[MESSAGE_STRING:ERR_{(REBOOT#3514) var_ fail.(REBOOT#3513) var_fail.(REBOOT#3512) var_fail.} . . .]

[REBOOT#3515_start . . .]

Ren gasped as her senses came flooding back in, the sheer sensory overload nearly blacking her right back out. She did a double-quadruple-octuple-starfish-flip into the air, grabbing what were hopefully several pointy objects from the area around her and sending them flying into the air surrounding her. She landed deftly on her feet, two hands raised and glowing with a crimson holographic symbol, gritting her teeth and glancing in front of her to see.

Two military drones, standing dumbly in the center of the room with her projectiles having hit everywhere but them.

“Oh.” Ren said as she lowered her hands. “Uh, my bad?”

The drone on the left seemed to be shaking in rage, with steam literally blowing out of his ears.

“MISSY DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW CLOSE WE WERE TO GETTIN’ SKEWERED BY ONE OF YOUR DARNED WITCH-THINGS I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW-”

“That I graduated top of my class in the Navy SEALS, and I’ve been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Qaeda-” A voice interrupted from behind Ren

Ren tuned out the rant, slowly turning around to find the origin of the voice. Standing there, with one hand on top of his disheveled hair and the other making overly-overt hand gestures, was the murder drone who she kept forgetting the name of.

“Please,” She began, voice wavering.

“-so you better prepare for the storm, mag- oh, were you talking to little ol’ me?” The murder-bot flashed her a toothy grin.

“Shut up.” Ren finished, a shaky breath leaving her throat.

“ . . . oh.” The disassembly drone, looking awfully sad after that, trudged over to a random corner of the room and dropped like a ragdoll. Ren could swear she heard a thump accompanied by the sounds of a heart monitor flatlining.

Ren turned back to the pair, the angrier of which met her eyes with a steely glare.

“So like, where are we?” Ren raised an eyebrow as she twirled in a full circle, taking the room in.

And that was it. It was literally just a room. One door, a few pieces of debris strewn about, no features, solid metal walls, that was it. Bland, normal room. Yep. That’s all there was to it. Just a room. Pop pop pop.

“Some sort of storage room I think.” The other soldier answered, moving a few steps towards Ren. “I don’t know what it was storing, but we figured it was a good place to wait while we waited for you two to reboot.”

“Uh-huh.” Ren side-eyed the drone before turning and stomping towards the door.

“Now hold yer horses there, pal-e-o.” The heavily-accented voice called out. “Where do you think yer goin’?”

“Gonna go find Jacob.” Ren answered without turning around.

Suddenly, a shadow draped itself over her from behind.

“Didn’t you say that, like, you and he were rivals now?” The disassembly drone, seemingly done with his tantrum, stated.

Ren cleared her throat, whipping around and adopting a defensive stance.

“Well, I guess you could say that, but necessity breeds cooperation, as the saying goes-” She began in a snooty tone.

“B-b-b-BREEDS!?” The taller drone’s jaw dropped onto the floor, eyes (despite them being LED displays) bulging out into the air and his tongue rolled out. “You, you’re SICK! A WEIRDO! You should DIE IN A FIRE! You deserve EVERYTHING THAT’S COMING TO YOU!”

Ren raised an eyebrow. “And . . . what exactly is ‘coming’ to me?”

The drone blanched, eyes blinking rapidly and mouth flapping with no words coming out.

“Y-y-y-what, w-w-w-well, uhhhhhhh . . .” The murder drone trailed off.

Ren lazily turned back around, hand gripping the small slit that served as the door’s handle.

“Well?” She called out, not bothering to face who she was talking to. “You wanna get left behind or what?”

The disassembler, to his credit, instantly snapped out of whatever stroke he was going through, confidently marching . . . through the door?

“Disable noclip.” A confident, muffled male voice came through the closed door.

Silence.

“We ain’t gonna go with a drone that don’t got no respect for authority.” The first soldier spoke up.

“W-well, let’s not be too hasty here-” The second drone stammered out.

Ren already had the door open and was stepping through it by the time the two drones started arguing over whether or not to go with the ‘crazy-robo-witch’. Too tired to use her hands, she simply slammed the door shut with a flash of crimson symbols.

Looking to her right and left, she strangely saw no sign of the dumb one. However, it was then that she heard groaning from the ground.

Looking down, she saw the disassembly drone, one of the things that had likely massacred millions, inexplicably tangled into a complicated and messy knot of limbs.

“Help.”

“No.”

* * *

“Aaaaand watch-ah!” I cried out as I front-flipped into the room.

You sound and look stupid.

“Shut up, it’s for dramatic effect!” I grinned, stepping over the mangled corpse in the way. “And besides, it’s not like there’s anybody around to hear me.”

The four raptors behind you definitely lend credence to that statement. Yep, for sure.

I rolled my eyes, letting the hanger-ons file into the room behind me. I watched as they began to sniff (despite being robots) at the various surfaces and oil stains dotted all around the floor and walls.

“Yeesh, what is this, a hospital from a zombie apocalypse?” I remarked.

Not that far off, to be honest.

My eyes landed on one of the gurneys that occupied the room alongside a long console and its accompanying spinny-chair. It was stained with splotches of oil, with straps bolted to the sides for a reason that couldn’t be more obvious.

“Nazi stuff?”

Nazi stuff.

I walked up to the most obvious facet of the entire room, which was coincidentally almost as big as a small elephant. I ran my hand along the side of the gaping hole in the wall, alighting on a lumpy piece of flesh-like material.

[CONNECTION//ERR*]

What the hell? What is that thing? Also, most importantly, DON’T FREAKING TOUCH IT YOU IDIOT!

“Don’t worry about it.” I replied, a sly grin spreading across my face despite my best efforts.

Hmm . . .

An animalistic cry brought my attention to the cabinet that Patriot (yes that is his name, got a problem?) was investigating. As I trotted over, my observations concluded that it was an oven of sorts, turned on to the point where heat waves were clearly wavering into sight around the object, and the interior was lit up with red lights.

Inside the oven, several jars filled with duplicates of what appeared to be a familiar fleshy organ were contained. Pieces of metal protruded from various areas around them, confirming my suspicions. Labels marked with names were plastered on each individual jar, which did make me raise an eyebrow.

You know something about this, don’t you?

“Ah, just some stuff I heard about in, uh, those files that I opened a little bit ago, yeah.” I muttered absentmindedly, glancing at the bucket that was off in the corner with a singular head in it that looked oddly familiar.

Nuh-uh, don’t try that with me. You’ve been hiding things from me, a lot apparently.

I rolled my eyes. “Just reeling that now, huh?”

I think this is your last chance to tell me.

“Hmm.” I grunted non-committedly, opening various drawers and the boxes that were littered around my feet. “Ah, here we go.”

I held up an oil-stained metal forearm, the black-and-yellow caution tape design still visible despite the obstructions. Opening up a small panel that was present on the side, I began to fiddle with the internal mechanisms.

What’re you doing?

“I thought you wanted to know all the dark secrets I had, right?” I taunted, grasping a slippery outcropping and pulling on it slightly.

Yes, but-

“Well, this. Is. How. You. Find. Out!” I said, emphasizing my tugs with stops in my words.

With a final yank, the bit that was jutting out gave way. The hand that was dangling limply on the end was quickly replaced by a small buzzsaw that began to whir.

I gripped the impromptu surgery device with both hands, the conical design making it slightly difficult to handle. I pointed the business end directly towards where I thought my navel was, squinting as I tried to line it up perfectly.

Wait, hold on, what’re you doing?”

“Ah, to hell with it.” I scoffed.

With further ado, I jammed the tool directly into my chest. The saw slowed down slightly when it met the hard armor plating, though it chewed right through after a moment. Blood spurted up and outwards, coating the edged circle in red.

After about three seconds, the saw became much easier to maneuver, signaling the breakthrough of the armor. I tossed the tool to the side, breathing heavily.

“Welp, here goes nothing.”

I stuffed my fingers into the crevasse in my chest that was now present, getting a secure hold on the underside of the plating. With a sigh, I began to pull at the hardened alloy. A series of sickening cracks rang out, and I felt in great detail as my ribcage split into two halves. I gritted my teeth, continuing to work on making the opening larger.

After I had about half-a-foot to work with, I stopped, watching rivulets of blood run down the black armor and onto the floor. I made a claw with my hand, reaching into my chest with what little enthusiasm I could muster. After sifting through various defunct organs, beams of veiny-electronics, and growths that probably weren’t supposed to be there, I found the pulsing mass of flesh that I had been looking for. I grasped it tightly, and began to pull.

N-now, hold on a second. I’m sure we can talk about thi-

[ERR*//HARDWARE_CRITICAL_FAILURE//]

[ERR*//adjust_start//]

[hardline|CONNECTION_TERMINATED]

With a final tug, I ripped out the fleshy core. A teal dot sprang to life on a small circular screen inset in the depths of the thing, darting around in panic. It focused on the featureless black visor that was my face to the outside world, shrinking from shock.

