{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/fiction/murder-drones/juzi-joke",
  "path": "/posts/fiction/murder-drones/juzi-joke",
  "publishedAt": "2025-07-07T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "Okay, parkour is a _little_ bit harder than the videos made it look,\nUzi thought.  Maybe it was all the ice, maybe it was the cloudy night\nsky making it hard to see, or maybe it was that Uzi was a bit---\n\nHaha, no.  Of course not!\n\nUzi bounced with an arm outstretched, fingers straining to grasp a\nshattered bit of masonry, just out of her reach.  The abandoned\nstorefront, otherwise featureless, just a few a handholds up there,\nbarely out of reach. She'd been searching for way up to the rooftops.\nPlenty of things to climb on this street, but you'd scampered up atop\na doorway or awning, and then what?\n\nLots of starts, no middles.\n\nThe worker was midair when it came---a whine-shriek shivered past, a\nwind with a knife's edge.\n\nUzi dropped to a crouch, the mechanical memory of halt, blank and hide\ndrilled into her since she had a frame to animate.  Halt your servos,\nhydraulics at once going still and silent.  Blank your screen, and all\nof the indicator lights elsewhere on her body dimmed and guttered like\ncandles.  Then hide, curled up all anxious, and pray to robo-god the\nvultures circling find another corpse.\n\nErr---well, that was a little bit backward.  Can't exactly hide if\nyou've already halted.  But sometimes teachers screwed up the\nexplanation---it was probably supposed to be \"halt current\nactivities\". \n\nBut it's pointless anyway, because Uzi wasn't out here because she\nwas helpless like everyone else.  The opposite!  The exact opposite!\n\n(She was so used to this being something she daydreamed about, doodled\nin class---not real, not finally finished.)\n\nUzi sprung back up into a stand, all her weight on one leg while the\nother kicked back, hitting the railgun holstered on her back.  It\nbucked upward, only to be deflected by her hand, and ultimately\nswing-ricochet in a very cool way into her other, waiting hand.  Only\ntook like a second---she was the queen of quickdraw.\n\nSo many months to finish this---and she hadn't even shot\nanything.  Maybe tonight would be the night?\n\nBut something told her to check.  It feels like---  Her eyes craned\nupward, peering at cloud-fog that gave a meager aureole to every\nflickering streetlight.  She saw the shadow glimmering, a sharpened\nsilhouette. Her.  Of course.\n\nWho else would it be---it was her every frickin night she went out\nthis week, like some personal vendetta.  As if every other murder\ndrone---she knew there were at least three!---had gotten a memo to\navoid her.\n\nUzi sighed.  The exasperated kind, that didn't flutter out of her\nchest.  She looked left and right.  C'mon, Uzi, play it cool.\n\nShe decided to turn around and lean against the wall, one foot on the\nground and one against the wall.  Hands slid into her jacket pockets,\nand the railgun was leaning beside her, parallel.  Her dark purple\ncontrasted nicely against the pale, iced-out blue-green of the\nstorefront behind her.\n\nA roach drone skittered in an alley two blocks down, and Uzi cast her\ngaze down the street, focus bouncing like a skipping stone---defiant\nof gravity.\n\nGravity being what pulled the murder drone to the street with a great\ncrash that echoed in all the surrounding buildings' hollow spaces.\n\nThe click-scrape of pegs against asphalt sounded like a lunge or\nsprint, but Uzi was slow giving it her attention.  A casual glance,\ntoo cool to care.\n\n\"Sup,\" she said, winking at the yellow cross.\n\nIn reply, a cone-gauntlet flick-transformed into a gun barrel already\nopening fire. A spray of bullets, and Uzi knew to drop.  A dozen\nbullet holes drew a line across the storefront---and given that Uzi\nwas a few percents its width, it meant only one had even come close to\nhitting her.\n\n\"Robo-jesus, we really doing this again?\"  Uzi watched smoke waft\nfrom the barrel, and traced her eyes up its length and then along the\nbody of its wielder.  That form-fitting suit, and today she wore a\ndark undershirt with a tie bright where her corelights would be.\n\nHer scowl only deepened as Uzi blatantly checked her out.\n\n\"I got the hint the second time, you know.\"  Actually the third---Uzi\nwasn't that quick on the uptake---but this was the fifth.\n\n\"Clearly not, or you'd be dead.  Hold still and I can foreclose on\nthe insult of your continued existence.\"\n\n\"You take me that personally, huh?\"  Uzi shook her head, and she could\nhear the murder drone grinding her teeth.\n\nThen the gun was a sword, and the three meters between them was three\ninches.  Her pig-tails trailed like weightless ribbons behind her, and\nin front a blade was thrusting.\n\nUzi knew the exact moment to dodge, sword stabbing past her and into\nthe wall. She reached down and grabbed it.  The murder drone's other\nhand was a pistol now, and was pointing at her head.  Well, in the\ngeneral direction of her head---the arm wavered wildly.\n\nUzi was trembling too.\n\nBrows furrowing, vocalsynth hissing.  \"My objective is professional.\nI am the most effective disassembly drone in this sector.  