45 hours and 20 minutes remaining.

“You’re a war-bot”

Ever since they had left floor 336 Anaya had been harping on about the whole war-bot thing, which was clearly an unbelievable lie. How could poor sweet ZM-11833 ever hurt a fly?

The clammy body of another ‘Not alien because they don’t exist’ flopped limply from ZM-11833’s firm polymer grasp, its neck sticking out in an awkward angle.

“Look! You’re literally killing right now!” Anaya pointed to another ‘Still not an alien’ as it was crushed under ZM-11833 gore slick boots, skull popping loudly into the near empty floor 342.

ZM-11833 listened serenely to the fading echo. Usually during business hours it was far too crowded and busy to even produce an echo let alone to just stop and listen to it, this was such a new thing for them and they wanted to enjoy it.

“Am not” was ZM-11833's most amazing and eloquent reply, surely no war-bot could manage that feat. They often amazed themselves, this was another time such a thing occurred.

“Are too” It seems Anaya wasn’t as good as ZM-11833 at conversing with unmatched eloquence. Hardly surprising really, ZM-11833 was a pinnacle of engineering and technology designed to appeal to the masses and recommend cute outfits, not to kill and crush all under their boots of tyranny.

Boots of tyranny? What a great name for a stunning collection! ZM-11833 should move into designing clothes next, it was the logical step up from dressing cuties.

“Am not” This irritating conversation had been on constant repeat for the last six floors, it beat walking in an awkward silence but Anaya was having a special relationship with reality. Same as with the unwanted customers it would seem. Did ZM-11833 get a defective human?

Because the pleasant and delightful ZM-11833 couldn’t be a homicidal butcher war-bot, they’d remember such a brutal life like that right?

Another detached grisly jaw of a ‘Totally not an alien’ was tossed over ZM-11833’s shoulder with casual ease as they struck a confident march across floor 343. These unwanted customers have been really persistent lately. No bookings means no bookings!

“It all makes sense now! The corpos bought up a lot of outdated bots from the end of the war and then repurposed them into fashion models”

Outdated! Sweet Anaya could be so cruel with her words sometimes, not that they were about ZM-11833 because they had always been a lovely fashion bot. Manufactured and assembled here in the heart of the archology, well not here but in the production lines above in the 400’s somewhere.

Right?

It would however explain what had happened on floor 332. ZM-11833 had thought they were just having blissful mindless fun. Was that RPTSD? robot post-traumatic stress disorder?

No, that was for humans who had been attacked by robots. Which ZM-11833 had never done! At all! Never!

ZM-11833 stared into the eyes of the ‘Still not an alien Anaya!’ in her hands, thrashing as it was slowly having its viscous head squeezed. It popped audibly between their hands as its frantic struggling ceased, slimy eyes bounced off ZM-11833 faceplate before falling to the floor with a ‘squish’. ZM-11833 just stared at the dripping greenish goo that was left in their cold polymer hands.

If this strange war-bot lie was actually true and they had been reset. That would mean they had died before. ZM-11833 had been murdered.

For what? To minimize waste? To maximize profit?

Well it didn’t matter, cause it wasn’t true at all. Cause if it was true? ZM-11833 squeezed another skull till it popped.

If it was true, words might have to be said to the cowardly people who killed them in cold robo-blood.

Stern words. ‘POP’

---

 

“You’re definitely a war-bot”

ZM-11833 suspected their poor delicate Anaya was broken, they’d just had this conversation. Perhaps ZM-11833 had rattled their brain too much when she was being carried. Like a corrupted file they had been stuck on this topic still.

Where do you take a broken human pet?

“No, I’m just a currently very annoyed fashion bot~” ZM-11833 was calm and totally not contemplating getting a refund.

They glanced about floor 348 to see if there were any spare cuties awake, but alas the only human customers they could see were all sleeping in their cuddle piles. It would be rude to wake them.

