{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/fiction/murder-drones/devils-fork",
  "description": "|",
  "path": "/posts/fiction/murder-drones/devils-fork",
  "publishedAt": "2024-08-25T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "::: drabble-chain\n\n- - -\n\nStars, the few times Uzi saw them, shined all sorts of colors.  Blue,\nyellow, red.  Beneath the streetlamps, acid-tinged snowflakes\nglittered, bright and scattered in the same way, but they were only\nwhite.  Crap replacement.\n\nUzi keeps eyes on the sky; she's savvy, and knows to stay on-guard.\nTwo scavengers chit-chat beside her, eyes on facial animations\ninstead.  But they listened as she'd ranted railgun electromagnetics\nand anime choreography.  Seemed interested.  She thought of Doll, back\nwhen they were sleepover-sisters.  Crap replacement.\n\nNo time for angst, just action.  Uzi holds her railgun, and thinks of\nKhan.\n\n- - -\n\nShadows scowl and loom. Spooky streets. Uzi knew spooky all her life.\nIn Doll's sleepovers they played dare-games in closet darkness. Rumors\nsaid if you shut out all light, you sometimes felt watched. Doll did\nevery time. Uzi too.\n\nDark is nice, sharpens senses. Uzi'd thought her railgun needed a\nglowing green spare part. A macguffin. Then she brought a\ncopper-wrapped tuning fork to a room with no lights.  Completion sung\nto her, and the railgun felt done.\n\nJust needs a target.\n\nTill then, it's scavenging.\n\nAn apartment block stands, no lights powered, but copper's in the\nwalls.\n\n- - -\n\nCrack.  It's Quin sledghammering wall-plaster.  Pipes burst, water\ngushing.  Cracking piñatas, copper wire candy.\n\nStreetlamps flicker outside.  The wind stops, choked breath.\nTransformer fails --- whole block in overcast night.  One lamp left,\nshines a vigil.\n\nKnife-whisper.  When you see yellow, he's already dead.\n\nNeck cut, life gushing out.  Cracking piñatas like color-inverted\neggs.  Quin-candy.\n\nNo angst, just action.\n\nAnime choreography.  Duck under wing-sweep, copper wire lasso,\ngotcha.\n\nAcid burbles --- vocalsynth fries --- name's Marina.\n\nThe railgun sings.  Point-blank.  Core bursts, scream-roars, blood\ngushing out.  Street's lit anew, green light like lightning.\n\nStill no wind.\n\n- - -\n\nUzi is cold-hot.  Alone like a glacier.  Angry like a simmering\nvolcanoes.\n\nFatal Error beneath bowl-cut and pinstripe suit.\n\nFatal Error beneath blue-dyed fringe and crop-top.\n\nPlug a wire, mount file storage like an external hard-drive, Uzi is\nlooking for mementos, funeral fodder or catharsis to carry back.\nSearching just makes her feel hot.\n\nShe looks to the victory-defeat.\n\n beneath\nafro and sweater vest.\n\nThey don't even die like us.\n\nKick and smash and kick and smash and it's action but it's nothing.\n\nShe's smaller even when it's dead.\n\n- - -\n\nDigging through murder drone carcass, those bones and sacs, you still\nfind electronics.  Like a radio --- buzzing.\n\nWind again, ice scratching her cheek.  Electromagnetic humming ---\non-edge.  Above glittering snowfall, that yellow glint.  X marks your\ndeath.\n\nFrickin' cooldowns!  No railgun.  Detatched murder-claw?  Crap\nreplacement.\n\nCloud-crash, snow debris.  No pouncing?  Idiot ball?\n\n\"Yeesh.  R got cooked by a toaster?\"  Wary, circling.\n\nShotgun-barrel jabs.  \"You reckon it bears the devil's fork?\"  Still,\nfocused.\n\n\"Hate seein' a fork stuck in a toaster.\"\n\nUzi blurts, \"That's right.  My corpse-meal!\"\n\nWary, focused --- then blink.  Quick as death, gone as wind.\n\n- - -\n\nUzi's frame rattled. Like digital adrenaline. Robot hormones.\n\nMurder drones fled. She bluffed, they believed.  She looked back, met\neye with red error.\n\nBetter act the part, could be watching.\n\nYou wanted to carry back part of them. You wanted catharsis.\n\nMurder drones probably don't even _taste_ like us. Right?\n\nIntrusive thoughts didn't make sense.\n\nUzi felt cold-hot.  Ice makes stones crack.  Electric voltage fries\ncircuits.  Uzi felt broken-growing.  Hormones.\n\nThat was just angst.  This is action. Hands cupped, plastic goblet\nfor king's wine.  Queen's royal jelly.\n\nRailgun whines red overheat.  Cool hands cradle it.  She walks away.\n\n- - -\n\nSnow crested Uzi's beanie, above icicle-feathers like an inverse\ncrown.  Her rime is undisturbed.  Winds went still; clouds ran dry of\nfalse stars.\n\nDigging through her bat-wing backback, you find extraneous\nelectronics.  MP3 player.  Nightcore?  Anime OPs?  Not hitting.\nCorrupted file, howling static.  That's it.\n\nUzi groans loud in night, frame rattling.  No one to talk to.\nAngst-abyss.  She's melting glaciers, she's dormant volcanos.\n\nHer feet crack like sledgehammers against ice-slick roads.\n\nShe's remembering two smiling scavengers she'd left Outpost-3 with.\nThen thinking of Doll.  Thinking of Khan.\n\nOf her mother.\n\nHer railgun cooled quiet.\n\n- - -\n\nThe world's different outside of Outpost-3.  New key, her core beating\nnew tempos, orchestral remix.\n\nUzi knows how.  Khan read door blueprints like bedtime stories.  Never\nexplained why Door Two, just what it was: a faraday cage.  Canceling\nthat fundamental song of light and iron: electromagnetism.\n\nMurder drones use it to hunt: communication, triangulation,\ndisruption.\n\nUzi runs a finger down the railgun's barrel.  Guess I use it to hunt,\ntoo.\n\nIn that dark room, watched and sung to, Uzi felt completion and it\nattracted her.  Like mom.\n\nIf she'd felt repulsed?  Now she understands why.\n\nTime to change keys.\n\n- - -\n\nStars, the few times Uzi saw them, had four points.  That's how light\ndiffracted through lenses; squishy human eyes saw differently.\nThey're all messed up.\n\nWhat do stars look like to murder drones?  They don't even _die_ like\nus.  Probably don't see like us either.\n\nThat carcass was squishy inside.  Muscles in place of servos.  Crap\nreplacement.\n\nLast bridge back home is perilously slick.  Last gust of wind tugs her\nhoodie.  And she slips.  Last moment, she ledge-grabs --- with both\nhands.\n\nRailgun tumbling down.  One hand holding secure, the other's thrown\nto reach out in a futile, dramatic gesture.\n\n- - -\n\nThree prongs of purple code erupt in miracle-glow between splayed\nfingers.\n\nIt's mirrored ten meters abyssward, cradling the fruit of months\nbrainstorming, months tinkering, months hoping.  The railgun that\nsung to her (in the same tonality murder drones hummed.)\n\nHer replacement for --- what?\n\nIt rises like snow never could.  When it's inches away, she stares\ndown the symbol.\n\nThe devil's fork.\n\nDid she hate seeing it?  Stepping off the bridge, her electricity\nhummed in the gun she cradled.  She sees Door Three, and cloud-rift\nhigh above.\n\nThose stars still shine, all sorts of colors --- three-pointed and\never-shifting.\n\n:::",
  "title": "Tines of the Devil's Fork"
}