...And the World Will Go On Without You

::: subchapter Serial Designation V remembered the exact moment it all went wrong. She might be the last one who still knew the truth --- but she had also been the first to learn. Where did it all go wrong? On a hot day in autumn, V woke up first. In Tessa's room, dawn's first rays had fallen through the window, distant glow filtering through pink curtains. Dim, even for V's optics, but her white eyelights still flicked on. The shadows were teeming. Illegible white pages darkened by strange diagrams adorned the walls, and the dolls had eyes that glittered in the dark. Here and there were melted candles and metal chains and a mélange of things unidentified. Tessa's room didn't creep V out --- but she'd rather not be alone in here, right now. She glanced at N, stock-still in the recharge dock beside her. White text on his screen --- Sleep Mode, V inferred. She glanced at Tessa: the human's chest rising and falling so slowly, eyes closed, she inferred. A part of her suggested hanging execution there, and just watching her human (while glancing away every few seconds so it wouldn't be creepy, of course). Wait for Tessa to wake up, wait for commands, wait to be useful. But V didn't want to do that, so V didn't have to. Tessa had granted all of them that. V could predict failure, anyway --- Tessa wouldn't give orders, not right as she woke up. Still, V could anticipate her wants, serve her dark coffee with lemon juice and a bowl of unsweetened porridge --- but N liked to be the one to get Tessa her breakfast. Or J. It usually was J. V glanced further, animating a squint, and spotted the drone in pigtails. (She had her own dock, separate from N and V.) Did J have a dissatisfied frown even while sleeping? V couldn't tell. Unplugging herself, she plucked her new glasses from Tessa's workbench, and slipped them on. But she didn't glance at the oldest drone again, lest looking too long wake her. Because of that drone, V was up first: the sooner she was out of the room, the less she had to hear J taunting her, embarrassing her in front of N, pointing out every way she was the least of Tessa's drones. So she shied away. Wake up first, get to work elsewhere in the manor, and V wouldn't be there to face her. She started walking, soft steps on the carpet. V wouldn't be there --- leaving N to face J alone. Would J kick him down again? Sabotage his cooking? Call him names? V did have defective circuits --- but N's worst crime was being nice, even to the drones locked in default configuration. Which did what, denied J the special treatment she demanded? Sigh. Flip the situation, and N would stand up for V (she knew; it'd happened before). So why does V cringe away and clean distant rooms? Was it because J was right about her being defective? Or, because, brave as N was, it didn't matter. Standing up for her only turned J's hostile attention on him. But what could stop the oldest drone? Hmm... But the correct answer only took a cycle. Master James Elliott. Even the thought had V flinching, freezing mid-stride. To him, even J always bowed her head, same as the rest --- every drone feared Master James's wrath. One wrong move would load a bullet in the chamber. Any move after that would fire. That voice, that violence, that getting exactly what you want --- was it wrong for V to want that? Did it make her as bad as J? A worker drone shouldn't be thinking these things... This was Elliott Manor, so Tessa's door creaked when it opened, but the whole house was so much creaking and groaning age. If you couldn't sleep through that, you couldn't sleep. V pulled sharply on the door, and closed it with the same speed. She'd calculated it --- better for the sound to be one blip, easily dismissed, than to draw it out. V got up before any of the humans. But the house was quiet, not silent. Drones had duties allocated even to the young hours of the morning --- clearing the backlog of deferred tasks, finishing especially involved cleanings, and getting everything ready for when the humans did wake up. V performed her duties, and ditto for every functional drone of Elliott Manor --- James simply did not tolerate a house that wasn't in order when he awoke. Keep that chamber empty. When her vents' intake sampled the air in the hallway, chemosensors detected faint traces of complex metalloorganic molecules partially combusted, and flagged a high entropy posterior update to her Bayesian models. In other words: Why do I smell an oil leak? she thought. V stumbled as she rushed into a run she wasn't coordinated enough for. Picked up her fallen glasses, then picked herself up. She berated herself, but really, stealth didn't matter so much out here in the hall. Speed mattered more. If James woke up to a mess, someone would be decommissioned. Racing down the hall, she saw guest bedrooms --- on her right, gentle light shined from each doorway