Murder Drones : Born From Ashes REDUX

MARCH

This was a leftover from when Stacy and Ruger's refusal of MAM's mission took place at the club.

"Are you ok?" Nermel appeared before them, awkwardly towering over the two.

"Nermel!" Stacy cheered, feeling the weight of the world suspend from her shoulders.

"Oh my boy! How are you today?" She said as she rubs his cheeks.

"Stacy-! Ow!"

"I'm sorry, did I hurt you?"

"No, I. I was scared."

"Uzi, teaching Nermel to dance?"

Uzi blushed and rubbed her neck.

"Yeah..." she winced to hide her emotions.

"How was your first deployment?" Stacy asked.

"At first. I was scared. They just disassemble us so easily..."

–

They talk as friends. Uzi and N sit down.

Uzi reached up to pull the defragger out her neck only for Ruger to swat her hand down.

"You call yourself a big kid, but you're chickening out now?" Ruger laughed. Uzi lurched forwards as she felt her sense of self float helplessly through the jungle of binary, carbon waffle plates rub and wither her further down as she feels sections become extracted, cut, and pasted into each nanometer of her chrome disk.

Uzi feels nothing but happiness from the feeling. The world becomes much clearer but the defragger's long torturous cycles make it feel as if her mind was still fragmented.

Stacy continues to force her to keep the defragger in her neck until Ruger shoots her a stare, his pupils twitching beneath the light for only a brief moment before they sunk back into the black screen matrix. Stacy backs off, and Uzi, as if waiting for the cue, pulls out.

There is an inaudible blame floating in the atmosphere, but Uzi cuts the silence by asking how the other ULU troops (children) are able to handle the defraggers.

Stacy explains.

We breed the soldiers to ensure such recessive traits like lust, greed, and self-centeredness would never occur naturally in their projected lifespan.

They move to other subjects. Uzi talks about her first encounter with a Disassembly Drone.

"Well you know, when those two Dyke Domers showed up I pretended to be wounded. One of the disassembly drones claimed she wasn't going to kill me because I was a 'non combatant'" she said in a mockingly toxic voice.

"Wait!" Stacy suddenly barked, "what did she do?"

"She didn't want to fight me anymore?"

"What was her name?"

"Corporal V2, I hardly find it-"

"You respect your goddamn elders even when your pops ain't around! Uziel Doorman! Did she say a name at all?"

"The pony-tailed one called the Bob cut one V."

–

Uzi looked at Stacy as her red eyes moved towards her.

"Are you sure... it was V?"

"I think?"

Stacy's visor went into an incognito white and stood back up.

"Then we must take precautions."

"Wait, Stacy, you're not-" Ruger says.

"That's Corporal V2 to you, sir." she replied curtly as she marched through the door, her icy clothes crunching with each movement.