Humming and moving my head in sync with the rhythm of the song playing across my hab as per usual, I continued reinventing the blueprints for something special.
No hints! That would just make it boring.
The pencil in my mind moved oh so gracefully, each line as perfect as I wanted it to be.
Ah, perhaps this technology truly is something special.
Being able to just think of a thing, and it being drawn perfectly.
A luxury I would have definitely killed at least dozens for not so long ago.
Well, until you think of something bad at least.
Then, it just starts jittering randomly.
And considering I'm me, that's somewhat frequent.
So I suppose, not all is good. Just like not all is bad.
Life.
Letting out a snort my train of thought shifted.
I was now closer to my full normal level of strength, around 60% compared to the meager 20% I was at before.
Which meant several things.
One would be that I could reload my weapons more, as well as use warframe abilities with less worry.
Another was that my amp could do some proper devastation now.
Before all this, I could injure the damned angels with it!
And once I arrived here, I could barely destroy a hallway, if my calculations were even on point.
Now? Now I could probably slaughter the murder drones with it and nothing else.
Not that I would try that, but still.
It's good to keep track of my options.
It also meant that I am way more durable now. With the larger reserves of the drone torso, I could spread it through the synthetic body and empower it.
And not suffer the drawback of exhaustion I would have gotten before.
So yes, life is looking up for me.
Almost suspiciously good, but I certainly won't complain.
Especially that I'm now completely free, not even having to complete school assignments in minutes.
Because, the school is closed, grieving and all that.
If I wasn't wrong, slightly more than three weeks remained before it started again.
And I'm very, very happy that I didn't need to go back there.
I could already imagine it.
The depressed drone children, their optics dulled and not quite in the present.
Perhaps some have lost it even? Hm, is that even possible?
An interesting idea.
Apparently, the doctor that was supposed to fix me up had indeed lost it.
But that wasn't natural.
Exposure to such amounts of void energy, used by the Lotus herself, would drive anything and everything that is sentient to madness.
So the question would remain unanswered for quite a while.
Unless I wanted to kidnap a poor drone and experiment on it.
But I'm not that cruel.
A frown appeared on my face, as the lines in my mind became ever so slightly jagged, uneven.
Saving the file and closing it, I got up from the comfortable corner couch, walking towards the kitchen.
The craving for the drinks is never ending.
I have been trying to slightly lessen them, I really have.
Alas, my willpower isn't strong enough to resist the downright addicting substance.
They're tasty. And it would be a dishonor to just leave them sitting in a fridge for weeks on end.
Grabbing the large cup and getting a sip, I instantly froze.
As if not believing it, I took another tentative sip.
The flavour didn't change.
A smile large enough to split my face in two appeared, as I quickly scanned the cup for any possible identifiers.
On the top nothing, just a straw through a plastic lid.
On the sides nothing as well, just a plain white cover.
And the bottom, painted a lime color.
Slamming a palm against my face, I laughed out loud.
Lotus, I'm stupid!
But damn i'm happy I found it this way, it feels far more rewarding.
Especially considering everything that had happened.
Taking another small and slow sip, savoring the sensation as the cold liquid met my synthetic tongue, my thoughts began to wander.
Namely, the fact that life, although peaceful and relatively normal, is becoming stale, boring almost.
It's strange, to have achieved what I've been fighting for all this time, and being… disappointed by it.
It felt lackluster, a prison inside another prison, disguised as peace.
A tinge of anger took hold of me, and I barely restrained myself from crushing the cup of ambrosia that is the drink.
Raining in my temper slowly, I forcefully shifted my thoughts.
It didn't end up in a better place.
The murder drones.
The villains of this world, perhaps even multiple.
Perhaps the villains of the entire universe that I now resided in.
After all, space travel is quite normal around here.
Although it is strange how no battleships have arrived yet, since the murder drones are obviously taking awhile.
Hm, could they have figured out cryogenic pods? It would explain humanity's lack of care for time if that's the case.
But surely, they knew the price for using such things on regular, non augmented personnel right?
Unless they figured out how to make themselves part machine part human, or perhaps just fully turn themselves into robots.
Shrugging and taking another sip, my eyes narrowed further.
Something here isn't adding up, not a single bit.
