Chapter Text
It was like the beginning of a horror story, a child's sobs singing through the nightmare wind.
Nori Doorman, (Subject 002, according to her human tormentors) knew all about horror stories.
She'd spent most of her life in one, from the day she was activated, to the day she'd escaped Cabin Fever Labs. She tried to tell herself it was over. She had a home now, a husband and daughter she loved more than life.
But old ghosts never rested. She could hear them humming through her code when nights fell quiet, could see them reflected by her own eye in many a fractured mirror. The Absolute Solver was a curse she'd bear until the end of her days, but it had certain advantages.
She could still use it in a fight.
There had been another attack recently.
The Disassembly Drones were getting bolder, but there was something...wrong about the way this new batch fought. Nori had been helping repel raids from the damned things ever since she'd settled into the Copper Nine colony. Previous squadrons had moved together in a smoothly rehearsed, murderous dance.
These newcomers, three that she'd seen so far, were sloppy. Uncoordinated. Didn't make them any less deadly, though. The colony had lost another family today and several more were wounded. That's why she was out here, in the pre-dawn hours, trudging through a snowstorm and sifting through piles of drone corpses for anything she could use to patch up the living.
If she found any spare battery packs or material that could be used to reinforce the colony doors, even better.
Sunlight was death to a Disassembly Drone, and while it wasn't dawn yet, the hour was close enough that Nori thought she'd be safe. She knew how to handle herself, anyway. She adjusted her knapsack containing the night's collection on her shoulder and marched on.
The sobs of the unseen child made her feel colder than the snow ever could. For a frantic moment, she'd thought it was her own daughter, Uzi, having somehow followed her out here. That girl had a natural talent for finding trouble, but Nori supposed she had no one but herself to blame for that. No, this voice didn't belong to Uzi. For one thing, it sounded like a little boy. The swirling wind played a game of keep-away with the sound, so she couldn't tell exactly where it was coming from. She pressed her gloved hands into the sides of her head, trying to drown it out. Ignore it, she commanded herself. It's just another one of the Solver's tricks.
But while the Solver understood deception and brutality, it knew nothing of feeling. She didn't believe that it could imitate the despair she was hearing now.
So, she decided to make an incredibly stupid decision and call out. "Hello?"
The crying stopped at once. "Is someone there?"
Robo-God, this voice was painfully young.
"My name is Nori," she called into the dark. "I live in this colony. Do you need help?"
"Oh..." the voice was smaller. "You probably shouldn't help me, then."
"Why not?" Nori asked, moving closer now that she had a lock on the voice. Her heavy boots crunched through the snow. "Where are you?"
She rounded past the decayed skeleton of a car.
A wave of sickness stopped her in her tracks.
Lying atop a pile of Worker limbs was the equally mangled torso of a Disassembly Drone, somehow still alive. He'd been torn clean in half at the chest, leaving him only his right arm. His wings had been sliced off.
His head had been smashed in on one side, and with that crack in his visor, he was likely blind in one eye. Worst of all, he was clearly no older than her own child back home.
So that's why this new batch had been so sloppy.
The Solver had started sending child soldiers after them. It must be getting desperate.
"Um...hi?" The Disassembler boy said shyly.
"What in the..." Nori began, her mind rapidly sifting through all her questions. "What happened to you? I fought you things back, but I didn't take it this far."
"Oh, so you were the one," the boy sounded impressed rather than hostile. "You were very brave, ma'am. No, this..." he gestured to himself as best he could.
"My squadron leader was upset with me. It was a poor hunt today."
"A poor hunt?" A spark of anger flared amid Nori's sympathy. "Because of you, the colony has four new funerals to arrange!"
The boy's remaining yellow eye creased in remorse.
"I'm sorry. Really, I am. None of us want to do this...but we don't want to die, either."
She shut her eyes tight against the memory of the Solver trying to infect her with that same hunger for oil, the lifeblood of her fellow Drones. By some unknown grace, it had failed.
Nori glanced up at the sky, growing lighter by the minute. "Yeah, well, I don't think you get any more say in that than we do, kid. Sunrise will be here soon."
"I know," he whispered. "I deserve this. At least, after today, nothing will hurt anymore."
Nori was trembling. Rage, pity, indecision, the need to do something were at war inside her. Overwhelmed, she spun on her heel and began the trek back home.
"I need to get out of here. I...I'm sorry."
Why was she apologizing to one of the Solver's murder pets? Was she truly losing her mind?
As she stomped away, she heard the boy say a soft, cheerful, "Good night, ma'am."
Something inside Nori's core broke. This...child...was wishing her good night. While he was waiting to die.
With a loud groan at her own idiocy, she made room in her knapsack and turned back around.
"Nori!" Annie, a brown-haired Worker who was waiting just inside the colony doors, waved her inside. "Thank goodness! We were all getting worried!"
Nori raised her hand in greeting, but kept her eyes on her boots as she strode inside.
She winced as the inevitable struck.
"What in the world..." Annie stammered. "Tell me that's not what I think it is!"
The head in her duffel bag spoke up with a chipper, "Hello!"
Annie leapt back with a frightened yelp.
"I'll explain soon, I promise!" Nori was almost running toward the infirmary now, scaring any unfortunate soul who happened to cross her path. It didn't help that her salvage was so chatty.
"Hi! Sorry about trying to kill you all earlier today. Wow, this is where you live? It's cozy in here!"
"Do you ever stop talking?" Nori growled.
The doors to the infirmary slid open. Infirmary was too fancy a name, perhaps. It was just a few rows of cots, currently occupied by injured Workers receiving oil infusions and having their wounds treated.
The most advanced tech they had was pushed into the far corner, a 3D printer Nori and her husband had modified to create prosthetics, if it had enough material.
That's why Nori risked these scouting missions so often. She couldn't help the dead. But they might help the living.
Her husband, Khan, was dozing in a chair pressed against the back wall, their small daughter pacing anxious half-circles around him.
"Khan!" Nori exclaimed. "You know I don't want Uzi in here! She doesn't need to see all this!"
"I'm sorry, honey," Khan said, rising to his feet and adjusting his mustache. "But she wouldn't sleep until--"
"Mom!"
Uzi shot forward like a small purple bullet and threw her arms tight around her mother's waist. Nori knelt down to return the embrace. "I'm here, little bug. I'm right here."
Uzi pulled away and began running her hands over Nori's face and hair. She was always like this after a mission. Like she needed to be absolutely certain that her mother had come back safely. Uzi often had night terrors, waking up screaming about being left behind. It was a generational fear, Nori thought, passed down from herself.
She prayed that was all she had passed down.
It was then that Uzi and the boy in the bag met each other's eyes.
"Pretty," the kid said, mindlessly, the word falling out of him like a stray coin. His eyes instantly hollowed, embarrassed.
So did Uzi's. "Holy crap, it talks."
Khan came up behind their daughter and gave her shoulders a gentle shake.
"Language, young lady," he chided gently.
Two seconds later, he burst out, "Holy crap, honey, what are you thinking?!" "
"Just raising the half-dead, love," Nori said flatly on her way to the printer. "We do it all the time around here."
She set the Disassembler kid onto a cot and hooked him up to an oil IV.
Annie came into the infirmary next, holding a box of more ordinary medical supplies like bandages and gauze. She and Nori often worked together to save whoever they could after a raid.
Now she approached Nori slowly, as one approaches a potential lunatic. "Nori...what are you going to do?"
"Look at him, Annie," Nori said, getting the printer ready for a long night's work. "He's a kid. Most of the murder was ripped out of him by his own kind. I'm going to print him a Worker body."
Annie's mouth fell open in shock. "Can you even do that?"
"I'm sure as hell gonna try. Here," Nori handed her the sack of the night's gathering. "This should be enough to help patch up the others."
"On it," Annie said, lingering a moment to look at the broken boy on the operating table. Carefully, she brushed her fingers through the tips of his hair. "You poor thing," she whispered, before hurrying to her work.
Khan was at her side now. "Honey, his body's one thing, but what about his programming? The...the you-know-what?"
Not taking her eyes off her workscreen, she answered, "I've been working on a patch for that, just in case we might need it." She couldn't stop her gaze from wandering toward Uzi, who was curiously observing the new kid from a safe distance.
"I think I've got it down. I've had the infection too long, it won't work on me. But on a younger model, it should work."
Khan shook his head with a tired sigh. "I hope you know what you're doing."
"So do I."
Before too long, the Worker parts were printed, and it was time to start fusing. The process was a painful one. The kid whimpered, and tears bled from his single functioning eye.
That was when Uzi gently intertwined her fingers with his. He looked at her in shock.
"Hey," Uzi said with soft encouragement. "Don't worry. My mom's the best at what she does. You're gonna be okay."
The boy gave a timid smile. "Th...thank you."
"My name's Uzi, by the way. What's yours?"
"Serial Designation N." He tried to salute, then remembered he didn't have an arm available.
"Yikes," Uzi said with a playful grimace. "We'll have to get you a better name than that."
"A real name? For me?" He shut his eyes, the pain and the past suddenly worlds away, while his future was being built piece by piece. "Wow."
Chapter 2
Summary:
N gets a second chance at a new life.
But his old one isn't willing to let go.
Notes:
While N does receive a name in this chapter, for the sake of keeping things simple, the story will keep referring to him as "N".
I tried to pick a name that I hadn't seen used yet. (Apologies in advance if this is also your headcanon name for him!)
I also gave the schoolteacher a name because, well, man sees so much chaos that he deserves at least that.
Chapter Text
The corpse spire was the dread of Copper Nine, a reminder to every Worker who saw it of the threat that hovered over them. It had been built upon by different squadrons over the years, meaning the interior was divided into wandering, disjointed segments, like a hive crafted by insane bees.
Many Disassembly Drones had lived there before, but it was currently home to the young three that had stormed the spire when they first landed.
Well, now only two.
"Tell me I heard you wrong," Serial Designation V hissed at her squadron leader through gritted fangs. She had never feared J, and wasn't about to start now.
"Fine, I went too far," J answered, her tone flat and cold. "I was tired of that factory defect screwing things up. We took a beating today and only got away with enough oil to fill our reserves for a week. Now that he's gone, it'll last longer. You're welcome."
"You left him out there to die! We have to go after him!"
"And why is that, V?" asked J, one eyebrow lifted curiously. "Why are you so upset over this? It's not like you treated him any better."
V cast her gaze down, shame and anger coursing through her.
"He was all we had left from our life before," she said finally.
She met J's glare. "Don't tell me you never think about that time."
J's hand had been replaced by a long blade and was already at V's throat.
"Never speak to me about that again," J's voice was rough, a warning scratched in stone. Pulling the blade away after a long minute, she continued, "Even if I wanted to go after him now, there'd be no point. Sun's up. He's nothing but a pile of ashes by now."
V sank to the floor, as though the blade had actually hit its mark. Something like pity crossed J's expression before vanishing.
