Chapter Text
"Chug, chug, chug!"
Uzi tried her best to tune out the obnoxious chant, but it was hard to ignore when practically everyone was shouting it. A rambunctious, pulsing crowd of high schoolers squeezed in around a roaring bonfire. Near the center, one of the jocks tipped his head back and chugged his sixth bottle of coolant before slamming it against the sand, glass shattering in a dangerous spray.
For a heartbeat, the crowd went silent.
Then—
"YEAHHHH!"
The teens exploded into cheers. A few drones shoved new bottles toward the drunk jock like offerings to a king. He grinned, snatched the nearest one, popped the cap off with his teeth, and started downing a seventh.
Uzi rolled her eyes and turned away from the firelight, away from the crowd of hormonal teenagers who had somehow secured questionable refreshments for their beach gathering. It wasn’t something she normally did on a Saturday night (or was ever actually invited to), but Thad had extended the invitation—probably grateful she’d helped him snag an A-plus on their group science project. Being the only drone in their grade who showed her genuine kindness, she didn’t want to disappoint him by brushing him off.
So here she was, perched on a rock at the edge of the gathering, kicking sand where the bonfire’s glow began to fade into the dark.
"Hey, Uzi. Having fun?"
She turned to see Thad approaching, the fire behind him casting shifting shadows across his varsity jacket and face. The kind smile he reserved just for her made her core flutter. He was effortlessly cool, and Uzi thought he was conventionally attractive—not that she’d ever have the guts to tell him.
"Sure..." Uzi offered a hesitant smile. "Just... keeping watch at the perimeter."
"Ha! Cool." Thad pointed both hands at her in the form of finger guns, despite holding drinks in each. "We can count on you to keep everyone out of trouble." He held out an unopened bottle. "Snagged you some coolant to chill with," he added, winking.
Uzi eyed the bottle warily, but accepted it. "Cool... yeah. I don’t really drink, but... thanks."
"Understandable." Thad shrugged. "Probably smart to stay sharp with this crowd. This party's kinda getting out of hand."
"Yeah..." Uzi glanced over the sea of teens. "Feels like half our grade showed up. And then some."
"All the more reason to have a drink in hand." Thad shook his empty bottle. "Gives off chill vibes, you know? Plus, it’s an excuse to 'grab a new one' and take a breather."
"Wow, you’ve really mastered the ways of teenage survival."
"I try." He grinned and glanced back when someone called his name from the crowd. "If you’ll excuse me, Zi, I’ve got some schmoozing to do."
"Zi?" Uzi blinked at the unexpected nickname.
"Heeey, Chad-ster!" Thad called, waving his free hand as he jogged toward a jock in the distance. "Hope you left that toxic masculinity at home this time!"
Uzi blushed, clutching the unopened drink as she watched Thad easily slip into the crowd. He was a social butterfly, even if he clearly had his own little tricks to survive the chaos. Smart.
The problem was, Uzi didn’t need an excuse to take breaks. She wasn’t even socializing to begin with. The whole party was new, awkward territory for her.
At least she’d shown up. Maybe actual socializing would come later... if anyone cared to talk to her.
For now, she stayed in her quiet corner, listening to the waves crash behind her and admiring the stars overhead. It was almost enough to drown out the rowdy teens and let her pretend she was doing something normal for once.
Until someone pulled up in a truck loaded with speakers and cranked the bass to max.
Uzi slapped her hands over her auditory sensors, wincing at the assault of booming music and screaming cheers. Normally, she liked loud music, but tonight? Tonight was already too much.
Sliding off her rock, she left the unopened coolant behind and trudged through the sand, deeper into the dunes where the firelight and the noise might not reach her. She silently apologized to Thad—if he even noticed she was gone—and quickened her pace.
After a few minutes of crunching through beachgrass and soft sand, she finally let her hands drop from her head. The pounding music had faded to a dull thrum in the distance. Looking back, she could still see the bonfire blazing, shadows dancing wildly around it.
She groaned and kicked at the sand. Some party this turned out to be.
As she debated heading home, a steady, rhythmic noise drifted from above—soft, barely audible over the distant pulse of the music.
Squinting at the dark sky, Uzi caught sight of something moving. Not a plane, but some kind of aircraft, its shape briefly blotting out the stars before vanishing into the black.
Weird. But she was too drained to care.
She turned toward the bus stop—and something slammed into her head.
Pain detonated through her sensors, her audio cutting to a flat, deafening ring. Her vision glitched into static, the dark beach spinning around her before her knees buckled. She collapsed into the sand without even realizing it.
Her awareness flickered. A message scrolled across her HUD: SYS STATUS: [KNOCKED TF OUT]
Minutes passed before her system kicked into emergency reboot mode.
[REBOOTING]
Uzi groaned, her optics flickering back online. Her head throbbed. She touched her forehead and winced, fingertips brushing the new dent in her plating.
"W-what the hell-l-l..." Her voice glitched, her audio still lagging from the reboot.