I hummed as I grabbed an unlabeled jar from next to me, unceremoniously dumping what I was holding into the receptacle and placing the lid back on top of it. Dipping my finger into the copious (kinda excessive) pool of blood that lay around my feet, I hastily scrawled the name “NOT JACOB” onto the small slip of tape.

After that, I opened the door to the oven, shoved the jar inside, and closed it shut.

Patriot, who had been watching the whole ordeal, hit me with a questioning mewl.

[CONNECTION_RE_ESTABLISHED]

[Surprised Expression] Oh, you-are-back? A-surprise-to-be-sure, but-a-welcome-one.

Wait a second, have you been looking through my folder of references?

. . .yes.

* * *

“Put me down.”

“Shut up, you’re supposed to be dead, and dead drones don’t talk.”

Felix tried to reach for his holstered pistol, though it was a bit difficult considering how his singular working arm looked eerily similar to a twisted and knotted human delicacy.

“And stop moving too, unless you want me to hit you again.”

Felix was currently laying inside the rickety storage of some sort of carriage, being carried along with several other bits and pieces of scrap metal. After those weird drones had kicked him out of their helicopter, he had woken up to find himself being carted off to robo-god-knows-where by a suspicious looking drone wearing a tattered brown cloak paired with a gas mask. He wasn’t quite sure why the guy was wearing a gas mask, especially since they didn’t breathe, but he also wasn’t sure it was worth the breath.

Eh? Nobody? Dang.

“Where’re you going?” Felix asked. He had only been able to catch a glimpse of the drone before he had been unceremoniously tossed into the carriage, and he wasn’t able to gauge the guy’s reaction at all.

A dismissive scoff came from outside.

“I thought I told you to stop talking.” The voice stated, annoyed.

Felix rolled his eyes. “What, I can’t even ask a simple question?”

“No, you can’t.” Came the reply.

Silence.

Felix grunted as he rolled over, wincing as the twisted servos in his arms squealed in protest. Now facing the ‘sky’, he saw only a darkened and rusty vent with a flickering light next to it. It made for a pretty eerie scene, though he was proud to say he only trembled a little.

The ‘carriage’ shook again, jostling him. It did that from time to time, which did in fact check out. He didn’t think that carriages usually had roofs though.

All of a sudden, Felix was thrown to one side of the box he was in. Rumbles shook the craft, and a warbling noise filled the air. It sounded almost like the grav-engines of the trams spilling down, which-

Felix would’ve smacked his helmet if it wouldn’t have hurt him terribly to do so. The panicked yelp of the drone that had so rudely kidnapped him sounded, along with the metallic clank as something fell onto the floor.

“What the hell!?”

“Hey, no talking!” Felix called out mockingly.

“Shut up!” The shout was followed by incoherent mumbling as the drone seemingly got up and walked towards something. “Stupid . . . just wait . . . sell ‘em for a bajillion-”

The sound of a door slamming shut cut off the rest of the scavenger’s rantings. Sensing opportunity, Felix did his best to scoot and shimmy his way up the side of the smooth wall he was up against. Once he was high enough, he hooked his singular armless appendage around the lip of the box and began to pull himself up.

After a moment, he finally managed to throw his upper body over the side, sending the rest of his toppling down with a crash. Luckily, nobody came to investigate.

Felix shakily got to his feet, trying to listen over the steady hum of the idle engine for any sounds of boots stomping to rip him a new one. He definitely wasn’t in any condition to fight, and there was absolutely no chance of him being able to defend himself against a bored slaver-guard or whatever trade these guys were indulging in.

Speaking of, he glanced down towards his mangled arm. It was really the only one he had left still attached, and he couldn’t afford to be dead in both of his favorite limbs. The joint appeared to only be twisted backwards around the ball-joint shoulder, so maybe . . .

Felix sighed. He was NOT gonna do that.

He moved up to the door to the small compartment he was in. A scratched plastic shield with metal wires woven inside allowed him to see what was happening on the outside, which shocked him for a second.

Drones ran around the passenger car, throwing things around and causing general mayhem. Most of them were diving out of windows, though there were the occasional few that were curled up in a ball on the ground, with one guy even drawing what looked to be a ritual on the ground in . . . ketchup?

It was then that he saw several more drones file in through the door on the opposite side of the section. These ones wore brown-and-white striped sashes around their torsos, various rags and such wrapped around themselves in several areas. They wielded a combination of makeshift guns and melee tools, more than a few gripping a pipe or wrench in an offensive manner.

Bangs rang out through the glass, deafened by the sound-canceling it seemed to have. Unadorned military and worker drones alike scrambled like ants, diving for weapons and anything they could get their hands on, though it was too late. What followed was a brutal slaughter that made Felix finally understand the old human saying of, “shooting fish in a barrel”.

The group of maybe six finally made their way to his end, one of them popping a round into the head of a drone that was holding her blackened hands up for mercy. The one closest to him glanced at the door, meeting Felix’s eyes after focusing on him for a moment.

The drone excitedly began to gesture towards Felix, catching the attention of the rest of his group. The door began to slide open, causing Felix to scramble backwards.

“Hey!” A hand reached through the small slit that was open. “Don’t worry, we’re here to help!”

Felix raised an eyebrow.

* * *

“ . . . and if you would just elaborate on these ‘plans’ you seem to know so much about-”

Alana groaned audibly.

“I don’t know anything about those things, I told you!” She practically shouted in the interrogator’s face. “It was just an off-hand thing that I heard one time, it probably wasn’t important anyway!”

The lavishly-adorned drone slammed a fist down onto the table, jabbing a finger in her direction. “YOU don’t get to be the judge of that, that is a job for ME! How many times do I have to tell you this!?”

“Yeah, I get it, acting all high-and-mighty since you took me as a prisoner of war!” Alana glared at the pompous interrogator. “I’m just a soldier for Robo-Christ’s sake, not even a lieutenant or anything!”

“Bah!” The interrogator waved off her remarks.

Alana sat back in her chair, her fire deflating from her.

The interrogator cleared his throat, smoothing out the collection of crinkled papers in his hands.

“Now that you’ve . . . calmed down, I believe that we can resume the interro-”

The door clicked open, revealing one of the fancy drones from earlier. She couldn’t tell if it was a guard who had escorted her, but she didn’t necessarily care.

The interrogator’s head snapped to the open doorway.

“Excuse me,” He began. “But I am trying to conduct an investigation here-”

“Out.” The garbled voice ordered.

The interrogator blanched, which Alana could see due to his semi-transparent visor. He quickly got up and speed-walked out of the room so fast that he left his papers behind. She began to chuckle, though whatever mirth that she was experiencing died when she saw the person who came into the room next.

A taller military drone, black armor polished to the point of a shine. Instead of the dingier, more dirty decorations that all the others had, he seemingly made sure to get only the best quality. It was . . . Augustus Marco Leverius.

Alana couldn’t help herself. She giggled.

‘Lev’, as he had told her to call him, stopped. The door slid shut behind him as he cocked his head at her.

“What? Why’re you laughing?” Lev patted the circumference of his helmet. “Is there something on my face?”

Alana sobered at the sound of his voice, memories of the cold execution of her commander surfacing.

“Nothing.” She practically whispered.

The drone sighed, pulling out the chair and plopping himself down in it. He didn’t say a word as he began to flip through the pages, featureless visor inclining ever-so-slightly as he peered down at them. Alana fidgeted nervously, feeling like she was somehow being put under review. She tried to sit up a little to see if she could see anything that was on the pages, but the only glimpse she caught was a collection of hastily-scrawled question marks surrounding a bold-lettered statement that read, “COMPLETE IDIOT”.

Alana gulped.

After an agonizingly long fifteen seconds, Lev calmly placed the pages back onto the desk. Alana followed their path as they traveled downwards for a moment, looking back up to meet the other soldier’s gaze after a moment.

Lev let out an audible sigh and steepled his fingers on the desk, matching her wavering steel gaze with a cold and impassionate stare.

“So,” He began. “I see that you’ve been a bit difficult.”

“I . . .” Alana took a deep breath before steeling herself. “I think the whole about-to-be-tortured thing would throw a wrench into anyone’s cooperation, don’t you think?”

Lev scoffed. “For what it’s worth, I specifically ordered my men to not harm you or your friend, I promise you that.”

“Your promises don’t mean a lot when you break them willy-nilly.” Alana did her best to keep a poker-face on.

“Is this about your boss?”

“It’s about my boss, yes.”

“I told him that if he lied then he would die, simple as that.” Lev shrugged. “He knew the risks, went ahead anyway despite them, and got himself killed.”

