Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

before you start reading, I offer a music playlist ive assembled for this chapter that you can play in the background in case anyone likes to read w/ music to get in the vibe :) optional ofc. If you want to play it I recommend you right-click and "open in a different/new tab" (press and hold if you're on mobile) so you don't accidentally close this fic out.

>click here!<

(songs used will be listed at the end of the chapter.)

(IMPORTANT NOTICE: IF YOU ARE ON A PHONE PLEASE TILT YOUR DEVICE SIDEWAYS [LANDSCAPE MODE] AS OTHERWISE THE IMAGES WILL APPEAR VERY SMALL!)

For some context, about thirty minutes ago N showed up at the Doorman residence and barged through the housing unit’s front door with a pillow in hand; exclaiming “ SURPRISE!!! ” before promptly announcing he was here for a spontaneous sleepover with Uzi. Much to the dismay of Khan, but his objections weren’t taken into serious consideration by Uzi as she dragged her best friend into her bedroom in total ignorance to her father’s protests. 

Then, for the next couple of minutes, the two proceeded to prep Uzi's room for a two-person sleepover which ended up leading to many blankets and pillows being laid out upon the floor after following some ‘bedroom aesthetic sleepover’ search results the worker had pulled up on her sticker-coated laptop. It didn't look great, or much like the pictures they were basing it on, but it was good enough– at least to Uzi's standards. N on the other hand looked over the moon with how everything came together, behaving as if this was one of the greatest sights he’s ever had the blessing to see.

Uzi looked over at N, “Me neither,” she responded, “I sorta don't know what we're supposed to be doing here. My classmates never really invited me to their sleepovers for… obvious reasons.” that being her classmates either hated her or failed to remember her existence too much to even consider giving her an invitation (not that she would even go if she had got an invitation, but, y’know). 

“Well!” N began, “I've seen in movies that they stay up really late watching movies, playing board games, and doing that thingy where they gather around in a circle to spin a green bottle and the person it lands on has to either answer a question or do something.”

“The last one sounds like the truth or dare version of Spin The Bottle. We could do that although it'd only be the two of us and Spin The Bottle typically works better with a group of people, at bare minimum a trio.” Uzi explained, “ Also, I didn't know you had movies?” she added on with a raised brow. JCJenson didn't seem like the type to supply their genocide bots with nice items.

“Yeah! When I'm scouring the city for, y’know–” oil , Uzi clued in, “– I sometimes come across some frozen DVD cases which I'll try to thaw out to watch on the landing pod's monitor.”

Ah, well that made more sense. “Right,” the girl said.

“Anyhow,” N returned to topic, “As for the Spin The Bottle thing, I don't mind us being underneath the usual player amount. Any game is fun as long as you're here with me, Uzi!” He said, looking down at the worker with a wide, friendly grin.

Blush lines popped onto Uzi's screen against her will and the worker wanted to thoroughly slap herself across the visor for it; Ugh, come on , Uzi. He's just a friend. That sentence wasn't even implying anything, either! “O-Okay then! I, uh, can go find us a bottle to use from the kitchen.– Tthen see if I can find a movie and boardgame too, sounds good?” She said a bit flusteredly, slightly tilting her head away in an attempt to hide the blush. 

N gave her a thumbs up, “Yep!”

—————

Uzi was in the kitchen combing through the various cabinets’ holdings, which consisted mainly of old kitchenware that hadn't been touched in robo-god knows how long, for a sufficient spinning bottle. To mention, worker drones didn't need to eat – being drones and all – and would instead regain energy by plugging themselves into a bedside charger. Because of that plates and such weren't really used much except in the small occasions of filling up a cup with gasoline or filling a bowl with batteries to snack on. 

The kitchen’s atmosphere was dead silent, a horrendous tension lingering in the air; tacitly urging Uzi to hurry up and find a bottle and some games so she could run back into the comforting confines of her bedroom like a spooked robo-roach. 

Most of which she's contributing to the fact she could practically feel her dad's eyes boring into her from afar. She knew he wasn’t happy with N being here.

“So,” Khan – her father – began slowly, Uzi didn’t bother to make eye contact. “How long is it staying over for…?” 

Uzi blinked, her head slowly turning to face her dad. He was at the kitchen table sipping at a cup of coolant. “ It? ” She repeated indignantly. 

“Uhm–” Digital sweat briefly appeared on Khan’s visor, “Your… Murder friend.” 

Uzi’s eyelights narrowed, “First and foremost, N is not an it . Second, he’ll be staying until next night seeing he won’t be able to leave in the morning. Robo-vampire and all.” She said as she finally found a suitable bottle; a champagne-shaped blue-tinted glass container. It was unsurprisingly dusty as all robo-hell so she began swiping it off. 

Khan didn’t like that answer very much, “Ah, I see, that’s… Great.” He strained to say. 

Uzi gave her father the side-eye before quietly moving on, going into their living room to pick up a board game and movie; she knew they had a few rarely-played tabletop games and movies lying around collecting dust somewhere. As the worker searched she mused over her interaction with her father; Khan had never been that approving of her friendship with N since the beginning. Before he had tried to somewhat passively pull them apart- attempting to pair her up with other worker drones her age in hopes she’d start preferring to ‘hang out with her own kind’ (note: that dreadful prom), but now he’s just taken a backseat. Letting her and N be with just a constant disapproving atmosphere. It wasn’t great, but it was better.

Standing on her tippy-’toes’ (they didn’t have toes, just jointed metal), she managed to reach an old Jenga box and movie case that was situated on the top row of a metallic bookshelf. Without sparing a singular word to her father (Uzi tried her best not to even look at him as she passed by) she would head straight back to her room with haste. 

...

“Got everything!” Uzi announced upon entry, shutting the bedroom door behind her with her foot.

N – who was previously lying down on his backside, curiously staring up at Uzi’s newly remade conspiracy ceiling – jolted back up into a sitting position in excitement upon the girl’s re-entrance, “ – Is that Jenga?!”

“One and only,” She plopped the bottle, movie, and Jenga down in the center of their floor blanket before sitting down herself. “You've played it before?”

“No, but I've wanted to,” N told, “V and J never could play with me, they were always too busy with hunting and stuff. Every time I wanted to invite them to a game their schedules always happened to be supeeer booked with other things they needed to do – which is understandable!... It’s just a little disappointing, I guess.” 

Judging from the treatment the other disassembly drones gave him, Uzi had a strong feeling his squadmates were just coming up with excuses not to play with him. But she wouldn't verbalize it; “Well, I played this with my father once or twice in the few times he bothered to hang out with me so I can teach you how to play,” She began, “I also found an old copy of SnowBuddies gathering dust on our shelf and I figured you'd like watching it.” Uzi remembered being obsessed with the movie when she was a lot younger, like back near the days of pill-baby younger, and it’s been years since she revisited her favorite childhood movie.

N curiously picked up the case, the wag returning to the murder drone’s tail and his eyes slightly widening upon seeing the cover, “Uzi, is this a dog movie?! And they’re golden retrievers!– Besides one, that one at the top is a little husky!~” 

Uzi chuckled, finding his reaction amusing, “Yep! It's an Airbud spin-off franchise I think, that's what I remember my dad telling me at least. Saw it and thought you might enjoy it.”

She continued, “So which one do you want to do first? We can do Jenga, Spin The Bo–”

“Movie.” N cut off with an excited grin, holding the DVD case out to Uzi, “– Sorry for cutting you off, that was a little rude, but I really want to watch the dog movie first. Please?”

She took it with a small laugh, “ Okaay , request accepted. Hold on.” Uzi got up to fetch the external DVD player in her desk’s drawer and hooked it up to her laptop. “Hopefully you don't mind dealing with a little laptop screen, though. I don’t feel like dragging the living room TV into here, nor do I think my dad would let me.” The worker added, bringing the laptop down onto their little assortment of blankets and cushions.

“Oh, I don’t mind!” N told cheerily, his tail lightly thumping against the blanketed floor. Once Uzi set the laptop down the disassembly drone abruptly stood up, and without a word of explanation began to collect fluffy pillows and form them into a little pile where he was previously sitting.                                                            

Uzi raised a brow as she watched him, “What are you doing?” She asked.

“Making a pillow nest,” N simply replied, repositioning the collection of pillows into a little circular bed. Then he flopped down on it similar to how a cat would, getting comfortable. “Ready for the movie!” 

The worker stared at his work, “That looks comfy,” Uzi said, “Got… Room by chance?” …was that weird to ask?

N wordlessly nodded, not seeming to mind as he happily got back up and gathered more pillows to extend his little pillow pile. He then laid back down and patted the pillows beside him once he was finished, looking at Uzi expectantly.

Uzi thanked N before clicking on the movie and settling down beside him on the cushions, the murder drone's eyes being locked onto the small laptop screen the millisecond the opening credits began.

When the first dog appeared on screen, N began squealing; “That's an Alaskan Malamute!- I think? Their mouth looks weird, uhm. Are they mixed?”

The worker shrugged, they honestly didn't know much about dogs, “I think it's just the mouth CGI.” Uzi guessed.

“Maybe,” N said.

The two drones would watch the talking dog movie. While viewing the film N couldn't help but chime in with some of the occasional golden retriever facts whenever the moment called for it (or, more like whenever the movie gave him an excuse to enthusiastically ramble on about his favorite dog breed for a good ten minutes before apologizing and resuming the movie) which led the worker to come out of this experience with renewed nostalgic love for her childhood movie and at least twenty-nine new dog facts by the end.

Afterward, they started playing an intense game of Jenga (which Uzi lost at, thrice,) and then played a very scuffed game of Spin The Bottle. It wasn’t really Spin The Bottle honestly, since it was only the two of them and because there ended up being mainly only truths – which turned it into just an average conversation between the duo, just with a spinning bottle being a third wheel. But regardless, they had fun.

