Chapter Text
In the eye’s of earth and many exo-planets beyond it, drones are nothing but a tool. One to be used and discarded by the dozen. However, to one young girl, they were friends, beings of their own that gave her companionship. This girl was named Tessa Elliott, the only prodigal child of the Elliott Household. Her parents, either strict or too rich, mistreated her, causing the girl to seek friendship with the laborers of humanity.
These drones were thrown away, marked for disassembly and forgotten. Tessa loved to take less damaged drones home, repair them and give them a new purpose. She had done it countless times, yet only three of her rescues stood out. She had no clever names, nor desire to give them a name they didn’t ask for, thus she called them by their serial-designation letter. These three – J, V, and N – were good company, but another like them would make their group feel proper, even if Tessa had to convince herself of that.
Every drone marked was either battered or broken beyond recognition, but every so often she’d find one without any external damage. Usually these near-perfect finds had a ton of internal damage, which she wasn’t fond of. The girl could easily splice parts, scavenge or what-have-you, but that seemed like a lot of work. Originally her outing was supposed to be a scouting run, she hoped that might’ve been the case.
Yet a glare of light refracted, originating from the white chest of a drone. The light beamed into her eyes, causing the girl to recoil and wince in a dramatic manner.
The drone was unlike any she had laid her eyes on before. Amongst muck, filth and discarded drones, laid a Third Generation Worker Drone. She knew them only by name, and that it had been many years since they were produced, and subsequently rendered obsolete.
In spite of its rarity and location, this drone fought against all odds and laid in perfect condition.
Tessa had no reason to see her drone friends as mere items, even slaves, as they were truly the friends she built for herself. However, amongst many drone enthusiasts, this Third Generation was a collectors item, something venerated by the few that cared to keep them around. The repair job might prove costly, but it’d also be great for her ego, as tiny as it might already be.
Comparatively to the modern generation of drones, Generation Three’s were less articulate, lacking much of the modern elegance the Fifth Generation brought. Thus, the only advantage a Generation Three might have would be its increased size. The chassis of this drone was anywhere from twenty to thirty percent larger. This increased height and bulk caused it to be less refined in minute areas.
Yet in that moment, Tessa decided she’d make this worker drone function again. She’d make them unique, even if only in her selfish mind.
The girl immediately started checking its internals. She’d wipe off muck or open panels where she could. To her luck, the diagnostics seemed fine, much as in disarray, but it was manageable.
Thus she started to drag it home. The drone’s increased size didn’t help her in lugging the poor thing away, but it didn’t impede her meaningfully. She barely realized how short the walk was, but she’d discreetly drag the drone to her room. Uninterrupted in her journey, the girl quickly arrived in her safe place.
She’d waste no time, getting started on the restoration post haste. Before she knew it, she was arm’s deep in its guts, rooting around the internal circuitry. Too engrossed in her repairs, she barely noticed when one of her previous restorations entered the room.
Tessa glanced over her shoulder, meeting the bemused gaze of J, even if the drone only held it for a moment. Clad in her maid outfit, J walked over and sat across from Tessa, fiddling with her silvery pigtails as her boss worked. Tessa smiled as she got back on track, she was happy J took pride in the pigtails they styled together.
“Dragging in another stray, boss?” J asked, looking and sounding unimpressed by the situation.
“You could say that,” Tessa responded, her Australian accent taking forefront. “Look at ‘em J, they’re an older model.” Tessa’s voice got enthusiastic and J couldn’t help but give a small smile.
The drone didn’t want to ruin Tessa’s moment, so she kept quiet, listening along to everything Tessa had to say. Tessa’s efficiency pleased J, but it was also amusing, she’d assumed the girl was good at rearranging drone guts, it was the first time she’d witnessed it. For the sake of herself, and this new co-worker, she prayed to robo-god that they’d be a hard worker. Even if they only had a tinge of J’s industrious workflow, she’d be happy.
She couldn’t stop herself from complaining mentally. V, the other maid, was too timid, she lacked any initiative to work above and beyond! And N, oh boy N, he was cute , but also very annoying. He had a scatterbrained and naive nature that J didn’t appreciate. But in honesty, he had one quality she could credit. He was able to uplift their ragtag group much better than she could. The thoughts made her grumble, but she’d shake it off and cross her leg.