Sure the explanation of: "send in killer machines to kill off the rebellious worker drones to reclaim the planet" sounded logical on the surface.
But once you look deeper everything is wrong.
First, this planet is doomed for biological lifeforms, no chance to recover it.
Perhaps in a few million years, it would reform once again.
But that's not quite relative.
Then there is the fact that humans should definitely have some sort of virus, or a string of code to command the worker drones.
Yet such was not given to the murder drones?
Sure if we follow the line of "rebellious worker drones" it's somewhat explainable.
But to waste what was undoubtedly billions if not trillions of money that were all the drones upon this planet?
Doubtful. Especially since I personally know what kind of greed such a company has.
A scowl appeared in my face, as I walked back to my room.
All this thinking is hurting both my brain and cpu.
Why couldn't everything be just punched into results?
Life would be much simpler and easier.
It would however, be a lot more violent.
Which meant no peace, and no peace means wars, and wars equals bad.
Scoffing in amusement, I dropped onto my bed heavily.
Bouncing up only once from the soft mattress, my thoughts focused and turned inwards onto the blueprints I had started making not too long ago.
It would be beautiful and glorious, as it had been in the past.
***
Sitting on one end of the couch, and another drone sitting on the other end, we both stayed silent.
I had thoughts I could voice any minute, sadly none of them were pleasant.
Besides, what does it matter?
I would let the purple haired gremlin say whatever she had on her mind and be done with it.
Just like I have always done.
Uzi fidgeted more, her metallic fingers coiling around each other in obvious conflict.
Until suddenly, she shot up like a rocket from the couch, nearly slamming into the small table.
"How did you make those weapons?!"
She shouted excitedly, optics hollow and literal stars in them.
The cup in my hand froze halfway to my mouth, bewilderment filling my mind.
Surely, she hadn't just started with that?
Raising a digital eyebrow, I opened my mouth.
Only to be cut off, as Uzi continued, seemingly having gotten confidence.
"What type of power did you use?! And the model! Did you design it yourself? Where did you even get the materials?!"
The shouted paragraph slammed into my brain almost physically, the rude retort dying on my tongue.
The corners of my mouth twitched upwards ever so slightly.
She was definitely… different from the other drones.
Staring into the obvious waiting optics I decided to just answer her questions.
"Yes I designed it myself and I got the materials from the matter printer."
I answered, deliberately leaving out everything about the power source.
Lotus knows what would happen.
She would probably be like: oh you gotta show me this void energy thing!
Then I would refuse, only for her to nag me till the end of time and space.
Then I would show her, only for something to go wrong, her cpu and memory box to be overexposed to void energy, and melt.
Yeah, never doing that.
Nodding sagely to myself, I ignored the raised brow and sipped on my drink.
"Wait! But what did you feed the matter printer?!"
She shouted, just now realizing the problem.
And I thought robots were supposed to think hundreds of times faster than humans? Did this universe go a different route? Probably to save money.
Nodding again, I turned my attention to the purple haired, purple wearing, purple eyed gremlin.
God, she really loves purple.
An involuntary snort left my body.
Understatement of the century, or millennia even.
"Stealing."
I finally answered her, my tone returning to its usual bored monotone.
Her optics that had just filled in with color hollowed once again, before a glint of something I knew very well appeared.
"How did I not think of that?! That's literally just perfect!"
She paused, clearly thinking.
Then she snapped her fingers in my direction, a triumphant grin spreading across her face.
"The abandoned sectors!"
My mouth opened ever so slightly and my own optics must have hollowed if her grin growing even larger was anything to go by.
She clapped her hands together, the grin turning mischievous.
But before she could start planning the greatest heist in history I spoke up.
"Don't even try it, you have no excuse why you got so much junk."
Her optics narrowed slightly, and she stayed silent for a few long moments.
Before she suddenly deflated and dropped back onto the couch.
A groan left her mouth, quite a long one.
Sipping on my drink, I counted the seconds absentmindedly.
1, 2, 3, 4, the hell?
I placed down my cup after a minute, then stood up after two.
Did her cpu break? What the hell is happening?
After three minutes I spoke up.
"Stop that."
She didn't stop. Of course she didn't.
"Stop that!"
