Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It felt weird going back to school the day after almost letting a disassembly drone in and causing the death of everyone in the bunker. Just the night before, Uzi had gone out to get the final part she needed for her sick as hell railgun. A disassembly drone (who she later learned was named N) spotted her, and after an intense fight and a strange conversation she ran back to the bunker. She’d just barely managed to close the exterior door before he could get in.

She was, of course, in trouble for almost letting a murder drone in, but all that meant was that she wasn’t allowed to leave her room when she was home. Not that she usually did anyway. Turning her attention back to where she was now, she heard the teacher discussing something that she had long since learned. It was annoying how rudimentary school was, teaching nothing more advanced than basic multivariable vector calculus.

Though perhaps that was a good thing right now. Uzi’s head was killing her. Strange, considering the fact that it only did that when she was using a lot of processing power, and she definitely wasn’t right now. Her headache seemed to make everything around her louder and brighter. The sounds of Lizzy, Doll, and Rebecca talking about who-knows-what, the lights buzzing, and the teacher’s boring, pointless lecture.

Without much of a thought, Uzi raised her hand, needing to get out of here to somewhere more quiet so she could deal with her headache and see what's wrong.

“Yes, Uzi?” Teacher groaned, sounding almost like he expected her to blow up the classroom again.

“Can I go to the bathroom?” Uzi asked.

“Go ahead,” Teacher answered, glad to have Uzi leaving, even if it was just briefly.

Uzi stood up to leave the room, not noticing Doll watching her as she left. She walked through the halls in a sort of daze, her head too foggy for her to fully process the world around her. Upon reaching her destination, she pushed open the door to the women’s restroom.

Inside there were a few toilet stalls along the left wall and a long counter with some sinks and a mirror along the right. The toilet stalls weren’t exactly necessary, drones don’t need them, but they were just left over from when humans used to live at Outpost 3, before the core collapsed. The sinks didn’t work either. The only reason people came here was to have mental breakdowns, make out, and spread gossip.

Uzi walked over to the furthest sink, staring down at it, trying to get her headache to go away. She pulled up a menu that listed all of the programs currently running, hoping to pinpoint what in the world was taking up so much of her processing power. Most of the applications made sense and used a reasonable amount of memory. Except for one, something that she hadn’t ever seen before.

Hidden strangely deep in her long list of internal processes was a new program taking up an ungodly amount of her CPU and memory. Something called ‘Absolute Solver’. She tried to close it, figuring that would probably fix the issue. But it wouldn’t close.

“What the hell?” she muttered to herself.

She looked up at the mirror, looking at her reflection in confusion. This wasn’t normal, programs were supposed to close when you told them to. Maybe it was a fluke, a one time thing where it wouldn’t close. She tried closing it again, but not only did it not close, but it actually briefly seemed to take up more resources.

Suddenly a symbol appeared on Uzi’s visor, replacing her left eye. It resembled a pair of purple nested hexagons with three arrows pointing out of the outer one. She didn’t get a very long look at it before the mirror abruptly cracked where her reflection was.

“Oh robo-jesus!” Uzi exclaimed, stumbling backwards, covering her now-back-to-normal eye with her hand.

Before she could figure out what the hell had just happened she heard the bathroom door open and someone walk in. She turned to see who it was, keeping her hand on her eye. To her surprise she found Doll standing there, her face unreadable.

“Did you do this?” Doll asked, narrowing her eyes and pointing toward the mirror.

“Yes- well, no? I don’t know, it just broke! My eye- and then- the mirror!” Uzi rushed out, not wanting to get in trouble for breaking the mirror.

“Tell me exactly what happened,” Doll demanded.

“I had a headache, that’s why I left class, and I came here to see what was wrong. I found a new strange program that was taking up all my memory, but when I tried to close it… the mirror broke,” Uzi explained, suddenly realizing how unbelievable that sounded.

“What's the program called?”

“Oh- uh, it’s called ‘Absolute Solver’. Whatever that is.”

