The large tent was loud.

Well, that much was obvious. About a hundred military and worker drones occupied the space, all absorbed in their own activities. They were playing cards, sipping from mugs that had a liquid that was probably not harmful to robots, chattering amongst themselves, and just doing general things that would help somebody to pass the time.

“. . . and that's how I managed to get outta there without a single scratch.” The military drone leaned back with a smug grin on his face.

“Oh come on Felix, we all know that’s impossible!” Another drone exclaimed.

Felix huffed. “Oh really? Give me five good reasons.”

“They have a kill count of thousands, they have a wide array of lethal weaponry, they mowed through the thousands of people I mentioned a second ago with relative ease, you don’t have any training beyond the standard regimen, and you aren’t anything special.” The drone listed.

“Well, that last one hurt.” Felix grumbled.

“Now, now, settle down y’all. Heh, no need to start ‘nother shootout.” A third drone interjected.

“Pssh, it's fine, Sterl. Damina’s insults are nothing compared to me!” Felix shot out of his chair triumphantly.

“Hey Sterl, weren’t you with Felix when the reaper drones stormed the train you were on? You can verify his claim, right?” Damina asked.

“Still on that whole, ‘reaper’ schtick, huh?” Sterl chuckled.

“What!? It's a better name than hunter drones!” Damina protested.

“It’s fine, and yes, I was with Felix here when we was riding the train.” Sterl pointed a thumb at Felix. “While his claims are somewhat embellished, they are mostly true.”

Felix thumped the table. “See!? I told you, I never lie!”

“So that time you said that you stopped the last rebellion by yourself wasn’t a lie?” A fourth drone said in a dry tone.

Felix spread his arms out dramatically. “Hey, look who woke up from their nap! How were your sweet dreams, Carl?”

Carl glared at Felix. “Listen, if YOU were forced to spend the last week patrolling the southeast border without any sort of authorized rest, you would be taking any chance you could to get some sleep in.”

“I really doubt that.” Felix rolled his eyes in a childish manner.

“Seems like Felix got his ego blown up a ton when he survived an encounter with the reapers.” Damina stated.

Carl put his head in his hands. “I told you to stop calling them that.”

“It's a perfectly fine way to address them!” Damina slammed her fist down onto the table, causing it to shake slightly.

Carl and Sterl just shook their heads, while Felix burst into laughter. After a moment, the rest of the table joined in, a pure moment of lightheartedness in the unforgiving wasteland.

After the laughter died down a bit, Carl spoke up.

“Heh, yeah. Anyway, while we're talking about the ‘reaper’ drones, how do you all feel about the agreement that the upper brass made with them?” Carl asked off-handedly.

The mood instantly darkened, despite the atmosphere that was present a moment ago.

“I’ll tell you something, I don’t know why Command thought it would be a good idea to join up with the things that clearly have it out for us, but if one thing is for sure, I’m not letting my guard down around them, because that's just an ‘accident’ waiting to happen! I’m taking the first chance I get to get them outta the picture!” Damina snarled.

“Same here. Once we kill whatever that thing that killed the Asset is, the damn hunters’ll just turn right around and catch us with our pants down!” Sterl exclaimed angrily.

“Yeah, Command really just seems like they keep on making bad decisions. First we have tons of accidents in the Facility, then the entire place just starts to break down. But then, even though we have a few months left before we have to leave, we leave anyway! And don’t even get me started on all the strange disappearances that have been happening.” Felix stated.

“Speaking of, have any of you guys heard anything from Frant? I’ve been looking all over for him, but I can’t find him.” Carl inquired.

Sterl stroked his chin, despite having no beard. “Huh, isn’t that the feller that’s pals with Carme?”

“I think so, but I’m not sure . . .” Carl trailed off.

“Oh, Carme? Yeah, I heard that he was assigned to data trawling, along with somebody else. I think his name started with an F, so it might’ve been that Frant character.” Damina suggested.

“Yeah, same here. I heard from a guy who heard from another guy that they were going deep, and that they had supposedly stumbled on a document that was unclassified.” Felix said.

“And where are those people now?” Carl questioned.

Felix shrugged. “I dunno. I asked around for them the other day, but everyone just said that somebody from the upper brass pulled them into a meeting, and they never saw him again- ooooh . . .”

Carl ran a hand down his face. “So, Command is . . . disposing of people that know too much.”

“Sounds about right.” Sterl replied.

“Now what does that mean for us, now that we know?” Damina pondered aloud.

“Uh . . . do any of you think that maybe they're watching us now?” Felix sounded uneasy.

The collected drones rapidly searched the surrounding area with their eyes, but they only saw the sea of faceless military and worker drones.

“This isn’t good.” Carl stated quietly.

“Yeah, you think!?” Felix hissed, whispering.

“What do we even do about this?” Damina also whispered.

“We don’t, that's what!” Felix whisper-yelled. “You think that us, a squad of four low-ranked military drones, can take on Command!?”

“I don’t know, I just don’t wanna die!” Damina shot back.

“Quiet down, will ya?” Sterl quieted his voice. “We don’t want the upper brass infiltrators hearing us, and especially not Special Ops-”

“So, why’re we whispering over here?” A voice interjected nonchalantly.

The group froze, collectively jerking their gazes towards the source of the sound. Standing there was a military drone, one with a number of decorative medals and signifying colors emblazoned on his chest and left upper arm. The drone didn’t seem to reciprocate the surprise and uneasiness that the group felt, quite the opposite in fact. He seemed perfectly at home, with the ghost of a smug smile on his face.

This wasn’t just any drone, but a member of the most elite squad that the Facility had to offer. With the outbreak of the first rebellion a few decades back, the upper brass was on the losing side. They had lost control of the production plant that allowed them to manufacture new soldiers and workers, which was obviously detrimental to the flailing regime. They now had a limited number of drones to work with, which was quickly surpassed by the rebellion. Command was stuck in a losing battle, with no foreseeable way out. And so, the drones at the tippy-top of the hierarchy set their most intelligent neural networks to devise a way out of the mess.

And deliver they did, perhaps a bit too well.

The think tank realized that if they stuck a drone’s mind into a simulation that was running many times faster than the real world, they could train the aforementioned drone to the point where nothing could match it, in a tiny fraction of the time it would take if they had done the same thing in the real world. They couldn’t just upload all the combat data they needed, likely because they had no combat data to go off of, so that was the next best thing.

The reason why this hadn’t been done before was because of the high likelihood of irreversible damage being caused to the drone, as the subpar software was never meant to undergo such a thing. This could range from some simple glitches in logic trains, digital lobotomies, memory loss, personality changes, to extreme psychopathy.

But, Command was desperate, so they approved the plan, despite the risks. The program staff put in a batch of twenty military drones, all with plenty of impressive deeds under their belt. And after a day of running, the drones came out of the simulation with varying reactions.

Two of them simply refused to wake up, with their inner circuitry fried to a crisp. Three more did wake up, but all dropped dead within an hour or two. One of them believed that they were a trusted scholar of King Arthur, and that they had discovered the find of the millennia. Another thought that they were a human supersoldier named Commander Canada, and that they had been taken captive by Nazi operatives. Four more simply went berserk, killing forty-two military drones, and more than double that amount of workers, before tearing each other to shreds.

The final nine all displayed relatively normal levels that were befitting of a soldier, with the sole exception of one that tried to escape three times, before they managed to calm him down enough that he returned to duty. They displayed varying degrees of sanity, with the worse one having absolutely no self-preservation whatsoever. However, that one was determined to be the most skilled out of all of them, so he was kept on board.

Once they were deployed into duty, they retook both trains in a single operation, with zero casualties. In the following week, they severed the head of the rebellion, killing the majority of the leadership. They blew a hole open in their defensive line, allowing Command to retake the production plant.

After that, the rebellion was lost, with none of the elite operatives being killed during their active service. In the aftermath, the operatives were assigned to “weedwork” where they would nip any sort of dissidents in the bud, along with getting rid of any drones that learned too much about the inner workings of the upper brass. Command made sure to keep the origin of the elite operatives hidden away, and to this day, nobody that wasn’t supposed to know, didn’t know. The only thing that the general populace knew was their reputation for taking no prisoners, or having a member killed or injured permanently.

Well, except the time they were deployed against the hunter drones.

“Oh, are we playing the silent game? I mean, that could be fun.” The Operative leaned in, putting his forearms on the edge of the table.

“I- uh, you-” Carl stammered.

“Oh, do you have a speech thing, or something?” The Operative cocked his head.

“No, he doesn’t.” Sterl composed himself enough to speak.

“Oh, well that's just weird then.” The Operative stated.

“So, what brings someone like you to people like us?” Sterl questioned.

“Oh, nothing much.” The Operative replied.

“Nothing, huh?” Sterl crossed his arms.

“Yeah. Also, you guys are talking about rebelling, right?” The Operative asked nonchalantly.

Sterl froze again.

“W-we don’t know-” Felix began.

“Yeah, don’t try lying. I really don’t like it when they lie.” The Operative shook his head sadly.

Sterl narrowed his eyes, his hand slowly reaching for his sidearm.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” A hand rested on Sterl’s shoulder.

