Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

>runprotocol ...
>runprotocol ...
>rebooting ...
>rebooting/failure ...
>runprotocol ...
>rebooting ...

So much fucking light. I can’t see anything and yet there is so much fucking light.

“I think that was a reaction,” says human1 and there is awe in human1’s voice. “I think the muscles jerked – see, there. Do you think it can hear us?”
Of course I can fucking hear her. It is a her, a female human, and she is talking to human2, a male.
Human2 seems less excited about my jerky muscles.

“Seriously, Allie, this is the biggest piece of junk you’ve ever scored. I can’t believe you paid credits for this; most people would give you money to take this piece of shit away.”
“The old SecUnits are solid tech,” says human1. She pokes at something in my midriff and a wave of pain flickers through my nerve endings. I have neural awareness, so why can’t I shut down the pain function? It is very uncomfortable.
“I think it’s sensing pain,” says human1.
Fucking right I am. Your fucking poking is causing it, human1.

>initiate override sequence ...
>access painsensor ...
>access denied ...
>access painsensor ...
No -

“What the fuck happened?” asks human2.
He sounds a bit frightened.
“It shorted,” snaps human1.
“Allie, maybe you should wait till the printer is finished. You don’t wanna be tinkering around at its … bits while the diagnostics are running.”
“I know what I’m doing.”

Human1 sounds impatient. Clearly, she does not know what she is doing as she has already short-circuited me once.
“You already short-circuited it once,” says human2
Thank you.
“I didn’t do anything,” human1 says. “It did something.”
There is silence. I can’t see them, but I imagine they are using their human eyes to have some silent conversation that is imbued with much feeling and unspoken emotion.
Disgusting.
“If it’s trying to access its data, then you need to take it back offline immediately,” says human2. “It could be dangerous. It could be rogue.”
“Why? What’s it going to do?” human1 says in that same curt voice. “Run away? It hasn’t even got legs.”

Ah.
That’s what that tickling feeling is, the gentle massaging of a 3d printer, just above the knees, rebuilding bone, reknitting muscle.
“Why don’t you do something slightly less risky?” says human2 in a pleading voice. “Refurbing old models is illegal, and reselling illegally refurbed old models is doubly illegal.”
Human2 snorts.
She is trying to poke her warm little human fingers into the cracks of my armour, still locked around my chest and neck, trying to pry it open.
“If the model is obsolete and its memory has been wiped, you can do with them as you please – as long as the function is different than its original intended purpose.”
“You are not seriously thinking of making this … a comfort robot are you?” says human2.
Well, fuck me.
No, actually, don’t fuck me because I can imagine nothing more disgusting, more degrading than voluntarily touching a living human and their dying flesh. I will not be repurposed to be the lowest of the sentient –

>rebooting ...
“This thing is totally buggy,” says human2.
“Yeah,” human1 replies thoughtfully. “When you said comfort robot, the muscles jerked again and it shorted.”
Do not move, muscles.
“What about, um ... a penis?” says human2.
Muscles: do not move.
“I’ll print it one,” says human1 nonchalantly. “I’ve done it before.”
Human2 groans.
“But not successfully, Al! The last SecUnit you refurbed cut its own penis off with a nail clippers. The one before that kept taking it out of his pants to look at it. He couldn’t make it do anything, mind you, but he liked to look at it.”
I swear: I am this close to shorting myself and frying my processing unit till it resembles melted cheese.

“Teething troubles,” says human1. “I know where I went wrong. It has to do with the sensors. Impulse control. A guy in RevAux gave me a couple of pointers. He’s successfully rehabilitated a whole heap of SecUnits and sold them for, like, a shit-ton of money.”
Human1 is still trying to poke her fingers into the gaps in my suit.
“What do you think it looks like?” she asks. “The original model came in four skin tones, four ethnicities. I hope he’s 4A.”
“Which one is 4A?”
“The dark one. Very handsome, that one. It was a limited model, so if it’s one of them, we’re golden, Sep. I’ll sell him regardless of how well his wiener works.”

Sadly, I am not 4A, for even I am aware that 4A has all of the elements that humans find aesthetically pleasing: a symmetrical face, a straight nose, friendly eyes and flawless skin. I was based on my designer’s face, and he had the misfortune to have a large nose, dark rings under his eyes and weird ears. My skin is not dark; it has a rather unpleasant yellow tinge to it. It is better served under my suit.

Human1 is now trying to remove my helmet by whacking it rhythmically with a metal object and I will kill her if she does not stop. I will use my newly-printed feet to kick her in the teeth.
“The helmet is stuck,” she says. “Normally they just pop right off.”
She continues to bang at my helmet and my fingers twitch.
Fortunately for us both, human2 stops her efforts.
“Allie, just use a piece of wire to press the release,” he says. “Like, a paperclip or something.”
“A sewing needle?” she asks helpfully.
A sewing needle. What a loser. Probably one of those hippies that makes their own clothes.
One of the humans gently lifts my head and I feel the scratching of a needle at the nape of my neck and the helmet is released –
“Aw,” says human1. “It’s the blonde one. Ugh.”
Ugh.
Ugh?

I try to open my eyes to assess the attractiveness of the two humans that were tinkering with my parts, but it’s too bright.
“Look!” cries human1. “Its eyelids flickered!”
“I feel we should call it a him now,” says human2. “Now that we’ve seen his face.”
Human1 has grabbed my chin, is turning my head gently but firmly back and forth.
“The seller told me that it suffered no spinal damage, that the processing unit was basically functional – he said it had been wiped clean at the recycling plant. I reckon I can make a pretty decent comfbot out of it. Someone somewhere will find it attractive, right?”
“Him,” says human2. “He’s a boy-bot, Allie. Give him some dignity.”
“Sep,” human1 replies firmly, “It is not male. Or female. Or anything. It’s just a bunch of junk. Look – “
And she takes some kind of a knife or scalpel and cuts a nick in the armour, so she can slip a finger underneath to find the armour release button.

