On-Brand Loyalty

Month Five: Times Gone By

Before we move into this chapter, you may have noticed both the word count and chapter count of this story has decreased. For the sake of cleaning things up, I have decided to move all of the oneshots in this story into it's own separate story called "On-Brand Loyalty - Off the Clock". That'll have all of the oneshots I've previously written, along with a brand new one I just finished.

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One thing above all else was pretty clear to the orange-eyed Worker Drone named Dror, he is a very lazy robot.

Ironic, considering his kind were literally created to perform laborious jobs that humans didn't want to do anymore, but he supposed it was only natural. Having not been made during a time where he'd have likely been put to work the moment he was born, like his folks probably were. Not that he's ever known them to impart that confirmation.

For the most part, if given the option, Dror would almost always choose lazing around and doing nothing over any sort of non-mandatory job. Sometimes though, doing nothing just wouldn't satisfy his desire for entertainment. Sure, he always had his Worker Module™, but the endless watchable content it provided could only quell his boredom for so long at a time and he could only tinker with it for so long. 

Dror could confidently say he wasn't a fan of this particular trait of his. In face, he was sure that had he been given the chance to work for JCJenson he would have been much more satisfied with how productive he could be. Alas, it would be quite the challenge to break a habit developed over the course of his life. Regardless, with his declaration to help J and her squad be the best they could possibly be, Dror decided it was finally time to improve upon himself.

And so, Dror had made the incredibly bold decision to forgo lazing about in his hut and instead chose to spend the night cleaning up his squad of Disassembly Drone's Landing Pod. It was a fairly basic and easy chore to assign himself, but he figured he had to start somewhere. Sweeping the floors, dusting off J's prized merchandise (all still sitting in a row on the shelf he had custom-made just for her. Honestly, he couldn't help but feel a swell of pride when he finished cleaning it) and finally wiping down the control console.

Speaking of which, Dror couldn't help but notice just how... useless the console itself was. He could tell even on his first day that the pod was quite damaged and probably wouldn't be able to fly anytime soon. However, looking closely, it seemed like the control panel didn't even meet the basic requirements a ship like this would need to take off and fly on its own, at least not without a huge overhaul and repairs. Not to mention the communication relay is completely broken, which he found quite weird considering they had supposedly been sent by the company themselves. 

He figured that J probably had some other way to relay communications from JCJenson directly, otherwise how else would she know when they were about to be rewarded or when the quarterly results would be sent out? Perhaps squad leaders had some sort of device in their heads that worked as a replacement communicator? Who could say for certain? (J probably could, but she'd likely just dismiss it as classified information).

Whatever the case, Dror still cleaned the console as best as he could, wiping it down good with a cloth he made from the clothes of one of the Murder Trio's most recent kills. Once it was all nice and shiny, he moved onto the drawers under the dashboard. After giving the outsides a quick wipe, Dror opened the one on the far right to continue, only to stop as he noticed something inside.

Within the drawer is a thick hardcover journal, appearing very old and worn with a large letter 'J' engraved on it. Dror looked back and forth, seeing if anyone was around, before he made the reluctant choice to lift the book out of the drawer and drop it on the console. Wiping it off with his cloth, he carefully opened it up, the first page containing nothing more than what seemed like a detailed work schedule of sorts. Skimming through the next several pages showed similar ones all written out neatly by hand, along with listed rulings from JCJenson, ranging from general commonplace guidelines to specific orders given to Disassembly Drones. It took him a while, maybe longer than he would like to admit, for him to realize that he was looking through J's work journal or something to that nature. The dates listed on each page went back years ago, meaning she had to have started using the book around the same time her squad first arrived on Copper-9.