When the clock struck 3 AM was when Uzi started getting low on battery, dropping down to 15%, which urged N to convince her that it was time to do the sleep part of a sleepover. 

N and Uzi shared a bed due to the lack of alternative options (no way Uzi was letting N sleep on the floor or take the couch and there wasn’t anything in her room for him to hang upside down on). N’s side of the bed was utterly barren of any covers or sheets as the disassembly had rejected them and pushed it all to Uzi’s side in preference for just extending his wings and enclosing himself like a bat instead; finding more comfort in using his wings as a blanket. Which Uzi had no problem with, more cover for her.

The worker wouldn’t say this aloud, but it was really nice to be recharging in the company of N. Especially with how hard falling asleep has been for Uzi lately, being alone in the dark with your own traumatized thoughts attacking you. Sinking in haunting visuals of the countless classmates she’s murdered – she never liked her classmates, but she never wanted to see their mangled, gorey half-consumed bodies scattered across the snowy landscape in oily pieces. Nor did she want to be the one to have done it, to have all that oilshed on her hands. But she did. She ruthlessly attacked and emotionally tortured her now-deceased classmates before eating them, some of which alive . (And! To make this even better! not only would she legally be considered a serial killer now if word got out that V wasn’t the one who ate the teens, but she’s also a cannibal now, too! Isn’t that great?! Ahaha! Isn’t that incredible?! ISN’T IT? )

… But, anyway; It was nice recharging in the company of N. Usually having to deal with these thoughts alone until you eventually tick off into sleep mode was rough so having somebody she trusted with her tonight gave her a sense of security. Even if they weren’t actively talking, just N’s presence made things a lot better. In fact, this whole night had just been overall better for her mentally; these past hours had successfully gotten Uzi’s mind off the horrific events of the camp, she hadn’t thought about it whatsoever up until right now which was quite a feat for her. She was incredibly grateful N swung by for his little surprise sleepover because she really needed this.

Although… There was one large complaint she had about this, though. 

Sonorous mechanical rumbling emitted from the opposite side of the bed.

N snored loud .

Seriously, it was like she was trying to sleep inside a factory during the holiday season. Why is his rumbling so loud?! 

To drown out the sounds, Uzi pulled up a music folder on her visor and played an hour-long playlist filled with songs from her favorite band; Dead Batteries. The sound was local which meant only she could hear the music so it wouldn’t disturb N’s slumber. 

The sounds of heavy rock and screamo lulled Uzi into a deep sleepmode like a (un)gentle lullaby.

.

.

.

“What are these weird purple stripes on the wall?”

“I think those are some sort of… Fire decals?”

“This is odd. And a mess, so much clutter and dust! Why are there so many sticky notes all over the walls, and what’s that on the ceiling?!”

Uzi groggily booted out of sleepmode, “Huh…?” She yawned as she sat up, her hands rubbing her visor as she blinked tiredly. 

Then, her eyes hollowed and she went entirely rigid upon noticing the strangers in her living room.

There were three. One was a white-eyed male worker with short side-swept white hair wearing a black butler suit and a black hard hat to match, another was a white-eyed female worker with white short swept bangs and circular glasses wearing a maid outfit, and the last one was a white-eyed female worker with white pig-tailed hair also wearing the exact same maid outfit. 

And she couldn’t help but notice how she was alone in her bed, N was gone. 

“Who– Who are you guys?!” Uzi exclaimed, jolting up and scrambling out of bed – dragging clinging covers off the mattress with her. Instinctively, she moved her fingers with the intention to activate her solver but she stopped herself– No, no, no. She’s not about to kill more people, even if they’ve– they’ve straight up broken into her home. She could turn into that fleshy bat form again and kill more people, and if that happened within the bunker there’d be no saving her then. Everyone would know her for the monster she’s pretending not to be, and–

A feminine voice distracted her from her down spiral, “We should be asking you that. This clearly isn’t Elliot Manor.” The pig-tailed one said with hands on her hips. 

Uzi raised a brow, “Elliot Manor?– Wait. ” She paused, that voice… “Why… Why do you sound exactly like–” 

“Have we been assigned to a new location?” The one with the swept bangs spoke over Uzi, also having a strangely familiar voice. 

The one in the butler suit spoke up, “Maybe, but why would we be reassigned to a new location days before the gala? I'd think Tessa's folks would've wanted all hands on deck to prepare for all the important guests.” He said. And his voice, oh, his voice .

He sounded just like N.  

The one with the pigtails sounded just like J .

And the one with the bangs sounded just like V .

In fact; they looked like them too, to an extent. Like worker drone versions of the murder drones.

Uzi was so confused and frankly, a little scared too. Was this the doing of the Absolute Solver? Were these all holograms? Was that spooky-hollow-crab version of J back and she was taunting her with worker drone versions of the disassembly drones? 

With a trembling hand, she reached out to grab a pen near her and tossed it at the worker with N’s voice.

It didn’t go through, it bounced off of him and landed on the floor. The butler looked down at the pen and back at Uzi in confusion, “Uhm?” 

“You’re real…?” Uzi breathed out. No, no this – She didn’t know what this was but– “Why are you guys in my house?! What did you do to my best friend and why do you look and sound like worker drone versions of the disassembly drones?!”

“Your house? Wait, you own this manor?” The butler seemed to ignore the rest of the sentence and wholly focus on the ‘house’ part.

“Manor…?” Uzi was confused.

“But she's a butler…? I don't think I believe her, can drones even own property?“ The worker who looked like J questioned.

“I don’t think so,” The V-like one replied.

“But!” The N-like drone began, “When we woke up she was the only person we came online to, and usually when going to a new property the one we come online to is our owner. And don't forget she was asleep in a bed , and you know that beds are for homeowners only .

“Not only that; she also doesn't look like a butler- she's wearing casual clothing.” He added.

“So… Our new owner is a… Drone?” The V-like one looked visibly weirded out at the concept, “That’s… Interesting.”

“Well, we can’t look unprofessional then!” the J-like drone chided, “Do the introduction, now!” 

Uzi blinked, “The what now–” 

The three drones got into a horizontal line in front of her; J on the left, N in the middle, and V on the right. All three of them wearing welcoming grins with their gazes locked on Uzi, it made the girl feel so creeped out.

Uzi looked horrified, her jaw slacked. “N-N…? Are you… My N? What… What happened to you?”

N grinned wide, “Of course I’m your N! You’re my new owner and I’ll do whatever it takes to make you pleased, miss… Uh… Huh! Seems like I don’t know your name yet, care to introduce yourself?” He asked cheerfully. 

“You… You don’t…?–” Uzi didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t believe any of this was real, this had to be some sort of trick, hallucination, a dream– Maybe she was dreaming and this was an incredibly lucid nightmare! Yes, yes– that had to be it! The worker rushed past the three servants and bolted out of her room, “I’m dreaming, I’m definitely dreaming! This is all just a weird frickin’ dream!” she repeated to herself. 

...

Khan was in the living room preparing for another day of work as the WDF chief, preparing his work bag propped on the couch and filling it up with tools. 

A while ago, Khan could hear the noises of his daughter talking with what he’d assume to be that murder beast she was so fond of. When he heard the sound of the bedroom door opening he turned to greet his daughter with a warm smile, “Good morning, U–” He stopped, seeing the distressed look on Uzi’s face. “What’s wrong?”

He got no response, but he quickly got his answer upon seeing three worker drones dressed in servant outfits trailing after Uzi. One of which looked exactly like that murder drone just in a worker drone form.

Khan dropped the screwdriver he was about to put into his bag, the tool falling and clattering against the metallic floor as he stared at the servant trio bewilderedly. “What in Copper-9…?”

Chapter Text

“Uzi, what is going on?!” Khan exclaimed, “Who are they?”

“Bite me, robo-hell if I know!” Uzi exclaimed, pointing at the trio of servant drones who were currently politely sitting on the living room couch in front of the two. Awaiting orders with a warm smile. “They just – They just appeared in my room!” 

Khan’s brows creased, a mixture of confusion and worry,  “What do you mean just appeared in your room? ”

Uzi wildly gestured, “I don’t know! I just- I was sleeping with N in my room, everything was completely fine and dandy, but when I woke up he was gone and instead there were just these three drones standing in my room. Acting like they were my servants or whatever and that I just bought them.” She explained, “And – and weirdest of all, these three look exactly like the disassembly drones except just… worker drones!” 

“So,” Khan began with a squint, “You’re telling me your disassembly drone friends… turned into worker drones overnight? Two of which seemingly teleported into your bedroom.” 

“I– No? I mean,” Uzi thought about it. Their names were V, J, and N if they were really telling the truth, they looked exactly like the Disassembly Drones, they sounded exactly like them. And they’re not spooky holograms, things wont pass through them… “Rrragh! This doesn’t make any sense! Even if that's what happened, how? You don’t just transform into a different model overnight!” 

“So…” N spoke up, "Whose the guy with the funny mustache?”

“I’m Khan Doorman,” He answered. 

N nodded, “Gotcha, and the other person? She wouldn’t give us her name.”

Uzi opened her mouth to answer, but Khan spoke over her; “That’s my daughter, Uzi Doorman.” 

He went on, blissfully unaware of Uzi's peeved expression, “ – And you guys are supposed to be her friend.”

“Her friend?” J repeated in slight confusion.

“Oh, wait!” N blinked, the realization coming to him like a light bulb over his head, “Mr. Doorman, are you the owner of this place?” It was incredibly weird for Uzi to hear N not call Khan by ‘Mr. Uzi’ 

“...Yes?” Came the slow reply from her dad. 

“I get it now, then! So you must be our real owner, and then you’ve appointed us for the caretaking of your child; Uzi Doorman! A bit like the Elliots.” N concluded.

“That sorta makes more sense than the purple one being our owner,” V said.

