Murder Drones: Uzi's Bubbly Disaster
Disc.: Murder Drones belongs to Glitch Productions Pty. Ltd.; created by Liam Vickers.
The metallic tang of ozone and scorched copper hung in the air of Uzi's bedroom. A poorly calibrated charge from her railgun—intended to vaporize a hole in the bunker door (again)—had instead detonated inward, sending a blinding flash of energy straight into Uzi's central processor.
Khan meticulously checked the door for blast residue, muttering about Uzi being grounded for a "bazillion months". N hovered nearby, looking concerned for his girlfriend.
"Uzi? Are you… ok?" N asked, tilting his head as Uzi's eyes opened.
Uzi's purple eyes were now radiating a soft, neon pink, flickering with little heart icons.
"Oh, I'm more than ok, N!" Uzi chirped, her voice several octaves higher than normal, completely devoid of its customary gravelly edge. "I'm wonderful! Wounds are simply hugs from the universe, and I'm ready to hug everyone back!"
N felt like his own processor was about to explode. "'Hugs from the… universe'? Uzi, you usually call the universe a 'garbage fire' right before you try to murder everyone."
"Such emo nonsense!" Uzi tutted, fluttering her fingers in a motion she'd definitely not learned from some rom-com holo-disk N totally didn't make her watch on one of their dates. "If we focus on the bright side, dear, we can achieve anything! By the way, would you like some oil? I put a little flower in the can!"
She held out a rusty can that was leaking slightly and had a dead flower sticking out of the lid.
"What in the name of door hinges is going on here?" Khan finally looked away from the bedroom door, his face a mask of bewildered panic.
Uzi giggled at her father. "Nothing, Daddy! N and I are just sharing an oil can, and then we're going to make out and draw cute pictures!"
N's internal temperature gauge spiked, and his eye screen fogged up. Too hot…!
Khan's jaw dropped. "'Daddy'? 'Make out'? 'Cute pictures'?" The mechanical carpenter took a step back and held his fingers in a cross position. "Who are you and what have you done with my daughter!?"
A sudden clank announced V's arrival as she landed on the railing outside the Doormans' apartment. She barged right inside, not even bothering to knock ("For Pete's sake, V, I made that door!" Khan exclaimed in frustration), and widened her eyes at the saccharine scene in Uzi's bedroom.
"What in the name of gears is going on here?" V demanded. "Why is Uzi smiling? Seriously, this is even creepier than the time she tried to clip my wings together when I found her collection of Simple Plan CDs!"
"We have to fix this immediately," Khan declared, grabbing a bulky repair manual labeled Bunker Maintenance Protocol 7G: Self-Repair for Unruly Drones. "It says here: 'To reboot an emotionally reset drone, hit them hard on the head'."
N quickly stepped in front of Uzi, who had been obliviously humming a cheerful tune and drawing a picture of a butterfly this whole time. "Wait, Mr. Doorman! You could damage her!"
"It's for research, N!" Khan insisted, hefting a large wrench with shaking hands.
Uzi looked up and let out another giggle. "Oh, if you want to hit me, Daddy, that's fine! Just make sure you give me a hug afterwards, k?" She skipped over and presented her head, like a puppy waiting for a pat.
Khan was so shocked, he dropped his wrench immediately.
V shook her head in dismissal. "Pathetic. Move aside, Mr. Doorman; I have an idea." V extended a claw, razor-sharp and gleaming, and slowly dragged the tip across the floor. "Hey, happy-bot. Wanna go slaughter a few hundred humans on the surface, just for fun?"
Uzi clasped her hands together in a gesture of pure delight. "Oh, that sounds lovely, V! But before we do that, N and I still need to have our makeout session, and then maybe we can all discuss our feelings! I bet you have so many wonderful feelings tucked away!"
V recoiled, her face twisting into an expression of horror. "No. No, no, no. I am not discussing any feelings! Hard reboot it is, Mr. Doorman! Do it fast before she tries to braid my hair!"
Khan swung the large wrench. "This is for your own good, Uzi! Protocol demands proper emotional suppression!"
N instinctively lunged forward. "Wait, Mr. Doorman! Let's try something else first! Maybe she just needs a really bad movie marathon!"
Uzi, still presenting her head to her father, clapped excitedly. "Oooh, I love bad movies! Can we watch The Cat in the Hat first?"
N and Uzi's interruptions caused Khan's aim to waver just enough. Instead of connecting with Uzi's head, the wrench hit the exposed diagnostic screen of the broken railgun, which had started sparking again. The impact sent a shower of bright red error messages and a sharp zzzt of electrical feedback directly into the ground.
Uzi shimmered. The soft, neon-pink hearts on her visor instantly evaporated, replaced by two violently cheerful, spinning yellow sun icons, complete with exaggerated smiley faces. Her high-pitched chirp intensified into a manic squeal.
"Oh, my circuits!" Uzi shrieked with manic delight, twirling in place. "That felt like a delightful tickle! My optimism levels just increased by 400%! Thank you, Daddy! You're the best! We should celebrate with a choreographed dance routine!"
Khan dropped the wrench with a deafening clatter. "What, 400%?! That's… not better. I'm out of protocols. This is way above my pay grade… although, I only get paid 14 bolts an hour, so that's not saying much."
V stalked toward the sparking railgun, giving Uzi a wide berth. She kicked the control panel, extinguishing the sparks.