It was Alana’s turn to scoff. “That’s your excuse? He ‘got himself killed’? You were the one coming into OUR place, shooting MY people, and killing MY friends!”

A half-sob sounded, though it took a moment for Alana to realize that it came from her.

Lev was silent, his visor doing its purpose and giving away exactly none of what he felt. Alana hated him at that moment. How dare he act like he’s on top of the world, having everything he wants and more. How DARE he act so indifferent to her, and how she feels. How . . . dare he.

“I . . . think we should move on.” Lev’s slightly-arrogant voice broke through her musings.

Alana stayed silent, her head hanging low.

“Soooo, I’m aware that you, in some situation, overheard a plan of some sort, is that correct?” Lev tapped a finger twice on the desk in quick succession.

“. . .”

“Okay then.” Lev said quietly. “I-”

Lev seemed to cut himself off, which piqued Alana’s interest.

The sound of a chair scraping across the floor slightly caused her to raise her head to see Lev leaning in.

“Listen, I know that your commander is dead, and I can understand that. I’ve lost a lot more people than I would like, so believe me when I say that I understand your situation.” Lev began in a soft voice. “What I can’t sympathize with, however, is having to talk cordially face-to-face with the very person that caused those deaths, mostly because I’ve had the privilege to be their judge, jury, and executioner after the fact.”

“I can’t begin to understand how angry you must be, and how I look from your stance to be honest. I haven’t known you for very long but I feel like I can tell that you are a very intelligent drone, which is why I’m not gonna insult you by sugarcoating this; I had to attack you and your unit, I didn’t have a choice in that matter.”

Alana opened her mouth to retort, but Lev raised a hand.

“Let me finish, please. I know I’m not in a position to ask much from you, considering how much you’ve already lost, but I feel like you would want to hear what I’m saying.” Lev, despite showing zero emotion, seemed to gaze pleadingly at her.

Taking her silence as an affirmation, he went on.

“You were occupying one of the few production and repair plants that were still operational after all the fighting that’s been going on, which you already know. You also probably already know how large my force is from your little trip down here.” Lev gestured all around him. “It takes quite a lot to provide for everyone and everything here, and we had been doing fine until we encountered an . . . enemy, one that I won’t go into the specifics of.”

Alana’s eyes narrowed slightly at that last part, but Lev pressed on nonetheless.

“Long story short, we lost most of the facilities that we had been using to repair our men. We retreated to more stable territory, and we needed to find a place that had the capabilities to hold and repair our wounded, which ended up being-”

“Us.” Alana interrupted, voice low.

Lev sighed. “Yes, you. I prepped a force, but I had made the decision to send an ultimatum first to give your commander a way out of the oilshed. I’m not gonna try and fool you by saying that I wanted to spare the enemy troops out of a sense of altruism, no, it would’ve been costly to take the facility in the state a good number of my forces were in.”

“Despite the lives of my men being at risk, I waited for two hours, and I never got a reply. After that, well . . .”

Lev didn’t finish his sentence.

Alana didn’t say anything for a moment, and neither did Lev. After a second, the latter sighed loudly and got up from his seat.

“I understand if you don’t want to cooperate with us, or me for that matter, and I won’t force you to talk. That’ll be all for now.” With that, Lev made for the door.

Alana watched him raise his hand to knock at the metal door, and she sighed.

“I . . . didn’t just overhear a small part.” She muttered.

Lev froze, turning her way with body language so expressive she would’ve called it hopeful.

“My commander, he and Justin had been arguing.” Alana continued. “Justin wanted to accept the deal, but Comp wasn’t letting go. He kept reiterating that it was ‘our orders’ and that we needed to follow them if we wanted the leadership to get any better.”

Lev stared at her as she talked, hand falling down to his side.

“I remember that Justin said . . . something about rebels, I think, I’m not sure.” Alana shook her head. “He said that the cause didn’t matter if we were all dead by the end of it, but Comp just wasn’t listening. He just kept going on and on about how it was ‘gonna be different this time’ and that they had someone important on their side. Justin got genuinely angry when he said that, I don’t think Comp was telling him who he actually got the orders from.”

“They argued for a bit more, but I didn’t want to stay there any longer.” Alana let out a shaky breath. “I don’t know anything else.”

The room was silent for a moment.

“Rebels, huh?” Lev spoke up. “Now that’s an interesting development.”

After a moment, Lev grabbed something from a pouch that was attached to his waist. It jangled as he walked towards Alana, a set of small keys dangling from the loop. Leaning over and reaching down, he unlocked her cuffs.

“Wha- what’re you doing?” Alana asked incredulously.

“I think that you deserve better than to be locked up down here in a cell.” Lev answered with a smug tone. “What do you say about joining me on a tour around Nova Roma?”

Alana looked up at Lev in confusion.

“What’s that?” She asked.

Lev gestured all around him. “Our base of operations, of course! You haven’t seen all of it, and I personally think you would enjoy seeing something that isn’t monochromatic steel and gray concrete, eh?”

“Um . . .”

“So, whaddya say?” Lev held out a hand for Alana to take, which she eyed with no small amount of suspicion.

After a moment, she made her decision, taking the outstretched hand and helping herself out of the chair.

“Sure.” Alana said, gazing into the opaque visor that seemed to exude cheerfulness, somehow.

* * *

Ren waited for the disassembly drone to rejoin her. Currently, he was angrily swatting at the air around him while shouting out every curse word under the moon. The only thing that made the situation any more ridiculous were the high-pitched noises that blotted out each and every single one of the curses so they couldn’t be heard. Normally, she would consider that strange, but she was already tired of the shenanigans that went on in this place.

“Are you done yet?” She asked in the driest tone she could muster.

“Gah- flippa- stupid mother[BLEEP]er- I {BLEEP]ing swear . . .”

Ren tuned out the rantings, instead maintaining her glare in the hopes that a miracle would happen and the idiot would get the hint.

Hell, even Jacob wouldn’t have done this. The guy made jokes, sure, but at least he knew they were jokes. Ren wasn’t even sure if the drone in front of her knew the difference between his mind’s world and reality. She definitely wasn’t in the mood for literal virtual insanity-

As if he was listening to her thoughts, the disassembler broke out into song.

“-futures made of virtual insanity, now, always seem to be- and yes, I am listening to your thoughts-”

“SHUT UP ALREADY!” Ren shouted at the top of her artificial lungs, hands balling into fists and pressing to her sides.

The murder drone looked in her direction, seemingly shocked.

“B-b-b-but I wasn’t doing anything . . . wrong, was I?” The drone stuttered, gaping mouth nearly dropping on the floor.

“Oh no, you aren’t gonna try that with me this time.” Ren stomped forward and grabbed the fool by the scruff of his admittedly-cool bomber jacket. “What’s gonna happen now is that YOU are gonna stop messing around and come with ME and we are gonna find the one person in this place that is even slightly smart enough to deal with the stuff down here.”

Greenish-yellow eyes blinked at her in empty confusion.

“Who’re you again?”

“Ugggggghhh,” Ren started walking down the darkened hallway, dragging her partially-willing passenger along with her. “I freaking hate it here.”

However, she wasn’t done yet.

“Like, genuinely, why does it seem like every single time I do something, anything at all, that a random coincidence has to come out of nowhere to give me a hard time!?” She ranted. “What am I, a magnet for trouble!? And no, I’m NOT gonna remark on the irony of me being a magnet, because screw everyone and everything that has ever come after me!”

“I don’t think-”

Ren slapped the top of the drone’s head. “Shut! No! No more outta you!”

The drone shut up.

“It’s like the entire frickin’ universe revolves around making the most trouble for me out of some sick entertainment! What did I do!? Why me!? How, even!? It just isn’t fair!” Ren noticed that she had begun to strangle the murderbot that she had dragged along, so she let up her grip a little.

Breathing heavily, Ren went quiet, with the only thing filling the air being the obnoxious sound of metal feet dragging on the floor.

“I don’t think the universe is centered around you.” Her ‘partner’ spoke up.

“Heh?”

The drone ignored her confusion. “I just get this feeling that, I dunno, maybe everything that we’re experiencing is just a byproduct of something else.”

“Like, something else is happening as we speak that is causing all these things. We aren’t the center, hell, we aren’t even the side plot. We’re just hanger-ons, waiting out the storm and hoping it doesn’t blow us over. Things would go on with or without us, but the . . . others, they are the eye of the storm. Everything is revolving around them, not you or me.”

Silence.

“I think you’re high.”

“What!? I am NOT high!”

Ren peered down at the drone, unconvinced. “I don’t think so. Is that a magnet I see in your pocket?”

“I’ve been clean for days at this point!” The drone wailed in defiance, stomping the ground like a little kid. “Stop making these- these- these SLANDEROUS accusations!”

Ren passed an open doorway while the two bickered, though she quickly backpedaled after she caught a glimpse of what was inside.

