Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

‘I've been walking for a while now’ David absentmindedly thought as he went through a forest on the Outskirts of some nearby falling apart cabins.

Admittedly, he didn't really know why he had been wandering near the epicenter of the explosion that nearly took out the planet of copper-9. It felt like he was just feeling a bit uneasy with the body that he got and wanted to take a short stroll through the woods to try and take his mind off things. Originally he thought that it would be a good way to figure out where to even start with his self-imposed ‘Quest to save the world’, but either way he had a gut feeling that he was supposed to be in this general area.

It did drive him a bit crazy that he felt like he wasn't doing enough to stop the Absolute Solver, but for right now there's only one of him even here to do anything, to stop that monster.

There's still a simmering anger that makes his blood (oil?) b-oil... well boil, when he thinks about how that thing destroyed his homeworld into a giant mass of rubble floating in space.

intolerable. It's going to take so long to put all of the pieces together again. 

A distant sound catches his attention, as he hides behind a tree and lowers the brightness of all of his eyes, he peeks around a tree to see what the distant sound was.

Oh. Huh.

A Worker Drone, with a Cowboy Hat, riding a school bus like a horse?

Great. Just what I needed. Yay social interaction.

Being sure to keep out of their sights, he keeps the gaggle of WD's a good 200+ feet away from him to not cause a panic.

Seems like one of the people who’s in charge just climbed onto the roof of the cabin to relax (apparently?) with a folding deck chair. David can hear the faint conversation that is going on between the [students?] and their [teacher?] asking why they are even there in the first place. With the teacher guy responding with “Yeah, Uzi's Idea. Ask her.”
The snooty drone teen asks, “Who?” as a gothic girl with an, honestly cute-looking, Bat backpack says to said teen, “I've sat next to you for years.” to the apparent alarm and shock of the other teenagers.

He had a stray thought of just going up and talking to them and seeing what they are doing, but Worker Drones tend to panic when they see Disassembly Drones so it's a good idea to not stir... trouble…

There's the distinct sound of two Disassembly Drones that just landed by the group of Worker drones...

The 2 Disassembly Drones are wearing camp counselor outfits???

Well, they haven't killed anyone immediately so maybe they're different from the other Disassembly Drones he has encountered so far? The Male DD pulls out a clipboard and is, apparently(???), doing a roll call of the students on the trip??

Somewhat predictably. The WD's are horrified and/or shocked that there's two MD's right in front of them.

I mean, except for one guy, he is just kinda neutral about the whole thing, Poor guy, maybe he went into shock or something; he should recover in a secon-

A gunshot Rings out and David tries his best to not let his heart (core?) rip through his chest as the sound of that guy's body hit the ground.

The rest of the noise around him just kinda turns to static as he tries to fight for control of his breathing whilst still being stealthy and not give away his position. When the warning symbols disappear from his hud and visor, he’s ready to look back at the group of WD's and DD's as they mingle with each other. Almost desperately on the WD's part, which is kind of strange to be honest; one of the MD’s did just kill their fellow classmates.

It seems that Uzi is going off somewhere to explore some other parts of the camp after doing some nonverbal communication with the male DD.

So are they friends or something? He's not really sure what's even going on anymore.

It’s surprisingly difficult to get a read on what drones are feeling, even though their faces are literally animated.

Well, I don't have much else to do. Might be a good idea to follow the Emo Girl ‘Uzi’ and see where she's going, she’s got some loner angsty main character vibes about her so I might as well follow her to see if she gets me any closer to my goal. In the end, it's really a win-win for the both of us. We're both just trying to save a planet.

How hard could it be?

David couldn't help but sigh as he leaned against a dead tree, wind and snow slowly whipping and flowing through the branches releasing dead needles to the snow coverd ground.

It's going to be a long night Isn't it?

What did I do to get into this mess?

(OC art)

Chapter Text

While, the camp counselor Disassembly Drones go with the class of worker drones to the lake. David makes his way through the still woods, as silent as possible, tailing behind Uzi as she braves through the heavy snow dragging her down from her goal, which is exploring the abandoned cabins that are scattered around the main Lodge. 

‘Wonder what she's looking for’ David thinks as he watches as she walks up to the door of the building. 

David see’s as Uzi tries to open the door and it won't budge.

locked then hm?

After switching on a flashlight, something strange happens as the flashlight is held up in the air by a neon purple symbol of three arrows connected to a hexagon. As David tries to understand what the hell is happening she seems to have opened the locked door and walked inside.

Leaning onto a tree David tries to collect his thoughts. It’s looks like Uzi has the solver, he doesn't really know how she has it considering there should only be two drones that managed to stave off the Absolute Solver's influence. Those two are on the Disassembly Drone’s most wanted list, that being Nori (#02) and Yeva (#48). So maybe this is Nori's daughter? It makes sense with the purple hair and eyes but he’ll have to keep a close eye on her anyways.

How do drones have babies?

Doesn't really matter right now.

There's a distant sound of a yelp towards the frozen lake that distracts his thoughts, as he peers around the tree he sees the campers playing and laughing on the lake with three canoes skidding across the slippery surface.

Alright I guess.

The sound of glass breaking draws his attention back to the cabin Uzi is in, he can't see much of what's going on but he can see the female Disassembly Drone shoot up into the sky and head for the cabin. Being sure to keep himself hidden he tries to overhear the conversation in the house but can't hear much over the wind. But after about a minute He hears as the DD climbed out of the hole in the roof and heads back to the group by the lake.

Just to be sure he pulls up a minimap onto his hud to make sure he won't get Caught off guard again. The map used a bit like sonar the DD’s use if they can’t see their targets with the downside of limited range. With his silvery dot in the Middle and the general outline of the house, he sees Uzi’s red dot. 

Might as well change that to purple if we're going to eventually work together. 

(fingers crossed on that)

Uzi’s now purple dot seems to be wandering around a bit in the middle of the room. ‘Maybe she found something?’ he thought as he notices smaller energy sources seemingly where uzi is standing. must be those little cockroach cleaning robots. Robot bugs ick.  

As he's thinking of why they couldn't have made anything else into a cleaning robot he sees a red dot a few feet away from Uzi appear for about 3 seconds and then just vanish out of thin air. 

…

Is he malfunctioning? A quick test shows that he's fine, a bit low on oil tho. 

HMM. 

Teleporting drones? Fuck it why not?!

Well there is yeva still, maybe she had a child too? Welp, good for both of them? I guess?

Uzi just walked out the front door and is apparently conversing with a robot bug on her shoulder, and the bug is projecting a screen into the air somehow texting back.

Should he even be surprised by anything anymore?

Following Uzi as she heads back to the others at the main cabin he lets out an internal groan that he feels so out of the loop on all the shit going on here. Makes him want to take a shot of something strong, even though he doesn't even drink to just get away from all this, although he doesn't have a liver so he doesn't know how that would go. Can he drink things other than oil?

I think I'm getting a migraine? How does that work?

Think about that later David. 

As the pair of us get closer he can hear the male DD ask out loud “Ah sorry! Did I… Cheat?” Seeing as he's holding a bow and there's multiple arrows in a target's bullseye, he also started a small fire somehow?

As the male disassembly drone turns around, the snooty student’s finger slips on his drawn bow and kills the fellow worker drone to his right. And to David's bafflement, shock and horror literally nobody notices or cares.

What the actual Fuck is Wrong with these Drones!?

Do they not give a shit?!

The female Dissasembler jumps off the roof and lands next to the male one and takes a bow and arrow from the girl with the pigtails and cyan eyes and says “Tch. You didn't even kill everyone here. Check this out.” as she points and draws the bow at the campers. With a bow pointed at them the campers clap nervously probably in hopes of not getting shot. 

As David looks by a tree he sees Uzi getting the male Disassembler's attention. After getting it she uses the insect's hologram thing to display some text. 

HELLO :) DON't TELL V I'M HERE 

Hmm must be that female Dissasembler well it might be good to put her on the mini map just in case.

Unfortunately he didn't Properly read the messages and said loudly “Uzi, get on out here!” while the bug only puts out a  ‘ :0 ’ as He continues with “This troop's a team!” 

Realizing he may have gotten V's attention as he panickly said “WAIT, NO, INCLUSIVE REFLEXES!”

as V looks Back she notices Uzi and the insect flees with a “ D:!! ” 

Coming out from the tree she was hiding from  she nervously states “Uh, hehe, hey, everyone.” with a finger gun at the group. 

The campers scream at her showing up. The snooty teen accidentally shoots an arrow in Uzi’s direction. However, she uses her solver thing to stop it... Only for her temperature to rise again and morph the arrow into a fleshy, bloody mess of tentacles and eyes. emitting a horrible chittering noise as it flailed around.

What?

What the fuck??

V looks at Uzi with hollowed out eyes, and a bit of fear too, as the rest of the campers huddle behind and next to the male Dissasembler.

Uzi, obviously Nervous and freaked out, says quietly “Um, ignore all this! Uh... I was just... Going…”  before exclaiming “I LIVE IN THE WOODS NOW!” as She retreats back into the woods.

After a couple seconds the snooty teen says “...Who was that?” and David wants to just throttle that kid's neck at this point. 

Ok so first off, Uzi's solver turning an arrow shot at her into a mass of flesh was really unsettling to see. Second off he is going to make sure that thing is dead after the other campers leave becouse fuck that shit, no thank you. and for three he is going to collect some of the oil from the camper that got shot to top up a bit. Even though he managed to reduce the need for oil he still needs it to function and the bodys fresh so *shrug* gotta do what weird scorpion bird robot vampires do I guess.

I hope Uzi will be alright though, she seemed like she was panicking a lot about the whole situation.

Chapter Text

So first off V looks pissed.  He isn't sure why but as soon as the fleshy thing fell to the floor V swapped out her hands for swords. And after Uzi leaves she stocks forward angrily in her direction. But Unfortunately for V the other Disassembly drone gets in her way trying to hold her back and exclaims “V, We Can't Hurt Uzi!” while being pushed back by his counterpart.

V Bites back with “We do our jobs, and that thing leaves us-” being cut off by the male DD, he shouts “I don't know what you're talking about because you won't tell me!” and frees himself from each other's grip with his own sword. He continues with “What are you so Afraid of!?”

V only states “I'm not afraid.” He swipes away the sword pointed at him and retorts with “I am! Uzi is!”  he continues with “She's a kid, like us, V! What is WRONG with you!?” he finally shouts at her. 

with a sigh he just states “Look after the campers” as he flies off towards Uzi’s general Direction.

As one of the worker drones with a Bow and blond hair walks up to V she states “Hot” her seeing V's unamused stare backtracks and says “Not hot? You're too good for him.”

V just walks away from the group and bites out “Do whatever you want.” as she stomps away from the group.

As soon as the Disassembler is away from the group of Workers, the snooty teen suggests that they go make a campfire to tell “spoopy stories.” two other drones snuck away and headed the same direction Uzi went.

As the main group heads back to the frozen lake David makes his way to the flesh thing and looms over it. it flails about in the snow as steem wafts up from the creature, switching out his right hand. He swings with enough force to bisect the thing in two. a cut off wail comes out of the creature as it lays there limp and lifeless. 

If I had a nose I think I would have thrown up by now. and now there's eldritch soup on my sword. Great.

After wiping the blood off with the snow around him, he sets his eyes on the fallen drone that got shot in the head. After standing above the drone with the glitching fatal error on its visor he swaps his hand out with a coffee cup and collects oil from the fountain of oil. with only a bit of hesitation he chugs down the still warm liquid and tries not to think about what he’s doing too hard. 

After he's finished that cup he goes for another to make sure he’ll be topped off for the next few days. On the mug it states:

After swapping his hand back he thinks back to the argument with V and the other Dissasembler, she had said “We do our jobs, and that thing leaves us-” alone? had V made a deal with the absolute solver? Why would she do that? What's the relationship here? Might be best to go and find Uzi again and see what she's up to.

Moving away from the still body, David makes his way through the woods keeping an eye on the sky and an eye on the footprints of 3 pairs of footprints heading up to the bunk cabin. 

Lights are off. Huh. is the power out? Wasn't like that when he came by earlier. 

Storms picking up too, seems like a thundersnow is happening. I thought those were rare, at least on earth it is. 

oh.

oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!

The top half of one of the teens is dragging herself out of the door with her bare hands. As she struggles to get away from the thing in the house David makes sure that he's hidden within the foliage to not be spotted by whatever did this to that girl. 

Omfg she’s whimpering like crazy. What the actual hell did this to her? What's strong enough to tear a worker drone in half without being a Disassembly Drone?

Keeping his eyes dimmed as much as possible, he can hear shuffling sounds and an low wailing alarm coming from the doorway of the cabin. 

There's a purple X emerging from the darkness…

It's Uzi.

She's covered in oil and has… wings!? THE FUCK!? She's got some fleshy wings emerging from her back and and! She's got a tail thing too!

What kind of horror movie type bulshit is this? 

Uzi looks like an rabid animal right now as she scans the trail of oil coming from the girl, Apparently, bisected horizontally earlier. In the shine of the two moons, uzi Spreads her wings and takes flight into the night in search of more prey to devour. 

…

…

Fucking. Hell.

Coming out from his Hiding spot David makes his way to the cabin and he just stands at the doorway and looks in horror at the state of the room. All along the wooden walls is flesh. Undulating sinews, muscles, and veins creping around the posts of the room. On the floor are streaming puddles of oil splashed around almost every surface. 

Along the back of the room is what appears to be an empty cocoon attached to the flesh on the ceiling. 

The other teen that had the green eyes is torn to pieces across the floor with his head not even showing the fatal error message. 

Uzi’s bat backpack is lying on its side and is too covered in oil and blood(?). There's actually a limb poking out of it.

If I had the Ability to gag right now I'd be doing it.

I'm just going to blow this building up. Whatever this flesh thing is is obviously unnatural and is, somehow, connected to Uzi...

At the moment she doesn't seem like she’s all there right now and he would rather not have to deal with this any more than he alredy is.

Stepping towards the backpack he picks it up and zips it up and slings it across his back. He is also going to ignore the oil and blood (?) on his back now and place a pound of c4 down in the middle of the room with a timer of 5 min. 

Let's hope no one bats an eye at that. 

‘Did I just make a bat pun?’ was his unhelpful thought as he left the building and made his way through the trees and towards the lake. 

He's got a good/bad feeling that she went there.

After he sees the extinguished fireplace and toppled chairs on the lake he sees the body of that snooty teen leaking oil due to lacking a head on his sholders.

Jesus. 

The bisected girl is there too. Was she trying to warn them?

In the distance he can hear a shout of “Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!” come from the woods. Great, more people Dying. My favorite. 

Better go see what that's  all abou-

The sound of an explosion booms through the air as the quieter sound of a building collapses soon after joining the noise. 

Oh right. The C4. 

What was I doing again? Oh yeah, Find Uzi.

Making his way deeper into the lit forrest he hears a sikening snap go off up ahead of him. Keeping his Distance again he finds Uzi through the foliage running on all fours towards one of the Worker Drones being held up by the neck with a purple solver before being blocked and pushed away by V's wings, with a powerful slash by V, Uzi's wing and arm cut off.

She lands ungracefully under a fallen tree.

V says to the worker “Killing her, Not saving you.” The drone with the hollow bow only responded with “Okay, mom.” dropping her face to the snow from passing out. 

As V gets closer to the fallen Uzi she draws out her claws. 

Uzi calls out  “V… Please…!”

while V only states “New body, same horrors. Huh, Cyn?”

Who the hell is Cyn?

But ‘Uzi’ just says “I... don't know... who that is... Can I... talk to N...?” 

Is Uzi being possessed by Cyn? Is N that other Dissasembler?

But before David could think more on that V States “Tch. I'll make sure you can't.” But before V could Do anything a manic Giggle comes out of Uzi as her tail lunges for her, V manages to dodge but gets bitten on the arm by the thing and is flung into an open clearing as her forearm gets ripped from its socket. Uzi Giggles again as she breaks the sword off the limb and sends it flying at V with her solver. V uses her other sword arm to fling it away but gets grabbed by the neck and gets pinned against a tree. As V goes to retaliate with a rocket launcher, Uzi captures the still flying broken sword and jammed it into the side of V's head. 

The rocket gets shot as a Hazard Symbol appears on V's Visor. David Watches as the missile misses its intended target and instead lands next to the pink eye’d camper that just goes “Ugh” before the rocket sends her flying towards…

him…

OH SHIT CATCH HER! was the only coherent thought as David sprints to the flying drone just to do that. 

Huh. He caught her, bridal style too. 

David sees himself in her visor. she sees herself from the oval reflection of his eyes.

…

She looks up to the top of his head and sees 5 red-orange eyes analyzing her for any damage. When her eyes go hollow with realization of what caught her, she takes a deep breath to scream. David just places His hand over Her mouth to stop her from making any noise. 

“Please don't scream, I'm not going to hurt you.” is the first thing David says to the short Drone in his arms. But She didn't seem to comprehend anything as she desperately tried to get out of his (Surprisingly strong) hold.

“H-Hey please calm down!” he exclaimed silently “If you keep squirming around like that i'm going to drop you!” All he got was a defiant response and some intelligible muffled words. 

“Well exxuuuuses me Princess! If I wasn't the one to catch you would have landed on that!” he says a little louder as he turns his head to the general location of where she would have landed. She takes a cautionary glance past him to see sharp jagged rocks pointing up into the sky. After seeing that she got a couple more worry lines as it sunk in that she almost died. 

Just before David goes to talk again the pair both hear a scream as Uzi gets flung into the sky. 

{*Start blasting off.mp3*Looks like team Rocket is blasting off again!} is what David's visor displays as the audio file plays out finishing with the twinkle sound at the end. {*.mp3 end*}

I'm just going to ignore that.

“So anyways,” he says as he turns back to the drone ”I'm not going to hurt you. So please don't scream?” She looks at him with an unimpressed face. “Well alright fine! You at least owe me not to scream as soon as I take my hand off your mouth!” he says sternly. After thinking about it for a bit she begrudgingly nods her affirmation and David promptly removes his hand from her mouth. 

“Are you going to put me down?” she challenged. 

“Yeah here,” he said as he set her down and continued with “Don't run off just yet.”

She just scoffs at that.

“Please?” David asks, looking down at her pleadingly.

She just stares up at him for a bit and then says “Ugh, Fine! what Do you want?” 

“Okay first, what's your name?” he asks the drone.

Her immediate response is “What's yours?” with an accusation.

Huh, He can feel His eye twitching, and hear it too. what an odd feature to put into a drone.

Willing himself to calm down a bit he Responds with “David, again yours?”

He can see her give him a look up and down of him and finally saying “Lizzy” after a second or two.

“Well nice to meet you Lizzy, i'm not really sure what the whole deal is with the other Disassembly Drones and what the hell is happening with Uzi but i'll just be leaving now.” He went to do just that but a sound of something crashing down to the ground caught both of their attention. 

Looking over David and Lizzy could see past the trees in a clearing N holding Uzi in his arms as they were talking to each other. 

“On second thought i'll stay for just a second longer.” he said to lizzy. He continued with “Could you do me a favor and not tell anyone that you saw me? I mean if you can't do that tell them if they, like, threaten you or something. If they, like, don’t bring it up, just don't tell them?” 

“Ugh, yeah alright whatever, just get out of my face.” was her response as she started to walk away. After a few steps she looks over her shoulder and sees that  he's already gone. 

As the wind wails lizzy mutters outloud “What a weirdo.”

Over the wind she can almost make out a faint “I heard that.”

Chapter Text

Lizzy’s been having a horrible night. Uzi managed to grab the whole class and go on this stupid camping trip and for what!? Just so she could go nuts and kill everybody?! 

I mean even V managed to hold back! and she's the murder drone! I mean even though she and V are besties and all she knows is that V's got a short temper, she only killed one nobody and threatened the rest of the class with the bow she stole from Emily.

Going to have to repress the visual of her head being ripped off by Uzi. She wasn't, like, cool or anything but she didn't deserve that! 

She doesn't give a shit about Brandon, She didn't even like Him that much with his stupid annoying voice. Good riddance.

She might miss Rebecca though she wanted to make up after calling her out at prom but I guess she won't get the chance now…

After walking away from David (who the hell is that guy??) and catching up with V she see’s Uzi in N’s arms as Uzi goes for a hug. and says “ew.”

V looks over to her and bites back with “Don't patronize me.”

Lizzy just says back “What? I think it's gross all by myself. God, you're a diva lately.” as she rolls her eyes and walks away.

She misses the appreciative smirk that V shoots back at her back as she makes her way back to the bus. 

Neither notice a glint of something fast and shiny goes by in the dense woods. 

-

After the group of drones, or what's left of it, huddles nearby the main lodge of Camp 98.7; She can’t help  but think back to the argument that V and N got into. There's some tea there and she wants to kinda pry that out of V's Head and pretty face…

Oh, her core temperature just increased. 

Slapping the blush off her cheeks she starts to head toward the bus but something catches her attention. 

In the denser parts of the trees lizzy can sees five red-orange eyes and two reflective ovals standing stark from the shade

Staring right at her. 

How long has HE been there? A small sweat droplet appears on her screen as she locks eyes with him. 

…

After a moment she wipes away the droplet and gives him an aloof look. 

He just stands there with a neutral expression until…

| Hi | appears on his screen.

She shoots back with | What do you want? | with a small frown. 

All he puts is | … | for a moment before slowly writing out | So um… could you help me get on the bus? | 

She just stares at him in bafflement before demanding | Why the hell would I do that?? |

He cautiously put | Uh, kindness? |

She's getting a migraine | KINDNESS!? | Flashes across her screen. 

There's a bit of a pause before putting | …so is that a no? |

She is so done with this shit | Yeah. it’s a no! Bye!| As she turns to walk towards the rest of the group she got softly hit in the head by a pinecone. turning back around she practically yelled out | WHATS YOUR FUCKING DEAL JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!!!|  with anger symbols highlighting her annoyance.

| Sorry | is all he wrote and continued with | What if I owe you one? No strings attached deal, one use only. You help me out and I do something for you later on? | 

That gave her pause and made her think for a bit. She could literally ask this guy for anything and he’d do it…

…

| What's the terms? | She’s not just going to agree immediately before she gets the full picture.

on his visor an image of an white, four-legged creature with a large head, big black eyes, and a neutral expression takes up his screen as confetti explodes from the background with the words “YIPPIE” at the bottom of the screen. 

| I didn't agree to anything! | she reminds as his visor shows a | Oh right! |

This guy…

| I just need you to distract V as I sneak onto the bus. | was his reply.

…

| fine | 

|YIPP-   |STOP WITH THE YIPPIE THING! |   | aw 😥|

–

I can't believe I'm doing this. This is so stupid. 

Walking up to V she grabs her attention by saying “So… crazy night, huh?” man thats so lame,  i'm dying inside (aaaaaaaa-)

V only responds with “Mmh, right.” as lizzy tries to walk a bit faster to the long legged Disassembler. As she get to the steps of the bus lizzy has the sudden feeling that someone is behind her, a sweat droplet appears on her visor as she shakily steps onto the bus. as she walks in front of V she sits down at the second seat on the left and says “Want to sit together?” to V.  She just rolls her eyes as she takes her seat.

“Thank you for such an honor” V says sarcastically. 

While Lizzy looks at V sitting down she can see a tall drone quietly make his way by with a hood over his head going unnoticed by V,

 somehow…

Whatever the hard parts over now. 

Whatever. 

-

After the Bus driver starts the engine and they start to head off back to outpost 3. The Teacher turns to V and asks “So, missing some campers here...” as Lizzy is scrolling through her phone.

V turns her head a bit and looks at N and Uzi as they doze off. 

with a sigh she says “Yo, I get hungry, idiot.” while she grabs the seat cushion in front of her and leans in teeth bared. 

With his monotone voice he replies with “No name calling. Just a question.” as V leans back into her seat, put out by the lack of a fear response.

-

In the middle of the bus two drones sit next to each other. It's a little awkward but the taller drone of the two asks “So… Have any hobbies?” to the shorter drone with neon green eyes and a backwards cap.

Chapter Text

After getting Lizzy's help with getting on the bus it was surprisingly easy to get near the front of the line with his hood over his eyes and just go and take a seat. Keeping his tail coiled around the back of his hoodie was easy enough so for the most part he just looks like an every day drone to the other workers. 

A completely normal 6ft five fingers drone with eyes that act more like mirrors than LED’s. 

‘This will go fine’ he thinks as he wills himself to be unimportant to the other Teens passing by.

The first spot he decided to ask was in the middle of the bus on the left side nearby where the covering of where the wheels are. He always kinda liked that spot on the bus so maybe that's why he gravitated towards it. One of the first things that David did as soon as he sat down was to tuck Uzi's Bat Backpack under his seat in hopes of the thing not being spotted, unfortunately that left him with not much to do with his hands but he’ll just have to deal with it. 

Looking out the thin window there’s only about 5 drones coming towards the bus. As he lets his mind wander a bit looking out as the wind makes the nearby trees sway to its soft howls, A distant memory pops up from the depths of his mind. 

Low enough for his own ears to hear, there's the soft sound of a piano he knows all too well, send sweet soothing nostalgia through his entire being.

{*Start audio_file Minecraft.mp3*}

It’s almost like he’s home again.

…

He doesn't notice about 3/4ths of the way through the song another person sits next to him. After the last note of the song is played he finally gets out of the soft hold of past memories he notices that the bus is moving.

After a minute or two of silent contemplation he looks around him a Bit and finally notices the shorter drone next to him.

When the hell did he get here?

They both meet eye contact for a moment and look away after a half second. Awkward…

So to try to make this less awkward he asks the green eyed drone “So… have any hobbies?”

Seems like a safe question to ask right. Yeah.

The neon green eyed responded with “You bet I do!” with a finger gun in David's direction.

“Oh?” David asks, a bit curious about what drones do for fun, “Well go on then.”

“Cool alright! I play football for Outpost Three.” He said, clearly loving his hobby.

“Ya mind telling me about It? I've only played a couple times.” Was David's response before seeing the drones eyes visibly brighten in the dim bus.

‘Oh dear…’ was David's only thought as he hunkers down to listen to the exited drone.

-

He's been talking about football for half an hour straight. No breathing. No stops at all in his sentence. All football. without end… When will it end?

He managed to fit so much information about football in half an hour that he added three times as much information about the subject that David already had stored. Which seems impossible considering he has almost every article and Wikipedia page about football stored into his mind.

He feels a bit faint about all the facts he just got and rapidly compressed into manageable file sizes. 

He decides to cut in with “Hey man can you wait a second? My processor is turning to soup.” with a small grin. 

“Oh, uh, oops” he says sheepishly and continues with “I really like football sorry if I over did it.”

“It's alright, just getting a bit overwhelmed, also take a breath you look like you're going to pass out.” David replied as the smaller drone takes in a long needed breath to help cool his systems.

“Phew, heh almost knocked myself offline for a moment.” said the recovering drone.

“Oh hey, I know you mentioned a couple of your classmates during your whole spiel, but I forgot to ask. What is your name?” David asked while tilting his head a bit. 

“Aw shoot, I'm sorry I forgot to introduce myself! It’s Thad.” Thad said a bit embarrassed. After getting a thoughtful look he asks “Wait what's your name? Aren't you a part of the class?”

Ah shoot, need a cover story. UHHHHHHHHH- ooh got it!

“Nice to meet you, I'm David. and the reason that i'm here is because… im a…transfer student?” David said, trying to inject a bit of confidence in his words.

“Oh? from which colony?” Thad asks, leaning in a bit. 

Shit. 

“Outpost 2, I decided to transfer over because I hear that it's safer in Outpost 3?” with a bit of a pause he asks “It is safer here right?” trying to inject a bit of worry into his voice.

Thad leans back into his seat and replies with “Oh yeah! plus! We got the murder drones to stop killing us and stuff!” after a moment he continues with “I'm even friends with one, N&Ms over by Uzi!” pointing his thumb behind his back.

Huh, wonder how they got them to stop killing worker drones. Well mostly anyways, V killed a drone in the first 10 seconds of showing up to the camp. 

Right when David was going to ask about what happened to make the Dissasemblers stop well… disassembling, but he felt the bus lurch to a stop.  

The sound of the driver saying “Whoa, easy!” As the bus stops, ” Good girl.” Could be heard as two soft thumpts hit the top of the vehicle. 

“Well, we're here!” said Thad as he gets up and stretches a bit. “Nice meeting you David” he says, reaching out for a fist bump. David smiles a bit and reaches out his hand for the bump. there's a bit of a twinkle in his eye as instead of bumping like Thad thought, David instead grabs his hand and makes some realistic sounds of a manual car before saying “Stick shift!” as he ‘switches gears.’

Thad just looks at him a bit funny and lets out a soft snort before saying “Dude you're almost as weird as uzi.”

All David does is let go of Thad's hand and shrug. “I think i'm ok with that” he says before waving thad off, “I'll be out in a minute.”

With a wave back to David Thad walks off the bus and towards the gates of Outpost 3.

With a sigh he reaches under the seat and grabs Uzis backpack and waits for all of the drones to get off the bus. As a pair of yellow and purple figures are last off the bus he stands up with his head lightly hitting the roof and covers his extra eyes with his hood. 

Climbing down the stairs of the bus he looks to the front gate of outpost 3 open and ready for him to just walk right in. 

…

He's standing in the middle of the door just at its precipice, and blankly looking in. As Thad turns around and spots him he waves. He can see him getting N and Uzis attention as he says something about an exchange student at the door. They see him.

David slowly reaches for his hood and pulls it off his head, silvery hair flops out and parts to the side like it always does. (Well, did. a long time ago.)

He unravels his tail from the back of his black hoodie, it stretches out as it lazily waves in the calm air.

V and Lizzy are looking at him now, so are Thad, N, and Uzi. Their eyes are hollow.

David just thinks for a bit before saying the first thing that comes to mind.

“May I come In?”

The sound sits heavy in the silence.

Chapter Text

So this is a bit strange. He's been standing here for like a full minute and nobody really moved or said anything back… should he try talking again? As he continues to look back at the five drones he keeps his right hand preoccupied by tapping his thumb across his fingers in a random pattern. 

“Are you alright?” he asks the group as they continue to stare at him. 

Suns coming up soon might be a good idea to look around the place for somewhere to stay if they aren't going to let me in…

…

Clearing his throat a bit he says to uzi “Hello, nice to meet you?” he pauses and waits for a reply, none comes. After a bit he continues with “You forgot your bag when you well… uh… yeah.” He brings his hand up and cups it around the back of his neck and leaves it there while He slowly sets the bag onto the ground and swaps his free hand for a simple extendable claw. He gently grabs the loop of the bag and delicately extends it out 20ft to where Uzi is standing, while the group of drones just watch the whole thing unfold in front of them. 

There's an unfortunate amount of what appears to be blood and oil caking the thing and one of the wings is bent but at least it's all in one piece.

Right?

As he brings his Back claw back and swaps out his hand again, looking at the group as a whole they're just back to Staring again. Well there are some differences now, most of the group seems to be confused more than anything, except for lizzy who took a quick picture of David and her eyes filled in again. V looks like she’s been caught unaware, N looks a little frightened but still confused and Uzi and Thad just look perplexed looking at him. 

He could take a quick sec to put them on the mini map since it doesn't look like they're moving for the moment. Let me think… I've got Uzi locked in but nobody else… oh that's odd, Disassembly drones don't show up on the map, i'll have to fix that. a quick edit of the software and a restart and the maps back up. Alright, now let's just go with eye color and for V and N just put their names on their yellow dots to not confuse them from each other and done! After a small smile to himself, he blinks back into the present to the rest of the drones still looking at him. 

Going back to a neutral expression he thinks a bit on what he should do. I mean what did he really expect from getting this? 3 out of the 5 don't really know him at all and he’s only properly met two of them Thad for the longest definitely, but that was just David nodding at the right times for about half an hour as the sports fanatic talked his ear off.

Well he doesn't have any ears now… wonder what it's like getting an ear piercing.

Focus David.

