{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/fiction/corrupt-combustion/deadlocked",
  "description": "|",
  "path": "/posts/fiction/corrupt-combustion/deadlocked",
  "publishedAt": "2024-02-11T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "; foreword\n: Although this was the first Corrupt Combustion post, the\noverview should make for a better introduction.\n\nAlright, let's do this.\n\nI hope no one is reading this without knowing the context --- it's\nthere on the discord --- but for the sake of self-containedness,\nlately I've been consumed by brainworms for a particular Murder Drones\nalternate universe: what if solver magic copied Jujutsu Kaisen's\nhomework?\n\nA simple find and replace is oddly compelling. Instead of a Domain\nExpansion with a sure-hit effect, you have a Sandboxed Execution with\nan autorun program. Instead of Binding Vows, you have\nAssertions. Veils are firewalls, revealing your technique is\ncommenting your code, and so on.\n\nI call this the Corrupt Combustion AU. I'm gonna talk about the\nbackstory of an important character in this world --- and it is not\nwho you think.\n\nWe'll start with broad background and slowly get more detailed. This\nwill be pretty a sketchy summary, treat it as an outline or incomplete\nnotes.\n\n- - -\n\nNot only are solver drones significantly more powerful, there's also a\nlot more of them, and not all of them come from Cabin Fever Labs. Much\nmore happens outside of the colonies as a result.^[An important detail\nthat won't figure in heavily here is that Nori & Yeva have figured out\na way to 'patch' drones infected with a solver, essentially giving\nthem an antivirus.]\n\nBut because of this, Nori and Yeva go on to create the Wheel Group, a\nsemi-secret society of solver users focused on training their\nabilities, containing the AbsoluteSolver, and keeping most of what's\ngoing on secret from normal drones.^[Civilians know the Wheel Group\nexists and fights off threats, but they don't know what or how.]\n\nWheel members don't just fight murder drones, by the way. The wastelands\nof Copper-9 are haunted by zombie processes, entities akin to cursed\nspirits that form when too many errors and corruption accumulate in one\nplace.\n\nOnce Outpost-3 is secured and the Wheel Group ascend in power and\npromenience, Nori and Yeva mount an operation to rescue Alice from Cabin\nFever Labs --- and they succeed.\n\nSo Alice is still unhinged and spite-filled, but spending fewer years\ntrapped in hell leaves her with a modicum of chill. She's not infected\nwith the Solver, but on account of her self-modifications, cunning and\nsheer fuck you attitude, she's able to hold her own against zombie\ndrones.\n\nBack at the outpost, she seizes power in an increasingly militarized\nWorker Defense Force, training them to fight disassembly drones. With\nAlice & Nori working together, they create tech that lets a\nwell-prepared squad of workers hold them off with surprisingly few\ncasualties.\n\nMost importantly for this prequel: Beau finally gets uploaded into an\nolder body --- except he keeps the murder drone arm.\n\nYou see, Beau is special. Because after Alice & Nori take down a few\nmore murder drones, they try to repeat the trick. But grafting\ndisassembly drone parts onto workers always fails; they simply can't\ncontrol it and die.\n\nBeau can control his just fine.\n\nEmphasis on can.\n\nBecause this is all the backplot still.\n\nThe story proper begins with Alice \"sparring\" with Beau. She berates\nhim and doesn't pull her punches in the slightest. it becomes clear\nthat this is such a common occurrence that Beau has grown adept at\ndodging her hits and enduring the pain. Beau never fights back in\nthese spars, not initially, but Alice always yells at him until he\ndoes.\n\nAlice's frustration only mounts. Because yes, he punches, kicks,\ngrapples, everything she instructs the other WDF recruits to do --- but\nhe never transforms his arm into one of the murder drone's weapons.\n\n\"What good was giving you that arm if you ain't gonna use it?\"\n\nAlice seemingly gives up. She decides to take Beau on a trip. Maybe\nBeau's uncertain, but he can't say no. Maybe Alice promises the trip is\nto show or give him something, her assurance being enough to get him a\nlittle excited\n\nThey go somewhere outside the outpost. A derelict building Alice has\nturned into a secret base. When they finally arrive, it's a trap:\nAlice has kept corrupted Anti-Drone Sentinels locked up in the\nbasement. She releases one and locks Beau down there at its mercy\nwhile she watches. It'll kill him if he doesn't use the arm, so his\nhand is forced. All this is accompanied with flashbacks to the hell he\nendured --- and inflicted --- in Cabin Fever.\n\nAlice doesn't let him go after one Sentinel. Maybe she releases more,\nups the challenge, but eventually through cleverness or corrupted\nstrength, the sentinels break themselves free, all of them. That\nwasn't what she planned --- she wanted to teach him a lesson, not kill\nhim.\n\nHere, when it counts, Alice tries to save Beau (he's her son, after\nall) but she's just a worker drone, and she can't. Beau tells her to\nleave, save herself, and she does while Beau gives a last stand\nfending them all off with only a disassembly drone arm and\ndetermination.