"Yeah, this is never gonna get old," Uzi said to herself as she pulled herself up from the elevator shaft that served as the entrance to her hideout. She meant it as well; she didn't think the swell of pride she felt every time she laid eyes on the place would ever go away. It had taken three days of using her natural Worker Drone abilities to lift, push and drag things from one place to another, which made her gag every time she thought about it, but in the end it was everything she wanted.
It had started with wanting a higher vantage point to observe the Murder Drone, as he seemed to spend most of any given night flying around the ruins of the city. Of course that would sound incredibly stupid to a layperson, but it was actually brilliant because it was stupid. Murder Drones were accustomed to looking down for their prey; they'd never even think to look for victims on the collapsed fourth floor of a barely-standing office building. Even if they flew right by it, her "blind" made of believably-piled office furniture, carefully placed chunks of concrete and strategically bent rebar, would keep her hidden when combined with her dark attire and dimmed "stealth mode" screen.
Y'know, as long as they didn't look too closely. In which case Uzi's homemade flashbang grenades, escape rope and rigged explosives came into play.
'If you're gonna do something stupid, be smart about it,' she thought with a self-assured smirk as she took a seat in her swivel chair and grabbed a pair of binoculars and a notebook from her backpack.
Yes, Uzi was feeling herself that much. And why shouldn't she? She had survived a direct attack from a starving Murder Drone. She had been stalki-observing another one for two weeks and hadn't even been spotted. Then she walked into enemy territory and made a freaking CLUBH- OBSERVATION TOWER entirely unopposed. Sure, there had been a few close calls and moments that left her shaken for days afterward, but overall?
Main Character Status: Confirmed.
That said, thanks to her reckless and foolhardy actions her notebook was a treasure trove of oilsucker data, and she hoped tonight would add a few more paragraphs.
"Where are you tonight, Murder Boy?" Uzi muttered. The skies were empty so she checked the spire, cranking the zoom as high as it would go to make out any details. No kill-bot, but there was something down there that made her do a double-take.
Propped up against the car where she'd "met" him, miraculously still in one piece, was her railgun. It was the most obvious trap in the world, and she absolutely hated that it was going to work.
"I can't just leave it there," Uzi hissed to herself. Sure, she could make another one, but finding the materials would be even more of a pain in the ass than the first time. So if she didn't have to...
*****
Flashbang in-hand, Uzi cautiously peaked around the corner of the last major structure between her and the spire. Yep, that was her railgun alright. Just sitting there. Menacingly.
'Whatever,' she thought with a scoff, 'made it this far, no wimping out now.'
With her screen briefly flashing "mission_impossible.mp3", she made her move. It wasn't far, her walks from home to school were longer. But she didn't walk to school across open ground, in the dead of night, with a living nightmare almost certainly lurking nearby.
'I mean, there's Lizzy and her goons, but I can take them,' Uzi thought as she paused behind a car just across the street from her objective. It was then that she noticed what looked like a piece of paper duct taped to the side of it. 'That wasn't there before...'
With a sinking feeling in her gut she broke cover and crouch-walked up to the weapon and sure enough, there was a note attached to it. The handwriting was surprisingly messy, but she had no trouble reading it.
