So uh… *squints at hand* You come here… oven?
After the first few days, N's loopiness did start to get a bit old. But thankfully those few days were all it took for his systems to finish reprocessing his memories.
He was now N, new and improved! Well sort of. The only thing different was he no longer had any programming ordering him to kill anyone. He still had all the weapons and still required oil but hey, at least now he had more control of himself.
Now that they had proof Uzi's meddling produced results, it was V's turn.
She was… not quite as eager to give it a shot.
Meaning she scurried up into the rafters of the bunker and refused to come down. You'd think they were trying to do something monstrous to her. All Uzi wanted to do was go into her brain and alter a core part of her being!
Okay when phrased like that it sounded pretty bad. But Uzi was only altering her to undo alterations already made! So it canceled out.
N and Uzi spent a solid half hour trying to talk her down. This was not helped by the voices in Uzi's head providing unnecessary commentary.
'Silly V. She-she is acting like an idiot. Or m-maybe a kitty. Pretty kitty. Decimating populations. Cats are dumb. A-also she smells.' A part of Uzi counted herself lucky that she couldn't understand Cyn's thought process.
'Who knows, maybe she's afraid of actually experiencing remorse for her actions? Or maybe she's scared to think she has to accept underneath her excuses, she's just a terrible person.' Doll actually had a bit of a point, Uzi would probably bet money on her deduction. If she had any.
Currency was a matter of furious debate. For the most part the drones were working on a barter system. Some places were trying to introduce old game tokens from Pizza Places as a universal currency but no one could agree on which the superior mascot was.
Personally Uzi preferred the mouse to the bear. The bear creeped her out.
But after several scratches and V utterly failing to disprove Cyn's cat observations, N finally had a stroke of genius. Arguably at least. Since he and Uzi were struggling he tried to get Lizzy involved.
Unfortunately… Lizzy had a price. And what she wanted went beyond just a few modifications.
"Make me a Murder Drone."
'What.' Doll's voice echoed in her head. It was not a question. It was a statement of disbelief so extreme it came out as a deadpan.
Cyn started rambling but Uzi wasn't paying enough attention to discern what she was going on about.
She stared at Lizzy for a few moments, before finally managing to ask, "Why? Why? Why, in the name of Robot-God, RoboJesus, and ME, would I ever consider doing that?"
"Because I can convince V that not wanting to kill anyone is a good idea. You just gotta know how to approach her about it." Lizzy sounded a little too sure of herself for Uzi's liking.
"That is not a reason." Uzi wanted to shake the other drone until she fell to pieces. "Do you even realize what you're asking?"
"To make me into a super cool nearly immortal weapon of hotness? Who can fly? Duh."
…Okay the Disassembly Drones were kind of hot but that was not good enough.
Lizzy was quite insistent though, and frustratingly seemed to be convinced that Uzi would go along with it. Not that she planned to, and she spent several minutes detailing all the reasons it was a terrible idea.
Apparently the whole becoming a living nightmare not meant to exist didn't phase her.
The popular girl was insistent, weirdly so. Normally she would have given up by now, she didn't have the kind of determination for an argument like this. The gears in Uzi's brain were turning and even Doll was picking up on it.
Eventually Lizzy just flat out said to do it or she wouldn't help.
By then though, Uzi understood. "No thanks, we got this."
There was a moment of bewilderment and fear that flashed in Lizzy's eyes. "What?"
"Sure, it might be hard to get V to go along with this. But you said it yourself, we need to approach her in the right way. N and I will figure it out. And we don't need you to do it."
Uzi had seen through her. Lizzy didn't just want upgrades to be hotter or more popular or something dumb like that. Well she did, but there was more to it than that.
She was jealous.
Lizzy was the girl in class. And now Uzi was the one everyone was going to and paying attention to. And Lizzy wanted a piece of the pie. In fact, Uzi was willing to bet she couldn't bear not being in the limelight despite her best attempts.
What better way to get eyes on her than being the first Worker Drone on Copper 9 converted into a Disassembly Drone?
And now that she knew that, Uzi could string her along.
"Now hold on! I- I guess that was a big ask right up front, afterall I haven't even convinced V yet…" Lizzy tried to regain control. "Tell you what, you don't have to agree until after I convince her. How's that?"
"Nah, it's not worth the effort. Heck maybe I can just ask Thad, I'd bet he'd be willing to sacrifice another arm for an upgrade." Uzi was a little impressed he'd managed to use his arm cannon to shoot footballs. She hadn't designed it to do that. Imagine what he could do with two…
But more importantly, she'd planted an idea in Lizzy's head. People who helped out instead of demanding were more likely to get shiny new parts.
It wasn't quite child's play after that, and Uzi still had no intention of giving Lizzy the "upgrade" she wanted. Although she might need to hand out a few new pieces just to keep her in line.
Then again, N had suggested that if she did turn Lizzy into a Disassembly Drone Uzi would become her admin, and thus Lizzy would be her minion. Or something like that.
That made it a bit more tempting but V was the priority right now.
It took more than just a few honeyed words from Lizzy to convince V to let Uzi change her programming. But to her credit the popular girl did manage to get V to come down from the rafters.
Baby steps.
They had to take turns convincing her, bit by bit. There was no single conversation or moment that completely turned it around, just slowly addressing the points that V was hung up on, and there were a few of them.
As it turned out, the voices in Uzi's head had tacked onto some of it. V had thrown herself into the "job" of wiping out the worker drones. It was more than an excuse, it was a coping mechanism. If she did her job, Cyn would leave them alone. If she focused on that, she wouldn't have to deal with all the other things that tormented her.
Maybe if she killed enough she would stop feeling anything else.
Evidently that had been… partially successful. For better and for worse.
To the point, V didn't like who she was anymore, and she didn't want to find out how she liked herself without the basic murder programming she'd had for her entire existence as a Disassembly Drone.
She had other concerns too, and no one was really able to completely address everything. They had tried, even Nori, Thad, and even Khan had pitched in (to varying degrees of actually helping).
Nori's interaction had seemed to be the most beneficial. Weirdly because she hadn't talked to her about any of it. She just sat her down in front of a computer and played video games with her for a few hours.
And V seemed to actually enjoy herself.