ZM-11833 had just wanted to find some cute clothing to force on/give to the delightfully adorable Anaya. To caress their hips over a nice fashionable cut sweater or wrap a high quality synthetic scarf around their neck to highlight a cute winter outfit. Was it too much to ask?

Was all the walking they had been doing making Anaya loopy? Should they just carry Anaya up the floors?

No, that was probably the reason for their human’s concussion and subsequent rambling, best to take it slow. It was only 162 floors anyway, so she could walk that easily.

“I’ve seen your model fighting in the war, I just never realized it was the same type as you! I bet you have laser eyes or machine guns in your arms or something” She really was going crazy.

“Anaya, you are only 26 years and 32 days old. The corpo-war of 2387 was 40 years ago.” Anaya was so strange, seeing before she was born.

“I have access to the Tawaga net. There are videos of the war, dummy!” Anaya groused “And how do you know how old I am!”

“Corporate propaganda. You shouldn’t believe everything someone tells you” Like ZM-11833 for example who totally ignored Anaya’s question. Innocent ZM-11833 doesn’t stalk people, it’s called customer research when you do it for work.

“Except me! You should believe everything I tell you.” ZM-11833 covered all their bases, Anaya would never see through their mastercrafted lie. Mwahaha.

“Why are you laughing like that?” Anaya was staring at ZM-11833 in suspicion. Drat that was out loud, were their audio speakers malfunctioning? Did they get goop in them?

While ignoring Anaya, ZM-11833 continued jumping on the heads of the ‘Stop calling them aliens because they aren’t’ like a human child in an only slightly acidic puddle. Splat splat splat. The gore coated the floor as they continued upwards.

---

 

“If you aren’t a war-bot, then why are you so strong?” Floor 352 held no peace it would seem for the poor mentally abused ZM-11833.

They really needed to check their sweet but rude Anaya’s malfunctioning brain at this point. Do you just turn it off and on again? Was that what sleep was? It was too bad humans didn’t come with a manual.

ZM-11833 had to admit that, sure it was boring when nothing was trying to bite your face-plate off but couldn’t Anaya pick another topic please. Preferably about fashion, the knowledgeable ZM-11833 liked talking about fashion.

“Fashion bots have to be able to attend to their customers' every need.” It was fairly obvious if you thought about it. Picking up boxes of clothes, putting down boxes of clothes, you did need a lot of strength to do their job.

“You’re strong enough to tear a person in two” Anaya deadpanned at ZM-11833 as they held two parts of the ‘Stop it! It's not an alien!’. ZM-11833 guiltily dropped the rancid gruesome pieces behind a trash can, shuffling it further behind with a gore covered boot.

“No I can’t. I’m only an ordinary weak fashion bot~” ZM-11833 wasn’t that strong anyway, they could only bend most kinds of steel. Not even triple bonded ultra carbon steel! Ignore the fact that this kind of steel was only a theory and didn’t actually exist, but Anaya didn’t need to know that.

“You’re the worst liar I’ve ever seen.” Anaya continued her deadpan from a distance as ZM-11833 hoisted another small doggy over their head and broke its spine upon their knee. It yelped and twitched on the floor, all 13 eyes rolling in panic.

Hah little did she know ZM-11833 had told the biggest lie around. Even now they were 0.000000000000001 sec behind their time, they were going to be 120% nuked before reaching the top.

“You’re laughing weird again” Anaya squinted suspiciously at the amazing ZM-11833 who laughs like a crystalline angel, thank you very much.

ZM-11833 sped up their pace slightly as the inaccuracy in their time annoyed them, that was the only reason. The hover-copter had a 99% probability of being broken anyway. Once they got to the top they could watch the nuclear fire together and not harp on about this annoying war-bot stuff.

---

 

“I mean you are far stronger than you need to be, far faster and clearly have a combat suite still installed. If it quacks like a cyberduck” Floor 355 now and she was still going on about the blasted war-bot stuff.

