Murder Drones: Born from ashes

Chapter 11 : Righteous Violence

J strolled through the remains of the village. V laid against a stairwell, flipping through the pages of a burnt book. The library behind her was decimated from its side, probably by a mortar shell, another one of the insurgent's many toys they hide behind. A thought floated in the back of her head, wondering why V was reading. Usually, she would have been playing with the remaining stragglers, here she was, acting like she was a human. Books had been banned 3 decades ago, so everything could be digital. You couldn't really put an enforceable subscription fee on a physical object that wasn't full of copper wires and computer chips. This place must have been where drones were meant to scan books for digitizing. It was a shame that so many assets and financial opportunities were dashed when the core of this planet exploded. She imagined a world where it never happened. They would probably have been directly serving as the protection force against the insurgents on another planet, seeing actual change occur around them instead of millions of meaningless piles of metal populating the floor.

Serial Designation A was the first and last good commander they had. To her, the last two commanders were just another era of failure. She had to restore glory to the name of the disassembly drones, only she could save them from the disgrace. She already had a plan in mind, once they take a few more cities, they would charge into the bunker, she remembered seeing the ULU store a few disassembly drone cores there. If A was there, it would make things better. She would bring back the golden era of Copper 9 very soon.

The remaining insurgents that were abandoned by their squads were easy pickings. They would be food for them for the next few days. J could feel light tremors hit her feet, something was happening. The disassembly drone deployed her wings and flew to the trouble.

"YOU CAN'T TAKE ME!" It screamed in absolute dread. The worker drone was probably born only a few years ago. Sold on the lies of those tyrannical leaders who run this labor union. A few pistol shots plinked off the metal plating of one of the bomber drones. It was weird, J never got to see her troops in action, despite her going through all this effort to infect and crush every worker drone on this planet, she never saw the fruits of her labor. She was seeing it now.

It blew the head off the bomber drone as it pounced on him, flaying his sides only for the glock to ram into its neck and blow the hard drive out. The bomber was dead, at least this worker drone would take its place. It was already infected by the time the nectar touched his face.

It didn't take long for the insurgent to notice his situation, staring down the last loyal asset of JC Jensen. He shoved his pistol to his chest.

"THATS WHAT YOU WANT HUH?! YOU WANT THIS!? ANOTHER EDGE?"

J stood there, giving a look that the worker drones called smiling. N would always tell her these stories about this Uzi kid. Her engineer was mixing himself in with their targets again. He was indulging in some sick fantasy- No, it was part of their programming. It's her fault for having an issue, N probably has a plan and if he doesn't, she climbs up the hierarchy and hopefully, whatever shot V would be killed. N always got the job done even if he somehow failed in one way.

The offense on the hangar, what the worker drones called the Bunker. N initiated a block on the terminal, forcing the doors to close, but leaving millions locked outside. In his first infiltration, he may have given those insurgents the guns they are now making and selling today, but now they had V. And despite V's stature and mannerisms seemingly being what she considered undesirable at first, N convinced her and L that she was a combat drone, and she turned into quite the efficient operator.

"Daddy?" A meek voice sounded. Willis weakened at the sound.

"A-Aeph honey?"

The thing had a daughter. Pathetic. The worker drone lowered his gu-

V disemboweled the drone, his tubing splaying across the floor as a pair of bomber drones used them as a chord to rip out more of its internals. He toppled over and screamed not of agony but defeat. It stared down one of the bomber drones feasting on his shoulder. Rather than struggle, he welcomed it and hugged her until he could move no longer. The conflict was over, V did everything and J didn't have to lift a finger.

Maybe she was angry that L made N commander, what kind of order was that? Make a combat engineer that wins off luck to be their commander? It still ran the operation like L did. Barely infecting any worker drone and only killing a few unimportant spots. It was why alot of disassembly drones were captured any why many of them went dark. Maybe it was all those times when they infiltrated small caravans together and left her to babysit V.

They continued to move through the tunnels. V took a pistol from a dead body and used the flashlight attached to the gun to continue reading the book. J turned around, noticing V was now wearing a blue coat that obscured the caution tape that wrapped her body. She didn't care, V acted child like all the time; she was older than the other disassembly drones so she gave her the courtesy of that. The purple armband however, sickened her. She smacked the book out of spite.

"You're not supposed to be reading." J said in an attempt to correct her subordinate.

"Am I? I mean, I did wake up reading the rules on my visor. I'm a studious type, J and I think reading a term or two could prevent you from self-destructing." she noticed that J was staring at her coat, she wrapped herself defensively, nuzzling her face into the fur, "and I'm keeping this, it's nice and fluffy."

"Sure you dirty sex bot." J said, knowing she couldn't correct the most useful unit she had immediate access to. An idiot was useful, but an informed idiot was dangerous.

"Don't call me something that you are!" V yelled off. Raising the book back towards her face with her tail. What remained of the book was only a few pages left. Her tails surgical precision couldn't make up for the uncontrollable destruction that came with it.

Out in the snow, they saw a bomber drone, a blade had seemingly cut him open. She traced her finger across the cut. It was too clean, too perfect. No worker drone had this much processing power to calculate the perfect cut, the small shavings of stainless steel around the entry point was N's machete.

J drank the bomber drone of its oil. It shriveled. She throws her head back in ecstasy, tracing her hands across the gouges on its torso before splitting the body in perfect symmetry. The Disassembly drone smiled to herself, the hierarchy of power was finally corrected.

"V, where is N?"
"Huh? Probably talking to the purple girl." she said sourly, stroking the hole in her face that was slowly mending itself shut. The bomber drone flipped to the next page in her book.

"Give me an ID." J said, already about to lash out on her officer. V shrugged, still insulted by what her lower commander called her.

"Fine, I'll kill him myself." J said. V looked back up from her book.

"K-kill? Him?"
"YEs you stupid mutt." She grabbed both halves of the corpse and sandwiched her head with them. The cool slimy combination of melted tubing and oil shocked her, muddying her hair. "This..." She growled, her grin betraying the toxicity of her voice, "Is what we call, friendly fire. Violation Omega code 4.14.56. The next one in line takes command."

"Well, isn't he doing your job? I mean, you were designated as our infiltrator. Did you ever watch any spy movies?-"

"YOU DON'T QUESTION ME YOU MUTT. I play by the book. Always." J roared. She pushed the torso pieces harder against V, causing oil to spill onto her. V retracted behind her book. She was a combat drone, but she already knew trying to correct her was useless, when N did it, J would beat him until he groveled at her feet like a puppy. V wondered why she didn't do anything to protect the closest thing she ever has to a friend. She remembered watching the two go at it for an hour. When N stopped using most of his weapons, the beatings would worsen, sometimes she would join in. She felt guilt run through her body, the disassembly drones turned her into a degenerate, something she always advocated against in her youth. All she could do now was civil disobedience. These intrusive thoughts, that's what J called them, were invading her head now more than ever. Maybe that's why none of them were meant to sleep. Her mind trailed off wondering if N would bring her books back.