In the end, as sappy as it was, they would stick with her no matter how she turned out. It wasn't the perfect no more problems solution, but finally she sat down and Uzi began the process.
Which started fine.
If N's reprogramming was a week long high, then V's was a week long bad trip. Uzi had plenty of theories as to why that was, most of them involved V going wholesale into the murder for the entire time they'd been on Copper 9.
Doll also had theories but they were better left unsaid.
Despite V's hell week, the Copper 9 kept turning, and it decided to throw them yet another curveball.
You'd think it would have run out of baseballs by now.
Geysers.
By all rights it shouldn't even be possible for geysers to form. Geysers burst because of geothermal temperatures, normally caused by magma. The fact geysers were beginning to appear despite the nature of the dead planet…
It was disturbing to say the least.
They had first popped up on the radar the day after Uzi had started V's reprogramming. At the moment they had her locked in a room with a bunch of books and soap for blowing bubbles. It probably wouldn't last long but it would hold her attention for a bit.
Which was just enough time for Sarah to grab Uzi and N for assistance.
"We thought they might have been some sort of explosives malfunctioning, or maybe some other form of security robots the humans had." Sarah elaborated as they packed into Lopez's latest project. An all-terrain scouting vehicle with enough armor to tank a laser.
It wasn't quite as solid as Khan's doors or Amanda's walls but it was mobile and sturdy. And unlike the bus's horse like matrix, Lopez had given the internal computer a more doglike model. He said her name was Sheila and she liked rebar scraps.
N was immediately taken with her and wanted to take her on "walks." Uzi gave him an hour before he realized he could ask Lopez to make them one. She just hoped he wouldn't try to bring it inside.
"Geysers though? It doesn't seem possible." Uzi shook her head, still processing this new piece of geological upheaval.
"I didn't think so either, but we sent a few of the new scouts to take some pictures and videos." Sarah brought up the feed on one of the screens. Sure enough water erupted from the ground, raining on the bones of long dead humans.
"I've never seen anything like that." N claimed as he watched the video. "Did Copper 9 ever have this sort of stuff before?"
"Not to my knowledge, of the human exoplanets Copper 9 had the least volcanic activity. No magma tubes, no geysers, and only one volcano near the south pole." Sarah listed and glanced at Lopez. "Don't suppose you know anything else?"
"I didn't go sight seeing very much."
"Well I brought some old records," Sarah pulled out a folder and started shuffling through it. "Hopefully we can get some answers.
Unfortunately answers were few and in between. They spread out around the site, investigating the ruins and marking the geyser locations, trying to find a pattern or… something. But as time went on nothing seemed to turn up.
"I just don't understand it." Sarah scratched her head as she paced between a pair of the geysers. "This was a suburban area before the Core Collapse, they did plenty of surveys before they started building and there was nothing that could cause this. N what do you see up there?"
N had taken point in the air, running a few internal stopwatches to try and figure out patterns, at least it was a fun view.
"The big one hasn't gone off once since we got here, but the little ones take about… an hour? Uh, yeah, on average I mean!"
"Keep an eye on them, see if any of them act differently!" Uzi called up to him. "Lopez, anything?"
"Nada Boss-Lady." The mechanic confirmed checking some deeper readings from Sheila. "Whatever is doing this is deeper than the underground utilities. Senorita Sarah, was there anything in the surveys that could give us any hint?"
"Low copper percentage, average groundwater, too rocky for any form of production that needed harvesting…" Sarah went down the summary. "The only thing of note was they found naturally processed aluminum around here. Nothing bigger than a mechroach though."
"That data is over 200 years old, right? Any chance something could have changed?" Uzi started over but paused when a burst of steam and water occurred to her right. A few water drops landed on her and she stared at them.
She could count the number of times she'd seen water in its liquid form on one hand. Hard for water to flow when the temperature was well below freezing. What could be hot enough for these geysers to occur?
"My only theory is the humans must have built something under the town "off the books." Sarah groaned and bashed her head against her clipboard. "Nori is right, this planet was a black site or something."
Lopez chuckled a little and the girls looked at him. He waved them off. "Lo siento, just a memory of a memory. I cannot recall exactly what was said but I do remember a discussion complaining about "the conspiracy theorists" and their nonsense."
"Figures, let's unload the equipment and get back to the tower. Hopefully it'll find something if we leave it here long enough." The two opened up the back of Lopez's truck and started using their telekinesis to lift the heavy geographical readers out.
"Big one still hasn't gone off." N told them when they called him back down. "All the others are staying consistent though!"
"Not much we can do except keep an eye on it. I don't think anyone wants to get permission to dig here just to drill into a cauldron of magma that somehow hasn't frozen." Sarah hopped into the truck as the others followed.
"Hopefully V has gotten out yet." Uzi muttered, finally realizing leaving her unattended for this long might lead to problems.
"What was this town named anyway?" N asked, glancing at a house that had been bisected by one of the new geysers.
"Let me just… Cottonwoods."
Uzi looked around and snorted. "I knew humans were kind of dumb but really? There's no forest and they certainly weren't picking cotton around here."
"There was probably a reason for it." Lopez gave his truck's terminal a few pats. "Take us home girl."
As they left the ruined town, Uzi had the strange feeling they'd be back. Call it intuition.
Also known as Cyn's echoing [Laughter], which implied she knew something they didn't.
V was still having a rough time of things, and the process took a day longer for her than it did for N, but they were with her. There was never a time where she seemed like she wasn't herself, it was just a question of what "version" of V they were dealing with at a given time.
Was it the sadistic killer, the nervous maid, or the lazy diva? The worst part was it could flip flop in a second. V wasn't getting rid of them that easily though. She did try a few times but she was a bit outgunned and outmatched between both N and Uzi tag teaming her.
They stuck it out and by the end of it V was still herself, much to her own surprise. Not so much Uzi's surprise. Sure she got rid of all the "Kill everything" in her head, but V had more than enough sadism baked into her to keep her going.
Although perhaps she wasn't all that happy about it based on some comments she had made. She hadn't broken down or anything, but let slip a few things to N that implied she had been expecting "more" from the reprogramming.
Calling it reprogramming in the first place probably led to the confusion. What Uzi was doing was "deprogramming" really. Removing programs Cyn had put in place. To be honest, she was surprised Cyn hadn't voiced any complaints about what she was doing. Other than her usual insane rambles at least.