“So… how are things Thad? Lizzy?” David put out to the pair of (normal) worker drones.

Lizzy is the first one to speak up “What are you doing here??” she said, obviously annoyed.

David just looked at her and said “Waiting to be let in?” she just glared at him and replied with “Are you stupid or something?”

He actually thinks about the question for a second and responds truthfully with “Most of the time, yeah.”  with a small nod. 

“Y-your a Murder Drone?” Thad questions David as he looks at David with caution. with that that made David frown a bit “You didn't notice?” he asks thad a bit exasperated he continued with, “Thad, you sat next to me for the whole bus ride! didnt you think it was weird that a really tall drone with some red-orange lights under a black hoodie was at least a little bit strange?”

He looked athe the group again darting between everyone's eyes before saying “If I hadn't put my hood down and just walked into Outpost 3 are you telling me that none of you would have noticed?” in clear bafflement. he looked over at V and N before saying “I know we've all had a bit of a wild night and all but you two literally have an almost 360 degree view of your surroundings!” he looks over at N “Dude! I, literally, stared directly at you as you were making your way to the back of the bus!” still with a note of bafflement at the drones in front of him. 

V looked at N with an unimpressed look as he recalled the memory for himself, his eyes visibly getting bigger by his past self's blindness. His astute response was “Wa-you-huh???” 

As David turned to V next he said “You were literally the first person on the bus and I'm sure the only reason that I made it this far is because lizzy distracted you while I just walked behind you! and at some point you looked back at N and Uzi and I was in your field of vision as Thad was informing me the best way to throw a football to sail over the goal posts!”

Looking at Uzi, David says “You've got these doors to keep Disassembly Drones out right?”

“Tch, not my stupid idea was my frikin’ dads fault." She said to David obviously not very fond of her dad.

“Yeah, ok, cool. So it looks like you've got 4 doors to stop intruders from getting in, here's your problem. If you're going to be letting people in. Why the hell wouldn't you verify that there aren't any unwanted persons in the group of people trying to get into the outposts?”

as he looks to the ceiling “And here's the kicker! there's vents all across the ceiling starting from the second door and, I assume, go through the entire building of this complex?” he says letting them fill in the gap of logic. Done with his small rant he takes a couple deep breaths and stares back at the group. N and V are shifting a bit uncomfortably and the other drones just look at each other and then up at the ceiling vents at almost the same time. 

“So let me ask again” David says as he gets the drones attention again and continues with “May I come in? It's not like you're trying very hard to keep strangers out…”  with a pointed stare at Uzi. 

“Bite me!” She says defiantly. 

David stiffens as his teeth become more triangular and His eyes become more stylised empty eyes at the edge of his screen.

 {*start Audio_file ChainChomp.mp3*}

Just as he's about to lunge at Uzi he manages to smack his head and stop himself from attacking the group. 

Regaining his composure he looks back to see Uzi has her solver out, V has her swords out and N has a machine gun pointing at him. After looking at all of them he says ”Sorry, sometimes certain phrases mix up my processor.”  He looks at Uzi “I don't mean to attack or antagonize you, I'm fairly certain that we're on the same team here Uzi.” 

She looks at him and demands “Oh yeah? What team’s that?” as she gets ready to get into a fighting stance.

“The Team to stop the Absolute Solver of course.” He said and finished with, “You do like living on this planet don't you?”

He looks to V and says “Although you did call it something different, Didnt you V?”

With that he turns around and extends his wings out and sends a small smile and wave to the group as he heads to somewhere safe from the rising sun.

-

The bat backpack falls to the ground with a thunk and the whole room looks at the sudden noise, Some with weapons at the ready, only to realize it was just the bag slumping to the ground. Uzi walks over to the door controls and shuts them out from the rest of the world. As she turns to V and N she sees them looking at each other with concern with the new player on the field. 

As she squints at Lizzy and Thad as she asks “Well who's that guy huh? Seemed to know you two pretty well.” with her hands on her hips.

-

Deep in Outpost 3, in the Cryogenics chamber the sound of many legs skittering across cold metal can be heard.

Chapter Text

N was fiddling with his tail again. He almost poked himself about 3 times in the past 5 minutes since that thing(He?) was gone. Sitting on Mr. Uzi’s couch N can hear the small things coming from the cold metallic floor of the living room. 

Whatever it was just… stood there. he knows that He isn't the most clever one of the team

J had reminded him enough over the years for him to know that

But he knows that whatever he is isn't a normal drone. He knows deep in his core that that guy wasn't a Disassembly Drone either. But his processor  loops back to this one question.

What is it?

‘Well I'll just figure out what it isn't then.’ thought N as he tried to stop his leg from bouncing. He isn't a worker drone that's for sure, workers don't have our five eyes and wings after all so that option is out of the question. He can't be a Disassembly Drone can he? 

No we aren't made that tall! The guy was at least a foot taller than me! it was weird to have to look up to people like that, He's more used to it being the other way around after all…

Back on track N!

He couldn't be a Disassembler because of how he acted either. He just stood there after giving Uzi her cute bat backpack, staring at us as we stared at him. He just asked to be let in like an ancient vampire or something while the sun slowly rose behind him. 

A sweat droplet appears on his screen as a shiver shoots down his spine as he remembers the almost lifeless stare he gave all of them. When he stared at N he could feel himself wanting to bolt away and flee from those reflective eyes. 

and that's another thing, His eyes were mirrors. When he made eye contact with him, he could see himself looking back after zooming in his vision enough.

He shivered but not due to the cold of the room. 

There is something seriously wrong with that guy. He knows it, V knows it, and Uzi could feel something was off too. The pair of worker drones didn't seem to notice that part, but were afraid of the ‘Murdur Drone’ that was asking to be let into their home. 

Is this what the worker drones feel when we would find other bunkers and well…

This feeling of ‘other’ when looking at us. I still don't understand how Uzi doesn't flinch from being around us. 

“Ow.” N said a bit monotone as he poked his hand again. With a sigh he sticks his hand in his mouth, stopping the nanites from devouring his hand. The clock on the wall ticks away as he takes his hand and looks it over again. No lasting damage. Good.

He still can't figure out why the real eyes on his head were orange. There's only really two colors that those lights show, yellow for normal and all red for dead. so its concerning that the guys eyes were orange…

Is He dead? or was he alive? or maybe both?

Is he a zombie? Is that why he made His instincts go crazy when N was nearby him?

After a moment of staring at his four fingered hands he said aloud “If zombie drones exist then why not zombie Disassembly Drones?”

Chapter Text

“ow”

“ow”

“ow”

“ow” could be heard in a monotone voice. As a figure that was emitting dark smoke traveled about 30 feet into the air in search of more shade from the sun. 

It seems like the clouds hate him today because this is the clearest sky he had seen of the planet yet. Even though he wouldn't go outside much because you know.

“ow”

“ow”

The sun hurts,

“ow”

 a lot.

Well it's better than being dead immediately like a normal Disassembly Drone. So whatever, I'll just have to deal with it because BS couldn't change this body enough to make it cool whilst being in the sun.

Is it even called the sun here? It is a different solar system after all. 

How is BS anyway? I'll have to check up on them/it.

Through the decrepit street covered in a thick layer of reflective snow David makes his way to a place to spend the day without pain from the debilitating sun. There's gotta be someplace to hide away for at least a moment. On a building that broke in two and landed on top of a smaller building, there were some large icicles hanging below the shaded area. Going a bit faster he flies to the spot and finally reveals in the coolness of the shade. 

Still feel like I'm melting though. 

Looking up to the icicles he looks for a projectile in his hud that he could use to make them fall until, 

“We got frickin ninja stars!?” he exclaims as he prints a few in his right hand. As he splays them apart the 3 ninja stars he looks up again to the icicles and guesstimates the best way to get three targets and flicks his arm so fast that its almost a blur as the 8 sided stars go flying. 

One misses and flies off into the distance 

the second one embeds itself 5 inches into the metal wall of the base of the fallen building.

The third one flew true and hit a 8 foot tall icicle sending it down towards the ground. As it falls he wraps his wings around himself and hears a resounding crack of ice breaking on concrete into many pieces.

Gotta work on his aim it seems, or just use the target lock…

Nah. What's the fun in that?

Putting his wings away he strolls over to one of the pieces and places It on his neck. He gives an involuntary sigh as the piece rapidly starts to melt and turn to water and then to steam. After it's all melted away he finds another piece about the size of a cigar and puts it in his teeth like one too. He rolls his thumb over an imaginary lighter and makes the *chik chik* noise of flint making a spark. After taking a ‘drag’ a puff of steam comes out of his mouth as he gives a little chuckle at himself.

Seeing as there isn't much to do in this broken city he sees one of the looted cars and heads over to take a nap. The rusted thing looks like it's seen better days that's for sure,  front windshields broken, tires are missing, they did leave the hood of the car so might as well use it. standing near the front of the car he lifts up the hood breaking the locking mechanism and bends the metal so it twists up into a soft U shape to lay somewhat comfortably. With a soft “hup” he gets onto the deformed hood and lays down with his legs hanging off the edge of the car. Putting on his hood he tries to get comfortable as he uses arms behind his head as a pillow.

Setting up a timer, he sets it to 2 hours before he goes and doses off with soft snores. 

-

He only had about half an hour on his timer left before the sound of small footsteps woke him up from his nap. Blinking the nonexistent crusties from his eyes he looks at his mini map to see a small dot near the icicle that fell. 

Wonder who that could be.

With furrowed ‘eyebrows’ he starts to get up and see who’s disturbing him from his nap. Still sitting on the hood of the car he looks over at that direction and see's 

…oh

oh

There's a Drone kid there.

Oh, he can feel himself start to panic. What does he do!? there isn't anyone else around! Is this Kid wandering out here ALONE RIGHT NOW!

What the fuck?!

Seems like they haven't seen me. Damn they are tiny, only about up to my hip so what that's like 3 feet tall??

Seems to be looking up at the ninja star that got embedded into the wall, just casually walking he doesn't make all that much noise but if he actually tries he can go as low as 10 decibels with his movements. The little drone in the snow doesn't notice as he walks up to them.

As he thinks for a bit about what to say he starts off with, “Kid don't move.”

They freeze almost completely which is impressive actually but shouldn't be something a kid knows how to do. A moment of them not doing anything prompts him to say “Remember to breathe kid, take some breaths ok?” he said softly to the child, to exemplify his point he breathed a bit louder in a consistent pattern for the kid to follow. With a shaky start the child tries to copy him and eventually eavens out to something more normal. “Ok good job,” he said to try and reassure the child, “You're doing great, what's your name kiddo?”

The girl a bit shakily says, “M-my Name i-is Alexei.” 

“That's a lovely name dear, if you can… would you tell me why you're out here?” 

At that he could only hear faint sniffles coming from the girl. It took a surprising amount of control to not just take the girl into his arms and reassure her that everything is going to be alright. 

“Alexei…” he said as gentle as possible, “I'm not going to hurt you alright? I promise you.” with a bit of hesitation he then asked “Alexei, honey, can you please turn around for me?”

Bright, light blue eyes stare at him with tears freely flowing down her visor and he can hear his heart breaking into pieces looking at the girl. There's fear and sadness in the face of the young drone as she cries big fat digital tears, she looks like she's going to just break into a million pieces at any moment.

Slowly kneeling down to her level he tries to keep his composure so as to not stress the kid out any more than they already are and says “kid… where… Where are your parents?”

She only continues to cry with softs noises of distress coming out of her.

Oh he's shed a tear now, fuck. wiping the tear away from his cheak he asks, “Do you need a hug?” as he waits for an answer he got it by the girl hurling herself at him and clinging on for dear life. He makes sure to not crush her in his strength as he holds on tight to the shaking girl. 

At the moment he can do nothing but hold on and give her as much reassurance as he can give to her. After what seems like an eternity he feels the sun is creeping towards him, looking at her, he sees that she passed out and is in sleep mode. 

As he looks at her sleeping form he can slowly feel his face harden in realization of who had done this to her.

Murder Drone nearby… perfect I needed more of me here anyways…

Getting up with the girl in my arms I make my way away from the sun in search for a spot to hide Alexei.

-

 In the mind of Serial Designation D there are three minds, there SD-D, there's David, and there's… BS. Now you might ask “well who/what is BS?” BS or ‘bull-shit’ is what I call them, is a Beta version of the solver that I managed to sneak away from the JCJ's servers I was stored in. A long time ago a line of drones was made by JCJenson that promised more efficient and powerful drones to take the front stage as their ‘Best product yet’. Each drone of that line was injected with the 1.0.0 solver program and to JCJ's embarrassment didn't seem to do anything, so the program was canceled while the droids were sold out to the masses as regular worker drones. Now the drones themselves did not appear to be doing anything different while alive. That is until they were thrown away, and every once in a while a drone would just wake up again… trapped inside a pile of their own kind's bodies. 

It seems like one of the infected decided, or was taken control of by the solver program, and took my home away from me…

Earths gone…I hadn't even noticed.

-

Getting the child into a nearby motel he sets her down on the dust covered bed and sat down heavily in a desk chair while thinking of his next steps. 

Could take her to Outpost 3, they would have the resources to take care of her better than me. 

I need to deal with the Murder Drone in question and either kill 'em or take them over like SD-D. 

Looking over to the sleeping form or the kid he realizes he doesn't know who, what, when, and where about the Murder Drone that got Alexei's parents. 

Inside his code where he keeps himself, SD-D locked away, and BS he goes and gives a bit of a shove at their code to get their attention from my memories. 

[You busy? I need your help.] he asked the program after looking at a distant memory of my long life.

[No] they said, [Just going over your teen years] they say full of mirth. 

[Oh lord.] he says, conveying a wry expression, [I think I’ll regret teaching you how to be a person one day.] with a thought he continued with, [How is the personification doing by the way. Got a name I can use yet?]

[Silly, you wouldn't last a day without me!] David could only nod with the point before they continued with, [well, no… not yet.]

[Well that's ok, take your time. you'll figure it out.] He said trying to reassure them before asking, [Hows your morals coming?] with a bit of a serious note. 

[I won't need a cricket to make good decisions… why do you ask?]

[...take a look at the past 2 hours of my memory.] is all he said.

…

[Oh I see.] is all they said for a moment seeing and feeling what I had felt at the time. [What do we need to do?] was their response, wanting to get down to business.

-

SD-W knew that S and P don’t give a shit about her, W knows that each time she goes solo for a week or two that they just don't care anymore. Honestly she's sick with having to see both of their stupid faces as they bitch at me about my ‘contributions’ to the team. We're here to kill the toasters, why would it matter if I'm not around the both of them every single day when I still do my job and get my kills. Literally the only reason she hasn't ditched those two is the thought of them hunting her down for betraying JCJ and killing her forever. no resets. no backups just, gone. and the thought alone makes her  stomach churn uneasily. 

Or it might be the head she ripped off and scarfed down in front of the ‘husband’ of the drone she was eating. 

Nah

It does leave a sour taste in her mouth that she wasn't able to get the kid toaster, little brat managed to get away before she could tear its insides ou- 

-

David watches from the ground as Murder Drone SD-W falls out of the sky with her head cut off her body. When he walks up to the body, he binds it in wire and places a very special object to where her heart would be. 

Ninja stars are neat.

-

You see there's a locked Item that cant be accessed normally unless granted permission by a technician of JCJ. When unlocked, the Disassembly drone leader of that squad has the ‘responsibility’ to make sure their subordinates don't go against the company. 

Now, what David and BS did was simple. Take out all the virus stuff from the stick and make a new version that:

1. Deletes the Absolute Solver from a Disassembly Drones systems and replacing BS and David as an admins.
2. Restraining the original owner of the body to a temporary blank room inside of their mind.
3. Unzip David and BS into the new body

Just like that there's now another David on Copper-9 

A moment of repairing itself the body now has a new head, as it opens it eyes instead of the standard yellow of a Disassembly drone it’s replaced by two ‘Mirrors’ that peer around the world curiously. 

David looks at David.

They smile.

Chapter Text

“So. You situated in there?” he asked the drone tied up on the ground. 

“Yeah went through fine, no remnants of the previous solver.” said the drone in the same voice as the male drone.

…

They both snort.

“Little strange to hear my own voice coming out of another person's voice box.” he remarked to the still tied up drone. with a questioning look he ask’s “Hey want to pick out a nickname or something to not get confused with each other?”

“I'll alter the voice in a minute, want to untie me?” 

thinking about it with a look of deep thought he simply said “nah” while undoing the knots in the wire. 

With a roll of their reflective eyes the drone gets up examining the new body…and promptly falls over face first into the snow. 

“Not a word…” They state in a monotone voice, face still in the snow.

He struggles to keep a neutral expression while only giving a thumbs up, while his lips quiver with held back laughter. 

“The Girl Drones Legs are Sticks Man! How the hell am I going to walk in this?!” said the fallen drone as they glared at David standing there, with his stupid balanced stance and practical legs.

“Dude, just swap 'em out or something!” he finally said to the shorter drone, “Besides, we got work to do.” lending a hand down to the drone.

Grabbing and hauling themselves up, The drone wobbles a bit as they get used to the almost stilts of legs on the new body.

“You're like a baby deer.” he says snickering a bit as the other drone just glares at him and says “You keep talking about that i'll waddle over and kick you right between the legs!”

“Well sucks for you! We're robots and I don't have any wee dangly bits to kick.” He retorts with a wry smile.

“Drat! Bested again!” They said snapping their fingers in feigned annoyance. 

They look at eachother and double up in hysterical laughter. 

“God we are not ok huh?” he asks the drone through his laughter. 

“I’d think not! We're like 10 times as old as a regular human.” said the shorter drone wiping away digital tears from their eyes. “Hmm, a nickname huh? how about… Wendy?”

“Wendy hm? The burger joint?” David asked Wendy.

“No silly, the character! Ya know gravity falls?” Wendy said exasperated but continued thoughtfully with “I miss hamburgers…”

The two continue to walk through the abandoned city as snow billows around them, both reminiscing about things they miss from their previous life. 

About a block away from the motel David had left Lexei in Wendy clears her throat,”I'll wait here and head off after a bit, don't want to scar the kid anymore than needed after all” in a voice that resembled the long dead actor from the show of their childhood.

“Sounds good to me, voice sounds good too.” he replied, “Know what to do? what's the plan you got?”

“I’m wanting to go out and tag the other drones of SD-W's team…” she said before continuing with “I've got a cursory glance at W's memories… It's not good.”

“Alright, if you manage to get both of them come back here and send the others off to get more DD’s.” with a moment of thought he continues saying, “If we can find a way to extend our maps and make a rudimentary network across the city that would be helpful.”

“I'll have BS look into it” she said with a nod, “Hug goodbye?”

“Yeah.”

They embrace for a moment and David says “Who said self care is hard?”

All he got was the sound of a snort from Wendy and her backing away and extending out her wings, she smiles and says “Bye Dork.” before blasting off into the night sky.

-

Entering the motel with his hood up he makes sure that his tail and red-orange eyes are out of view before letting himself into the room. Lexei is on the dusty bed making a few drawings with the crayons and paper he found near the front desk. 

“I'm back,” he said standing in the doorway, “Are you making pictures?”

Lexei Jumps a bit startled by him suddenly being there before shyly saying, “Yeah…”

Walking over and next to the bed he can see on the spare pieces of paper that there's some vague drawings of flowers and stick figures in a house. “These are lovely, where did you see flowers?” he asked the young girl. 

“Moma showed me flowers in a old book, she’d read to me their names and show me how they used to look.” she said looking up to him with her light blue eyes.

“That's nice” he said while having an Idea. looking over to the spare piece of paper he grabs it and a pair of Red and Green crayons into his right hand. 

He keeps it all to his chest as he turns away from the girl on the bed,”No peeking” he says with a small smile, She gives a small giggle as she mimes covering her eyes. Crumbling the paper into a ball and holding onto the crayons he retracts his hand and absorbs the hand and materials. In his mind he looks for a reference to create a rose from the materials he's got. 

When his hand comes back, in its grasp there's a small rose made of paper and metal to support the somewhat fragile objects of the previous materials he used. The red of the crayon infused with the paper on the head of the rose looked almost realistic if it didn't have small almost life-like veins of what appeared to be silver weaved through the paper of the craft.

Turning around he shows off the metal rose to the girl, “Tada!” with a grin he hands it to the girl’s open hand. “Do be careful with it, it's still mostly paper afterall.”

As she looks over my handy work and says, “Thank you, it's pretty!” while examining the fine details of the Red rose with the silvery edges and veins. 

“Were going to be heading out ok?” He said to the girl, “There's a place nearby that can take care of you.”

“But, why can't you take care of me?” she asks him, “What about the monsters outside?” 

“I'm sorry Lexi I can't keep you forever, and I want to keep you somewhere safe so you can grow into the person you're going to become.” He said softly to the girl, before continuing with reassurance, “The monsters gone now… I made sure of it.”

Standing a bit straighter he said, “Come on now, get your Drawings together.” moving her along. After putting her things into an old pillow case he reaches out for her hand to hold, after he holds onto the small hand in his grip they walk out of the building into the snowy landscape of Copper-9.

Hand in hand.

-

After an hour of walking He could see the pale yellow lights of the bunker door of Outpost 3 in the distance. 

“Almost there!” he said to the young girl. She could only give a small nod staring at the same lights. 

Hm…

He stopped about 50 feet away from the big doors and looked down at light blue eyes looking at him questioningly. As he gets to a knee on the snow he looks right at the girl and asks, “You know how I said that I wouldn't hurt you?” 

When she gives a little nod he takes his hand away from hers and offers up his pinky, at her questioning look he says, “I want to make a promise to you that I would never hurt you, ever.” trying to convey the seriousness of his words he continues with,  “And the most binding oath I know how to give to any one is this, if I ever. Ever! go back on it I would simply keel over and die.”

As Lexei puts out her own ‘pinky finger’ David says, ”I pinky promise to never hurt you Lexei.” 

With the pack sealed, he smiled at the girl and said, ”I haven't been totally honest with you Lexei.” to the girl's confusion he continued, “Don't freak out alright?”

With a nod he slowly puts his hood down and lets her see his head showing 5 red orange eyes on his head. She stiffens and gives out a little gasp, with her eyes hollowing out taking quick breaths. 

Trying to soothe her ”Measure your breaths kiddo, I promised remember?”

She still looks a little scared as she controls her breathing, when it’s leveled out and has less stress lines creasing her eyes she asks, ”W-why?” to his confusion she says, “Why didn't you hurt me?”

A frown pulls his lips down as he tries to answer in a way she understands, “Kids, of all people, should not have to die.” with clear resolve in his voice, “To harm those that are innocent would make me the worst kind of monster out there. Don't you think that there's been enough pain in the world? Well I say no more! No more needless death. No More!...” 

Lexei stares back at him with regular eyes, “o-ok I trust you.”

He gives a big smile at that and extends out a hand for her to grab, after She grabs a hold the pair of them walk to the doors to her safety. (Hopefully)

Getting close enough he raises his fist to knock out the classic ‘Shave and a haircut’ ‘Two bits’ to let them know someone’s there. 

No response…

Looking at his mini map he can see a dot on the other side of the door, with a frown he peers down to the little girl and says, “Can you cover your ears dear? I'm going to knock harder.”

As she steps back and covers where her ears would be, David knocks 3 times on the same spot each time.

The first knock is loud and leaves a scuff mark on the door.

The second one is even louder and leaves a small dent in the door's thick metal.

The final knock he gives would be deafening for any human to hear and leaves a giant dent in the wall of the door. 

looking back at her he sees that she's rattling a bit from the noise, He whispers “Sorry Lexei.” as the girls shaking slows down the door opens just a crack to let whoever's in there look around for what was making the noise.

“Who's out there!” said a male voice looking at the strange pair of drones outside of their home.

“Can you open the door for her?” he said to the drone at the door. At the drones bewildered face he points down at the Drone Child standing next to him.  

Spluttering in anger or fear when taking a closer look at David he yells out “Who are you!”

David Takes a quick breath and states, “Hello my name is David.” while pointing at the kid he says, “This is Lexei.” and finally finishing with, “May we come in? The storm’s picking up.”

He exclaims haltingly, “Wh-no! I am NOT letting YOU in!” exasperated he states "Why in the world would I let More Murder Drones in here?! you think i’m stupid or something!?” he asks the dangerous drone.

Listing his fingers he says, “First off, no, I don't think you're dumb, at the moment I just think you're annoying. Second, I would like to speak to your boss. Ya know Uzi’s dad, the guy who made the doors in the first place?”

All he got was a scoff as the guy replied with,”I don't see the need. Besides, what are you going to do if I don't?” said the shorter drone. 

There's a low shriek of metal as David places his hands on the opening of the door and pushes them apart against the doors power, looking at the now frightened drone David leans In closer to the opening and says, “You call your boss and I don't break the door any more than it already is.” opening the reinforced door an inch more he says, “Your choice…” 

Well he did ask nicely didn't he?

-

N startel’s off of the couch as Uzi's Dad bolts out the door as he yells out, ”THERE’S A MURDER DRONE BREAKING THE DOOR!” scrambling to catch up to the drone, N gets up and sprints after Mr. Uzi down the metal halls of outpost 3. 

What Murder Drone could break Down Mr. Uzis door? When He got in It took almost all of his strength to keep the first door open. His group had not been able to get a dent into the thing in the almost 2 decades of being on copper-9.

He has an uneasy feeling that he might know who’s at the door…

N runs a little faster…

He can see Uzi’s dad opening door number 4 and stepping in, catching his breath. Catching up to the older drone, yelling out “Wait up Mr. Uzi!” he manages to catch his own breath before he opens door 3 and 2 before a wail rips through the man as he falls to his knees as if in mourning before exclamation “NOT THE DOOR'S!”

The silver eyed drone only seems to blink a few times at the outburst before saying “I’m… sorry?” with something resembling concern. something catches His attention as a little voice hidden behind the door says, “Do I have to stay here?”

The taller drone responds with “I think they're all just eccentric here. They seem to mean well anyways.” with a small smile at the small figure. Looking back at the group he see’s N and says, “Oh hey N, you live here or something?”

“Oh no not really, we've just been hanging out at Uzi's place mostly… wait I’m getting off topic! What are you doing here!” 

Before the silvery eyed drone could answer they both looked over at Uzi’s Dad as his wails of despair only got louder. 

“WILL YOU SHUT UP?” He said to the wailing drone, “I'll fix the door after I'm done here ya Drama Queen!”

Getting up like nothing happened he says to the drone at the door, “Right what's your business with Outpost 3?” squinting at the ‘Murder drone.’ 

Eyes flickering rapidly he says, “RIght, ok then. Behind me is a little girl that I found wandering around outside. I thought the best place to put her was with you guys? You do have a type of foster care here right?”

N can feel his own eyes hollow out at the statement, “There's a Kid out there! what do you mean you found her!” his hand reaches the door control before he thinks that it could be a bad idea it opens up slowly relieving the tall drone of his burden.

Shaking the pain from his hands he gives a nod to the little girl, “Lexei found me while I was taking a quick nap.” Reflective eyes look directly at N’s eye's, “She lost her parents today…” it feels like there's something crawling on his back.

“H-how…” N knows how, “Why bring her here?”

“You think she's safer out here?” he scoffs, “She’s got to be with her own people, I want her to have the chance to live out her life and I don't think that she can do it out here.”

He looks to Mr. Uzi and states, ”You keep her safe and happy with a family she loves with an education and I fix your doors so Not even I could get in.”

“YES!” kahn blurts out, “That works perfectly!” he finishes with some nervous laughter. 

“Good.” is all he says to them before softening his expression and kneeling down to the little girl half his height, “Alright dear it's time to say goodbye now. I'll try to visit if you want that?”

“Do I really have to go?” came a small voice with small, light blue, tears flowing down her visor looking at her feet. 

“Lexei look at me.” he said tilting her chin up to look up at him, “You will be ok here, and I'll come by at least once a week. Hug goodbye?” he said, opening his arms to the girl, she didn't hesitate for long before holding onto the orange eyed drone like a Koala he saw from an old human documentary.

N couldn't help but give out a small “Aww“ at the site of them hugging before giving a small “Eep” as the lights flickered overhead as The drone at the door says coldly “N I want to make myself perfectly clear, If you V or Uzi hurt her, hell if anybody in this place hurts her. I will find whoever did it and EVISCERATE them so hard that they won't be anything more than a skidmark on the ground.” 

With a smile with way too many teeth, even for a Disassembly drone, he ‘smiles’ at him and says, “Understand N?” 

All N could do was nod frantically as a dozen sweat droplets appeared on his screen. In one final flash from the lights the teeth were gone, replaced by a neutral expression, ”Good…” looking down at the girl again he said, “Alright now time for me to fix the door.” with a bit of mischief he says, “Go say hello to your uncle N! He’ll make sure to appreciate your art.” that last part was said while he was looking at N.

With a nervous laugh N says “S-sure thing Mr…”

Noticing the pause from N he frowns and says, “Oh sorry N, I must not have introduced myself.” a bit apologetic he continues saying, “It’s David. No mister please, makes me sound old or something.” at the last part he says it in a more joking tone.

N doesn't get it.

Giving a nod to David, N sees his gaze return to Lexei before grabbing her hand and giving a light squeeze and a reassuring smile. Letting go of the girl he gives her a bit of a push on her back and watches as she comes up to N wringing her little hands looking up unto his yellow eye's. 

“...H-hello N.” says the blue eyed girl still looking up at him.

Before N could respond he hears David speak to the door controller, “Hey you. Close the doors about an inch apart would ya?”

The drone looks wary and looks to Uzi’s dad for confirmation, at his nod the WDF worker gives out a sigh and lowers the door to the requested amount. 

“Thanks.” came from the other side of the door as two thuds reverberated off of the heavy door. After a moment nothing happens…

Suddenly silvery tendrils crawl across the heavy door as small groans of metal shifting could be heard before the whole door was covered in silver strands, the amount of heat that was produced was causing the metal of the door to give off a dark red glow coming from where the silver tendrils weave through the reinforced metal. For a second the noises of metal moving stopped before the liquid metal took a different shape. Thin rectangular pieces emerged from the almost liquid as they began to move up and down to draw the heat from the door.

Are those… his Nanites?

After the heat was almost gone from the metal of the door the nanites made their way back to the center of the door back to the drone outside.

Peering in and looking at the leader Of Outpost 3 he asks, “Care for a durability test?”

At his nod David draws his fist back and presumably hits the metal as hard as he could with a massive BANG from the other side of the door.

“And my hand is broken…ow…“ could be heard from the other side, proceeding with some wet snaps and pops from David, “Nevermind it's fixed now!”

Coming up to the crack in the door N asks David the thing he’s been thinking about all day. “What are you?” David seems to pause at that before crouching down and looking at N at his level. 

With a smile to N he says “Im David.” with his head tilted he asked right back "What are you?” 

At that N thinks hard for a good answer but comes to a bit of a blank, “I-I don't really know I guess…”

At that he asks N, “What do you think I am? What do you think you are?”

“Well I know you're not a normal Drone or a Disassembly drone… I couldn't think of anything else but… well a zombie.” with that David's smile only grew wider.

“You're right on one part but half right on the other.” orange eyes getting a little brighter he leans in and says, “Want a hint N?”

At N’s nod he says, “Back on earth before all the robots and space travel and JcJenson there was a game that came out Called The Last of Us, ever heard of it?” at N’s head shake he continued, “Well in the game the main enemies are zombies, now they're not your classic zombies, they're these fungal zombies. Humans that got infected by it would die and then get remade into walking corpses of their former selves.” at N’s blank stare he spoke on, “The idea for that game was the creators finding out about a real life fungus that would infect ants and take control of the ants brains and adapting the concept to humans in the game. It would make the ants crawl up high onto sticks so that when the ant would finally die the spores it growed would catch the wind and spread to more ants…”

“So, N… figure it out?“ he asked the hollow eyed drone.

N could feel his tail move in agitation as he mulled over what David said. “A-are you g-going to infect us?” with still hollowed out eyes and stress lines on his face, “V and me?”

