When Blood Meets Oil

FEAR / / / WHY ONLY FEAR?

Disaster was an understatement when it came to Uzi Doorman's current situation. Moments ago, as she proudly presented her "sick as hell railgun"™ to the class, it had exploded prematurely. In hindsight, using that unstable power core was a terrible idea—but, of course, that hadn't crossed her mind at the time.

Now, she sat in the nurse's office, a bandage wrapped around her head and an ice pack pressed against her forehead. Miraculously, no one had been seriously injured by the malfunctioning railgun. "Ew, it didn’t kill her," Lizzy remarked from the doorway before she quickly hurried off to catch up with Doll.

Uzi groaned, mentally vowing, I'll show them... one day.

From the hallway, she could hear another voice approaching. “Classic toxic masculinity chad! That surely won’t be problematic,” the voice rang out. “Oh hey, Uzi! So, uh, what happened back th—”

“Oh, bite me, Thad!” Uzi snapped, cutting him off before he could finish. “Also, how do you even know my name? Do people actually willingly talk to you?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, being Khan’s daughter helps, but hey, don’t blow the other half of your face off,” Thad quipped.

Uzi’s gaze shifted to the posters on the wall—each one depicting her father, Khan, looking as disapproving as ever. She scowled. "Crippling daddy issues. Hilarious," she muttered dryly.

"Anyways, what’s the, uh..." Thad trailed off, pointing awkwardly at the railgun resting beside her.

"Oh, this?" Uzi said, her tone shifting to excitement. "Just my sick as hell railgun, totally powered by sci-fi nonsense! I’m gonna sneak into the Murder Drone nest later tonight. The last part I need to fix this thing is in there! Oh, and it’ll totally get my dad’s respect... and also, y’know, help save the world."

Thad blinked, visibly concerned. "Are you sure doing that emotionally repressed, scary-sounding stuff is safe?"

Without hesitation, Uzi grabbed the railgun and pointed it straight at his head. "NO MORE FEEDBACK ON MY REPRESSION TODAY!" she shouted.

"I-I’m sorry!" Thad stammered, his voice muffled as he quickly backed away. As he left the room, Uzi stormed after him, yelling, "BITE ME!"

Before he could escape entirely, she added, "I’m not mad at you, by the way! I’m just generally hormonal!"

Thad finally managed to get away, but as he left, he muttered to himself, "Surely nothing bad will come of that, right?"

He couldn’t have been more wrong...

To say that Uzi's plan was reckless would barely begin to describe how utterly absurd her little scheme truly was. She intended to head to the murder drone nest tonight to retrieve the final component for her "sick as hell railgun"™. Most workers would see this as an outright suicidal mission, but she couldn't care less. As long as she got that part, it would be worth the risk.

Whether she was really that reckless or just insane remained to be seen.

Regardless, she was determined to go through with it. She had set an alarm for 3:00 a.m., slapping her face to silence it as soon as it went off. Springing into action, she slung the railgun over her back and adjusted the beanie on her head. Sneaking out of her room, she made sure to move quietly—wouldn’t want to alert her father now, would we? She crept toward his room, opened the door, and reached for the master key. With everything she needed for her little mission in hand, she headed toward the doors her father was so obsessed with.

Approaching the console, she hovered the master key over the scanner. Lines of code flashed on the screen before the heavy metal doors began to part. "This is going surprisingly wel—" Uzi’s thoughts were cut off when she spotted her father, conveniently standing right behind the door.

"And where do you think you’re going?" the older drone asked. "Sneaking out to make out with my boyfriend, whom I totally have," she said, flashing a fake smile. Khan just chuckled heartily in response. "Seriously, though," he said, his expression growing more suspicious. "Okay, okay, you got me! I need to measure... the exterior hydraulic mechanisms of Door One. Because, you know, that's... my school project? A big door! Just like the ones you built!" she added, with a hopeful tone. "I want to join the WDF, hide behind the doors like cowards, and play cards or whatever..." she trailed off, realizing her dad probably wasn’t buying it.

Just when she thought her plan had failed, Khan surprised her.

"Well, we don’t just play cards..." he laughed, and the door behind him opened, revealing his coworkers. "Khan! Can you grab a fresh pack? We've played so much that the numbers are wearing off! Oh, hey, Uzi!" one of them called out. Khan just chuckled, then launched into a spiel about doors. "I forget how weird he is sometimes," Uzi thought to herself.

"Uzi, this is great! Here, take this!" He handed her a wrench. "This is the one I used to tighten bolts on my first door prototypes—and to put your mother out of her misery when the Murder Drones got her with that nanite acid... I want you to have it."

Memories of her mom flooded her mind, but she quickly shook them off. "Neat. Therapy's fun," she muttered under her breath.

As the door finally opened, the icy wasteland of Copper 9 stretched before her. "Guys! My daughter is into doors!" her dad exclaimed proudly. His coworkers cheered in response. "She’s going outside to inspect Door One! Your door-related destiny awaits!" he shouted.

Stepping out into the freezing air, Uzi muttered, "Uhh... wow, okay. I’m just gonna go now because this somehow worked... really well. Uh, go doors!" she said awkwardly as she walked forward. The heavy doors slammed shut behind her. Glancing toward the distant city, she began her trek toward the murder drone nest. The snow crunched beneath her feet as she tried to reassure herself.

"Just in and out, no big deal, right? Yeah... just grab the part and hopefully not get disemboweled... hopefully." A shiver ran down her metallic spine at the thought of encountering a disassembly drone. Shaking off her unease, she pressed on.

The spire of corpses loomed in the distance, its dark presence growing more intimidating the closer she got. A determined look crossed Uzi's face. Anyone else would have called this a death wish, but she was already here.

As she approached, the sheer size of the spire became overwhelming. "Yeah, just go in and out of the corpse tower. If I’m fast, nothing will go wrong... hopefully," she thought nervously. The sooner she finished this, the better.

Scanning the surrounding buildings, she swore she saw a faint yellow light on one of the rooftops. But before she could get a better look, it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

Arriving at the base of the spire, Uzi steadied herself. The gaping entrance revealed nothing but darkness. As she stepped closer, she heard a sharp crack underfoot. To her horror, she realized she had stepped on a half-buried worker’s corpse, its hand reaching toward the surface, visor displaying a red exclamation point. Gulping, she forced herself to look back up at the spire. The wind howled, and snow fell steadily, her visor reflecting an expression of fear at the gruesome sight before her.

Clenching her fists, she pressed on. Reaching the spire’s entrance, she spotted a drop pod raised off the ground by several mechanical legs buried in the snow. Dim light from the distant star filtered through a hole in the ceiling. Surrounding the pod were piles of scrap—mostly bodies. Wasting no time, Uzi began searching for the part she needed for her railgun.

After rummaging through the debris, she noticed a faint green glow. Tossing aside scrap and severed limbs, she uncovered a cylindrical power cell glowing a soft green. She picked it up, turning it over to inspect it, when—

Suddenly, a shadow darted across the room at lightning speed. Uzi’s eyes widened, and she quickly ducked behind a large piece of junk. Grabbing a shard of glass from the floor, she used the reflection to catch sight of a disassembly drone perched on the drop pod. It raised the decapitated head of a worker, drinking the dark oil that dripped from it. Once the head ran dry, the drone crushed it in its hand and tossed the remains aside.

Glancing at her weapon, Uzi debated whether to install the new power cell and confront the drone or run away.

(A/N: Oof. This the longest I have written so far, and it's just the frist episode of Murder Drones. Hope you enjoyed it, because I certainly drained all of my energy for three days into this.)