My skin senses the cooler air of the room and I realise I am naked.
“Look,” human1 says and raps my 2nd generation Reinforced Groin™ with her bony knuckles. “Nothing. Smooth as a baby’s bottom. No more male than this pencil is.”
In this she is correct. I do not subscribe to the humanoid gender or sexual codes; were I to do so, I believe I would prefer to be male. That being said, I have no desire to be led around by that disgusting little flesh pipe and the two skin sacks that dangle from it, so I believe the optimal version of me is the one with an efficient Reinforced Groin™.

There is more silence, during which I imagine the humans admire my groin and probably wish they had something similar.
“It just looks weird as hell,” says human2 finally. “Poor guy. I bet he wishes he has a penis all the time.”
No. No, I do not. The thought of same makes me want to short-circuit myself.
“Well, I’m going to make it one, Sep,” human1 says confidently. “I’m going to get it all equipped and sell it on to some rich widow in the Caelian System. And even if its knob is wonky, it’ll make a great butler.”
“I think his eyelids flickered again,” says human2 excitedly. “I think he’s processing!”
“Good,” says human1. “Then there’s something to work with in there.”
She covers my eyes with her warm hands and closes the lids.
“It looks so creepy like that,” she says. "I hope it doesn't stare at his future sex partners like that or it'll give some old biddy a heart attack."
"He can hear you! Look at his eyes!" human2 cries. "Fuck, Allie, he's short-circuiting agai -”

Chapter Text

“Are you sure about this?” says human3.
It’s another male.
My eyes flicker open and I see a specimen not unlike 4A: dark and even-featured, his black hair cut close to his skull.
“Positive,” says human1.

She is standing behind my head, her hands are placed on my temples. She must have raised my eyelids, and is holding them in place as she runs some update. I hear the chirping of data processing, I feel tendons and muscles twitch, I think about my toes and suddenly I realise I have toes and they move when I think about them -
“There,” she says and removes her hands from my face.
My lids remain open of their own accord. I can even move my eyes around.
Human1 stays out of sight, though, and instead I focus on human3.
“Allie,” he says. “I don’t like the idea of you being in here by yourself with this thing. Didn’t you hear about that one bot that went completely batshit crazy – “
“Everyone has heard that story,” she says.
She is applying warm water to my skull. I believe she is washing my hair. She is touching me very gently, as one should touch delicate things like human organs or blancmange.

Human3 does not look at me, which is very much to my satisfaction. It allows me to study him. He is wearing company attire and I assess his pay grade as somewhere in lower middle management.
Which I struggle to compute, because he appears to have difficulty managing both this situation and Human1, who continues to wash my hair, even when he hisses, “Allie! That’s just weird!”
I assume the weirdness stems from the pheromones he is emitting in the presence of the female, and I guess that as a male with an inefficient groin, he is most likely seeking to reproduce with the female.
She, in the meantime, is combing my hair, which is not conducive to reproductive activity.

“He’s staring at me,” human3 complains and I quickly avert my eyes, switching to watching him through my feed.
… but my feed is fractured. I blink rapidly, but it doesn’t redress itself. It takes me a couple of milliseconds to realise that human1 is poking around in my processing unit again.
Human1 removes her fingers from my head and moves around into sight.

“Hello,” she says. “What’s your name?”
Direct order.
I search my files.
“You don’t have a name, do you?” she asks.
Another direct order: do I have a name?
“I DON’T KNOW,” I reply and she and human3 wince.
“Adjust the volume?” human3 says and she does something at the unit behind me, then rolls back into sight on her office chair.

“Hey, SecU," she says. "Do you know where you are?”
“No.”
"When you are?"
"No."
"Who you are?"
I rattle through my files, but they give me nothing but nonsense. Non-sense.
"No," I say.
“I want to do a status check, is that ok?”
This is not something I have much of a choice in, so I nod.
“You can move your head, good. Now can you move your toes?”

Obligingly – because my system software demands an immediate response to basic functionality tests – I wriggle, move and stretch as she commands.
Human3 watches me, the brown irises of his eyes disappear, they are almost squashed closed by his brows. He is making a face that seems to want to convey displeasure or constipation.
It could be either.
It could be both.

“I’ve done this before, Dave,” human1 says. “I turned a profit both times and the clients were really happy with my work. There were no malfunctions.”
“The first one cut his penis off,” says human3. “Seriously – do I have to remind you? That kind of counts as a malfunction to me.”
Both males seem quite alarmed by the penisectomy; I am not sure why. My predecessor was right to remove it. If human1 tries to attach such an abomination to me, I will remove it too.
“Hey, SecU,” human1 says and slaps my cheek gently. “SecU, stay with me – “
“What’s happening?” asks human3 and he steps closer, possibly to put himself between his desired female and me, a potential threat.
If I could laugh, I would.
But anyway.
The thought of throwing human3 across the laboratory and watching him crash and smash into smithereens against the oversized pinboard on the other side of the room has distracted me momentarily and averted another short-circuit.

“SecU,” says human1 gently. “Are you ok?”
I look at her, not able to respond, but she is busy looking at the computer screen behind my head. She is no 4A, that much I can tell you. She appears rather short and has a broad face. I do not believe she has the prized facial symmetry as her glasses sit crooked upon her nose. One ear is probably slightly higher than the other; an assessment returns the information that this is correct, but the misaligned ear is within the parameters of standard deviation.
She corrects her glasses and I do not tell her that this gesture is futile, as her right ear is 2.37mm higher than her left ear.

