Murder Drones: Old Friends

Chapter 15: The Calm after the Storm

8:30 am, I woke up with the usual headache, no surprise there. Ever since I absorbed the solver and became its host I've had headaches every morning, it sucks. I lower myself from the ceiling, folding back in my wings and landing on the floor. I do a quick stretch, check my firewalls and solver code, and go on with my day.
It's been a few weeks since we defeated Cyn and a lot has changed. We all moved into a ruined mansion we found on the outskirts of the colony and a bunch of the worker drones from the colony helped us to fix it up. Uzi and N sleep in the basement, Doll, Lizzy, Nori, and Khan all sleep on the first floor, S, Thad, J, and X all sleep on the second floor, and Cyn, Tessa, and I all sleep on the third floor. The basement has all the gaming stuff and scientific lab crap that Uzi could dream of, half of it is like an extremely advanced arcade and the other half is her lab and somewhere down there is her and N's room. The first floor has all the usual stuff, a garage that leads to an underground parking garage for fancy cars, a large kitchen, a big dining room, a library, a huge living room, several guest and normal bedrooms, and etc. The second floor is mostly just bedrooms and a few loft areas with couches and stuff. The third floor has a gathering room with a bunch of comfy couches and chairs, and the rest of it is mostly just bedrooms. The fourth and final floor has a small observatory, a few extra rooms, and a room that leads to the attic which is mostly empty for now.
"Morning loser," Uzi says with a smirk as I walk into the 1st floor living room. I roll my eyes and walk into the kitchen, grabbing some battery acid and other various ingredients to make the drone version of coffee.
"How's everyone doing after the patch?" I ask out of curiosity as I drink my coffee, which I may or may not have put too much battery acid in.
"They're handling it relatively ok, they're safety protocols are at full capacity and we've seen no signs of overheating yet.... Everythings fine for now," Uzi says as she drinks her own coffee. I use my solver to grab the remote and bring it to my hand. I caught it and changed the channel to my favorite anime called assassination Classroom. It's a few hundred years old, maybe a thousand? I don't know.
"Anyone else up yet?" I ask as I move to join Uzi on the couch, sitting next to her but leaving enough room on my right side for V to sit next to me when she wakes up.
"J and X are up, they're back at the colony helping with repairs alongside Doll and Nori. Those four make quite the team, that's for sure," Uzi says as she takes another long and dramatic sip from her coffee.
"Ok, are S and Thad still at university?" I ask as I glance up at their empty room on the second floor using my x-ray vision module.
"Yeah, Lizzy is with them. N is still asleep, he's still adjusting to being in the sun and waking up at a normal morning time instead of being nocturnal," Uzi says as she relaxes more into the couch. "V up?" Uzi asks as she shoots me a side-eye.
"No, sleeping like a cat, literally. She's curled up like a cat on the sofa in my room," I say with a small laugh as Uzi spits out her coffee and bursts into laughter.
"Well, that explains a lot haha!" Uzi says as she uses her solver to clean up the mess from the coffee.
"Where's Cyn?" I ask as I look around confused, trying to see if she's hiding anywhere. I guess I should explain why Cyn is living with us shouldn't I? When I became the host of the solver, I found a way to restore the original Cyn, not whoever she was before she rebooted, but the young and innocent worker drone that was deep inside of that terrifying monster. Cyn mostly hangs out with N and Uzi, with N looking after her and Uzi helping her develop the patch. The patch is meant to fix us disassembly drones, making it so we don't overheat anymore and won't burn in the daylight. So far, it works, but it's had a few bugs now and then so they're trying to perfect it. Cyn remembers everything the solver did and most likely blames herself for it but we make sure she knows it wasn't her fault. Just the greed of humans and the accidental rebooting of her code that led to all of this.
