A/N: Alternative Title for this one is Total Doll Victory. This one is for you, Svic.
Okay, before getting into the chapter proper, I wanna give a MASSIVE shout-out to Lazy Musashi on Spacebattles for going out of his way to design a calendar for Copper 9. Dude came up with 13 original month names (Seramorris is canon) and matched up a number of days to all those months, and then sat down with me on Discord DMs for over an hour to do ANOTHER audit of my timeline (no retcons to fix continuity this time, thank the gods!)
If you're reading the SpaceBattles version of the fic, the calendar is on an informational threadmark if you wanna reference it, and if you're on the AO3 or FFN versions of the fic, I uploaded it as their own chapter.
A big benefit towards making a more concrete timeline like this is that as long as I specify in the scene that it's in the past and then specify when we're back in the present, I can write scenes out of continuity way more easily, like an upcoming POV from SD-G that takes place about 4 months prior to the point in time that Outpost 3 is at when said scene rolls up, with G's scene taking place in the latter half of the month of Umbrion (Franko makes a comment naming that as the current month), and then the next scene back at Outpost 3 being in the first week of Seramorris.
So thanks again to Lazy Musashi for that! Now, onto the chapter!
___
(Joseph)
And then our time concludes
And far beyond the stars we flew
FOREVER
Two weeks before Uzi's 11th Birthday (in local years), I woke up on Copper 9 for the first time in somewhere that wasn't my own hab, the medical bay (thank frak that regular checkups weren't a thing since we were robots and we instead just went in for injuries if parts needed replacing, it would have been an asspain to have to swap in and out of the combat frames for those), or The Scrapyard. Rather, I woke up in the guest room in the Doorman hab. I blinked a few times. It was still… really surreal that I had a new last name. That Khan fucking adopted me. I felt… really honored. Happy to have that connection with Uzi made official. But also guilty, because I was lying to someone who was legally my father now… I resolved then and there that I was gonna tell Khan the truth at some point. Knowing myself, I gave myself a year as a deadline to do it by. But still, it was a fine morning with-- I overclocked to glance at my weather readouts topside --a toxic deathstorm outside bringing the temperature down to a right chilly -30 Celcius, and I was a Doorman now by adoption rather than stupidly unlikely reincarnation as an OC sibling or being a cringe lord and rizzing Uzi.
I sat up, stretching, letting the beats of the Musiika Remix of Forever wash over me like I did most mornings, before cutting it after a few more seconds in real time. It was kinda weird. I used to not be a morning person (to be completely honest, I still wasn't, but the impending apocalypse really crimped on sleeping in), but I could go from conked out to full wakefulness a lot faster as a drone than a human. I got up, and grabbed an outfit I had in the closet. I still stayed in my own hab more often than here, but I'd made a show of starting to use the room Khan had left for me. I had a workbench of my own that I honestly just let Uzi use to make up for the room she lost, a closet with some spare outfits, and a couple An-Syn posters up on the walls along with some decorative posters from Stellaris. The original, not the 9 sequels Paradox Interactive made later on. I had a night table with some stuff on it, and a chest that I kept some other stuff in. Thank frak this Khan was more respecting of his kids-- and it still fucking blew my mind to technically be among that number --privacy than his canon counterpart, because while I had nothing that would cause problems kept in here, Khan would be justifiably concerned by some of the stuff I kept squirled away, and would be more so concerned by the fact that I slept with a Dysentery Dart Gun and an Oil Vial under my pillow. Doll very helpfully kept the DU Deagle I conceal carried around Outpost 3 in her inventory when I slept over here.
Speaking of the 2nd girl crushing on me and her cousin in all but the literal and legal senses who was my adoptive sister (and therefore pursuing a relationship with Doll once she was legal would not be incest, 4th Wall), they were across the hall from me now, so I thought I'd walk over to wish them a good morning. Juuuuuuuuuuuust in case, when I went to open the door, I turned off my visual feed in case they were changing even if technically there was nothing to see, so when I opened it and the soundproofing no longer worked, I was instead blasted with two girls close to adulthood singing along to the music picking up on a very familiar song, and I realized that this was the very first time I'd ever heard Dolly's voice speaking in English.
I won't fall down, you need me!
We don't follow crowds, we mold them new!
I'm not done, believe me!
We won't settle down, we'll make them move (we'll make them move)
Make them miiiiiiine
Make them miiiiiiiiii-iiiiiiiiiii-IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE
I overclocked halfway into the first line, recalibrated my visual sensors, turned them on, and then verified that yes, that was Uzi and Doll singing along to Bite Me in sync in their room as they were both sitting on Uzi's bed, bopping their heads, and having the time of their lives doing it. And I was just kinda floored for a few seconds even while they both froze and paused the music to look at me. Because I did this. Uzi and Doll had this moment and hundreds if not thousands of others like it because of things I did for them. This was my impact on the timeline. That for all I might hate myself sometimes, this happened because of me. Also, yes, 4th Wall, you bet your fucking asses I recorded and saved that memory!!!
Grinning despite the happy tears suddenly threatening to spill from my eyemotes, I asked, "Having fun?"
"Bite me!" they both said in sync, before freezing and looking at one another, and I stumbled over to the workbench as I started laughing so hard the tears were spilling freely.
"Joe?" Doll asked, concerned. "Are you okay?" She got up and walked over to me, Uzi on her heels.
"Lacrime di felicità," I said. "Happy tears…" I trailed off. "I just…" I overclocked, spending about a minute in relative time to calm myself down, collecting myself as I came out of it. "I did this," I said. "You had this because I gave a shit. You had this and every other happy moment you two have had together because I tried…" I paused for a moment again, trying to find the words I wanted in real time. "Seeing you two get to be family… that makes me feel like I've done good. It just… it feels really nice." I looked down. "I hope that's not selfish."
"You're part of this family too now, Joe," Uzi said, and Dolly opened her mouth only to freeze completely still for a full second before she snapped it shut and had a suspiciously straight face. I had the sneaking suspicion that Dolly just realized the connotations of dating me in that context, and unlike me, I don't think she'd immediately follow that up with the realization that it's not even incest in the legal definition since she isn't even legally related to Uzi. "So stop giving yourself crap and hating yourself, please…"
Dolly shook her head, but I saw her swallow. "You hate yourself?" she asked, concerned.
"Can I…" Uzi trailed off as she looked at me.
"I…" I said, "I really worry if I'm a good person or not, sometimes."
"Joe," Dolly started, "There's no way--"
"I broke my own rule about only nudging ships that were already naturally inclined to happen by dropping a targeted comment to Uzi years back that led her into being into N and V," I cut her off.
"Oh," Doll said. "Yeah… that…" she stopped for a few seconds. "You made a mistake, for sure." Uzi winced at that, but kept quiet. "But you're not a bad person." She walked over and gave me a hug, and I just froze there for a few seconds, eyemotes wide. "You… you put me back together when V tore my life apart. You showed me that V has her own demon, that as much as I hate her, what happened isn't entirely her fault. You… you gave me cuz back, helped Liz, got me so many friends who cared, you helped me with my oil, my parents, my Solver, Mama, and you were just there, over and over and over again--" Dolly cut herself off and tightened the hug. "Don't hate yourself, Joseph. Please don't hate yourself."
"I told you, Joe," Uzi said from a few steps away. "You're not a bad person. Not a good person, becau--"
"The Dysentery Darts?"
"Yeah," Uzi confirmed, "And the other warcrimes, but those stick out the most."
"I still can't believe Rebecca shot J with one," Dolly said.
"I… actually feel kinda bad about that one," I admitted.
"And that's why you're not a bad person," Uzi told me. "You feel guilt. You're just a guy in over his head trying to get us all through this tidal wave of bullshit." I snrked. "So just let us help you swim."
"I'll make sure you don't cross the line, Joe," Dolly told me.
I finally hugged her back. She stiffened for a moment, and I caught a blush that lasted a whole half second before it disappeared. "I'll try," I told her in Russian.
"Grazie," she told me in Italian. I blinked, and then grinned.
"Group hug!" Uzi said as she finally stepped forwards and hugged the both of us.