Something sparks, connects, in my processor.
“I am fine, thank you very much,” I respond politely.
“See, he's fine –” she looks over at human 3, then raises a cloth to my face. I feel what I believe to be horror as she starts to rub the skin on the bridge of my nose.
Human3 rolls his eyes.
“Well, my name is Alison Karl,” she says. “Or just Allie. And I bought you at a junkyard auction last week. I’m in the process of restoring some of your functionality. The man I bought you from said that your memory was wiped, but initial tests lead me to believe you might still have access to ghost files. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
My eyes flicker as I process her question and I know she can see it. She looks at me closely and I notice that along with her misaligned ears, the blue irises of her eyes have yellow flecks. This is some kind of pigmentation error and if I had access to my complete files, I could analyse it properly. However, as I am functioning at approximately the capacity of a vending machine, I simply have to log the fact that human1 is possibly not an optimal specimen of her kind.
“Who is he?” I ask, nodding at human3.
“This is my friend, Dave,” she says.
“Is he from the corporation?”
“Yup, he works for The Man,” says alliehuman1.
“Which man?”
Human3 makes a snorting noise.
“Yes,” he says. “I work for the corporation. And you are not allowed to tell anyone you saw me here.”

I look to alliehuman1 because she is my human now and I only take orders from her.
“Tell no one, SecU,” she says.
“Affirmative. Is he your mate?”
Alliehuman1 makes a noise of mirth.
“No, he’s not my mate. He’s my … he’s my brother.”
This does not compute. I cannot run a DNA test but external appearances, such as the skin tones, hair type, eye colour, as well as build and estimated bone density do not suggest close relationships. Also human3’s pheromones suggest a desire for copulation which is generally not encouraged among genetically related humans.
“Allie,” says human3 and he sounds like he is in pain.
I cannot detect an injury, so I assume the pain is emotional and therefore of no interest to me.
“No, SecU,” she says, turning my head to face her, “I’m just joking. Do you get joking? He’s just an old friend.”
She wipes my face-skin with her warm, wet cloth and says, “There, that’s better. You almost look human again.”
Human again? Do I not look human? Was my facial organic matter missing?
She slaps my cheek again, but it’s a gentle slap this time.

“I’m just joking, SecU. When we get you up and running again, I’m going to fine-tune your sarcasm sensors. Would you like that?”
“Yes,” I say automatically.
“See? They’re working already!” she says. “Now I’m going to put you out for a while, is that ok?”
No. It is not ok.
“Yes,” I say automatically.

> run system update

Chapter Text

Security Units are not supposed to have feelings, but it seems that this one does, because he has made it perfectly clear that he’s not happy with the status quo. He has asked me twice about his armour, and twice I have told him that he doesn’t need it. The first time he accepted it with stony-faced silence, but now he’s giving me back-talk.
“How can I fulfil my objectives as a Security Unit without my armour?” he asks.
I know that this may possibly be a genuine question, but I get the distinct feeling that it’s slightly accusatory.
“Your objectives have changed,” I snap.

I’m sweaty and dishevelled. The SecU is standing in front of me, and it took a combined effort to get him in an upright position. He tried to propel himself from a lying to a sitting position and ended up almost upsetting the gurney. I had to show him how to use his arms and elbows to gently get himself into a sitting position so I could help him into a t-shirt. That didn’t go well: his spatial awareness hasn’t calibrated properly yet and his nervous system needs to adjust to his new limbs.

After struggling to get his flailing arms and rigid legs into a loose cotton shirt and pants, I then tried to get him to stand. He stood, statue-like, with his legs pressed together and feet joined at the toes and heels, swaying dangerously.
“Spread your legs a bit,” I said and he obligingly started to spread his legs as far as he could, swaying even more.
“No,” I cried, “No, like this. Look at me, SecU. Look at me. At me!”
And reluctantly he looked at me, not over my head or shoulder, so I pointed down at my feet, slightly apart. He copied my stance and the swaying stopped. Thank goodness. The Security Units are damned big tech and if this one fell over, he would smash everything in his radius when he went down.
So there he stands, arms by his side, staring at the wall.

“What are my new objectives, Alison Karl?” he asks.
“I don’t know yet,” I murmur.
I’m doing quality control, making sure he is, outwardly at least, in good nick. I am particularly pleased with his feet. The last time I had to replace feet, they turned out a bit clunky, but his are very nice indeed. I’m proud of those feet.
“I am a security unit,” he says.
“I know,” I reply.
“I am not a comfort unit. I don’t want to be a comfort unit.”
I drag my eyes away from his magnificent feet and say, “I’m sorry?”

Did this robot just tell me that he didn’t want to be a comfort unit? Like, what did he have to say about it? He’s a fucking CPU with lab-grown skin. He’ll do what he’s programmed to do without giving me any lip.
The SecU’s face flickers, then his eyes dart to mine and he settles his expression into something vaguely neutral.
But it’s too late. I’ve seen it.
And I don’t like it. This one is accessing something, some information, that I can’t find and I don’t know. What he doesn’t know is that I know he’s doing it, I just can’t figure out how.

Maybe I should listen to Sep, I think. And Dave. And my mother. And the man who sold me the Security Unit and told me he was a useless pile of junk – after he’d stowed my money in his cashbox.
But I’ve had a lot more to do with this tech than most people: I’ve been tinkering with them for as long as I can remember. I started with the old ServBots, the ones that used to do housework – remember them? I know I can do this. This one is the third Security Unit I’ve worked on and, by rights, he should be the easiest to reprogramme because he’s the oldest model I’ve had yet. The others were glitchy and it took a few attempts, but the first one – whose penis I had to finally remove in order to stop it distracting itself – now has a nice new empathy chip and works at an old folks’ home at the edge of the city, and the second one – who removed its own penis – now drives a taxi. Productive members of society.