Without a word, Doll turned toward the mirror, and after a second her eye turned into a symbol that mimicked the one that had been on Uzi’s visor only moments ago. The only difference being that Doll’s was an orange-red instead of purple. The mirror broke where Doll’s reflection was.

“Like that?”

Uzi was too shocked to speak. Was this… normal? Did this happen to everyone? Or just her and Doll?

“Wha- you too?” she finally managed to say.

“Yes,” she confirmed, uninterested. She turned to the mirror. “We may not want to tell them we broke the mirror.”

“Anyone else?”

“No. Just me, and now you.”

“Why is this happening? What is this?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

“What- what am I supposed to do?”

“Stay away from mirrors, you’ll tend to break them. If you need someone to discuss it with, you can talk to me.”

“Oh, okay,” Uzi said, surprised by the Russian drone’s offer.

“I should head back to class,” Doll said, turning around and leaving without another word. Leaving the practically destroyed mirror behind.

Uzi watched her leave, noticing that her headache had eased up a good bit. Looking at it in her files, she saw that it was a lot less active now then it had been. She was uncertain if it was because it had a chance to do something, or because of Doll somehow. Regardless, she was glad that her headache wasn’t as bad anymore.

Sighing, she headed back to class, though she wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about returning to the mind-numbingly boring lecture she had come from. When she got back she tried to make eye contact with Doll, but the red-eyed drone was too busy talking to Lizzy to notice. Uzi wondered if she’d told Lizzy about the weird eye thing.

Settling into her seat she put her head in her arms. She hadn’t signed up for this. Not the weird new mirror-breaking headache-causing program nor Doll being strangely friendly to her in the most confusing way. She hoped this was the all that would happen, and it would leave her alone from now on, but something told her that probably wasn’t the case.

Chapter Text

It’d been a couple days since the Absolute Solver program first showed up, and Doll offered to be there if Uzi ever needed to talk to someone. A little part of Uzi foolishly thought that meant that the mean girl would be a bit nicer to her. She definitely had not been.

In fact, despite Uzi trying to reach out a couple times to ask questions, Doll hadn’t held up on her offer of being someone she could talk to. Every time she’d tried to talk to her, Doll acted indifferent or just completely ignored her. It was driving Uzi slightly insane- that and the occasional very intense headaches that tended to break the first reflective surface she looked at.

She walked through the halls, staring at her feet. She wasn’t particularly in the mood for gym. She was always picked last, which was annoying because she’d much rather not get picked at all. Though she did share it with Doll. Maybe she’d finally get to talk to her. 

No. Why would I? She’s been ignoring me for the past couple days, why would she stop now? Why do I even want to talk to her so much? Uzi thought. Sure she seems to know more than me about what the hell is happening, but she still sucks.

She was drawn from her thoughts as Lizzy walked past, clinging onto Thad’s arm, turning to laugh at the ‘emo freak’ as she walked past. Doll trailed after, not saying anything or even acknowledging Uzi’s existence. A sudden thought popped into Uzi’s head, one that she probably shouldn’t listen to, but her teenage impulse control wasn’t good enough to stop her.

Noticing a janitor’s closet nearby, Uzi decided that if she wanted to talk to Doll, she was going to . Opening the janitor’s closet quickly, she took a big step forward, grabbed the back of the indigo-haired drones shirt, and yanked her backwards. She put her other hand over Doll’s mouth and pulled her into the dark closet, shutting the door behind her.

Doll yelped, startled. Her eye turned into the Absolute Solver symbol as a matching one showed up at the tips of her fingers. A knife came out of absolutely nowhere, the same symbol around its handle, and its tip against Uzi’s throat.

“Robo-jesus! Calm down, it’s me!” Uzi exclaimed.

“Uzi? What the hell?” Doll questioned, lowering the threatening knife from Uzi’s neck.

“I just wanted to talk and you’ve been ignoring me!” she explained, relieved to not be in immediate mortal danger anymore.