She turned her back and marched toward her own quarters.
"I suggest you get some sleep," she threw over her shoulder. "Now that we're shorthanded, we'll have to work double-time to beat the other squadrons on this rock."
V didn't hear her. Her senses were consumed by memory. All the cruel things she'd ever said or done in her stupid attempts to keep N at a distance, to protect him from the evil that had infested their lives.
Most of all, she was remembering a lonely manor house long ago and far away. She was remembering a kind little butler Drone who used to sit beside her and read facts about dogs.
She shut her eyes against the simmering tears.
"I failed everything," she whispered, so quiet she could barely hear herself. "I'm sorry, N."
N's internal clock told him he'd been in the infirmary for about a week now.
The first few days were a long, foggy dream. He'd thought about his past life. He'd wondered if V would miss him at all. They had been friends once. At least, he thought they'd been.
The worst was when he remembered what J had done, the pain tearing through him like fresh wounds all over again.
According to Miss Nori and Miss Annie, he had lain in a coma-like sleep while his systems reset themselves.
A new sensation had gradually begun to shine through the fog. The girl, Uzi, coming to visit him every day.
He could sometimes feel her hand wrap around his. Sometimes she would read to him, or tell him about whatever had happened at her school that day. She'd become an anchor point as he drifted between life and the abyss, and he'd held on to that with all his strength.
However long or short his life would be, he'd never forget waking up that first day without the fever.
The craving for oil was gone, at last. He'd looked down at himself and seen his body as it had been, in bygone days when he'd been a Worker, not a weapon.
There'd been a small crowd around his cot, eyeing him nervously. N had locked onto Nori and thrown his arms around her shoulders.
"Thank you," he'd sobbed. "Thank you, thank you," until the words ran together into a babbling chant.
He was the only patient in the infirmary now. As days kept passing and no disaster erupted, the other residents of the colony were less anxious around him, but they were a long way from trust. He didn't blame them.
They were running diagnostics on him again today, the band wrapped around his head beeping at intervals. He was walking slow laps around the room, one arm tucked around Uzi, the other around Miss Annie as they guided him through each footstep. He still getting used to his new body. Smaller but still strong, without the burden of bladed wings on his shoulders.
During his recovery, Uzi had been reading her comic books out loud to him. ("Manga," he corrected himself. No way was he making that mistake again. She'd looked so offended.)
Right now, she was excitedly acting out the most recent chapter they'd left off.
"Okay, so he winds up his fist like this," Uzi pulled back her free arm, as if preparing to battle an unseen enemy. "And then he lets it fly!"
She gave the air a devastating uppercut, sending a wobble through all three of them. "Delaware Smash!"
"Now, Uzi," Miss Annie said gently. "I'm not sure such an exciting story is the best thing right now for...Nico?"
N smiled and shook his head.
"I...don't really feel like a Nico," he said apologetically. He liked Miss Annie.
She was kind and quiet in a way that soothed everyone around her. She was also determined to find him a name, but none of her suggestions had fit quite right.
"I'm running out of ideas, hun," she said, "Just one more today. How about Novah?"
N tilted his head a little, letting the name roll around in his head.
"Okay, that one sounds pretty cool," Uzi said.
Miss Annie smiled. "I've been doing some reading. In some ancient human languages, 'Novah' meant 'newcomer'. I thought it might suit you."
"Novah," he played with the sound of it. "Know-vah." A wide smile dawned on his face. "I'm Novah!"
"Yes!" Miss Annie laughed and offered her hand to Uzi for a victorious high-five, which she gladly returned.
"I think I'd like to keep my letter, though. Maybe as a nickname?"
"Of course."
By this time, they'd made a full circuit around the room.
A male worker Drone with smiling white eyes and black hair leaned in and tapped on the wall. "Knock, knock."
Uzi waved. "Hey there, Mr. Haven."
"Hi, kids. Just here to collect my wife."
"Just a second, Edmund," said Miss Annie as she helped N back onto his cot and returned to her work station to print his readings.
Mr. Edmund walked inside, ruffling N's hair affectionately as he passed. "How are you feeling today, buddy?"
"Better!"
He gave a warm smile, then turned to Miss Annie. "I know you're busy, honey, but the meeting has already started, and--"
Annie's eyes hollowed. "Oh, that's right! Um, okay," she hurriedly gathered things from her station and followed her husband out the door,
"Uzi, you're in charge! No playing with the defibrillator, please! We're still trying to get the marks off the ceiling!"
"It was one time!"
With most residents of the colony somehow crowded inside the classroom, Nori could feel every pair of eyes drilling into her like lasers.
Never did like school, she thought wryly.
Khan kept a supportive hand on her shoulder as he stood beside her.
The schoolteacher, Linus, kept his usual place behind his desk, but the tap-tapping of his pencil betrayed his anxiety.
Most of Nori's attention was on Yeva, once Subject 048. She was her fellow Cabin Fever Labs survivor, another holder of the Solver (though she'd been cured by an older version of the patch that Nori's own systems had rejected), and the closest she'd ever have to a sister.
And right now, she was looking at her with something between sadness and anger.
"Nori, how could you do this? Bring one of those...monsters into our home?"
"I didn't see a monster," Nori answered plainly. "I saw a kid in pain. A kid like my Uzi. Like Doll. I did what I thought was right."
"Child or not, that boy is a threat to everyone!"
The door to the classroom opened, and there was a small disturbance as Annie pushed her way inside, followed by Edmund.
"Now, now, maybe not!"
She was almost yelling to be heard over the agitated murmur of the crowd.
"I've been running diagnostics on Novah every day since he's been here, and--"
"Wait," Yeva's husband, Adam, spoke up now, confusion in his eyes. "Novah?"
Annie briefly looked down, a little embarrassed.
"Yes, that's the name we've given him."
"We've become rather attached during the boy's recovery," Edmund explained.
Annie continued, "There is no hint of Disassembler code anywhere. Since Nori installed the patch and made her repairs, he's as much a Worker as any of us."
"Khan, you're leader of the Worker Defense Force. What do you think?" Linus asked.
Khan took his time before answering.
"I think a lot of progress has been made. But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried about the danger."
"I was dangerous when you found me," Nori said, her voice dark with bad memories.
Yeva rubbed her arm. "So was I."
"We didn't have any choices then," Nori continued. "They'd been made for us."
She tried to meet the gaze of everyone in the room.
"But you all gave us a second chance. To build new lives. It feels wrong to deny that to someone else."
Nori took both Yeva's hands in hers.
"You looked out for me while we were trapped in that hell. I'll look out for you now. For all of us. I swear on my life."
They stayed frozen like that for a very long time. Sighing heavily, Yeva lowered her forehead to Nori's.
"I don't trust the boy," she said quietly. "But I trust you."
N leaned back in his cot, staring at the ceiling with hands tightly folded over his chest. He was so nervous, he didn't know what else to do with them.
Sitting at his bedside, Uzi had the same problem, endlessly fiddling with the edges of her hoodie.
"What do you think they're talking about?" he asked.
"Whether or not to let you stay."
"Oh."
Purple eyes blinked at him. "What was it like...before?"
"It's hard to explain. It's like the kind of nightmare you have when you're sick, only it's real. You're still you, but you're also...something else. Something bad. And all you want is to stop, but you can't."
Struck by a terrible thought, he quickly turned to look at her. "Did I ever hurt you?"
Uzi shook her head. "No. I never saw you before my mom brought you in."
Relieved, he returned to contemplating the ceiling. "I've hurt others, though."
"Yes. And I won't lie, you'll have a tough time living that down, if you stay."
A beat of silence. "Do you want to stay?"
"If they'll have me," he sighed. "Being around Miss Annie, Miss Nori...you...I've never felt so safe."
N glanced at her again. "Would you want me to stay?"
She smiled at him, and his chest felt warm. "It's been nice having someone to talk to," she said. With a little smirk, she added, "Even if you can't keep your manga stories straight."
"Yes, I can! Um...the Demon Slayers guard the Dragon Balls, right?"
"Okay, now you have to stay. Someone has to make sure you get a good education."
Both of them sat up when Uzi's parents, followed by Annie and Edmund, came into the infirmary. Uzi bolted out of her chair to grab her mother and father by the hand.
"Well?" she asked, bouncing slightly on her feet.
"He can stay," Nori announced with a smile.
"But we do have a question for N...Novah."
She stepped aside to make room for Annie and Edmund.
"Novah, you're strong enough to leave the infirmary now. Edmund and I were wondering...if you would like to come and live with us? We don't have any children, and...we'd be happy to be your parents, if you'll have us."
So many emotions were flooding him, he thought he might blue-screen.
"Parents? I-I'd be part of a family?"
"And we'd be neighbors!" Uzi chimed in. "Mr. and Mrs. Haven live right across from us."
"That is," Edmund added gently, "if you want this."
N looked at Uzi, standing with a parent on either side. Shielded. Loved.
And now the same was being offered to him, a monster that had been reshaped into something like normal.
He didn't deserve it.
He wanted it more than anything.
"Yes. Yes, please," he finally breathed.
If those first days had been a dream, the ones that followed felt like a prayer answered. He had never dared to imagine this kind of life for himself.
Gentle smiles to wish him good night that were still there in the morning.
Warm baritone singing while doing chores on weekends.
Watching two Drones silly in love waltz around the apartment for no reason, and then sweeping him up into the dance until his clumsy feet tumbled them all into a giggling heap on the couch.
A best friend who lived just across the hall, so he could see her every day.
They played old video games and built pillow forts and made crazy plans about what they'd do if they could fly away from the world.
Sometimes he wondered if he had actually died that first night and was mistakenly allowed into heaven. Because if there was such a place, surely it felt like this.
In the darkest part of the farthest shadows, a heart of flesh and a silicon soul kept up a relentless search.
Like almost everything alive, it craved to reclaim what it had lost.
Not because of anything like love or affection. The Solver of the Absolute Fabric was above such mundane pursuits.
This was pure obsession.
"Where are you, big brother N? Come out, come out, wherever you are..."
<callback ping>
<callback ping>
Chapter 3
Summary:
N adjusts to life in the colony.
And the darkness slowly draws closer.
Notes:
I want to say thank you again to everyone reading this. I didn't expect to get much response at all, and I am deeply grateful.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Serial Designation J dragged her claws across her makeshift whetstone again, though they were already deathly sharp.
Outside the spire, the sun was nearly gone.
V was waiting to begin the hunt already.
She thought back to the night she'd lashed out at N. It had been months now. Even now, she couldn't find any regret.
She was the one who worked the hardest.
Why was he always the favorite?
When she'd entered her quarters that night, she'd known punishment would be waiting in some form. She was ready for the Solver to kill her, then resurrect her so it could do it all over again. Big deal. Not like she'd never endured that before. What actually happened had been much worse.
