Chapter Text
Oil drips to the ground as the echoes of N’s voice give way to the roaring of flames. Dull, encroaching pain wraps Uzi’s back, not from the fires but a thousand tiny edges piercing her shell — glass and shrapnel from the cryo-chambers that line the walls.
Something in her flickers, or snaps, or clicks. Embers of panic refuse to finally fade away while her processors parse through short term cache, bringing her up to speed. First off, the railgun detonated. Getting snapped straight in half with both pieces left so close together was worse than a worst case scenario.
But it must’ve done the job. The monster, it’s nowhere she looks — not that the tongues of fire licking the walls let her see much. Aside from that, collateral damage appears minimal. Elsewhere, even the dust is still in place.
But dad. Dad’s dead. He’s scorching with the flames now. Is he really? It sounds dreamed up. Some sort of draining nightmare she conjured while unconscious. But she remembers seeing it, clear as day, registering it into her RAM like any other memory.
Her own thoughts ring hollow, heavy. Like struggling to make words while half-asleep. She’ll figure it out later. Right now, she’s ready to just lay there until the fires go out on their own, but an attempt to shift slightly to her side reminds her of the weight laying above her — N. He isn’t moving. She pushes him a few times, letting the pressure readings of her fingertips reassure her he’s really there..
“N? N?” — The apparent calmness in her own voice surprises her. She sounds like Dad would when he’d wake her up for school. — “You there?”
An entire second of buffering and lagging passes by. She manages to drag enough of her torso from under him to look at his back, feeling disbelief dig a hole in her belly as she does. Fire burned through the coat and scorched between his wings, leaving oval hollows peppering his shell. The plastic in them is still melted, regularly dripping into his body.
The embers of panic pick up heat and burn again. Her voice wavers. — “Robo-Christ, dude. Get up.”
Her motherboard starts screaming at her. Something’s very wrong. When he starts to move, shifting his arms to find enough balance to stand with, she gets enough room to pull herself up; the little niches along the underside of a cryo-chamber help her hands.
“U…zi?” — N whispers. He’s feeling his face, pulling at something she can’t see. It’s all dark where it should glow. — “Gimme a bit. O-w. Ow. Are you alright?”
A better look shows her what he’s pulling at: a curved shard of glass is piercing his sensors, splitting four out of the five bulbs across his head. They’re not even red, they’re offline. He tries to give it one big yank, but stops mid-attempt and winces, then switches to just standing up. Uzi knows exactly what to do and say; kneel down, yank it out, ask if he’s okay. She’s got the motion down to the inches, to the angle and force she wants to pull at the glass with.
Only she won’t do it. Why? Danger. What? N. Touching him will kill her. But he needs help. Can’t move yet.
He fumbles with his hands under and around him, grabbing at the bits of rubble and broken glass, getting so close to Uzi’s boots that she steps back to avoid them. Why? Just saying anything would be enough. I’m here is all he needs to know she’s alive. But something is still wrong. What? What’s wrong?
“Uzi? Uzi?!” — Now he’s grasping the wall, like he’s pushing a box, placing his weight on it to make it easier to get up. — “If you can hear me, shout as loud as you can! I’ll– I’ll make my way there!”
What’s wrong makes itself clear only then — what if he’s not real? If she says a single word, he’ll vanish into thin air and a plastic claw will crush her to bits. But didn’t she touch him just now? He’s real, isn’t he? But he might not be. What if he isn’t? But he needs help, he’s looking for her. Risk it, you have to. Wait, don’t, not yet. Why aren’t you moving?
He slowly walks parallel to the wall, keeping both of his hands on it. From the way his back is hunched, it looks like his spine might be damaged, or the servos of his upper back aren’t working. Shouldn’t they have regenerated by now? They haven’t. Stop feeling bad. If he’s not healing, he’s not real. It adds up.
But metallic scraping rises above the crackling of the fire. Every other process interrupts; for a moment, there’s only scraping, and crackling that slips under it and fades away.
A silhouette towers above the flames, black against their glow, vaguely serpentine but surrounded by gaunt shapes. Some sort of buzzing joins the metal groans — the same erratic popping as a broken earphone, mixed in with errant bits of digital tones.
The longer Uzi listens, and she does so for quite a few seconds, slowly turning tail and struggling to discern the silhouette from the flames, as if she even needs to find out what it is, the more certain she grows; it’s twisting itself into a voice.
G-G-A-G— Th-Th Gr-Gr-Growl. Th-Th-Th. At-Was. AaaaA-A-a. Gre-ea-ea-t Lightsho-w. Crawl.
A great claw emerges from the fires and nails itself to the ground. The monster drags forward. A faint yelp brings her sight to N, who shakes in place. His free hand pulls at his hair while his feet shuffle around, dying to move but unsure where to take him.
He throws himself at the floor, crawling away from the stability of the wall and feeling around with his arms. When his hands meet with a chunk of concrete or bent metal, they raise it and throw it aside. He gasps over and over, sometimes letting hints of a scream slip out. He’s looking for her under the rubble.
The frame of the door leading out of the cryogenics wing appears around Uzi as she keeps stepping back. The heat of the fire leaves her and a cold breeze approaches from behind. Stop. Stop right there. She’s leaving him. But that’s not him. But what if it is? Is this what you’re going to do? Leave? Like dad? Dad’s dead. N will be soon.
Another claw pulls the monster toward her, its shape becoming clearer and clearer until she can see the hanging threads of plastic melting off its sides. Dozens of yellow eyes peek out and lock on N. The sparking of broken speakers makes its voice company, punctuates its stutters.
O-O-Oh-Oh- It Loo–oo-ks Li-ke We’re A-lon-e No- Snarl. Crawl. Snarl. Now. Ha-ng In The-There. I’-ll Pi-ck You Up Soon.