Even though V was still herself, V related fatalities had dropped drastically! Even if there were still plenty of workers who had sudden onset "loss of limbs" when she was around.
Now that her primary concerns were taken care of, Uzi finally allowed herself to move onto some other projects. To varying degrees of success of course.
First task, figure out more about the solver. Results: total failure. She had utterly failed to figure out anything new and frankly it was depressing her. The more she tried to delve into the madness of the Solver's code the more baffled she felt.
Her control hadn't lapsed at all, and what she could do using the Solver was growing in scale. With a thought Uzi could leave her physical body behind and observe the entire area as some sort of omniscient observer.
She had even managed to "split" her consciousness, literally allowing herself to be active in two places at once. Most people claimed they could multitask but Uzi could literally do it now. While her drone body was in her workshop or hanging out with N or whatever, she could create an amalgam of limbs and eyes to do something else somewhere else!
Very convenient, and without any accidental cloning this time!
Poor Uzi 2.0. She hadn't even lasted a week. But that's what happens when a five year old robot with too much computer access figures out how CtrlC works.
Despite her advances in using the Solver, the lack of progress in understanding it meant she had to put certain ideas and concepts on the backburner.
Not that she was giving up. Uzi for all intents and purposes was the Absolute Solver now. And she was going to figure out what made her tick!
Determination aside, the roadblocks kept her from fixing any other old drones they found. While Lopez was doing fine thus far, Uzi was a bit reluctant to let the Solver spread even further until she knew it was "safe."
N had faith that she had control over it, so she did her best to explain. "I don't know if I'm in control, or if I'm keeping it under control."
"Those sound like the same thing to me."
"Not exactly... Think of it like this. If a fire starts and you have a way to put it out you're in control of the situation. But, if a fire starts and you can't put it out but know how to stay safe, the situation is under control." She waved her hand loosely, not sure if this was the best metaphor.
"I think I get it, but I guess that means you aren't going to try to give us full access anytime soon." He didn't sound too disappointed but the observation still caught her off guard.
"Full access? You mean like what Doll, Mom, and I could do before?" What Uzi could do now was on an entirely different level though.
"Just thought of it when I was watching Lopez work the other day. That reminds me, he says he won't give me a truck until you say it's okay." He put on that adorable pleading look-
NOPE! She wasn't falling for it! To the matter at hand though. "I mean you guys are already infected…"
Uzi drummed her fingers and gave Doll a virtual poke to get her attention. "Cyn must have put some sort of limits on what they could do, right?"
'It's possible, hard to say with her. But regardless I'm not sure giving free access is a good idea. You just removed the built in genocidal programming, they might not be ready for the unrestrained urges that come with unchained access.' Doll reasoned out, although Uzi could practically taste the fact she had misgiving that had nothing to do with the concept or even N.
She nodded physically and apologized to her boyfriend. "Sorry N, I'm gonna hold back on experiments like that until I know more. You already have an overheating problem with just your equipment, you'd probably explode if I tried to give you more access."
"...would I be able to repair myself after exploding?" He rubbed his chin, apparently considering the concept. "I mean I've been cut to pieces before, that's pretty similar!"
It really wasn't.
While some of her more esoteric projects had to sit and wait, she did have something else in the works. Something big. And cool. AND SO AWESOME IT WOULD SPLIT THE SKY AND MAKE THE MORTALS TREMBLE!
A really big version of her railgun. Mounted on one of Tower One's tiers.
She called it the Giant Slayer.
"Hey, Uzi?" N scratched his head as he tried to interpret her blueprints. "According to this it's going to be on a swivel, right?"
"Obviously." She didn't even look over, continuing to tighten a bolt, but he knew she was rolling her eyes. "What moron would build a gun that can't turn?"
"That's uh, kind of my point." he tried to figure out how to phrase this without calling her a moron indirectly (why did she have to use that word?) "It's on this corner of the building, but doesn't that mean it can't aim at anything on the other side? Cause if you spin it then it will just be pointing at the spire."
He must have made a good point because she actually stopped what she was doing. "Well, I mean…"
"S-s-silly billy." A voice that was definitely not real teased as his girlfriend's normal and not possessed tail slithered about.
Uzi shook her head. "Whatever, it's an easy fix! I can just install another one on the other side! Where's V? V!" She shouted, looking down through one of the holes in the unfinished floor. "Can you check if it's possible to run cables to the other side too?"
"You're joking right?" N looked down at her unamused expression. "I'm still trying to figure out how to run this one through! I don't know anything about this kind of thing! I was a maid when I was a worker!"
"I'm working with what I have! You guys are Gun Building Drones now!" She pointed her wrench at V.
"Whatever, but I'm charging you for this." V stalked away as the normal construction Worker Drones tried to avoid the sparking cable that was thicker than their heads.
"You got permission to do this right?" N had a sudden thought. Sure no one was trying to stop them but maybe it would be good to have someone who knew a bit about the tower's design around.
"Mom asked me to look into building a bigger version of the Railgun just in case. We don't know enough about the programming in the giants to trust they're safe now. You remember a couple months ago when one made a beeline for a plateau just to blow it up?"
That was a weird one, yeah. "I'm starting to think they just don't like mountains."
"Maybe, hey could you bring the blueprint over I need to-" She cut off.
"Need to what?" He looked over and saw her eyes flicker a little.
She dropped her wrench and her tail did a strange little wiggle. "Mmm, that's spicy."
"Shut up." She said softly and held her head, more flickering, her eyes turning green for a moment. He rushed over to check on her.
"Uzi?" He called her name, grabbing her shoulder. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah I'm fine just- ah!" She jerked out of his grasp and the Solver symbol flashed across her visor, quickly replaced by an exclamation mark. "OW!"
"Uzi!?" He stepped back to give her some space, staying between her and the open hole to the lower level. Her visor changed again, now fully green but displaying an overheating warning. "Oh no…"
""V!" He called down to her, "Get some oil over here right now!"
"Don't tell me she's overheating again? Give me a minute." N winced at the screams that followed, making a mental note to make that poor drone an apology card later.
"I'm not overheating, I think?" Uzi protested, her eyes briefly coming back into focus, looking from N to her hands.
