Murder Drones One Shot: Blood and Oil

Copper 9 had been a vibrant world once upon of time. The abandoned city near the bunker where our heros met the drones was far from the only human settlement on the planet. Far from the only one where the corpses of its inhabitants were strewn throughout the streets. And far from the only one with a bunker near it. This was Hydralis, a former Port city.


Unfortunately things were not going that smoothly for them. The bunker doors proved to be impervious. Plus they were other problems as well. They met together in their own corpse tower they had constructed. It was only half the size of the one V, J, and N had constructed. Three disassembly drones sat around a table. 2 of the 3 of them are arguing. The one with pigtails aeemed patticularly irate.


“Cutting the power isn’t going to do any good! They don’t need to eat oil like we do so they can just wait us out.”

The other one, a tired looking drone with messy hair, was taking exception to being yelled at.




”Yeah, well it’s better then doing nothing B. You’re the one who want me to get off my butt and do something.”

”Something useful C! That isn’t going to jack! We’re already behind Quota as it is! Do you want to the company to scrap us? Or let the other squads keep outdoing us?! I’m for one am tired of being called outdated!”

”Maybe I do. At least I wouldn’t have to listen to your rants all the time.”

”YOU SELFISH…

Suddenly a third figure whistled, getting the attention of the other two.

”Hey, let’s get along. I’m as hungry as you two are, but let’s get along.”




Both of the other drones stared at the smile of their team leader, and their arguments died in their throats. A seemed cheerful all the time: all he did was smile. But all his smiles had different meanings. And the one he was giving them was not a friendly one.

”Sorry boss, I’ll keep my cool.”

”Fine, I’ll do whatever.”

”Good! Now then!”

A looked down at the map of the city they had on the table. He put his finger up somewhere on the ocean.

”I managed to find an oil platform while on patrol. If we can get it up and running, then we can get all the oil we need! Then we can think about what our next move is.”

B twirled a finger through one of her pigtails, looking at the map skeptically. ”Yeah, but that thing has got to be in disrepair. We’ll have to get the equipment up and running, unfreeze the water around it, this is going to take a lot to pull off.”

”It’s either this or go into another disassembly squads territory on low oil reserves. Besides I’m sure C can rig up something.”

C looked over at the broken down space pod. ”I can make something out of the environmental systems and the spare parts we have at the spire. It will take a day, but we do have enough oil to make it work.”

”Good! Get to work! I know things haven’t been easy here, but once we get up to 100 percent we should be good as gold! B, we’re finishing off the last three worker drones we’ve been rationing. I want us to be in tip top shape when we go to the oil rig.”

B grinned, a clawed hand popping out while an X appeared on her visor.

”with pleasure. A few jugs of oil coming right up!”

B walked into a dark corner of the spire. There were the sounds of muffled screams, and metal ripping into drones. C ignored it and went over to the ruined pod. A watched B with a pleased smile.

”There we go! There’s nothing like oil to bring up team spirit!”

---

The next evening all 3 of them set off over the open ocean. It was nothing but an icy expanse as far as the eye could see. What was once a vibrant body of water was now just an endless plain of frozen lake. They left the device to help with unfreezing the ice back at the base: A wanted to do a check of the Oil rig to make sure it was stable enough for them to do that.

As they flew through C and B peered ahead, both of them frowning.

”A, you said the water oil rig was frozen yesterday, right?”

”Yes, why do you ask.”

”Cause that sure looks like water to us.”

A peered ahead. He gasped as he saw the waves moving. ”Holy taters! Land now!”

All 3 of them landed down on the ice. There ahead of them looked the oil rig. And around it the ocean water was swirling. It was an oasis in the middle of a desert of ice.




A stared in disbelief at the sight. ”Guys, I swear this was all frozen the last time I did a patrol here. That was 2 days ago!”

”But there’s no way the ice could melt in two days! Even JC Jenson doesn’t have anything that can do it that fast! Even J would admit that!”

”So that all nighter was pointless? Man, and you guys kept telling me that it was essential.”

B rolled her eyes. For the love of robo-god C, stop bitching about every extra bit of work you have to do! If you didn’t have such a useful set of skills, the company would have scrapped you already!”