N sweeps and kicks up rubble. His rhythmic gasping picks up as the monster takes another step, no more than twelve meters from him. Don’t fall for it. Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice…
The monster’s head descends onto N. What’s left of J’s twin tails hangs just above him. If it was a trick, she’d know by now, right? But she can’t know if it isn’t. But he’s there. Alone.And I’m about to leave.
Move.
She closes her eyes. Trick or no trick, can’t leave. What better way to find out than running at it head on? And he’s there — he needs you.
MOVE.
Before she knows it, she takes off. The heat of the fire invades her mouth through her gritting teeth, growing hotter as the gap closes. She drops to her knees mid-sprint and slides the rest of the way, clasping the shard of glass in N’s head as soon as she can reach it.
“C’mon N, on your feet! Get up get up get up–” — Her left palm squeezes so tightly it cuts her shell and slips right off of the shard, slicking its edges with oil, until she grabs at it again with both hands and it finally begins to come out.
It takes an eternity of waiting, unsure if it’s even moving, but it comes out with a yelp that makes her flinch. Then she pulls N’s arm around her, pushing him up with every last ounce of strength her servos will give her. The feeling of his shell against hers makes Uzi shiver. You’re falling for it. No I’m not.
“No, nonono. No! Run for it! I’ll follow behind you!” — He blurts out, stumbling forth and straightening with painful sluggishness.
“Like hell! Bite me!” — Inch by inch she’s dragging forward. Her teeth grit hard enough to hurt and the shivers weaken her knees, but she’s locked in now and she’s going to make it.
Then she turns to the right, right on time to catch the monster’s claw slamming to their side. Its long spine is right above them. A dead black visor stares her down.
“I’m not– I’m not lea–” — She trips. N’s weight drags her down and they both crash to the floor.
Yo-u Tri-ed-ed, That-s What Co-u-nts. Innocent Grin. Wh-a-t Lu-ck-ck-ck You Chose T-o Stay, Though.
This isn’t working, but there’s no alternatives and time’s choking her. Backup plans building in her processors buffer, time out, and shut down. N pulls back his arm, then shoves her off. She rolls over debris for a meter or two, but stops right there to look at him, searching for his eyes and finding they’re still gone.
“Keep going. You’ll make it, buddy.”
But she can’t.
<ERROR: ERR_BLOCKED_BY_ADMINISTRATION>
Uzi’s arms and legs go limp, leaving her to fall face-up on the ground. Only her eyes respond to her, like she’s forgotten how to move anything else. Towers of yellow text stream by her visor.
It Won-’t-’t Hurt. Pin-kie Pro-mise.
Her left hand flings itself right above her own eyes. Her fingers jerk around violently, pushing the limits of its delicate stepper motors. She can’t stop it. It seems to try different motions until a purple flash appears at the palm and grows into a familiar symbol that then turns a sickly shade of yellow.
She tries over and over to budge her hand away from her eyes, but it isn’t responding. A faint wail grows from her as the interface of her visor garbles and spills out, overtaking her sight.. She thinks she can hear N’s voice shouting far, far away, but it evaporates as the symbol in her hand shifts and spins with a strange click, like the sound of fingers snapping, and the word NULL appears on it for a split second before it all bursts to red.
The glow hangs for a moment and quickly fades, leaving behind a soggy, hot sensation from fingertips to forearm. A chunk of something red is wrapped around her hand, covered in black scorched spots. She doesn’t know what it is until a red dribble splashes on her visor, washing a wave of disgust over her.
Trying to move is impossible, because she’s locked tight in her own body’s casket. Then her elbow smashes on the floor beside her, and the forearm shifts little by little until it’s right by her belly, wetting her jacket with pints of blood from the fleshy mass. It doesn’t move any more from there — it seems to wait for a moment. For what?
Oh N-N-N. Mi-nd Lending Me A Ha-Ha-nd-nd?
Movement to her side. White and black blurs approaching. It’s him. Relief touches her for an instant, then it sinks and dies; he’s struggling. His arms and legs push him toward her, moving the sudden, choppy way that machines without minds move. Shivers crawl through her shell when she sees his right hand retract and sharp claws come out.
He mutters something that doesn’t quite come out right. His other hand turns into a sword, and he drives it into the floor, pushing it down until half of it’s lodged below ground, only then anchoring, but by then his claw is over the hoodie, its hooked tips resting right on her belly.
That instant, she realizes. Her heart falls into a pit.
“N! N!”
His arm raises and its bladed fingers curl one by one. He’s trying to speak, but takes some tries for the words to come out.
“Just– Ju– Close your eyes! Just close your eyes, keep– keep them close and… And– I– Tr-y– I know, try singing something! Please just… Just try to a–and…” — He trails off.
Her eyes fix on the claw as it descends, slowly, inch by inch, piercing the cloth of the jacket with ease, then tasting her shell, pressing and pressing while the plastic bends and comes close to giving way, as her cry turns to a scream and she pushes her eyes off, trying to look at the ceiling but failing to find it because the monster is right there, still staring her down with its black visor, and N’s screaming joins hers.
Oops. M-ay-Mayb-e It Doe-s H-
Then something streaks past, right above her. A gray blur rips through the air, striking the monster’s head and sending it reeling back.
The sound barrier shatters behind it; its waves wake the dust, raising a thick mist that blankets the room. Booming echoes of metal snapping and shattering follow. The flames quiver higher along the walls.
She can see something just past the mist. Silver hair, painted orange by the fire’s glow — V’s hair. The glimmers of her sword skewering the monster’s skull, driving shards of smashed visor into the sputtering paste of hardware inside. Her right arm dangles loose to the side, mangled, dripping black on the remaining shreds of her clothes.