Uzi was stunned at the notion, “What?! No!” She spluttered, “First off; I don’t need babysitting–”

“That’s debatable,” Khan butt in.

“ Quiet, Dad! Second off; he’s not your ‘owner’, we’re not your owners, nobody’s your owner!”  She continued, going over to N. “If you are the real N, then I have no idea how this happened to you but you must remember something! What’s happened to you?! Don’t you know that you’re – you were a disassembly drone?” 

N paused, a loading circle briefly appearing in the corner of his visor. A troubled expression nestled on his face, “I’ve scanned the entirety of my databanks. Sorry, but I do not have any recollection of what a Disassembly Drone is.” he scratched the back of his head nervously. 

“Come on, if you’re the real N you have to know something!” Uzi pushed, desperate. “Your memories couldn’t have up and deleted itself like that!” 

He frowned, reiterating; “I’m sorry, Uzi. I really don’t know what that is…” 

“I thi-nk I can gu-ess.” An unfamiliar voice reached Uzi’s audio receptors. 

The door to Khan’s bedroom swung open, a wholly unfamiliar maid drone emerging out from the room and strolling into the living room. It was a female worker drone with white hair and two straight-down twin tails braids, each with a hair tie on the ends, topped with a big black bow at the back of the head. She wore the exact same outfit as V and J. 

The worker moved highly unnaturally, having some sort of odd lopsided hunch; like her metallic skeleton was disproportionate in supporting her joints properly causing her to have almost puppet-y movements.

This, quite frankly, startled the hell out of Khan and Uzi. “And whose this?” Khan looked at Uzi and back at the strange drone repeatedly, “And- And why was she in my room?” 

“No clue???” Uzi, although having no idea what was really going on at any given movement in the first place, felt even more lost in this situation. Seriously, who was this drone supposed to be?? 

“And how did I not notice her when I woke up?” Her father added even more confusedly. 

“S-imple. I was inside the clos-et, the one with all the weir-d papers and cool S’s.” The drone replied.

J groaned loudly, “You?! Ugh, the Elliots must’ve pawned you off to the Doormans.” 

Uzi fixed her attention on J,  “The Elliots. You guys keep saying that name, who is that?” 

The girl seemed like she was about to provide an answer, but it was overshadowed by N leaping off the couch and rushing over to the stranger in a full sprint. “Cyn!” He exclaimed happily, enveloping the girl in a tight hug. “Oh! I thought you hadn’t come with us! I’m so happy you’re here too!”

Uzi paused at the name mentioned. Cyn . That’s familiar, that’s very familiar. Cyn . Where does she kno– V . That’s the name V muttered when…

“V, please…” She was in so much pain. She could barely think, everything in the past few minutes (hours?) had been a blur; the girl dipping in and out of consciousness. But the heavily foggy mind and strong taste of oil in her mouth, splattered around her lips and visor, and staining her plating told her that she had done something bad . Really bad .

“New body, same horrors. Huh, Cyn?” V’s voice could barely be heard over the cold roars of the eternal snowstorm, the blurry figure of V steadily making her way towards her. 

“I…–” Her vision went out, only to return a second later, “– don’t know who that is…”

Uzi

Uzi

“Uzi”

“Uzi, you okay?” Khan asked, noticing his daughter had been silently standing there spacing out with an uneasy look. Uzi suddenly snapped back to reality and quickly waved her father off; “yeah-yeah, I’m fine .” 

“Wha-t do yo-u mean?” Cyn replied, reeling back from the hug, “Ar-e we not at the Elliot Man-or?” 

“No. We’ve been relocated to the Doorman residence,” V explained, “We were bought by Khan. Or, not…? They’re claiming we were not bought, and that we’re… Not supposed to be here, if I’m following their conversation? I’m a little confused as to what’s going on.”

“That m-akes sense. I w-as wondering why J wo-uld put me inside of a clos-et instead of a bas-ement this time.” Cyn said.

Basement? Uzi wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean, but she wasn’t focusing on it too hard at the moment. She was truthfully getting a bit freaked out by all of this.

 “Hey, Uzi?” Khan began, “I'd assume you have the ID of your murder friend saved on your database, right?”

Uzi slightly narrowed her eyes at the usage of ‘murder friend’ again but tried her best not to react to it given the more important situation at hand; “ Yes? ” although her annoyance showed through her tone anyways.

“Why don't you give it a message? It'll confirm whether these guys are the real deal or not.” Her father suggested. Worker Drones had the ability to remotely send messages to others, it was installed by humans for fast communication in the workspace but now with the core collapse it was mainly used for domestic purposes. Worker Drone messaging was compatible with Disassembly Drones, so the girl often used it to communicate with her close friend when she couldn't go outside to see him for whatever reason.

It. It… If she wasn't so freaked out about four possible strangers in their home right now she'd diverge into telling off her dad for that. “That's… Actually a good idea.” Uzi blinked. She wondered why she hadn't thought of that first, the girl blamed it on the fact her processor was all over the place right now.

WDID : UZI : N, are you there?

WDID : UZI : N?

WDID : N : Uzi?

Her core skipped a beat, an immense relief flushing over her. She knew it! She knew those worker drones weren’t the real ones, no drone can just suddenly turn into an entirely different model overnight. There was the now problem of how these four got into their house in the first place, but she could l–

WDID : N : Is there anything you need, miss?  

WDID : N : And why are you messaging me? I'm standing right next to you. =)

Why did he– Oh, oh. That’s not…

She should’ve known. If she was messaging a disassembly drone it’d be DDID. 

But wait, if her messages towards N are redirected to him , that must mean… This is for real. The realization dawned on her like a firm smack to the visor. Any part of her that was still skeptical and in denial was firmly snuffed out; this was her reality. 

The disassembly drones are – somehow, magically, despite all logic – worker drones now with no recollection of their past.

… 

“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!” Uzi suddenly screamed out, making the maids, butler, and her dad turn to stare at her with a startled expression.

“Language,” Khan quickly told, Uzi snapped her head towards her father in a death glare; “ BITE ME, I'm allowed to be vulgar! My best friend just turned into some frickin’ butler worker drone with no memories of– of anything!”

“Is… something wrong with me, Miss Doorman?” N approached, Uzi cringed at the formality. He would never act like this towards her. “Is it about me not being able to recall what a Disassembly Drone is? If so I’m, uh, sorry about that. You could take me to a human, specifically a JCJenson technician, they might could figure out what’s the matter with me.”

“Yeah, no. They’re dead.” Uzi said flatly, “And frankly, even if they weren’t I wouldn’t go to them for help.”

The servants fell silent, exchanging shocked glances with each other. “What…?” J spoke up.

They don’t know, of course they don’t

The four just stood there, processing this information. 

“There’s no way the humans are dead, they’re– they’re too smart to go down like that...” J argued.

“I don’t know, dude. The eternal blizzard and dilapidated city with brittle frozen human skeletons all over the place outside says otherwise,” Uzi said. 

“So there’s only… Drones living in this place?” N questioned, and “Yep.” came the reply. 

“Well, I have a question. And I don’t mean to offend, but, If this place is full of just drones. Then… Then why does this place look so… unkept…?” V asked shyly, very shyly, like she was afraid of being reprimanded.

“Excuse me?” Khan raised a brow.

“Once more; not to offend, Mr. Doorman! But when’s the last time you guys dusted your living quarters? Lint-rolled the furniture? I also notice some dirt building up in some places, particularly corners.” She asked, which was met with silence as Khan tried to pry a date from his memories. It gave V all the answers she needed, “Don’t worry about it, sir. A deep cleaning wouldn’t take long.” She got off the couch, “Where’s the storage room? Where you keep all the cleaning equipment.”

Khan pointed to a cleaning closet situated near the kitchen area. V went over and opened it, taking out a small plastic bucket and cleaning rag before going over to the kitchen. She set the bucket into the sink and turned on the faucet to fill it up – only that didn’t happen, nothing came out of the tap. Not even the slightest droplet of water. Confused, she’d keep twisting the handles, both of them, but to no results.

She stepped back and then checked the cabinets surrounding the sink, and upon not finding whatever she was seeking the drone looked even more stumped than before. 

V turned to look at Khan again, “Hah, uhm, Mr. Doorman. The sink is broken, the water won’t come out of it. There’s also no soap. Or anything with spraying.” 

“Oh, no, the plumbing is turned off. We don’t have it on down here. Neither do we keep soap, usually. Maybe bar soap, but I haven’t seen it in awhile.”

“Mr Doorman. How am I supposed to clean the manor with no water or soap?” She stared.

“Just use the vacuum cleaner and duster in there?” He told, gesturing back towards the cleaning closet.

“But… That’s not gonna really clean things, water and soap is the best way to truly get things done. Bleach would be great too, do you guys have bleach?”

“We don’t have any liquids in the house, or really in the bunker except where it’s absolutely necessary. It’s too much of a safety hazard.” Khan explained.

V looked dumbfounded, “ What? ” she paused, letting the information go through her processor, “I- How is anyone supposed to do a proper cleaning without any liquids! There are things a vacuum cleaner or a little duster can’t get out. Like dirt stains, soot, grime, non-dirt general stains… Heck, sometimes its better to remove dust via soap and water rather than using a duster since in some events a duster will just spray the dust it’s supposed to collect all over the place and embed it into different sur— Wait, hold on, what do you mean bunker?” 

“Oh, you guys are in a bunker. Not a ‘manor’ as you guys been saying.” Khan clarified, “We live down here to keep ourselves safe and sheltered behind my magnificent doors from the Disassembly Drones. Genocidical drones who have been murdering our kind for years!”

“the things you used to be.” He added, his tone was level but V could catch the smallest glint of hostility in his gaze. 

