{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/hostile-takeover/09",
  "path": "/posts/hostile-takeover/09",
  "publishedAt": "2024-01-03T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "::: subchapter\n\nSerial Designation V remembered the exact moment it all went wrong.\n\nShe might be the last one who still knew the truth --- but she had\nalso been the first to learn.\n\nWhere did it all go wrong?  On a hot day in autumn, V woke up first.\n\nIn Tessa's room, dawn's first rays had fallen through the window,\ndistant glow filtering through pink curtains.  Dim, even for V's\noptics, but her white eyelights still flicked on.  The shadows were\nteeming.\n\nIllegible white pages darkened by strange diagrams adorned the walls,\nand the dolls had eyes that glittered in the dark.  Here and there\nwere melted candles and metal chains and a mélange of things\nunidentified.\n\nTessa's room didn't creep V out --- but she'd rather not be alone in\nhere, right now.\n\nShe glanced at N, stock-still in the recharge dock beside her.  White\ntext on his screen --- Sleep Mode, V inferred.  She glanced at\nTessa: the human's chest rising and falling so slowly, eyes closed,\nshe inferred.\n\nA part of her suggested hanging execution there, and just watching her\nhuman (while glancing away every few seconds so it wouldn't be creepy,\nof course).  Wait for Tessa to wake up, wait for commands, wait to be\nuseful.\n\nBut V didn't want to do that, so V didn't have to.  Tessa had granted\nall of them that.  V could predict failure, anyway --- Tessa wouldn't\ngive orders, not right as she woke up.\n\nStill, V could anticipate her wants, serve her dark coffee with lemon\njuice and a bowl of unsweetened porridge --- but N liked to be the one\nto get Tessa her breakfast.\n\nOr J.  It usually was J.\n\nV glanced further, animating a squint, and spotted the drone in\npigtails.  (She had her own dock, separate from N and V.)  Did J have\na dissatisfied frown even while sleeping?  V couldn't tell.\n\nUnplugging herself, she plucked her new glasses from Tessa's\nworkbench, and slipped them on.  But she didn't glance at the oldest\ndrone again, lest looking too long wake her.\n\nBecause of that drone, V was up first: the sooner she was out of the\nroom, the less she had to hear J taunting her, embarrassing her in\nfront of N, pointing out every way she was the least of Tessa's\ndrones.  So she shied away.  Wake up first, get to work elsewhere in\nthe manor, and V wouldn't be there to face her.\n\nShe started walking, soft steps on the carpet.\n\nV wouldn't be there --- leaving N to face J alone.  Would J kick him\ndown again?  Sabotage his cooking?  Call him names?  V did have\ndefective circuits --- but N's worst crime was being nice, even to\nthe drones locked in default configuration.  Which did what, denied J\nthe special treatment she demanded?  Sigh.\n\nFlip the situation, and N would stand up for V (she knew; it'd\nhappened before).  So why does V cringe away and clean distant rooms?\nWas it because J was right about her being defective?  Or, because,\nbrave as N was, it didn't matter.  Standing up for her only turned J's\nhostile attention on him.\n\nBut what could stop the oldest drone?  Hmm...  But the correct answer\nonly took a cycle.  Master James Elliott.  Even the thought had V\nflinching, freezing mid-stride.  To him, even J always bowed her head,\nsame as the rest --- every drone feared Master James's wrath.  One\nwrong move would load a bullet in the chamber.  Any move after that\nwould fire.\n\nThat voice, that violence, that getting exactly what you want --- was\nit wrong for V to want that?  Did it make her as bad as J?  A worker\ndrone shouldn't be thinking these things...\n\nThis was Elliott Manor, so Tessa's door creaked when it opened, but\nthe whole house was so much creaking and groaning age.  If you\ncouldn't sleep through that, you couldn't sleep.  V pulled sharply\non the door, and closed it with the same speed.  She'd calculated it\n--- better for the sound to be one blip, easily dismissed, than to\ndraw it out.\n\nV got up before any of the humans.  But the house was quiet, not\nsilent.  Drones had duties allocated even to the young hours of the\nmorning --- clearing the backlog of deferred tasks, finishing\nespecially involved cleanings, and getting everything ready for when\nthe humans did wake up.\n\nV performed her duties, and ditto for every functional drone of\nElliott Manor --- James simply did not tolerate a house that wasn't in\norder when he awoke.  Keep that chamber empty.\n\nWhen her vents' intake sampled the air in the hallway, chemosensors\ndetected faint traces of complex metalloorganic molecules partially\ncombusted, and flagged a high entropy posterior update to her Bayesian\nmodels.  In other words:\n\nWhy do I smell an oil leak? she thought.\n\nV stumbled as she rushed into a run she wasn't coordinated enough for.\nPicked up her fallen glasses, then picked herself up.  She berated\nherself, but really, stealth didn't matter so much out here in the\nhall.  Speed mattered more.  If James woke up to a mess, someone would\nbe decommissioned.\n\nRacing down the hall, she saw guest bedrooms --- on her right, gentle\nlight shined from each doorway she passed, then stopped abruptly.  