jerked to the side, turning back the way they came.

Standing there, was a figure.

They had some sort of mask over their face with a pair of dusty and cracked goggles, and a cloak ran down their shoulders. They had the hood up as well, preventing further observation.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t normal. Something was just . . . off . . . about it, but nobody could quite pin it down. Of course, the trapped drone didn’t have a chance to even think those words, as the wolf-in-sheeps-skin held up a hand. Its hand was glowing with some sort of ephemeral hologram, which depicted what looked like a hexagon with three arms extending outward, which had more shapes on the ends of them. However, they were too small to make out, and the drone didn’t have time to get closer.

With a flick of the wrist, the trapped drone’s head simply deleted itself, dissipating into what looked like thin air. Oil spurted up and out of the neck wound, splattering on contact with other surfaces. The body was let go a moment later, dropping to the ground like a ragdoll.

The creature kneeled down, picking up an arm that was just laying on the ground. It removed the bandana that was covering its mouth just enough to take a bite out of its arm.

It smiled.