“So you pulled me into a storage closet?” Doll asked.

“Janitor’s closet actually,” Uzi corrected. Her unnecessary correction met with a blank glare from the other drone. “Whatever. It’s not like I had a much better option! I tried talking to you normally, and you just ignored me!”

“Yeah, because you were always trying to talk to me when Lizzy was around. She doesn’t like you,” Doll stated, annoyed.

“You’re always around her! It’s not like there were any times to talk to you without her,” Uzi argued.

Doll sighed. “Nevermind. Why did you need to talk to me?”

“The weird program that we both have? The one you said I could talk to you about? And how the hell did you just telekinesis that knife a second ago?” Uzi asked, exasperated and confused.

“You didn’t figure out that the Absolute Solver comes with powers?”

“Powers? What powers?”

Without a word the Absolute Solver symbol showed up at the end of three of Doll’s fingers again as she raised the knife so it was held in the short distance between them. It multiplied, turning from one knife into three before they all turned and flew at Uzi. She flinched, closing her eyes as the knives narrowly missed her, hitting the wall around her head.

When she opened her eyes again, Doll had a smug smile on her face, clearly amused at Uzi’s fear. Uzi just stared at her in shock, she didn’t know she could be kind of sadistic. At least she didn’t actually hit her, something she definitely had the ability to do.

Shaking off her surprise, Uzi finally spoke. “How the hell did you do that?”

“The Absolute Solver. I don’t know how,” Doll said.

Uzi was about to say something  when Doll’s expression suddenly changed, looking like she had just heard something. She grabbed the front of Uzi’s hoodie and yanked her forward, the two ending up pressed together against the back of the closet. Uzi was looking over Doll's shoulder, with a great view of the concrete wall.

“What the hell-” Uzi started, before getting cut off by the door to the closet opening.

“Hey girl, you coming to PE? Coach is looking for you,” a voice Uzi recognized as Lizzy’s said.

Uzi stood frozen, trying to not think about how nice it was to touch another person- and she wasn’t just touching Doll, she was fully pressed against her, Doll’s hand still holding the front of her shirt. On top of that, Lizzy was here now, and that never boded well for Uzi’s mental health.

“Not today, I’m busy,” Doll answered.

“Oh, ew,” Lizzy said, seemingly noticing Uzi’s presence. “Whatever, do what you want. See you in class?”

“Yeah,” Doll confirmed and the door shut.

“I should go. I’ll talk to you later,” Doll said after a moment, scooting around Uzi and exiting out the same door Lizzy had gone out, grabbing the knives stuck in it on her way out.

Uzi stood there in silence, processing what had just happened. She touched her face, which seemed to be glowing faintly brighter than usual. It only took a second for her to realize that she had a couple faint blush lines on her visor, small, but definitely there .

What the hell? Uzi thought. She took a breath, her blush fading as she collected herself. That was unimportant, apparently she had some weird telekinesis powers now and she still didn’t know why . The blush was probably just from surprise, or because she hadn’t really touched anyone in years.

Shaking her head, Uzi decided that she’d skip class too. Learning that you had super powers was sort of a big thing, and she’d much rather much rather try and figure them out than go do pointless physical exercise.

Uzi grabbed her pen and put it on the ground in front of her. She figured that this closet was as good a place as any since she likely wouldn’t have to deal with anyone walking in on her. Taking a deep breath, she mimicked the hand position she saw Doll use with the knives.

She looked at the pen, focusing on trying to move it, visualizing the Absolute Solver symbol appearing around it. Nothing happened. Uzi really wished she’d asked more about how to use her new-found powers. After a second of staring at the pen, she had a thought. What if she tried to open the Absolute Solver program? 

While it was technically open all the time, it was running in the background. What if she opened it so it would run in the foreground? She’d tried closing it before, but she’d never tried actually using it. Scrolling down to its place in her currently running programs she took a breath and opened it.

