{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/fiction/murder-drones/rogue-management",
  "path": "/posts/fiction/murder-drones/rogue-management",
  "publishedAt": "2025-08-01T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "J heard the footsteps first.  Heavy, clanking things.  Only two drones\nin the spire lacked the silent precision of proper disassembly drone\nlegs---and N did his best to shrink from notice.  No, there was only\none drone here who had the temerity to stomp.\n\nWas that grounds enough for writing her up?  If J tried it, there was\nsure to be an argument.  J didn't fear conflict, but she assessed the\ntactical positioning---no doubt the first line of defense would be\nthat it's so minor, not worth notice let alone punishment.\nUltimately, it was J's call, but her authority wasn't beyond question.\n\nThat much had become increasingly undeniable.\n\nAnd it was minor---but J wanted quiet.  Right now of all times,\ncertainly.  And that J wanted it was all the justification she\nneeded to expect it, that was reason enough for her inferiors to fall\nin line---but J would not let herself look weak.  She knew that damn\nworker had a sense for every crack in her armor.  If her arguments\nweren't airtight by the most pedantic standards, she---\n\nPurple eyes shining in the dark.  J froze.\n\nJ sat in a leather chair, in a dark, dark chamber down in the tunnels\nbelow the spire.  She'd furnished this room and told no one of\nit---hence all the clanking search to find her.\n\nNo lights in the room but the glow of her body.\n\nTo J, darkness meant nothing.  One optic caught the faintest light,\nthe quanta of individual photons, while another discerned the spectrum\nof thermal radiation---a 35°C glow outlining that small form, warming\nto near 40°C by the chest.  Spatial audio caught the whir and thrum of\noil pumped into that core.  That core drove computations, and internal\nantennae caught microwaves from the gigahertz tick of her processors.\n\nAll this instinct-information intruded upon her solitude.  J was awash\nin data, while the worker blinked and squinted.\n\nJ's screen was blank---she had no one to emote to---so she appeared\nonly as five orbs, impassively round and floating in the black.\n\n\"J?\" a soft whisper.  After all that clanking, J was prepared for a\ndemand, a whine, a nasal blare of that insufferable vocalsynth.\nInstead, the worker breathed the syllable, low enough only J's\nenhanced hearing could catch it.\n\nJ remained still in the dark.  Her mouth bent in an invisible frown,\nbut she was five glowing orbs.  Impassive.\n\nA minute.  The worker made no further sound, and with a faint nod, she\ndrew back from the threshold of the underground chamber.\n\nThe orbs flickered.\n\nThat was all the acknowledgement J found it in herself to grant.\n\nThe worker's head lifted, mouth bending upward with inscrutable hope.\n\"Hey,\" she whispered.  \"I'm gonna come in, okay?\"\n\nJ allow an optic to flicker once more.\n\nThe worker ghosted forward with care that had been absent till now.\nMothdrawn toward the light.  Her eyes remained locked onto J's amber\ngaze.  Of course the captain expected her team to maintain eye\ncontact---but this was something else.  Purple eyes gazed into her,\nnot a screen animation.\n\nThen bang, the worker's hip impacted against the table that lay in\nfront of J.\n\nThe disassembly drone flinched.  A sound escaped her, a hiss of air.\n\n\"Oop, sorry.  I'll just.\"  She climbed up onto the table.  \"There.\"\nThen she leaned forward toward J, still staring at her optics.  The\nworker bit her lip.\n\nJ said nothing.  Would she leave on her own?\n\n\"That tired, huh?\"\n\nFlicker.\n\n\"Can... can I touch you?\"\n\nJ didn't flinch---but her earlier flinch had her jolting upward in her\nchair.  She fell back now, to extend the distance between them.\n\nEarlier, the worker had chosen to interpret her wordless\nacknowledgement as 'yes'---how, then, could  she say no?\n\nThe glow of her optics dimmed slowly, then flickered twice in rapid\nsuccession.\n\n\"Ah, okay.  Sorry.\"  Her hand had already reached out, as if asking\nhad been a formality, and now it awkwardly pulled back.  Not sure what\nto do with her hands now, she sort of tapped fingertips together.\n\nThey sat in silence for a moment, but each second was dilated time.\nJ's processor kept catalogue of every twitch of the worker's servos.\nThe duty cycle of its core implied periods of ebb and flow, a rhythm\nwith an opportune moment to strike. \n\n\"Do you need anything?\"\n\nTwice-flicker.\n\n\"Okay, good.\"\n\nThen leather tore.  J realized she'd been gripping the armrests of her\nchair, and this sudden externality was the cue she needed.  Enough of\nthese games.\n\n\"What do you want,\" J growled.\n\n\"Nothin',\" she claimed.\n\n\"I don't believe you.\"\n\n\"I bet.\"  And then she grinned.  \"Your murder drone programming\nstruggles to comprehend how awesome I am.  Happens a lot.\"\n\n\"You're bothering me for a reason,\" J stated.\n\n\"That's true,\" she said.  \"If you're looking for a confession...\nfine.\"  The worker leaned a bit closer, and animated some pleading\nlook.  \"I wanted to make you feel better.\"\n\nJ grunted.  \"You can try.\"\n\n\"Wow, you're really begging for it.\"\n\n\"No, I am not,\" J growled.  \"My words were very clear.\"\n\n\"You know what's clear?\" she said.  \"Well, not clear since I can't\nsee in the dark as well as you can---but I don't think I saw your\nuniform on.  You're off the clock, you're tired, this is your private\nspace.\"  She scooted back on the table, as if in sudden awareness of\npersonal boundaries.  \"I think if anyone else tried to walk in on you\ndown here, well.  Good thing they all have murder drone regen, right?\"\n\nJ wasn't smiling.  The worker wasn't right.  \"You think you're\nspecial,\" she spat.\n\n\"I am~\" she said.  \"But this isn't about me.  I read your report.\"\n\nJ couldn't deny the urge to smile, slight as it was.  Finally, someone\nread them!  But why did it have to be---\n\n\"It must have been rough out there.  I... should have been there,\ninstead of just---\"\n\n\"Not your call,\" J interrupted.  \"I make the deployment decisions.\"\n\n\"It's not your fault,\" she said, as if that at all followed.\n\n\"No?  Then who you propose to blame.\"\n\n\"The jerks who ripped off your arm?\" she said, with that inflection of\naffronted disbelief.  \"Or the humans who screwed up everything, can't\ngo wrong blaming the humans.  No offense.\"\n\n\"Useless,\" J said.  \"I can't optimize factors outside my control.\nNext time, I just have to do better.\"\n\n\"If you don't relax, next time---\"\n\nThe worker's arm gestured out for emphasis as she spoke.  J had been\ntracking the worker's every movement for some time.  Or rather, her\nprocesses, in instinct's grip, had.  By that subconscious calculus, a\nthreshold had been crossed.\n\nJ was reacting to a transmodular gauntlet jabbing forward at that same\ntime the worker was, with only marginally less surprise.  A traitorous\nreflex, but it hadn't lost entire sight of her priorities---there were\nno claws, no blades, just a hand that gripped a soft metal tube with\ndeforming force.\n\nQueued words choked up in the worker's vocalsynth, but made no further\nsound.\n\nIf anything saved her, it was that.  If she had cried out, if she had\nmade some irresistible noise of pain or protest, then J would only\nwrench more out of her.  Lunge or drag her forward, bare her fangs---\n\n\"This isn't like me,\" J said, jaw not unclenching.  \"I---lost\ncontrol.\"\n\nJ's screen remained blank---what expression might have betrayed her if\nnot?---but her optics flickered now.  J could make no sense of it, but\npurple eyes danced between them, attention rapt as if the twitch of\nthe lights meant something.\n\n\"It's okay.  My bad for spooking you.\"\n\n\"You should go,\" J said.\n\n\"I'll stay till I hear an order.\"  She sounded like she was laughing\nas she said it, but she didn't laugh.\n\n\"Stupid.  Selfish.\"  The worker wouldn't have to live with the\nconsequences if J's composure broke.  Mere damage could be repaired.\nBut J's dignity?\n\n\"You are~  I forgive you, though.\"\n\nJ squeezed the hand tighter.  \"I won't regret it.\"\n\n\"I don't believe you.\"\n\nJ growled.\n\n\"Okay, I'll stop.\"  Finally the worker broke eye contact, gaze falling\nto where J's larger hand held her own. \"But really.  I get why you'd\nbe on edge.  You've seen what hands like mine can do.  You just went\nthrough hell because of them.  I don't blame you for being on edge. I\nshould have been more mindful.\"\n\nJ sighed.  \"I hate fighting solvers.\"\n\nThe worker smiled.  \"We're the worst.\"\n\n\"Not you.\"\n\n\"Aww, thanks J.\"\n\n\"That wasn't a compliment.\"\n\nStuck out her tongue.  \"I think it was clear.\"\n\n\"I don't have to tolerate this mockery.  You said you were waiting on\nan order?\"\n\n\"Mm, but then you'd have to let go of me.  You know what I think?  It\nwasn't you who grabbed me.  And I think the other you has other\nideas.\"  The worker nodded, eyes darting in a way that asked her to\nfollow.\n\nLooking elsewhere was as simple as J adjusting the focus of cameras in\ntheir spherical housing.  A change imperceptible from the outside,\naside from perhaps a slight attenuation of the glow.\n\nYet somehow, J had felt watched.\n\nFollowing where the worker indicated, J was still holding the worker's\narm---but without realizing her grip had gradually shifted throughout\nthe conversation. Governed, evidently, by that same traitorous\ninstinct.  Except now she didn't just grasp the worker's arm---more\naccurate to say she... held her hand.\n\n\"I was looking pretty close before you let me in, you know.  And I\ndidn't see the glow of your handlights.  They're like your face,\nright?  Stays blank unless you turn it on.  Makes a better default for\nstealth hunting.  So your hands probably stay untransformed, to speed\nup switching out to what you need?\"\n\n\"Why are you explaining my body to me?\"\n\n\"I'm just saying.  If you were reacting on instinct... why you go for\njust a hand when something more... pointed would have been just as\nmuch work?\"\n\n\"You're implying---\"\n\n\"You wanted me to leave because you're worried your instinct-threads\nare gonna try to murder me, right?  But it seems to me they know\nbetter.\"\n\n\"Don't interrupt me.  I have enough self-control to avoid killing you\nif you don't indulge me.\"\n\n\"I'm that hard to resist, huh?\"\n\n\"Do you have a deathwish?  I will order you out for your own\nsafety.\"\n\n\"Look.  I'm ",
  "title": "Rogue Management"
}