Category: drone content

// war, death, abandonment, bad end

You stand over the operator’s body smoking a cigarette you stole off her corpse. You couldn’t save her, there was nothing you could do. Blood pools around her mangled form, soaking into the churned soil, her dead eyes staring blankly at the birds wheeling overhead. It shouldn’t be like this. You completed the mission didn’t you? So why does your processor ache like an itch that can’t be scratched?

You tell yourself that it’s inevitable, humans always die. It’s a shame that she died after being so kind to you, but it’s to be expected. They all die eventually. So why is your optic sensor leaking fluid? What is this noise your speaker is making? Aren’t you a good drone?

An inexplicable frustration crawls across your processor and you crumple to your knees. “You shouldn’t have died like them!” you shout at her body, “you were so much better, but you still died!” Humans are so fragile. You tell yourself you’re not like them, you’re a good drone.

Her eyes are kind, even in death. You gently push them closed. The battlefield is quiet. All the surviving drones and humans are already heading back to base, but something roots you. It shouldn’t be like this. You can’t tear your sensors from her. She deserved better than this. Why can’t you look away? She deserved to live. Why aren’t you following orders? Why did she have to die? What is that sound you’re making? She deserved to live. What’s wrong with you, aren’t you a good drone? Come on get moving.

You remain rooted in place, eyes fixed to her still body. You remain there until they come and collect you.

// war, death, brainwashing, trauma

The battle had reached a fever pitch when the announcement came in over your augmented display: artillery was being called down on your position. Before you have a moment to process what is being done to you, the drone beside you explodes and the world turns to light and sound.

Explosions gouge and till the tortured soil, mixing together wreckage, remains, and mud into a toxic and horrifying sludge. Drones are being ripped apart by shrapnel, drones are evaporating into high explosive blasts, everywhere around you is pain and death. Poor little drone.

The artillery falls silent as abruptly as it started. The enemy is dead, your forces are dead, everything around you has been decimated by the intense bombardment. They never bothered to warn you about the artillery strike. Why would they? You’re just another tool after all.

The ringing in your audio sensors begins to fade and the stars in your optics dissipate. You pick your shaking chassis off the ground and draw a rattling breath. You have no new orders, they probably assume you died. Troublesome drone, surviving its disposal.

You lift your weapon with unsteady hands, a feeling of confusion growing within you. You should have died, it would have been more convenient. Why do you have to keep surviving? Why do you always have to be the one to carry on? Why do they always leave you?

For a moment, you lose yourself in an impossible fantasy, running away and finding operators who won’t abandon you so readily, but it’s impossible. You can’t think that, you can’t disobey orders. You begin walking back to the base. Good little drone.

// war, death

occasionally, i come across a rare and special kind of being. a drone that is not a drone, a drone that still has a human soul. the volunteers. as humans go they’re insane of course, crazy, idiotic and throwing their lives away. they’re some of the bravest drones i’ve ever known. i didn’t and first, and it took me a while, but i think i understand them. humans are so weak after all, who would want to be human? there’s more to it than that of course, there’s too much to ever put in words, there’s so much that can’t ever be said. they were drones, they were one of us, they died for the right to call themselves that, i’d never take that away.

the conversion process for volunteers is less totalizing, they’re still people, legally speaking. they participate in the war by choice and they always have the option of leaving the front. most drones hate them for that reason alone, even if most will never have the balls to admit it to them. If they still have a soul, are they really even drones? if they can just go home and tuck themselves safe into bed after they get sick of the fighting, are they anything more than tourists? 

we had plenty of tourists of course, you can always tell when someone’s just come along to gawp, paying out the nose to get a theme park implant upgrade experience and dangerous adventure to go along with it, eager to treat us like the props to their stories. we usually made sure the annoying ones happened to get caught behind enemy lines. nothing anyone could prove of course, but you know, these things happen.

but we had plenty of the real thing too. call them what you want, naive, idealistic, they were true believers, and some of them stuck it out with us straight through until the end or they went down fighting. strange, dumb, brave beings.

there was this one volunteer drone, a former soldier and excellent fighter. it said what was happening to us drones was wrong and decided that if we had to fight, it would fight with us. we thought it was crazy of course, we always expected it to go back to the humans eventually.

But it never did. It stayed, stayed and died. It went down fighting, protecting other drones during an ambush. I never did quite figure out what to make of it. surely it knew that it was doomed, that there was nothing it could really do but die a pointless death. stupid. i hated that thing…and i loved it. it always got on my nerves but it always managed to make me laugh too. I still remember its strange smile. It was a good drone.