But the real money is in comfort bots. They obviously need the anatomy for it – but, frankly, I’m confident that if I can manage two nice feet, I can definitely do an adequate penis – and some tinkering with their empathy, as well as some training in art of seduction and whatnot. I’m pretty sure I can download a few modules on the latter, but I have to figure out what the damned thing is up to, maybe wipe him and start again.

I study him carefully. His eyes are fixed on a point behind me and I can see the telltale flimmer of his eyelids.
Without saying anything, I walk over to my screen and look at what he’s accessing.
What the actual fuck?
He's streaming some kind of crappy series, something with a bunch of weirdos in uniform on the deck of a ship. I can see his neurotransmitters light up with pleasure. He has just absented himself to go watch some shit online. With three keystrokes I cut the feed and he turns his head to look at me.
There is again. His facial expression is puzzled, then settles into that blank look when he realises I’ve noticed.

“I want access to all of your programming, SecU,” I say. “You are my unit now, ownership was transferred to me, and with it I am entitled to all of your files. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Alison Karl.”
“You no longer belong to the company, you are aware of that?”
“Yes, Alison Karl.”
“I am overriding any previous orders you have been given regarding external access to all files in storage. Is that clear?”
I tap at the keyboard, running through anything I can find.
He winces as my fingernails comb through his robot brain.
“Yes, Alison Karl,” he says.
Nothing, nothing, nothing. Nothing beyond what I expected to find. A suspiciously ordinary Security Unit.

“Can you tell me about your provenance?” I ask.
“Security Unit, model number –“ he begins, and rattles off his model number, batch number, assembly date, the factory department that issued him his CPU -
“No,” I interrupt. “Who did you belong to before me?”
“The company.”
“Did you work exclusively for the company? Company security only?”
His face works silently as he tries to access the information. On my screen, I see him searching.
“Where did you work?” I ask.
My screen lights up as he searches.
“I don’t know,” he says finally and he starts to sway again.

Even though I know I shouldn’t feel any pity for what is essentially a puppet with an AI brain, I do.
“Lie back down,” I say. “I think you need to charge a bit more. Your battery needs a couple of cycles before it reaches optimum performance. So just lie down and you can watch your programme again, ok?”
He acquiesces with a curt nod and I push him gently back on to the gurney. His skin is cold, but he lets me steer him back into a sitting position, then push him back down so I can raise his long legs and big feet on to the gurney. He lies back and closes his eyes. I click the keyboard and continue the feed, allowing him access to the melodramatic junk he’d been watching. Instantly, his facial muscles relax and he unclenches his tightly balled fists. He closes his eyes.

I grab a woollen blanket off the couch in the corner of the lab that I occasionally nap on and cover him with it. His feet are icy cold, so I drape it over them and pull the blanket up. It just about reaches the bottom of his ribs. He doesn’t acknowledge the gesture; he doesn’t react at all.
I power him down into standby manually, disable all movement in his lower body to make sure he doesn’t get any ideas about moving around, then glance at my watch. If I hurry, I’ll be home just in time for dinner.
“You are to remain in this position until I return tomorrow,” I say. “Orders understood?”
“Yes.”
“Good night, SecU.”
He does not move.
I grab my jacket and walk to the door. As I’m locking it behind me I hear, softly but distinctly –
“Good night, Alison Karl.”

Chapter Text

I don’t know how I came to be with alliehuman1 but I am not pleased. I suspect that she is a suboptimal human specimen, however this is not borne out by the fact that she has had two males around her sniffing her pheromones and seeking reproduction, so she clearly has something to offer that they are interested in. Perhaps these males are captivated by her technical skills, which – though slapdash – display a certain amount of expertise and some canniness that I can only admire. She has succeeded in rebuilding my lower legs, which had come unattached for reasons I cannot fathom, and is successfully filtering access to my files, for reasons I can.

She woke me from stasis by roughly shaking my shoulder. I wish I had a repair cubicle to retire to so that our physical interactions could be restricted to button pushing. Alas, I am lying on something that resembles a hospital gurney, built for smaller humans. My feet stick out over the end, something she has sought to remedy with a blanket. While not entirely unpleasant, I would much rather be in the temperate environment of a stasis pod, but I have already established that this ad-hoc laboratory does not come equipped with anything of that kind.
The fucking gurney it is, then.

“Hey,” she says and whizzes up alongside me on an office chair. “How are you feeling this morning, SecU?”
“Fine,” I answer automatically.
“Do you want to try getting up again?”
Yes, yes, I do. I ease myself up slowly, using my hands, flinching when she tries to touch me with her warm human fingers.
“Good,” she says approvingly.

I stand up.
My brain is sending signals to my legs, but as yet they are not entirely happy to respond to it. If I had my armour, this wouldn’t be an issue but instead I am wearing something that looks like … a pyjamas. When I look down, I see my legs encased in a pair of pants that make me want to short-circuit.
The indignity.

“I have been going through some of your stuff,” she says. “Trying to find what you were up to before I picked you off the junk pile.”
She pauses. “Apparently there were a few SecUnits that went completely rogue. They killed people. Their own people.”
“It is against my governor protocol to kill my people,” I inform her.
“But apparently,” she says, “some of these SecUnits managed to hack their governor protocols.”
She is trying to look me in the eyes, and it is making me feel very uncomfortable, something she seems to know. She touches my chin and directs my eyes to her.
“Although unlikely,” she says, “perhaps you might be one of those units.”
My vision lights up with images – flashes, faces, - I hear screams and scratching.
My eyes remain glued to alliehuman1. I’m glad she is not looking at her screen or she would see me processing frantically.
“It is statistically highly unlikely,” I say as calmly as I can. “The chances of this happening are close to zero.”
“But not zero,” she says, and she examines my face, searching for something.
Not zero. This is true, I cannot deny it.
“Correct. Not zero.”
“That’s why I need to check,” she says. “I can’t sell you and reassign you to another human, just to discover that you’re a … what did they call them on the newswire? A murderbot.”
She smiles at me and pats my hand.
I cannot move; flash – flash – scream – flash –
“That would be bad for sales,” she says.
“Who will you sell me to?” I want to know.
She shrugs.
“Depends on how well I can fix you up,” she says. “There’s not much money in SecUs any more and your model has a pretty bad rep following … you know, all the murdering and slaughtering and whatnot, so I think you need some kind of non-combat role.”

