#immortal Vuzi AU | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

devastator1775 · 27 days

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"Her name is Anne. Please love her like we would have loved her. (Chapter 1 maybe?)

Summary: When you are immortal, there are rules you need to follow. Hide in plain sight. Be unassuming. When the time comes, vanish and start anew. V and Uzi have lived their many lives with these rules. An unspoken rule between them: never have children. It's better that way. Then, on the eve of the start of a new life together, something goes wrong …and now they have to decide how to deal with this accidental baby.

Immortality.

Eternal youth.

Not even for Drones, this was a thing. Drones aged: in programming, in mentality, their personality matrix – basically what housed what one could call a Drone’s ‘soul’ – matured and thus did the Drone in question. Their bodies would age as well, to the point where regular repairs wouldn’t suffice anymore. The outer shell would lose their shine and become weathered, joints and servos would lose their flexibility, programs would malfunction over time and hardware would wear out. A Drone would grow old, fade away …and die. They weren’t designed to last forever. Even sentient machines have their natural lifespan.

Unless you were Worker Drone Uzi Doorman and former Disassembly Drone Serial Designation V – just going by V these days. Their victory after the final encounter with the Absolute Solver had left both of them changed. It wasn’t enough that the Solver had killed N, taking him away from Uzi and V. No, it had a final card to play. A last curse, a vengeful courtesy of a dying eldritch abomination unwilling to let its enemies have the last laugh. Replacing old ‘gifts’ with new ones.

Uzi and V were immortal. Their bodies ever young, never aging, never malfunctioning, always healing, unable to let them die. Cursed to see their loved ones wither away while they remained.

More things changed over time for the two. They grew closer, as there were no others who knew what they were going through. In the face of eternity they found solace with each other. A close bond formed between them; a friendship which eventually turned to love.

As time went on, people around them were changing at how they looked at them. There were whispers in the streets, curious glances when they thought it wasn’t noticed. Uzi and V knew that something bad would happen if they didn’t do something. And thus, during a stormy night, the two immortal lovers packed up everything …and left. They vanished out of Drone society. They found a place for themselves, far away from prying eyes and potentially harmful intentions. Hide away until history became legend. Until the events of the past just became a scary story to tell young Dronelings.

And for a hundred years, it was enough.

Until the moment that it wasn’t.

When their shared loneliness became too much, they took a new step out of the shadows. They slowly returned into the light and into this new world the Drones had built for themselves. Even from their little hideaway, they had seen the expansion of the Drone population and the subsequent rise of town and cities around the Planet. In this New Age of Dronekind, they could hide in plain sight. Disappear into the masses and become just another face in the crowd.

But they knew they had to be careful. Their unique condition made them an oddity in this new world. If they were found out, who knew how people would react? With fear? Animosity? Someone with less than amicable intentions would be inclined to destroy them, or worse: capture them and try to copy their …affliction.

All that Uzi and V wanted was to live their lives, in peace and with each other. So they renewed their vows to look after each other. They would take every precaution they could think off. They created dozens, if not hundreds, of different backstories. Countless variations of where they were from, how they met and so on.

Uzi already had some self-taught knowledge about hacking, coding and other computer skills, but in the years leading up to the moment that they would start their lives anew, she learned everything possible in order to become a true master. She studied for years to collect every other tool and skill they would need to adapt.

V had to adapt in other, more permanent ways. Since every trace of Disassembly Drones had vanished over time, her appearance stuck out like a sore thumb drive and people would take notice if a Drone looked exactly like something that in the new world was considered an urban legend. So, despite Uzi urging that they would find another way; V did what she deemed necessary …and made several modifications to herself. She amputated her tail, removed more than a few weapons – keeping a few ‘just in case - and altered her body so she would appear more like a regular – though, still taller than Uzi – Drone. Uzi insisted on V keeping her wings, though. Uzi even designed a pair of prosthetic boots for her, so they would appear more those of a common Drone. V still needed to walk with a cane, since her legs never fully recovered from the Sentinel attack all those years ago.

And thus, once they felt like they were properly prepare, Uzi implemented the final touch: new identities for the both of them. And with new names, new skills and an entire world for them to travel, they ventured out.

They settled their first new home in a quaint little place in the mountains named Sparc Village, where they took residence in a house in a quiet neighbourhood. To their neighbours, they introduced themselves as ‘Iza and Violet Hatchway’. Keeping their background simple: Iza and Violet met in high school, where they didn’t see eye to eye at first but eventually found common ground with each other after ‘‘Violet’ had an accident, which had severely and permanently damaged her legs.

After school, they didn’t see each other for a long while, but met again some years ago and decided to pick up where they left off and started going out together. From there, ‘‘Violet’ and ‘Iza’s’ started relationship bloomed and they recently got married – with Violet teasing that ‘Iza’ was bawling like a Droneling when she asked, albeit ‘Iza’ insisting that it was the other way around.

‘Iza’ started working for the local administration as a software engineer – which gave Uzi the opening to lay the seeds for a new program that would help them in the future – albeit working remotely from home, because she was also ‘‘Violet’s’ primary caretaker. ‘Violet’, on the other hand, was an artist- a little hobby V had picked up in their first century living away’ – and made her living selling her paintings and sculptures from their home. In the years that followed, they were known as a friendly, sociable couple that also tended to keep to themselves just as much.

For almost 4 decades, ‘Iza’ and ‘Violet’ truly had a great life, filled with friends and happiness. But then came the day that the ‘old couple of the neighbourhood’ wanted something new and decided to move away to a new town, saying that a change of scenery might be good for ‘Violet’s’ deteriorating health . A few weeks after the move, friends in Sparc Village would receive the heartbreaking message that Violet had passed away and Iza – sick with grief – followed soon. The small group of friend the couple had made over the years held a private and intimate funeral for them, bringing up happy memories and funny anecdotes.

In the meantime, in a city far away from the mountain village, some helpful neighbours helped a young couple move into their new apartment. As their identity chips indicated, their names were Nicky ‘Nix’ Vanderpoort, an aspiring writer who mainly wrote horror sci-fi with an eldritch touch, and her girlfriend Vicky Razborka, a former athlete who had to throw in the towel after an injury permanently damaged her legs and had decided to pass on her knowledge become a trainer instead. They were childhood sweethearts and had left their quiet town to make a life in the big city.

And this is how Uzi and V kept moving through the years. They lived their life through their chosen identities to the fullest and then …moved on, starting fresh in another place, with new identities and new lives. ‘New Chapters’, as they would come to call it.

More than often, they were already together when starting a new chapter. Sometimes, they mixed things up. One chapter, they were merely roommates and dated other people. But V and Uzi didn’t use this scenario often, finding that things were too complicated between them and it was impossible to have a full relationship with a partner if they couldn’t tell them the whole truth.

Another chapter, they were neighbours who couldn’t stand the sight of each other and fought almost every day, but tried to keep things as amicable as possible because they shared friends. Until during a friend’s wedding ‘Karen’ and ‘Vanessa’ got way too drunk and confessed that they had a crush on each other but were both too shy to admit it. A couple of month after that wedding, they moved in together.

There were Chapters that they spend living separate lives, living in different places but keeping contact with each other and meeting up from time to …passionately reconnect.

No matter which identity they were currently going through; every year, Uzi and V made the journey to the town that formerly housed the old Colony-3, to visit the graves of their old friends, Uzi’s parents …and N’s grave-site. It brought a form of solace for them, making sure they lived their lives to the fullest in their memory. And this is how it went for many decades, moving from one Chapter to the next.

Just the two of them.

Forever.

***

Every Drone City housed a Cradle Facility, where Drones couples went to combine their codes into a Untrained Neural Network – UNN for short - and create an infant Droneling that would over time form its own personality with minor influences of the parents’ ones. For practical reasons, these facilities were connected to the planet wide network that contained the residential data of every Drone on the planet. The systems these facilities houses – due to Uzi in another chapter having worked with the team that globally upgraded them – had a backdoor that allowed the immortal Drone to create new identities for them.

