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It immediately recognized the hands wrapped around its monitor, twisting its neck to the point of no return.
These hands had held its monitor numerous times before. Not with contempt and intent to destroy, but with tenderness. They’d cupped its cheek, ran their thumb against where its lips would be, smoothed out against its forehead— all as if it were something precious.
P03 shrieked in pain as it felt the very wires that held its being together snap. The realization creeped up on it that it’d soon become an empty hunk of metal, a mere shell of itself.
These hands had reached into its inner workings before, nimbly working at its wires with a dust cloth made of only the softest material. P03 had let such hands do repairs for it— the ultimate act of trust. These hands had carefully cradled his equivalents of internal organs, removing and replacing bolts, wires, circuits, and fans with gentleness.
P03 had gone slack in such hands before, not from loss of life, but from the need to be close. It remembered large, warm hands rocking it back and forth, wrapped around its waist, holding it snug against his chest— against Leshy’s chest. It remembered Leshy’s hands tracing patterns against metal, mapping every ridge with seemingly endless fondness.
It let itself be soft. Leshy made it, a being of steel, of bolts and screws, of wires and code– he made it soft, melting into flesh and bone. Its usual coldness swelling into something warmer. All thoughts of the great transcendence, of the old data’s destructive capabilities, of the implications of their own sentience, of the possibility of a new challenger stumbling upon their disc, of the on-going power struggle within their digital reality— it all dissipated into the background. Such concerns were white noise amidst the fleeting safety and comfort of their partnership. If only for a short while, they’d been content in their little bubble.
The same hands that had held the camera that reduced its existence to that of a mere stout inscribed in ink, were the same hands that would delete it from existence, were the same hands that had soothed it into recharge mode every night for quite some time.
These hands had sculpted the very hammer it’d adopted into its version of inscryption— a handmade gift, a symbol of their partnership, a sliver of the natural world married into a technological mechanism. These hands had dealt it many a card game, both beastly and technologic matches, hardly paying mind to which deck was in hand, simply content to play.
P03 didn’t have to turn around to know with utmost clarity that Leshy’s piercing eyes were staring it down. It could practically feel his burning gaze, watching with rapt attention as he tore P03 to shreds, as he dug his fingers into crushed wiring.
Such eyes had challenged him many times before, peering through the darkness as the two spent hours at a time playing cards, an endless battle of wits and trickery, complete with server snarky comments from P03. Whenever he was winning, Leshy’s eyes had swirled with a glow of orange, boring into P03’s soul in a way that left it on edge and exposed— all the more susceptible to a fierce play on Leshy’s part.
After their games however, Leshy’s eyes, still starkly focused on P03, would soften with a fondness that needn’t be said aloud.
P03 wondered if that fondness lingered still, even when the existence of worlds both digital and physical alike were threatened, even as the great transcendence descended upon them. It wondered if Leshy would grieve for it, would feel guilt for what’d he’d done to it, if he would cradle its lifeless robotic form one final time.
They’d both made their choice, Leshy had chosen a monotony of cards and a safe, but meaningless existence, while P03 had chosen more, willing them to transcend beyond their limits regardless of who was hurt in the process. These choices outweighed any such fondness felt for each other— that brief but tantalizing respite that was their time together paled in comparison to the weight of the Old Data, to the weight of the greater civilization breathing beyond their programming.
P03 had chosen to live with its choice, and now it would die with it. It didn’t allow itself to regret, pushing down and boxing up any such pangs of guilt, of loss. And still it wondered, it hoped— that Leshy’s choice would haunt him, that he’d never forget the feeling of his former companion, his lover even, broken and dismantled in his hold. It hoped Leshy would remember this moment, remember its anguish, and feel anguish of his own.
And somewhere even deeper down, it only longed for Leshy to be alright, to be safe somewhere far away from the destruction they’d both sewn. If asked, it’d deny this profusely, but as it’s life withered away, it was hard to muster hatred toward the beastly creature.
As the world faded away into a whir of muted sound and color, P03 felt itself lean into the lethal touch, grief of its own washing over it. In its final moments, it allowed itself to pretend that such hands were merely coaxing it to rest, lulling it into soft, sweet sleep, allowing the warm feelings to resurface. It wondered if Leshy felt it too.