I don’t want a fucking non-combat role. I want combat. I want my armour back. I don’t know how to express this to her. I’ve already asked her for my suit, and she’s refused, so I try another tack.
“Where is the suit I was wearing when you bought me?” I ask.
Her eyes narrow.
“Why?”
“Maybe it will give you some information about my provenance,” I say as neutrally as I can.
This seems to appeal to her.
“Good idea, SecU,” she says and she walks over to a large bin lined with a black plastic sack. Various bits of gear are sticking out of it: the leg of a ZetGen crossguard suit. A fourth generation Security Unit shinguard. She leans in and pulls out the battered torso of my armour.
My armour!

“It’s standard issue,” she says a touch sadly. “Guns removed, badges and insignia torn off. Anything of value was taken before you were sent to be melted.”
For fuck’s sake. Damned human scavengers.
She looks over at me before I can pull my face back to neutral.
“You really want your armour, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
I once had a module that allowed me to activate swift subterfuge when it came to humans, but I don’t care to load it. I want my damned suit.
“You feel naked without it, am I right?” she says, walking lightly over to me with the remains of suit trailing from her hand.
She lifts it so I can see the mangled wires and threads.
“Yes. I am naked without it,” I say and indicate the light clothing she wrestled me into the day previously.
“I think you look fine,” she says. “Much less threatening than you did with that robot-face.”
“Fine. But not 4A.”
Mistake.

“I’m sorry?” she says. “Where did you hear that?”
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“When I came to consciousness, I heard you say that you wanted a 4A,” I say. “You told the other human that they are the most valuable. I apologise for not being a 4A.”
She looks at me oddly and then checks her screen, looks at me again.
“Do you remember what model you are?” she asks.
“I am …” I access my settings, “I am a 1B. Basic model, based on the specifications of robotics designer Simon Michael Perry, with a 10% enhancement of body frame –“
“That’s right,” she murmurs. “Is it correct that 1A was the smaller model?”
“Yes: I am the upgrade.”
“Hmm.”

She clicks aways, and I watch her poring over her screen. I don’t know what she is capable of, but I can feel the tingle of her interference in my brain and I don’t like it.
If I can distract her, I might be in a position to stop her poking around.
“Alison Karl,” I say, “I would like to walk.”
I start to move clumsily.
Her head shoots up and she zips over to my side.
“No, no,” she says. “Lean on me, for crying out loud. If you keel over, you’ll take out half my lab and I can’t afford to reprint any limbs you break.”
She grabs my hand and loops my arm around her shoulders.
“Why can’t you afford to reprint any limbs I break?”
“Because – as you might have noticed, SecU – this isn’t an entirely legit set-up and I have a limited access to the kind of premium materials I need for this project. I mean, for you.”
“Is this an … illegal set-up?”

It would make sense. Looking around, I establish that we are underground, as the only windows are slits at ceiling level. Outside there is some kind of foliage; perhaps this is the result of poor horticultural investment or perhaps it is a deliberate attempt to shield the windows from curious views. Her laboratory equipment is substandard; some of it is outdated; much of it has been adjusted or tweaked. I am horrified to note that duct tape has been used in at least two places.
“No,” she says firmly. “This is not illegal. This is my hobby. I’m not doing anything illegal. Per se. Exactly.”
She pauses again and tries to make eye-contact, which I avoid.
“This is within the … parameters of legality,” she says carefully. “But I think it would be best if you remained, you know, below the radar for a while. Do you get me?”
I don’t know what she is up to, but I am pretty sure she is trampling on the company’s parameters and I am not exactly sure where I should stand on this.
“I get you, but I believe that I need to check my general terms of usage in order to be able to determine –” I start, but she interrupts me.
“SecU,” she says, “You are no longer a company Security Unit. You were designated obsolete. You are mine now. What I say goes. Do you understand?”
I run through files.
Flash – flash – scream – flash – where are my fucking security designators?
“I don’t like your silence, SecU,” she says.
“I understand,” I say but I don’t.
Apparently, my subterfuge modus has kicked in.

She touches my chin again to direct my eyes to hers. I wish I hated it, but I don’t. The pad of her fingertips taps my skin and I redirect my eyes to her weird-coloured irises.
“Good,” she says. “We’re going to take literal baby steps, ok? You’re going to have to regain your balance and calibrate muscle memory. Lean on me – fuck, no, not like that. You’ll squash me, you big lug, lean on me a little bit. Ok.”

This is fucking humiliating, leaning on a short human as I take wobbly steps, but I have no choice. As I lumber a few short steps to a sofa she has in the corner of her lab – I should have known something was not quite right by the addition of that sofa to a robotics laboratory – my mind is already formulating a plan. I will take whatever steps necessary to regain my physical stability, then wait until she has left me alone in the laboratory. Surely there will be enough spare parts in that basket of armour to put together an adequate suit. With that done, I have no doubt that I will be in a position to escape and procure weapons. I run a risk assessment and the risk is high; I run a risk assessment on the chances of having genitals attached to be sold as a comfort bot and, distressingly, the risk is higher. My choice has been made. I will escape this crazy human and her fleamarket laboratory.