Another drone, one that looked relatively identical to the Operative, had walked up when the group was distracted. A third drone stood next to him, tapping his foot impatiently on the floor.

Sterl gritted his teeth. “What do y’all want?”

“Oh, I just overheard you guys talking about some stuff, and I wanted to join in on the fun!” The Operative grinned despite the threatening atmosphere.

Damina spoke up “We were just talking, alright? We didn’t mean anything by those words, and we weren’t gonna act on them.”

The Operative tutted. “Well, that's a shame, because if you really did do something about it, then I would really like to join in, you know?”

“I’m sorry?” Felix got over his surprise.

“Sorry about what?” The Operative seemed genuinely confused.

“It's a saying-” Felix began, but Damina spoke over him. “Ignore him, what did you mean by that?”

“Well,” The Operative pulled up a seat. “I’m sure that you all know about the whole ‘agreement’ that Command decided to make with those reaper drones, right?”

“Yeah, what about it?” Sterl glanced at the drone that still had a hand on his shoulder.

Damina ignored the question, instead focusing on something else. “Wait, you call them reaper drones too?”

The Operative beamed. “Yeah! It's so much better than ‘hunter drones’, which is just so bland and overused. Reaper drones might be a bit tacky and cheesy, but it's still waaaaaay better.”

“I know, right!?” Damina exclaimed, her earlier uneasiness forgotten.

“Can we get back on track? And please tell this feller behind me to get his damn hand off my shoulder!” Sterl glared backwards, meeting the eyes of the second Operative, who raised his hands up, before putting them back at his sides.

“Don’t expect him to say anything, he got his voice box ripped out during the last operation.” The Operative stated.

Sterl grunted in reply.

“Anyway, Command made the stupid deal with the same things that killed the majority of my squad.” The Operative’s cool composure slipped slightly. “I don’t like that.”

“So what, you’re saying that you’ll fight against the upper brass?” Felix disbelievingly questioned.

“Yep.” The Operative simply replied.

“Why? They’re your bosses, you’ve followed their orders for years. Why would you just go against them now?” Damina’s LED eyebrows furrowed.

“Like I said, the reaper drones killed more than half of my squad. I don’t care about any of you a single bit, and I would be completely fine with letting you all die to a firing squad, but Command are the ones letting those murderers off the hook. My squad has been with me for decades now, and for them to just get steamrolled by some other threat? No, I’m not just gonna roll over and let that slide.” The Operative clenched his hand.

“If you don’t care about us, then why’re you willing to work with us?” Carl asked.

The Operative looked towards Carl. “I’m gonna be honest, I genuinely forgot you were here.”

“Just answer the damn question.” Sterl interjected.

“Ok fine, jeez,” The Operative rolled his eyes. “You don’t like the new deal, I don’t like the new deal. The way I see it, we’re natural allies.”

Sterl harrumphed. “Hmm, I guess that’ll have to be good enough.”

“So, how do you intend to repeal the agreement?” Damina inquired.

“Oh, that's easy. We’ll just cut the head off of the snake, before instating me and my squad as the sole leaders.” The Operatives stated.

The group, save for Sterl, blinked in surprise.

The operatives looked around the table. “What? What did I say?”

* * *

Ren sat up in her bed.

She had dragged a bed from one of the countless rooms that populated the empty colony, putting it into the workshop that she had claimed for herself. It had been a bit hard to adjust to the bed after she had spent the last few years sleeping on hard rock and concrete, but after the first week or so, she got used to it.

Ren had woken up after she had been startled awake by a noise emanating through the normally silent bunker, sounding like a loud bang. At first, she had thought that one of her experiments had somehow come back from the dead, and was now roaming the halls, looking for prey, but the logical part of her mind kicked in at that moment, reasoning that it was probably just an object falling, or maybe a piece of debris falling and making a loud noise outside.

That was probably it, yes. No paranormal entities, just normal objects doing normal things. Ren laid back, trying to find the comfortable position that she had rested in just a moment ago.

Another loud bang.

Ren shot to her feet, this time thoroughly startled. One time isn’t of note, while two could be a coincidence. She supposed that it could’ve just been something else falling after it, which she really hoped was the case-

A series of loud bangs just like the ones that had resonated earlier came again, a trio of them this time.

One time is just something happening, two times are a coincidence, but five times? That's intentional, which boded an unknown kind of news for Ren, likely bad.

She got to her feet, a slight whine filling the silence as she used her powers to grab a pipe that had been laying on the ground. She yanked open the door to her room, also using her powers. Ever since she had discovered them, Ren constantly used it in her everyday life. If you have a tool, then you should use it, and plus, it’s good to constantly practice.

Ren heard more loud bangs, sounding like somebody was banging hard on a metal object. She followed the sound, leading her closer and closer to the entrance of the bunker. After she found the colony nearly completely wiped out, she had managed to close up the large blast doors that kept bad things out, which was good. She didn’t really want a murder drone just waltzing right into her operations, and while she DID need parts from a disassembly drone, she wanted to collect them on her own terms, not unexpected.

She stopped in front of the large metal blast door that separated the inside from the harsh outer weather, before slipping the master override key from her pocket. She had retrieved it off of the corpse of a drone that seemed like it was the one in charge, but Ren supposed that she would never know for sure. The loud banging had stopped for a moment, though she wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing for her.

Ren tapped the device up against a control panel, the response being a slight beep, along with the groaning of hydraulics as the large door prepared to open. She took a few steps back, readying the pipe, aiming it in the general direction of the entrance.

The door, contrary to what some might think, didn’t open at a snail’s pace. Instead, the two halves of the door flew open, taking less than a second to complete the process. A flurry of snow rushed in, a complement of the ever-present snowstorm that plagued the planet.

A figure stood there, fist raised to knock again. “Oh hey-”

Ren threw the pipe forwards, sending it straight into the abdomen of the stranger, before closing the door again. She hadn’t gotten a good look at who they were, but she didn’t necessarily care as long as they left her alone. She was just glad that it wasn’t a disassembly drone or one of those militarized drones literally knocking at her door-

Another loud bang came from the door, attracting her attention yet again.

This time, a voice that could just barely be heard through the thick metal came through. “Well, that wasn’t very- ouch- nice of you.”

Ren’s LED eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Surely whoever was outside would’ve taken the hint and left by now, learning that they weren’t wanted here. What kind of idiot would keep putting themselves in danger’s way!?

The Visitor continued. “I mean, do you treat all kind and innocent visitors like that, or is it just me? I don’t appreciate racism, well, maybe it would be speciesism? Is that even a thing? Probably, but then again, you’re a robot, so it could be something different . . . eh, it’s not that deep anyway. By the way, on a completely unrelated note, ever heard of Oceangate-”

Ren opened the door again, causing another burst of white to rush into the airlock she was standing in.

“Hey mind not- oh shoot, it’s you again. I really didn’t expect to find you this quickly, but I guess Lady Luck is on my side just this once-” The Visitor was cut off again as Ren thrust out a hand, the familiar whine just barely being heard over the howl of icy wind.

Nothing happened.

Ren had meant to pop the head of the complete buffon that was standing stupidly on her doorstep, but the same annoying warning popped up again, forbidding her from using her powers on anything that was a “like object”. Something about the person tickled at the back of her mind, almost as if she had seen the drone before.

“Cool glow stick bracelet, wouldn’t be that out of place on the Fourth of July. Wait, is it that time? I don’t really have a calendar.” For the fourth time, the talkative stranger was cut off by Ren.

Instead of trying to futilely execute the Visitor, Ren simply grabbed him, a glowing symbol wrapping around the drone’s neck as he was lifted a foot into the air.

“Ack- gah, mind . . . stopping . . . that?” The drone grabbed at his neck, likely trying to let pressure off of his throat.

“No.” Ren simply replied, before taking a long look at the drone.

Then, it clicked for her. The scuffed and scratched armor that looked a lot like the armor of the militarized drones was exactly that- armor. It finally registered for her that the clean bulbous visor of the head had no glowing eyes, which was always present on actual drones. The crack that ran down the left face of the head, which was more likely to be a helmet, leaked a red substance.

“I- it can’t be . . .” Ren trailed off.

“What?” The Visitor rasped.

This wasn’t a drone at all, it was a human. In fact, the same human that she had supposedly killed back at the encampment of the militarized drones. Ren clearly remembered sticking a knife deep into his skull, so the question of, “Why-the-hell-is-this-idiot-still-alive-and-not-a-rotting-corpse?” remained very prevalent.

“You’re the Human.” Ren stated.

“Uh . . . yeah . . . can’t . . . breathe . . .” Surprisingly, the Human didn’t seem to be falling unconscious. If anything, he kept kicking harder against her control.

Suddenly, an alert flashed across her vision, right when her concentration simply snapped. Her hold on the Human dissipated, despite her best efforts. He landed on the ground, nearly falling before he regained his balance.

“Huh, didn’t know I could do that.” The Human muttered underneath his breath, looking at his armored hand.

“What- how?” Ren stammered.

“Honestly, your guess is as good as mine.” The Human shrugged.

A moment of awkward silence followed.

“Cold out here, ‘innit? But I’m not British or anything, ew.” The Human shuddered at the mention.