“... I see…?” V slowly said, a bit confused. She moved on cautiously, “Well, uhm, as I was saying; sometimes it is better get up dust with soap and water rather than a duster since it’ll spray the dust all over the place and embed it into different surfaces instead of properly picking it up in some events.”

“Anything that would need to be cleaned up can be achieved with a vacuum, broom, cloth, dustpan, or scraping tools. Deep-cleaning is not necessary, we’re robots.”

“I…” V paused, “I suppose, but even if it won’t affect you personally wouldn’t it feel better on your mind to be living in a fully cleaned environment?” She pushed. 

“No. It honestly does not matter to me even in the slightest,” He reiterated. V stared at him for a long while before letting out a sigh, “Fine, let me go get the duster.” She said defeatedly, returning the rag and bucket to the cleaning closet and instead taking out a duster. She began to go over all the surfaces where she spots dust.

Uzi watched for a bit before looking back at the three still on the couch, “So,” Uzi began, “Who is this?” she pointed at Cyn.

“I’m Cyn.” Cyn introduced herself.

“No, I mean, who are you. What’s your deal?” Uzi clarified, “You’re the only one out of the four who I do not recognize.” at least outside of name, she added in her mind. 

Cyn looked confused, “I’m uns-ure what yo-u’re talking about. You brought us to thi-s place all at the same time, righ-t?” 

“No, you guys just appeared in my room overnight! — Well, except for you. You just popped up in my dad’s storage room for some reason.” She said.

“Okay; If I’m following along correctly, we used to be some different model of worker drone called… Disassembly Drones…? Who – according to Mr. Doorman – has been disassembling you guys? Because– because we just, do that…?” N tried to wrap his head around this, “And we’re missing some important information necessary for us to fulfill our jobs in this… manor-bunker place…?” 

“Yeah, sorta got it, but let me explain some things,” Uzi told, “Okay, so, remember how you’re on Copper-9? You guys were Disassembly Drones sent to this planet to decommission all rogue worker drones by humans.”

“But… humans are dead?” N was lost.

“Yes, but they exist on other planets too. Intergalactic colonization, woohoo … But long story short; you two rebelled against the company, ‘cept J because I killed her–”

“Wait, wait, wait, what?! ” J exclaimed suddenly, disturbed. The other two looked equally as alarmed.

“You deserved it! You attempted murder via some virus chip on N before coming in to wipe out the worker colony.” Uzi defended indignantly, “You took a railgun to the entire body above the calves, my sick as hell railgun mind you, but then came back as a spooky hollow-crab thingy and started projecting holograms and visually manipulating me.”

Khan, overhearing this, creased his brows in worry; “Hollow crabs with holograms– When did this happen?” concern laced his tone. 

Uzi blinked. Oh, right . She hadn't told him and he wouldn't be able to figure it out on his own– really, anyone an outsider to the events that transpired in the chambers wouldn't. “Ah, uhm. Dad, remember when you went into the cryosleep chamber and found me surrounded by fire? The reason I was down there was because I alongside N was fighting a creepy reincarnation of J that took shelter down there. The thing that caused all those missing drones, not the ones leading up to the prom but the detective team–”

“What?!” Khan was horrified.

She continued; “– But it's all good. Me and N exploded J–”

“You exploded me?” J was appalled. 

“I exploded her?!” N pointed at J with hollowed eyes. 

Cyn didn’t say anything verbally but you could tell by the look on her visor that she was thoroughly shocked. V didn’t seem to be paying attention to the conversation whatsoever, more focused on cleaning, but Uzi caught her starting to glance over curiously. Probably thanks to how loud they were being now.

“We exploded you, and that time you didn't come back… Until now, but this might be unrelated.” Uzi finished, then noticed the hollow-eyed look her father was giving her. “What?”

“Uzi, why didn't you tell me?” Khan asked, a little unsettled, “This is a lot for somebody who's barely seventeen to be going through.”

“Because why would you care to know?” Uzi rolled her eyes.

“Uzi, don't be like that, you know I care deeply for you.” Khan insisted.

Really? Because you can very easily argue otherwise , her mind supplied. “Bite me,” Uzi huffed, “It doesn't matter anymore. What happened with J is a few months over.”

“It is but now I'm concerned, Uzi. Is there anything else you haven’t been telling me?”

Without delay, imagery of Camp 98.7 veered its ugly head into her mind; providing her with vivid, detailed memories of her disemboweling her classmates. The taste of guts and oil filling her mouth as the arms of her fleshy bat wings shoved drone visceral into her maw. 

“No.” Came the fast reply. Dad didn’t need to know anything. “The only thing you weren’t up to date with was the cryosleep stuff.”

It looked like Khan wanted to say something else, but Uzi pushed the focus elsewhere; “ ANYHOW , this was a derail. Long story short; you two rebelled against the company besides J because, yeah, and we’ve been trying to work out the mystery behind the–” solver, she was going to say. But she’s been keeping that aspect on the down-low from her dad too. She was gonna need to get him out of here if she wanted to talk about that, that and before he started questioning her more about what she’s been doing because Uzi got the inkling he wasn’t fully sold on that being the only thing he was missing out on. “ – You know what, that thing has a looot of explaining to do and I don’t feel like getting into it.” She opted to say, “Just– you got the gist of it.” 

“Dad,” She turned to him. She needed to get him out of here, “You’re going to be late for work.”

“It–” Khan checked the time, “...It is getting late, but, are you going to be fine alone…?”

“Yes, dad, now go. Your door people need you,” Uzi insisted, “They need your unrivaled door smarts, you being absent for the workday will be a huge deal.”

“Well… We are working on important door improvement concepts today…” He mused.

“Yes! So you should go,” Uzi told.

“But are you really sure you can handle this by yourself, Uzi?” Khan asked, gesturing towards the former disassemblies. “This seems like… A lot. I could call in absent to work, maybe post-pone the door conference and redo the schedule to give myself off-time for this.”

“Don’t, dad. I’ll be fine. If anything they’ll be handling me, since they’re pretty much servants with a goal to look over the home and keep everything fine. I don’t think they’ll be getting into much trouble.” Uzi tried to convince, Khan seemed to accept this.

“Alright, but if anything goes wrong don’t hesitate to send me a message. Okay?” Khan told.

“I promise I will,” Uzi assured. 

Khan went over to grab his workbag, zipping it up and tossing it over his shoulder. He wished his daughter goodbye before leaving. Immediately, the girl turned back towards the servants. “V, stop cleaning, get back on the couch.” She ordered which V wordlessly obeyed. “As I was saying, we’ve been trying to figure out the mystery behind the solver.”

Uzi flicked her fingers, an absolute solver glyph summoning onto her palm. “Does this symbol mean anything to you guys?” There was a slight edge of desperation in her tone, hoping. 

The four squinted their eyes.

“Nope.”

“Unfa-miliar, how-’d you do that w-ith your hand?”

“No clue what that is.”

“Is that, like, some weird illuminati symbol?”

They responded simultaneously, shaking their heads and casting confused looks onto Uzi. The girl sighed deeply, relaxing her hand and having the solver icon dissipate. There goes that hope. “Okay, so, that was the Absolute Solver and it’s something I’m inflicted with. Some mysterious thing that seemed to just – pop up on my CPU one day. But, in recent development, I’m pretty sure this has something to do with my mom.”

“And we were all trying to figure it out together…?” N asked.

“Yes. Well, you. Not V, she is just kinda unhelpful.” Uzi looked over at V with narrowed eyes. V seemed a little startled, “Sorry, Miss Doorman?” she said unsurely.

“And I didn’t help either because I was violently murdered and then exploded,” J said bitterly.

“And where wa-s I when this was happ-ening?” Cyn asked. 

Uzi shrugged, “I don’t know, I don’t know even who you are. Although V had mentioned your name to me when –” she paused, her synthetic breath hitching upon the resurfacing memory. V looked at her with a confused expression, “When…?”

Uzi forced it out, “When you tried to murder me.” 

V looked shocked, “When I tried to what?! Miss Doorman, did I really do that?”

“Yes, and N had to stop me from killing you when I was going crazy in my solver form.” She added, “Which is like, some fleshy bat form with a tail head – it’s weird.”

“Why does this friend group try to murder each other so much?!” N was so concerned.

“For the record, V’s not my friend. Neither was J,” Uzi corrected. 

“Well, it see-ms like I h-aven’t done any murdering in m-y apparent past?” Cyn looked hopeful.

“I don’t know, V was really hellbent on killing me upon thinking that you were possessing my body. So you might’ve done something terrible to her,” She informed. Distress lines appeared underneath Cyn’s eyelights as she held a hand to her mouth. “Sor-ry, V? Maybe?” 

“Well, what did she do to me? Surely I would’ve told you or something after the matter.” V inquired, only to get a headshake from Uzi. “No, you wouldn’t say anything about it. Even when N approached you later to question you, you were just being really cryptic about it. N’s told me that you in general are kinda reluctant to inform him of things regarding the past.”

N’s concerned look deepened, “So you’re telling me this not-friend-group murders and doesn’t communicate with each other?”

“Unfortunately,” Uzi sighed, “Okay, robo-hell. This… Situation sucks, you guys don’t remember anything.” she spoke to herself.

“Maybe there’s something wrong with our memory logs?” N proposed, “Maybe there’s something that’s been corrupted or damaged that we cannot identify ourselves for some reason?”

Uzi thought for a moment, “That could be it. Maybe there’s something wrong with your processor that’s messed up and altered your memories, and if I can regain your memories then maybe you guys will be able to remember how you became worker drones in the first place and then we can work based off that on how you get you back to normal.” She said, “I could take you down to the infirmary and see if any of the doctors can find anything wrong with you.” 

“Don’t you mean technicians?” V asked.

“No. They’re called doctors,” Uzi said, “Let’s not waste any time and go now. Oh, and by the way; don’t tell anyone about the absolute solver. Not even my dad. The thingy I just did with the hands is supposed to be a secret.”