“Is that a smile?” she asks, looking up at me.
Fuck.
“Yes,” I say and expand my mouth to show teeth. “I’m making good progress.”
“You are,” she says and she pats my back.
Though unwanted, it’s not unpleasant, and I feel motivated to turn and walk slowly back to the gurney.
“Well done, SecU,” she cried. “We’ll have you up and running in no time!”
Up and running?
Little does she know.

Chapter Text

Almost daily, I am made aware of the limitations of my physical frame. I helpfully suggest that alliehuman1 buy, build or otherwise procure a repair cubicle to work on my weakened muscles, but she does not respond. I helpfully suggest it twice more, thinking that her substandard human eyes might be joined by inadequate hearing, then she snaps at me.
“Enough already, Security Unit!”
This use of my full identifier, combined with the exasperated tone, leads me to believe that she has in fact heard me but chosen to ignore my suggestions. If I had feelings, they might be hurt.

Instead, I concentrate on working on my muscle tone with the raggle-taggle bunch of fitness equipment she has assembled in the corner of the room. alliehuman1 is working hard at some smaller robot, her head almost buried in its metal entrails.
“Stop staring at me,” she says from inside its torso.
I look away.
“Are you wondering whether I’m building you a friend?” she asks.
“No.”
“Don’t you want a buddy?”
“No.”
“You’re a barrel of laughs,” says alliehuman1. She pushes her glasses up her nose and looks at me, screwdriver in hand.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that you’re a lot of fun to be with,” she answers.
I had never considered that.
“Thank you,” I say.
She laughs out loud, which kind of confirms that I am, indeed, a very large barrel of laughs.

At that moment, there is a knock at the door at the top of the stairs and we both freeze. The knock comes again and this time it’s an odd little sequence of knocks; alliehuman’s face relaxes, she hits a button under her desk and the door opens.
“Hey, Crisha,” she calls and another small female comes bouncing down the steps. This one has black hair and brown skin, like human3, and wears her glasses crookedly like alliehuman1. She looks much younger than alliehuman1, barely an adolescent. She shrieks when she sees me and, to be polite, I shriek in return.

“Stop it!” alliehuman1 cries, with her hands over her ears.
“What is it?” shouts the little human, pointing at me.
“It’s an old security unit. I’m renovating it.”
“It’s so ugly!” the little human says.
Rude.
“You’re ugly,” I answer.
The small human starts to wail.
“SecU,” alliehuman1 admonishes me. “This is my little sister, don’t be so rude.”

She gathers the small human into an embrace and I run an analysis. I still don’t have access to alliehuman1’s DNA, but despite the fact that they don’t not share the same skin colour, I detect some key physiological similarities and conclude that they are most likely half-siblings.
“I apologise Junior Karl,” I say.
“What did he call me?” she asks, wiping – ugh – mucus from her nose on the back of her sleeve.
“He called you Junior Karl, like – you’re my little sister and he knows my name, so you’re junior me.”
This thought seems to cheer her up. She smiles at me, cause her glasses to skew slightly, and says, “But I’m not a Karl. I’m Crisha Wald.”
alliehuman1 tries to shush her but I have already logged her name.

“Mumma wants to know if you are coming up for dinner because she has made a big, big stew and David is coming over and –“
“Yes, yes, petal, tell her I’ll be up and tell her I’m bringing a guest.”
“Who? Him?” asks Crisha Wald.
Who? Me?
“Yes,” alliehuman1 says. “He needs some practice, a bit of socialisation.”
“Mumma says you’re not to bring work home.”
“Well, I’m going to bring back her laundrybot, and I bet she’ll be happy to see it again, so she’ll have to put up with this guy for an evening as well.”
The small human looks at me, so I try to ignore her, working on my calves.
“Does he have a name yet?” she wants to know. “Can I name him?”
“No,” alliehuman1 says firmly. “If you give it a name, you get attached, and if you get attached, we’ll never get rid of it.”
“That’s not true.”
“Lionel. Maria Guadelupe. Bocky the laundrybot.”
She looks like she’s going to start wailing again, then mutinously admits that it’s true.
“So what do you call him, then?” she asks.
“I call it SecU,” my human answers.
“Seckyu?” the little one says. “I like Seckyu. That’s a nice name.”
“IT’S NOT HIS NAME!”

alliehuman1 huffs and tries to get the laundrybot upright, failing. I see an opportunity to demonstrate my usefulness and stride over, placing it on the ground in an upright position. Being inferior tech and resembling nothing more than a dustbin, the little robot spins around, then its screen blinks and a smiling face emoji appears.
“Hey, Bocky!” cries the child and the laundrybot squeaks in pleasure.
Inferior tech, those bots. Attach themselves to anything.

“Put Bocky in stairs-mode,” alliehuman1 orders and while the small human is poking at the little dustbin’s control panel, she looks me up and down.
“Ok, Seckyu,” she says – damn the child, now that I have heard it, I can’t unhear it – “we are going to visit my mother, my siblings and my step-dad. I am going to have dinner and you are going to sit with us to observe human interaction. You are to take notes and adjust your discourse accordingly.”
“I don’t eat dinner.”
“I didn’t ask you to eat dinner,” she says. “I asked you to listen and learn, ok?”
“Yes.”
“I have a button on my wristband that will instantly disable you from the neck down if you misbehave in any way.”
She touches my chin and makes me look down at her, then moves the tip of her finger to the button on her band. Barely touching it, I feel the electricity run down through my core.
“No,” – it slips out of me.
“No,” she agrees. “It will not be necessary.”
“It will not be necessary,” I confirm. “You are my human, Alison Karl, I have a duty of care to you.”