J had found her austere quarters replaced by a room with rich dark wood paneling, golden lanterns and patterned lace curtains. In the middle of it all was a small round table, set with a tea service for two.
Seated there was the flickering shadow of Tessa James Eliot, a human girl who would never grow old. In another life, when J had been a discarded maid drone, Tessa had taken her in. She still didn't understand why.
Maybe Tessa had simply been lonely. Maybe she'd been crazy or so kind, she couldn't sense danger until it was already upon her. Whatever the reason, she'd been the one to make J feel real. Not like something to be thrown away once broken. If Drones indeed had souls, hers would forever be linked to this girl.
It's not her, something in her mind pleaded. You know it's not. Wake up!
But waking up would mean admitting the truth. It hurt so much less to believe the dream.
"Welcome home, J," Shadow Tessa greeted warmly. "Care for a cup?"
A slow stream of thick black oil poured from the teapot into a dainty porcelain cup.
Moving like a sleepwalker, J took her seat across from the shadow.
She lifted the cup to her lips, holding her pinkie finger aloft, like a proper lady.
Shadow Tessa looked at her sadly.
"Do you hate me, J?"
J's eyes hollowed. "What? Never!"
"Then why did you break my favorite toy?"
"He--he kept messing up--and I was so angry--"
"I need him back." That warm voice had grown many degrees colder. "You'll get him back for me, won't you?"
J looked down, shoulders heavy.
"Why am I not enough for you?" Her hands began to shake. "You rescued me first. You...you said you loved me first, like I was your own. Why did you even need the others? Why am I not enough?"
"Oh, J," Shadow Tessa set her cup down and opened her arms.
J almost ran to her, dropping to the floor so she could rest her head against the shadow's knee. Fingers gently began to untangle the knots in her ponytails.
She always used to play with my hair like this...
"Don't you see?" Shadow Tessa continued.
"V, N--they're like my little paper dolls. I just have a soft spot for N, that's all. But you," she tilted her chin up, making J look right into her eyes. "You're special. My best friend. You see the difference, yeah?"
J was fighting back tears now. "I am?"
"Of course. So...as my best friend...you'll get my favorite toy back for me."
"But how can I? The sunlight--"
"He survived," the shadow interrupted. "I feel it. I have eyes all over this planet, even if some of them are...a little blinded for now. Bring him back to me."
She knew an order when she heard one.
"I will."
"Brilliant!" Shadow Tessa cheered. "Then when I reach this world for real, we can all be together again, just like old times!"
J lay her head back down, suddenly very tired.
"Where are you?" she asked, her voice careful and small. "Why can we only talk through these holograms?"
"I still have some work to do back home. You know that. It won't be much longer now."
The shadow continued stroking her hair soothingly. "I miss you, J."
With a tearful gasp, J tightened her arms around the memory, like a child clinging to their parent. "I miss you more."
"I miss you most."
"Hey," V gave her shoulder a none-too-gentle shove, bringing her back to reality.
"Where did you go? Are we doing this, or what?"
J hadn't told her crewmate what, or rather who, was the goal of their search. If V knew that N was somehow still alive, she'd choose him every time.
And J couldn't bear any more loneliness.
"Of course we are," she snapped, leading the way into the night. "Let's fly!"
She unfurled her wings and launched herself into the sky, V trailing behind.
Clutching his backpack to him on the couch, N had a clear view into the kitchen from where he sat. He watched his mom gathering supplies for another day of work at the infirmary, when his dad snuck up behind her and slipped a red paper rose into her hands. She giggled delightedly and turned around to kiss him.
N smiled but turned away, blushing slightly. Deep down, he hoped he'd have the chance to give someone paper flowers someday.
His thoughts ran to Uzi, and that made his face feel even warmer.
As told by the books covering every available shelf and table, his parents were fascinated by human culture. His mom loved their mythologies. His dad loved their arts, in particular, origami. One of his favorite things to do was surprise his wife with handmade flowers, which had found various homes throughout the apartment. He'd tried to teach N, but his attempts always ended up looking like sad little clumps.
"Don't worry, bud," he always assured him. "You'll get it."
A long-buried memory stirred, of his time as a servant in the old manor. “Love” was not a word he'd associate with Mr. and Mrs. Eliot. They'd treated their only daughter, the first friend N had ever known, as an achievement to be placed on a shelf and forgotten.
He didn't miss much about his past, except Tessa. How strange that he couldn't remember what had become of her; when he tried, all that came up was the word "gone".
N rested his chin atop the backpack and tried to take a steadying breath.
Since welcoming him into their family, his parents had been fighting an uphill battle to enroll him in school. The other parents in the colony had loudly protested having a murder drone, reformed or not, in the same classroom with their kids. But they'd relented at last, and N was about to embark on his first day.
Soon enough Uzi was at the door, heavy backpack on her shoulder and a glum look on her face.
"Ready to go to war?"
"Don't scare him, Uzi," said his dad with a chuckle. "It's just school."
"Not much difference some days, Mr. Haven," Uzi said. She held out her hand for N.
"So, are you ready?”
"As I’ll ever be.”
Bidding his parents a nervous farewell, he let Uzi lead him into the hallway.
They wove past a line of Workers burdened with tools going down to mine resources from the pitch-black tunnels below the colony.
Another group of WDF members, blasters slung across their backs, headed to the surface, to train in the relative safety of daylight.
The classroom was two levels down from the apartments. All eyes were instantly on N.
"On time for once, Miss Doorman,” said the Teacher in his deadpan voice. "Surely a sign the apocalypse is nigh. To your usual seat, please. And...Novah, is it? There's an empty desk in the back. I'd have you introduce yourself to the class, but I don't have time, and I don't hate anyone that much."
N nodded. "Thank you...I think?"
Uzi gave his hand a final comforting squeeze before parting from him. Her desk was toward the front of the class, where Teacher could keep a wary eye on her.
N felt like he might burst into flames from how intensely everyone was watching him.
They know what I am. I mean, what I used to be. What are they thinking? If I were in their place–
“Murder bot.”
The angry hiss came from a larger boy seated to his left. Reluctantly, N turned to face him.
“You seriously think you can just walk in here like nothing happened? I lost my uncle in that last raid of yours!”
Uzi spoke up from the front row, her voice loud but not unkind.
“Dylan, that was before! Things are different now!”
“That doesn't make my uncle any less dead!”
N flinched under the rage and pain in the boy's words. “Saying ‘I'm sorry’ isn't enough,” he began. “I know that. I can't take back what's happened. I'd give anything if I could. All I can say is that I'll spend the rest of my life trying to make up for it.”
This speech was met by a stir of murmurs around the room, some approving, most skeptical.
Dylan was having none of it.
“You think some stupid words will make anything better?”
With an angry roar, he launched a fist at N's face. He made no move to defend himself. What right did he have?
Across the room, Uzi was already shouting and trying to push her way through the class to reach him.
The blow didn't land, but Uzi hadn't been the one to block it.
Another boy, with green eyes and a lock of blond hair sticking out from his backwards-turned baseball cap, had caught the punch in his open hand.
“Not cool,” said the new boy firmly.
“You've got to be kidding. You're defending this thing?!”
"This won't bring anyone back,” said the new boy. “Besides, everyone deserves a second chance. Especially if they're willing to work for it, like the new kid here says. So how about we chill out now? Come on, you can switch seats with me.”
With a venomous growl, Dylan gathered his books and stormed to a different desk.
“You can't just do that,” said Teacher. “You're disrupting my carefully organized seating chart.”
“Do you actually care about that?” asked a girl with a blonde ponytail and wearing a hair bow that looked like cat ears.
Teacher sighed wearily. “Not until they raise my salary, I don't.”
With that, all the students got up and rearranged themselves as they wished.
Uzi jumped into the desk on N's right. She peered over his shoulder to glance at the other boy. “Thank you.”
“No problem, Zi.”
He let himself plop into his newly-claimed desk and held out his hand for N to shake.
“Okay, formal intros. Name's Thad.”
There was such an open warmth in the boy's smile that N couldn't help liking him.
He happily shook his hand. “I'm Novah.”
“Cool. l know how weird it can be when you're new. So,” he pointed to the blonde girl who'd spoken earlier. “That's Lizzy, my annoying sister.”
“I heard that!”
Thad continued as if he hadn't. “That's Doll, sitting next to her. She's the quiet type, but she and Lizzy have been friends as long as I can remember. And over there, that's Braiden.”
N's eyes widened in alarm. “Is he supposed to be on fire?!”
“Yeah, that just happens sometimes,” Thad said calmly.
“Focus, people,” Teacher called out, in a valiant attempt to move on with his lesson. “Let's start with a word problem. Now, if Farmer Jenkins buys 240 watermelons–”
He was interrupted by a collective groan from nearly the entire room.
“We're robots!” Lizzy complained. “We will never need to buy watermelons!"
Gym class was another beast entirely.
They were divided into two teams and given brightly colored scraps of cloth to wrap around their arms. The goal was to steal as many of the other team's armbands as possible within five minutes. Whichever team had collected the most at the end was the winner.
N, Uzi and Thad found themselves on Team Red. And relentlessly pursued by Team Green.
Though smaller than her classmates, Uzi was fast and light on her feet. She had stolen three green bands before anyone even noticed.
Once they did, they went after her with a vengeance.
Seeing her about to be tackled, N dashed to her side and lifted her over his head, out of danger. The would-be tackler stumbled right past them.
“Hey!” Uzi exclaimed, half-scolding, half-laughing. “Quit saving me!”
He set her down, and she pressed her catch into his hands.
“Now run!”
It seemed a very long five minutes, with N taking hard hits as he navigated the chaos of the gym, losing his armband along the way.
Team Green at last resorted to tackling him, one after another, until he was nearly buried alive beneath them.
“Time!” Coach called at last.
“Count ‘em up!”
As she wrote up the tally, the Coach said, “It's a tie, but…it's all wrong. Why are we missing so many green bands?”
N's arm popped up through the mound covering him, clutching a bundle of green bands in his fist.
“Here!” he called, voice still muffled from being buried.
Coach pointed her pencil at him.
“Team Red is the winner!”
“All right!” Thad crowed, moving to help pull N free. “Nice job, Super-Novah!”
To N's intense surprise, a few other members of Team Red were also cheering for him, none more loudly than Uzi. He was breathing hard, but smiling wider than he ever had before.
Lizzy and Doll, both members of Team Green, were standing behind Uzi as she celebrated.
“Doorman, I thought you hated sports,” Lizzy said, only a slight taunt in her voice.
Uzi froze immediately. “I did. I mean, I do. I mean–”
“It couldn't be that something, or someone,” she added this with a meaningful glance at N, “has changed your mind?”
Doll gave her friend a gentle shove.
“Leave her alone, Lizzy.”
Uzi smiled gratefully at Doll. While not as close as their mothers, both girls were on good terms.
Uzi's visor flashed, a triple-pronged symbol replacing her eye for a moment. She held her head and let out a cry of pain.