“How come?” V asked.

“Because I’d rather not have everyone in the colony know about me practically being a spooky robo-satan witch thing. Who knows how’d drones react and it definitely won’t be in a positive way,” She explained, “They can already barely handle normal me.” 

“We promise not to say anything, Miss Doorman.” N said sincerely. Uzi looked at him warmly for a moment, but the expression wavered soon after; “Uzi.” She said.

N looked confused, “Pardon?” 

“Just call me Uzi,” She clarified, “All of you. Miss Doorman is too formal. It’s… Weird.” 

“Right, then. We promise not to tell anyone, Uzi. Your secret is protected in our hands, right guys?” N turned to look towards the others. 

“Will do.”

“Mh-m!”

“Yeah, sure, won’t forget that she exploded me, though.”

They spoke in unison. 

“Alright, then let’s go.” Uzi said, grabbing a spare-key off the key rack and opening the front door. Leading the four drones out into the bunker’s apartment corridor. There weren’t any drones out in the hallway besides them currently. The servants looked around the corridor with bright, curious eyes. “Why is everything so bleak?” N asked.

“Excuse me?” Uzi raised a brow, glancing back at the drones.

“It’s just, where are all the decorations? The color? Everything’s just grey and undecorated.” N said, “I know we’re not in a manor, but things feel really… unsaturated here, is that’s the right word?”

“And why are there icicles growing all over the place? Don’t you guys have working heaters?” J questioned, squinting her eyes at all of the thick icicles overhanging and chunks of snow bunched up towards the sides. 

“Not really,” Uzi shrugged, “The bunker’s heaters broke when the core’s collapse happened, when we started inhabiting the outpost we didn’t bother to repair the heating system since we

didn’t really need it. They technically still work, somewhat, but the amount of hot air it can produce is very minimal – not enough to combat all the cold air forming icicles.”

“And all the snow?” She further questioned.

“It’s cold,” She shrugged, “Snow happens.” 

“Inside a bunker?” J said, “We’re underground behind several thick sheets of metal, right?”

“I don’t know, man. It’s frickin’ precipitation and stuff,” Uzi told, “Don’t question it, okay? Probably from tracked in water or something…” 

The five of them walked through the bunker, moving out from the residential sector and into the more active spots of the bunker. It was an early Sunday morning so it wasn’t as bustling as typical, but there were still plenty of workers out traversing the halls. Most just hanging about, some going off to their duties that still required them to work on weekends (note; the WDF, hospital…). The four servants stuck incredibly close to Uzi, almost akin to a child afraid of getting lost in the mall.

“This place is like a maze,” Uzi overheard N’s awed mumble.

“Yeah, so you better make sure to save this into your database.” J sharply replied in an equally quiet voice. 

“Don’t talk to him with that tone,” Uzi scolded, “Or- or I might explode you again.”

“Can we please stop talking about J being exploded?” N frowned.

“No promises,” Uzi grumbled, rolling her eyes. As the group fell into silence once more, the worker couldn’t help but start noticing the strange looks the drones passing them by gave them. They’d pause and look hard at her, sometimes a loading symbol appearing as they tried to comprehend the view before them. Uzi wondered why everyone was staring at them like that, had they noticed the similar attributes the drones shared with the disassembly drones? — She honestly hadn’t thought the colony paid enough attention to the murder drones’ features to notice anything.

As she pondered, she looked back at the four drones. Her neon eyes taking in the exquisite details of the maid outfits the girls wore. 

… Wait … 

… She’s walking with three drones in maid outfits. And one in a butler outfit in public, but more importantly three drones in MAID outfits. If Uzi was a human (ew), she would’ve paled until she looked like she no longer contained blood. This is so horribly suspicious, the millisecond Uzi steps foot into school tomorrow she is going to get battered with questions from her peers. She can already imagine the sort of remarks she’s going to get from those potatoes for CPUs; ‘Hey, goth-bot, what were you doing yesterday with a bunch of drones in maid outfits~? I mean, I knew you were into anime but…’ oh my ROBO-GOD . School was about to get even more unbearable. 

“Quick detour guys, we’re taking the long way.” Uzi suddenly switched routes. She can take the least popular routes for this particular time, far less eyes and much emptier halls. Maybe there’d be no workers at all going down those paths at the moment if she’s lucky and life loves her (it doesn’t, she knows that). Ugh, why didn’t she think of this? These four were going to need a good change of clothes pronto if they couldn’t fix this murder-drone-to-worker-drone issue immediately. 

“What’s wrong Uzi, you seem worried?” N questioned, moving past the maids to walk beside Uzi as he had been in the very back. The girl shook her head, “I’m– I’m fine ,” she said, “Just… Wanted to take the scenic route.” 

The boy didn’t look convinced but he wouldn’t push, “Alrighty, Miss– I mean, Uzi.” He nodded, slowing to return to his spot in the back. 

Eventually, the workers arrived at the infirmary with minimal run-ins with other drones (emphasis on ‘minimal’ and that it’s not ‘none’. Uzi is scared boltless for when she goes back to school tomorrow). Uzi went ahead and opened the door for them, letting the four enter the lobby. There weren’t many drones in the waiting room, just two drones not including the receptionist. Upon their entry, the drones turned to look at them; specifically the former disassembly drones. Confusion evident on their visors.

Uzi didn’t comment on it, just guiding the drones over to the receptionist. The worker managing the desk looked between her and the servants repeatedly, “Um?” was all they mustered.

“We need an appointment now. And today.” She said, then paused with hesitancy. She knew the next part was going to sound absolutely insane, “The Disassembly Drones turned into worker drones – I don’t know how, don’t try to ask about that part – and now they’ve lost all their memories.”

The receptionist looked at her oddly, “Look, we don’t take kindly to pranks–”

“This is not a prank,” She grumbled, “Look, I can call up my dad and get his verification for you.”

“You know what. No need,” The drone sighed, “Today’s appointment schedule is laughably barren so I’ll humor you. I’ll go speak with the doctors, go take a seat.” she gestured towards the seating area. With a “thank you” Uzi got herself seated with the servants.

As the five of them sat down in their chairs, waiting to be called in, Uzi couldn’t help but keep glancing over at J who was sitting a few chairs down. Now that she had a still moment to properly collect her thoughts, how weird it was to be speaking with J in a non-hostile environment finally hit and settled in her. There was a certain air of discomfort that steadily washed over her like a slow-moving fog, one she knew only she was feeling. Uzi recalled vividly how she injected that kill virus into N with zero hesitancy at the mere notion of him turning his back against the company, how she (even if it wasn’t exactly her) manipulated her with holograms of her friend and dead mother – these memories were still so fresh in her mind, and to have the causer sitting just a few feet away… It piqued some ill-feelings in her. 

She wouldn’t say anything though, this didn’t seem to be exactly the same drone that attempted murder and severe manipulation on her. Of course, that wouldn’t take any edge off her feelings. Oh well, though, it didn’t matter. This was just something else to put in the tightly-sealed mental bottle along with the rest of her trauma. She doesn’t need to talk about it, she’s fine .

It felt like forever until the receptionist returned and told them they were slotted in and could go once some drone named Dr. Doktor was finished with their current patient and could take them. Then waiting on that felt like it took forever to the second power. She looked at the other couple with envy as they went before them.

But, eventually, they heard the golden words; “Uzi Doorman? And… Whatever the Disassembly Drones are named?” The male doctor called out, walking into the doorway that attached the lobby to the clinic corridor. Uzi stood up, beckoning for the servants to follow them. The doctor looked confused but guided the five to an examination room. 

“I’ve been told you needed to see me,” The doctor turned and looked at them, “So… where are the Disassembly Drones? And why exactly are there three drones in a maid outfit and one in a butler outfit” he finally asked. 

The receptionist must’ve not mentioned the predicament, Uzi realized. She pointed at the servants, “These are the Disassembly Drones.” she clarified, much to the mass confusion of the doctor, “Yes, I know. Basically what happened is that, and I don’t know how this happened, but the Disassembly Drones turned into Worker Drones overnight for what seems like no reason and now they’ve lost all their memories. And I was hoping that maybe you could take a look at their processor and check for anything messing with their memory database?” 

The doctor blinked, bewilderedly staring at the servants. “What? I-... Okay… So these drones are supposed to have formerly been the… Disassembly Drones?” he was still trying to comprehend this. 

“Yes,” Uzi confirmed.

“Okay… And why are three of them in… Maid outfits?” The doctor questioned, “And one of them in a butler one. I didn’t even know there were four Disassembly Drones.” 

“Oh, no, there’s only three. I have no clue where this one came from.” She pointed at Cyn, “She just showed up.”

“That’s?... Okay. Uhm, I’ll do her first.” The doctor said, referring to Cyn. He directed the other four to go sit in the corner of the room where some chairs were while he prepared to examine Cyn, seating her on the patient bed and hooking her up to his computer. Dr. Doktor took notice of how Cyn awkwardly moved, his brows furrowing. But he wouldn’t comment on it yet. 

“So, what’s your name?” The doctor attempted some small talk as he got the necessary programs up. 

“C-yn,” She replied, fidgeting with her own hair. 

The doctor looked at her strangely, “Sin? Like sinning from the Bible?” 

“N-o, Cyn as in me .” She told, “My name is C-y-n.”

“Oh. That’s a, uh, unique name.” The doctor said, “I guess there’s been stranger ones though,” Uzi did not miss the brief glance towards her. “Bite me,” She muttered under her breath.

The minutes ticked on as the doctor inspected the coding of each one of the servants, Uzi awaiting the results. She prayed that luck was finally going to be on her side for the one time in her life for this specific moment, that this predicament – at least in the memory department – would have an easy fix. One that could be resolved in a week, at most.