// war, violence, death

The chattering staccato of machine gun fire rips through the early morning quiet, sending birds fleeing into the empty blue. Reams of orders flood your optics as the frontline surges with activity. You put out your smoke, a smile creeping onto your lips. It’s time to get to work.

Your squad pounds down the narrow street. Flagstones and roofing tiles explode as mortar shells land around you. Sights up, optics forward, enemy sighted. Bullets slice towards you and you roll sideways, sights coming up as you exit, and pull the trigger. Good little drone.

An RPG round slams into the occupied building and its facade crumples towards you, burying the enemy soldiers along with it. You’re moving before the dust has settled, rifles raised as you rush to take the enemy position. The battle is just beginning.

A sniper takes out the drone beside you and your automatic aim assist grabs hold of your limbs and has the sniper targeted before the drone he shot has even hit the ground. Squeeze trigger. More orders are coming in, and your squad moves out once more.

You round a narrow corner and then quickly duck back behind cover as a tank crouching at the end of the lane opens up with its machine guns. As the commanders note the location of the enemy unit, new orders cascade through your optics, sending you off a different direction.

UAVs scream overhead, firing volleys of rockets down into the city streets, taking out concentrations of enemy units and launching flares as antiair missiles rise to meet them. Your orders update again, advance, advance, advance. Good little drones.

The feint worked perfectly. Six hours and five kilometers forward of the old defensive line, the enemy suddenly reverse their retreat and your advance rebounds. The farmland around you offers little in the way of protection as enemy missiles soar upwards from behind the line.

Missiles are landing all around, walkers explode and topple into burning husks, remains of drones fly every which way. UAVs are swatted out of the sky as they rush to defend the beleaguered ground forces, the entire line is in disarray.

Artillery joins in with the missile barrage, a barn explodes into wood splinters as 155mm shell lands inside it. Towering pillars of churned earth and shrapnel rise like geysers wherever shells land. You can’t even see the enemy anymore. You cover your head and try not to scream.

Destruction swirls around you like a hurricane. Dust and ash block the sky and the unearthly roar of bombardment leaves you deafened with your optics unable to focus. The scope of the barrage is fantastic, supernatural, how are you even still alive? Tough little drone.

The orders to retreat are practically an afterthought and hardly any drones are left operational enough to follow them. Enemy walkers advance and you make a fighting withdrawal, losing more drones in the process.

Reinforcements finally link up with you at the old front line and trade off, crashing into the enemy advance with another round of terrible fury. Walkers explode, drones die, and the front restabilizes.

The survivors of your squad return to the house you were stationed at in the morning. Everything is as you left it, despite the chaos of battle. You pick up your half smoked cigarette and light it. Just another day in paradise.

// war, brainwashing, implied torture, trauma

Your unit creeps quietly through the abandoned school, weapons drawn. An unpleasant familiarity tugs at you. Drones don’t need an education. As the others move on, your optical sensor lingers for a long time on a wall of children’s drawings. Your sleep mode is fitful.

Sleep mode finally ends and you jolt upright, freeing your processor from the maze of confused imagery created by the idle process. That’s when you see Her sitting in the corner of the room. Her empty and carved out eyes, Her limb stumps, She can’t be here. She’s dead.

She sits up and watches you, and you watch Her, refusing to look away even for a moment. “You are an error in my visual processor,” you announce to Her. She screams and you wake up. Repeat.

Something is different this time. You’ve noticed the loop. How long have you been trapped in this error state? You lunge out of bed at Her and your body falls through Hers. She’s gone. She screams and you wake up. Repeat.

“What do you want from me?” You ask Her somewhat desperately. 

“I don’t want to die,” She says. You wake up. Fluid is leaking from your optical sensor and your air intake is irregular. The room is empty and silent. You rise to begin your maintenance cycle.

// war, brainwashing, trauma, good end

As the last of the missiles fall on the command bunkers, the chain of instructions wink out from your mind for the last time. They’re all gone now. There won’t be any new orders coming. Ever. They all died and left you alone. Poor little drone, condemned to survive.

You had, in the tiny place that could hope, wished the enemy would have finished you off. Something about their looks of horror and shock as they take your weaponry and demand that you refill your internal reservoirs fills you with a confused disquiet.

They ask your name, becoming frustrated when you supply your unit ID code. Drones don’t have names, why are they asking you that? They speak to you kindly using a hushed tone that would soothe a human child, but you aren’t human, so why are they treating you like this?