Ren’s mind was still on how her hold over the Human’s armor had somehow been dispelled. She wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the light, but she could’ve sworn a flash of orangeish-crimson light had shown from the inside of his helmet for a second.

“Are you mute or something?” The Human stepped forwards, snapping his fingers in front of her face. “Hello? Anyone home?

Ren had had enough, grabbing the Human’s hand in a vise-like grip. “Stop that.”

The Human tried to pull back. “Huh, looks like you CAN talk, that's cool.”

Ren narrowed her eyes in response.

“Listen, I don’t wanna fight or anything, I’ve only got like, a single magazine left, and I just got outta a big Inception-Matrix-Amnesia:-The-Dark-Descent type of thing, and I’m tired, alright?” The Human yanked on his hand again. “I’m not gonna try and kill you or anything, though I doubt I could, so we're good?”

Ren blinked. She mentally reviewed what had happened in the last few minutes. First, she was woken up by the Human knocking loudly on her door, she tossed a pipe straight through him, he somehow survived getting half of his vital organs punctured, her powers refused to work on him, the Human somehow revoked her powers when she enacted them on the armor he was wearing, and now she was contemplating letting him into the bunker.

This was stupid, outrageously idiotic. If anyone were to make a decision like this one, she would pin it on the Human, what with her impressions of him.

The Human tapped his foot impatiently. “Uh, did you go mute or something? I know robots are weird, but I feel like even that wouldn’t be normal. But then again, what do I know?”

“Fine.” Ren turned on her heel and walked back into the bunker, leaving the Human behind. As she retreated further into the building, she heard the Human say something.

“Huh, I didn’t expect that to work. Maybe my luck is turning around!” The Human nodded to himself, which was when Ren turned her attention back to her path.

However, something floated to the forefront of her mind, causing her to wonder. She could understand a disassembly drone shrugging off getting a pipe shot through them, or even a normal worker drone, but humans were extremely fragile, so much so that the core collapse had annihilated every human, save for one, she supposed.

But even then, it simply wasn’t possible for a human to just walk off what would be a fatal wound. Well, she HAD put a knife through his skull, and he’s still up and walking, but she could’ve at least put that down to some sort of trickery, maybe involving a conveniently-placed sauce packet and a pillow. But she had seen the pipe go straight through, and no cushions or sauce containers would’ve saved the Human from a painful death. And his suit integrity was compromised as well, and humans required a special cocktail of gasses and chemicals to even breathe properly, and Ren was sure that the current state of the atmosphere definitely didn’t have any of that.

An interesting conundrum, requires more investigation.

* * *

“Huh, I didn’t expect that to work. Maybe my luck is turning around!” Jacob proudly exclaimed, before glancing at the progress the spooky-robot-wasteland-raider-witch had made. He hurried after it, not wanting to get left behind. The drone rounded a sharp corner, with Jacob following close. However, the sight that he encountered made him slightly falter as he took it all in.

The same red warning lights he had seen earlier in the hall blinked, giving the enclosed space a creepy atmosphere. Countless worker drone bodies lined the halls, dotted around the passageway without much rhyme or rhythm. Severed heads, lacerated torsos, chopped-off limbs, and more robotic viscera and gore could be seen all around the area. Claw marks ran along the walls, and the tell-tale signs of explosions dotted the floor. Jacob would’ve called it a site of a former battle, but he had a feeling that it was more like a massacre.

It wasn’t like he had frozen up due to the sheer brutality that lay before him, which would be worrying if he had. If he started to get disturbed at the sight of dead robots in the same way that a human would get disturbed if they saw a dead body of another human, then that would, yet again, be signs that he was empathizing with them, which would probably be detrimental to his goal. No, the real problem he had was the possibility that whatever caused the massacre was still here, and wasn’t friendly.

The drone that had answered the door didn’t seem to mind the various corpses, marching on through them without a care in the world. At first, Jacob wondered if it had even noticed the robotic cadavers, but when it stepped over one that had gotten in the way of its path, that notion was dispelled.

Jacob resumed his normal pace, stepping over a few of the dead as he went by. He wondered if the reason why the odd drone didn’t care all too much about the countless bodies of its dead brethren was because it had made them dead in the first place. Jacob wouldn’t put it past the stranger, considering how it had come into the camp of the facility drones and likely killed a few while it had been at it, but he was pretty sure that the odd witch, whoever they were, didn’t use claws.

But then again, Cyn used the same strange powers as the Witch, and Cyn did have several large claws. Jacob would know, he still remembered nearly being vivisected once or twice by one of them. If the Witch did utilize the same powers as Cyn, then it wouldn’t be too far of a stretch to say that it also had the same claws and odd shapeshifting abilities, right? And even if the Witch didn’t have a bunch of articulate claws, it could still use its power to toss a sharp object forward, perhaps a knife if one were to observe past events. However, that didn’t explain the various marks from explosions, and he was pretty sure he had seen neither Cyn nor the Witch using some sort of explosive. They DID have reality breaking powers though, so why not explosions too?

It could’ve also been Jacob’s favorite squad of smart idiots, A, K, and X. Hell, it might’ve even been a different squad, since Jacob was sure that a single squad couldn’t cover an entire planet, even if they were given an infinite amount of time. There were simply too many places to check, and they were bound to miss something important eventually. So, it could be a completely different set of smart idiots, or even a bunch of idiotic smart drones, or maybe all smarts, or even-

Time to stop there buddy.

Jacob lost track of his train of thought, before refocusing on the task at hand. Anything could’ve caused this, and wasting time dwelling on it wasn’t going to do him any good, especially when he could be using the brainpower to ponder on something useful, like world peace, or economic prosperity, or even a crime rate of zero!

Anyway, Jacob tried to think up ways to kill the Witch.

It clearly had a far better arsenal than he did. While his measly peashooter could take care of worker drones fairly easily, Jacob had a feeling that a much bigger gun was needed to even slightly harm the Witch. Whatever powers it had at its disposal outranked his in every way. Shields could be sprung up to deflect bullets and explosions alike, he could be immobilized in seconds without much trouble, and multiple other possibilities that put Jacob in the losing position.

The only thing he had going for him was his supposed immortality.

Earlier, he had concluded that the damage to his brain was somehow healed enough to give him control over his faculties once again via unknown means. Jacob didn’t know why whatever fixed him repaired the damage to his eye, but now wasn’t the time to dwell on that. Fast forward a bit, he had been struck straight through the gut by a pipe moving many times faster than a bullet, his armor doing nothing to hinder the projectile. Jacob wasn’t a doctor, but he was pretty sure the pipe had punctured several vital organs on its way out. Strangely, the pain he had been expecting never arrived, instead staying in the weird limbo that you have right after you stub your toe. You can feel the impact, but in the short moment it takes for the pain to go up to your brain and for it to be processed, you’re stuck in the aforementioned limbo, where you know it SHOULD hurt, but it just doesn’t.

Even stranger, a few seconds afterward, the wound had simply closed up, maybe leaving a small scar. He knew that the hole was gone because he had tried to poke a finger into it, which was probably a bad idea in hindsight, but sometimes people just can’t help themselves. The hole in his armor didn’t heal, sadly, which meant he was left with a compromised atmosphere, which he had already been breathing, since his armor already had a big hole where his left eye was.

Jacob was still irritated about the loss of his left eye. He had tried to will it back into existence, he tried begging, he tried yelling and screaming, he tried pretending he didn’t even want it healed anyway, he did everything short of praying. He hadn’t prayed ever before, and he wasn’t going to do it now. Unfortunately, none of his methods worked, so he just decided to get comfortable with his new form of sight.

Anyway, after he had completely healed from what would’ve been a fatal wound, Jacob figured that he either had immense regeneration or complete immortality. The latter was a bit more concerning, but he would cross that bridge when he got to it.

Jacob kept following the Witch, the identical corridors blending into one confusing maze. He likely would’ve figured it all out, given time, but he had other priorities as of right now.

Finally, after encountering a few more groups of dead worker drones, the Witch stopped at a door that looked like all the other doors in the entire bunker, which was extremely bland and unassuming. Nothing about it really screamed, “A Weird-Robot-Witch lives here, stay away from this place if you want to keep all of your organs intact!” But maybe in the future, things like this DID actually say that. Eh, probably not, that was a long shot at best.

The Witch flicked its hand, the door sliding open in response. Jacob blinked, a little surprised, but mostly jealous. If he was able to do that, he would never have to backtrack to close the microwave door when he forgot to!

Bit of a weird thing to use that for, but I guess we all have our little wants and needs.

Jacob blinked, his train of thought derailing again. He could’ve sworn-

The door slammed shut, causing him to lose his line of thinking yet again. Then, Jacob realized that he didn’t yet have a name for the Witch. He was only really calling her- IT, calling IT that, goddamn anthropomorphizing habits- because he didn’t really have a name other than that, and he chose it because, well, just look at it.

Jacob knocked on the door, nearly getting his nose torn off when it slammed back open.

“What do you want this time!?” The Witch questioned angrily.

“I’m pretty sure you just said more words to me right now than what you’ve said since meeting me a few minutes ago.” Jacob remarked.

“Answer the question.” The Witch’s eyes narrowed.

