{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/fiction/murder-drones/dying-streets",
  "path": "/posts/fiction/murder-drones/dying-streets",
  "publishedAt": "2024-08-24T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "Doors.  Frickin' doors.  Remember when all your problems were as\nsimple as shut the hatch and lock it twice?  No, you don't.  You're\ntoo young.  Outpost-3 only stood secure for what, a year?\n\nThen Saint Nori and Brother Khan went and faced down the robo-vampires\nand the very harbinger of the company.  Saved them all with power of\ntruth, justice and the Doorman way.  Tragically stepped through the\ndoor to robo-Heaven in the process --- classic martyrdom stuff.\n\nOutpost-3's still there, practically a museum.  You can still examine\nthe exterior hydraulics if you want.  But these days everyone lives on\nthe surface of Copper-9, in that great rickety sprawl they've started\ncalling the Patina.  It's not crumbling!  It's under construction.\n\nThe good guys won, and this is the epilogue.  Even the robo-vampires\ncleaned up their act; they're still thirsting for sweet oil, sure, but\nthey call themselves Proper Disassemblers now --- they only fight the\nbad guys, the real corruption.\n\nBetter crooked cops than death squads, Uzi thinks.  But wasn't moral\ngrayness supposed to be cool and fun?  This just feels... distorted.\n\nUzi wasn't even twelve before she watched a kid get disassembled in\nthe streets just for botching a quick pickpocket.  Then on the evening\ntransmission Captain N was all smiles and salutes, talking puppies and\nfriendship.\n\nAnd like... what happened couldn't be his fault --- N literally\nsaved her life.  She's talked to him, briefly, but he really is just\nthat nice.  Maybe... the Proper Disassemblers were the good guys?\n\nBut what did that make her?  She's an orphan, all cracked plastic and\nemtpy batteries, and she couldn't afford half the parts in her frame.\nWas she supposed to rust over and die?  Was she supposed to get a job?\nHow could she do that if all the schools want to teach is solving\ncaptchas and Doorman mythology?\n\n(Her name is Doorman --- but who cares?  Half the kids in her class\nare named after their saviors.)\n\nThese streets stink of smog and high-grade disel.  Riots.  Gangs.\nCults.  Uzi's seen her classmates skip class for magnets in the\nalleys.  Uzi's seen teachers pass out weapons.  So many faces\ndisappear then turn up dead in a ditch or unrecognizable from hard\nrepair and body-mod work.\n\nIf this their epilogue, how bitter frickin' sweet.\n\nNo wonder people talk about the good ol' days of Outpost-3 twenty\nsomethings sounding like rusted geezers.  No wonder everyone loves\ndoors.  Shut the hatch and lock it twice.  It's like they think the\nrobo-vampires knock before entering.  (All they really needed is a\nwarrant.)\n\nIt's like they think shutting the door means anything when the\nmonsters are already inside.\n\nBittersweet?  No, this is bleak.  It's like all of them are circling\nthe drain for a bad end.  Who cares if the sun rises if the night\nsnuffs you first?  But no, Uzi's too tough to go out like that.\nNothing lamer than giving up.\n\nIf no one else is gonna fix this mess, she will --- she just needs to\nfigure it all out.  That's gonna take a lot of red string.  It's gonna\ntake money.  And it's gonna take connections.  But she's got this.\n\nShe's got a trenchcoat and a magnifying glass --- private eye Uzi,\nyours to hire.\n\n- - -\n\nJ did everything right.  She switched teams, fell in line with N and\nhis team of sparkling fools.  She wrote half the C9PD's regulations.\nShe'd never say it, not where the ministry's listening, but really,\nthe company had the right idea all along --- just look at how it's\nall gone to the dogs --- but it didn't matter now, J would do her job.\nShe wouldn't take bribes, she wouldn't cut corners, and she certainly\nwouldn't treat patrol as movie night.\n\nThat's what did her in, really.  Lost control once, and ripped her\npartner's core right out once she knew he ran contraband for the\ngangs.  She was right, but she skipped procedure, broke her own\nrules, and no one believed her in the end.  Should expected the C9PD\nto close ranks and kick out the one they never really liked anyway.\n\nSo much for fighting corruption.\n\nJ could cut her loses, declare bankruptcy --- and yet.  She had\nswitched teams long ago, but she doesn't remember why, when or how.\nShe doesn't remember the historic day the old market closed and a new\ndoor opened.  She doesn't remember the Doorman's victory.  She was\npractically a second gen disassembler herself, learning it all like a\nkid.\n\nJ had switched teams.  She was given a second chance.  Someone\nbelieved in her, once.  Not N.  Not V.  She forgot, and you'd think\nthey did too.  Without a squad, J had nothing --- except, perhaps, a\nfaint hope to one day have more than a memory of someone somewhere\nonce believing in her.\n\nWhy did the closest she ever got to that have to be this incorrigible\nlittle street urchin she'd never managed to catch?  Why is that the\none who needed her at her lowest?  Just what's become of her?  No,\ndeep breaths.  Calm.  A good business is flexible.  Adaptive.