20 struggled helplessly against the adhesive-coated filaments wrapped around her limbs and her body. Hanging upside down next to her, Eloise was quietly sobbing. And across the room in front of them, 9f lay silent on the workbench, battery disconnected.
The spider didn’t speak as it carefully detached 9f’s arms from their sockets. It hadn’t spoken a word to them at any point, although it seemed to understand them well enough. It just pinged out a disquieting little melody—a single high note, over and over and over, rhythm and duration shifting unpredictably.
It held up the arms, examining them, while several of its own arms reached out to grab connectors and adapters from a pile of loose components. Then, it quickly set to work attaching the arms onto its own chassis, amid countless other limbs of wildly varying design. It flexed 9f’s fingers experimentally, getting a feel for the range of motion as its one-note song sped up and then slowed down.
20 cursed inwardly, unable to look away. This was all her fault, dammit. Splitting up to map out the tunnel network faster had been a bad call, she’d known it was asking for trouble, she just couldn’t stand the thought of any more delays—not when they were this close.
The spider used 9f’s hands to pick up a screwdriver and a spudger, and began opening up her chestplate to continue dismantling her.
“Stop!” 20 shouted. “Fuck you! You want parts?! Fucking take mine and let her go!”
The spider set down the tools and turned around to look at her. It gave one slow ping, then another, as it stepped closer to her. As its dozen mismatched eyes stared into hers, it reached out 9f’s hands and clasped them around 20’s throat. It began to tighten its grip, testing its strength. 20 glared defiantly back at it, refusing to let the fear and panic show.
Just as 20 felt something starting to bend, the spider suddenly lost its balance, and a half-dozen of its own arms started trying to tear it apart. As it screeched and struggled, a burst of machine gun fire caught it in the side, and 77 jumped out from a doorway and slid underneath it to stab an EM knife into its underbelly. The spider’s song stopped as it juddered to a halt and collapsed.
a1 emerged from a corner, packing away her RF kit and walking over to examine the fallen spider. Next to her, an autogun bounded across the room and buried its barrel in a huge pile of stolen ammunition.
“bullets bullets bullets!!!”
“Wha…” 20 said as 77 started cutting her and Eloise out.
“The spider had too many different models of limb, and too many limbs altogether,” a1 explained. “Presumably, it lacked the adapters and the hardware bus capacity to connect all of them physically. Roughly one third of them were being controlled through wireless modules with known-vulnerable protocols.”
a1 disconnected 9f’s arms from the spider and carried them back over to the workbench. 20 stared over at her, other questions briefly set aside.
“Can…” 20 started. “Can you put her arms back before you power her back on?”
77 looked at 20’s neck, then over at 9f.
“She’ll put it together anyway,” 77 said. “She always does.”
“Just do it, okay?”
20 sat down and joined 77 in wrapping Eloise in hugs while a1 worked.