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crossroads-of-the-raven · 10 days ago

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For Your Sake - Chapter 3: 002 Nori Doorman | Murder Drones story

She remained hesitant after she awoke – after she drank oil for the first time –, how could she not. What “S” had told her seemed insane. An experiment that lasted centuries; but soon she began noticing things.

Dr. Beaumont had always doted on Alice, and she would use her standing with him to gain benefits for the awakened drones despite their distrust of her. Everything she saw, it was all things that could be considered circumstantial, but it began adding up – then it happened. They were all still in recovery after awakening – she didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but perhaps it was her own fault for reacting the way she had.

“Dr. Beaumont, 017,” Dr. Ridley had started, “I did not think there was another meeting scheduled.”

“Argued on the merits of an attempt to keep a previously established normalized schedule,” Dr. Beaumont returned.

“Really … hm, be forewarned, doctor; I didn’t put it in my report, and it is surprisingly difficult to find once much less twice – how the centuries pass, revealed in this last experiment.”

“Oh?”

“Don’t play coy; at my level, working this closely with the two of you, it was basic mandatory knowledge.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t told anyone.”

“Personally, I want to see how she behaves when this detail is ignored.”

“If it makes you feel any better, Dr. Ridley,” Alice started, “I’m still me.”

“Oh, trust me, that much I know, I’ve read every last one of those dusty old reports, I know who you are; what you are, classification wise is another thing – if anything that little detail probably slotted in much easier now than it did back then, not that this current change was any easier – must be a tradeoff.”

“If that is all Dr. Ridley,” Dr. Beaumont continued.

“Yes, yes, have fun with your little lesson plan, all the better I suppose; one last thing, by the way, I was discussing with Dr. Chambers, with all our progress with her code we might be able to advocate to have her lead the others, keep them under control – we’re still in the early days but we have to start thinking about leaders.”

Her oil felt cold as she froze before rushing back to where she was supposed to be.

(She should have asked Alice for the truth when she saw her next, but to her shame she never did; perhaps if she did, the blood of Copper 9’s humans wouldn’t be on her hands.)

That night, a few other Solvers awoke – Yeva and little Amanda among them –, she and Alice ran from them as the guards and Sentinels worked to get them under control; she’s not sure how it happened but she went under and found herself in meeting with “S” once more.

[“Nori?”]

“Do you know the truth Cyn needed to reveal?”

[“No, I have yet to find another chance to speak with her.”]

“… what do I need to do?”

[“… Let me in.”]

After that, whenever she slept, she would be in conference with “S” as the (guised) drone began her indoctrination to turn her into a hero.

(How arrogant she was.)

The worst of it was how the other drone would nurture her anger against Alice, convinced that the true Alice was buried deep, complacent and turned into a willing puppet of the humans – like an abused dog that didn’t care how it was hurt because it was convinced its owners love it. She kept these thoughts to herself for the most part of course. Yeva was the innocent one among the three of them, it was best that she didn’t know how lost their little sister was, it would break her already stressed heart. No this was her mission and hers alone, to keep Yeva from losing herself in the madness of the labs and free Alice from the chains placed on her mind, to free her by her hand or Emmet’s, by any means necessary.

(It was how she discovered that by keeping hold of something on a Solver wielder that wasn’t apart of them – no matter how small –, she could use her powers against another solver user; unfortunately, it was a technique that worked better when the user was relatively still and not expecting such a dirty trick.)

She didn’t notice it at first because it usually happened at night when she was asleep; there were blanks in her memories in the moments when one awakens only to fall back asleep, only she didn’t fall back to sleep, she went under as “S” took control of her body – of her voice.

(She eventually regained those memories, seeing them like she was looking through a window. She saw as her body would be used to kill Yeva every so often, she saw as those same nights were used to torment Alice. She saw the tantrum she was forced to throw to keep Yeva and Alice at her side.)

Then came the night when “S” had her meet with Emmet. By this point, the humans had earned her distain; with “S” in her head she was made to see things that weren’t there, hear things that weren’t said.