The only downside was they needed to be physically there for the process, because Uzi believed that a hardwire connection would be the safest option for them. And this was why Uzi and V, on the twilight of their current lives, were there, in the middle of the night while everyone else was asleep, to make the final preparations to start anew. It was also a lengthy process, which meant that one certain Drone was losing her patience while her partner was working.

“Uzi, I don’t want to rush you-“

“Which you are doing right now.”

“But-“

“Don’t you dare...”

“Is this going to take long?”

Uzi looked up from her laptop and scowled at her eternal partner. “V, I am making extremely difficult alterations to the hardcoded information on our internal identity chips, while running the program that will covertly transfer our funds and assets to our new accounts, unless you want to start our savings account from scratch?” When her girlfriend didn’t answer, she turned back to the laptop. “Didn’t think so. I am also installing a virus that will silently erase any info about our current lives over time, so that we won’t have overlapping data wherever we make our new lives.”

Uzi really didn’t like he grin that was forming on V’s face. “So …about 5 minutes?”

“Keep this up and I’ll make us sisters in our next Chapter.”

V gasped theatrically, dramatically holding her hand to her chest. “Not even suspiciously intimate stepsisters?”

“And I’ll make you the straightest, most boring sister ever.” Uzi grinned as she kept on typing. “A real study bug, doesn’t like to party, likes boys but is way too shy to talk to them, really into polka and-“

“Okay, okay, I’ll zip it.” V grinned. “Man, even after centuries you are still so easy to rile up, Purple thing.”

“And you’re still a psycho, psycho.” Uzi countered, glancing over at V to give her a teasing wink. She let out a deep sigh as V let her arms drape over her shoulders, giggling as V planted a kiss on her cheek. “V, I have done this hundreds of times. Why are you so nervous today?”

“Dunno…” V answered, nuzzling against Uzi’s cheek as she watched her beloved’s fingers fly over the keyboard, the sound of the keys clicking filling the control room of the deserted Facility. “It’s …like a feeling in my core. I’m expecting something to happen.”

Uzi just shrugged. “Well, there’s no need to think that. I have it covered. Security footage shows a loop of an empty building, the system in completely under my control and in a couple of minutes, we’ll be starting our new identities.” She could understand why V was a tad anxious, since she was feeling it too despite not showing it. It was always like this on the eve of their new lives. Neither of them really enjoyed doing this. It meant ending and starting another Chapter of their lives and leaving people they’ve formed a bond with behind. It never got any easier, only smoother.

Uzi’s words seemed to put V somewhat at ease. “Yeah, you got this.” She took a deep breath. “Sorry, Uzi. I’m not doubting you, it’s just… ”

“It’s okay, I know.” Uzi replied, putting in the final command before handing over a cable to V, as she plugged another one into the data port on the back on her neck. “Program is ready, plug in.”

V grabbed the cable and plugged int, unwillingly making a soft moan as it made the connection with the surprisingly sensitive data port, making her blush. She tried to ignore Uzi’s teasing – incredibly cute, though, smirk. “Not a word.”

Uzi just snickered as she initiated the program. Lines of codes started to run down their visor, with a progress bar slowly filling up. All seemed to go smoothly, until the computer that Uzi’s laptop was hooked on started to flicker.

“Uh, Uzi …is that normal?” V asked.

Uzi quickly looked at her screen. “I think that-“

Suddenly, the screens of the laptop, the Facility computer and the Drones’ visors lit up and the two immortals let out a pained yell as they both seized up. Sparks flew up from their bodies as their internal circuitry started to melt but simultaneously healed at the same time. Pain flew through their entire body, leaving them almost immobilized.

“U-U-Uziiii, doooo somethiiing.” V choked out.

With immense difficulty, Uzi reached out to her laptop and managed to slam her hand on it. With a loud pang, both drones got thrown on the floor, their wounds immediately healing as smoke still rose up from their visors.

With a frustrated groan, V managed to scramble up, rubbing her bad leg as she threw an angry scowl at Uzi. “WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT, MRS. ‘HUNDREDS OF TIME’?”

“Are you blaming me?!” Uzi yelled back as she popped up from the crates that she got blown into.

“You must’ve done something!” V bit back as she stomped her way towards Uzi.

Uzi jumped up and ran up the V, shoving her face inches away from V’s visor. “Well, maybe if someone didn’t rush me!”

“Screw-up!”

“Bite me!”

Panting heavily, they kept their angry staring session up for a few moments …and then threw themselves into each other’s arms, pulling each other closely against one another, relieved that their respective beloved seemed unharmed. Their lips met and immediately they latched onto each other, running their hands through the other’s hair and kissing with such a passion one would think they had been apart for years.

“Oh, my robo-God, are you okay?” V asked as she eventually parted her lips from Uzi’s.

“I …I think?” Uzi’s breathing shuddered, tightening her grip around her partner. “That …hurt.”

“I was so scared that-“ V pulled Uzi against her chest. “I’m so sorry for yelling at you, Uzi.“

“I know, V. Me too, me too.” Uzi released her grip and wiped away a digital tear. “I didn’t mean to accuse you either. I just-”

“I know. I know, no apologies needed.” V placed a hand on Uzi’s cheek and rubbed her thumb over her visor, before planting another prolonged kiss on Uzi’s lips. “I did try to rush you, after all…” She took a deep breath and – reluctantly for both sides – released Uzi from her grip. She groaned as she buried her face in her hands. Everything was still tingling from …whatever they just experienced. “So …what in the Solver’s soiled britches just happened?”

“I’ll find out.” Uzi ran to her laptop, which was slightly smoked but still functioning – for the time being – and checked her logs. After a few minutes of checking every line of her logs and running every analytical program she had in her arsenal, Uzi let out a surprised gasp. “So …good news, bad news.”

“Don’t tell me that we’ve triggered an alarm or something?” V groaned.

“No, we’re still in the clear.” Uzi began, but her expression betrayed something had gone amiss. “Good news: my program did its work. Our new identities are compiled and installed into our ID chips. Same goes for my virus, which is going to start its work in a couple of days. Our saving accounts have been transferred successfully as well.”

“So, what messed up?” V asked, she ran her hands through her hair to place it back in shape. Their little …malfunction – and their fiery make-out session – had really messed up her hairdo. “Seems to me that everything – mostly everything – went as planned.”

“N-not exactly ….It seems some employee here got sloppy and didn’t follow the proper protocol at the end of their work shift.” Uzi started to explain, looking very nervous all of the sudden. “They didn’t shut down the system as it should and left a …certain program running in the background while I was hacking. The two programs collided midway and caused a feedback loop, which …well, you felt what happened.”

“What kind of program?” V asked. She cocked her head when she saw the blush forming on Uzi’s visor. It suddenly dawned on her. They were in a Cradle Facility. What kind of program did Cradle Facilities primarily use? “Ooh, no. No, don’t tell me…?”

“Maybe nothing happened.” Uzi tried to reassure with a small voice, albeit sounding like she was trying to convince herself more than she was trying to convince V. “I mean, the people working here wouldn’t be dumb enough to leave a blank connected and-“

Suddenly, crying could be heard from the Facility’s main floor. V and Uzi stared at each other for a few moments, after which they both ran out of the control room and towards the crying. They ran through Cradle Stations, which were used to upload new codes compiled with the data of two parents into blank Untrained Neural Networks.

“Uzi…”

“Maybe it’s just a demo that got activated?” Uzi tried sheepishly. They ran, following the sound of the crying.

“It’s this way.” V called out, grabbing Uzi’s hand to pull her into the right direction.

“Maybe it’s not so bad?” Uzi tried again as they reached the source of the noise. They both froze in place. “Oh no …”

“Uzi…”

“This is bad.”

“Is that…?”

“This is so bad.”

