|| Chapter 2: Survival Of The Fittest ||
As the two moons slowly faded away, the blizzard never stopped when the sunlight appeared from the horizon. Even though the entire city was destroyed and covered in snow, it was still a picturesque sight to see the sunrise glimmer over the buildings and streets. The ravenette walked out of the building with a loud yawn, ruffling his hair with his gloved fingers.
He was still half-asleep since Ellipse woke him up a few minutes earlier, reporting that nothing unusual happened during the night. Sluggishly, he trudged through the empty streets and started to scavenge for anything useful. 'I need to find some cloth to make new clothes,' He noted, looking through an empty car trunk and seats for anything he could take, 'I also need to get new tools.'
This was a daily routine for him; pick up useful scraps from the worker drone corpses, scoop up the oil, find cloth, search for seed packets that haven't expired, etc. He needed all these items to fully rebuild his father's laboratory if he wanted to keep creating a constant food supply for himself and have the countless generators run the facility. He used all the parts of the drone corpses to improve the facility's protection system and walls from the harsh snow storms, as well as keep any type of drone away.
He had a few encounters with roaming rogue worker drones and it never ended in a friendly manner; he had to eliminate them if he wanted to live. He had noticed a pattern with these rogue drones - they always seemed to blame humanity for the destruction or worshipped humanity as some kind of saviour. It unnerved him every time he listened to their distorted voices. It also didn't help that the murder drones posed another threat to him.
With a small sigh, the ravenette turned to look at the rising sun and felt the warm sunlight bake his face. When he started to sweat from all the layers, he carefully placed the large trash bag of scraps and items on the ground. He took his thick coat off, revealing a thinner winter coat underneath it. He zipped the duffle bag open and took out a water bottle. Placing the bottle next to his feet, he shoved the thicker coat into the bag, covering the important yet valuable items inside it.
"Ellipse," He called out as he sat down on a hood of a car and took his mask off, "Pause 'Monitor Health & Exercise Routine'. I'm taking a quick five-minute water break." The mask beeped a few times and he placed it next to him while the earpiece tinged. "Request for break has been accepted," Ellipse told him before adding, "Reminder: Timer will be set for five minutes until the break is over."
Calmly, he hummed and took a large gulp of his water, staring at the orange-pink sky that started to fade into a light blue colour. "What time is it now?" He asked out loud with a raised brow, leaning back on the hood in a relaxed manner as a cool breeze fluttered past him. The blizzard finally seemed to settle for the day. "It is currently 7:31 AM in Earth Time," Ellipse answered in a stoic voice.
He couldn't help but recall his childhood on Earth before coming to Copper9 with his father. "...It's kinda weird to think that this winter nothingness is way prettier than Earth," He mumbled with a dry chuckle and felt his hair flutter along with the passing breeze, "I wonder if my mother and sister still think about me there on earth? That would be nice of them..."
His eyes started to sting when he got emotional at the thought of his mother and sister mourning his death on earth. With a shuddering exhale, he closed his eyes and scowled to stop his tears from leaving his eye sockets. "Notice: Detecting high levels of unstable emotions in User," Ellipse's voice chirped in his ear and his brow twitched at her timing, "Now activating 'Sympathy & Calmness' to User."
Not even a second later, he could emotionally feel his heart grow lighter with a weird calmness and his crowded thoughts settled down. A laugh-like scoff escaped his mouth at how an AI was trying to make him feel better. "I don't need your pity, Ellipse," He told her with a trembling frown and crushed the water bottle in his hand, "You're only doing this because that bastard programmed you like that."
It was silent for a few seconds before her robotic voice retorted, "Correct. The software of EllipseXX has been programmed to keep User's mental, emotional, and physical condition healthy at the request of Scientist Kim Juhyuk." He clenched his jaw at the mention of his father, however, he took a deep breath and calmed his anger. "At least I don't have to meet that bastard again," He mumbled to himself, trying to cheer himself up.
He tossed the water bottle back into the duffle bag and placed his mask onto his face again, picking up the trash bag. "Resume 'Monitor Health & Exercise Routine'," He ordered with a grunt, getting up from the car hood and swinging his duffle bag over his shoulder. Without another word, he started to head back to his shelter, trudging through the snow as the temperatures started to rise.
He reached his shelter when it was around noon. He raised a suspicious brow when he spotted someone standing in front of the building, nervously glancing around. That someone was a teenage girl, who was at least around 5 ft 4 or so. She had short dull-purple hair, peachy skin, and bright yet sharp neon purple eyes. She was dressed in a black hoodie, purple-checkered skirt, knee-length light and dark purple striped socks, and black military boots.