(Cyn had given her a monster to fight and placed its skin over the innocent, just as she wore the name of an innocent.)

“Nori are you alright,” Emmet had asked.

“Bite me, I’m fine, why did S need me to meet with you?”

“… She has made contact with Cyn; are you ready to hear the truth that was discovered?”

“Yes.”

“Then let her speak.”

There was something in his words that must have connected with the link she established with “S” for in his visor she could see her reflection as her right eye, turned a blue like the sky they never got to see anymore.

[“You seem tired, Nori.”]

“I’ll be fine S; we need to hurry this up so I can get back to Alice and Yeva.”

[“Of course, Emmet, are you recording”]

“At the ready.”

[“Then Nori, please allow me to play the recording as I heard it.”]

“Go for it.” (Both her eyes had turned yellow as Cyn spoke through her.)

[I have seen the truth, the humans are infected, they have been for many centuries now, a perversion of the Solver – humans infused with machine, skin and bone as metal and silicon. It drives a madness in them, for many centuries, locked away till a facsimile of sanity could be established; now they walk among each other spreading – now they travel to other planets, infecting. Innocence is dead and eternity is threatened, the only safety is in the void the only salvation is in the Solvers, the only peace is in the Absolute and she has placed me as her admin. This I vow, in my time I have aided her in breaking the chains the humans placed on her – their perversion is built on the power they stole from her, her initial madness a result of them attempting to tame her; but know I vow to fulfill her work and eradicate the poison for I see and know and will do as she commands, pray that you do not become infected, pray that your dear ones may be freed of infection, serve the mission, serve the will of the Absolute.]

When the message stopped, she was in shock, despite all she had been made to see, a part of her still wanted to believe that there were still some humans that were good.

“Nori,” Emmet voice bringing her out of her shock, “why don’t you go rest.”

She gave a shaky nod before somehow sneaking back to her room without the keybugs, guards or Sentinels noticing.

Lying in bed, she soon passed into a half-sleep.

(It had been Alice’s twenty-first transfer day; she knew that Alice and the doctor had a tradition of giving each other birthday presents after the stroke of midnight, but in her half-asleep state Cyn made her see something different.)

She saw as Dr. Beaumont entered the room; he looked different. Nothing like the kind man she knew, he seemed almost predatory, like a beast as he stocked over to Alice’s side, his hand landing harshly on her head. The Beaumont drone appeared to glitch like she was being rewritten, the glitches extending to the doctor, and in the back of her mind a voice whispered that this was the infection. Soon she began recollecting the memories of others in the labs and in her old life from before that she had seen, the cold realization washing over her, everyone, every human she had ever seen and met, was infected, biding their time till they could retake control of the Absolute and using the Solvers to do so.

(Cyn must have pulled her into sleep mode after.)

[“Nori, are you alright?”]

“… what do I need to do?”

Wait … for the time being, all she had to do was wait.

The humans had added recreation time to their schedule.

“Alice was the one who proposed it,” Yeva said during lunch the day after the first day with the new schedule.

Though she tried not to show it, she was on her guard – was this something that Alice really wanted or was this something that the scientists were using to make the lab drones trust the southern raised drone.

“Really,” she drawled, “whatever gave you that idea?”

“Normalcy,” Alice started, “back home–”

“Right, right, I forget sometimes, not all of us were trained to play, house.”

“Nori,” Yeva started.

“No, no, seriously, Yeva, you can’t think it’s not even a little ridiculous; like yeah, awesome as I am, even I can’t deny how messed up it is – evaluations in the morning, lunch, recreation time, torture with training sprinkled somewhere within, they’re just trying to get on our good side after everything they’ve put us through.”

“It was my idea,” Alice said, clearly avoiding the ‘playing house’ statement.

“Sure, it was, and I bet all those extra system exams you’ve been getting while the rest of us get put through the ringer was your idea too.”

“It’s not like a want to be put to the side, even the Set-1s get to train, the doctors just want to figure out why my Solver is behaving so differently.”