C let out a sigh. ”B, could you stop complaining about me for one day! I’m doing what I have to do when I have to do it.”

A whistled again. ”Comeon! Get along now! I want us to make a silent approach, so I’m going to need you both to behave.”

Sweat drops appeared on C’s visor. ”Wait, you still want to go onto that thing? Something isn’t right here.”

B folded her arms, smirking. ”Awww, is little C a little Chicken? So that’s what your initial means.”

C glowered at B. ”You mean like B stands for Bi…”

A reached out and grabbed both of their heads, slamming them against each other. Both of the other two drones fell to the ice. They both looked up at the smiling face of A.

“B, stop making fun of C. And C, you aren't wriggling your way out of this one. Are we clear?”

Both of them nodded, too nervous of their leader as they climbed to their feet. They looked up, at the pil rig.

”That's the spirit! Come on team, silent approach now

A flew up into the air, with the other two drones following close behind him.

---

When they got to the upper levels A flicked his tail downward. This was why he flew ahead of the other two in the formation: he could give simple orders by moving his tail in certain ways. In this case it was “prepare to take cover”.

B and C thought it was strange, since this was a supposedly abandoned structure. But then they got to the upper area of the oil rig, they found a hiding spot that allowed them to look at the structure. A bunch of crates that were underneath a catwalk.


A raised his tail and jabbed it a couple of times towards the lower level before lowering it. B and C looked in their direction. Their eyes widened as they saw a couple of worker drones walking about down there. B looked at A. Words flashed onto her screen.

Abandoned huh?”

A shrugged his shoulders. More words appeared on B’s visor. Kill them?

A shook his head, pointing over at somewhere. There was a security camera set up above each of the doors leading into the buildings. B rolled her eyes, her jabbed a thumb at C. Her visor displayed some more words.

Do your thing C

C rolled their eyes, then their visor’s face was replaced with lines of code. After a minute her visor displayed All clear before her eyes popped up. With that, A quickly lock picked the door, and the 3 drones slipped inside quickly and closed the door behind them.


All was quiet, save for the hum of the lightbulbs and the whistling wind outside. With their superior hearing, they could likely hear the waves of the ocean. A motioned for his team to move forward. They were cautious, looking out for any traps. But nothing disrupted their way to the next door, which A opened without any trouble. Another hallway lay beyond it, this one lined with doors.

After looking both ways, A motioned with his tail to go down the hallway. They reached the first door and opened it. Inside was a bedroom. Strangely, a lamp on the deck was turned on.


All 3 of them looked at the lamp suspiciously. All of them got a bad feeling. A was the first one to speak up.

”We need to get moving now. If the light is on that means that… fudge!”

All 3 of the drones could hear footsteps walking down the hallway. B took a position right next to the door. When the head of a drone peaked in, she grabbed its head, yanked it inside, and stabbed it in the back with her tail, holding one hand over their face and another wrapped around the waist to hold him up.

As A closed the door, the drone convulsed in B’s grip, silently writhing in pain. Then it looked at C, and some worlds flashed on the visor. Flee this place

The drone then went limp, and B threw it down onto the floor unceremoniously. All 3 drones looked down at the corpse, which had landed on their back. They stared at its face, all their widening.

”Okay, C, you’re the expert in body modification. Have you ever seen anything like this?”

C shook her head. “No, I’ve never seen anything like this. A?”

”No… what in the robo-heck are we looking at?”

The drone on the ground had no mouth. The place where it should have been was all closed steel.


B looked down, question marks appearing in place of her eyes. ”If these drones don’t have mouths, how do they even eat?”

”I think I can solve that little mystery.”

C knelt down on both feet, raising the head of the drone and peering at it. B and A walked around and looked at it. There seemed to be some type of slot in its neck.

”So they’re directly pumped oil. That’s ingenious if you’re working on an oil rig.”

”Maybe if we were working on a rig. But these are worker drone models. They don’t need to be pumped full of oil!”

A frowned, scratching his hair. ”That’s a good point B. It doesn’t make much sense when you think about it.”

