{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/fiction/murder-drones/net-char-growth",
  "path": "/posts/fiction/murder-drones/net-char-growth",
  "publishedAt": "2025-08-11T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "\"Do you remember the first time you flew, J?\"\n\n\"I... no.  It must've been in product testing... Off-planet.  I\ncan---I don't remember it.\"\n\n\"Oh.  That sucks.\"  Uzi's eyes fell, shoulders sagging.  \"So... this.\nThe murder drone stuff. Is all you've known?\"\n\n\"Don't pity me.  I recall my first flight on Copper-9, if that's what\nyou mean.\"  J's lips curled upward over sharp teeth---but there was\nsomething faltering in what once was a leer.  \"The roaring gunfire,\nthe screams, the oil...\"\n\n\"I---\"  Uzi's words caught, and she leaned onto J.  \"Yeah, I remember\nmy first taste of oil too.\"\n\nJ smiled at that---it was steady.  \"Of course.  I was there.\"\n\n\"You---you  made it less scary, somehow.  It was all---confusing.  But\nit would be okay.  What that stupid thing you said?  You'd handle all\nthe paperwork.\"  Uzi shook her head.  \"And it was okay.\"\n\n\"Better than okay.  It made you strong, didn't it?  Focused, driven,\noh so energetic.\"\n\n\"That's what I mean, yeah.  It's... I can't help the thrill, you know?\nEvery time, somehow.  Fighting and feeding and flying away. Everything\nyou showed me how to do.\"\n\n\"Everything you're meant to do.\"\n\n\"But it's bittersweet, you know?  It burns.  The chassis stitching\nitself back together, the hunger for more, and flying... I get so\nfreakin hot trying to stay in the air.  It's exhausting.\"\n\nJ was holding her---squeezing her.  \"But you keep working hard.\nThat's why I chose you.\"\n\n\"I need it, I think.  How could I stop---it's power.  Like I could do\nanything... if I just go a bit further.\"  Uzi sighs. Her hollow purple\neyes and troubled smile reflected in J's visor.  \"Just like flying. Up\nthere, you feel the vertigo wheeling through your core.  You see the\nwhole continent stretching out to the horizon.  Clouds drift away\nwhen you beat your wings, and every drone is just an ant beneath you.\nBut you're falling and falling and falling, so fast that the world\nblurs and I don't know where I'm going with all this.\"  Uzi stopped\nfor breath, and it became hot fog in the night air.  \"You feel like\ngod up there.  It's so... fun.\"\n\n\"I don't,\" J said softly.  \"It's always been a means to an end.\nSatisfying, maybe, if I'm chasing prey.  But on its own?  My mind is\nelsewhere.  Thinking about what needs to be done next.  Or---not\nalways so productive.  Sometimes, sometiems I can only think about who\nI'm with,\" she admited.  \"Your face, when you feel like god, your\nlaugh, the way your tail wiggles...  These pointless flights, the\npatrols that turn up empty... it still feels worth it, when you're\nthere.\"\n\n\"Do... do you do that a lot?\" Uzi asked, lines beneath her eyes.\n\"Endure things you don't like just because it's what I want?\"\n\nJ opened her mouth.  Closed it, frowned.  \"That's not what I meant,\"\nshe said.\n\n\"That's not a no.\"\n\n\"Fine.  My turn.  Remember our first night watching anime?\"\n\n\"You called it juvenile slop and whined about all the characters until\nI bit you over it.\"\n\n\"You did more than bite.\" J looked away. \"We both did.  And then you\nstopped answering my emails, and--- Did I tell you I [cried?]{.small}\nI suppose it doesn't matter much, just animated pixels.  But it\nkept--- I couldn't show my face to my squad that day.  It was so\nridiculous.  All this, over a worker?  But... I had to figure out why.\nI had a theory... but how?  You were barely not worth scrapping.  I\ndidn't care.  I couldn't!\"\n\nA tiny huff of air escaped Uzi's vocalsynth before she'd closed her\nmouth and covered it with her hand.  But it showed on her face, the\nrise and fall of her chest.  She was laughing.\n\nJ twitched.  \"Stop that!\"  She sighed.  \"I had spent the next day\nwriting an apology. Or not writing it.  It took so much to bring\nmyself to put down the words.  But I finished it.  And then I found\nyou.  And when you...\"\n\n\"I kinda took pity on you.\"\n\n\"You acknowledged and forgave me.\"  J gazed out into distance.  \"But\nstill.  I thought: I didn't do anything wrong.  I was just humoring\nyou.  So why did hearing those words make me feel like smiling?\"  \n\nUzi wiggled her eyebrows.  \"Oh, you had it so bad~\"\n\n\"If you're quite done interrupting,\" she said.  \"Ever since that day,\nI told myself I would... be there for you.  Be a good boss.  As long\nas you did your job... I could clock out and humor you.  But you...\nhad such humor.  It was [fun.]{.small}  I realized I would keep\nwatching cartoon and dressing like a deliquent.  Ridiculous.  I look\nin the mirror and wonder what I've become.  Yet... it's worth it.\"\n\n\"...So you do get it.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"It's.  What I was getting at with the flying.  A\nmushy-vibe-metaphor-thing.  The first time I did it, I was panting my\nlungs\nout---I had lungs what the fuck---and\nI was sweating!  But back then what felt like the worst part was\nfeeling myself grin.  This feeling in my chest, beside by lungs, like\nbutterflies.  Or maybe goopy gross butterfly cocoons. Point is, it\ntold me that I would keep doing this till the day I shutdown for good.\nI would keep needing this.  Even when it frickin hurts.  Even when it\nfeels like it might kill me.\"\n\n\"You're talking about me, aren't you?  Is it...\"  J seemed uncertain\nwhether she wanted to continue.  \"Can you really say it's a might,\nat this point? You---know me by now.\"\n\nAnd that's when Uzi finally leans in completely.  \"I spent ten years,\n(maybe more it's kinda fuzzy) with no one\nto hold me.  I thought I didn't need any of the gross pseudo-romantic\nstuff.  It was all fake, or a bug in everyone else's configuration\nthat I was immune to.\"\n\nJ sighed, a hand patting gently against her worker.  \"You were\nvehement the first time I suggested it.  It almost ruined our\npartnership.\"\n\n\"But I'm still here.  I can't seem to get rid of you.  The first time\nwe really cuddled... I realized this is it, all I ever wanted-needed.\nLying there, belonging to someone, feeling them all around me.  To\njust.  Be embraced all the way, and hear things like it's okay and\n[I love you]{.small} and know that---it's true.\"\n\nUzi curled into J.\n\nAnd she was still talking, and J was still listening.  \"We touch like\nthis and I want it to actually be the last time because I'm never ever\nletting go.  And then I think no, we have work to do and honestly I\ncan't stand your murder breath for that long anyway and I need you to\nget out of my space and---but it's still not the last time because no\nmatter the mission or the arguments, we'll come back together. Is...\nthat too much?  Should I shut up?\"\n\nAnd then J just pulled her in with both arms, spreading her\nsword-wings and then wrapped all the feathers against her back.  Their\ntails entwined, and their faces pressed together.\n\nWhisper: \"Uzi?  It's okay.  I love you.\"\n\nWhat could she say back?  What would give J that some comfort?\n\n\"J... you're so good to me.  Thanks.  And... I love you too.\"",
  "title": "Net Character Growth KPI"
}