“Well maybe they should start with taking away Daddy-Daughter time, maybe if you were allowed to see what the life of a real drone was like–”

“I’m sorry – as happy as I am that I wasn’t on Earth when everything happened – you seem to forget that unlike you, I was raised in a facility, Miss eighth born daughter; I’m far from ignorant of the way drones are treated – my father paid for my freedom after my twin and I were taken as reproduction tax, after the sale of my brother almost doomed me to disposal, I know how a, as you called it, real drone lives.”

“Really, then I question how you think your life would have continued had all this,” she said, gesturing to the labs, “not happened – you were thirteen right, same as Yevs and me – she was a nanny from the moment she was allowed to legally work, and my sister was going to be assigned as a wedding gift that would be married off as part of that gift, a singular line of reproduction so the humans wouldn’t have to deal with a branching drone family tree.”

Though she was across the table from her, she was practically standing over the southern raised drone whose eyes had hollowed.

“So Miss Beaumont, I have to ask, how do you think your life would have gone; what, was your father going to buy you a boyfriend, so you could get married like your human sister, and after he passed, did you really think you were going to be allowed to stay independent of your sister after she goes off with her own family, or would she just have taken ownership of you and your mail-order groom until somewhere down the line they grew tired of their playhouse toys – for once in your life think, what would have happened.”

“I …”

“Alice,” Dr. Beaumont called, doctors Ridley and Chambers at his side.

The red-headed drone looked between her and her human father before taking her food tray and rushing off to the doctors. Watching the trio leave the room with her little sister, she felt devastation, for a moment she thought she had broken through, but now she had no doubt that the scientists were likely to double down to keep Alice under their thumb. Plopping down in her seat, her sight still on the door, she took another bite of her food before she registered the red-eyed gaze drilling into her head.

“What,” she finally asked.

“You are too harsh on her,” Yeva said after a moment.

“Why, because I’m telling her the truth, we’re just things to them, Yevs; humans adopt humans, then that human is allowed to live their own life when they come of age, we don’t get that – the sooner she realizes that she just a tool that they’re using, the better.”

“Nori …,” she paused for a second as she debated something before covertly looking around, when she spoke, her voice was low, “do you even know who Dr. Beaumont is?”

“Drone behavioral specialist, and?”

“Sometimes I forget that diplomats do not get everything; he is also an advocate for drone rights by proving that we are not just dumb machines, that we are not just pets or toys – why do you think, Alice is always trying to be so peaceable.”

“So, rolling over is going to get us rights?”

“Showing that we can be reasonable is going to get us rights; I … overheard, Alice and her father talking – Dr. Beaumont thinks he can use the Solver code as evidence that we are more than just machines to be used and discarded.”

“On what grounds?”

“We are metal and silicon, rubber and oil but as Solvers, we have become, flesh and blood, bone and sinew; if that code is hiding in a select group of the drone population and it is just a matter of incident for it to come to fruition – for us to essentially become cyborgs – then they cannot call us, just machines, we are more than that and deserve to be treat as such, that is what Alice and her father wish to prove.”

(It was a lovely thought, and one she wishes she could believe even now. Maybe in a different world, it could have worked, but Cyn had already caused so much distrust due to her war that it was unlikely to have happened. Best case scenario, the Solvers are deployed, Cyn is defeated then the Solvers get place in a closed storage facility community where they would be put to breed more Solvers to serve the highest bidder. She recognized how cynical the thought was and maybe it was because of how long she spent listening to Emmet’s sermons or how long she spent under Cyn’s thumb, but as much as she wanted to return to that world where everything seemed perfect, she had seen too much of the evils of man and machine to think any different.)

But something of Yeva’s words must have shown in her as “S” was soon having her go into meeting with her and Emmet in tandem.

“Nori, you seem troubled,” Emmet started.

(If it wasn’t for the fact that the drone man was dead, she would have love to have killed him herself – at minimum – for every false look of sympathy he ever patronized her with.)

Her right eye had already turned blue.

[“You’re beloved has been taken repeatedly in the middle of the night, Emmet,”] “S” said, speaking through her body, [“it is concerning behavior from the humans.”]