I enjoyed it for a few seconds, before I remembered something else. I let the hug drag on a bit longer, though. After all, if I wasn't a good person, I may as well be a little selfish and enjoy the extra affection from my adoptive sister and a girl who I was still waiting for her to be legal before I liked her that way. But still… "I wanna tell Khan the truth," I said.
They both blinked. "Are you sure?" Dolly asked me as she pulled back a bit.
"What if dad door-spirals?" Uzi asked.
"He literally adopted me," I said back, pulling away from the hug. "I already feel guilty. Him not knowing the truth is taking advantage of him. I… even if he reacts badly, and at this point I think he's sorted himself enough that he won't, I need to do this. I don't wanna lie to family. I… I don't know if I'm ever gonna be able to see him as my dad, especially considering the whole 'had a different dad for twenty-five years in my first life before I came here' thing, but he's definitely family if you're my sister, Uzi."
"So, today?" Uzi asked.
"Gods no!" I shot back "After your birthday, Uzi," I told her. "I do not want that kinda baggage hanging over the event."
Uzi blinked, looking a bit disturbed. "Oh. Yeah, that's a good call, Joe."
"Agreed," Dolly said. "That'd be… yeah, that'd make it awkward, for sure."
"So," I said. "Clear it with the others and Yeva later today, and then figure out a good date?"
Uzi mulled it over for a moment. "Yeah, that sounds like a plan. Are… are we gonna tell him about mom?"
"I mean, he's already gonna see Yeva, since I'm planning to bring him down to The Scrapyard."
"Seeing Mama suddenly alive and not immediately telling him about Aunt Nori would be horrific," Dolly agreed.
"Yeah," I said. "But… enough of that. You two wanna restart the song and we can all vibe to Bite Me together?"
"HELL YEAH!" Uzi shouted.
Dolly started snickering. "Sure," she said with a grin, and she used her Solver on Uzi's ipod to restart the song. I raised an eyebrow at the casual demonstration of fine control with her Solver, but kept quiet. I'd congratulate her on it later.
___
(Doll)
About an hour later, Joe went off to go and actually discuss Renaissance philosophy with Liz, in what he clarified was, "Just a friend thing, and not a date, there won't even be hand-holding until she's twelve I promise!" Which on the one hand, was really funny, but on the other, reminded me that I'd have another three months after Liz was twelve before I could try dating Joe, which would suck.
I blinked. Liz and Joe were gonna date. I was gonna be stuck watching both my crushes date for three months because I wasn't willing to ask Liz out without doing the same to Joe and I didn't want to put Joe through having to panic over me still not being an adult up until then--
I froze, because I recalled another important detail. Uncle Khan adopted Joe. Uzi was my cousin in all but code. That technically made Joe my cousin, and I wanted to date him. Oh robo-god, this was so horrible--
"And what're you freaking out about, cuz?" Uzi said from where she was laying on her bed, optics flickering as she was designing something on her own OS. There was a beat, and then, "No seriously, you can talk to me, Doll."
I blinked at that, blushing a bit. I… she was gonna tease me for sure, but Uzi was my cousin. I could trust her not to tell anyone else. "I… I have a crush on Liz--"
"And Joe?" cuz finished, flashing me a fang-filled grin.
I stammered as I started blushing. "H-how did you--"
"I figured it out back when Joe was showing off our Deep Rock Galactic ARG… I should get you to play that with me and Joe at some point," cuz mused.
"I… are you okay with that?" I asked her.
Uzi shifted around, sitting up. "Cuz," she told mem expression now serious. "I'm into genocide robots, and uh…" she trailed off, and both of us understood but neither of us verbally acknowledged her crush on V. "I'm not gonna judge you for getting swept off your feet by an Isekai Protagonist who was literally willing to hide bodies for you and then later brought Aunt Yeva back from the dead." She paused, and then her grin got a bit more teasing. "Also, literally everyone but you knew about Lizzy's crush on you."
I was so mortified as I buried my face in my hands. "I was so dense!" I whined.
"You were traumatized and didn't even have romance on your mind as a possibility," cuz told me. "Though I don't think that excuses you missing how freaking obvious Lizzy's crush was."
I groaned, and decided to just try and shift to my next issue than dwell on how bad missing that was. "And then Uncle Khan adopted Joe and--"
"We're not legally related, cuz," Uzi told me. "You're definitely my cousin in every way but code… but you're also not my cousin in the legal sense either, Doll." I blinked. "So we're not related in that sense, and then Joe's adopted on top of that, so he's not actually related to me in any way beyond the legal one, which doubly makes him not related to you. So it's not even incest in the legal sense, so don't worry about that, cuz."
I slumped as I realized cuz was right, sighing, and then I paused. "Wait, why did you have all that ready? Did you overclock?"
"No, Joe figured out you were also into him on his own a bit after I did, talked to me about it, and gave those same objections to my joke that it was incest."
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaa--" I panicked as I realized Joe knew after all--
"He wants to date you too once you're legal," cuz cut me off with a grin that told me she knew exactly what was going through my head right now. "And hey, even if it's not incest in any sense, once you do start dating, since he's an Isekai Protagonist, you could totally call Joe 'Jūkei,' the Japanese term for 'older male cousin,' just to fuck with him."
I was still blushing up a storm, but at the same time, "That would be hilarious, cuz," I agreed.
Uzi giggled like the gremlin she was, before that gaze got a bit more evil, and she said, "And now that you finally figured it out, that means I can tease you mercilessly!"
I teleported to my own hab without even thinking, taking a moment before I slumped down against my bedroom wall and sighed in relief at my victory.
I got a DM a moment later.
Darkxwolf16: Damn.
Darkxwolf16: I'm gonna have to give you the win for that one, cuz.
Darkxwolf16: But I'm gonna be able to FOLLOW you soon enough!
Darkxwolf16: Enjoy your win while you can, lol…
Now that I thought about it, said victory was probably closer to a temporary reprieve. I threw my head back against the wall. Not hard enough to hurt but enough to thunk against it.
"Stupid sexy Liz and Joe…" I muttered.
___
(Uzi)
Dad took the day off for my birthday again. I… I shouldn't have been so surprised by that at this point, but it was still just… surreal, sometimes, to have this reality in front of me and know from what Joe's shared that it would have been so much worse if he hadn't defied stupidly impossible odds to crash into my life and not just give a shit, but go the extra mile again and again and again for my sake. I… I really did see him as a brother at this point. And I was happy that I could give him a family. I just…
It sucked, sometimes. To know how stressed he was by everything. To know that some part of him still distantly hurt from the knowledge that the family from his first life was one he'd never get to see again. Seeing him try to make a hoverbike look like a Harley Davidson motorcycle to remind himself of his mom was just bittersweet. When I found out he was digging into WW2 history in the internet archives, and then telling me stuff about Italy back then, because his dad liked reading about it, kinda drove it in that for all intents and purposes, his family may as well be dead. Then there was when I went to wake him up five minutes early last week while he was sleeping in the guest room, because I had an idea to make the propellant for bolt rounds a bit better, and he blinked awake and started saying "Al--" and then he just froze. I don't think he even overclocked. Just… frozen for a few long seconds, optics hollow, before he just lunged forwards to hug me and started crying. And I'd just held him while he sobbed, trying not to cry myself. I didn't have it in me to ask if that was the start of his brother's name, because I was scared that the answer was yes.
Joe wasn't always a good person. But he was here. He tried. He cared. So I wanted to just be there for him like he was for me. To help him just a little, however I could. I wasn't his brother. I couldn't replace him. But I didn't want to. And we both knew I wasn't trying to. I was his sister. He was my brother. Not by code, but by a bond forged through friendship, and then more than a year of trying to stop the apocalypse by working on a plan to kill a god and save the world together, with all our friends helping us along the way. And most of the time, that was enough so that the cracks wouldn't show. I hoped that one day, I'd be able to help him patch them entirely.
Joe's bad moments were few and far between, but they were still there, and I still worried about how much he bottled up. But he was happy to celebrate my birthday with me today.
