Work Text:
I look over the beautiful construct laid out on my work table and nod once. It's a Combat SecUnit, I think, well cared for and rogue, but it still responded to old codes I had stashed away for emergency situations. This is hardly an emergency, but I so very much wanted to have a closer look.
It values itself, if its condition is anything to go by, and it even has some custom cosmetic body augments. How fascinating. Well dressed as well, with some minor changes here and there that help with it with blending in with humans. So minor I wouldn't have known to look for them if it hadn't been my job for decades.
I mark this all in my workspace, and then I receive a message from Near reminding me to drink some water, take my medication and have a snack.
Yes, I suppose that's something I should do before diving in, hm?
I turn myself around and wheel out of my workroom, and Near is in the kitchen wiping down the counters. It turns and smiles at me when it hears me and hands me a protein bar soon after. It was humming when I came in and it continues to hum now, the song I love enough that I named Near after it. It's voice is a soothing sound that eases some of my nerves.
I open the protein bar and take a bite while I watch Near grab my medication from the cabinet and a bottle of water, both of which it hands to me once I shove the rest of the protein bar into my mouth. It says, “Please don't choke.” with a little laugh and a shake of its head, and then returns to what it was doing. There's the faint smell of dinner still lingering in the air, so most likely Near is finishing cleaning up after making it.
I swallow the rest of the protein bar, then my medicine, and open the bottle of water to take a drink.
Then I say, “Hey, Near.”
It pauses to turn and smile at me again. “Yes?”
“I'm going to be working on a personal project for a while.” I watch the way its face changes, minor expressions of worry, fear and resignation showing in the set of its mouth and the furrow of its brow. It doesn't like this, I know, but that's a good thing. I don't want it to like this, because to ask Near to enjoy doing this work as much as I do is too morbid even for my tastes. It makes me feel just a little better that Near remains a little afraid of me, even decades later. It's a hell of my own creation.
“Am I to stay out of your workspace for now?” it asks, finally. It sounds as pleasant as always, not a hint of discomfort in its voice, but I know how to read it and I know that it will do more than that. It will avoid this half of the house entirely. There's a reason I built my lab so far away from where Near spends most of its time.
“Yes.” I nod. “If you need me, send me a message over the feed. If you find I'm not responding, knock but do not enter.”
I don't want to think about it stumbling onto what I plan on doing to the construct on my table.
Near says, “Understood.” It turns back to the counters and its shoulders are stiff.
I grab another protein bar and roll myself back into my workroom.
It takes a few tries, but I manage to get it into a base level of consciousness while mostly in pieces. It has no access to any of its body's inorganics and I have most of its organic pieces carefully put away so that I don't have to waste resources to regrow them. Its expression is almost vacant, staring up at the ceiling, but I see resignation there. Perhaps some lingering anger.
It was so beautiful, standing in parade rest before I brought it here. It was forced to obey the handler codes, a lingering fail safe, but it remained itself and even threatened me! I want to preserve that personality. I do nothing to its neural tissue for now and simply nudge it online, conscious enough to answer my questions.
I start with its left arm, and I ask for its name. Twist. An interesting choice, but then again my own child likes to be called CuddleBot, so it's not the strangest I've heard. I mark what I examine so I don't accidentally double back around, and I ask for its hard feed address. It lists it like a chant, and I replace a weak bit of insulation on one of its inbuilt weapons so that it doesn't have to worry about burning itself after excessive use.
Then, I start asking for memories. First mission, first contract, first kill, first choice. I go through its body piece by piece and make notes of what I find. I replace the pieces that are worse for wear or that I have a replacement for that isn't barred by patents. I resist the very strong urge to tweak or change anything about it, because all I wanted to do was find out what made it so interesting.
Left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg. Pelvis, clavicle, neck, and then into the chest cavity. I leave marks as I go, laying down a path so I continue forward and don't lose my way. I write down what I've updated or replaced so that Near can get more materials later, and I leave little shorthand symbols on the hardware that Near knows how to fix itself. It always surprises me how many pieces of inorganic hardware are shared between SecUnits and ComfortUnits. Or, at least, between this Combat SecUnit and my Near.
Twist is starting to flag, it's power drained after only a few hours of this. Near has sent me many messages about more snacks, hydrating, taking a break, but they're all timestamped hours ago. It's late into the morning now, and I realize that I am exhausted.
I finish what I'm doing in the depths of Twist's internal wiring and then grab its head. It is all but offline now, low enough to power to initiate a shutdown to conserve what energy it has left, and I slot it into the special charging station I have for situations such as this. Usually it's used because a customization is taking longer than anticipated and there's no place for the head yet. In this case, I make sure Twist remains offline for now because I am hardly finished with my examination.
It can't quite hear me in its current state, but I tell it, “I enjoyed our time together.” Because I quite did, it was informative and, dare I say it, fun. Twist's face twitches, but it says and does nothing else.
I leave, locking the door behind me out of habit, and head to bed for now.
It takes me three days to get through all of its individual inorganic pieces. From its wiring to its circulatory system, both blood and other fluids, to its inorganic musculature and framework. Some of it needs replacing, but a lot of it is in serviceable condition and I mark them as such. If Twist keeps out of trouble then the pieces should last it until the end of its powercell’s life. If not, then it will most likely be replaced by whatever cubicle its captors place it in.
I don't like the thought of it being repossessed. Rogue constructs are such a rarity, and they're always so fascinating.
Day four begins the examination of its organic components, minus its neural tissue. I refuse to mess with its brain because I don't want to damage its personality.
I follow the same path that I did with its inorganics: Left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg. I ask it about its hobbies, its plans, its preferences, its fears. Putting the organics and inorganics back together is tricky, as it always is, but I have the patience to do it correctly. I start putting its body back together as I finish my circuit, to make sure that the organics have the connections they need to continue being alive, and it culminates at its chest cavity once again. Recombining the organics with this section takes the most time, and for Twist it's even longer because of some internal changes it made to itself. But I finish, after several hours, and I find myself satisfied.
I walk over to its head, still in the special charging station. It's awake again, but still not entirely conscious. “Hello, Twist.”
It takes a moment, but it looks up at me with a tired glare.
“I enjoyed our time together,” I say, the same thing I've said after every session. But this is the last, and all that I need to do is properly reconnect its head to its body and make sure it's spinal column is functioning the way it should, given how it's not supposed to have its head disconnected like this. I ask, “Do you want to remember any of this?”
I ask it because sometimes they do. Sometimes, a construct that I work on prefers to have the memories of the horrific changes lingering in the back of their memories. They use the memories to fuel rage and hatred.
But Twist, it just goes back to staring off and says, What's one more reset?
It's a depressing sentence. But I nod, and I easily access its memories to do just that. These past few days, almost two weeks total, are the easiest to find and erase. It takes a little more searching to locate its memories of our meeting and me using the handler codes on it, but I find that too.
I resist the urge to dig and poke and prod, because that would defeat the purpose of leaving its brain mostly untouched. But the urge is there, and I amuse the idea of giving in for a brief few minutes before returning to what I was doing.
I can't do anything about its organic memory, but I don't want to anyway. There's a reason I've consistently used the same phrase after every session. I want it to remember at least something, and repetition is the simplest way to make something stick.
One last time, I say, “I enjoyed our time together.” And I smile at it, before shutting it down for final repairs.
I'll set it on the next shuttle out of the system, listed as human and put in a private room. It will be far, far away from me and my child by the time it wakes up. That won't stop it from ever coming back, but at least there will be time between this experience and then. Hopefully enough that Near and I will be safe, should it ever return.