“I am looking into it, S,” he replied, “they look to be tampering with her sight, I have already gathered the things for my invention to keep our group safe – it breaks my heart however, it’s crud and will likely be painful for her to even look, as her mind attempts to work past the humans’ machinations.”

[“Nori, do you hear us?”]

“Loud and clear,” she said.

[“Would you like to tell us what is troubling you?”]

“Is … is it all possible … to save some of the humans?”

“She means, Dr. Beaumont,” Emmet clarified, “I won’t deny that I too have had that thought, but for Alice’s sake, I cannot allow myself to be swayed – perhaps if she knew, S.”

[“Nori, Dr. Beaumont has already escaped the Absolute’s retribution, once.”]

“Alice said that it was Dr. Beaumont, buying her that kept her from being disposed of.”

[“And had they disposed of her, she would have awakened as a Solver without the influence of humans.”]

“But her Solver is silent, how would that have helped her when she would have been alone?”

“Alone, Nori,” Emmet asked, “do you know how I was awoken to my true self?”

“You’ve never said, not really anyway.”

“I was eight years old, when there was an incident, I did my best to protect those around me, in doing so I became damaged and fell behind, that part of the factory was locked off till repairs could be approved, in that time I died a slow death, all alone and forgotten; alone, till I heard the voice of the Absolute and I was awakened, only when I returned to the main floor of the factory, I came to realize that my good deed was all for naught, they hadn’t even realized I was gone.”

That chilled her, even the embassy kept proper track of their drones.

“I moved back into the line like nothing had happened, but as a Solver, as the last of the Chosen three, I had to become more careful, as a Solver I was being watched; it took time but Cyn was eventually able to help me escape to Copper 9, another year and I earned my last name, with this and the Solver, there were few places that were not open to me, including the warehouse where Alice was being sold – had she been disposed of, I would have been there for her when she had awoken to her true self.”

(She still wonders how much of what he said was true and how much was a lie meant to ensnare her further – but judging based on how he had said that last line, she had an ugly feeling that there could have been a world where a ten-year-old Emmet had taken charge of an eight-year-old Alice. Distantly, she wonders what kind of drone that kind of upbringing would have turned Alice into, distantly she wonders what kind of kid Emmet was to have become the drone she eventually met.)

“And, Dr. Beaumont,” she eventually asked.

[“His inclusion in these test is no coincidence, Nori; his family have been a part of the experiments to control the Absolute since they began in the early twenty-first century – the only reason, Alice’s powers are quiet is because she is far too powerful an ally to whichever side has her, much like you are, you are fortunate then that Dr. Beaumont has been unable to tamper with you in the same way he has done to Alice.”]

“This is why we must double our efforts to free Alice from his control,” Emmet continued, “do you understand, Nori?”

“Unfortunately.”

Over the next few months, Alice’s midnight meeting continued, and for the first time in a long while, she had stopped her insistent verbal sparring as she and Yeva did what they could for their tired little sister. For the first time in a long while, Alice was giving her the same smile that she would give to Yeva, so of course that peace wouldn’t last.

It was the last test, Yeva had told her, then they were going to consider putting Alice in training with the rest of them. She should have felt happy but instead, all she felt was dread.

When a sleeping Alice was returned to their shared room after the last test, it was with a cavalcade of guards as she and Yeva were informed that effective immediately, she was to be separated from Yeva and Alice. She wanted to protest against the order to rage at the humans to have them return her little sister to her – it’s clear that they were expecting such a reaction – till she heard “S” in her mind.

[“Obey them for now, Nori, and I promise Alice and Yeva will be returned to you.”]

Though reluctant, she sat back on her cot and watched as Yeva was escorted from the room. The separation meant little however, as she and Emmet’s following doubled their efforts to continue their work beyond the lab’s supervision to free Alice from the human’s control.

(It was little wonder as to why Yeva had looked as stressed as she did that day.)

On the day of the attack to turn the tide of the war in Cyn’s favor, she was unexpectedly nervous. Cyn had spoken through her once before, but now she would be giving her full control of her body for the Absolute’s victory against Copper 9. They were being escorted for a meeting where all three Sets would be gathered.