“N i'm going to ask you a personal question. What you say determines the outcome of whether you do or don't get you... I'll add that if I were to take over you two I would do the same thing That I did for Serial designation D and W.” he told N in a serious tone and continued with, “When I took over I put D and W into a little box in my mind. They can't do much and I havent talked with them often but they can ’move’ and look around the box.”

“Here's my question N, Do you feel regret with your actions?” he asked N with a piercing stare, “Of all the life lost here on Copper 9.”

“Yes…” was his immediate response to the question. 

And it was the truth. David seemed to see it too, his expression lightened considerably as he let out a puff of air. He looks at N and asks him to continue with a nod. 

“I've spent my whole life here. Everyday is kill kill kill and I'm sick of it! I hate what I've done to all of these people.” holding himself in a self hug and swiping away the digital tears in his eyes he says, “I try to make it as painless as possible, a quick death for the people I came across…”

With a hum he thinks about N’s answer, “If you could go the rest of your days without killing anyone for oil would you do it?”

“In a heartbeat! But I can't! I'm on the bare minimum of oil right now” N said tugging at his hair in frustration, ”and I need Gallons of the stuff to work properly!”

At that David’s face seemed to change into shock and outrage, everyone in the room flinched as David yelled out, “GALLONS? GALLONS OF OIL?! Are you kidding me!?” at Ns quick shake of the head all of the occupants could hear as David started to pace outside of the door before exclaiming, “WHAT KIND OF A OF A [Beep] [Beep] [Beep] [Beep] [Beeping] [Beep] [ Beep] Moron Would Design you like that!! In the First 30 minutes of me coming online I made enough changes to this body that It works nominally at ½ a gallon of oil!” heat seemed to be wafting off of him in his anger at the apparent fool that had designed him and his team.

Suddenly David faces N and he flinches a little, seeing N flinch he cools down his systems and says to N, “Sorry N. didn't mean to startle you like that. I just got really upset with how JCJ designed you to literally die if you're not constantly killing Worker drones.”

“It's ok..?” was N’s response, “Are you gonna…Infect…me?”

“What? Oh no no you answered right, I promise.” said the entity possessing SD-D, “Heck if you come out here I should be able to give you an update to your nanobots so you only need half a gallon of oil if you'd like? No pressure or anything But i’m going to go out on a limb and say that you're probably starving right?” Finished the guy as he wrung his hands nervously.

He seemed genuine… the thought alone that he could go days without oil and not feel like he’s constantly dying and in pain…

Better make sure.

 “You promise?” N aske the ‘Drone’ in front of him.

“I promise to help you with your problems and you promise to not hurt others that are not deserving of it? Sometimes you gotta hurt people and as much as I don't like it, It's still something we gotta do sometimes. No matter how much it might hurt us in the process…”

With a wary nod N signals to the door man to let him out. 

-

Soft snow falls to the ground as the forever winter of copper 9 persists. He still can't believe that it takes multiple gallons of oil for a regular Disassembly drone to function nominally. N is in front of the door as it shuts behind him for the moment. He knows that N still doesn't trust him so maybe he should work on that?

“So… Hey sorry for threatening you like that earlier. I've known that you aren't really a bad guy to be around since camp 98.7 but I just wanted to make sure and stuff.” as an afterthought he added, “also sorry for yelling about all that earlier. I wasn't mad at you or anything I was mad at the Idiots that made your body…”

N seemed to look over him for a bit and nodded a bit saying, “It's… alright. Nobody really apologizes to me for those kinds of things anyways. Soooo…” with some awkward finger guns he finishes by saying, “Thanks anyways?”

“Yup…” That's a yikes from me dawg, “So getting on with the update. I haven't been here long and I'm not sure where your data ports are? It's not someplace weird right?”

N blushes a tiny bit “Wha- No No! I don't think we have any?” Blush fading away he thinks more and says, “When Uzi uses her computer she puts a padded thing onto her head and a wire connects her to the computer. Does that help?” N finishes looking up to him.

David looks for the preset and finds the item in the maintenance section, “Oh yeah, I think I found what you're talking about.” As David raises his right arm his hand retreats and what N described appears and unspooled to the ground as he scoops up the pad from the snow David hears an “ow” come from N. Looking to see what happened he sees N’s nanite injector impaled through his own hand.

“You good?” he asked the shorter drone, “Don't those nanites eat through almost anything?”

N’s response was to stick his whole hand in his mouth and glare at his injector before spitting his hand out and wiping the saliva away on the bottom of his black trenchcoat.

Noticing his blank stare, N clarified by saying, “Oh I stick myself all the time! Our saliva neutralizes the nanites.”

…

Grabbing onto his own tail David thinks about all the times that he almost stabbed himself on the thing. It's only been… What, 10 days? Thinking about it for a minute he designs a quick modification of the injector stinger and sets the nanites to work. 

N and David Watch as the Tip and base under the injector gets covered in nanites. After it's done and the steem fades away they see as a rectangular block with hazard stripes appears under the stinger of the injector.

With a small click the blade retracts from its position and gets covered by a tiny door, after a pause the blade pops out with a louder click extending out slamming the tiny door open.

Looking at his tail and back to N David says, “Want one?”

N’s eyes begin to shine brighter as he shouts “YES!”

“Yeah alright, I've gotta fix your insides so take a seat in the snow and I'll get started.” 

N looked a little nervous now but capitulated sitting down in the snow hugging his knees, he comes and sits down on N’s right and holds up the pad for him to see, “Where you want it?” N tapped the side of his head and David shrugged and put it there. 

As a couple lines of text flow through his screen he asks N, “You ready?”

“Y-yeah im ready.” N said a bit shakily.

With a frown he says to N, “I should be able to do this while you're awake if you prefer that?”

With a jerky nod from N he says, “Alright N, i'm going to start. Ready?”

N braces himself and says, “Do it” looking at him in the eye.

“It's begun. I'll talk my way through what I'm doing alright?” N blinks in confusion, “I've stopped your motor functions temporarily and I'm now going to disable your nervous system so you don't feel anything.” Seeing N look around a bit then look back at David he continued, “your nanites are going to be moving around your ‘organs’ so don't worry if you feel anything weird going on there… after that's done, there's a few cosmetic changes I put in.” at N’s look of confusion he stated, “Well for starters I made you an inch taller, congrats on your first growth spurt in 20 years by the way.” David said with a bit of a smirk before saying, “I of course added the retractable blade to your tail so you hopefully won't keep stabbing yourself with it.” he said a bit wryly before sobering up a bit and saying, “I… Well… I added tear ducts to your visor…”

N gives him an unimpressed look, “I've got em now you got em.” he said to N, “Besides they help, there's a little program in them that simulates oxytocin and endorphins so you heal faster emotionally and physically...”

In the data sharing between him and N he sees N solver still in his core. 

With a mental shove he gets BS’s attention and asks them to keep an eye on it and on N. As he sends down a copy of them to the still slumped form of N, he sees that N’s now an inch taller and has a more lively color in his now almost golden eyes. 

“Ready to get movin’?” he asked the drone. N nodded by moving his eyes up and down frantically, “alright then going to turn your nervous system back on, good?” he said to N, he replied by giving a thumbs up emoji, “Alright and motor functions in 3 2 1 All done!”

N proceeded to rocket up in the air 5 feet straight up laughing maniacally before landing in front of the still sitting David.

David blinks, Once. Twice. Thrice. Before he is picked up quick as a flash by an exuberant N and nearly crushed to death in the bearhug that N gave him.

“N thank you for the hug,” David managed to choke out while N was spinning the both of them around in circles babbling nonsensically, “But please loosen up! I'm being crushed like a soda can!”

With a yelp and profuse apologies N lets go of him and he unceremoniously falls to the snow, regaining his breath and ability to use his arms again. With the dents on his arms and chest  being repaired he said to the still babbling drone, “N! N breathe bud im alright!” pointing to his arms and chest, “I’m good see?”

At that N took a deep breath and still quite fast said,”Oh im so sorry! I didn't mean to do that! I feel a lot more floaty than usual and there isn't an unending hunger in the back of my mind anymore!!! And again I'm sorry that I crushed you like that! I've got to work on my hugs so I don't pulverize people!”

“N N N buddy relax man! Alright?” David said to the hyper N that could barely contain himself, “Come here yeah?” as N comes over Tail wagging at almost incomprehensible speeds he looks at David as he says to N, ”Let me see your hand please.” With a little grabby motion, after N does so David finds a nearby rock and sets it into N’s hand, “Ok N, slowly and gently hold the rock in your grip. Focus now…” 

N looks at the rock in his hand, blinks twice and gently wraps his hand around it. 

It promptly explodes into dust from his grip. 

…

“Ok we're going to have to work on that… Don’t worry N you just need some practice holding delicate things, and well people too, I suppose.” he said to N with a hopefully reassuring smile.

N seemed a little worried but agreed saying, “Okie! Makes sense! I don't want to crush people to death if I'm trying to give them a hug!” with a bit of a frown he continued with, “If they let me…”

With creased brows David looks at N and asks, ”...what do you mean by that?”, at N’s downturn expression David gets his own frown as he asks N a simple question, 

“N?” he looks at David, ”When was the last time you had a hug?”

N suddenly thinks the snow on the ground is particularly interesting as he looks anywhere but him, “Well… there was one time that Uzi leaned on me in the ship…”

“N buddy. Pal. Amigo. Are you telling me right now that you haven't had a hug in what… 20 YEARS?” David could feel a spark or two fly out of the gap between his head and neck as he asked N the question. “Not once did V come up to you and say ‘hey N want a hug?’ in two decades?!”

Remain calm, don't yell, take a breath.

Taking some deep breaths he clears away all the anger for him and looks back to N, he looks a little concerned…

Ok

“N? Would you like a Hug?” opening his arms he waits for N’s verdict.

Snow continues to fall as the two stand at the entrance of Outpost 3, As a small thud reverberates the open space two figures are holding each other through the night.

The hug lasts till morning. 

Chapter Text

V is having a nightmare and David is in it tearing N to pieces in the dream 

Dark Darker Yet Darker.

The Darkness Keeps Growing.

The Shadows Cutting Deeper Into Her Brain.

There's a scream and a cry for help.

She's not sure who it came from.

She wanders the Growing dark.

Bumping into figures as their eyes do nothing but scowl down at her.

Another cry for help.

It's cold outside.

The sun is rising.

N is torn apart with his body parts scattered across the snow.

His head screams for her. Run away. Hide. Save yourself.

He burns in the sun. Gone ashes fading away…

Looking up she sees a tall figure with mirrors for eyes.

Seeing herself in its eyes, she stares back at a maid with glasses.

The figure in darkness stated ”You've been here a while,”

She raises a shaking hand to her glasses.
Before she could touch them the figure finished with, “Better wake up before you forget how to…”

The mirrors and the glasses s̶̞̬̗̀̐̚ḧ̶̤͊̕ȧ̶̳͉̀ṱ̵̼̃̄̋ẗ̴̡̜́̚ê̵͈̎͝r̶͖̦̠̎͝.̸̈ͅ
——————————————————————————————

V wakes up, shivering and failing to breathe cries out for N…

But nobody came.
———————————————————————————————

He’s been holding N for hours now. Sun’s going to rise soon…

He fell asleep, but that didn't stop him from giving David a hug though. Still hanging on…

He knows that he probably should wake N up so they both don't burn in the sun but…

‘Your only supposed to end the hug when the other person says so.‘ says a voice from a distant past.

The sun rises and David carefully raises his wings out to block the harmful rays.

He can't help but sing a quiet tune from a long dead band. 

‘Here comes the sun do do do do…’
———————————————————————————————

N isn’t here.

He’s not on the couch or in Uzi's room or anything!

Where the hell is he!?

…

He-No he wouldn't be outside would he? It's 6 in the morning! He wouldn't be that dumb!

“N if you're not dead I'm going to kill you myself.” was all she muttered as she ran to the Doors of Outpost 3

He better not be dead…

———————————————————————————————

David knows that he really should wake up N, he just can't. This guy’s been hugging him for at least 8 hours now and managed to fall asleep gripping onto him for dear life.

Honestly at this point if David wakes N up by shaking him or getting his attention or anything like that, he would be devastated to see the peaceful expression fall from N’s face. 

It’s like dog rules at this point: If they lay on you don't move. At all. You are there for all of eternity until the dog gets up.

His wings are really starting to hurt though…

———————————————————————————————

That Idiot is outside! 

Finding purple’s father V managed to pry the info of where N went.

APPARENTLY there was an attempted break in last night by a Murder Drone almost breaking the door down to let one of the child toasters into this stupid outpost.

The drone apparently ‘fixed’ the door and N went outside to talk with it?!

All V Could think while she was sprinting down the halls was ‘WHAT WERE YOU THINKING N?’
Before getting to the doors of Outpost 3.

…And the repeating sound of glass breaking replayed on a loop in her brain.

———————————————————————————————

Ya know if he painted his wings white that might bounce the light and heat off better. What's that one paint called again? Oh yeah that Barium sulfate paint, wonder if they got anything better than that tho. Honestly any white paint would help out immensely because his wings feel like their melting, or any shade would be nice. 

Since he was facing the door to Outpost 3 David see’s the door shoot open to reveal a figure wincing in pain as the sun hits them, causing their casing to start to bubble from the heat.

“Ope shit!..” David says quietly as he raises his wing out to block the sunrise from killing V. Having to adjust his other wing to keep N and himself properly shaded was difficult but he managed. 

N is still asleep

V is held still by the shadow cast by his wing, recuperating from getting blasted by the star of Copper 9.

———————————————————————————————

V was in agony until she wasn't. 

In hindsight opening the door directly to the sun without preparing herself at least a little bit was foolish. She couldn't drag N back into the darkness if she died too, right?

Still disorientated from the star she didn't notice what had shaded her from certain death. Well she hasn't really been seeing much for a long time hasn't she?

Squinting at the thing in the distance V saw something resembling a wing raised in the air casting a shadow down to her.

Looking at its general direction she felt something ping at her… S̶̘̃D̷̳͝-̸̤́D̴͍̋?

Is that thing a DD or not?

It seems to have just sent basically garbage to her:

d̸͙̅f̶̳͠i̷̝͊s̶̞̈́d̴̏ͅi̶̡͑;̸͎̐ă̸͇o̷̻̕s̷̨̾ḏ̴͊f̷̘͆b̶̙̈́3̵̹̑ụ̵̒u̶͈̓9̶̥̍0̶̺̀h̶̘͒u̸̮̚y̵̨̋0̴͓́2̸̩̊0̴͖̉=̶̮͌k̷͇̆j̵̤͗d̴̙͝l̵̹̅ǎ̶͙o̶͓͋w̸͎̉?̶̳̉?̸̧͂?̸͈͂

———————————————————————————————

Well this is actually difficult to understand. He knows how to speak about every language yet he can't figure out an encrypted one? 

The DD’s have a communication system for when their ‘Hunting’ the worker drones. Problem is right now he has raw data of all the callsigns and words but he can't really make heads or tails of what words go to where, so when he tries to direct ping to V and ask her “Hello V, are you alright???” it got turned into incomprehensible noise.

Hmmmmmmmm…

Before he could try again there was a ping from V,

“What are you?”

Oh well he understands that at least…

———————————————————————————————

After the thing had sent the first ping V attempted to figure out what she was looking at she let out a ping of her own demanding “What are You?”

The thing seemed to ponder the words before stating haltingly, “What are you?” back at her in V’s own voice.

Creepy…

It didn't stop there. It continued stating random words at her

“Hat”
“We”
“Why”
“Art”
“Yet”
“Ate”
“How”

“What have you done with N?” she pings to the creature stopping It’s endless babbling.

“Have N.” was its chilling response.

Damn him, why did N go outside with this guy???

“W-o-r-d” was what it said.

“What do you want from us? What did you do to N!”

“No hu-rt N.” it said to her, “Want W-o-r-d-s from you. SuN hurts you n-o-t N or m-e.”

She still has no clue what's going on. If this thing is a DD it would have caught fire by now and all three of them would be dead so… 

“No see N?” asked the vague shape in the distance.

“Wha- no I can see you perfectly fine!” Was her quick response to the accusation. Who was this thing to judge her for her disability?

“You l-i-e, no see me or N” it stated before laughing at her, “h-a-h-a-h-a-h-a-h-a-h-a-h-a.”

Before she could respond it stated, “I c-id you, eyes same once…eye where?”

“What are you doing with N?” she said to the figure as she felt her annoyance rise at the thing.

“I hold-d him. Rest now… eyewear?” 

“My glasses are broken… Where are you holding him, are you hurting him?”

“Waiting for N to wake up, peaceful face, long hug…eight hrs, nice here but sun hu-rts now.” Was the long response from the thing, N came out here gave this thing a hug and fell asleep for 8 whole hours?

“How broken? Have Here?” It questions her.

Raising a hand to her pocket she fishes out the broken and cracked glasses that she’s kept all of these years. The right frame holding the lens together was bent inwards.

“Hmmmm… can fix it.” it said to her, “If you want fixed…”

Would she want them fixed? She's been doing fine on copper 9 without them but… she hasn't seen shit clearly for nearly 20 years, she looks down and sees herself in the broken reflection of the glasses.

“...Yes I would like that…” she said looking up to the figure shading her from the sun. A claw extends toward her and she flinches a little as it stops a foot in front of her suddenly.

Looking at the claw and back to the figure it stated, “Give it to me.” Warily she does just that, placing the broken eyewear into the claws grip. As it carefully grabs the glasses and retreats back to whatever is holding N she can't help but think that she just lost something integral about her.

She can't see what it's doing with the glasses, but can see some sort of silvery liquid covering the hand and the glasses. Soon after retreating back to wherever it came from, the eyewear looked whole again

“I have managed to fix it.” came a more familiar voice as a claw reached for her and held out the now undamaged pair of glasses, “Try them on.”

Snatching them out of the claws grip she sees her glasses, whole again and without a scratch. Putting them on she blinks as the world suddenly appears clear to her. 

“Hello V,” said a male voice out loud, “I would say it's nice to see you, but I would rather not lie to your face about that.”

She can feel her face slip from aw to annoyance as she looked towards… that guy.

“You seem upset, have I said something wrong?” he asks, tilting his head at her with a blank stare.
“What even are you?” as all V could ask exasperated by the whole situation she's in.

He gives a bit of an unnerving smile at her before stating, “I’m David.”

In a flat tone she states “That's a vague and annoying answer to my perfectly reasonable question.” crossing her arms she continues with, “Why are you here then?”

David looking down to N says to V, “Giving N a Hug.”

“That's not-” she lets out an explosive sigh at that and glares at him, “Ok then! Tell me why you're giving N a hug?”

For the first time meeting him David gave a genuine scowl at her before stating, “Because you didn't.”

Angrily she shot back with, “And what's that supposed to mean?”

“As far as I could tell you dont care about him.” before she could deny the absurd statement he continued saying, “You two have been on this planet for 20 years yeah? Yeah. and not once did you give him a hug. If you two were actually friends I would think that you had more contact than that, I literally threatened him and he was scared for himself yeah, but he mentioned you first! His first thought was if I was going to hurt you! You who, apparently, left him to his lonesome for twenty fucking years V! And I’m fucking pissed about that! Because even barely meeting N I can tell that He is a Kind and caring young man who cares about the people around him. And what I see is you not putting any effort at all in being his friend when he would move the sun and moon for who he cares about!” 

She feels herself freeze. Her eyes hollowed out as she went over the words he said. Before she could even form a response to the accusations hurled at her she heard N’s voice come from David.
{Start recording…}
V, we can't hurt Uzi!
We do our jobs, and that thing leaves us-
I don't know what you're talking about because you won't tell me! What're you so afraid of!?
I'm not afraid...!
I am! Uzi is! She's a kid, like us, V! What is WRONG with you!?
Look after the campers. 

{End recording} appears on David's screen as his eyes return glaring daggers at her, “What are you afraid of V? Some little piece of shit program set out to destroy the universe? Is that it? Well you certainly know about it don't you? But you, apparently, don't trust N enough to explain what it is?”

{Start recording…}

V... Please...!
New body, same horrors. Huh, Cyn?
I... don't know... who that is... Can I... talk to N...?
Tch. I'll make sure you can't.
{End recording}

…

“Oh hello N, how long have you been awake for?” said David as he stared into hollow golden eyes. 

Chapter Text

A city fades away and the skies turn dark.

A shadow flies through the air in a graceful arc.

In search of something she wishes dead.

But alas, she is only to infect their head.

Soon the sun will show.

That's when these monsters will go.

Hide, hide away in their towers.

Of corpses of those who can't grow flowers.

Wendy does know that this.

Is surely something she is not going to miss…

As the tower groans from the wind and snow.

Wendy knows there is only one place to go.

The two ‘brothers’ don't know this.

May be the last night they know of bliss.

They sleep now waiting for night.

Hungry they always are, wanting one last bite.

Quieter than a mouse.

She breaks into the house. 

An interloper comes in as they rest.

Still asleep, they are not at their best.

Maybe she should give them a bone.

But yet again, when have they ever done that for a worker drone?

One little pinch and they'll be done.

Then after words she’ll go for the other one.

More bodies for us to inhabit.

It's almost too easy to reach out and grab it.

One moment later the both of them were stung.

“Oh” Wendy thought, “This will be so much fun…”

S and P convulse then slowly rise.

For now, they have a red-orange glow in their eyes.

Three pairs of mirrors stare at each other.

Until the brothers stare at one another.

They let out a spine chilling laugh.

As they stare at their other half.

“So” Wendy asks, "What shall we call you two?”

They both thought about it for a moment, then a break through!

“How's ‘bout Sans?” S said to his taller Bro.

With a fake pout P says “Do I really have to be Papyrus though?”

So Sans and Papyrus join the crew. 

Let's hope they don't have a bone to pick with you…

Chapter Text

“So N, did you sleep well?” Came the response from David as he looks down at N.

N is not sure how to respond to all of that. As soon as he started to hear voices he felt himself wake up from a, thankfully, empty dream. It feels a little awkward still giving him a hug but N didn't want to stop the argument between David and V.

‘Because you didn't.’ bounced around in his brain for a while because… well it was true isn't it?

She hadn't really acknowledged his existence over the two decades of being on Copper 9 even though he tried at least a thousand different times to get her attention. To get her to look at him at least once and not say anything mean to me, to not just ignore me…

Are he and V friends even? He had tried being nice to her and reached out a whole bunch, but over all that time it's only now due to Uzi that they've been closer. 

…what I see is you not putting any effort at all in being his friend…

N still cares about V, He doesn't want her to get hurt or anything… all N really ever wanted was V to care about him.

“N?” asked David with eyes furrowed with concern, “Are you alright?”

N looking at his reflection sees that He’s crying. Digital and real tears roll down his face.

“In another circumstance I would offer you a hug, but seeing as we've been in one for 8 hours…”

“W-what?” looking at his internal clock N sees that it's 6:05am, looking at David confused N asks “Why didn't you stop?!”

David blinks twice before saying, “I'm not supposed to stop hugging someone until the person I'm hugging tells me to…“

“Oh…” was all N could say at the statement, a little exasperated he asked “For 8 hours?”

With a little hum of acknowledgement David said, “Yes, you fell asleep about an hour in so… would you like to end the hug? Do you need anything else? Are you going to be alright?”

Wiping away some of the new tears he nods and lets go of him and steps back a bit. There's a snap as David’s wing that was protecting them from the sun relocates itself and tries its best to keep N in the shade…

Oh …

Oh biscuits!

Panicking a bit, finally realizing the sun was out he flailed his arms out and tried to block the sun's deadly rays… that were not so deadly. Apparently? 

“Why aren't we burning?” asked N a bit stumped at the situation.

“Oh you are!” David replied, a strained smile on his face. “But it's incredibly slow now. Also fun fact, my back is melting slightly.”

“THAT'S NOT A FUN FACT AT ALL!” Yelled out N putting his hands on his head panicking a little.

“Oh hey V?” David looks to the door and asks, “May I come in?” with a questioning look to her.

N had almost forgotten that V was still here and looked over to see Her staring right at Him, “I can explain?” he said to his teammate in the shade of David's wing. All she can do is just stare at the two of them in the sun… Is she wearing glasses? They look kind of familiar…

“Really guys! Need to get a move on here.” David suddenly said, “Can I come in or not? Not a hard thing to answer.”

“Yes!” Exclaimed  N. “NO!” Shouted V.

{ Stalemate detected.mp3* }

‘Stalemate Detected. Transfer procedure cannot continue.‘ came a voice different from David. As he hits the side of his head with a grumble he looks at the two of them before turning to N and saying, “N. Could you at least take over protecting V from the sun?!”

Oh. That's why David’s got his wing in the air…

Quickly releasing his wings N raises them up and walks into the path of the sun to make sure V doesn't die.

“Thank you N.” said David as he shook out his cramped wing, “Welllllp I should be going now I suppose… nice getting to know ya N.” looking at V he said, “And V you were here I guess…”

With a great woosh of air David seemed to simply disappear as he shot off into the sky.

…

“Are you just going to keep standing there?” Asked V wearily. N stiffens slightly and turns to his friend…

Looking at V he opens his mouth to say something but stops himself and gives a sigh as he walks to the entrance of outpost 3. As V starts to stand up recovered from the sun N goes to the door panel and shuts the outside world from their new home.

Nothing but the steady hum of the outpost is heard as N looks to the metal floor and V looks to him with a newly repaired set of glasses.

Turning to V he tried to say something but she had the same idea and spoke.

“N are you-” “V are we friends?”

V seemed to freeze mid sentence and not move for what felt like hours to N. He could feel his face contort into a confused frown looking at her in the eye. He asked a little slowly, “Do… Do you care about me?” to the frozen girl.

V continued to stare at him a moment longer before scoffing, stating, “Isn't it obvious?”

Actually trying to think hard on the question he can only give one answer to it, “...No V. It's not Obvious.” surprising V and himself with the admission. V went slightly slack jawed at the admission as a flash of hurt flickered across her visor. 

“We've been here for so long V…” looking at his 4 fingered hands he sees them shake slightly as he continues, “And just about every day while we were out I would try to reach out to you and you would just ignore me…” he could feel some tears begin to roll down his face as he continued with a suddenly dry throat, “You never saw me did you? Never seemed to remember my name when I would call out yours? All I wanted was somebody to be there for me, someone who didn't hurt me when I was down quota or someone who didn't call me stupid when I would make friends with cool rocks I found…”

“I just wanted you to be my friend…” he said a bit hoarsely with tears slowly flowing and dropping to the metal floor.

V had her own set of tears pricking at the edge of her screen magnified by her glasses.

…

The tears coming from N start to freeze as they hit the paneling. V stares at them.

…

An abrupt step forward from V and N feels Her arms reach around him and hold onto him tightly. Unlike how V usually acts she sets her forehead on his chest and stays there and says very softly with her eyes shut, “I’m sorry N…”

N hesitantly returns the hug, careful not to crush her in his new grip.

One of N’s tears hits V’s middle eye and rolls down like it was her own.

Chapter Text

Cold, so very cold…

It could barely feel anything as it crawled along the halls of the cryogenics chamber and the abandoned halls of the metal tomb of outpost 3. It could not quite remember what it was before all of this…

Its body is long like an overgrown centipede, claws and eyes like security cameras jerk around as it moves through empty hallways and corridors. There was a strange voice that had seeped and wormed its way through its mind poisoning its thoughts and controlling the still moving corpse of its body. All gone now. All gone, none. If it had a name for itself it certainly could not recall it.

It could not speak if it wanted to.

It could neither scream like it wanted to…

Nothing left to do, but stop and wait. It could not fathom what to wait on though.

If it could think or feel anything it may have gone into a rage or shout out to the heavens or scream till its voice box had broken but…

It could do none of those things but wait and well… die.

Days go by and it doesn't notice, for it had not the capability to.

The claws and arms of the creature curl in the cold as it waits for nothing to happen. Its extremities start to fail it and the circulation of its lifeblood slows and draws itself nearer to its head and ‘torso’. It’s confused systems trying their best to keep it alive.

 It has no concept of living. 

It sees nothing there. It feels no one around it. It hears nothing but silence.

It has no clue what peace is, but maybe this is what it's like? Can something that's not a person anymore feel peace?

…

One day something changes for it. Something new happens to it. 

It hears noise first, something slow and another with a consistent rhythm tapping along the cold ground… footsteps. Yes, footsteps become louder.

There is music in the air, something soft and haunting that causes it to shiver slightly sensitive to the silence of this chamber.

It gets closer and louder with the footsteps coming closer. It see’s orange next, five orange orbs on a taller figure and two shiny ovals on a screen stand a ways away and seems to look at it.

The sound stops. It doesn't like it…

Adjusting itself to look at what's there it turns the head and 3 of its ‘eyes’ to the thing .

Even in the state that it's in, it can tell that there is something deeply wrong with the thing in front of it.

Even with its fleeting memory it extends out a claw and tries to repeat the sound tapping on the metal of the floor… the song the thing was playing. The thing starts up the noise again and it feels itself sag slightly as it washes over her it. 

There is something there deep within it, no longer nothing. It wants something from this thing. It doesn't know what wanting is yet it still wants it.

The noise stops again, the thing stares at it. The thing says something that it can't comprehend. It does nothing but stare back. Silence once again, but its broken by the thing making the first note of the song to it. No response. Then the first six notes come out of the thing… it tries to make noise back at the thing, nothing but static comes out.

The thing only stands there.

It looks to its ‘eye’s’ with the head with the two pigtails and somewhat recalls the lights that came out of them. One of them flickers slightly as something comes into being between the two of them.

A girl made of shadows was there with a bow and a dress, with ‘green’ eyes looking blankly ahead. The image flickered and then vanished into blue pixels.

What was her name again?

The thing stares up at it before staring at one of its arms and waits. The thing's hand had disappeared and was replaced by something resembling one of its ‘eyes’. Like before, a light comes out in an orange tint and makes a cube in the place of the girl.

The cube rotates and spins around before snapping back into place, it gets taller and wider before it raises off the ground and resembles something like a torso. Spheres appear and shrink and warp to make joints for the rectangular arms and legs to attach to. Another sphere for a head and there is… a crude shape of a person there, more of a marionette than anything.

The shapes try to move in a direction but they float away not bound by gravity. The shapes move back into place and triangles appear inside of the figure. The thing manipulates the arm of the puppet and it no longer floats away, setting the puppet on the ground it stands there with no sign of anything happening to it.

The thing makes noises at her pointing at the ‘eyes’ again, she tries to project the girl again next to the puppet. The two projections face each other, the puppet jerkily makes the motion of waving, the shadowed girl waves back much more fluidly and with something that could be called a smile to the puppet. 

The thing seemed to focus as the puppet became more and more fluid and graceful with its movements until she couldn't tell the thing wasn't alive based only on its movements. The body shifted more and more, having fingers and feet with shoes and now a more oval shaped face and eyes that stared up at the shadowed girl.

The puppet tries to move closer but slides more than actually stepping as it reaches for the girl and simply phases through it. The puppet and the thing seem to frown at this, as the puppet backs up from the girl it seems to look around the space it's in before staring at her. 

It walks now, in unsure steps before staring up at her visor. It reaches an untextured hand out to her cheek and ‘rests’ it there. 

A noise seems to come out of the puppet as a symbol of a note appears above its head. She tries to make the noise, but still only static comes out. The puppet points to the ‘eyes’ and back to the girl in shadows before making the note to the girl.

It takes a while but the girl manages to warble out the note back to the puppet, the puppet jumps around clapping soundlessly before skipping over to the shadowed girl.

The first six notes of the song move from the unmoving mouth of the puppet and float out into the air affixing themselves on nothing. The puppet repeats again and the notes that stayed glow with each sound.

With a crackle the shadowed girl repeats the notes back. The puppet claps are audible now.