N was already running to her. “Uzi!”
Uzi stumbled and was held up between Doll and Lizzy.
“Damn, Doorman, how hard did you get hit out there?”
“I don't know,” Uzi said, pressing her hand to her eye. “My head hurts.”
“Do you need to go home?” Doll asked.
“I'll call her parents,” Coach offered.
N scooped Uzi into his arms without slowing his run. “Heading home!”
“N! she cried out. “What are you–I can walk, you know!”
Thad jogged after them, Doll following.
Lizzy thought for a second before joining them.
“Well, if it gets us out of our next class!”
“Hey!” Coach yelled. “I never said the rest of you could leave!”
Lizzy's voice drifted back.
“Sorry, can't hear you!”
N found Mr. and Mrs. Doorman waiting outside their apartment when they arrived, along with his dad, just returned from his shift in the mines.
“We've got it from here, kids,” Nori said.
By now, Uzi was hurting badly enough, she'd stopped arguing about being carried.
N transferred her into her dad's arms, but didn't let go of her hand.
“Will she be all right?” N asked worriedly.
“She'll be fine in a day or two,” Khan said. “Uzi’s health has always been a little, um, fragile.”
N saw his dad nod. “I remember those flare-ups when she was just a droneling.”
Nori tried to look reassuring. “It'll be alright. Thanks for looking out for her.”
N reluctantly let Uzi's hand slip out of his as the Doorman family retreated into their home.
Letting none of her true worries show on her face, Nori tucked her daughter into bed.
“Don't worry, little bug. You've probably just picked up a bit of that virus that goes around this time of year. You'll be okay.”
“Mom, this feels…weird. My head really hurts, and it's like…I can almost hear a voice?”
She brushed Uzi's hair away from her forehead. Fear pulsed through her when she recognized a fever.
"Try to sleep,” she whispered. “You'll feel better when you wake up, promise.”
Khan poked his head into Uzi's room, holding a plush crow that had seen much love in its past. “Look who I found!”
Uzi rolled her eyes. “Dad, I'm thirteen. I think I'm a little too old for–”
“Oh well, if you don't want him–”
“No, Mr. Feathersby!”
Uzi scooped the little plush into her arms and curled under her blankets. When Nori was sure she was asleep, she reached under Uzi's hair and applied the Solver patch with an almost inaudible click.
“I won't let it take you,” she vowed quietly.
She stayed until all traces of fever were gone.
When they felt safe enough to leave her side, Khan and Nori collapsed side by side onto their couch, exhausted from worry.
It was a long time before either of them spoke.
"I know you don't like talking about it,” Khan began. “But what exactly is this thing? An alien? A demon?"
“Maybe neither. Maybe both.”
Nori sighed, the Pandora's box of her memories beginning to open.
"When it tried to take me over, it invaded everything. It could see everything I felt and thought and remembered, there was no way to hide from it." Her tone had started to become rambling and fearful.
Khan held her hand until she regained her calm.
"But it was a two-way street,” she went on.
“I could see right back into its twisted soul. It's older than the stars themselves. Its only purpose is to consume everything it comes across. But no matter how much it takes in, it's never enough. It constantly craves more. It doesn't know how to feel, not the way other living things do. But it wants to. I think...it's jealous. Of us, even of humans. It wants what we have, to be everything to someone. To have someone be everything to us. It only has obsessions and cravings. Many times, I saw the image of a human girl, with long ponytails and sad eyes. The Solver craved her more than anything."
"We got an update from Outpost Seven today,” Khan said, looking down.
"What's wrong?"
"There is no more Outpost Seven. And we just lost Outpost Eight three weeks ago."
The quiet in the apartment was heavy enough to crush them.
"It's looking for something. Nori, I'm scared for you. For Uzi."
Nori gazed toward the bedroom where her daughter slept.
"It'll have to kill me before I let it have her. Still...I'm not sure we're the ones it really wants."
After that, never more than a handful of months passed before they got word again that another outpost had suffered a devastating attack.
Outpost Six.
Outpost Five.
They were celebrating Uzi's fifteenth birthday when they learned that Outpost Four had fallen.
Not wanting to frighten their children, the colony's adults kept this to themselves.
But no one could miss the bite of fear in the air, like a fresh layer of cold.
The Solver's single-minded quest to reclaim its lost one had become the goal of every squadron on Copper Nine.
Through the passage of time and violence, it knew that its prize was within reach.
“Ready or not, here I come.”
Notes:
Hello, everyone.
Since writing this, my health issues have gotten worse.
I don’t mean to worry anyone. I’ll be okay eventually. Unfortunately, this means new chapters will be delayed until then.
Be assured, I am not giving up on this story.
Thank you for your understanding 💗
Chapter Text
From the dark frozen skies fell a death shadow. A beaten hulk from the space-faring days of humans: a landing pod.
The Solver of the Absolute Fabric slithered into the resulting cloud of snow and dust, wearing its chosen vessel. It took a deep breath, though it had never needed to breathe.
Purely imitating the lives it so envied.
“Home at last,” it spoke with the stolen voice of a favorite victim. Eyes that had seen the passing of mortals and gods surveyed the sparse landscape.
“Why don't you come out to play?”
In response, a glowing yellow “x” ignited in the shadows. A Disassembly Drone, reacting to the presence of its master. First one, then two, then enough to rival the number of stars above.
“All right, everyone,” the Solver addressed the horde. “Eager giggle. Follow the leader.”
N dashed through the hallways on his way to meet up with Uzi and Thad for their next class. Dotting the usual gray blandness of the walls were brightly colored posters announcing the spring formal.
He paid less attention to these than the scattered greetings he received from some of the drones he passed, which he happily returned. Others silently gave him a wide berth.
There would be no such thing as “forgive and forget”, and he would never ask for it. But the cloud of fear that had hung over him from his arrival had thinned over these two years.
A voice, witheringly toxic, came from up ahead, near the stairs.
He recognized it as belonging to a girl named Rachel. “Ew, who let you out of quarantine?”
For reasons he couldn't understand, Rachel had never been anything but mean to everyone.
Her chosen target today was Doll, Miss Yeva’s daughter, who lately had been wearing a large button as a makeshift eyepatch.
“I was never in quarantine,” Doll said quietly, her shoulders hunched, like she was trying to disappear. “I accidentally hurt myself while I was sick. It’s not a big deal.”
This confrontation blocked the stairwell, causing a small crowd to assemble.
As he drew closer, N looked around for any potential allies. Thad had a gift for diffusing tempers. Lizzy would never have tolerated this. Neither sibling was to be found.
He arrived in time to see Uzi push her way to the front, clutching her heavy textbooks.
“Leave her alone, Rachel, and get out of the way! The sooner we all get to class, the sooner we can go home!”
“Oh look, the other contagion,” Rachel drawled. “Maybe you should both be locked up, before you infect the rest of us with…whatever the hell you have.”
N felt an unwelcome spark of anger in his core.
“Don’t talk to her that way.”
All eyes turned towards him. No one had ever heard him speak with steel in his voice before.
Rachel regained her attitude first. “Or what? You’ll drain all my oil?”
In challenge, she smacked Uzi’s books out of her hands, sending them tumbling down the stairs and scattering on the landing a short way down.
“What the hell?!” Uzi exclaimed.
N touched her arm in reassurance.
“It’s okay, I’ll get them for you.”
He picked his way down the stairs, gathering books as he went.
“What a gentleman,” Rachel sneered behind him. “What a joke. Once a monster, always a monster.”
The next thing he heard was a shriek as something went flying over his head.
Looking through the slightly open door of the classroom, now empty except for Uzi and their dreary-eyed teacher, N could hear her arguing her case.
“How am I the only one in detention? Rachel’s the one who threw my stuff!”
“I realize that, Miss Doorman. The problem began when you threw Rachel. Much as I might sympathize, rules are rules. And this has added another five minutes to your time.”
Uzi let herself face-plant onto her desk.
N leaned against the bank of windows where he had stationed himself. They always walked to class together, and they always walked home together. He'd wait for her no matter what.
He looked outside and squinted against the afternoon light glinting off the snow.
Mr. Doorman and a squad of WDF officers were out in the training fields, using the remaining safety of daylight to run drills. N heard him bellow, “Defense Position Alpha!”
The fighters arranged themselves into an arrowhead formation, blasters in hand and aimed at the bright empty sky.
N rubbed at a phantom pain in his chest. His old life often visited him in nightmares and flashbacks. He remembered what it felt like to be on the receiving end of those blasters.
“Hey, Super-Novah!”
N looked up, smiling at the voice of his friend. Thad took up the spot across from him, flopping against the thick glass with a tired grunt.
“Hey, Thad. You all right?”
“Lizzy’s head of the dance committee. She roped me into helping her decorate.” He took off his cap and shook it, unleashing a spray of pink glitter. “I’m going to be sparkly until the day I go offline.”
N tilted his head, confused. “I don’t remember voting for a dance committee.”
“What vote? She elected herself!”
Thad's attention joined N's, as the WDF officers fired off a round of practice shots.
“Is it just me, or have they been training a lot more often lately?”
N nodded. “Mr. and Mrs. Doorman have been really jumpy. They never say why.” He wrapped his arms around himself, trying to hide from a chill only he felt. “Not hard to figure out, though.”
“Hey, don't do this to yourself. You've left that life far behind. You're part of our family now, brother, whether you like it or not.”
N's shoulders relaxed, his friend's words helping put him at ease.
“What are you doing out here, anyway?” Thad asked.
“Waiting on Uzi to get out of detention.”
“Yeah, I heard about the Rachel Incident. Sorry I wasn't there to help. Zi has a habit of taking on…well, everybody…if she thinks she has a good reason.”
“Yeah,” N sighed, not noticing the dreamy tone in his own voice or Thad’s barely-restrained smile. “She's really brave, isn't she?”
They caught Uzi’s eye through the crack in the door. She gave them a discreet wave, just the twinkling of two fingers. She glanced around the classroom in boredom before settling on one of the dance posters. Her expression changed.
It was the soft sadness of wanting something too far out of reach.
“Thad,” N began quietly, so there would be no chance of her overhearing. “Why hasn’t anyone asked Uzi to the dance yet? She’s so pretty, I thought she’d have a whole—“
He was interrupted by Thad repeatedly slamming his head against the window.
“What are you doing?!” N cried out, genuinely concerned. “Are you okay?”
Thad stared at him with hollow eyes. “Robo-God, you were serious, weren't you? No one's asked Uzi because they're all waiting for you to ask her!”
N’s blush was almost as bright as the sun. “They are?! What…how…?”
“You’ve never thought about it?”
N lowered his head. “I was actually thinking that you might ask her. You've been her friend longer than I have.”
“I've known Uzi since we were pill bugs in the nursery. To me, she's like another Lizzy, only less scary. Now you,” he gave N’s shoulder a playful nudge. “You always look at her like you’re seeing the stars for the first time.”