Out of the various Cradle Stations that were in the facility, only one seemed to have turned online. In that one, someone had left a blank Untrained Neural Network; but now … Plugged into the Cradle, crying softly, was a small baby Drone. It opened its eyes when it noticed Uzi and V staring, revealing eyes who’s colors looked like swirling pools of purple and yellow.

“Uzi, please don’t say that-“

“We made a baby.” Uzi squeaked out, her eyes hollow and beaming pure panic. “V. We. Made. A. Baby!

“I see that!” V grabbed Uzi’s shoulder and shook her gently to snap her back into focus. “What are we gonna do with it?”

“Why ask me?” Uzi blurted.

“Uzi, if we leave it, someone is going to find it and –“

“And they will check her coding to find out who her parents are, I know!”

“’Her’?” V questioned. “How do you-“

“I just know and you do too, don’t tell me otherwise!”

Staring down at this accidental creation of new life, Uzi had only one thought: ‘this was bad’. While they could rewrite their ID Chips over and over again without problems; the coding that made up the Personality Matrix was a whole other thing. Not even Uzi had found a way to alter them. Those codes were permanent and unchanging, as it made up who a Drone was. And they could easily filter through those codes to find the parental donors and run those through the system to find them. And then they would find multiple identical matches, spanning throughout decades, even centuries. And then people would start asking questions, investigating things and there would be a strong possibility that the truth about two immortal Drones walking Copper-9’s surface would come out and then …who knew how people would react. Or how they would react towards this innocent infant. Its mere existence possibly put its life at risk.

Uzi’s eyes narrowed as she came to the conclusion that there was only one possible solution. “We’ll have to take her with us.”

“What?” V asked, taken aback. “No way, Doorman! We’ve talked about this!”

“Do you have any better idea?” Uzi asked as she unplugged the pill baby from her Cradle, the latter making happy chirps as it was being picked up. She ignored V’s sputtering when she handed the Droneling over to her. “You wait outside while I’ll cover our tracks. I need to make sure nothing in their systems can be traced back to us!”

Before V could object, the pintsized she-Drone had already run and left the former with a happily buzzing baby in her arms. She looked down at the infant with a scowl, who returned the gaze with a happy expression. “Don’t look at me like that, I’m not happy with this. I don’t like you.”

The infant just chirped cheerily in response, and something tugged at the corner of V’s lips, almost a soft smile. V shook her head and scowled again, getting a happy tune back again.

***

It had been some hours after Uzi, V and their accidental third member had left the Cradle Facility and made their way to a forest far away from any City. They’ve had been discussing on what to do with the baby, who had fallen asleep in the meantime.

“We can’t keep it.” V was pacing around, getting more and more annoyed by the situation. She had been very adamant about her opinion on the matter, while Uzi…

“I know, you keep repeating that, and keep your voice down, you’ll wake her up.” Uzi was sitting on the ground with the baby in her arms, wrapped in V’s scarf and rocking her gently back and forth to keep her asleep. “And what do you suggest we do? We’ve been at this for hours and we’ve been through all our possible options.”

V buried her face in her hands, more to muffle her groan than anything else. Uzi was right, they’ve had exhausted all possibilities. They couldn’t just leave it behind in the woods, that would be too cruel. If they left just left it with someone, they would likely run into the very same problems as if they would have left it in the Facility. And they couldn’t-

“Is there really no possibility we can keep her?” Uzi asked, jolting V out of her thought process. “I mean …it’s our-“

“No!” V snapped, making a startled Uzi recoil. V took a deep breath and smiled apologetically at her girlfriend. She knelt down in front of Uzi and held her face, rubbing her cheek with her thumb. “Uzi, we’ve had this discussion before, remember?”

Uzi sighed deeply. “I know.”

“We decided that we can’t have kids, no matter what.” V took a deep breath. “For one: we don’t know if it would have our …affliction. If she has, she’ll have to make the same sacrifices we have to make over and over again. Even after numerous decades, that is already hard on us; so, who knows what would it do to them? Leaving friends behind and starting over again? Living with the knowledge that they would live on, while the others around them fade away.”

Uzi nodded, digital tears forming in her eyes. She knew how their child would feel, because both Uzi and V had gone through those emotions throughout the years. That longing for an end that never would come. “It would destroy them….”

“And we have each other, but they …” V hesitated to finish her sentence.

“She would be forever alone.” Uzi sighed, tears rolling down her visor. “And if she doesn’t have our immortality …we’ll see her grow up, but one day she’ll grow old and …”

“And I’m not letting you experience that heartbreak.” V insisted. “Because that paint would be worse than what we felt with everyone else we have lost over our immortal life.”

Uzi looked down at the sleeping Droneling in her arms and took a deep breath, eventually looking up at V. “What are we doing to do?”

V started pacing around again, letting every possible route they could take run around in her mind. They couldn’t keep it. They couldn’t leave it with someone. It never was supposed to have happened in the first place. She was feeling more and more frustrated by the minute. This should never have happened. This …infant never should have been –

The former Disassembly Drone froze in her tracks when the thought made her realize what they – she – had to do. She slowly turned around to face Uzi, her gaze to the ground made her expression dark and foreboding. “Uzi, we …we have to get rid of it.”

Her eyes hollowed in shock as Uzi immediately realized what V was suggesting. She pulled the infant Drone tightly against her chest. “No, V, no-no-no, we can’t …you can’t just ….there must be another way!”

“If there was, we would have thought of it, Uzi.” V insisted. She walked over to Uzi and placed her hands on her shoulders. “And ‘we’ don’t have to do anything. I’ll do it.”

Uzi shrugged V off her, pulling the baby away from her. “But …your vow? It’s been centuries since you’ve …You …you aren’t that person anymore.”

V produced a fang-filled grin. “Hey, didn’t you say I’m still a psycho?”

“Yeah, as a joke!” Uzi objected, shaking her head frantically. “V, you can’t kill her!”

V took a deep breath. “Uzi! It’s the only way. This child never should have been born. Our curse, whether or not it will have it, will be nothing but pain for it. Think about it: all it will know is that either it will keep losing loved ones, or that one day we’ll lose them.” She placed a hand on Uzi’s shoulder. “And if it has our immortality, we’ll have to assume the worst case scenario: that there will be a greater chance that someone will find out. We’ll be hunted down for our abilities. We can’t let it live that life. Killing it …is the kindest thing we can do.”

Uzi closer her eyes, tear running down her visor.

“Right now, it’s asleep.” V pointed out softly. “I’ll make sure it won’t feel a thing. It’ll sleep through and just …never wake up. Fast, painless and merciful. It’s the only way.”

Uzi didn’t reply for several moments, breathing heavily while tears kept running. Eventually …she nodded. She whimpered as V gently placed her hands on the infant, unwittingly pulling it closer to herself. V eventually managed to gently pull the baby out of Uzi’s hands.

“Don’t follow me.” V instructed as she turned around and made her way towards the denser parts of the woods. She stopped for a moment to look over her shoulder. Her expression was sorrowful, her eyes screaming pain despite the words she had spoken earlier. “I’m sorry.”

With that, V deployed her wings and flew up in the air; leaving Uzi to sob alone.

***

V didn’t need to fly very far to find a nice open clearing. The stars were out at full force tonight, the sky littered with sparkles and light. The snowy terrain was filled with flowers, as nature had found its way back on Copper-9 in the centuries following the core collapse. It was a beautiful sight.

“At least your final resting place will be pretty, little one.” V stated softly as she gently placed the infant on the ground, making sure it was wrapped up comfortably in her scarf. She gazed down at the little one for a few moments, mentally preparing herself for the thing she hadn’t done in such a long time.

With a heavy sigh, she stood up and deployed her EMP Rifle. V had long ago made the vow that she’d never take a life again and got rid of most of her weapons, but she still kept a few in case they needed to defend themselves. She had kept her claws and swords, but her rifle she had modified that it would fire EMP bolts. An adult Drone would just be knocked down until its system rebooted, leaving them with a few missing hours of memories. But an Untrained Neural Network’s body was weak and very vulnerable. One shot of her EMP rifle would be enough. Fast. Painless. Merciful.

