Before you hop out of the vent, you hear the voices of J and V.
"Whoa, N."
You change your position to see V and J drop from the ceiling. N throws the drone to the side before J and V see her.
"Am I dreaming, or did you do something not useless for once?"
J says, surprised. You roll your eyes.
"I've been trying to get past those doors for months! Nice work, N."
V compliments. N laughs nervously.
"These ventilation shafts can easily get us around this last door!"
V grins and opens her wings, activating both of her guns as well.
"Lowest bodycount eats a missile!"
She leaps up into the shaft above and you can still hear her giggling manically.
"Way to go, stud. With this colony wiped, we'll make top team this quarter for sure!"
J exclaims, patting N harshly on the back, making him wince in pain a bit. You've never seen her this happy before. However, you still don't like her.
"You know what that means..."
J says in a sing-song tone, and pulls something from her pocket.
"...Branded pens!"
She holds up a pen with the JCJenson logo on it and clicks it rapidly. N looks at the pen in excitement. She tosses it to him and prepares her wings for takeoff. N looks at the pen in his hand, then over to where he tossed the drone, behind a few storage boxes.
"Uh, you know, not that I can't wait to keep murdering all of these... maybe not-so-actually-different from us worker drones, but just outta curiosity, do we actually, uh..."
He hisses through his teeth, nervously.
"...know what the company plans to do with us afterwards?"
J pauses and turns back around to look at him.
"Excuse me?"
She puts her hands on her hips.
"Okay, so, a worker earlier might have suggested that they could fix up our landing pod to, uh, escape the planet and stuff. Which- whoa, hey, that's against the rules!"
He says loudly, pointing at J.
"But it is kind of making me question why our pods were only-one way in the first place."
The worker drone told him this?
"'Cause, y-you know, I get the feeling the company doesn't actually love robots, and, like, we might be robots?"
He says, still nervous.
"I've made a terrible mistake. It's cool how immediately I could tell."
J walks over to him with a smirk.
"No way buddy, questioning the company?"
She reaches him and places her hand on his back gently. Something's not right...
"You just finally gave me the excuse I needed."
You watch as J activates a virus gun and shoots N's chest, catching him by surprise. You gasp and cover your mouth in an attempt to stay quiet.
"Worker drones are corrupted, N. That's why the company sent us."
J walks away as N falls to his knees.
"I'd hate to see you corrupted as well."
She looks at him and puts her hands on her knees, talking to N like he's a child.
"Tha-anks, J. A-lways-s lo-oking ou-ut fo-or me. You-u're aweso-ome."
N's voice glitches, and his screen does, too. He falls to the ground as the virus slowly takes over his body.
J scoffs and does a halfhearted salute before taking off into the ventilation shafts.
You wait until you're sure J's gone, then you come crashing down from the ceiling.
"N!"
You run over to him and kneel down.
"N, talk to me!"
You grab him by the shoulders and shake him a little.
"Oh-h, B? Is-s tha-at yo-u?"
N lifts his head up slightly, still glitching.
"... hang on a second."
You stand back up and look at where he threw the girl.
"Come on out. I know you're there."
The drone emerges from behind the storage containers, slowly. You look her up and down and sigh.
"I don't know what to think about you. You, quite literally, blew N's head off, then made him rebel like an angsty teen."
You glare at her and she steps back a little.
"But, you also got left behind by your father, and I can tell that shit hurts."
She nods slowly.
You look at the railgun, which is sitting next to your feet, and pick it up.
"Did you make this?"
She nods again.
You examine every inch.
Sick.
"Alright, so since you did hurt my friend, I would be mad at you, BUT, just because you made this sick-as-hell railgun thing, I'm okay with it."
You walk up to her and hand her the gun.
"Just don't do it again, obviously."
She smiles and takes her gun.
"Uzi, right?"
You remember her dad calling her that.
"I'm Serial Designation B."
You shake her hand. She seems very relieved that you're not going to kill her.
"So, do you think you could fix..."
The two of you turn to N, who is still lying on the floor.
"...That?"
Uzi pulls a wrench from her back pocket (how did it fit in there!?) and holds it up.
"Pfft, I made a freaking magnetically amplified photon converger out of scrap metal and some spare parts I found outside. That'll be easy."
She smirks.
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
J throws a worker drone across the room, making him tumble and come to a stop in front of a group of others. They all stare at the disassembly drone in horror, and a couple of them run up to check on the drone that was thrown.
"So, they found our evacuation spot. But if we build a quick door-"
Uzi's dad begins, but the male worker drone on the ground interrupts him. He slowly gets up and grabs a metal pipe sitting nearby. He wipes his mouth and spits on the ground.
"You're the WDF, right? Defend!"
He yells, pointing the pipe towards J, who is standing by the blast door. The rest of the worker drones step away in fear, not backing him up.
"For real?"
He looks back at them in disbelief. V hangs down from the ceiling in front of the drone, catching him by surprise. She stabs him in the chest with her wing and pulls him upward. She swings him around, slams him to the ground, then pulls him close, preparing for the kill.
"HEY!"
V stops.
"Put that conventionally attractive male down!"
Uzi stands at the blast door, pointing at V. You and N are by her side. You look at Uzi and lift an eyebrow. She looks away, slightly embarrassed. The two of you turn to see N, just waving with a dumb smile on his face. Uzi nudges his arm to snap him out of it.
"Oh, uh, J?"
He comes back to his senses and points at J.
"You're sometimes kind of mean to me, and I wish you weren't. Just some constructive criticism."
"Nice."
Uzi fist-bumps N. You laugh to yourself.
"Noted, traitor."
J gives N a death stare.
"We'll circle back after I rightsize your existence."
You glare at J, your screen glitching in rage. V looks at you with an unreadable expression.
"Who do you want?"
Uzi asks you.
"J please."
You say, not breaking your gaze.
"Too bad. Good luck!"
Uzi grabs N's pen and throws it at J, miraculously hitting one of her head sensors. You groan in annoyance and look at V, then at N. V is staring at N in hatred.
"I'll let the two of you settle this."
You nudge N forward and he looks back at you fearfully.
"You'll be fine."
You push him slightly, and he walks forward, nervously. V starts giggling and activates both of her blades, charging at N. He manages to jump out of the way. You watch intently, ready to jump in when things get out of hand.
Meanwhile, Uzi is pointing her railgun at J, but J quickly activates her own gun and shoots blindly in her direction, narrowly missing Uzi multiple times. However, Uzi stumbles back and drops her gun. J pulls the pen out of her head and holds it up.
"Damn the well-made, quality-assured durability of JCJensen's products!"
She yells. She is so busy cursing out the inanimate object that she doesn't notice Uzi leaping above her until it's too late. Uzi's shoe collides with the pen in J's hand, lodging it deep into her visor and making her scream out in pain.
/// N'S POV \\\
I am thrown against a couple of storage crates. V points her blaster at me, ready to shoot again. B is standing a few feet away, watching the fight. They give me a thumbs up and an encouraging smile. I feel some sort of happiness inside me... something like the opposite of punishment. I never got that kind of treatment from J or V. It feels good.
I look back at V and hold up a blaster of my own. Still unable to focus, I think about how B's support made me feel. I aim and shoot with more than one thing on my mind. It somehow affected my weapon...
Instead of a large yellow beam, a few pink hearts come out of the nozzle. My eyes widen in fear and I turn my head to look back at B. They stare for a moment, confused, then they cover their mouth in realization.
"My mind is in a weird place! Don't read into this!"
I yell frantically.
I turn to look back at V just in time to see a missile being launched directly at me.