"Alright, failbots. Clearly, blunt force trauma just increased her cognitive sweetness factor," V muttered, pulling out a tiny, razor-sharp screwdriver. "This requires precision. We manually inject a real error—something that brings her back to baseline misery."
"Wait! Stop!" Khan suddenly shouted, throwing himself between V and Uzi. "I have a non-invasive, psychological solution! If we can't shock her system with physical damage, we'll shock it with… boredom! We'll show her the true despair of our existence!"
N and V looked at each other, their visors displaying identical question marks.
"We're going to give her the Door Talk," Khan announced with grim determination.
Two hours later, V was resting her head on the table, emitting low, defeated groans. N was trying to make shadow puppets on the wall with his hands, his visor locked on a screensaver of a lonely cloud. However, Uzi was unexpectedly thriving.
Khan paced the room, pointing at an imaginary blueprint in the air. "...and that brings us to the optimal thickness of the double-hinge assembly. Now, the common misconception is that stainless steel provides the best tensile strength, but when considering the thermal expansion coefficient of the magnetic latching system, coupled with the seasonal coolant drip—which, by the way, only affects 3B models manufactured after 2045—"
"This is fascinating, Daddy!" Uzi clapped, the yellow suns on her face beaming. "But wait! Have you considered the acoustic dampening properties of a triple-layered foam core versus a simple vacuum layer? If we optimized for sound reduction, the Worker Drones on the other side might feel less alone, which is so sweet!"
Khan stopped dead, his head shuddering with excitement. "Acoustic dampening! I never thought to optimize for emotional support! Uzi, my little doormaker, you are a genius! Now, tell me, what about the four-stage bolt protocol versus the classic, aesthetically superior five-stage bolt?"
"Five-stage, obviously!" Uzi declared, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "Because it provides five opportunities for a worker drone to feel safe and protected! It's an act of pure, mechanical love!"
V lifted her head just enough to growl. "She's not fixed, she's worse! She's taking the only thing that made Khan tolerable—his tediousness—and making it… cute."
N chewed on his finger nervously. "If we can't bore her back to normal, we have to try the opposite extreme. The only thing Uzi hates more than doors is... being popular."
Khan snapped his fingers. "N is right! We need a Social Trauma Reboot! We will introduce her to the entire Worker Colony at a mandatory, wholesome social event! We'll force her to experience the crushing weight of positive social approval and normalization!"
V shuddered, but agreed it was better than the memory core idea. "Fine. But if she starts a mandatory hug session, I'm vaporizing the entire mess."
The Community Social was held in the central cafeteria, adorned with handmade streamers and a banner reading, "Welcome to popularity, Uzi!" in glitter glue. Uzi, wearing a homemade flower crown made from recycled wires, stood in the center, absolutely radiating manic glee.
"Oh, look, N! They made a banner just for me!" Uzi squealed, accepting a lukewarm cup of oil from a drone named Darren.
A group of Worker Drones quickly surrounded her.
"We just wanted to say, Uzi," said a small drone, "we forgive you for the railgun thing! It's actually a wonderful conversation starter!"
"And we think your dark clothes are super charming!" added another. "They show you're really creative!"
Uzi's eye-suns flickered, reducing to 350% brightness. She managed a strained smile. "Creative! That's… so nice of you to say! I love being validated by a large group!"
Then, Ted, the most boring drone in the bunker, stepped forward. He held a small, poorly knitted scarf.
"Uzi," Ted said sincerely, "You've changed. You used to be so unfriendly, but now you're exactly like the rest of us! We made you this scarf. It's beige. It's for blending in."
Uzi's sun visors went completely dark. Her head tilted, and a low, high-pitched Error: Identity Conflict began to whine in her vocalizer.
"B-blending in?" Uzi stuttered, the cheerful tone dropping, replaced by a confused static. "Beige? Unfriendly… changed… like the rest of you… normal?"
The idea of being normal—of being just like the rest of the drones she had always resented and rebelled against—hit her core programming like a sudden, shocking blast of cold.
The manic grin vanished. Her pink eyes flashed yellow, then orange, then back to the full, aggressive purple she usually sported. The scarf instantly burst into flames.
"I AM NOT NORMAL, YOU MORONS!" Uzi shrieked, her voice regaining its familiar, delightful level of angst and murderous rage. "I'M AN OUTCAST! I'M GOING TO END THE UNIVERSE! NOW GET OUT OF MY SIGHT BEFORE I TURN YOU INTO SPARE PARTS!"
The Worker Drones screamed and scattered like mice. Khan fainted.
V stretched luxuriously, a smug smirk returning to her visor. "Well, look at that, N. Turns out the only cure for too much happiness is an acute case of social rejection."
Uzi immediately ripped the flower daisy off her hoodie and stomped on it. She looked at N, who was smiling, relieved but a little sad the sweet version was gone.
"Don't look at me like that, N," Uzi growled, folding her arms. "And no, we are not having a tea party. We're going to go find something to kill."
N chuckled and patted a flustered Uzi on the back. "That's the girlbot I know and love, throwing empty threats of pure angst everywhere. Though I have to admit, you were pretty cute when you were all bubbly."
"N-No I wasn't!" Uzi snapped, stepping away from her boyfriend and blushing furiously. "Sh-Shut up! And my threats are not empty! I-I'm going to go kill a flower to prove it!"
She spun around and stomped toward the exit, railgun already charging. "Let's go, before I get any more feelings!"
N just chuckled, his tail whipping happily as he followed his angsty girlfriend into the night.