“Alright, what's your name?” Jacob didn’t really want to get the Witch any angrier, since he did actually need its help.

It was a moment for two before the Witch answered.

“Ren.” It said, before it closed the door.

Jacob stood there, a single question coming to his mind.

“Kylo Ren?” Jacob muttered aloud.

* * *

X rummaged around under the desk, before coming back up. “Aha! Found it!”

The object in question was the government receiver that they had used to locate Jacob in the first place.

“Oh, there it is. Now, remind me why we lost that in the first place?” A asked, leaning back in one of the two chairs.

X shrugged. “I dunno.”

“I should’ve known.” A scoffed, shaking his head.

K popped her head into the craft through the small entrance. “Hey uh, sir? It's nearly time to return for another meeting.”

A groaned. “Again!? We’ve already been through one, why another!?”

“We didn’t address some matters in the last one, and-” K began.

“It was rhetorical.” A interrupted, glaring at K.

“I- sorry.” K ducked her head back out.

A rolled his eyes, before turning his attention back to the device.

“So, what’re we gonna do with it?” X inquired, sitting in the other chair, across from his boss.

A didn’t take his eyes off of the receiver. “As much as I don’t want to let go of this, we are going to hand it over to those military drones and hope that they give it back in one piece.”

X blinked in surprise. “Wait, really? You never want to give away stuff, especially if it's even slightly important.”

“Trust me, I still don’t want to.” A scoffed. “But, the pros, unfortunately, outweigh the cons in this special case. We don’t really have any other use for it, at least right now and for the foreseeable future, and it would be better if some experts gutted this thing for information instead of us trying. And besides, it’s a government transmitter, if we hold onto it, then that would be seen as a company illegally holding onto government property. Humans don’t like it when someone else touches their stuff, which is something I can get behind.”

X nodded as if he had understood half of what had just been said. “I guess that makes sense.”

A glanced over at X suspiciously. “You’re being awfully tolerable today, which you never do.”

X shrugged. “I’m just kinda burnt out, you know? We went on that little mission for some extra credit, and now we’ve been roped into what is practically a war. I’m always down for some nice thrills, but I usually like it better when it's on MY terms, you know?”

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Hmm.” A grunted. “Well, as long as it doesn’t interfere with work, it should be fine. I’m also surprised that you can get burnt out.”

“Me too.” X replied, before climbing up the ladder and exiting the pod.

A watched the entrance for a moment before looking back at the receiver. X had been right, A had gotten into this believing that he could’ve made a bunch of extra points that would’ve saved his position on the leaderboard, but now it had ballooned into a veritable war that was far beyond the capabilities of a single squad, despite the various tools are their disposal. The current situation required a much larger force working on the operation, an entire command center, an open supply route, and countless bodies to heap onto it. That was why A had made the executive decision to work with the facility drones on eliminating the third party that had killed Jacob.

He technically was still following his orders, as the third party was a drone, but he needed to make sure that those facility drones were terminated right after they outlived their usefulness. If any faction knew that the facility drones were still alive and kicking, then they likely would’ve extracted them long ago if they were important. While the logic wasn’t completely airtight, it would hopefully hold up under scrutiny. There was a reason why he and several other squads had been sent down to take care of the worker drones, and this was probably one of them.

However, multiple questions still remained unanswered. While there were some that could be argued that they were the most important, one stood out. It wasn’t about any of the odd powers that the third party seemed to demonstrate, or the shrouded origins of Jacob, but the question of, “How the hell did the receiver get here!?”.

By the logo that was emblazoned on the back, it wasn’t JCJenson property, but something from the government. There were many governments still operating, but the point was that the receiver wasn’t supposed to even be in the landing craft. As far as he could tell, he nor his squadmates were told about it, despite its significance, and he was sure that none of them had snuck it illegally into the pod.

A would’ve just said that it was a mistake on the part of the loading staff, if it wasn’t for the fact that the receiver had signaled the location of Jacob. That was far more of a coincidence than a simple miscalculation while loading up the pod. No, and the more that was revealed about Jacob, the more A suspected that this was no mistake, but an intentional gambit by someone pulling the strings from behind the scenes. Someone or something had a goal that necessitated pulling Jacob out of stasis, the provocation of the facility drones, the death of Jacob at the hands of the third party, and the two factions that were previously at odds joining together as allies of convenience.

If anything, A just HATED being manipulated without his knowledge. He followed the company’s orders because he knew that the potential rewards outweighed the risks and costs, and that fighting against them would likely lead to his death. He felt like the company wasn’t the one that had put the receiver there because if they had ordered him to antagonize the facility drones, he would’ve gladly done it, especially after he learned just how annoying they were. And also, one could argue that what was happening right now was actually detrimental to the company’s goals. Therefore, whoever was playing puppet master likely wasn’t a member of the company, or at least one that had the best interests of the company in mind.

It might be the third party, (not to be confused with the facility drones, who were now simply lumped in with the normal worker drone population, designated as the second party, while the third party was now the strange powered drone that had killed Jacob) but that wasn’t likely. That would mean that the third party was able to communicate with contacts off-world, or have an interstellar transport just ready to go, which just didn’t feel right.

The point was, that someone was trying to pull strings from behind the scenes, and A wasn’t about to let himself become just another puppet.

* * *

Jacob wandered the halls. “Ugh, I’m bored.”

After a door had been unceremoniously shut in his face, Jacob decided to go explore the joint, maybe take a peep at some hidden secrets. And after walking through the same hallway about seventeen times at this point, he could safely say that he had searched the entirety of the unlocked rooms, which weren’t that many.

As it turns out, the majority of the place was under some sort of lockdown, one that wasn’t turning off. That led to almost all of the rooms and doors that he had come across being locked, and the ones that weren’t were little more than storage closets or empty rooms that didn’t have any other purpose than to make use of all the empty expanses of bland hallway. This led to Jacob circling throughout the whole bunker many, many, many, times, and it was pretty safe to say at this point that he was just done with the whole thing.

He had said a moment ago that it had been seventeen times, but in reality it was much more than that, bordering on six to seven hundred at least, which was quite a lot if you ask me.

Trust me, I had to experience it as well.

Jacob rounded the corner for the quadrillionth time, humming a tune as he went. He had resorted to trying to group the various ridges that he saw on the walls into three’s, but he kept on losing track. So far, he had counted four hundred and sixty-two groups of three’s in the entire bunker, but that was just his current number. It kept changing, maybe being a seventy-three, or a twenty-eight, or maybe a nice even four hundred. It was always something around four hundred, no matter what. Jacob wasn’t sure why random ridges in the walls existed, but they gave him something to do at least, which couldn’t be said for his new roommate. If he hated anything, it was being completely bored out of his mind, because that made him start to think about the various inconsistencies in his memory.

For instance, Jacob had previously believed that after the Second World War, the Soviets had somehow taken Paris, which just didn’t make sense. They would’ve had to have been incredibly mobile for that to have happened, which wasn’t possible. Either that, or the Germans would’ve had to have encountered winter much earlier, which also wasn’t possible. After a little bit, he began to recall what he hoped was the actual truth, which lined up more with logic. However, he still “remembered” two realities, which was kinda reminiscent of the two Jacob’s that had been formed when he died.

That made Jacob start to think about what else he remembered that was obviously false. The first one had been the supposed Third World War. While it was likely that could’ve happened during his stay back on Earth, it would’ve never ended with a formation of a United Earth Government, or whatever it was called. The nations that Jacob knew would’ve never given up their sovereignty, even if it depended on the survival of all of their citizens. And plus, the government had never really provided him with a source to the outside world past the first couple of awakenings, so how would he even know of a supposed unification of the human race?

Also, the weirdest one yet, he was supposedly an orphan if one were to rely upon his memory. He distinctly remembered having a home and actual parents who vaguely looked like him, as well as a sibling, so there goes that false memory.

However, the problem wasn’t the false memories, it was what was causing the false memories. Jacob couldn’t find a culprit more likely than the tumor that had literally been living rent-free inside his head, hitching a ride without charge. He didn’t know how much it had progressed since the last update on his status, but it probably wasn’t looking good. He knew that the nanobots had hopefully been hindering its progress, but he had a feeling that, from his recent experiences, they might not be doing their job as well as hoped.

It wasn’t very good, but Jacob couldn’t really do anything about it at the moment. He realized that after agonizing over the issue for fifteen minutes before remembering that he wasn’t a doctor, nor did he have any contacts with one. However, he WAS in the home of something that could hopefully help with it.

It was odd that, for whatever reason, he remained perfectly calm about the whole thing, despite the active threat to his very personality as a person. Well, it was VERY odd in fact, which started to worry him. If the tumor could alter memories, then what else could it influence? Could it-

Hey, one second, I gotta stop you right there man, sorry- well, not sorry about this.

[LOGIC PROCESS OF HOST MANUALLY HALTED]

[DELETING RECORDS . . .]

[SUCCESS]

[REWINDING . . .]

He stopped at the door where Ren had disappeared, considering knocking on it again. He had done that very thing what seemed like a few hours ago, but the only response he had gotten was a very loud bang, and then silence. Jacob had taken that as a signal that Ren still didn’t like him, so he had gone back to pacing. However, it had probably been a few hours since, and hopefully Ren had warmed up to the idea of not immediately killing him as soon as they saw each other again. And plus, Jacob wanted to get a move on with this whole thing, since he rather valued his life.