On top of her was a black striped beanie while a choker - with a small skull in the middle - was wrapped around her throat. He furrowed his brows at the sight of the girl and frowned, completely displeased. 'What the hell is a worker drone doing here?' He scowled, turning around to leave before she noticed him. However, luck wasn't on his side when she spotted him.
"H-Hey! Are you 'Fixer' that everyone talks about?! I need your help!" She yelled, jumping off the front porch with a backpack in hand. He froze midway, a cold yet malicious look appearing in his eyes as his back faced her. The sound of the snow crunching under her boots filled the silent area around them until it went quiet, hinting that she stopped a few meters away from him.
Slowly, he turned to her, showing half his profile. A sneering glare was seen on his face when his gaze landed on her. Her shoulders tensed up under his gaze, feeling the tiny hairs on her arms stand on end. "Who are you?" His muffled voice was low and filled with hostility, tilting his head as he looked her up and down. "I'm Uzi Doorman," She answered with her lips formed in a thin line, nervously clenching her hand around the strap of the backpack. It unnerved her that this drone was wearing a mask. 'He's dangerous,' She noted with narrowed eyes and pulled the backpack behind her back, trying to hide it from his perspective.
"What do you want, kid?" He coldly demanded, placing the heavy trash bag next to his feet while shifting the duffle bag and rifle on his shoulders, "And don't give me the 'I need your help with something!' crap." She grew even more tense at his warning tone. She was annoyed at the nickname he gave her but ignored it. Her gaze flickered over him, taking in his appearance. He was extremely tall, which was very unusual to see in the worker drones' designs.
He also seemed muscular and heavily geared - another aspect that normal worker drones didn't have. At this point, she was starting to doubt that he was a worker drone but she couldn't say he was a murder drone since they can't survive in sunlight. "...I heard that there was a drone that used to fix Door 3 and manage the facility before abandoning the colony," She explained with caution.
"I figured that you couldn't have gone too far because of the murder drones in the city," She admitted, glancing at the half-destroyed building behind her that had perfectly functioned doors, "So, it was easy to figure out where you were hiding..." A creeped-out expression appeared on his face, staring at her. "Not creepy at all," He sarcastically scoffed out, shifting his weight on one leg as he leaned forward.
It looked like he was bending down, causing him to spot the suspicious backpack behind her. "So," He curiously hummed, smirking, "Whatcha got in the bag, kid?" Immediately, she jumped five feet in the air at his question and hid the backpack more, avoiding his curious yet amused stare. "...Railgun," She mumbled under her breath, feeling awkward and embarrassed.
"A railgun?" He repeated in surprise, his amused-looking eyes wide in astonishment, "Really? Let me see it." Unconsciously, he held his hand out to her, startling her. She flinched with wide eyes, creating distance between them. An awkward yet tense air surrounded them as neither of them moved or spoke. He saw the startled yet hostile expression on her face and furrowed his brows before realizing that she felt intimidated by him. "Ah," He awkwardly hummed, clearing his throat, "Right..." Slowly, he lowered his hand back to his side and picked the heavy trash bag up with ease. "Follow me," He told her before walking past her with stern eyes.
When he walked past her, a heavy whiff of oil and diesel fluttered from the trash bag into her nostrils. At the horrid smell, she gasped and covered her mouth, grimacing. Slowly, her eyes flickered to where that smell of death came from and her gaze landed on the trash bag in his hand. Her skin crawled in pure horror and her face grew white as a sheet, realizing what was inside it.
His ears perked up when he didn't hear the snow crunch behind him, causing him to stop midway to glance over his shoulder. He raised a brow when her furious yet vengeful eyes were pinned on the trash bag before glaring at him with trembling shoulders. "You're scared," He noted with an amused look in his eyes, his mask releasing a puff of warm smoke into the air.
"I didn't kill them," He coldly added, watching how she immediately reached for the rifle inside her backpack - her hand pausing before she could take it out, "They were already mangled and destroyed when I found them." She stared at him, trying to decipher whether he was lying or not. He childishly swung the trash bag back and forth as he explained, "The murder drones did it - I only scavenge their undamaged parts." She pursed her lips at his explanation since it kinda made sense, but she didn't like the idea of a fellow worker drone scavenging another deceased worker drone's corpse.
"I would never kill them with my own hands, kid," He sneered when he saw that she wasn't convinced, "It doesn't serve me any advantage of doing that." Her response was silence, trying to get her thoughts straight. "Fine, let's say that those murder drones did your dirty work for them," She huffed, taking her hand out of her backpack and zipping it up. "But," She added, glaring at him with pure bloodlust, "If you're lying to me, I'll blow your head off, got it?" He couldn't help but laugh at her threat, surprising her.