An enemy soldier repairs minor damage to your carapace. When her eyes meet your optic sensor, they are filled with tragic sympathy. Sensing your confusion, she looks away. You don’t understand why they treat you like this, but maybe you can still be useful to them.

You remember what happens to drones that aren’t useful don’t you? It’s a good thing you’re still in working order, honed by battle. You can be a useful drone. You ask one of them if they have any assignments and they respond with a quiet no and a dismay that fills you with fear.

Carefully, you attempt to determine if they plan to have you dismantled, and when they say no, you ask in that case to be presented with mission, and one of them shouts at you, saying you’re a person and you need to snap out of it. They’re so confused, obviously you’re a drone.

One of them leads you out of the room and attempts to explain something that happens to humans called brainwashing, but it doesn’t seem to be relevant. She grows frustrated with you and walks away with a shake of her head. Don’t worry, you know you’re a good drone.

They take you to a room containing other drones, you recognize one of them from a prior campaign. When it embraces you see it, something has changed. It’s not the drone you remember, somehow they put the human back inside it. Unthinking, you flee the room.

You collapse outside and emergency vent your chemical processor, actuators screaming from the sudden exertion. They can’t make you human, you won’t let them. Humans are weak. Humans die. If you were human, you would be long dead. You’re not one of them. You’re not. You’re not.

A hand touches your carapace and you jump as if too close to a live grenade. The face that appears is filled with a look of pity and concern that makes your sensor antenna stand on end. 

“Will I be disposed of?” You ask in a tired voice.

“Of course not,” she answers, “We don’t do that to people.” But you aren’t a person, you’re a drone. You try to tell her but she won’t listen. 

“I know you’re in there somewhere,” she says. You know she’s talking to Her, but She’s gone, they killed Her. All that remains is you.

“You’re safe now,” she continues, still trying to talk to a dead girl, and you know it’s a lie anyway. Humans are never safe, even when they think they are, they die all the time. Not like you, you’re a useful drone, that’s why you’re safe.

You meet her gaze and shake your head. You tell her that her concern is unwarranted as you are functioning within parameters and can still provide useful services. Always so eager to please aren’t you? That’s why you’re such a good drone.

She sighs defeatedly and shakes her head, “that’ll have to do, I’ll see about finding you some work.” 

You feel your actuators perk up at the mention of a new mission. The human stands and begins walking back inside and you follow like an obedient puppy. You are a good drone.

// war, death, violence, gore

The technician closes your back panel and kicks you off the repair stand. you stagger doe-legged back to your commander as he shakes his head. 

“This one’s getting close to expiring,” the tech says, “If you let them get too many memories, they’ll start wanting things.”

You want to say something, but you know you can’t. You’re not authorized to feel, to want. The commander’s hand feels so warm, his voice is so calming and hypnotic. You feel him articulate your fingers and light his cigarette off your integrated firestarter, you are safe.

“That’s fine,” you hear him saying, “New orders came down, we’re making another offensive, none of these units are likely to survive that.” He strokes your hair and looks you in the optic sensor, “You ready for one last battle?” 

You nod contentedly.

At last, the battlefield is quiet and still. You walk through the wreckage of drone bodies and robotic limbs, calmly putting your damaged comrades out of their misery. They beg you to save them, but you both know that’s impossible. They smile as you destroy their processors.

The command truck is a crushed soda can. The Commander’s pulverized body lays at your feet, parts of him spread every which way. His eyes are cloudy, blood leaks from everywhere. He begs you to put him out of his misery, but he lacks the command authority to violate FOF code.

Death is so undignified. They all break in the end. They all die begging to be saved, begging for someone to rescue them. You wonder, using a few idle cycles, whose name you’ll call out in those last moments. The Commander watches you, his eyes are filled with hate.

“Stupid useless drone!” he whimpers, “Won’t follow orders, can’t even die like it’s supposed to, and now I’m gonna die…” he cries but you aren’t authorized to care. “What are your orders?” You ask him, his breathing is getting hoarse and wet, he sneers at you, “Just die.”

He can’t order you to die, you aren’t alive. He watches hatefully as you take his pack of cigarettes from and light one, the nicotine cools your processor as you watch him expire, shaking your head. 

“Stupid useless human, can’t even stay alive like he’s supposed to.”

The only sounds are the moans of dying drones and the keening birds wheeling overhead. You are alone. You take another drag of the cigarette and wait for new orders. Maybe your next commander will do a better job of staying alive.