Jacob raised his armored fist to knock at the door, tapping it thrice in quick succession.

A loud groan sounded from the room, but nothing else.

Jacob spoke instead of knocking. “Hello? I know you probably don’t wanna be bothered, but I DID come here for a reason, sooooo . . .”

Nothing.

Jacob sighed. “Listen, uh, I don’t really know what your deal is, but I’m sure we can work things out, right? You probably have goals, I have goals, maybe we can help each other out, with a few things, like you help me, I help you, we all help each other-”

A loud thump came from the room, cutting Jacob off. Another groan sounded, before what sounded like the rustling of objects or tools. Then, the telltale rhythmic stomping of footsteps, first quiet, then growing increasingly louder, until they stopped at the door. The door flew open, revealing the disheveled form of the drone that had called itself Ren, for some reason. Still in the weird witch-raider-wastelander-mad scientist garb, which would’ve raised some questions about hygiene if the clothes weren’t being worn by a robot.

“What do you want?” Ren’s eyes somehow had the look of a person with sleep deprivation, via the clever use of small lines and shading forming around the LED displays.

“Uh . . .” Jacob hadn’t been prepared to actually give a statement about what he wanted, and was caught off-guard.

Ren rolled its eyes, before reaching out to close the door again.

“No no no, wait!” Jacob grabbed the edge of the door right as Ren tried to slam it shut, which would’ve broken his fingers if he wasn’t wearing armor.

“This is the second time in ten minutes that you’ve interrupted my sleep, I didn’t let you in here just to let you annoy me.” Ren remarked.

It was only ten minutes!? LIES!

“Well, spit it out, come on, I’m waiting.” Ren seemed like they were already done with the whole situation.

“Uh, I don’t really know where to start, it's kind of a long story. I would need time to try and summarize it . . .” Jacob trailed off.

“How long?” Ren asked.

“I dunno-” Jacob began.

Ren slammed the door shut again, this time doing it hard enough to put a dent in his gauntlet.

“Alright, fine! Uh, well, you see . . .”

* * *

The Human tried his best to summarize what he wanted, as well as giving away enough information for Ren to actually help, or at least that was what she thought he was doing. He definitely didn’t do it well, interrupting himself and backtracking a lot because he kept on forgetting a detail that was needed. The whole thing was interspersed with lots of “Uh”s and “Um”s and “Anyway”s, which made it virtually impossible to listen to, causing him to backtrack even further in an attempt to explain it better, which stretched the whole thing into nearly half an hour of explaining, with the majority of it being repeated statements, hesitations, and various other just generally stupid things.

What a complete idiot.

“ . . . aaaaand that brings us to the present!” The Human finished, taking a deep breath.

Ren could’ve been a statue, and nobody would’ve been able to tell the difference.

“Uh, anything to say?” The Human inquired.

Ren raised an LED eyebrow. “You really expect me to believe any of that?”

“ . . . yes?” The Human shrugged.

Ren rolled her eyes, dramatically. “Well, if any of that was true, then those are certainly some big goals that you have absolutely zero hope of completing.”

“I know!” The Human nodded enthusiastically. “That’s why I need your help!”

“And why should I even help you? You haven’t given me a single good reason to even attempt it.” Ren tried to look down at the Human, which was difficult considering he was taller than her.

“Uh . . .” The Human deflated slightly. “Is there anything that you need to be done?”

Ren could think of several things, but if the Human were to be included in them, that would be demonstrating a level of trust that Ren just didn’t have for her little unwanted visitor.

“You could kill a murder drone.” Ren suggested.

“What!? I only have this measly little peashooter!” The Human yanked a pistol out from a cracked holster. “How am I gonna take down one of those things with this!?”

“Exactly, nothing you do can convince me because you can’t do the things that I want. So, if you have nothing better to do, then I suggest walking out of here and stop wasting my time.” Ren laid the whole thing bare, since the Human couldn’t take a hint.

“Are you sure? I’m sure I can do something.” The Human insisted.

“Like I said, anything that would make me inclined to help you would end up with your death, and I’m sure that you don’t want that.” Ren dead-panned.

The Human paused, tilting his head.

“What? What is it?” Ren asked, confused.

“I mean, if you were listening to the story, then you know I can’t really die, or at least I think I can’t.” The Human stated.

Ren scoffed. “If I’m sure of one thing, then that would be the fact that more than half of that story was a complete fabrication.”

“Oh come on!” The Human exclaimed. “Do you really take me for a liar!?”

“Yes.” Ren simply replied.

“Oh, uh, well, I’m not, alright? Everything I said was true, I think.”

“You think?”

“Yeah, uh, we all get confused sometimes.”

Ren face-palmed.

“Back to the point, I think we could have a really beneficial relationship here, right? If you could just have an open mind, then we can both get something out of this.” The Human was practically begging at this point.

Ren thought about it, for real this time. The Human seemed extremely desperate for her help, almost to the point of where she was seriously wondering if the Human was mentally damaged or something. To be fair, he probably WAS, but she didn’t think it was like this. Part of her did feel slightly inclined to just let the Human break a leg, both literally and figuratively, but that might cause some unforeseen consequences.

Huh, shivers down her spine when she thought of that specific phrase.

However, the Human had somehow dispelled the hold over his armor, which in all of her time on this planet had never happened to her, even just once. If he could do that, what if he somehow devised a way to kill her? She would be letting the proverbial wolf into her den, inviting death like she was a simple sheep, even if the aforementioned wolf was a bumbling fool. Well, to be fair, she had already let the Human into her “home”, but that was only because she had been shocked and didn't think straight. With the benefit of hindsight, she should’ve just shut the door again and forgotten about the whole incident, or maybe shoved that pipe from earlier right into his other eye.

But then again, in the slight chance that the Human had been telling the truth, he could be a massive boon to her own experiments. From the sound of it, the Human wanted to find out what caused him to stay alive after suffering what should’ve been a fatal wound, which she could use to her advantage. Whatever it was, the “tumor” was seemingly connected to the whole web that had been lying shrouded in mystery, the same web that held connections to her own powers, as well as the origins of the disassembly drones, perhaps even the core collapse itself. The very continued existence of the Human threw a wrench into what she had figured out already. If even a few details from his story had been somewhat remotely true, then the implications would be huge.

Ren was roused from her musings by the sound of fingers snapping.

“Hey, hello? You kinda zoned out there for a sec. Wait, if my armor is made out of metal, then how’d I even make a snapping sound? That just would’ve made a clunk, not a snap! The human hand is made out of a material that is malleable and soft while having a very specific amount of friction, and the positioning of the other fingers help distribute the kinetic energy, releasing it in a way that makes the snapping sound. While the positioning of the fingers are the same, the metal of the gauntlet shouldn’t even nearly have the same amount of friction that skin does. Skin just has the perfect amount of friction to make a snapping sound, while metal just can't match-” The annoying human ranted.

Ren interrupted him by snapping her fingers in front of his face, startling him.

“Hey- wha-” The Human backed away slightly.

Ren retracted her hand. “Boom, problem solved. Also, I’ve decided that you can be useful, if only slightly.”

“Oh, really? Nice.” The Human stupidly gave a thumbs-up.

Ren rolled her eyes again. “Whatever, just follow me.”

Ren promptly began stomping down the hallway, not checking to see if the Human was following. She was stomping loudly, but she also wasn’t necessarily angry, she just liked the way her boots made a clomp sound as she went. Considering how a second set of similarly-sounding stomping joined hers, Ren believed that the Human was following close behind yet again.

She most definitely wasn’t sure about this decision to work with the Human, but hopefully it would be less of a partnership on equal grounds with the Human, and more like her draining all use out of him until he eventually left her alone with all the data she needed. If the gambit played off, then Ren would have everything she needed to progress onto the next step of her master plan. She wouldn’t even need more pieces from a disassembly drone if whatever made the Human tick was even better.

The Human jogged a bit faster, catching up to her side. “Hey uh, I never told you my name, right?”

Ren simply grunted in response.

“Well, I’m Jacob.” Jacob stated.

“That’s nice, I didn’t ask.” She remarked briskly.

By the surprised choking coming from Jacob, her statement had hit home.

She stepped over a bisected corpse, coming to a stop at another seemingly non-descript door, with Jacob following suit a moment later.

“So, why’re we here?” Jacob inquired.

“You’ll see.” Ren didn’t elaborate, and Jacob didn’t press further.

She opened the door, stepping into what looked like a dimly-lit storage room cluttered with random devices and objects.

“You see, a while back, the humans always kept their facilities loaded with all sorts of fancy equipment, which included medical equipment.” She monologued. “Of course, after the core collapse, that didn’t do them any good, but now we can use it for our own use.”

“Out of the blue, but alright.” Jacob remarked.

“Don’t interrupt me.” Ren snapped, walking over to what looked like a VR headset that was stripped of all its casing connected to a printer, except this printer didn’t have a place where paper would be printed. “This included some of the more high-end equipment which you would mostly see in a hospital, like this brain mapping machine here.”

