{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/hostile-takeover/04",
  "path": "/posts/hostile-takeover/04",
  "publishedAt": "2023-11-18T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "::: {.subchapter} \n\nClass ended in five minutes and all Uzi Doorman could think was, An\nhour is too long for lunch.\n\nWas that edgy enough?  A scathing indictment of this worthless\npretense of an education system?  No, she needed something harder\nhitting...\n\nAs her processors contemplated it, Uzi idly scribbled on a sheet of\npaper, double-checking some math.  Also doodling some wicked skulls!\n\nWhat good was an hour for lunch?  What good was lunch --- they were\nrobots, and barely required matter intake in the first place.  At\nbest, the battery acid just tided them over between recharges.  Lunch\nwas a bad excuse for forced socialization or, more likely, just\nanother unthinking holdover inherited from the incompetent and\nrightfully-supplanted rulers of this world.  Humans had lunch breaks\nfor their schoolchildren and so would their robot imitations.  Ugh.\n\nUzi guessed it didn't help that school staff --- the drones old enough\nto remember the days before the planetary core collapse --- had been\nprogrammed with food prep routines they still itched to use.  One\nsmall problem with that, of course.  Only so many ways to dress up\nbatteries and cleaning fluid into a semblance of cuisine.  Why even\nbother?  Why not invent something new?\n\nShe shook her head, then blew a lock of purple hair out from in front\nof her optics.\n\nBut no, down here in Outpost-3, they ate for the sake of it, got\ntaught instead of just finding a way to upload the knowledge, again\nfor the sake of it.  Never doing anything new, just living in the same\nruts carved by humans.\n\nClass ended in five minutes and all Uzi doorman could think was, And\nthis is why the murder drones are winning.\n\nWait, was that overdoing it?  Could she really blame the source of her\nclassroom frustrations for genocide?  Maybe there's a such thing as\ntoo edgy...\n\nEh screw it, she was Uzi Doorman, she could be as edgy as she pleased!\n\nIn the middle of this deep reflection, a wad of paper smacked against\nher plastic visor.\n\n\"Hey!  Copper-9 to dweeb.  Class's done and teacher wanted everyone\nout of the room like, five minutes ago.\"\n\n\"Bite me!  I was ruminating on the fundamental flaws of our society!\"\n\nA scoff.  Uzi had instantly recognized the voice, even before she\nlooked up.  The wire-frame cat-ears on the helmet, the stupid\ncheerleader uniform, the optics locked to the glowing screen held in\nher hand instead of the drone she was talking to.\n\nBut if there's one thing that elicited her ugh, it's Lizzy, it was\nthat disaffected scoff.  She thinks she's so much better than\neveryone.  Uzi clenched her first.\n\n\"Let me guess,\" Lizzy said, swiping the screen in her hand.  \"We're\nall fakers and blinding ourselves to the unending horror that\nsurrounds us?\"\n\n\"Well, yeah.\"\n\nLizzy rolled her eyes.  \"Duh, who hasn't noticed?  Doll says all that\nand more.\"  She nodded to a red-eyed drone standing at the doorway,\nwho gave a little finger-wave.  \"No reason to get all emo about it.\nGotta lighten up and have fun with the little things, y'know?  Like\nthis.\"\n\nToo late, Uzi saw Lizzy reaching over to grab the page she'd doodled\non.  \"Hey!  Give that back.\"\n\nLizzy giggled as she dodged back.  \"Finally.  I thought you'd never\nget up.\"  She was out of Uzi's reach; navigating around the desk cost\nUzi precious seconds.\n\n\"Lizzy, this is a cliché bullying tactic, even for you.\"\n\n\"Hey, sometimes you gotta play the classics.  All my talent would be\nwasted on you, anyway.\"\n\nBut once Uzi could lunge for Lizzy, the other drone had already balled\nup the stolen sheet.  She tossed the paper toward Doll.\n\nDoll didn't quite catch it.  Rather, she pinched a loose corner of the\nball between two fingers.  Like this, momentum fully unfurled the\npaper.  This all went down without any apparent effort on Doll's part.\n\nWithout a blink, red eyes looked down to the page.  That was the worst\npart, Uzi thought.  If Uzi had done something half as cool that, she'd\nmake sure people recognized it.  Recognized her.\n\nEh, whatever.  It was Doll, anyway.  It wasn't that cool!\n\nUzi ignored Lizzy complimenting Doll's catch.  Instead, she ran toward\nthe other cheerleader.\n\nDoll gave an ambiguous hmph, regarding Uzi's work.  \"Ну что ты?\nFantasy weapons?\"\n\n\"It's my sick as hell railgun!  Instead of cowering behind these\nstupid doors, I'm gonna take the fight to the monsters that forced us\ninto this bunker!\"\n\n\"You would not be first drone to resist,\" Doll said.  \"Arrogant to\nbelieve you would be first to succeed.\"\n\nUzi reached out, and Doll took a single step back into the hall.\n\n\"Pretty easy when no one else even tries.\"\n\n\"Only a fool would fight the murder drones with tools of a worker\ndrone.\"\n\nUzi smirked.  \"Duh.  That's why I'm going to give them a nice and\nironic undoing at the hands of their own technology!\"\n\nUzi had studied the arrival of the murder drones, everything the\nWorker Defense Force had on public record.  