Drone Swap-Murder Drones

Pod

(I updated the chapter outside, changed the beginning to include slightly more fluff and gave a good chunk of the end an overhaul featuring that sweet Angst)

U and Nexten stayed in the pod for a little bit, mostly to let Nexten's dizziness go away and to let U heal but there was also the sense of curiosity Nexten had seeing the inside of the pod. Besides broken wiring, cracked screens and missing panels there were a bunch of items strewn about the place. U was still asleep, so best Nexten could do was guess and piece things together himself. It was weird seeing what dissasembly drones collected and there didn't seem to be much correlation between them. There were a bunch of run down sports equipment and magazines, a bunch of stained and dented tools, and a singular cracked "#1 dad" mug which seemed to catch Nexten's attention. He took it, looking at it gave him an odd feeling that he couldn't seem to figure out.

"Whatcha got there?"

"OH ROBO-JESUS! U don't sneak up on me like that! This entire place is suppose to be terrifying and I don't need a dissasembly drone scaring me." Nexten placed a hand on his chest and calmed himself, then raised the mug for U to see. "It's just a mug, your little group seemed to like collecting things." U rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, it started with that mug, found it and thought it would be a nice gift for my 'teammates', I gave it to K who despite saying he hated it, kept it and even used it a few times. Little did I know at the time that they would do the same, K brought over tools and T brought all the sporty stuff and... magazines." Nexten visor displayed a small question mark as he walked over to see the magazines.

"What so bad about th-" He picked one up, and his visor quickly lit green seeing the cover. They were *cough* lemon magazines. He quickly dropped it and cleaned his hand on his jacket.

"Yeah, he seemed to like em. Liked to read them when I was around specifically to piss me off." U had an utterly disgusted look which Nexten agreed with whole heartedly.

"So you aren't just killers but thieves as well."

"Well yes and no, most of these things were found in abandoned buildings, however some items like the mug have been taken from kills yes, this one coming from my 17th kill."

"That's rather grim, also how do you know the specific number, don't you kill us by the thousands?"

"It's weird, but worker drone oil is rather different then regular oil?" Question marks reappeared on Nexten's visor.

"How so?"

"As far as I can tell, worker oil is synthesized in their body and every bit of oil has data in it specific to that drone. For example, thanks to you giving me your oil yesterday, I can fill out a file on you." U changed her visor to show several folders with a new one labeled 'Nexten'. "Your slightly above average height for a worker, grey hair despite being a teen, male, eye color green along with it being your favorite color with... purple being a close second"

"That's a surprising amount but anything interesting?"

"Well oil also contains more personal memories, for example..." She took a seconds before grinning, " one of your favorite dream was one were a drone called Vanessa said," she mimicked the tone in the dream "Ara Ara." Nexten was silent to say the least at being called out to such an extent. "I can continue."

"No that won't be necessary, rather not know what else you know about me." U was snickering.

"Don't worry, I won't use any of this against you" She paused for a moment before winking at him. "except maybe the Ara Ara one." Nexten blushed harder and quickly decided to change subject.

"So what about the person you got the mug from?" U loaded up his file

"Large for a worker, male, black hair, eye color was light blue, funnily enough favorite color was actually green..." She paused while sifting through his file,"huh, a lot of these memories include...Jade." Nexten was understandably confused.

"Wait, that doesn't line up, my mom doesn't really explore the colony and usually stays in the maintenance bay. What his name?" U got it but seemingly got extremely nervous and hesitated. "Is there something wrong."

"His name was Samuel Doorman"

Nexten froze at the name. He looked at the mug as he connected several dots and soon memories were flooding in. The smell of smoke, a blarring alarm and seeing his father push him and Jade under a table as the sound of metal being dented was heard. Soon after someone else came in the room and there was a yell followed by a scream as glass cracked and fell to the floor, quickly followed by a yellow liquid. After that the sound of metal cutting metal rung around the room as one of the bodies fell, his visor black and unmoving as a clawed hand grabbed his head and fled the room with the body.

"Nexten?" U put her hand on his shoulder which he quickly pushed off.

"YOU KILLED MY DAD!? ALL THIS TIME I WAS HANGING OUT WITH THE PERSON WHO RUINED MY LIFE AND MY MOTHER'S!!" Nexten eyes flickered yellow as his anger grew along with tears for having to re-live those awful memories. U stayed silent, not sure what to say in this situation, if there was something to say. "Let's go home, the dissasembly drone from yesterday is enough metal and I'm done staying here." He grabbed the bag and started walking outside. U followed suit before seeing the mug, Nexten must have placed it down at some point and she took it, along with her own items as she prepared for what was a very awkward, very quiet, very tense walk home.