Her thoughts slowly drifted away from N, moving on to appreciate the passion that Tessa held for drone work.
While the two spent their comfortable time alone, N was downstairs, humming a tune to himself as he worked. He was busy with his usual, seeing to anything that needed hauling, dusting, or cleaning. The butler drone wanted to look busy, even if he’d much rather look at picture books. Honestly, he wanted to do anything else he could think of, especially if he had someone to do it with.
To N’s fortune, he’d hear the pitter-pattering of an approaching friend. Turning around excitedly, he was met face-to-face with V. Unable to help himself, he gave a wave that she shyly reciprocated. As V approached she held her hands at her waist, letting them loiter as she glanced side to side. It was as if she was conspiring against something, but it was a clear sign to N, he knew she had some sort of gossip to share.
“N! Did you see it?” She stammered his name when speaking, shyly avoiding her gaze before meeting it with a more confident aura. Whatever she had to share, N was already interested!
“Uh, nope! What’s up?” In contrast, N spoke enthusiastically, wearing a signature smile.
“Miss Tessa brought another one home,” she whispered, trying to hold some level of discreteness.
“Another one,” he repeated, as if he was following along. “Another what?”
“Another drone.” Her explanation was paired with a bewildered look, clearly baffled at his continued naivety.
Knowing the friend she’d worked alongside with, she’d build up the required courage to lunge her hands forward. Luckily she’d managed to cover his mouth before he drew attention to the two. N’s uncontained excitement might alert Tessa’s of her new project, they’d freak out for sure. Knowing the severity of their punishments, V decided to risk neither herself or Tessa.
She slowly retracted her hands from his face, giving him a silent hush as she scurried up the stairs. Following behind her, the two creeped toward Tessa's room with shared curiosity. Once outside her door they gently pried it open, peering over the side and into the room. The two watched as Tessa worked on the insides of this new drone, but V’s gaze fell on the body; she was fascinated by its difference to her own. N however, was the first to notice J sitting on the chair, but more importantly, he noticed her piercing gaze on himself.
“Watch out boss, you have an audience,” J spoke sarcastically, rolling her eyes after alerting her boss of the onlookers.
Tessa turned around, smiling and waving at her two onlookers. She quickly returned to her work, but had no intention of having an audience. “I’ll have them done by tomorrow morning,” she explained, successfully sating the curious and excited drones.
N looked like an excited puppy, nodding happily while taking V by the wrist. He’d run off with her, presumably to do their duties. It made Tessa chuckle, her friends were very entertaining. J had a different reaction, rolling her eyes but quickly becoming smug.
“Slackers huh?” Her words were meant to be humorous, and they did indeed earn a giggle.
“And you?” Tessa retorted, snickering aftwards.
The accusation caused J to freeze, Tessa wasn’t exactly wrong. But surely , attending to her boss after their long day out was code compliant, it had to be! Even if that was in her own purview as the head maid, she was happy with her own reasoning. Tessa took J’s continued silence as resignation, a quiet agreement-to-disagree brokered between them.
The repair didn’t take her too long, she had fixed most, if not all of the major issues. A few wires had been disconnected, or certain parts needed replacing.
Closing the drone eagerly, she decided to attempt a boot, seeing if it’d even turn on. Like she’d already assumed, the drone had to begin repair sequencing, its directories were likely damaged. Looking at the clock, she sighed, it was already dinnertime. She’d let the boot repair happen overnight, for now she had to steele herself for the oncoming drama that was her parents. She was happy for the meal, it was good, but on the other hand, she was likely going to have to talk to her parents about things she had little interest in.
“‘Spose you can do me a favor, J?” Her question elicited a raised eyebrow, and she’d look at J sheepishly. “Reckon you could polish them, or work out any scratches?”
The drone sighed, but for Tessa’s sake she nodded anyway. The moment J agreed, Tessa shot up and smiled, muttering a thank you as she bolted out of the room. J was in a shocked silence for a few moments, but once the lonely atmosphere creeped in she got to work. She found a microfibre cloth, alongside the polishing agent she’d need. Once she got working it didn’t take her long to find her flow. Even if she didn’t care much about this drone, she was at work and she’d make sure to do it her best.
Though, having to do all this proved this drone was already a hassle. She’d shake her head, they’d just have to make it up when they were, well, alive. For the next half hour or more she worked tirelessly, doing her diligence and not noticing as time flowed. She’d not have noticed an hour passed if not for Tessa’s return. The poor girl looked drained, her gaze disheartened. Wordlessly, Tessa took over what J was doing.