Uzi gasps over and over, faintly grasping at reality. N’s claw pulls away and retracts. The flesh loosens its grip and sloshes off her hand, splattering to the ground. She feels her belly with both hands — aside from the hoodie, nothing cut. She’s alive. Her body is hers.
It looks like V’s struggling. Pulling? Not back, to take the sword out the monster’s head, but up, in the direction of its neck. She shuffles her feet to get a better hold, arches her back for a stronger pull.
By all accounts, the cracks and tears wrapping V’s shell should be painful to the point of paralysis, but the only reason she knows she’s hurting are the damage warnings popping up to the sides of her visor. The feeling itself has dulled to a fuzzy, enveloping discomfort.
The pop-ups grow in number and size, but everything’s a blur anyway. All that’s there is the burning in her chest, and the fright shaking her limbs. Her head’s pumping full of fog, at times not letting her know what’s going on, but it leaves her one certainty; N’s right there, Cyn has him. Tear her apart.
A gap appears between its head and body, letting spill a pudding of minced meat. As the mass thins and stretches, shattered bits of a metal strut poke out, wrapped in thin gray tubes. Quick popping follows — the tubes breaking one after another, exposing something that looks part like the unraveled hairs of copper wire, part like nerves pulled clean from muscle.
The effort forces a pained, rabid groan out of V. Red stuff rains down around N and Uzi in little wet chunks.
“Uzi? Uzi? Are you– What– What did I…?” — N halfway shouts, halfway whispers. He holds his trembling hands to his chest, moving his head all over as if looking for something. Sinking urgency pushes Uzi to her feet.
“I’m here. I’m here. You’re– You didn’t do anything. You’re fine.” — She has to try again. Even if the idea makes her feel sick. This is not a time to be a coward.
She cautiously extends her arm. Her own slowness is infuriating, but nausea peeks into her mouth if she hurries even a little. For a moment, it even refuses to grasp the hand at all, and she has to force the fingers to close one by one.
“Thank Robo-God… I’m sorry, I can’t see–” — N mutters. His free hand switches to a gun and he raises it vaguely in the direction of the monster, but ends up aiming at the ceiling. — “Am I aiming right? Just point me where, and I’ll shoot!”
“You’re gonna hit V!” — She pushes the gun down and starts to pull him up.
“She’s there? Whe— Where? What’s she doing?” — As much as he’s trying to stand, the damage on his spine leaves most of the work to Uzi.
“No time! Get going!”
Her sight veers off and up, locking on V — and seeing that while the monster slowly shifts, she’s still pulling. Its eyes drift around in jagged sways, sometimes passing by Uzi, sometimes by V. What limbs it has intact drag on its own skin, like trying to climb on itself.
V doesn’t notice. If she could see past the increasingly panicked pop-ups, she still wouldn’t. The strain she’s placing on her own chassis, already bruised and bent, is getting bad enough to pierce through the fog and scare her out of the trance. Don’t let go. Don’t let go yet. Not yet. It’ll be worse, it’ll kill her.
Her motors still have plenty to give. She just has to hold on, hope that it’ll give out first — while the flesh thins out, beginning to show fractured bits of vertebrae that detach and fall. Gray bits of plastic and muscle are under them, all that’s left in the way.
She hears her own howl rend the air when that last thread finally gives out, ripping the head off its hinge. Inertia sends her reeling; a hit of panic stops the scream as she slips off. Then it gives way to vertigo, and then that fades too.
The way to the ground is nearly calm — cut short by the impact, nailing the joints of both wings into her back, and calling down the dull fog. Only it doesn’t wholly encroach — it hangs at a distance. There’s voices there, right past the blur.
“V?” — Some girl’s voice. Vaguely familiar.
“Is she alright? Where…” — And N. Shaken. He’s alive. — “Hey. Can you hear me…? Where’s V?”
<DISCONNECT DETECTED. REBOOTING…>
Slowly, painfully, she rolls to the side as her senses start coming back. For some reason, her right side hurts when she turns over it — right, the arm’s busted. But it’s fine, the left one can push her up alright. Little creaks of protest come from her wings folding back in.
Above her, Cyn is still reeling. Though she’s gradually going limp, convulsions are sending the upper neck in choppy turns up and down, spraying the ground with blood. Limbs squirm about and eyes pan around, shutters opening and closing. Dread puts hurry in her chest; there’s no telling how long she has — and what about N? Is he alright?
She finds him quickly, behind her but close by. He’s hunching, looks dazed. His arm is around another, shorter drone with purple hair. Who’s…? Ah. The purple thing. She’s trying to help him walk.
“Uzi! Can you hear me?! Are you–” — N shouts.
“I can’t help her, N! I’m busy trying to get you out, you… You goobus! — Uzi answers.
“What?! Is she– Just tell me what’s going on. Please!” — That makes her stop. She struggles to look back, having to turn her entire body with N’s weight on top. His visor is dark. Hers is bright with sweat.
Uzi’s eyes lock on V right as she manages to stand. Shock makes a number on her face as she looks, fixating again and again on V’s mangled arm. Appalled?
“I-I… V is…” — Uzi struggles to find words for N. When none come, she shouts to V instead. — “I think… I think I can try to carry you too.”
As brave as she’s trying to look, Uzi’s a poor actor. The little crack in her voice is an admission that she knows she can’t.
V’s core sinks to the ground. She can’t get them both out. Maybe just N. That’s fine, he’s who she’s there for anyway. But even if she could, Cyn’s still there. If she leaves, Cyn will catch up.
But she can’t do it. The room grows larger as she begins to really notice how much she hurts. The mangled arm. Crushed chassis. Shell all but coming apart. Who knows how many contacts fried dead. But she has to. Here. Now. Another time means never.