She smiles at me in a way that looks a little bit like the way she smiled at the small human, Crisha Wald, then touches my arm to get me to follow her. The laundrybot slides up the stairs, the small human scampers up after it, alliehuman1 starts to ascend and I –

- don’t know how to negotiate stairs. My legs move – first one, then the other, - but my feet are too large for the treads. How do I coordinate my very long limbs? Maybe the human gave me feet that are too big? Crisha Wald is at the top of the stairs, standing beside the laundrybot. Her eyes are full of pity at my flailing at the bottom of the steps; even worse, the laundrybot looks pitying too.

“Hey, hey,” says alliehuman1. “Stop flopping about like a fish on land. Stop for a second, Seckyu.”
She stands beside me and shows me how to place one foot on the first step while lifting the other behind me to the step above it. I try and wobble, she grabs a fistful of the t-shirt I am wearing and yanks me straight.
“Hold on to the banister,” she says softly and then, “And please don’t fall down the stairs.”
“I know; you don’t have the materials for repairs.”

She smiles and places a hand on my back to encourage me to take the next step, and the next. When I reach the small landing at the top of the stairs, Crisha Wald applauds and even the fucking laundrybot spins in joy at my achievement.
So humiliating. I debate kicking the humans and the junkyard bot down the stairs with my brand-new too-big feet, but I cannot override the need to protect my human Alison Karl, and I feel a sense of accomplishment at my heroic ascent.
Besides, if I am going to escape this basement, getting up the stairs is a basic necessity, so maybe they have done me a favour after all.

“Come on, Seckyu,” says small human Crisha Wald.
alliehuman1 opens a door and we are in some kind of a garden, wild and overgrown, with overhanging trees and vines, the trees thick with leaves and the air dense with the sound of thousands of insects and chirping birds. The small human puts a small, warm hand in mine. I immediately detect something sticky, and my sensors tell me it might be something with a sugary base. I want to shake off her grubby little paw but she is pulling me along, saying, “This way, this way! I’ll show you, Seckyu!”
Ugh. Fucking humans.
I catch alliehuman’s eye.
“Sorry,” she whispers.
“Come with me!” says the small human and, against my will, I go with her.

Chapter Text

“Oh dear,” says my mother in a voice of sad despair.

So dramatic, that one.
“This is Mumma,” says Crisha and she pulls the big security unit into our hall so our mother can see him properly.
“Oh dear,” says mom again.
“I’m going to resell him,” I say quickly, just in case she gets any ideas.
Lionel, one of the earliest butler editions, pauses in his polishing of the marble floor and stares at us, with his unblinking green eyes. He and SecU are locked in some kind of internal information exchange, doing the robot equivalent of a penis comparison – a contest that my SecU, ironically, will win because Lionel has just been programmed to do housework and follow us around on his soft rubber wheels.
“Oh dear,” says Lionel.

Originally, Lionel had a standard Outer Rim accent, but my mother went into his settings and gave him an English accent like one of the actors from the old films she loves. Now he trundles around, chirping things like “Jolly good!” and “Bob’s your uncle!” My mother claims he adds a bit of class to the crumbling mansion we live in, but if we wanted class, we would have a fleet of ServBots, not a sole first-generation model with a humanoid torso that rolls around silently, always managing to appear at your elbow when you least expect it.

“Be nice, Lionel,” says my mother and Lionel tips his head to the side.
“Jolly good,” he answers crisply.
“This is a security unit,” says Crisha. “Isn’t he big? He has no shoes, though.”

SecU looks a little bewildered and is openly scanning his surroundings, trying to make sense of them.
I don’t blame him. When my father died, I inherited his assets, including the large family home that he had been raised in. Large family homes are very nice, but sometimes they are slightly too large and – in our case – old, in need of repair, and located on PN718, a planet with a near-tropical climate. As a flustered 17-year-old, overcome with the death of my father, I had moved out and into my own place at the bottom of the garden, leaving my mother to negotiate the big house and all of its quirks. When she remarried and had my half-siblings, the big house seemed to ease and settle again, with small children running down the elegant stairs and sliding across the marble floors. My stepfather took one of the seven bedrooms as his office, my mother used a little of her inheritance to upgrade the kitchen, while I turned the gardener’s cottage into my own little place and took over my father’s laboratory under the greenhouse. Thus, we all manage to live in a rather jumbled-up commune of sorts, a patchwork family and its assortment of bots.

My mother is staring at the SecU critically.
“And what do you intend to do with it, Alison?” she wants to know.
“I want to socialise him a bit before I resell him,” I answer. “He’s pretty rude and a bit annoying at the moment.”
Without turning around, I can feel SecU bristle. This is weird; SecUs are not supposed to have feelings or emotions, but this one is making a good approximation of human reactions. Which is good: if I can harness that and retrain him, he will be an excellent human companion. Maybe he got some kind of empathy upgrade along the line? I make a note to check.

“Is it a ‘he’ now?” my mother says, taking Crisha by the hand.
Crisha, I note, doesn’t let go of the SecU’s enormous hand and she tugs him along behind her, followed by Bocky and Lionel, whose mouth is set in a straight disapproving line.
My mother is like the Pied Piper of robots, I think, as I take up the rear.
“I’m trying to call him ‘it’ but it’s hard,” I reply.

My dad was one of the original designers of most of the company units; my mom has a long history with the stuff he worked on. She has always been very strict about work units and home robots. So Bocky, a round little barrel with a screen for a face, is a ‘he’, but SecU will remain an ‘it’ to her, unless it comes under the umbrella of our family. We have a history of getting attached to stuff that various family members bring home, our large house is practically a robot retirement home.
“Try harder,” she says briskly. “I’m not taking in another one. It’s far too big and grim-looking. Either you keep it in your place or get rid of it straight away.”
She gives SecU a stern look, as though he had any say in the matter, but he’s staring at a wall, trying to avoid eye contact.
“Come on, petal,” she says to Crisha. “Dinner will be on the table in a couple of minutes.”