She took a deep breath and aimed her rifle at the sleeping baby.

‘I need to do this. It’s the only way.’

Her rifle hummed as it charged.

‘Just one quick fleeting moment and …done.’

The infant made a soft noise in its sleep. V felt her arm starting to tremble as her expression softened. She shook her head with a scoff and tried to look as resolute as she could.

“Stop acting like you’ve never done this before, V.” She whispered to herself. ‘It’s not the first baby you’ve …disassembled. Just …pull the trigger.”

V’s arm was really trembling and she used her other hand to keep it steady. Her scope was aimed directly at the sleeping baby.

‘It’s easy…’

Uzi’s baby.

‘Take the shot.’

Her baby.

‘Stop crying, V.’

Their daughter!

With a yell, V fell to her knees as tears started to roll down her visor. She couldn’t do it. How could she do it? This was their daughter. Their baby. She and Uzi had longed for a child for years, but they had convinced themselves they couldn’t, because of the very reasons V had given Uzi. And now …they had a baby. And she just attempted to kill her? Was she still the same monster that the Absolute Solver had turned her into back then?

Soft crying jolted V back to reality with a startled gasp. The baby Drone was crying loudly, sounding like it was in deep distress. She must’ve woken the baby with her scream. She frantically scrambled over to her daughter and scooped her up, pulling her tightly against her chest. “Shh-shh-shh, it’s okay. Don’t cry.” She planted a kiss on the top of her head, rocking back and forth as her tears never seemed to stop. “Momma is here. See? Momma is here.”

V lost track of time while she sat there, crying while she was comforting her infant daughter. But when she suddenly felt a pair of arms wrap around her and the baby, she wasn’t even surprised that Uzi had ignored her instructions and still had followed her.

Uzi nuzzled V’s cheek. “Oh, sweetheart.”

“I couldn’t do it, Uzi.” V eventually confessed as she caressed the Droneling’s head. “I couldn’t …I couldn’t do it.”

“I’m happy you couldn’t.”

“I wanted to kill your child, our child.” V sobbed softly as she nuzzled the baby against her cheek. “I’m a monster.”

“No, you’re not. You are absolutely not a monster, V.” Uzi denied softly, planting a kiss on V’s cheek. “You haven’t been that person in a long, long time. You just wanted to protect us. You wanted to protect her.” She paused for a moment. “But this is not the way to do so, V.”

V shook her head in agreement, sniffling. She smiled softly as she saw that the infant had fallen asleep again. She took a deep breath and looked over at her eternal partner. “Uzi …we still can’t keep her.”

“I know.”

“Everything I said …it’s still true.” V stated, sounding like she was trying to convince herself more than Uzi. “It wouldn’t be fair to her. We need to do something for her, but …I don’t know what.”

“I agree that we have to do something.” She smiled as V handed over their daughter to her, positioning her in her arms so she could sleep comfortably. They sat in silence for Robo-God knows how long, just staring down at their child as it blissfully slept. Eventually, Uzi spoke up, her tone cautious. “I …I think I have an idea.”

“You do?” V asked, a hint of hope in her voice.

“Yes …but it’s going to take time.” Uzi smiled, but it was sorrowful one. “-and my computer.”

***

Everyone who knew Hazel and Naomi knew how much of an odd couple those two were. When they met in Sprocketon High School, something instantaneously clicked between them. However, it was a fiery rivalry instead of friendship. While neither of the two treated the other with much animosity, there nevertheless was a tension around them. They always felt like they had to compete to outdo the other.

They went to the same sport teams. They tied as top of their classes. They often went after the same boys. They had the same taste in clothing, music and other forms of entertainment. One could argue that would have made them great friends.

Still, they couldn’t stand each other.

After High School, Noami and Hazel both enrolled in Cogniton University for Medical learning – somehow never ending up as roommates – got their medical degree and both ended up– at different times – in Rivetdale Medical Hospital, ending up living in the same street.

There, to no-one’s surprise, they both developed a crush on the same doctor and competed for his attention. However, after a series of incidents where they both realized how much of an arrogant, misogynistic and egotistical blowhard that guy was, they decided to burry the hatchet and go out for drinks.

From that moment on, their rivalry turned to friendship and it didn’t take them both to realize how much alike they actually were …and how much they actually liked the other. When Naomi got thrown out of her house, it was Hazel that took her in, making their friendship even greater. And as their bond grew closer, it only took one kiss during a party for their latent feelings to emerge and swiftly rise to full bloom.

The very next year, they were married and they talked about extending their family. But tragedy struck as it turned out that an undiagnosed fault in Hazel’s coding made it impossible for her to have children of her own. No matter how much they tried, it would never succeed.

Unwilling to let their wish for children just die out, they turned to other options and applied for adoption. The progress was slow and it never seemed to go anywhere, but neither of them gave up hope. Even now, almost two years after they first applied, as they were watching tv as a massive storm raged outside their house, they talked about their possible future Dronelings. Until lightning struck and thunder roared, making Hazel yelp and drop her bowl of popped button cells.

Hazel scowled at her laughing wife as she started to pick up the tasty snacks. “Don’t laugh, I was focused on the movie.”

“I’m sorry, Haze. It’s just …that sounded so cute.” Naomi confessed with a giggle and a saucy wink, making her wife blush. She got up and knelt down. “Here, let me help you.”

Outside, the world lit up with a flash and soon thunder rolled over their house.

“Wow, it’s really going hard out there.” Hazel muttered. Storms always made her nervous. She gasped as lightning flashed again.

“Aww, I’ll protect you.” Naomi cooed as she pulled Hazel and her bowl of Pop-cells back to her feet.

Hazel placed the bowl on the coffee table and closed the distance between her and her wife, their visors almost touching as she gave her a seductive look. “You know what would make me feel better, Dr. Naomi?”

Naomi hummed as she wrapped her arms around her Hazel’s hips, pulling her tightly against her own hips. “Tell me, Dr. Hazel.”

“If we’d go to bed early ….”

“Good start.”

“We’d get very comfortable…”

Noami planted a few tender kisses on Hazel’s cheek. “Go on…”

“Then I’ll-“

They both screamed when the lights and the tv suddenly powered down, shrouding them both in darkness. They instantaneously started laughing hysterically.

“Well, call about a mood breaker!” Hazel laughed. “Gosh, your scream….”

“You screamed too!” Naomi objected with a giggle. She planted a kiss on her wife’s head and looked around. “Looks like we’ve blown a circuit. I’ll better check the fuse box.”

“Don’t bother. It’s not just us.” Hazel interjected. She pointed out to the side window, where they could partially see their neighbors’ house. The lights at Mrs. Mcdonavan’s were out as well and judging by the absolute darkness out every window, the streetlights weren’t functioning as well.

“Looks like a power outage.” Naomi concluded. “Well, I’m sure that-“

A loud knock on the door startled them both.

Naomi sighed and walked to their front door. “Who’d be brave – or stupid – enough to wander through a storm like this?”

“Maybe one of the neighbors checking in one us.” Hazel guessed. “Just tell ‘em we’re fine and send them-“

“HAZEL, COME QUICK!”

Hazel nearly stumbled over her own feet as she ran over the hallway. “Naomi! Are you-?” She gasped when she saw her stupefied wife down on her knees, holding an infant drone in her arms. “Is that-? How? What?”

“Someone left this baby at our doorstep, Hazel.” Naomi stated in a dazed tone. She pointed at a basket that probably held the infant. “In that…”

Hazel ran out the door and tried to spot whoever had left this child at their home. No-one as far she could see, which was strange. The streets were deserted. There was no way anyone could have left the area without a trace that quickly. They hadn’t even heard a car or anything. “I don’t see anyone.”