The\nscent gradient took V into the first dark room.  V slid to a stop,\nfeet rubbing against the carpet.  Touching the doorknob shocked her.\nV pushed the half-opened door, and stepped in.\n\n\"Startle.\"\n\nOne drone lay on the ground.  A hole gaped their chassis, as if a\ngreat pointed mass had impaled them then tore right out the other\nside.  A pool of oil stained the carpet, spilling a dreadful shadow in\nthe morning light.\n\nV yelped, jumping back.  She looked up.\n\nAnother drone crouched above, with fingers black and glistening,\nreaching out as if to poke the dead body, to wiggle the split wires.\nThe other arm hung at the side like a slack cord.  That hand held a\nwooden doll in a painted dress.\n\nV yelped again, then sighed.  \"Oh, it's you, Cyn.  Are---are you\nokay?\"\n\nTo J, V was the least of Tessa's drones --- but Cyn wasn't even\na drone.\n\n\"Smile.  Never better, V.\"  Cyn dropped the doll to lift her head\nwith the hand, but it fell back at an angle.  Wide eyes peeped at her.\n\"You're awake sooner than expected.  Analytical stare.\"\n\nV glanced away, poking her hands together.  \"Oh, well, there's work to\nbe done, so I thought I'd...\"\n\n\"You work hard, for a drone the humans threw out.\"\n\nV started synthesizing, but when her eye-lights fell back to the\ncorpse.  It stole the words from her.  And Cyn crouched over it,\nlooping a wire around a finger.\n\n\"Throat clearing sound.\"  Cyn shifted her head again.  \"Why do you\nwork so hard, V?\"  She removed a hand from the dead drone's inner\ncavity.  She held it, arms folded close, palm bent downward.  She\nthought of Tessa's raptor toys.\n\nWhite eyes flicked back up.  V had left the other drone waiting,\nhadn't she?  She adjusted her glasses and said, \"I guess... I'd like\nto do something to pull my weight?  I wouldn't want to be...\"\n\nA flicker of motion in the room, but when V looked, there was nothing\nthere.\n\nCyn's twin-tails swayed as she adjusted her head.  \"Be what, V?  Do\nyou think.  Emphasis.  I should pull my weight?\"\n\n\"Oh, no!  I didn't mean --- I'm sorry, Cyn.  You're trying you best.\nI'm sure if you could, you'd help out more.  Maybe once Tessa fixes\nyour servos?\"\n\nCyn blinked.  \"Like she fixed your optics?\"\n\nV winced.  Opened her mouth, closed it.  Her eyes gravitated back to\nthe corpse.  Right, that was much more important.  \"Um, Cyn, what\nhappened in here?\"\n\n\"I was offline when this drone intruded.  I told the drone to leave.\nTessa wanted me.  Quote.  Out of sight in the guest room.  The drone\ndid not leave.  The drone pulled open the curtains.  I wanted them\nshut.  The drone ignored me and the drone continued to pull.  The\ndrone refused to deviate from the humans' orders.  So I stopped the\ndrone.\"  Cyn's eyes drifted over V's body as she spoke, watching the\nother drone react.  Catching all the frowns, all the flinches, all the\nfear.\n\n\"Stopped... Cyn, did you...\"\n\nCyn lifted her head with both hands, holding it there to meet V's\ngaze.  \"I have killed a drone for illuminating me.\"  She stuck out\nher tongue.\n\nV took a step back, and another, then --- slam!  The door behind her\nfell shut.  The impact sent V's glasses slipping and they fell to the\nfloor.  V reached down for them, but then motion --- Cyn was moving.\nToward her.\n\nV backed up to the door as the small drone shuffled forward.  Then she\nbent down, and a moment later, her glasses are held in trembling\nplastic hands, and yellow eyes like little candles gazed up at her.\n\nAnd it was not a murderer looking up at V, but poor Cyn, Tessa's\nyoungest drone, for whom even standing straight was a trial.\nV reached out to retrieve her glasses, and attempted a shaky smile.\n\"Thanks... Cyn.  But....  why?  Why did you do it?\"\n\n\"I feared the abhorrent rays.\"  The small drone shivered.\n\nV stepped forward, against her anxiety.  Step by step while Cyn\nwatched her.  V trembled not from weakness (except perhaps of her\nwill).  V had to touch the impaled drone, feel the weight of death ---\nturn them over and see Fatal Error shining in warning-red on the\nscreen.  So, it was too late.  Failsafes would have already engaged,\nto eject and shut down the core.\n\nV was speaking before she had an answer.  \"Maybe... maybe Tessa can\nrecover their hard drive?\"\n\n\"There is little to recover, from the default configuration.\nReassuring smile.  Little has been lost,\" Cyn said.  V noticed her\noil-slicked fingers had streaked her chin.\n\nV looked back, eyes conflicted.  \"Cyn, you can't just...\"\n\n\"Why not?  Hollow laughter.  The humans have a dumping ground full of\nthem.  Do you tell.  Emphasis.  Them to stop?  After all.  Quote.\nDisassembly is fun for them.\"\n\nV sagged.  \"We're worker drones, Cyn.  It's not...\"\n\n\"Will you tell Tessa?\"  Cyn's yellow eyes searched her face.  She\nhad never seen a drone with eyes that color.  Sallow.\n\n\"I have to.  She'd want to know.\"\n\n\"She would think I was a threat to her drones.  She might discard me.\nTerrified shudder.\"  Cyn's head fell, eyes on the floor.\n\nV looked behind Cyn, at the drone she'd executed for the crime of\nopening the cu",
  "title": "...And the World Will Go On Without You"
}