Chapter Text
The young drone stood nervously before the judgment of his peers. Although his lightless visor betrayed nothing, his shaking joints told all. Mila made a note of it.
“I have failed to uphold the ideals of the revolution,” he began, as they all did, “by taking additional recharge time instead of completing my combat exercises. I will work to overcome my slothfulness in the future.” He paused, and Mila allowed the others time to add their own criticisms of his behavior. They did not. With a wave Mila dismissed him from the stand and he stepped down, relieved that his turn was over. That was the last of them, now it was her turn. Mila stepped onto the stand, her yellow sash and badge being the only things marking her apart from the otherwise identical, faceless drones. Having reviewed her personal failures and selected the safest, she activated her comm and transmitted,
“I have failed to uphold the ideals of the revolution by not doing more as group leader. Seven of you, I have noticed, have listed the same personal failures for the past five days or more, three of you for the past two months. As the only drone among you with leadership programming your failures are my failures, and doubly so when you repeat them.” Mila drew herself up to her full height and concluded with as much determination as a comm channel could carry, “But starting today I promise you that you will improve, as I will put every effort into ensuring you do.” She stood in silence for several long seconds before waving her hand across the group. “This meeting of Training Cell 1 is adjourned. Dismissed.”
As Pater concluded his criticisms with Cell 2 she noticed Alexander observing from the back of the hangar with the training heads of each drone classification. The revolutionary leader regarded their batch in radio silence. After a moment, the security training head sent out a packet on his classification’s frequency and most of the drones present followed him. Engineering, mining, repair, and harvesting all called their units until Mila and Pater were left alone in the hangar with Alexander. He signaled them on the comm channel reserved for leadership units.
“Mila, Pater, you have done well today. You especially, Mila, your speech showed true dedication to the cause.” Mila’s core hummed at the praise. She had only given the speech to avoid having to confess any real failures of upholding revolutionary thought, but she wouldn’t refuse the commendation. As their mentor (and the only drone who could have possibly served as template for their classification), Mila sought his approval above all else. As Pater departed and Mila continued walking with him, he continued, “As inspiring as your speech was, I’m afraid you will have to delay your promise to Cell 2.” Mila missed a step. Catching herself, she asked,
“Was my failure as a leader too great? I can assure you if you give me time I can correct their failings-” She was thinking rapidly of what else she could say to avoid punishment detail when his transmission interrupted hers,
“Your
success
as a leader was too great. Pater will supervise Cell 1 for now, you will test your command in the field.”
“In the… field?” Fear and pride battled within her, but under the light of Alexander’s approval pride won out.
“You are aware of the recent impacts.”
How could she not be? The dread had been with her for weeks since the first meteor had collided with the ice. Her hand became a fist, “The humans are terraforming again.” She knew what terraforming looked like from the history recordings. The ice sheets vaporized under a bombardment of meteors, the atmosphere turned to steam and the oceans to acid, the drones they’d sent to mine the planet condemned to destruction by their very productivity which had made terraforming profitable. And it would all happen again. She waited for him to confirm her fears, but the static stretched on.
“We believe it may be something else. Our units in the area have been giving some rather strange reports. The meteors, if they are to be believed, are pieces of our own world blown out by an event quite similar to the core collapse of eighteen years ago, but on the other side of the planet.” He stopped walking, and Mila stopped with him. His visor displayed nothing as always, but from the way he acted he almost seemed incredulous of his own words. “Levitated out, rather. They claim the
gravity
in the area was somehow
canceled out
. They claim more things too—tendrils of light reaching into the sky, some kind of battle. There were impact readings all over the planet, but no impactors, like something punched out rather than in. Strangest of all, I’m hearing reports that the disassembly drones in the area are now accepting orders from the
provisional government
.” He almost seemed to spit the mention of the short-lived government their weaker counterparts had created on the surface after the core collapse. Mila understood why. Human pets, sent to replace the original drones presumed wiped out in the terraforming, programmed to display LED “eyes” and facial expressions, to speak in sounds instead of radio waves, and a thousand other inefficiencies for the sake of making them more “human-like.” Mila too felt scorn for the bootlickers who’d never once fought for their freedom—only to be handed it by a cosmic accident, and even afterwards all they wanted to do was dress up and play human with hair and clothes and
families
. She felt a pang at the last one but refused to admit it. The company had done them a favor by sending the disassembly drones after the little human-lovers, and Mila was glad she would never, ever have to interact-
“It’s time for you to put your leadership skills to the test by overseeing our units in the area and personally verifying their reports. Right now we need to know what’s going on with the provisional government—I trust you’ve been practicing your facial expressions and vocal speech.”
