Chapter Text
Night fell upon the damaged and scarred titanium 8, site of the final battle humanity tried before getting snuffed out by the solver, now nothing more than a barren and frozen wasteland, littered with unkept monuments and mountains of bodies.
But the planet wasn't the only damaged or scarred thing in this present moment, that award would go to a certain Murder Drone by the serial designation of: J. it has been 42 years since the loss of her greatest friend; Tessa James Elliot, 41 years since the destruction of earth, 23 years since the destruction of copper-9, 14 years since the destruction of this forsaken planet along with her chasing away the closest thing she had to a family her to live in solitude in some huge truck, and for all that time, all those changes, challenges, and discoveries, what does she have to show for it?
Great question, about 42- no 43 medals of excellence and great servitude to JcJenson and a singular silver heart for managing to turn the tide of the war in her company's favor. It’s amazing right? To be so adored by a corporation you’ve sacrificed practically everything to? To have that many medals jingle when you walk as a nonverbal epithet to who you are? All those medals were merely a bandaid compared to what J wanted, it wasn’t what she wanted…
All she ever wanted was Tessa, all she ever did was for Tessa, all that will ever happen was for Tessa, the only reason she ever aligned herself with that thing was for Tessa… Tessa…
I miss you~...
Her internal alarm clock blurted her awake, just how she liked it. She then shut it off and landed on her feet, and off she went to fix herself a nice cup of 80/20 Oil-Gasoline.
Despite her troubled state J always made sure to keep her lady-cave in good condition, I mean for crying out loud she managed to snag herself a pretty nice transporter truck to use as a base of operations, a whole 1873 sq ft of storage-space-turned-living-space to use how she sees fit. J’s microwave finally stopped, opening up its door to present her with liquid gold, how funny is that? Oil was something humans went to war over and now she’s drinking it for sustenance.
There was one thing about this home that J really liked, liked more than anything else, up on a little platform was a huge 50X90 inch telescreen for her to use. Now what would a girl like her play on this monitor?.
She set down her drink on a nearby table, and pulled out the keyboard she jerryrigged to the monitor, logged in and picked one of the millions of files she uploaded to the database. J scrolled through a specific year, 3042, the year just before everything went down, the year she had the best memories of, and picked the file where she and Tessa got an impromptu gardening lesson by the manor botanist. It loaded for a second, buffered for a bit longer, and then her greatest friend’s voice played again once more, sounding just like golden droplets falling onto her audials. J grabbed her friend’s helmet, a bowl of batteries, and watched.
Watched as Tessa pulled her by the hand into the garden, laughing and giggling and planning about all the things they’re gonna do today while her parents were out, the way her rusty orange hair swayed as she moved down the paved gravelstone path, the light crunch from her boots and J’s feet, the laughing of kookaburras, the whistling of the wind as it went through distant mangrove trees. It was heaven, what she’d give to go back and be there again, but unfortunately she’s in an icy hellworld where nothing good happens-
Deep breaths J, focus on her, it’s Tessa's time not yours. “C’mon jaybird, Mister Moses said if we’re not there in a jiff he wont teach us gardening, and I am NOT missing out on seeing those chrysanthemums.”
“Okie Tess,” a younger J spoke up, “I want a rose bush and a bow, and… and…” she had trouble remembering, so future J and Tessa both said the same thing at once, “You wanna see the peach tree, but why would you want peaches J? You can’t eat em silly!” J had rehearsed that line hundreds of times, even getting the light twinges and accents of Tessa’s voice perfectly. I mean it makes sense really, J would do nothing but the best for Tessa.
She pressed down on the fast forward button, skipping to when they reached Mister Moses as he was pulling out Louisa's favorite bonsai from its pot and moving it to a better and less cracked pot. “ Oh hello there young Tessa, and I see you brought your mechanical friend too! Come over, this is a great teaching opportunity!” He beckoned them, gesturing for them to come closer and see what he’s doing in greater detail.