She felt a little different, like there was something in her head other than just her wiring. Maybe that meant it worked? There was only one way to see. She tried again at lifting the pen, holding out her thumb and first two fingers, willing it to move.

To her surprise it worked. A purple Absolute Solver formed around the pen. When she tried to lift it up a little it flew into the ceiling. It broke, several little parts fell down, one hitting her in the face on its way down. That wasn’t exactly what she’d planned, but it was something! 

With a sudden surge of motivation, she grabbed an old, likely never used paint brush from a shelf next to her and put it where the pen had been. When she tried to control it again, like she had with the pen, it started off the same as before.

Then the symbol glitched, turning yellow. Suddenly, a strange robotic voice spoke, coming from what Uzi eventually realized was her own mouth.

[Oh. Hello there. You look. Interesting.]

Chapter Text

Uzi stood in front of the door to Lizzy’s house, contemplating her life choices. A week ago when she’d tried using her Solver powers, something strange took over. All it did was tell her that she looked ‘interesting’ then it disappeared. Even though nothing more had happened, she’d been scared of using her powers ever since.

She hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to Doll about it. Partially scared that if she told her, and Doll wasn’t dealing with it too, she wouldn’t talk to Uzi anymore, just branding her as a freak again. They had gotten closer over the past week… maybe. Doll was confusing. They hadn’t talked for a few days, which kind of worried Uzi that Doll was ignoring her again, but this time whenever they made eye contact Doll would nod slightly in acknowledgment. Which was definitely progress.

Then earlier that day, Doll had approached her before school and invited her to a movie night at Lizzy’s. Uzi didn’t really want to go, but she figured since she was the one trying to get closer to Doll, she should probably accept. So, here she was, standing in front of Lizzy’s door. With a groan, she forced herself to raise her fist and knock.

It took several moments for someone to answer, long enough for Uzi to wonder if she should knock again, or just leave. But before she needed to make that decision, the door slid open, Thad standing on the other side.

“Oh, hey ‘zi!” He greeted with a friendly smile. “Glad you could make it!”

His friendly greeting was immediately undercut by Lizzy’s. “Oh, it’s you . I didn’t think you’d actually come,” she said, sounding almost disgusted.

“Neither did I,” Uzi responded through gritted teeth.

Inside there was a kitchen to the left, and a living room straight forward with a couple doors exiting off of it, presumably to the bathroom and bedrooms. In the living room was a couch, a TV, and an old coffee table with a small pile of DVDs on it.

Doll was leaning against a counter in the kitchen, arms crossed, watching the three of them silently. Lizzy was sitting on the counter next to her, holding her phone and looking annoyed. Only Thad seemed actually happy that Uzi was there. He took a step back, letting Uzi walk into the place, which she did, even if it was somewhat reluctantly. Thad closed the door behind her and then went to stand next to his girlfriend.

Uzi followed him into the kitchen, standing awkwardly on the opposite side of the room from the others. Lizzy shot her a dirty look before turning to Doll. Uzi was already regretting her choice to come.

“Why did you invite her again?” Lizzy asked.

“ If you get to bring Thad, I get to bring my own guest, ” Doll explained, briefly motioning to Thad then Uzi as she said their names.

“That’s different, Thad’s my boyfriend. Uzi’s the emo freak you’ve talked to, what? Once ?” Lizzy countered.

“ She’s my friend, so she gets to come,” Doll stated.

Lizzy opened her mouth to keep arguing, but Thad spoke before she could. “Hey, she’s already here, so how about we move on and just watch the movie?”

Lizzy looked at him for a moment, thinking, before sighing. “Fine, but only this time.”

Hoping off the counter, Lizzy walked over to the couch, her green-eyed boyfriend close behind. Doll started to follow, before stopping when she noticed Uzi hadn’t moved.

“ Coming? ” She asked.

“Oh, yeah. Right behind you,” Uzi confirmed with a forced smile and a thumbs up, following when Doll turned around to keep walking.

When they got to the couch, Thad was already sitting on the couch, but Lizzy was standing in front of him, holding up a pink DVD case that had four girls whispering to each other on it.