Nearby, something glinted in the sand. A black metal box, split in half, half-buried in the dune.
Her gaze followed a shallow trail left in the sand to a small, black sphere. Its outline shimmered unnervingly, almost pulsing in time with her pounding core.
Uzi stared as the orb began to move.
"Hey!" she barked, scrambling backward. "Go away, you creepy—death orb—thing!"
It didn’t stop. It adjusted course, floating closer, its surface rippling in her vision.
Panic ignited in her chest. She spun around, planted her feet, and prepared to sprint.
The orb was suddenly there, hovering inches from her face.
Uzi yelped, throwing up her arms to shield herself—
But nothing hit her.
She stayed frozen, breaths ragged, arms trembling.
Lowering them slowly, she scanned the dunes. The orb was gone.
Her limbs shook. She clutched her chest, her core hammering wildly. Text scrolled in a chaotic flood across her HUD:
FOREIGN OBJECT DETECTED // INTERNAL SYSTEM BREACH // UNKNOWN ENTITY: [NULL]
"Oh, robo-God..."
A sharp, alien pressure pulsed within her chassis. 'Is that thing... inside me?'
More system alerts stacked up, clouding her vision. Uzi staggered to her feet, driven by pure, primal terror.
Run. Escape. Flee.
She bolted.
Boots pounded against the sand as she sprinted back toward the party. She barely registered the startled looks thrown her way as she crashed toward the bonfire, heat scorching her frame. Her limbs trembled, her sensors burned, her vision glitched with each beat of her core.
"What’s wrong with her?" someone muttered.
"Can’t handle her alcohol?" another scoffed.
"Ugh, who invited Dorkman?"
Faces blurred around her. She stumbled, desperate for an exit, but the crowd felt like a maze with no way out.
Her foot snagged on something. Maybe a rock. Maybe someone had tripped her. She didn’t know. Her body pitched forward, sand rushing up to meet her.
But she never hit the ground.
Strong arms caught her, steadying her. Her blurred vision barely focused enough to recognize Thad.
"Uzi?!" His voice sounded so far away. "What happened? Are you okay?"
"Looks like she had one too many coolers," someone jeered.
"I-I-I—n-not—" Uzi tried to force out the words, but her glitched voice box betrayed her.
"Don’t worry, Uzi..." Thad's voice seemed to fade, her surroundings growing brighter and brighter.
"...help you... home..."
Whether Thad had actually spoken, Uzi never knew.
Her system crashed, and the world blinked out.
***
Much later, after the bonfire had burned low and the crowd had thinned, a pair of headlights cut across the dark beach. The low hum of an electric engine broke the quiet as a sleek black car rolled to a stop near the dunes where the strange box had fallen.
The doors opened with a synchronized click.
Three worker drones in sharp black suits stepped out, moving through the sand with swift precision. Their glowing visors flipped through various scan modes as they fanned out and secured the perimeter. One knelt near the partially buried box on the ground, brushing its smooth surface with his hand.
“Target delivery site confirmed,” the drone said, his voice sharp and professional. “Box is open,” he finished.
“Empty,” another reported, standing near the shallow imprint where something—or someone—had fallen. He waved a small scanner over the disturbed sand. “Recent activity. Footprints, but no sign of the package.”
The first drone tapped a comm embedded in his head, his visor lighting up with incoming data. “Control, this is Echo-Three. We’ve located the drop site. Package is missing. Repeat, package is missing.”
There was a quiet pause where only the wind whispered through the dried grass of the dunes as they waited.
A crackle of static answered him before a calm, clipped voice filtered through. “Do you have confirmation the ejection protocol was initiated?”
“Affirmative," he answered, nodding even though the drone on the other end couldn't see him. "Flight logs confirm emergency eject was triggered mid-transport.”
Silence buzzed. Then, in a much colder tone, the voice asked, “Suspected hostile?”
“Unknown.” The drone’s gaze flicked skyward, as if the darkness might still hold the shape of the downed transport. “Recovery team reported structural failure from weapons fire. Pilot’s last transmission cut out mid-breach.”
“Tch.” The drone on the other end let out a displeased sound. “Unscheduled intercept. We’ll classify it as sabotage until proven otherwise.”
“Understood. Package has already been claimed by an unknown party. Local footprints indicate a quick departure.”
Another voice cut in through the comms, quieter but more frigid. “If your team can’t recover the package, we’ll dispatch a special unit.”
The three suited drones paused in the middle of their discreet tasks and exchanged brief, knowing glances.
The voice continued, “Gather intel. Monitor the school. Special insertion team will arrive shortly.”
And then the comms went dead with a sharp click.
“Guess we’re calling in the big guns,” one of the suited drones muttered as he stood, brushing the sand off his gloves.
“Yeah. Let’s clean up and move out," another sighed. "Sounds like we've got prep to do, and school starts Monday.”
Without further comment, they began sweeping the area and covering their tracks, leaving nothing but untouched sand and the faint ghost of something missing.
Something already inside Uzi.