“Huh, don’t see that everyday.”

The murder drone twisted around to get a better look. “Would you say it’s weird and concerning?”

“I dunno, care to go find out?” With that, Ren tossed the drone into the room.

He yelped, though he didn’t get that far due to Ren’s . . . not exactly up-to-par physical strength (don’t judge, she mainly used cool magic powers for everything anyway), but he still somehow managed to land right inside the room’s boundaries, and coincidentally, right inside a pool of oil and mechanical guts.

“Ewwwww, get it off get it off get it off!” The drone scrambled to his feet, whining as he did.

“Seriously? That’s what sets you off, a little splotch of oil on the ground?” Ren asked in disbelief. “You literally kill hundreds for a living and eat them, how is this any different?”

The drone, quicker than even Ren could see, stood ramrod straight with eyes staring directly into her soul.

“Are you . . . questioning me?” He asked dangerously.

Ren blinked. “. . . what?”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Anyway, I’m gonna look at this now.” As if nothing had happened, the drone walked further into the room and out of her sight.

Ren rolled her eyes, stepping forward and glancing around. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t seen before; a few medical beds, pools of oil, a limb or two here and there, a big hole in the wall, a cool-looking console, and an oven.

Wait, an oven?

Ren cocked her head to the side, closing the distance between her and the oddity. The disassembly drone was currently inspecting a puddle of oil with a small hat laying in it, so she just brushed him aside. A complaint rang out, but she chose to ignore it. She had only been dealing with that idiot for an hour or two at most, and she was already tired of him.

She put her hands up against the see-through covering, though she quickly pulled them back after wincing. The heat was palpable, searing her even through the glass and her gloves. However, something quickly caught her eye inside of it.

A murky jar, one of several, had some sort of label on it. Written in a reddish ink, it read, “NOT JACOB” in barely-legible lettering. Something inside of it twitched, a lumpy mass that looked like something she didn’t want to describe.

“Now that’s definitely weird and concerning.” The murder drone said, taking a spot by her side.

Ren backed up slowly, glancing around the room in suspicion. “I think it’s time to leave. Now.”

“Uh, sure yeah, that sounds good.” The idiot agreed without spouting nonsense for once-

“Boo.”

“AAAHH!” The pair yelped in unison, both whirling around in an instant.

The disassembler brought up both arms, a tube-like launcher and a submachine gun sprouting from then in under a second. Ren stripped a sliver of steel from the side of one of the gurneys, splitting it into so many needles that the sharp tips were nearly molecular. They pointed their weapons at-

Jacob stood there.

“Uh, hi?” He said sheepishly, a small wave accompanying it.

Ren scoffed, the dozens of needles clattering to the floor.

“You goddamn idiot!” She jabbed a finger up at his opaque visor. “You could’ve gotten yourself killed a dozen times over!”

Jacob shrugged. “No need to insult me. I personally think I could handle you and . . . him.”

He gestured towards Ren’s companion at that last part, who was still pointing his arsenal at Jacob.

“Hey, put those down!” She yelled in the drone’s face. “I . . . still don’t remember your name, but you better listen to me anyway!”

Strangely, the drone gritted his admittedly sharp teeth, beads of LED sweat pouring down his electronic display.

“You don’t fool me.” The barrel of the gun wavered in the air. “I’ve had enough of you, whoever you are.”

Ren gaped at the drone in confusion. “What’re you-”

BANG

Before the human could react, a bullet closed the short distance and went straight through the glass of his visor. Jacob stumbled backward, hands going up to clutch at the hole. Ren was frozen in shock, unable to do anything but watch.

All of a sudden, Jacob righted himself and stood up straight.

“I think we all need to calm down and [COOPERATE], huh?” Something flashed inside the hole, a neon-yellow glow appearing for less than a second before vanishing.

Just as fast, lines of code popped up on the murder drone’s display before disappearing entirely, only serving to feed Ren’s confusion. Both weapons retracted into the drone’s wrists, arms slowly lowering.

“. . . yes.” The drone said through clenched teeth, seemingly struggling to get the word out.

With that, Jacob brushed off his armor (not that it did much to clean the copious amounts of dried blood that Ren was sure wasn’t there last time she had seen him) and turned around.

“Alright marines, come on out!” Jacob clapped his hands together twice to emphasize his statement.

As if it had been practiced, around four of the robotic raptors from earlier sprang up from various hiding spots around the room. One even fell from the ceiling with a squawk.

Panicking, Ren searched for something sharp to impale at least one of them before Jacob gestured to her with his back still turned.

“These guys are FRIENDS, not FOOD, okay? Do we all understand?” Jacob nodded, the raptors slowly mimicking his movement as well. “Good.”

“Now,” All of a sudden, Jacob whirled around to face Ren. “I found this in the drawer you’re standing in front of, figured you might like it.”

He proceeded to toss something at her, causing her to instinctively bring up her hands to catch it. It landed in her hands, and Ren turned it over a few times to inspect it. It was a wide-brimmed hat, similar to the smaller one that was laying in a puddle of oil somewhere in the room. A few small stains of black dotted the edges, but it was largely untouched. What looked like a belt of sorts ran around the base of the geometrical outcropping that protruded from the top, a shiny silver buckle securing it in place.

Ren put it on her head, adjusting it so it sat comfortably. It seemed to have been made specifically for a worker drone’s head, which defied everything she knew about the times before. Maybe some rich guy had wanted to play dress-up with their collection? For a moment though, her mood improved. She had always wanted a cool hat to go with ‘The Look’, but she had to settle for a hood instead.

However, it was only then did she notice the pool of dried blood that Jacob was standing in, a disassembly drone forearm with a crimson-coated sawblade attached laying in it.

She gulped.

* * *

[WARNING - TEMP. LEVELS HIG-

“Goddamnit, I know.” K growled.

She ducked again as another flash lit up the barrier. Swapping her right hand for a laser, she began the charging process. Letting out a small breath, she listened to the humming whine of the device grow larger and larger, though not loud enough to drown out the cacophony of shrieks that filled the air around her.

Those . . . things had done a number on her, a fact evident by her missing hand. While a claw had taken its place, it was going to be a while before her hand regenerated due to- well, everything that was going on. It was nigh-impossible to score a proper hit on them, what with the acrobatics and numbers they had over her.

Still have teeth though, K thought, a small flitting across her face as her gaze landed on the twitching form that lay a few feet in front of her, a jagged cut rent through the synthetic fibers in its neck. The good news was that while they weren’t indestructible, the real problem was actually getting to hit them in the first place. She knew that a rocket would be tantamount to suicide in the relatively small area, which only added to the list of factors that worked against her.

She probably should’ve listened to X, honestly. Yes, he normally just spouted whatever nonsense that his faulty processor generated, but she was starting to think that he may have been telling the truth.

“Okay, lemme ask you again.” K began. “What exactly did you, allegedly, SEE down there?”

X tossed his fifteenth rock at the small gathering of military drones about twenty feet in front of him.

“Huh?” He grunted, eyes unfocused.

K facepalmed. “You idiot.”

“Why’re you so MEAN to me all the time!?” X let out a sob as he covered his face in his hands.

“Just answer the damn question!” K exclaimed, taking a menacing step towards the foolish disassembly drone.

X rolled his eyes. “Fine, it was a buncha weird things that played Wax Museum with me.”

All of K’s logic routes shut down.

“What?”

“Oh I’m sorry, I forgot you don’t speak English.” X cleared his throat and began to speak in a strange accent. “Fine-o, es was-o el bunch-o of-o el weirdo-o el things-o tengo played-o-”

K gripped X by the neck, shaking him back and forth without much resistance.

“WHY,” She wailed. “WHY DO YOU HAVE TO DO THIS TO ME!?”

X simply shrugged. “I dunno what you’re talking about.”

Following that statement from the person she hated the most in that moment, K did her best to toss X into the sky. However, the drone was actually kinda heavy, and K’s servos weren’t as powerful as her male counterparts.

X snickered. “That was pretty embarrassing, not gonna lie.”

K collapsed to the floor.

She grimaced, wishing that she could’ve just seen past his stupidity into the . . . okay, maybe she was justified in her actions.

Letting out a shuddering breath, K came to a decision. A sword extending out from her left hand, she slowly closed off her optical sensors to the outside world. Several alerts blared in her mind but she opted to ignore them, they weren’t important.

And then she jumped.

Almost immediately, she heard the cries from the creatures as they caught sight of her. Roughly half a second passed on her internal timekeeper, and she activated the laser. Spinning around in a circle, she heard the crackling and pops as the very air itself turned into plasma from the sheer heat of supercharged quarks scything through it. She wasn’t able to see the effect of her attack, and she wasn’t going to wait for it either.

Landing deftly on her two feets (pegs, more like), she went low to the ground and froze. Turning her auditory suite up as high as she could, she listened intently to her surroundings.