N let his head drop back against the wall. “It’s that obvious, huh?”
“To everyone but her, apparently.”
“Do you really think she could feel that way about me?”
“I can’t speak for her. I only know she seems a lot happier whenever you’re around.”
“So, you're not asking anyone at all?”
“Nope. I'm working that night. Music for the dance will be provided by our band, the Copper Nine Crashdown. I'm on drums. Lizzy’s our lead singer. She actually has a great voice.”
His eyes hollowed. “Please don't tell her I said that, she'd never let me live it down.”
From the far side of the corridor, Doll approached them with a small wave. “They still haven’t let her out yet?”
“Should be any minute now,” N said.
As though on cue, Uzi kicked the door wide open and sprang out with a triumphant laugh. “Freedom!”
Teacher exited at his usual slow walk, adjusting the glasses on his face. “See you tomorrow, Miss Doorman.”
N went to her side. “Hey. Are you ready to go home?”
Some of her exuberance faded. “I'd love to, but I have a shift in the infirmary today. I thought I'd mentioned it.”
“That's why I came looking for you,” Doll said. “If we don't hurry, we're going to be late.”
“I think it's so cool that you guys are studying this stuff,” Thad said. “Pretty soon, you'll be the colony healers, along with your moms.”
It was an unspoken rule that no one used the word “doctor”. It brought up too many memories of the humans that had mistreated them for so long.
Uzi gave N a shy smile. “Catch up with you later?”
“Sure. Oh, before you go, I wanted to give you something.” N dug into his jacket pocket and delicately extracted a tiny paper crane.
He dropped it into Uzi's cradled hands. “Dad's been helping me practice. I know some of the folds are still a little off, but it's the first one I've ever made that actually holds together. I wanted you to have it.”
Uzi was smiling at the little paper creature in her hands and gently patting its head as though it were alive. “I love it,” she said softly. “Thank you so much, N.”
“Uzi,” Doll reminded gently, though, like Thad, she was doing her best not to blush. With a quick wave, both girls were off running down the corridor.
Nori stood at Yeva's shoulder as her sister tried to weave lines of code into a miracle on her workscreen. Only a few weeks ago, Yeva had almost beat her door down in the middle of the night, tears streaming down her visor.
Doll had started to show symptoms of the Solver infection.
“I thought I was cured,” she'd sobbed in Nori's arms. “My girl was supposed to be safe! What am I going to do?”
Nori had held her tighter. “We do what we've always done. We fight back.”
She had rushed to help. Doll had lain strewn on her family’s couch, limbs twitching uncontrollably as the Solver symbol flickered over one of her eyes.
The patches she used for Uzi’s flare-ups had soothed the worst of the symptoms, but the symbol had not yet cleared from Doll’s visor.
The girl didn’t remember much of the outbreak, so they’d told her she’d accidentally cracked her visor and needed to wear the button eyepatch, which would slowly apply sealant. She was not to remove it until the job was done.
The true job was far more complicated. Temporary solutions would no longer be enough. They needed a cure. Since then, they had both been working tirelessly on an antivirus.
Yeva pushed back from her desk and rubbed the space between her eyes. “Are we just fooling ourselves? Can we really do this?”
They were alone in the infirmary at the moment. Annie had the day off, and they'd only had one patient with a minor injury earlier.
“We can,” Nori insisted. “Because we have to. Why do you think Khan is training the WDF like madmen? Our past is about to show up on our doorstep. We have to be ready.”
A shuffle of footsteps and a bit of chatter announced the arrival of Doll and Uzi. Though they were technically interning here, their jobs for now was simply to keep everything clean and organized.
“So,” Nori began, as Uzi started to refill the boxes of gauze. “We had Rachel in here earlier today. Sprained ankle.”
Uzi blew her hair out of her eyes, then glanced up to meet her mother’s stern gaze.
“I'm sorry. Is she okay?”
“Yes. What happened?”
Uzi recounted the incident, up to her books being thrown down the stairs.
“I was going to let it go, I really was!”
“But?”
“She started calling N bad names. I kind of lost it.”
“Ah,” Nori nodded slowly. Now it was making sense. Uzi and Novah had a connection that had only been growing stronger with time. While she saw this with some worry, she didn’t object.
“I just wanted to protect my friend.”
“Just a friend, hmm?”
“Mom!”
As they continued their work, Nori said very carefully, “So, this dance thing. Has anyone asked you?”
“I don’t want to go anyway.” Uzi began wiping down the cots so they would be clean for their next patients. “I mean, a spring formal, really? All the seasons look the same here.”
“Well, your dad and I have volunteered to be chaperones.”
“So I get the apartment to myself?”
Nori gently booped her daughter between the eyes. “Leave you alone with your railgun designs and access to my workshop? I don’t think so. You’re going to that dance, too.”
“I thought you were just going to ground me. This is cruel and unusual!”
“Come on, bug. It will do you good to get out. Besides,” she couldn't help her voice taking on a playful sing-song tone, “I'm sure Novah will be there.”
Uzi began scrubbing the cots hard enough to wear a hole through them. “I don’t even have a dress,” she mumbled.
“I can help with that.”
At Uzi’s skeptical look, she said, “Have a little faith in your old mom, huh?”
Uzi nodded and returned to her tasks.
Across the room, Doll was attempting to retrieve a box from a high shelf. It slipped out of her hands with a Russian expletive.
Uzi was at her side to catch it before it hit the floor.
“Thank you,” Doll said.
“Sure,” Uzi handed her the box. “Your eye is still giving you trouble?”
Doll self-consciously touched the button shielding her injury. “Only a little.”
“I can cover for you here if you need to get home. I know what it's like.”
Nori glanced at Yeva, who watched this exchange with a soft smile. It was good to see a friendship taking root between their daughters.
“It's all right,” Doll said. “I like doing this kind of work. It makes me feel useful.”
Nori could see Uzi briefly tilt her head over her shoulder. “Guess you heard that?”
Doll nodded.
“What about you? Aren't you going with anyone?”
“Are you kidding?” Doll exclaimed. “With how overprotective my dad is? Anytime someone gets close enough to maybe ask, he makes a face like this.” Doll twisted her face into an over-exaggerated snarl that made Uzi laugh.
They worked in peace for a while before Doll gestured to the little paper crane, currently nesting in the brim of Uzi’s hat.
“So, you and Novah?”
“Oh, not you, too!”
N came home to find his mom absorbed in reading a book.
“Hey, sweetie. You're a little later than I expected. Everything all right?”
“Mostly,” N replied, putting away his things. “Uzi got detention for fighting, and…it was kind of my fault.”
At this, his mom put her book down and patted the spot next to her at the kitchen table.
“What happened?”
He hung his head. “Someone was giving Uzi a hard time. I spoke up, and they told me—“
“What?” his mom asked, and the edge in her voice told him her parental defense instincts were kicking in.
N drew his shoulders in tight. No matter how much he told himself the past was in the past, it never stopped hurting. It never would.
“Once a monster, always a monster,” N quoted. “How could I say anything to that? It’s not like they’re lying. But Uzi defended me and got in trouble.”
Her mouth quirked in a smile. “Remind me to thank her.” She gently touched his face. N leaned into her hand.
“Don't you believe those ugly words. From what you’ve told me, if you didn’t…then you would have died yourself. What happened before can’t be undone, that’s true. But I’ve watched you own up and work so hard to atone. What matters most is who you're becoming now. One of the kindest hearts I've ever known, and one I'm proud to call my son.”
N almost jumped over the table to give her a hug. They stayed that way until that phantom ache in his chest finally subsided.
When they pulled apart, he glanced at her book. “What are you reading?”
“The Twelve Labors of Hercules,” she answered. “I know it's not the happiest story, but I've always found it inspiring. No matter how the odds are stacked against him, Hercules never gives up.”
He'd heard the story many times, but he would never grow tired of it. She was reading about the battle against the seemingly invincible Hydra when his dad arrived home from work in the mines.
His mom was out of her chair instantly to greet him with a kiss.
“Annie, wait! I’m still all messy!”
“I don’t care! I missed you!”
N smiled, bouncing his knuckles off each other before speaking.
“Can I ask you guys a question?”
It was something he’d been holding in his heart for a long time.
“When did you know that you’d found…you know, the one? When did you know that you were right for each other?”
His parents glanced knowingly at one another.
“There a special reason you’re asking us, bud?”
“Well, there’s this dance coming up, and…there’s Uzi—“
His mom made a noise like a joyful tea kettle and spun in a little circle. “I knew it! I’m so happy! Oh, Edmund, the dance is in two days! He needs a suit, and we have to find that old camera—“
“Mom, please wait! I don’t even know if I’m going to ask!”
Her happy glow dimmed. “Why not?”
“She’s my best friend. If she says no, I’ll have ruined everything. I don’t want to lose her.”
“Oh, sweetie,” she placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Even if she doesn’t feel that way about you, I’m sure she wouldn’t shut you out. I’ve seen you two together since the day you came to us. I know she values your friendship.”
“It was when she held my hand for the first time,” his dad said, in a belated answer to his earlier question.
With his family’s eyes on him, he continued,
“The mine tunnel my team was working in collapsed on us. The WDF helped dig us out and hustled everyone who needed it to the infirmary. I was hurt pretty badly.”
N watched memory flicker across his mom’s visor.
“I remember that day. You had the worst damage of anyone, but you refused to stop smiling and joking like it was no big deal. But I could tell you were scared.”
“So she held my hand, even though I was a total stranger to her,” his dad carried on the story. “And she told me everything would be all right. I looked into those eyes of hers and I was gone.”
N flexed his hands. He thought back to when he'd been broken in every way. And the hand that had held his to offer comfort.
“Dad? Can you show me how to make a rose one more time?”
The night of the dance arrived with an air of excitement and tension. The security watching the outpost perimeter had been doubled as the inhabitants of the colony prepared for a rare night of celebration.
Nori presented her daughter with a creation made by her own hands. A soft, shimmery dress that fell in pale lilac waves, dotted all over with tiny black skulls that looked like rose blooms at first glance.
Uzi tried and failed to hide the happiness in her eyes. “Do you have a side hustle as a fairy godmother or something? This is perfect! I was scared you’d stick me in some poofy cupcake-looking nightmare!”
“What?!” Nori playfully ruffled Uzi’s hair. “Don’t you know me better than that? Where do you think you get your sense of style from, bug? Now let’s go, we only have a few hours before we all turn into pumpkins!”
The gym was lit in splashes of colorful light with sparkling garlands draped over the walls and hanging from the ceiling, a dream of spring made by those who had never seen it themselves.
Nori and Khan, also dressed in their finest, took up their spot with the other chaperones, forming a protective ring around the gym. She was far enough away from Uzi to let her have freedom, but still close enough to intervene should anything go wrong.