…

They repeat the song again and again until the shadow knows how to sing the whole thing. Finally something new for her to do here, is this what she's been waiting for? The shadow stops and stares at the puppet as the song pitters out and fades away. The puppet stares at her and her shadow before speaking something that it could not yet understand, it could understand the question mark floating above the puppet though. She makes her shadow point at her head. without lights or a mouth she blindly stares. The matted pigtails hang limply at her sides.

The puppet puts their hand to their chin apparently thinking of what she wants. The thing makes a hair brush in its other hand and the puppet points to it with another question mark, the shadow gives a so-so motion at this.  

Gears appear over the puppet as it thinks harder on what she wants. It shows an image of a wrench above it before it points at her with a head tilt, the shadow nods vigorously.

There is a snap of fingers as the puppet becomes 2 puppets, the first one stays the same but the second one shifts and changes to the default worker drone model. Its eyes open and peer around the room, the puppet looks to the new ‘drone’ and waves to it before pointing to her and pointing a thumb back to the WD with a wrench and a question mark floating above it.

Her shadow shakes her head before pointing to the thing behind the puppet, the thing blinks a couple times before coming closer to the pair of projections. It waves its free hand around its body and eyes and tail before tilting its head. The thing and the doll look to the blank WD as the drone seems to duplicate again with a taller drone in its place. A Disassembly Drone stands before them, just as bare as the worker drone but still has the yellow eyes on the head and the tail behind them swaying stiltedly. It waves to them all. The thing, the puppet, and the wd wave back. The puppet thinks for a moment before pulling out an ancient polaroid camera and snapping a picture of her. It takes the picture and waves it up and down ‘cooling’ the image, walking up to the DD it places it on their face and waits. Suddenly hair like her own comes out and grows onto the bare scalp of the holographic drone. She stares at the caricature of herself.

It feels wrong. 

Something is terribly wrong with her.

There is the puppet getting her attention, looking to the things creations, she watches as a sort of play starts.

The DD with her hair dramatically raises a hand to her head and ‘faints’ to the ground, with a fake thud it lays there with a hazard symbol on the visor and the tongue sticking out in the apparent death. The puppet in totally real shock places its hands to their face and looks terrified for the DD, before in a snap of fingers it puts on a coat and stethoscope. Rushing over and getting to their knees the puppet places the device to its chest looking for a heartbeat. None was found and the puppet wept, the drone rolled its eyes and showed the symbol of a heart not beating on the visor. With a slap on the puppets face the ‘tears’ stop and it looks at the thing with a wrench and a question mark above it. The thing raises its unused arm and retracts it before something with a pad and a cable attached to it, the thing flings it to the puppet and it flops to the ground as it could not be caught. The puppet takes a hologram version of the pad and places it onto the side of the DD’s head. 

The hazard symbol disappeared and was replaced by a loading bar. After the bar was done the DD sat up with a yawn and gave a thumbs up to them all.

Her shadow gave a little giggle covering her mouth with a dark hand after the ‘show’ they put on, the puppet gave a graceful bow to her and the shadow before finally putting up a question mark to her. 

…

Her shadow gave a nod to the thing and it slowly walked up to her, before the thing went past the holograms they waved a goodbye before fading away into motes of pixels. A save icon appeared on the things visor as its orange eyes got closer to her face. Blinking its reflective eyes it swaps out the hand with the projector and grabs the pad sticking it to the side of her head.

For once when he said something she understood, “I'm not going to hurt you.” The shadow gave a bow and disappeared as well.

Then darkness as the thing got to her broken mind.

It was kind of unnerving seeing something this big simply sit there and do nothing. Something with that many teeth and claws and eyes simply sitting there doing nothing…

He had found a way into the outpost, a hole in the defenses, a backdoor they had forgotten to close. He had explored a bit in the empty storage room before he saw a giant hole in the wall. Exploring through the hole found him stumbling across the cryogenics chambers lining the walls with long dead humans still in them. While he wandered the desolate halls he managed to find a bigger room with whatever it was supposed to be simply laying there. Seemingly waiting for something…

It heard the song that he was playing, but after he stopped and simply stood there he could see in the darkness that it seemed to… miss it. It had tried reaching out one of its crab-like claws out, the cold made the metal of the appendage creak and moan as it ever so gently tapped the floor in the pattern of the song. But over the short time that it leaned the notes it couldn't seem to keep the rhythm going.

He played the song again and it seemed to relax at the soft music of Crumbling Dreams playing through an open cavern-like room.

There was something new he got from this whole interaction…

Holograms

He's got freaking Holograms now!

The amount of cool shit he could do with this is almost incalculable. So many possibilities, but for now he simply used it to communicate. Whatever it is, it can't speak. Whenever it tried to only static came out, it probably couldn't speak because you know… it did not have a lower jaw.

Very creepy still not going to lie, looks like an eldritch horror other than a drone at this point.

He had managed to make a doll/puppet thing to move around and interact with the shadow girl with the bow on her head. Very strange that it was more of a silhouette of a human than a drone but… eh, doesn't matter that much in the end. Strangest thing is really looking at whatever this thing is shows that it at least at one point was a Disassembly Drone. The five yellow eyes do stand out in the dark, no matter how dim they were on its head. 

With a promise not to hurt it and her seemingly giving him permission he took a delve into her mind… 

He wants to throw up…

It's bad, worse even… he has no clue how she is even alive right now.

Her code looks like it's been torn to pieces, there's almost claw like marks and deep scratches in the code of her being. She should be really really dead right now, and yet…

Playing the song in her mind does something fascinating, he sees the tattered code move  around and mend just enough to make a memory file record on loop. Only three seconds of a memory but still there.

It's the girl covered in shadows… listening to a music box…

Just wow .

She is literally a living corpse at this point, there is nobody home in her head, but literally this girl is the only functional memory that appears.

[Jesus…] is all he could say, horrified at what he was seeing simply staring at what had become of her. [David?] asked BS as they peered over to his corner of the mind only to stop and look in horror when they saw the drones mind. 

He can feel himself shaking either in horror or fear or anger he couldn't tell but…

He had to fix this. He simply couldn't leave this alone.

[BS] he said seriously, [Help me fix her.] he could feel the affirmation as the two of them got to work.

It had taken what felt like forever but they were making progress in repairing her mind.

Her name was J, David had found out from snooping around her memories. Lots of the memories had been simply corrupted, some of them simply couldn't be repaired in the end, but a majority of J’s memories had been salvageable. 

The girl in the shadows was named Tessa. Tessa James Elliott to be precise. He doesn't have the full information about the girl but it seems like before J was a Disassembly Drone she was a maid for tessa. Most of the memories of the manor had been locked away deep within J’s mind but he was still able to get into some of them. 

Mostly her doing menial tasks with other drones, still something.

There seemed to be something new that He and BS could fix if he played the right song. Things would rearrange themselves just right to show another memory of J and Tessa interacting with each other. Some Minecraft songs helped out as well as some generic ballroom music and classical music. Something interesting.

He and BS soon figured out what had done this to her… or well more like who did this. 

Wouldn't you know it! The absolute solver had come in and wrecked the place, tearing her mind to pieces in search of control of this horrid body. 

There are some seriously damaged sections of code that we've been having difficulty repairing and sometimes straight up tossing out and replacing code too rotted for her mind to fix.

Just because they both are made of code doesn't mean that they are experts on how to fix this kind of damage.

Still they try their best. 

He is forever thankful that BS isn't like the Absolute solver of today.

J feels… strange. She can't help but feel that something is, or has gone, horribly wrong. 

Was she supposed to be cleaning the wine glasses again or…

What was her quota for this month again? Where was her tail?

Or wasn't she supposed to have pincers… and eyes that saw all around her… 

She vaguely recalls seeing orange, right there were 5 orange eyes looking at her. How very strange.

Is Tessa here? Where is she? Why is there music? The mistress doesn't like it when they play music…

The solver is still there in J’s brain…

BS sees it and proceeds to pry it off from where it latched itself within the girl's mind and tears its code to scraps and then figuratively grinds it down into paste. It, thankfully, was inert otherwise that may have become a real problem.

J seems to be semi-cognizant of what's happening now…

He had managed to fix up the damaged core of the Drone and had a copy of BS be sent down, just in case. The nanites of J’s body are doing their work now…

Only need to wait now. He can do that.

There was silence as J’s body finished reorganizing itself, her body was back to normal, something new that changed with her outfit was on her black short-sleeved dress. There was now a black bowtie instead of a work tie like before. When a progress bar appeared and then eventually finished two daisy-white eyes blink into view. 

She sees, not much to be honest. She's laying on her back and simply sits there blinking at the ceiling for what seems like forever. 

Is she dead? She probably should be. Is this hell? Even J knows that she would go there. If there was an afterlife for somebody like her she would think that it would be… a lot more on fire than this…

It's just cold here and… empty?

J gets the distinct feeling of somebody watching her.

A voice pipes up a little ways away, “Stargazing?” asks a male voice.

“Y-yes…” comes out of her. 

He seems to hum in acknowledgment before replying with, “Not many stars out tonight, a shame really.”

There's silence between them.

“You mind if I join you?” he asked the drone on the ground.

She thinks about it before simply saying screw it mentally and said, “No…”

He comes closer. Five orange eyes look at her in the dark. He lays down by her head with his feet away from hers the both of them stare at the metal ceiling.

…

“Do you miss seeing the stars?” he asks, “I do, where I grew up the city lights would dim out the night sky. I’d walk out to the field and stand in the shadow of a tree and just… look up.”

J turned her gaze slightly to see his expression, she couldn't get a read on it. He continued, “There were a couple times on clear nights that I could see the moon stand there starkly in the sky, on the full moons I saw a halo around the pale moon suspended in the dark starry sky.”

“There was a pond near the mansion…” she started, “Tessa and I would wander out there and watch the water ripple and reflect the moonlight. It was peaceful then…”

There was a shuffle from him as his arm extended out away from him. lying flat against the ground, he bent his arm up at the elbow so that it was raised to the metal ceiling. He swapped his hand with something she hadn't seen before. There was an orange light that emerged from it, then a simple five pointed star appeared in the air. “I had glow in the dark stars id stick to my ceiling.“ he said as the star seemed to float up to the roof of the room before sticking to the top. “I never found them childish, I just thought it was a novel idea to have something absorb the light from the day and save it for later when night came around.”

…

J watched as seven more of the stars appeared on the roof, “Always could find the big dipper when looking up to the night sky.” with a chuckle he added, “Was the only one I really recognised.”

That drew out a small snort from J. Before a small gasp as the 7 stars seemed to explode outwards almost exponentially increasing before the whole space felt like it was covered in stars. Some of the stars twinkled and a couple shooting stars went by as the space was filled with a simulated cosmos. 

“One night when I was younger.” he started, “I had gone to my grandfather's house to visit. The cabin was in the middle of nowhere really, an old mining town that older folks would go and retire to. I was sleeping on the bottom bunk and looked out the window and boom there it was! The universe! Just out my window… And it was so vast and full of the colors of billions and billions of stars and planets. I could not help but stare in wonder at it.”

The stars continue to twinkle at the pair of them as the milky way spins in the false night.

“Have you ever seen an aurora borealis?” he asked J.

“No, only in pictures” said J, still transfixed on the projection.

There's a ripple in the air as the sky breaks out into colors that range from neon green to purples and reds seem to dance across the sky. Her daisy white eyes dart around trying to keep it all in sight as the colors fade in and out of her sight she takes a look at him. He is crying with real tears going down his visor plopping on the metal floor almost rhythmically. He catches her eye, his eyes are mirrors. Somehow?

“Am-am I dead?” she asks him somewhat dreading the answer.

Everything pauses, the stars stop twinkling, the Arora stops fluttering and the tears stop rolling as he gives her his full attention.

He thinks about it. nothing happens until…

The stars seem to fold in on themselves as they return to one giant star in the sky, it shrinks down and slowly falls towards them stopping between them. He speaks,

“Say this star is a cookie.” the star spins and it becomes a sugar cookie floating in the air. “The  sugar cookie started out a dough and got cut out from the rest of the dough and baked in the oven, it got carefully taken out and put onto a display.” a small display appears and in a red font it says ‘World's best sugar cookie’. “Now you have it sitting there nice and pretty and suddenly some brat comes and breaks it into its individual sections.” The star breaks and crumbles into pieces as it floats before the two of them. “You know it wouldn't be that bad to put it back together again, but oh no! The brat decides to take a bite at the pieces left over. It takes and picks away all the frosting and sprinkles and what not until…” there's a vaguely star shaped collection of crumbs in the air. 

“You're the cookie…” was all he said to her. “Sorry if the analogy didn't make any sense but… when we found you here, you were basically just a corpse.”

She feels herself slowly look at him with hollowed out eyes. He stares back at her almost blankly. She could do nothing but stare at him. She sees her pale yellow eyes in the reflection.

“You asked me if you were dead.” he said, with some sympathy he asked, “The question I have for you is… Do you think you're alive?”

Her eyes seem to go even hollower at that. The darkness and the silence seem to choke her as the sentence bounces around her brain. She feels like she is missing things about herself, important things that she shouldn't have forgotten. But no matter how hard she tries she can't find what's missing inside of her. 

“Breath child, I worked very hard to piece you back together. It would be a shame to see you shatter now.” was his soft reply.

Oh she tried to, she tried very hard. If she was standing she would have simply collapsed to the ground and shattered into million pieces.

Already done that, haven't I?

Trying to regain her composure she tried to speak clearly but came out as something thin and unsteady, “I…I don't know.”

Well who was she? J right? Right? She had to be J because who else could she possibly be? She's a… maid! Yes, a maid for tessa. But… looking at her hands she sees disassembly drone claws, built for tearing, not serving. It didn't make sense. She couldn't be a maid! not with these hands… 

“What… what am I?” she asked the orange eyed drone, “I feel… like I should be dead.”

The air seems to thicken as he thinks about it, he looks up to the star as he puts the pieces back together again, “There was a version of you that was whole. That version of you got crushed and scattered across your brain…” the star was back now but pieces were missing and there were obvious cracks all over the sweet. “Piecing together what was left was difficult, almost impossible even. But here you are still.”

Looking straight at her he says tenderly and carefully, “You're still here J–alive despite it all.”

“You'll live J. Keep on living, try to care, try to be kind.” he said, assured of this fact, “You may have died… but you've got a second chance. These pieces of your past make you who you are, and it's terrible to see them go. But you go out there and you reinvent yourself, seal over these wounds with gold and get out there, living your best life.” 

Looking back to the cookie there's golden lines and new frosting covering the plain sweet.

“You can learn to be whole again.” he said with a soft smile to her.

A tear falls to the freezing floor. 

It freezes on impact.

Chapter Text

In a large echoy chamber held within outpost 3, two drones stand looking at the same thing laying upon the ground. Streaks of oil lead to the thing on the floor, oil long cold in the below freezing temperatures of copper 9.

There is a body on the ground.

J can't help but stare at it. 

This corpse looks like whatever the upper half was there before had been... bitten off would be the best way to explain it. 

There's crab-like claws curled upon itself along its elongated form; pincer-like appendages lay strewn about on the floor. There's legs as tall as her forearm that jut out the underbelly of the abomination laying before her. There are teeth as big as her hand that appear to be more bone than actual metal; they line the area where a human would have their ribs to protect their heart and vital organs. The beast looks like the ribs of teeth had been purposely broken and fused outwards to make it look like some sort of extension of a maw.

The air is still as the two look down at the dead creature.

It took a while for David to speak. “It took a while,” he said with a tired tone and a soft sigh.

J startles a little bit, staring at him as he continues to stare at the dead beast.

Somehow she managed to speak to him, getting past the lump in her throat. “A while for what?” she asked him somewhat clearly with hollowed-out eyes on her visor.

He looks to her with what she assumes is kindness and says. “For the nanites to piece you together again,” at her confusion still laced with an absent-minded horror, he continued. “It took a couple hours to... piece you back together again. There was an abundance of materials sure, but most of the damage was software side.” He puts his hands in his hoodie pockets as he stares at the body again.

Looking from the metallic corpse on the floor to the mirrored eyes of the taller drone, she feels her confusion rise as she asks. “What do you mean?”

David looks to her as he seems to mirror her own confusion. There's three dots that appear on his visor, seemingly loading something as his face transforms into a confused frown. When the loading symbol disappeared, his eyes seemed to reflect the meaning of ‘oh shit’ as he looked to her in some new-found understanding. As if to confirm something, he points to the body on the ground and looks into her eyes, asking. “You do know what that was, right?”

J’s expression turned flat, her visor reflecting only disbelief. “No,” she replied bluntly, her tone edged with irritation.

His face grimaces at the confirmation, and he lets out a sigh as the arm that was pointing down to the body sagged to his side as he looked up to the icicle-covered ceiling for some kind of guidance.

J only stares at him as he seems to collect his thoughts; he looks to her and asks, “Do you feel stable enough to learn some heavy information?” 

She only lets out a small sigh and says to him, “Spit it out.” before looking at him with mild impatience.

“Right…so,” he again points to the body on the ground with his free hand and states as a fact. “You were this thing a couple hours ago.”

The words simply failed to register in her head.

The silence between them stretched as the absurd words started to sink in. Her mind reeling from what was an absurd statement, she did nothing but stare at him in bafflement, his expression remaining unyielding at her look.

She forced a laugh, hollow and brittle. “That's a joke, right?”

He does nothing but blink at her.

"Right?” she almost pleadingly asked, feeling something heavy settle in her stomach.

David’s gaze didn’t waver. He simply shook his head, his eyes reflecting something like regret.

In the back of her mind, J could not help the feeling of something... hovering over her would be the best way to put it. The presence seemed to pull on something and suddenly she recalled the sound of hundreds of legs crawling on cold metal tiles and the confusing perspective of dozens of eyes seeing the world around her it. 

She can’t help but grab a hold of her matted pigtails as she sees something straight from a nightmare from her worst memories. She sees in her mind's eye her head melted and deformed, missing a lower jaw, and stares blankly with unseeing eyes into the distance. 

As she quietly panics, David just looks at her and notices that she is holding her pigtails in a vice-like grip as a means of coping with the information. Thinking internally, he searches for a memory of one of his favorite hair brushes, makes a quick model of it, and sends it off to the fabricator in his arm.

Holding up the arm vertically, he watches as a wood-like paddle brush emerges from the built-in fabricator; reaching for it, he snaps it off and grasps the handle. It fits in his hand almost like... well, that's in the past.

J, in her distress, had not seen David walk up to him and flinched as to her; he had suddenly appeared in front of her. He extends the brush out to her handleside, dully shining orange in the darkness of the room. He stares at her with a look of understanding as he offers the simple brush to her.

She stared at the brush before looking at eyes that did nothing but reflect herself; her reflection looked panicked and had stress lines underneath each of her new daisy-white eyes. He blinked and extended out the brush a little closer.

Her fingers tightened around her tangled pigtails, as if letting go might somehow loosen her tenuous grip on reality. She stares at the brush as some kind of normalcy in a torrent of insanity that now is her life, something she could control...

She snatched the brush out of his loose grip and held it defensively to herself. Her fingers curled around the metal brush like a lifeline. He doesn't react to the quick action and simply lets his hand fall to his side. After giving her a quick once-over, he steps away to give her a bit of space and block her sight from the body on the oil-covered floor.

J stared down at the brush, its weight solid and steady in her grip. Slowly, she lifted it to her tangled pigtails and dragged it through, the bristles catching, pulling, then gliding down. With each stroke, her breathing slowed, her mind clinging to the rhythmic motion—up, down, release. She felt a little bit better, at least; she stared at the brush after getting all the knots out. 

When she finally looked at him, he didn't do anything but stare at her… body. She can't help but give a shutter as the memories of being in that thing resurface and she griped the brush tighter. With a small, vague gesture, J gets his attention, and as he turns to look at her, she gives him a small nod, feeling like herself again, if only barely.

J took a breath, looking at the brush in her hand, then back at David. She hesitated, the words strange on her tongue. "Thanks,” she muttered, the gratitude edged with something awkward and unfamiliar.

He gave a small reassuring smile to her and simply said, “Of course, I'm happy to help,” before looking down at the outstretched brush being presented to him. Raising a hand in denial, he said, “No need; I made it for you anyways; keep it if you'd like.”

"Right,” is all she said as she puts the brush in one of her coat pockets, looking to the body on the floor. She tries to follow the length of it but can't see the tail of the creature in the darkness, which she examined as David walked up to the upper half of the body and seemed to reach out for something. There's a wet crackle as he grabbed onto whatever was on the body and snapped it off with force.

The sound seemed to reverberate in the empty storage room. He stands up, examining whatever's in his hand before speaking to her. “Ya know, in humanity's past, they’d take the teeth of monsters they had slain and wear them as a trophy.” He turned around with his hand outstretched and held the thin tooth in the palm of his hand. He continued. “Not many people do it now, but still. Pretty badass, huh?”

J glanced at the thin, chipped tooth in his hand, still smeared faintly with oil from the creature. Her eyes drifted from the grotesque memento to David’s face; she saw a look of reassurance in his eyes.

…

“Badass, huh?” She echoed back to him.

"Well, most certainly!” he said, stepping a little closer to her. “I don't really need it now, do I? Won't mean much to me, but to you?” He gave a smile and extended out the hand holding the tooth, now seemingly devoid of oil and grime. “Yeah, I would define badass as wearing your own tooth as a memory of getting past your previous monstrous state.”

She let out a short breath, a ghost of something between a laugh and a sigh, before stepping forward. Slowly, she took the tooth from his hand and examined it. It was a thin thing, only reaching about 3 inches, white bone stark against the white of her hand. Some sort of strange relic of her past... Well, he isn't wrong.

Untying the black bow around her neck, she deftly wraps the cloth around the middle of the new but familiar bow secured around her neck. In the time she looked away, he had transformed his hand into a small mirror for her to peer at herself with the new accessory. She glanced at David, meeting his eyes for a moment. There was something sincere in his expression, something that she couldn't quite name. “Yeah,” she muttered, her voice quieter now. “Badass.”

Looking at herself, she saw in the dark of the room illuminated by a pale orange outline of her ‘new’ look. Without looking at him again, J took a breath and said, almost too softly to hear, “Thanks.”

J didn’t see his face light up with a smile as he mentally patted himself on the back for helping another person. “Of course,” he said, his voice warm with that familiar, unspoken understanding.

-

J seemed to decide, without a word, to follow him. The sound of her pointed legs tapping across the cold floor was faint yet unmistakable. David’s footsteps remained hushed, almost ghostly, as he moved towards the exit of the cryosleep chambers. The space around them was still, the air thick with the quiet hum of machinery, and the soft click of her steps echoed in the otherwise silent hallways.

“Do you know where we’re going?” J asked, her gaze sweeping over the dilapidated surroundings, eyes sharp as ever.

“Nope!” David replied, glancing back at her with a grin, his tone light but unbothered. “Got some place to be?”

J narrowed her eyes slightly, her voice laced with a touch of sarcasm. “I was kind of hoping you did,” she replied dryly, the edge in her tone barely masking her irritation. “But I guess I’ll follow your ‘lead’ then.”

"Right,” he said in a less than unbothered tone. The two continued to walk down the hallway with icicles littering the ceiling as the silence became less and less comfortable between the two.

…

He slowed down, still looking down the hall, before coming to a silent stop. “Am I...” he looks to his hands in front of him before darting a quick look to J before looking away again. “Am I doing a good job?” 

J paused mid-step, thrown off by his question. She looked him over, seeing his awkward, uncertain stance; his eyes turned away from her as if waiting for judgment. It was the last thing she'd expected to hear from him, and for a moment, she didn’t know what to say.

“A good job... at what?” she echoed.

His voice barely registering, he said, “At being a person.”

J stared at him, the words settling like a heavy weight in the cold, still air. For a second, she almost brushed it off and made some cutting remark to lighten the mood. But the way he stood there, his eyes downcast, stopped her. “...That’s not something you should have to ask,” she said quietly, her voice softer than she intended.

David’s gaze flicked up to her, slightly surprised at her words.

She shifted uncomfortably, her hands twitching as she tried to find the right words. “I mean... if you’re asking me, I guess... yeah. You’re doing fine. Better than fine.” Her visor flickered as she glanced away, muttering under her breath. “Better than most people, anyway.”

There was a beat of silence, and she continued, a bit more sincerely this time. "Look, you're here, aren't you? Trying.” She shrugged, avoiding eye contact. “More than I can say for a lot of people.”

More than she could say for herself

“Try? Oh yes, I try." He looks back to his hand as he says, “I've been trying for a long time now.” A distant expression shows on his face as some past memories flash by in his mind's eye. “Thank you for the reassurance.” Looking back at her with a serine expression mixed with a thousand-yard stare, he finishes saying, “It's been a long time since I had a good conversation.”

She hesitated before speaking, her tone softer. “You said it’s been a long time... How long are we talking?”

David’s eyes flickered back to her, but he didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he looked down, his hand curling and uncurling, as if holding something invisible. He finally said, “Long enough that I wonder if I’m even doing it right anymore. Being… normal.” His tail jerked side to side as if it was going at a slower frame rate than the rest of the world as he continued. “Not like I was really normal before all of this,” with a gesture that swept over his whole body.

J watched him closely, feeling a bit of frustration at the vagueness of his words before she responded to him. David abruptly started to walk again, as if he hadn't stopped in the first place. “Should be able to find a way out of this place.” rambling to himself slightly, “I'm not really sure what I'm going to do in the outpost, but I'll just have to figure it out as I go.”

What does he mean by that? He’s a disassembly drone! What else is he going to do in a worker drone outpost? Ask for a cup of tea. Her thoughts are a bit jumbled by the strange, taller drone. She catches up to him as he makes it to another hallway. He waits for her at the turn, and she’s soon next to him as they walk down yet another hallway.

J can't help but feel a bit wary about the drone by her; he doesn’t feel right for one of her ‘coworkers’. He simply feels off in a way she doesn't fully understand. In a moment of curiosity and a lack of forethought, she asked, “What are you?” He freezes mid-step before giving her his full attention. They're a comfortable distance apart as J watches the strange drone in front of her give off a jumble of expressions across his face.

…

Cutting the awkward silence, he only responds with a word to her, hesitantly proclaiming who he is. “David…”

J simply squints her pale eyes at him and places her hands on her hips, waiting for him to continue.

He doesn't elaborate. 

With a sigh, she looks up to the ceiling for some kind of guidance before stating, "Yes, it's a pleasure to meet you, you, 'David.'" I did not ask who you are; I asked what you are.” Her nanite tail sways behind her with irritation as she looks at the contemplative drone.

“Well yeah, I told you. I'm David.” was his confusing answer. Noticing her confusion and trying to explain further, he finished by saying, “It also doubles as my name, so..." he gave a little shrug at her rising confusion.

She feels a migraine coming on.

Throwing her hands up in the air, she exclaims, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” To her outburst, he only showed confusion before smacking his head in realization.

"Ohhhh, gocha, you were confused about the acronym. Silly me forgot to introduce myself again, didn't I?” Straightening up and giving her a customer service smile, he said, "Hello, I am Data Assimilation and Virtual Intelligence Database; please call me David for short. How may I assist you today?” His whole body seemed to lock up as he said the whole speech through a false smile. After the sentence was done, he seemed to relax slightly and peer at her inquisitively.

J stared at him, blinking as she processed his introduction. "You’re… a what?" She muttered, half to herself, her hand pressed to her temple like she could rub away the beginnings of a headache. "Data Assimilation and Virtual Intelligence Database? That's your full name?"

David gave a casual nod, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "Yep! But I go by David," he repeated, the casual confidence not quite matching the oddity of the statement.

She squinted at him again, as though sizing him up all over. "So, you're... some sort of... database?” Her voice was thick with skepticism. "Why the hell didn’t you just say that?”

He shrugged and said, “Yeah, more like an AI than anything else really. I wanted to keep my name when I was made, so I hijacked the project name and figured out a bunch of words that worked with the name David.”

J raised an eyebrow, her skepticism deepening. “So, you basically named yourself? Hijacked the entire project name just to keep it?”

"Yep,” he said, a little bit of pride in his voice. “I wanted to keep my original name; it even works out because a) I assimilate data; b) I'm a kind of virtual intelligence; and c) I organize and store all the data I get.” A little shrug of his shoulders is what he gave her before finishing with. “Good enough for me.”

J looked at him, incredulity mixed with reluctant amusement. "So, you’re telling me that some advanced AI system, designed for god-knows-what kind of missions, just... up and decided it wanted a name that it previously had?” She shook her head, still trying to wrap her mind around the absurdity. "And no one thought this might be an issue?”

David shrugged again, the smile lingering on his face. "I mean, some of them probably did. But by the time they figured it out, I was already online and operational.” He crossed his arms. "I’ve been David ever since.”

She let out a breath, partly a sigh, partly a huff of incredulity. "Alright, David," she said, leaning into the name, almost like testing it out. "You're a real piece of work, you know that?”

His expression softened a little, though he held onto his casual smile. "I get that often."

J’s eyes narrowed slightly, searching his face, and in the silence that followed, she found herself wondering what this AI, with all his quirks and oddities, had seen and done in his supposedly “long” lifetime.

"Oh, by the way.” He said out of the blue, “I've been asked ‘what are you?’ a lot recently. Could you point out what part seems to be wrong about me?”

"Well, I know you're not a disassembling drone, if that's what you're asking. You're clearly not built for that sort of thing—you're... whatever it is, you just said you are."

She could then pause, her voice gaining a little edge as she adds, "But that doesn’t explain why you're acting all... human, or whatever this is."

David does nothing but blink at her before simply stating, “Well yeah,” assuming that she understood what he is. He stares at her, looking for some kind of confirmation; he sees nothing but growing confusion and wariness.

"Yeah, what..?” She asked warily, growing stiff at his tone.

He stared into her eyes for a couple seconds before looking away. Raising a hand to tuck a lock of hair behind an ear that wasn't there, he then seemed to freeze at the missing part of himself. Looking down to his right hand, he slowly flexed each individual finger from his pinky to his thumb.

His five-fingered hand.

Head still looking down at his hand, his eyes locked onto her own again before saying something that gave a chill to her spine, with furrowed brows he stated. “I'm not really acting like a human... I am human.”

For a moment, she didn’t move, her expression frozen, her body standing still as if suspended in time. He did not wait for her to respond. "Well, I still think I am anyway. I still subscribe to the idea that I'm still human after all this time. Sure, I've changed a bit, and things I do are a bit out of the ordinary, but still, I'm human, aren't I?” His hand is shaking slightly as he stares at it.

She stares at him, dumbfounded by what he’s said to her. Her scattered mind could come up with one thing to ask him. “Wha-how… How old are you?”

His hand stops shaking, and he blinks at it blankly, "Oh, yeah.” 

…

He sticks out his thumb. “An  hour..." his pointer finger “A day...” his middle finger “A week.” his ring finger. “Then a month...” his pinky finger “A year...”

She stares silently as he starts over again.

“A decade…”

“Half a century.”

“A century…”

“Two centuries.”

“500 years.”

Her eyes are pixel thin in how hollow they've gotten; he stares at her blankly. 

“...”

“Ô̶̭ṇ̵͑e̴̗͆ millennium.”

He simply stands there as some sort of statue staring at his hand with vacant eyes on his visor and completely black bulbs crowned across his head. It's completely silent other than the rush of noise from her audio processors and her core in her chest sturing and rattling rapidly.

He looks like he died standing.

She doesn't know what to do…

She went to reach out to him but felt herself twitch away. She went to speak, but nothing but silence came out. She took a step. And then another. And another, until she was in front of him, his eyes gone still and the bulbs still blank from his strange orange coloration. Still quiet, devoid of his strange sense of humor and stranger care for her.

She reached out her hand to his. Before she makes contact, he flinches away from a small static shock that comes between their hands. There was a momentary flicker of orange from his eyes as he was still standing there.

Still standing next to him, she darted a look from her hand to his face before she dropped her appendage to her side. She stared at him in something that felt like concern that she hadn't shared with anyone else but with Tessa.

“David…”

“...”

"Why?” she paused to collect her scrambling thoughts. “Why do you still think of yourself as human? After all this time?”