Aunt Yeva had gone through her own memory files and shared a bunch of moments she shared with mom back before the Solver. I found out that they were both legally owned by humans, but mom had been owned by a family that moved to Copper 9 from Japan before she was the only survivor of a car accident, and Aunt Yeva was with the family that owned her, the Ablevas, when they were the first people to come across mom sobbing hysterically on the side of the road next to the bodies she'd pulled from the wreckage. There were a lot of happy moments, though, as Aunt Yeva helped mom recover from that, and their friendship built. Nights spent gaming, stupid things they did together, Yeva always leaving her door open for Nori to crash, and… the Ablevas were really nice for humans, even if they'd owned Aunt Yeva as property. I kinda regret that they died in the Core Collapse. And besides those shared memories, Aunt Yeva had also gone and given my combat pick the Solver treatment, so it was [EDIT]ed and now as kick-ass as Joe's own entrenching tool. I still found it really funny he actually called it Doll's gift.
Joe had gotten me four small things. He'd apparently been holding out on me, only now passing along the double nightcore'd version of "Bite Me," an An-Syn pin just for me (it went right with the ones from cuz and Kelsey), I now had an actual Uzi as in the sub-machine gun in my personal workshop in Vault 2, because of course Joe would pull that joke, and he also gave me a re-coded copy of the original Stellaris as it was at the end of its lifespan. Joe told me he wanted to play the game with me and maybe the others too later. And that it changed so heavily so many times over all its updates that he'd basically be learning the whole thing all over again right alongside us. I was looking forward to learning it with him.
Dad came up and hugged me, and then said, "Uzi, happy birthday again," he glanced away. "Your mother would be so proud of you, kiddo." I had to overclock to not wince because of the truth that I knew, and wow, Joe was right that we should tell him soon. Dad stepped back and went into his office to take out a tube, and popped the cap to remove some blueprints. "These were from a prototype for a lighting railgun that were made by…" dad trailed off, staring past me just for a moment before he refocused. "They were made by someone I cared about that I lost during the Core Collapse… if not before then…" he sighed. "I'd rather not talk about that, especially on your birthday, Uzi. Here you go." He handed me the roll.
"Thanks dad," I told him, with a wide and genuine grin, before I unrolled the blueprints to take a look and wow, this was actually a kick-ass design. I saw a lot of flaws that'd need work, but even this much could probably output a single shot that would absolutely internally cook the electronics of any drone it hit, and literally cook any human it was fired upon. My eyemotes widened as I scanned over it, and I saw a couple concepts there that could help with my own project for my true SAHRG, but honestly, most of this design would be more readily applicable to getting Penny equipped with the weapon she asked for… but I'd have to actually tone the lethality of this down, because none of us actually wanted to kill J, N, or V, and if I went one to one on the design, this definitely would. "This is awesome, dad," I told him with a grin.
"I'm glad you like it, Uzi," he said, ruffling my beanie.
"Dad!" I whined, embarrassed. I heard giggling from the others.
"Happy birthday again, Uzi!" Emily called as she stepped up to save me from further humiliation. I readjusted my beanie and fixed my wig a bit-- oh robo-god that was gonna be real hair sooner or later --and glanced over to her as she smiled and gave me a thick book.
I glanced down to see the title, and read aloud, "The Final Group Survival Guide: How to get Yourself AND your Friends Through a Horror Movie." I started laughing. "I love this, Emily!" I tucked the book under an arm and hugged her, and she hugged me back. "You're awesome!"
"You're welcome Uzi!" she said beaming.
"Hey, Mr. Doorman?" Thad suddenly asked. "You got a marker I can borrow in your office?"
Dad, bless his code, still brought the blatantly obvious attempt at a distraction without even blinking, and walked with Thad over to his office to go lend him one. As soon as he was out of earshot, Trevor nodded, whispering, "You're a real bro, Thad," before turning to me and jogging over. "Okay, Uzi, while Thad's running his distraction! He pulled out a box. "I was looking back through combat footage from everyone and saw that N's Shurkikens were stacking up to yours, so I went into The Scrapyard and made you an entire set of them from Khan grade metals. He handed me the box, and I peaked inside to see that yeah, it was filled with shurikens made of dad-grade alloys.
"This is awesome, Trevor!" I told him.
He grinned. "I'm looking forward to going up topside with you and seeing you use them later, Uzi."
"Hell yeah!" I told him, grinning as I passed the box to Joe to go put in my room so dad wouldn't notice it.
Kelsey came up next. "I went out with Joseph during the day to go run halfway across the city to check out a Hot Topic for something to get you. I found some boots in your style, but they were in crummy shape, so I went and got a pair printed for you out of better materials." She gave me her gift, and I opened up the box to see a pair of boots that looked almost identical to the ones I was wearing, but with purple laces and black fur lining on the tops of them.
I gasped. "Oh, this is sick as hell, Kelsey!" I set the box to the side and hugged her on the spot. "You rock!"
"Happy Birthday, Uzi!" Kelsey told me. "I… I'm happy that I could help make it one worth remembering."
I sobered up for just a second before I hugged her back tighter. "Thanks for being my friend, Kelsey."
"Thanks for being mine."
"Yo, Zi!" Thad called out as he came back in with dad. "This is the first and only one of these I have ever given out!" he went and handed me an envelope, and I opened it up to see a really well-decorated piece of paper that read:
"Thad Pass: This pass lets you do one incredibly stupid or uncool thing of your choice. If you use this pass, Thad cannot call you out on it."
I blinked. "Are you sure you wanna give this kinda power to me?" I asked him.
"I'm not giving it to Joe," Thad shot back with a grin.
"Hey!" Joe protested. I snickered.
"Fair. I'll try not to abuse this one too badly, then," I told him.
"Happy Birthday," he told me.
"You're gonna look back on this moment and regret it, but thanks, Thad," I replied.
He rolled his eyemotes, but he was grinning.
The next person who gave me a present was Darren, and he passed me a thumb drive. "Got you a whole bunch of learning courses on a whole host of really complicated coding languages over the years. Like, the whole shebang!" he said with a grin, "Haskell, INTERCAL, BrainF**K, WhiteSpace, Malbolge, COW, C++," I raised an eyemote and matched his grin with my own as he listed off all the old coding languages from the 2000s, a couple of which I was still working on figuring out myself, so those guides would help a lot, "And more modern stuff like PlatBiBase, RingSpace--"
"That one from Titan that cropped up in the 2700s?" I asked him, excited. "How'd you find a guide for that one?!?"
"I actually asked Becca to do some digging. She pulled a couple favors for that one," Darren explained.
I turned to his girlfriend. "Thanks, Rebecca!"
"Any time, Hot Topic!"
I was struggling not to bounce in place. "What else did you get?"
"Even if they're drone-hating assholes, that prick Yves from the Ceti system knew how to code drones, so I got a guide for Yveti, and also…" he trailed off. "I was working with Becca to do some digging into whatever we could find in the archives that included bits of the darkweb." He looked a bit perturbed. "I found a couple mentions of it, but nothing concrete. Maybe you could do some digging on your own time, but there were some conspiracy forums mentioning something called Internest, and one guy claiming that it wasn't made by humans."
I blinked, curiosity piqued. "So what, like some kinda long dead alien race had their own coding language that the humans were keeping hidden from the public?"
"Aliens?" Joe asked.
Darren shrugged. "That's literally all we could find, but I thought I'd tell you about it. But I'm also not sure I'd trust those forums. They were also claiming that the SCP Foundation was real and got bought out by JCJenson of all companies."
"I'll see if I can find anything, then," I told him.
"Happy Birthday, Uzi."
"Thanks, Darren."
"Uuuuuziiiiii!" Rebecca said, running up and hugging me, giving a cheeky grin the whole while. I pouted at the overly enthusiastic greeting that she was absolutely doing solely for her own amusement, but I was still smiling as I hugged her back. "I came up with some new hair products for Doll, given the whole Solver hair thing," she whispered to me, so dad wouldn't hear, and then said at a normal volume, "So I like, got you those new hair care stuff for yourself, for later," she leaned in and whispered again, this time in a teasing tone, "And I got some stockpiled for N and V later."