Mister Moses wasn’t his real name, but he never told anyone what his actual name was, so to everyone he was known as Mister Moses. He stood at a tall 6 '9, was a ginger guy with a luscious more red than orange beard, and was basically a gentle giant of a botanist. The man could throw a tree a kilometer that way but here he is with the smallest and most fragile type of tree. Tessa hurriedly walked up to see, Mister Moses grabbed her hand carefully and guided it along the tiny roots of the bonsai tree, “These are what it uses to consume nutrients, all plants have them; they’re called roots.”
Past J stood back, lightly scratching her casing as she held a slightly sad expression due to feeling left out, of course not because mister moses banned her or whatever, but she never does something without an order from boss, even decades later.
Tessa noticed J sulking, and gave her a smile, sending a shiver down both past and present J’s spine. She was always beautiful , and somehow got even more so when she smiled, it was like J could watch all her friends get scrapped, be torn apart limb from limb, and then get melted down into a toaster, and it would all be fine as long as she gets to see that smile. Oh what she would give to see that smile now, a few tears pooled around her eyes and fell down her visor.
She paused the video on Tessa's smile, completely uncaring to the fact she had a few more minutes of video to go through, eyes basking in Tessa’s smile. The way most of her teeth were visible, how her skin curled at the edges of her smile, the way her eyes looked like they glowed, they way there was this singular lock of hair that got in the way of her smile on the left side, the same one she’d anxiously nibble on when things weren’t going great, all of it was like looking at heaven, but why do i feel like im in hell?~
Tears were now streaking down her eyes, she shut off the monitor, and began to heave out wails and whimpers as she clutched Tessa's helmet closer. Now sitting in silence, alone with her thoughts.
I miss you… I miss you so much! Your beautiful eyes, your wonderful hair, your lovely mannerisms… everything. I miss you. I miss you. I miss you…
She stared out through the window in the Transport, out into the raging and hostile blizzard that slammed against the armor of the truck. In a weird way she kinda hoped nobody was out there, i mean especially since everyone should be dead on this planet but her, or at least since she last checked, but if there was one singular alive soul on this decrepit world, she hoped through some tiny bit of kindness and care that shined through her rigid exterior, that they’d be safe from the blizzard.
Though far beyond her sight, deep within the falling snow and howling winds, past the city her home was in, was a singular poor soul traversing this weather. He’d stomp his feet to get traction in the snowy plains outside the city, and rip them out to repeat the process, causing a stomp-crunch noise to sound out into the surroundings, which would periodically be silenced by a gust of wind that would nearly throw him off his feet.
It was funny in a way, the wind silences his movements, but they still happen. You can silence something but it’ll still happen. It’ll always happen.
The man then pulled his fingers up to his ear mounted radio box, pressing down on the overlay button with his index and middle finger. He shouted “This is TANGO-OSCAR-DELTA-DELTA! come in base camp!”
The frequency peaked before forming into humming static, he let go and put his fingers back on the button again. “THIS IS TANGO-OSCAR-DELTA-DELTA COME IN BASE CAMP!!!” he yelled as loud as he could, voice echoing around in his helmet. Still nothing but static, and a low rumbling growl. Annoyed, he yelled and shut it off, “PIECE OF SHIT!!!” along with pulling out his self defense tool.
It clicked into firing position and flipped its front housing around on its side, extending a holoscreen outwards that displayed the position of the thing he’s looking for. A transponder for a pet project of his, one that could get him out this icy hellhole. Tango continued stomping forward at a snail’s pace, now clicking on his SDW’s lasers to almost function as dipping sticks for whatever’s in front of him, a pretty smart idea he picked up long long ago. So long ago in fact, that the planet looked somewhat hospitable…time flies I guess.
Tango crunched and stomped and walked and did literally every other verb that can be used to describe walking through knee deep snow, god it was so annoying lifting up his heavy boots each time just to sink back in again, if only someone tied tennis rackets to his feet then he’d be having fun, or at least as much fun a guy can have in weather like this. He put his SDW to his side, and began to jog at a brisk pace towards the last position of the transponder.
It's been quite a while since he’s last seen a shelter, and it would be nice to find a place to take a break, maybe even drink a bit too. Tango pulled up a pdf map of the region, though it was shoddily made and pretty incomplete since he’s relying on decades old scouting of this exact area. Even with the map the chances of making it to cover especially in this weather is not looking good. He slowed down his jog and pulled out his SDW, waving around its laser to search for obstacles.