"Maybe too spicy." The… Cyn noted and N swallowed the lump in his throat.
"What does the Cyn tail mean?" He forced himself to ask, unwilling to ignore the thing that he knew as both family and monster when Uzi's safety was at risk.
"I wish I c-c-could tell you!" Uzi's voice began to glitch and her body violently flinched, apparently of its own volition. "OW!"
She fell to the ground and N knelt next to her, grabbing a hand and frowning. Despite the warning still flickering in and out of focus on her visor it was ice cold.
What was happening?
"Alright, I got the… woah." V landed behind him and looked over his shoulder. "What were you doing?"
"No-uhhh-ssss-thhhh-ing." The slurring of her words did nothing to calm N down. Before he could say anything, the [Overheating] vanished leaving just [WARNING] to scroll down Uzi's face, repeating over and over.
"Ug-ug-ug-ughhhh." Apart from the stuttering she sounded like she did when she was dealing with normal annoyances.
"STOP THE SPICY." It took all of N's willpower to focus on Uzi and not let the memories flashing through his mind take priority and try to lash out at Cyn.
His efforts paid off as the tail collapsed on its own, eyes going dark as it draped over the edge.
But Uzi went completely slack too, and he and V were left staring at an error message neither of them had seen before.
Error 420: Connection Lost
N had immediately rushed Uzi to the Doorman's new quarters. It was closer to where she had collapsed than the bunker. It was essentially a penthouse, which made sense considering the Doormans were essentially the ones in charge.
The offerings left in the hallway outside made it a bit harder to traverse but he did his best to ignore them.
It was much higher quality than the old one. No snow or leaking pipes. Not even any skeletons lying around! But despite it being initially spotless, grease stains, scrap metal, metal filings, and discarded oil cans seem to grow in quantity hourly.
Maybe it was the recent meddling with his brain but N had the weird urge to start cleaning. Probably Butler-N talking. Or whatever was left of him at least.
V made some calls and in mere minutes Nori shot out of a vent like a fake spaceman. "What happened?"
Why did it have to be a hard question like that?
An hour later they still didn't have any answers. Khan had shown up, and while they didn't stick around Thad and Lopez had both checked in. Shockingly, Lizzy made an appearance but only for long enough to take a selfie with Uzi's catatonic body.
Khan had gone digging through his closet, pulling out a book of Worker Drone error codes. They found Unable to Connect, Connection Unstable, and Disconnected. A little odd that Connection Lost wouldn't be included but those did cover the bases.
What was odder was the fact Uzi had an error message that didn't exist. Which meant it had something to do with the Solver. That or Uzi had programmed it into herself for some reason, but that was unlikely.
Nori had tried plugging Uzi into a computer to see if they could get inside her head themselves but that only served to make the hard drive literally burst into flames.
They did have a specific suspect. While no one had an explanation for how this had happened, the most likely party was Cyn. Nori even pointed out that whatever Solver shenanigan was going on this time was only affecting Uzi. Since she was the only one still directly dealing with Cyn it seemed likely to be her fault.
Which was why they'd put together a small makeshift cage to put on the end of the tail. On second thought N wasn't sure how much it would help but it made them all feel better.
N barely left her side, wondering if there had been some hint or clue he had missed that might explain what happened.
Then the error message vanished. "Guys!"
Nori immediately jumped onto Uzi's torso and her eye flashed out a beam that ran up and down her body. "Her systems seem to be turning back on, but I don't understand why-"
A new message flashed across her visor and they blinked at it. "Um, should I be concerned that the universal translator isn't working on that?"
It looked like a word, but not like any N had seen before. Before they could try to figure out what it meant there was a flicker, as if the language had fixed itself.
[Dreaming…]
[Booting…]
The Solver Symbol appeared, spun for a few rotations and then Uzi's eyes blinked back to life. Still the same purple and yellow mix they'd been for months. She didn't move, looking around at the people around her in confusion. "What just happened?"
"I'm asking the questions here!" Nori whacked her with a claw as Uzi tried to pick herself up. V casually tilted her head as a telekinetically moved flashlight shot past. It switched on and Nori shined it directly into her daughter's visor.
"Who's the president right now? How many fingers am I holding up? What's your favorite video game?" Nori demanded, trying both to confirm Uzi was herself and make sure she had her faculties in order.
"We don't have a president, you don't have fingers, and I'm still not playing Cavegame with you Mom, so knock it off!" Uzi shoved the biomechanical heart that was her mother off her torso. N could have cheered.
"Good, you're not dead." V sounded far from relieved but the fact she commented on it at all was enough to show she cared.
"How are you feeling?" Khan moved over as Uzi got an intense look, and a message that she was running diagnostics appeared on her visor.
"Not sure. The stabbing feeling is gone so that's nice." She looked around at them. "What exactly happened?"
"We don't know." N admitted. "One second you were fine and the next it was like you were having some sort of… robot seizure? Can we get seizures?"
"We can get PTSD. Why not seizures?" Nori "shrugged" at him.
"There was the Error Message, "Connection Lost." V reminded them. "Any idea what that might mean?"
"No." She looked at their faces and groaned in misery. "Guys! Seriously! I'm fine now! I don't know what that was but it's stopped!"
"A likely story." V narrowed her eyes and grabbed Uzi's tail with both hands, as though trying to strangle it. "Alright talk you freak! What did you do?"
"I have done nothing wrong." The tail insisted, N hadn't even noticed it turning back on. "This is p-police brutality! [Pain] I am innocent until p-p-proven guilty!"
"Cyn you are the least innocent thing on this planet!" V insisted and started shaking harder until N pulled her away.
"Oi, what did you do?" Uzi called to it, narrowing her eyes. "For real. That sucked, I don't want it to happen again."
"I have done nuh-nothing wrong. [Innocent look]"
"Oh that's it, come here!" Nori leaped at the tail and started trying to stab it. Uzi was used to people trying to stab her tail to death because of Cyn so she just rolled her eyes and let it happen.
"Seriously Uzi, are you okay?" N checked with her directly instead of deciding for himself.
"I'm fine now, but I really wish I knew what happened." She told him, expression softening just a tad. "One second I felt normal and the next it felt like something in my head was exploding."
The tail's eyes went dark before coming back on, red now. "Stop!"