Panic chews her up like bubblegum, threatens to swallow whole. Everything’s going to happen again, it’s about to. N’s blindness just makes it certain; if she does as much as blink, she’ll find him back in the chair, limp, surrounded by the vultures.
Can’t afford to come apart now. Not while Uzi’s staring and N’s right there. V lets her eyes bounce around — from ground to jacket, jacket to fire, focus, blur, focus, blur, studying shapes and colors, just for a moment. It helps little, but it makes what she sees feel a little less hazy. Not like she has time to spare. There’s more urgent things at hand.
She’ll have to let the purple toaster get N out. Considering her wounds aren’t fixing themselves, she’s got one foot in the grave anyway.
Yeah. Fat chance she’ll see the sky again. Knowing that is strange, and even starts to feel horrible. She was about to get him out, then kick the bucket and leave him at Cyn’s mercy to let the memories repeat; this time, alone. What she’s about to do — has to do — begins to sink in.
Eh. It’s only fair to go out like this.
“Go for V. I can crawl, I-I’m quick at it! I know you two don’t get along and– I can’t ask this of you– But please.” — N says. He must think she’s crippled on the ground.
“Are you deaf?! I said I’m getting you both out!” — The second she heard him, she doubled down. She’s even starting to hobble her way to V, but then her eyes widen again as metallic groaning approaches.
V turns just in time to see the coming swipe of a claw from above. She stumbles, choking back a scream as it nails to the floor right in front of her. She fumbles around what’s left of the right forearm, making two wrong grabs at ripped threads of membrane, each startling her with a sharp sting, before what she’s looking for shows itself — a still-intact cord of polymer right by the wrist joint, going up to the elbow.
A faint wind of confidence warms her core. That’s all she needs. I’m ready. I’m ready. Bring it on. She turns to Uzi, finding her stepping back as N shouts to let him go.
“Hey. Freakshow.” — Not the angry shout V wanted. It sounds absentminded, tired, but it startles Uzi enough to get her attention. — “Haul ass. And N…”
Her lips close on their own. No words come out. No more time to think. Last chance to say what she owes him just flew by and left. What horrible words to leave him with. She looks away and her wings spread. The polymer cord stretches far enough to pull it between her teeth if she tilts her head to the side.
“Don’t do it. Come with us, please. You d–” — N starts to say. V doesn’t stay to hear the end of it.
By the next instant, she’s meters off the ground, speeding toward Cyn. Right that moment, the claw strikes at her; time slows as it grows greater and the distance smaller. Their paths are seconds away, no, less, from intersecting. It’s strange, she’s at once nervous and calm — certain.
Wings spread wide; then flap to the right. It gains her some inches. Just enough. The blade passes her by. The wave of wind following it caresses her hair. She smiles, and lets her own claw out.
Another flap. Left, upward. Her claw catches on the passing blade, carving three thick lines across it. Another, still left, but down. Then yet another, still down, but to the right. Again, then again. She’s flown a full circle now. Then the motion repeats, over and over and faster and faster, until the building momentum starts squeezing her shell.
She traces spirals in the air, cutting the limb to ribbons so quickly that her claw doesn’t have time to taste oil: it’s speeding by far faster than Cyn can bleed. The plastic and metal resists only enough to confirm she’s indeed cutting them. It feels like holding a finger to running water. Tingles of exhilaration wrap her core.
Then she reaches the joint at the middle of the limb, passing right under it; her wings spread and flap upward, pushed with an extra kick of centripetal force. A loud snap catches up to her sensors; the joint sliced in half. Behind her, the entire thing is bursting at the seams, streaming so much oil as it falls.
But that instant is ages ago, now she’s reaching the ceiling and making a clean landing. Her eyes veer around, struggling to find where she’s ended up now. There’s yellow and purple glimmers somewhere below, to the left. N and Uzi hobbling away, so close to the exit. Some of Cyn’s grabbers pursue them.
Just a little more distance.
Before she’s even felt gravity start to pull, she’s already parted ways with the ceiling and started rushing down. The impact of her claw on Cyn’s spine cleaves plastic and pulverizes metal, hurling the whole thing down with enough force to shatter the metal floor under them.
The sound barrier hot on her heels. Earth-rending force moving back up her arm. Air rushing past. It all makes her float and flutter with disbelief. She’s alive. She’s making it. Enduring every ounce of hurt streaming through her damaged chassis, because Cyn’s hurting twice that.
A pincer bites her arm and a talon swipes by her torso, cutting clean through something inside. Before more come, she breaks the hold with a sting of her tail and darts away. She’s starting to see each moment before it comes, clearly feeling every movement before she makes it. Barrel right, then climb; the remaining mantis-claw scratches her legs, making her tumble in the air. Trace a close turn, go back for another pass, delight on every new scrap of payback torn.
Then repeat, and go again; she draws circles, orbits, closing then widening the gap at speeds so high her chassis compresses under the shell. Again, from below, cutting parallel to the spine. Again, to split limbs from joints. Again. Again. Again. Even if excess speed makes her smack against the wall, even when Cyn does manage to land a hit and nearly cut her in half.
Another peek; no sign of N or Uzi. They’re far enough. It’s time. V breaks again, then quickly rises, slowing down and stopping to hover close to the ceiling. She reaches to her mouth, feeling the polymer cord and checking if it’s still intact. This breather gives what’s left of Cyn enough time to rise and line up for a lunge. New little claws and cutters break through her shattered shell — an attempt to catch V even if the lunge misses. Desperate.
She drags the mangled arm up, making sure the limp hand is lined up just right with Cyn. Then, she pulls on the cord with her teeth, jerking her whole head to the left. It makes a sound as something’s pulled out with it. It reminds her of the pin on a grenade coming off.
The broken hand retracts, and the barrel of a laser cutter extends. It sputters, then glows.