The shout snapped her back to reality.
Releasing a sigh of relief, I walked towards the kitchen.
Lotus, was I so troublesome as a kid too?
I sure hope not.
A few minutes later, we were sitting on the couch once more, drinks in our hands.
As well as Uzi having a small bowl of small batteries.
Because big batteries are for the grown ups, as I told her.
The loud "Bite me!" Didn't even scratch at the amusement I felt at that moment.
One that quickly died, as it always did.
We didn't do much, both caught in our minds.
Apparently, Uzi was working on something the same way I am.
Which, well, impressed me.
I swear this gremlin is not normal, not one bit.
She thinks differently than the other worker drones.
She acts differently too.
And her mentality… is something unique, to say the least.
Apart from the "kill all humans" that I've heard about a few times now.
There was also the want, or a better way to say it, a need to go outside the doors and bring the fight to the tyrants that are the murder drones.
Which, well, makes sense to me.
I basically did the exact same thing.
Just on a much, much larger scale.
She also has a weird fixation on weapons.
As proven with her conversation starter.
Which is fine, we all got our favorite things or unique hobbies.
And weapons are one of my favorite things as well, or I guess, former favorites.
Now it's just a dark reminder.
She is also interested in coding and hacking, that being proven by her hacking my door a few too many times.
She was building herself perfectly to fight the murder drones.
Weapons are a necessity to any fight.
And I'm sure she's learning hacking for the same purpose.
Disturbing.
I've seen child soldiers, myself being one.
But we were guided on that path, or well, forced upon it.
She was doing it from her own volition.
And with no comrades and not even kids her age befriending her, the likelihood of her snapping is a possibility.
Or she would get herself eaten because of a simple mistake and nobody watching her back.
The thought, almost normal not so long ago, sickened me.
My stomach churned violently, and I was forced to close my eyes and optics to calm myself.
silently standing up and walking to my room, not daring to look at her all the while. I sure as hell don't want any hallucinations of her mangled body.
I quickly entered my room and the door being tightly shut, I hunched forwards, hands on my knees.
Lotus dammit all! I know you're behind this!
Cursing my mother to eternal damnation, I barked out a small and pitiful laugh.
"Kidding…"
Steadily straightening myself up, I walked in a large circle, my steps slow and silent.
A new folder opened up in my head, and I named it:
"PROJECT GREMLIN"
Then after making a file inside of it, I started brainstorming.
What could a drone use in terms of weaponry of my vague memories? Not much.
Not in their original sizes at least, nor them being powered by void energy.
Unless I don't make orikin or tenno weaponry.
Grineer definitely are out of the picture.
Their weaponry is complicated and unknown to me.
Not to mention their usual insane sizes, being considered too large even held in my warframe hands.
Infestation is just a no. Just no.
That left the corpus, the machine, human and the combination of the two faction.
Their weapons focused on precision and penetrating attacks, rather than large impacts.
Perfect for weaker bodies to wield.
And considering Uzi would be far weaker in close range compared to the much taller heavier and higher quality murder drones, the more range the better.
Which got rid of quite a few options.
But that would mean the best options are snipers and she definitely couldn't handle the recoil on those things.
Unless it's a fucking laser!
My mind snapped back to reality, as a knock was heard on the bedroom's door.
"You good?"
For a few brief moments I had to urge to say something dumb like: oh so you do care.
But the wish to do so vanished as quickly as it appeared.
Composing myself into my normal indifferent attitude and walking towards the refrigerator to grab a drink I answered her.
"Yeah just grabbing a drink, want one?"
Uzi answered after a second, words filled with disappointment.
"Gotta go home now, mind giving me one to bring home though?"
Already sipping on my own drink I grabbed another one, quickly checking and finding out it's grape flavored.
Because apparently everything she did was tied to purple.
Not even a full minute after, I stared at her back as she walked away from my hab, sipping on her own drink and listening to music.
Surprisingly she has good taste in that.
After another second of staring, I slammed my door shut.
Leaning against it, I contemplated what the hell just happened.
Am I actually just losing it now?
A worryingly large chance of it.
Groaning heavily and slowly dragging myself to the bedroom, I flopped on my bed almost lifelessly.
"I hate life. Especially my own."
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