“We’re watching Mean Girls,” she stated, as if the decision was final.

“ Again? The Ring is much better, ” Doll disagreed, clearly not agreeing that Mean Girls was the final decision.

“You already got Uzi, which means I get to pick the movie.”

“ What about Thad? Does he get a say? ”

The three all turned to Thad, waiting for him to state his opinion. He glanced back and forth between Doll and Lizzy.

“We can watch Mean Girls. The Ring is scary,” Thad finally said.

Doll grimaced, muttering something about that being half the point, but ultimately accepted it. Uzi had to agree with Doll. The Ring sounded a lot better than whatever Mean Girls was. She’d always been a fan of horror movies, it was interesting to note that Doll was too.

Lizzy, happy with the choice of movie, slid the chosen disc into the DVD player and pressed start before sitting back down on her boyfriend’s lap, head resting on his chest as she pulled out her phone again. Uzi didn’t know the point of watching a movie if she was going to be on her phone the whole time, but that was up to her. Doll sat down on the couch too. She was somewhat in the middle, so Uzi took the only remaining spot on the right side of the couch.

The couch wasn’t particularly large, so they were a little squished, but not too much. But Uzi couldn’t help but notice how close she and Doll were sitting to each other. Only a couple inches between them. Some strange part of her wanted to lean over and close the distance, but there was no way she was listening to that part of her.

The movie played on the TV and Uzi tried her hardest to pay attention, but something about the drama of teen human girls from a millenia ago wasn’t particularly interesting to her. It wasn’t long before she started to feel the world get a bit fuzzy, as she slowly drifted in and out of consciousness, before finally settling into the dark and quiet world of sleep mode.

Uzi blinked as she slowly came back to consciousness. She didn’t know where she was, hell she hardly knew who she was. But she did know she had a pretty comfy pillow. She yawned as her vision came to focus. The first thing she noticed was Lizzy standing on the other side of the coffee table, covering her mouth with one hand to hide a laugh, the other holding a phone pointed at Uzi, and it was recording.

The next thing she noticed was why Lizzy was recording her. Her all so comfy “pillow” was in fact, not a pillow. Her head was leaned against Doll’s shoulder as she hugged the indigo haired drone’s right arm with both of her own. A furious purple blush formed on her face as she bolted upright, quickly releasing the girl’s arm, and standing up.

The movie was over, though she wasn’t sure for how long it had been. Thad was still sitting where he had been, looking kind of amused, but also concerned at Uzi’s reaction. Lizzy was still recording her, though her hand was no longer covering her mouth, revealing a completely infuriatingly smug smile on her face.

Doll looked completely normal, sitting in the same place, watching Uzi with a blank stare. Even though Uzi couldn’t detect any anger or even annoyance on Doll’s face, that didn’t mean there wasn’t any. She looked fine, but Uzi was never very good at reading people’s emotions, and Doll was hard to read.

On top of that, Lizzy was still getting more and more blackmail on her by the second. She had to get out of here now. She stuttered for a second before finally coming up with an excuse to leave without looking too suspicious.

“I- my dad, he’s expecting me home. He needs help with, uh… a door related project,” she finally got out, backing away toward the door. Doll stood up as she walked away, but made no move to stop her.

“Thanks for having me, but I’m just gonna-” Uzi continued, holding up her access key when she reached the door, it sliding open. “Go.”

The only farewell she got was Lizzy’s mocking “Bye.”

Once she was out and the door was closed, she sighed, sinking to the floor. Robo-god, why the hell did I do that? Me and Doll were finally getting closer, she even called me her friend! And then I went and got a little too close. She’s never gonna want to talk to me again. Of course, I just fucked everything up again, like I always do.

With another sigh, Uzi stood up from the ground and started the walk back to her house. Maybe she’d come up with some sort of device to remove that video from Lizzy’s phone before she was able to post it. She bit back tears. Did she really think she’d be able to make friends ?