“Come back inside!” Naomi called out, as she quickly took the child into the house. She plopped down on the couch, wrapping a blanket around the pill baby. “Poor thing must be freezing.”

Hazel grabbed the basket and closed the door behind her, looking inside the thing to spot any clues about their mystery Untrained Neural Network foundling. There was an old red scarf, an old beanie, a choker where the engraving had been worn out so much she couldn’t make anything out of it, a pair of black rimmed and yellow tinted glasses, and … a note.

“Got some things and a note here.” Hazel announced as she walked in, smiling softly as she noticed how her wife was making silly noises at the baby, which were evidently greatly appreciated, judging by the happy chirps they were making. She sat down next to Naomi and smiled at the little one. “Hi there, little stowaway. How did you get here?”

The baby chirped cheerily, looking around to scan its new environment.

“Such beautiful eyes you’ve got, darling.” Naomi cooed. “Aren’t they, Hazel?”

Hazel had to agree. Two-toned eyes like that weren’t too common, not without any sort of modifications anyway. Hazel unfolded the note and cleared her throat. “’Her name is Anne. Please love her like we have loved her.’ …nothing else.”

“’Anne’, huh?” Naomi mumbled as she tickled Anne’s visor. “Pretty name for a pretty girl, yes it is.”

Hazel giggled and held out her arms, smiling as her wife handed over the infant girl. Her smile grew wider as Anne’s eyes started to droop and suddenly closed, with little ‘ZZZ’s appearing on her visor. She turned to Naomi with a heavy sigh. “What just happened?”

“I think …we’ve been chosen to be …this girl’s parents.” Naomi stated quietly, not wanting to wake up the baby.

“Are you for real?” Hazel asked. “I mean, it’s a cute baby, but …I thought we were going to adopt?”

“Honey, we’ve been waiting two years, and we only recently got on the list to get on the list.” Naomi let out a heavy breath. “Hazel, from the moment we’ve first became a couple, we’ve talked about having children and becoming parents. We’ve endured so much hardship. We’ve been waiting so long; hold on to hope for so long. Our baby room has been ready for 16 months without any use. This little one is a gift.”

“I don’t know …” Hazel groaned. “It’s all so …unorthodox. I mean, we’re going to have to report this. Have her checked out by tech-medics. We’re going to have to deal with a lot of administration and red tape. There’s no guarantee they’re going to let us keep Anne.”

“So, you wanna keep her?”

“Of course, I wanna keep her!” Hazel whisper-shouted as she planted a kiss on her wife’s cheek. “Are you kidding me? She’s perfect!”

“In that case, we’re going to fight for her.” Naomi stated. “We’re not going to rest until we can call ourselves little Anne’s parents. But for now ….” She smiled softly as she looked down at the sleeping Anne. “I believe we have a perfectly good baby room for little Anne to sleep in.” She stood up and gestured Hazel to follow her. “And we better get to bed too. I have this feeling that we are going to have some pretty exciting weeks ahead of us.”

Hazel started to follow her wife up the stairs, but stopped when she set her foot on the first step. She looked over her shoulders to the note on their coffee table. She smiled. “Whoever you are, I promise we’ll love her like you would have loved her, and …thank you for trusting us with her. We’ll take good care of your little girl, our little girl.”

“Hazel?”

“Coming.” She rushed up the stairs, not wanting to miss putting their little Anne to bed.

***

Outside the house, two figures gazed down at Hazel and Naomi’s house. A few minutes earlier, V had deployed her EMP generator, knocking out the entire grid in the street and, with the cover of darkness shrouding her and Uzi, left their sleeping daughter at the door, knocked on the door …and flew out of sight. They had been hiding in the clouds, only landing down at the roof opposite of the young couple’s house after they were certain that these two Drones were going to take their baby daughter inside.

“So, …no-one is going to find out?” V asked with a trembling voice, holding on to a distraught Uzi, who was at the verge of crying.

“I-“ Uzi took a deep breath. “I’ve installed a program that’ll redirect any scanner to a dummy personality matrix with fake coding. If they’re going to try to trace back her parents, they’ll end up at a young couple who will have died a few days from now. As far as anyone will know …we aren’t around anymore.”

“I love the name we’ve chosen….” V stated, her voice small and broken. “Anne …N would’ve loved that.”

“That’s why I chose that.” Uzi whimpered, tightening her grip on V’s hand. “She’ll be alright here, right?”

“We’ve observed this couple from afar for days. They’re a kind, loving couple of Drones. Really involved with their community. They’re great with children. “They …they’re perfect. They’ll love Anne like she’s their own. This …this was for the best.”

“And what if she has our …affliction?” V asked.

“I guess …we must have faith in her that she’ll figure out things on her own.” Uzi answered. “Maybe …maybe, by some small miracle, she’ll find her way back to us.”

“Yeah …maybe.” V choked out.

A sob escaped Uzi’s throat as she threw herself in V’s arms, who couldn’t stop herself from crying as well. They stood there for who knows how long, just sobbing softly in each other’s arms. Eventually, V broke away from the embrace, wiping away a digital tear.

“Uzi …”

“No…”

“We have to leave now.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Me neither, but …”

“I know.” Uzi sighed, wiping away a digital tear. “Just …a few more minutes?”

V smiled softly and pulled Uzi against her. “Okay …a few more minutes.”

***

EPILOGUE: 16 years later

“Okay, where the flipping heck did my moms hide my snack stash this time?” 16-year old Anne asked herself as she rummaged around her parents’ closet in search of the box of Battery Bites that her parents had confiscated earlier that day. Something about ‘not wanting to ruin her appetite’. Nothing in this cabinet either. With a sigh, Anne stood up, smiling as she saw her own reflection in the mirror. She had to beg her parents so much to dye her hair, but it had been so worth it. Jet black with crimson red ends. So glitching rad. It went so well with her bright red jacket.

“Maybe they’ve hidden in on top of the closet again.” She told herself as she grabbed a chair. Even then, she had to tiptoe to reach the top of the closet. Curse her short stature that made her insanely cute also.

As she reached out her arms as far as she could, she suddenly felt her fingers brush against something. A basket or something? Her curiosity awakened, she stretched out herself as much as possible until she managed to get a good grip on it. She nearly tumbled off the chair as she pulled it towards her.

As she hopped of the chair, she confirmed it was indeed a basket. She walked over the cabinet with the mirror and put down the basket. There was something about this basket that drew her to it. Like …and old memory.

Curious, she pulled the first item out: a red scarf. An old scarf, by the look of it. She ran the fabric between her fingers. Why did it feel so …familiar. She held the scarf to her face and rubbed it against her cheeks. It felt so …comfortable. It brought out feelings of safety …and sadness?

She threw the scarf on her parents bed behind her and took out another item. An old grey beanie. She placed the beanie on her head, smiling at how good it looked on her. It felt …right to wear it.

The next item made her grin. It was an old black choker. “Wow, never knew my parents were into this fashion choice. Retro.” She chuckled as she put on the choker. Like with the beanie, it just felt right. It was weird, she never really had the urge to accessorize before, but these things were just calling out to her.

A pair of yellow tinted glasses were the last item she pulled out the basket, and she just put them on to try them out when she saw something at the bottom of the basket. A note? Perhaps an old love letter from her parents? She grabbed the note and opened it.

Her name is Anne. Please love her like we have loved her.

Anne felt her core freeze as she read the message. What was this? This was not her parents’ handwriting. She read the message again. As she felt all strength leave her legs, she stumbled backward until the back of her knees hit her parents’ bed and she plopped down.

“Anne? Anne, where are you?” Her mom Hazel called out. She appeared in the master bedroom doorway, her expression a mixture of stern and amused. “Are you trying to find your snacks, because …” She froze when she saw what her daughter was wearing and the note she holding in her hand. “Anne, where did you…?”

Anne’s voice was soft as she held out the note. “Mom …what is this?”