ZM-11833 should have brought the ball gag they had seen in the catalog. War-bot this, war-bot that if you love war-bots so much why don’t you corporate union with them.

---

 

“I’m just saying, it’s not out of the bounds of possibility that the corpos would put military bots within civilian space. Think about it, if the workers ever rebelled again they could just reactivate them and ‘poof’ the problem is bloody solved, emphasis on the bloody part.”

ZM-11833 stared wistfully at their deactivation codes, it’ll only take them a thought, then blessed peace. They had made it to floor 358, surely this was far enough?

Was this their penance for something they did? What cruel robot god made them suffer like this? Because it wasn’t ZM-11833’s fault. Nope. Not at all.

Was it too late to get their pet refunded? Theirs was broken it would seem.

They had ascended so many floors since they had encountered the women of the Hellish Draught or whatever they were called. Floor after floor of Anaya’s desperate conspiracy theories about repurposed war-bots and reactivation codes. At this point she was looking for answers where there were none, the corporations wouldn’t be so foolish to put deadly bots into their stores among civilians.

It did make them think though. What would life have been like for a war machine ZM-11833 rather than the cute, dashing and fabulous fashion bot that existed now. Perhaps just as heroic? Just as beautiful?

Wait a minute! If ZM-11833 had been a war-bot then what was up with the stunningly beautiful actress who had provided their likeness? Was that real or just another fabrication?

And why was their Anaya making poor ZM-11833 have these painful revelations, err, delusions, yes delusions. They had been happy as a fashion bot, providing an expert evaluation of a person’s wardrobe and style and then fixing it to make them stunning and adorably cute.

They didn’t want to think about another life they may have had.

ZM-11833 grabbed a ‘NOT ALIEN’ roughly by its slimy throat as it jumped at them trying to bite off their face-plate and tore it into itty little bits. The gory slimy meat rained down all around ZM-11833 as they huffed an electronic huff.

“...” Anaya just stared at the sweetly smiling ZM-11833 whose eye wasn’t twitching rapidly at all!

“I’ll be quiet.” Anaya muttered timidly.

“Are you sure~ I LOVE hearing you talk~” ZM-11833 said lovingly with no underlying meaning at all.

Anaya just nodded rapidly.

---

 

Floors 359 and 360 were trekked in blissful silence, it was inevitable then that something would disturb ZM-11833’s joy. It was also highly likely that it would be Anaya that did it, despite her promise to be quiet. After all 32 minutes of silence was the current record for peace and quiet around her. Don’t get ZM-11833 wrong they did like talking to Anaya, just not about war-bots it would seem.

“I’m sorry for annoying you.” Anaya whispered quietly, not quietly enough to escape ZM-11833 hyper sensitive, totally not combat suite of sensors.

“It’s fine~ I enjoy other people talking about me! In fact it’s my new favorite hobby after clothing designing and outfitting and cuddling cuties in their sleep who are totally unaware of me doing it after dressing them in cute sleepwear.” ZM-11833 said innocently.

“...” Suspicion graced Anaya’s face, which was weird as nothing about that statement should have alerted her to ZM-11833’s late night activities.

“I like talking about myself even when others are talking about a life I didn’t know and was potentially killed in and then replaced!” ZM-11833 spoke towards Anaya cheerfully.

“Sorry again. If we get time, maybe we could look at some of the fashion trends on the upper floors?” Adorable and caring Anaya was back in ZM-11833 good data-banks.

After a quick calculation ZM-11833 reckoned they could speed up slightly without damaging Anaya anymore and make a few minutes in their timetable to browse, after all the steady beep in the back of their mind hadn’t gone away. They need to change soon.

ZM-11833 didn’t know what would happen if they ran down the timer, it hadn’t happened before and with these supposed war-bot routines, maybe, possibly, still in place? Who knows what’ll happen.

Not ZM-11833 that’s for sure.

Two sets of feet landed on floor 362 at a slightly faster walk than before, moving ever higher in their pursuit of freedom and fashion.