The head maid wanted nothing but to console her friend, tell her that everything was going to be okay. Yet she just couldn’t, she couldn’t work up that courage and be the shoulder Tessa needed. As close as they were, Tessa seemed okay with internalizing all the trauma that befell her, akin to how the drones did. J hoped that in the future she could work up the courage, but for now she’d depart from the room. With dinner finished, her schedule dedicated she’d be needed somewhere. She had duties and responsibilities to uphold, it was a reputation she wanted to maintain.
She whole-heartedly enjoyed her position, it deserved respect, or maybe she just wanted to be deserving of respect.
Now left in isolation, Tessa resumed her work in full, assuring everything was perfect. She’d start by checking J’s work, which, like usually, was perfect in its own right. She smiled despite the exhaustion, she liked being able to rely on J. However, having snuck out all day, and then dealing with her parents, she was completely drained. She hoped this new friend was worth the effort, but she couldn’t find the motivation to finalize the repairs. A good night's rest had to be in order first.
She barely recognized the moment she crashed in her bed, but she awoke the next morning feeling relaxed and excited for the day. She’d set her alarm an hour early for breakfast, just so she’d have time to sort things out. Namely the hairstyle for the drone, she’d overlooked it the night prior. Of her current darlings, both V and N had short hair, and J was an outlier with longer hair. This wasn’t accounting for other drones Tessa had a less personal connection with, but she’d even out her main group’s hair length distribution.
Pondering, she thought something long and straight might look good, but that could be bland. She briefly considered a three-pigtail style, but it might cause this drone and J to look too similar. Furthermore she lacked excess hair for that. It was apparent she was woefully underprepared for this part, as she was in the market for a new drone, but hadn’t expected to find one on a scouting mission. Nor did she expect to find one that required this much effort!
The supply of hair she kept in her room only had enough for some sort of long haired design, one that would match the length of J’s. That was adequate to her, but she still wanted it to be longer! An idea hit her, and once she pondered it, she devised the style for the drone’s hair in an instant. She planned to make it a messy head of hair, topped with a large ponytail! It’d be unique by manor standards, but hopefully, it’d also look good.
She quickly got to work styling the hair, setting the roots and making sure it flowed nicely with S’ hard-hat. The ponytail wasn’t quite to her standards, but she’d find time to loot more swamp corpses for hair, eventually.
With some effort she’d finish in a timely manner, giving her a brief window to admire the work she’d done. Just as she cleaned her hands, the breakfast bell sounded. She let out a startled breath before getting herself presentable for breakfast. She glanced over the drone, enjoying her work, but noticing it was still naked. She appreciated the mechanical glory of it, but social norms said it needed a dress. Tessa smiled and started the bootup sequence, hopefully it’d be done by breakfast's end.
She was ready to get to breakfast, but nervous thoughts about an early startup worried her. The thoughts caused her to shudder, she knew how pissed her parents would be if they caught wind of this. They might even use it as justification to get rid of the drone before it even had a chance to prove itself! There was no way she’d leave that to chance, so she peered out of her room, looking for anyone who could help.
She spotted V working in the hall, she was dusting off a side table and fixing the floral decoration. Tessa deduced that V’s absence in the kitchen meant that J was working breakfast today. Or she hoped that was the case. For the love of god, as adorable as N was, she prayed he wasn’t working the kitchen. The butler was terrible with the culinary arts, and with her parent’s already disliking him more, it was a recipe for disaster.
She knew V was only second to J for this task, so she approached the drone. Her steps were light, unnoticed by the working maid. She’d snuck up on her, even if she didn’t intend to do so.
“V!” Tessa said, smiling at her maid. Her abrupt sentence caused V to startle, but she turned to Tessa anyway.
“Oh, hello Tessa,” she responded, smiling kindly. “Breakfast is ready.”
“Thank you, but I was wondering if you could do me a favor.” Tessa’s question was met with a small curious nod. “I need you to dress and watch the new drone for me.”
V paused, contemplating it, but nodded, “uhm, okay, I can do that.”
Given confirmation, Tessa was free to curry downstairs for food. V smiled awkwardly and returned to her cleaning. She did all in her power to make sure the cleaning was perfect, and once done she retrieved the necessary clothes.
