Uzi trudged through the door to her apartment without bothering to announce herself. She knew her father wasn't there. He was rarely home to begin with, but in the last couple weeks the only time she had actually seen him was when she decided to ditch school in favor of tooling around on her workbench. Suddenly showing up in the middle of the day, she found him fussing over what looked like some kind of schematic, probably for a fourth door or something equally pointless. She barely acknowledged him as she walked to her room, feeling his eyes on her the whole way.
Even though he wasn't there today, she still felt like she was being watched. Judged.
"Useless old man," Uzi muttered as she entered her room and all but hurled her backpack at the far wall.
It hadn't been a good day, not that she'd had one of those since her and N's little "prank" on the colony. She knew there would be pushback, but she thought herself largely immune to the consequences. After all, what were they gonna do? Shun her? Treat her like trash? Call her names, maybe try to beat her up? That was Monday for her. And Tuesday. And Wednesday, and any other day ending with "y". She was used to it.
But before, her peers had been almost casual in their malice, bullying her like it was just part of their daily routine; something they were "supposed" to do. Now, it was like it was actually personal for them. They didn't just toss out lazy barbs or try to trip her in the halls; there was acid in their words and some weren't content until she was on the floor one way or another. The latter were easily dealt with; small as she was, she was gifted with abnormal strength and dexterity, and now had the skill to put it to painful use. But her tongue wasn't nearly as sharp as her reflexes.
Sure, her quick wit allowed her to make up insults on the fly, but anything she said could only scratch the surface. Uzi didn't know anything about anyone, mostly by choice, and so could never counter with anything truly devastating. But because of her father's very public airing of her dirty laundry, her detractors could cut her right to the core at will.
And cut they did.
"The ONE time these idiots take something seriously..." Uzi groaned as she flopped down face-first onto her bed. "Okay, so maybe I had some unrealistic expectations, but can you blame me?!"
She had fallen into the classic main character trap of thinking she was infallible because she had done the seemingly impossible. Compared to befriending a literal killing machine, getting a bunch of gullible idiots on-board with her and N's plans was light work. But as the saying goes: the devil's in the details.
"I've had enough of Robo-Satan for one day," Uzi grumbled as she reached for her walkie-talkie and double-tapped the chirp button.
"Go for N."
'At least someone's having a good day,' Uzi thought with a bitterness she wished she didn't feel. "Just checking in," she replied, doing her best to sound normal. "You, uh, still up for tonight?"
"Of course! Just topping the reserves off."
"Getting used to the taste?" Uzi asked hopefully.
She had been right in that Disassembly Drones could get by just fine on canned oil from gas stations and the like. However, it looked like they had been programmed to find oil from other sources disgusting, to the point where it triggered an actual gag reflex. Just another way of manipulating them into wanting to do their jobs.
"Not at all!" N said cheerily. "But with a little culinary finesse, it'll be decades before I need to hunt for anything!"
"Good, good..." Uzi sighed after taking her finger off the talk button.