So far, all was going well. A few groups milling about talking, only a few couples brave enough to take the dance floor so early, and poor Linus chasing a boy with a fire extinguisher.
“Why are you so flammable, Braiden?!”
Uzi glanced around for any familiar faces. One in particular, Nori suspected. She waved to Thad onstage, who somehow returned the gesture without missing a beat of the uptempo song.
Uzi found Doll sitting at a table alone and joined her. “You’re chaperone cargo too, huh?”
“Yes. Not much to do but watch my friend live out her pop star fantasies,” she said, gesturing to Lizzy onstage. Bathed in a bright pink spotlight and hitting each note and pose to perfection, she was having the time of her life.
“Pop idol Lizzy,” Uzi said. “Robo-God help us all. Still, I have to admit, she’s good.” She groaned in irritation at her own tapping boots. “Too good. I can’t just sit here while this music is playing. Who cares if we don’t have dates? Let’s go.”
Doll tilted her head with a tiny smile. “Are you serious?”
“Come on, fellow contagion. Your dad doesn’t scare me!”
With that, Uzi pulled the other girl out of her chair and onto the dance floor. They spun around in circles, laughing like children playing a game and doing whatever silly steps came to mind. When she heard someone call them “cringe”, Uzi’s only response was to stick her tongue out at them.
Standing outside the gym doors, N couldn’t tell if the thumping in his head was from the music or his heart. His parents were with him, also come to lend their services as chaperones. He was wearing a light gray suit, old-fashioned but well maintained.
“It’s the best I have on such short notice,” his dad had said. “It’s what I wore when I married your mom.”
“You don’t know what this means to me. I promise I’ll take good care of it.”
Now his mom made a few last minute adjustments to his hair and tie.”Very dapper,” she said approvingly. “Good luck, sweetie.”
A final deep breath for his courage and he pushed the doors open.
The lights dazzled him at first. He could hear his parents greeting Mr. and Mrs. Doorman and stepping over to join them. Uzi didn't see him right away. Her dance partner, Doll, was quicker. The girl's red eyes flickered from N to Uzi and back again. A smile bloomed on her face. Uzi tilted her head questioningly. Doll gently grabbed her shoulders and made her turn around.
Uzi's face lit up with a blush that made her look even prettier.
Doll quietly excused herself and scurried over to where her parents were stationed. Miss Yeva worriedly looked her over for signs that she was overtired or would become ill again, which Doll waved away. All this he noticed in a distant sort of way. His attention was all for the sparkling lilac angel in front of him.
“You're here,” Uzi said quietly. “I wasn't sure if–”
“I know. I'm sorry that I'm so late, but I have a question to ask you.”
“And what is that?”
He pulled out his hands from behind his back, offering her a folded paper rose in vibrant purple.
“Uzi Doorman, may I please have this dance?”
With a gentle laugh, she accepted the rose and set it into her hair. “Thought you’d never ask.”
She let him take both her hands and spin them into the center of the lights and the sparkles. From the stage, he could hear Thad give a triumphant whoop.
“All right, Super-Novah!”
N waved at him while Uzi responded with a laugh and whoop of her own. Their shyness now broken, they could breathe and allow themselves to enjoy the dance. The first few songs were loud with a quick backbeat. Sometimes all anyone on the dance floor did was jump in rhythm.
N surprised her once by lifting her off her feet and sweeping her in a circle. “Hey!” she laughed as he set her down. “Where'd you learn to dance like that?”
“My folks dance when they're happy. I always feel happy when I'm around you.”
At the end of the song, Thad leaned over and tapped Lizzy’s shoulder. Having gotten his sister’s attention, he shielded a whisper with his hands.
At first she shook her head, sparking a short unheard argument that ended in a staring contest. Lizzy blinked first. Sighing in defeat, she brought up the microphone. “Okay, people, we’re slowing it down. Which is a waste of my talents that some people better appreciate.”
The band launched into a ballad. The couples on the dance floor drew closer together to sway to the music like the ebb and flow of the winds on a calm night.
N rubbed the back of his head, wondering if this was too much. Should he ask if she wanted to sit this one out?
The question was answered when she took his hand and stepped closer into the circle of his arms. The pounding of his heart slowed down.
He’d imagined a moment like this many times once he’d admitted his crush on Uzi to himself.
He always imagined being horribly nervous. But this wasn’t like that at all. Holding her as they stepped in sync, left, right, together, he felt entirely at peace. Holding her felt like home.
She leaned her head on his shoulder. In response, he rested his cheek against the top of her head, and immediately started sputtering.
Uzi pulled away. “What’s wrong?”
“The top of your beanie got in my eye,” N laughed.
Uzi pushed her face into his shoulder, trying to suppress a giggle fit.
It was the single most perfect moment they’d ever experienced.
Just before all hell broke loose.
The lights all turned fiery red and a terrified voice over the loudspeakers replaced the music.
“Security breach! This is not a drill! Disassembly Drones are inside the compound! Please seek shelter in the mine tunnels immediately!”
At first, all anyone could do was glance at each other in fear and confusion.
The first set of claws punched through the roof. Then another, and another, until chunks of the sky were exposed and a canopy of deadly yellow "x" visors were glaring hungrily down at them.
“Alpha Position!” Mr. Doorman roared. All the WDF fighters who had been hidden among the chaperones took their places, weapons in hand.
“Fire!”
The first salvo pushed back the initial invaders, but it was only the beginning.
Chaos had descended on Outpost Three.
Notes:
Like I said before, chapter updates might be delayed, but they will continue until the story's finished.
If anyone's wondering, I borrowed the "Rachel" name from the end credits montage during the finale. Lizzy made a whole PowerPoint slideshow about how Doll's canon fate should have happened to Rachel instead.
"No offense, Rachel, UR literally evil!"
Chapter 5
Summary:
The past never truly stays behind.
Notes:
Trigger warning: mentions of violence, death, grief and funerals.
***
First of all, thank you so much for the love this story has gotten so far.From this point, things will get darker, but I'll ask you to check the tags. Which, admittedly, I've updated again, as I learn to tag more accurately.
There will be a happy ending.
But if you don't want to see any of the dark stuff, I understand completely if you want to turn back now.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
As claws tore away at the sheltering roof, N felt his thoughts descend into panicked chatter.
This isn’t happening. This is just a nightmare, like all the ones before.
But the emerging chorus of screams, the hail of debris as Disassembly Drones broke through, and the first acrid scent of spilled oil couldn’t be denied.
This was real.
By instinct, he drew Uzi protectively to his chest. He scanned the invaders for any familiar faces. This wasn’t his squadron.
This was every squadron on Copper Nine.
“The cores!” Mr. Doorman yelled over the pounding blaster fire of the WDF officers.
“Aim for their cores!”
Another round of shots, another deadly flock struck down. But they would not be stopped, skittering over the gym ceiling and walls like hornets storming an enemy hive.
The first place where the ceiling entirely gave way was over the stage. Most of the band scrambled to safety, but Lizzy and Thad weren’t fast enough.
A hulking male Disassembler snatched Thad from behind his drum set and started to take to the air. Lizzy swung her mic stand like a club, batting the attacker away and forcing him to drop her brother.
The Disassembler opened his wings, sending bladed feathers flying toward the siblings, pinning them down to the stage.
Before he could attack again, Uzi was charging forward. N raced after her. He’d been barely more than a child since the last time he was in a real fight. It didn’t matter. He was willing to die for this colony. His friends. His family.
"Hey!” Uzi yelled, drawing away the Disassembler's attention. “The fight’s down here!”
“Zi, what are you doing?” Thad gasped, pained by the blades in his arm and shoulder.
“Do you have a death wish or something, Doorman?!” Lizzy hissed, struggling to pull a blade out of her leg. “Run!”
The male Disassembler laughed at Uzi, a guttural sound like jagged metal tumbling over itself. “You? You'd barely be two bites!”
“Then come down here and bite me!”
Uzi glanced at N and made a clear gesture to the stage: Help them.
The Disassembler sprang at Uzi with a swipe of his claws. She jumped clear, back toward the stage curtains.
“Come on!” she taunted. “You’ll never catch me with lame moves like that!”
Fear for Uzi pulsed through him when he jumped onto the stage, but he trusted her. And his friends needed him.
“Sorry, guys. This is going to hurt!”
He began pulling the blades free, one by one, until Lizzy and Thad were able to stand up.
On the ground, Uzi had managed to provoke the Disassembler into a fury of blind slashing. One swipe grazed her stomach.
A bloom of oil slowly grew wider on her dress.
Taking up one of the discarded blades, N threw it at her attacker with all his strength, burying it in between the shoulder blades.
The Disassembler turned to hiss at him.
Still trying to keep his attention on her, Uzi laughed. The sound was hollow to anyone who knew her.
“See? That's good aim! You couldn't hit the broad side of a cargo cruiser!”
The attacker growled. He swung his tail around to strike with the deadly nanite stinger at the end. Uzi leapt out of the way, revealing that she’d been standing in front of an amp.
The stinger lodged in deep. Ripples of electricity raced up and down the convulsing body of their would-be killer as he was electrocuted. Finally, he collapsed to the ground, FATAL ERROR blazing from his dead visor.
Uzi hunched over with a relieved huff, arms wrapped around her bleeding abdomen.
“I can't believe that worked.”
“You knew about the amp?” N asked in disbelief.
“Well, yeah. Wasn’t totally sure it would work, but I had to try.”
“Jeez, Doorman, you really are crazy,” Lizzy said, she and her brother leaning on each other for support. “You’re officially allowed to be my friend now.”
“Uzi Doorman!” Nori’s voice cut sharply through the chaos as she approached, using her power to fling enemies out of her path. She was already tearing strips of fabric from her long dress to wrap around her daughter as makeshift bandages.
“You're hurt! Don't you have enough sense to run away when you hear an evacuation alarm?!”
She gently took Uzi’s arm to lead her away. “Come on, we're getting you out of here!”
She looked at the rest of them. “Same goes for all of you! Get to the tunnels now!”
“Don’t have to tell us twice,” Lizzy said, helping Thad down from the stage and guiding him to where the chaperones held open the doors.
Teacher ran past them, tormenting a fallen and glitching Disassembler with a storm of white foam from his fire extinguisher.
“Taste carbon dioxide justice!” he cackled, moving on to his next target.
Lizzy blinked. “Huh. Didn't think he had it in him.”
N scanned the fleeing crowd for his parents’ faces, a surge of panic tearing through him when he couldn't see them. He didn't have to go far before he felt a frantic grip on his arm.
“Novah!” His mom exhaled shakily. “Oh, thank goodness!”
“I'm sorry,” he said, bringing them both into a relieved embrace. “But my friends were in trouble, I couldn't let–”
“We saw,” his dad said. “But we have to hurry, we can’t stay here!”
A few minutes into the attack, and casualties were already piling up. Drones crying out for their lives were swept away. These poor souls would never be seen again, or were destined to become part of the corpse spire.