Much better than an apology.
Then, the world goes bright.
Entire hours seem to go by before her optics breach the impenetrable wall of light. Behind it is a deafening sizzle; metal melting like butter to the sun, giving way to the infinite power of the laser. Fire eats through the plastic and it withers to black crud. Cyn squirms in silence. She twists and convulses, somehow unable to hide from the light. It’s not until the laser finally bisects her form that she can try to slither away.
V anticipates the moment where all of this vanishes, steeling herself for whatever reality awaits on the other side — though it does not vanish. The laser doesn’t stop cutting, the sizzling doesn’t fade. War drums beat on her chest; awe making its way through her core.
A strange impulse takes hold. She wants to dance. She flaps and starts to spin, slowly speeding until the centrifugal force pulls at the firing arm in such a way that it remains extended. The laser turns so quickly it becomes a sort of disc, streaming past Cyn’s spine a hundred times and chopping it into smaller and smaller bits.
She changes the angle of the spin to follow the parts that break away and try to flee. The laser has such an easy time mowing the spindly limbs that rip out and claw at the floor, turning distinct materials into an indistinct smouldering wreck. The flames spread everywhere the light touches.
Then something stops her; emergency-red pop-ups overtaking her visor. Acute throbbing emerging from the dead arm. It’s red-hot, turning white, melting off the shreds of flesh still attached to it. The laser sputters and dies when the entire arm bursts aflame — then comes clean off. The remaining nub disintegrates into hundreds of little drops of liquefied metal.
The sudden hit of pain startles V out of the spin, though it begins to fade once the arm detaches. Between inertia and the newly-missing weight, she’s not able to compensate before the remaining force flings her tumbling to the ground, then into a wall.
The metal she impacts bends for a good half-meter before finally stopping her. She slides off the crater and onto the ground, rolling over twice. A few meters away, the white-hot arm smashes to the floor, coming apart into dozens of pieces.
Nausea spins V around as she struggles to her feet, but relief keeps the worst of it at bay. A hint of triumph rears its head when she looks to the melting scraps that were her arm. That repugnant red pulp is off her now.
All of that exhilaration is on its way out, but it still manages to rip a smile from her. Time’s slowing down to its right pace, calm is settling. She scans around the room, clearing her sight of the remaining pop-ups. Save for the fires, nothing moves.
Straightening up feels odd. The absence of an entire arm’s weight makes it weird to stand, as if she’s constantly about to fall to her left. It makes her feel sort of curious. Like everything else, it’s yet to sink in.
I’m alive.
She takes another look all over, just to make sure. Nothing. Now with thermals. Almost nothing. Some mounds in the distance look a little larger — that’s the heat dissipating. Thin chuckles are marching up her gullet. She gasps, almost falling to her knees. Every inch of her body feels warm and numb.
The way a shard of glass glimmers catches her attention, and she kneels to look at it. The reflection is strange somehow. Wait– Are those letters there, on the ceiling?
Yes.
IF YOU CAN READ THIS
YOU ARE IN RANGE
Her core doesn’t have time to sink before another light snatches her sight; a yellow symbol that hangs over her belly.
<ERR: LIKE-OBJECT NON-INTERACTABLE>
<ERR: LIKE-OBJECT NON-INTERACTABLE>
<ERR: LIKE-OBJECT NON-INTERACTABLE>
<ERR: LIKE-OBJECT NON-INTERACTABLE>
<ERR: LIKE-OBJECT NON-INTERACTABLE>
<ERR: LIKE-OBJECT NON-INTERACTABLE>
<ERR: LIKE-OBJECT NON-INTERACTABLE>
<EXECUTING PRIVILEGED INTERACTION>
A pitch-black sphere appears as the symbol vanishes. Light bends around it, yet somehow it glows yellow. It remains there for a few seconds, faintly buzzing.
Then, it explodes, blinding V. Wet tearing reverberates inside her.
All strength abandons her legs. Her spine hunches so that her head, now hanging loose, is directly above her belly. She wonders for entire minutes what happened, what is happening before what she’s seeing finally processes.
There’s a damp, red hole where her abdomen used to be. Her innards, wrapped in more red stuff, slide out and splatter down. The red bits seem to wriggle aimlessly for some time before they go limp. She can hear them sloshing inside her.
Static courses through V’s sight a few times — optics resetting. The entire room is bathed in yellow now. Somewhere in the distance, a severed tract of spine is lifted from the wrecks by thin, shaky legs; bone, wrapped by tendon, peeking out of ruptures in the shell. Dozens of yellow eyes lock on hers.
It looks, though it’s hard to tell, that there are ornate tables strewn all around that she didn’t notice before. Inert humans are strewn about over and around them.
Muffled echoes of Cyn’s voice override any noise from outside. She’s talking, but V can’t understand any of it. Too worried by the sight below her now; hundreds of nibbling vultures that rise from the ground to the hole in her belly, crawling and pinching all over to feed on the red gunk that’s flowing from inside. An especially large one, with the mouth of a dog, is pulling at her core. It makes her notice it’s almost loose somehow, sliding down, threatening to fall out.
It hurts like nothing else has ever hurt, but that doesn’t really matter noæآÇя√ráÚ V feels lost, not really sure what to do now.
Just how did her dress end up so filthy? And there’s ☒ðsžšå so much left to clean… Where’d N end up?
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She »Ã©7舐members pr~mising to rea d with him instead of cleaning up after the gala, but ½舐æthat was a month before. It was always such a silly idea. Lik☒ Tes~#s parents would let them. An((her time, m&ybe©æØ
A gre▀t#white scythe appr©ñØhes from the dist¢nt sky, cæØ¢ng down on her.
Ar£▀ound her the world turns wide and dark, before bending and washing away.