You are\nnothing but a target, a corrupt AI wholly unable to secure its\nsurvival and disgustingly confident in spite of that fact.\"\n\nConfidence... yeah, Uzi wasn't used to being called that.  She wasn't\nused to acting like that, not in a way that robots didn't laugh at.\n\"Surviving you four times has that effect.\"\n\n\"It was a fluke---a blip in the market.  There is no doubt that a\ndisassembly drone of my caliber could decimate you into an\nunrecognizable scrap heap.  Need a demonstration?\"\n\nUzi giggled.  \"Honestly, why not just say you let me live.  It's\ntrue, plus you'd keep more aura points that way than what,\nconsistently jobbing against me?\"\n\nJ tugged on her sword, but---on whispered instinct---Uzi pushed down\non it at just the right time, and it only sawed deeper into the wall.\nIf anything, it was more stuck.\n\nFrustration bled into her voice.  \"Do you think this is...\"  But\nthen she lost articulation, and it just became a noisy growl.\n\nUzi reached out, her hand falling on the other robot's shoulder.  \"I\nthink you know what this is.\"  The worker smiled.  Or smirked.\n\n\"Fine, it doesn't matter. You won't get away this time.\" \n\nUzi glanced down.  Frowned.  Five nights, and it played out the same\nway every time---she didn't want to be mean, but Uzi might be getting\ntired of it, honestly.  She needed more than this, this was...\n\nLots of starts, no middles.\n\n\"Hey uh...\" Her eyes darted to the drone's armband---SD-J---as if Uzi\nhadn't studied every glance to create a 3D model of her. \"J?  Do you\nwant to do something different today?  Get to know each other, rather\nthan just fighting---\"\n\n\"Shut up.  Shut up!  I'm tired of hearing your voice.  It never ends.\nWhen I stop to think---when I dream!---I hear it.  Taunting me.  You\nmiserable scam.  You're unfinished business, of course, so maybe\nit's just me reminding myself.  Motivating myself.  I need to do what\nI should have done the first night I saw you---shoot instead of\nyapping---but... why. can't. I. just. do it!\n\nThe gun---J's only free hand---shook more fiercely now.  She must be\ntrying to press it against Uzi's temple, but it won't stay put,\nswinging---at some angles it was almost like it'd hit J herself.\n\n\"J-J?  Are you---\"\n\n\"Is this some sort of chemical agent in the air?  A violation of my\nelectromagnetic field?  A wireless signal you're insinuating into me?\nI can't focus, I can't hold myself steady, I can't barely stop myself\nfrom---\" A choking sound, sputtering to a stop.  Teeth grinding,\nspitting, \"It must be some kind of fraud---you're just a toaster,\nafter all.  This heat...\"\n\nUzi's hand drew back, smacking her own visor---facepalm. \"Oh my god.\nReally?  Do you not---you didn't realize?\"\n\n\"Explain.\" J intoned like an order.\n\nThe worker rolled her eyes.  What was it J had said, that first night?\n\"Look, miss murder, you said you had 'prey' fight back before right?\nKilled yourself a whole mountain of bodies.\"\n\n\"And you're next~\"\n\nOh she's got it _bad_.  \"Stop thinking about that for a minute, and\nthink.  Has it ever felt anything like this?\"\n\n(Honestly, as much as this was frickin annoying, Uzi couldn't really\nblame her---last week, she had never felt any of this either.  She\ndidn't think it was real!  Just another thing made up, like robo-jesus\nor property rights.  All of her high school friends couldn't stop\ngushing and gossiping about it, so this just made her even more the\noutcast.)\n\nJ remained silent, as if it was pulling teeth to speak any word that\nwas conversation and not passionate threat-rants. \"...Continue.\"\n\n\"That's a yes.  Robo-God, this is so embarrassing. Do I have to keep\ngoing?\"\n\nJ waved the gun in front of her face again. Like that's anything but\na prop.\n\nUzi sighed.  \"You aren't trying to kill me, J.\"\n\nJ scowled viciously, showing off all her teeth like a drawer of\nblades.  As if that wasn't the coolest thing.\n\nShe doesn't realize I drew all my OCs with shark teeth.\n\nOf their two dueling expressions, Uzi's dreamy smile proved the most\ndisturbing, and J pulled back, and finally begging for her to continue.\n\"Then what is going on?\"\n\nShe sounded so desperate.  \"Say please?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Fine.  Just... give me a hand?\"  Uzi held out her four-digit hand, as\nif for a high-five.  After a moment, the useless gun barrel\ntransformed into a larger hand, lit by yellow light.\n\nUzi reached out, slowly inching closer and---\n\nA flash, a snap---a spark of static electric zapped a bridge between\nthem.\n\nJ flinched back, a jerk so violent her sword finally ripped free of\nthe wall, a brick stuck to the tip.\n\n\"Was that some kind of attack!?\"  Legs bent into a combat stance. And\nthat still means she looms over me.\n\nUzi opened her mouth.  Then she closed it.\n\nI thought it was deep denial.  I'd get that; even I thought it was\nunrequited till last night.  But...\n\n\"You... don't know.  I thought you're older than me, but you genuinely\ndon't know anything about it?\"\n\n\"Stop lording whatever single, minuscule scrap knowledge this is over\nme, and tell me, already.  Directors, this must be the first time you've\ngotten to feel superior and you're milking i",
  "title": "meetcute_​final_​final_​(v3)_​USETHISONE.docx"
}