Aberrant Algorithm.

When a door closes, the tundra awaits.

Uzi let out a shuddering breath to steady her nerves as she crouched behind a large pile of debris, peaking just over to stare into the spire's interior and sitting in the centre bathed in the moonlight that streamed in from a large hole higher up in the tower sat the clawed pod that had brought the murder drones to Copper-9. "You can do this," She told herself glancing around not only the interior of the spire but the derelict buildings, in case the tell-tale yellow lights of a murder drone were watching.

With a final glance around to check Uzi made her way inside the spire, taking care to mind her footing to avoid either tripping or knocking over something that could alert anything she had not spotted on her way in. While everything had seemed to be going her way Uzi had not noticed how the displayed error symbols upon the various dead worker drone visors visible from the spire's walls, nor did she notice the gentle hum reverberating within the spire. If Uzi had noticed the hum now filling the tower she would have connected it to the typical noise linked to data transferred between wireless networks, but with her focus on finding the final part she needed to get her railgun fully working, she just ignored the noise.

Taking her time to sift through the rubble that was lying about the pod it did not take Uzi long to find the part she needed, a microreactor from the look of it as the original one she had scavenged from closer to her colony's bunker had burnt itself out before even firing a shot. Holding the new pulsing green reactor in her hand, a smirk crossed her face, with this new core Uzi was sure her railgun would work as intended.

Working quickly and with a practised ease she began to remove the spent reactor tossing it off to the side before placing the much newer one in its place, it was not a quick process to swap the reactors over and it was one that required Uzi to devote most of her attention to what she was doing. It was this singular focus on her task that led to Uzi failing to notice another figure stalking up behind her, the fact the figure had entered from the hole high up in the spire did not matter as her attention was entirely on installing the reactor. Now standing behind her the figure that was much taller than her peered down watching her connect the last few wires before breaking out into excited giggles as the railgun powered up.

"Ooooh, that looks nifty." The soft masculine voice spoke from the new arrival. "What's it for?"

Uzi was too wrapped up in the fact her railgun was now functional at first and failed to take into account who this new voice likely belonged to, "It's my sick-as-hell-railgun!" a grin spread across her face, "I built it to deal with the murder bots!" Her excitement kept her focus more on the railgun's completion than putting any thought into the second voice's origin right up until she heard a slightly unhinged chuckle, Uzi finally realised that the second voice wasn't in her head.

A slow dawning sense of dread began to rise inside her as slowly Uzi began to look up, only to be greeted by the unsettling grin and sickly yellow X visor display of a murder drone. Oil dripping from the corner of its mouth the scraping noise of its metal claws flexing as it stared down at Uzi, this was not a situation Uzi wanted to be in nor one she was likely to survive. Yet this murder drone hadn't just killed her, was it toying with her dragging out the kill? It didn't matter all that mattered right now was not becoming these robotic nightmares next meal.

Uzi flinched as she felt the murder drone run a hand along her arm, its claws scraping against the soft outer shell and applying just enough pressure to make her wince. Not enough the break the shell at first but any more pressure and the bladed fingers would have definitely drawn oil, the murder drone's other hand came up to the regular drone hand gripping the underside of Uzi's chin effectively immobilising her as the murder drone lent its head down closer to her face. Uzi could feel the heat radiating from the murder drone's touch and while like her and the other worker drones, they did not breathe she could still feel something like hot breath prickling across her visor and outer shell.