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only something doesn’t bend. Maybe, it can’t.
舐ðsžšåÞя½▀óÞ¢áñ½▀©æ7Ø¢Ã☒óÞ¢áñ— ráÚÆ
She leaps to the side, legs pushing with all she’s got left. The scythe grazes her, and spikes to the floor. Between them, she’s left a trail of oily guts.
Because now there’s a pit full of fire in her chest.
Because this much fire doesn’t go out easy. Not yet.
V hangs on by a thread, kept barely aware of where she is by the sting of her teeth now biting her hand and the little rivers of oil that travel down her gullet. Inch by inch she raises her head, and light slowly returns to her eyes. She’s not going back there. This is what’s real.
Her sight is torn by static, cluttered by an apparition of Cyn that glitches and vanishes only to return right after, then fade again, all the while ranting in a muffled, unintelligible voice. Little Cyn, miserable little Cyn. She grasps at the loose, hanging core poking out of the wound in her torso, pushing it up and around, shoving its struts into the flesh inside her chest until it gets caught and stops moving.
V’s sure she’s knee deep in the coffin now. A strange sense of quiet desperation fills her up. Maybe she doesn’t have enough left. How’s she going to do it like that? Nothing’s processing. Her optics are messed up beyond repair. Even though her thermals are right there and clear from the noise, it’s so goddamn distracting, unbearable, won’t let her think. It’s those yellow nubs on her head, useless and repulsive. But she knows just what to do. Terrifying as the thought is, right now she’s got the grim resolve to get it done.
Click-shink! Her claw is out. It slowly rises to her face. She lets it feel around, counting the sensor-nubs on her forehead until it finds the one that’s in the middle. Then, her rightmost finger curls. She makes sure the tip is over the right one; her optics.
Then it stabs, piercing right through the entire sensor. It goes offline with a red flash and thermals take over, painting everything in red and green. But it’s not quite enough yet; yeah, she’s going to die, but she’ll breathe her last torn free of this deformed casket. The blade moves around until something catches on its hooked tip, and then, she pulls it right out, feeling each wire snap, sometimes taking parts of motherboard with them, until it stops resisting and finally breaks from her head.
The ripped up optic sensor has an orange tinge that quickly fades to green. Oil flows from the wound past her blackened visor, coming to drop on her chest and neck, then continuing to wash down over the torso, quickly pooling down at her feet. Cyn’s voice echoes in her head.
Oh, V. Th-a-t loo-ooks like it– it- hurts.
“But it’s not half as much as I’m going to hurt you.”
With shaky feet, she rises. Her wings take her aloft, one last time.
Cyn’s fuzzy red shape shifts and moves as it grows closer; a painfully slow strike comes V’s way, and she cleanly evades it. Then she circles by to cut. The red silhouettes of the flames meld with Cyn’s, but it doesn’t matter because she cuts them too. The red patches on the dead wrecks around her, cut too. Cut. Cut. Cut. That’s all there is now. Cut metal, the shapes, the flames, cut until the very air becomes a rain of ribbons gliding down to the pile of shreds that everything else used to be, blazing with Cyn’s oil.
There’s a burning path over the shreds, but it’s not enough to walk it, it burns her feet; run the path, fly it. Cut the path, eat the path. Keep at cutting everything the claw meets, while she feels how things are going dark bit by bit, though right now she’s aflame, weighed only by a few regrets to leave behind; let them burn too.
V tries to let memories visit her, though they won’t come now, maybe scared away by the burning, and that really, truly burdens the flight, but not for much longer, because as she tries to take another turn to split Cyn apart, her wings lose lift and now she’s gliding straight down, until she’s no longer flying but floating, back into the waves.
This is it, right? It’s enough. I can go. Let the waves wash over, let them come because it's all said and done.
Is it? Is it really?
Out there there’s fires in the water, they keep her burning as she passes, though one by one they’re going out. She looks for the basement, but there’s nothing aside from the waves. No noise, no sights, just fire, and the fire keeps her burning.
She tumbles around in the stormy ocean, waiting for the aches to finally fade, but it takes a really long time to and she’s starting to think it never will. Perhaps it’s–
<ERR: ADMIN CONNECTION LOST>
<SYSTEM PERMISSIONS RESET>
<FUNC_RESTORE BLOCK LIFTED>
Only all of that stops existing at a moment’s notice. V’s optics flicker back to life, visible light overtaking infrared. Status updates quickly flash by.
The room is covered in chinks and gashes. Behind her is Cyn’s body, ripped up into so many shreds she can’t recall what it used to be. It’s still faintly sputtering.
V doesn’t know what’s going through her core. Triumph? Surprise? Not sure, but glee is somehow all but absent. For some moments, all she can do is take wobbly steps in circles, feeling a little vertigo from the lightness of her body.
That gradually fades away though — immense amounts of steam rise from her torso. It’s healing. Just, why? Did killing Cyn do that? It’s all so confusing.
I’m alive. That much is certain. She just wasn’t expecting it.
It’s her third loop. She’s wandered close to the East wall only to walk away and come back thrice now. I just don’t understand. Don’t understand what? Her feet take her back to the one piece of Cyn that’s sputtering. May as well give it one last check, right?
When V gets there, which takes several minutes, the acute noise of a busted loudspeaker startles her. Raising her claw in preparation is surprisingly difficult now, but it’s also not necessary. The wreck stays in place — only a faint blue hologram appears, at times tearing into static. The speaker struggles to produce a voice; low but sweet, singing.
“Ou-t the-there, there’s a wor-ld out-side of Yonkers…”
The rest of the lyrics muffle and meld together. N’s hologram wears a tuxedo and a helmet, sitting on the ground with his eyes to the distance. He was so much shorter back then. The hologram doesn’t even have enough resolution to capture the movements of his mouth, but his voice is getting to her, in a dull, tired sense that makes her shake with rage. It’s an insult.