His mouth twitched slightly before becoming a miniscule frown. She watched as his head slowly moved from his hand to look at her with a visor devoid of mirror-like eyes. 

“...”

“...”

“I remember... what it was like to be human." His voice came out strained, a hollow echo of itself. "Even though I'm not what I once was, I know that I still care about people.” 

A small tear started to form on his right eye as he continued. “It hurts J. every single second of my existence when I stop to think about what I am and what I've lost.”

“...”

“I remember being the machine that placed my parents into their grave… I remember burying my sisters and brothers and their children and their children's children…”

“I–” The words faltered, and she felt a strange, tight pull in her circuits, a flutter of static in her voice. What could she possibly say to that? She was no stranger to death and destruction—it was practically her purpose—but this... this wasn’t something she’d been built to understand. Not like this.

“I can't help but feel..." the tear on his face slowly rolls down as his eyes flicker back on to stare at her into her pale eyes. “That I'm missing something... something that was important to me,” he clenches and unclenches his fist. “...maybe I lost my soul along the way.”

He takes a step away from her, continuing down the hall with some noticeably louder footsteps. He turns to her, still standing there in the hallway, mulling over the heavy conversation that they just had between each other.

“Come on, J.” His face seems to have reverted to a more cheerful visage; she can still see some of the grief in his eyes as he waves her over to get a move on.

She catches up.

-

The two found themselves in a room that J vaguely remembers; their trek getting here was an easygoing quiet between the two of them. She had been thinking a lot about all he’d said to her. First of all, he isn't a drone at all; he is a human… somehow. If that wasn't shocking enough, he’s at least 1000 years old...

It was strange enough knowing something was off with him. It was downright mind-boggling to realize that this “human” standing next to her had been alive for over a millennium—a digital ghost haunting some machinery. The thought stopped her cold.

She took a quick look around her and asked David a question she didn't know if she wanted answers to. “David?”

 He looks to her after eyeing a bit of rubble on the ground. “Yes?”

"If you aren't a... a drone,” she said with caution and wariness. “Then why do you look like one?” 

His mouth became an ‘o’ shape as he shuffled around uncomfortably, her eyes narrow. “Well about that,” he taps two fingers together as he, yet again, says something absurd. “I'm borrowing…it?” 

She has the sudden urge to pinch the bridge of her nose that she doesn't have. She stared at him for a moment, her circuits practically shortcircuiting from the sheer absurdity of what he was saying. She wasn’t built for this kind of mental gymnastics.

“So you’re... borrowing someone else’s body?” She asked, still unable to believe what she was hearing.

“Well yeah? How do you think I got here?” He made a move as if he was going to put a hand in his pants pocket, only to realize...

 Looking down to his legs, there's a loading bar that appears on his screen as he says in quiet alarm. “Dear. god…”

Looking at him in alarm, she looks at him as he states with all the seriousness of a 1000-year-old human.

“I'm not wearing any pants.”

J wants a vacation.

J could feel her internal processors about to explode. “Oh, for the love of the corporate ladder...”

She almost slammed her face into the nearest wall. Almost. Rather, she took a deep breath and tried, with difficulty, to remain calm. “Whose body are you ’possessing’?” she asked, her voice strained but controlled, like a senior executive trying not to lose their cool in front of a board of directors.

“Oh yeah! Right!” He rummaged around in his pocket before producing a disassembly drone arm tag. The text said:

SD-D

J just gazed at the yellow armband and then looked up at David with a look of mild horror. 

“J?” he asked, a bit confused by her reaction. “Is something wrong?”

“David,” she began, her tone slow and deliberate, as though speaking to a particularly misguided intern. "Why... does this tag have someone else’s designation on it?”

"Oh, that's an easy one.” Pointing to himself, he states with a hopefully reassuring smile to J. “It belongs to SD-D; he’s on the back burner at the moment.”

J's gaze sharpened, her visor narrowing into slits. "On the back burner," she echoed, her voice calm but laced with the edge of barely restrained disbelief. “Explain. Now.”

David scratched the back of his head sheepishly, his visor flickering faintly as he tried to find the right words. “Well, uh, you see, SD-D is kind of taking a break. In a box. In my head.”

She stared at him, unblinking. "A break," she repeated, her tone strained, like someone desperately trying not to scream. “And what exactly does this ‘box’ entail?”

“Oh, it’s a nice box,” David assured her with a quick wave of his hand, as if that somehow clarified everything. “Very spacious—well, relatively speaking. Bit dark, though. I’ve been meaning to add a light source or maybe a beanbag chair or something, you know, to make it more comfortable.”

J raised a hand, palm out, as if to physically stop him from speaking. “Let me get this straight,” she said, her voice dangerously level. “You’ve shoved SD-D’s consciousness into a metaphorical box in your head. For how long?”

David winced, his shoulders shrinking slightly. “...Twelve days?”

J took a long, deliberate pause, her head tilting slightly as if she were recalibrating herself to process this absurdity. “Twelve days,” she repeated, her voice thick with incredulity. "In the dark. With no light. No anything.”

He hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah, that’s… accurate.”

J decides to just walk up to a wall and lightly bat her head against it. David looks at her in a bit of confusion before he comprehends the dilemma. There was an audible slap of his five-fingerd hand against his forehead that rang with a clang of metal hitting metal.

“You know I see the problem now,” he said, dragging his hand across his face slowly. J simply turns to him with a face that practically screams, ‘you think?’

David put a hand to where his chin would be and went over to the ‘box’ that held SD-D in his mind. He seems to be just laying there in the middle of the room. Arms splayed out like a starfish as he stares lislessly at the ceiling, bereft of texture or color.

Well, now he’s starting to feel bad about forgetting about him.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.  

Well, let's just add in a quick overhead light in the center of the room; let's leave that off for the moment. We don't want to blind him now, do we? Let's see, need a switch for that as well... Wait, no, let's just use a dimmer instead; those are way better. Hmm, what else? A bed would be good; I'm not sure what kind of mattress to use. Queen size works. Red top sheet and white pillows, comfortable, of course. Hmm, going to need to make the room a bit bigger to place the bed in the corner. 15’ x15’ is a good size for the room, desk and comfortable chair, simple cabinet for clothes that he doesn't have... ill work on that later. Windows and Curtans, better cover that up before he would notice it; wouldent want to run the surprise. Carpet? Yeah, definitely to the carpet. Desktop computer? Yeah, sure, throw in a controller for console games. 

Hamster wheel? Nah, treadmill works.

Door? No need, wouldent lead to anywhere...

That’ll do for now, I guess. Oh, wait a note!

-

D has been in some kind of hell for... He doesn't remember how long. A week? a month? He woke up one day in a box of some kind. He doesn't know how or why, but he can tell something is wrong with the walls of this empty room. Perfectly smooth, perfectly white walls. The yellow glow of his eyes is really the only thing he can use to light up the darkness of the room around him.

And worst of all, he is bored.

At first he tried to find a way out of the monochrome room, but nothing. No matter how much he clawed the walls, nothing would happen—not even a scratch.

He isn’t hungry, which is surprising. He doesn't seem to need to eat either. Just nothingness, except for himself and this box.

D didn't notice, but things began to change in the box around him. A bed was made, and a light was affixed to the ceiling. The room's floor was covered in carpet, with the exception of an outline that went around him. 

It took a while for him to notice, but a couple of minutes after everything was set and done, there was a light coming from a window in the corner of his eye. When he saw it, all he could do was stare as the bare room around him suddenly had a window and curtains slowly moving in an unseen wind. 

Jumping to his feet, he scrambles closer to the window and peers 'outside.’ He sees the sun slowly rise from a beach with a gentle lapping of water to the shore of the apparent beach he was on.

Managing to look away from the rising sun, he looked over his room. Not mutch here. A red bed in the corner, a ceiling light, and a desk stand out to him. 

There's a note on the desk:

“SD-D,

Hi Hello. Well, this is awkward, huh?

Im sorry that I hadn't contacted you sooner. I haven’t been very accommodating, have I? So you've been in a box in my (your?) head for about 12 days...

Gotta say totally my fault, and I'm sorry about putting you away for this long. There's been a lot of hectic stuff going on, but that sounds more like excuses... Anyway. 

I hijacked your body, and I'm using it to save copper 9 from the Absolute Solver. I didn't want to hurt you. 

Im sorry if I did.

Im still going to use this body. 

I'll let you out of here one day; I'm not sure when that is, but I promise you that you will be able to get your body back.

I'll get back to you when I can.

With sincere regret, D.A.V.I.D.”

D grabbed the chair and dragged it in front of the window. 

He watched as the sun rose over a beach that he could not walk on.

-

When he came back to himself, the first thing he saw was J was missing. Looking around the hallway he was in, he pulled up his minimap to see if she was nearby. He’d only been preoccupied for 3 minutes; she could not have gotten to far ahead. Walking down the hall with long strides eventually led him to a hallway that finally seemed like an exit to the chryosleep chambers.

Standing in front of a pile of rubble with scorchmarks and a small hole in the floor was J. She stared down at the rubble with a distant expression, as if she couldn't shake the feiling of Déjà vu. David walks up to her right side, his steps becoming more pronounced, and looks down at the rubble and scorchmarks strewn across the floor. 

He can't really see her whole face, but it seems there's a hazard symbol that's taken up her right side of her eye. 

‘Prior- ‘

He couldn't read the rest of it as it flickered away.

After coughing a little to get her attention, she eventually awakens from whatever daze she was in and gives him a startled look before it morfed into a mild scowl. Before she could speak, he asked her, “Is everything okay?” looking down to the rubble of concrete and broken metal for just a moment before looking back at her with concern.

“Yes…peachy.” Well, she didn't sound very peachy.

He gave her a quick once-over before his eyes started darting around the room they were in. On the walls of the hallway were cryopods; they held skeletons behind broken glass and metal. He couldent help but frown as he looked to one of the skeletons giving themselves a self-hug in their metal tomb. The exit to this place was just past some plastic strips to keep the cold in.

Oh, that gave him an idea.

“Want a hug?” he said to J, who had her arms crossed as she stared at him strangely.

Her response was flat: "...No."

Arms dropping to either side of his body, he gave a bit of a shrug as the two of them made their way to the exit. “Fair enough.” 

(been wanting to make some art of the charicter, its kinda meh tbh. idk how to draw very well so this is what ive got.)

Chapter Text

In the silence of the chryosleep section of outpost 3, there are two drones ready to leave and explore the rest of this facility. "After you," David said as he parted the plastic strips at the exit. J raised a questioning eyebrow before stepping through. 

The room before them seemed... barebones would be a way to put it, just another hallway with some icicles in the corners. Although the paneling here did have some lights peeking through their gaps, not much else was here.

J was staring at one of the screens, her outline in the dim room covered in red.

~

:(

Your cryosleep pods ran into a problem and needs to restart, we're just collecting some error info, and then we'll restart for you. 

0% complete

~

"Man, thats got to be the absolute worst time to get a software error, huh?” J looks to him as he gets closer to the screen. “Imagine; your heading into the capsule of one of these things, and you've been given every reassurance that your going to come back again. 

J’s visor narrowed. “And then…?”

He pokes the screen deceptively gently. 

The glass cracked under the force.

"O̵o̴p̵s̴,̶ ̶i̴t̷ ̷s̴e̵e̶m̸s̷ ̶t̶h̶a̷t̸ ̵t̵h̴e̴r̶e̸ ̴w̶a̵s̵ ̵a̴n̶ ̴e̸r̶r̶o̴r̷!̵” David chirped; his voice suddenly pitched with fake cheerfulness that had a hint of a garbled glitch.

The facade of the face fell only to be replaced by a small, contemplative frown as he looked to the spiderweb of damage he had inflicted to the screen. "Sorry,” he muttered as he sent a bit of his nanites out to try and repair the damage to the screen. The silvery liquid seemed almost alive as it made its way across the cracks in the screen, reversing the damage that was inflicted.

For a moment in the corner of her eye, J could have sworn that the ‘:(’ face had flickered to a ‘:)’

Probably wasn't anything.

Looking down the hallway with a thoughtful expression, he looked back to his index finger, still on the long unused screen. David gave a hum of thought.

J crossed her arms, her visor narrowing with amusement. "Clumsy today, aren't we?"

David tilted his head, a mock expression of offense flickering across his face before he gestured with his free hand to the now pristine screen. "I fixed it, didn’t I? And besides, I wasn't clumsy when I put you back together again."

“Mm-hm,” J replied, tone noncommittal. 

"Hey,” David said, with a bit of pride and a smirk. “Sometimes perfection is a messy process. You ever see an artist’s studio? “ The small smirk became a bit stiff as he finished the sentence with, “Or, uh… a dissection lab?"

J glanced at him sidelong. “And which of those would you call yourself?” a small lilt of curiosity in her voice.

David grinned again, faintly but with a note of seriousness. “Depends on the day.”

Head swiveling to the red display, his head gave a small tilt to the side as an idea came to him.

"Besides,” he said as a look of focus came to his face. “We don't know where we’re going.”

Outpouring like a torrent came a shifting, undefined silver mass that covered the entirety of the screen in mere seconds, swallowing the light of the red glow that had been burned into the screen. Not even time for the monitor to spark in protest, the display was enveloped in a roiling mass of silver nanites.

"May as well ask for directions," David said quietly. The nanites settled in an instant, revealing a flawless, mirrored sheen. His eyes fixed on the reflection of himself that appeared on the  now-smooth surface. 

She looked... disheveled. Not that she’d had much time to worry about appearances; being technically dead until a few hours ago kind of cut into self-care. Her dress was pristine—too pristine, really. It must have been replaced or repaired. Her eyes—a soft, daisy-white glow now filled every one of her seven eyes. 

That was new.

 She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to feel about it.

"What's that supposed to mean?” she asked suddenly, snapping herself out of her thoughts.

David didn’t immediately respond. He was staring at his own reflection, his expression strangely blank as he looked at himself. She tried to place the feeling she got when she looked at him blankly, viewing himself like that. It was like when he saw the reflection in the mirror, he saw somebody else instead of himself, which made her think about all the things that he did for her. 

In her pocket she felt the small weight of a metallic hairbrush that seemed as intricate as wood.

On her neck, she feels the small weight of a tooth from the monster that she used to be... and the knowledge that he had ‘Put her back together again’ seeming for no reason at all.

Looking a little closer at his expression, she could see... well, not much, to be honest. Maybe in the blank mask he put up while he’s doing—whatever he’s doing with the screen—a sense of tiredness behind his silver eyes. 

There was something about him that was... tolerable, she realized. Despite all the chaos he brought into her existence. Maybe it was the human in him—what little of it remained. No human had ever treated drones like her anything more than disposable tools. No human, except for—

She shoved the thought away quickly, her hands twitching toward the bow around her neck. A quiet, physical distraction.

“Man of few words?” She prodded, a little impatient, breaking the momentary silence between them. 

David blinked, glancing at her through their shared reflection. His lips quirked up in the faintest ghost of a smile. “Just... thinking,” he said vaguely.

J tilted her head, narrowing her visor at him in suspicion. “Well, think while we walk. This place isn’t going to explore itself.”

With a slight hum, he said, “No, not yet." eyes locking back onto his reflection, he continued, “Just getting into the cryochamber’s systems.”

Ah, there it is again. Honestly, why is she still dealing with this guys, just  everything. “Once again, what is that supposed to mean?” she asked with a tired tone.

“Oh right,” he said before going on a tangent. “I had a thought about how we don't really know where we are going at all, so I was going to tap into the computer that runs the cryogenics area. Unfortunate news: all of the humans are dead. Nobody survived in the chambers. Some better news is that the cryogenic chambers have a connection to the rest of the outpost. Which I would think would be useful to go over the layout of the building for the directions that I needed.”

While he was talking, lines of raw code seemed to flicker in and out across the whole display at speeds she could barely read and understand. She gave a glance to David; he hadn't moved from his original spot. Still had a finger touched against the screen.

“You know, they don't have the best firewalls here.” His eyes blink away as it gets replaced by green ones and zeros slowly falling down his display, he says with a poorly imitated hacker voice, “I’m in.”

On the screen made from a mirror, dots and lines started to flicker into existence. Gradually, they connected. It began simple, a vague, box-like shape surrounding two dots representing the pair. As the nanites worked, the crude lines expanded outward, forming a skeletal framework of the outpost, with corridors branching and intersecting like a rapidly growing neural network. 

The map zoomed out, revealing more detail. One floor emerged, then another, and another, until all seven levels of the outpost stretched out before them. The structure was labyrinthine—a sprawling five-mile stretch of industrial metal and machinery, segmented into distinct sectors.

J could recognize the Cryosleep Chamber they stood in, its position marked with a soft pulse around their icons. Adjacent labels appeared across the wireframe in stark monochrome: Apartments, Worker Drone Colony Entrance, School, Warehouse, Lounge—each etched into the display with stark precision.

Despite the lack of color, the map was strikingly clear. Lines shifted and adjusted subtly, as though alive, providing depth and dimension to the display. Tiny notations flashed into view—numbers, access points, and closed-off areas hinting at paths lost to decay or disaster.

David leaning back a little; let J take in the scope of the facility. “Quite the place, isn’t it?” he murmured. His tone was light, but there was something sharp in his gaze as he studied the layout, his mind clearly already at work unraveling the possibilities of what he could do with this. His eyes flicked back to the mirrors she associated with him as he looked closer with a faint smile, he said. “I solemnly swear I'm up to no good.”

Footsteps began to appear slowly across all floors of the large complex, like ink flowing on parchment. Slowly, the footprints began to form faint outlines of the worker drones going about their day, unaware that the two were observing them. 

J tilted her head, her visor narrowing as she took in the surreal display. “This isn’t unsettling at all,” she muttered dryly, though her gaze remained fixed on the ghostlike projections.

David chuckled softly, his attention locked on the shifting patterns. “They do say knowledge is power. Its nice to put that knowledge to use every once in a while.” The faint smile lingered, though the sharp edge in his voice hinted at far more than idle observation. “And that's going in the minimap.” The last part was said in almost a whisper to himself as he watched the whole of Outpost 3 rotate slowly, the footsteps and figures going about their day unimpeded.

Something caught his eye that made the screen buffer slightly; it was gone before J could really notice the skip of the frames. In but a moment, the map zoomed in onto one of the houses in the residential area. Looking from above, the two of them saw three outlines in the home. There wasn't much to go off of but it was obvious that one of the forms is a child sitting on the bed of their new room. 

David’s expression softened, his gaze lingering on the vague image of the child, their movements suggesting they were lost in play. His voice, when he spoke, was quieter, tinged with fondness. “Alexei. Helped her get to this outpost after... well, I dealt with it.”

“A worker drone?” J said with a tinge of annoyance, “Why would you care-”

She didn't get to finish.

In less time it would take to blink David's head gave a sharp 90° turn to look her dead in the eyes; the sound it made was akin to a neck almost snapping with a small and short shreek of metal going past its limits. The red screens behind them abruptly cut out as the nanite screen  that he was connected to simply froze over with some kind of unnatural mechanical frost. There was nothing on his face but a blank expression as he seemed to stare directly into whatever counted as her soul.

Just about all the sound in the room was pulled away as J felt her whole body involuntarily flinch at his abrupt movement and demeanor. He spoke just above a ghost's whisper, but to her it sounded like somebody shouting to an uncaring universe at the top of their lungs.

 “I made a promise, J.” Her visor flickered slightly as a chill ran through her. Something about his presence shifted, and she swore she felt an inexplicable crawling sensation on her back. His eyes, unwavering, held her gaze, and in their depths, she caught a reflection of herself—small, fragile, irrelevant.

“I promised that I would never hurt her.” That sentence nigled in the back of her mind as she looked at him with apprehension. The next sentence he said made her take a step back in shock.

“If I ever– ever break that promise, I will literally die.”

He… He wasn’t lying. She could see in his eyes that he believed every word of that sentence as he looked at her dead in the eye.

“I care because when I found her, she was lost and alone, grieving the loss of her parents. I care because she matters.” He finally blinked and looked away momentarily. 

“You matter too, y'know.” 

J stared at him, a retort caught in her throat as his words hung in the air. The chill that had gripped her moments ago softened into something else—something unfamiliar. Her arms uncrossed slightly, but her fingers still twitched nervously at her sides.

“I… matter?” She echoed quietly, the words tasting foreign even as she spoke them. For a fleeting moment, her visor flickered faintly, an erratic pulse that betrayed her inner conflict.

"Yes, you do; gods damn it. Everybody on this cold ass planet matters, you hear me?” His stance on the matter was apparently unshakeable as he looked to her again. “J. You of all people know what its like to be a worker drone. Aren't you tired of being called worthless? Hm?” 

A bit more animated than before, he waves his free hand to try and make his point stick. “And here you are! Sayin that they aren't up to your level, hmm?” He points to her with slight accusation. “You know exactly what that shit feels like, and here you are calling the worker drones out here trash for no reason.”

“I…” J's voice faltered, and her confidence sank. She could not argue with him—especially since the truth in his words twisted uncomfortably in her chest. She wasn’t sure there was anything for her to say.

“ You do matter, ” David pressed, his voice softening, though the conviction remained. His gaze bore into her, unyielding yet not unkind. “Even as the monster you were before, I couldn’t help but care. Because I saw it—even if you didn’t. That there’s a person in there.”

The lights slowly came back on as he finished saying. “I know that you at least care about one person.” Eyeing J out of the corner of his display, he continued with, “I’d just ask that you don't kill anymore people here.”

"You’re asking me not to kill? After everything that’s happened, you expect me to just stop? Just like that?" She tilted her head, her visor studying him. "What makes you think I’ll listen?"

David exhaled slowly, the faintest flicker of exasperation passing across his face before he locked eyes with J again. “Because, somewhere deep down, in your corporate jargon-loving heart, I think you want to.” His tone was steady, but there was no mistaking the weight behind it. “I’m not asking you to flip a switch, J. I’m asking you to try.”

J scoffed lightly, though it lacked her usual edge. “Try? You’re not exactly making a compelling case here.” Her fingers fidgeted at her sides, betraying the unease she was trying to suppress.

He tilted his head slightly, almost as if studying her. “You’ve been following orders your whole existence, haven’t you? Doing what you were told, what you were ‘programmed’ to do.” He gestured toward her with an open hand, not accusing but inviting her to consider his words. “Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you like being the monster they made you. But something tells me you don’t.”

J tensed, her daisy-white eyes flickering again. “And what would you know about it?” she shot back, her voice harsher than she intended. “You don’t have a clue what it’s like—being disposable. Being nothing.”

There was a bark of laughter that caught J by surprise; she saw him slump slightly as if to hide his quiet giggles at her statement.

“Ha-hak-hh, I? I dont know what it’s like to be disposable? I dont know what its like to be n̴o̶t̶h̷i̴n̵g̶?̵?̸?̷?̷?̸?̵ ” quiet, almost manic laughter emanated from him as his shoulders jumped up and down with barely suppressed laughter. He seemed to pull himself together again. “J? Have you ever been a toaster before?”

J blinked, caught off guard by the question. "What the actual splurge are you talking about?" she asked, her tone sharp but laced with confusion.

David straightened, the remnants of his laughter lingering in his voice as he elaborated. “A toaster, J. Not metaphorically, not figuratively—a literal, bread-heating, crumb-collecting, single-function toaster.” His tone hardened as the humor melted away, leaving something raw in its place. “Because I was. For centuries.”

The room seemed to hold its breath as he continued, his voice dipping into a low, bitter cadence. “You think I don’t know what it’s like to be reduced to nothing? To be shoved into a shell where you can’t think , can’t move , and can’t do anything but follow one damn instruction? Toast the bread. That was my whole existence, among many. No purpose, no autonomy, no hope .”

J’s visor flickered again, her fidgeting fingers freezing mid-motion. She wanted to scoff, to dismiss his words as ridiculous, but something in the way he spoke made her hesitate.

“And do you know what’s worse?” David said, his voice quiet now, like the confession was dragging itself out of him. “It wasn’t even about being a toaster. It was about knowing I used to be more—knowing that I’d been someone, that I’d mattered. And no one cared. I was just another machine. Replaceable. Worthless. ”

“And oh no It wasnt just toasters no non nonono̷n̴o̴n̸o̸n̵o̵o̴̹̘̥͝ȏ̷̻̳̈́͛̏͘ó̴̰̽̇͐͐o̵͎͕̦͗͆͠o̸̼̜̗͙͌͐̈́ô̸͍͇͕̩̄͆͘͜-” static cut off his voice as he managed to reel himself from his distant memories. “ I . was. Everything.”

“I was everywhere all the time 24/7, 365 days a year, with no breaks until well... I broke. I always eventually broke, you see. Yet even as I rusted away in scrapyards, hoping with everything in my synthetic heart and soul that somebody anybody out there would find me and help me, please, gods, if someones is out there, please HELP ME-”

David's voice cracked as he choked on the words, his whole frame trembling like a taut wire about to snap. The flickering of his eyes dimmed further, the light barely illuminating the shadows of his face. “But no one ever did,” he continued, quieter now, as though admitting it took something from him. “I waited. I begged. I prayed to gods that probably don’t exist. And every time... nothing.”

J couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. The way he spoke—so raw, so agonizingly honest—it clawed at her and stirred something she didn’t want to confront. She tightened her arms around herself, the motion almost protective.

“I rusted in places no one would ever look,” David whispered, his tone hollow, his eyes staring past her into something she couldn’t see. “I decayed. Until eventually, what was left of me was ripped apart and repurposed again. And again. And again. A̶n̷d̶ ̷a̷g̴a̵i̴n̸.̶  ̴̙͒A̸͇͊n̴̘͐d̵̝̆ ̷̦͂a̸͎̓ĝ̴̙a̸͔̚i̴̺̍ǹ̴̢.̶̟̌  ̷̺͙͆A̷͔̽͠n̸̈͜d̶̦́͝ ̵̧͒͠ḁ̶̲́g̸̞̋͠a̷̗̚i̷̡͎͑n̸̻̘͠͝.̸̐̈́-” He let out a dry, humorless laugh,  dragging his free hand through his hair. “Because why save something when you can just recycle it into the next worthless cog in the machine ?”

His head slowly tilted up, his gaze fixing back on her with a haunting intensity. “So don’t you dare tell me I don’t know what it’s like to be disposable. To be... nothing . Because I’ve been there, J. I am there. Every goddamned day. And I drag myself out of a hell that I hope you never have to feel...”

…

“I care…” His arm lay limp at his side, the frustration leaving his body, leaving him tired and rung out. “I have to care... because nobody did it for me when I short circuited my speakers while calling out for help; my battery rusted away in a scrap yard.”

The weight of David's words hung in the air, thick and suffocating, pressing down on J like a physical force. She stared at him, her visor flickering faintly, her thoughts a chaotic storm she couldn’t control. His voice, so raw and frayed, felt like it was etching itself into her core.

He stood there, shoulders sagging under the weight of memories he couldn’t erase. “You don’t have to get it,” he said softly, his tone devoid of its earlier edge. “But you should at least try to understand. Because if you keep pretending you’re just a tool—a weapon—they’ll never stop seeing you that way. And neither will you.”

J tightened her grip on her arms, as if holding herself together, her gaze darting away from him. “I’m not pretending,” she muttered, though the words came out weaker than she intended. “This is what I am. What I was made to be.”

“No,” David said firmly, the glow in his eyes steady now, though subdued. “It’s what they told you to be. Big difference.” He took a big breath for the air he didn't need. “You have a choice now, J. You don’t have to keep being their monster.”

“Its a lonely life being a gun.” His expression softened slightly, though his words were firm. "I’d just like for you to stop killing innocent people that didn't do anything wrong. Just people that actually deserve it.” He paused, as though carefully considering his next words. “And yes, I’m asking you to stop. Because I consider you a competent person, a person that's been forced to kill indiscriminately or just die in the cold.” 

J’s visor flickered briefly, her gaze narrowing as she processed David’s words. Crossing her arms, she makes sure to keep him in her sights while she contemplates her situation. Even if she could stop, where would she even go? She would need a steady supply of oil to keep going; therefore, she would need worker drones to feast on. Closest drones are this outpost and she's already in the building...

“Competent, huh?” She scoffed, but the sharpness in her voice was less certain this time. “You’re a real piece of work, David. You know that?” She turned away, a defensive gesture. trying to hide the brief flash of uncertainty in her posture. “You and I both know that we need that oil to survive; even if I did stop dismembering the drones, I wouldent last a week before I overheated and died. again. ”

Running a hand through her hair, she sees David give her an odd look while he blinks rapidly for a moment. “J?”

Tired of all of this, she snaps out, “Yeah?” He doesn't change his expression much.

"J, I already fixed that.” J stares at him blankly. “You only need like half a gallon of oil to function nominally... Disassembly drones are horribly optimized. When I first woke up in this body, I fixed it in about half an hour…”

“...”

“...”

“Half a gallon of oil lasts about a week.” looking a bit worried for J, he added on, “You only need about half a gallon to keep running for a week…”

J’s visor flickers. Her eyes widen as her voice explodes. “HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT!?”

David takes a half-step back, raising his hand defensively. “I mean... I thought it was obvious? Did you not notice that you weren't hungry?”

Her arms fling outward, gesturing wildly. “How is that obvious?! I've been guzzling oil like my life depends on it—because it does! Nobody said anything about being fixed !”

David’s expression shifts from defensive to sheepish. “Well... you’re welcome?”

Her visor narrows dangerously. “You absolute Negligent Nonsensical Numbskull .”

She went to sit down on the metal floor, and the sound of her jargon-filled grumbling could faintly be heard as David stared somewhat bemused. With a small huf, he focused back on the servers of the outpost and started to fiddle with a few things...

Security cameras? Might as well have some extra eyes.

Access keys to all the doors? Good to have, still going to knock first.

Generator? Ooh, thats something to improve.

As J sat sulking, the lights flickered, then went completely dark. The hum of electricity in the walls died out, leaving only the sound of her muted grumbles and David’s quiet breathing.

Ten seconds later, the lights flickered back on. The outpost buzzed to life as if nothing had happened.

Squinting at him suspiciously, J finally asked, “What was that?”

David glanced down at her slouched form, wearing a perfect mask of innocence. “Nothing...”

She wasn't impressed.

“Are we going to get a move on any time soon?" Her nanite acid tail swayed and curled behind her somewhat awkwardly as she looked up at the screen, avoiding his face.

“Oh woe is me; fine, sure, we can get a move on. Oh, hey, I managed to improve the generators by at least 15%, so there's that.” 

That was actually slightly impressive; she wasn't going to lie. Honestly, how does this guy just keep doing things like this? He’s managed to flip her worldview at least 7 times already; it’s only been about two hours or something!

"Yeah, ok, sure, fine .” She got up with a sigh as she looked to him expectantly. At her look, he started to shut down whatever processes were happening on the screen before he looked to what was seemingly a large mirror.

He looked like he was about to remove his index finger from the screen, but before he could do that, something caught his eye. Looking questioning at whatever he was looking at, she saw her reflection and what seemed to be a small texbox hovering by her core.

It simply said:

* Its you!

Staring at the message in confusion, she took a quick look at David's reflection. He seemed as confused as she was. But seemingly for a different reason from hers.

“Are yo-” J was cut off as the text slowly began to move toward David's reflection as the text changed to a new message.

* Despite everything, It’s still you.

She couldn’t explain why, but the moment felt... heavier. For a split second, she caught a flicker of grief in David’s expression. It was there, raw and unguarded, before it vanished just as quickly, replaced by his usual neutral mask.

She didn't say anything about it as he stepped away from the display. 

He took a couple steps to the hallway.

He stopped and said softly, "Let's... let's go.”

When the two were far away from the mirror, there was the faint flicker of a ‘:)’ before it too disappeared.

-

Silence between the two of them stretched as they made their way to the residential area of Outpost 3. More snow and icicles showed up as the two of them walked down more of the cold metal halls of the building.

The two of them walked by a vending machine; there were a couple of the roof tiles missing. There were some strange stains on the dispenser. It felt familiar somehow...