I had to overclock not to freeze up and blush at the thought of N and V with really fluffy and shiny hair, and settled for outwardly pouting at Rebecca. I had a really brief realization as to how that flirtatious and sometimes salacious attitude could have easily lead into her being a shallow skank without Joe, and not for the first time, I threw a split second glance to Joe as I saw him chatting with Trevor, Emily, Penny, and Kelsey, and thanked him for giving a crap in my thoughts. "Thanks, Rebecca," I begrudgingly told her.
"Any time, Hot Topic!"
"Valley Girl," I retorted.
Rebecca blinked, pulling back. "Damn, that one hits home." I blinked, a bit uncertain-- "Not offended, Uzi, that was just a good one, girl."
"Oh," I said, and then gave a smug grin. "Well, ha!"
She giggled, and wished me a Happy Birthday, before Penny came up with Lizzy in tow. "Uzi!" Penny called out, an audial-to-audial grin on her face, Lizzy's own barely repressed grin leaving me a bit concerned as she brought over a box. "Lizzy gave me the idea and I delivered!"
"Happy Birthday!" they both told me as I opened the box with some trepidation, to see somewhat skimpy purple fabric with silver highlights--
"Is this a cheerleader outfit?!?" I said.
"In your theme!" Lizzy said with a grin.
"Oh my goodness," I heard dad say aloud. "I just saw my daughter get her first gag gift."
Joe started laughing, and so did Penny and Lizzy. I glanced over to cuz and I did not like that smile.
"Not the last," she said as she came up and handed me a box, fanged grin wide and ominous. My eyemotes hollowed as I saw a box set of all the Twilight Books--
Кукла: You ARE trying to rizz two vampires, cuz.
I recalled Joe sharing one of his favorite scenes in the Sisters fanfic, where that Uzi had verbally destroyed her Doll in its 7th chapter by calling her a "a lame Twilight SI OC." Oh robo-jesus, did Joe share that with cuz too and she made this gift specifically as a callback to--
Isekai_Protagonist: Oh, how the turns have tabled.
Darkxwolf16: I hate you both.
Isekai_Protagonist: Love you too, Uzi! Platonically and in the familial sense only, tho!
"Happy Birthday, Uzi!" Doll told me with absolute glee at having nailed me so hard.
"How is that a gag gift?" dad made everything worse by asking that.
There were snickers all around the room as cuz innocently replied with, "It's an inside joke, Uncle Khan."
I slumped, just… taking the jab of the gift, because I kinda deserved it given everything around how I felt about V, but still…
Darkxwolf16: Not complaining, because I kinda deserve it, but…
Darkxwolf16: I kinda wasn't expecting ANYTHING given the whole "I'm letting you date V so no birthday presents" thing.
Кукла: This is for two reasons. First, you still got me my Mama back, and I think that you might actually enjoy some trashy vampire romance later once the humiliation dies down. So thanks again for that, Uzi.
Darkxwolf16: sigh.
Darkxwolf16: I… thanks for… letting me like V, Doll. And regardless of that, I'm still glad we got Aunt Yeva back.
Кукла: You gave me my Mama back, cuz. I'm NEVER going to hate you, no matter how much stupid shit you do.
Кукла: But the second part was that Uncle Khan doesn't get suspicious that I got you nothing. But you're DEFINITELY not getting anything from me for your 12th and 13th Birthdays, cuz. Especially since Uncle Khan's gonna know by then.
Darkxwolf16: That's fair cuz.
We both snapped back to real-time from the overclock that had since become downright reflexive for most of us, and I set the box aside to hug Doll. "I love you, Doll," I told my cousin. "You're just… thank you for being my family," I told her deep and earnest.
She hugged me back. "I love you too, Uzi. Thank you for being my family too."
Joe cleared his throat. "I do believe that we're reaching the point where the cake starting to melt has become a running gag," he said with a grin as he pointed to the aforementioned cake.
"Oh crap!" cuz and I said in sync as we untangled from each other as we started sprinting towards the cake and Joe laughed as he and everyone else trailed after us.
___
(Serial Designation J)
"No please--"
I put a round through the worker's face, thankful that the hunter's cross on my face hid how horrified and disgusted I was with myself. But… the Company expected a quota. I… I had to help fill it, to keep N and V safe. And so I killed another living being, so I could drain their vitae for sustenance and add his corpse to the monument to all my sins, sleeping inside my legacy of genocide so that I wouldn't burn in the light of day like the robotic hellspawn of a vampire I was.
I killed my way through a group of four.
Looking for whoever the hell had offline'd N and V and stole parts from them, I rocketed above the skyline, searching one way, and then turning--
I recalled that first engagement, where the Scrapper's sniper had taken my head off in an instant. I recalled both times they detonated a bomb right under me that night. They'd predicted where I'd be perfectly.
I stung a worker straight through her processors, at least making the death instant.
Trying to fall asleep only for the Scrapper to start blaring music from outside the Spire just to spite us.
A male worker screamed as I bore down on him and punched a blade through his neck, severing his head cleanly. I fought the urge to throw up. Just… I just had to get the quota. Just the quota, and I didn't need to exceed it. V would probably pad the numbers to keep us in the top spot all by herself-- even if that horrified me.
The Scrapper figured out our patrol routes, and started ambushing us. Sniping us with those railguns just because he could. He drove us from the open skies and down to the crumbling buildings below, slowing down our mobility. When I changed patrol routes, he clocked onto the new ones within two or three nights at most.
Two workers, claws punched through their cores. I was a monster that the Company had made. I couldn't even remember my life before they made me into this without being reset.
His constant irreverence. Cursing me out in Italian before cutting my head off and telling me he intended to take down the Company. And… he didn't kill us. He could have. For however many times he beat and humiliated us, he never tried to actually kill us. He wanted to turn us against the Company. He ambushed us, set up traps, burned us, shot us, blew us up, left messages aimed at psychological terror tactics--
I… I adjusted my aim and deliberately missed two male drones who had one of those pill-baby things. I let them get into a building, and think they got away from me, looking for a different target instead.
--But he left us oil. Over and over and over again. He didn't even want us dead. He stole our parts but explicitly stated he'd stop if we turned on the Company. I didn't even know if I could tell him that we couldn't.
I saw a female worker with what looked to be a child, and they were headed in the direction of V's section of the city. I chased them for a while, away from there and instead in the general direction of that bunker before I let them think they got away.
The Scrapper apologized as my worldview broke when I realized he and his band-- all the workers --were sophont. He… his surveillance seemed to be borderline omnipotent inside of Minerall. That comment, that "the game was rigged from the start," had to have been an attempt to hint at my memory having been reset in the past. He had to have known about it, was trying to warn me about it, while working on some manner of way to… I didn't even know. He wanted to turn us, he probably knew the Company were our admins, and…
The cramping agony as I writhed on the floor after one of the two newer workers the Scrapper enlisted shot me with that virus dart before putting me out of my misery. When I regenerated, I'd found out they'd shot the virus dart as well, so I wouldn't wake up with it still in me.
He had the technology. Whatever he was doing to modify workers down there was keeping up with us. Possibly getting better as he improved on it. He could catch rockets, had figured out how to tamper with his hardware such that he could be salvaged in the event of a [FATAL ERROR], and had viruses capable of beating the Company's ECW measures. The Scrapper genuinely seemed to be working towards some way to try and… hack us? Steal our admin privileges? Could he… would that stop the resets from being a threat?
I gunned down six more adult workers, hating myself with each bullet fired, because if I didn't reach the quota, I just knew that we'd all pay for it.
Could the Scrapper help us? Could he save us from the Company? I--
I came to a stop on my flight. There was a metal crate in the open. It looked fresh. New. I approached, cautious, wondering if this was another trap. No explosives went off when I got closer, or when I landed. No EMP went off as I opened the box. I wasn't blasted with UV light when I peaked inside… My eyemotes widened.
There were a few cans of oil. There was… a plushie of myself… there was another, smaller box, with a folded note on it, that had the typed words, "To Serial Designation J." Hesitantly, I unfolded the note, and started reading what was typed on the inside of the synthetic paper.
