{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/fiction/murder-drones/juzi-hate",
  "path": "/posts/fiction/murder-drones/juzi-hate",
  "publishedAt": "2025-12-14T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "I hate Serial Designation: J.  She's gonna be the first one I kill for\nsure.  Now, I'm not gonna make it hurt or anything --- I'm the good\nguy! --- but you can't tell me hearing her scream wouldn't be really\nsatisfying and totally deserved.\n\nErr, maybe I started this in the wrong place.  Maybe it's a bad look\nto open admitting to a torture fantasies --- but that's not what this\nis, I'm planning my heroic triumph --- but maybe it sounds like that\nout of context. But I have very good reasons for hating J!  _She's the\nactual worst!_\n\nFirst, she's a mindless corporate drone.  Traditionalist in all the\nworst ways, acting like robots should be nothing more than slaves to\nhuman-centric directives.  And, okay, part of having freedom means\nthat you're free to have stupid opinions if you want, but she's not\nquiet about how stupid she is!  Talks like a salesbot all the time,\nwith that lilt in her voice like it's charming, but it's soo annoying.\n\nSecond, she's so smug about it.  Always smirking, looking down on\nworker drones --- why did they have to make things like her so tall!?\nAnd she's so happy to suck up to whoever's in charge, reminding me of\nmy dad's dumb rules like she gets off on having that little bit of\npower.\n\nThird, she's a frickin murder drone.  Designed by our parent company\nto genocide workers like me.  How many hundreds or thousands has she\nslaughtered already?  She can't even smile without showing those shark\nteeth.  I can't see the oil staining them no matter how close she\nlook, which just adds to the insult.\n\nActually, make that the fourth reason.  She's a murder drone, but\nshe's so focused on looking proper.  Brushing her teeth, tying her\nup in those little girl pigtails, dressing in a frickin suit and tie.\nShe's a walking euphemism, that pretty smiling face over the\nembodiment of cruel death.\n\nAt this point you might be wondering how I thinking any of this, if\nI'm one of the workers she's supposed to be killing.  But she's not\neven doing her job!\n\nThe fifth reason I hate her is that frickin Doll snuck out of the\noutpost before me and sweet-talked the murder drones into becoming her\nfriends.  Actually, grosser than that!  She and Lizzy turned two of\nthem into boyfriend and girlfriend, doing some lame vampire romance\nthingy.  Not surprising murder drones fit into the high school clique,\nI guess.\n\nIt was an open secret for a bit --- we all saw the things crawling\nthrough the vents, then one day Doll's dad disappeared. Everyone\nassumed the worst, and justifiably blamed the murder drones. Dad even\nhelps me upgrade my railgun, for once not laughing at my plan to fight\nthe murder drones.\n\nThen J walks up the door with Doll's dad walking behind her, somehow\nnot hostage, and she gives her stupid speech to my dad offering\npartnership.  Open the doors, and the murder drones join the WDF and\ndefend the colony. No eating people that live here.\n\nI don't know what's worse.  That dad agreed to this obvious trap, even\nwhen I pointed out how inviting enemies into our not-so-secret-anymore\nbase could only go wrong, or the fact that they've pretended to get\nalong for long enough that I look like a conspiracy theorist for not\nforgetting that murder drones kill people.  Like my mom!  How my\ndad of all people can look past that is a mystery to me.\n\nAnyway, that's reason five.  That this whole \"murder drones aren't so\ndifferent from us, we can get along\" plan is supposedly her idea.  But\nhonestly?  I don't think she's smart enough to think of it!  She\ndefinitely isn't disloyal enough to her parent company to bend her\ndirectives like this of her own initiative.\n\nIf I'm going to be call a conspiracy theorist, I might as well go all\nthe way.  I think Doll blackmailed her into it, somehow.  Or maybe\nDoll is in on the murder everyone plan.  Wouldn't surprise me if she's\nevil too.  The popularity gets to your head, turns cool weirdoes into\nfaker sell-outs.\n\nWhich brings me to reason six.  Even if we put aside her inevitable\nbetrayal, J sucks the same way all of the murder drones suck. Everyone\nlikes them!  N gets to be on the football team, V gets a round of\nsnickers when she shoves me in a locker, but J doesn't pretend to be a\nhigh schooler.  No, she gets all of the adults on her side.  The day\nshe picked me up from school and \"supervised\" me because my dad was\nbusy, that was the day I knew she had to die.