\n\nHe manages to break out of the basement, crawl out of the building, but\nhe's leaking out all his oil. As his processors spin down, he hears the\nalways steady beat of leathery wings descending. From the heavens comes\nNori Doorman, the savior drone. The last thing Beau sees is her reaching\ndown a hand with a smile that seems radiant.\n\n- - -\n\nBeau wakes up in the hospital being treated by Nori. Yeva is in the\nroom, yelling at Alice, and Alice is sneering back. It takes him a while\nto piece together what's happening --- because Beau has passed Alice's\n'test', she's recommending he be recruited to the soldier drone corps.\n\"Or even the wheel group.\"\n\nYeva's outraged, because he's just a kid (he's Doll's age), and her test\nnearly killed him. Meanwhile, presently ignoring them, Nori is\nnonchalant and teasing Beau. Not the most sensitive bedside manner, but\nit still takes the edge off his anxiety. (At least until he remembers\nthat he's being treated by Nori Doorman.)\n\nMaybe a stray comment sends Beau into another flashback, but Nori pulls\nhim back with a touch. She offhandedly suggests she could suppress away\nhis bad memories, and he's like yes please.\n\nAnyway, the argument between Alice & Yeva proceeds in the background,\ngoing in circles, and Nori rolls her eyes, and she's just like, how\nabout we let Beau decide? If he doesn't want to, he won't. If it does,\nhe will.\n\n(After all, she's Nori Doorman; she can just say the word and it'll\nhappen; nobody would overrule her.)\n\nSo what does Beau decide?\n\nHe wants to make Alice happy, so he says yeah. But he wants to be like\nNori, too. So maybe he could be a field technician, repairing soldiers\ndamaged in combat?\n\nIt's a choice that makes both Alice and Yeva unhappy, but Nori gives a\ncocky smile. Yeva accepts it, but Alice argues back.\n\nAnd then, finally looking at Alice, all of Nori's carefree swagger\nvanishes. \"I said Beau decides. That's final.\"\n\n\"He's my son.\"\n\n\"And you're here out of my better nature. I pulled you out of Cabin\nFever. It'd be just as easy to put you back in the ground.\" Nori\nfrowns in momentary thought, then raises a glyph, igniting the solver\ngryph. Purple force engulfs Alice, lifting her as she cries out.\n\"Honestly, give me one reason I shouldn't kill you right now.\"\n\nYeva starts, \"Nori, don't---\"\n\n\"Not in the mood, Yev.\" The light in Nori's hand turns red for a moment,\nthen Yeva's red eyes are replaced by a loading circle. Turning back to\nAlice, she continues, \"You think I don't recognize your handiwork? You\ntried to kill Beau. Why should I let that slide?\"\n\nFor all that Alice keeps her cocky smile, there's something strained in\nher voice. \"I just wanted to make 'im stronger. Thought you'd\nappreciate the will to power. Or do you only respect for what you're\nborn with?\"\n\nNori's face wrinkles in disgust, and her fist closes, Alice's frame is\ncrushed.\n\nBefore, Beau had been torned between not questioning Nori and not\nquestioning Alice, but this pushes him over the edge. He begs for Nori\nto stop. \"I thought you saved people?\"\n\nNori speaks without glancing at him. \"The power to save people means\nknowing when people can't be saved.\" But when she finally looks back,\nher face softens, and so does her grip, and Alice slacks in her\ntelekinetic hold. \"But I did say it's your choice, didn't I? Say the\nword, and I'll destroy her.\"\n\n\"Please don't.\"\n\n\"After everything she's done to you?\"\n\n\"She does it because she loves me.\"\n\n\"Whatever.\" Nori drops her hand, and her victim slumps. \"Never forget\nthat your clock ticks because I let it, Alice. You get to live because\nBeau says so, and for only as long as he says.\"\n\n- - -\n\nWorking as a field tech sucks. Beau sees a lot of drones die, and trying\nto do repair work edges into making his memories of torturing people for\nAlice resurface.\n\nStill, Beau does good work. Better work anyone else save Doorman\nherself, actually --- despite being a kid, he's got way more experience\noperating on drone internals.\n\nBut he's not just a field tech. He spars with Wheel Group members,\ngetting trained to defend himself. He's terrified by the prospect,\nafter everything Alice had inflicted on him in their \"spars\", but his\ntraining partner is Thad, and he's gentle.\n\nOf all the Wheel Group, Thad has the most to teach him. With some\npractice and technical fiddling from Nori, the special arm lets Beau use\naugmentation commands like a murder drone, but without an ignited core,\nBeau can't use proper solver commands. Thad is an outlier; he punches\nand kicks, and that's about it.\n\nHe meets other solvers-in-training too, including Sam and Emily, the\nonly two he really gets along with. He has lunch with them, or hangs\nout after school, and they play games and complain about their\nclassmates having no chill or being gross and immoral. He's a nice\nsplash of normality, when Beau spends his days with the dead and dying.\n\nOver time, they see a pattern to the deaths --- murder drones are\ngetting bolder in their raids on worker settlements. Solvers left to\nguard them are torn apart, even R1 rank",
  "title": "Deadlocked & Thrashing"
}