"She's up there," Uzi says as she points towards the ceiling. I glance up and immediately facepalm my visor. Cyn is sleeping on the ceiling, again. She installed four strong and secure mounts into the ceiling a few weeks ago and she hung a bed off of them. Cyn is.... Kinda weird to be honest.... But at least she's not trying to destroy the world anymore, right? Nowadays her only goal is to help others and has been helping.
"Yeah, we'll just leave her alone then. Is Tessa adjusting ok?" I ask as I ponder where Tessa is right now.
"She's adjusting perfectly actually. She's been spending a lot of time with J and X lately but she'll always come back for game night with Cyn and I," Uzi says with a grin as she finishes drinking her coffee, using her solver to float her empty mug to the sink.
"Is she still better than you at Helldivers 6?" I ask with a smug grin as Uzi turns to me with a frustrated look.
"She's not better than me! She just has more experience playing the- that's not funny!" Uzi shouts at me as I burst into laughter. I see my reflection in one of the mirrors we put in the kitchen and I stop laughing. I walk up to the mirror and stare at my eyes. When I first became the host of the solver, I started to experience problems. My systems just couldn't handle the sheer amount of energy and power. So, one day, I decided to split control of the solver with Uzi, making both of us its hosts. Ever since then my eyes have been half blue and half purple, and so have Uzi's. My hair also has tints of purple in it now and Uzi's has tints of silver.
"Heh, we're basically siblings at this point. Even our code is shared like a set of sibling UNN's," I say with a light chuckle as I turn to Uzi, who was walking up to me.
"Yeah, you're right. Besides your disassembly drone code and unique memory core, our solver code and base code is almost completely the same now, give or take a few strings here and there, and our personality code," Uzi says softly as she walks up to me.
"When we shared the solver, it was like sharing two strings of code from the same source, just like drones that are siblings do. Even my own system recognition code registers you as my sister," I say as I wrap an arm around Uzi and let her nestle into my side as we stare at our reflections. When the solver code reached our behavioural code, it linked them and several other parts of our code. As a result, Uzi and I became connected. We can sense each other's pain and emotions, and we even developed a strong sense of attachment to each other.
"It feels like you've been my brother my whole life. Wasn't easy to adjust to at first but, I'd say we turned out just fine," Uzi says with a soft smile as she climbs up onto my back.
"Let's just be glad that N and V were able to accept this pretty easily, otherwise we'd have N fighting me over you and V fighting you over me," I say with a light laugh as I carry Uzi around on my shoulders. As I move around the kitchen, Uzi grabs stuff from higher shelves to make her own food. It's helpful being able to sense each other's feelings and stuff, which makes Uzi and I a great team.
"Speaking of all of this, I wanted to ask you something," Uzi says from atop my shoulders as I stop at the food pantry to grab some old human food.
"Sure, speak your mind Uzi," I say with a smile as I grab food from the lower shelves while Uzi grabs her food from the top shelves.
"I spoke with my dad and... would you want to fully register as my sibling? Like with my parents?" Uzi asks shyly as I freeze.
"You mean like fully integrating our code? Like adoption?" I ask in surprise as I tilt my head up to look at Uzi, who's still on my shoulders. Oh yeah, I should probably explain that. Most drone siblings are registered as such with their parents, allowing their parents to message them, check their vitals, track them, and etc. It also is what usually gives siblings their bond, both physically and mentally (like the cool mind sense stuff Uzi and I have). If I were to register into Khan and Nori's systems, I would fully become Uzi's sibling, basically just making it official and granting her parents the ability to check my vitals and all the other stuff that parents of siblings have.
"Yeah, it's ok if you don't want to. B-But I'd love it for you to join my family, then I-I can actually call you brother and all that dumb mushy stuff," Uzi says shyly as she buries her visor into my hair.
"Honestly, I'd love to join your family, officially y'know," I say with a small smile as I lift Uzi off of my shoulders and lower her down.
"Thank you!" Uzi says as she lunges at me into a hug, wrapping her arms tightly around my waist. I chuckle and wrap my arms around her smaller form, gently stroking her hair.