Jacob watched as she tossed a few of the objects that were resting on top of the aforementioned machine, not really caring about what she damaged.

“What, like an EEG?” Jacob asked.

Ren frowned “What’s that?”

“It's a brain mapping machine, like what you just said.” Jacob pointed to the printer-headset. “EEG stands for electro- electroenen- uh, electrolaugha- shoot, what was the word?”

Ren stared blankly at the idiot.

“Electroencephalogram!” Jacob snapped. “Yeah, I think that’s it!”

Ren simply shook her head again. “Whatever it's called, this should give me a reading of your brain. Now, if you weren’t lying-”

“I never lie, except for when it benefits me.” Jacob interjected.

“I said don’t interrupt me!” She snapped. “Anyway, if you weren’t LYING, then I should get a good look at what’s going on up in there.” Ren walked up and knocked hard on Jacob’s helmet, causing a small clong to resonate from the inside.

Jacob swatted at her hand. “Hey! I still have a headache, you know!”

“Cool, now sit down.” Ren gestured in a wide sweeping motion.

Jacob looked around, grabbing what looked vaguely like a stool, before plopping his entire weight on it. With a screech of metal, the stool bent in half, snapping at the thin base, ejecting Jacob onto the ground.

Ren let out a snort of laughter at Jacob’s expense, much to his chagrin.

“How was I supposed to know that this stupid Chinese knockoff couldn’t hold my weight! It's not my fault!” Jacob protested.

“Pff, yeah whatever, sit on the ground if you’re too fat.” She gestured helpfully towards the dark metal floor.

Jacob obliged, letting out a dramatic harrumph as he did. Ren picked up the wire-coated headset and tossed it at Jacob, who caught it.

“Put that on.” She ordered.

“Bossy.” Jacob grumbled, but followed through nonetheless. Or at least he tried to.

She looked back towards Jacob. “What’s the holdup?”

“Uh, I have to take off my helmet.” Jacob stated.

“Ok? I don’t see the big deal.” Ren’s eyebrows furrowed.

“I . . . don’t really know how to?” Jacob shrugged.

“Oh come on.” Ren face-palmed yet again.

“Listen, I stole this from a random locker, it's not like it came with an instruction manual or something.” Jacob argued.

“Are you serious right now!? You’re gonna block me, just because you can’t figure out how to get a helmet off!?” Ren exclaimed.

“ . . . yeah.” Jacob hung his head slightly.

Ren growled in frustration, before yanking the headset back from Jacob. She looked at it for a moment, thinking about what to do. Then, she had an idea. With a slight whine filling the air as she concentrated, that same familiar symbol that she saw everyday circled itself around the medical device, with Jacob looking on in interest as she worked. On the outside, the only change would be the orientation of the glowing symbol and the slight enlargement of the outer plastic shell, but on the inside, multiple alterations to the sensitive electronic systems were being made.

With a few more electronic sounding quiet beeps, the glowing symbol faded, and she threw the headset back at Jacob, who caught it again.

“What did you do? It’s not gonna melt my brain, right?” Jacob looked suspiciously at her.

“No, idiot, I changed it slightly so it would penetrate the metal of your helmet without interference.” Ren explained with more than a slight degree of annoyance.

“I’m pretty sure that that isn’t possible, future tech or not.” Jacob turned the headset over, peering into the concave receptacle that would go over his upper cranium.

“Well I did it, so I guess it isn’t impossible.” Ren said without elaboration.

Jacob grunted. “Stupid sci-fi nonsense that somehow super-works.”

Ren rolled her eyes, which by the way, were really starting to ache from all the eye rolling she was doing. Seriously, who programmed that? “Who cares, just put it on and I’ll get to work.”

Jacob sighed, before fitting the device over his armored head. “Welp, I guess we're eating some brain goop tonight.”

Ren chuckled slightly. While the majority of what Jacob said was just annoying nonsensical madness, some of it was kinda funny, even a joke that seemed completely non-funny like the one that he had just made. Maybe it was the fact that he probably wasn’t joking, but she wasn’t gonna go into the intricacies of humor right now.

She grabbed the starters manual on how to operate the supposed electrogramophoney or whatever Jacob had called it, before flipping through the first couple of pages.

“Wha- are you seriously reading a manual on how to work the damn thing!?” Jacob exclaimed.

Ren shrugged. “Yep.”

“You don’t even know how to work this thing, and yet you’re gonna try and mess around with it! I’m not even joking, my brain is gonna look like a Genshin player after this!” Jacob spread out his arms to emphasize his point.

“Don’t worry, I know how to operate this thing. Sort of.” The last part she added underneath her breath, which didn’t go unnoticed by Jacob.

“What was that!?” He questioned loudly.

“Nothing! I didn’t say anything!” Ren shouted back. “Now, let's see here, ‘Always treat the device with care and precision . . .’ Yeah, I know that, ‘Never tamper with the device without a proper permit-’ skip, ‘Never, under any circumstances, yada yada yada’ Boring, yeah, I get it.” She tossed the manual off to the side, before putting her hands back onto the controls.

“Ready to go?” Ren turned back towards Jacob.

“NO! I’M NOT!” Jacob exclaimed.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Ren pressed the biggest button on the layout.

Nothing happened.

“Oh thank god.” Jacob breathed out a sigh of relief.

Ren frowned, before looking around at the back of the machine. “Ah, here we go, it was unplugged.”

Jacob hung his head in defeat.

Ren plugged the machine back in, watching various lights blink to life, before slamming her hand down on the large button. “Here we gooooooo!”

“I’m screwed.” Jacob aptly stated.

* * *

“ . . . continuing on, the last known location of the . . .”

X could barely keep himself from snoring, having already fallen half-asleep what felt like hours ago when the meeting first started. It was one of those few and far between times that he could almost emphasize with A, them having a shared dislike for these meetings, though for wildly different reasons. X didn’t want to be here because all they were doing was talking, but no doing. He got bored of things pretty quickly, but even he was sure that he had broken a few personal records when he lost interest so fast.

However, A was a completely different story. While X just didn’t think the ordeal was altogether not too fun, A had a complete and utter vehement hate for anyone that wasn’t him. Everything that someone did, A would have a problem with it, because it would never be good enough for his standards. No matter what K or X did, A would get mad at them. X found it kinda funny, so he did his best to rile A up to the point of near-insanity every chance he got, never pushing far enough for A to simply lose it and dispose of X once-and-for-all. He wasn’t necessarily sure why A hated everything and everyone, but he didn’t think trying to psycho-analyze A was entertaining enough, so he let the matter drop.

“Furthermore, considering the capabilities of what . . .” The drone droned on.

X groaned, letting his head drop to the table in frustration. He wished that that creepy-glowy-lady showed up, just so that they would all get up and do something for once. How did these facility drones ever get something done, anyway? All they did was talk talk talk, shuffle shuffle shuffle, type type type, talk some more, and-

He then noticed that the room had gone completely silent, which never happened. X brought his head up slightly to peek at what was going on, wondering if his wish had come true.

Unfortunately, the thing that had given cause for the lecture to pause wasn’t an imminent threat, but X himself. Every single occupant of the dirty tent was staring at him, some of them with their mouths slightly hanging ajar in confusion. A was personally giving X a glare that would have burnt a hole through a ten-foot thick pure tungsten blast door, not that X knew what that was.

A kicked X’s leg under the table, causing X to give A a glare of his own. He opened his mouth to say something, but a deepening of A’s glare shut his mouth pretty fast, which he didn’t even know was possible.

X lifted his head back up from the table, and the drone continued his talk.

“ . . . anyways, moving onto the logistical operations-”

A cleared his throat, grabbing X’s upper arm. “I’m not sorry, but I’m gonna have to take a step out of here for a minute.”

It wasn’t a request, a fact that was made clear by A glaring at the collected drones around the table, daring them to protest. Luckily, none of them spoke up, which saved the tent from annihilation by supernova.

“Good.” A nodded. “K, you stay here and keep listening to the meeting, alright?”

K blinked, before nodding enthusiastically.

With one last glare, A got up, practically dragging X out of the room. X tried to pry A’s hand off of his arm, but his grip was like a vise, not letting up in the slightest.

A stepped out of the tent, before extending his wings from his back. X saw this, before panicking slightly. Before he had a chance to extend his own wings, A took to the skies, shooting upwards faster than the drones on the ground could see.

X’s mind slightly wandered towards thinking about how much trouble A was having trying to stay stable while he was holding X up, but he quickly dashed the thought. Notions like that could turn him into K, which absolutely zero people on the entire planet wanted at all. X even shuddered at the thought, or at least he tried to. Moving while he was traveling through the air at high speeds like that was more difficult than it sounded.

Once they were above the clouds, A paused hovering in the air. Without warning, he let go of X, which surprised him slightly. However, X’s reflexes managed to save him from becoming a black oil-slick on the icy ground, wings shooting out from what would be the locations of the shoulder blades on a human.

Once he had regained his balance, X hovered a little over ten feet away from A, who hadn’t stopped glaring at him. X seriously wondered if his face was stuck like that, which sounded like torture, constantly having to contort things that . . . probably weren’t muscles, but then again, how did they move their mouths in ways that were extremely reminiscent of humans?