V’s claw wraps around N’s head, and crushes it like a bug. The act makes her wince a little. The hologram fizzles out, leaving the remains of one of Cyn’s eyes in her hand. A stick-thin arm connects it to something, which she easily yanks out of the rubble; a drone’s core, wrapped in fleshy tatters. Its front screen glows with a thin yellow circle, staring at her.
She smashes it against the ground. It sputters and dims, then stops glowing all at once. Then again. Again. Again. Again. Until her joints feel sore and it’s become a slimy paste with bent metal chunks. Then she keeps going a dozen more times, until her claw pierces the remaining pulp with ease, and hurls it at the ceiling. There’s just enough power left in the arm for a guided rocket to finish the job; what parts don’t vaporize scatter in the air and hit the ground with little clanks.
And V stands there, still, eyes glued to the ground. Hours of stillness pass like seconds, only noticed because the steam flowing from her body has become much less dense and the fires much less bright.
Eventually, her wings spread and take her aloft on their own, before knowing where to go.
“Hey, ‘re your eyes good?” — Uzi speaks with the cadence of a machine gun.
“I’m… a what…?” — N answers, holding a fistful of snow to his forehead. Vapor faintly streams from under it.
“Your eyes! How are they?! — She skitters back and forth, glaring at the distant outside of Door One every few seconds.
He lifts his hand and lets the snow melt over his visor, still black. His sensors flicker red, yellow, red, then stay yellow.
“Uh… I think they’re…” — As he’s speaking, his eyes reappear. — “Oh! Yeah, it’s working now.”
Khan’s voice bounces around her head. — Wait– Uzi! Stay there! — It took some time to register that he, along with a few WDF, was running her way. At first, the relief nearly tore an elated cry from her, but she realized they were heading straight for Cryogenics; the monster’s maw.
He was about to scream when she managed to drag herself and N to the emergency switch and pulled the door shut. Screaming for her, no less. Has that happened before? Ever? And that’s the last he saw of her too; in his mind, she’s long dead. She’s gotta get back there.
“Oh, good, good. Stay here for a bit, I’ll—” — Uzi’s ready to bolt, but N grabs her hand.
“Wait! I’m going too. Gimme a moment to—” — She pulls away by reflex, shaking his hand off and stumbling back. It startles them both. He’s confused. She wants the ground to eat her.
“I’m– I’m just going for my dad anyways. Don’t risk it, I’m fine.” — Not a great reply, but it’s all she has.
“You have your dad. I’ve got V. We should both go.”
I’ve got V. Those words kick up a storm of apprehension in Uzi. Really? Serial Designation “Oh God, who are you” V? Same girl who left him to die from OS lobotomy not a few days ago? V, who respects him marginally more than the Workers she hunts for sport? No no no, no way he’s risking life and limb for V now.
But — oh robo-Christ, that’s such a cold thing to think isn’t it? She just swooped in to save them both. And she was mangled to shreds too, even before they got away! Just, what happened to her? V was trying to say something to N, too. What was that? Goodbyes? Confessions?
And well, Uzi’s not much different right? Just going for my dad. Khan “How To Deal With Your Disappointing Failure Of A Child” Doorman. Same dad who left her for carrion to the sky demons. And yeah, she’s risking life and limb for him now. But gah, V’s not quite that, is she? She tried to chop up N herself, and didn’t seem troubled at all.
Sigh.
“Your call, dude.” — She extends her hand to pick him up. — “Now– to the count of three! I’m going for that vent over the door!”
“Oh– Haha. Sure!” — As soon as he’s on his feet, he takes off.
“N! I said to the count of three!” — It’s hopeless. He’s so fast that her sensors can’t follow him for long.
Catching up to him, however, stops mattering very quickly. Both stop dead in their tracks when a speeding blur makes a shaky landing some meters away. V’s there. Her every step makes the snow boil. She only makes it a meter forward before collapsing to her knees. N nose-dives to the ground, breaking into a sprint the instant he touches snow.
“V! Oh nonono– Talk to me! Are you alright?”
She turns to him and gives the faintest of nods. Her eyes are lost in the horizon.
"Yeah."
Uzi closes in apprehensively. She looks about ready to speak, but doesn’t find what to say for a few moments.
“It’s dead, right? You killed it?”
“Mmm.” — Another faint nod.
Silence falls between them while N looks V over. The way her wounds are healing feels odd to Uzi. Not that she’s seen much of it, but it looks like something’s wrong with her shell near the stomach; the plastic is rugged and bent in places. Heat damage, it seems? Judging by the gradual way her arm is growing back, something similar must’ve happened there. Maybe the plastic was melting as the repair nanites were adding onto it, distorting the whole process.
“Let me take you back to the spire. I think we’ve got some oil left over but… It’s pretty old. Went slimy a while ago.” — N breaks the silence, offering his hand to V.
“Or– or I could give you a bit…” — Uzi raises her arm and makes a sort of cutting motion on it with her other hand. N flinches as he hears.
“No. I’m fine.” — V’s voice is low, but there’s a firmness to it. N and Uzi share a quick look at each other. She’s locked up.
Uzi stares, nagged by the need to do something. V needs some sort of attention, right? What’s first-aid for regenerating drone-vampires? Maybe they don’t need it at all?
She tries to stay there for a few minutes, see if there’s anything she can do, but it really doesn’t look like it and the awkwardness is getting to her. Anything she could offer would get an immediate “no” anyway.
When N turns to her by chance, she gives him a thumbs up and a raised eyebrow. No words go between them, but he seems to get it. Everything alright?
He replies with another thumbs up and an anxious smile. All good.