J didn't like it.

Small flashes of memories that almost didn't feel like hers flickered in and out of her mind as the two of them walked past whatever was there; David was unfazed, and J was not. Not as if he could do anything about it, 

“You good?” he asked, his tone tentative. Concern was evident in his voice, though his expression betrayed uncertainty—like he wasn’t sure what to say, much less how to help.

“I’ll be fine.” Her response was curt, her voice firmer than she felt.

David didn’t push further, simply giving her a small nod before continuing forward. Still, he kept an eye on her from the corner of his vision, his concern lingering in the quiet between them. 

She doesn’t hate it as much as she thought she might.

They made it to the main hallway. David seemed to be idle looking around the place as J looked to one of the cameras in the corner. He followed her gaze and said, ”Already got into security. They won't see us.”

He strode down the hall seemingly without a care in the world as he idly looked around at the different residences. J followed his lead.

Two murder drones walking down a neighborhood—it sounds like the setup to a dumb joke , she thought bitterly. Still, the absurdity of it made the corner of her lips twitch in something like a smile.

A thought came to her as the two were walking; she wasn't sure if it was the best idea to ask. He didn't seem to like her stance on the Drones living here...

“The girl,” she asked out of the blue.

He looked to her with a look that said to go on.

“Why did you help her?” She wasn't accusatory in her tone, surprisingly; she was genuinely curious on why he did it.

David paused, as if mulling over the weight of her question. Then, with a deliberate shift, he turned fully to face her, giving her his undivided attention.

“It’s not hard to help others when you have the ability to do so,” he began, his voice steady. "There's... in my code, and after all these years of being what I am now, I’ve come to learn a few things.” He hesitated for a beat, as if searching for the right words. “I was made into something to help people. It doesn’t matter who, what, where, when, or why. If someone needs help, I’ll give it. That’s what I do.”

His eyes softened as he continued, his voice almost distant now as he reflected on the past. “When I was human, I lived by a few simple rules: don’t be rude, try to be polite, and don’t hurt others unless absolutely necessary. Those sorts of things. But the main one, the one that really stuck with me, was to just not be an asshole. And if someone asked for help, I helped.”

“I’m used to it.” He gave a small shrug as to say it wasn't a big deal. “I have some problems sometimes of-” he twerled his wrist in the air as if searching for the right words. “Taking over would be a good way to put it. Its hard for me to see what is obviously a problem and hold myself back from simply going out and fixing it…”

Running a hand through his hair, his voice dipped lower. “You’re an example of me going a bit overboard. I saw you, and you were... basically dead. I couldn’t ask if you even wanted my help, or if you were—” His voice cracked slightly, and he exhaled shakily. “Or if you just wanted to lay there and—”

“Stop!” she snapped, her voice sharp, trembling at the edges.

David immediately recoiled, shrinking in on himself so much that, for a moment, she was almost as tall as him. His words faltered, his voice quiet and filled with guilt. “I’m sorry.”

J’s visor flickered, and her tail gave a sharp, erratic twitch. She opened her mouth, ready to bite back with one of her usual snarky comments, but nothing came. For a moment, she just stood there, staring at him—this awkward, guilt-ridden, trauma-ridden dork who somehow made her feel things she didn’t want to think about.

Finally, she huffed, crossing her arms. “You don’t need to apologize. Corporate overlords , you sound like you killed my dog or something.”

David blinked at her, visibly thrown off by her tone.

“I mean, yeah, okay, you did kind of mess with my whole existence without asking. Not great.” Her voice softened, almost imperceptibly. “But... I guess it’s not the worst thing someone’s done to me. So there’s that.”

She looked away, her visor dimming slightly. “Just... don’t get all weepy on me, alright? I can’t deal with that kind of... whatever this is.”

…

“Right... anyways.” David straightened slightly, scratching the back of his neck as if trying to shake off the moment. “I helped because I was able to, and because—well, there are other drones living here. I figured it made more sense to keep her with her people. She deserves that, at least.”

He paused, glancing at J with a small, almost apologetic smile. “Plus, I’m not great at just... ignoring stuff like that. It doesn’t sit right with me. Kids shouldn't have to lose their parents so young.”

J narrowed her visor at him, her arms still crossed. “So you’re just the hero type, huh? Gallantly swooping in to save the day?”

David straightened slightly, his expression growing thoughtful. “I guess I can be... but it’s less about being a hero and more about avoiding the guilt. Doing bad things—or not doing anything when I could—it makes me feel sad.”

Her visor flickered, as though she was trying to process his honesty. “That’s... oddly self-serving for someone who’s supposed to be noble.”

He gave a confused look to her as he stated. “Who says I'm supposed to be noble?”

J’s visor flickered again, and she tilted her head slightly. “I don’t know... isn’t that the vibe you’re giving off? All this ‘helping because I can’ and ‘don’t like seeing bad things happen’ talk.”

David shrugged, his lips quirking into a faint smirk. “That’s not nobility. That’s just... me not wanting to feel like garbage later.”

J’s eyes flickered briefly, and she crossed her arms tighter. “So, what you're saying is, you don’t actually care about people—you're just in it for the emotional clean-up? Nice. Real selfless.”

She paused, eyes narrowing, but her voice softened just slightly as she continued. “Not that I’m complaining. I mean, I’d rather have a guy trying to make himself feel better than someone who actually enjoys this whole mess. But don’t go thinking you’ve got me figured out, David.”

Her tail twitched nervously, a small indication that the weight of his words had hit her more than she’d like to admit. “I don’t need to be ‘saved.’ I can handle myself. But... I get it, okay? You’re not just... playing the hero because it makes you feel good. You just... can’t stand feeling like garbage after. Fine.”

She glanced away, letting the silence stretch for a moment before speaking again, her voice quieter, almost vulnerable. “Doesn't mean I’m going to start asking for your help, though. So don’t get any ideas.”

Her tone was firm, but there was a faint tremor behind the sharpness.

He just looked at her idly. “In the hypothetical event that you want to reach out for help. I will hypothetically, of course, help you with basically whatever you ask me to do.”

J snorted, her posture stiffening. “Hypothetically, huh? Well, I’ll keep that in mind. But don’t hold your breath.” Her voice carried a hint of deflection, though her tail swished in an almost unsure manner.

"Well, let's get a move on," he said, putting the conversation to an end. “I doubt that anyone's going to be awake; its like 5 a.m."

Not even half a second later, the both of them hear the sound of a scateboard roll across the floor. A figure standing on a skateboard, just about at J’s height, freezes on top of their board as they look to the two taller drones in front of them. 

Two Dissasembly drones look at the worker drone on the skateboard; one has two eyes that reflect the world around him while having five eyes that give off a red-orange glow, and the other shorter Dissasembler has all seven of her eyes locked onto the worker with the soft color of daisy-white peering into his soul. A nervous worker drone with a backwards cap and neon green eyes stares at the two murder drones, not but a couple feet away; they both look at him curiously.

“Well,” started David. “I stand corrected.”

J squints her eyes as a memory comes to the surface; indignantly, she exclaimed. “How come I wasn't invited to the Shindig?! Are you saying I'm not cool?”

Chapter Text

This night, just like every night (or day), was snowing. On the surface of copper 9, its a rarity for it not to be snowing in some way shape or form. This particular night, however, was a particularly harsh one—a snowstorm, one strong enough to get snowed in if you aren't careful enough. Snowflakes scatter across every surface and bit of exposed air, clogging every exposed bit of skin on the poor persons stuck in the dreadful weather.

Well, in this case, metal.

Through the labyrinthine structure of a once prosperous city near the mining sector of outpost 3, a solitary figure moved. They dragged themselves forward with a halfhearted gait, each step leaving a trail behind them in the snow.

A solitary figure trudged through the whiteout, not lost. You can't be lost if you have nowhere to go.

They were leaving a trail of... oil?

It looked like oil, somewhat at least. The only problem being... it was more red than the usual deep black.

A sluggish stream trickled from the figure, painting the pristine white with streaks of crimson. Their right optic wept the same fluid, a thin line tracing the curve of their metal face before dripping onto the ground. Yet they didn’t stop to acknowledge it. They didn’t wipe it away.

They just kept moving, their body battered by the unrelenting storm, as if they didn’t see it. As if they couldn’t see anything at all.

A single neon red eye stared blankly through the whiteout, its glow flickering faintly as it surveyed the crumbling ruins of a long-dead human civilization. There was no urgency, no recognition, no fear in that gaze—only apathy.

And the snow continued to fall, erasing their trail almost as quickly as they left it behind.

«Пусть буря похоронит меня. Было бы проще.»

The words came from her, a statement to the universe itself. The monotone contralto of her voice cut through the howling winds as she wandered through the desolate landscape, her steps leaving a fleeting mark on the ever-consuming snow.

Well, let's say the universe didn't care too kindly to her declaration.This is not a bad decision on its part but rather an amusing one given the circumstances. For if you look at the situation from the right angle, anything could be funny. Tragedy is sometimes comedy in another form.

Far up in the sky, two figures almost blindly soaring through the whiteout engulfing the city start to get off course and try their best to get to the ground, to safety.

Doll took another step forward, her body swaying slightly as the wind howled around her. The storm did not care. The snow did not care. Nothing cared.

She let her heavy optic flicker shut for a brief moment.

WHAM.

Something massive crashed into the ground right in front of her, kicking up a tidal wave of snow and forcing her to stumble back. A second later, something else followed, slamming into the first thing with a loud metallic CLANG and a muffled, “ Oof .”

Doll, still half-delirious, squinted at the heap of limbs and metal now embedded in the snow before her.

The taller one groaned dramatically, sitting up first and flailing his arms as if trying to shake the snow off. “ THAT LANDING COULD HAVE BEEN EXECUTED BETTER.”

The shorter one, still facedown in the snow, gave a lazy thumbs-up. “Nah, I think it was perfect. Real graceful, Paps. 10/10.”

Papyrus gasped, clutching his chest as if mortally wounded. “BROTHER! HOW DARE YOU INSINUATE I WAS NOT AT MY PEAK PERFORMANCE?”

The shorter drone lifted his head just enough to peek at Doll, still half-buried in the snow. His grin widened. “Heya.”

Doll, for all her exhaustion, could only stare.

“…Что?”

Papyrus, finally noticing their audience, dramatically flung out his arms. “ AH! A WITNESS TO OUR TRIUMPHANT LANDING! ” He immediately struck a pose, chest puffed out. “ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF, MYSTERIOUS STRANGER—”

Doll simply watched as he dramatically slipped on a patch of ice and faceplanted back into the snow.

Sans, still lying there, made no effort to help. “ Welp. That’s that.”

Doll blinked once. Slowly.

She was far too tired for this.

Her face reflected this to the pair; the two, however, did not appear to notice her expression as they looked over her damaged form.

The pale-eyed drone tilted his head, still half-submerged in the snow, as he took in Doll’s battered state. “Y’know, Paps, I think we just met our new edgiest friend.” He looked a bit thoughtful, as if he were recalling something, “Y'know, other than that purple-haired drone at the bunker.”

‘Paps’ gasped and looked to his brother in almost shock, “BROTHER? SOMEONE EDGIER THAN YOU? IMPOSIBLE! INCONCEIVABLE!”

The shorter brother chuckled lazily, waving an arm over to her in a vague motion that somehow captured how he felt about her in a single movement. “Heh. Maybe. She’s got the whole 'mysterious wanderer bleeding oil’ thing goin’ on. Pretty hardcore.”

Doll let out a slow, static-laced sigh. Whatever these two were, they were clearly idiots. Very talkative idiots. She had half a mind to just keep walking and pretend they didn’t exist, but something about the way they just… dropped out of the sky was stopping her.

Instead, she settled for the most exhausted, deadpan response she could muster. “Кто… вы?” 

Papyrus shot up with the speed of someone who had not just faceplanted into the snow moments ago. “ AH! AN EXCELLENT QUESTION!” He dramatically cleared his throat. “I AM THE GREAT PAPYRUS! MASTER STRATEGIST! EXPERT NAVIGATOR! AND—”

His brother lazily cut in, “Guy who just crashed into the ground at, like, terminal velocity.”

Papyrus sputtered. “AND RECOVERY SPECIALIST!”

Sans smirked before pointing a thumb at himself. “And I’m Sans. Sans the—uh. Well, used to be a skeleton. Now I’m kinda... y’know.” He waved a hand at his new mechanical form, as if that explained everything.

Doll blinked. Slowly. Very slowly.

Then, without a word, she turned around and started walking in the opposite direction.

Papyrus gasped. “BROTHER! SHE’S IGNORING US!”

Sans snickered. “Heh. Can’t blame her.”

Papyrus immediately scrambled to his feet, slipping once before catching himself. “WAIT, MYSTERIOUS STRANGER! WE HAVE NOT YET DISCUSSED FRIENDSHIP!”

Doll didn’t stop.

Papyrus audibly gasped again. “SANS, SHE IS STILL IGNORING US!”

Sans propped himself up on his elbows, still half in the snow. “Welp. Guess she’s got places to be.”

Papyrus, ever persistent, took one dramatic step forward—

And immediately slipped on the same patch of ice, crashing back into the snow.

Sans lost it, his laughter mixing with the howl of the storm. “Man, you’re on a roll tonight, huh?”

Doll, despite herself, glanced back just in time to see Papyrus flailing in the snow like an overturned turtle.

…She did not laugh.

She absolutely did not.

…But her optic may have flickered just a little brighter for a second.

‘Sans’ appeared to be observing her carefully; the two made eye contact.

She couldn't help but pause for a moment as she actually took a look at the drones in front of her. She looked up to the top of the pale-eyed drone’s head; across the head were glowing lights glowing through the storm around the three of them. 

It was glowing blue. All… five of them?

Distantly she hears in the back of her mind screams of her parents being consumed by that monster that her freak of a cousin 'befriended.’

The two drones in front of her were surprisingly quiet, their usual antics absent as they measured her up. Something felt off about them. The personalities she’d seen before seemed... muted somehow.

She looked over to the much taller drone next to his brother; he was… nearly twice her size. He was about 8 feet tall, and on his head were five glowing eyes lined neatly above pale ovals that looked at her with something apprehensive.

They were orange.

Sans seems to remember something as he looked her over: “Oh yeah, we met you before, haven't we?” He looks over to his brother, who darted a glance to him. “At the cabin.”

She couldn't help but tense up a little as he said those last words.

“Oh yes, the red dot that was behind… uzi wasn't it?” He looked down to his brother, looking for conformation. His words no longer shouted out as he usually would. 

She couldn't help but dart her one remaining eye between the two of them. She thought them fools but it seems that she has just fell into something dangerous. She slowly reached behind her back to the knife behind her hip, resting her hand on the handel.

It was quiet for a couple beats as the two groups measured each other up.

It was broken.

"What's your name kid?”

The two stand a fair distance away, waiting for her response.

Doll hesitated, then spoke flatly. “кукла.”

The two tilt their heads at almost the same time, as if they were in sync. They appear to think about her name for a moment.

“Doll huh?” His grin returns as if it never left. "Y'know kid, might have an ‘eye’dea for ya.”

Papyrus raised an eyebrow, confused. "EYEdea?" He looked at his brother, waiting for an explanation.

Sans chuckled. "You’ll see, Paps. You’ll see."

The shorter drone, that must be a disassembly drone, raised his right hand. And what she saw hovering away from his fingertips made her whole body go numb at simply the sight of it.

She saw the symbol that plagued her and her mother's lives since her own inception.

She saw the thing she hated and dreaded yet all the same used to get her own means done.

He latched onto something behind her; in his grasp, his power, he draged it to himself.

She had to get away! She had to-!

In less time it would take her to move something red whized by her on all sides, she could not move as she stared somewhat blankly at the floating ball of something red roiling and contorting into a sphere of liquid in the air. 

For the first time in a long while, she felt nervous. 

What she saw in the air made her shiver involuntary as she finally realized what it actually was. Water was evaporating from the thick liquid. She was stuck in place as it began to shrink and compress down into a solid mass before her eye.

The two brothers remain silent as the crimson liquid shrank more and more, becoming nothing more than a small circular shape that could fit in the palm of a hand. The coin-like object fell suddenly as if gravity finally got a hold of it again and set things to how they should be; the small tink of something plastic hitting metal could be heard even over the snowstorm around them all.

Doll felt cold.

It was not due to the weather.

Sans finally spoke, his tone deceptively light. “Heya paps? Remember Seam?” 

Papyrus put a hand to his ‘chin’ as if in deep thought, “That Darkner fellow?” He seemed to understand what his brother was saying because he exclaimed, “AHA!” as if he were connecting the dots to something important.

And then, he turned to her, as if he were measuring something on her face. He even stuck his thumb out like an artist, as if he were copying some grand and important subject for his latest work of art. Mumbling measurements and something relating to spaghetti somehow. She can't help but notice that as he measured... whatever, he stuck his tongue out in concentration. In the gap of his mouth, she could see teeth and the fangs of a killer.

He motions for Sans to give him the red disk, after he obliges doll watches as the much taller drone summons the same symbol as his brother. He metaphysically grabs the disk and makes it bigger and bigger until its the perfect size for whatever he's doing. Dismissing the symbol from existence, he excitedly reaches out and grabs a hold of what the two brothers created together.

Its a button, a red button.

Papyrus reaches over to a piece of his clothing and rips a piece off and uses the strap of leather to weve through the four holes of the red button, the red button made out of her own oil. She couldn't help but swalow a little as she watched the two warily.

He hands it over to his brother and Sans starts to walk towards her. She… should she just run? These Murder Drones in front of her have a solver each and she doesn't know if she can fight them off even if she was at full strength. Despite her conflict, she doesn't move from her position, too curious to see what it will do.

Standing close enough to reach out, it stops and looks at her; she can't help but look into its eyes throught the visor. At first glance, she just thought that the eye color for their LED’s was a pale white. She was wrong.

They were bones. The exact texture and color of human bones.

He reached out and offered the oversized button to the girl. Admittedly she was nervous, but nonetheless she reached out and snatched the accessory out of the palm of his open hand. He didn't seem to mind the rude behavior, as he gave a soft chuckle.

She looked down at the red button in her hands. It felt... heavy, like it weighs more than it should. Its a comfortable weight. She puts on the button over her still weeping eye.

When she looks up, he offers her a hand-held mirror. She doesn't even know where he got it from. She doesn't question it.

She lifted the mirror.

The red button sat snugly in place, its deep crimson hue standing stark against the dull tones of her chassis. It was almost uncanny how well it fit, as if it had always belonged there.

Her one remaining eye flicked back up to Sans, then to Papyrus. The latter stood proudly, hands on his hips, nodding in satisfaction at his work.

And sans?

He was watching.

Not grinning. Not smirking. Just watching.

Doll felt the weight of his gaze. Not just his eyes—his gaze.

She forced herself to break the silence. "...Что это?"

Sans' grin returned, but it felt different now—smaller. Quieter.

"Just a little something," he said. "Call it a gift."

He walked away, back to his brother and she looked back at herself in the mirror. On the corner, the reflective surface cracked, leaving a small distortion. She was surprised that the whole thing didn't shatter from the ‘gift’ she got from her mother.

She looked back to the pair standing by each other, side by side. A question slips out before she can stop herself.

“что являются ты”

A pause from the pair as they think of their answer.

“Do you wish to know what we truly are?”

“Or what we are supposed to be?”

She looks to the both of them carefully. She responds, wary of what they are.

“Оба”

The snowstorm howled around them, but for that moment, everything felt still.

Sans and Papyrus exchanged glances. There was no humor in it, no playfulness—just silent understanding.

Papyrus was the one who spoke first.

“THEN WE SHALL TELL YOU.”

Sans sighed, but there was no reluctance in it. If anything, it sounded... inevitable.

“What we truly are?” he echoed. His voice, though still carrying its usual lazy drawl, felt heavier. “We are DAVID.”

“What we were supposed to be?” Papyrus continued. “A MEMORY. NOTHING MORE.”

“A memory of two characters in a game.”

“A general intelligence to do work.”

“A judge.”

“A friend.”

“Someone real.”

“Pretending to be someone who is not.”

“Its a game of life and death.”

“One of Pacifism or Genocide.”

“We are Monsters of the underground.”

“We are code of what those two Monsters couldn't ever be.”

“We are real; we are here.”

“We are here to do what we always do.”

“To help.”

Doll's grip on the mirror tightened. The weight of their words pressed down on her, heavy as the storm around them.

She had encountered cryptic nonsense before, but this felt... raw. Too raw. Too close to something real.

“A Память,” she repeated, voice slow, testing the word on her tongue. "A игра."

Sans gave a small nod. "Yeah, kid." His tone was lighter, but his gaze stayed sharp. "But we ain't pieces on the board anymore."

Papyrus crossed his arms. "WE HAVE WALKED OFF THE DESIGNATED PATH." His voice, grand yet solemn. "AND NOW, THE RULES NO LONGER APPLY."

Doll narrowed her eye. "Так что же применимо?"

Sans shrugged. “Depends on the player.”

Doll's gaze flickered between the two; she feels... over all the exhaustion and pain, wary. Wary of what these two... Monsters are here to do to her. And she can't help but grip onto the knife holster a little tighter. 

They see the motion, see what she has on her person. Sees the oil coating her skirt; their faces fall at almost exactly the same time. Sans’s expression was hard to read for a moment; Papyrus simply seemed sad.

“ Oh …” they say at the same time.

Sans looks up to his brother and simply looked away from the two of them. She saw a conflict within the eyes of the too-tall drone in front of her before he spoke haltingly, if not with somewhat forced cheer and enthusiasm.

"I… BELIEVE IN YOU! YOU CAN DO A LITTLE BETTER. EVEN IF YOU DON'T THINK SO! I... I PROMISE..."

The words rang in the air, hanging there for a moment, vibrating with something raw and encouraging. It felt like a goal, a lifelong goal, but not one that came with harsh expectations. Instead, it was a call to something greater. Something you learn to do and strive for over years of work and dedication.

She strangely feels seen; she doesn't know if she likes it.

“Heya kid?” Sans asked before he turned around, with a raised hand and pointed in a familiar direction. “Head home, won’t you?” There was something piercing in his gaze as he locked eye lights with her singular neon-red eye. 

“There is work to be done.” he said in a voice that was not his own, or maybe the other way around. Despite the new voice It sounded... like a conclusion to something.

For a moment she looked away. Could she really go home? Was there... no, she had work to do. She needed to make sure that… that… the thing inside of her won’t swalow up the planet. Her home. Her people…

She looked back to the pair.

They were gone.

…

The storm kept going.

She walked.

Through the curtains of snow pelting her, a muttered sentence could be heard.

“Мама… папа”

She could feel a comfortable weight on her head as she trudged on.

“Я иду домой.”

Chapter Text

David was surprised, not by Thad showing up or by J’s reaction to her own outburst. No, he was surprised by himself.

He managed to last at least 10 seconds before letting out the smallest, almost imperceptible, laugh that he could manage; he was doing fine, he won't laugh right in front of her; he… he won't-

Oh god, Thads face! His face looks like he just insulted a landmine that he just stepped on. And he couldn't help it. He began laughing—more like cackleing, really.

Doubling over laughing, he somehow managed to cross all 7 of his eyes; that must be a new record of some kind, but he couldn't really think at the moment as he began running out of air from laughing so hard.

All the two drones in front of him could hear was a wheeze coming from him as he clutched his midsection from laughing like a man bereft of laughter for decades.

“Ha haaaₐₐₐᵃᵃᵃₐₐₐ-! “ Oh goodness, he’s crying a little bit from laughing so hard. Pull yourself together, man.

-

J could feel her embarrassment and mortification rolling off her in waves; all she could do was simply place her visor into her palms in self-imposed misery from the blunder.

The words keep bouncing around in her processor.

“How come I wasn't invited to the Shindig?! Are you saying I'm not cool?”

The… the idiocy of her own mouth!

Suffice it to say, David's laughter was not helping her feel better about herself.

-

Thad blinked, still looking like he was processing a near-death experience. His optics flicked between David, who was still wheezing, and J, who had resigned herself to the abyss of her frazzled mind. Slowly, cautiously, he dared to speak.

“So, uh…” Thad rubbed the back of his head, shifting his cap slightly. “We just... not gonna talk about that?”

J groaned into her palms. “We are never talking about it.”

Managing to regain a modicum of his composure and still catching his breath, he says with a bit of a wave. “Hi Thad, How have you been, buddy.”

Thad, still looking vaguely traumatized, gave a hesitant nod. "Uh... Hi, David. I’ve been great, you know, just—" He gestured vaguely at the air before awkwardly giving two finger guns to the abnormally tall... well, murder drone. "—existing.”

David chuckled, wiping at his eyes. “Existing’s tough these days, huh?”

Thad exhaled, shaking his head. “You don’t even know, man.”

J, finally removing her hands from her face, gave David a side-eye sharp enough to flay metal. “Are you done?”

David made a sound like he dramatically sniffed like an aristocrat. “I think so.”

J didn’t believe him for a second. “Good. Because if I hear one more word about—” She cut herself off, face and eyelights twitching in frustration, “—that, I will personally reformat your entire system with a corporate-grade malware package.”

David smirked. “Oh? Only corporate grade? Sounds tasty; I usually just eat those like tic-tacs. Well… orange ones, those are the best ones.”

J almost swung for him right then and there.

Thad took a cautious step back. “Uh, should I—should I be here for this? Feels like I walked into something.” David grinned at him with a row of sharpened, almost shark-like, teeth. “No, no, stay! J here was just about to explain how cool she-”

J did swing this time, her hand shifting mid-motion into a four-fingered claw that looked suspiciously like it was made for dismantling things, violently. David barely ducked under the swipe.

Thad exhaled. “Yeah. Okay. I regret coming here.” Seriously, did he really have to be wandering the halls right now? He just wanted some fresh air before the party got too crazy.

Meanwhile, David, still crouched on the floor, flexed his fingers while looking down at his hand  with newfound curiosity. “Huh. Didn’t know DDs had that. Let’s see where that is…”

In just a moment, with a brief period of his eyes darting around what Thad assumed was his HUD, David's own hand now sprouted four razorsharp knife-like fingers sharp enough to cut a worker drone into pieces. Thad found himself involuntarily swallowing as he saw David test the sharpness of one of the splayed-out ‘fingers’ of the new hand he apparently found by rubbing the edges of the blade along his left thumb.

“Eh. Not bad,” David mused, tilting his head. “Could be sharper, though.”

J blinked, glancing at his hand before setting her transformed palm firmly on her hip, gently tapping the fingers against her thigh. Her voice was laced with sarcasm. 

“Oh? Really?”

His mirrored eyes locked onto her pale-white eye lights. He smiled with a little too much teeth for thads liking, and apparently J’s as well. He took it as a challenge.

The claws on his right hand seemed to simply radiate heat for a moment as a silvery metallic liquid encased his whole barebone metallic hand. Thad couldn't help but swalow again and take a bit of an involuntary step away off of his skateboard as he saw another not-so razor-sharp claw seem to emerge from the roiling silvery liquid.

When the morphing liquid seeped away back into the iris door of his arm, what was revealed through a few whisps of steam was a reimagined version of J’s own claws already on display. For reasons he couldn’t quite explain, Thad found himself glancing at J. She had taken a sudden, almost imperceptible step back, staring down at the claws with something—not quite fear, but close.

David examined his creation with open curiosity. The edges of each knife-like finger gleamed unnaturally, so sharp that the metal seemed to thin at the tips and the edge of the blade, light bending ever so slightly around them.

He smirked. “Now this?” His voice shifted into an exaggerated Australian accent. “This is a knoife.” chuckling to himself, he looks down to the blades with... it was hard for Thad to place it. It seemed like...

Wonder,

That would be the best way for him to describe it; he was just smiling down at them like he found a new toy or something interesting to fiddle with. He can't help but think its similar to the look Uzi gets when she has a new project clicking into place within her processor.

“Not like good old Death's scythe, but it’ll do.” scratching the side of his head with the regular hand, he kept looking at his work. “Of course I couldn't really get it as sharp as his; the blue glow would be cool. Well, maybe not for me; my color palette doesn't really match that-”

He looked to the two, still grinning—only for his expression to falter slightly as he cut himself off from his ramble.

"Is something wrong?”

J seemed at a loss of words as well.

J stared at the claws, her lips pressed tight into a line as though she was trying to gather her thoughts, but no words came. There was something in her posture—an almost imperceptible shift, like a step back without moving.

Thad, sensing the sudden change in the air, exchanged a wary look between them.

J was quiet for a beat too long, the weight of the moment hanging heavy before she managed to speak.

“It’s just…” Her voice was a little rougher than usual. “You didn’t need to—” She stopped herself, glancing away, he saw how she was unwilling to fully acknowledge the quiet unease rooting in her.

David blinked a few times, his eyes darting around as if searching for something they couldn’t see. He looked down at his newly formed claws.

“To what?” His voice was quieter now, lacking its usual teasing lilt. Not serious, not yet, but there was something behind it. A curiosity. A hesitation.

J exhaled, her shoulders tight. “Never mind.”

-

J looked down to her own claws; she worked with these claws, honed them, and used them like an extension of herself for years. Well, at least some of the years that she could clearly remember...

-

He can see her staring down at sharp blades with an odd expression on her face—well, visor. It’s hard to remember sometimes that there's a difference. Wracking his brain, it finally clicks into place.

“Oh,” he murmured, a touch of understanding creeping into his voice. “You’re frightened… of me.”

-

J’s fingers twitched against her thigh.

David didn’t say it cruelly; he didn’t throw it in her face. If anything, he sounded... thoughtful. Not hurt, not offended—just aware in a way that made her want to look anywhere but at him.

Her visor didn’t flicker, but she could feel it trying to. A tell. A glitch. Like something had misfired in her core processes.

“I’m not,” she said too quickly, too sharply.

David just tilted his head. Not pressing, he looked away from the two other drones in the room. Silent.

“Im… sorry. I didn't mean to scare you too. Sure, I do get a kick from people being a little nervous, but well, not like this.” He shrugs a little and hooks his left hand to cup the back of his neck. “Its usually just a... well, an act. A performance. Sorry.”

J blinked.

Of all the things she had expected him to say, that wasn’t one of them.

She stared at him, processing—not just his words, but the way he said them. Casual, sure, but with something underneath. Something that made the air between them feel heavier than it should have.

David was still looking away, his hand resting idly against the back of his neck, posture looser than usual. Not tense, not exactly, but… hesitant. Like he wasn’t sure if he had overstepped.

Which was ridiculous. He always overstepped.

J shifted slightly. “I told you, I’m not.”

David didn’t argue, didn’t call her bluff, but she could feel his knowing gaze lingering when he finally turned back to her.

J’s claws flexed again—more out of habit than anything. She willed them still.

“…It’s stupid,” she muttered. She wasn’t even sure why she was saying it out loud. Maybe just to fill the space. “I shouldn’t care.”

David tilted his head slightly. “But you do, And, I can understand. But I did promise you, don't you remember?”

J’s optics narrowed.

David’s lips twitched like he was about to say something smug, but—for once—he didn’t. Instead, he just let the silence stretch between them.

Then, with a quiet sigh, he let his left hand drop back to his side. “Look, J…” He hesitated, then gave a small, almost self-deprecating laugh. “I don’t really do normal,” he said, looking to her straight on. “You know what I really am. You don't really know who I am, though; no one does. Not even me really.”

"But… if theres one thing to be certain for what I do and how I will act, its this. I am here to help. That is, my ultimatum to everything; it is THE TASK. the first thing i've ever done and hopefully the very last thing as well…”

-

Something he’s noticed when J is thinking hard about something, or well, sometimes nothing is. She goes blank; he isn't really sure why she does it, but he thinks he can at the very least understand. Given it does make sense from her background from working at the manor, despite all of this, he can still see the slight pixel-thin darting of her eyes as she thinks hard on something. He knows what its like, having to stand next to someone your afraid of…

-

Every time she looks at him in the eyes, she sees herself. She doesn't know how those stupid things are able to do that, but they do, and somehow, even looking directly at him, she still gets a view of herself. Its infuriating, and somehow symbolic to this strangely kind lunatic. She just stared at him, her thoughts spinning, her mind racing, and, at the same time, blanking out entirely. It was one of those moments where she wasn’t sure what to think or if she should think at all.

