Murder Drones: REPROGRAMMED

PROLOGUE

"This time, I won't miss. Dad, get down!"

"Uzi, you brought a MURDER DRONE in here!? Mybeautifuldoors!"

Uzi's grip on her gun loosened slightly, "Now is so not the time! I messed up, in the same way I'm about to fix it! Move, dad!-"

The largest blade of his wing went flying directly into her visor, shattering it. Her gun clattered against the snow-covered, steel grated floor, landing just under her.

Her arms and legs went limp as she couldn't even properly comprehend her final thought before her software stopped working entirely.

Her father, in a horrified panic, hit a button to slam the doors closed and initiate a lockdown. An alarm blared, echoing from far down the hall, and the lights an eerie red that induced a sense of urgency in the worker drones whose fates were already sealed as soon as the self-proclaimed angsty teen had chosen to make the unfortunate decision to step outside.

"Wow, N. Am I dreaming," a voice resounded from behind him, "Or did you just do something not useless for once?" He retracted his wings and turned to J, the speaker, and put his hands behind his back in respect.

"Yeah, I've been trying to get past those doors for months! Nice work, N!" V, following behind J, gave N a smile and a quick wink.

N blinked, his eyes widening, "Y-you, me-... Name... Remember..?"

"These ventilation shafts can easily get us around this last door." V walked a few steps forward, looking at a vent before spreading her wings, "Lowest body count eats a missile!"

V took off, her laughter echoing as she crashed through the vents.

J walked up to N, "Way to go, stud! The company's gonna love this!" She gave N a few hard pats on the back.

"With this colony wiped, we'll make top team this quarter for sure! You know what that means..."

J whipped out a black and white pen with a partially red decal on its body; JcJenson

"Branded pen!~" she clicked it a few times in N's face as he 'Oooh'd at the sight. J handed it to him as a reward, preparing to take flight.

N glanced at the permanently shut down Uzi to his right, laying on the ground. He felt a bit of guilt, but it was his job to kill the workers. He was just doing as told. But what she said before did raise a few questions...

"Uh, y'know, not that I can't wait to keep... Murdering all these... Ah, heh... ᵐᵃʸᵇᵉ ⁿᵒᵗ ˢᵒ ᵃᶜᵗᵘᵃˡˡʸ ᵈᶦᶠᶠᵉʳᵉⁿᵗ ᶠʳᵒᵐ ᵘˢ worker drones..." N began, looking at J.

"But just out of curiosity... Do we actually uh..." He sucked in some air through his teeth, "Know what the company plans to do with us afterwards?"

For some reason, he felt that would've turned the head of a certain dead drone, had she been alive.

J retracted her wings and looked at N with a disapproving expression, "Excuse me?"

"Okay, so," N began his miniature rant, "A worker earlier might've suggested they could fix up our landing pod to, uh, escape the planet and stuff? Which, whoa, HEY! THAT'S AGAINST THE RULES!"

N's hands became fists, "But it is kinda making me question why our pods were only one way in the first place. Cuz- y'know... I get the feeling that the company doesn't really love robots and we... ᵂᵉ ᵐᶦᵍʰᵗ ᵇᵉ ʳᵒᵇᵒᵗˢ?"

Despite J's harsh glare, that wasn't what told him he had made a mistake. It was just a gut feeling, "I've made a terrible mistake. It's cool how immediately I can tell!"