“Oh no.” Hazel eyes started to tear up. “Noami! Naomi, come here, quick!”

The sound of footsteps rushing up the stairs and soon her momma Naomi appeared next to her wife. She gasped when she saw her daughter.

“She found it?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“She always was one to snoop around.”

“What have told her?”

“Nothing, I just got here.”

“I am not ready for this.”

“Neither am I.”

“Can someone please tell me what this is about?” Anne asked loudly, her tone a bit sharper than she intended it to be. Tears were welling up in her eyes. “Sorry, it’s just ….all these things, this letter. What are these things and why did you hide them from me? What does it all mean? Who wrote this letter?”

Hazel and Naomi gave each other a look. The latter sighed and nodded at the former. Hazel cautiously approached her daughter and sat next to her. Naomi placed herself on the other side of their daughter.

“Anne, honey, I believe it’s time that we’ve told you something.” Hazel began.

“Something that, maybe, we’ve should have told you a long time ago.”

Anne’s grip around the letter tightened as she readied herself for her mothers’ story.

To be continued?

#murder drones #vuzi #uzi doorman #MD V #immortal Vuzi AU #fanfiction

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devastator1775 · 1 day

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Anne's Journey: Two eternal Souls And The Lost Daughter - Chapter 01: When her entire world turned upside down

Summary: Anne Brinkman entire world just got turned upside down. Her parents were not her real parents. Well, they are, but they are not her birth parents. She was adopted. Left behind on a doorstep during a stormy night, in a basket with a note and some personal items. Whoever her birth parents are, it was an established fact that they had died not long after leaving Anne behind. Still, Anne can't help but think that something doesn't add up. Too many coincidences, too many easy answers. But, there is nothing that can be done about that, right? ... Until proof is found that they are still out there. Determined to find out the truth about herself, her parents and these strange new abilities she seems to be developing, Anne sets out into the world to find the answers and solve this mystery.

‘Her name is Anne. Please love her like we would have loved her.’

Anne let out a deep sigh as the words kept repeating in her heads over and over, the handwriting of the note hovering in front of her – because she had the image projected on her interface.

“You, uh, might have been kinda, uh, a-… a-.” “Adopted.”

The sight of her mothers – those she had called her mothers her entire life - on the verge of tears as they confessed the one thing they’ve had been dreading to tell their daughter, was something that would be burned into her optics forever.

“Where …where did I come from? Who were my birth parents?” “We …we don’t know.”

She let out – another – heavy sigh as she buried her face in her hands. In a span of minutes had her entire world turned upside down and she had no idea how to navigate all …this. It had been a few days since …everything that had happened and every day she felt a little worse. The stress had her entire system in a twist.

At the moment, quite literally.

She winced as she felt something inside her synthetic guts twist and turn, making her curl up on her bed with a whimper. For a moment, it felt like her entire body was overheating and her insides were being completely rearranged, but luckily, it didn’t last too long.

She let out a breath of relief as she discomfort subsided and her body relaxed again. “Okay …that was weird.” Not one to let things like this just happen without figuring out what the ever-loving Robo-God just happened, she quickly ran a diagnostic scan, seeing if something in her internal structure was damaged.

The results didn’t show anything wrong with her, beside that her energy reserves were going to run low soon. That was, like, totally on her; she couldn’t sleep at night, so her recharge cycle wasn’t as efficient as usual. She also had trouble eating much, which meant too little matter was converted into fuel and stored inside her energy cells. And thus, her system started to glitch because of it. All very logical.

She really needed to get something more solid in her bio-converter reactor, unless she wanted to end up at the doctor’s garage. And stress-snacking Sour Battery Bites didn’t help much either. Empty calories didn’t make a great fuel source. Tasty, though. Maybe she should pop down to the kitchen and make herself something healthier than the snacks she had been keeping on hand.

…

She grabbed another Battery Bite out of the bag and popped it into her mouth. Time enough for that later. Maybe.

The adolescent Drone rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling, as she tried – once again – to put everything that her parents had told her a few days ago into a coherent order. Going over all the facts and reach a agreeable conclusion.

“It was a stormy night, so …people would have been inside, so whoever left me didn’t want to be seen.” Anne mulled over, as she rolled the sour candy battery around her mouth. She tried to recall other things that her mothers had told her about that day. “Power outage? Seems …convenient. Too convenient… And no-one was on the streets either? How the flip-flopping heck did they do that? Grow wings and fly off?”

She reached under her pillow and took out the note that had revealed the truth to her. She had been keeping it there for …whatever reason she had done that. It didn’t help her sleep better, that’s for sure.

“Her name is Anne. Please love her like we would have loved her.” She read aloud, as she had done so many times over the last few days. Two sentences. What her name was and a plea to love her. Nothing else. No explanations, no other instruction, nothing that showed who or why she had been left behind.

There was one thing that vexed her. Out of all the houses out of all the streets out of all the suburbs out all the cities that sprawled all over Copper-9 …they had chosen the only people that wanted to have children, but were unable to. What were the chances that a young couple who have been waiting for so long to adopt a child of their own would, quite literally, have one delivered to their doorstep on a silver platter? Or rather …in a synthweave basket.

Something about that made her think that it was possible that Hazel and Naomi were specifically chosen. Someone had given their newborn child away, for whatever reasons they possessed, to the ideal couple of Drones. Someone had been watched them before they made their move.

She folded up the note and gently placed it inside her jacket pockets and reached out for the other item that lay beside her. Other clues to whoever had knocked on her parents’ door that fateful night.

An old red scarf. Slightly worn, but still comfy and warm. According to Naomi, it was wrapped around her, keeping her warm and dry from the cold, rainy weather that night. So …at least her birth parents cared enough to do that. She pressed the fabric against her cheek, like she had done so often now. There was that familiar feeling once again. Comfort. Safety. Sadness. It stirred up something inside her memory banks, but nothing concrete. Feelings and blurred sensations, but nothing visual that popped up.

Next item. An old beanie. Dark grey with black stripes. Worn, and there was evidence that something fluffy had once been attached to the top. And old piece of headwear, but still good enough to wear. Not much to go on there. These types of beanies had been popular for years, decades, if not even centuries. Half of her classmates and even some teachers wore these things. She even had one, but only wore it when she went outside, and even then, only when she felt like wearing one. There was evidence of repairs, ranging from amateurship to almost professional. Either two people had been working on this, or someone had to learn to sew and whatever stitches worked best. Someone tried their best to keep this beanie in good shape, which showed an attachment to it. And still, they had given it up …given it to her.

Next were a pair of glasses with yellow-tinted lenses. A special type glass was used. The type that some Drones would wear to enhance their vision …or just to look cute. Not as old like the scarf or beanie, but people could get these types of specs anywhere. But the lack of any sort of manufacturer also implied that someone had handcrafted these. Someone who had a specific type of style. Someone had taken the time to learn this, just like with the stitchwork on the beanie. Besides that, nothing else that could tell her more about who had owned them.

She picked up the final item, holding it between her thumb and index finger as she let it dangle above her head. An old black choker. A band made of charms resembling flowers or some sort of ice crystals. The middle part showed an insignia of some sort, but it had faded away so much that Anne hardly could make anything out of it. Some sort of skull and the numbers 002. Like the scarf and beanie, it looked really old. Maybe something passed down from parent to child?

Anne sighed as she clutched the choker in her fist. It was no use. None of these pieces were significant enough to help her solve this puzzle and everything else her parents had told her didn’t help much either. As she stared up at her ceiling, she wondered if she could just write down every clue she knew, stick them up there and connect them with red string as some gravitationally challenged evidence board.

…

Nah, she didn’t have any red string on hand and she couldn’t be bothered to buy some just for this. Seems like a waste of her allowance. Pretty sure that sort of thing doesn’t work anyways.

