Murder Drones: Born from ashes

Chapter 2 : Serenity

H sat alone in an empty office building. Oil stained rags cut out into paper dolls laid on every cubicle. N came climbing through the elevator shaft. The sniper turned towards their commander.

"V's on the roof." H said, focused on loading more magazines. N didn't answer the sniper. He plopped a duffle bag onto a desk, inside were a collection of wires and computer chips, the thought of killing and desecrating the dead sickened him, but they had to give them an incentive to keep going.

A gust of wind kicked up the dust a Murder Drone dropped in through an open window. N turned around. Lieutenant J, a drone in a dark trench coat, white pig tails hung from her head of hair. The weapon containers on her body were worn. "We were searching for you. You screwed up our only shot at raiding a settlement." said N.

"I'm not taking orders from you." said J slowly leaning in, "Besides, you were only promoted because L felt sorry for you."

"I think she saw something in me, It's only temporary J, you'll be commander once she comes back." N said. He laid back on a desk, J sat on a chair adjacent to him.

"L hasn't come back for years! What if she's dead?" She whined. N ignored her, engrossed in his own work, sliding in a screw into his finger. His finger spun like a drill and opened his chest.

J groaned, "You're doing this again? Some of our units think those chips are making you soft." she said.

N stared at the chips and cards in his body. He never really made sense of what he was doing. "It doesn't matter, I'm still walking right?".

H stood over his commander "J's right, you're disgusting" he said before abruptly leaving.

N rolled his eyes "Speaking of orders, JC Jensen hasn't given us a single order for a year now. We gotta take matters into our own hands." he replied to J.

"I'll never get through you, if it weren't for me, we wouldn't have Bomber Drones helping us." J said. "Speaking of Bomber Drones, I saw V just sitting there. I think she's having another episode." J muttered with a tone of disgust. N frowned. The drone finished his repair job. He grabbed onto the elevator cables and climbed up the shaft. They waited until they knew he was gone.

"He's still a freak, what did I tell you?" H muttered. J leaned back into a chair, "He's mentally a child, I just need an excuse to off him and then..." She drew out her claws, "We can really get to business..."

J did not see the irony in saying that.

-

The rain stopped, the water pooled around V, a waterlogged head of a Worker Drone laid in her hands. V looked at the self inflicted notches on her arm, almost 100... N emerged from the door.

"Is everything alright?" N asked "You know, the water can short your hardware if you sit around for too long."

V turned around with a fake smile before staring back out towards the vivid glow of the Sun being snuffed out by dark clouds. "N? Are we supposed to feel?" V asked. The commander next to the lower rank. His gray coat was being soaked by the wet concrete.

"It's normal to feel, it gives us motivation." N said. "But... it was different." she said passing the head over to N. N sloshed the water inside the head.

"It was the same thing, he was on his knees, begging to live... It usually makes me feel good, you know? It felt...bad..."

"You're probably just losing steam, you'll be fine." N reasoned, trying to console V. V seemingly bounced back "You know? Why do I care? I'm a damn machine!"

N went back to being cold. "Good thinking kid... you should go back down.". V dropped from the building, her wings deployed, sending her flying. N stared back into the head.

"Yeah... Just a machine...".

--

Later that night, N detected the activity of growling from the Lieutenant. Part of him wanted to go back into shut off while the younger portion told him to investigate. The latter won.

J was hunched over a heavily damaged radio set, the wooden stickers had peeled off decades ago and most of the components had corroded. N looked over her shoulder to see the horrendous work. The new wire job was atrocious, not following any circuitry conventions. The most it would do was nothing; current wouldn't flow through whatever childish imitation of electronics was. J slammed her fist against the concrete, knocking chunks across the floor. N recoiled, and J looked up at him.

Her lighting fast iron grip on his collar did not come from a place of malice like all the other times she would beat him. There was a frantic tremor in her barking, her eyes shook with desperation.

"Fix it! You're the engineer! Fix it now!"

--

"I don't see why you want it fixed so badly, we can't even listen to most frequencies on this planet."

"Shut up moron. I'm going to make a call to command."

"Commands on another planet, you can't even reach them."

*Kzzt*

"Command? Come in command. This is Serial Designation J of shephard company. Manager is dead, repeat, manager is dead, over."

And she would continue this for 30 minutes.

–

"-repeat, manager is dead, over."

*Fzzzzt*

"Command? Do you copy? Over?"

A motherly voice comes from the speaker, faintly you can hear it's other instances reveling in the blood curdling screams of an endless war.

"Hello, J, this is command. We read you. Await further orders, operate at your own discretion, over."

J smiled at N

"What's the situation? Over?"

"That does not concern you. Over and out."

"See? You're the idiot." J snidely looked at N.

"We're still awaiting further orders." N looked up from J and walked back to his place of rest.