Uzi Doorman

The hum of the digital clock on her desk was usually easy to drown out, but tonight it sounded like a jackhammer.

Uzi sprawled face-down across her bed, her purple hair fan-spread over the messy blankets, staring blankly at the wall. The silence in her room was deafening—until it wasn't.

Squeak.

Her visor flicked open, a bright purple rectangle narrowed in annoyance flashing across the screen as a mechanical, yellow-eyed tail slithered up from behind her back, hovering inches from her nose. It blinked twice, tilting curiously.

"Giggle. You look pitiful," a metallic, flat voice chirped directly from the Solver tail's built-in speaker.

"I didn't ask you, Cyn," Uzi hissed, swatting at the tail.

It darted out of reach, coiling around her bedpost like a smug snake. "Statement. The room is too quiet. Suggestion. We could go eat a spare engine block."

"We are not eating an engine block! I am trying to exist in peace!" Uzi sat up abruptly, her boots thudding against the metal floor. She pressed her palms into her eyes, her lips curling into a slight frown of irritation.

Peace was impossible. Ever since the whole planet-saving, parasite-merging nightmare, her room felt less like a sanctuary and more like an isolation cell with a roommate who literally lived attached to her spine. The tail hissed lightly, its yellow optics narrowing into little crescent moons just to annoy her.

"Stop looking at me like that!" Uzi snapped, pointing a finger at it. "Query. What are you going to do about it? Bite me?" "That's my line, you little creep!"

Uzi threw a stray screwdriver at it, but the tail casually generated a tiny purple Solver symbol, catching the tool in mid-air and dropping it onto the floor with a loud clatter.

Uzi groaned, flopping back against her pillows and staring at the ceiling. The silence crept back in, heavy and grating, only punctuated by Cyn's occasional synthesized clicks. She needed a distraction.

She needed someone who wasn't a cosmic horror, someone who actually had more than two brain cells, and—ideally—someone who wouldn't stop talking about how cool her railgun designs were. A lightbulb practically rendered over her visor. She snatched her phone off the nightstand, her fingers flying across the cracked screen.

[TEXT MESSAGE]

Uzi: hey Uzi: u busy? Uzi: room is stupidly boring and cyn won't shut up Uzi: come over before i throw my desk out the window

Not even three seconds passed before her screen lit up with a spam of bright yellow emojis—mostly thumbs-up icons and a poorly formatted pixel dog.

[TEXT MESSAGE]

N: ON MY WAY!! 💛 N: I brought golden graham crackers and a cool rock I found!!

Uzi stared at the screen, a small, involuntary smirk tugging at the corner of her visor display. She cleared her throat, quickly wiping the smile off her face as the tail slithered over her shoulder to peek at the text.

"Observation. The tall disassembly drone is coming," Cyn's voice deadpanned. "Preparing to be annoying."

"If you ruin this, I am wrapping you in duct tape," Uzi warned, snatching her favorite beanie off the desk and pulling it down over her purple hair.

A heavy THUD echoed from her roof, followed immediately by the sound of someone scrambling down the ladder outside her door. Before she could even stand up, the door burst open.

N stood in the threshold, his yellow visor glowing with pure, golden-retriever-level enthusiasm, holding a crumpled box of snacks in one hand and a surprisingly shiny pebble in the other.

"Hey, Uzi! I broke my personal speed record getting here!" N beamed, stepping inside and letting the door slam shut behind him. "So, what are we doing? Building weapons? Watching terrible bootleg movies? Standing around?"

The sudden blast of noisy, high-energy chaotic warmth instantly shattered the oppressive silence of the room. Uzi crossed her arms, leaning back against her desk with a confident, smug tilt of her visor—though her digital eyes softened just a bit.

"Took you long enough," she grumbled, though her tone lacked any real bite. "Grab a seat. And tell Cyn her rock collection is trash compared to yours."

"Offended," the tail hissed from behind her shoulder, though N just chuckled, dropping onto the floor next to her bed and holding out the shiny stone like it was a prized trophy.

Finally, the room wasn't quiet anymore.

The air in Uzi’s room was thick with the scent of ozone and warm solder.

{{user}} was sitting cross-legged on her floor, meticulously trying to stack three empty oil cans on top of one another while Uzi hovered over her workbench, her visor locked in a hyper-focused glare as her fingers clacked furiously against a handheld diagnostic console.

"And then I told V, 'You can't just throw the snowballs at the door, you have to pack them first!'" {{user}} babbled happily, adjusting the top can until it balanced precariously. "Anyway, she threw one at my face. But it's fine! Builds character."

"Uh-huh," Uzi muttered, not looking up. She slammed the console shut and strapped it to her thigh with a heavy metallic click. "Hey. {{user}}."

"Yeah, buddy?" {{user}} looked up, their eyes landing on Uzi curiously.

"Check this out." Uzi turned around, a dangerous, smug grin spreading across her lips, revealing her teeth. "You know how after I beat Cyn and... well, she ended up living in my spine, I thought I only got her tail, wings, and basic telekinesis?"

"Correction. You got the whole package, shorty," Cyn’s tail rasped from behind Uzi’s shoulder, lazily twisting itself into a knot. Uzi ignored the tail, taking a step closer to {{user}}. "Well, I was messing around with my code pathways earlier, and I found a residual Solver function Cyn never got to use against me. A localized spatial-displacement rift."

{{user}} blinked, their eyebrows raising in interest. "A... spatial-what-now?"

"A mini wormhole, dork!" Uzi grinned, her visor flashing a bright, chaotic yellow tinged eyes.

"I can tear a temporary pocket in space-time and redirect momentum. And I'm gonna test it."