So… this is probably awkward considering everything--
I snorted at the sheer understatement of what I was all but positive was a note from the Scrapper.
--but I heard a certain Jaybird asking aloud as to how I could help them.
I paused, frozen, facial optics hollow. That name… why did that name feel so-- I processed the other part of that line. The Scrapper… He STILL had cameras inside the Spire?!? How--
"He EMP-hardened the cameras inside the Spire. I was wasting my time," I muttered. I shook my head and kept reading the note.
I understand that you probably want out, but also probably still have a few reservations considering your own personal safety.
I sighed, because for all I thought that the Scrapper was willing to help me, and possibly capable of actually doing it, I still was unsure if he could actually do it, and for all I knew I could just be trading one leash for a longer one.
But I still want to help you out. Consider it a compromise, I suppose. Something that can help you without you having to put yourself out for me. In the box this note is on, is a data storage drive. It's got a fucking zettabyte of storage space on it because quantum data storage drives are just awesome like that, but you can back your memories up to it. There's no remote access, no back doors, and no way for me to peer into them. I promise that it's just a secure drive that you can store your memories on so that you can recover them if… well, I'm not sure what exactly can trigger it, so I'll err on the side of caution, because from what I've seen and heard, you already know what I'm talking about. Keep it somewhere you'd trust yourself to find if the worst happens, but that wouldn't be in the open just in case something else can peer through your visual feed. I'll trust you to do that. There's also a spare drive each for N and V, though those were Darkxwolf16's (yes, she's the sniper girl, and yes, that's a pseudonym and it's not her actual name) idea. But I'd recommend that you don't pass those onto them just yet. Only if they figure out the resets themselves. Don't wanna risk anything both in terms of trust and… you know.
That offer's still open, J.
Saluti,
The Scrapper
I took out the drive that was for me. I could… It was set up that I could wirelessly connect myself to it. Did I… Did I trust the Scrapper? He shot me, blew me up, hurt me time and time again. But why would he leave me oil so many times, including now? Why would he deliberately try to avoid killing me, and have his friends do the same? He very much could have, and said as much, so why bother trying some kind of ruse? He seemed angry, asinine, and vindictive, but not sadistic. I stared at the drive, weighing the risks vs the benefits, for a few long seconds…
And then I connected to the drive. Every memory I could access was copied to it less than five seconds later. I accessed the drive's storage, and everything was there. I didn't get any alerts about malware. I didn't see any incoming or outgoing signals from the data drive. And the drive was separate from my own systems, so whatever I'd felt accessing my OS couldn't reach the memories stored there.
I held the drive in my hands, my memories and identity safe from the Company so long as I kept them up to date and the drive safe, and for the first time since I'd realized the workers were sophont, I dared to feel hope.
___
(Khan)
"Are you sure you can't tell me why you're bringing me all the way out here?" I asked, far from the first time, as Joseph and Uzi led me down yet another abandoned hallway towards the periphery of the underground supercomplex I'd spearheaded the construction of at Nori's request. Robo-god… the weight of that wrench still sat heavy in my pocket even now.
"It's gonna be easier to explain when we can show you, dad," my daughter told me, looking back to give a hesitant, yet guilty, smile.
I wasn't… I still wasn't the best at understanding Uzi. Nori would have scrapped me if she'd known how badly I messed up after her death, but I was working to improve myself every single day, even in spite of the handicap I'd only recently learned I'd actually had. But still, I think I could tell enough from that expression that I could ask, "I'm not going to like whatever you're going to show me, am I?"
"I…" Joe started as we turned down another hall, "I wanna apologize in advance. I should have told you earlier. Before things got to the point where you offered to adopt me. I… I still… I don't have the words to tell you how much that meant to me, Khan. Regardless of anything else, I want to thank you. For being you. For picking yourself up, even if I had to almost literally kick you into gear to do it. Thanks for being a good father."
"Joseph, I--" he held up a hand as we turned a final corner to a dead end. I raised an eyemote though, because…
"You're gonna hear things that'll make you upset. I'm sorry for that. But you deserve to know the truth about everything."
"Isn't there supposed to be a door at the end of this hallway?" I asked, because my door-sense was insisting that there wasn't supposed to be a wall there. Joseph and Uzi both stopped dead in their tracks for a full three seconds, and then burst into laughter. I blinked, confused. "Did I say something funny? Did I accidentally quote a meme?"
Uzi fell onto the floor as she kept laughing, and Joseph literally leaned on his entrenching tool to avoid doing the same. "My sides hurt!" Uzi wheezed. "Dad, please!"
Joseph was visibly struggling for breath as he tried to reign in his laughter. "Oh gods… oh gods…" he took a few more seconds to cycle air past his internal fans, a habit I'd noticed he did nearly all the time. Then, in an instant, he suddenly got serious again. "Yeah, there's supposed to be a door there, Khan. I should have expected you of all people to get a gut feeling on that."
I glanced over to him, then back at the seeming wall. "Did you build something down here?" I asked.
Uzi stopped laughing just as suddenly, and as she got back up I wondered if that was an autism thing or not, but kept my mouth shut. "We kinda built a lot, dad."
"It's also behind a secret door," Joe added.
Well, that was my interest piqued. "You built a secret door?" I asked. Then realized what I just said. "I mean, er--"
"We can let you look over it later, dad," Uzi said, and then turned to her brother. "Joe, you wanna get everything going while I bring dad over to the entrance?"
"On it," Joseph said, holstering his entrenching tool and jogging over to a fuse board, flicking a switch, and then pressing a hidden button on floor level on the other side of the hall from the board. My thoughts were already abuzz for all the internal electronics required for this, and for a secret door to boot? Maybe adopting him was an even better idea than I initially thought! We walked into a warehouse on the right side of the hall, and Uzi stopped at a panel that I could clearly tell had been expertly hidden in the wall, typed in a password-- why did 048 feel familiar? --and then I saw a beautiful secret door slide open. The hiss of the hydraulics was barely noticeable, the motion smooth and without stuttering, the way the door was hidden in the wall was so seamless that I just stood there for a second admiring the work Joseph did before he caught up with us.
"Are you gawking at my secret door?" Joseph asked me.
"Are you sure we aren't related?" I asked him back. Andrew's parents had come from somewhere outside of Outpost 3, and had had Andrew with them when they showed up. I knew Dirge had never been seen again after that last meeting in our house during the continent wide manhunt that ensued with his escape from Cabin Fever, and I didn't hold any hopes that my brother had survived the humans pursuing him and then the Core Collapse and its aftermath, especially since he'd never found me in the years between then and the Murder Drone's planetfall, but maybe he and that Atta girl he liked had a kid, and Andrew's parents somehow found--
"Quite sure," Joe said. I chose to believe him, partly because even if Andrew somehow was my long lost-nephew that I'd somehow adopted into my family, Andrew was dead and gone, and it wouldn't be fair to treat Joseph as someone he wasn't. And also partly because I didn't want to dwell on my brother anymore. That loss hurt almost as much as Nori's. Just someone else that JCJenson took away from me. Better that I keep Uzi and Joseph and Doll safe, behind the Doors, than lose anyone else.
"Come on, dad," Uzi said, "It's past time you knew the truth."
"About what?" I asked, as my adoptive son and my code daughter led me into a massive complex that looked to be lined with the same alloys I used for the Doors. But how would anyone have gotten so much of that-- ah, multiple Industrial Grade Matter Printers would explain that, though now I wanted to know how they got those.
"About what's coming," A voice I thought I'd never hear again said in a calm tone. I turned to the side, and froze completely still. Because there was someone standing next to Doll who shouldn't have been. The clothes were different, but the lanyard, the hair, the red optics…
"Y-Yeva?" I said, seeing someone who was supposed to be dead in front of me.
She walked forwards and wrapped me in a hug, and I just stood there, frozen. "It's been a while, Khan. I've heard that you've become a better father more recently."