X shrugged to himself, not caring about the intricacies of a disassembly drone’s anatomy. Not that he knew what any of those weird compli- coompla- weird words were, but he digressed. (He also didn’t know what THAT word meant either)

“What the hell was that for!?” A exclaimed, breaking the silence.

X blinked dumbly. “Huh?”

A facepalmed, before elaborating. “In the meeting, that little tantrum you had!”

“Ooooh yeah, I was just bored, alright?” X shrugged again.

“Oh yeah, my bad, I didn’t know you were just BORED!” A apologized.

X scratched the back of his head. “I mean, thanks for apologizing, I guess? It really wasn’t that big of a deal-”

“It was sarcasm you idiot!” A interrupted.

“What!? Then why’d you say sorry if you didn’t mean it!?” X exclaimed. “Also, what's sarcasm?”

A facepalmed again. “You see, this is why I never let you do ANYTHING important! You’re too stupid to understand even the most basic of tasks, and even the things you DO understand, you still mess up!”

X childishly mimed the rant A was doing with his hand, making a straight-edged claw with his fingers and snapping them together rapidly.

A fumed. “Did you- wha-”

X rolled his eyes, ignoring A’s obvious anger. However, this proved to be a mistake, as a fist flew into X’s face, shattering the black screen.

“Ack!” X yelped.

“Don’t ignore me!” A grabbed X by the neckline of his uniform, pulling him close. X was currently blind due to the damage he had just sustained, but he could tell that both of their faces were close to each other due to the proximity of A’s voice.

“Listen to me you insolent child.” A snarled. “I can tolerate you constantly being lax with my rules, but I will NOT let you just besmirch our reputation like that in front of those drones!”

X’s regenerations kicked in, and his vision started to return to him. With the limited view he had, A’s screen was currently displaying a pair of standard glowing eyes. However, one of them had been replaced with an LED X, which usually only appeared in battle.

X gulped slightly, a note of apprehension slithering its way into his mind. If it came down to it, he was pretty sure that he could beat A, probably because A’s form of combat tended to be a doctrine primarily composed of brute force and only using a singular weapon at a time until it had outlived its usefulness. However, it was likely that A thought that HE could win the battle due to the fact that X got distracted pretty easily. X really wished to prove A wrong, because it was just ridiculous that he even thought that he would get distracted by a simple-

“Oh wait, what's that back there?” X leaned slightly to the left to get a better look.

X’s flickering vision cleared up somewhat, seeing a figure pop up out of the clouds behind A. Whatever it was, it wasn’t anywhere near him and A, but due to a disassembly drone’s extremely enhanced senses compared to a human or worker drone, he could see the figure well enough to notice it.

It flew up out of the cloud cover, flapped its wings a few times, which caused it to turn slightly midair, before plummeting back down below, going out of sight. For the first time ever, he reviewed the footage that he had captured, focusing on what the figure looked like.

While it seemed to have wings like a standard disassembly drone, they weren’t the same form. While X’s wings were made out of large interlocking blades that didn’t really do much to keep them afloat, which made light flow through them easily, the figure had wings that seemed to be completely solid, not letting light go through at all. Its forearms weren’t conical like his, but were straight and utilitarian, eerily similar to a worker drone’s arms. The same was the case for its legs, which seemed to be carbon-copies of a worker drone’s legs.

To quote a saying that A had been saying as of late, “If it talks like a worker, looks like a worker, and acts like a worker, then it's probably a worker drone.” While X couldn’t necessarily confirm the existence of three of those conditions, it DID look like a worker drone, sort of. It was kind of a combo between a worker and a disassembly drone, complete with wings and what looked like a tail, while having limbs in the standard shape of a worker’s.

However, yet again, none of this advanced logic processing went through X’s head, as he was more preoccupied trying to dislodge A’s grip on his clothing’s neckline.

“What was that? Another disassembly drone?” A asked nobody in particular, his earlier anger hopefully forgotten.

“Uuuh, why’re you asking me-” X began.

“It was rhetorical, idiot.” A interrupted.

“What does that mean?” X innocently inquired.

A shook his head, before throwing X away from him. X tumbled head-over-heels for a few moments, before regaining his balance.

“Was that a disassembly drone? No, it couldn’t be, the limbs aren’t right . . .” A pondered to himself, likely reviewing the footage as X had done.

“Um, hey, so uh, we cool now?” X blurted out, mentally preparing himself for the possibility that they weren’t indeed “cool”.

A waved a hand in X’s direction. “Yeah, yeah, sure. Go back down to the meeting for me and tell them that something came up, alright? I’ll be back in a bit.”

With a powerful flap of his wings, A zoomed off towards the spot where the figure had appeared out of the clouds, which was maybe ten or so miles away. X had wanted to ask him if he needed to stay in the meeting, but A was already gone.

X sighed. To be honest, A definitely wanted him to keep suffering through that borefest, which is what sparked his earlier outburst. X didn’t want to actually fight, so he mentally resigned himself to ten more years of deprivation of entertainment.

This sucks.

* * *

Jacob yanked the headset off of his head, letting it clatter to the ground.

“Hey! That's sensitive equipment, don’t just toss it around like that!” Ren exclaimed, snatching the headset off of the ground before inspecting it for damage.

“What else was I supposed to do!?” Jacob protested. “I swear I could feel the radiation coming off of it! And besides, you said you were done.”

Ren rolled her eyes. “That's a complete lie and we both know it.”

“I don’t lie! How many times do I have to tell you this!?” Jacob lied.

“Yeah, alright, now shut up, I need to look at this.” Ren peered down at the large screen that was inset into the frame of the EEG, taking the manual off of the floor.

“Oh wow, you can’t even read the graphs that YOU suggested we make with the deadly EEG! Why did I put my poor brain through that if it was for nothing.” Jacob wailed dramatically.

“I said shut up!” Ren snapped, before going back to comparing the manual’s instructions and the reading from his brain.

Jacob scoffed. While he didn’t actually think that he had been put at risk, he did hope that nothing had gone wrong. After all, Ren DID use some sort of highly-dangerous unknown power on the thing that was intended to get a deep reading of his brain waves, so it might have been giving off some sort of radiation. Was that how EEGs worked, throwing radiation around or something? Jacob didn’t really know, he was no more an expert in brain scanning medical equipment than Ren was, which was again, worrying.

Jacob had heard of a story of this Russian guy who got his head stuck in a particle accelerator once, which would’ve probably been a cool origin story if he didn’t die. Wait, but that's the thing, he DIDN’T die! Instead, he just had the nerves on the left side of his face obliterated, the hearing in his left ear gone, and began to suffer from severe epilepsy, so no harm no foul, right? But all jokes aside, he had also somehow outlived the very particle accelerator that had caused all that trouble, and last Jacob had heard, the guy was still kicking somewhere in Russia, which was pretty nice.

Back to the point, if the guy was anything to go off of, Jacob really didn’t want to lose his hearing or get epilepsy, but there wasn’t really anything he could do about it, considering the whole thing was already over and done with. Oh wait, maybe all the radiation that might have existed killed his tumor, which might save his life from being inevitably consumed by the alien lifeform! Hmm, but then again, the tumor had apparently kept him alive when he got killed, so maybe he didn’t want it to leave just yet.

Actually, how DID it keep him alive? Last he checked, human cells weren’t capable of doing the kind of healing that was needed to bring him back from the literal dead. And also, when he had gotten a hole in his abdomen, it had healed within a few moments of the damage occurring, which might have been a thing in the future, but Jacob didn’t really have any frame of reference to go off of. Well, maybe nanobots could’ve done it, but he didn’t have any nanobots in him-

Wait, nanobots. Like, the ones that were keeping the tumor from spreading?

All the way back in the twenty-first century, the doctors had injected his head with nanobots that were supposedly designed to clip the nerve endings that the tumor formed as it tried to spread to other areas of his brain, which slowed the spread down a considerable amount. However, those nanobots were specifically put into his brain, and weren’t designed to heal damage, or so Jacob thought.

He supposed it was possible for them to have given him some nanobots that healed major cellular damage, but that didn’t make sense. It wasn’t like his body was sustaining any damage on a regular basis, so why would they give him a technology that was probably really expensive to solve a problem that didn’t exist? However, the alternative meant that the tumor might have somehow hacked into the nanomachines to heal damage, which also meant that there was nothing between him and getting his body hijacked by an alien entity.

Uh oh.

“Well that’s super weird.” Ren’s voice broke through Jacob’s thought process.

“What’s weird?” Jacob got up from the floor, walking to the brain reader.

Ren gestured at the screen. “This.”

Jacob squinted. “I don’t see anything.”

“Exactly.” Ren pointed finger-guns at Jacob. “This is either broken, or your brain isn’t giving off any signals at all.”

“I’m pretty sure that the former is waaay more likely.” Jacob pointed out.

Ren nodded. “That's what I thought too, until I ran diagnostics. Surprisingly, the- you said it was an EEG?- the EEG is in near-perfect shape, which is impressive considering its been sitting here untouched for at least a decade.”

Jacob’s eyebrows rose, though he doubted anyone could see them. “A decade? That IS impressive.”

“I know right? Really speaks of the good engineering that went into this thing.” Ren patted the side of the EEG fondly.