Untrained personnel are never allowed to do this with their own SDW’s, not cause they’re stupid and are only good at shooting cans and buying you a round at the bar, but because they don’t know how to shake it in a way that doesn’t dislodge the lenses or search for the telltale signs of the laser striking something… well okay the former is true too. That and the first ever prototype was broken by an intern the day of it being showcased to the world, so safe to say its designer was salty.
His laser struck something, and then another thing. Two pillars? Wait no that was a third strike, two pillars between a dip in the snow? I could pull over a wind proof tarp and hunker down using my suit’s reactor as a heat source, though I'd probably have to take a few iodine pills before and after.
Tango put his SDW back in its holster and walked forward, he stepped into the dip, then moved left and touched a pillar, and then discovered that the ‘right’ pillar was actually a snow mound. Finally he walked a tiny bit forward into the dip, and nearly plummeted down a naturally occurring cliff. The snowy wind was rippling across its edge. Shocked, he stepped back and got on his knees, pressing down his hand gradually in front of him until there was no ground to gradually press on. This weather was so bad that even with jerry rigged lidar tech he nearly plummeted to his death, taking a sigh of relief he walked in the opposite direction of the cliff, but as he walked though, something peculiar happened.
The wall of white wind ahead of him solidified, then a rumbling sound began to permeate from far up ahead, tango walked forward to see what’s up before a titanic wave of snow pushed through the fog and barreled towards him faster than a running train. He could do nothing but lift up his hands to protect his neck as it collided with him, instantly kicking the wind out of him. Tango felt as his body went over the edge, unfortunately though he was blinded by the snow covering his visor, only hearing alarm blares of the rapidly approaching ground. He rigidized his body as he collided with the snow.
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J woke up after falling asleep cradling Tessa’s helmet, lightly yawning and the closing PNG tabs of tears off her visor. Then a reminder pinged, it’s time to go to the hideout, the secret spot where she stands on the edge of a cliff with a hidden box filled with all of Tessa's gifts and things to remember her by. She put the helmet under her arm and opened up the blast door, J felt the wind throw around her pigtails as it whipped the dangling bits of her suit, and walked outside.
The path to the hideout was one J has made thousands of trips to, and so often that the dips in the snow J makes with her pegs never fully get the ability to fill in.
Crunch…crunch…crunch was the sound she made when stepping on the snow, the sound was practically engraved into her mind and audials, tens of thousands of times it’s occurred, so much so that even a howling blizzard like this couldn’t drown out a sound she was so attuned to. If only the blizzard could silence her sorrow, maybe then she’d know peace.
There were a few knocked over cars and armored vehicles, probably from either the blizzard, she pushed them out of the way one handed with her absurd strength, toppling them right over and depositing them right on the sidewalks.
Sections of the city began collapsing under the weight of the snow that compiled on their roofs for the past decade, finally breaking and letting it all gush out like a gutted fish, all onto the roads. It built up and built up and since there was no one left to clear the roofs, it all came crashing down in one glorious moment of acceptance.
J should probably clear the snow over her home eventually, snow can and will eventually overcome its powerful frame, just as it had done to these buildings, and the last thing she wants is to lose that monitor.
She checked her active map, showcasing that she was exactly four clicks out from the hideout, she then checked the clock and saw she was slightly running out of time. 6:01, exactly 29 minutes and 53 seconds from 6:30, which is her scheduled grieving time.
Of course she doesn’t actually call it "grieving time”, instead it gets a cutesy name of “emotional regulation”. A term so devoid of understanding and empathy, perfect for business.
And J took business seriously, so much so that she taught her early self off of business brochures and eavesdropped meetings between managers and board members in the manor. It was kinda fun, maybe that right there was where her undying passion for work came from, or maybe it was the constant threat of getting brutally scrapped if she didn’t do a satisfactory job… could be either or really.
One thing she missed about the manor that wasn’t Tessa, as crazy of a statement it sounds, was bossing around the other drones as their makeshift manager, though a lot of those walking toasters were so helpless they still managed to do a horrible job, and subsequently get scrapped next layoff period. It was like herding cats, if cats were robotic maids and butlers in infinite servitude to human overlords with reckless abandon for rights.