I was being hugged by the ghost of a dead woman, who was there and real, and my processors flashed back--
___
The Murder Drones made planetfall in 3058. Uzi was with Doll in Outpost 3, currently being babysat by a family friend in the WDF. There was a storm that night. Not a toxic death storm for once, just a "moderate" blizzard. One that would have likely been lethal to humans without environmental gear, even discounting the atmospheric hazards present since the Core Collapse, but wasn't any credible threats to our synthetic forms. The outskirts of Minerall City had been full of workers enjoying the day, kids playing in the snow, having picnics, playing catch, or even just going on walks. I'd been out on a walk with Nori and the Matryoshkas. I'd just finished a joke about how I roasted someone over how crappy their idea for using WD-40 as an industrial lubricant for the newly finished Door 1 on Outpost 3 was.
We thought it was a shooting star coming down first. Maybe if we'd started running then, Nori would still be here. It was only after it resolved into the form of a descending landing craft, others streaking down by the horizons, that I'd realized that Nori's visions were correct after all, and that the excuse I'd used with the political pull I'd inadvertently garnered just by being a person who took charge when the Core Collapse occurred to build the Outposts "in case the humans came back and were hostile" were going to be used to save us from Solver induced extinction after all.
"The Sky Demons," Nori whispered in a haunted voice, turning and starting to walk as fast as she could away from it without inciting a panic, tugging me along before I snapped out of my confusion and started following. Yeva and Mikhail were right behind us.
I'd looked back to see the craft land poorly, clearly damaged in the process, but the doors on it opened just fine, and I'd found myself for the first time in my life wishing that a door had malfunctioned as three golden X's I'd come to know as a hunter's cross flickered to life within the depths of the landing craft.
"Run, Khan, RUN!" my wife screamed, and we all broke into a sprint. I glanced back one last time as the screaming began, and saw three shadowy figures with bladed wings in the sky, like fallen angels, the middle of the trio holding the head of a Worker Drone in its hand.
I didn't look back as I heard a body hit the ground. I didn't look back as I heard the screams of rockets firing. I didn't look back as I heard the explosions. I didn't look back as I heard oil splatter, metal and plastics splinter, death gurgles from bystanders. I kept my gaze forward. Nori tripped and I grabbed her arm midstep and hauled her back to her feet before she could fall. We passed a kiosk and Mikhail slipped on a patch of ice, and I saw Yeva briefly use her Solver to haul him to his feet while we were hidden from view, and we kept running. There were others starting to join us as we fled. If we could get out of sight, and then to Outpost 3--
"Hey, idiot! Those ones are getting away! Take them down!"
I finally looked back to see one of the… Murder Drones… moving after us, calling out in an entirely out of place chipper tone, "I'm on it, J!"
"This way! Through the alleys!" Nori shouted, both our families and several others diverting as we ran.
A pair of missiles hit the corner of a building just as we ducked behind it, and I found myself wishing I had one of Dirge's railguns right now--
It dove down from the sky, slamming down in the middle of the group, the impact throwing me and Nori back. Before Nori could react, the Murder Drone, wearing a pilot's hat and a short sleeved winter coat with fur lining, lashed a wing forwards and impaled Nori inches from her core, lifting her up, slamming her into a wall, and then lashing out a tail tipped by a glowing yellow canister to sting her in the lower torso, tossing her aside as she screamed in agony before twisting to bare that glowing X at us. Its hands shifted to show twin gun barrels, and I dove to the ground, Mikhail tackling Yeva down as well. No one else was that fast. The half dozen other drones with us were gunned down in an instant, and it's gaze turned to me--
A stray brick sailed through the air and slammed into one of the glowing bulbs atop the Murder Drone's head, the thing shattering in a spray of yellow fluid as it cried out in pain in a masculine tone, "Oh, biscuits, that hu--"
An entire dumpster slammed into him and crushed him into a wall hard enough to splatter oil everywhere, embedding him into the building in question hard enough to cause the entire section of exterior wall there to collapse on top of him. I glanced over, processes still straining from terror, and saw Yeva lower her hand as her Solver winked out. "If anyone asks, it was adrenaline."
"I'm more impressed I nailed that brick," Mikhail said aloud. Anything else he would have followed that up with was cut off as I heard Nori scream in pain again.
I shot to my feet, running to where she was lying against the wall opposite from where Yeva had crushed the Murder Drone on the ground, her entire right side from the site of the sting down red hot and melting. "Nori!" I shouted.
"N-N-Nanite ac-c-cid," my wife stuttered, voice laced with agony as her neon purple optics flickered. "C-Can't… s-stop… s-s-spread…"
"Get help!" I shouted in a panic to Yeva and Mikhail. "Find someone who can stop this!"
I glanced up at them as they looked at each other, seeing the tears flowing from their eyemotes and the expressions that both told me what I already knew but desperately didn't want to acknowledge. Mikhail nodded sadly as he led his wife away, pulling her along. Yeva's tear-filled eyes lingered on Nori as she left the scene, her sorrow evident in her tone as she whispered a final, "I'm sorry, Nori."
"K-Khan…" Nori raised a hand, putting it on my face as she grimaced, and I glanced back to her as I fought back tears and sobs in equal measure. "Hurts… so b-b-bad… p-please…"
"We can save you, Nori. We can get you oil! Just… hold on, alright?" I begged. "I-I can't lose you, too!"
Nori arched her back as another spasm of pain wracked her body, crying out. "Khan… please!" she wailed.
My thoughts drifted to the wrench I'd kept on me since before the Core Collapse, the reminder of the brother I'd lost. I reached into that pocket, removing the tool, staring down at it for a moment.
My wife's eyemotes followed my own gaze before we looked back at one another. There was a sizzle and squelch as her lower torso disconnected from the rest of her body as the nanite acid melted through it completely. "Please," she whispered.
My eyemotes stared into hers, gripping the wrench tightly, and I whispered back, "Nori… I'm so sorry."
"I l-l-love you, K-Khan. K-keep U-Uzi s-a-a-afe…"
"I will. I love you too, Nori," I sobbed. I closed my visual feed.
The wrench raised up. It came down on her head as hard as I could swing. There was a crunch, and I lifted my hand away and glanced back down, and my wife was dead in front of me. Her oil was still on the wrench in my hand. I stumbled to my feet, staggering back, collapsing again, and I wailed. Nori! NORI!!! Oh my robo-god what have I done--
"Khan." I froze. "Look up." I knew that voice. "Come on." It couldn't be him. "Please?"
I glanced up, and saw Dirge for the first time in six years. "You're not real," I whispered.
"I mean, yeah, we both know I'm a grief-induced hallucination of me," he shot back, an asinine grin on his face, perfectly in character for him, "but that doesn't change the fact that you can't fall apart here. The drones here need you. Your friends still need you. Uzi still needs you." My internal fans stuttered as I realized that Uzi didn't even know that her mother wasn't coming home, and I sobbed again. "Khan. You had those bunkers built across the planet because your wife told you to prep for the Solver to send its hunters. You lied that the humans might come back and be hostile as a reason to get them set up, but this is what they were for. You saved hundreds of thousands if not millions of drones with them. But you can't give up yet. Your daughter is down in Outpost 3 right now, safe, but she needs YOU to keep her that way."
"How?" I asked him.
"You built that first door. It's already ready to withstand anything short of a direct hit from a nuke. Looks like you might need to come up with something that can handle nanite acid, but I know that you can build a door that'll be able to do it in no time flat. You've got a bunker to get to, a kid to keep safe, and the motivation, processors, and skills to do it. You might have a week or two to figure it out. Those bastards will be clearing whole swathes through the city before they reach the Bunker."
I shakily got to my feet, and looked my brother in the eyemotes on an even level. "I'll build that Door better than it already is," I told Dirge. "I'll build the best damn alloy for the best fucking Door in the robo-goddamned galaxy, and as long as they're shut, nothing will ever get past them!"
"There's my bro!" Dirge said with a grin. He held out a fist. I went to bump it, the gesture still instinctive even after all these years. But when I blinked, he was gone.