"Slinky little… Sorry Doll, trying to kill Uzi's parasite again."
"Understandable, what just happened?" She seemed just as confused as the rest of them. "One second you were working on that "Giant Slayer" of yours, then everything went dark."
Doll paused, perhaps noticing the cage around her. "I didn't know it was possible for things to go dark when you're a program."
"We learn new things everyday." Uzi sounded tired. "I'm going to check something…"
Her eyes disappeared again, lines of text raced across her visor too fast for N to register. He was about to ask what she was doing before the scrolling stopped, one line highlighted. It disappeared before N could read it but it must have been what she was looking for.
"Huh, well that's weird. Looks like I lost a J. Somewhere, I guess?" She rubbed the back of her head, frowning.
"Oh no. You're no longer directly connected to a vicious murder drone? That is terrible." Mr. Uzi's Dad once again proved how talented an actor he was.
"It is if this is going to happen every time I lose a connection." Uzi complained, "but she was the only one listed "lost," most of the others were just offline, you're listed as "unavailable" Mom."
"What were you looking at? Some sort of directory?" V asked, frowning at her.
"Something like that, it's a list of anyone and everyone infected by the Solver, actively or otherwise." Some concerned looks were shared.
"How many are still active?" N forced himself to ask, almost afraid of the answer.
Fortunately for him, Uzi seemed just as afraid to answer. "More than I want to think about. It doesn't tell me where they are though. Just that they exist."
"Could you figure it out?" Nori sounded more than a little curious, and it was a good question. It was probably for the best if they could track down everyone still infected, just in case.
The cold vacuum of space might be a bit tricky, but thankfully he had a skillset perfect for traversing it!
Too bad he didn't have a ship.
"Maybe, I'll look into that another time." Uzi waved off, more focused on the situation at hand.
"Whatever, that doesn't answer the question of what happened to that version of J? Is it the one here?" V expression shifted a bit, eagerness biting her tone. No doubt she wanted a rematch.
"Gee, maybe we should ask her." Uzi rolled her eyes and started rubbing her chin. She stopped rubbing and started grinning, eyes going wide as she started cackling to herself.
N didn't need to ask to know what was happening. She had an idea.
She pulled herself together enough to actually try to calm their worries. "Alright, whatever happened doesn't seem to be permanent, but I'll try to be careful. Hopefully it won't happen again."
"Not much we can do until we know what caused it." Nori muttered darkly. "Just promise me you won't spend too much time alone? If something happens I want someone there. Even if it's one of these two."
"Hey…" N protested as she pointed at him and V in turn.
"I was saying you're better than no one. That's a compliment." Nori claimed, jumping onto her husband's head,
"Well, all's well that ends well then!" Khan clapped his hands, choosing to leave the incomprehensible stuff to his daughter and her friends. "Back to it everyone! I have a meeting with Amanda about the concept of moving walls and immovable doors! Fascinating paradoxes!"
"I don't think those are paradoxes." Doll whispered to Uzi and N.
"It's not worth arguing about."
"N, would you stop texting me already, I'm literally here…" V trailed off as she walked in the door a few days later, glancing away from her phone and finding herself unable to look away. "You know what, I'll come back later."
"Come on V, this is not the weirdest thing you've walked in on us doing," N complained and Uzi covered her face, a volatile mix of horror and embarrassment filling her.
"Phrasing N!" She hissed at him.
"It's true! This is pretty low on the scale!"
"Is it?" V gestured at… all of it.
Uzi was sitting in what could be called a chair; by the barest definition of the word. It had a place for her butt and something to lean back against.
That is about where the comparison ended.
Various sockets and cables wove through the frame, many of them plugged into someplace on Uzi herself, either a normal connection point or one she created with her abilities.
The effect was Uzi looking like some strung-up puppet, parts of her dripping goo, with too many limbs and frankly (to the uneducated mind) it looked like she was being tortured.
"Yes! It only has a few things that shouldn't exist!" N insisted as he assisted his girlfriend in the installation process.
"Of course it does, why is it so important that I be here?"
"In case something goes wrong." Uzi explained, barely flinching as a power cable was fitted into the back of her skull. "I'm going to find the wannabe that was trying to connect to me and show them how much they messed up!"
V seemed skeptical, and quickly gave voice to it. "I thought the whole issue was the connection was "lost," how are you supposed to find them if it doesn't exist anymore?"
"It does exist." Uzi corrected her. "It just won't work. If it is J on the other end, she can't be accessed. Under normal circumstances at least."
"Right… and I'm guessing this whole thing is to create an abnormal circumstance?" V gestured, not looking nearly as impressed as she should be.
"Duh. The Solver can transcend normal reality, so what I'm going to do is boost my signal and connections. If there's even a trace of the IP that tried connecting I'm gonna find it and figure out what's going on." Uzi rubbed her hands together.
"So you're going to possess J like Cyn was able to do?" V stated flat out, which made Uzi pause.
"I… I didn't mean it like that." She admitted, "I just want to figure out what happened and make sure it doesn't happen again."
"Alright." Uzi glanced at N who seemed just as surprised. "What? You thought I was going to make some moral argument or something? Go for it. Just so long as you don't do it to one of us."
Well that worked out.
They made the finishing touches, and Uzi gave them some specific instructions in case Cyn tried to take over while she was doing this. Basically just "push the blue button, pray."
N gave her a good luck kiss (which she could not escape and she most certainly did not secretly enjoy), and she dove into her head.
'Good luck.' Doll "saluted" her as she went to the directory. 'I get the idea you're going to need it.'
She gave the firewall holding Cyn back one last bit of reinforcement, then selected the "Lost" J connection. "Alright J, let's see what you were doing…"
[Connecting]
[ERROR]
[Unable to connect to user: LOST]
[Rerouting]
Uzi yelped and fell from the ceiling. "Rerouting? What do you mean rerouting?"
She didn't get an answer. It took her a moment to realize that she wasn't picking up on Doll or Cyn in her files.
Then she realized someone else was there.
'No no no! This is against company policy! Do not interfere with Disassembly Drone procedures! Failure to comply will result in-'
Rolling her eyes, Uzi muted the consciousness of J. Based on the whole "unable to connect" thing, this wasn't the J she was looking for.
Rather than immediately try again, she inspected her surroundings. "Where the heck am I?"
