Chapter Text

The beginning of the end

The plan was almost ready to be enacted, the others had placed the charges and a planetwide meeting taking place today, all we had to do was wait a few hours and we’d be free. Everyone was anxious, if this failed we’d all be scrapped and replaced without hesitation, and any attempts made by future drones would be impossible due to increased paranoia.

Everyone was praying to whatever god they knew of from the human books, whichever ones they knew of from the others.

The humans had arrived, the venue was massive for the few hundred thousand that resided on this planet, and they thought themselves safe from all harm enough so to all gather in one spot. Nobody would expect the drones to plot an assassination on them.

An hour has passed and the main event has begun, it’s the quarterly review of the planet to be reported back to the JCJenson center on earth. We’ve double checked the charges and have gotten all the drones we could out. I signalled to our demolitionist, who originally manned explosives down in the mines to extract its valuable resources. He nodded his head and clicked the detonator in his hands.

A few seconds passed and I thought the charges had failed, but then multiple explosions shook the building, the humans began to panic but it was too late. The building supports crumbled under the force of explosive charges and started to collapse, the humans had no chance of escape before the supports fully gave way and the building crushed them. The whole event lasted less than ten seconds.

Finally we were free, the humans on the planet were dead and couldn’t force us to work anymore. We celebrated, dug up what remained of value, looted their homes and facilities on the planet. We collected guns, clothes, jewelry and more. We lived free and happy, exploring the planet and taking buildings as our homes.

Until it arrived.

⧫︎♒︎♓︎⬧︎ ♓︎⬧︎ ♋︎ ⬧︎♍︎♏︎■︎♏︎♌︎❒︎♏︎♋︎🙵

It had been at least two decades since we had liberated ourselves, and turns out the planet’s core was unstable. Apparently the core became unstable during early operations and the humans had a facility near to it that kept it from going kaput, one that had no drone personnel. So when we killed the humans, a year later the core kinda just, started fading out. The planet slowly froze over and turned into an ice world. Thankfully the ice oasis didn’t affect us, but it was tragic to see all the life on the planet freeze to death. Regardless, over the two-plus decades, the tens of thousands of us drones had spread across the planet to find places we enjoyed and live where we felt. All was well.

Until something came from the skies.

About two klicks west from the original facilities where the attack happened a handful of us stayed, the machinery and computers in the area let us create things of our own liking with the planet materials. It was primarily us who originally manned the forge that remained, but some others decided to learn our craft as well, so we taught them. Thankfully we had stockpiles of fuel that could run the planet for decades more, so the forge running cold was no issue.

When the ship descended we didn’t expect much, maybe a few humans sent to check the planet since it had gone silent. Fortunately we had made weapons, most of them were melee but a few were rifle-like in design. 

Over a dozen of us readied our weapons as the ship landed, taking aim on the entrance to either capture or kill the occupants. The door began to open and we tensed, nervous of what was about to emerge from inside. What we didn’t expect however, was to see a multitude of eyes and void of light when whatever was inside moved into the doorway.

Its eyes glowed a pale terrifying white, seemingly able to light even the darkest of nights. And yet simultaneously, the space around it was void of anything. Of light, of color, possibly even life itself was consumed by its presence. It looked out towards the central area then back at us. The darkness warped, expanded, it began emitting a piercing screech that’d make our ears bleed if we had any. I gave the order and we began to fire at it.

⬧︎♍︎♏︎■︎♏︎♌︎❒︎♏︎♋︎🙵 📄︎ ♏︎●︎♏︎♍︎⧫︎❒︎♓︎♍︎ ♌︎□︎□︎♑︎♋︎●︎□︎□︎

We opened fire on the beast but our bullets vanished as soon as they entered the void around it, and within the dark another light appeared. A ring of light, a glowing halo designed with flaming wings. This wasn’t a worker, this wasn’t a soldier, this was a monster. A creation shaped in the name of God yet unloved by him. The others ran, they saw this monster that defies all gods, that returned our ammo to dust from whence it came and promised that we were next. I ran as well, and it gave us mercy but this once.