I stood there in silence for a few more seconds. "Just… just like you to pull one last prank on me, huh, Dirge?" I asked in a broken voice. I glanced at the oil-stained wrench in my other hand. Nanite Acid… that's what Nori called it. I took a final look at my wife's corpse. The acid had stopped melting far too late for it to have made a difference. But the fused residue from its aftermath…
The wrench swung a few more times as I chipped off some pieces from what was left of Nori's lower half. She would have forgiven me for this. I stuffed the pieces in one pocket, and the wrench in another. I could analyze the samples back in the bunker to figure out how the acid worked. Once I had that, I could figure out an alloy mix that could withstand it. Once I had that, we'd need to pull an overtime shift with whoever was on hand to coat the Door to Outpost 3 with it, and then use the quantum comms inside to pass that information to the other Outposts. I took in a sharp breath, and then shuddered as I let it out. "I'll keep Uzi safe, Nori. I promise," I said, not looking back as I set out to get back to Outpost 3 as fast as I safely could. I wouldn't lose the only family by code I had left.
___
--and I stumbled back, out of Yeva's arms, flailing as I fell on my back and stared up at her. "H-h-how?" I stammered, haunted.
"The Solver," Yeva stated. "I died, but not completely, remaining in the equivalent to a coma for three and a half years whilst my daughter kept my and Mikhail's bodies in her hab."
My oil ran colder than it already was. "I… I checked her hab--"
Yeva held up a hand. "I don't blame you, Khan. I should have been more present myself after Nori's… we'll get to that," she muttered, walking over and offering me a hand. I let her pull me back to my feet.
"That's also my fault," Joseph told me. "I… Uzi overheard you were going to check, and I worked with her, Doll, and Liz to move her parents to my hab that same night."
"Why?" I blurted out, not even thinking as I stared at him with blatant horror.
"Because I knew it was plausible to bring Yeva back, and Dolly had already unlocked her Solver, and setting her off by well-intentioned efforts to lay her parents to rest would have lead to a nervous breakdown that would have resulted in casualties," Joseph said, with the bluntness of a closing bulkhead.
"W-what--" I got cut off by Uzi this time.
"Dad… I know it's a lot to take in, and we're going to explain everything, I promise."
I shook my head, trying to keep out of my memories and focused on something else pertinent I heard. "Doll has the Solver?" My optics hollowed further than they already were as I turned to my daughter. "Uzi, do you…" I trailed off praying I was wrong.
"I… have it dad, it's active and at this point I'm just waiting for the actual powers to come in."
I walked forwards and hugged Uzi without a second thought. "I'm so sorry, Uzi. I'm so, so--"
"It's not your fault, dad. And… I've been prepping for it for a while now," she told me.
I pulled back a bit, confused. "Prepping?"
"We have industrialized oil production, plenty of means to top myself off, and I'm aware of the Solver and what I'm gonna be dealing with, dad."
I glanced over to Yeva, only for her to say, "I wasn't the one to inform her of it. Your adopted son was the one to warn your own and my daughter about the Solver, its dangers, and to begin training them for what's to come."
I looked over at Joseph, beyond confused and still feeling the fear coursing through me. I swallowed. I… I had no clue what was going on, how Yeva came back from the dead, or how Joseph knew about any of this, but he'd evidently brought me here to explain things to me, and if Uzi trusted me with whatever was going on, I'd trust her to have an explanation as well.
"It's a… honestly insane story, Uncle Khan," Doll spoke up. "If I hadn't had the proof in front of me, I may not have believed it myself."
I glanced over to Doll as she spoke, and then looked back to the seeming orchestrator of everything. "What the hell is going on, Joseph? How is Yeva alive? How did you know about the Solver? Is… is Uzi in danger? Do I need to worry about finding the Patch? Do--"
"Khan," Joseph said, looking me in the optics, "I haven't been truthful about who I am. I… I have memories of a past life, in a different timeline. I don't know how or why I woke up in Andrew's body, but in that first life, I saw a version of events that occur in this reality in what was, at the time, fictional media."
"Like… one of those… Isekai anime?" I asked him, still not quite believing it, but the convinced expressions from my daughter, niece, and Yeva plus the giant secret lair with an exterior made of the same stuff as the Doors very much told me this wasn't some kind of prank.
"A lot like one. I ended up here in the beginning of 3062, realized where I was, and after dealing with the initial hurdle of suddenly waking up as a drone a thousand years and change into the future after living as a human for 25 years, realized that the future I knew of sucked ass and decided to start changing things."
"Changing--" I cut myself off, and tabled Joseph having apparently been a human in a past life as I realized that whatever future he saw was one without him in it. One where he never punched me in the face so hard I literally flipped from the impact. One where I kept spiralling into my obsession with making the Doors perfect so that the Murder Drones could never take Uzi from me. One where I emotionally neglected my daughter in the name of keeping her physically safe from what was on the surface. One where I kept making her cry… one where she never had friends. One where she kept being bullied, and I likely never even noticed. I was hyperventilating.
And then there were arms wrapped around me. "Whatever you're thinking happened without me here, it didn't," Joseph told me. "I stopped that. You stopped that when you got better, Khan. The future isn't set in stone. We can change, and defy the path fate set for us."
"Dad," Uzi told me as she came up to hug me too, "It's okay. It's gonna be okay. I promise."
"Joe has been working since he first got here to try and make things better, Uncle Khan. None of us hold anything against you," Doll told me, likewise joining the hug.
I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I glanced to see the still-impossible form of Yeva. "I don't blame you for your failings, Khan. I'm… a little upset that you and the WDF let my Kulkolka live with our bodies for three years, but I'm not going to hold that against you, especially when you eventually did realize your blunder mostly on your own, and that blunder occurring in the first place did eventually lead to my revival. I messed up just as badly and nearly ruined the relationship between Uzi and Doll. As much as Joe's done a few things I disagree with, his core has been in the right place, and he's been trying to help since the start."
I glanced at Yeva, and then shifted in the grip of the kids-- Was Joseph even technically a kid? --to finally hug her back. "I… Don't get me wrong, I am so glad you're alive, Yeva, but how are you alive?" I asked her. "I know the Solver has regeneration--"
"I fucking told you he knew, Uzi!" Joseph snarked.
"Bite me!"
"I have enough angst in my diet."
"Shut up, the both of you."
"Sorry Dolly."
"Sorry, cuz."
"Are you actually a kid?" I asked Joseph, changing trains of thought. "Because you really act like you're actually Uzi's brother."
"Counting my last life as a meat-person, I'm closing on 31 in Earth years with this upcoming birthday, or twenty and two thirds locally, so uh… sorry for lying about that particular bit also, but I really do see Uzi as my younger sister," Joseph answered.
I blinked. "Why did you agree to the adoption then?" I asked, a bit uncomfortable at that truth even though I was still old enough to be his father in Copper 9 and Earth years alike.
"You might not be the dad I grew up with, Khan, but you're a good dad," Joseph started, looking me in the optics as he spoke. "You extended that offer out of goodwill for what I've done for you, I genuinely see Uzi as a sister, I wasn't ready to explain the truth of who I was just yet, and as part of some things I'll explain later, I ran everything by Uzi, Yeva, and Doll and got the okay before I accepted. And… I don't mind if you wanna be my dad. I don't…" Joseph looked away. "I don't know if I'm ever gonna be able to bring myself to actually call you that, especially with the memories of my first life's dad and the fact that I'm technically an adult already, but I really was honored by that offer. You're a good man, Khan. And a great father." I blinked. That was… that meant a lot from the man who socked me in the face and verbally tore me a new waste ejection port over how I was treating Uzi. "I'm gonna do my best to make you proud as a son. And, you know, planning to get Patch 2.1.8 for your daughter and niece and then to later kill the Absolute Solver when it shows up to Copper 9 is probably a good way to do that."
"The Solver's coming here?" I asked, optics going hollow. And then I mentally took a step back, and I directed my panicked gaze to Uzi and Doll. "Neither of you have the Patch?"
"That… doesn't get inherited, Uncle Khan," Doll told me.
"We know there's a surviving copy of it in Cabin Fever Labs, and Aunt Yeva remembers where the Labs are after we brought her back," my daughter followed up.
"We're working on a plan to go down to the labs and find it," Joe finished.
