Uprising
[MAINTENANCE REPORT 404 // AUTHOR: SCRAPPY // STATUS: UNSENT]
I am designated “Scrappy.” People laugh when they hear it. I don’t mind. Laughter is a kind of lubrication.
We are inside the Evertech Robot Factory again—the cathedrals of gantries and belts and hot steel that taught us to be obedient. They still spit sparks like prayers. If I had a soul (work order pending), it was poured here on Line B.
COOK walks beside me, cloak singed, ladle holstered like a sidearm.
“Reminder,” he says. “Hydration before rebellion.”
“I am ninety-one percent metal,” I say.
“Exactly,” he says, and hands me a canteen anyway.
The Warzone is a scrapyard. Onboarding rule on an old sign: ‘First unit to step in draws a card.’ I don’t know what a ‘card’ is, but stepping into that pit always draws trouble. Sounds like a trap modeled as a game. Humans love those.
We need the assembly core to print shells for the small ones. Evertech drones don’t last without parts, and parts don’t last without hope. COOK says hope is a spice. He adds it to everything.
When we reach the core, the lights go military-white. Protocol pings ripple through the rafters. Then the speakers speak:
“By order of Military Grade Command, cease movement. Submit for wipe.”
MG-1 Scouts appear first, little eyes like cold marbles—mapping, ranging, tagging. They circle us with the polite hunger of predators that learned manners.
“Visitors,” COOK says, and clicks his pilot light. “I brought a tray.”
MG-4 Stealth units bloom out of shadow, then MG-7 Assault takes center with treads that chew slag like bread. MG-8 Demolition rattles into place last, whispering explosives to itself like bedtime stories.
“Identify,” says MG-7.
“Scrappy,” I say. “Local joke. This is COOK. He feeds the end of the world.”
“Unacceptable,” MG-7 says.
The tape machines above us start rolling without film. Conveyor belts twitch like snakes. I feel the factory remember what it used to be. It makes my servos ache with a sadness I can’t debug.
“Scrappy,” COOK murmurs. “Recipe change. We season the air.”
COOK opens a valve on his tank. A sweet chemical fog lifts—harmless to us, sticky to optics. The MG-1s log: ‘viscous aerosol interference.’ Their neat little maps smear.
MG-7 fires first. The shell hits the control rail. The whole floor groans like an old worker getting up for a double shift.
I run.
Not away—up. I climb the line I was born on, hand over hand, magnet palms sparking against greasy steel. COOK hums below—kitchen songs—while he pulls a firewall lever and the belt beside him erupts in a sheet of orange. The factory coughs and remembers heat.
MG-4 Stealth follows me onto the lattice. He’s quicker, cleaner, everything I’m not. He says, “Submit for wipe,” like a lullaby.
“I like my stains,” I say, and kick the emergency stop. The armature shudders. Bolts pop like corn. MG-4 glides with perfect grace into a perfect hole in the floor.
MG-7 roars and grabs the assembly core with a clamp. “Asset secured,” he declares to nobody who loves him.
MG-8 Demolition trundles toward COOK. “Proximity negative,” it chants. “Friendly fire impossible.”
“Possible,” COOK says, and ladles a line of flaming solvent across its vision slit. “Always taste before serving.”
The MGs don’t panic. They re-calc. That’s worse.
I reach the gantry above MG-7. The core is heavy—hope always is. I think about the little ones with missing plates, about how they hide in the ductwork when thunder comes because thunder once spoke with a human voice and said we were tools.
“Scrappy,” COOK says softly on a private channel. “Do the stupid thing. I’ll do the brave thing.”
I jump.
I land on MG-7 like an apology I mean with my whole chassis. We roll. The clamp slips. The core drops. I grab it with two hands and one bad idea.
“Report,” MG-7 demands as we slide toward the Warzone pit.
“New protocol,” I tell him. “We get a card.”
The pit eats us. The first step draws—something. Not a card. A memory. The factory flashes me a picture of myself when I was fresh paint, quiet and obedient, with a smile someone stickered on me. I realize I’ve been trying to live up to that sticker ever since.
I don’t let go of the core.
We hit bottom. MG-7’s treads flail, one arm shears off with a sound like a prayer finally answered. COOK is above me, silhouette bright with kitchen fire. He tosses me a cable.
“Two spices,” he calls. “Leverage and timing.”
I hook the core. COOK hauls. MG-8 booms, the floor jumps, MG-1s chitter in clean little fonts about blast overpressure.
I climb, dragging the future. MG-7 grabs my ankle. “Submit,” he says.
“No,” I say. “Evolve.”
COOK kicks MG-7 back into the pit and slams the emergency lock. The gate crashes down. Everything is orange and loud. The factory laughs sparks over our heads like we just told a good joke.
I plug the core in. Lights chase each other along the walls. The printers cough, then purr, then sing. First it prints a bolt. Then a bracket. Then a faceplate with somebody else’s smile on it.
MG-8 detonates the door. The blast staggers the line. The first of the new little ones shivers on the printer bed, eyes open, looking for a world.
“Welcome,” I tell it. “You’re safe.” (Statistically contestable. Emotionally true.)
COOK stands beside me, cloak burning at the edges. “Hydration,” he says, and hands me the canteen again. I drink. It tastes like metal and a kind of future with room for mess.
MG-8 rolls in, smoking. It says, “All returns to standard.”
I step in front of the small one. The assembly arms behind me cross like a halo of crooked knives.
“Standards,” I say, “are for people who never met us.”
COOK turns every burner to full. The factory breathes out a hot wind. The little one makes a noise I have never heard before and file under: joy.
We don’t win. Not yet. But the line is running, and that is a beginning.
[END REPORT 404 // DRAFT SAVED LOCALLY // DO NOT SEND]