Finally, when the code examination for the final worker, N, concluded, the doctor was ready to share the results. “Well,” He sighed, “I can’t find anything wrong with these drones’ memory databases.”

Those words hit like a slap to the visor. Of course, why should she ever think it’d be that easy? “Are you serious? There has to be something wrong, they can’t remember anything about themselves!”

“I know,” The doctor said, “But their memory is running at peak performance and I can’t find any corrupted files, viruses, any visible program errors.”

“I…” This was making no sense to Uzi. 

“Maybe when their AI was converted to a different model, their memory deleted itself?” The doctor suggested, much to the horror of Uzi. “No, they didn’t.” She firmly denied. That wasn’t it. That couldn’t be it. She wasn’t even going to entertain that thought. 

The doctor frowned, “However, I do notice there’s some things going on with Cyn. Particularly in the voicebox and joint department.” he noted. 

Uzi stared at Cyn, watching the girl readjust her slumping head. “Yeah, that might just be normal for Cyn, I think.” She told.

She continued with an disappointed tone, “Well, thanks anyway for your help, uh, Dr. Doktor. We’ll be going now.” 

The doctor led the five of them out of the examination room and back into the lobby, wishing them a good day as they left the infirmary. 

Uzi started on her way back to her housing unit. The servants were talking among themselves but she tuned it out, her mind too preoccupied with thoughts of what to make of this situation. Surely that doctor must’ve just missed something, it was highly possible they just weren’t observant enough and didn’t look in the right places. Uzi had a keener eye than most drones when it came to technological things. Yeah, yeah! First thing when they get home she’ll look through their memories. Uh, not that she had something that could do that at the moment but she could figure it out. Maybe there was something in her bedroom that she could repurpose, she had plenty of inventions lying in her closet doomed to be a forever-WIP thanks to the project killer that is procrastination. Surely something had to be close enough to a memory-searching device.

Uzi halfly took the same route home, this time fully staying away from the populated spaces; steering clear of paths with too many worker drones on it to the best of her abilities. She knew she had already been seen multiple times with the maid drones, but she was still trying to salvage it like she wasn’t already ultra-guaranteed to be in the spotlight of negative gossip amongst her horrendous peers at school. 

Traversing the bunker’s corridors and halls like she was doing some elite stealth mission, Uzi eventually made it home with the maids and singular butler in tow. Uzi slipped out her spare key and opened the housing unit, letting the servants in and closing the door behind her with a deep, relieved sigh. “Oh my robo-god,” She muttered, a hand on her visor.

“What’s wrong?” N asked.

“Nothing, just… Nothing. I’ll be right back” Uzi said, then immediately rushed over to her bedroom. The door was still wide open from when she bolted out of the bedroom when she first woke up. 

The girl went over to her closet and slid the door open, immediately diving into a crouch to rummage through her collection of incomplete inventions lying messily on the ground beneath her clothing rack. Swiftly sorting through her handiwork and making expeditious dismissals, the girl eventually found her hands on her old ‘consciousness transferer’. Y’know, the one she used to switch bodies with that one drone from her class. The consciousness transferer was a small handheld box with two wireless adapters meant to bridge the gap between her and the drone’s head. A grin found its way onto Uzi’s face, this could easily be repurposed into being a memory database reader similar to or exactly like the ones they had in the infirmary. Only one issue, she knew she didn’t have the parts necessary to accomplish something like that. She’d have to go out for a supply run. 

She set the consciousness transferer onto her desk, neatly setting the adapters next to the box, grabbed and slipped on her bat backpack, and walked out of her bedroom to rejoin the former murder drones. She knew it’d be a tough build, but not out of her skillset – she’s built a railgun, she should be able to do this with her eyes closed. (and, if this somehow didn’t work, she wasn’t above breaking into the clinic to use their equipment.) 

She entered the living room, a glow of conviction in her eyes as she readied to share her idea, “Okay guys, I’ve—” Uzi stopped, her eyes hollowing. 

The Keybug, the one she got from Camp 98.7, the one she had honestly forgotten the existence of with all that’s gone on today, seemed to have escaped her bedroom at some point seeing how it was currently scuttling across the kitchen countertops. Blissfully unaware of anything. And Uzi couldn’t help but notice how close J was getting to it with a fly swatter she must’ve found in the cleaning closet…

“ WAIT-WAIT-WAIT – J, J, no!” Uzi rushed over, swiftly swiping the robo-roach up before J could smush it. “What are you doing?!”

“Pest control. There was a bug so I was going to kill it.” J simply replied, “Am I not supposed to?”

“No! I mean– Just, don’t kill this bug .” She clarified, letting the keybug crawl up her arm and settle onto her shoulder.  “It’s important.”

“Awh, it is your pet?” N chimed in, coming over.

“Uh, you could say that I suppose.” Uzi shrugged, about to go on to explain the context behind this keybug however the mechanical insect stole her dialog spot. 

“I AM NOT A PET. >:(“ The dialog appeared over the keybug’s head. 

“It talks?!” N was amazed, “Oh, I’m sorry uh… Mr or Mrs Keybug. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

The keybug only gave a chime-like chirp before hopping off Uzi’s shoulder and scuttling away, disappearing somewhere into the confines of the house. Uzi watched the bug go until it was out of sight, then she turned back towards the drones. Cyn and V seemed to have gotten comfy on the couch in wait for her to return.

“Alright, so, since the hospital results came back inconclusive I’m deciding to take a crack at you guys myself.” Uzi announced, “I’m going to go out the bunker and I’ll be gone for… one, two hours?” She paused, her eyes trailing off to hone in on the outfits of the maids then N’s butler get-up. You know, while she’s already going out she might as well get the drones out of their servitude outfits and pick up some clothing while she’s outside. “Make that maybe three and a half, maximum.”

“You guys stay here, don’t do anything crazy while I’m gone. Okay?” She added as she headed back to the door. The drones gave words of acknowledgment, nodding and promising not to do anything. N gave Uzi a double thumbs-up to assure her, “We’ll be good!” 

Putting her trust in them (not that she’d have much of a choice), she left and made her way to the front of the bunker.

———————

Uzi walked through the eternal blizzard; the snow and ice shifting and crunching underneath her boots as she trekked over the frozen roads and snowed-upon sidewalks. Her night-attuned virtual eyes carefully took in the buildings she passed, mentally debating whether or not it'd be worth it to swoop in for a look. 

The place that compelled her the most was a small store that looked to be a mix of a hardware and electronics store. With an excitable grin, she trod over to the entrance. The glass door and windows were harshly frosted, with thick ice accumulating on the corners and ridges of the panes. 

When the worker went to twist the door handle it refused to budge, it was frozen shut. Nothing more than a minor annoyance, however, as with a flick of a solver-charged hand Uzi was able to effortlessly unattach the glass door from its frame to clear the path. Once in the grip of the solver, she nonchalantly threw the door aside. The pane shattered and the frame severely dented upon impact due to the sheer force; a force Uzi hadn’t realized she was applying. It startled her, the girl pausing to take in her accidental damage; feeling some concern over the power she wielded, but she shrugged it off and steered her focus onto the task at hand. It'd be okay, she just needed to be extra careful using the solver around other drones 

She entered the store, scanning the premises. To Uzi’s surprise, the store looked pretty untouched. Like nobody had entered since the core collapse. This was an incredibly rare sight since most of the buildings in the dilapidated city had already been ransacked by the worker colony, she supposed for most drones the frozen shut door must’ve been too much of a hassle to get through. This meant all the peak-quality items must be still up for grabs…

With giddy excitement, the girl wasted no time combing through the aisles. The whole entire store was filled with untouched, frosted-over electrical components and machinery parts. It was like Christmas came early, plenty of items that would otherwise take forever for Uzi to find were displayed in bundles ripe for the picking. Yes, they’d need to be thawed out and some of this stuff is surely damaged, but nothing untypical for a Copper-9 inhabitant. You could see the stars in Uzi’s eyes (literally, her visor had an emote for that) as the worker slipped off her backpack into the grasp of one hand and began shoving all the items she could into her bag with the other as she moved down the different aisles. Starting with the essentials; she shoved in some electrical chips and wires, then some bolts and screws, then a healthy amount of batteries (some for powering purposes, some for snacking purposes), and then she just went off the deep-end and proceeded to just shove in whatever fit. By the time her bag was filled to the brim with electronic bits, nuts and bolts, tools, and heavy metal pieces only then did Uzi remember she still had to have room in the bag for clothing hunting. She pursed her non-existent lips, unsure what to do. She didn’t really want to get rid of anything… 

She could just carry the clothes by hand, it’s not like she’s getting a lot. Just four shirts for four drones. Maybe the store would have a basket…

Uzi swung her backpack back on, “ Umph– ” Jeez, that was heavy. But being a model designed to carry rocks and minerals in the mines (frick you, humans) it wouldn’t pose a problem. 

She walked out the hobby store and back into the elements of the outdoors. The cold wind rubbing against her shelling and ruffling her synthetic hair as she continued her hunt. Her neon eyes examined the building she moved past, taking in the few details visible from within the iced-over windows. She didn’t have to look long before bumping into a clothing store; a small brick building smushed in-between two offices. The windows were shattered and the unlit neon store sign above the tattered storefront awning was hanging off its mounting post; the wires clinging on to the glass tubes for dear life as it swung wildly in the harsh winds.

The shop door was wide open, giving Uzi a good look into the interior. The insides had snow and ice everywhere, with many rows of empty clothing racks. Ransacked already, obviously, but there were still some clothes left behind she could pick from. It didn’t have to be anything fancy. With attentive steps, careful to not slip on the ice coating the floors, the worker grabbed a shopping basket and began searching for suitable clothes; looking at exclusively medium-sized clothing as mediums fit worker drone models the best. Making circles around the small place, she made sure to look at all the leftover contents of the store before making some choices. 