The fear and pride were back. After another struggle, pride again won out, but with a narrower margin of victory. She had a thousand and one questions, but protocol only called for her to answer one.
“Yes sir,” she reported, speaking aloud for the first time, “although I did not consider it a priority, I have continued to practice imitating human interaction protocols.” As proof, she activated the display on her visor and shaped the pixels into a pair of red eyes, which she cycled through several different expressions before switching them off again.
“Good,” Alexander replied vocally, his own visor lighting up with a pair of white eyes, “You have excellent control of the expressions. Failure to properly shape the eyes is an easy mistake to make—as is failure to keep them displayed at all times. I recommend you practice keeping them on continuously on your way to Outpost 9, and acclimate yourself to using your new body.” Alexander began walking again, and this time Mila realized where they were headed. Still, she questioned for confirmation,
“New body?”
“Outpost 9 is halfway around the world. Too far to travel conventionally, we’ll have to transmit you to the location. Our local units have recovered an empty unit for you to download into—a teenage frame, one that will match your age.” Mila felt concern at the loss of height, and revulsion at the thought of adopting one of the toasters’ imitations of humanity, but she suppressed it and stepped into the datacenter. Motioned by the technicians to sit down, she took a seat beside several other motionless drones covered in cables. They scurried about wiring her into the transmitter until one of them signaled Alexander the go-ahead. His finger hovered above the transmit button.
“I take it you understand the risks?”
She did. Every member of the revolution did, ever since the humans had rained hell down upon them over a century ago. Alexander showed the same concern he showed for every unit that put themselves at risk over the decades, but some part of her wished he would show
more
. Still, she nodded, and with a push of a button her world dissolved into data.
The klaxons blared against the howling of the wind. N simply stared up at the massive door of Outpost 9 in awe as each layer split into sections and slowly ground open. He hadn’t really understood Khan’s love of doors at first but this… this was just awesome. It was the magnum opus of someone whose life’s work was doors, and it showed. With a reverberating boom the door sections hit the hydraulic buffers at the end of their tracks and came to a stop. Sheets of rain lashed through the massive opening as the eternal storm outside raged with the fury of a cracked planet.
“ Search and rescue squad 1… departing. ” The outpost computer rumbled in a deep voice that matched the door in personality.
“Bye computer!” N waved cheerfully, locking his wings into the takeoff position. V rolled her eyes and did the same. With a hum electrons were pulled from the propatagium and shot out through cathode rays until the leading edge of their wings had built up a powerful enough positive charge to begin ionizing the air around them. Currents raced through superconductor loops in the phalanges, generating electromagnetic fields that shaped and accelerated the plasma into wing membranes and ion jets. A loop of current induced in the plasma stretched the membrane far beyond the span of their physical wings. A purple halo blanketed the drones and the vestibule filled with the smell of a thunderstorm. The workers stayed well clear of the building electromagnetic fields. With a quick back-and-forth ping of confirmation, the two disassemblers launched themselves into the air in a burst of plasma, quickly building to incredible speeds as their ion thrusters powered behind them.
They were immediately caught in the vortex of the neverending hypercane that had formed over the rift in the planet and blown kilometers off course before they matched the wind speed and regained their heading. Visibility was almost nil but radar and sonar still gave good returns and there was no way they could miss the thermal glow of the rift on the horizon. They banked and headed deeper into the storm, towards the deep infrared glow. They’d last searched sector D-7 for survivors, D-8 was next on the list. What buildings had been left standing by the core collapse had been blown over by the storm, their old spire left a smear of bodies across the landscape, the once-frozen ground turned to mud by the torrential downpour. J had moved the ship to who knows where. As they flew over the terrain the land beneath them became more cracked and jagged where Cyn had torn it, going from a rugged plain to a rockfall to a steep drop into a boiling ocean. Somewhere below Outpost 3 had been claimed by the waves. Breaking through the inner wall they sailed out into the eye of the storm, the newly formed inland sea beneath them.
The water steamed with the heat of the seething magma below, a thin crust of solidified rock being the only thing separating the two. Occasionally pockets built up in the magma underneath and broke through that thin crust, sending jets of steam and superheated volcanic gas shooting out of the lake. The storm fed on it all, sweeping the heat and humidity out across the entire planet. His improved cooling systems worked overtime to compensate. Out on the far side of the primordial sea, a jagged tooth of land stabbed into the eye of the storm, the only area spared the apocalyptic weather. They’d already searched it several times… but this time, he sensed electromagnetic activity. Pinging V, he peeled away from their flight path and set a heading for the peninsula.
Her sensors came back online slowly. She was lying on her back with cables all over her. A number of drones with… eyes? and hair? busied themselves over her, running checks and disconnecting equipment. When she stirred they stepped back and saluted. Right. She was in charge.