He looked over at the bed, noticing a tube sticking out of the wall. ”Looke like she was coming back to drink. I bet every living space has one of these setups.”

”That’s all well and good, But none of this explains why they don’t have mouths. Wouldn’t you want your fellow drones to talk to you with something other than their visor?”

C frowned, peering at the corps. Oil had flowed out of the wound left by the acid and was now covering the floor. He raised one of her hands, which turned into a circular saw.

”C, we don’t have time for this!”

”There’s something wrong with this drone A! I need to check it’s inner components.

C paused, looking over at A. The leader was frowning at him.

”Ceeeeee, what’s the polite thing to say?”

”Sir”

”That’s it! See, that isn’t so hard to do.”

C sighed, managing to use the saw all the way around the torso. She pulled off the covering, causing some leftover oil to spill out. All of them looked at the body in shock.

”Okay, that’s definitely not normal.”

There was no stomach or digestive system to speak of. There was a cylindrical covering with grooves in it that took up the center of the chest. It was both where the core normally was, and all the tubes that carried oil went into it. It had a basic worker drone design, but there were some strange partwouldt C didn't recognize. She focused on the cylindrical covering, pointing at the groves.

”There. Do you see that?”

A and B peered forward. The former’s eyes widened.

”That's oil leaking out. From around those grooves.”

B frowned. ”So? It's bleeding all over the place.”

C rolled her eyes. ”B, the core is in there. This cover was open, but it slammed shut and pierced it. It's like someone is trying to stop us from looking inside.”

B scoffed. ”Seriously?! That's the stupidest design I’ve ever seen. Why would they go to that much trouble just to hide the core?”

”That's what I intend to find out.”

C’s hand turned into a stub with a small opening at the end. A tiny laser came out, cutting around the edges. A looked completely confused.

”C, we’re in unknown territory. We don’t have time for this.”

”Then go on without me. I’ll catch up.”

A’s eyes turned into an X on his visor. He swapped out his right hand for a clawed one, and gave his subordinate a cold grin. His anger leaked through the calm voice he spoke with.

”Now that’s very rude C. The polite thing to do would to be apologize and step back in…”

”Can it A.”

B’s eyes hollowed, a worried look appearing on her face. A was also stunned. He had never seen C like this before. They were obsessively cutting away at the covering on the core. The tension in the room was palatable. Then A’s face returned to normal, the claw retracting and his hand returning to normal. He had another one of his smiles on his face.

”No biggie! We’ll have ourselves a little talk later. Me and B are going in deeper. We’ll see you when you catch up! Come on B!”

C looked over and watched as A turned and walked out of the room. B gave C a worried look. Her visor flashed [color=blue]”I’ll try to calm him. C’s visor flashed back THX. B then walked out of the room to follow A.

C looked down. refocusing back on their original task. She cut away at the strange covering. They were being extremely careful, trying to avoid cutting the core within. It took 3 minutes to get it open.

All the while C kept thinking back to the warning it had given them. Why had the drone told them to run? That question had kept nagging her mind. She had to know why it said that. He reached out gingerly, carefully

”Okay drone, Let’s see what you have underneath.”


C lifted the piece of metal that was now dislodged. It seemed to be stuck on something, so she had to give firm tug to get it out. She set it down on the ground, and looked inside. Her eyes became hollow circles.

”What… this isn’t possible…”

Inside was a core that had been pierced to the casing that had covered it. All the wires in connections he saw were attached to it. It was entirely unnecessary for functionally. But that wasn’t what had C shook.

The core wasn’t a worker drones. It was the bigger disassembly model. Someone had put a disassembly drone inside of this thing. A thing that couldn’t even speak.

Flee this place

The circles on C’s visor only widened as she put everything together. This wasn’t the only mouthless drone here. If they were all like this, then they each contained a disassembly core. Taken from their bodies and stuffed into these things.

C scrambled to her feet and ran out of the room. Her display turned to X-Ray. A and B had made it a fair distance away. They had to get out of here. As far away from this place as possible. So frantic was C that she ran past another mouthless drone without noticing. It turned and watched as C ran, its eyes staring at him until he was out of view.

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