K could tell that the creatures were trying to flash her by the trio of that strange sound that sounded like a combination of a clack and a whine. Judging by the wavering calls that sounded from all around her, they were getting confused by the fact that she wasn’t ‘frozen’ yet. She heard the soft padding of feet as they circled around her, of metal nails dragging against the concrete floor.

That was how she heard one of them make a questioning warble with a lower, steadfast note replying to it. The noises of air rushing and the clangs of feet hitting the floor from all around her made it all too clear that they had rushed her.

K knew that trying to stand her ground without any form of visual input would mean almost certain death, so she made the instantaneous decision to leap towards the set of shrieks that seemed the farthest away, blade outstretched. She hit something if her own sensations and the inhuman cry of panic was anything to go off of, though she didn’t manage to impale her target as she had hoped. Instead, she felt the blade skate along a smooth surface before jutting out into empty space.

Both K and her attacker hit the ground, the body of the creature softening the impact somewhat. However, as she tried to get to her feet, she slipped on an unseen object and floundered. Even though it was only for a second, her moment of vulnerability was all the time that the creature needed to slip out from under her and position itself above her.

Claws raked at her face, likely drawing furrows on the fragile screen. Alarms screeched at her and she knew that the other things had probably recovered from their reckless charge and were now heading to join in on the feast.

K couldn’t let that happen.

She wrenched her right arm free, subsequently swinging it upwards and socking the creature in what felt like it sloped face. Something broke beneath her fist, and it jumped away from her. It gave her the chance she needed to escape.

With a grand flourish, K’s wings partially extended, tips probably almost scraping the sides of the hallway. Boosting her gravitic drives to about half-capacity, she rocketed down the length of the hallway and away from the creatures. Before she could stop it, however, she felt herself raise up into the air and glance off the side of the wall.

She was sent spinning away, one wing crumpling against the opposite side with a series of sickening snaps. Quickly retracting them after the blossoms of pain burst, she got to her feet. Throbs of pain still sent jolts down her torso, but she didn’t have time to nurse the wounds. She began to sprint down the hall as fast as she was willing to go with her eyes closed. Calling upon her perfect recordings of the corridors, she did her best to measure out her movements.

Fifteen paces, sharp right.

Curved hallway, small incremental turns for about five paces.

Ten paces, take a left.

Seven- watch out for the corpse in the middle of the floor- keep going.

Finally, the echo of K’s footsteps began to ring out louder, indicative of a more expansive room. She ran out to what she thought was the middle of the room before stopping, breathing heavily. Her audio receptors strained to pick up any of the noises that those hunter-killers made, though it was considerably difficult.

Wondering if she had finally outrun the monsters, K re-established connection to her optics, cracking an eye open.

The only sight that awaited her was the same lobby that she had fallen into, the massive hole in the ceiling streaming moonlight into the cavernous chamber. The only company she had was the corpses of man and machine alike that littered the ground, their cold gazes seemingly all on her.

K jerked her gaze upward, staring into the night sky. Her wings extended, though the damaged one was still clearly in terrible shape. Nonetheless, she swept them in a way that propelled her upward, gravitic drives doing the rest.

Screw them. Screw that stupid worker-witch, screw the annoying soldier, screw all his little soldier friends, screw X, and especially screw the ‘human.’ They had all left her for dead, but guess what? Little ol’ K rose to the top once again while everyone else was probably dead.

Well, maybe not the red one. That one, despite K’s personal opinion, had probably made the best choice to run far, far away from the cursed facility. It still had to die for leaving her behind, though. Once she had gotten settled-

K alighted on top of a bar that was sticking out of the rusty industrial artifacts surrounding her. Where . . . did she have to go? A was dead, X was probably dead, and she knew for sure that no self-respecting disassembly drone squad would take in one of their own that had lost their team. Would be too much work and would throw off the cohesion of the team, they would say without any emotional inflection whatsoever. They were calculating like that, almost to the point where it could be called robotic.

Heh.

K frowned. Well . . . there technically WAS one place she could go . . .

No. Nuh-uh, that isn’t happening. She didn’t even know why she had even thought of it in the first place! It was just such a bad idea that nobody in their right mind would ever, and she meant EVER, decide to take that route. It, quite literally, went against everything that the humans had programmed her with.

Hmmm, but then again, didn’t those drones serve the humans in the first place? Also, they were pretty much the only thing that she had any connection to at this point, not like that was saying much. If she ever wanted to be of any use to the company (and humanity as a whole) then . . . teaming up . . . with those facility drones might just be the firepower that she needed to wipe out the rebellious drones, once and for all.

She sighed, wings creaking as she let them expand to their full span. It was gonna be a looooooooong flight.

* * *

“ . . . and that brings us to the present!”

The military drones all stared at Carl, who was currently holding an awkward bow. With a nervous chuckle, he rose back up to full height and went to stand back next to Sterl. There were about five of them in total, though the remains of the rest of their team could probably be found scattered around the complex.

Sterl cleared his throat. “Ahem, yes, what he said. Due tuh the unexpected . . . resistance, that we encountered down in these darned pits o’ hell, I as the leader of this here team have made the decision to pull out, effective immediately.”

“But, like, we literally just got here.” A voice called out from the crowd (three military drones).

“Erm, you ain’t wrong feller.”

“Yeah, are we just gonna abandon everything that we set up here?” Another, more aggressive voice said.

“I didn’t tell y’all to set up anything thou-” Sterl began.

However, it was too late, as the absolutely massive crowd (just three guys) had been radicalized by the occasional shout.

“Look at the KD ratio, we’ve barely taken any casualties compared to them!”

“We’re just leaving all this equipment behind for these guys to use!?”

“The government we set up is just gonna collapse within a few days!”

“This is why we don’t vote Democrat!”

Sterl’s face continued to devolve deeper and deeper into confusion as the shouts and calls filled the broom closet they were in. However, after slapping himself with his only remaining arm, he resolved himself.

“GODDAMNIT, YOU MAGGOTS!” Sterl exclaimed, doing his best to imitate a drill sergeant's voice.

Almost instantly, the shouting ceased.

“I did NOT serve three darned years in the Alamo Sector just to put up with three lazy, ill-minded, useless bits o’ SCRAP!” If Sterl had been a human, spittle would’ve been flying out of his mouth. What was more worrying was the fact that spittle was, in fact, actually splattering the inside of his helmet somehow.

“Now y’all better whip yerselves back into shape before I do it for ya!” Sterl kicked open the door, walking out. “Dis-MISSED!”

The group, still recovering from the verbal assault, began to file out of the room. Carl walked up alongside Sterl, peering into his visor.

“So, what do we do now?” Carl asked nonchalantly.

Sterl huffed. “Well, once we find those fellers that we came here with, we are gonna leave this hellhole and head back to the base, ya hear me?”

Carl shrugged. “It just kinda seems pointless now, don’t you think?”

Sterl gave Carl a strange look, not answering the question.

“I mean, the guy that we were sent to find is probably dead, the other hunter that you didn’t like is also probably dead, and I thought that we were trying to get rid of the last one.” Carl continued. “It isn’t like we have any sort of obligation to return home with them, after all.”

“ . . . are you tryin’ to disobey orders?”

“ . . . no . . .”

* * *

“So, we’re just not gonna question it?”

E1 gave Damina a sidelong glance. “Question what, exactly?”

Damina gestured towards the front of the wagon. “You know, that.”

The strange cowboy drone was currently holding the reins to what would have been the horses pulling the vehicle, though it was far from that. Instead of two biological creatures, the ends of the reins were tied to the necks of a pair of . . . things.

Well, maybe that was a bit offensive. They looked like some sort of prehistoric creature crossed with a mimicry android, complete with a synthetic skin-like material that was stretched over the body. On each of their angular heads, a trio of docile and soft eyes were set on either side of them.

E1 looked away, almost uncomfortably. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

“You saying that makes me think otherwise.” Damina said in the driest tone she could muster.

“It’s . . . classified.” He finally answered, though clearly with some difficulty.

Damina simply rolled her eyes and sat farther back into her seat. The ride had been going on for what felt like several hours (probably much less, honestly) at this point, and she really wanted to get it over with. She was pretty sure that their location, the main production plant, was set on the eastern side of the Alpha sector. At least, that’s what she remembered. The trip there was usually pretty quick due to the tram system, but she had never paid attention to the maps.

Maybe she should’ve done that.

The wagon lurched as it hit yet another bump. She had no idea how the cowboy had gotten a wagon or why it was made out of wood, but it wasn’t like she was complaining.

Wait, no, scratch that. Damina definitely WAS complaining. It wasn’t her fault, really. It was just that the wagon was so. Damn. Slow. She didn’t know why they couldn’t just use a tram to get to the plant, there were plenty just laying around the place. Hell, they could just use the older maintenance lines on Level T-56 that she was pretty sure were still operational and even those would be quicker.