The WDF were dealing out their share of damage, but they still fell like tin soldiers as they clashed against the waves of enemies. The floor grew dark with widening pools of oil.
Nori was trying to lead her daughter to an exit, but Uzi wouldn’t be led. She broke away and, before Nori could say a word, knelt to scoop up the weapon from a fallen WDF officer.
"I’m sorry,” she heard Uzi whisper gently as she took the blaster from his lifeless hands into her own.
Distracted by the heavy swarm, Nori thought, Robo-God, how are there so many?
She called on her Solver power to lift a heavy overturned refreshment table. The Disassembly Drones were immune to the touch of the Solver, since they were already infected themselves.
Their surroundings were a different story.
She swung the table like a battering ram, smashing two Disassemblers fatally against the wall. Another dived towards her, only to be shot out of the air.
She turned to thank her rescuer, only to be appalled to find Uzi holding a blaster.
“What do you think you’re doing? Get down to the shelter!”
“I’m not leaving you!”
Uzi fired again, this time striking the core of a Disassembler that had been sneaking up on Khan.
He was so focused on trying to protect the crowd, Nori doubted he would have noticed the threat in time. She’s a good shot, she thought.
Looking at her daughter, Nori was reminded of when Uzi had been a child, plagued by night terrors of being left behind. Though still too young for this in Nori's eyes, Uzi had grown into someone willing to fight those fears with all she had.
She wished her daughter would run to safety.
But she couldn’t deny a tiny glimmer of pride to be fighting alongside her.
“If we survive this, we are having a serious talk, young lady!”
Uzi glanced at the spinning purple light at her mother’s fingertips. “Will it finally include an explanation of that?”
“Don’t push it.”
Nori had never been entirely honest about the source of her power, saying only that it was the result of being experimented on by the humans for so long. She'd fought all these years to hide that part of her past, so it wouldn’t infect Uzi’s future.
It seemed confessions would have to be made sooner rather than later.
Nori brought down the garlands still hanging from the ceiling and used them to ensnare a group of flying Disassemblers, lining them up for core shots.
As the fight wore on, she noticed something off about this raid. She’d feared that the Solver had sent its murder puppets for Uzi and Doll, or even herself and Yeva. But they were treating them like any other prey.
They were after something else.
“Damn it!” Khan swore. “It’s not enough! They've made it into the residential compound!”
N and his family had nearly reached an exit when he heard a familiar humming noise.
Oh, no.
It was a sound he remembered well. One of the invaders was armed with a concussion blaster.
There was one timeless instant when it felt like all air and sound had been pulled out of the room.
An explosion set the world spinning the wrong way on its axis. His head struck the floor with a painful crack, and his vision went dark.
N didn’t know how long he lay unconscious. When he came to, a scene of carnage greeted him.
The dead far outnumbered the living, Worker and Murder Drone alike. Anyone who was able still carried on fighting. Jagged chunks of concrete and rebar littered the ground like icebergs on the ocean.
And there was no sign of his parents.
No, N thought, fearful cold clutching at his heart.
This was all wrong. They never would have left him.
The thought of losing them set off a deadly rage within him, one he hadn't known he was capable of feeling.
He snatched a heavy male Disassembler right out of his swoop and dragged him up to look into his eyes. Even though he had a Worker body now, he was far from weak.
”Where are they?!” he roared in the intruder’s face. The Disassembler showed no understanding. There was only hunger.
In the corner of his mind that still contained some sense, he knew the intruder wouldn't know what he meant. It wasn't lost on him that this was a reflection of his past self.
Maybe, in another life, this monster had been a simple Worker drone.
Right now, N didn’t care. All he loved might be lying dead somewhere in this compound.
An enraged scream tore from his throat.
N swung the Disassembler into a sharp chunk of fallen debris, piercing him right through the heart.
FATAL ERROR.
Breathing hard, he took off running in search of his parents.
He barreled through the residential compound, eerily quiet and empty after the turmoil of the gym. The silence broke as he passed an apartment with its door torn away. He could hear a man's terrified pleading from inside.
To his pounding head, it sounded like his dad’s voice. He bolted inside and found Doll’s family.
They were cornered by a female Disassembler with short hair. Her back was to him.
Miss Yeva was bleeding heavily. No less injured, Mister Adam was huddled over his wife in an attempt to shield her.
Doll stood in front of her parents, holding a broken length of pipe as a meager weapon.
He thought he saw red flashes sparking around her fingers, but that must have been his concussion at work.
The female Disassembly Drone licked the oil from her claws.
“And yet,” she said lightly, “I still feel nothing.”
She pulled back for another swing.
N wasn’t even thinking anymore. He ran and tackled her, sending them both tumbling into the wall. Maybe the only reason it worked was because she wasn’t expecting it.
“Novah!” Doll exclaimed, shocked. “Are you all right?”
Struggling to hold down the Disassembler, N pleaded, “Have you seen my parents?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
Miss Yeva was gathering up her family. “Thank you,” she said to him tearfully.
“It’s okay. Now run!”
“What about you? Come with us!”
“Not until I find them! Please hurry, all of you!”
As the family hurried to safety, the female Disassembler managed to toss N away from her and stand up. He got a clear look at her face.
“V?!”
The “x” disappeared from her visor, replaced by confused yellow eyes.
“N?” she gasped. “No, you can’t be…J told me what she did.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and smashed a fist against her forehead.
“Damn it, Cyn! What kind of game is this?! Now you're showing me his ghost?!”
“No, V, please! There’s no time to explain! You have to help me stop this!”
“If you were really N, you’d know the hunt is never over until we have the oil we need.”
“This colony is my family!”
“Then I’m sorry for you, whoever you are.”
He heard a familiar voice call his name from afar. He felt his stomach drop.
“Uzi, stay away! It's not safe!”
“N, hold on!”
She jumped into the apartment between him and V. From the edge of his vision, he saw Nori wasn't far behind her.
Uzi took aim with the blaster she carried, charging up for another shot.
V's eyes were again replaced by the hungry “x”. She grinned with dripping fangs. Her right hand shifted into a gun, taking aim squarely at Uzi.
“No!”
N threw his arms tight around Uzi, trapping the still-uncharged blaster between them. He spun so that his back was to V.
Stunned, V stood down immediately.
“Cyn?” she said, almost in a whisper. “Why are you showing me this?”
A purple explosion announced Nori’s arrival, throwing V across the room. She picked herself up and shook her ringing head.
“Ugh, you pests are so not worth it,” she sneered. She spread her wings and blasted her way to freedom, shooting her way back to the open sky.
Nori looked over the two young Drones. “Are you kids okay?”
N could only nod, overwhelmed into silence.
“What was that?” Uzi asked, looking curiously into his eyes. “Who was that?”
N swallowed hard. “One of my old squad members.”
Uzi's eyes turned to purple rings.
“Was she the one who hurt you that night?!”
“No, that was–”
“Memory lane later, please,” Nori said, pulling them both after her.
“We’re sweeping for survivors.” She was trying her best to keep her voice even. “We’ll find your folks, don’t worry.”
Silently they picked through the apartments. Sometimes they discovered Drones huddled fearfully in corners. Sometimes they just found bodies. They were about to descend to the next level when a clawed hand plunged from the ceiling and pulled N upward.
He crashed through level after level until he'd been dragged onto the rooftop. When his eyes finally focused again, it was on the face that most often haunted his nightmares.
“What do you know?” J said, her tone indescribably bored. “She was right.”
N was once again young and alone, screaming as J tore him to pieces in a blind rage.
I'm going to die. It was a wordless cry right from his core.
What kept his sanity from disintegrating under the weight of fear were her words.
“She?” he gasped.
“Tessa wants you back, Robo-God knows why. And I won’t let her down.”
N shook his head. “No. No, that's not right. Tessa–”
”Shut up!” J spat, pulling him along. Her wings were open, ready to carry him off. N dug in his heels, dragging tracks through the concrete rooftop.
“I'm not going with you!” he hissed, teeth gritted. He struck her arm, hard, loosening her grip. “Never again!”
J laughed coldly. “You think you can stop me?”
A blaster shot struck J in the chest, just shy of being lethal. N looked back to see Uzi and Nori climbing up through the torn building.
“Maybe he can't,” Nori snarled, her Solver power twirling around her fingertips. “But we sure as hell will.”
Uzi was already powering up for another shot. From the way she was lining up, this one was not going to miss.
J tapped something on the side of her head. “Attention all squadrons! Tactical retreat! Say again, this is a tactical retreat! Abort mission!”
She beat her wings hard, disappearing into a sky that had no right to seem so peaceful.
She was followed by a horde of Disassembly Drones, their bladed wings glinting in the moonlight.
They were gone, just as quickly as they’d arrived.
N's knees gave way beneath him.
Uzi was at his side, resting her forehead on his shoulder.
“It was her?” she asked.
Chest still trembling with panic, N managed a shaky nod.
Nori knelt beside them and wrapped her arms around them both. “It's over. Breathe, kids. Just breathe.”
They stayed in this embrace as long as they could. But they couldn't ignore the work still to be done. Gathering the survivors.
Collecting the bodies.
Everyone who was able lent their strength to this solemn task. Thad, Lizzy, Doll and their families had survived. Along with Teacher, Braiden, and even Rachel.
(“Pity,” Lizzy had muttered, but there was no malice in the comment.) No one would wish for additional dead. There were already plenty.
Feeling that he would go mad without work to do, if he stopped searching, N had volunteered to help clear the corridors of debris.
That's how he found them.
They must have been looking for him when a Disassembly Drone had crossed their path.
His father's body was draped over his mother's in a vain attempt at protection.
Time itself seemed to freeze at the sight before him.
There was so much spilled oil.
Nori, who had been working to clear the same corridor, found him in this awful scene. “Oh…oh, no,” she gasped. She caught him up in her arms (almost the way his mom used to) and tried to hide his face in the shoulder of her jacket. He heard Uzi arrive with a mournful cry. She threw her arms around him, as though to keep him from falling apart.
“Don't look, kid,” Nori said, and from the way she was trembling, N knew she was crying. “It's easier if you don't look."
“You had him!”
Shadow Tessa threw J violently across the landing pod, where she had been waiting for her prize to be delivered.
J's stomach hit hard against the control panel, knocking the breath out of her.
What was going on? Cyn always treated her like this, but never Tessa. Why would her best friend do this to her?
Shadow Tessa closed one hand around J's throat and lifted her from the floor, stopping just short of snapping her head off like an unwanted toy.
“You're telling me you had him in your hands, and you report back to me with nothing?!”
“It wasn't my fault,” J gasped. “We've never had a Worker colony fight back so hard before. And this one is protected by a couple of–” she coughed, her systems fighting for air.
“A couple of what?”
“Purple freaks! One of them has a power that's almost like Cyn's!”