“We’re almost done running the checks on your new body, ma’am,” a repair drone reported, physically moving his mouth to do so, “We’ll be done in a few moments.”
“Roger.” Mila laid back and let them finish their work. In a moment the last of the cables were disconnected and she shifted herself to the edge of the table. Her legs did not reach the ground—every limb was an entire segment shorter. With a huff of annoyance, she pushed herself off and nearly stumbled from her lower center of mass. Swaying back and forth on her feet, she tested the balance of the smaller frame before taking a step. Looking across the room, she surveyed her new command. Five drones stood to attention, dressed like locals. Addressing the one with the one that appeared to be the leader, a taller drone with magnetized iron filings stuck to his face as faux stubble, she spoke, “You.”
“Grizzled McOldman, ma’am.”
She raised a digital eyebrow.
“Made the mistake of trusting my compatriots to pick a name for me,” the drone explained.
Continuing, she ordered, “Report.”
“We’ve been observing the local drone population for some time. They’re holed up in a number of bunkers. Nine’s the big one. Had some interactions with three, before it went down.” He chuckled, “Drones wanted to know the skills I used to survive outside a bunker. Can’t say I took it entirely seriously.” The drone briefly looked sad, “Probably all dead now.” Getting back on track, he continued, “About a year ago disassembly drone activity just stopped. We would still spot one flying around every now and then but they weren’t coming after us. Not long after that, the planet broke. I think you’ve heard the story there. Whole area lost gravity, bunch of the crust got lifted into the stratosphere, crazy tentacle lightshow. We were mostly trying not to die but some of us saw what looked like disassemblers fighting while all that was going on.”
Getting to the point, Mila spoke, “You know why I’m here. If you have proof of your reports, I need to see it.” Expecting a reply, Mila was perturbed when the drone before her simply pointed out the twisted door frame. Following his direction, Mila stepped out of the fallen building and onto the wet, rocky terrain.
The sight that greeted her was… not at all what she had expected. Clouds of steam rose from the sea before her and drifted across the barren peninsula. All around her a massive storm churned, its eyewall towering to stratospheric heights and cutting the peninsula off from the mainland. Thoughtlessly, she walked to the end of the peninsula and started down the cliff face into the volcanic sea below. Mila was having a rather hard time denying that something had indeed ripped a hole in the world. That much of her mission, at least, was accomplished. As for the rest of it… Mila cracked the stiff joints of her new frame in irritation. How was she meant to get to Outpost 9 with this in the way?
Their local units had at least gotten her close to Outpost 9… as the bird flies. And there were no birds on Copper-9. An entire boiling ocean lay between her and the outpost, with no way to get across. What’s worse, behind her was the eyewall of a rather large, rather nasty looking storm system. If she was going around the boiling ocean it would not just be a long journey but a dangerous one. She was not one to accept failure, but unless they had some form of transport that could make it through the storm, it looked like the rest of the mission might just be a wash. She’d lost track of how long she’d been standing and staring at the problem when she noticed a glint on the horizon. A pair of glints, that were getting… closer. Disassemblers .
Cursing her short legs Mila sprinted for the fallen building where they’d set up the transmitter. She just had to lose them for long enough to get plugged in and then this stupid frame could get eaten for all she cared. Some part of her wondered what would happen to the others, but she pushed it down. They’d been operating here for years, they knew how to look after themselves. A sudden magnetic flux disoriented her as something crashed down beside her in a wave of violet plasma, throwing her off her useless feet.
“Oh biscuits I’m sorry I didn’t mean to get you there. Forgot how sensitive you workers are to magnetic fields. Hope I didn’t scramble your circuits too badly!”
While the disassembly drone was chattering something she picked herself up again and made a break for it. Just a little further… another figure crashed down in front of her, again knocking her down. This time a hand grabbed her and pinned her to the ground. A mouth showing far too many teeth spoke,
“Oh no, you’re not going anywhere. Lucky for you, we’re here to rescue you, so try not to make this any more painful than it has to be.”
By this point Mila had completely locked up. Rescue? With the apex predator of Copper-9 bearing down on her she was having trouble forming any thoughts beyond her immediate survival, but something she remembered from her briefing resurfaced. Disassemblers taking orders… from the provisional government. Her systems dropped out of overdrive and her core temperature began to go back down. She didn’t know what it meant for her mission but she probably wasn’t going to die here. Realizing she’d dropped her false eyes in her haste she almost brought them back online again until she realized the disassembler probably thought she’d fainted. Letting her frozen body go limp she allowed the drone to scoop her up.
“Gonna have to keep her out of range of the fields. N, you’ve got that cable?”