Soulmates (Quite literally) || Murder Drones

Chapter 1

Uzi tried to ignore the biting cold of the ice that creeped up her metal skin. Her aluminium digits brushed off any frost that had managed to get on her limbs before getting back to scavenging through the hundreds of bodies that made up the corpse spire. N was a few feet away, tearing away at numerous corpses, searching for whatever Uzi might deem useful towards the mission of finding parts to upgrade her railgun.

Uzi sighed in displeasure. They had been searching for hours by now, and still nothing even remotely useful had turned up. The purple haired worker glanced at the two piles behind them. The small pile that didn't even reach her knee was a collection of stuff that could be used for repairing the pod, but otherwise had no other use. The other pile however, was nearly as tall as N, which was ridiculous considering he was over five feet tall. The second pile was just stuff that N found interesting and would probably add to his collection of trinkets in his room. The fact that N's mountain of rubbish was larger than the heap of stuff that could actually help them ticked Uzi off to no end, but she decided to keep quiet about it to not hurt N's feelings. He was a sensitive drone afterall.

A more minutes of searching that bore no fruits of effort, and Uzi finally had enough. She groaned and grabbed N by the claw, yanking him from whatever it was he was doing and dragging him to their piles. N was confused at her sudden interference and looked over to her for an answer. She caught the look in his eye.

"Don't bother anymore, N. There's nothing left here but scrap and junk, we'll try someplace else," she said.

N nodded and looked at the heaps of their findings. Even he frowned when he saw how small the mound of beneficial stuff was. He hummed in displeasure, crossed his arms and tapped his finger in a steady beat. This certainly wasn't good, especially considering the reason they were out here scrounging for resources in the first place.

While N went to go wrap up their findings in a few sacks, Uzi reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a list. The parchment of paper had numerous names, with a majority of them crossed out with a thick black line. She plunged her hand into her pocket once more and pulled out a pen, which she used to cross out the words "corpse spire".

This wasn't good at all. With that location ticked off the list, there were only three other places to go in this district that they hadn't turned over every stone to look through, and if those areas turned out to be busts as well, then Uzi had no idea what she and N would do.

Speaking of the devil, he had lightly tapped on her shoulder to gain her attention. Her head snapped in his direction, which he hadn't even flinched at. He had gotten quite used to how she acted.

"All the materials have been packed up. We're ready to leave whenever you want to," he stated with a salute. When he realised what he was doing, he quickly hid his hands behind his back. It was a reflex born out of habit, one that he didn't want to be showing to Uzi. Luckily, she paid it no mind and shifted her attention back to her list.

N tilted his head in curiosity at her dismissal. He peeked over her head, trying to get a good look at what she was so focused on. His optics widened when the little piece of paper with locations written on it came into view. He recognized all the names on the list, for they had been all the places he and Uzi had visited over the course of three days.

"What is that?" N asked, placing his hands on Uzi's shoulders. Said drone didn't mind the intimacy he displayed, but didn't reciprocate it either.

Uzi raised her arm that held the object of interest so that he could get a good look. "It's a list of all the places we've been searching through."

N eyed the paper carefully. "Three more locations to go," he muttered under his breath. "That's not good."

"No, it's not," Uzi acknowledged. "If these last few areas turn out to have nothing that can upgrade my railgun, then I'm stumped on what to do next."