{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/hostile-takeover/12",
  "path": "/posts/hostile-takeover/12",
  "publishedAt": "2024-02-04T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "::: subchapter\n\nJ had made schedules and kept minutes for enough meetings.  She knew\nmanagement, she had flowcharts, and she'd applied that skillset to\nteam organization.  The conclusion of a mission, certainly one so...\neventful, warranted an analysis, a retrospective, a breakdown.\n\nA postmortem.\n\nMetaphorically speaking, of course.  And yet J still hesitated.\nThe routines were primed --- now back at the spire, all threats\neliminated, the only thing the mission required was a debrief and\nreport written.  J loved writing reports.\n\nHer pen scratched letters on a piece of notebook paper, and then\ncrossed them out and started again.\n\nAnd yet.  What would J write?  She had the thought enough times.  J\ncould let it sit unamended in her internal monologue, she could even\nadmit it to N: she ~~liked~~ valued her Uzi.  But could she log that\nin her filing cabinet beside years of reports meticulously detailing\nher impeccable disassembly track record?\n\nNo one read her reports --- except J herself.  And J could already\nanalyze the prospective drafts her language model had autocompleted.\nWell-worn excuses had carried her this far, after all.\n\nHer Uzi was an asset, a trade-off that meant more dead workers.  The\nmission was suspect, the relay compromised, their directives\n(potentially) lacking the authority of the company.  And besides it\nall, J was a drone with emotional needs --- was one worker really so\nbig a deal, if it made her feel less lonely?  N had his rocks, V her\nballoon animals.  J could have a pet.\n\nRephrased in the objective language of her reports, parsed with\ndispassionate logic, the arguments fell apart.  J couldn't convince\nherself, not from first principles.  It only computed with a new axiom\namended --- with the admission that she had changed.  That V was\nright.\n\n\"If last week you'd seen what you're doing now, you'd be horrified.\"\n\n[Maybe it was better if AbsoluteSolver had created them --- then J had\nsimply always been corrupted.]{.quiet}\n\nJ kept her room spotless, but the walls were repurposed from worker\nscrap.  She yanked out an old drone's hand, ready to channel the anger\nand anguish these thoughts would provoke into the satisfying crunch\nof breaking something.  But the only thing that came out of her next\nwas a sigh.\n\n\"I still want you to rebel and stuff, y'know.\"\n\nThere came an upward tug on her lips, but she didn't let that out.\nUzi would be amused at her inner contradictions --- no, she would be\nsmug.  She'd flash some obnoxious smirk that'd need to be corrected\nwith a threat ~~or a tease~~.\n\nBetter to have something to correct than this blank state of\ndisrepair.  (J's pen had kept moving, and she was startled to see that\nshe'd drawn Uzi on her page, purple brows knit in determination.)\n\nJ mirrored that expression.  She would have something to correct ---\nsoon.  That was why she couldn't do a postmortem.  The mission\nwasn't over, Uzi wasn't dead, and J's work wasn't done.\n\nJ's eyes flicked up to the blank-faced drone, and her thoughts ground\nto a halt.\n\nWhat am I doing?  What is the plan?  Where do I start?\n\nIf the goal was Uzi's revival, she had five data points to build a\nmodel with: J and N had neutralized four 'Worker Defense Force'\ndrones, and Doll received a 9mm SIGTERM to the back of the head.\n\nDoll's situation had the simplest explanation.  That drone had already\nrepeatedly executed the Solver program.  J retained some doubts of\nUzi's shared program theory --- but Doll closing her bullet wound had\nlooked so much like V's body pulling itself back together.\n\nThough simplest to explain, it seemed least useful --- what could she\nconclude?  That any drone running AbsoluteSolver could execute it to\nreturn to life?\n\nBut had Uzi ever executed that code?  Something unusual dwelled in\nher programming --- she cracked a mirror, broke out of her\nhibernation, and N claimed he'd seen the glyph on her screen.  (Why\nhadn't J pressed him for details?)  But Doll had revived herself in\nminutes.  For her Uzi, it had already been days.\n\nNext, consider the WDF grunts.  Doll did something to them.  Patched\ntheir systems with Solver code?  In battle, Uzi had seen the schemer\n'cast' to no apparent effect during the battle.  (Her ally's\nterminology was deeply unserious.  This wasn't magic.  Instead of\n'casting', J would call it...  executing corrupted solver functions.\nNo, if Uzi needed to... a better term: anomalous solver functions.)\n\nAnyway, she thought Doll had manually 'activated' the grunts' revival.\nCould J 'activate' Uzi's revival?  Except, under this hypothesis, that\nwould require an anomalous solver function J had no means of\nexecuting.\n\nIf J needed to get Doll's help for this... could she?\n\nWhat incentive would the scheming toaster need?  Given her implied\ngoals...\n\n...this line of thought had gotten off-track.  Back up.  J in fact had\nmore data points to work with, she realized.  Second hand, granted.