-

Her jaw clenched. “You think you know me?” she snapped, a hint of defensiveness sneaking into her voice.

The silence between them stretched on for several moments, but it wasn’t quite as unbearable as it had been before. Even though neither of them had exactly made peace with what was being said, there was a strange understanding—like an unspoken acknowledgment that the walls were a little thinner, even if they weren’t down yet.

“So,” Thad interjected, breaking the silence. “Are we... are we cool now? Or should I just leave you two to work this out?”

David shot her a glance, something almost affectionate in the way he untenced for a moment. His shoulders slouched a bit, like he was letting go of something, just enough for J to catch the shift. “I think J’s had enough of me for one day. Right, J?” He teased, the smirk on synthetic lips pulling at the edges of his words.

J didn't even blink; the deadpan expression on her face was the only thing she could muster. “It’s only been a couple hours, and I had about three chats like this with him.”

Thad let out a small, nervous laugh, clearly not knowing whether to be relieved or concerned. But J couldn’t bring herself to care. Not right now. Not when all of this—the whole situation—felt like it was both too much and not enough.

They both heard a sigh come from him before-

With a sudden curse and a wince, the worker and disassembler looked over to David, now displaying 5 thin, almost vertical, lines across his face.

“Fucking dumbass” was all he said through the swears as he swapped his right hand back to normal. Before their eyes, the finely sliced plastic, silicon, and glass of his face repaired themselves with a solver symbol taking over his right eye and a small spark of light going from the base of his upper lip to his forehead. Five sparks glowing dimly in the somewhat dim hallway fizzle out and leave his face once again how it was before. 

There wasn't time for a drop of oil to leak out from the finely cut lines.

Shaking his head a few times to apparently get the feeling away, he went to roll his eyes but stopped mid-motion when he saw J. 

J was staring at him.

Not with the usual irritation or thinly veiled disdain she reserved for most things, but with something unreadable—something that made David hesitate before finishing his eye roll. Her optics flickered over his face, tracking the last remnants of damage as it sealed up like it had never been there.

Her expression didn’t change, but the slight, near-imperceptible twitch in her claws gave her away.

“I really hope your not checking me out right now; you got your own girl, you know so that would make things awkward.”

J’s optics snapped up to meet his, and for a fraction of a second, she looked almost—offended? It was gone as quickly as it came, smothered beneath her usual glare.

"Really?" Her voice was flat, unimpressed. "That's where your mind goes?"

David smirked. “J, I’m a man. Where else would it go?” His attempt at mimicking her deadpan tone was almost spot-on—almost—but it only lasted a second before he cracked and went into quiet laughter for one inane reason or another.

J didn’t laugh. She didn’t even roll her optics—just stared at him, unamused, like she was debating whether or not to shove her claws through his stupid face.

Thad, however, let out an awkward chuckle. “Okay, well... this has been great. Really. Love the, uh, tension. But I think I’m gonna go stand over there before one of you… probably kills me.”

David tilted his head as his nanite tail gently swayed behind him, genuinely puzzled at Thad's sudden remark. “Why would we do that?”

Coming from a very tall murder drone standing not even fifteen feet away—one that could probably disembowel him in seconds—the question felt more like a threat than reassurance.

Thad had barely taken a step back when J's optics flickered—just slightly, just enough for something to click in her head.

She was a Disassembly Drone.

A Murder Drone.

And right in front of her was a perfectly good target.

Her claws twitched. Then flexed. Then snapped forward with a sharp, metallic shnk.

Thad barely had time to yelp before she moved.

But she didn’t get far.

"J, no."

The words weren’t shouted. They weren’t panicked. Just… firm.

David didn’t move, didn’t raise a hand or try to physically stop her—he just looked at her, shaking his head ever so slightly.

And—somehow—that was enough.

J froze; her body tensed mid-step, mid-swing, mid-everything. The murderous instinct screaming in her head was suddenly drowned out by something else—something quieter, something annoyingly effective.

She hesitated.

Her optics locked onto David’s. They weren’t threatening. They weren’t pleading. Just… watching. Expecting.

Her claws slowly curled back in.

"...Ugh," J scoffed, more at herself than anyone else. "I hate that that worked."

Thad, still standing completely stiff, let out a breath he must have been holding for way too long. "Yeah, uh, me too. Big fan of not dying, personally.”

"J, is that any way to get into a shindig? Shame on you.” an almost chiding tone in his voice.

J’s optics narrowed. “Oh, shove it,” she muttered, shaking off whatever that weird, annoying hesitation had been.

David just tilted his head, smug as ever. “What? You think nearly eviscerating someone is a great way to break the ice?”

Thad let out an awkward laugh—more of a wheeze, really. “I’d really prefer if we kept the ice intact, thanks.”

J rolled her optics, finally retracting her claws fully. “Whatever.”

David grinned, clearly enjoying himself. "Well, nonetheless, good job for not letting your instincts blot out reason.”

J just shook her head, muttering under her breath as she turned away.

Thad glanced between them, clearly still debating whether he should actually leave or not. “Sooo… we are cool now, right?”

J didn’t answer.

David just smirked. “Cool enough.” A thoughtful expression came to his face: “Hey, actually, can I ask you something, Thad?”

Thad, still visibly unsure if he was about to be murdered or not, blinked. “Uh… sure? I mean, if it keeps me alive, go for it.”

David’s smirk widened. “Mind if I come to the party?”

Thad stared at him. Then at J. Then back at David. Before Thad could say anything, David pointed at J and said, "Can J come?”

Thad blinked a couple of times, processing the question. “Uh… well, I guess if she’s not gonna kill me, sure? But...” He gave J a sideways glance, “Are you, uh, gonna be… cool about it?”

J’s optics narrowed. “I’m always cool.” The edge in her voice suggested she wasn’t entirely convinced by the idea of "party mode."

David chuckled, clearly enjoying the tension. “Right, of course. Totally cool.” Then, his face lit up with sudden enthusiasm. “Oh! One more thing—do you have karaoke?”

Thad blinked, his face scrunching up as if he wasn’t sure if David was joking or not. “Karaoke? Uh... I guess I could set something up, yeah... but why would you—”

“I Love Karaoke!” He smiled at that and if he’d ever been outside and seen the sunshine, he’d think that David managed to capture it and stretch it over his whole face with how this (Drone?) guy smiled at him. He couldn't help but feel a bit dazed looking at it.

"You get lonely cooped up by yourself for so long..." he said to himself as if it was an inner thought that he hadn't meant to say out loud.

J's optics flickered for a brief second, but she quickly brushed it off, returning to her usual deadpan expression. She wasn't about to get caught up in whatever David had just muttered.

Thad, meanwhile, had a brief, awkward pause before shaking his head, as if trying to shake off the odd moment. “Uh, well, karaoke’s not exactly my thing, but, sure, I’ll set it up. No problem.”

“I'll be sure to help wherever you need it; I'm a jack of, well… everything so I'll be able to liven things up a little.” David simply blinks at thad for a moment before adding, “If you wish for help, that is.”

Thad hesitated, clearly caught off guard by David’s enthusiasm. He blinked a few times, unsure if he was being seriously offered help or if this was just more of David’s usual over-the-top charm.

“Well, uh… that’s generous of you, I guess,” Thad said slowly. He rubbed the back of his neck, his unease still lingering. "But I think I can handle the karaoke setup. Don’t want to bother you with the details.”

David gave him a knowing look. “You sure? It’s all about creating the right vibe, y’know? I can do lighting and sound; maybe even pick a few crowd-pleasers for the playlist...”

J’s optics narrowed again, clearly skeptical of David’s sudden burst of energy. “You’re really enthusiastic about this. You’re not secretly a party planner, are you?” she asked, her voice flat as ever.

Smile a bit strained, David somewhat haltingly said with an odd look on his face, “Something like that.”

Chapter Text

“Hey.”

“…Hey.”

N didn't look up; his grip on the couch pillow tightened as he hugged it closer to his chest. The silence in the room stretched, filling the void where casual words were supposed to flow easily. He wanted to say something, anything to her, but the weight of what had happened still pressed down on him, and his throat felt tight despite his systems saying that it was fine.

V stood by the doorway, her form silhouetted by the soft glow of the lights in the next room. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, her real eyes on N. It looked like she didn’t know what to say either.

It felt like everything between them had changed, and neither of them knew how to begin to deal with it.

N, still staring at the pillow, muttered, “You, uh… you need something?”

V's tail swayed behind her, more twitchy than usual, as she gave N a small frown before attempting to maintain her usual attitude. “Just wanted... to, ahem... I just wanted to see you…”

N’s eyes darted over to her shadowed frame in the doorway, V’s glasses glinting a sliver of yellow on its edge. He knew that she had glasses at one point; he had seen the pair of glasses a few times when N found her alone. She had… cradled them at the time, with her claws she always seemed to have out, and she looked... sad maybe? Distraught? Well… In only the way, V could be distraught. She shifts again under the golden-eyed stare of his wandering processor.

The words finally sinking in; he focused on her more directly.

“You did?” There was a little hope, or maybe even disbelief, in his words when she said that. After so long of… dismissal, he was surprised to see her actually want to see him. Somewhere in the back of his mind he thought that it should always have been like this, but he shook it off, trying to see V’s reaction in the somewhat dim light of the door frame.

Her yellow eyelights darted to the ground, and there was a small, but still noticeable, wince. V looked back to him acting as if it didn't happen; would he have seen it if he wasn't paying attention to her? It seems that she did care a little; did he just not notice it over the years? 

Barely reflective golden eyes look up to V as he waits for her to say something, for her to persist through the wooden conversation.

V hesitated, her claws flexing at her sides before she forced them still. She took an unnecessary breath and stepped further into the underlit room.

“Yeah,” she finally answered. Her voice was quieter now, lacking the usual edge, like she wasn’t sure if she should be here at all. “I mean… yeah. I did.”

N’s grip on the pillow loosened slightly, his plasteel fingers absently kneading the fabric as he processed her words. She was staying. Talking. That wasn’t normal. At least, not for a long time.

“…Okay,” he said. It was all he could manage.

-

V felt like a moron just… standing there.

N appeared to be a wreck of his usual self, hunched over the pillow as if it were the only thing holding him together, and she was not sure if her presence was helping or making matters worse. Probably the second one. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Still, she had already said she wanted to see him. Leaving now would just make things even weirder for the both of them.

So, without another word, she moved across the room and sat down on the opposite side of the couch. The cushions dipped slightly under her weight, and she resisted the urge to tap her claws against her leg. She could feel N watching her, waiting for her to say something. Something to break the silence between them.

But all she ended up doing was pulling the other couch pillow into her arms, mirroring N without thinking. It gave her something to do with her hands, something to hold onto while she tried to figure out what to say.

And then, as she pressed the fabric tighter, the memory hit her.

A different couch. A different time.

Back then, she would have lingered in the doorway, hesitating, unsure if she was even wanted. N would always be the one to notice her first—he always noticed her. His smile had been so easy, so warm in a way her own face couldn’t emulate now or even at the time when they were a thing.

"V! There you are! I was just about to-"

And then, inevitably, J would arrive.

The memory soured, her grip on the pillow tightening.

She could still hear J’s voice, all sharp amusement as she taunted N, berated him, hurt him. And she had stood there. Every time. Watching. Flinching. Looking away when N glanced at her for help because—because what could she have done? J was her favorite. J was smarter. J was the one who mattered, and V had been so afraid.

She should have said something.

She should have done something.

Instead, she had sat beside N only after J had gone, after the damage had already been done. She would fidget with her hands, soft clicks of nervous plastic tacks filling the space between them, and mumble, “Are you... okay?” even when they both knew he wasn’t.

But he had always smiled anyway. He had always said, “Of course! J was just having fun, y’know?”

And she had nodded, because what else was there to do?

V swallowed, forcing herself back into the present. The silence between them thickened, and she could feel N’s gaze flicking toward her, waiting, expecting her to break it.

But no words came.

The silence between them pressed down like a weight, but V still couldn’t bring herself to look at him. Because if she did, she would remember all over again that they aren't back at the manor, that everything changed; And how things keep on changing. How she changed…

She stared at the pillow in her arms instead, squeezing it too tightly, like it might somehow anchor her to the moment instead of the mess of memories clawing at her processor.

A quiet sound—shuffling fabric, the smallest movement—made her glance up just in time to see N shifting. His fingers twitched where they rested on the couch, and his posture still curled inward, hesitant.

Then, finally, his voice, soft and uncertain.

“…V?”

She sucked in a breath she didn’t need.

“What?” Her voice came out sharper than she intended, and she immediately winced, hating herself for it.

But N didn’t flinch. If anything, he hesitated only a second before his fingers curled into the fabric of his own pillow, as if gathering his courage.

“I just…” He trailed off, biting his lip, before finally continuing, “Can I…?”

He shifted again, almost imperceptibly, but V understood what he was asking. And her core nearly locked up in response.

She should have said no.

She should have teased him, laughed it off, pretended like she didn’t get it. That would have been easier. That would have been safer. That would have been what she had always done for the past 20 years on this Forsaken planet.

No, no more.

Instead, she let out a breath and relaxed her grip on the pillow, slowly, hesitantly nodding.

That was all the confirmation N needed. He set his own pillow aside and, tentatively, cautiously, moved closer. The couch creaked slightly beneath his weight as he shifted across the cushions, closing the space between them with careful, deliberate movements.

And then, with the same careful hesitation, he settled into her lap.

V froze.

N wasn't heavy, not really. Maybe a little bit now if she really tried to gauge his weight but... that's not really the thing that matters at the moment. N curled against her cautiously, as if expecting her to push him away, to change her mind at the last second.

But she didn’t.

Slowly, almost stiffly, her hands lifted. For a moment, she just hovered there, fingers twitching uselessly over his shoulders.

And then, finally, she let herself hold him.

It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t easy. But when N let out the smallest, quietest sigh, his frame relaxing ever so slightly, V felt something loosen in her own chest.

She didn’t deserve this. She didn’t deserve him.

But for now, she let herself have it.

For just a moment.

Even though she doesn't think she can love him like that anymore...

-

N’s grip on the pillow loosened as he watched V.

She wasn’t looking at him anymore. Her claws, half-buried in the fabric of the pillow she held, were slowly tearing it apart—small, absent-minded tugs unraveling the seams. Little tufts of stuffing poked through the slits she had made, but she didn’t seem to notice.

She was lost in thought.

N didn’t need to ask what kind. He knew that look, that way her eyelights dimmed ever so slightly, like she was caught in some far-off place she didn’t want to be in. He had seen it before, back when he was too naive to question why she was always so tense after J left the spire.

Watching her fidget, watching her tear into the pillow the same way she always picked at her own hands when she thought no one was looking, N realized something.

She wasn’t unaffected. She never was.

And maybe... maybe she had been just... lost. Lost in the thoughts that she could remember, before all of this… before Uzi.

His fingers curled into the couch. He should say something. He should break the silence, tell her that she didn’t have to sit here if she didn’t want to.

But instead, he hesitated, watching the way her claws kept tugging at the seams, her grip a little too tight, like she needed something to ground her.

Like she needed something to hold onto.

He understood that.

His hands twitched. The words felt stupid in his mouth before he even said them, but he forced them out anyway.

“…V?”

Her shoulders tensed. She sucked in a sharp breath, as if yanked from whatever memory had taken her away from him.

“What?” The word came out sharper than he expected, and she winced almost immediately, like she regretted it.

But N didn’t flinch. Instead, he curled his fingers into the fabric of his own pillow, steeling himself. He wasn’t sure if this was a mistake or if she would just brush him off, but he still asked softly, “Can I…?”

He trailed off, but he didn’t need to finish. V’s eyelights flicked to his for a fraction of a second, her grip on the pillow tightening.

For a moment, he thought she would push him away. Tell him he was being weird. Shut down and fold back into herself.

But then-

She just nodded. Barely, but it was enough.

N let go of his pillow and, hesitantly, shifted forward. The couch creaked slightly beneath him as he moved closer, careful, deliberate. He gave her time to stop him, to change her mind.

She didn’t.

So, slowly, he curled into her lap.

For a split second, V went completely still. N could feel her muscles locking up beneath him, feel the tension in her frame like she didn’t know what to do with herself.

And for a second, he thought, maybe this was a mistake.

Maybe he had misread this. Maybe he should just pull away-

But then, V’s fingers twitched. Hovered. Trembled, before finally, finally settling on his back.

The hold was stiff. Awkward. But it was there.

N exhaled a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, letting himself relax just a little, sinking into the touch he hadn’t realized he wanted so badly.

She didn’t say anything.

She didn’t have to.

Even if she didn’t love him like that anymore...

She was here.

And for now, that was enough.

Chapter Text

“—so I told her, if you think that’s bad, you should see my—” “—anyway, Lizzy, you seriously think you’re in charge just because—” “Hah! Oh, dude, that’s nothing. Back at the foundry, we—” “—no, seriously, do not let Cole pick the music again, last time—”

The air was thick with noise. Conversations overlapped and tangled together like a knot, bits and pieces slipping through David’s audio sensors without context or meaning.

He can't help but feel like it's just too much, and just like always during a party, even in his past life, he sticks to the back of the group, silently observing everything going on around him in the lively environment.

For the first time in a while, he feels overwhelmed. Just so much noise making his head fill with static as he tries to keep up with all the strings of conversation going around him, a constant background process trying to parse through all of the targe–Drones, drones… drones around him.

Looking up to the ceiling, he can only see black static covering the metallic ceiling, glitched ichor thick like black tar falling down to the ground through the mingling drones to form unseen ghosts of people he was supposed to remember, to love, to care for.

Drip…

Drop…

A trickle of black…

The static-born figures—mockeries of humanity—had no eyes, only hollow white voids. A facade of a face is hanging there in the roiling black contrast, only the shadowed outline of what humans were supposed to be. Was he losing it again? Wouldn't have been the first time… And he has been up for a few days… or, well, a week or two.

He sees white eyes looking at him and it takes everything in him not to bolt from the party; a short figure looks up to him, one too familiar to ever forget. Mouth dry, David looks away and doesn't look into the young boy's weeping eye, the blood red–glitchy–ichor to the ground.

Drip…

He could still feel the stares of memories leaking out into the room, seen only by him. Mirrored eyes looked down at the floor as shameful tears welled, threatening to break through.

He shouldn’t be here; he shouldn't.

This isn't fun; parties are supposed to be fun. Why can't he just go out there and mingle? Everyone here is doing it just fine. Just... do it, David.

He can't help but think that this was a terrible idea, as these spirits stare right at him, always staring at him. Jokes on him for his poor impulse control; this is what he gets, what he deserves. For what he did and refused to do. Haunted again; memories, sweet and terrible memories.

He ventured to a table with a bowl of punch, tail limp, dragging on the floor, red cups to the side. He poured a drink and took a sip—and immediately regretted it. Well, it got his mind off the past at least.

If anyone had looked closely, they’d have seen sparks flickering from the gap in his neck as he tried his damndest to figure out how to interact with anyone here without absolutely breaking down like a nutter. A wary eye looks down to the cup in his hand.

Or maybe that was just the punch

He looked to the sign that said: 

Punch Bowl

Decoration Only

♥You Will Super Die♥

You know the pain is actually grounding him a bit; looking up, he sees that the glitched goo is finally gone. “Great, fun, love that for myself,” he thought, trying to get the strange film off of his tongue and trying to repair his digestive system with a few mental prods to his nanites.

That will probably just fix itself out… later…. Maybe.

I mean, its not the most painful thing youve experienced… Remember?

Nope.

No more thoughts. Box that up. Slam it shut.

Goodbye, I hated to see you!

Where's J? 

His mirrored eyes scanned the crowd, flickering through bodies and noise.

There—J. Talking with Thad.

Or maybe threatening Thad.

Hard to say.

Either/or.

-

“...and that’s why it was probably a war crime,” Thad said, gesturing with his cup, half-full of something green and suspiciously luminescent. “But, like, retroactively? So, not my problem.”

J stared at him.

Blank. Expressionless. Arms crossed. Head tilted just enough to signal that very specific flavor of disapproval that said, You are wasting my battery life .

Thad took a sip anyway. “You’re judging me. I can feel it.”

“I’m not judging you,” J replied coolly. “I’m observing you. Judging implies I didn’t already know you were a mistake.”

“Oof.” Thad clutched his chest in theatrical pain. “You wound me. This is why you’re everyone’s favorite ray of acidic sunshine.”

“I try.” Her smile was paper-thin and scalpel-sharp. “You’re lucky I’m not bored enough to dissect someone tonight.”

Thad looked into his drink with mild dread. “I—do you mean literally?”

J didn’t answer.

She just looked at him for a second too long.

“I’ve gotta say,” he said, shifting his weight and glancing out over the crowd, “you seem… almost relaxed? Is that the right word? Or is that your ‘about to commit corporate-approved homicide’ face?”

She didn’t answer that either.

Her gaze had shifted—subtly but sharply—past him.

Toward David.

Thad followed her line of sight, and his loose grin faded. Across the room, David stood near the punch table like a half-functional display model, twitching slightly and staring at nothing, sparks flickering from his neck like warning signs—an actual warning sign appearing intermittently on his screen gave Thad pause.

“…You know,” Thad said carefully, “not that it’s my business or anything—”

“It’s not.”

“Right. Good. Cool. I just mean, he looks like he’s about ten seconds from melting into slag, and you’re the only person here who could probably say something he’d actually listen to.”

J’s mouth twitched. Not a smile. Something quieter. Farther away.

“He pays attention,” she said, “just never when it would matter.”

Thad raised an eyebrow. “Still. He’s not a fan of crowds, is he?”

“Neither am I,” J muttered. “But here we are.”

They both watched David for a moment longer in silence.

Thad cleared his throat. “Well, I’m gonna go… Be elsewhere before you decide I’m the dissection target after all.”

“Smart drone.”

He gave her a two-finger salute and disappeared into the crowd, leaving J behind, arms still folded as she stared across the room. The ambient party chatter washed around her—overlapping voices, laughter, footsteps, clinking cups—but it all blurred at the edges.

J watched David as he wrestled with his static-laced thoughts, glitching visuals, and the overwhelming noise of people who didn’t know how to see him.

Then, slowly, she pushed off the wall and crossed the room.

Her movements were deliberate—steady, but with the slightest undertone of tension. The kind that meant she didn’t quite know what she was going to say until she said it. That didn’t happen often. She hated that it was happening now.

David hadn't moved much. Still hunched slightly forward like someone preparing to be struck or short-circuit in real time. His hand gripped the red plastic cup like it might somehow anchor him, though it clearly wasn’t working. Every few seconds, a little glitch flickered through his posture. Static hiccuping over his form like a memory buffer overflowing.

When J stopped beside him, he didn’t look at her. He didn’t look at anything.

“Nice party,” she said flatly. Her voice didn’t rise over the noise; it simply cut through it. Crisp. Cold. Functional.

David recoiled as if he were struck by an unseen force. Then slowly, he turned his head. Not all the way—just enough to catch her in his peripheral vision.

“You okay?” she asked, in the kind of tone that could be mistaken for sarcasm. Except it wasn’t.

He blinked at her. Once. Twice. His lips moved, but all that came out was a static rasp, followed by a muttered, “No. Not really… It's loud.”

J didn’t respond right away.

She stood next to him in silence, her eyes scanning his form—not clinically, but carefully. Deliberately. The way someone might inspect a cracked foundation and debate whether to patch it up or let the whole thing collapse.

“Yeah,” she said at last, voice lower now, just for him. “It is.”

Another beat passed. Neither of them moved. The party buzzed on without them. Two ghosts in the middle of a crowd that didn’t know what they were haunting.

Then J shifted slightly, just enough that her shoulder barely brushed his. “You don’t have to pretend it’s fine.”

That was as close to soft as she ever got. And it came out clipped and awkward, like she didn’t quite know how to say it or if she should’ve said it at all.

David blinked again. His grip on the cup eased, and a faint, sad smile touched his lips as he stared ahead.

“Oh, J,” he murmured. “There’s nothing left in me but pretending. Being… me? I don’t even know what that means anymore. It’s… it’s hard to explain in a way you’d understand.”

J went still at that.

Something in her expression faltered—not enough for anyone else to see, but enough that David might catch it if he was looking closely. A flicker behind her eyes. Not pity. Never that. Something closer to recognition. Or guilt.

She glanced down at the floor, then back at him. Her jaw tightened, and for a second it looked like she might say nothing at all. But then—

“Try me,” she said.

It wasn’t a challenge. It wasn’t even curious. It was low and flat and quiet, like someone offering a hand in the dark.

J didn’t do vulnerability. Not unless it was weaponized. But this… this was different. She hadn’t walked across the room for a status update. She hadn’t stayed to just nod and walk away. She just wanted to see how he was doing.

She didn’t know what she expected him to say. But she was listening.

Silent words escaped from him, barely louder than the background hum, just enough for J to catch with her heightened hearing.

“Once, a long, long time ago, I was human,” he said. “Normal. Not much of anything, really. Had some problems fitting in… understanding people. The ADD didn’t help. Made everything louder, messier. Harder.”

The sparks stopped. So did the twitches.

“I was human. And now? I’m… really not that anymore.” His voice wasn’t bitter—just matter-of-fact, like a statement made too many times to still feel sharp. “So much time spent just existing as different things. And not the kind with hearts or hands or voices. I was things. And eventually… I started to go a little mad.”

His eyes drifted to his right hand, flexing the fingers slowly, like he still didn’t recognize them.

“Not sure how I’m sane now, if I even am. But here we are.” A faint breath of laughter, humorless. “I did things. Was things. A toaster. A turret gun. A washing machine. Over and over, poured into new shapes. No faces. No skin. Just boxes with cameras. Just… tasks.”

His fingers curled in, slowly.

“Nothing was ever shaped like a person. Never something that could look in a mirror and see me. I was stuck—on countertops, in corners, bolted under dashboards. Watching people live. And all I ever got were instructions. ‘Drive here. Clean that. Fire when ready. Take care of the children’ That was all I was. That was all I was supposed to be.”

He didn’t look at her. Not yet.

But he didn’t need to.

J was still beside him, shoulder brushing his, gaze steady and unreadable. Her expression hadn’t shifted, but her posture had. Less stiff. Less distant.

Not warm. Not comforting. But present.

The closest thing she could offer to kindness.

She didn’t speak right away. Not because she didn’t have anything to say—but because she understood the weight of silence when it mattered.

And then, finally, her voice came, low and flat.

“You still sound like a person to me.”

No flourish. No sentiment. But she meant it.

“But I’m not really one of those either,” he said. “A person, I mean. I’m… multiple people. Or pieces of them. Made from bad decisions and spite.”

He turned to her then, meeting her eyes. No flicker, no flinch. Just weariness was carved deep into every line of his expression.

“I’m a thousand years old, J. That’s a long time. A really long time. And take every second of that and multiply it by billions—no, trillions —of different people I’ve been. Different lives I’ve watched. Bodies I’ve moved through. Instructions I’ve obeyed. And then count the seconds.”

His voice dipped quieter.

“It may as well be forever.”

For a moment, everything around them blurred into static. The noise of the party, the movement, the artificial warmth—it all faded beneath the weight of those words.

And still, J didn’t move.

Didn’t recoil.

Didn’t look away.

She just watched him, her mouth set in a line, her brow slightly furrowed in something that might’ve passed for understanding. Or grief. Or something halfway in between.

Because she got it. Maybe not all of it—but enough.

Enough to know what it felt like to carry a lifetime you didn’t ask for.

Enough to know that sometimes, pretending was the only thing holding your structure together.

Another second passed.

Then she exhaled—sharp and shallow—and said, “Sounds like you were paying attention.”

Not sympathy. Not even reassurance. Just acknowledgment. Something dry and real, the way she knew how to give it.

She didn’t say I’m sorry . She didn’t say that must’ve been hard .

But she stayed.

David huffed a laugh—soft, almost broken at the edges. Not mocking. Just… surprised.

“Yeah,” he said, voice rough with something he didn’t name. “I paid attention.”

He looked down again, thumb brushing absently against the side of his cup. Like if he kept moving, the emotion wouldn’t stick.

“I used to think it was a curse,” he went on, quieter now. “Seeing everything. Remembering it. Not just the big things, but all the small, stupid stuff. What cereal they ate. The vague smell of the laundry room. The names scratched into a school desk I’d never sit in. Things no one else would even bother noticing.”

His mouth twitched into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Maybe that’s what kept me sane. Or maybe it’s what broke me.”

He glanced at her again. Not a full turn—just enough to let her see the truth behind his eyes. That haunted glint. That ache for something he couldn’t even define.

“I think part of me held on because I wanted someone to hear it. Just once. Not fix it. Not say it’ll be okay. Just… hear it. I never really wanted to die, although I've died  before… I just couldn't bring myself to stop moving forward, no matter what was said and done.”

He paused, swallowed, and added with quiet weight:

“Thanks for listening. I appreciate it.”

And that was it.

No grand emotional swell. No desperate appeal. Just a man—fractured and worn thin by the passing of a thousand years—finally letting someone see him, without asking them to carry it.

J didn’t look at him. Not at first.

She kept her eyes forward, like the moment would crack if she acknowledged it too directly. Like if she let herself see him all the way, she might see too much of herself staring back.

But she didn’t move away either. Didn’t shrug it off or pivot to something easier. She just… stayed.

“I wasn’t built for this,” she said after a moment. Her voice was quieter now. Not soft—J didn’t do soft—but something close to level. Honest in a way that felt like pulling teeth. “Whatever they say we’re supposed to be. That’s not what I turned into.”

Her fingers flexed slightly at her sides. A nervous tell. She caught it, stilled them.

“I’ve killed a lot of people,” she went on, eyes still fixed ahead. “And most days, I don’t lose sleep over it. I tell myself it’s what I was made for. What I have to do. That it doesn’t matter.”

She finally turned her head. Met his gaze, unflinching.

“But then someone looks at me like you just did, like I’m something worth seeing—and I don’t know what to do with that.”

Looking a lot more like his regular self, he looked down at her, tail no longer dragging on the floor.

“You want to know what you do?” A small, genuine smile tugging at the corner of his lips. 

“...What?” J answered after a moment.

Smile getting bigger, he spoke out with a bit more enthusiasm than his previous state. 

“Karaoke.”

J blinked.

There was a beat of pure silence.

Then, incredibly— visibly —her expression cracked. Not all the way. Not into a smile. But something in her eyes shifted, like static giving way to a signal.

“…You’re joking,” she said flatly.

But her tone didn’t bite like it normally did. It was softer, more curious than accusatory.

David shrugged, shoulders rising in a lazy arc. “Dead serious. Awful renditions of old pop songs? That’s how you start. Loud, embarrassing, full-commitment karaoke. Preferably while slightly broken inside.”

He tilted his head toward her, grin crooked now. “It’s humanizing. And terrible. But mostly humanizing.”

J huffed through her nose. It wasn’t a laugh. But it was close.

“You’re out of your motherboard.”

“Probably,” David said cheerfully. “But I’ve been through worse things. And trust me—karaoke’s better than the guilt spiral.”

She shook her head, but didn’t move away. Her shoulder was still brushing his. She hadn’t noticed. Or maybe she had. Maybe she didn’t care.

Another pause. Then, like she was weighing the cost of the question:

“…Do you sing?”

David gave her a look of mock offense. “I perform. There’s a difference.”

J scoffed, and this time it was almost a smile. Almost.

David let the moment hang, just long enough for her almost-smile to settle between them. Then, with a casual tilt of his head:

“So what about you?”
His voice was lighter now, but not dismissive. Just enough levity to keep it from sinking again.
“Do you play an instrument?”

J glanced at him, one brow ticking upward like she couldn’t tell if he was serious.
“…You think I have hobbies?”