The temperature wasn't as low as it was on Copper 9, but still cool enough for a Murder Donre to function. She seemed to be in a cave, but there was something weird about it. Some sort of substance was covering the walls, so she tried walking over to take a closer look.
Then she fell on her face.
"What the-" She rolled over and looked down. "Right. time to figure out how to walk without feet."
It wasn't as hard as she had feared since this body had literally been designed to balance like this. Uzi just had to let the calibrations do the work instead of her own subroutines. Once she made it to the wall, she inspected the weird stuff all over it.
Running a hand over it, she started scanning. With a start, she realized what this was.
It was a plant. Some sort of vines, if she was right. They ran up to the ceiling and as Uzi looked up it occurred to her these might not be vines at all, but roots.
For a moment, Uzi completely forgot everything else. What she was doing, how she got here, all of it.
She just let the little robot who had never seen an actual living thing before marvel at it.
This planet was still alive, despite J's presence. On some level it made sense, Cyn probably hadn't given any orders to kill every living thing. Speaking of which, what were J's orders?
Come to think of it, if J was here that meant other Disassembly Drones must be too… but where were they?
As she pondered those questions, she noticed something else on the cave wall, hidden by the roots. She brushed them aside and stared at what seemed to be small carvings, repeating over and over.
Tally marks.
She followed them, systems counting thousands of them, all across the rock face. J had been keeping track of something. Kills? Days?
What were her orders? Uzi grabbed the still rambling consciousness and rooted around, making sure to keep it muted until she found what she was looking for.
[Company Orders]
Seems like Cyn had kept the facade going on more than just Copper 9. She read the mission brief and frowned. It was mostly similar to what the Copper 9 teams had been given, except there was a key difference.
[Kill all human insurrectionists. In lieu of a fair trial, the [RELEVANT GOVERNING BODY] has decided the entire population will bear the brunt of guilt and thus JCJenson has been subcontracted to execute this verdict.]
So that was the excuse Cyn was going with, but why?
Why bother? Why pretend?
Uzi didn't understand, and had to accept she might never. But she still had questions she wanted answered from J.
Digging around J's memory files Uzi got a picture of what happened here, and she didn't like it one bit.
The Disassembly Drones came in, wiped out the locals, built their spire, looked for Cabin Fever labs and… nothing. No new orders came in from the "company" and unlike on Copper 9 there didn't seem to be any survivor holdouts anywhere.
Which is when J started to go a little loopy.
She could not even begin to comprehend the hot mess that was the rationalizations J came up with for why it was completely normal for the company not to check in for literal years after getting a mission complete confirmation. Rationalization turned to paranoia and…
J had killed her own team. Not just her team, but the other teams too. Using that shut down virus Uzi had seen her use on N so long ago.
Curiosity had led her to figure out what that thing was a few months back. It was a form of kill switch that burned out the AI of the Murder Drone in a way that would keep them from retreating to their core. Only Murder Drones, it wouldn't have the same effect on a Worker.
Part of her was surprised Cyn had the foresight to create something like that. But considering she had never used it she might have forgotten about it.
Which was probably what happened to this planet. Cyn either hadn't arrived on her planet eating tour, or had forgotten about it.
Sucks to suck J.
Mysteries solved and seeing no real reason to stick around, Uzi prepped herself to get out of here. She made a few edits, hoping it would solve whatever the connection problem was and prepared to leave this J to her fate.
Then again, she could spare a few seconds to rub some salt in the wound.
An eyestalk erupted from her back, projecting a hologram of her true Worker Drone body, then she let J have access to her eyes and ears again,
"Sup company stooge. Just so you know, JCJenson is long gone, and you've been a slave to the thing that destroyed it. You wiped out this entire planet for no reason and no one is coming for you. Bye forever!"
She mockingly saluted the dumbstruck genocide robot and left her and her planet behind.
[Admin Disconnected]
[Connecting]
[ERROR]
[Unable to connect to user: LOST]
[Rerouting]
Uzi felt a string of incomprehensible noises exit her mouth before she properly gained control of this new body. Evidently this one hadn't been in sleep mode. "Freaking seriously? Rerouted again?! WHAT KIND OF ALL POWERFUL-"
She started shaking her fist at the sky and blinked at it. Wow. She'd never seen the night sky so clearly before. Not a hint of clouds or light pollution. She looked around, she was standing in a field of some sort, a corpse spire piled behind her. Very different landing site then.
'What is happening, where am I? I wasn't done lecturing that no good-' Once again Uzi muted her body's true owner.
"Uhh…" A familiar voice made her freeze and she turned back around. "Are you okay J?"
"Oh. My. Robot God." Uzi should have expected this really. Rerouting to different Js, of course one of them would still have their team around.
But it was strange looking at her boyfriend when he wasn't her boyfriend.
He seemed to shrink in on himself. "Not to, uh correct you, or something like that, J, but I thought it was against company policy to mention any form of religious figure?"
A full body shudder ran through him and he straightened as Uzi continued to process the situation she was in. "SORRY! I MEAN! You're the boss! What you say goes! Hahahaha!"
RoboJesus this was painful. "Were you really this skittish with her?"
She hadn't seen much of N's interactions with J. The original J that is. Or rather the "original Copper 9" version of her. But even in the memories Uzi had seen J seemed to have some problem with him, the matter only getting worse after their transformation.
"Her?" N seemed confused. "You mean V? I mean I guess we were both a little skittish but like you said! No dating between coworkers!"
His grin was very forced and Uzi didn't have the necessary emotional intelligence to figure out how V could ever be described as skittish.
She had a job to do, these guys could figure themselves out. But… maybe a little advice couldn't hurt.
"I'm not J." She explained simply, going through J's uniform to pull out her kill switches and destroy them. Nip that issue right in the bud. "I'm a ghost witch from another planet and I'm possessing her."
"A ghost witch?" N didn't seem to understand.
"That's right, and I'm not sticking around, but before I go…" She grabbed him by the shoulders and started shaking. "STAND UP FOR YOURSELF! Don't just listen to everything she tells you! She doesn't know what she's talking about! JCJenson doesn't exist anymore and your entire mission is a lie! Stop killing everyone and don't let this moron boss you around!"