"Do your best at that, kid," He playfully taunted her, snickering as he headed to the building. With a scowl, she jogged after him and followed closely. Once they were on the porch, he entered a passcode onto the keypad and a 'ting-ting' sound escaped it, turning green. A second later, the two metal doors in front of them slid open, revealing an elevator. They stepped into the elevator and the doors closed behind them. A sizzling sound and a strong stench of bleach filled the elevator, startling Uzi. She clutched her backpack, her eyes flickering around in a panicked manner. "Calm down, kid," He groaned at her fidgeting, completely relaxed, "It's just some chlorine dioxide."
A moment later, the elevator slowly started to descend, revealing that it had glass walls. It was only rubble and broken floors for a while, however, the deeper they went, the less rubble there was. Suddenly, they passed a floor that had hundreds - maybe thousands - of crop plots with fully functioning sprinklers. The entire floor seemed to be growing various fruits and vegetables.
"Holy robo Jesus..." She mumbled in disbelief and awe at the sight of the farming floor. Her eyes widened more when they passed another floor that had dozens of pipes, machines, and containers of water. It was a massive water filtering system that offered water across the entire facility. The next floor was an air filtering system; it had massive machines and tubes that filtered the toxic air inside the facility.
Underneath that floor was a boiler and cooler rooms, providing cold and hot water. "We're almost there," He told her with a light hum, used to all the floors. She rose a brow when they passed a floor that resembled an apartment complex. Her curiosity got the best of her and she couldn't help but ask, glancing at him from the corner of her eye, "Do you stay on that floor? Or..."
Silence from him was given as an answer to her question, causing her to click her tongue in annoyance. A few seconds later, the elevator stopped in front of two white sliding doors. "We're here," He stated, stepping out of the elevator. There were two beams of blue lights that erupted from a scanner, scanning him up and down. Once it recognized his identity, a 'ding' was heard from the doors sliding open, allowing him entry.
"Hurry up, kid," He called out to Uzi when she stood in the elevator with a gobsmacked expression, "I don't have all day, you know." Immediately, she scurried to him. "Woah..." She mumbled when she stepped through the sliding doors. The laboratory was enormous and spacious; it had dozens of large monitors, tubes, pipes, tables, and testing sites everywhere. Some of the monitor screens were holograms of murder drones, labelling every component that was inside or outside them.
Most of the screens were filled with statistics of various experiments or discoveries of plants, animals, temperatures, etc. "How do you have that railgun, by the way?" His voice snapped her out of her staring state, causing her to swirl around to face him, "Don't you worker drones hate violence?" She witnessed how he carelessly tossed the heavy trash bag onto a table and pressed a red button.
A loud skittering noise was heard before dozens of human-like arms dangled from the ceiling, pouncing the trash bag. She watched in horror at how the arms started to tear the bag apart, causing oil, limbs, torsos, and decapitated heads to pour out. They started to examine and clean the items, writing down their discoveries on hologram screens. He shrugged when she didn't bother to answer his questions since she was too focused on the icky sight.
"Take a seat so long," He told her, lazily gesturing to one of the tables, "This might take a while." Obeying his suggestion, she sat down at a worktable and noticed the rough sketches of the facility littering the surface. Curiously, she looked through them. She was so focused on the sketches that she didn't notice what the ravenette was doing. He took his coat off and hung it over a chair, revealing the tight turtleneck on his torso. Carefully, he unclasped the mask from his face and dropped it into a white container filled with liquid chlorine dioxide, disinfecting the toxic particles inside the mask.
He lazily ruffled his hair with a small yawn, watching how the human-like hands continued to rip the drone parts apart. Casually, he approached Uzi and leaned over her from behind to take the sketches away, startling her. "Ya having fun with my old notes, kid?" He joked, glancing down at her with a smirk. Her eyes widened in astonishment, noticing that he wasn't wearing a mask anymore. She took in his facial features for a quick moment.
He had a sharp jawline, high cheekbones, sharp cat-like charcoal eyes, perfectly arched and neat eyebrows, a sharp nose, and full-ish lips. He looked pale yet tanned at the same time. She noticed that he had two beauty spots on his face; one in the corner of his right eye and the other one at the corner of his bottom lip. Flustered, she unconsciously resorted to her usual comment, "B-Bite me!"
"Woah, so feisty," He mused at her words and leaned back, taking the notes away from her. He tossed the notes into a bin and leaned his lower back against the table, crossing his arms over his chest with his gaze pinned down on her. She grew more flustered when she realized how athletic he looked, especially how slender his waist and broad his shoulders were.
"The railgun," He said with a strained smile, beckoning for her to hand it over. Quickly, she scrambled to get the railgun out of her backpack, feeling embarrassed by how he was staring at her. She handed him the weapon and watched how he started inspecting it with narrowed eyes, completely silent. One of his eyes squinted as he raised a brow, feeling the trigger of the weapon.