She reached an intersection, and paused for a short second to let the daily avalanche come barreling through, pulling a few more wrecked cars and items with it. 10 years and it still has stuff to throw down the intersection, letting it all pile up in the hole to her left. J has never once dared look into the hole nowadays, it was just too much to fulfill any morbid curiosity, and besides somethings are better left ignored.
J quickly crossed the intersection, seeing that she was now only 2 clicks out from the hideout on the snowy plains and on track to arrive on time, which put a special type of pep in her step you’d practically never see from the girl. 2 clicks away from seeing all of Tessa's fun gifts for herself, oh and if the weather gets better maybe she’ll even have a dance, she’s currently in between choosing either the tried and true waltz or a bolero or even a tango.
You know what they say, it takes two to tango.
And boy J loves to tango, she remembers one moment at Tess’s 14th birthday gala where they tried to tango and absolutely ate shit, poor Tess got thrown into the punch bowl cause J couldn’t lift her well enough. Oh you should’ve seen the looks on her parents faces, the only thing stopping them from chewing her out was her uncle being present in the room, and considering she eavesdropped on the CEO and his wife talking about business deals with her uncle, it did explain why she wasn’t scrapped that day, or why Tessa wasn’t hurt.
J envied that part of tessa, being surrounded by so many paragons of business intelligence and wisdom even if they were so lacking in the other qualities that make you a “good human”... whatever that means, for all the faults of the CEO and his wife and how much they mistreated Tessa, and how much hatred she had for them, she still had to somewhat respect how well they ran their business. It was a conflicting feeling that J never could explain, how could people so bad do something so good? If it wasn’t for their successes JcJenson would’ve never made it to the space faring conglomerate it is, or more rather was.
One click out now, and 10 minutes early. Now the city gave way to the snowy plains on its outskirts, hills and valleys that buried a myriad of things that will most likely never see the light of day again, and judging by how powdery they currently are there was a fresh avalanche. Normally you’d think this would send her into defcon 1, but her hideout was on an outlook just a click from the base of the nearby mountain cliffs, so for now she gets to just enjoy the fresh powdered snow.
J pulled out Tessa’s helmet in front of her. “I remember being told about the time you got covered in powdered dust as a baby, cyn loved telling me that story… and also the time you dumped a whole tub of powdered sugar on your head since you had anemia and bumped into a table before passing out. Me and the others found you knocked out and bathed in white, like a clown who forgot to use other makeup than white foundation. For all your fair qualities you sure did find a way to get hurt.” She wiped a tiny blemish on her visor away with a microfiber cloth and some cleaning solution, returning her visor to its previous mirror-like state. “Don’t tell anyone else this, but I used to love how annoyed you’d get when someone took time out of their day to patch you up. So humble, even to a fault.”
J put the helmet back under her arm and finished the final trek to the hideout, which like stated before, was completely untouched by the avalanche. The blizzard began to disperse right on cue, she ran up to the edge of the cliff, grabbed the helmet with her tail, and began to dig up her stash with her fingers. Eventually pulling the heavy chest out of its hiding spot where she then tapped it in a specific pattern, it was one her and Tessa came up with to keep their belongings hidden from her parents. Two taps to the top left corner of the box, 3 to its right corner, 1 flick exactly two inches away from the latch, and then a short second of pretending the top of the chest was a set of bongos.
Pop! Was the sound the latch made as it unlocked, letting J lift the top of the chest to pick a manilla file from the hundreds of organized options, and a single trinket from a smaller, easier to open jewelry box. Going off her previous talks, she picked the file where Tessa clumsily fell into the creek while playing with them, and a crocodile tooth.
It was May 12th, 3039. Tessa’s wellbeing was entrusted to her, Cyn, N, and V. Tessa begged and pleaded to go to the creek to swim, and well cyn was seconds away from throttling the poor girl so J decided to let her have her wish. They all got dressed and took the newly 14 Tessa James Elliot down to the creek where she pushed V in for a funny joke, thankfully all of them were newer models so water didn’t affect them much, but she did have water in her audials for a week straight. Cyn pushed Tessa in, before N pushed Cyn in, and then J pushed N in before cannon balling right in between them with effortless precision. They played and splashed and did all the fun things one could think of, before V bumped into a dead log and nearly jumped out of her frame. Cyn cackled at her reaction before accidentally swallowing creek water and cringing like a ghost dragged their icy hands across her metal spine.