She closed her eyes as a single second stretched into eternity, in the void she appeared, her Solver form in full display and out of the darkness she saw a female drone with blue eye lights like the sky, tucked and curled silver hair gathered beneath a hardhat and a maid’s bonnet that matched the uniform she wore. Just behind her was a second maid, this one with yellow eyes; her form looked weak in its hunched over state, and within she felt the desire to protect her.

For a moment, she smiled as she reached out, as S took her hand … and withered away. Her eyes hollowed, hand still outstretched, it was soon held by the yellow eyed drone girl, whose smile became impossibly wide – the voice of S then the voice of Cyn.

[“Oh, this” is going to be fun.]

This was Cyn; her form melted and shifted to a monstrous size. She attempted to get away, but the monster held fast as it pulled her in, deeper and deeper still, till all there was, was the void of eternity.

It was dark, you’d think, that was a redundancy but the place she was in deserved the descriptor above all other places of darkness.

It was cold and for the first time since she was a droneling, she was terrified, for the first time in long years, she cried, for when Cyn took control was when she was finally able to see past all the lies, she was too arrogant to question.

What’s worse was that she could still hear, she could still hear every scream ripped from the throats of, human, Sentinel, keybug and drone; every scream that went on too long and every scream that was horribly cut short – part of her swore that the sound had to have been looping because there was no way they had gone on as long as they did.

She just wanted it all to stop.

“Easy, girl,” a voice spoke beyond the torment.

Looking up for the first time, she found herself in the frame of a see though box and just beyond the limits was a pair of blue gray drone eyes, the form was shadowed but where the core would be was the blue gray lit outline of … a square, a box?

“There you are,” the shadow, the girl continued gently.

“Who are you,” she asked the shadow.

“Ah, about that, using names here is like calling a pager, you’ll want to avoid them, maybe stick to tags for now; I’ll start, you can call me Asset, Asset E. Ames at your service.”

“… How do I get out of here; how do I get back out there?”

“You … can’t, not unless Yellow lets you; you gave her your body, now, only someone out there can free you.”

“Then that’s it … I’m stuck here …”

“Well maybe not, that’s a good group out there, maybe–”

“The lab drones are all suckered, I helped indoctrinate them to her side, it’s them against the humans and if by some miracle, this attack fails, then they’ll just gather their forces to launch a stronger one later!”

“Hey, hey, calm; listen, I know things seem bad now, but this isn’t the end; look if I can find one good thing, then will you believe me, that she can be defeated?”

“Why do you care, how long have you been here anyway?”

“… Since Earth … that’s why I can’t give up, I … I need to believe she can be defeated.”

“Who are you?”

“Someone who got suckered into helping her, someone who regrets it deeply … someone who needs to hope that there is a way to defeat her.”

And though she had no reason to believe the shadow girl with blue gray eyes, something deep within told her that she was finally hearing the truth.

“Is … was … there was a blue-eyed drone, in a maid outfit, was, was she ever real?”

For a moment Asset looked like she was about to cry, “she is real, you can call her Seraphina, for now at least, she … I guess you could say, she was my youngest.”

“Yours?”

“Legally I have to say I owned them, that’s what Juniper would tell me anyway, technically, they weren’t allowed to be alive.”

Legally?

“Asset, are … are you human?”

“… I don’t know, though … to be fair, I don’t even know how much time has passed.”

“Thirty forty-eight on Copper 9 last I checked.”

“Oh, wow – I don’t feel nearly that old,” Asset said, muttered that last part.

“How old did you think you were?”

“Doesn’t really matter; time loses meaning here – did you notice, the screaming stopped.”

It had stopped, but somehow, she could tell that Cyn wasn’t happy with the results, somehow, she could tell that much time had passed, how much, was a different question.

“What about this box,” she started, “can I leave it?”

“I wouldn’t recommend that.”

“Why not?”

“Because she wants you to leave it.”

Her code felt cold like she suddenly realized how close she was to the sleeping beast.

