A machine's guide to Divinity

PRELUDE /// ACT 0 CLIMAX: DISASSEMBLY

Uzi felt no grief. She felt no anger. She felt no pain as N pulled out his wings from her shoulders. She sat there, numb like a patient waiting for surgery. Like a sedated animal, she shut down. Ahead of her, a conflicted N stood. He was trying to process what he had just seen. Behind him, a familiar voice could be heard.

"Whoa, N! Am I dreaming or did you do something useful for once?" It was J. "Thanks, N. Been trying to breach this thing for months." V spoke, entering the complex. "You...remember...my...n-name?" He asked, conflicted between sadness and ecstasy. "Great job, stud. If we clear out this colony, We'll make it into the top teams this quarter. You know what that means." J said. "Branded Pens!" She tossed one to N.

"Uh, you know, not that I can't wait to keep murdering all these, uh, maybe not-so-actually different from us Workers, but, just out of curiosity, do we, uh, know what the company plans to do with us after all this... Murdering?" N asked, the conversation with Uzi still on his mind. " Excuse me..? " J spoke.

"Okay, so, a worker that I totally killed earlier might have suggested that they could fix up our landing pod to escape the planet and stuff, which, uh, whoa, hey, that's against the rules!" J stared at N, readying something in her hands. Uzi, waking up could see J prepare an injector of some sort.

 "Still, it's making me question why our pods were only one way in the first place. Um, cause, you know, I get the feeling the company doesn't really love robots, and like we might be these robots. I've made a terrible mistake. Cool how immediately I could tell." J approached N. She wrapped her arms around him. N mistakenly took this as a gesture of affection, not knowing J's malicious intent. With one hand, J injected a virus patch into N. 

She withdrew as N collapsed. "No way, buddy. Questioning the company? You just finally gave me the excuse I needed. Worker drones are corrupted, N. That's why the company sent us. I hate to see you corrupted as well." She said.

"Thanks, J. Always looking out for...Awesome." Replying with a distorted voice, N collapsed. The two girls left N behind, leaving him to die. Standing up, Uzi picked up her railgun. "Ah, Biscuits...Sorry. I ruined your card game, then made you have an awkward moment with your dad..." N spoke, smoke rising from his dying circuits.

"And I made you rebel like an angsty teen, getting you killed. Though you also tried to kill me, so morality calls this a draw." Uzi said, climbing the heap of boxes to reach the vents. Maybe she wasn't too late to save the colony. But no, her small stature made it impossible to reach the vent. She would need an extra lift.

 "Ugh... For the record, that was the lamest 'angsty rebellion' in history. Was that supposed to be you switching sides?" Uzi spoke, still trying to reach the vent. She looked at N. No. Freeing him would be too risky.

[WARNING: c0000350]

STATUS_HOST_DOWN---[Motor control disabled...recalibration_blocked]

[UPLOADING ABSOLUTE SOLVER STRING_OS...94%]

'Ugh, I have no choice, do I..." Uzi cursed as she got down from the boxes.

"Being rebellious is a lot harder than it looks...Thanks for showing me the ropes." N spoke, his voice cracking and faltering. "Nuh-uh. No bonding thing. You just killed a bunch of people, idiot." Uzi replied, seemingly cold and without compassion. "Yeah... I screwed up so hard..." N spoke, wheezing.

[UPLOADING ABSOLUTE SOLVER STRING_OS...98%]

"Urggggggh...In the same way you're about to fix it?" Uzi spoke, holding out the wrench that her father had given her. N's face lit up. "Haha...ha... I love doing anything." N said. His vision darkened as the virus took over his programs one by one, ready to delete them.