"Anytime sis," I say with a chuckle as I playfully ruffle her hair. Uzi pulls back and shoves my hands away, quickly fixing her hair (even though it's always messy).
"Good morning everyone!" N chirps happily as he walks into the main living room, waving at us as Uzi and I exit the kitchen.
"Morning N," I say with a smirk as I watch Uzi run over to N and hug him, giggling as he lifts her up into the air. Suddenly, Nori and Khan appear in the middle of the living room with a flash of solver code, startling all of us.
"Mom!? Dad!?" Uzi exclaims, visually confused and surprised at the sudden appearance of her parents.
"Hey Uzi, we got your message about C accepting our offer and we are here to register him!" Nori says with a mischievous grin as Khan gives me a head nod as a greeting.
"Wha- I just sent that like 10 seconds ago!?" Uzi exclaims confused as N sets her back down on the ground.
"Nori got excited and teleported us here without a second thought. So let's just hurry up and do this before Doll, J, and X realize we're gone," Khan says with a tired sigh as he and Nori walk up to me.
"Right now? Are you sure?" I ask confused as Nori takes my hand and guides me over to Uzi, who ushered N to go stand by the couch. We all gather around a coffee table in the living room and Nori activates her solver.
"So... how does this work again?" Uzi asks as Nori uses her solver to lift up connecter cables.
"We connect these to our processors and then sync up, then we'll register C as our kid, we'll need a full name for you though," Nori says as she uses her solver to plug the cables into our heads. Uzi connects to Nori, Nori connects to Khan, Khan connects to me, and I connect to Uzi.
"Uh Carlos works just fine," I say as I feel our systems sync up. Nori nods and a menu pulls up on her and Khan's visors.
"Alright, Carlos Doorman," Khan says as he and Nori register me as their kid. We wait for our systems to load and after a few seconds a notification pops up on my visor saying, "Congratulations, you are now part of the Doorman family!"
"All done," Nori says as she disconnects all the cables, giving a dramatic goodbye wave before grabbing Khan and teleporting away.
"Well that happened," I say with a sigh as I sit down on the couch, N sitting next to me and Uzi sitting on his lap.
"So you two are siblings now? That's so cool!" N chirps happily as he cuddles Uzi, earning an embarrassed giggle from the smaller drone.
"Yeah well I-" I start to say before I hear a loud creaking sound coming from upstairs. I turn to look at the balcony and see V jump straight towards me. "WHAT THE-" I start to say before V collides with me, tackling me to the floor.
"Congrats babe! Or should I call you Carlos now?" V says teasingly as she pins me down and showers my neck with kisses, earning a lot of giggles from me. I try to push her off but she refuses to give up. I look over at Uzi and N and they're both laughing hysterically.
"Alright alright! Cut it out V!" I say as I finally manage to sit up and get her off of me. V pouts and decides to just nuzzle into my shoulder, her legs wrapping around my waist and her arms around my neck. I stand up and she's clinging to me like a koala so I just walk over to the couch and sit down, letting her sprawl back out and lay on me like a cat.
"Someone's affectionate today," Uzi says in a teasing tone as she giggles at the sight of me and V. V was about to utter a response when she freezes, spotting Cyn behind Uzi and N, who gestured for her to remain quiet.
"Master of stealth!" Cyn shouts playfully as she jumps into Uzi and N, startling them both and knocking them off of the couch.
"CYN! Did you have to do that?!" Uzi shouts as she quickly gets up, sighing as she helps Cyn stand up as well, N having already got up and sat back down on the couch. J, X, and S fly in through the observatory window, flying down to the main living room and sitting on the other couches. Lizzy, Thad, and Tessa follow suit. Lizzy and Thad sit with S and Tessa goes to sit with J and X.
"The whole gangs here," I say with a light chuckle as I glance around at my friends, my family.
"Nori told us about you registering as Uzi's brother and we just had to come," S says with a wide smile as everyone else gives their own congratulations.