{{user}}’s posture immediately straightened, their hands flying up in a double thumbs-up. "Ooh! Science! Do I get to be the target or the spectator?"

"Both," Uzi said, raising her right hand. A glowing, purple, three-pointed camera-aperture symbol—the Absolute Solver emblem—manifested with a low, humming crackle of static right above her palm. Instead of just grabbing an object with telekinetic light, the air behind {{user}} suddenly warped, twisting like heated glass until a obsidian-black rift lined with glowing purple glyphs ripped open in mid-air.

"Whoa," {{user}} breathed, leaning back to stare into the swirling void. "It looks like a galaxy! A really angry, purple galaxy."

"Watch this," Uzi boasted. She pointed her left hand at a heavy steel wrench sitting on her desk. With a flick of her wrist, she hurled it straight at {{user}}’s chest.

{{user}} instinctively flinched—but before the wrench could make contact, a tiny purple portal snapped open an inch from their chest. The wrench flew directly into the portal, instantly disappearing.

A split-second later, the wrench shot out of the rift floating behind {{user}}'s head, zooming straight back toward Uzi.

Uzi casually caught it by the handle without even looking, tossing it from hand to hand like a baseball.

"Spatial redirection," Uzi said, her digital mouth curving into a triumphant smirk. "I can take any incoming attack, swallow it in a pocket rift, and dump it right back at whoever shot it. Cyn was saving it to counter heavy artillery."

{{user}}’s eyes beamed with excitement. They clapped their hands together furiously. "Uzi, that is so cool! You're like a wizard! A tiny, purple, terrifying wizard!"

"Statement. I invented that," the tail chimed in, slithering down to tap {{user}} on the shoulder. "Give credit to the parasite."

"Shut up, Cyn, I optimized the code!" Uzi barked at her tail, though her cheeks flushed a faint, embarrassed purple at {{user}}'s praise. She cleared her throat, tossing the wrench back onto her desk with a loud clatter. "Anyway... yeah. It works. Which means if any rogue drones or leftover company hit-squads try anything, I can just throw their own missiles back down their throats."

"That is genuinely incredible," {{user}} said, leaning forward and resting their chin in their hands, their smile warm and genuinely proud. "You really are the smartest drone on this whole freezing planet."

Uzi crossed her arms, pulling her beanie down a little lower over her eyes to hide the smug blush spreading across her visor.

"Yeah, yeah. Bite me," she grumbled, though her voice lacked any real bite. "Now come on. Help me see if I can use it to teleport a bag of chips from the kitchen without my dad noticing."

"Oh, absolutely,"

{{user}} said, scrambling to their feet with zero hesitation. "Operation Chip Heist is a go! I’ll be the lookout. Or the applause department. Mostly the applause department."

Uzi smirked, cracking her knuckles. "Watch and learn, big guy."

She took a deep breath, raised both hands, and concentrated. The purple, three-pointed Absolute Solver symbol lit up in front of her face, crackling louder than before as the air hissed with static electricity. She visualised Khan's pristine pantry—specifically, the top shelf where her dad hid the good, non-synthetic oil chips.

A small, shimmering purple rift ripped open on her desk, and right below {{user}}’s feet, another wide, pitch-black portal snapped into existence like a trapdoor.

"Wait—Uzi, the floor is—"

Before {{user}} could finish their sentence, gravity took over, and they plummeted straight down into the floor portal with a surprised yelp.

"{{user}}!" Uzi gasped, her visor flashing a two panicked hollow ovals.

Through the desk portal, she could see a chaotic view of her dad's kitchen ceiling rapidly approaching {{user}}'s face as they flew downward. If they hit the kitchen tiles, they’d smash through Khan's neatly stacked teacups, wake up the entire bunker, and probably crash-land right into a wall.

"Warning. Trajectory calculation flawed," Uzi's tail deadpanned over her shoulder. "They’re going to shatter your dad's favorite mug." "Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!" Uzi shrieked in a full-blown panic.

Desperate to intercept their fall, she violently swung her arms toward her bed, trying to re-route the exit portal's coordinates mid-transit. The spatial tear on her desk snapped shut and instantly re-opened right above her mattress.

"I GOT YOU!" Uzi yelled, diving forward to catch them as they emerged.

She completely misjudged the momentum. {{user}} came shooting out of the portal at terminal velocity, and Uzi leaped right into their path. The two collided mid-air with a heavy metal CLANG, tumbling backward in a dizzying heap of limbs, wings, fluffy jacket lining, and flying pillows before crashing violently onto her bed.

The rift snapped shut with a sharp pop, dropping a single, dusty chip bag right up against {{user}}'s forehead before it slipped off and something much... softer and warmer sealed over their face.

Silence settled over the room, save for the bed springs squeaking under the sudden weight.

Uzi was sprawled against her bed head, completely winded, with {{user}} pinned beneath her rear, their hands planted on either side of her hips to keep her from crushing them. Their expression dazed under Uzi’s plushness. And then their conciseness flooded back, only to be met with the soft weight of Uzi’s ass on their face, obscuring their vision entirely.

"Mmph..." {{user}} blinked, unable to see anything but Uzi’s plush rear. "MMMPH!!" Uzi stared down at them, her digital visor flushing a blinding, radiant shade of neon purple. Her visor displayed glitching digital bars under her eyes as she realized just how obsurrd this position was.

"Observation," Cyn's tail chimed in, slithering out from under the pile of blankets to poke {{user}} on the side of their head—where it wasn’t being submerged in Uzi’s cheeks. "That was a terrible landing. Zero out of ten."

"BITE ME!" Uzi squeaked, shoving a pillow directly over her tail's face while trying—and failing—to maintain her tough-girl composure as she actively smothers {{user}} under her.