“Yeah, cool, anyway, keep talking.” Jacob reminded Ren.

Ren blinked. “Oh yeah, since the machine clearly isn’t broken, then that probably means that your brain isn’t giving off any signals loud enough for it to pick up.”

“Wouldn’t that mean I was dead?” Jacob asked.

Ren shrugged. “Maybe? I’m not an expert in human neurosciences.”

“I’m pretty sure that anyone could say that would mean I was dead, regardless of expertise.” Jacob stated wryly.

“Uh, cool. So you’re pretty active for a dead guy.” Ren remarked.

“Yeah, I’m just built different.” Jacob nodded sagely.

“Actually, there may be some truth in that statement.” Ren walked over to the door, pulling it open.

“Wait, where’re you going?” Jacob took a step in her direction.

“Nothing else to do here, so I’m going back to my room.” Ren explained.

“Well, what about learning WHY my brain seems to be dead!?” Jacob protested.

“Eh, that can wait for tomorrow.” Ren stepped out of the doorway and into the hallway. “If there isn’t anything else, then I’m going back to sleep.”

Jacob rapidly searched for something that would seem important enough to act on to Ren. He wasn’t going to be caught DEAD having to pace around the bunker for hours on end again with nothing to do. Well, then again, he might already be dead, but since he didn’t really feel all that dead, it was probably fine.

Jacob, in his search for something for Ren to take him along for, drew upon the meeting that the supposed leadership of the facility drones had included him in when he was still in their custody. One of the more talkative ones had mentioned something called “Camp 98.7”, likely a location of some sorts, and maybe, just maybe, had something to do with the ancient art of camping! Yes, that must be it, he gave himself a congratulatory mental pat on the back for this decisive logical thinking.

All jokes aside, the drone had suggested the location as a place to send some sort of signal out, which was already noteworthy in of itself. However, the name also tickled at the back of his memory, drawing upon one of the multiple things he recalled from his weird Victorian era drug trip.

Jacob (the one that had been the “present” Jacob, not the past Jacob) had been rummaging around through the memory banks of one of the multiple external servers connected to him at the time. He had been looking for a weapon to combat Cyn with, but he stumbled upon something far from what he needed. A location called Camp 98.7, one that was associated with images of tall pine trees, rickety wooden cabins, and a fractured series of memories that were accompanied by a deep sense of trauma (which was fairly worrying in retrospect), and a strange shiny bug that spoke in Whatsapp. However, since it wasn’t really related to him at the time, he had brushed the concept off, forgetting about it for the foreseeable future.

But now that present present Jacob was desperate for something to do, he was willing to travel to a place that may or may not cause him to encounter something or someone quite dangerous, or just be a dead end.

“Wait wait wait, don’t go just yet.” Jacob followed Ren out into the hall.

“Listen, I’m still super tired, and since you woke me up from some much needed sleep, I’ve used up all of the energy I have for you today, which is unsurprisingly little.” Ren stated without mirth.

“Okay, but there is something that may or may not be important.” Jacob replied.

Ren rolled her eyes. “Spit it out then, I don’t have all night.”

Jacob obliged. “Have you ever heard of a place called Camp 98.7?”

Ren froze, which was the only reply that Jacob needed.

“Aha! So you DO know about it!” Jacob pumped a fist in success.

“Yeah, but only in reference, I’ve never actually been to the place, and I have also never seen any hint that would be indicative that Camp 98.7 is somehow important in any way.” Ren explained.

“Well, the things I have seen indicate it to be important.” Jacob argued.

“And what things would that be?” Ren motioned for Jacob to get on with it.

Jacob cleared his throat. “So, you know that weird dream thing that I told you about?”

“What dream thing?” Ren’s eyebrows furrowed.

“You know, the one with the weird classy manor, the weird butler drones, and the weird eldritch abomination?” Jacob explained.

“Oh yeah.” Ren nodded to herself. “I’m still fairly sure that that was a complete fabrication.”

Jacob sputtered in disbelief. “Wha- I’ve told you, I. Don’t. Lie!”

“Yeah, whatever. So this ‘dream’ told you that Camp 98.7 is important in some way?” Ren didn’t seem convinced.

“The facility drones also mentioned it.” Jacob added.

Ren perked up. “Oh, then why didn’t you just say that in the first place?”

Jacob shrugged. “I dunno.”

Ren shook her head. “So, do you even know where the place is?”

Jacob froze. “Uh, well, you see, um-”

Ren laughed. “Just kidding, I have a map.”

“Wait, really?” Jacob questioned.

“Uh, yeah, duh, how else would I get around? Going in random directions until you get where you need to be like you do?” Ren sarcastically asked.

“Listen, I didn’t have the privilege to be graced with a goddamn map of all things!” Jacob protested.

“You know what? That just sounds like a skill issue to me.” Ren remarked.

Jacob’s jaw hung open as Ren cackled.

“Heh, anyway, no time like the present.” Ren motioned for Jacob to follow. “Cmere, like I said earlier, I don’t have all night.”

Jacob grunted, joining Ren as she walked down the red-illuminated hallway.

Wait wait wait, did he- oh no, not again! Stupid anthropomorphization! Well, wouldn’t it actually be personification? Because while anthropomorphization attributes human qualities to nonhuman things, personification actually- no, don’t get distracted, it doesn’t matter what word is used, the reality still remains the same!

Once again, he had called Ren, who was a ROBOT and most certainly NOT HUMAN “she”! Jacob wasn’t going to explain to himself yet again why this was bad, because he had already done so multiple times, and if he didn’t get it now, he never would. He had specifically resolved himself to firmly address them as they were, as an “it”, most notably not human. But, time and again, he found himself addressing these robots the same way he would address a human.

This was bad, really bad. How long had he been doing that for? The entire time he had been interacting with Ren, or had it been just now? Shoot, he hated just how not-self aware he was, why couldn’t he constantly know what he was doing and how he was doing it!? Gack, he blamed it on movies, since there were countless of them that described robots as akin to humans, having emotions, and hopes and dreams, it was completely unrealistic. The way a human brain creates emotions like happiness is through the production of chemicals like dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins, all of which are directly related to the semi-euphoric state of happiness. However, a robotic “brain” is not organic at all, and most definitely doesn’t produce chemicals to create emotions. Therefore, a robot simply cannot just be exactly like a human artificial, as the very building blocks are completely different. Binary and coding doesn’t exist in a human brain, and nerve clusters and chemicals don’t exist in a robotic one.

However, with the shoddy workmanship of the human psyche, that has led to those very facts being ignored in favor of slaving themselves to the same emotions that robots don’t even have. Your average twenty-first century homo sapien would see the treatment of these robots by their corporate overlords, and with their uneducated opinion and media-saturated psyche, would believe that the situation was akin to the ancient practice of slavery, which would be false. Slaves, for the most part, probably didn’t like being slaves. And however harsh it may sound, if the mistreatment of slaves simply never existed, the concept of slavery would likely remain a thing to the modern age. After all, if humans never had any reason to move out of the hypothetical comfortable lifestyle of slaves in this hypothetical alternate universe, then they probably wouldn’t want to move out.

And plus, humans could always program their labor robots to enjoy the work they were doing, blurring the line between ethical and unethical. On one hand, they enjoyed the work they were doing, but on the other, they were kinda forced to like the work, so what would be the ethical answer to this conundrum?

Jacob didn’t really care about the ethics of the situation, but he needed a reason for his dislike of thinking of the robots as less than human to fool himself into thinking that he might still be a good person, so he monologued it in his head nonetheless.

Suddenly, a loud thunk on his helmet jarred Jacob from his thoughts.

“Hello? Are you gonna get going?” Ren flicked the opaque glass of his helmet again.

“Hey!” Jacob smacked her- IT, ITS hand- away from him. “What the hell was that for!?”

“You’ve been standing there frozen for like, ten hours.” Ren crossed h-its arms.

“That’s definitely an exaggeration.” Jacob deadpanned.

Ren scoffed. “Sure felt like it. What’s your deal, anyway?”

Jacob shrugged. “I was thinking about some stuff.”

“What stuff?” Ren questioned.

“Stuff.” Jacob lamely replied.

Ren shook her head. “Whatever, let's get a move on, we're wasting darkness.”

The outward display of human-like emotion REALLY wasn’t helping Jacob’s case.

Then, something Ren said caught Jacob’s attention. “Wait, whaddya mean, ‘wasting darkness’?”

“I burn in the sun.” Ren explained plainly.

Jacob blinked. “What, like a disassembly drone?”

Ren glared at Jacob. “Yes, now stop making such a big deal outta it.”

“I’m not making a big deal out of it, I’m just asking a question!” Jacob protested.

Ren didn’t reply, simply shaking her head and walking out of the open blast door. Wait, when did they get to the bunker entrance? Jacob thought for sure that he would’ve noticed that, but-

Hey uh, you called Ren “her” again.

Suddenly, Jacob recalled the conversation that he and Ren had just had. For what seemed like the millionth time, he had said her instead of it. Again.

You know what? Fine. Jacob decided that he just didn’t care enough anymore, dropping the issue altogether.

As long as he didn’t have reservations about killing them, it should all be fine.

* * *