Damina shook her head. “What do you mean it's classified’?”

“I’m not answering that question.”

“. . .”

E1 threw his hands up in the air. “Okay okay, fine. Those are . . . anti-drone sentinels.”

Damina blinked. “Heh?”

“I’m not gonna say anything specific, but they were sent here because of some of the research that was being conducted, so the humans thought it would be prudent to have these around, I guess.” E1 sheepishly rubbed the back of his helmet.

“And how do you know all that?” Damina asked.

“A file that I recently came across.” The tall military drone didn’t elaborate.

Damina huffed. The guy never told her anything.

“You said that we’re going to the plant to find those guys that you ordered to do something, right?” Damina scooched a bit closer to E1.

E1 put a hand on Damina’s helmet visor and slowly pushed her back across the bench.

“Yes . . .” He answered, slowly. “Your point is?”

Damina scoffed, slapping E1’s hand away. “Like, what’re we gonna be doing after, you know?”

“Elaborate, maybe?”

“That’s rich coming from you.”

“Just do it.”

For the second time, Damina rolled her eyes. “Fine.”

“We get there, finish the doohickey, and we can contact the humans. Yay. Then what?”

“You-” E1 began.

Damina wagged her finger. “Nuh-uh, I’m not done. The humans, your bosses, apparently sent a million murder machines down from Earth to kill us all. Doesn’t matter if it was a corporation that did it, our government probably doesn’t care about us at all! I mean, if they really wanted to retrieve their so-called ‘asset’ then they would’ve done it themselves.”

“I thought the general explanation was that those reapers were sent to collect the human, hmm?” E1 cocked his head.

Damina gave him a dirty glare. “That is some serious bull, and you know it. I dunno what those guys up there are thinking but they definitely don’t have our best interests in mind after all this. We have been abandoned, and this is-”

“The humans are dead.” E1 blurted out.

Damina blinked, caught off-guard. “I . . . know that-”

“No, you don’t understand.” E1 shook his head, sighing. “ALL the humans are dead, every single last one of them.”

“. . . what?”

“Well, maybe not all of them, but I can say for sure that the vast majority have been dead for a while now.” E1 continued.

“H-how? Why?” Damina spluttered and glanced at E4, who was currently watching the conversation with no apparent emotion.

E1 pressed on. “Earth got destroyed. And before you ask me why, I don’t know how it started. Files were a bit vague on that, but something that came from the drones rose up out of nowhere in major population centers and held off the military long enough for it to . . . break the planet.”

“The exo-planets followed soon after that, falling to small pods that were sent by the thousands like paratroopers. The remains of the government here saw the opportunity to pull something out of storage that we had left alone for a while, the very thing that may have started this.”

E1 took a deep, shuddering breath. “It backfired on them. The experiments of the corporation that we were cooperating with got out-of-hand, and the same thing that happened back on Earth happened here.”

“Now those damned reapers have come here to finish the job.” E1 finished.

Silence reigned for a moment.

“But that would mean that the Asset is the last human left, right?” Damina asked in a shaky voice.

It was E1’s turn to scoff. “I don’t know what that THING is, but it can hardly be called human at this point. My guess is that machine-god or whatever it is was trying to retrieve the closest thing it had to a parent from our hands.”

Damina didn’t answer, shocked into silence.

“Then-” She paused, taking a breath. “Then what do we do?”

E1 didn’t answer for a moment, gazing off into the side of the concrete tunnel.

“We kill him.”

* * *

The harsh buzzer sounded again.

“Ah, sorry.” The worker grinned sheepishly at the tall drone standing in front of Alana. “Technology, you know? Never wants to cooperate with-”

“Or I can just do this.” Lev walked forward and held his wrist up to a scanner on the side of the gate. With a happy beep, the gate swung open.

The attendant stared at the gate. “I guess that works too.”

Alana couldn’t see behind Lev’s opaque visor, but she was sure that he was smiling.

The impeccably dressed drone motioned for his considerably large entourage to follow him, which Alana took to mean her as well. Around ten to fifteen of those fancy guards filed through the entrance one at a time, leading to more than a few grunts and curses of displeasure making their way to her ears. However, she felt like something was missing.

“Um, excuse me?” She asked politely, not wanting to tap on his arm or do anything that would cause his bodyguards to put a dozen new holes in her.

Lev whirled around. “Eh?”

Alana blinked, surprised by the suddenness of the action.

“Well, those two people that you had around you earlier . . .” Alana trailed off.

“Yeah, what about them?” Lev tapped a foot impatiently, glancing nervously at the open gate.

“Well, wouldn’t they be here with you?” Alana questioned.

Lev’s helmet turned away, seemingly averting his gaze.

“They’ve got . . . stuff to do.” Something wormed its way into his voice, though Alana couldn’t figure out what.

“Both of them?”

“Well they’re very busy people.” Lev answered with a huff. “And before you say anything, yes, even Smitty.”

Alana cleared her throat. “I forgot that was his name.”

“And you’ll forget it again. Trust me, it’s totally not a very-memorable name.” Lev said with no small amount of humor.

Alana shrugged, focusing instead on squeezing through the gate. However, a pair of uniformed guards grabbed each of her shoulders.

“The consul goes first.” One of them said in that same garbled voice.

Alana turned to glare at the drone in question, who simply just shrugged and walked on through.

“Nothing I can do about it. They wouldn’t let me through if you went first anyways, sooooo . . .” He trailed off.

Alana then spent the next five minutes being subjected to a search for potential weapons or contraband (yep, she totally wasn’t a prisoner) that included (but wasn’t limited to); being patted down, being scanned by a metal detector, being patted down AGAIN because the device had detected large amounts of metal, being thrown across the room like a volleyball, being patted down for a third time because one of the guards thought they saw a gun, and last (but not least), being put through a random particle accelerator they had on standby for some reason. She wasn’t even sure that last part was required, they probably just felt like it.

Finally, she managed to get to the other side of the gate. Lev patted her on the back, gesturing for the rest of his men to follow him.

“Aww, see? You did it!” He said triumphantly. “Wasn’t that hard, right?”

“I regret taking your deal.”

Lev recoiled slightly. “Oh, well uh, that seems a bit harsh and unnecessary, don’t you think?”

Alana turned to glare at him, her baleful gaze probably able to kill most people.

“No.” She said in a low voice. “It isn’t.”

Lev cleared his throat, walking forward at a brisk pace. Alana made sure to follow along, though only four of his guards kept up with him. The rest of them had tried to pass through at the same time, which (to absolutely nobody’s surprise) resulted in them getting wedged. One of them called out to his boss, but the drone either didn’t hear, pretended not to hear, or didn’t care. Probably all three, somehow.

Alana then watched as a seamless door opened up from the wall ahead of them, revealing an elevator interior. She didn’t have time to gawk, however, as Lev quickly grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her forward.

“Where did that thing come from!?” She exclaimed.

“It’s a perk that comes with being the boss, something that you aren’t.” Lev answered in a much calmer voice than her.

“Sir!” A shout came from behind her. “Sir, for your own safety, do NOT get in that elevat-”

The doors shut with a chime, cutting off the rest of the drone’s sentence.

“Aren’t those, like, your bodyguards or whatever?” Alana asked, turning to look at Lev.

He shrugged. “Yeah, but they’re just a little bit too clingy. I mean, I can get fangirling since it kinda happens to me all the time, but-”

Alana held up a hand, head tilting. “Hold up, excuse me?”

“Oh, uh, just comes with being the leader I guess?” Lev backed up slightly.

Luckily, one of the guards interjected at that moment.

“Sir, our ability to protect, and by proxy your chances of survival, have been severely diminished by your . . . antics.” The drone said. “Especially since you decided to bring this prisoner along.”

“Hey now, don’t be like that!” Lev draped an arm across the shoulder of his guard, who seemed to become very interested in the walls around him. “She’s more like a . . . guest, think of it that way.”

“A guest who can induce harm upon you at any given moment-”

Lev scoffed, making a gesture of dismissal. “Yeah sure, unless she’s hiding a shiv in that helmet, then I’m pretty sure that everything’ll be fiiiiine, trust me!”

“If you say so sir.” The guard then backed away, letting Lev’s arm drop.

A ding sounded, and the elevator doors opened. However, instead of a crowded lobby, what met Alana’s eyes was a small space that seemed designed for the very concept of luxury. Leather seats, tinted windows, fitted upholstery, shiny clean surfaces, cupholders EVERYWHERE, it was a one-percenter’s dream.

Lev strode into the space with so much swagger that it reminded Alana of the old pirated Western flicks that she used to watch with her friends.

“Welcome, one and all, to my personal transportation booth that I had custom-made as yet another perk of being literally the most powerful person in the room!” He said, throwing his arms up in a grand flourish.