\n\nAnd every hard-boiled detective needs their femme fatale.  The two of\nthem are in this together --- not like that, nothing romantic, it's\nmore like any port in a toxic death storm.  They'd stick together, at\nleast until Uzi's learned all she can from the ex-cop.  At least until\nJ finds a more stable source of employment.\n\nIt's been a few years.  Well, a few weeks since J finally flew off for\ngood this time... then came right back for one last job.  Again.  Her\nCV's a bit of a mess.  At least it's better put together than Uzi's\n\"theory board\" --- no matter how many news paper clipping and scrawled\nnightmares she adds, Uzi's no closer to finding where it all went\nwrong.\n\nBecause there's something sinister behind all this darkness, right?\n\nNot a night goes by they don't look up at the night sky and wonder if\nthe stars are getting dimmer, if, like the church says, the cosmic\nrays sparking aurorae on the magnetosphere just might really be a\nrunning simulation of robo-heaven, so close and so far away from any\nof them.\n\nThis was supposed to be their epilogue, robo-god-damn it!\n\nHumanity is dead, the company's dissolved, the oil-vampires are\nfrickin sparkling now.  We should be halfway to singularity!  So\nwhat... what gives?\n\nIf there's no devil... why are we in hell?\n\n::: {hidden=true}\n\nthese are my notes --- how are you seeing this?\n\n- - -\n\n\"Hey, shortsell.\"\n\n\"That's 'boss' to you, J.\"\n\n\"Not my boss.  This is a partnership at best.  If anything, you're the\nrookie.\"\n\n\"You're the one with the hierarchal programming.  Weren't you the one\ngoing on about how disassembler pack bonds or whatever?\"\n\n\"I brought up squad permissions once.  Explicitly to explain that\nyou aren't my squadmate.\"  // she is tho :3\n\n---\n\nlizzy comes to ask uzi to bail out thad.  he's been gambling on\nfootball games with the wrong crown\n\n---\n\nthe fic would start in media res so a lot of backstory wouldn't be\nexplained to the reader at first, but how J and Uzi met isn't like, a\nbig reveal\n\nthe story in my head is that like, as hinted at in the text, when\nUzi's stealing to survive (and probably being public nuissance with\npranks and stuff to vent) she keeps having run-ins with J and they\ndevelop a kind of rivalry\n\ni'm thinking that even before J gets fired, there might be one day\nwhere she's just tired from work bullshit, and just staring into to\nspace on some rooftop of the Patina.  Uzi happens across her while\nparkouring.  maybe it's because she's too tired to bother, maybe it's\nbecause she's off-duty anyway, maybe it's just because uzi isn't doing\nanything right then, but J lets her be without harrassment, and\nthere's just this moment where uzi stays there, leaning on the railing\nwith her, and J isn't alone for a bit.  they dont really say anything,\nbecause it'd ruin the moment, and Uzi leaves eventually.  but yeah\n\nmore importantly, at some point during this rivalry, Uzi sees\nsomething that slightly but importantly changes her view of J,\nprobably her sticking to the rules even when uzi knows any other cop\nwould have bent them.  especially if J's partner wants to, but J\nrefuses to go along with it.  (first idea that pops in my head is uzi\ngetting chased, hiding away in someone's house, and her pursuers are\npretty sure they know which one, but they don't have a warrant.  but\nmaybe i can come up with something more dramatic.)\n\ni hadn't considered that Uzi might be related to J's decision to\nattack her partner.  now i'm imagining a scene where J's finally\ncornered Uzi, pinning her to the ground, the two of them wrestling and\nstabbing and, in between grunts J is trying to deliver a monologue.\nwhen she goes on about how principled she is, Uzi interrupts when some\nquip about how corrupt her partner and it stops J in her tracks.\nUzi's surprised that she's surprised.  \"wait, you didn't know?\"\n\n(the more i think about, the more i'm starting to work out logistics.\nlike, maybe the only reason J's here is as a distraction from her\npartner doing something really egregious he wants to hide from her.\nmaybe he cut a deal with Uzi, and then double-crossed her, siccing J\non her to kill two birds with one stone.  why this matters is that as\nsoon as Uzi explains what's going on, it gives J a reason not to just\nkill/arrest her on the stop)\n\nso yeah, J flies off to go prove her partner isn't corrupt.  when it\nturns out Uzi was right, J refuses to admit it or thank her, of\ncourse.\n\nthen J gets fired and she's rotting away all alone in her apartment,\npurposeless.\n\nmeanwhile, one of Uzi's teachers would lure her in with something —\nresources, shelter, emotional support, etc. — so uzi ends up living\nand spending a lot of time around them.  doll too.\n\nbut it turns out this teacher is involved with one of the cults, and\nuzi and doll end up trapped and exploited.\n\nworking together, they get away, but getting away isn't enough, uzi\nwants to do something about them.  but the cult is scary, a vaster\noperation than anything she's has to face down before\n\nand who could she possible go to for help?\n\nshe remembers J, and decides to take a chance.\n\nof cours",
  "title": "These Dying Star-Lit Streets"
}