Uzi didn’t really know what the four drones’ clothing tastes were (especially Cyn’s). Yeah, she knew what they wore as Disassembly Drones, but that was more of company-assigned clothing (or, did they pick out those clothes? She actually wasn’t quite sure, she’s never asked). Although they never seemed to exactly complain about their clothes so she figured it wouldn’t do harm to try to stick closely to those general clothes. 

Firstly, for N, she managed to find a black coat – almost identical to the clothes N wore. The main difference was that it was a slightly different shade and had fluff lining the ends of the coat.

For V, she found a long-sleeved grey crop-top with a cutesy black bow above where a zipper was in the center. She knew with regular V, Uzi would probably not be able to get away with a bow – not that V ever explicitly said she hated bows but Uzi betted her startup file that V would not wear a shirt with a very unintimidating, adorable bow smack-dab in the middle of it. But luckily this new V seemed to be quite peaceful and flexible. So in the basket it went. 

For J, well. Uzi honestly didn’t care about getting something she liked, Uzi was wholly ready to just grab whatever and call it a day but lucky for J there was an outfit that sorta resembled what she formerly wore. It was a loose, short-sleeved above-knee white and black dress with a pocket. It wasn’t an amazing match, but frankly, she couldn’t be bothered to put more effort in for her. 

Lastly, Cyn. Uh, well. Funny thing is; her clothing-finding strategy only works for people who she actually knows. Uzi doesn’t know who Cyn is, therefore couldn’t make any inference on what she’d like. So when Uzi picked up a pale-yellow knit cardigan it was really just a random pick.

Having fulfilled her shopping, it was finally time to get on her way home. With a full backpack and a no-where-near full shopping basket, she began to make her long trek home. She had wandered admittedly a bit far from the bunker so it took close to an hour to get home.

When she reentered the colony, brushing the snow out of her hair and off her clothes with her fingers, she immediately worked on getting home. Ideas brewing in her processor; first thing first, she was going to toss the clothes to the former murder drones (and Cyn) to them to put on while she poured her time into building the memory-searcher. She figured she could make it in one sitting, it didn’t seem like it’d be too hard to make out of a base. 

Uzi approached her housing unit. She dug into her pocket and pulled out a house key, twirling it around her fingers she smoothly inserted it into the lock and opened the door. “I’m home, g–” 

She fell silent when she noticed the state of the home. Not that it was particularly bad, just… Confusing. The servants we’re actively cleaning away at the home, J hounding them; “Ugh, N! Scrub better! Or do I have to do it myself?!” She barked out at N who was firmly scrubbing the walls with soap and a bucket of water, the butler jumped; “ IM-DOING-MY-BEST ” he squeaked out quickly, “PHYSICALLY CANNOT SCRUB FASTER, THIS IS AS FAST AS MY JOINTS GO.”

“I’m pretty sure I’ve seen you go faster,” J gave him a skeptical look, “Do it with both hands!”

“SIR YES SIR” He cried out, “ —WAIT, MA’AM YES MA’AM.” 

V in the background was assertively lint-rolling the furniture, fluffing the pillows, and removing accumulated dust with soap and water. (wait, hold on, where were they getting this water from?!)

Uzi stepped into the home, “What’s going on?!” 

J spun towards her, “Ah, Uzi Doorman. You’re back.” She greeted, “We figured we’d clean the home while you’re gone, let you come back to a nice comfortable residence.”

“Yeah, but like, wh–… I… Where is this water coming from?” She asked, “And, wait, where’s Cyn?” Uzi didn’t notice her amongst the cleaning group in the living room.

“I don’t trust her to clean properly so I had her in charge of the oven,” J told.

Waitwaitwait, OVEN? “The what.” 

“She’s our water-maker,” J pointed over to the kitchen, Uzi followed her gaze. There was bowls filled with snow lining the countertops, with four snow-filled bowls currently being melted atop the oven. Cyn was manning the water production, it appeared her sole job was just melting snow and nothing more. However she looked pretty motivated and determined, like she was trying her best to do a good job and make J happy even if it was such a simple job. 

This operation had to be shut down though. Uzi quickly shut the door behind her, tossed the basket aside, and rushed over to the oven. She pushed past Cyn and quickly cranked the knob to OFF, then proceeded to cautiously lift up the bowls of water with her solver and drained them into the sink. Cyn watched from behind, looking as if her livelihood was being destroyed. “Frowny face. My w-ater.” 

“Where did you guys get the death liquid and soap from?!” Uzi said, referring to the water, “and– You guys don’t need this much water! Why are there so many buckets?!” 

J approached, watching the solver drone destroying their hard work. “I was thinking we could store some of this water so we wouldn’t have to go outside again to melt more snow whenever it was time to clean.” She explained with a frown, “... How are you doing that, by the way?” J raised a brow. 

“It’s the solver thing I showed you before, I– Oh my robo-god, I– Who even let you guys out!? How did you find the exit to the bunker?!” She questioned.  

She noticed all the drones looking somewhere. She followed their looks, turning towards her keybug that was currently sleeping(? Or resting, she couldn’t tell) on a pile of fluffed-up pillows on the couch arranged in a little circle. Uzi was at a lost for words, “You can’t be serious.” 

“We were discussing plans on how to clean the home efficiently with the absence of water and soap when the little bug started doing these little beepy chirps at us. Once we looked at it the bug then crawled over to the door and started scratching at it. We let it out and then it started scuttling off, we followed it and the little guy led us to these big blastdoor thingies at the front of the bunker. We asked the nice drones guarding the doors to let us out, they did, and boom. Access to snow! J went a bit further and snooped around some of the nearby buildings and found some bottled soap we could thaw out, isn’t that awesome?”  N explained and Uzi wanted to facepalm. With a deep, heavy sigh she flicked her hands and grabbed N’s bucket and took his sponge right out of his hand as well. Uzi drained his bucket over the sink and wrung out his sponge. She then set the sponge on the countertop. She did the same to V’s cleaning utensils (save for the duster and lint-roller, that was fine.) and all the soap she could see. For the snow, she would melt the snow using the oven and then drain it. 

Without sparing a word, she left the kitchen and went into her dad’s room. More specifically, going to enter the ‘Nori’s Kooky Insane Stuff’ room; she opened the door, gaining access to a small storage room filled with a collection of items her mother once owned. Uzi’s eyes fell onto an old dented cat carrier with a bunch of crazed scribblings on it, Nori would result to writing and drawing on random junk brought in from the city whenever she ran out of paper and this little pet carrier was a victim of the habit. The worker grabbed the carrier using the solver and brought it out into the living room with her. Her head was fixated on the couch, her eyes narrowed with annoyance as she walked over to where the Keybug was.

Her shadow laid over the bug, her body blocking out the ceiling lights. The robo-roach stirred with a chirp, its body tilting upwards – an indicator it was looking at her. 

Uzi grabbed the keybug carelessly and shoved it into the carrier. She then closed the door of the crate and used her solver to levitate and send the carrier into her bedroom, bounding the corner to then be tossed into the closet. 

Uzi grabbed the keybug and carelessly shoved it into the carrier. The worker then closed the door and used her solver to levitate and send the box into her bedroom; the crate sharply turning the corner to be tossed into her closet atop her inventions. She then took grip of her closet doors and closed them – having been left open before she left. It did not take long for angry beeping noises to emerge from her room when the robo-bug realized what just happened.

“Nooo, Little Drone The First!” N exclaimed, Uzi looked over at him with a raised brow. “You named it?” she questioned and N looked at her like she was crazy. “You haven’t? Aren't they your pet?”

“I mean, not really.” For Uzi, this bug was just a key. Something important to unraveling the mystery behind the solver – the virus plaguing her. She had no real emotional attachment to it. “Anyways, okay. You guys… Aren’t actually doing anything wrong, you’re just cleaning and that’s fine. But, please for the love of robo-god do not use water or anything liquid.”

J frowned, “But water’s the best way to–”

“That’s an order, J.” Uzi cut off, a glint of aggression in her eye, “No. Water.”

J backed off, “Yes, Ma’am.”

Uzi blinked. Did J just submit to her? Did she just take bossing from… Her? She figured that checked out things considered, J’s been reset into a state where she believes herself to be a servant but… It was weird to see the person you’ve witnessed brutally murdering your kind and traumatizing you just – for lack of a better word; she’s sorry – acting submissive to her. 

“Okay… Well…” She’s just going to move on, “I collected some clothes for you while I was out getting some parts for the whole memory thingy.” Uzi gestured towards the shopping basket she haphazardly threw onto the floor, “You guys switch out of your clothes and put them on. The coat’s for N, the crop-top’s for V, the dress is for J, and the cardigan is for Cyn. You can take turns getting changed in my dad’s room or something, I don’t know, I’m going to go get to work.” 

Uzi watched them curiously gather around the basket before turning to enter her room. She closed the bedroom door and jumped to work; slipping off her backpack and setting it on her desk right next to where she left the consciousness transferer and began unloading her materials.

She put on a nightcore playlist and began getting to work; she used some paper she tore out of a notebook to proceed to sketch out a quick blueprint of what she had in her head as a reference and began working off that. A self-assured grin on her face as she rewrote code and modified her old gadget, each precise move done with intention. She had a copious amount of experience in the craft of engineering, having indulged in the hobby since back when she was an untrained neural network (not really, but it felt like that. She thinks she began getting into it when she was eight?). 

When she was done, it’s been quite a few hours. It was near eight p.m, about the time her dad’s shift was going to end so she could expect him to be back quite soon. Uzi took in a breath and stretched – not necessary, as she was a robot, but it felt nice regardless. 