“You keep mentioning how powerful and mighty you are.” Alana stated.

“And it will never be enough!”

Silence pervaded the luxury tram car for an awkward moment.

Clearing his throat uncomfortably, Lev gestured for the group to step inside.

“C’mon get in here, the elevator automatically goes back down for security once I’m out of it for long enough.”

Alana took a seat on a recliner, pressing and holding a button that lay on the arm. In response, the section that her legs were resting on began to rise.

“Oh, that’s pretty fancy.” She murmured.

Suddenly, an object came flying from off to her right. From pure reflex, she managed to catch it before it smacked against her face. It was some sort of oblong, glass container with a metal cap on the thin top. It was colored brown and some sort of label was on the other side. Turning it over, she saw a circular yellow patch with lettering on it that clearly read-

[auto.advert . . .]

[CERVEZA CRISTAL, ¡La marca número uno para todas tus necesidades de entretenimiento e hidratación! En Chile hoy, bajemos a-]

“Ugh, stupid ad.” Alana rolled her eyes as she shut it off. She didn’t even know who in their right mind would program that in, much less have it play every time their archaic product was seen.

“Don’t worry, it’s just coolant.” Lev’s voice interrupted her internal musings.

“Uh, cool.” She answered, inspecting the bottle further. “I didn’t really ask for a drink.”

“Well, I just thought you would appreciate it. I’ll be up in the front, we’ve already taken off but it’s gonna be a little but until we get to our first destination.” With that, Lev walked through a door that lay on the opposite side of where Alana came in.

She was surprised. She hadn’t even felt the tram (if it even was a tram) moving. Just how ‘luxury’ was the luxury car, anyway?

Alana glanced to the table next to her, noticing a slim black rectangle with several buttons on it. Picking it up with no small amount of confusion, she pressed the large red button that sat at the top. A burst of static startled her, and her attention was brought to the slim television that lay on the wall opposite her. She frowned, looking down and testing out the buttons labeled with arrows. After noting the effects it had on the screen, she carefully and methodically maneuvered the selection to an icon that had piqued her interest; a black square with an cartoonish replica of a cinema piece on it.

After a few more minutes, Alana sat back and grinned as the movie began to play.

“There are two kinds of people in the world, my friend: Those with a rope around the neck, and the people who have the job of doing the cutting . . .”

It was about thirty minutes in when the ceiling fell inwards.

* * *

Ren stared at the figure ahead of her. ‘Jacob’, who was currently swaggering his way through the decrepit hallway. She tried her very best to discern if anything was particularly . . . off, about the human, but she was never good at that kind of stuff. Even if she was, there was no telling that she would be able to accurately predict the motions of an unpredictable idiot like him. But then again, she was beginning to think that idiots didn’t just mind-control other drones on a whim.

She grimaced, the memory coming back to the forefront of her mind. Just like that, the disassembly drone had turned from a bumbling fool with a mouth that couldn’t shut up (reminded her of a certain someone) into a quiet, obedient little servant whose sole priority was to do a weird walk and stay by Jacob’s side.

Speaking of, the murder machine had just tripped over a lip in the ground. Instead of complaining, the drone just slowly picked himself back up and continued on. His movements were too jerky and stiff to be normal, Ren was sure that Jacob had done something to the thing.

Well that was pretty obvious. Hell, it probably wasn’t even Jacob at the controls anymore, just that weird alter-ego thing that seemed identical to him in every way. Maybe he was just messing with her, talking nonsense about another person inside his head and all that. She certainly hoped it was all just a big prank and she didn’t have to worry about getting her faculties taken away, but she had a feeling that things weren’t as simple as that.

‘Jacob’ suddenly stopped, murmuring something to himself.

“What was that?” Ren blurted out despite herself.

‘Jacob’ turned towards her. “Heh?”

“Uh-uh-uh-uh-n-nothing.” She managed to stammer out. Curse her inability to come up with a snappy sentence on the spot!

“Is there any chance that Sterl guy said where he was taking his boys, maybe?” The human stared into her eyes, featureless helmet not budging.

Ren didn’t answer for a moment, deliberating.

“No.” She replied simply.

“Hmm.” ‘Jacob’ tapped his boot on the ground absentmindedly. “Well I would like to leave this place now, and those guys are the only ones who know where that base is.”

“Didn’t, uh, THAT thing come from there as well?” Ren pointed at the rigid disassembler standing next to him.

Jacob glanced to his right before shrugging.

“His memories are too scrambled to get anything out of them, I doubt he was paying any attention.”

“And how do you know that?” Ren asked nervously,

“. . . no reason.”

“. . .”

Jacob spun on his heel and set back down the hallway. Both Ren and the zombie-like murder drone were jarred back into motion, though the latter seemingly had a hard time finding his footing.

Ren needed to do something. Probably fast. She wasn’t sure what had taken control of Jacob, but she definitely wasn’t gonna bet her continued existence on the chance that it was friendly. She felt like she had heard somewhere from him that they swapped occasionally, but it had been a hot minute since she had spoken to the REAL Jacob. Check off everything else, because apparently body-snatching was now another thing that the human had gone through. The only problem was that she wasn’t sure if it was the last thing that Jacob was gonna experience.

Also, what was up with that weird heart-in-a-jar thing? Ren wasn’t just gonna brush over the fact that it had Jacob’s name on it. Well, it was technically his name, but she supposed that it also said that it wasn’t him, for some reason. She didn’t know, mystery solving wasn’t exactly her cup-a-oil.

The trio entered the lobby area that they had used to get into the complex. Well, maybe not really a trio, those weird raptor things were tagging along too. The one with the colorful eyes let out a shriek, and they all fanned out to do whatever anti-drone sentinels did.

Ren really didn’t like those things.

“So, Ren.” Jacob began, back still turned.

Ren startled. She didn’t really know what Jacob had been going to do, but she hadn’t thought that it would be that.

“Yes?” She replied uneasily.

“Back a little bit ago, when you fought those military drones, what did you make of their compound?” Jacob’s voice sounded flat.

“Excuse me?” Ren asked, taken aback.

Jacob finally turned towards her, gesticulating in the air. “You know! What it looked like, how many drones were there, what defenses they had, yadda yadda yadda, important stuff like that.”

“Weren’t you there as well?”

Jacob paused. “I . . . wasn’t paying attention.”

“Uh-huh.” Ren didn’t believe that for a second.

“Just answer the goddamn question, alright?” Jacob snapped at her.

“Okay fine!” She snapped back. “There were one or two hundred of them, they had a few towers set up with a weird-looking magnet fence, but that’s it. Happy now?”

“Yes, thank you very much.” Jacob sounded awfully pleased with himself, something that brought more than a handful of annoyance to Ren.

“You’re-” Ren cut herself off.

Jacob took a step forward. “What? What am I?”

She didn’t answer.

“Oh come on!” Jacob exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air. “I swear, every time I don’t hear what somebody says, they never repeat what they said! Please, just finish your sentence, I’m begging you!”

“No . . .”

“Well screw you too then.” Jacob, with a harrumph, stepped out onto the lobby floor. Disazombly Drone followed him.

Ren chuckled at her wordplay.

She decided against following the duo, instead making her way towards what looked like a receptionist’s desk.

“Hey, where’re you going!?” Jacob called out.

“Looking at stuff!” She replied, not elaborating.

“Well okay then, I guess I’ll just stand here and look like a complete idiot!”

Ren nodded to herself. “Pretty much.”

“What was that!?”

“Nothing!” She yelled back.

Shaking her head, Ren ran a hand along the dusty surface. Off to the side, a few monitors broadcasted that message about the sentinels or whatever. It got her thinking about the severity of what had been going on here, and why it had been done in the first place.

Well, that was fairly obvious. Earth was, somehow, turned into a collection of rocks drifting through space. Judging by her own experiences with the technological supernatural, maybe the humans here thought it would be a good idea to mess with things that they didn’t understand in a move that surprised absolutely nobody. It was practically their whole schtick at this point, they were known for literally nothing else.

And plus, look where it got them. Ren didn’t know how many exoplanets the humans had decided to colonize, but if Earth looked like THAT and the planet she was on was in a similar state, then something that looks like a pattern starts to emerge if you look at it closely enough. Just like something her aunt used to say, once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, and three times is enemy actions.

Hmm. Well, going off of that, then maybe the destruction of two planets really WAS just a coincidence.

Hell, humanity probably wasn’t even in a bad spot. From what Ren knew of them, they were basically cockroaches that somehow managed to find a small corner to scurry off to and survive for as long as they needed to. It’s what made them the dominant species in their own region of the galaxy, and it’ll probably keep going despite . . . whatever had destroyed their birthplace.

Was it someone like her? The inexplicability of the scenario would match up with what she knew of the mysterious Absolute Solver, but she didn’t think that she was capable of busting open planets anytime soon.

But man that would be sick as hell.