V doesn’t see that. Her eyes don’t move from the ground. They don’t move when Uzi begins to walk away, slowly stepping toward Door One and taking a dozen worried looks back. It’s only when they think she’s long gone that N starts to notice how V’s shaking; slightly swinging back and forth, the motion turning jagged when the fingers of her remaining hand twitch. Then, she pulls it up to her mouth and idly chews.
She’s absolutely messed up. What happened down there? How did she know to look for them?
“Hey. Please stop that.” — The way little bubbles of oil show where she’s biting makes N shiver.
At first, it doesn’t look like V’s heard him. She chews a few more times before letting the hand hang by her side again and slightly turning to him.
“Thank you.” — He nods. — “You sure don’t need anything?”
It takes her a few seconds to answer. Her voice is strained.
“Can you hug me… N…?”
He leans to wrap his arms around her. She does the same with her remaining one. The sheer heat of her shell and the vapor that’s still flowing make it a bit awkward.
V’s shakes get stronger. She clutches N tight, head resting on his shoulder. He realizes she’s trembling in a rhythm — sobbing in silence.
She shuts her eyes to hold it back, but it only grows worse the more she thinks of it. After a while, the sobs are no longer silent. Before she knows it, they’ve broken into a jagged howl, echoing throughout the ruins. Opening her eyes shows her things moving in the moonlit shade, glimmering pale things encroaching.
She reassures herself over and over, it’s done, it’s done, you’re safe, but they don’t go away. They refuse to for what seems like hours, while she tries to watch the snow shift with the wind, feel the fluff of N’s coat, the wind on her hands, anything else.
For a torturous moment, they even seem to get close enough to start poking at her stomach, but then they recede. Slowly, after the howl’s long tired and gone silent, they start to vanish, leaving her with N.
Hundreds of words pass V by, dying to be said. It’s time now, isn’t it? Everything’s right. She’s sure her mouth isn’t failing her now, and even then time’s nothing to worry about. She can just say it. Apologize and throw away the burden. He’s sure to accept that, right?
… But that’s the problem. Now, with her wounded, crying in his arms? He couldn’t possibly say anything else. Even if he wanted to, and he wants to for sure. It’d be so horrible, so selfish. It would be worth nothing.
And N’s so uncomfortable now. There’s a tenseness in him, an apprehensiveness. He must not feel safe. Of course he doesn’t, not with her. He so wants to go away. The thought makes her squeeze him as hard as she can, grasp his shoulder with her hand. No, don’t go. Don’t leave me yet. Hug me tighter. Please.
But that only makes it feel worse. Don’t I deserve this? Not even now? He wants to go, let him go. Just let go. She’s had her fill.
She breathes in, savoring it for a few more moments, burning the feeling in her core before breaking the hug.
His eyes feel strange. He gives V a thin smile. She forces herself to reply in kind.
It hurts so much. But it’s the least she can do.
The way to her dad is so damn long. And dark, and dirty, and really uncomfortable. The vents of Outpost-3 are absolutely miserable to crawl through, and Uzi’s thoughts don’t make it better.
She just left. V looked nearly dead, N on the verge of a panic attack, and she just left. But her dad’s waiting, too, and has to be even worse off now, right? No. She’s gotta turn back. But she’s already so far in. The turn right leading to her home could be just a few meters off…
It’s all gone so badly. Anywhere she could go would be wrong somehow, and it’s just so, so cold. The idea of physical touch makes her repulsed right now, but… Robo-God, wouldn’t a hug be nice? She wonders — maybe V wouldn’t have minded if she joined in earlier. Hell, she looked like she needed that. Surely N would’ve even insisted on it, right?
Before Uzi’s finished the thought, she nearly retches. Holy hell, that’s so selfish and horrible. That hug was something private to them. Why would V even tolerate her there? First thing she asked when V collapsed in front of her wasn’t even “hey do you need help”, it was “hey did you finish killing the thing before leaving”. She would’ve certainly gotten slapped across the face if N wasn’t so nice.
… So, so nice. Too nice. V used him like a punching bag for Robo-God knows how long and now he’s become a pillow to cry on. The sniveling bitch. She and N have to talk about that, dude has to learn to stand up for himself. At the end of the day it’s his choice but–
Gah. She just saved my life. Gosh, what’s wrong with me?
Uzi distracts herself from that train of thought by considering V’s wounds again. By all means, it looks like it wasn’t healing right. She remembers the weird mushy red ribbons that hung from V’s limp arm while it was still attached — whatever it is, that stuff looked pretty complex, far beyond what nanites can easily make again. Processors and sensors are one thing, but complex lattices? No shot.
It might be a good idea to take a peek. She knows a good bit about engineering, so why not? N’s said before he gets these short pains in his abdomen when he moves a certain way. Start off fixing that with V watching, then move on to whatever’s up with her. Yeah, that’s much easier to think about; it’s a mechanical problem to solve. Far from complicated questions like “does V deserve that” or even “would she agree at all.”
She opens up her notes about drone anatomy on a console window, rapidly switching through a warren’s den of vaguely topical directories. Will need some study but she’s already getting ideas. There’s a spool of titanium solder somewhere in her room that would make a broken chassis stay in place to make more permanent repairs easier. There’s a whole cache of engineering notes on titanium somewhere around the home/positronrifle folder. Yeah, yeah. A warped shell is a problem, but that’s something the nanites might be able to take care of if she peels it carefully.
Then, a beam of light to her right — that’s the hallway. She’s above her home right now. Dad’s gotta be there.
Uzi sighs and stores away the notes, indiscriminately shoving them into a new directory named home/projects/v_unmessing_up. It doesn’t feel so bad now.
Tomorrow will be a better day.
Sappy stuff, but for some reason she believes it.