N gaped at her. He probably had a lot of questions. He wouldn't be getting answers anytime soon.
Uzi left the local J one last surprise by disabling her auto repair function and once again removed herself from reality, trying to re-establish the connection.
[Admin Disconnected]
[Connecting]
[ERROR]
[Unable to connect to user: LOST]
[Rerouting]
"-DAMN IT!" Uzi howled as she once again was forced into another version of J. "HOW MANY OF HER DID CYN MAKE?!"
She was about to just move on, not interested in figuring out whatever mess this J was in. Then she realized that she couldn't move any of her limbs. Also it was uncomfortably warm.
Uzi struggled a bit, trying to look around but her head was forcibly held in position using some sort of restraint. She felt a dull throb that reminded her of a certain traumatic experience involving fingers.
Another line came to her from that experience. "Heat keeps 'em sluggish."
If the throbbing was magnets, and the heat was to keep her "sluggish," not to mention the heavy duty restraints…
"Did you actually get captured?" Uzi smirked a little, trying to keep herself from giggling. The AI of this J reacted slowly, as though half asleep, barely able to form coherent thoughts. "Ha! Sucks to suck!"
Once again she prepared herself to move on, trying to figure out if maybe she should cast a wider net or perhaps try to narrow her focus… But the sound of a door opening and rapid footsteps distracted her as a pair of guards circled around from behind, pointing guns at her.
She couldn't see their faces, they were wearing some sort of helmets, but based on what she could see it was obvious they weren't Worker Drones.
"Wait, you guys are humans?" Well put that on the list of things she wasn't expecting to learn today. "Didn't think any of you guys were left, congratulations on not going extinct."
The guards shared glances, apparently unsure of what was going on.
"Don't worry about me, just passing through. But seeing as I might not get another chance to do this…"
She cleared her throat and did her best evil robot glare. "You guys suck. Bite me."
Then she was gone.
[ERROR]
[Rerouting]
[ERROR]
[Rerouting]
[ERROR]
[Rerouting]
[ERROR]
[Rerouting]
[ERROR]
[Rerouting]
Uzi came back into real space for what felt like the billionth time. She barely took stock of her surroundings, only noting that they were mostly wooden, and there was an actual bed. She flopped down on it face first and started screaming into a pillow.
What was the "definition of insanity" again? Repeating the same task over and over again expecting different results?
But she was making changes. Minor ones, to her search pattern, to her receiver, how "strongly" she was grabbing for the Lost Connection. Except every single time she was "rerouted" to some other J model in the galaxy.
She refused to give up though. Uzi was the most powerful thing in the universe. She was GOD. It didn't matter how long it took, she was going to find the version of J she was looking for.
Her resolve hardened, and helped her maintain control when the J she was possessing lunged for control of the body again.
'GET OUT OF MY BODY CYN! I WON'T LET YOU HURT THEM!'
Uzi gasped and rolled off the bed, her vision flickering and pain shooting through her chest, no doubt originating from J's core. Violently she shoved the AI back down even as J tried to squirm free, fighting back with all her might.
Not that she ever had a chance.
"Cyn? You actually know who Cyn is?" Uzi interrogated out loud, pulling herself to her feet.
'That's right, we remember. All of us. We know who you are. We know what you did, you freak!'
"Good for you, I'm not Cyn." There was some lingering discomfort but she had a pretty good grasp on her now. It was weird being on this side of things. "Hold up, what do you mean, all of you?"
Diving into J's memories even as she continued to fight Uzi made a startling discovery. One that disturbed her to the very core of her being back on Copper 9.
This version of J actually had her shit together.
Months after they arrived she had started getting wary about the "company orders" she was getting and the branch offices on this planet. Calling them "brand traitors" only went so far when they were still performing to company standards.
The lie began to unravel and J was forced to confront the truth, getting together with her N and V to try to work things out. They'd gone to the other teams sent here, checking stories and trying to figure out what was going on.
And Cyn had taken notice.
It was hard to say where this planet fell on her list but she had taken possession of a few drones to try to do something about her "rogue elements." Once the Disassembly Drones got in proper contact with the locals though they managed to work some stuff out. They even had their own "admin," not a drone but a regular computer that was carefully monitored.
Clever. But it hadn't done much to stop Uzi, which meant it had only been an inconvenience to Cyn. This place could have been the planet eater's next stop for all she knew.
As Uzi pondered this information, J continued to struggle, becoming more desperate. 'I won't let you hurt them! I can't let you! I failed them before! I failed Tessa! I won't fail again!'
"You're not failing today." Uzi muttered, truly unsure of how she felt and more than a little uncomfortable. "Like I said, I'm not Cyn. And I think I've got a pretty good hold on her."
J was rightfully confused by her words. Before Uzi could explain there came a knock at the door. She didn't even have a chance to answer before it swung open and a Murder Drone stepped in.
This was a model Uzi didn't recognize, it wasn't N or V certainly. The ginger hair was certainly memorable so she was fairly sure she'd have recognized it if she saw it in Cabin Fever labs with the others.
"Salutations J! I have the oil and today's itinerary-" The unfamiliar Murder Drone froze when she saw J. She dropped the tray, her eyes going into targeting mode and glowing swords erupting from her arms. "You're not J!"
"Nope. Deuces." Uzi made a peace sign and disconnected.
Rather than immediately try to connect to her query once again, Uzi sat outside of space, time, and reality itself, considering her options.
She had to be missing something. What was stopping her from reestablishing the connection? There shouldn't be anything she couldn't reach with enough effort, especially when she knew what she was looking for…
Uzi spent a little bit of time (if it could be called that) sifting through what she had, dismissing unhelpful algorithms, marking off routes she couldn't take, and of course making sure she wouldn't connect to one of the versions she'd already been rerouted to.
As she worked, a simple question came to her. One so basic that at first it was barely a blip on her radar. But eventually it was the only thing she could focus on.
Where was she?
She'd been in this place before, numerous times. It was the space between spaces, the existence that didn't exist. This was what she reached for whenever she was creating something using the Solver, this was the place that filled her when she used her powers.
So what was it?
When she teleported she used this place as a "doorway" but the actual movement took her someplace else. When she needed more mass than she had on hand she could scoop some out of here.
This wasn't the first time she'd wondered about it, not really. But now that she was here, observing it, a thought occurred to her.