Maybe it was because her oxygen was dangerously low, but J saw the shadows around Tessa's face flicker, like a mask briefly going transparent. What she saw beneath was the stuff of nightmares.
No. I'm not seeing this…
But then the mask was back in place. Shadow Tessa dropped her, hard. J gasped desperately, hand to her throat.
“Nori,” she hissed. “Why didn't I figure it out sooner? She always did give me such trouble.”
Shadow Tessa opened the landing pod doors, letting in the biting wind. She glanced over her shoulder at J, still wounded on the floor.
“You always were a disappointment.”
Then, in an upbeat tone, as she skipped into the eternal winter, “Fine, then. I'll do it myself.”
Two days later found N keeping vigil over his post in the infirmary, between the two cots where the broken bodies of his parents lay.
His heart kept time with the beeps of the life monitors. He watched their chests rise and fall with each shaky breath.
They're alive, he recited to himself again, as if in prayer. They're alive.
By now, he'd convinced himself that seeing J and V again had been some sort of hallucination. Nothing else mattered but what was happening in the present.
The infirmary was full to bursting. Miss Yeva had taken on work that previously had belonged to his mom.
Nori had been running herself ragged trying to rescue the most grievously injured, while Uzi and Doll tended to those with less serious wounds.
Each time she passed him, Uzi would look at him with concern, or give his arm a reassuring squeeze. The gesture meant more than he could say, but he was beyond comfort.
His hands moved in a mindless rhythm over his knees, folding bits of paper into yet more tiny cranes.
He remembered distantly his dad telling him a legend that some human children had once believed, that making a thousand paper cranes would grant a miracle.
He’d made a hundred so far. Only nine hundred more to go.
The little things were nestled in the folds of his parents’ infirmary blankets, in the shattered remains of their apartment. They were kept company by his dad’s suit, now air-drying after he’d finally scrubbed the last of the oil stains from the aged fabric.
How versatile clothing could be.
That simple gray suit had seen his parents' wedding.
His first dance with Uzi.
The funeral that the colony had held under the protection of sunlight hours ago.
The mourners had stood still and cold as the ice around them, the day too bright in contrast to the darkness of the thirteen graves awaiting their occupants.
There was no open shock or weeping. Disassembly Drones haunted their every waking moment. They were the monsters in stories told to dronelings.
The monsters had finally arrived at the door.
All that remained was the tired resignation of a fear that had finally come true.
Most of the dead were WDF officers. A few parents and students. At least one entire family.
The cemetery was a long walk south of the colony. The coffins were the original JC Jenson shipping containers that had first carried them to this planet, with the company logo defiantly blotted out with black paint.
It was one final message to their old owners. Though the Worker Drones had been designed to live as servants, they had died in freedom. It didn’t matter how the end had come.
Another landmark in the cemetery was a slab of sheet metal that had been planted to stand upright, with names crudely scratched into its surface. These were the names of the missing, who would never even have graves to visit.
Watching the procession, N had felt his insides twist painfully. This was the other side.
He, with oil-stained hands that would never be clean, had no right to be here.
How could he have ever thought that his sins would be left behind? Always they would find him; always they would bring suffering.
A frustrated roar from Nori brought him back to the here and now. She slapped her open hands against the 3d printer. “There’s not enough!”
“Not enough of what?” Miss Yeva asked.
“Everything! Oil, wiring, material for prosthetics, I just don’t have enough!”
She began gathering her coat and knapsack. “I’m going on another run.”
“Nori, it’s full dark!”
“I don’t care. This can’t wait.”
“I’m going with you,” N said. His tone, though not hostile, left no room for argument. That didn’t mean Nori wouldn’t try. “Novah, I’m not sure you’re ready.”
“They’re my parents. I’m going to save them. If you have to tear me apart to do that, I'll let you.”
“I’m going too,” Uzi declared. “Someone has to watch your backs.”
“Absolutely not!”
“Me too,” Doll spoke up, as if she hadn’t heard Nori. “Novah saved my family while he was still searching for his own. We would all be dead if not for him.”
Her red eyes met him with determination. “It’s the least I can do.”
“Count us in,” Thad volunteered, holding up his and Lizzy’s hands. He turned to N. “This is what families do, brother. We stick together, good times and bad.”
N could feel the static prickle of tears trying to break through. “Thanks, guys.”
“This is not happening!” Nori exclaimed. “How can I gather what I need when I have to babysit the bunch of you?”
Uzi pulled out the WDF blaster, which she had kept all this time. Nori squinted at it.
“Did you actually modify that thing into a railgun?!”
“Yep,” Uzi said, slinging it across her back. “Which means no babysitting required. We can handle ourselves. And you could use the extra help.”
Nori massaged her temples in irritation. “Robo-God help me, I'm being overruled by teenagers.”
Doll went to her mother, who placed a hand on her cheek and muttered a quick blessing.
N gave his parents each a kiss on the forehead before heading out.
“It's going to be all right. I promise.”
It was bleak work, salvaging parts from the piles of drone corpses scattered in the snow. Their knapsacks were slowly filling with the needed material, but the threat carried by the night had everyone on edge.
Uzi kept her eyes and weapon trained on the sky.
Doll tried to keep her focus on the mission, quietly reciting what sounded like Russian prayers to ground herself.
Thad got sick at one point. Lizzy helped him duck behind some debris and held him up until the bout of retching passed.
N hefted his bag higher onto his shoulder. Sifting through yet another pile of Drone parts, his heart began racing so hard he thought it might burst. His eyesight blurred until all he could see were his parents, barely clinging to life.
He collapsed screaming to his hands and knees, clawing furrows into the ground. The burning light of tears scalded his visor. There was a pressure on his chest that threatened to crush the life out of him.
Nori, who'd been standing closest to him, knelt by his side.
“Novah! Novah, what is it?”
"There’s so much pain!” he nearly shrieked. “Is this what we do to you? All this fear, all this grief?!
Their silence was answer enough.
"You should have left me to die out here that night," N sobbed. "Monsters like me shouldn't exist."
"Hey," Nori said firmly, taking his face between her hands. "You didn't do this, and this is not your fault. What would your family think if they heard you talking like this?”
An odd noise, like clanking misguided footsteps, destroyed whatever answer he might have given. A silhouette appeared some distance away, out of reach of the streetlamps.
“A human?” Thad exclaimed.
All of Nori's systems kicked into high alert.
“Kids, get behind me. That's no human.”
“Hello!” said the stranger in a too-chipper voice. “I believe you have something that belongs to me.”
Nori activated her Solver power. Beside her, she could hear Uzi readying her weapon to fire.
“Who are you and what do you want?!” Uzi demanded.
The stranger ignored her. “It's good to see you again, Nori. You've been putting up quite the fight since you got away from us.”
Recognition clicked at last. The human girl, with long hair and sad eyes that the Solver had so obsessed over. A quick scan showed that this was not the girl herself. Only her flesh, being worn as a costume by this cosmic abomination.
Nori felt acid rise in her throat.
“What have you done?!”
The Solver, in its vessel, did a little spin. “A lovely ensemble, isn't she?”
N, climbing unsteadily to his feet, was blinking again and again, as if struggling to clear his vision. “Tessa?”
“Hello, N. I’ve missed you so very much. It’s time to come home now.”
It made a gesture with its stolen hand, like a puppeteer pulling strings.
N cried out in agony and fell again to his hands and knees, trembling violently.
Slowly, impossibly, he began to change.
His body stretched, his limbs thickening from the slender build of a Worker Drone into the stronger, deadlier form of a Disassembly Drone. Lastly, a set of powerful bladed wings exploded from his back.
“N,” Uzi breathed, tears flickering down her visor.
This tiny sound drew the attention of both N and the Solver. Gone were the friendly yellow eyes they had known and loved for two years, replaced by that murderous glowing “x”.
The Solver tilted its head at an unnatural angle.
“Giggle. Almost forgot. Bonus prizes.”
A finger snap sent both Uzi and Doll reeling as if they’d been struck.
“No!” Nori cried out, rushing to gather her daughter in her arms.
“What’s going on?” Lizzy exclaimed, not bothering to hide the terror in her voice.
“You and Thad just stay back, no matter what happens next!”
Horrified, Nori tried to draw Doll closer as well. Both girls were screaming in anguish, just as N had done. Fangs were beginning to grow out, and, most painfully, bat-like wings and long tails.
“Fight it, girls, fight it,” Nori rambled desperately. “Hold on to your memories. Your names, your family, anything! If you hold onto who you are, it can’t take you!”
The frightened look Uzi gave her shattered Nori’s heart. “Mom, what is this? I’m so scared, and so-"
“Hungry,” Doll hissed. The button patch had long since fallen away, revealing the symbol of the Absolute Solver in all its horror. Nori dug in her bag for a drone limb and tossed it to Doll.
“You’re not going to like it, but it will help.”
It was true. A few sips of oil, and Doll’s visor was already clearing up. Uzi reacted with disgust, but eventually relented to drinking oil herself.
Nori turned back to the Solver. “I will burn you for this.”
“So scared. Trembling. Until then, they’ll be coming with me.”
Another flick of its wrist, this time met with an identical message on three screens: ADMIN BLOCK.
“What?”
Nori sneered. “You really think I didn't learn anything from my time stuck with you? These kids are patched, so you’ll never have full control, and they have me as their admin. I'll figure out some way to undo what you've done here. Point is, they’re not taking orders from you.”
“Oh well. One out of three isn’t bad.”
A ribbon of black ooze whipped out from the Solver girl’s back, wrapping around the still weak and disoriented N. By now, his visor had also cleared, but there was fear and confusion in his eyes. He didn’t even have strength to call out when the Solver girl, on her own oversized, twisted Disassembler wings, swept him away into the darkness.
He only reached out his hands, trying to clasp on to life as he knew it while it was torn away.
“No!” Uzi yelled as she chased after them. “You can't have him!”
She grunted in frustration as she beat her newly formed wings, trying to fly, only to tumble helplessly into the snow. When she looked up again, N and his captor had vanished.
“Give him back,” she pleaded to the night.
Nori knelt beside her daughter, embracing her.
Thad and Lizzy popped up from behind their shelter.
“What the hell just happened?!” Thad yelped.
Nori gave a tired sigh.
"Kids, it's going to be a long story.”
A safe distance from Outpost Three, V doubled over, hand clasped over her own mouth. She didn’t know if she was going to scream or be sick.
She had returned to this place to have another look at, and perhaps speak to, the Worker who looked so much like N.
But everything she had just witnessed had turned her beliefs upside down.
That Worker really had been N?
He’d been alive all this time, while Tessa had been dead?
Cyn's game was even more twisted than she could have imagined.
How much did J know? Did she know anything at all?
Yes, there would indeed be long stories tonight.
She took flight in search of them.
Notes:
While I understand that the Murder Drones series is a horror comedy, it sometimes bothered me how lightly the Workers treated the loss of their own.
I wanted to show here that they do care for each other. They remember and they mourn.
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