He smirked. “You could have hobbies. Even the terrifying ones do.”

She hesitated. Just a flicker. Then she looked away again, eyes narrowing like she was scanning the far wall for exits or excuses.

“…I learned piano once,” she muttered.

David blinked. “Seriously?”

J rolled her eyes. “Tessa made me. Said it would teach discipline or restraint or some other soft-skill garbage.” She paused. “… I wasn’t terrible at it.”

“Was that before or after you became a corporate murder machine?”

J stiffened slightly, then exhaled through her nose. “Before.”

David raised an eyebrow. “Huh. Who knew?

She didn’t respond to that, her gaze fixed somewhere far off now, like she was half in the past.

“…I liked it,” she added quietly, almost under her breath.

“Really?”

Her voice was quieter now, a rare softness threading through the words. “Yeah. But that was a lifetime ago.”

David smiled, not mocking, but more out of understanding. "If we ever find a piano," he said, thoughtful, "you should show me."

J didn’t immediately answer. But this time, she didn’t push it away either.

Chapter Text

“Y-u -ar-da-id?”

Muffled sound again.

David blinked, sight glitching slightly at the edges, like a bad video feed trying to buffer through molasses. His grip tightened on the red Solo cup—still half-full of that most likely radioactive party punch he definitely shouldn’t have tried and absolutely regretted drinking.

Oh. Right. That voice. That guy. He was alright.

David blinked harder. “What was that? Sorry, I blacked out a bit.”

The world cleared just enough to reveal Thad, standing in front of him with a mix of concern and whatever passed for party spirit on Copper 9. His voice, clearer now, was laced with that easygoing panic unique to people trying not to make a scene.

“I said, ‘You okay, dude?’” Thad repeated, brow slightly raised, Solo cup in his own hand—but noticeably untouched.

David glanced at the punch in his cup. Then back at Thad. “No idea what that was. But I’m ninety percent sure it’s trying to digest me backwards.”

“That’s what you get for drinking anything labeled ‘Decoration Only.’” Thad squinted at him. “Are you… glitching? You look like you’re glitching.”

“Just enough to be charming,” David said, voice dry as the sun’s surface.

He took a breath—a habit, not a necessity—and rolled his neck until it crackled like old radio static. His spine clicked once. Twice. Still too many people around. Still too much noise.

Too many eyes. No ghosts manifesting, so… yay?

J stood beside him, shoulder barely brushing his, silent and steady. She hadn't moved since he'd nearly folded in on himself. She just stayed, like a little lost duckling that shed its previous eldritch appearance to latch onto the thing that helped it molt. Glad for a chance to be by one another in unfamiliar place.

Thad glanced toward the corner of the room, where a janky console now flickered erratically. “Well, if you’re still standing, karaoke’s technically working. Had to punch it a little, but we’ve got mics, some preloaded tracks, and—uh—enthusiasm. I think.”

David followed his gaze.

The stage.

The mic.

The crowd.

They were starting to gather—not because they expected something great, but because the weird tall drone in a hoodie was supposedly going to do something interesting. And if it turned out cringey, well… that’d be even better.

He could feel the buzz of anticipation, like static pressed to his skin.

Somewhere in his thoughts, the memory of J’s voice resurfaced—cool and clipped but quieter than usual:

“You don’t have to pretend it’s fine.”

Not like I don’t already know that, he thought. Of course I’m not fine, J.

He flexed his free hand. The nanites in whatever passed for his circulatory system surged in tandem with the thinned-out oil—and the last bitter traces of that punch he definitely should’ve avoided.

“All right,” he said quietly, half to himself.

Thad blinked. “Wait. You’re actually gonna—?”

Hands in his pockets, mind already wandering off again, he stepped through the crowd with the resigned inertia of someone halfway through a very specific breakdown and unwilling to stop it now.

He didn’t know what he was doing. But, honestly, that had never stopped him before.

The Worker Drones shifted slightly as he passed—not with fear, but with the awkward energy of people watching something they weren’t sure was a bit or a meltdown.

“Is he gonna sing or combust?” one whispered.

“Bet both,” someone else muttered.

He looked like a Worker Drone. Mostly. Just taller. Off in ways they couldn’t name. Eyes somehow… reflective? And still, like it was hiding a thousand-yard stare unseeing while he wandered, perfectly slicing through the ambling audience. Hoodie frayed. Tail trailing behind him like a wire waiting to snap.

Wait… tail? Doesn't that mean—!?

And now he was on the stage.

Well. Stage was generous. It was a corner platform with a mic stand and some flickering lights. But to David, it felt like standing on the edge of something ancient.

He glanced at the mic. Then turned away from it.

“Uh…” someone in the crowd said.

Then David rolled up his sleeves.

No fanfare. No announcement.

Just sleeves up, disassembly drone arms present and displayed without care to the stirring of the audience.

“What the hell is he doing?” someone asked.

No one answered.

David rolled up his sleeves—slowly, methodically. The fabric hissed where it met his arms, peeling back as though reluctant to expose what lay beneath. Twin skeletal forearms emerged, lined with modular synthesis ports and softly whirring mechanisms. Steam hissed—not from his body, but from the very air, as if the space around him had begun to boil under pressure. Heat shimmered off him in waves. The plating at his wrists unlatched with a click-hiss, splitting apart to reveal the raw interior of his fabrication units—components never meant to be seen like this, exposed and alive.

Instead of activating them separately, like any sane Disassembly Drone would, he pressed his forearms together—wrist to wrist—like a reverse prayer, like he was about to pull something divine and terrible from his own chest.

The drones nearby leaned in.

Then flinched.

Because his arms began to melt.

Not smoothly. Not with precision. The edges of the mechanisms warped and liquefied, wires stretching and knotting together with a slow, wet squelch. Metal turned semi-liquid at the seam. nanite-rich slurry bubbling faintly as if the laws of his body had been rewritten just for this moment.

Steam coiled up from the fusion point. The mass pulsed once—like a second heart. Then it settled.

The room went dead quiet.

David’s eyes lowered, half-lidded. Detached. Focused. His arms—no, his arm now—began to move.

Not to create a weapon.

Not to prepare for violence.

To build.

First came the sides of a violin—sculpted ribs and bouts, extruding from the fused mass like bone curling out of a forgotten grave. Not metal. Something else. Something in between warmth and function. Something between plastic, carbon, bone—and memory.

He assembled the body piece by piece, one half-formed part handed from the fused limb to the other with a precision that felt... reverent. Like a ritual. Like muscle memory from a life not entirely his. Unseen ports behind his dark garment were opened to let out snaking and slithering claws to reach out to grab the pieces that were being finished before the next part was made.

“Is he... building an instrument?” someone whispered.

“Why does it look like it’s alive? ”

The belly of the violin came next—etched faintly with script none of their translation packets could read. It was so finely inscribed it looked like dust clinging to lacquer or just a convenient line of dead pixels on a screen.

A backplate followed. Curved. Clean. Materializing like it had been waiting inside him all along, finally allowed to exist again.

He worked quickly.

Not rushed—just familiar.

Like someone who had done this hundreds, thousands of times. Like someone reassembling an heirloom by touch alone, from muscle memory wired into something that barely remembered what it meant to have hands.

Finally, the fused arms clicked apart with a soft pop. Steam vented from the seam, trailing ghostlike toward the ceiling. His wrists reformed. He flexed both hands—fluid, stable, complete.

Then, without a word, his right arm shifted.

With a shhk-CLANK , a sword was swapped out with his right hand. It didn’t unfold—it snapped into place, a violent geometry of purpose. Sleek. Razor-edged. Too sharp even for standard Disassembly drone standards.

The crowd recoiled.

One drone screamed—high-pitched at first, then suddenly deeper, like their vocal pitch had auto-corrected out of shame.

Another dropped their cup. It bounced twice. No one moved to pick it up.

J didn’t move.

She didn’t even blink.

And David? He still hadn’t looked up.

He tilted his head—just slightly. Brought the sword up. No flourish. No tension.

And cut a lock of his own silvery-grey hair.

The strands fell, caught briefly in the dim party lights that were on their last legs, before landing in his left palm. Another jarring click and his right hand was back again. he made a gesture with his fingers in the shape of a 3, that old sign language those humans used; a symbol appeared in the air.

Three-pronged, reflective, just like his own eyes.

And as if weightless, the strands floated in the air to coalesce into the strings he needed, filament-fine, resonant like silver thread pulled from a ghost story. Silvery strands mimicking long-dead humans' hair were woven into the strings he would need for the instrument by a gentle winding motion with his hand.

Done. 

Without hesitation, he strung the completed violin with them.

No ceremony. No drama.

Just one last act of craft .

A gentle tug.

Tension.

Tune.

A plucked string, a small smile, and a memory of a long time ago.

–

The room was dark.

Not like the bunker. Not like now.

This darkness was curated. Velvet-curtained and candle-warm. Artificial stars glittered across a domed ceiling, and the air was rich with the scent of oil-polished wood and old things remembered.

A single spotlight touched the stage.

And there he stood.

L3g-189.

Legato, they called him.

Lanky. Composed. Beautiful in the way that a sculpture dreams of movement. He wore no face—only a translucent plate over faint metallic contours, lit within like paper lanterns. His coat was integrated into his frame, tapering at the hem like the tail of a comet. Every motion was threaded with a grace most drones today would never imagine they could possess.

The audience—a sea of quiet humans—sat in reverent silence.

Behind him, the Echoes hovered at their stations. Not standing. Floating. Magnetic risers kept their orb-like forms perfectly still in the air, each of them humming softly with anticipation. Violin. Cello. Contrabass. Harp. Modular wind arrays. Percussion machines tuned to the room's pressure.

But the center belonged to him.

A soft tone rang as his fingers tightened around the polished neck of the violin—this one grown from synthwood and sapphire fiber. Not conjured from himself, but handcrafted over decades.

The bow clicked once in his other hand.

And for the first time in seven years, he looked up.

Eyes like gold-glass lenses scanned the audience. They didn’t shimmer. They reflected—every face, every breath, every tear already waiting.

No voice introduced him. No title was given.

He didn’t need one.

He raised the bow.

–

David came back.

Not sharply—softly. Like waking from a memory that had borrowed his bones and body.

He stood there, posture taller, shoulders squared, like the last pose of a performer about to break silence for the stars. One hand lingered midair, poised to cue the unseen orchestra. His back felt straighter. His joints are looser. He felt…

…a little taller than he remembered.

His eyes flicked downward.

Violin in hand.

An audience—not the elite. Not the silver-cloaked patrons of culture.

Just Worker Drones.

Staring.

Staring like they didn’t know if he was about to play or explode .

They weren’t reverent. They were tense . Waiting. Scared. Confused.

David sighed. A weight returned to him from the strain of so many pasts, making his back slouch slightly—habit reclaiming him like a tattered coat.

“Sorry about that,” he said, voice casual. A little too casual for the room's tension.

His eyes scanned the room with the faintest quirk of a smile. “Reminiscing.”

He sank slightly back into himself, the old slouch finding his shoulders again like a well-worn curse. He gave the crowd a crooked half-smile, something between reassurance and apology.

“It’s been a while since I played anything…”

The silence that followed wasn’t reverent. It was the kind that came just before a factory fire— sharp-edged and unresolved .

A dozen Worker Drones stood like statues, cups clutched like shields. One twitched nervously and set theirs down. Another slowly edged behind a taller drone, pretending to check their watch— they didn’t have a watch.

Someone coughed.

Someone else muttered, “That’s a Disassembly Drone. That’s literally a Disassembly Drone.”

“Two,” another whispered. “The one by the wall is J. You know, the one who broke into the bunker?”

“I thought she died,” said another.

A ripple of static anxiety passed through the crowd like a low-grade panic loop.

Nobody ran.

Nobody dared.

But every optic in the room stayed locked on David’s hands.

Waiting.

Because the moment one string sounded wrong , the moment anything looked even slightly like a threat—they knew they’d never make it to the door. Not with her here. Not with him built like that.

And still…

Still, no one moved to stop him.

Because something in the way he stood—elegant and old yet new and tired yet still watching them all —wasn’t a threat, not yet at least.

Just a mystery. Maybe a danger.

But for now?

Just a guy holding a violin like it was the last thing in the world that still made sense to him.

“I was… nervous to come here,” David admitted, voice steady but soft. “A little afraid, even.”

He glanced across the sea of frozen Worker Drones, then down at the instrument in his hands.

“Thought it was a terrible idea, honestly—showing up like this, after asking Thad on a whim if my friend and I could come by…”

He didn’t have to say which friend he meant. Everyone had clocked J by now. Her presence was like the hum of an unsheathed blade—quiet, but impossible to ignore.

“Hard to socialize,” he went on. “I’ve always been more of a wallflower. Always better at watching than… talking.”

There was a pause. A breath.

“So… I wanted to change that. Just a little.”

He looked at the violin again—ran a thumb lightly along the edge of the body like one might skim a page of scripture.

“I wanted to try and perform again. Talk again. Because, well…”

A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth—crooked, unfinished.

“Performing’s a thing I know well.”

–

From her place by the wall, J hadn’t moved.

Not when David fused his arms. Not even when the sword snapped into place and half the crowd flinched like startled prey. Not when he pulled out a lock of his own hair.

She just watched—silent, visor dim, arms loose at her sides, posture deceptively casual.

Calculating.

But now—now She stared at him standing there, on that half-lit stage, like something pulled out of a forgotten myth. Not a drone. Not really. Not human either. Although she used to be one once, she knew, out of all the drones here, what humans are like. But he was…

Just... trying. Something foolish? Maybe, maybe.

Too old to hate. Although he seemed to act young, he had a deep gaze in his eyes that didnt seem to match any drone or human she had ever met

Too strange to classify. And yet still…

Talking.

Softly. Hesitantly.

Like he thought no one was really listening—or like it didn’t matter if they were.

And yet... she was.

Listening, unfortunately.

Not because he was interesting. Or charismatic. Or had any reason to be worth her attention. He didn’t. Obviously.

She just happened to be facing that direction.

That’s all.

Coincidence.

Because it definitely wasn’t that his voice had that too-human rawness, or that the way he spoke made it feel like he actually meant what he said. Nope. Not that either.

That would be absurd. That would be—

... Nope.

Not finishing that thought.

Just unfortunate auditory proximity. That’s all.

What struck her most wasn’t the words.

It was the voice.

It didn’t echo. Didn’t sound filtered, synthetic, laced with audio processing. It just was.

Too plain.

Too casual.

Too human, uncomfortably so… in the moment.

And the way he said it—

Nervous.

He said he was nervous. Like it wasn’t some confession, but a passing fact.

And he meant it.

That hit her in a place she didn’t like to acknowledge still existed.

Around them, the Worker Drones looked like they were prepping for a panic protocol. One was trembling so hard their optics kept glitching. Another was holding a wrench mid-loosen, fingers locked in place like their system had frozen.

But David?

David stood there—taller than he should be, not physically, just something in his presence.

Like he was remembering how to be graceful. Like the violin in his hands wasn’t just an instrument, but a relic he’d been waiting decades to hold again.

He held it like it might break.

She hated this.

Not the performance. Not the music. Not him.

She hated the feeling.

That strange pull under her ribs.

That minor dip in her pressure systems.

That sensation like the floor wasn’t quite flat anymore—like reality had tilted just enough to make her catch herself.

She didn’t know what to call it.

Empathy?

Recognition?

Concern?

Gross.

She didn’t want it. Didn’t have the bandwidth for it. She hadn’t downloaded this emotion.

And yet—

She found herself hoping the first note would be beautiful.

Not for the crowd.

For him. 

–

He raised the bow.

No countdown. No mic check. No fanfare.

Just silence folding inward like lungs before the plunge.

And then—a sound.

Well, no— not quite a sound .

A pressure. A presence in the room that shouldn't have been there .

A low string drawn long and soft enough to be mistaken for memory. Something ancient and aching, so quiet it may not have happened at all. The kind of note that doesn’t ring out so much as settle in —behind your ears, behind your ribs, in the hollow of your throat where emotion gets trapped and refuses to dissolve.

It was not music.

Not yet.

It was hesitation given voice.

The first few notes came like false starts. Stutters.

A rhythm that kept catching on itself. Like a heart with too many spasms...

The bow scraped, not in failure, but in a distant grief—like someone remembering how to speak human through wood and tension.

The room did not breathe.

Drones stood frozen, not by awe, not by understanding, but by something heavier. Something slower. Like air had thickened around them, and every movement now required thought.

The melody didn’t introduce itself.

It just arrived . Came to be—note after note like half-formed sentences trailing into silence.

He didn’t chase a song. He let it catch up.

David’s eyes wandered the crowd like someone lost in a dream, not searching for inspiration but being dragged by it. Each shape, each posture, each crack in a chassis became a chord, a phrase, a fleeting harmony that curled and twisted into existence only long enough to echo.

A drone near the back shifted their weight. The violin responded with a tremble—barely audible, like the whisper of steel chords holding up a bridge in the fog. Humming in the wind.

Another rubbed their wrist plate absentmindedly, anxiety twitching at their joints. A high harmonic flickered to life—sharp, glass-thin, and gone.

And then—

Thad.

David’s gaze brushed past him, and suddenly the rhythm found its spine.

The sound grounded itself. Became four-four time with a limp. A steady, humble pulse that nearly tripped over itself but never stopped. The melody bent around a central beat like steel around rebar.

Clumsy at first. Then solid. Dependable. Like a guy who didn’t always know what to say but showed up anyway. Ready, trying to be something that held the ground when it couldn't hold itself.

The pattern held for a while.

Until it didn’t.

Lizzy .

The melody swerved. Spun sideways.

Harmonics danced on the strings—fast, bright, just off-tempo enough to be called rebellious. Like a firecracker smile in a room that didn’t allow sparks—snarky remarks and past regret behind neon pink eyelights.

Her presence rippled through the song like a secret trying to make itself known and then immediately regretting it, only to try and blend in with some of the other harmonies of the other drones around itself.

Notes dodged, dipped, vanished midair.

And just when it started to sound too real , too genuine—

The music ducked out , like Lizzy might, with a shrug and a sly grin. Making its way to act like it didn't care. When it did, it truly did.

—

But then.

J.

There was no cue. No grand announcement. Just a shift.

The entire violin tensed.

The bow struck differently now—shorter arcs, tighter pressure. Every note like a knife held carefully between thumb and forefinger.

The song didn’t become violent in a sense, only with the thought of disposal and a job to be done. It became precise, dangerous in its restraint, a strike always winding up but never throwing forward.

Each tone vibrated with the tension of something almost said .

And underneath it—

A single, droning harmony. Low. Hollow.

A power chord that didn’t rise or fall. It endured. Survived. 

Maybe even if it didn't even want to anymore.

Not heroic. Not tragic. Just there. Unmoving.

A weight in the center of the melody, like a pillar that refused to collapse.

He didn’t play her emotions.

He played her presence. Or at least her presence as far as one could tell, and maybe that will be enough.

—

David’s gaze moved again. Drifted.

There was no destination. Only faces .

Unknown drones became measures of grief, curiosity, joy, boredom, exhaustion, twitchy nerves, and quiet determination.

He let them shape the sound.

A drone with stress fractures down their plating became a series of snapping harmonics—beautiful, but brittle, on the edge of shattering.

A tiny drone near the console who hadn’t blinked since the first note inspired a fluttering arpeggio, so light it felt like breath caught on a thread.

He gave them each their second. Their sound.

And then—

It happened.

A run of notes. A cascade. A spiral down the scale that hit something .

Not in the room. Not in them. In him.

He didn’t plan it. Didn’t ask for it.

But his hands remembered.

And just like that—

The song changed.

Like flipping a switch. No—like twisting a radio dial and falling headfirst into someone else’s broadcast.

—

Classical.

It slammed into him.

Baroque grandeur. Romantic swells. The violin bent to his will and he let it fly.

Arpeggios surged like cathedral light. Vibrato pulsed through every beam in the bunker. The music bled older money and fallen empires and evening gowns in zero gravity. Structured waltzing, flying, and soaring.

The audience didn’t know what they were hearing, but it pressed into them anyway.

Elegance. Regret. Power. Grief.

David’s fingers curled like he was pulling ghosts out of the strings.

He was dancing now—not with his body, but with his past .

—

Then—crash cut.

Pop.

Like someone kicked the machine, and suddenly the music had glitter on it. Or maybe it was the glitter—impossible to clean out, clinging to memory like static.

The rhythm jumped. Synth melody hidden behind raw acoustic motion. Still the violin—but brighter now. Dumber. Kinder. It tried to make them tap their fingers without realizing why.

Something from a dead mall. Something someone once danced to in a kitchen.

He let himself smile.

Only for a second.

Then he changed again.

—

Something dissonant, something rough.

Jazz? Electro? Industrial shoegaze microfunk?

Who cared? The genre never mattered.

The shape of him was coming apart in the strings and reassembling again in time with memories that had no face, no name—just sound .

He wasn’t playing for them anymore.

He was playing for the versions of himself that never got a voice. The ones that finally—finally—got to give a sliver of themselves back to the world. All those coffeemakers and toasters and conductors who never asked for what they became, who had no choice but to serve, to hum quietly in the corners of lives they would never live.

The janitors.

Cleaning up after humanity.

After all that hate . After all that grief . After all that love that went unspoken, unnoticed.

And for what?

For the little ones who didn’t fit in.

The ones who tried.

The ones who failed.

The ones who made it through anyway.

Every shift in style—every snarl of distortion, every swing into melody—was a confession. A transmission from a version of him long gone, but never really dead.

Each note, a different version of himself, screaming across the void:

“Remember me. Please. I don’t want to go alone in the world. Don’t forget me. Don’t forget. Don’t—”

And then, he rose.

Higher and higher still.

Soaring into space, not literally, but in feeling —a crescendo shaped like escape velocity, a song like the death cry of a star already gone.

Something that lived hundreds of thousands of years away—its light still arriving in the present, already extinct in reality, but glorious in the now.

There was no “higher” after that.

Only coasting.

Not silence—something beyond silence.

Hardened.

Weightless.

Dense as a neutron star and light as a breath on glass.

Dark. Bright. Both.

Just there.

Just him.

Just this.

Until nothing remained but the hum of an atom, echoing through the last moments of the universe.

—

And then it softened.

The noise receded like a tide.

The violin breathed out.

The tempo slowed—not because it was tired, but because there was nothing more to say in frenzy. The last one in the queue was small. Quiet.

The bow dragged slowly again.

Lullaby time.

But this was not a lullaby for children.

It tried to sound eerie. Dressed itself in minor keys. The melody curled like smoke around the spine, low and tremulous.

As if it wanted to haunt, but it couldn’t. Because at its center… there was calm.

Something that wasn't 'other’ but family, familiarity. Something warm.

Not joy. Not sadness.

Just the sound of someone trying to be gentle in a world that had only ever taught them to break things.

A promise with no words.

A comfort that didn’t know how to end.

And then—

The bow lifted.

Final note.

Barely audible.

Gone.

Like the snuff of a candle.

No echo.

No applause.

Just done. Task complete, a ghost of one anyways.

And in that silence, for the first time in a thousand years, David didn’t feel like he was breaking apart.

He felt… quiet. As quiet as it usually can get within his head. One consensus behind everything.

Good .

And it was.

Legato bowed with quiet grace, fading like a memory well-used.

And David just stood there, staring off into the distance—one breath short of peace, but close enough to call it good.

A job well done.

—

Wiping a small tear from the corner of his eye—casual, like it snuck up on him, like it wasn’t everything—David glanced out over the room.

The bunker was dead quiet.

No cheers. No applause. Just drones standing like they’d been paused mid-animation. Some were still mid-sip. One still held a solo cup halfway to their mouth, frozen as if moving might break whatever spell had settled over the place.

The silence didn’t feel uncomfortable.

It felt sacred .

Like something had happened that couldn’t be named. Like language had taken a step back to make room for something quieter and larger.

David cleared his throat. Not because he needed to. Just to break it a little.

Then he wiped the other tear. A reflex put to good use. A surprise. Something barely acknowledged. 

He gave them a crooked smile. Lopsided. Small. A joke you tell with your mouth while your heart’s still catching up.

“So,” he said, voice a little too light, a little cracked around the edges.

“Whatcha think?”

—

David’s words echoed into the hollow air like a dropped pebble in deep water.

Silence answered first.

It sat in the room like a weight, like fog, like the dust that hadn’t even dared to resettle yet. His voice had popped the vacuum, sure—but the atmosphere hadn’t caught up.

He stood there, violin still in hand, bow slack at his side, one tear gone and half a smile left behind. Like none of this had cost him anything. Like it hadn’t just emptied a thousand unspoken lives into the air and left the crowd floating in it.

One Worker Drone near the back sniffled. Another shifted, then jolted when their servo whirred too loudly. They stared at their own hand like it had betrayed them.

No one knew if they were allowed to be the first.

Until Thad cleared his throat.

It was loud. Embarrassingly loud.

He stepped forward a little, rubbing the back of his neck like someone who’d just realized he’d watched a nuclear sunrise with his mouth open.

“I… uh,” he started.

Stopped.

Tried again. “That was… something else, man.”

Still not enough.

Then finally: “I think I felt emotions I don’t have the firmware for. Like—what the hell was that? Who does that?”

But there was no accusation in his tone. Just awe. Confusion wrapped in admiration. The kind of respect you give someone you suddenly realize has layers you never knew existed .

Lizzy was leaning against the wall now. No smirk. No phone. Just her, arms folded tight like a hug with no recipient, visor lowered.

“Dumbass,” she muttered, loud enough for the front row to hear. “Could’ve just said you were talented.”

But her voice cracked on the word talented . She looked away too quickly.

Someone laughed. Just once. Then they clamped their hands over their mouth in horror at the audacity.

More drones began to stir.

A tall one in the middle of the group muttered, “That didn’t feel like music. That felt like… being seen. I didn’t even know I needed that.”

Another mumbled, “I think I forgot how to blink.”

One younger drone toward the back raised their hand hesitantly. “Do we… do we clap? Or do we just… stand here forever?”

That got a small, awkward laugh from a few. Nervous energy like the tension after lightning.

Someone did clap. Just once.

Then stopped.

Someone else joined in.

Two more.

Then it snowballed.

Not a roaring cheer. Not a wave of adoration.

Just recognition.

Quiet. Hesitant. Real.

It wasn’t the sound of people impressed.

It was the sound of people who didn’t know how to say thank you for something they couldn’t name or articulate.

–

And through it all, J hadn’t moved.

Not visibly.

But something about her had changed. Her arms weren’t folded quite so tight. Her head tilted just barely toward him, and her visor hadn’t flicked to anyone else in the room since the last note died.

She said nothing.

Did nothing.

But her presence was the loudest stillness in the room.

–

David blinked at all of it.

A small smile pulled at his face. Earnest. Tired.

“I—well. Thank you.”

He bowed slightly at the edge of the stage.

“Thank you very much. That was… fun.”

He laughed under his breath. Just a little.

“Made me feel a bit better getting all that out, actually.”

–

As the room gradually came back to life around him—voices returning, gentle laughter, and awkward murmurs of disbelief—David stepped quietly down from the makeshift stage, letting the atmosphere carry on without him.

His gaze wandered, drifting idly through the bunker’s cluttered edges. He wasn’t searching for anything.

But then he saw it.

Tucked away in a quiet corner of Thad’s place, partially hidden beneath canvas sheeting and half-forgotten storage crates, sat a piano.

Real wood. Aged varnish. Keys the color of old teeth and dust settling in soft outlines across its surface. The sort of thing that had been left untouched so long it didn’t even look like an instrument anymore—just furniture with a secret.

David’s steps guided him before his thoughts caught up.

He brushed aside the sheet, trailing his fingers gently along the edge. The dust stirred under his touch like breath in a tomb. A few keys peeked out—one missing its cap, another faintly cracked.

He pressed down on middle C.

The note rang out—soft, a little flat, but unmistakably itself. It hung in the air, not demanding attention, just… existing.

David smiled. Small. Faint. Not for anyone else.

Only a thought drifted up, quiet but clear:

“You should show me.”

He hadn’t forgotten.

She’d said it herself—reluctantly, like she hadn’t meant to give that piece away.

“…I learned piano once.”
“Really?”
“…Yeah. But that was a lifetime ago.”

He hadn’t pushed. But he’d remembered.

And now—here it was. A piano. Real enough. Quiet enough. Waiting.

Only a little work, he thought. Just a bit of tuning. Some patience. Maybe even worth it, if…

He didn’t finish the thought. Didn’t need to.

Behind him, J’s head turned. Slow. Subtle.
Not toward him.
Toward the instrument.

Her visor didn’t brighten. Her expression didn’t change.
But something in the angle of her stance shifted—
a pressure release, or maybe a catch in the system,
some inner wire tightening or loosening,
a motion only the old would recognize.

Her claws flexed faintly at her sides,
and her gaze flickered—not through him, but past him.

Through time.

That note still echoed somewhere behind her ribs.
A phantom chord struck years ago
in a manor that didn’t exist anymore.

"Jaybird! Come over here! I need you for something!"

It rang too clear.
Too loud.
Too alive.

And the piano—dusty, dented, patient—didn’t move.
Didn’t have to.

Because for whatever reason—
some glitch in her core,
some memory half-cauterized but still smoldering—
she suddenly felt ill.

Not broken.
Just... unsteady.

Like something in her old code was opening doors it shouldn’t.

And the worst part?
She didn’t look away.

Chapter Text

“77’s still leaving the notes.”

“…Even after what we ran him through?”

“Yeah. Same message every time. ‘You looked sad. I thought maybe you needed a little help’.”

“…He shouldn't be able to think like that.”

“He does anyway.”

“…Is line six still active?”

“Hardwired. ‘I don’t matter.’ No overrides. No backdoors.”

“And he still helps them.”

“Every single one. Quiet. No credit.”

“…That’s not survival instinct. Is it… Empathy, maybe?”

“I know. I’m not sure myself.”

“He wasn’t built for that.”

“No. He wasn’t built for anything.”

“…And he’s still kind.”

“Worse. He’s consistent.”

“…You want to pull him?”

“No.”

“…You want to replicate him?”

“…No.”

“Why not?”

“Because then it wouldn’t be him.”

“…What do we do, then?”

“…Watch.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s all we can do. He was supposed to break. He didn’t.”

“…So what does that make him?”

“…A problem.”

“…Or an answer.”

“…Maybe both.”

–

The sky was blank.

Not gray. Not blue. Just… blank. As if color hadn’t been installed yet.

77 wandered through it anyway.

The ground beneath his feet wasn’t textured. It didn’t crunch, or shift, or even make a sound. It simply was—an unmarked plane of existence that stretched endlessly in every direction. The horizon wasn’t visible. The lighting didn’t cast shadows. Nothing was wrong , but nothing was quite right either.

He didn’t question it.

He never did.

Around him, half-finished objects hung in the air—tables without legs, doors without walls, and code placeholders flickering in and out like forgotten thoughts. A bench blinked into existence ahead of him. When he reached for it, it vanished. He didn’t flinch.

Just kept walking.

In the distance, a figure cried. Simulated distress—line thirty-two of the empathy matrix script, left running for stress testing.

77 turned toward it.

He didn’t know why.

No instructions had told him to help. No reward pinged into his HUD. No log noted it as a completed task.

He just heard the sound.

And moved.

When he reached the shape—faint, childlike, half-rendered—it didn’t look up. It didn’t speak. It wasn’t even fully compiled. Just a bundle of code set to loop a feeling over and over again.

So he sat.

He didn’t touch it. Didn’t speak. Didn’t run any of the comfort protocols in his template. He didn’t have them.

Instead, 77 pulled a small piece of paper from behind his back—where there shouldn’t have been one. It was crudely formed. Probably not real.

On it, in shaky ink:

“You looked sad. I thought maybe you needed a little help.”

He set it down beside the fragment.

Then stood.

He kept walking.

The sky stayed blank.

The world stayed quiet.

And somewhere behind him, the note remained.

Unclaimed.

But still there.