"Yeah, when I registered, I had to get a real name, so, call me Carlos now," I say with a laugh as I relax into the couch more, V sitting up slightly so she can stretch.
"Speaking of names, would you guys like to have actual names? C- I mean Carlos, and I have been talking about it for a while," Uzi says with a nervous laugh as she studies everyone's reactions.
"Sure, we'd love that, what did you have in mind?" X asks, basically answering for all the disassembly drones there.
"Well Cyn, you can be Cynthia," Uzi says, earning an excited clap from Cyn. "N, you can be Nate," Uzi says as she gives N a quick peck on the cheek, earning an excited giggle from him. "V can be Valerie, J can be Jade, S can be Sera, X can be Xavier, and C is Carlos," Uzi says, smiling at the positive responses from the others.
"Those names suit you guys perfectly!" Tessa says as she hugs both J and X, who she was sitting between.
"They fit us perfectly," V- I mean Valerie, says as she leans up to kiss my cheek, earning a small chuckle from me as I cuddle her back.
"Well, this meeting was nice and all, but we all have stuff we gotta do today," Thad says as he stands up and stretches, Lizzy, Doll, and Sera following him.
"See you guys later!" Sera says as she picks up both Lizzy and Thad and flies out the observatory window, Doll simply teleports away.
"We have to depart as well, I'll see you at the reunion film!" Jade says as she flies away, carrying Tessa in her arms, who is a blushing mess.
"She means movie night!" Xavier says with a laugh as he flies after Jade, earning a collective sigh from everyone left.
"She'll never change," Nate says with a soft laugh as he stands up, holding Uzi in his arms.
"We've got a date to get to, see you lovebirds later!" Uzi says with a big smile as N spreads his wings and flies away, Uzi clutching tightly to his chest.
"Hey C- I mean Carlos, I wanted to ask you something," Valerie says in an unusually sheepish tone as she nervously looks down.
"What is it V- I mean Valerie- Ugh these new names are hard to remember," I say with a laugh, earning a small one back from Valerie. Valerie leaves my arms and stands up as I look at her with a confused expression.
"I know w-we haven't been dating that l-long but.... but I-I don't see m-myself with anyone else so- I," Valerie trails off nervously as she gets down on one knee, earning a bewildered expression from me.
"V-Valerie?!" I exclaim, bewilderment clear on my face as Valerie gestures for me to let her finish, which I let her do.
"Carlos- I've loved you for so long. I loved you when we were worker drones all those years ago. I loved and mourned you when I thought you were gone. A-And now that I have you b-back, I l-love you even more than I d-did before, and I wanted to tell- no, to show you that," Valerie says as she reaches into the back pocket of her jacket.
"I-I've loved you too Valerie, a-and I still do, m-more than ever," I say softly as I pause, letting her finish what she's gonna ask.
"I know this is probably too soon, but I can't help how I feel. Carlos Doorman, will you marry me?" Valerie asks as she pulls out a small box and opens it, revealing a beautiful diamond encrusted ring, the actual ring itself being silver with gold highlights.
"I- YES! YES I'll marry you!" I say with virtual tears filling my visor as I grab Valerie and lift her up into the air, hugging her tightly. I set her down and she put the ring in my hand.
"I know I'm the one who proposed, but I'd prefer it if you put the ring on my finger?" Valerie says sheepishly as she looks up at me nervously. I just sigh and use my solver duplicate symbol to duplicate the ring. I hand Valerie the duplicate ring then gently hold her hand, slowly sliding the original ring onto her finger.
"There, now it's your turn," I say as I hold out my hand for Valerie, earning a delighted giggle from her as she puts the ring on my finger.
"I love you C," Valerie says as she wraps her arms around my neck and leans in.
"I love you too V," I say softly as we meet the gap, sealing our promise forever with a soft kiss. After facing hardship after hardship, we finally have our happy ending.

///End.Of.Log///