Murder Drones | The Library

Negligence

"What's all this?"

Uzi and V stand before a gargantuan screen, watching as both N and the resident human, Hugh, put in the finishing touches.

"What you're looking at, ladies..." Says the human, poking his head from behind a large assortment of cables that extended towards the desolate city. "...is a project over a year in the making!"

"A year?" V echoes.

"Yep!" N chimes in, flipping a torch mask to reveal his LEDs. "Things got kinda stale lately, so we came up with something cool!"

"Correction: I came up with somethin' cool." Hugh interjects.

"Yep-yep!" N agrees with a big smile.

The human just rolls his eyes and goes back to his cables.

"Where did you even find all this stuff?" Uzi asks as she paces around the board to get a better angle.

"Where do ya think?" Hugh asks with a scoff. "This planet's a remnant of a failed corporation; there's bound to be a few billboards."

"Don't let J catch you saying that." V warns with a smirk.

Hugh just laughs it off. "I'm not worried. She's a bitch, but I know she's got a soft spot for me."

《~》

J pauses from working on her ship as a sudden anger spurs in her. 'Note to self: replace Hugh's bag of sugar with asbestos.'

《~》

"I've been around the planet for years and I've never seen something like this." V comments with a fold of her arms and a cock of her hip.

"Prolly 'cause you were busy downin' oil."

V went to retort, but settled her jaw instead.

"As for all these cables and junk..." Hugh starts as he checks a pair of speakers for any damage. "That's what took us so damn long. We wanted the right pieces for what we had in mind, and there wasn't a whole lot of it. We also had to get a strong power supply, so we used the power from the labs."

Thankfully there weren't any Sentinels or a certain Southerner to get in their way.

"Come to find out, they used three times the amount of kilowatts as the capital of the planet, which just so happens to be what we needed. Not like anyone else was using it, anyway." As he says this, Hugh checks his Watt Meter to make sure they still had power, and they indeed did.

"How'd you even manage move this? These things weigh like a frickin cruise ship."

"Semantics."

Uzi, and even V, feel their eyes twitch.

"We're all set!" N announces, throwing aside the mask and landing beside the girls with an excited bounce.

Hugh does final check on a set of speakers before putting on a toothy smile. He stands before the others, carrying a big remote.

He clears his throat. "Ladies, me and my associate-"

"Oh, that's me!"

"...are happy to present the first ever, homemade Copper-9 theatre!"

With a grandiose show of hands, Hugh presses the remote, and the screen sparks to life. Everyone watches as the board runs what appears to be an ancient cartoon with lots and lots of black and white dogs, the speakers below playing out their barks and yips.

"Aww, look at all the little puppies!" N gushes as he furiously wags his tail.

Uzi feels a rictus grin forming as her processor races with thoughts of all the anime she could watch on the big screen. Even V seems impressed.

Their astonishment was quickly snuffed when the board suddenly sparked and died. Shit, it's on fire too...

The girls frown at this development while N looks dejected, prompting Uzi to pat him on the back.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!" Hugh bellows, beyond pissed as he watches all his hard work combust into flames, literally. He had checked everything, made sure they used fresh, unused cables, plugged everything where it was supposed to, and the wires-

He stops. The wires were N's job.

Agonizingly slow, Hugh turns around to look at his associate. "N...did you check for damaged wires?"

The drone is brought out from his funk and looks at him confused. "Yeah, of cou-"

N suddenly remembers having his torch on when talking to the others. He suddenly feels like running.

He backs away as he laughs nervously. "Uh...oops?"

Hugh looked like he wanted to strangle him. In fact, that's exactly what he is going to do.

《~》

Introducing my OC!

I've been wanting to involve him in one of my stories for quite awhile but felt he didn't quite fit in.

So, I made an AU where he can coexist with the cast!

For those on AO3, the image for this character is on my Wattpad, if you're curious about how he looks.