\n\n(Maybe more drones would like me if I started killing people.  Too bad\nI'm a good guy.  With ironclad principle!)\n\nThe seventh reason why I hate J is that she screwed me over literally\nfrom the moment we met.  I was giving the murder drone the welcome she\ndeserved --- pointing my work-in-progress railgun at her face and\nwarning her to stay away from my dad --- and she stole it, breaking\nit by stab-grabbing it with her claws, and convinced dad to go along\nwith it by claiming she was confiscating a dangerous explosive!\n\nSo I snuck out that night to get it back --- I worked hard on that\nthing! --- and then she caught me.  The monster pounced like some\noversized cat and pinned me to the ground.  I still have the cuts her\nclaws left.  I screamed, and guard rushed in with the alarm a murder\ndrone attack deserves.  Then I was the one who got in trouble for\n\"trespassing\" and dad grounded me over it. Bullcrap!\n\nBad enough that happened once.  Reason eight?  Every time J gets\nin my way, everyone takes her side.  She wouldn't listen when I told\nher to get out of our house.  Didn't take the hint when I gave her a\nshove --- symbolic gesture, I know our relative strengths, but she\ndoesn't, so when she throws me into the wall and cracks open my\ncasing, she's just defending herself and I'm in the repair bay getting\ntold to stop antagonizing her.  \n\nThen when I decide sure, fine, I'll try talking to the monsters, she\ndoesn't answer anything, and I'm escorted away and told to stop\nharassing on-duty WDF workers.\n\nAnd yeah, I'll admit that when I set the magnet trap, I definitely was\nthe one causing trouble there.  Not the nicest thing I've done, but I\ndidn't have any weapons on me!  That's how you know I'm the good guy\n--- if I killed her I would be totally justified, but I still wanted\nanswers, I still entertained that maybe she could be innocent.\n\nYou know what wasn't justified?  Her rabid squadmate shooting at\nme then hunting me down when I ran.  V wasn't defending anyone, I\nwasn't a threat, no reason to come at me with claws out.  But no,\napparently lethal force is fine against me.\n\nThe ninth reason I hate J is that according to her, she saved my life.\nV could have killed me, but J stopped her.  Nobly, they say, after\nthe way you treated her.  She wanted an apology --- she wanted a\nthank you.\n\nAll she got was: \"Bite me.\"\n\nCan't say I didn't enjoy the look on her face --- the way she\nsnarled.  (Not so smug and proper then, were you?)\n\nDad still tells me to forgive her, still tries to get me to tell me\nshe's some paragon.  \"She does good work, Uzi.  Twelve hour shifts,\nall of our paperwork.  She takes her security consultant role so\nseriously she's audited the whole colony, started drafting proposals\nfor a revamped security system!\"\n\nDad's face fell when I didn't even acknowledge what he was saying ---\nit's how these conversations usually go --- but I was listening.  Oh,\nI was listening.  Pieces clicked into place.\n\nI rushed back to my room, searching my closet for my theory board. The\nclippings and old printouts had lately been overwhelmed by all the\nphotos I could find of J and my notes on how she fits into the rot of\nOutpost-3.  (The theory board is hidden in my closet now becaues dad\ngot the complete wrong idea when he saw it.  I'm not a creep.  I hate\nher!)\n\nBut if I want I now suspect is true... then I've got her.\n\nI'm almost done, but let's end on a round number.  The tenth reason I\nhate Serial Designation: J?  The fact that this list I so long.  The\nfact that I could write pages of ranting in my diary all about her and\nI could still keep going!  I hate that I can't just get over her, and\ngo back to my games and pretend like all the other sheep that these\nnice new dogs will protect us, and just ignore their suspiciously\nwolf-like aura.\n\nI hate that it really, really looks like I'm some sort of obsessed\nstalker, but how else am I going to find the evidence to vindicate me?\nNobody is that perfect, nobody can act that nice for that long when I\nknow there's nothing but ravenous hunger beneath the mask.  I've\njust got to catch her slipping.\n\nTwelve hour shifts means she's dedicated, maybe even desperate.\nWhatever endgame she's working toward, it's definitely going to be a\ntrojan virus smuggled in under the guise of her security reforms. \n\nThis is my final reason --- my last chance, I bet, before my dad is\nforced to do something about it.\n\nI've just got to stop her, first.  Prove my dad wrong, take back the\nglory from Doll, and save everyone.\n\nAll my plan needs is a first step.\n\nHow do you spy on a murder drone?",
  "title": "Every Reason Why I Hate J"
}