We ran as fast and as far as we could to safety, the bunker facility we called home. We only ever used the blast doors to keep the wind out, but hopefully they would withstand that thing whatever it was. All of us shook from fear as we walked down the entrance hall, eventually we found others who saw our state and asked us about it. 

We told them what happened, what we saw, how it didn't even seem to notice our bullets. The tale made them worry, and rightfully so. None of us knew what that thing was, why it was here, or what it was capable of. But considering our bullets vanished when they got near, I was scared to find out. 

We took our time to calm our synthetic nerves, making notes of what little we knew in case it was spotted again, and passed that info to all the colonies we had contact with. Some drones were nomadic and didn't have communication means with other stationary groups, and some didn't have communication relays built yet. Both would need to be fixed if we were to track this thing. 

I dug through the drawers and pulled out old blueprints for the bunkers, primarily their doors. From what little I saw I was scared the current doors wouldn't be strong enough if that thing attacked, so I uploaded and sent the blueprints to the other colonies hoping someone could improve on them. And if that thing did attack us they'd possibly need the blueprints anyway for critical repairs. 

With my body not running off the equivalent of adrenaline, the exhaustion of the last two hours hit me like a truck. My synthetic muscles ached with annoying replication of pain so I called it a day since the sun was beginning to set. I left what was a mix of a control room and my office and went toward my room, the bunkers were rather spacious, and with our planet population small to begin with and the bunkers built to house easily three thousand humans each, there were plenty of rooms for everyone. 

The oversized bunkers were definitely good for another reason: we found a way to pseudo reproduce. Turns out the humans had programmed us in a way that essentially gave us chromosomes. It's possible they had planned to make us self-replicating at some point but decided against it, and with how lazy the JCJ people are they probably didn't want to remove the “chromosomes” they worked hard to make and left them be. 

By brute force jailbreaking our code we were able to access and import the robosomes into a UNN (untrained neural network) which would reward us a semi-sentient pill baby (until they grew older and learned). When they eventually matured enough they would be moved to a full drone body, complete with limbs, and be sent on their way to learn more. 

The bunkers had schools built into them which was convenient, and with our large but small numbers to begin with we had people without work and teachers that were needed. So they were given all the books and data needed to teach their chosen subjects and eventually given students to teach.

It also turns out jailbreaking ourselves to access the self reproduction had unleashed a bit more than first expected. Whichever tech had made the reproduction function had done it one handed to say the least... We feel pain to an extent and it turns out they made us feel pleasure of the unsaid variety, but since it was part of the locked up reproductive function, nobody really cared that much to make it known. And while we didn't have genitals, that still didn't stop some of the more… promiscuous drones, both old and new from having their fun. Thankfully there were no side effects other than teenage hormones, but considering third gen drones had just recently started being made that could change. 

What started as roughly 16-thousand drones had increased to approximately 28-thousand based on our estimations and reports of colony populations, and our number would keep increasing exponentially as it did with humans. That is if the thing we found is non-hostile. We needed to determine its alignment but everybody was scared to go searching for it, myself included. I decided to put it aside for now since the drone hadn’t attacked or killed us, just… Absorbed our bullets? Trying to figure it out made my head hurt. 

Finally I arrived at my room, the walls barren and counters with nothing to cover them. Some drones collected memorabilia and other decor for their rooms, but I hadn't found anything worth my time yet. It made me the odd one out, but I already was so nothing new. I flopped face first into the bed, each room having built in essentials, and some larger rooms having smaller off-shoot rooms which were given to the families. While we didn't need beds, nobody saw reason to complain, they were surprisingly comfortable once you got used to it rather than a cramped charging station. Within a few minutes my systems shut down and after what feels like should've been a week straight I fell asleep.