Ren picked up a paper that was in the output tray of a printer. The only thing that was present on the sheet was a big fat “ACCESS DENIED” on it in bold lettering, so she just crumpled it up and tossed it onto the floor. Interesting, but ultimately unimportant.

“You done over there!?” A call reached her ears.

Ren groaned, slumping down onto the floor.

“Why do you wanna get going so quickly anyway!?” She yelled back. “I thought you wanted to find those soldier guys!”

A scoff echoed, and the figure of Jacob made a few wild motions that Ren couldn’t make out.

“Yes, and they’re right there you idiot!” He exclaimed, jabbing an arm to his left.

Ren followed the trajectory arrow that popped up on her HUD, leading to the familiar form of an armored drone just standing at the mouth of a corridor.

“Uh, hey, what’s up- WAAAGH!!!”

The drone was suddenly tackled by a sentinel, falling to the ground immediately. The creature’s audible growl echoed through the expansive lobby, and a flash of blue light lit up the drone’s visor.

“Oh please don’t, I don’t wanna get frozen- huh? Oh hey, I’m fine.” The drone inspected his hands and torso, not taking his opportunity to escape. “Hey guys! I’m fin-”

The raptor ripped his throat out. Or at least what would’ve been his throat if he was a human, though Ren could clearly make out something being torn out from his neck. Oil spurted all over the two as the military drone gurgled. The raptor took its chance to disembowel the hapless victim for a moment.

“Oh no, you killed him!” Jacob suddenly cried out. “I can’t believe you’ve done this, you stupid thing!”

The raptor looked back up and let out a questioning shriek.

“No, you weren’t supposed to do that! I told you that several times over!” Jacob facepalmed dramatically,

Another shriek, this time a bit more warbling and weak.

“Get over here! And before you try and say anything, no I do NOT understand you, got that!?”

The raptor looked into the hallway that the drone had come from before plodding back to the side of what was apparently its . . . owner? Ren didn’t want to say master because that just sounded weird, but what really was the best label?

A second form came charging out of the hallway, followed by a trio.

“GODDAMN YOU MAGGOTS, YOU DONE KILLED ADRIAN OH GOD!” The familiar voice cried out, and the drone- Sterl, she forgot his name again- went down to ‘Adrian’s’ side.

Sterl growled, standing back up with some sort of shiny revolver in his hand.

“I should gun yer sorry ass down right where you stand, you darned fool . . .” The drone adopted a threatening tone.

“What?” Jacob said dumbly.

“This is it, the final showdown ‘tween two ol’ gunslingers.” Sterl gestured for his group to come forward, which they did. “Show yer pieces, boys.”

Ren gaped at the scene, wishing she had popcorn.

The other three drones looked amongst each other uneasily, slowly pulling rifles from their back and aiming them at Jacob and Disazombly (and also the raptor thing too, Ren guessed).

“Wait, is this like, actually happening right now?” Jacob backed up a step. “Listen man, I’m sure we can all be friends right?”

“Yer on THEIR side now, sided with the damned creatures that roam this accursed place.” Sterl gestured to the raptor that just had a dumb look on its face.

Jacob glanced at his pet. “Uhhhhhhhh, that . . . isn’t mine?”

“I think it’s his sir.” One of the drones whispered loudly to Sterl.

“SHUT UP I KNOW IT’S HIS!” Sterl pistol-whipped his own teammate, the aforementioned drone falling to the ground with a cry.

Ren watched the two sides bicker back and forth. She wondered if now was the perfect time to intervene, taking the side of the military drones to maybe take down Fake-Jacob.

With a final growl, Sterl raised his revolver once more and aimed. Suddenly, a BANG rang out, the sound deafening in the expansive area. Almost in slow-motion, Ren saw a line glowing by light reflected from the moon race towards Jacob’s head practically instantly, going-

It stopped.

A neon holographic symbol popped up around the small projectile, halting it immediately. Hand raised and the tell-tale whine audible in the silence, Jacob seemed to gaze at the bullet he just caught with a bored eye.

“I mean, that works too.” A light flashed for a second in Jacob’s visor, illuminating the vague shadow of a head.

The sounds of automatic fire filled the air as the four military drones opened fire on Jacob, though that only added to the growing cloud of bullets that floated in front of him. However, Ren saw a few of the symbols waver and flicker out of existence, and Jacob twitched.

“Okay, new plan.” He said, throwing his hands out.

A flurry of bullets raced in all directions, startling the soldiers. Most of them managed to fall to the ground quick enough to dodge them, though one failed to do so in time and was shortly turned into a bullet-ridden corpse on the floor.

Sterl, the leader, quickly sprang to his feet and barked out an order to his compatriots. They began to spread out around the circumference of the room, guns still pointed at Jacob. Out of the corner of her eye, Ren saw one of the raptors prepare to lunge at one of the ones that WEREN’T Sterl (she couldn’t tell them apart, they all looked the same), though Jacob made a small dismissive gesture, causing the creature to back off into the shadows.

“Surrender scum, or face mah wrath . . .” Sterl comically threatened.

“You know, you would do great in a certain Old Western game I once knew.” Jacob replied

“What?”

“Nothing.”

All of a sudden, Jacob dashed towards one of the drones that had circled around behind him. The drone, panicked, fired off a few shots that did little more than scuff the floor before Jacob reached him.

Lifting him up by the foot, Jacob tossed him right at Sterl. Unlike last time, Sterl failed to dodge in time. Both drones were sent tumbling to the ground in a tangle of limbs.

“You guys keep on falling for that, jeez.” Jacob shook his head in disappointment.

He then looked over at the final military drone standing, who was currently looking at his fallen allies. With a flick of the wrist, Jacob brought the hapless drone over to him along with the two other soldiers. They were all floating in the air, limbs restricted.

“Now, I really only need one of you alive to lead me back to your base, so how about you deliberate amongst yourselves to see who lives and who dies?” Jacob suggested in a cheery voice, before adopting a deadpan tone. “You have one minute.”

Silence reigned for a moment before arguing ensued.

Ren stood perfectly still, indecision wracking her mind. Should she get involved? Should she just stand by as her perfect chance to get rid of a maybe-psychopath who had taken over the mind of her . . . was that idiot seriously her only friend?

Ugh.

“So like, I’m hearing a lot of arguing, but not really a lot of actual decisions, y’know.” Jacob stated. “How about this: eeny, meeny, miny-”

Jacob was interrupted by a metal pipe flying straight towards his head. It was stopped in its tracks in a second, though he still looked in the direction it came from with a sense of alertness.

“Wha- BETRAYAL!?” Jacob exclaimed.

Ren rolled her eyes, several dozen sharp implements rising in the air behind her.

“I mean, it was pretty obvious from the get-go, don’t you think?” She stated with a smirk. “Also, your technique is sloppy.”

With a snap of her fingers, a veritable storm of objects rushed towards Jacob from all directions. He had been focused on Ren, so he hadn’t seen the various other sharp tools coming up from behind him, which was a rookie move.

They replicated in the air as they flew towards him, and Jacob began to fight for control over the objects. Ren gritted her teeth, watching as she lost her grip over more than a few. However, it wasn’t enough to stop all of them. Jacob tried to catch all of them when Ren finally let go of them, though he missed several.

One, two, four, seven, a dozen impaled him from all directions, sending spurts of crimson liquid onto the ground. With an audible groan, Jacob collapsed to his knees and went still.

Sterl, who was now free, picked himself back up along with his soldiers. Looking back and forth between Ren and the motionless body of Jacob, he nodded slightly in her direction.

However, Ren wasn’t paying attention. Sprinting over to the still-frozen body of Disazombly (she STILL couldn’t remember his actual name), she stared at the almost blank visor that the drone had, save for a flickering vertical line that danced across it.

She grimaced, snapping in his face. However, it failed to do anything other than make a sound.

“Oh c’mon!” Frustrated, she slapped the face of the thing as hard as she could, causing the head to jerk slightly.

Lines of code began to pop up on the screen, one notable message reading [slap.act_res: ACCEPTED//loading . . .].

Suddenly, the lines of code vanished, being replaced by a set of glowing neon eyes.

The two stared at each other for a second.

“Wa-wa-wa-WAZZZUP MY SPOONERS!!!!” The drone splayed his hands out in a starfish motion. “We are back here with another mod review with my good friend, Dr. Tray! Don’t mind him, he’s a little racist, but we’re all good!”

Ren slapped him again.

“Shut up!” She exclaimed in his face. “No time, evil Jacob, soldiers are good, I am LEAVING-”

“You might have to put a pin in that.” A voice came from behind her.

Ren whipped around to see the previously-dead form rising from the ground, yanking the various sharp implements from his body. The head raised to look straight at her, and she could’ve sworn that the outline of a skull burned itself onto the interior of the visor.

“We have some business to discuss.”

* * *