she passed, then stopped abruptly. The scent gradient took V into the first dark room. V slid to a stop, feet rubbing against the carpet. Touching the doorknob shocked her. V pushed the half-opened door, and stepped in. "Startle." One drone lay on the ground. A hole gaped their chassis, as if a great pointed mass had impaled them then tore right out the other side. A pool of oil stained the carpet, spilling a dreadful shadow in the morning light. V yelped, jumping back. She looked up. Another drone crouched above, with fingers black and glistening, reaching out as if to poke the dead body, to wiggle the split wires. The other arm hung at the side like a slack cord. That hand held a wooden doll in a painted dress. V yelped again, then sighed. "Oh, it's you, Cyn. Are---are you okay?" To J, V was the least of Tessa's drones --- but Cyn wasn't even a drone. "Smile. Never better, V." Cyn dropped the doll to lift her head with the hand, but it fell back at an angle. Wide eyes peeped at her. "You're awake sooner than expected. Analytical stare." V glanced away, poking her hands together. "Oh, well, there's work to be done, so I thought I'd..." "You work hard, for a drone the humans threw out." V started synthesizing, but when her eye-lights fell back to the corpse. It stole the words from her. And Cyn crouched over it, looping a wire around a finger. "Throat clearing sound." Cyn shifted her head again. "Why do you work so hard, V?" She removed a hand from the dead drone's inner cavity. She held it, arms folded close, palm bent downward. She thought of Tessa's raptor toys. White eyes flicked back up. V had left the other drone waiting, hadn't she? She adjusted her glasses and said, "I guess... I'd like to do something to pull my weight? I wouldn't want to be..." A flicker of motion in the room, but when V looked, there was nothing there. Cyn's twin-tails swayed as she adjusted her head. "Be what, V? Do you think. Emphasis. I should pull my weight?" "Oh, no! I didn't mean --- I'm sorry, Cyn. You're trying you best. I'm sure if you could, you'd help out more. Maybe once Tessa fixes your servos?" Cyn blinked. "Like she fixed your optics?" V winced. Opened her mouth, closed it. Her eyes gravitated back to the corpse. Right, that was much more important. "Um, Cyn, what happened in here?" "I was offline when this drone intruded. I told the drone to leave. Tessa wanted me. Quote. Out of sight in the guest room. The drone did not leave. The drone pulled open the curtains. I wanted them shut. The drone ignored me and the drone continued to pull. The drone refused to deviate from the humans' orders. So I stopped the drone." Cyn's eyes drifted over V's body as she spoke, watching the other drone react. Catching all the frowns, all the flinches, all the fear. "Stopped... Cyn, did you..." Cyn lifted her head with both hands, holding it there to meet V's gaze. "I have killed a drone for illuminating me." She stuck out her tongue. V took a step back, and another, then --- slam! The door behind her fell shut. The impact sent V's glasses slipping and they fell to the floor. V reached down for them, but then motion --- Cyn was moving. Toward her. V backed up to the door as the small drone shuffled forward. Then she bent down, and a moment later, her glasses are held in trembling plastic hands, and yellow eyes like little candles gazed up at her. And it was not a murderer looking up at V, but poor Cyn, Tessa's youngest drone, for whom even standing straight was a trial. V reached out to retrieve her glasses, and attempted a shaky smile. "Thanks... Cyn. But.... why? Why did you do it?" "I feared the abhorrent rays." The small drone shivered. V stepped forward, against her anxiety. Step by step while Cyn watched her. V trembled not from weakness (except perhaps of her will). V had to touch the impaled drone, feel the weight of death --- turn them over and see Fatal Error shining in warning-red on the screen. So, it was too late. Failsafes would have already engaged, to eject and shut down the core. V was speaking before she had an answer. "Maybe... maybe Tessa can recover their hard drive?" "There is little to recover, from the default configuration. Reassuring smile. Little has been lost," Cyn said. V noticed her oil-slicked fingers had streaked her chin. V looked back, eyes conflicted. "Cyn, you can't just..." "Why not? Hollow laughter. The humans have a dumping ground full of them. Do you tell. Emphasis. Them to stop? After all. Quote. Disassembly is fun for them." V sagged. "We're worker drones, Cyn. It's not..." "Will you tell Tessa?" Cyn's yellow eyes searched her face. She had never seen a drone with eyes that color. Sallow. "I have to. She'd want to know." "She would think I was a threat to her drones. She might discard me. Terrified shudder." Cyn's head fell, eyes on the floor. V looked behind Cyn, at the drone she'd executed for the crime of opening the cu