N lightly giggled, but not loudly so as to not embarrass his crush. God they were such dorks back then. J let out a quiet chortle as she dragged her fingers across the printed and laminated photos, these still and silent snapshots of life and joy ironically added the same to her dejected and miserable life. Tears began to flow down, happy tears.
Happy that she was able to enjoy times like that, and then she wrinkled her nose. I wanna have times like that again! The tears began to flow faster and became more numerous, clutching her shoulders and sitting down on her knees, she brought her head to the ground as if prostrating before an unruly and hateful god who took all of this away from her.
J sniffled and wailed and begged in gibberish and screamed out to the stars some very unprofessional words, angered she rose to her feet and emptied a whole flurry of rockets that pierced the clouds, and then the synthetic adrenaline wore off, causing her to fall to her knees and sit down. She put her old boss’ helmet in her lap and rested her head on it, reducing her crying to a weak sniffle. She stayed there for who knows how long, even shutting off her internal clock in defiance to her schedule, the same schedule that has grounded her for so long.
Those buildings that broke under the weight of their snow mirrored J, and she knew that. It was only a matter of time till the ‘snow’ built up and broke her.
Something took her away from her thoughts though, the sound of snow being dug by fast moving and erratic hands. Looking behind her, she eyed the perimeter to see the source of the sound, Tessa’s helmet clutched close to her chest and gun in hand. J went left to right, then right to left, slowly moving forward to where her audials assumed the sound was coming from.
J didn’t finish her story, let me do the honors. After V got that crocodile scare, they played around in the creek a bit more until they got tired, and when Tess went to get out of the water to cool off, a fat crocodile lunged out of the underbrush and towards her, nearly catching her in its jaws if it wasn’t for J ripping her out of the way. V was also in its trajectory, who was thankfully saved from death by N. Cyn jumped onto its back and began to attack its eye, giving them all an opportunity to run for their lives.
Enraged, the crocodile swam itself into a tree and instinctively slammed its teeth down on the rocks around the roots, breaking its jaw and throwing dozens of teeth out of the air, one of those teeth was caught by Tessa and subsequently gifted to J. Thankfully everyone escaped unharmed and Tessa was surprisingly not afraid of the creek every future time they went, though the drones all agreed someone had to be on watch in case.
Most of the time that someone was J, she never told anyone but that day gave her a fear of the things that hide away, just waiting for the chance to lunge at you and grab you within their jaws. This situation wasn’t doing a good job of not bringing up that fear.
J was afraid, rightfully so, finger tightening on the trigger of her simple mauser c96. An antique pistol gifted to her by Tessa that has a space in her heart. Eventually she saw the snow move a good twenty meters ahead of her. Horrified, she fired a warning shot into the snow just before the epicenter of that movement which caused whatever it was to stop.
Then a mechanical hand tore its way out of the snow like a zombie, before waving around. J approached slowly, each step she took she made sure her pegs came down as quietly as possible, gun fully trained on the hand. Once she made it to ten meters away from the hand, it rose up and slammed down on the snow, then a second hand did the same as a person dragged themselves out of the snow, shaking and shivering.
J was jump scared by them so she unfolded her wings and dashed a good 40 meters away from them, kicking up powdery snow like an explosion’s smoke cloud.
The person was Tango, who somehow survived the avalanche and subsequent fall. He wiped off his visor and pulled out his SDW in case whoever just shot at him does so again. The screen on his SDW alerted him to a solver signature nearby, and the holoscreen on its side said the transponder was directly in front of him. No more than 40 meters away.
Tango got up to his feet, noticing the footprints in the fog that led away from him, and shook his head free of the final bits of snow that were latching on. Then the fog dissipated, safely and slowly sending all of its particulates to rejoin its brethren on the floor.
Then he saw her, standing in the distance with one X for an eye and a gun in hand. A gun aimed at him…