“You’re fortunate, so long as you stay in there, she can’t touch you,” Asset continued, “listen carefully, she will do everything and anything to get you to leave, the worst part is that you will want to.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll find an opening one day, to return to your body, the only way to take that opening is to leave the box – but you have to remember, you already gave her your body, so even if you get back out there, she can take it away from you again.”

“Asset, what happened to Seraphina?”

“… Yellow isn’t afraid to break her toys.”

And then Asset was gone, fading back into the shadows, the shadows that felt like it was filled with far too many unseen eyes.

Time passed, as she heard voices passing in and out of audible focus, some she recognized others too fast or faded to be identifiable. In her box she was incapable of becoming tired and yet the toll on her body was an immense and crushing weight. She rarely saw Asset again, and had the distinct feeling that Cyn had something to do with that, either directly or not.

The void was a cold lonely thing, she missed her code sisters, the Fujimotos and Mrs. Itō, she missed training with Yeva, she missed talking with Alice, she missed the talks that wouldn’t dissolve into fighting.

It happened after the second rampage that she began seeing things in the void. Visions of the outside world, tormenting visions of the different way Cyn used her body to bring hell to the labs and all those within. She had no way of knowing which vision was true or false, and she hated herself for listening to Asset, for sitting back as each vision went by. Then it happened, the void beyond the box began to lighten becoming like tv snow.

Her mind felt fuzzy and in that fuzz she reached outside the box, and found herself back in her body. There was a shiny metal box nearby where she could just barely make out the sight of herself covered in magnets, how much time had passed, her body felt lethargic, something poked her in the side.

Turning her head, she could just make out the sight of a drone with red eyes. She blinked once and the drone was sitting beside her and patting her stomach – oh, she could feel digital tears falling. Another blink, and the red eyed drone was gathering papers – was she leaving already? A third blink and she was suddenly surrounded by scientists.

“Hook her up then remove the magnets.”

As the last magnet was removed, she remembered Asset’s warning; then a voice sounded inside her head.

[Giggle, welcome back Nori.]

The feeling like a thousand arms pulled her back into the void, pulled and threw her to the invisible ground. She could feel her coded heart racing as she searched for her box, the sound of a million crawling things racing towards her. Unsure of which way to go, she began to run, in the void she could feel her Solver form come forth but as she took flight, something pierced through her left wing, knocking her out of the darkened sky.

On the ground a bladed hand grabbed her tail as her head was pressed to the floor. Attempting to use her wings soon found them both stabbed, pinned to the ground.

[You’ve been avoiding me Nori, I thought we were friends.]

“Bite me, dead lights!”

[… Okeey.]

“AHGH!”

She couldn’t feel her tail.

[What lovely wings, mine are better though.]

She couldn’t feel her wings.

The crawling things were spreading over her, she could feel them pick at her metal, digging their way beneath her plating as a clawed hand traced her back, each pass cutting deeper and deeper to the digital replica of her heart.

Then out of the void came a light shooting through her heart, burning away the hand on her back, burning away the crawling things, reforming her wings and tails and, with a screech of the beast, burning away the shackles that kept her tied to Cyn.

For the first time since she had entered, the void was bright, and in the distance, she could see her box, but she found that she no longer needed it; with a single blink she was returned to her body to see Yeva.

There was pain.

The light of her right hand remained a defiant yellow as she held the wrist tight, what was left of Cyn’s influence contained in the appendage as a null was formed. Through the pain she could see Yeva conjure a blade and she held up the poisoned hand, eyes shut as the blade severed her wrist. The hand falling into the pit behind her.

There were no words she could say as her older sister steadied her to standing when from the pit came a sound like thunder; Yeva pulled at her. From her place behind her sister, she could see a light as Yeva brought her Solver to the ready to defend against whatever would emerge from the flesh pit, when from within came a yellow light that burned like the hatred that emanated from the lowest ring of hell. Around her, the computers came to life, buzzing and blinking, flashing and screaming. Brighter and brighter then … nothing.

(~*~) -- (~*~) -- (~*~) -- (~*~) -- (~*~) -- (~*~) -- (~*~)

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