The questions, the revelations, the whole thing was really building up inside her, until she really couldn’t keep it inside her anymore. Anne took a deep breath for a few moments, after which she let out a long continuous groan, the kind that seemed to stretch out for several scenes and couldn’t be interrupted by even a dodgeball hitting her on the nogging …but only lasted about 10 seconds.

She should have known that she was adopted. In hindsight, the clues had always been there. Her eyes obviously couldn’t be any more different than those of her mothers. Her yellow and purple eyes versus her mothers’, which both had green eyes – one emerald, the other mint.

There was her height. When a Untrained Neural Network reached a certain age, it would be assigned a body, and the type of body was determined by the Drone’s Parental Source Code. Her mothers were both taller than her, so If she really would have had their parental source code, she would have been assigned a tall model as well. But she was given a shorter model, so that would have meant at least one of her parents would have been short as well.

Then, there were the little things. She had a bit of a temper – which she totally had under control – while her mothers always seemed to be able to keep their calm. She had a natural knack for anything electronic, having taught herself how to hack. Her mothers were both doctors, but even with their own predisposition for it, they had to got through years of Tech-Med school to reach their current level.

It was something in her appearance as well. People always seemed so surprised to learn that Anne was Hazel and Noami’s daughter, often mentioning that she looked so different from her parents. Now she knew why. Anne sighed. This whole thing was making her head spin. Before Anne could spiral even further down her whirlpool of thoughts, a knock on her door startled her out of it and made her sit up.

“Hello?”

“Anne, sweetheart? May I come in?” It was Naomi. Were her mothers home? She thought that they were at the hospital.

“Yes, momma, come in!” Anne called out, a hint of guilt welling up. Her mothers had been giving her space after their talk, even allowing her to stay from school for a couple of days – a doctor’s note was easily acquired when both you parents were doctors –, but she had been kinda, somewhat, just a little ignoring them. It’s not that she hadn’t said a word to them, but Anne had entrenched herself inside her room for these last few days and didn’t have the courage to face them too much right now.

“Hi there, little Anne.” Naomi greeted cautiously as she peeked inside the room.

“Hi…” Anne greeted back, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips as she hear her mothers’ favorite pet name for her. “I thought you guys were at work?”

“Hazel still is and I took the afternoon off.” Naomi explained. Having you home alone, especially after …well, we felt better knowing at least one of us was here.”

“Oh …”

“I, eh …noticed you hadn’t finished your breakfast.” Noami smiled sheepishly and held out a tray with a few sandwiches – or rather Dronekind’s equivalent of a sandwich. “I thought you might be hungry. They are your favorites, with extra spicy thermal paste.”

“That’s okay, but- “

“Anne Elliot Brinkman, you have hardly eaten proper food in two days and I’m not leaving until you’ve finished at least one sandwich.” Naomi stated, her voice calm and collected but Anne knew her momma well enough to hear that subtle and unspoken ‘or else…’ between the lines. Naomi smiled softly. “Please, for me? So I know you’ve had something besides those snacks of yours?”

After a lifetime of having the occasional squabble with her parents giving her the intricate ability of knowing when to push back and when to just simply give up, Anne held out her hand and accepted the plate of lovingly made sandwiches. As her mother took a seat next to her, Anne took a bite …her eyes lit up and she started to scarf down the food. Naomi just shook her head in amusement. Anne must’ve been hungrier than either of them thought.

When Anne had finished her plate, she handed it over to Naomi with a small ‘thank you, momma’.

“You know, school has called again.” Naomi began casually, but Anne could hear that little something in her voice that told she had something else on her mind.

“Oh…?” Anne tried to keep her voice even, but it wasn’t easy to keep it casual. She had so many burning questions and she was looking for an opening to ask about them.

“They asked when you would return.”

“Well, tell them-“

“I told them you’d return Monday.” Naomi held up a finger to Anne’s lips before the latter could utter a disagreement. “We have been very understanding these last few days, because we know how hard and difficult this news had been to you.”

“That’s an understatement…” Anne muttered silently, alas not silently enough if that disapproving scowl her mother her mother was giving her was anything to go by. “Sorry.”

“You better.” Naomi sighed, but tried to put on a sympathetic smile as Anne looked away. “Honey, staying away from school for a few days was fine, since you ‘weren’t feeling well’; but any longer and you’re going to need a proper reason to do so. And before you ask: no, neither me nor your mom are going to just hand you a doctor’s notes.”

Anne sighed. She knew her momma was right. She didn’t like it, but she had to relent anyway. “Fine …”

An awkward silence fell between the two, with Anne fidgeting with the old choker she still was holding and Naomi staring down at her hands folded up on her lap. Eventually, the older Drone let out a heavy sigh. As she spoke up, the teenager couldn’t help but notice how broken her mother’s voice sounded. “Anne, darling, I know you must hate us, but-“

Anne’s head shot up, shocked at this statement. “’Hate you’? Why would I ever hate you?” She pointed at herself. “And please take notice of the complete lack of sarcasm in my voice and the absolute, genuine confusion its actually projecting.”

Noami didn’t seem convinced. “Anne, we’ve lied to you your entire life.” She wiped away a digital tear. “But you must believe me when I say that we are so sorry for-“

Anne didn’t give her mother a chance to finish her speech of self-pity, as she threw her arms – pretty much her entire body – around her mother and hugged her. A gesture immediately returned by Naomi, who pulled her child close against her chest.

“Momma, I could never - I repeat, never - hate you.” Anne choked out, digital tears running down her cheeks as guilt now truly filled up her entire being. She felt awful for making her mothers feel that way, especially since they didn’t deserve it. “Yes, you lied about this, but I can kinda understand how hard it was to find the right time to speak about this. Yes, suddenly finding out the truth like this was hard, but momma, you and mom took me in as your daughter. You fed me, raised me, and you loved me like your own. I am who I am because of you two. You are my parents and I love you two so much. Nothing will ever change that!”

“Of course we did.” Noami agreed softly, tears running down her visor. “And we love you too. You have been nothing but a blessing for us. Our little Anne.”

Anne pulled away from the embrace and held her mother’s hands in her own. “But can you blame me for just …wanting to get away from it all for a little while to just process all this? When you told me the truth …Momma, my entire world just got turned upside-down and I don’t know left from right anymore.”

“Well, Hazel and I do know a little of what that’s like.” Noami stated softly as she caressed her daughter’s cheek. “To have your life going on like it always had and suddenly ….lightning strikes, everything is different, nothing is like it was anymore and there’s an entirely new normal you have to get used to.”

“Is that really what I am going to have to do?” Anne asked, squeezing her mother’s hands softly. “Just …get used to the new normal? Just going through life feeling like there’s an entire piece missing from my puzzle?”

“I don’t know what else you could do, Anne darling.” Naomi said with a heavy sigh. “Me and Hazel have told you everything we know.”

“Are you sure there is nothing more?” Anne asked. “There must be something you can tell me?”

“Honey, I don’t know what else to tell you about that night.” Naomi sighed, running her fingers through her hair. “Me and Hazel were watching television during a storm when the power went out. We heard a knock on the door and when Hazel went to check, all she found was this little Droneling, all alone. No-one in sight. Just a basket with a baby, a note and some personal items.”

“And what about my Parental Source Code?” Anne asked, despite knowing very well what her mother was going to answer. “Can’t they trace my parents that way?”

“Anne, they tried that. A few days after we brought you into the hospital to check you out – you had a perfectly clean bill of health, by the way -, we got word that they had tracked down the two donors of your Source Code, and …”

“The young couple they had found had died a few days after the night you had found me, you’ve told me this.” Anne sighed. “So, who were they?”

“We …we don’t know. Their ID-Chips were destroyed in the accident and frankly, …we didn’t want to know. We were fighting to get you adopted as our child and we feared that any sort of potential revelation would result in them taking you away from us. ” Naomi confessed.

Anne ran her hands through her hair. “There’s really nothing else? Anything?”

“Well …” Naomi mused. “It’s probably nothing, but they found some …irregularities in your data files.”