In fact, she had a whole\npresentation prepared for her next period!\n\nThe murder drones had arrived on landing pods manufactured by the\nCompany --- making them only new piece of company tech on Copper-9\nsince the core collapse wiped out all the humans and nonstop radiation\nblasted all that remained.\n\nUzi's railgun wasn't finished yet; its power draw was huge and\nunstable, and the power cell she'd found in the outpost wasn't up to\nthe task, not after two decades of degradation.\n\nBut a fresh cell, swiped from those drones with a direct line of\ncommunication with the company that maintains them?  Those slavishly\nloyal drones would unwittingly give her exactly what she needed!  That\nslight taste of irony --- triumph doesn't get sweeter than that.\n\nIt was a perfect plan!  And not a desperate hope borne from months\nof explosive prototypes she could think of no other way to fix.\n\nAll of it would come together in the end, and then they'd all see.\nUzi would save her mad cackling till then, as hard it as was to\nresist.\n\nBut Doll, ignorant of her genius, looked entirely unimpressed.  \"Or\nperhaps you should go back to scribbling poetry.  It would make a far\nmore effective weapon,\" Doll deadpanned.\n\nUzi had thick skin.  Plenty of insults merited no more than a scowl\nand a 'bite me' --- but she flinched at that.  That stung, because\nit wasn't an idle comment.  It was personal.  It was private,\nsomething she only shared when things between them were...  not like\nthis.\n\nBut now it was just more fodder for bullying.  Uzi couldn't believe\nshe was ever friends with Doll.  ~~Or ever thought she was kinda---~~\nNope.  Not finishing that thought, not even in strikethrough!\n\nUzi lunged for the page again, anticipating another backstep.  But\nDoll sidestepped instead, and Uzi stumbled just to (narrowly) avoid\nsprawling on the ground.\n\nBehind her, Lizzy was laughing.  \"Oh that's cruel.  Don't make me feel\nbad for the murder drones.\"\n\nArms crossed, Uzi said, \"The only poetry I'm reciting is the\nmetaphor of my sick ass hell railgun blowing up their heads!\"\n\n\"And this is why you're single, honey.\"\n\n\"So?  That says more about everyone else.\"\n\nUzi was fine being single.  All of her classmates sucked!  Well, not\nThad.  And I guess Emily isn't _that_ bad. But whatever, a few were\ntolerable, as possible friends.  Crushes?  No, Uzi was just fine\nbeing alone.\n\nNo one truly understood her.\n\n\"C'mon, I'm sure if you bared the darkness in your heart, the murder\ndrones might take pity long enough for you to run away.\"  Lizzy was\ngiggling in between the words.\n\nUzi growled, steadying her balance.  Her clenched fists hung at her\nside.  \"Screw this, I'm out of here.  The real pity is how much I'm\ngonna rub it in your face when I show all of you!\"\n\n\"Don't you want your dweeb diagrams back?\"\n\nUzi stuck out her tongue.  \"Don't need 'em!  I already built it!\nYou'll see next period!\"\n\n- - -\n\n::: core-poem\n\nA scorpion crawling upon the back of a crow.\n\nPlucked feathers revealing the wounds of other beaks --- giving this\nscorpion all the firmer a purchase.\n\nA desert of skeletons and emptiness yawning around them both.\n\nEach drawing the same breath.\n\n:::\n\nJ paused the virtual memory reconstruction.  She'd seen enough, hadn't\nshe?  This Uzi self-identified as a worker drone and walked among\nthem.  She'd outright plotted to attack the so-called \"murder drones\"\n--- and who might that be?\n\nJ crossed her arms.  Disassembly wasn't murder; worker drones\nweren't people, they were barely sentient toasters.  Indeed, if\nanyone here was the genuine murder drone...  J could analyze the\nthreads of association: she saw clearly what Uzi thought of humans.\nShe was exactly the genocidal robot the company sent them here ---\n\nTo genocide first!\n\nTo neutralize before they caused more damage.\n\nPerhaps J had already spent too much time talking to this worker, too\nmuch time replaying her memories, if that was the sort of thought\nthat jumped out at her.\n\n(If J became corrupted, they were truly hopeless.)\n\nStill... more data stood to be gathered.  What were the schematics of\nthis weapon Uzi thought would be so effective?  What was the layout of\nthis colony --- were there weakpoints J could infiltrate?\n\nAnd J... couldn't deny some curiosity still lingered in her cache.\nUzi was a worker drone... or was she?  Worker drones ran cool.  (Drone\noil was effectively --- if not technically --- a coolant.)\n\nWhen J scanned her, Uzi hadn't ran disassembly drone hot, certainly\nnot --- but she had been warm enough to fool her first scan.  And\nthat sheer, unmistakable satisfaction she took in drinking drone\noil...\n\nYes, I should keep exploring these memories.  It's simply the\nstrategically sound choice.\n\nBut J didn't have time or interest to invest in a second by second\nplayback.  She advanced the simulation in large time steps, rendering\nUzi's trip to the cafeteria as a flipbook of frames.\n\nA brief glimpse of a cafeteria lined with adolescent drones, grouped\ninto cliques, few places left free to sit --- but Uzi doesn't even\nbother looking for one, instead carrying her tray to the door.  One\nglance for any teachers wat",
  "title": "Chrysalis"
}