The short walk to Tessa’s room made her anxious, there was a plethora of things she could do wrong. Hell, did she even have the right clothes? The drone was larger than them! She’d have to eye it out when in the room. Although, on the topic of this drone, their larger design intrigued her. She was curious whether or not the larger chassis held an advantage, but she only noticed the inefficiencies behind it.
It made her feel weird, but she was alone with the undressed drone. She could, if she wanted to, check their body over. No, no that was too improper for her! She instead only looked over how the dress would fit on them, and unfortunately, the dress wasn’t to code. The increased height caused the skirt to hike up too much, even if nobody but J would notice, she’d give her hell.
Before leaving the room, she examined the hair of the drone. She could only assume they were female, as the long hair was a giveaway, even if she was stereotyping. To be fair, there was no physical distinction between male and female drones, so she could only assume.
She had no issue with another female drone, but if they were male it would’ve evened out the gender distribution, which would’ve been interesting. It didn’t matter, another friendly face in their uneasy manor was bound to be good. Camaraderie in their fear and something like that. Her only hope was that they’d be more relaxed than J.
V had little desire to waste any more time, she immediately got work on dressing the disabled drone. While working she noticed the visor of the drone, its progress bar was moving at a snail's pace. It must’ve been a long time since it booted, which led further into the idea it was an outdated model.
While adjusting one of her cuffs, she could surmise that this drone was easily taller than herself, N, and J. In a rough estimate, she’d probably only match Tessa’s height.
Although she was the caretaker of this booting drone, she didn’t have much to do aside from dress her. She’d take a few minutes break, idling and eventually feeling useless. So she’d shift her focus, getting to work on feeling useful! She’d start by dusting and cleaning whatever she could in Tessa’s room, and maybe she’d check over the new drone again after.
Tessa returned after breakfast concluded, she entered her room to the sight of V cleaning and straightening the drone’s hair. Her eyes darted to the mostly full bar on the visor, she was happy she returned before the calibrations or BIOS started. Still having some time, Tessa decided to make small talk with V, who had decided to stay for the drone’s bootup.
They both felt anxious as the bar moved slower and slower in its progression, it felt so close, yet miles away. But as the bar finally filled, Tessa mentally heard a ding. Yet, nothing actually happened for many seconds.
The seconds felt like years, and Tessa was left to wonder if something caused the boot to fail. To her luck, the visor of the robot eventually came to life. Its body remained akin to a statue, lifeless yet beautiful in its own way. Instead of digital eyes like V, the drone instead displayed its BIOS settings. There was no clear way of how to change the setting, nor how to move on to the startup phase.
The BIOS settings were vast, displaying many things that were already enabled. However, the personality setting was ticked off. That meant the drone might’ve been a menial laborer in its past, so hopefully she could give it a better life. She pondered on what she could do to change the settings, did Generation Three’s require some sort of controller? The modern generations were much easier to configure, any ole joe could figure it out. She didn’t know what to do, so she’d try something.
“Adaptive Personality on?” She muttered, almost like the words were foreign. However, the setting changed to enabled after she spoke. “Adaptive Vocabulary and Voice on,” she continued, watching as the two settings enabled.
Checking the lines of settings, this drone was already set to have a female voice. Thus the last thing left was to confirm and begin startup.
“Confirm? Start?” Her commands were shots in the dark, but they seemed to do the trick.
It grumbled for a few seconds, its internal mechanisms loudly humming to life before calming. Two oval eyes darted on the new drone’s visor, scanning over Tessa and V. Now properly alive, the new drone seemed curious. Her movements lacked any humanity or spark of life, but being fair, it just came back from death. The drone was thinking, or processing, often blankly staring for moments at a time.
“Are you the system administrator?” She asked, her voice monotonous and cold like a text-to-speech voice.
Taken aback by her tone, Tessa took a moment to respond, “uh, yes.” Her confirmation was met with silence, and the drone seemed to be thinking again.
“Confirmed,” she said, taking a small pause after. “I am called Serial-Designation S-Two-X-One-Zero.”
“Uh – stop!” Tessa commanded, not wanting the drone to mutter its whole designation number. “We’ll just call you S!”
“Name registered. I am S,” S replied, her tone and voice quickly adapting and becoming more alive by the sentence. “What is my purpose?”