“That doesn’t sound like ‘nothing’.” Anne sat up a little straighter. “What did they find?”

Naomi sighed. “Don’t get your hopes up, sweetie. It meant that they couldn’t find any data on Cradle Facility you were from and you had some minor, harmless corruption in some of the data strings, which all were fixed when your Core got transferred into your kiddie body.”

“That …doesn’t sound like anything minor.” Anne stated carefully.

“From what I remember – and not a lot, since this was 16 years ago – it seemed to point out that something didn’t go exactly right during your, uh, moment of conception. Computer error, a glitch in the system, things like that. ” Naomi explained. “They believed that, most likely, this young couple had broken into a Cradle Facility, for whatever reason, and accidentally triggered the Neural Network Fabricator, which resulted in …you.”

Anne deflated. “I …I was probably an accident?”

A silence fell again, with Anne mulling over the what her mother had told her.

“Honey …I …”Naomi took a deep breath. “Even if your birth parents never planned for you; even if they couldn’t – for whatever reason – keep you as their own, they still loved you enough to make sure you were taken care off. Lesser people would have …tossed you away, or worse.”

“But they didn’t …” Anne realized, slowly looking up. “They wanted me to have a family. They wanted someone to love me, like they would have loved me.”

“And I’d say that you’ve gotten just that, sweetheart.” Naomi spread her arms open, inviting her daughter into a hug – which Anne quickly agreed too, as she practically lunged at her mother. A few moments passed in comfortable silence, before Naomi broke it. She broke away from the hug and used her fingers to brush her daughter’s hair. “Feeling better?”

Anne shrugged. “A bit …but …”

“But …?” Noami pressed.

Anne wrung her hands together, unable to bring herself to look her mother in the eyes. “Please, don’t be mad, but …I …I still would like to know more. I still have so many questions and- “

Noami grabbed Anne’s hand. “Of course you still have questions, sweetie. It’s only normal.” She assured her daughter with a loving smile. “And maybe, one day, you might get some answers, but …not right now. Right now, there are three things that you can be certain of right now.”

The confused teenaged Drone cocked her head, a question mark appearing on her visor. “And those are?”

“1. Your parents – adopted or otherwise – love you very much, no matter what.” Noami began, counting down on her fingers. “2. Whatever happens in the future, you will always be our daughter and you will always have a home with us.”

“And the third thing, momma?” Anne asked with a big grin.

Noami booped Anne on the nonexistent nose with a massive grin. “Understanding mom or not, Hazel is gonna flip a gasket when she sees what a pigsty your room has become and you better clean it up before she gets home.”

Anne chuckled sheepishly as she gazed around her room. It was …pretty chaotic, even for a teenager’s room. Dirty clothes strewn around, snack wrappers more around her trash can than inside it, books and comics that didn’t provide any sort of distraction on several places besides her bookcase and more ... All the pacing around, brooding and mildly immature temper tantrums of the last few days hadn’t done her room any favors. She rubbed the back of her head. “Uh, I’ll get right on that?”

“You could do that.” Naomi suggested as she stood up from the bed, a mischievous grin on her face. “Or …since you’ve been cooped up here all this time and Hazel is going to work late today, how about we have some mother-daughter time first, and afterwards I could help you clean up? How does a trip to your favorite clothing store sound?”

“Sounds absolutely perfect, momma!” Anne agreed with a massive smile as she jumped up from her bed.

Now, those who knew Anne well would agree on a lot of things about her, with variations of agreement. She was really pretty. She was really intelligent. She was friendly. She could be really sarcastic when she wanted to be. She was a Drone who liked to help out. She was a great friend. She had a great taste in retro music. She was equal parts dork and cool. She did have a bit of a temper, but what teenager doesn’t?

But there was one thing they all agreed on. Anne was anything but graceful. In fact: she was a bit of a klutz. Tripping over her own feet, running into things, bumping into people when she wasn’t paying attention.

Or, in this case, getting her blanket somehow wrapped up around her feet without her even noticing.

Instead of jumping of her bed with gracefulness of a now-extinct gazelle, Anne got her foot caught and tumbled right over the edge of her bed. She didn’t even have time to yelp before she landed face-first on the ground.

She heard and felt something crack. Her visor ..not again. She only had visited the tech-doc last week for a new visor and she really didn’t want to explain how it happened this time. The reason for the previous time she got injured was embarrassing enough.

Naomi, despite being used to her daughter’s clumsiness, still gave the latter the courtesy of being concerned. She hoped she didn’t sound too casual about it. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”

“Ouch …” Anne groaned as she got up, holding her hand over her right eye. She stumbled back onto her bed, a bit dizzy from the impact. Her visor felt like it was burning. “I’m fine, but I think I’ve cracked my visor ..again.”

Her mother immediately held her daughter’s head between her hand. “Move your hand. Let me see.” She gave Anne a quick look as the latter removed her hand from her head. Naomi softly rubbed her thumb over Anne’s visor and smiled. “No, nothing there. Not even a scratch. You got lucky …this time.”

“Huh, seriously?” Anne questioned as she jumped up from the bed – this time without any more injuries – and walked over to her dressing table and looked into the mirror. To her surprise, her mother was right. No cracked visor, no pieces missing, not even scratched. Her visor was completely intact …it somehow looked even better than before. “I could’ve sworn that …”

“Well, be glad you were wrong, honey.” Naomi giggled. “Although, with two more visits to the tech-doc this month and we’ll be getting a free frozen yoghurt.”

“First: haha, very funny.” Anne grimaced, sticked out her tongue at her mother – who copied the action. “Secondly, I still can’t understand how Doc Bronwyn is able to combine her doctor’s practice with an ice cream parlor …with massive success, I might add?”

“Some people just have a great mind for business, I guess.” Naomi chuckled, holding out her hand to Anne. “Since you don’t have any life-threatening injuries at the moment, how about we get going?”

Spurred by the prospect of getting some new clothes on someone else’s money - and spending some quality time with her momma, obviously – Anne grabbed her mother’s hand and gave the latter a big smile. “Ready!”

***

Anne hummed a happy song as she pretty much danced into her room, bags of new clothes in each hand. She had so much fun spending time with her momma. Shopping for clothes, getting her favorite coolant milkshake, just relishing in the fact that she should be at school that day but instead was out there. It had been a good day. It was something that she really needed. A welcome distraction of her own downtrodden teenage mind.

As she threw her backs onto her bed, she felt something crunch beneath her feet. As she lifted up her foot, she was surprised to see it was a piece of glass. Curiously, she bend over and picked up the shard and held it up to her visor.

It was a piece of glass, sure, but …more specifically, it was a broken piece of her visor. She was sure of it. After all, she had broken the dang thing more often than she cared to admit. She looked over to the place where she had picked it up. It was right where she had, uh …violently stumbled out of bed. The precise same spot.

But …she hadn’t broken her visor then, right?

Right?

She walked over to her mirror and leaned in close to her own reflection, giving her visor a thorough look. Nothing broken. No cracks, no scratches, nothing at all. Her visor was damage-free. Weird. Everything told her that she hadn’t broken anything. She was unharmed and still, there was a piece of her visor in her hand. It’s almost like it …

With a scoff, she threw the shard in her trash can. Maybe it was a piece she had overlooked after the last time she had unwillingly divebombed out of her bed – which happened a bit too much, if you asked her.

Now, she still needed to clean up her room and make sure that Hazel had something to be happy about when she got home from work. She wanted to make it up to both her moms for giving them such a hard time these last few days, and this would be at least a good start. As she started to pick up her clothes, her eyes caught her reflection in the mirror again, which made her stop. She stared at her face, at her multi-colored eyes for a few moments …before she shook her head and went back to her task at hand.

Surely, it was nothing be worried about.

…

Right?

#Murder Drones #Immortal Vuzi AU #Vuzi #Murder Drones OC #fanfiction

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