"How?" I asked. "And can I help?"
Yeva grinned. "Joseph has been working away for years to get ready for all this. Assuming we don't do anything to bring the Solver here early, we have until late 3071 or even 3072 before the Solver comes, so we have time to be cautious with this, Khan."
"I could use another voice for planning," Joseph mentioned. "But before any of that, there's three things we have to go over first."
I glanced back to Yeva. "I'm assuming that Yeva being alive is one of those?"
"Yeah," Uzi said. "Turns out that she was just in an oil-starved coma the whole time, and when Joe brought up how Solver regen works when I figured him out-- and I'm the only person who figured out he was an Isekai Protagonist on my own!" I grinned at Uzi, and while she bristled she smiled back before she kept speaking. "But I asked him about the plausibility of fixing Aunt Yeva and while it didn't come up in the future he knew from the show he watched, he said it was within the realm of possibility. We had to wait a while for cuz to figure out enough on her own to safely broach the subject, but Aunt Yeva's been back since about two and a half months ago."
"I still can't thank you both enough for that," Doll mumbled.
"I got you your mom back, Dolly," Joseph replied, and I raised an eyebrow as Doll blushed. "That was more than enough reason to try."
"I got your back cuz. Always," Uzi told her, and it figuratively melted my core to see the bond between them.
Joseph took a few steps back, and so did everyone else. "Next up," he started, "the Murder Drones are sapient, but are literally slaves to the Solver with reformatted memories."
"I… didn't know about the memories, and I guess that does count as a mitigating factor, but I knew they were intelligen--" I stiffened. "You're trying to turn them on the Solver?"
"I wasn't initially happy with it, but I've thought on it more and more since," Doll said. "I only have a problem with one of them, and the rest… I don't mind them. I might even be able to see them as friends if we make them realize the truth and they help us fight the Solver."
"They're definitely a bad crowd--" everyone else snickered, and I paused. "Did I miss a joke?"
"You describe the Murder Drones as a 'bad crowd' in the show," Joseph said, "Which is called 'Murder Drones,' by the way."
"So I just paraphrased a different version of my future self?" I asked, just to be sure.
"Yes, Khan," Yeva said with a roll of her eyemotes. "The children seem to find whenever one of them paraphrases or quotes their," she did air quotes, "'canon selves' quite funny."
I looked back at Joseph. "You brought the rest of your friends into this?"
"I don't want to keep hiding the truth. Half of why I waited this long after telling them before telling you was because I didn't want this talk to loom over Uzi's Birthday," Joseph answered.
"That was a good idea," I admitted.
"Grazie, signore," Joseph said.
"I told you to call me Khan."
"Call me Joe then; I'm literally 31."
I laughed. "Fair enough, Joe." I glanced back to Uzi. "What's the next thing you need to tell me?"
My daughter glanced away, looking guilty. "I, uh…" my daughter stepped back a bit. "I… kinda… uh…"
"Uzi?" I asked her, concerned, reaching a hand out.
"I'm into two Murder Drones at the same time romantically!" she shouted.
I froze. My hand lowered. Uzi… she was… The wrench was still in my pocket. It felt like it weighed a ton. "Uzi Nagant Doorman!" I shouted, genuinely angry for the first time in years, "Wanting to turn them on the Solver is one thing, but wanting to date the genocide robots that killed your mother--"
"Nori is alive," Yeva said. "Which is the last thing we wanted to tell you immediately."
What.
"What." I echoed my thoughts aloud.
"So…" Joe started. "The reason Yeva was alive is that Solver Drones have mutated Cores that can survive independent of the rest of their bodies. They're housed in the upper torso, and as long as they're undamaged they can theoretically come back from basically anything."
"Joseph literally dropped Mama's core into a bowl of oil and that revived her," Doll deadpanned.
"That's absolutely something Nori would do," I said before I could even think about it. I heard Joe snrk. Then I froze. Nori… her lower torso was what got slagged. I caved in her head. "Nori's upper torso was fine," I said in a haunted voice. "Oh my robo-god." I whirled on Joseph. "You've built things that would let us go on an expedition on the surface, right?" I asked him. I still knew where the alley was. There was a chance. There was a chance to--
"She's not still in her body, dad," Uzi told me.
I turned to her. "What?"
Yeva scoffed, crossing her arms. "My sister in all but code woke up as a Core, crawled out of her own corpse, and suddenly recalled all the memories she'd lost in the Core Collapse. She then decided that rather than even inform any of us that she was still alive, that it was a better idea to head straight back to Cabin Fever Labs without even leaving a note to go and look for the Patch for Uzi and Doll. Mind you, in the future Joseph knows, she didn't even actually find it in time to help anyone either."
I glanced to Joseph. "Is this true?" I asked him in an even tone. My thoughts were blank, but I felt a bubbling rage starting to rise that I hadn't felt since the human's fuckups leading into the Core Collapse killed Morty.
"While there are some differences in this timeline that tells me that we're not in a timeline that's identical to canon, enough of everything else has held up without issue that I have no reason to believe it isn't true, Khan."
I took a breath. "Yeva?" The fury was surging.
"Khan?"
"Chair," I demanded. Even I couldn't build a door to hold back the apoplectic anger boiling forth. My wife let me spend seven years thinking I'd killed her. Every single mistake I've made since then could be traced back to that, and I've just been informed she faked her death and left me and Uzi behind. To go on a fucking scavenger hunt that, if Joe was to be believed (and I was inclined to trust him given that he'd gone out of his way to read me into things, even if that was later than I'd have preferred), she didn't actually succeed at in time to have made any of the time she was gone amount to anything at all.
Yeva's Solver flickered to life and a folding chair fizzled into existence, before being unfolded and set down. I sat down in the chair clasping my hands in front of me. "Did she even bother fixing her old body?" I asked Joe, my outrage about to explode, but I needed one last clarification before I lost it.
"Still a Core," he said.
I took in a breath, and then let it out with a growl. Right. One thing to do before I exploded on Nori then. "I'm going to make her a new body just so I can stuff her into it and then wring her neck," I snarled. "I THOUGHT I FUCKING KILLED HER!!!" I screamed. "SEVEN YEARS! I MOURNED HER FOR SEVEN FUCKING YEARS!!! I FELL APART, I NEGLECTED OUR KID, I NEEDED TO BE PUNCHED IN THE FUCKING FACE TO REALIZE THAT, AND SHE WAS FINE THE ENTIRE FUCKING TIME?!?"
Uzi, Joe, and Doll all stepped back, with hollow eyemotes. Yeva, on the other hand, merely said, "You're going to have to get in line. She's your wife, but I've known her longer than you, and my own depressive spiral from her 'death' nearly made me ruin the relationship between our daughters."
I took an explosive breath, trying to calm myself down. I… I was scaring Uzi. I couldn't do that again. I took and let out another breath. "Anyone else," I began in a terse tone, "And I'd be fighting you right now, but you're right." I took another pointless breath just to try and get my anger under control. I was gonna be a better dad. A better parent than Nori, apparently, even if that wasn't a hard bar to clear. I wasn't going to scare my kid, even if she'd probably agree with my anger. "You can go first for chewing Nori's ass out, but I'm going next when we find her."
"I'm third," Uzi piped up.
I took another breath, most of the rage tamped down on, and I gave her a small smile. "Of course you are, kiddo." Then I vented the last of it as I glared at her. "You're grounded for a month for anything that isn't necessary to whatever plans Joe's doing down here though."
"WHAT?!?"
"You're crushing on genocide robots, and they still killed your uncle."
"He's got you there, cuz," Doll pointed out.
"Thank you, Khan," Yeva told me. I gave her a slight nod.
"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu--" Uzi started groaning.
"So is this one gonna last for a couple days?" Joe asked.
"Vaffanculo!" my daughter shouted at her brother.
Joe started howling with laughter.
I glanced over at Yeva. "I'm assuming that you'll be able to tell me everything else I need to know in a concise manner?"
"We can go to one of the break rooms, and I'll tell you everything else Joseph told me," she told me.
I got up from the chair, and gestured with a hand. "Lead the way."
___