\nN'd recounted his disassembly of a drone executing solver functions,\neven retaining some functionality after V's headshot.  In that\nunauthorized factory mission.\n\nGiven the presence of the teleporting roach, that drone must've\nenjoyed the same patch as the grunts.  With more time to grow familiar\nwith the functions, but strictly less than Doll... could that explain\nits incomplete revival?  But the WDF grunts underwent complete revival\n--- was this evidence of Doll's manual intervention, or proof J didn't\nhave all the information?\n\nJ slapped her head.  She missed something big.  So much had happened\nthat she overlooked how this mess all began --- the corpse under\nthe church.\n\nWith a command the memory is reconstructed, interpolated and fuzzy.\n\n::: {.boxed .italics}\nA door lay at the end [of the hall.]{.blur} J and V\nglanced at each other, [then took the last steps forward, pushing open\nthe final door.]{.blur}\n\n[The room overflowed with worker]{.blur} drone corpses.  [Or rather,\nworker drone parts.  Piled to the ceiling.  No screen showed an\n[error]{.pain .quiet} state; each one was rendered nonfunctional with\ndamaged and discarded parts.  Up]{.blur}on the floor, a centimeter\nthick layer of oil [sat, cold and thick.]{.blur}\n\n[One thing existed in the room, besides plastic and metal.  A slab of\nstone rising from the center of the floor, [symbols]{.pain .quiet}\netched into it, and spikes ringing it ---]{.blur} the only word that\ncame to mind was altar.\n\nA drone lay on it, [the only one not in a state of abject disrepair,\nthough]{.blur} the chassis's front was left popped open.  [Inside, the\nwiring and motors that belonged in]{.blur} a worker drone's internals\nmingled with blood and organic sacs.\n\n[After a moment paused and staring]{.blur}, J tapped the drone.\n\nThe screen flickered on.  A [symbol]{.uzi-from-beyond} appeared,\n[faintly, barely discernible past visual artifacts and\nglitches.]{.blur} A hexagon with three prongs[, the same symbol that\nhad]{.blur} transfixed V [in the tower.]{.blur}\n\n[V froze.]{.pain} \n:::\n\nJ paused on that last frame, reading between the pixels on her\nsquadmate's face as if they were ledger lines concealing fraud.  V\nknew something.  Everything she saw that day and today only\nreinforced that.  J was sure down to her wiring --- and the current\nthat flowed in those wires was rage.\n\n(This time, she snapped the disassembled hand into tiny fragments\nbetween her clenched fingers.)\n\nOne conversation with V would dispel this mystery.  Did she know why\ndrones came back to life --- did she know how?\n\nError code 13: Permission denied\n\nBut J had no means of persuading her.  Their fight had proved that.\n\nJ didn't need her for this, though.  The most effective drone was of\ncourse the cleverest.\n\nShe compiled and sorted the data.\n\n  Instance           Initiation    Biology        Result\n  ------------------ ------------- -------------- --------------------\n  Doll               autonomous    bloodless(?)   complete revival\n  WDF Grunts         assisted(?)   bloody         complete revival\n  Factory Cultist    autonomous    bloodless(?)   incomplete revival\n  Church Sacrifice   assisted(?)   bloody         incomplete revival\n\nEven with the margins for error, the picture that emerged drew\nworry-lines under J's eyes.\n\nHer inference computed one plausible line that could connect all these\ndata points.\n\nHypothesis: Operating AbsoluteSolver required skill or experience ---\nand revival simply came down to user ability.\n\nOf them, Doll had the most potent ability, granting her the cleanest\nrevival.  The WDF grunts had the weakest ability, but Doll could shore\nthis up with her own ability.  The factory cultist had intermediate\nability and with no assistance from Doll, granting them a\nmiddling revival.\n\nDid that mean her Uzi was doomed?  Dead ~~because of J~~ because her\n~~corrupt~~ anomalous powers didn't come online soon enough?\n\nJ had to keep thinking.\n\nThe effortless slaughter proved no one in the church had access to\nsolver functions.  Meaning the corpse in the catacombs resulted from\nthe application of the least skill J had observed.  It could've been\ndown there for months.\n\nAnd yet, that J and V witnessed anything at all down there --- a most\npathetic reaction to stimuli --- gave J steadfast hope.  That\nsacrifice on the altar, more than anything else, had to be her working\nmodel for how to bring Uzi back.\n\nDoll, the grunts, and the cultist were back online within minutes.\nBut Uzi had already gone cold.  The others all had access to a drone\ncapable of executing anomalous functions.  For better or worse, J\ncould not.\n\nJ knew little for sure, but this last lead was the most promising by\nfar.  If only the church still stood.  Anything she could study had\ngone up in flames.\n\nA sound in the office --- J realized it was her own impotent groaning\nand grinding.  After she recovered, she was going to rip V apart.\nWrench the arms off before they transform, gouge out the row of\noptics, slice off the tail.  Should J kick in the visor, or leave it\nand watch the expression contort?\n\nIf nothing else, J knew exactly h",
  "title": "Just Another Body"
}