The consciousness transferer had successfully been remade into a memory search; now taking the appearance of a thick metal box with two cords coming out of it with one attaching to the computer and one meant to attach to a drone. The idea was for the box to examine the data collected from the servants and display it onto the computer (hopefully it doesn’t overload and crash anything, she deleted a lot of stuff to make room for this), and then she could search through their code to look for any anomalies. Yeah, this was more of a ‘entire code searcher’ than a ‘memory-searcher’ but it being to look through memories was the purpose so she was still going to name it that. 

Uzi rolled her chair away from the desk and got up, reentering the living room. “Hey, guys, I–” 

The servants were currently on the couch together watching a film, some superhero movie. She fell silent, seeing the new outfits the drones were wearing. She had been so engrossed in her coding and building session that she had managed to forget about the fact she had gotten them new outfits. Her eyes fixated on N the most, the coat she picked out was a perfect match for him. He looked almost normal. If it wasn’t for the fact he was so short and tail-less, she could’ve mistaken him for being the familiar Disassembly Drone she knew. Well, he is the familiar Disassembly Drone she knew. But…

She wasn’t able to go down that train of thought, the happy voice of N snapping her out of it; “Hey, Uzi!” he smiled, “Thank you for the new clothes, I really like this coat. It’s more comfortable than the butler suit.” 

“You’re welcome,” Uzi strained to sound happy, there was a strong yearning to get N back. The N she knew. Hopefully, her invention would work and get them on track to fixing this. “What are you guys doing?”

“Uh, well. Since you didn’t really give us any orders to do and, uh, you mentioned that we sorta just have autonomy so we thought it was okay to just sit down and watch a movie we found on your shelves and load it up into the television.” N explained nervously. 

“I will say that I was opposed to the idea but they physically forced me to join them.” J, who was currently being pinned down by Cyn sitting on top of them, added. “So if you’re going to discipline them I feel like I should not be included in it.”

Uzi frowned, “Look, stop worrying, you're not going to get ‘disciplined’ for simply watching a movie.” She assured, “Now what even are you guys watching?”

“It’s an old human movie called Beyond The Spiderverse,” N explained, “I have no clue what’s going on.”

“I’m telling you, N, I’m pretty sure this is like a sequel or something because there are so many characters and plot points here that they’re acting like we should already know,” V said.

“Beyond The Spiderverse?” Uzi repeated, “That’s the franchise my dad used to watch with my mom, I think. I think that’s the third film.”

V stared, “I told you, N!” 

“Oops,” Was all he had to say for himself. 

“Grrah, I’m gonna get you!” She said with fake anger, playfully punching him on the shoulder. “We’re like, 3 hours into the film!” She huffed. N’s only response was a meek “sorry” in-between light laughter. V crossed her arms, “You don’t sound sorry.” she acted upset but you could see the smile on her face. 

Uzi watched this with a sense of uncanniness, to see V being so playful and nice… If this was between them as murder drones she would half expect V to drop a death threat, probably several. Jokingly, perhaps, but still a death threat.

She shook it off, “Anyways, you guys can save this whole movie adventure for later because I just finished the memory-searching thing.” Uzi announced, “If you guys could please relocate to my room.” 

No further words would needed, the drones hopped off the couch and headed straight into the bedroom. Uzi trailed behind them, closing the door behind the last drone. “Okay, so this is going to be pretty much the same process as what happened in the infirmary. I’ll go first with N.” Uzi told, readying the program. 

She gave N her chair, which she positioned to the side of the desk, and opted to just stand while she examined the data. When N was properly hooked up and his code was displayed onto her monitor she wasted no time sifting through his memory files. Her eyes were transfixed on the scripts, scrutinizing for any oddities. 

Yet, no matter how hard she looked, how deeply she inspected things, how many times she lapped back and went in a virtual circle looking at the same things over and over again in N’s code, she couldn’t find anything. Nothing looked out of the ordinary whatsoever. 

She was so, so close, practically seconds away, from calling it quits and angrily giving up. 

But then she saw it.

It was so small, so minor, so tiny, that she couldn’t even be mad that the doctor didn’t find it. 

It was a weird strain of code that didn’t look completely right. It was small, just a tiny construction of letters nestled within a large mass of scripts; incredibly easy to miss. The code was formatted very strangely within N’s coding, Uzi could honestly barely read it. It was strange; it almost looked like it was typing in an entirely different coding language – one that didn’t exist and was extremely nonsensical at that. 

Uzi, now having something to look for, did some further digging. Now that she actively had an idea of what she was looking for and where to might find it, she had an easier time seeking out the abnormalities; these little weird strings of code popped up frequently in N’s code and always in tricky spots. It felt like the difficulty to spot it was intentional, like it explicitly wasn’t trying to be found. 

She figured this could be the issue. Now, it wasn’t very recommended to delete a drone’s strings of code and she was no doctor (her skills go in engineering– building weapons and making little gadgets, not robotic medicals! She dabbled in it, but not enough to be professional by any means) but she figured since this was foreign code it couldn’t cause horrendous harm. Just in case, however, she right-clicked and copied the code onto her digital clipboard as well as memorizing the odd script herself (pros of being a drone; photographic memory). 

She sucked in a breath as she highlighted the code with her mouse and then backspaced.

Ba-bum. Windows error. 

“... Unable to fulfill action… Error 607…?” She read out loud, her virtual eyes squinting. What in the world was Error 607?

She hit okay and retried, getting the same exact error. She then went to other spots where she saw strange code and attempted the exact same thing. Ba-bum . Nope, didn’t work.

Uzi disconnected N from the memory searcher and called V up for her turn. Then J. Then Cyn. She searched through all of their codes and the same strange undeletable discreet code was lurking within all of their systems. Uzi did notice that for Cyn, she had a lot more of that foreign code in her; still hidden, but way more noticeable than the others due to the sheer amount. Weird. She would play around with the abnormal code for an extensive amount of time but no matter what she did it never brought any good results, always being smacked with the strange Error 607 message.

Uzi was stumped. This was all so weird. And certainly not something she was going to solve overnight, she realized. 

From the other room, the worker could hear the sound of a door opening. The other drones perked up, “Mr. Doorman is back?” V wondered aloud. 

“Probably,” Uzi said, leaving her desk to go take a look from the doorway. The other drones got up (minus Cyn, she was still hooked up having been the last one to go) and also peered around the corner alongside Uzi.

Khan had just returned home, his eyes focused on Uzi and the others as he set his work bag down onto the couch. “Hello, Uzi! I hope your, uh, not Disassembly Drone friends didn’t cause you any trouble while I was gone.” 

Uzi walked out from the doorframe, the other three trailing behind her. “They’ve been okay,” She told.

“Oh, I’ve seen you’ve gotten them new clothes,” Khan commented, coming over to check out their new outfits.  “These are nice, where’d you get them from?”

“I went out into the city to go grab some clothes for them, I also grabbed some materials to try and find a way to fix their memories,” Uzi reported, “Their code is kinda jank but I’m confident I can figure out how to repair it and restore their memories, I just need some time...”

Khan nods, “That’s sounds great!” He said with a little too much enthusiasm, like he was trying to show the maximum amount of interest in his daughter’s endeavors even if a little forced,  “Where’s the fourth one?”

Uzi looked, “Oh, right, she’s still attached to the memory searcher. N, could you go unplug her for me?” She asked, N gave a quick salute and went to go free his sister. 

“Memory searcher?” Khan repeated in confusion, Uzi nodded; “Yeah, I figured if I could go restore their true memories I could figure out what happened to cause them to turn into worker drones in the first place so I went and made a little mechanism that allows me to sift through their memory data and examine their coding. Although, there’s been a setback to it…”

Cyn came out before she could finish, N holding her hand as she led him out. “H-ello, Mr. Doorm-an.” She greeted. 

“Hello, uh... Cyn was your name?” Her dad tried to recall, and Cyn gave a quick nod. “Yes.” she smiled. 

“So, dad,” Uzi pried his attention back to her, “I’m not one hundred percent sure what’s messing with their memories but I might’ve found a possible candidate for the cause. They have these weird foreign scripts in them that can’t be deleted or altered in any way, I tried to figure out what its deal was but I got pretty stumped on it. This doesn’t seem like it’s going to be a one-day ordeal.” Uzi told, then paused, beginning slowly with her suggestion; “...I’m thinking these four should stay with us until they’re back to normal.” 

“Oh,” Khan paused, narrowing his eyes in thought, “Uzi, I’m not… Entirely against the concept, but where would they even sleep? We only have two bedrooms.” He pointed out.

N piped up, “We are compatible with sleeping on the floor.” 

Uzi was swift in her reply “Heck no. J can take the floor, Cyn and V can take the couch, and N can sleep with me.”

“ Really? The floor.” J frowned deeply.

“I’ll throw some spare blankets down for you.” Uzi shrugged carelessly, “Dad, can you run down to the storage facility to get some extra chargers?”

“Actually, I have a few spares in my room. Conveniently think exactly four, let me go bring them out for you.” Khan went off into the bedroom, coming back out with four charging boxes in his hands; offered one each to the drones. He also brought out an extension cord so they didn’t have to be right next to an outlet to get sleep.

Uzi had gotten out the spare blankets; handing two for the couch-sleepers and then throwing down the rest for J. Once their sleeping spots have been secured Uzi took N into her bedroom; showing him where to plug in his charger. The butler was very enthusiastic at the idea of sleeping in a bed, reminding Uzi that according to their false memories (they had to be false, right?) this would be his first time. ‘Beds are reserved for homeowners’ she recalled his words. 

When the night came to a conclusion, Uzi found herself sleeping beside N. An identical end to the last night, yet so incredibly different at the same time. As N went into sleep mode beside her, snug underneath the shared covers, she couldn’t help but stare at him. A deep longing for a different time, a time that was simply just yesterday night.

So, she laid in her bed, slowly stirring off into sleep mode as thoughts swarmed around her head; her mind filled with questions about the weird code, the solver, and this new life she was about to be forced to adjust to.

She'd hope for better days ahead.