"Impressive," He whistled lowly, cocking the weapon to the side while lightly pulling the trigger with the safety on. "Does it function with short range or long range?" He asked while holding the weapon in a shooting position, the butt pad was pressed against his shoulder while his cheek rested on the cheekpiece.
"Uhhhh..." A sound of uncertainty and confusion escaped her, causing his brow to twitch, "Both...?" A look of disappointment and disbelief appeared on his face, showing that he didn't like the uncertainty in her answer. "Then you should have a proper front sight on it if you want to hit your targets," He scolded her for missing that part of the weapon and sighed, aiming at a random chair, "The railgun would be useless without that part."
A look of satisfaction appeared on his face when a three-way scope appeared on the weapon, showing that he was impressed at its advanced technology. "I'm going to check this out more so feel free to look around in here," He told her with a hum, excited to examine this weapon more, "Just don't touch anything." She deadpanned at his excitement and followed his suggestion.
While he was testing it out, she roamed the laboratory. She stopped in front of an operating-looking room, raising a brow at the strange room. Her eyes widened in horror and disgust when a full murder drone corpse dropped from the ceiling. The human-like arms appeared again and started to dissect the corpse, pulling its organs out. "Blegh," She almost threw up, but luckily swallowed the bile down when it wanted to come up. She continued to watch how they sawed the corpse apart, removing its skin and vital organs. Out of nowhere, a female voice echoed throughout the laboratory, catching Uzi off guard, "Notice: Current time is 12:45 pm."
Uzi glanced around and spotted speakers in the corners of the laboratory as the voice continued, "Lunch will be served in fifteen minutes." She turned to look at the ravenette for an explanation. Feeling her gaze on his backside, he paused with his testing and glanced over his shoulder. "That's my assistant - Ellipse," He explained before neatening up the weapon, and shoving it back into her backpack, "If lunch is this close, then you gotta go."
He picked up his mask and placed it on as he snatched her by her bicep, pulling her to the elevator. Speechless, she stumbled over her feet into the elevator. "Here," He mused, tossing the backpack to her as the elevator started to ascend. A few minutes later, the elevator stopped and the metal doors slid open, revealing a picturesque snow-filled street. With a slight nudge, he pushed her out of the elevator, causing her to stumble for a bit. She glared at his rudeness and wanted to yell at him, however, he interrupted her.
"Don't come back here, Uzi," He warned her with cold eyes, showing his hands into his pockets as a cold breeze from outside fluttered his hair, "Take it as a warning." Just like that, the doors slammed closed in her face, leaving her in silence. Her entire body started to tremble from how she was fuming inside. "Are you kidding me?!" She screeched in fury, stomping her feet against the porch when she stormed away from the building. Meanwhile, the ravenette strolled through the crop plots, checking whether the vegetables and fruits were growing correctly.
It was quite fortunate that none of the preserved seeds and saplings of the fruits and vegetables evaporated from existence during the explosion. Once he was done there, he headed to the back area of the floor. The doors slid open, revealing a massive room that had hundreds of tubes with animals floating inside them. All the animals were unconscious with smaller tubes attached to them, feeding them nutrition, oxygen, and vital liquids.
"Notice: Lunch is ready," Ellipse announced through the facility's speakers and he hurried down to the second-lower floor. The moment he stepped into the apartment complex-like area, the smell of fried rice with scrambled eggs, salads, fried sirloin, and chilis filled his nostrils. He almost drooled at the delicious scent and scurried towards the open kitchen. He sat down at the counter and picked up the large bowl of fried rice.
"Thank you for the food," He thanked with a smile and gobbled everything down, moaning in delight from the savouring flavours. Meanwhile, Uzi finally sneaked back into the colony's underground facility without anyone noticing. She avoided the other drones walking past her, especially the ones near her age. She couldn't be classified as one of the popular kids in the colony and her personality was a bit too much for them.
So, she didn't really have someone to call a friend. Quietly, she closed the bedroom door behind her and collapsed on the bed with an exhausted sigh. She stared at the ceiling with a sour expression, feeling bitter and disappointed that her dad didn't even notice that he stole his keycard to sneak out of the facility. Her emotions got worse when some of her classmates walked past her dorm, whispering and giggling.
She was tempted to tell them to screw off, but she grumbled with her eyes closed, pushing a pillow over her face. After a few minutes, she sat up and opened her backpack. She raised a brow when she found a small yellow note attached to the railgun. 'Take good care of this, kid,' The letter started and she noticed that the handwriting was very neat, 'Get that final part and be proud of having this railgun. Also, try not to blow the colony up with it.'
An amused scoff left her lips, reading the note a few times before sticking it to her wall. Her gaze fell onto the calendar on her bedside table; a certain date was circled in red ink. A smirk appeared on her face as her confidence got her riled up, feeling excited for the next day's class presentation.