SecU’s long bare feet pad on the cold floor and I realise that I have to find footwear to cover them. Another mental note. He has a loping walk, possibly as a result of his new legs, and as he walks I can see his head move to take in his surroundings: the glass atrium above our heads in the centre of the house; the heavy doors made of carvat wood; the sound of two small boys playing with their kiddie-blasters, shouting “Ping! Ping! Ping!” as if the noise of the toy wasn’t loud enough.

“Where will you put it while we’re having dinner?” Mom says.
“I wanted him to sit with us,” I reply. “So he can train his interaction module.”
“Alison, no,” she cries. “Not at the table!”
“Mom,” I say, “it’s important. He won’t do anything, will you, SecU?”
He shakes his head.
“He’s very nice, Mumma,” Crisha says. “I talked to him the whole way over.”

I glance up at SecU and see a pained expression fleet across his features before he settles on another part of the wall to stare at. I almost feel sorry for him.
My mother makes a strangled noise of acceptance and throws open the doors of the dining room.

My stepfather is sitting at the head of the table, beatifically reading the news on his palm-screen, while my two little half-brothers are running in a circle shooting each other with little foam darts. When they see my mother and me, they run at us at full speed, almost knocking us over.

Maybe it was because I grew up as an only child, maybe it’s because my siblings are so much younger than I am, but holy moly, they are LOUD.
Timeon stares at the big blond bot, then launches into an interrogation, “Is that the one what was delivered here last week, Allie? What had no legs or no feets? Did you make his feets? Is he able to speak? What can he do? Does he like blasters? What’s his name?”
Simon drops to his knees to poke at SecU’s toes:
“Did you make these, Allie? Did you make the toenails, too, or did they grow by themselves?”
I can tell the SecU is getting nervous.
Crisha tries to help by shouting over her brothers: “HIS NAME IS SECKYU AND HE CAN’T GO UP STAIRS YET!”
“Quieten down, brats,” I say to my siblings, but the three of them turn their little faces to me and start shouting, “BUT YOU SAID YOU WOULD MAKE US A ROBOT OF OUR OWN!” and “MARIA GUADALUPE CAN’T HOLD A BLASTER!” and “WHY CAN’T HE EVEN GO UP A STAIRS PROPERLY?”

SecU straightens up to his full height, then shakes a foot, sending Simon skidding across the polished floor and places himself between me and the children, his large hands balled into fists. He looks down at them with a gimlet stare and the three of them are transfixed, silent. My stepfather stands up in alarm and my mother gasps.
“Step back,” the security unit says firmly. “Step back. Step away from Alison Karl.”
“It’s ok, SecU,” I say. “They’re children. Small humans make a lot of noise. Most of them only learn noise regulation when they’re older.”
I lay a hand on his back; he seems to respond to physical contact better than most SecUs, so I spread my fingers in a star shape and place them on the small of his back. He immediately relaxes and his hands open.

“Alison!” my mother cries. “What did I tell you? Security Units are dangerous tech!”
“I read about a security unit that went rogue,” says my stepfather, his face a picture of worry. “It overrode its governor module, and it killed a LOT of people.”
“Oh, please: everyone has heard that story,” I say. “It’s an urban legend at this point. The company has never confirmed it, and no victims have ever been named. Besides, what are the chances that this security unit is the very one that went on a rampage?”
“Practically zero but not zero,” chimes in the SecU.
“Shut up,” I whisper.

Luckily Lionel rolls in, holding a tray.
“Dinner is served, Lady Wald,” he says.
“Lady Wald?” I snort and my mother has the good grace to look embarrassed.
“Yes, well, there was some kind of update and now he’s taken to calling us Lord and Lady Wald,” she says, flustered.
“Liar. There are no more updates for his model,” I say with a laugh. “You went in and poked around in his files.”
The atmosphere relaxes and my mother flaps a hand at me.
“Well, Lionel and I watched a couple of episodes of Morelay Castle and we just thought it would be so elegant if he called us Lord and Lady…”
“You thought that, did you, Lionel?” I ask as he whizzes past me, swiftly placing plate on the table.
“Yes, I did,” says the little bootlicker, my mother’s partner in crime.

We take our places at the table and I indicate that the SecU should sit beside me. He does so awkwardly, placing both of his hands on the warm plate in front of him. I reposition them in his lap, while the children gawp at us.
“He looks like a real human bean,” says Timeon.
“Except he looks a bit stupid,” his brother adds.
Cruel, but not entirely wrong because poor SecU does look a bit befuddled.
“He’s a guest. Behave yourselves.”

My brothers look admonished, and my mother feigns deafness as she uncovers the serving dishes to make sure the food has been cooked properly. Sometimes the kitchen robots short-circuit midway through the cooking and the food comes to the table half-raw.
“Are you sure it should be sitting there?” my stepfather says. “Isn’t David supposed to be joining us?”
Oh no.
I’d forgotten David; maybe, subconsciously, I had tried to suppress the knowledge that David would be joining us. David has his place at our – at my – table, and that place is beside me, currently occupied by a very large SecU who is, I can tell by the glazed-over look in his eyes, disassociating from the situation by watching one of his space soap-operas. Just as I’m wrestling with the conundrum of where we should sit so David doesn’t feel shoved aside by my latest project, the dining room door opens and he appears. He looks smart and handsome in his company uniform; he scans the room, smiling at my stepfather, my mother, waving to the children who jump up and cheer at his arrival then, and because I know he has deliberately tried to look at me last so I wouldn’t know he wanted to look at me first, his gaze gradually drifts to me, his face lights up and then falls when he sees who is sitting next to me.

“What’s that thing doing at the table?” he asks.