If this place didn't exist, then that meant it didn't exist for everyone, but everyone was connected to it in some way, otherwise she wouldn't be able to access them from here…
Was that it? Was it that simple? Had she just been using the wrong medium?
Testing her growing theory, she tried to establish the connection again.
[Connecting…]
[Connecting…]
[Success!]
She was going to scream.
[Error]
And now she was going to scream for a different reason.
[Unable to override LOST]
[Connection Stable]
What did that mean?
Then she saw it. Although to say she could see anything in this place was a bit misleading. She felt and knew it was there more than she saw it. A strand of blue light leading somewhere.
Uzi grasped for it and gave it a tug, testing the strength so to speak.
Something tugged back.
A crescent split the fabric of reality as Uzi grinned. Gotcha. She shot along the connection, rocketing toward the J who had given her so much grief.
Reality whipped past, she got flashes of realspace from here. Stars, planets, spaceships? That was odd, they didn't look like anything she'd seen before. Not that she got to enjoy the view when she collided with something.
There was a lurch, as though an earthquake and thunderstorm had a baby that couldn't stop burping. With the disgusting picture of a baby in her mind, Uzi looked across a chasm.
Her side of the chasm was dark, covered in rusted metal and flesh tendrils. Claws made of steel and bone erupted from the ground like trees and the edge expanded, boiling and churning as it tried to fill the gap.
The opposite side glittered, diamond spires erupted from the ground, sparkling with starlight. Steel formed platforms across the shing landscape and crystals seemed to grow, seeking to close the gap on their side as well.
And for some unspeakable reason it filled Uzi with rage.
Anger was an old friend of hers. Hatred too. But this was like nothing she had felt before, this was a primal disgust and fury that threatened to tear her apart from within. It took all her willpower to hold onto herself even as words and demands of destruction filled her mind.
The struggle took all of her attention, just trying to keep control, that she didn't realize she was moving forward until she stood at the edge, not that there was much of a chasm left. Now it was more like a thin crack, the flesh and diamonds threatened to crash into each other.
Uzi forced herself to look. To figure out what was happening, this wasn't normal, these feelings weren't hers, were they?
Then she saw the figure standing opposite her. Another Worker Drone, wearing a business suit and familiar pigtails. Blue eyes widened in surprise as they recognized Uzi.
"{Y̶O̷U̸}"
J and Uzi spoke at the same time, both sides trembling at their voices. The familiar symbol of the Absolute Solver dominated Uzi's vision, so much so that she was barely able to make out the unfamiliar symbol mirroring it on J's face.
A word ran through her mind as the crack closed and everything erupted in pain and sound.
A̶N̷A̵T̵H̷E̷M̵A̴
Uzi crashed back into reality. As though she'd fallen in a dream and awoken just before hitting the ground, she gasped and clutched at her core, heat running through her and overheating warnings screaming in her mind.
There were voices, but she couldn't make them out, too much sound in her own head, echoing cracks and wet ripping as something collided in a way it shouldn't.
She barely noticed as she was wrenched from the connections she and N had wired into her and someone poured a whole gallon down her throat, after the first few ounces she eagerly started gulping.
The sounds died down and she came back to reality, finally able to understand the voices and recognize the people around her as friends.
"Uzi! Uzi! Are you good?" N called her name as she finished the beverage. "What was that?!"
"At least you didn't go catatonic this time." V tried to look on the bright side while Uzi looked back at her creation.
The place she'd been sitting was now a mass of flesh and rusted metal. It dripped and oozed all over the floor, much worse than it had when only a few strands had been running in and out of her. But that was what she'd been expecting, that kind of stuff came built in with anything Solver related.
What wasn't expected was the new diamond finish around the edges of the room, glittering dust providing a collection of new colors to the decor.
She stared for a moment and turned back to N, swallowing the last drops of oil in her mouth, she answered.
"I don't know."
At last! This chapter is finished and the Copper 9 arc is wrapped up!
I told you this chapter would lead right back to J.
As for why it took so long…
Basically there were things I needed to do this chapter, and there were things I wanted to do this chapter. Mostly these things overlapped but not always.
There were things I needed to put in place now that would be set up for things later. If I left out those things now I wouldn't get a chance to bring them up until either too late or too close to the payoff for it to feel worthwhile.
Aside from that, some of these scenes just would not come together the way I wanted them to. On the bright side I have a few that I can put later in the story with a bit of reworking, on the downside…
I can't remember the last time my cutting room floor was this messy.
It's not an exact amount since I did recycle some lines and paragraphs but I have roughly 10 thousand words I cut from this. But I'm fairly happy with the result. There's a few other things I wish I could have covered but this chapter is long enough as it is.
I might post some "alternate scenes" on Spacebattles as Apocrypha, two in particular I like a lot but just wouldn't fit the way I wanted. One of which is the original scene that would have opened up chapter 9 when we were only going to check on Copper 9 for one chapter!
Remember when that was the plan? Good times…
ChimaTigon: Not quite I'm afraid.
Undead3: Look, if futurama taught me anything it's that robots do things faster. And we get to check in on a couple of those "other planets." They're a mixed bag really. Some are doing better than others. And honestly I'm kind of going with the "mini black hole" power source concept, in my head at least. I just have no idea how to bring it up in story right now. Trying to put some codexes together for these knuckleheads could be fun…
TheDoctor1998: Huh, you're right the TF2 mercenaries would make sense as drones. They're certainly crazy enough. Maybe not as main characters but I'm certainly not against dropping them in as references.
Already-Lost-It: Bold of you to assume the gamers aren't building giant monuments to her. Or trying at least. Nori is not against griefing in such situations.
Michalrd: Not quite. The warp does not exist in this setting, there is some weird extradimensional stuff going on but nothing like the warp.
Sci-Fi Guy 22: Sorry about that, no final chapters anytime soon! Also not the warp, but you are the second person to guess that so maybe I should be a bit more careful, don't want to mislead people like that… Glad you enjoyed the chapter!
That's about all for now. I'm hoping I can get the next chapter out in a more timely manner, next weekend is the goal! And we get to go back to Aephus and see what kind of hot mess is happening there!
J's not going to be entirely happy about the ghost witch headbutting her with eldritch powers at least.
~FriTik